“The Radeau was magnificently decked out today; from her two masts were flying the English flag and in honor of the nation of Braunschweig, the flag of Braunschweig.”[1] What is the military, legal, sovereign, naval, and practical significance of raising two national flags[2] on the same fighting vessel, as was done in Canada on June […]
In December 1775, British Colonel William Faucitt and Hessian minister Martin Ernst von Schlieffen drafted a treaty promising the Hessian Landgraf Friedrich II a large sum of money in return for soldiers.[1] The British had spent the fall of 1775 offering subsidies to German states of the Holy Roman Empire they were allied with in […]
By the start of the American Revolution, the British military was spread thinly across their global empire. Despite having tens of thousands of troops in America throughout the war, it was still necessary to supplement their numbers by hiring foreign troops. By 1776 thousands of soldiers from Hesse-Cassel were pouring into New York. They served […]
