THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
(_a_) CENTRAL EUROPE
The Thirty Years’ War left Germany for several decades in such a
weakened condition that Louis XIV was able to perpetrate all sorts of
outrages upon the unfortunate country. The result was a series of
protracted conflicts in the countries on the Rhine. The German Emperor,
however, was unable to fight with much vigour, partly because of
disruption in the interior of the German Empire, and partly because the
advancing Turks were gravely menacing its eastern boundary. After Louis
XIV had come to terms with Holland in the Peace of Nimeguen (1679), in
order to secure for his protégé the Archbishopric of Cologne, which was
then vacant, he invaded Germany without declaring war, and his troops
committed horrible devastations in the Palatinate and in northern Baden.
A German army was organized to oppose the French, but it accomplished
very little. Regarding the pestilences of that time not much is known,
although it is certain that typhus fever was present in the armies. Thus
we learn from a physician named R. Lentilius[59] that in November 1689,
‘burning head-disease’ or ‘Hungarian disease’ was disseminated by
Bavarian soldiers who, under Max Emanuel, had taken part in the
successful siege of Mayence (ending on September 11), and who afterwards
returned home to pass the winter. Typhus fever was conveyed by them to
Gundelfingen, Lauingen, Höchstädt, Donauwörth, and Wendingen (all of
them places on the Danube between Ulm and Ingolstadt), causing a great
many deaths. In many places—for example, in Gundelfingen—the epidemic
lasted well into the following year.
In the very first year of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–14)
Augsburg suffered terribly from camp-pestilences, which also spread
among the non-belligerent population. In the year 1703 the city was
occupied by the French and Bavarians fighting as allies, and was
afterwards besieged by the Imperialists and the English.[60] The number
of deaths in Augsburg (excluding the still-births) was:
1701 906
1702 900
1703 1,245
1704 3,113
1705 748
1706 842
Seitz reports that the troops along the Rhine were again infected with
petechial fever in the year 1712; Metz, on the other hand, expressly
says that no pestilences occurred at that time.
In the year 1733 a conflict again broke out between France and Germany
over the Polish succession. In the year 1734 typhus fever appeared along
the Rhine; in the spring and summer the outbreaks were sporadic, but in
the fall, when troops were stationed along both sides of the Rhine, a
virulent typhus broke out in many places, as in Heidelberg, Heilbronn,
and Germersheim; the disease was borne even to Lorraine by French troops
returning from the siege of Philippsburg.[61]
In connexion with the War of the Austrian Succession (1741–8), which
Maria Theresa waged in conjunction with England and Hanover against
Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, France, and Spain, we know of several
outbreaks of pestilence. In the year 1742 Bavaria was overrun by
Austrian troops; a severe pestilence broke out in that year in
Ingolstadt and carried away several thousand of the strong French
garrison there. A large number of civilians also died.[62] It is stated
that the French garrison at Amberg lost 1,200 men, and that 400 of the
inhabitants perished; it is very probable that the specific disease was
typhus fever.
An unusually severe epidemic broke out in the year 1742 in Prague; on
November 26, 1741, the city was stormed by the Bavarians and French, and
shortly afterwards it was besieged by the Austrians under the Grand Duke
of Tuscany. The number of men in the French garrison was 13,000, and the
siege lasted until December 25, 1742. Almost all the French physicians
and surgeons died; on the bodies of the inhabitants of the city appeared
petechiae, which, it is stated, were not observed among the French. All
told, 30,000 people are said to have been carried away by the epidemic
in Prague. The high mortality was due to the wrong treatment of the
disease by the French physicians, who held it to be inflammatory and
sought to cure it by means of drastic phlebotomy. ‘Cette grande
mortalité,’ says Ozanam, ‘fut attribuée au traitement suivi par les
médecins français, qui, malgré l’avis de ceux du pays, saignaient les
malades jusqu’à ce qu’ils expirassent sous la lancette, et par l’abus
qu’ils firent de l’émétique qu’ils administrèrent jusqu’au 7^e, 8^e,
9^e, et 10^e jour.’[63] (The high mortality was due to the treatment
given by the French physicians, who, despite the advice of the local
physicians, bled the patients until they expired under the lancet, and
overdosed them with emetics as far along as the seventh, eighth, ninth,
and tenth day.) The Prussian army in Silesia was also infected with
typhus fever, and it was not long before all the corps and the native
population were attacked.[64]
The Austrian and English army, the so-called Pragmatic army, which in
the year 1743 operated in the region of the Main, and which on July 27,
1743, won a victory at Dettingen (near Aschaffenburg), suffered
severely, according to Pringle[65], from dysentery and hospital fever.
The hospital for the English army was situated in the village of
Fechenheim (near Hanau); all the patients sent there, even those who had
some mild form of sickness, were infected with a camp-fever, which
according to the description must have been typhus fever, and almost
one-half of them died. The inhabitants of the village were also
attacked, and nearly all of them succumbed. According to Neuwied, the
disease was brought there in the evacuations of the sick and carried
even to England by returning English soldiers.
The Seven Years’ War was attended by several epidemics of typhus fever.
Notwithstanding the long duration of the war, they did not become very
widespread, inasmuch as the armies were comparatively small, and as the
scene of the fighting, in accordance with the military tactics of
Frederick the Great, who opposed first one and then another Power, kept
changing, and thus caused no one region to suffer for any great length
of time. A severe epidemic of typhus fever broke out in Silesia in the
year 1758; it raged in both the Austrian and Prussian armies, and spread
to many places, for example, to Breslau, Schweidnitz, and Landshut,
where the civil inhabitants also became infected. In Breslau, according
to Grätzer,[66] the number of deaths among the evangelical population
was:
1756 1,375
1757 1,554
1758 4,088
1759 1,697
1760 1,590
1761 1,724
1762 2,373
1763 1,808
According to Süssmilch,[67] the number of deaths among the Catholics in
the year 1758 was 5,135; thus the total number of deaths in the entire
civil population was 9,223. In addition, the following military persons
were buried: 5,470 Prussian soldiers, 2,153 Austrian soldiers, 18
Swedish soldiers; also 755 wives and children of soldiers, and 953
paupers and outsiders. The total number of interments in Breslau in that
year was 18,572. The great mortality lasted from January to June; of
9,349 military persons buried, there died in:
January 1,346
February 1,709
March 1,246
April 940
May 1,287
June 818
July 457
August 578
September 383
October 201
November 164
December 220
In the year 1757, in which there was a high mortality in a large part of
North Germany that was unaffected by the war, there was an unusually
large number of deaths in Dresden; in the year 1760, when the city was
beleaguered by Frederick the Great, a ‘virulent epidemic fever’ broke
out and again caused a great increase in the death-rate. The number of
deaths in Dresden (excluding the still-births) was:[68]
1756 2,432
1757 4,454
1758 2,603
1759 2,631
1760 3,514
1761 2,127
1762 2,008
1763 1,975
The increased number of deaths during the Seven Years’ War in the
countries where the fighting took place is shown by the following
figures (which include the still-births) for Berlin and Leipzig:
_Year._ _Leipzig_[69] _Berlin_[70]
(_total no. deaths_). (_deaths per 1,000_).
1755 1,150 34·5
1756 1,286 42·0
1757 2,600 49·2
1758 2,824 56·4
1759 1,408 43·5
1760 2,025 41·6
1761 2,048 38·2
1762 2,160 48·0
1763 1,614 50·3
1764 1,052 30·3
Typhus fever also appeared in the western scene of the war, where the
Imperialist and French troops were fighting against the Prussians. When
the united Imperialist and French armies besieged Eisenach for two
weeks, the disease broke out in both military hospitals in the city and
afterwards spread among the inhabitants, causing many deaths.
(_b_) EASTERN EUROPE
During the numerous wars that were waged in eastern Europe in the course
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, epidemic diseases
frequently made their appearance. After the siege of Vienna (1683),
typhus fever broke out in various parts of Hungary, particularly in
Pressburg, where many soldiers were congregated. The disease spread from
the soldiers to the civilians, and the pestilence lasted from November
1683 to the spring of 1684. After the return of the Prussian troops from
Hungary, typhus fever broke out in many parts of Germany; for example,
in Minden.[71]
At the beginning of the eighteenth century bubonic plague broke out in
Constantinople and spread from there to the Lower Danube countries and
to Russia, particularly to Ukraine. According to Hecker,[72] this
dissemination was greatly furthered by the adventurous campaign of
Charles XII of Sweden, so that the epidemic included all eastern Europe
and gradually embraced north-western Germany and Sweden. Fleeing Swedish
and Polish soldiers, after the battle of Pultowa (July 8, 1707),
conveyed the disease to Silesia. Danzig was severely attacked in that
year, and a few cases occurred there in the year 1708; but in the
following year a very severe pestilence broke out, reached its climax in
September, and between January 5 and December 7, 1709, carried away
32,599 persons. From Danzig the plague spread to Courland, Livonia,
Pomerania, Denmark, and Sweden. In Copenhagen 20,822 persons died in the
year 1710, in Stockholm 40,000, in Karlskrona 16,000.
In the years 1716–18, when Austria and Turkey once more came to blows
over the Turkish occupation of Morea, which belonged to the Venetians,
bubonic plague broke out in Constantinople and also among the Turks who
were shut up in Belgrade. The Austrian army, which was encamped outside
of Belgrade, was apparently not attacked by that disease, although some
4,000 men succumbed to intermitting fever, head-disease, and
dysentery.[73]
During the war waged by Russia and Austria against Turkey (1736–9),
bubonic plague appeared along the Lower Danube. ‘It broke out there,’
says Häser,[74] ‘first during the war waged by Austria and Russia
against Turkey, and the result was that the war was terminated
unexpectedly, and in a manner unfavourable to the Christian arms. At the
time of its appearance in Ukraine (July 1738) the disease was conveyed
by Austrian troops to Temesvar; from there it gradually spread over all
Hungary, mostly along the banks of the Theiss to the boundaries of
Carniola, Moravia, and Austria, and also along the Carpathian Mountains
to Poland and Bukowina. The devastation caused by the pestilence
continued for seven years, and the measures adopted by the authorities
proved of little or no avail.
The severe epidemic of bubonic plague during the Russo-Turkish War of
1769–72 has been carefully investigated by Hecker.[75] The Turkish army,
in consequence of inferior nourishment, was badly infected with
intermittent fever, dysentery, and typhus fever when it set out from
Constantinople in March 1769. When the Russian troops advanced, the
Turks retreated after an engagement near Galatz. Since the disease had
been conveyed on ships from Constantinople to Galatz, where many
Russians succumbed to it, the city was evacuated. On the way to Jassy
every trace of the pestilence disappeared, and in Jassy the soldiers
were quartered in the houses of the citizens. Since patients suffering
from contagious diseases had not been isolated in the military hospitals
there, in the middle of January typhus fever broke out in them,
accompanied by glandular swellings in the groin. Four weeks later a Jew
and his two children were taken sick in the city and died, the Jew
having bought a fur coat in the hospital. Since the Russian
commander-in-chief did not hold the disease to be bubonic plague and did
nothing to prevent it from spreading, in March 1770 it spread far and
wide in Moldavia and Wallachia. Not until the end of April was the
presence of bubonic plague officially admitted; and then the
well-qualified physician Orraeus was commissioned to make an
investigation.
From Jassy the disease was conveyed to Botoshany, which also lies in
northern Moldavia, and there it soon developed into a severe epidemic
and carried away more than 800 out the town’s 2,500 inhabitants; the
rest fled to Carpathia. ‘The patients,’ says Hecker,[76] ‘lay in tents,
and without care or medical help awaited an almost certain death. The
city itself afforded a sight of complete disorder; the houses were
deserted and stood with open windows and doors, the air was poisoned
with the odour of accumulated refuse, and the general devastation bore
silent witness to the most extreme misery. In addition to that, there
were multitudes of savage, ravenous dogs, which dug up the dead and
menaced the sick.’
Conditions were just as bad in Jassy when Orraeus arrived there on May
10; of the inhabitants and of the Russian garrison more than half had
died, while many streets were entirely depopulated. Since the persons
infected with the disease were placed out in a near-by forest, where
they were left without care, many patients were concealed inside the
houses and their bodies afterwards secretly buried in gardens and
cellars. There was no medical help, since both of the Greek physicians
had fled from the city. On May 20 the Russian troops, at the instigation
of Orraeus, withdrew from Jassy; a convent was converted into a
hospital, and soon after that the pestilence began to subside. By June
22 it had disappeared.
In Wallachia the disease broke out somewhat later than in Moldavia, and
with considerably less severity. In Bucharest it lasted until May.
In Bender, situated in Bessarabia on the Dniester, there was a mild
epidemic of bubonic plague after the city had been stormed on September
16, 1770. The carrying-off of war-booty caused new pestilences in the
army and in the population of Podolia and Little Russia. For a short
time in the last part of September the main army also suffered from
plague in its fixed quarters on the Pruth.
The Turkish army, which passed the winter in Bulgaria, was severely
attacked by plague, but no further information about this outbreak is
available.
In February 1771, Moldavia and Wallachia suffered very little from
plague, although there were occasional outbreaks here and there (for
example, in Bucharest) until the year 1773; but these were always of
short duration.
The transplantation of this disease into neighbouring countries,
especially Russia and its capital, was of particular importance. In
consequence of the widespread occurrence of bubonic plague in Moldavia
and Wallachia when the war broke out in the spring of 1770, large
numbers of fugitives from those parts gathered along the border of
Transylvania, where a quarantine establishment was opened at Törzburg
(south-west of Kronstadt). In Rukur, a border-village of Wallachia,
whither large numbers of people fled daily, a Jewess succumbed at the
end of April to bubonic plague, and in the course of the next eight
weeks 60 more people died. From there the pestilence spread to
neighbouring localities, in which 615 out of 3,000 inhabitants
(including 31 outsiders) died. The climax of the plague was in
September. It gradually spread throughout the border-towns of
Transylvania, but only in occasional instances did it reach the interior
of the country; all told, there were 1,024 deaths from the pestilence in
Transylvania in the year 1770.
Since all the supplies of the Russian army were conveyed to it on Polish
wagons, Polish peasants contracted the disease in the infected
countries, and then spread it throughout Poland. Jewish pedlars, who
purchased clothes, furs, and war-booty in the Russian camp, likewise
helped to spread the disease. In Poland the plague became unusually
widespread, particularly in Podolia, Volhynia, and in the eastern part
of Galicia; 47 cities and 580 villages, according to Chenot, were
attacked, and 275 of the latter were almost completely wiped out. The
total loss in these regions is estimated at 250,000. But the disease
penetrated no further into Poland, and Warsaw did not suffer at all.
Southern Russia was attacked later than Poland—not until August 1770.
Kiev was the first of several cities in which the plague broke out; the
disease, which was borne there on infected wares from Podolia, carried
away 20,000 people, about one-fifth of the population of the city.
Fugitives from Kiev conveyed the pestilence to many cities and villages
in Little Russia, while troops returning from Bender helped to spread it
in the north. In Nieskin, a city in Ukraine, the plague caused horrible
devastation; it broke out there for the second time in the year 1771,
and carried away from 8,000 to 10,000 people.
It was generally believed that the severe epidemic of bubonic plague
which raged in Moscow in the year 1771 was directly connected with the
expedition against the Turks. At that time the city had some 230,000
inhabitants; the streets, full of filth, were narrow, and the houses,
most of which were one-story wooden structures, stood close together.
According to Hecker, the beginning of the plague is obscure; fugitives
from the scene of the war, and wool imported from Poland or Ukraine are
both given as the original means of dissemination, but inasmuch as the
disease was so widespread in the south, it is probable that it was
conveyed to the north in various ways. Schafonsky, writing in Russian,
described the plague in an excellent book, of which Hecker made use; the
description by a surgeon named Samoilowitz,[77] who did good service
during the plague, contracted the disease himself, and was roughly
treated in a revolt, according to Hecker, lacks scientific merit and is
unreliable. In November and December, 1770, there were a few suspected
cases in a hospital in the eastern part of the city; Schafonsky
diagnosed the disease as bubonic plague, while the medical officer of
the city called it typhus fever. By means of strict isolation and other
measures this outbreak was soon entirely checked. As early as January
and February, however, indubitable cases of plague had occurred, but
they were kept secret. The epidemic really began in the Imperial
cloth-manufactory, where 3,000 working-men were employed; not until 130
people had died within eight weeks, was this fact made known on March 9,
1771. Since many of the working-men lived in the city and had meanwhile
conveyed the disease to their homes, the measures of prevention came too
late. The patients were now taken to a convent in Ukresh (near Moscow),
while all the rest of the employees were quarantined. But these measures
merely helped to spread the disease, since many of the working-men, in
order to escape being quarantined, fled and concealed themselves in the
city. When it became known that bubonic plague was present in Moscow,
the nobility fled to the country. The people themselves refused to
listen to any advice; nobody believed in contagion, and in September
there was actually a revolt in the city against the measures that had
been adopted to check the epidemic. The compulsory confinement in
hospitals of infected people and the quarantining of their families led
to numerous concealments. In July the pestilence had already become very
widespread; many houses in the suburbs were empty, the courts of justice
and workshops were closed, and, since nurses and grave-diggers were
dying off rapidly, convicts were employed to do their work. In the
southern part of the city a convent was converted into a hospital, and
at the end of July only one attendant was on hand there to take care of
1,000 patients. The epidemic reached its climax in September, when from
600 to 1,000 persons died every day. By January 1772, the pestilence had
disappeared. From the month of April 1771 on, the number of people that
contracted the disease and the number that died were officially
recorded; the number of deaths (excluding the bodies buried in secret)
was:
_Months._ _Total no. deaths._ _Deaths in Hospitals._
April (1771) 778
May 878 56
June 1,099 105
July 1,708 298
August 7,268 845
September 21,401 1,640
October 17,561 2,626
November 5,235 1,769
December 805 456
January (1772) 330
The number of deaths, which at that time averaged 7,000 per annum in
Moscow, thus increased to 58,000 (including some 1,000 secret burials),
and at least 52,000 were directly due to the epidemic. About 150 priests
were victims of their calling.
During the pestilence there was constant intercourse between Moscow and
the surrounding country, since the necessaries of life had to be brought
to the city, where clothes and household goods were to be bought very
cheaply. Thus most of the villages and cities in the surrounding country
were infected. Some of the latter were almost completely depopulated,
while the estate-owners found protection by shutting themselves up in
their manors. Of the more distant cities Jaroslav-on-the-Volga was very
severely attacked, while Borowsk, Kaluga, and Tula suffered somewhat
less. St. Petersburg was the only city to prohibit outsiders from
entering, and it was consequently spared.