Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi - German Soldiers in Colonial India

GERMAN SOLDIERS IN COLONIAL INDIA

GERMAN SOLDIERS IN COLONIAL INDIA

BY

Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi

First published 2014 by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Taylor & Francis 2014
Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi 2014

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BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Tzoref-Ashkenazi, Chen author.
German soldiers in colonial India. (Warfare, society and culture)
1. Soldiers India History 18th century. 2. Germans India History 18th century. 3. India History British occupation, 17651947.
I. Title II. Series
355.3095409033-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-1-84893-367-5 (hbk)

Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited

This book grew out of my work on Friedrich Schlegels Indological studies, through which I learned of the participation of his elder brother Karl August in the expedition of two Hanoverian officers to India. I was intrigued by the fact that Schlegel mentioned his brother, who died in Madras in 1789, in the introduction to his ber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808) but otherwise seemed quite uninterested in the experiences of his brother in India, a country to which both Friedrich and his brother August Wilhelm devoted so much intellectual energy. The initial interest turned into a postdoctoral project conducted at the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg, headed by Gita Dharampal-Frick. The research would not have been possible without the generous support of the Minerva Foundation in Munich.

I was lucky to begin the research with the greatest expert in the field, and the intellectual inspiration I received from Prof. Dharampal-Frick has indeed been invaluable. In the South Asia Institute I also benefited enormously from discussions with other historians of India, especially Michael Mann, Georg Berkemer and Monica Juneja. Dietmar Rothermund, the former head of the institute and a fountain of knowledge on the German interest in India, was especially helpful. In Berlin I have benefited from the very knowledgeable advice of Jrgen Ltt. I have also enjoyed the friendly support of the staff of the Niederschsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Hanover. Discussions with numerous scholars on and after conferences were also very useful. I am grateful for comments by Daniel Krebs and Marie-Cecile Thoral. The remarks of anonymous readers of the journals South Asia, Central European History, History and at Pickering & Chatto, and the editorial suggestions of Dierk Walter, Alison Martin, Susan Pickford, Nir Arieli and Bruce Collins have also been very helpful.

In 1782, two regiments of the army of the Electorate of Hanover with approximately two thousand soldiers sailed from England to India, where they served as auxiliary troops for the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Mysore War. They participated in one significant battle, the Battle of Cuddalore, in June 1783, after which they served in various missions, including an expedition to the southern parts of the Carnatic and into Mysore in the latter half of 1783. After the war the two regiments stayed in India, mainly in garrison duties. They were also engaged in survey missions and contributed to the mapping of southern India. Due to heavy disease casualties, the two regiments were reinforced by four new companies in 17867 so that altogether 2,800 soldiers were sent from Hanover to India. They stayed there until 17912, when most of the survivors returned home and many of them reintegrated into the Hanoverian Army. Returning officers soon became involved in a new war against France, and many of them joined the Kings German Legion, continuing their military cooperation with the British until 1815. Yet the subject of this book is not the military history of this expedition, which was admittedly marginal to Hanover, India and the British Empire, but the publications of officers from these Hanoverian regiments that appeared in Germany between 1782 and 1807, and how these publications can be used to gain a better understanding of the German discourse on European colonialism, especially British colonialism in India, during the late Enlightenment.

Officers of the Hanoverian regiments began publishing texts on their experiences in India before returning to Germany, in fact even before arriving in India. A significant number of their letters were published in the Hannoverisches Magazin and other popular German periodicals. Their publication indicates Hanovers interest in the fate of the expedition, but also in information about India. After returning from India, two officers, Ludwig von Scharnhorst and Carl Conrad Best, published travel books, and one of the chaplains of the expedition, Friedrich Ludwig Langstedt, became a professional author and translator of books related to travel, world trade and natural history, specializing in India. In addition, two manuscript documents by two of the officers proved useful: a military survey of southern India, prepared by Karl August Schlegel, the elder brother of August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel who were both among the pioneers of German Indology; and a report written by the officer Joseph du Plat. The publications and manuscripts of the Hanoverian officers are interesting not because of their influence on the German discourse and the information they contributed, which were both minor, but rather because of the place they take in the general picture of German writing and publishing about India in the late Enlightenment. Because these works belonged to different genres, they allow us to examine how information about India was being processed in different degrees of sophistication and theorizing. The main strategy of this book is to follow the way the material on India changed while moving between the two axes of experience and theory, beginning with journal articles and moving through to travel books and their reception, followed by analysis of works of history and philosophy of history in which the same or similar historical events were examined. The main analytical perspective is the attitude to British colonialism and Indian society in terms of politics and war rather than religion and culture, since the former were the aspects with which the authors were more familiar. Although most authors also wrote about Hinduism, what they had to say on the political and military circumstances was more interesting since these were topics that stood at the centre of their activity in India.