Wilhelmshöher war cards

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Landgrave Karl of Hessen-Kassel

The Wilhelmshöher war maps are a collection of almost 3,000 maps in the Hessian State Archives in Marburg , which covers a period of 150 years. It was laid out by Landgrave Karl around 1700 and managed until the beginning of the 19th century; individual cards were added later. The cards are bound in 44 volumes, most of which are 100 × 65 cm in size.

The Wilhelmshöher war maps document the theaters of war in Europe and North America from the Thirty Years War to the American Wars of Liberation and the Napoleonic Wars . The quality varies greatly from sheets drawn for practice in cartography training to fully developed maps. Most of them are hand drawings, but also woodcuts , colored and non-colored copperplate engravings and lithographs . The individual sheets show geographical maps, battle history maps and maneuver plans, gun drawings, camp drawings and battle orders. They can be accompanied by descriptions, siege diaries, orders, and deeds of surrender.

A special feature are around 200 cards from the American War of Independence from 1775, in which mercenaries from various German territories were used on the English side. The Hessian Corps provided by far the largest contingent of troops and was the only one with its own map officer. The maps show the state of New York around 1776 or the military operations during the Revolutionary War. Another example are maneuver plans from the area around Berlin, which can be used to understand the urban development of Berlin.

All Wilhelmshöher war maps are available on the Internet.

Individual proof

  1. Digital Archive Marburg: Wilhelmshöher War Maps

Web links

literature

  • Fritz Wolff : Hessian maps from the American War of Independence . In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies . Vol. 105, 2000, ISSN  0342-3107 , pp. 75-94.