Electorate of Hesse

The Hessian state that guessed wrong twice and was annexed for it. Hesse-Kassel, the senior line of the divided landgraviate, made its money in the eighteenth century by hiring out soldiers, most famously the roughly seventeen thousand men rented to Britain for the American war - the Hessians of American memory. That trade made its landgraves among the richest princes in Europe, and the fortune Wilhelm IX entrusted to his banker helped establish the Rothschild house at Frankfurt. Wilhelm was raised to elector in 1803, keeping the title even after there was no longer an emperor to elect, which is why the state is called Kurhessen. He refused to join the Confederation of the Rhine, and Napoleon simply abolished the state and gave it to Westphalia in 1807. Restored in 1813, the electors then became notorious for reactionary misrule: constitutional conflict in 1850 brought federal intervention and nearly caused a war between Austria and Prussia. In 1866 the elector backed Austria again, Prussia won in seven weeks, and this time the state was annexed outright and its ruler deposed - one of only four German states erased that year. Kassel became a Prussian provincial capital. The Brothers Grimm collected their tales there. The Documenta art exhibition has been held in the city since 1955. Kassel was the capital. The electorate covered around ten thousand square kilometres. Its landgraves built the Bergpark Wilhelmshohe with its cascades and Hercules monument. Hessian remains an English shorthand for a mercenary soldier because of the American war.

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