THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, epidemics of bubonic plague
and typhus fever were frequent occurrences in various parts of Central
Europe, but they were usually kept localized by the strict measures that
were adopted, in accordance with the best scientific knowledge of the
time, to prevent them from spreading; the houses in which the patients
lay were quarantined, strangers from infected places were forbidden to
enter the cities under penalty of death, the clothes and beds used by
the patients were burned, while in the streets and public squares
fumigations took place. But in the storm and stress of the Thirty Years’
War such precautions could be taken only to a limited extent, and even
when they were energetically carried out, they did no good, since
diseases were so frequently borne from place to place. A further
consequence of the long war was famine, which was caused by the
devastation of the fields and the non-cultivation of the land, due to
the lack of workers. This made it easier for pestilences to become
unusually widespread throughout Germany. The fact that the scene of the
war kept changing was also to a great extent responsible for the gradual
dissemination of various diseases, since the regions in which the
fighting was going on were always particularly exposed to pestilential
devastation.
Unfortunately we possess, for the various pestilences, scarcely any
accounts written by physicians, and with a few exceptions must rely upon
the information given by chroniclers. In most cases, therefore, it is
impossible to state with certainty just what the individual diseases
were. Consequently, inasmuch as the word ‘plague’ is used in the
chronicles for any serious pestilence, we have adopted it in this same
general sense in our account, without necessarily meaning thereby
bubonic plague. Certainly one of the most common ‘war diseases’ at that
time was typhus fever, and diseases that were commonly called ‘burning,
virulent fever’, ‘plague’, ‘head-disease’, ‘Hungarian disease’, and
‘Swedish disease’, were undoubtedly nothing else but that. At the same
time real plague, bubonic plague, now and then occurred, and the word
‘plague’ is thus very often used in its proper sense, especially in
reference to the pestilences of the years 1630–6. ‘In the history of
this calamitous war,’ says Seitz,[26] ‘we see typhus fever like a
malignant spectre hovering over the armies wherever they go, in their
camps, on their marches, and in their permanent quarters, and preparing
an inglorious end for thousands of valiant warriors. Its ravages among
the non-belligerent population in town and country caused the
inhabitants of many provinces to remember with hatred and loathing the
departed soldiers, who were usually accused of having planted the seed
of death.’
In general one may say that before 1630 the specific disease was usually
typhus fever, and that after 1630 bubonic plague spread along with this
disease throughout Germany; the death statistics of the larger cities,
adduced at the end of this chapter, lead us to this conclusion. In
addition to these two diseases, we find frequent mention of dysentery,
scurvy, and, toward the end of the war, small-pox.
Innumerable articles, chronicles, &c., have described in detail the
miserable condition of the German countries during the Thirty Years’
War. The following account is largely based upon a notable work by a
physician named Lammert, who offers us a chronological enumeration of
the pestilences of that time, and also an exhaustive bibliography.[27]
Since it is impossible to discuss here thoroughly all the countless
epidemics that occurred, we can merely point out their main features and
indicate their connexion with warlike events. The figures quoted may be
relied upon, if, as is usually the case, they are taken from
church-registers; as regards statements taken from chronicles, on the
other hand, there is more occasion for distrust. For a correct
understanding of the facts, to be sure, we should have to know the exact
population of the cities and towns, and this information is only in rare
instances available. We must bear in mind, furthermore, that the
country-people fled to the cities when armies were approaching, and also
that nearly all cities were surrounded by walls and embankments.
The war began in Bohemia. After the battle on White Hill, near Prague
(November 8, 1620), the soldiers of Count Mansfeld, who were already
infected with typhus fever, marched down the Main to the Palatinate and
to Alsace, devastating the country as they passed and leaving severe
pestilences behind them. In the year 1625 the main scene of the war was
transferred to the north, where numerous epidemics had already broken
out in the course of that year. The disorder caused by the war, and
especially the wild warfare of Wallenstein, who in the fall of 1625,
after mustering his army, had joined forces with Tilly, were
particularly favourable to the spreading of disease. Hence in the years
1625–6 we see precisely in North Germany the ‘plague’ doing the greatest
damage.
The battle of Barenberg (near Lutter, August 1626) gave the Imperialists
the upper hand in North Germany. This ascendancy was taken away from
them, however, with the appearance of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who
won a complete victory over Tilly in the battle of Breitenfeld
(September 17, 1631). After that, Gustavus Adolphus advanced to the
Lower Main (Frankfurt and Mayence), and the following year carried the
war into Bavaria, which now became the principal scene of the fighting.
After the battle of Nördlingen (September 7, 1634), the fugitive Swedish
Protestant army, pursued by the Imperialists, retreated through
Württemberg, Baden, and Hesse to the Rhine, where the war was now
carried on for several years. Both armies were badly infected with
disease, and spread pestilence wherever they went. After the battle of
Nördlingen the war became decentralized, splitting up into a number of
warlike movements throughout all Germany; and everywhere these movements
occurred they added, if possible, to the misery of the people.
In the year 1631 that terrible epoch of plague began which reached its
climax in the years 1634–5 and lasted well into the following year. Its
widespread character was due to the innumerable plundering and
devastating marches of the Protestant-Swedish and Imperialist-Catholic
armies back and forth across the country, and also to the consequent
famine. Everything the brutalized soldiers could not consume themselves
or take with them, they destroyed or burned. There was an absolute
dearth of farm-workers, and in addition to that, the year 1635 was dry
and unproductive. Horrible are the descriptions of the hunger and misery
which the people in all parts of Germany experienced at that time. Under
such conditions pestilences could spread unhindered; to be sure, they
relaxed a little after the year 1638, but by no means ceased entirely.
Whenever real plague disappeared, typhus fever, which was prevalent in
all parts of the army took its place; and thus diseases were borne from
place to place until the very end of that disastrous war.
I. THE WAR IN BOHEMIA AND THE PALATINATE (1618–24)
The year 1620 saw the first warlike events of any importance; at the
beginning they were confined to Bohemia, where in November 1619,
Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate, had been crowned King of Bohemia.
In the first part of the year 1620 typhus fever broke out in Austria and
Bohemia among the poorly nourished troops of the Catholic League,
carrying away, it is said, 20,000 Bavarian soldiers. After the League’s
successful battle on White Hill (November 8, 1620), the disease was
borne by Bavarian soldiers back to Upper Bavaria and Württemberg; it is
stated that it caused an eruption of red spots over the entire body, and
that headache, dizziness, and stupefaction were prevailing symptoms.[28]
Munich, by adopting strict measures of precaution—isolation of the
patients in houses outside of the city, disinfection of suspected
effects and incoming letters, washing in vinegar of money sent in from
infected localities—managed to exclude the disease from the city limits.
In 1620 the troops of Count Mansfeld conveyed the disease, which was
called ‘head-disease’, to Franconia, where in the following year it
raged extensively. In consequence of their marauding expeditions, typhus
fever also became very widespread in the Upper Palatinate—Neumarkt and
Weiden are mentioned as places where it appeared; in Weiden 250 persons
died, three or four times as many as in normal years. Count Mansfeld
then marched down the Main and along the Neckar to Mannheim, and
everywhere his soldiers went they left behind them the germ of typhus
fever: e.g. in Boxberg (near Mergentheim), in Neckarelz (near Mosbach),
in Eberbach, in Ladenburg and Viernheim (both near Mannheim), and in
many other places.
In the following year Lorraine, the Palatinate, and northern Baden
became the scenes of Count Mansfeld’s predatory incursions. Since the
country-people fled to the cities, the latter became greatly
overcrowded; in Strassburg, for example, whither 23,000 country-people
had sought refuge, a severe pestilence (chiefly dysentery) broke out and
carried away in the course of that year (1622) 4,388 people.
‘Headdisease’ broke out in Wimpfen-on-the-Neckar, after the battle
fought there on May 6, in consequence of the arrival of over 900 hundred
sick and wounded soldiers; the result was that a large proportion of the
inhabitants were taken sick, and a third of them died. In the
Palatinate, through which Mansfeld passed on one of his predatory raids,
the mortality in town and country, in consequence of dysentery and other
diseases, was very great. Again, in Frankfurt-on-the-Main typhus fever
broke out in 1622, and 1,785 people died (as compared with 600–700 in
normal years). In Mayence and vicinity the disease became very
widespread in the year 1624. A plague also broke out in Nuremberg in
October 1624, carrying away 2,487 people that year, and 2,881 the
following year.
The Palatinate suffered terribly in the year 1623 from the continued
marauding of Mansfeld’s army, and in consequence of cross-marches of
Spanish and Walloon troops pestilential diseases were conveyed from
there to Lorraine. In July 1623, according to Maréchal and Didion,[29]
typhus fever or bubonic plague broke out in the village of Lessy and
raged furiously for two months. Despite energetic measures that were
taken to prevent the disease from spreading, neighbouring and even more
or less remote villages were infected, so that in 1624 the entire
country was suffering. In spite of the fact that all strangers were
forbidden to enter the city of Metz under penalty of death, the disease
made its appearance there in May 1625, and in less than ten months
carried away 3,000 people. Of the cities surrounding Metz, all of which
were infected, Verdun had a particularly high mortality. The epidemic
spread from the Palatinate to Württemberg, Baden, Hanau, Nassau, and
down the Rhine; for the most part it was typhus fever.
In the year 1623 the army of the Catholic League spread infectious
diseases throughout Hesse, particularly in the region of the Werra. When
the army withdrew, it left dysentery behind it, for example, in
Witzenhausen, Eschwege, and Hersfeld; in July and August it carried away
many victims. A pestilential disease broke out on June 3, 1624, in
Hersfeld, carrying away from October 4, 1624, to January 1625, 316
persons. In 1625, ‘hunger typhus’ and bubonic plague appeared in Nassau;
the pestilence began in Dillenburg on December 18, 1625, and lasted
until October 30, 1626, carrying away in this time 378 people—about
one-third of the population. The climax of the pestilence came in July.
A plague also broke out among the soldiers in Walsdorf-on-the Ems,
likewise in Idstein, remaining there for several years.
II. THE WAR IN SAXONY, THURINGIA, BRANDENBURG, AND POMERANIA (1625–30)
The years 1625 and 1626 were bad pest-years; according to Lammert, the
various epidemics that occurred were partly typhus fever, partly bubonic
plague, and partly dysentery. The pestilences spread over Saxony,
Thuringia, Silesia, Eastern Prussia, Posen, Poland, and Moravia, and
carried away large numbers of people. They were not always directly
connected with warlike events, as shown by the fact that many provinces
that were spared by the war were attacked by the diseases. On the other
hand, the incursion of Wallenstein’s troops into Saxony and Thuringia
caused pestilence to become unusually widespread.
From 1625 to the time of the battle of Breitenfeld (1631) Saxony
suffered terribly from pestilences that were caused and prolonged by the
war, though by no means as terribly as in the years 1631–3. Dresden and
Leipzig, comparatively speaking, were but slightly affected. Of 13,000
inhabitants that Dresden had in the year 1626, 341 succumbed to a plague
which began in April and disappeared in December; the disease was called
‘burning fever’, ‘spotted fever’, and ‘pestilential spotted fever’,
while in the records of the town council we find mention of ‘spots,
often the size of a groschen, all over the body’, and also of
‘swellings’. Inasmuch as abscesses and gangrene are often observed in
cases of typhus fever, it seems likely that it was that disease.[30] Of
14,500 inhabitants in Leipzig only 122 succumbed to it, although houses
in all the streets were infected. Here again, accordingly, we see how
slight the danger to life is in the case of typhus fever.
The western part of the present kingdom of Saxony suffered considerably
more than the eastern part. In the year 1625 plagues broke out in the
cities of Plauen, Reichenbach (1,000 deaths), and Zwickau; the
last-named city was revisited in June 1626, and between then and the end
of the year 216 people died there. Pestilence also broke out in the
vicinity of Leipzig in 1626—in Borna (70 deaths), in Grimma (350
deaths), and in Wurzen, where it appeared in August. The following
places nearer Dresden were also the scenes of plagues that year:
Rosswein (near Döbeln—376 deaths), Mitweida (outbreak on April 9,
1626—number of deaths before that day 22, between that day and the end
of the year, 1,000), Frankenberg (581 deaths), Freiberg (752 deaths in
the year 1626—500 of them due to the plague). The village of Dohna,
south of Dresden, is also mentioned; in the year 1626 there were 157
deaths there, as compared with an average annual mortality of 60. In the
Erzgebirge plagues appeared in various places in the year 1625; 134
people died in Annaberg and 323 people in Zöblitz. In 1626 there were
205 deaths in Schwarzenberg, 178 deaths in Gottesgabe, and 81 deaths in
Breitenbrunn. Two towns in eastern Saxony, Bischofswerda and Zittau, are
also mentioned; there were 182 deaths in the former in the year 1625.
All Thuringia suffered severely from pestilences in the years 1625–6. In
the year 1625 the number of deaths in Eisenach had increased to 315,
while in 1626 a plague raged so murderously that 769 persons succumbed
to it; other reports say 2,500, but this number doubtless includes the
refugees. In the following year the number of deaths decreased to 156.
In Ruhla, a neighbouring village, 98 persons succumbed to the plague. In
many Thuringian cities the epidemic had already secured a foothold in
the year 1625, and was then spread over a very large territory by
Wallenstein’s invasion. Schmalkalden was the scene of a plague from June
to August, 1625, and in Gotha one broke out at the end of July, 1625,
carrying away 722 persons that year and 209 the following year. In
Erfurt, which had some 15,000 inhabitants, 3,474 people are said to have
succumbed to a plague in the year 1626, the strict ordinances passed by
the town council on December 25, 1625, being of no avail. The small
communities and cities lying to the north of Erfurt, according to the
reports, were very severely attacked; in the year 1625 Ballstädt, with a
population of 600, lost 365, while in the year 1626 the number of deaths
in Gräfentonna was 510, in Gebesee 275, in Kindelbrück 1,514, in
Straussfurth 367, in Weissensee 500, and Cölleda 1,000. In the region
south of Erfurt the village of Ohrdruf lost 203 inhabitants in the year
1625, and 143 in the following year. In Arnstadt 1,236 people succumbed
in 1625 to ‘head-disease’ and bubonic plague—a number corresponding to
one-quarter of the population. Gräfenroda had 1,630 deaths in the year
1625, and Tambach 400 deaths in 1626. Koburg and Rudolstadt were also
visited by a plague in 1626, while towns in the vicinity of the latter,
Königssee, Schwarza, Tanna, and Schleiz, had 707, 129, 195, and 181
deaths respectively. The neighbouring town of Pössnek in the year 1625
had already lost 1,000 inhabitants. Jena and Weimar both suffered, while
there were 228 deaths in Gera and 1,100 deaths in Zeitz due to
pestilence. Many other places in Thuringia that suffered from plagues
are not mentioned here.
That part of Saxony which corresponds to the modern province of Saxony
fared in much the same way as Thuringia, while those parts bordering
directly on the kingdom of Saxony were relatively less severely
attacked. A plague broke out in Eilenburg in September 1625, and
carried away many persons there and in the surrounding country. At
Delitsch (west of Eilenburg) a dangerous fever (_febris
maligna_—probably typhus fever) spread through the wandering armies,
and before the beginning of autumn carried away 150 persons. In the
winter the disease subsided a little, but broke out again in June
1626, and carried away 880 people—in September alone there were 229
deaths, and numerous families were completely wiped out. A plague also
raged in the vicinity of Halle; not until the following year, however,
did it break out in the city itself, whither it was borne by
Imperialist soldiers, and where it caused, from June to December,
3,400 deaths. In Eisleben (east of Halle) a plague began in May 1626,
and carried away 30 to 50 people daily, so that the total number of
deaths for the year was 3,068. Merseburg lost 341 inhabitants in the
year 1626, and a plague raged in Naumburg in the years 1625–6. The
town of Querfurt (west of Merseburg) in 1625 was for seven weeks the
quarters of 3,000 of Wallenstein’s soldiers; they brought dysentery
with them, and the result was that 200 citizens died. In the second
half of the following year a plague broke out and carried away 1,400
inhabitants of the city (including 200 soldiers) and numerous
inhabitants of the surrounding country. The town and vicinity of
Sangershausen were also severely attacked; the pestilence began in the
town in June 1626, and reached its climax in September with 570
deaths—1,323 deaths, all told, are recorded in the church register for
that year, but the figure is said to be too small. Lammert mentions
sixteen surrounding villages in which a total of 2,960 deaths occurred
in the year 1626. In Sondershausen 54 people died up to the end of
July of that year, 36 in August, 137 in September, and 143 in October;
the mortality then decreased, but not until 466 persons had died, 400
of them in consequence of the plague. In the near-by towns of
Frankenhausen and Langensalza the number of deaths was 915 and 913
respectively, the latter town having been visited by a plague the year
before. Nordhausen, from January 1, 1626, to December 6, 1626, lost
3,283 inhabitants—2,504 natives and 779 refugees from other places. In
Stolberg (north-east of Nordhausen) a plague broke out on June 27,
1626, and caused 623 deaths. Quedlinburg, Aschersleben, and
Halberstadt were also attacked; in Aschersleben a plague broke out on
June 15, 1625, and between then and the end of the year carried away
157 persons. The total number of deaths in the year 1625 was 534, in
the following year 1,800 (1,066 in consequence of the plague), not
including the soldiers; the years 1627–9 had a remarkably low
mortality. In 1626 a plague carried away 549 persons in Gröningen
(near Halberstadt). The cities on the Elbe and the surrounding country
were severely attacked; a pestilence broke out in Dessau on September
3, 1625, and between then and the end of the year 224 persons were
buried—399 in the entire year. The disease reappeared in the summer of
the following year, having caused 662 deaths, while only 39 died in
the year following. In Aiken-on-the-Elbe (below Dessau) 1,000 persons,
including soldiers, succumbed to a plague in the year 1626. In the
cities on the Saale, above its confluence with the Elbe, a plague
raged furiously; in Bernburg it appeared in the second half of the
year 1625, carrying away 1,340 persons in that year (the number of
deaths in the following year being 425); Kalbe was also severely
attacked. A plague broke out in Magdeburg at the end of June 1625, and
lasted well into the next year; the wealthy citizens fled from the
city, but were compelled to return by the approach of the
Imperialists, and the result was that several thousand inhabitants
died. The country to the south-west of Magdeburg, as far as Bode,
suffered severely—Osterweddingen, Wanzleben, Gross-Salze, Förderstedt,
Egeln, Wolmirsleben, and other places. Several soldiers quartered in
Förderstedt had succumbed to a plague in June and July 1626, and had
infected the citizens with the disease, which carried away 155 of
them. A plague broke out in Egeln in October 1625, and reached its
climax in February 1626; from January until August 16 of that year 296
persons died there. In Unseberg, which had been infected in August
1625, some 400 citizens and soldiers were buried in the year 1626, in
addition to many who were secretly buried in gardens, thickets, and
fields. The plague raged with particular fury in August 1626; in
Volmirstadt 246 persons died between July 6 and October 1626—144 in
September alone.
In Lower Saxony, in the region between the Elbe and the Weser, most of
which to-day belongs to Hanover, a plague raged virulently in the years
1625–7. In Osterode, whither numerous country people had fled from the
approaching war, a very severe pestilence broke out; in the Saint
Aegidius community alone 1,500 persons died, among them many outsiders.
In Klausthal 1,350, in Andreasberg 700, in Einbeck 3,000, and in Hameln
1,143 people succumbed to bubonic plague and ‘head disease’. In Goslar,
where the pestilence had appeared in 1625, conditions were rendered
particularly bad by the fact that many wounded Imperialists were brought
there after the battle of Barenberg (near Lutter—August 27, 1626); most
of these soldiers died there, 3,000 deaths due to pestilence having
occurred in Goslar in the years 1625–6. Wallenstein’s soldiers also
brought pestilence with them to Helmstedt (in the region of Brunswick);
here one-third of the citizens died, and 295 houses were rendered
tenantless. The university faculty fled several times to Brunswick, the
students either going home or enlisting in the army. This plague did not
come to an end for two years. The surrounding villages, furthermore,
were severely attacked by it; during the siege of Göttingen by Tilly
(June to August 12, 1626) it became very widespread, since the city was
overcrowded with fugitives. From 50 to 60 persons were buried every day.
In near-by Dransfeld 700 people died, in Wolfenbüttel 1,705. In Hanover,
where a plague had already broken out in the year 1625, a reappearance
of it in March 1626 drove out the garrison. The severity of this plague,
which carried away 3,000 people, was increased by the numerous fugitives
in the city; about one-third of the population survived. In the city of
Nienburg, which was besieged by the Imperialists after the battle of
Barenberg, a pestilence likewise broke out among the inhabitants and in
the garrison. In Lüneburg it lasted from 1625 to 1628, and in Osnabrück
from August 1625 to the end of the year.
In the years 1625–6 Wallenstein’s soldiers carried pestilence into the
region north of Magdeburg; in Neuhaldensleben 76 persons were carried
away between the end of August and the first of the year, not including
those who were buried secretly. The following year it demanded a
considerably larger number of victims—583; the maximum was in June—147.
In the Altmark (north-eastern part of the province of Saxony) dysentery,
bubonic plague, and typhus fever broke out almost everywhere during the
years 1625–8. Dysentery appeared in the Danish garrison at Tangermünde
and carried away 1,600 people, and on June 29, 1626, the Danes withdrew
from the place. Stendal was also visited by a plague after the departure
of the Danes; it broke out in July, and in a few months caused 2,511
deaths, the normal mortality being 280–290. Numerous bodies were
secretly buried, while many peasants who had fled to the city were among
the dead; thus the total number of deaths was estimated at 5,000. In
Osterburg 624 people died in the years 1626–8, and in Bismark 163
persons died in the year 1626. In the city of Havelberg 668 persons
succumbed to dysentery, ‘head-disease’, and bubonic plague, the latter
alone carrying away about 400. A pestilence was conveyed to Gardenlegen
by the soldiers of Count George of Brunswick, who had his head-quarters
there; the number of deaths there in the year 1626 amounted to no less
than 1,514. In Salzwedel 335 persons died in the year 1625, and 451 in
the following year, the plague being responsible for 400 of the latter.
In Seehausen dysentery first appeared, and soon gave way to ‘war-plague’
(typhus fever), which lasted until 1628; some 200 of the soldiers
quartered there died, and as many as 1,100 inhabitants.
Brandenburg also suffered, particularly in the south-eastern part, when
Wallenstein’s army, in pursuit of Count Mansfeld, turned into Silesia;
there were 386 deaths in Luckau, 900 in Kottbus, 500 in Forst, 112 in
Spremberg, and 902 in Jüterbog.
Further north, plagues were considerably less widespread in the years
1625–6. In 1625 typhus fever broke out severely in Lübeck and the
surrounding country, carrying away 6,952 people, while in Bremen, which
had had cases of plague in 1625, a widespread outbreak in 1627 carried
away some 10,000 people, natives and refugees. Mecklenburg, being
further away from the scene of the war, suffered somewhat less. In the
year 1625 bubonic plague, ‘head-disease’, and dysentery appeared in
Rostock, Wismar, Schwerin, Plau, and New Brandenburg. In the following
year a plague broke out in Parchim, reached its climax in May, and
lasted until November, carrying away 1,600 persons. In Flensburg a
plague broke out during the occupation of the Imperialists (1627) and
lasted until their departure (1630).
The pestilences of the year 1627 were not very widespread, and this
applies also to the territory in Saxony and Thuringia which had suffered
so severely in the years 1625–6. On the other hand, the countries in the
northern part of Germany, particularly Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein,
were severely attacked in those years, owing to the fact that
Wallenstein had transferred thither the scene of the war. In the year
1628 Hamburg had taken in a great many foreign fugitives, and the result
was that typhus fever soon broke out in the city and carried away many
thousands of people. The war brought great misery into North Friesland
and the Frisian Islands; the Imperialists and Danes oppressed the people
by enforced quartering and extortions of all kinds, and the result was
famine and plague, lasting until 1630. In Stade, which Tilly in 1629 had
made his head-quarters, both the inhabitants and the garrison suffered
terribly from a severe epidemic of dysentery. In the city of Schleswig a
plague broke out in September, and again in November, in consequence of
the quartering of Imperialist troops; it devastated the entire city, so
that 211 houses stood absolutely empty on Christmas Day, 1628.
Mecklenburg was revisited in 1629, and on August 13 of that year a
plague broke out in Rostock and Teterow. Imperialist soldiers conveyed
pestilence to the city of Plau, where they passed the night of November
29; but in 1630 it appeared in a much more severe form there and carried
away 600 people. In the year 1630 a plague broke out in Mecklenburg, and
in Gustrow one raged from May 7 to the beginning of September.
In the years 1628–9 Pomerania was ravaged by the Imperialists, with
resulting pestilence and famine. Greifswald suffered for four years from
a pestilence which reached its climax in the year 1631. Grimmen,
Stargard (3,500 deaths in the years 1627–30), Freienwalde, and other
places were also attacked. In Greifenberg, where soldiers had been
quartered in large numbers, it raged with unusual fury; three-fourths of
the city were devastated, and when the Swedes arrived only 42 houses
were uninfected. Kolberg (on the Persante) in six months lost 3,000
inhabitants in consequence of a pestilence. On account of the oppression
caused by the war, many citizens fled from Koslin, which, despite the
decrease in population, lost 919 inhabitants in the year 1630. In Stolp
800 people died in consequence of a plague.
A plague was borne into Silesia in July 1623, and in Bunzlau an average
of thirty persons per week died; of 760 deaths in the year, 640 were due
to the pestilence. Many adults fled to near-by villages and died there.
In the following year a plague broke out again in Bunzlau, but as only
130 people died there in 1625, it seemed as though the pestilence was
over. In September and October, 1626, however, it broke out again, and
of 228 deaths that occurred that year, 149 were directly attributable to
the plague. In July 1624 it appeared in Friedeberg and carried away 51
persons. In Löwenberg it began in September 1624; the citizens fled from
the city and set up tents in the fields, but in spite of this, from
forty to fifty people died every day, and the total number of deaths for
the year was some 3,000. In the year 1625 the pestilence was very
widespread in Silesia—Hirschberg, Löwenberg, Herzogswaldau, Liegnitz,
Neumarkt, Waldenburg, Neisse, and other places were attacked. In Breslau
‘head-disease’ raged from June to the end of that year, carrying away
3,000 people; 1626 was also a year of pestilence for Breslau. In
Neustadt (Governmental District of Oppeln) a pestilence raged with
particular fury from May till September 1625; for the years 1624 to 1627
the deaths were respectively 198, 420, 175, and 472. On August 21, 1626,
an army of 6,000 Imperialists under Count von Merode encamped at
Goldberg; most of them were infected with disease; and after their
departure a plague broke out with such severity that a large part of the
population died.
During this time, from 1625 to 1630, when epidemics were raging almost
everywhere in North Germany, South Germany also suffered, since diseases
were often brought there by Imperialist troops and wandering rabble. In
the year 1626 Württemberg alone lost 28,000 people in consequence of
plagues.[31] A pestilence in Augsburg (1628) became very widespread and
caused 9,000 deaths. In the year 1629 ‘head-disease’ broke out in
Württemberg and Alsace. During the isolation of the city of Hanau (from
December 6, 1629, to March 12, 1630) by the Imperialist commander
Witzleben, a pestilential disease, which the soldiers had brought with
them, broke out and caused many deaths throughout the entire vicinity.
III. THE WAR YEARS 1630–40
1. _North Germany until the Peace of Prague_
In the year 1630 began in Saxony—in the wake of marching troops—that
deadly pestilence which soon spread over all Germany and was chiefly
responsible for the enormous loss of human life there in the course of
the Thirty Years’ War. We may safely assume that bubonic plague was the
most common disease, although both typhus fever and dysentery were of
frequent occurrence. In the years 1630–1 the pestilence was confined for
the most part to North Germany; the Electorate of Saxony suffered the
worst, 934,000 people, according to the reports, having died there in
consequence of the war and of diseases.[32]
The pestilence broke out in Leipzig in October 1630, and carried away
301 persons; it was borne there presumably by two foreign
orange-pedlars. In October of the following year it broke out again,
when the Imperialists, after besieging the city for several weeks, on
September 13 had finally captured it. The number of deaths in the entire
year was 1,754. In the year 1632 Leipzig was once more the scene of
grave warlike events, and was compelled to live through a second siege
by Wallenstein; the plague began in June, became very widespread in
August, and from then till October caused a great many deaths, the total
number for the year amounting to 1,390. In August 1633, Leipzig was
again besieged, and this likewise caused the outbreak of a plague which
lasted until December and carried away 761 persons; in 1634 it was
apparently over, for of 306 deaths that are recorded for that year, only
24 were attributable to the plague. In the years 1636–7, however, it
reappeared with great severity throughout the entire city. The country
surrounding Leipzig suffered a great deal in the year 1633, which was
the worst plague-year that Saxony passed through. In the year 1632
Altenburg was occupied by the Swedes, who were infected with some
pestilential disease, the germ of which they left behind them when they
withdrew on January 13, 1633. The disease spread rapidly, acquired a
virulent character, and carried away 2,104 persons, among them many
foreign refugees. Grimma and Borna were severely attacked in 1633, while
Wurzen suffered less severely.
The country north-east of Leipzig suffered severely from plagues in
1631. After the battle of Breitenfeld (September 15, 1631) most of the
wounded were brought to Eilenburg, where in a few weeks a plague broke
out and spread so rapidly that 300 people died in the month of October
alone. After an abatement during the winter, it recommenced in 1632; the
number of deaths for that year was 670, although only 492 of them were
due to the plague, while the disease did not entirely disappear until
1636. The city of Belgern, after it was plundered by Holk’s troops on
October 1, 1632, was visited by a plague; also Dommitsch, Oschatz (where
563 deaths occurred in 1631, and many more in 1633–4), and Ortrand
(where there were 800 deaths in the years 1631–3). Plagues raged very
frequently in Leisnig, Colditz, and Mittweida, and in the villages and
towns surrounding them. In February 1631, Palatinate, Imperialist, and
League troops quartered in Leisnig, and the result was that
‘head-disease’ and bubonic plague became very widespread; in the
following year they reappeared, causing 443 deaths, while many thousands
are said to have died in the country districts. The same was true of the
year 1633. A pestilence broke out in Colditz in the year 1631, and in
the following year ‘soldier’s disease’ (typhus fever) was brought there
by Swedish troops, while in 1633 bubonic plague caused 567 deaths.
Mittweida suffered from plague in the years 1631–4, 243 persons dying
there in the year 1634. In the year 1630 a very severe plague broke out
in Freiberg; 1,147 people died in the course of the year, 1,000 of them
in consequence of the disease. In the following year there were 124 more
deaths. In the autumn of 1632 pestilence raged so furiously that several
thousand people died in a short time—about one-third of the population.
Most of the bodies were buried secretly, only about 3,000 regular
funerals taking place. In the year 1633 there were 1,632 interments, not
including those buried in secret. The plague affected the entire
vicinity of Freiberg and spared scarcely a single village; many places
were left empty and deserted.
In Chemnitz 1,234 interments for the year 1632 are recorded in the
church register, and in the following year the plague raged even more
furiously: almost every house was attacked, and the number of deaths
amounted to 2,500. In Glauchau and vicinity, as in all Saxony, 1633 was
the worst year; 964 people died there in that year. The plague raged
most furiously from August to November, and lasted until 1634; many
bodies were found in the open fields. In the neighbouring Waldenburg 392
people died in a few weeks in 1633, in Lichtenstein 370, in Thurm 400.
In Marienberg, a village lying at the foot of the mountains, 1,000
people succumbed in the year 1633 to typhus fever; the plague spread
into the Erzgebirge and caused 2,300 deaths in Schneeberg and 157 deaths
in the adjacent Neustädtle. A plague had already broken out in Zwickau
in 1632, and in the first part of 1633 it became so severe that 1,500
people died in two months in the summer of that year. The city was full
of sick people and dead bodies, and the number of reported deaths for
the year 1633 was 1,897; but the total number of deaths, excluding the
soldiers, is said to have been no less than 6,000. Entire streets were
devastated. Many of the inhabitants fled to near-by villages, and thus
spread the infection. Crimmitschau was visited by a plague in 1630 (601
deaths), and again in 1633 (409 deaths); 92 families in the last-named
year were completely wiped out. Many neighbouring places were also
attacked; there were 700 deaths in Werdau, 300 in Steinpleiss, 150 in
Königswalde, &c.
The invasion of Holk caused Vogtland to suffer terribly in August of the
year 1632, while his second invasion in the summer of 1633 resulted in
an even worse outbreak of disease. In Reichenbach and vicinity, typhus
fever, bubonic plague, and dysentery prevailed in the year 1633; at
first it was called ‘soldier’s disease’, and later ‘bright plague’
(_helle Pest_). Of 904 deaths that occurred that year, 785 were due to
the plague. In Plauen the number of deaths in 1633 was 1,748, in
Oelsnitz 325 (217 due to the plague). Holk himself succumbed to the
plague in Adorf on August 30, 1633, while 1,000 of his troops also died.
The eastern part of Saxony was also attacked. In Dresden a plague broke
out in 1632 and carried away numerous people; it continued to rage in
the following year, since the war prevented the adoption of the usual
measures of precaution. In the year 1632 the number of Protestants
buried by the church was 3,129, and in the following year it was 4,585.
Numerous families were wiped out, and many houses were rendered
tenantless. In the year 1634 one half of the inhabitants fell victims to
the pestilence, while a large part of the city was devastated in 1635.
Since the reports of E. J. J. Meyer and of the town council continually
speak of ‘swellings’, the disease was no doubt bubonic plague.[33] In
Dippoldiswalde (south-west of Dresden) it raged so furiously in the
years 1631–3 that entire families were wiped out; in those years there
were 189, 510, and 250 deaths respectively. Pirna is said to have lost
4,000 inhabitants in consequence of the plague in the years 1632–4,
while Dittersdorf (south of Pirna) lost 405 inhabitants in the year
1632. The pestilence was borne by Saxon troops to Sebnitz (south-east of
Dresden). In Stolpen it raged from 1632 to 1634. In October 1631 the
Croats brought pestilence to Bischofswerda, and more than 200 persons
died in consequence of it. In March 1632 another pestilence broke out
there, carrying away 660 persons, so that more than one-third of the
houses stood empty. In the year 1631 there were 1,000 deaths in Camenz.
In Bautzen there was a garrison of 500 men, almost all of whom died in
the year 1631; including the residents that were carried away by the
pestilence, the number of deaths there for that year was about 1,000.
Nor did the pestilence disappear from Bautzen the following year.
Lusatia was also the scene of pestilence; only a few places were spared,
and in Upper Lusatia 40,000 persons are said to have been carried away
by pestilences in the years 1631–3. In the last part of September 1631,
dysentery and bubonic plague broke out in Görlitz, which had a Saxon
garrison, and carried away some 400 persons (excluding the soldiers)
between then and the end of the year. In June 1632 there was a second
outbreak of plague; it reached its climax in October, and carried away
6,105 people (including 106 soldiers) in the course of the entire year.
In the following year 726 inhabitants and 435 soldiers succumbed to the
disease. Zittau suffered severely; as early as 1633 several hundred
soldiers and inhabitants succumbed to typhus fever, while in the year
1632 ‘burning fever’, dysentery, and bubonic plague appeared and carried
away 1,246 persons (according to other reports, 1,642 persons).
Petechial fever and bubonic plague, after a period of inactivity in the
winter, recommenced in the first part of 1633; the latter disease
reached its climax in September, carrying away 1,860 inhabitants in that
year, in addition to many Imperialist soldiers. From October to
December, 1634, Saxon and Brandenburg soldiers, after their return from
Bohemia, encamped near Zittau, where various diseases soon broke out;
the result was that hundreds died, and the entire region became
infected.
The Province of Brandenburg was severely attacked by a plague in the
year 1631, but in the next year suffered considerably less owing to the
fact that the scene of the war was transferred to other parts of
Germany. In Berlin 777 people succumbed to a plague in the year 1630,
while in the following year it reappeared in a much severer form and
carried away 2,066 persons. In Spandau, after the capture of the city by
the Swedes on May 6, 1631, famine and pestilence broke out and caused
1,500 deaths. A plague in Potsdam caused 457 deaths between June and
December, 1631. Neuruppin, in February of that year, after the
occupation of the District of Ruppin by Tilly, suffered from a severe
pestilence. Dysentery and ‘head-disease’ broke out in Rathenow in 1631,
reached a climax in July, and carried away 662 people (not including
those buried in secret). In Prenzlau 1,500 persons, about one-fourth of
the population, died in the year 1631, while Havelberg had 227 deaths,
Lindow 400, and Kyritz (after the soldiers had quartered there) 231.
Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, which had been occupied by the Imperialists, on
April 13, 1631, was captured by Gustavus Adolphus, whereupon a severe
epidemic broke out and carried away entire families in the course of a
few days; the alleged number of deaths was 6,000. Müncheberg (north-west
of Frankfurt), Quilitz, Drossen, and Guben were also attacked; there
were 365 deaths in Quilitz and 2,000 in Drossen. In the year 1634, when
the Imperialists once more devastated the Electorate of Saxony, a severe
plague broke out in Luckau, whither many country people had fled; the
spread of the disease is said to have been favoured by the fact that the
soldiers broke into and robbed the closed houses of the dead. In
Seftenberg (near Kalau) a plague broke out in 1630 and carried away 305
persons that year; it remained there until 1633, and spread to many
near-by villages.
Silesia, after the devastation caused by the pestilences of the years
1624–7, had a few years of rest. In the year 1632, however, infection
was brought there from Saxony, though only to a limited extent. On
August 1, 1632, Lauban was obliged to surrender to the Saxon garrison,
so that for ten days the city and the surrounding country were crowded
with troops; the result was that after their departure a severe epidemic
broke out and between July and December carried away 1,400 persons. In
the very next year severe plagues broke out all over Silesia, when
Wallenstein appeared there for the purpose of driving out the Saxons and
Swedes. The plague raged so furiously in Silesia that the armies were
almost entirely exterminated, and whole communities were wiped out.
Golgau, Bunzlau (and vicinity), Greiffenberg, and Friedeberg were
attacked. An epidemic of typhus fever carried away 500 people in
Hirschberg in the year 1632, and in the following year it became much
more widespread and carried away 2,600 persons. ‘The infected persons
are said to have looked very red, like drunkards, and to have died
suddenly.’ Almost the entire population of Landshut died in the year
1633. Goldberg (south-west of Liegnitz) had been plundered by
Wallenstein’s soldiers on October 4 and 5, 1633, and on October 10
Colonel Sparre quartered 200 ‘badly infected’ soldiers there; the result
was that a severe pestilence broke out in the city. In August of the
year 1633 such a severe pestilence broke out in Liegnitz that it was
impossible to bury the victims in the regular way; deep, broad ditches
were dug, and from 100 to 200 bodies laid in them. From August 14 to
December 22 the number of deaths is said to have been 5,794. Breslau,
which at that time had upwards of 40,000 inhabitants, was visited by a
plague in September 1633; in the Protestant parishes 13,231 people died
in that year, in the Catholic 4,800. Neumarkt (north-west of Breslau)
had 1,400 deaths in the same year, while in Brieg, which had a Swedish
garrison, there were 3,439 deaths. The city of Schweidnitz suffered
terribly; 30,000 soldiers under Wallenstein and 25,000 Swedish soldiers
were encamped there, and the plague was so severe that 8,000 of the
former and 12,000 of the latter are said to have died. In the city
itself, which was harbouring innumerable fugitives from the surrounding
country, sick people and dead bodies soon filled all the streets; on
August 25 alone, 300 people died. The number of the dead, including from
2,000 to 3,000 that were buried secretly, and also the outsiders, was
16,000 to 17,000; more than two-thirds of the population are said to
have succumbed. The pestilence was borne from Schweidnitz to
Peterswaldau and Nimptsch, where from 2,000 to 2,400 persons died. On
May 31, 1633, Wallenstein came with his army to Glatz, bringing
pestilence with him; in Glatz itself 4,284 people were carried away,
while many hundreds died in the surrounding country. Petschkau was
almost completely wiped out. In Neisse the number of victims is
estimated at 6,000; 5,272 are recorded in the church registers.
Generally speaking, Thuringia was but slightly affected by plagues in
the years 1631–3, but suffered terribly in the years 1634–5; for in
those years there, as in all Germany, a great famine prevailed. In
Koburg a plague broke out in the year 1630; in 1632 there was an
epidemic of ‘head-disease’, which carried away 300 persons in October
alone, and in 1634 an epidemic of bubonic plague, rendered even more
destructive by famine, carried away 1,143 victims. Several pestilences
(dysentery and ‘burning fever’) also broke out in the Koburg region,
caused by the quartering and ravaging of Swedish troops; the inhabitants
died by hundreds. Hildburghausen suffered from a plague from June on;
whereas only 106 people had died there from January to May, the number
of deaths in June alone was 215. In the following year 534 people died
there from starvation and pestilence, while 169 died in near-by
Streufdorf. Eisfeld (west of Hildburghausen) in 1632 had been plundered
by Swedish troops, and from that time on suffered from pestilence. In
Meiningen, in the latter part of 1635 and the first part of 1636, 500
people succumbed to a plague (106 in November alone). Suhl, which on
October 16 had been burned by Isolani’s soldiers, and Themar—both near
Meiningen—had 1,634 deaths. In the following year 519 people died in
Schmalkalden and vicinity—250 in Tambach, 300 in Vachdorf, and 1,600 in
Salzungen. In the year 1634 the number of deaths in Eisenach was 1,800,
and in the following year 1,600; in the year 1636 there were only 405
deaths there. Erfurt suffered very little in 1635, while Ohrdruf had
1,065 deaths, Wechmar 503, and Arnstadt 464. In Weimar 1,600 people died
in the year 1635, among them 500 foreigners from Franconia who had taken
refuge there. The cities lying further east in Thuringia had been
severely attacked in the years 1632 and 1633, in consequence of the
pestilences in Saxony; for example, Gera, which had been infected in
1633 by Holk’s troops, the near-by village of Untermhaus, which in the
two years had 211 and 600 deaths respectively, and also many other
villages in the surrounding country. A plague in Schleiz carried away
600 persons in the year 1632.
In Rhineland and Westphalia pestilences broke out only sporadically
in the years 1630–4, but in 1635 they became more general. In the
year 1630 Münster was attacked, in 1631 Arnsberg, and in 1632 a
pestilence raged furiously in the Berg country—in Lennep, for
example, where the Imperialist troops were for a long time
quartered. In Mühlheim-on-the-Rhine a pestilential disease broke out
after the departure of the Nassau-Lorraine garrison in 1631. In the
year 1632 the Imperialist and Swedish armies stood facing each other
in Westphalia for six weeks, and the result was an outbreak of
pestilence; 600 people succumbed to it in Bielefeld. In 1635 a
pestilence raged furiously along the Rhine; in St. Goar 200 people
died in the course of the summer. In that year Westphalia was the
scene of warlike events and pestilences; Arnsberg, the villages on
the Ruhr, Soest, Unna (near Hamm), Horstmar, and Kroesfeld were
attacked. The Governmental District of Düsseldorf (on the left bank
of the Rhine) was severely attacked by pestilence; many people died
in Geldern, while there were 389 deaths in Strälen, 256 in Nieukert,
and 700 in Lobberich.
2. _South Germany_
_(a) Bavaria and Upper Swabia_
After the battle of Breitenfeld (September 17, 1631) Gustavus Adolphus
passed through Halle and Erfurt to Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, and
Frankfurt-on-the-Main. Tilly had marched through Halberstadt, Fulda, and
Miltenberg to Würzburg, in order to relieve that city, which had been
captured by the Swedes, and then turned south. Thus the principal scene
of the war was transferred to Bavaria, which from 1631 to 1634 suffered
terribly from the ravages of the soldiers passing back and forth. No
part of the country was spared. ‘The Thirty Years’ War’, says
Lammert,[34] ‘was particularly fatal and disastrous to Bavaria from the
year 1632 on; it converted the country into an uninhabited waste,
especially because it was followed by pestilence. Like the Imperialist
army under Tilly in the autumn of 1631, so the Swedish army on its
marches consumed everything it found, and wherever it went in the years
1632–5 it spread ‘hunger typhus’ and ‘war typhus’ and bubonic plague;
all the places along the Main lost at least one-half of their
population.’ In September 1632, when Gustavus Adolphus withdrew from
Nuremberg, Wallenstein turned south, and there on November 6, 1632,
Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the battle of Lützen. After that
Wallenstein returned to Bohemia, while the Swedes under Bernhard von
Weimar marched back into Bavaria. The acme of misery was reached here in
the year 1634. It is impossible to enumerate all the places that were
infected by the brutalized, wandering soldiers; the most out-of-the-way
and indigent regions, such as the Spessart and the Odenwald, were
visited by them, and inasmuch as they brought pestilence wherever they
went, the unfortunate villages were subjected to merciless devastation.
1. The region of the Main. Since Gustavus Adolphus first had Horn occupy
the bishopric of Bamberg, and himself marched through Aschaffenburg to
Nuremberg, while Tilly returned to Ingolstadt and later to Lech, the
region of the Main, and later the region north of the Danube, were the
first to be attacked by typhus fever and bubonic plague; not until
later, from 1633 on, did the pestilences spread more or less extensively
in the country south of the Danube.
In Aschaffenburg and vicinity a plague broke out in the summer of 1632
and almost wiped out several villages; the city of Aschaffenburg itself,
which lost a large percentage of its inhabitants, was revisited in the
year 1635. In Würzburg the pestilence began in August 1632, and in the
last part of July of the following year another serious pestilence broke
out there, in consequence of which 489 bodies were buried in the
cathedral parish alone. The prolonged quartering of troops,
notwithstanding all the precautionary measures that were adopted, caused
the pestilence to rage with extraordinary fury; not until September did
it begin to abate. In the year 1635, when infected soldiers were
transferred from Schweinfurt to the stronghold of Marienburg, it
appeared once more. In 1632 Schweinfurt lost ‘several hundred people’ in
consequence of ‘pestilential purple-spots’ (typhus fever). The total
number of deaths was 1,055. In December of the following year another
rather large pestilence broke out, and again in August 1635; in the
latter year it reached a climax in September and came to an end in
December. In Bamberg many people succumbed in 1632 to Hungarian disease,
which the Swedes had borne thither in the spring. This disease was also
very widespread throughout the entire vicinity. In the year 1634 the
Swedes came several times into the region around Bamberg and plundered
the country, so that famine and plague caused great misery. In the
summer of 1635 Bamberg was once more attacked by an infectious disease
(typhus fever), and only two houses in the city were spared. In Kulmbach
the plague raged extensively in the first part of the year 1633; the
number of the dead was so large that the bodies could not all be buried
in Kulmbach, and some had to be taken to the churchyards of near-by
villages. In the following year the plague broke out anew, carrying away
60 persons in a single day. In Bayreuth 400 persons succumbed to a
pestilence in the year 1632, and in the following year 360 died; it
raged even more furiously after the city was plundered by the Master of
Ordnance, von der Waal, on August 19, 1634. From July to October 1,927
out of 7,000 inhabitants died, while the average number of deaths
amounted to only 167 per annum.
2. The region between the Main and the Danube suffered no less.
Nuremberg and vicinity was severely attacked by pestilence in the year
1632. In the summer of that year Wallenstein encamped near Fürth, and
Gustavus Adolphus near Nuremberg; they watched each other for a long
time without venturing a battle. The country people had all fled to the
city. In the Swedish army and in the overcrowded city, which had some
50,000 inhabitants, scurvy and typhus fever carried away many
thousands.[35] Only 4,522 bodies were buried by the Church, but many
more thousands died. Two weeks after his disastrous attack on
Wallenstein’s camp on September 4, Gustavus Adolphus marched south,
while Wallenstein turned into Saxony. The plague continued to rage in
the vicinity of Nuremberg, and many people contracted the disease by
visiting the deserted camp of the Imperialist army and appropriating the
left-behind implements, weapons, and kitchen utensils. Scurvy was still
raging in Nuremberg in the following year. In the year 1634 the plague
broke out and carried away 18,000 persons. In December 1631 Forchheim
was besieged by the Swedes under General Horn, and the result was that a
pestilence broke out in the year 1632 and carried away 578 inhabitants;
the average number of deaths per annum was 45. In March of that year the
Swedes had deserted the city, and in June 1634, when they reappeared
there, the mortality increased again. In the years 1631–2 Uffenheim
suffered a great deal from the predatory raids of the Swedes and also
from plague, which in the year 1634 became very widespread there as in
all Bavaria, carrying away one-half of the inhabitants of the town.
While the Swedes and Imperialists were establishing their camps near
Nuremberg, many people from Ansbach and other places fled to Windsheim,
which thus became greatly overcrowded; the consequence was that people
died there by the hundred, and their bodies were buried, thirty or forty
at a time, in large ditches. When the Swedes left Nuremberg and appeared
in Windsheim, they left behind them 450 men who were infected with
disease; in the entire year 1,564 bodies were counted. In the following
year the city was besieged by the Imperialists (October 12–23, 1633),
and during this time 360 persons succumbed to a pestilential disease;
the number of deaths in the entire year, including the outsiders, was
1,600. Windsheim also suffered greatly in the two following years; at
the end of the year 1635 there were only 50 inhabitants left. In near-by
Burgbernheim, where typhus fever raged in the year 1630, 155 persons
died in the year 1632, 165 in 1634, and 107 in 1636. In Schwabach, which
had been plundered by the Imperialists in the latter part of July, 1632,
various diseases broke out—‘Hungarian disease, dysentery, and even
bubonic plague.’ In the year 1633 there were 298 deaths in Weissenburg;
in 1634, on the other hand, there were 642. Eichstätt had 494 deaths in
the year 1632, 827 in 1633, and 982 in 1634; in the last year the town
was besieged and captured by the Swedes, and for a few days thereafter
pestilences raged furiously. The country districts throughout Central
Franconia, like these cities, were almost completely depopulated by
flight and pestilence.
The Upper Palatinate was also severely attacked by pestilence (typhus
fever and bubonic plague), which spread far into the Bavarian Forest. In
Amberg an epidemic of typhus fever and dysentery broke out in the year
1633, and in April of the following year bubonic plague appeared; the
latter disease carried away from 15 to 20 persons on many days of that
month, while in July and August as many as 40 people died every day. In
the spring of 1634 Weiden became infected with typhus fever and shortly
after that with bubonic plague; from August 17 to November 6, some 1,800
people died. The bodies were corded up like piles of wood, placed in
ditches in groups of 200 and 300, and covered with quick-lime. In
Schwandorf (north of Regensburg) the Imperialists had encamped in the
summer of 1634; after their departure a pestilence characterized by
‘swellings and large unknown spots’ broke out and carried away almost
one-third of the inhabitants. In Hemau (north-west of Regensburg), after
the Swedes had passed through the town, ‘the malignant pestilence’
(typhus fever) had broken out in the year 1633; and in 1634, after the
devastations committed by the troops of Bernhard von Weimar, bubonic
plague appeared and carried away one-half of the inhabitants.
3. The cities on the Danube. In the year 1632 Neuburg was occupied by
the Swedes; after their departure, on October 18, an epidemic of
Hungarian head-disease broke out and carried away many soldiers and
citizens (more than 900 in eight months). Again in the two following
years pestilence caused great devastation. On April 29, 1632, the Swedes
appeared before Ingolstadt, but in a few days withdrew; there was a
strong garrison in the city, however, and many fugitives had gathered
there. In this overcrowded population typhus fever broke out and carried
away large numbers of people. In the following year the disease became
even more widespread, and 1,039 people succumbed to it before the end of
November. In the first part of the year 1635 the pestilence abated. In
the second half of the year 1634 Regensburg was attacked by bubonic
plague, and despite all measures of precaution it carried away
two-thirds of the population (according to other reports there were
3,125 deaths). The entire vicinity suffered from the plague. The
mortality in Straubing during the siege of the Imperialists (March 1634)
increased greatly; even in the year before it had been very high (294
deaths). The total number of deaths in the year 1634 is not known, but
of three parishes St. Jacob’s alone had 631 burials. Deggendorf and
Passau fared similarly.
4. Upper Bavaria and Lower Bavaria south of the Danube. On May 17, 1632,
Gustavus Adolphus had occupied Munich, and during his short sojourn of
three weeks apparently no epidemic diseases made their appearance among
the Swedes. But since typhus fever had broken out everywhere in the
vicinity, strict measures of precaution were adopted by the city
authorities. According to G. von Suttner[36] 124 people in the
quarantine-house before the Schwabinger Tor succumbed to ‘burning fever
and headache’ between August and the end of the year. According to a
report published in 1632 the poor people suffered in particular, while
red spots, continual headache, and later on diarrhoea, characterized the
disease. A very severe pestilence broke out in Munich in the year 1634.
‘The epidemic was caused’, says Seitz,[37] ‘by the arrival of 4,000
Spanish soldiers in July of the year 1634; they were called there from
Tölz and Weilheim when the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and General Horn were
threatening the city. Although shortly after that, in August, a few
evidences of disease were noticed, it was not regarded as infectious.
Finally, however, a real plague broke out with such fury that four
lazarets and a garden outside of the city had to be made ready for the
care of the sick. It raged most furiously in the months of October and
November, when from 200 to 250 dwellings, among them entire houses, were
quarantined every week. Thus it went on until the end of December.’
Unfortunately there exists no medical description of the disease, the
most important characteristics of which were chills, accompanied by
internal fever, violent headaches, great lassitude, haemorrhage,
plague-spots, and swellings. All told, some 15,000 persons are said to
have died in the year 1634—about one-half of the total population of the
city. The bodies of victims became so numerous that they were piled up
in the streets and houses, without attempt to keep a record of the
names, and buried in ditches forty at a time. Strict isolation of the
patients by closing up the houses was enforced, and the use of the
clothes and bedding of the dead was forbidden under severe penalties;
such effects were burned outside of the gates. Only two gates remained
open, and in front of one of them a garden was made ready to receive
strangers who were denied admittance into the city. In February 1635,
the pestilence had almost entirely ceased, but in September it broke out
anew and did not disappear until February 1637.
In the years 1633–4 typhus fever and bubonic plague were spread
throughout all Upper and Lower Bavaria by the continued marauding of the
Swedes. The Imperialists, no less than the Swedes, helped to devastate
the country, while the Spanish soldiers had the worst reputation of all.
Again in the year 1635, especially in the autumn, the pestilence
appeared. A plague broke out in Freising after the town was plundered by
the Swedes on July 16, 1634 (Landshut had already been captured by them
on May 10, 1632), and after their departure they left behind them an
infectious disease which was diagnosed by the town-physician as
Hungarian fever. A pestilence broke out in the city when it was
plundered by the soldiers under Bernhard von Weimar, on July 10, 1634,
and carried away one-third of the inhabitants; according to a list
furnished by the court the number of deaths was 738, but there were many
more with whose legacies the court had nothing to do. The bodies were
piled up on wagons and conveyed to cemeteries, while the dwellings of
diseased persons were closed. In Dingolfing, which was occupied by the
Swedes from July 22, 1633, to June 1634, a plague raged with such fury
that it was thought the city would be completely wiped out.
Simbach-on-the-Inn and the near-by market-town of Thann suffered greatly
from a plague in the year 1634. In Thann many bodies lay for a long time
in the houses unburied, while entire families among the poorer
population were wiped out of existence. The plague also raged in the
surrounding localities, and many bodies lay in the streets as food for
scavenger birds. A plague raged in the years 1633–4 in Traunstein, which
had already had a few isolated cases of disease in the previous year;
123 people died terrible deaths in the two years mentioned, and also in
the years 1635–6. In the year 1634 a pestilence caused 500 deaths in
Rosenheim, while severe outbreaks of pestilence were reported from many
surrounding places—Aibling, Miesbach, Wasserburg, and Tegernsee.
In Tölz twenty-seven adults succumbed in May and June 1633, to Hungarian
disease; a pestilence also broke out in the spring of 1634 and carried
away hundreds of people in the months of May, June, and July. From July
on, the church-registers contain no more entries; the patients with
black swellings usually had but a few hours to live. In Oberammergau
‘wild headache’ raged in the years 1631 and 1633, and many people
succumbed to it. In September 1634, the town became infected with
bubonic plague, and up to October 28, eighty-four people succumbed to
the disease—about one-fifth of the population. The epidemic caused the
people to vow that they would produce the Passion Play there every ten
years. Murnau, Weilheim, and other places were severely attacked in the
year 1634. In Andechs the mortality was increased in the year 1634 by an
outbreak of dysentery and typhus fever, and on July 27 bubonic plague
also appeared and remained until November, carrying away 200 of the 500
inhabitants of the town. In Landsberg typhus fever broke out very
seriously in the year 1630. ‘All over the bodies of the people who
contracted the disease’, says Lammert,[38] ‘red spots appeared, and then
the victims lost control of themselves and knocked their heads against
the walls. Many who seemed scarcely to have contracted the disease died
suddenly. Dead bodies were found everywhere, even in public squares.’ In
the following year the disease spread even further; the vicinity of
Landsberg was infected by the soldiers, who were constantly marching
back and forth. After the terrible plundering of the city in April and
September of the year 1633, a plague broke out and carried away a large
proportion of the few inhabitants that were left.
5. The governmental district of Swabia fared no better than the
aforesaid Bavarian countries, while the region on the northern side of
the Lake of Constance suffered terribly from the predatory raids of the
Swedes and the consequent epidemics. In Augsburg, which from April 1632
to 1635 was occupied by the Swedes, the suffering began when the city
was besieged by the Imperialists. During a siege of seven months
(September 1634 to March 1635) famine and pestilence did a great deal
more damage among the population than the bullets and swords of the
enemies. Whereas this population numbered from 70,000 to 80,000 in the
year 1624, by October 12, 1635, it had dwindled to 16,422. After the
city had surrendered to the Imperialists, people still continued to die
in consequence of pestilential diseases; the town council therefore gave
orders on July 7, 1635, that all refuse should be removed from the city.
Not until the winter did the pestilence disappear. In Memmingen there
were 1,200 deaths in 1633, and 1,400 deaths in the following year; the
worst year was 1635, when the pestilence is said to have carried away
3,000 persons. The towns surrounding the city were also severely
attacked. In Kempten, which was oppressed by the Swedes and Imperialists
in the years 1632–3, a pestilence broke out in the year 1634 and lasted
well into the next year, carrying away 3,000 people. In the surrounding
country, pestilence raged so furiously that many places were completely
wiped out. In the near-by towns of Kaufbeuren, Immenstadt, Pfronten,
Füssen, &c., the pestilence was likewise very widespread; in 1635 there
were 1,600 deaths in Füssen—about one-quarter of the inhabitants.
The predatory incursions of the Swedes extended even to the Lake of
Constance. In the year 1634 the number of deaths in Lindau was 800; at
the beginning of the year 1633 Weingarten, Wangen, and Tettnang were
occupied by the Swedes, who brought infectious diseases with them
wherever they went. Tettnang, which in 1633 had more than 2,500
inhabitants, in 1636 had but 150. In Ravensburg a plague broke out in
the year 1635, reached a climax in September, and in six months carried
away 3,100 people. In Constance Hungarian disease raged in 1633, and is
said to have carried away its victims within a few hours; in 1635
bubonic plague also broke out and caused 2,000 deaths.
_(b.) South-western Germany_
The battle of Nördlingen (September 5 and 6, 1634) was an important
turning-point in the war, important for Bavaria for the reason that it
freed the country from the predatory incursions of the Swedes, and
disastrous to Württemberg, Baden, Hessen, and the Upper and Middle Rhine
region, whither the defeated Swedish-Protestant army retreated, and
where the fighting was now carried on for the next few years. Nördlingen
had been besieged by the Imperialists, who were supported by a Spanish
army; Bernhard von Weimar and Horn tried to relieve the city, but were
completely defeated in the attempt. The Swedes turned and fled to the
Rhine, and in a few weeks the entire south-western part of Germany was
filled with Imperialists who had followed in pursuit.
The sufferings of the inhabitants of Württemberg, partly on account of
the deeds of violence committed by the Imperialists, and partly on
account of pestilences, were frightful.[39] On September 10 the
Imperialists entered Stuttgart, which they continued to occupy until
March 30, 1638. In the year 1631 the city had 8,300 inhabitants, and in
the year 1634 the number of deaths was 936, of which 672 were due to the
pestilence. In the following year the pestilence became more widespread,
being helped along by numerous fugitives from the surrounding country
and by famine; the number of deaths was 4,379, and it was necessary to
dig large ditches and bury a hundred bodies at a time. From January to
July 1636, there were 319 deaths due to the pestilence, which in the
following year raged even more furiously and carried away 945 persons.
The mortality was equally high in the year 1638, when the city was
occupied alternately by the Swedes and Imperialists; the latter, when
they departed in October, left behind them 6,000 diseased and wounded
men. In near-by Cannstatt 1,300 people died in 1635. In Esslingen a
plague broke out in 1634 and in 1635 became more and more widespread in
consequence of the continual marching back and forth of the soldiers. It
made havoc especially among the 12,000 fugitives from the surrounding
country, who were packed together in stables and barns, and in many
cases under the open sky. Owing to the incipient famine the pestilence
spread with great rapidity; 12,000 people are said to have died, among
them 600 out of 1,000 citizens, notwithstanding the fact that various
measures of precaution were adopted (removal of refuse, fumigations on a
large scale, &c.). In Göppingen, which was occupied by Imperialist
soldiers a few weeks after the battle of Nördlingen, pestilence soon
broke out and carried away 656 persons between October 1 and the end of
the year (1634); in the following year there were 904 deaths. In the
year 1636 Gmünd had a very severe pestilence, which on many days carried
away from thirty to forty persons; large graves were dug and from forty
to fifty bodies buried at a time. Aalen, in consequence of the continual
marching back and forth of the soldiers, of quartering, and of
extortions, suffered severely; there, and in the country round about, a
plague raged furiously in the year 1634. Krailsheim and Hall,
comparatively speaking, fared well. In Hall, the parish of St. Michael,
in which the average number of deaths for the years 1621–30 was 112, in
the year 1634 had 1,116 deaths (999 in the months of August-December),
while there were 372 deaths in the year 1635.[40] The fugitives in the
city and the people who died there are not included. In Oehringen, after
the town was plundered by the Imperialists from September 13 to 18, a
very severe pestilence broke out and carried away 1,131 persons. The
neighbouring towns and villages also had a great many deaths due to
pestilence—Neuenstein 1,100, Waldenburg 452, and Künzelsau 900. The
entire Hohenlohe Plateau was severely attacked by pestilence; in the
little town of Grossbottwar, first ‘head-disease’ broke out in 1635,
then dysentery, and finally bubonic plague; between the months of July
and December 692 persons succumbed to these three diseases. In June
1635, there were 775 deaths in Lauffen-on-the Neckar, 1,609 in
Heilbronn, 646 in Weinsberg (out of 1,416 inhabitants), 1,802 in
Vaihingen (only 48 in 1631), and 1,019 in Bönnigheim (among them many
outsiders).
In the towns on the Upper Neckar and on the northern border of the
Swabian Alp a very severe pestilence likewise broke out. Nürtingen was
devastated by the Imperialists after the battle of Nördlingen, and in
the years 1634–5 there were 1,154 deaths in consequence of a pestilence.
The surrounding country also fared badly; for example, Urach and the
near-by Alp villages. In the year 1634 a plague broke out in Tübingen,
and in the following year it spread widely in consequence of famine,
compelling the university faculty to leave the city. The highest
mortality was reached in October (386 deaths), while the total number of
deaths for the entire year was 1,485. The plague raged no less furiously
in Rottenburg-on-the-Neckar. Nor was the Swabian Alp spared; in the
village of Gruibingen there were 90 deaths in 1634 and eighty-six deaths
in the year 1635. Böhmenkirch was almost completely wiped out. In
Gussenstadt, whither many inhabitants of the surrounding country had
fled, the usual mortality per annum was 12 or 14; in the year 1634 there
were 313 deaths up to December 7, while in the year 1635 there were 137
deaths up to September 23. In the months of November and December (1634)
alone there were 157 deaths, and the inhabitants frequently died at the
rate of 4–6 per diem.[41]
After the battle of Nördlingen thousands of the inhabitants of the
surrounding country fled to Ulm, where epidemics had broken out in the
year 1634 and carried away 1,871 persons. In June 1635, the general
misery caused a plague to break out there; in the morning many dead
bodies would be found lying in the streets and in front of houses. In
the course of eight months 15,000 persons were carried away, among them
4,033 fugitives and 5,672 beggars; in the following year only 496
persons died, all told. Even the Black Forest district of Württemberg
suffered in consequence of the war and of pestilence; Tuttlingen in the
year 1635 had 546 deaths, Calw 772, and Freudenstadt 434; Neuenburg,
Nagold, Sulz, and other places were also attacked.
How terrible was the loss of human life in Württemberg in consequence of
the war and of pestilence is shown by the fact that the population of
the city decreased from 444,800 in the year 1622 to 97,300 in the year
1639; the population in 1634 was 414,536. In the short period of five
years (1634–9), in consequence of the invasion of the Imperialists after
the battle of Nördlingen, and of the pestilence and famine caused
thereby, the country lost 300,000 inhabitants, or about three-fourths of
its population.
The northern part of Baden suffered severely in the years 1634–6;
Pforzheim lost at least one-third of its inhabitants in consequence of
famine and pestilence, while Durlach and Mannheim are also reported to
have been attacked.
That part of Hessen lying on the right side of the Rhine was likewise
visited by pestilence. In Wimpfen-on-the-Neckar a plague broke out in
August, 1635, and in the period between August 12 and December 31 there
were 494 deaths there. Bensheim, Zwingenberg, Gernsheim, Babenhausen,
and Seligenstadt fared no better. Darmstadt, with 212 deaths in 1633 and
220 deaths in 1634, had an increased mortality, but in 1635 some 2,200
bodies are said to have been buried there; at first it was
‘head-disease’, and afterwards ‘a poisonous pestilence’.
The Lower Main region suffered terribly in the year 1635 from famine and
pestilence; the Wetterau, the Palatinate, and Alsace-Lorraine were all
attacked. Frankfurt-on-the-Main had been occupied by the Swedes in the
latter part of 1631, and after that the mortality increased; whereas in
the years 1630–2 the average number of deaths was 1,598, in 1633 it
increased to 3,512, in 1634 to 3,421, and in 1635 to 6,943. This
includes all the Protestant population, only a part of the Catholic
population, and none of the Jews. The large number of country-people who
had fled to the city rendered the general condition worse and helped to
spread the pestilence. The worst month was September 1635, in which
1,112 persons died. According to a Frankfurt physician, Hörnigk, the
crisis came on the fifth or sixth day, while many people contracted the
disease not only once, but as many as seven times.[42] We see from this
last observation that the various infectious diseases at that time were
not distinguished, but were regarded as different stages of one and the
same disease.
In near-by Hanau, after it was occupied by the Swedes and Hessians on
October 2, 1634, famine and pestilence appeared; in June 1635, an
epidemic of bubonic plague broke out there, reaching a climax in August,
and gradually disappearing with the beginning of the cold weather. The
mortality among the citizens and fugitives was very great, but the
statement that 21,000 people died in Hanau is perhaps an exaggeration.
Upper Hesse was devastated in 1635 by famine and pestilence; in Giessen,
for example, 1,503 people died (according to the grave-diggers’
records), and in Lich, a small fortified town, there were 1,225 deaths,
including 22 soldiers and 549 fugitives from the surrounding country.
In the Rhenish Palatinate, after it was occupied by the Imperialists,
conditions were terrible; famine and pestilence lasted from 1635 to
1639. In the year 1635 General Gallas retreated from Dieuze to the
Rhine, and in the same year serious diseases broke out there (dysentery,
typhus fever, &c.), so that the streets and fields were covered with the
bodies of his soldiers. Wherever he went these diseases were transmitted
to the local inhabitants, so that many places lost more than half of
their population. Pestilence was also transmitted to other cities and
towns in the Palatinate; in Zweibrücken, which had 3,000 inhabitants,
250 married persons died between August 1, 1635, and April 1, 1636; many
villages in the vicinity were entirely depopulated. In Kaiserslautern,
which on August 17, 1635, was stormed by the Imperialists under General
Hatzfeld, and was thereafter subjected to an inhuman sacking, a severe
plague broke out in the year 1636 and carried away large numbers of
people. In Worms numerous people succumbed that year to dysentery.
In Alsace an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in August 1636; it had
been brought there by the troops of the Count-Palatine von Birkenfeld
and became very widespread among the fugitives in the overcrowded city
of Strassburg. From thirty to forty bodies were buried in a single day,
and in the entire year there were 5,546 deaths, including 1,000
fugitives and soldiers. The disease continued to reveal its presence
until the next spring, and by that time 8,000 persons are said to have
died in Strassburg. In the year 1635–6, owing to the perpetual condition
of war, which made it impossible to cultivate the fields, there ensued a
terrible famine, and this did a great deal to further the dissemination
of pestilence. Zabern, where there was a strong garrison, and where many
soldiers were quartered, suffered terribly in the year 1634, and again
in the years 1635–6 widespread pestilences broke out; in 1636 the
Imperialists died there ‘like cattle’.
Lorraine also suffered terribly. In the year 1635 Bernhard von Weimar
and Cardinal La Valette were obliged to retreat before Gallas to the
vicinity of Metz, where they arrived on October 1; the troops brought
fever, dysentery, and ‘Swedish plague’ with them; the last-named
disease, which has been held to be typhus fever, became more
widespread in Metz in the year 1636 than it had ever been before—it
was _la plus meurtrière et la plus désastreuse des temps modernes dans
notre pays_.[43] The precautionary measures of the city
administration—cleaning of the streets, isolation of the patients,
closing of infected houses—were of no avail. Many bodies were cast
into the Mosel, and before the gates of the city the streets and
fields were covered with dead men and horses. Also in the neighbouring
cities, especially in Verdun and Nancy, the losses in consequence of
the pestilence were great.
Conditions were equally bad in the adjacent Luxemburg. ‘The French as
enemies,’ says Lammert,[44] ‘the Croats, Hungarians, and Poles as
defenders, committed the most terrible devastations in the country
through which they passed. Famine, poverty, and a furious pestilence
completed the misery. Entire villages were wiped out; in the city of
Luxemburg the churchyards no longer had room for the bodies, and places
for burial had to be prepared within the fortifications. Throughout the
entire province 11,000 persons, one-third of the inhabitants, lost their
lives.’
In the year 1637 Count Bernhard von Weimar transferred the scene of the
war into southern Baden, where, during the siege of Breisach, from July
5 to December 18, 1638, an epidemic of scurvy caused increased misery.
In the year 1639 large numbers of people in the Lörrach district were
carried away by the pestilence, among them Count Bernhard himself.
_3. North Germany (1636–40)_
In North Germany the war against the Imperialists was continued by the
Swedes under Banner. On October 4, 1636, the Imperialists were defeated
at Wittstock (province of Brandenburg, district of East Priednitz),
whereupon the Swedes in that very same year overran Saxony and
Thuringia. In 1637, to be sure, they were thrown back into Pomerania by
Gallas, but in 1638 they reappeared in Saxony, and in 1639 won a
brilliant victory at Chemnitz. Thereupon Banner undertook a campaign
into Bohemia, whence, in 1641, he was forced to retire. Shortly
afterwards (May 10, 1641) he died in Halberstadt.
These campaigns spread severe pestilences throughout the above-mentioned
regions of North Germany, particularly the southern part of Brandenburg
and the modern province of Saxony. The largest part of the Altmark
resembled a ‘large lazaret’; in Wittstock itself there were 305 deaths
in the year 1636, in Bismark 163, and in Salzwedel 193; in Werben a
plague broke out after the soldiers had been quartered there and lasted
well into the next year. In Stendal it began in June 1636, and carried
away 1,992 persons in that year, as compared with an average annual
mortality of 120–30; nor does the number include the peasants that had
fled to the city, 3,000 of whom died. The pestilence spread over the
entire vicinity and wiped out whole villages. In Tangermünde a
pestilence broke out even before the battle of Wittstock; it was borne
thither by Imperialists and Saxon artillerymen. In Gardelegen, where
Banner had his head-quarters, 500 people in the parish of St. Nicholas,
and 1,205 in the parish of St. Mary, succumbed in the year 1636 to
bubonic plague and other diseases, among the dead being 195 soldiers. In
Neuhaldensleben, whither many country-people had fled, a plague broke
out in May 1636, and spread throughout the entire vicinity; in many days
in September, thirty and more bodies were counted, while the incomplete
church register records 778 deaths. The total number of deaths is said
to have been 2,560.
Typhus fever and other infectious diseases raged furiously in Magdeburg,
and, as before, the country south-west of Magdeburg also suffered. In
Gross-Salze, which had received many fugitives, 701 persons succumbed in
the year 1636 to dysentery and bubonic plague, among them 329 outsiders;
the climax of the pestilence occurred in July, when there were 162
deaths. In Egeln, as in Gross-Salze, a plague broke out in May 1636,
carrying away 164 persons (134 of them outsiders) in June, 63 natives
and 84 outsiders in July. In Wolmirsleben a pestilence raged from April
to the middle of September 1636, and carried away 130 people. In
Atzendorf typhus fever and bubonic plague broke out in the spring of the
year 1636 and carried away 617 persons, inclusive of outsiders. In
Wanzleben 600 persons succumbed in the year 1636 to bubonic plague, and
300 to other diseases and starvation. In Aschersleben a pestilence broke
out on April 2, 1636, reached a climax in November with 217 deaths, and
carried away, all told, 1,125 persons in that year (including 499
outsiders and soldiers). In Zerbst, where infected soldiers were
quartered, the epidemic was particularly widespread; of the fugitives in
the city 1,500 succumbed. In Wittenberg and vicinity dysentery and
typhus fever broke out in the year 1636, and in the fall of that year
bubonic plague also made its appearance and lasted well into the
following year, carrying away thousands of people. In Merseburg, in the
parish of St. Maximus alone, there were 942 deaths in the years 1636–7,
and in Eisleben there were 1,598 deaths (including the outsiders) in the
year 1636. Halle and vicinity, in the summer of 1636, had an outbreak of
‘spotted fever with dysentery’ and bubonic plague; the number of deaths
was not less than 3,440.
In Thuringia a plague raged extensively in the years 1636–7. In
Hildburghausen there were 648 deaths due to a plague in the year 1636,
in Jena 691 (not including the outsiders), while in the year 1637 there
were 307 deaths in Arnstadt and 525 in Zeitz. In many smaller places
dysentery and bubonic plague broke out, having been borne there by
soldiers and wandering beggars.
In Saxony (present kingdom) pestilences reappeared after the invasion of
Banner in the year 1637. In Leipzig a great many homeless people took
refuge; within three months 2,500 persons died there, and in the entire
year 4,229 out of 15,000 inhabitants succumbed to various diseases.
Pestilences also broke out with renewed strength in near-by cities and
towns; by September 1,000 natives and 2,000 outsiders died in Grimma. In
Leisnig, fever, ‘head-disease’, and diarrhoea appeared. After the
burning of the city by the Swedes, a plague broke out and carried away
2,200 persons in six months, including the outsiders. Colditz, which had
suffered great losses in the last six years, had 352 deaths; the
population so dwindled away that in the year 1638 it amounted to only
28. In Döbeln there were 674 deaths, in Oschatz 2,000 (including the
outsiders), and in Mügeln more than 1,000. The near-by cities, belonging
to the governmental district of Merseburg, also had a very high
mortality; in Belgern there were 765 deaths, in Delitsch 881 deaths,
while in Eilenburg 8,000 natives and outsiders are said to have died. In
Dresden, where in the year 1635 only 79 persons had died in consequence
of plague, there were 1,097 deaths in the year 1637. In the following
years, moreover, cases of plague continued to appear. A high mortality
prevailed even in the Saxon Erzgebirge, caused for the most part by
typhus fever.
In Brandenburg a severe pestilence raged in the years 1637–8. Berlin was
repeatedly attacked in 1637 and again in 1639. In Spandau it raged very
extensively, and lasted well into the following year. In Luckau 500
inhabitants died in the year 1637. The pestilence was conveyed to
Neu-Ruppin by an infected soldier, and in the church register of that
town 600 deaths are recorded. In Gransee a pestilence broke out in May
1638, and in a short time carried away 1,000 persons. Four neighbouring
villages were completely wiped out. In Wittstock 1,599 persons succumbed
in the year 1638 to bubonic plague and other diseases, and in Pritzwalk
1,500 people died (not including the soldiers and fugitive
country-people). In Lychen (district of Templin) numerous fugitives and
two-thirds of the native inhabitants died. In Angermünde, but 40 out of
700 families were left, and in Prenzlau a pestilence likewise raged
furiously.
Pomerania, while the war was going on between the Swedes and
Imperialists, fared no better. In Massow 400 persons succumbed to a
plague. In Ueckermünde, in consequence of a plague caused by the capture
of the city by the Swedes, only eight men and seven widows are said to
have survived the year 1638.
Mecklenburg suffered terribly in the years 1637–8 from the quartering of
Swedish troops there. Thousands succumbed in a short time to dysentery
and bubonic plague, especially in the months of August and September
1638. Güstrow, in the year 1637, is said to have lost 2,000 persons
(most of them doubtless fugitive country-people). Sternberg, the
population of which was completely wiped out by the pestilence, stood
empty for half a year. In New Brandenburg, where many country-people had
taken refuge, 8,000 people died in the year 1638, according to the
church register. Bützow had 261 deaths.
IV. THE WAR YEARS (1641–8)
After the death of Bernhard von Weimar and of Banner, all centralized
warfare in Germany ceased, and there began an endless series of futile
marches across the country. The great depopulation of Germany, the
difficulty of properly nourishing the few that had survived, and the
wide prevalence of camp-fever, made it impossible to carry out any more
large enterprises. Severe pestilences scarcely ever occurred, for the
simple reason that there were so few people to contract and spread
diseases. Typhus fever had become epidemic everywhere. ‘In Germany,’
says Schnurrer,[45] ‘where fighting had been going on for twenty-two
years, and where soldier-life had almost supplanted civil and rural
life, a certain war-plague revealed itself in places where there were
soldiers, and where the war had left its vestiges. This war-plague was
characterized by a mucous fever, began with a chill, accompanied by
coughing, diarrhoea, and, in the case of women, by increased and
irregular menstruation; at the same time the tongue became dry, headache
and insomnia ensued, and at the crisis either the brain or the throat
became inflamed, or else petechiae or purpura (then for the first time
observed in Lower Saxony) broke out. Moreover, this war-plague, if it
appeared to have passed a crisis on the fourteenth or twenty-first day,
manifested a remarkable tendency to relapse. It was quite as infectious
as bubonic plague, and was called by several names—Hungarian fever,
head-disease, and soldiers’ disease.’ We distinctly see in this
description a mixture of various diseases (especially typhoid fever,
typhus fever, and others). Schnurrer’s authority was Lotichius, a
Frankfurt physician.
The continuation of the war was disastrous to Austria, for the reason
that the Swedish general, Torstensen, pressed on to Moravia and Lower
Austria. As early as the year 1642 he had undertaken an expedition
through Silesia to Moravia and Bohemia; in the year 1644 he advanced
again, defeated the Imperialists at Jankau in Bohemia in the spring of
the year 1645, and besieged (unsuccessfully) both Vienna and Brünn. In
the year 1645 he was hard pressed by the Austrians and compelled to
evacuate Moravia and Bohemia. Torstensen’s campaigns resulted in the
outbreak of severe pestilences throughout all Austria.
Bohemia had suffered as much as Germany from the hardships of the Thirty
Years’ War, while Austrian Silesia, and at times those parts of Austria
which bordered on Bavaria, had not been spared. Only in the year 1634
was Austria itself attacked by pestilences, obvious consequence of the
fact that both Saxony and Bavaria were badly infected. The incursion of
Banner into Bohemia, in the year 1639, had likewise caused a widespread
epidemic.
As far back as the year 1644, and hence before Torstensen’s invasion of
Austria, severe plagues broke out in Hungary, Croatia, Upper and Lower
Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Görz. People who contracted the disease
usually died in the first three days. Torstensen’s invasion caused the
pestilence to spread very extensively. In Vienna it broke out in August
1645, having been borne thither by Rakoczi’s troops, and carried away
from thirty to forty people daily. Tuln, St. Pölten, and New Vienna are
also mentioned as places that were attacked. Styria was particularly
afflicted in the year 1646; the district of Cilli is said to have lost
10,000 inhabitants, while the city of Cilli alone had some 400 deaths.
In Graz, as in all Upper Styria, the loss of human life was not so
great.
V. WAR PESTILENCES IN NON-GERMAN STATES DURING THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
1. The Netherlands. In the summer of the year 1623 there raged in
Mansfeld’s camp in East Friesland an epidemic of typhus fever, which
soon spread among the Netherlandish troops and over the Netherlands.
Antwerp, Brussels, Ypres, Leyden, Delft, and Amsterdam were all severely
attacked. In Leyden 9,897 persons died between October 1623 and October
1624. In Amsterdam 32,532 people died in the year 1624, 11,795 of them
in consequence of the pestilence. In the year 1625, Breda, which for
eight months had been defended by Flemish and Walloon troops in
conjunction with the English and French, fell into the hands of the
Spaniards; famine, pestilence, and scurvy had raged so furiously in the
besieged city that 8,000 people died there, whereas the well-nourished
Spaniards did not suffer at all from pestilence.[46]
In the years 1635–7 typhus fever and bubonic plague again made their
appearance in the Netherlands. An epidemic of the latter occurred in
Leyden in the months August-November 1635, and carried away 20,000
people in the course of the entire year. The pestilence caused great
devastation in Nimeguen during the siege of the city by the French and
Dutch; in the summer of 1635 dysentery and typhus fever broke out there,
and in November bubonic plague appeared and slowly extended its area in
the course of the winter. From April to October 1636 it raged furiously,
and spared scarcely a single house; from August 1, 1635, to August 1,
1636, some 6,000 persons died in the city, and the pestilence did not
come to an end until February 1637. It also spread to the country around
Nimeguen, especially to Montfort, where half of the inhabitants
succumbed to it.[47]
2. France. In the years 1620–30 a large part of the country was visited
by pestilence, especially the southern provinces during the war of
extermination that was carried on against the Calvinists. In
Montpellier, after the siege in 1623, a virulent fever (_febris maligna
pestilens_) raged for eight months, and carried away one-third of the
people who contracted it. According to Lazarus Riverius the skin became
covered with red, livid, or black spots, similar to flea-bites; they
appeared between the sixth and ninth days, and developed for the most
part on the loins, breast, and neck.[48] In the years 1628–33 France
experienced some very severe outbreaks of pestilence, which undoubtedly
involved bubonic plague as well as typhus fever. Lyons had 50,000
deaths, Limoges 25,000, while Paris, Angers, Châlons, Aix, Montpellier,
Avignon, Marseilles, Agen, Dijon, Vienne, Villefranche, and Toulouse
were also attacked. In Montpellier, whither the pestilence had been
borne from Toulouse, 5,000 people died between October 1630 and April
1631—almost one-half of the entire population. The city of Digne, where
a plague broke out in 1629, had a terrible fate; it was completely
surrounded by soldiers, in order to prevent the plague from spreading
further, and by April 1630 some 8,500 out of 10,000 inhabitants had
died.
3. Switzerland. The proximity of the scene of the war, which brought
numerous fugitives into the country, and the marching back and forth of
troops through the Grisons, resulted in numerous outbreaks of pestilence
in Switzerland. In the year 1622 some 3,000 soldiers were carried away
by an epidemic of typhus fever in the county of Mayenfeld. Pestilences
raged extensively in Switzerland in the years 1628–9. On August 5, 1628,
a plague broke out in Schaffhausen, reached its climax in October of
that year, and carried away, all told, 2,595 persons; 2,000 people died
in the country around Schaffhausen. In Zug a pestilence broke out in
September 1628 and lasted until December 1629, carrying away 468
persons; in Sursee there were 600 deaths, in Sempach 100, in Frauenfeld
400. In Basel the number of deaths in the year 1629 was 2,656. In the
same year St. Gall, Toggenburg, and Altdorf were severely attacked. In
the year 1635 another pestilence broke out; the constant misery caused
by the war, and the consequent famine, brought swarms of beggars and
vagabonds from South Germany into Switzerland, which they infected with
various diseases. The city of Zürich, for example, on June 14 of one
year was compelled to drive out 7,400 beggars. All Switzerland was
attacked by pestilence at that time, even the most out of the way
valleys.
4. Italy was the scene of severe pestilences in the years 1629–31;
according to Ozanam they were borne there by German troops, and
according to Häser by French troops. At all events the outbreak occurred
in connexion with the war which France was waging in Mantua against
Austria and Spain over the succession. According to a Venetian
physician, Grossi, the specific disease was not bubonic plague;
Häser,[49] however, assumes that both typhus fever and bubonic plague
occurred. Lammert seems to think that camp-fever in Upper Italy had
little to do with the high mortality. Ozanam mentions buboes,
plague-sores, inflammation of the salivary glands, and black and violet
petechiae. Death is said to have occurred in from one to seven days.
Brescia was first attacked; after the battle of Villabona (May 26,
1629), the pestilence, conveyed by retreating Venetian troops, spread
throughout Upper and Central Italy. In Verona the number of deaths was
32,895, in Milan 86,000, in Venice (1630) 45,489, (1631) 94,164, in
Mantua 25,000. In the territory of the Venetian Republic 500,000 persons
are said to have succumbed to various pestilential diseases. Genoa,
Turin, Padua, Bologna, Lucca, Florence, Parma, and other cities were
also attacked. Regarding the outbreak of pestilence in Milan, Ozanam
gives us no further information.[50] In October and November isolated
instances of disease occurred among people who had acquired articles
from German soldiers. Strict measures of precaution (burning of all
effects, and quarantining of all persons who had come in contact with
infected people) prevented the pestilence from spreading. But during the
Carnival these measures were carried out less vigorously, and the result
was that in the latter part of March 1630 a pestilence broke out in
various quarters of the city. Accordingly, two more lazarets and 800
straw huts were erected outside the city, and shelter for relatives of
the sick was provided. Notwithstanding this, the pestilence spread to
such an extent that some 3,500 persons died every day. In Florence,
Grand Duke Ferdinand II adopted energetic measures against the
dissemination of the disease; infected people, with or against their
will, were taken to the Hospital of San Bonifacio, where the physicians
themselves were obliged to remain. Recovered patients were held in
quarantine, and their clothes and other effects were burned. Some 9,000
persons are said to have succumbed to the pestilence in Florence.
5. In England typhus fever repeatedly broke out after the year 1622. In
the spring of the year 1643 it appeared in the parliamentary army and in
the royal garrison during the siege of Reading. The disease, which is
described by Thomas Willis, spread from there to Oxford and the
surrounding country.[51]
VI. A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE LOSS OF HUMAN LIFE IN GERMANY DURING THE
THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
Even if it is impossible to give an accurate numerical account of the
losses due to pestilence in the course of the Thirty Years’ War, we have
seen in a general way how epidemics of dysentery, typhus fever, and
bubonic plague followed at the heels of armies, how they were borne from
place to place, and how the devastation of the country caused by the war
led to an absolute dearth of the necessaries of life, and thereby helped
the pestilences to spread. We have mentioned only those places regarding
which we have specific information, and they can be regarded only as
examples of how these pestilences appeared; as a matter of fact,
however, conditions were very much the same in all parts of the country.
At the same time these examples show satisfactorily that the great
depopulation of Germany during the Thirty Years’ War was chiefly caused
by severe epidemics of typhus fever and bubonic plague.
It will be of interest to assemble the figures (such as have been
recorded) relating to the number of deaths that occurred in a few of the
larger cities during the Thirty Years’ War. We include Basel among those
cities, since, being situated close to the border of that part of
Germany where the war was carried on during two rather long periods, it
was necessarily attacked by the prevalent pestilences. At the same time
Basel affords an example of how quickly these pestilences disappeared
from the cities, even in the seventeenth century, if external conditions
permitted the authorities to take the necessary measures of prevention
and precaution, and if the cities were not constantly being reinfected.
We give the total number of deaths, and merely remark that the
population in all German cities in the course of the Thirty Years’ War
decreased considerably. In the case of Leipzig, Dresden, and
Frankfurt-on-the-Main the still-births are included, but not in the case
of Augsburg, Basel, and Strassburg. As a rule the country-people who
fled to the cities are not included among the dead; only in the case of
Strassburg, and perhaps also in that of Breslau for the year 1633, are
they included.
The total loss of human life in the Thirty Years’ War can be estimated
only approximately. The statement attributed to Lammert, that the
population of Germany, which amounted to sixteen or seventeen millions
before the war, had dwindled down to four millions after the war, is
perhaps an exaggeration. Other estimates state that Germany lost
one-half of its population. In the case of a few states we have more
exact figures, which probably approach more closely to the actual loss.
Thus the electorate of Saxony, which was much larger in area than the
modern kingdom of Saxony, in the years 1631–2 is said to have lost some
934,000 persons. The population of Bohemia is said to have decreased
during the Thirty Years’ War from three millions to 780,000. In Bavaria
80,000 families are said to have been wiped out. The population of
Württemberg decreased from 444,800 in the year 1622 to 97,300. The
population of Hesse decreased by about one-quarter. So much, however, is
sure: that in the regions where the war was carried on for several years
the population decreased by far more than one-half. The most positive
proof of this is afforded by the hundreds of burned-down and unrebuilt
houses found in so many German cities, and the numerous unpeopled, or
almost unpeopled, places which Germany had to show at the end of the
war.
DEATHS (1618–48).
_Year._ _Leip- _Dres- _Bres- _Augs- _Frank- _Strass- _Ba-
zig._ den._ lau._ burg._ furt._ burg._ sel._
[52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]
1618 422 400 1,205 1,354 625 1,343 535
1619 569 332 1,313 1,485 544 1,258 257
1620 477 472 1,456 1,667 670 996 259
1621 613 491 1,652 1,517 674 1,019 352
1622 580 381 1,045 1,959 1,785 4,388 450
1623 500 421 1,050 1,875 725 1,738 336
1624 812 411 1,260 1,370 955 1,491 297
1625 718 481 3,000 1,392 1,871 1,350 297
1626 1,268 740 1,874 2,440 963 2,590 330
1627 537 412 1,227 2,494 773 1,669 266
1628 388 469 1,020 3,611 680 1,513 527
1629 506 398 1,116 1,265 832 1,786 2,656
1630 881 480 1,156 909 927 1,425 220
1631 1,754 844 1,795 859 1,132 1,383 221
1632 2,789 3,129 1,395 3,485 2,900 2,675 284
1633 1,445 4,585 13,231 3,364 762 5,546 456
1634 306 721 1,010 4,664 3,512 2,115
1635 603 597 949 6,243 6,943 560
1636 1,218 594 873 790 2,301 600
1637 4,229 1,897 1,060 823 3,152 424
1638 552 531 863 638 1,079 527
1639 955 1,845 928 674 948 1,923 515
1640 469 935 1,273 586 1,034 239
1641 482 525 1,088 887 735 713 195
1642 1,080 601 1,343 593 883 680 242
1643 1,034 1,041 1,332 638 523 532
1644 604 489 1,570 659 491 707 337
1645 458 532 1,133 758 678 220
1646 331 481 1,042 1,488 774 651 205
1647 403 471 1,273 1,338 662 573 238
1648 469 606 1,111 1,208 575 643 235