E 208 ; .P512 Copy 1- REVIEW OF DR. ALBERT PFISTER'S AMERIKANISCHE REVOLUTION 1775— 1783, BY J.- G.v ROSENGARTEN. (Reprinted from <0erman Sltttcricatt Unnats, February 1905.) GERMAN AMERICAN PRESS. PHIt,ADKIvPHIA. Ui.: 20My'05 OO^. IReview* Die amerikanische Revolution, 1775-1783; Entwicklungs- GESCHICHTE DER GrUNDLAGE ZUM FrEISTAAT WIE ZUM WeLT- REICH, UNTER HeRVORHEBUNG DES DEUTSCHEN AnTEILS. Fuf das deutsche und amerikanische Volk geschrieben von Albert Pfister. 2 Bande (erster Band: Vorwort, i Seite, 400 Seiten, mit einer Karte, 415 Seiten, Register 14 Seiten). Stuttgart und Berlin, 1904. F. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger. Dr. Albert Pfister, General Major z. D., has done for the Ger- man and German-reading world what Trevelyan has done for Eng- lish and English-reading students. He has shown himself a master of the modem historical school, putting life and action in every page, and lending a new interest to an old story by his admirable handling of the new material that he has used. He has found a good use for the material gathered by Rattermann in Der Deutsche Pionier, and by Seidensticker, Bittinger, Schuricht, Evans, Knortz and others. He has drawn largely from American, English, German and French writers, and has availed himself of the help of Prof. Schneider, President of the American Institute of Germanics, North- western University, Evanston-Chicago. He aims, and succeeds in his effort, to emphasize what has been done in and for American history, by German Americans, both those born in the Fatherland and those of American birth. He points to the results of the large infusion of German blood and thought, in the gradual development of the American colonies ; their struggle for independence, and their long and finally successful effort to establish and maintain that union and nationality in which the best fruits of Anglo-Saxon love of ordered liberty and constitutional government are now ripened. He aims at following the gradual steps by which the colonies were planted, their union and independence secured, and the nation put in its present greatness. Much of the first volume recites the growth of the first settlements, the development of the different colonies, the divergent views and aims of the men who planned and planted them, and the gradual steps that led to union, in the defence against the French and their allies, the hostile Indians. He shows how 2 Review. slowly the idea of union developed, and how it was fostered by the mistakes and ill-treatment of the English government, by the feeble and incompetent Ministers who succeeded Pitt, and by the over- weening absolute despotic personal government of George the Third. He points out the ties of language, law, religion, that held the colonies in close alliance with the mother country and the deliberate way in which the King and his Ministers drove their subjects across the ocean, slowly and unwillingly to take up arms in defence of their rights. Trevelyan has shown how strongly many Englishmen of all ranks and pursuits sympathized with the colonies. With the skill and interest of a trained soldier, General Pfister points to the gradual organization of the American army under Washington's able leadership, his eager approval of the work done by Steuben, and Kalb and Lafayette and the trained French soldiers, who came first as volunteers and then under Rochambeau with the allied army. He points out that while Frederick the Great sent no officers or men or munitions of war, he followed the war with close interest and showed openly his sympathy with the struggling colonists. Of the twenty-nine American generals, not less than eleven were born in Europe, and Steuben and Kalb brought the best lessons gained in German and French armies and applied them to American needs. General Pfister shows a familiar use of the diaries and reports of the Germans who served with the British, and quotes freely and aptly from them, for they were intelligent and impartial observers, whose evidence has been too little considered. He shows of how little value cities were in the military geog- raphy of the American War of Independece, and how Washington wisely neglected them, while Howe and Clinton under orders from the British government wasted strength and opportunity in trying to hold Boston, New York and Philadelphia. He awards Wash- ington the highest praise for his skill in organizing out of the raw material at his disposition such effective armies. He dwells with pride on the good accounts left by General Riedesel and by his heroic wife, who not only took part in his campaign, but shared his im- prisonment and ligthened the hardships of his men. He points to the Germans who shared in the burden of the war, the large pro- portion of them in New York, Pennsylvania, Alaryland and Vir- ginia regiments, to the officers like Muhlenberg and Weldon, Schott Review. 3 and von Heer and Ottendorff, Kalteisen and the German Riflemen of South Carolina, and to the good opinion Washington had of them. He refers with pride to the fact that the first announcement of the Declaration of Independence was in a German newspaper in Philadelphia, and to its welcome in Germany. He dwells on the encouragement that Frederick the Great gave to France to join in the alliance that contributed far more than Prussia could do to the successful outcome of the American Revolution. He uses with impar-ial justice the evidence of Wiederhold and the other Germa.i officers, and of the Americans as to the good service of Kalb at White Plains and of Knyphausen. He praises the work done by plain Germans, such as Christopher Ludwig, and the maps of the German staff officers. He quotes the Hessian account of the battle of Germantown, as the best evidence, and Mme. Riedesel as impartial in her good opinions of the Americans and her unfavorable reports of the British. He uses Kalb's reports to Broglie as the opinions of an expert experienced officer. He points out that Steuben was not a Lieutenant General in Frederick the Great's service, but in 1730 Major and Adjutant General of a Free Corps, — that he left the Prussian service in 1763, after just such experience as was the best training for his work in America, and that he came with Frank- lin's recommendation, — that he showed how well he deserved it, and how wisely Franklin had judged, for Steuben's great service was in disciplining the American army, utilizing its good material, and making of the American sharpshooters the American light infantry. The German native soldiers in the Second. Third, Fifth. Sixth and Eighth Pennsylvania and Eighth and Ninth Virginia, in Washington's Body Guard, in Armand's Corps, were all ready for his training. The fact that deserters from the German Allies were enlisted by the French, but not by the American armies, shows the high standard set for the latter, while in the German regiments in the French army these men found their right place. Frederick the Great's letter to d'Alembert of August 13, 1777, showed the opinion of Europe's wisest king, — with the surrender of Burgoyne he closed the Rhine to the passage of German troops on their way to America, and became an ally, a secret ally, but an influential friend of the Americans; he showed it in his letter of November 3, 1777, to his brother. England by its Ministers d'nounced him in February, 1781, 4 Review. as the worst enemy of the British Empire. France was encouraged by him in the alliance which Franklin neg-otiated with consummate ability, and Spain and Holland soon joined in the war with Great Britain. The old Prussian king foresaw the advantage of the new "open order" learned in America, but the French applied it and thus were ready for their victories over other European armies. The Hessians gave faithful and not very flattering accounts of New York and Philadelphia, but they were equally honest in describing the excesses of their men in their raids through Jersey, heavily atoned for by the change of that colony from loyalist to whig. Then, too, General Pfister points to the thousand Germans in the French regiments, and the two thousand in the English, at York- town, — all used as pawns in the great game of war. German was the language of the night watchman who told Philadelphia of Corn- wallis' surrender, and of the elder Muhlenberg when he preached a sermon there in celebration of the victory. The effect of their American experience on French and Germans is a factor in the later history of both countries, — in the French Revolution and the French victories through Europe, and in the gradual evolution of unity in Germany after its struggles in 1815, in 1848, in 1866 and in 1870. The return home of the German allied troops and of the French allies was followed by momentous results, for many of the leaders in Germany's uprising and of the victories of France had learned useful and abiding lessons in their American campaigns. The treaty of the United States with Prussia in 1785 was the initial movement in European recognition of America as a world power, and it was Frankhn's account of the American people and their govern- ment sent to Frederick the Great in 1778 that prepared the way for this recognition. These are among the salient features of Gen- eral Pfister's vivid description of the American War of Independ- ence, and of the factors, too often hitherto neglected, among which German participation may be counted, that have attracted little attention from earlier writers. It is no small merit thus to tell the story in a new light and with new use of old facts. J. G. ROSENGARTEN. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 711 343 7 m