A Generous and Merciful Enemy

A Generous and Merciful Enemy
Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages : 479
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780806189055
ISBN-13 : 0806189053
Rating : 4/5 (053 Downloads)

Book Synopsis A Generous and Merciful Enemy by : Daniel Krebs

Download or read book A Generous and Merciful Enemy written by Daniel Krebs and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 37,000 soldiers from six German principalities, collectively remembered as Hessians, entered service as British auxiliaries in the American War of Independence. At times, they constituted a third of the British army in North America, and thousands of them were imprisoned by the Americans. Despite the importance of Germans in the British war effort, historians have largely overlooked these men. Drawing on research in German military records and common soldiers’ letters and diaries, Daniel Krebs places the prisoners on center stage in A Generous and Merciful Enemy, portraying them as individuals rather than simply as numbers in casualty lists. Setting his account in the context of British and European politics and warfare, Krebs explains the motivations of the German states that provided contract soldiers for the British army. We think of the Hessians as mercenaries, but, as he shows, many were conscripts. Some were new recruits; others, veterans. Some wanted to stay in the New World after the war. Krebs further describes how the Germans were made prisoners, either through capture or surrender, and brings to life their experiences in captivity from New England to Havana, Cuba. Krebs discusses prison conditions in detail, addressing both the American approach to war prisoners and the prisoners’ responses to their experience. He assesses American efforts as a “generous and merciful enemy” to use the prisoners as economic, military, and propagandistic assets. In the process, he never loses sight of the impact of imprisonment on the POWs themselves. Adding new dimensions to an important but often neglected topic in military history, Krebs probes the origins of the modern treatment of POWs. An epilogue describes an almost-forgotten 1785 treaty between the United States and Prussia, the first in western legal history to regulate the treatment of prisoners of war.


A Generous and Merciful Enemy Related Books

A Generous and Merciful Enemy
Language: en
Pages: 479
Authors: Daniel Krebs
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-04-30 - Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

GET EBOOK

Some 37,000 soldiers from six German principalities, collectively remembered as Hessians, entered service as British auxiliaries in the American War of Independ
Prisoner of Conscience
Language: en
Pages: 292
Authors: Frank Wolf
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011 - Publisher: Zondervan

GET EBOOK

Respected congressman and human and religious rights crusader Frank Wolf shows us what one person can do to fight injustice and relieve suffering. In Prisoner o
Captives of Liberty
Language: en
Pages: 336
Authors: T. Cole Jones
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-10-18 - Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

GET EBOOK

Contrary to popular belief, the American Revolutionary War was not a limited and restrained struggle for political self-determination. From the onset of hostili
Congress's Own
Language: en
Pages: 409
Authors: Holly A. Mayer
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-04-01 - Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

GET EBOOK

Colonel Moses Hazen’s 2nd Canadian Regiment was one of the first “national” regiments in the American army. Created by the Continental Congress, it drew m
Forgotten Patriots
Language: en
Pages: 386
Authors: Edwin G. Burrows
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-11-11 - Publisher: Basic Books

GET EBOOK

Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown. Just over 6,800 of those men died in battle. About 25,000 became prisoners