Why did hessians fight for the british?

Answer 1

Hessians were professional soldiers who were often "rented" out to other armies by their rulers, a common practice in 18th century Europe. The British Crown had family ties to some of these German princes, and utilized them in several conflicts, most notably the American War of Independence. As units, Hessians fought because their rulers had family ties to the Crown of Britain, and had been paid to send their troops. Individually, the soldiers usually had nothing to gain from the conflict, but fought anyway because it was their duty as soldiers. Being a professional princely army, Hessians upheld a strong code of honour--They served out of a sense of loyalty to their princes and their States.

Answer 2

The Hessians fought for the British because they were rented out to the British by their rulers to fight for the British. There was no nation of Germany then. Where Germany is on the map today there were dozens of "Germanic States". A few of these Germanic States were fairly large, but most were small, some tiny and little more than city-states. All had a nobleman for a ruler - a prince, a duke, a margrave, or what have you. All of these Germanic States had compulsory military service. When young men reached the age of 20 or so, they were required to serve as soldiers for four or five years. One of the main sources of income of some of these petty royal rulers of the Germanic States was the "soldier trade", where they rented out their army men as mercenaries. It was the ruler that got paid, not the soldiers, though the soldiers were called "mercenaries". The modern sense of that term is that mercenaries are soldiers fighting for money rather than for belief in the cause, or for their own nation. The Hessians were fighting for money all right, but they did not get the money, their overlord did. Since the soldiers were not paid, this made them notorious and relentless plunderers of whatever people they were in the midst of to do their hired fighting. This was expected. Many of the Hessians had brought their women along, and they were even more noted for their greedy plundering of every home they passed than the men were. The Hessians of the American Revolution came from about four of these small Germanic States. They fought hard, from professional pride, and from the ruthless discipline imposed upon them. The British lacked enough manpower to make as large an army as they had learned they would need to subjugate the rebellious colonies, and had first approached Catherine the Great of Russia to try to rent out some of her vast hordes of idle soldiers, but she turned them down. So the British went to the Germanic States where that business was a specialty.