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07/22/11(Fri)22:00 No.27956463>>27956333
I don not mean commanding officer, I mean whoever has control of the region you were conscripted from. Be it a Governor, Baron, etc. See the plight of the Hessian soldier for a more detailed breakdown of this practice, which was even worse a few decades earlier.
In short, the ruler of Hesse-Kassel would sell his soldiers into the service of the British, exactly like slaves, with the pay of these Hessians being given not to the Hessian soldiers, or their officers, but to the ruler of Hesse itself, all the way back on the other side of the Atlantic. There is a satire written in 1777 Called "The Sale of the Hessians". It is a satire, but the practice its harping on was a real one, and is pretty enlightening. These soldiers were some of the best in the world, and they were being sold like cattle. They also were not alone. Conscription back then was not like it is now. |