CHAPTER I.

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:

http://www.archive.org/details/picturesgermanl00freygoog

PICTURES

OF

GERMAN LIFE

In the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries.

BY

GUSTAV FREYTAG.

=Translated from the Original by=

MRS. MALCOLM.

_COPYRIGHT EDITION.--IN TWO VOLUMES_.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY.

1862.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.

CONTENTS.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.

Introduction--Retrospect of the results of the sixteenth

century--Greater development of individuality--Defects of

Protestantism--A more elevated tone in Catholicism--Contrast of the

Roman and German systems--Political weakness of Protestantism--The

Hapsburgers--Discontent in the people

CHAPTER I.

The Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1638). The Army--Strength of

the Army--Cost--Method of conducting the war--Political events

of it--Organization of the army--The officers and the

banners--Pay--Discipline--Punishments--Camp followers and their

discipline--Description of a Soldier's Life before the War, by Adam

Junghans

CHAPTER II.

The Thirty Years' War. Life and Manners of the Soldiers (1618

to 1648)--Intermixture of nations--The camp; gambling; luxury;

scarcity--Superstition--Vices--Camp language--The

cartel--Booty--Partisan service and spies--Marauders--Oppression

CHAPTER III.

The Thirty Years' War. The Villagers and their Pastors (1618 to

1648)--State of the villages--Position and manners of the

peasantry--Effects of the war; money perplexities; quartering of

troops; tortures--Fear; insolence; lawlessness--Love of home--The

pastors and their endurance--Fate of the Pastor Bötzinger

CHAPTER IV.

The Thirty Years' War. Clippers of Money and Public Opinion (1618 to

1648)--The commencement of newspapers--Struggle of the press at the

beginning of the war--The _kipper_ time--Money coining--Depreciation of

the coinage in 1621, and its effect upon the people--Discovery of the

danger; excitement; storm in the press--Specimen from the flying-sheet

_expurgatio der kipper_--Theological controversial writings--Enthusiasm

for Gustavus Adolphus--Character of that king--Dialogue between

the king and the envoy of Brandenburg--The fate of Gustavus

Adolphus--Opposition of the press to Sweden--Patriotism of the German

press--The Flying-Sheet, the German Brutus--The benefit of Sweden to

Germany

CHAPTER V.

The Thirty Years' War. The Cities (1618 to 1648)--Aspect of the cities

in 1618--Effects of the war; luxury; contributions; sieges--Religious

persecution--The Ladies of Löwenberg

CHAPTER VI.

The Thirty Years' War. The Peace (1650)--Festivities of the Ambassadors

at Nuremberg--Festive Fair in a Thuringian Village--Condition of the

country after the war--Its devastation--Attempted estimation of it--The

consequences to the Austrian provinces

CHAPTER VII.

Rogues and Adventurers--Their increase during the war--Their

history--The strollers of the middle ages--Gipsies and their

language--Gibberish and beggars--Travelling scholars--Robbers and

incendiaries--Foreign jugglers--Description of Strolling Players,

by Garzoni--Comedians, and influence of adventurers on

literature--Swindlers of distinction--Alchemists

CHAPTER VIII.

Engagement and Marriage at Court (1661)--Fashion and gallantry, a

foreign means of preserving decorum--Courtly Wooing and Marriage at

Vienna--The Royal families--The Elector Palatine Carl Ludwig--Letter of

the Electress Palatine Charlotte to the Emperor--Judgment upon her and

her husband

CHAPTER IX.

Of the Homes of German Citizens (1675)--Order and decorum in

wooing--Narrative of Friedrich Lucä--Change in expression of feelings

of the heart--Life at home--Prosperity of Hamburg--Letter of

Burgomaster Schulte to his Son in Lisbon--Strong sense of duty in

men--Berend Jacob Carpfanger--Sorrowful tidings from Cadiz

CHAPTER X.

German Life at the Baths (1690)--Distinction of ranks--Forms of

society--Bath life--Poggio--Baths in the Fifteenth Century, by

Poggio--In the Sixteenth, by Pantaleon--In the Seventeenth, by de

Merveilleux--In the Eighteenth, by Hess

CHAPTER XI.

Jesuits and Jews--Decay of the Church--Protestants and Catholics--The

Jesuits also weaker--Position of the Jews since the middle ages--Their

lucrative business--The Jews at Prague Story of Simon Abeles--Victory

of humanity over religious intolerance

CHAPTER XII.

The Wasunger War (1747)--Weakness of the German Empire--Division

of classes wider--Anthony Ulrich von Meiningen and Philippine

Cesar--Quarrels at the Court of Meiningen--Cause of the war--Diary of

the Gotha Lieutenant Rauch

Conclusion. From Frederick the Great up to the present time--Object of

these pictures--The mind of the people

PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND VOLUME.

The year 1600 dawned upon a people who had gone through a vast change in

the last century. Everywhere we perceive marks of progress. Let us

compare any learned book of the year 1499 with one of 1599. The former

is written in bad Latin, poor in diction, ponderous in composition, and

not easy of comprehension. Of independent spirit and individual

conviction we find little trace. There are undoubtedly exceptions, but

they are very rare. Even the Latin of the earlier Humanitarians reminds

us of the subtle vapidness of monkish language, almost as much as of the

artistic phrases of ancient rhetoricians. We are sometimes surprised to

find in the theology, an undercurrent of deep-thinking speculations of

elevated grandeur; but it is a kind of secret doctrine of souls

depressed under the constraint of the cloister. It is certainly

philosophy, but deprived of vitality.

A century later we discover, even in mediocre authors, a certain

independent individuality. The writers begin to reflect on human life

and faith; they understand how to represent their own feelings and the

emotions of the soul, and struggles for their own convictions. Yet still

they remain too much bound by general prescription, and there is still

much that is monotonous, according to our views, in their judgment and

learning, and the cultivation of their minds. But in their prose we find

a peculiar and often original style, and almost always a stronger and

more active common sense. Three generations struggled for their faith,

many individuals perished for their convictions, and thousands were

plunged in misery. Martyrdom was no longer a monstrous and unheard-of

thing, and men maintained their own judgment on the highest questions.

There were few souls strong enough to do this a century earlier; then,

among the people, individuals passed their lives without any community

of ideas or activity of mind, seeking in the narrow circle of their

associates no advantage save that of support against insufferable

oppression; that alone was the purport of their struggles. But now

enthusiasm had been called forth in the nation, the individual felt

himself in close connection with millions, he was carried along the

stream by the unanimous impulse of all who were like-minded; he acted

and suffered for an idea; this was especially the case with the

Protestants; and even Roman Catholics partook of this blessing: so much

nobler had men become.

But every higher development produces new defects; the child is free

from many complaints which attack the youth. Protestantism, which had

done so much for the people, did not for a long time achieve its

greatest results. It required the unceasing inward workings of the minds

of individuals; it gave an impulse everywhere to self-decision, and yet

it could not raise itself above the worst principles of the old Church.

It wished still to dominate over the faith of its disciples and to

persecute as heresy every deviation from its convictions. Luther's giant

nature had been able to keep zealous spirits united, but he himself had

predicted that after his death they would not remain so. He knew his

faithful adherents accurately; their weaknesses, and their eagerness to

carry out their own views. Melancthon, who though firm in his theology

and in the every-day troubles of life, was embarrassed and uncertain in

matters of great import, could not command the fiery spirits of more

determined characters. At that Imperial Diet which was held at Augsburg

in 1547, the victorious Emperor had endeavoured, in his way, to compose

the disputes of the Churches, and had pressed upon the vanquished

Protestants a preliminary formula of faith, called the Interim. From the

point of view of the Roman Catholics, it was considered as extreme

toleration, which was only bearable because it gradually led back to the

Old Church; from the point of view of zealous Protestants, it was held

to be insupportable tyranny, which ought to be withstood. The

ecclesiastical leaders of the opposition rose everywhere against this

tyranny; hundreds of preachers were driven from their benefices and went

about with their staffs as miserable pilgrims, and many fell victims to

the furious reaction. It was the heroic time of the Protestant faith;

simple preachers, fathers with wives and children, manfully suffered for

their convictions, and were soon followed by thousands of laity.

But this enthusiasm was fraught with danger. The Interim was the

beginning of vehement theological disputes, even among Luther's

followers. The struggle of individuals became also the struggle of the

Universities. The successors of Frederick the Wise lost the University

of Wittenberg as well as the Electoral dignity; Melancthon and the

Wittenbergers were under the influence of Maurice and his brothers;

while the most zealous Lutherans were assembled at the new University of

Jena.

This race of vehement men was followed by another generation of

_Epigonen_. At the end of the century German Protestantism appeared in

most of the provinces to be secure from outward dangers. Then the

ecclesiastics became too self-sufficient and fond of power--the failings

of a privileged order. Influential counsellors of weak princes, and

rulers of public opinion, they themselves persecuted other believers

with the weapons of the old Church. They sometimes called down the civil

power upon heretics; and the populace stormed the houses of the

Reformers in Leipzig; at Dresden a courtly ecclesiastic was executed on

account of heresy, though perhaps there may also have been political

reasons. Thus this new life threw deep shadows over the souls of the

people.

In Roman Catholic territories also, a vigorous and extraordinary life

was roused. The Roman Catholic Church gave birth to a new discipline of

the mind, a mode of human culture distinctly opposed to Protestantism.

Even in the old Church a greater depth of inward life was attained. A

new system of rapturous excitement and self-denial, with high duties and

an exalted ideal, was offered to satisfy the needs of the souls of the

faithful. In Spain and Italy this new religious zeal was aroused, full

of resignation and self-sacrifice, full of great talent, eagerness for

combat, and glowing enthusiasm, and rich in manly vigour. But it was not

a faith for Germans. It demanded the annihilation of free individuality,

a rending from all the ties of the world, fanatical devotion, and an

unconditional subjection of the individual to a great community. Each

one had to make an offering of his life for a great aim, without

criticism or scruple. Whilst Protestantism formed a higher standard, and

imposed on each individual, the duty of seeking independently by an

effort of his own mind, the key to divine and human knowledge, the new

Catholicism grasped his whole being with an iron hand. Protestantism

was, notwithstanding all the loyalty of the Reformers, essentially

democratic; the new Catholicism concentrated all the powers of men, of

which it demanded the most unhesitating submission, in a spiritual

tyranny, under the dominion of the head of the Church, and afterwards

under that of the State.

The great representatives of this new tendency in Church and State were

the Jesuits. In the impassioned soul of a Spanish nobleman smouldered

the gloomy fire of the new Catholic teaching; amidst ascetic penances,

in the restricted intercourse of a small brotherhood, the system was

formed. In the year 1540 the Pope confirmed the brotherhood, and shortly

after, the first members of the order hastened across the Alps and the

Rhine into Germany, and began already to rule in the council of Trent.

Their unhesitating determination strengthened the weak, and frightened

the wavering. With wonderful rapidity the order established itself in

Germany, where the old faith still subsisted along with the new; it

acquired favour with the higher classes, and a crowd of adherents

amongst the people. Some princes gave up to it the spiritual dominion of

their countries, above all the Hapsburgers; and besides them, the German

princes of the Church, who could not uphold by their own intrinsic

strength, the wavering faith of their subjects: and lastly the Dukes of

Bavaria, who for more than a century had been in the habit of seeking

advantage for their house in a close union with Rome. When the

brotherhood first entered Germany the whole nation was on the point of

becoming Protestant; even at the beginning of the Thirty years' war,

after losses and successes on both sides, three fourths of Germany were

Protestant; but in the year 1650, the whole of the new Imperial state,

and the largest third of the rest of Germany, had again become Roman

Catholic. So well did these foreign priests serve their Church.

The way in which they worked was marvellous; cautiously, step by step,

with endless schemes, and firm determination, never wavering, bending to

the storm, and indefatigably returning again, never giving up what they

had once begun, pursuing the smallest, as well as the greatest plans at

any sacrifice, this society presented the only specimen of an

unconditional submission of the will, and surrender of everything to one

idea, which did not find expression in individuals, but only in the

society. The order governed, but no single member of it was free, not

even the General of the order.

The society gained honour and favour; it understood well how to make

itself beloved, or indispensable wherever it came; but it never found a

home in Germany. Its fearful principle of mystery and secrecy was felt,

not only by the Protestants, who endeavoured to break its power by

their paper weapons, the flying-sheets, and made it answerable for

every political misdeed, whether far or near, but also in the Roman

Catholic countries. Even there it was only a guest, influential

certainly, and much prized, but from time to time ecclesiastics and

laity felt that it was a thing apart from them. All the other spiritual

societies had become national,--the Jesuits never. It is not unnatural

that this feeling was strongest among the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics,

for their worldly prospects were often injured by the Jesuits.

Thus from the middle of the sixteenth century two opposite methods of

mental cultivation, two different sources of morals and working power

have struggled against one another. Devotion and unconditional

subjection, against feelings of duty and thoughtful self-assertion;

rapid and unhesitating decision, against conscientious doubts; a spirit

of energy, working laboriously with much deliberation and scheming after

distant aims, against defective discipline; and an urging to unity,

against a striving for separation.

These opposing powers appeared everywhere, especially in politics and at

the courts of princes. Protestantism in its unfinished shape, though it

had elevated the people, was no help to the formation of the character

of the German princes; it had raised higher their external power, but it

had lessened their inward stability; their youthful training became in

general too theological to be practical. However immoral many of them

were, they all suffered from conscientious doubts; and there was no

ready answer for these doubts, such as the Roman Catholic confessor had

always in store for them. The Protestant princes stood isolated; there

was no firm bond of union between the Churches of the different states,

but much trivial quarrelling and bitter hatred, not only between

Lutherans and Reformers, but even amongst the followers of the Augsburg

confession; and this diminished the strength of the princes. Whilst the

priests of the Roman Catholic Church did their best to unite their

rulers, the Protestant ecclesiastics helped to increase the disunion of

theirs. So it is not surprising, that the Protestants for a long time

stood at a disadvantage in their political struggle with the old faith.

The Germans had not yet found, and did not for centuries attain to, the

new constitution of State, which transfers the mainspring of government

from the accidental will of the ruler, to the conscience of the nation,

and which places in a regulated path, citizens of talent and integrity

as advisers to the crown; public opinion was still weak, the daily press

not yet in existence, and the relation between the political rights of

the princes and the people very undefined.

Protestantism had everywhere produced political convulsions, from the

peasant war even into the following century. The Reformation had

unloosed all tongues, it had given the Germans a freer judgment upon

their position as citizens, and had inspired individuals with the

courage to fight for their own convictions. The peasant now loudly

murmured against exorbitant burdens, the members of guilds against the

selfish dominion of the corporations, and the noble members of the

provincial estates against the extravagant demands of the sovereign for

war expenses. The wild democratic disturbances of 1525 were with

Luther's entire approbation easily put down, but democratic tendencies

did not therefore cease, and together with them, anabaptist and

socialist views spread from city to city. Their teaching, which scarcely

forms a system, took a different colouring in different individuals,

from the harmless theorist who imagined a community of good citizens

without egotism, full of self-abnegation, as did the talented Eberlin,

to the reckless fanatic who tried to establish a new Zion at Münster,

with an illusive community of goods and wives. These excitements lost

their power towards the end of the century, but still continued to

ferment among the people, especially in those provinces, where the

Protestant opposition of the estates excited the people against the old

faith of the rulers of the country. Thus it was in Bohemia, Moravia, and

Upper Austria. The more zealously the Hapsburgers endeavoured, by means

of the Jesuits, to restore the old faith, the more it was kept in check,

even in their own country, by the demands of the opposition in the

estates, and the commotions among the people. And well did they perceive

the threatening connection of this opposition to their house. Two ways

only were therefore open to them, either they must themselves have

become Protestants, which they found impossible, or they must have

resolutely destroyed the dangerous teaching and pretensions which upset

the souls of men everywhere, especially in their own country. The

Hapsburger appeared who attempted this.

Meanwhile the spirit of the old Church had been raised, by the great

victories which it had gained in other countries. The Protestant princes

combined against the threatened offensive movement of the Roman Catholic

party, as before at Smalkald, and the Roman Catholic party answered by

the formation of the League; but the object at heart, of the League was

attack, while that of the Protestants was only defence.

This was the political state of Germany before the Thirty years' war; a

most unsatisfactory state. Discontent was general, a mournful tendency,

a disposition to prophecy evil, were the significant signs of the times.

Every deed of violence which was announced to the people in the

flying-sheets, was accompanied by remarks on the bad times. And yet we

know for certain that immorality had not become strikingly greater in

the country. There was wealth in the cities, and even in the country

increase of prosperity; there was regular government everywhere, better

order and greater security of existence, luxury and an inordinate love

of enjoyment had undoubtedly increased, together with riches; even among

the lower strata of the people greed was awakened, life became more

varied and dearer, and much indifference began to be shown concerning

the quarrels of ecclesiastics. The best began to be gloomy, and even

cheerful natures, like the honest Bartholomäus Ringwald, became prophets

of misfortune, and wished for death.

And there was good reason for this gloom. There was something diseased

in the life of Germany, an incomprehensible burden weighed it down,

which marred its development. Luther's teaching, it is true, produced

the greatest spiritual and intellectual progress which Germany had ever

made through one man, but the demands of life increased with every

expansion of the soul. The new mental culture must be followed by a

corresponding advance in earthly condition, a greater independence in

faith, demanded imperiously a stronger power of political development

But it was precisely this teaching, which appeared like the early dawn

of a better life, that conveyed to the people the consciousness of their

own political weakness, and by this weakness they became one-sided and

narrow minded. Germany being divided into countless territories under

weak princes, its people everywhere involved in and occupied with

trifling disputes, were deficient in that which is indispensable to a

genial growth; they needed a general elevation, a great united will, and

a sphere of moral duties, which alone makes men pre-eminently cheerful

and manly. The fatherland of the Germans extended probably from Lorraine

to the Oder, but in no single portion of it did they live like the

citizens of Elizabeth or Henry IV.

Thus already inwardly diseased, Germany entered upon a war of thirty

years. When the war ended, there was little remaining of the great

nation. For yet a century to come, the successors of the survivors were

deficient in that most manly of all feelings,--political enthusiasm.

Luther had raised his people out of the epic life of the middle ages.

The Thirty years' war had destroyed the popular strength, and forced the

Germans into individual life, the mental constitution of which one may

truly call lyrical. That which will here be depicted from the accounts

of cotemporaries, is a sad joyless time.

CHAPTER I.

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--THE ARMY.

The opposition between the interests of the house of Hapsburg and of the

German nation, and between the old and new faith, led to a bloody

catastrophe. If any one should inquire how such a war could rage through

a whole generation, and so fearfully exhaust a powerful people, he will

receive this striking answer, that the war was so long and terrible,

because none of the contending parties were able to carry it out on a

great and decisive scale.

The largest armies in the Thirty years' war did not exceed in strength

one corps of a modern army. Tilly considered forty thousand men the

greatest number of troops that a general could wish to have. It was only

occasionally that an army reached that strength; almost all the great

battles were fought by smaller bodies of men. Numerous were the

detachments, and very great were the losses by skirmishes, illnesses,

and desertion. As there was no regular system for maintaining the

strength of the army, its effective amount fluctuated in a remarkable

way. Once, indeed, Wallenstein united a larger force under his

command--according to some accounts a hundred thousand men--but they

did not form one army, nay, they were hardly in any military connection,

for the undisciplined bands with which, in 1629, he subdued the German

territories of the Emperor, were dispersed over half Germany. Such large

masses of soldiers appeared to all parties as a terrible venture; they

could not, in fact, be kept under control, and after that, no general

commanded more than half that number.[1]

An army in order of battle was considered as a movable fortress, the

central point of which was the General himself, who ruled all the

details; he had to survey the ground and every position, and every

attack was directed by him. Adjutantcies and staff service were hardly

established. It was part of the strategy to keep the army together in

masses, to defend the ranks by earth-works, and not to allow horse or

man to be out of observation and control. In marching also, the army was

kept close together in narrow quarters, generally within the space of a

camp; from this arose commissariat difficulties, the high-roads were

bad, often almost impassable, the conveyance of provisions compulsory,

and always ill-regulated: and worst of all, the army was attended by an

intense baggage-train, which, with the wild-robber system, quickly

wasted the most fertile countries.

Great care was therefore taken that no such embarrassment should arise.

Neither the Emperor nor the Princes of the Empire were in a condition to

maintain forty thousand men out of their income even for three months.

The regular revenue of the sovereign was much less than now, and the

maintenance of an army far more costly. The greater part of the revenue

was derived from tithes in kind, which in time of war was insecure and

difficult to realize. The finances of the parties engaged in this war

were even at the commencement of it in a most lamentable state.

In the winter of 1619 and 1620, half the Bohemian army died of hunger

and cold, from the want of pay and a commissariat; in September 1620,

more than four and a half million of gulden of pay was owing to the

troops, and there were endless mutinies, and the King Palatine Frederick

could not aid his Protestant allies with subsidies. The Emperor was then

not in much better condition, but he soon afterwards obtained Spanish

subsidies. When the Elector of Saxony, whose finances were better

regulated, first hired fifteen hundred men in December, 1619, he could

not pay them regularly. What was granted by the estates in war taxes,

and the so-called voluntary contributions of the opulent, did not go

far; loans even in the first year of the war were very difficult to

realize; they were attempted with the banking-houses of southern

Germany, and also in Hamburg, but seldom with success. City communities

were considered safer debtors than the great princes. There were

dealings about the smallest sums even with private individuals. Saxony

in 1621, hoped to get from fifty to sixty thousand guldens from the

Fuggers, and endeavoured in vain to borrow thirty and seventy thousand

gulden from capitalists. Maximilian of Bavaria, and the League, made a

great loan for the war of one million two hundred thousand gulden at

twelve per cent, from the merchants in Genoa, for this the Fuggers

became responsible, and the salt trade of Augsburg was given to them for

their security. Just one hundred years before, this said banking-house

had taken an important share in the election of the Emperor Charles V.,

and now it helped to secure the victory of the Roman Catholic party; for

the Bohemian war was decided even more by the want of money than by the

battle of the Weissen-Berge. Thus the war began with the governments

being in a general state of insolvency; and therefore the maintenance of

great armies became impossible.

It is evident that there was a fatal disproportion between the military

strength of the parties and the ultimate object of every war. None of

them could entirely subdue their opponents. The armies were too small,

and had too little durability, to be able to control by regular

strategic operations, the numerous and warlike people of wide-spread

districts. Whilst a victorious army was ruling near the Rhine or the

Oder, a new enemy was collecting in the north on the shores of the

Baltic. The German theatre of war, also, was not so constituted as to be

easily productive of lasting results. Almost every city, and many

country seats were fortified. The siege guns were still unwieldy and

uncertain in their aim, and the defence of fortified places was

proportionably stronger than the attack. Thus war became principally a

combat of sieges; every captured town weakened the victorious army, from

the necessity of leaving garrisons. When a province had been conquered,

the conqueror was often not in a position to withstand the conquered in

open battle. By new exertion the conqueror was driven from the field;

then followed fresh sieges and captures, and again fatal disruption of

strength.

It was a war full of bloody battles and glorious victories, and also of

excessive alternations of fortune. Numerous were the dark hero forms

that loomed out of the chaos of blood and fire; the iron Ernst von

Mansfeld, the fantastic Brunswicker, Bernhard of Weimar; and on the

other side, Maximilian of Bavaria, and the generals of the League,

Tilly, Pappenheim, and the able Mercy; the leaders of the Imperial army,

the daring Wallenstein and Altringer; the great French heroes, Condé and

Turenne, and amongst the Swedes, Horn, Bauer, Torstenson, Wrangel, and

above all the mighty prince of war, Gustavus Adolphus. How much manly

energy excited to the highest pitch, and yet how slow and poor were the

political results obtained! how quickly was again lost, what appeared to

have been obtained by the greatest amount of power! How often did the

parties themselves change the objects after which they were striving,

nay even the banner for which they desired victory!

The political events of the war can only be briefly mentioned here; they

may be divided into three periods. The first, from 1618 to 1630, is the

time of the Imperial triumphs. The Protestant estates of Bohemia,

contrary to law and their own word, refused the Bohemian crown to the

Archduke Ferdinand, and chose for their ruler the Elector Palatine, a

reformer. But by means of the League and the Lutheran Electors of

Saxony, Ferdinand became Emperor. His opponent was beaten in the battle

of the Weissen-Berge, and left the country as a fugitive. Here and

there, the Protestant opposition continued to blaze up, but divided,

without plan, and with weak resources. Baden-Durlach, the Mansfelder,

the Brunswicker, and lastly the circle of lower Saxony with the Danish

King, succumbed to the troops of the League and the Emperor. Ferdinand

II., who though Emperor, was still a fugitive in the states belonging to

his house, obtained through the assistance of an experienced mercenary

commander, Wallenstein, a large body of troops, whom he maintained in

the territory of the principality by contribution and pillage. Ever

greater did the Emperor's army continue to swell; ever higher rose his

claims in Germany and Italy: the old idea of Charles V. after the

Smalkaldic war became a living principle in the nephew; he would subdue

Germany, as his predecessor had done the peasants and the estates in

the Austrian provinces; he would crush all independence, the privileges

of cities, the rights of the estates, the pride and family power of

princes--he hoped to subjugate all Germany to his faith and his house.

But throughout the whole of Germany sounded a cry of grief and

indignation, at the horrible marauding war which was conducted by the

merciless general of the Hapsburger. All the allies of the Imperial

house rose threateningly against him. The Princes of the League, and

above all Maximilian of Bavaria, looked abroad for help; they subdued

the high spirit of the Emperor, and he was obliged to dismiss his

faithful General and to control the barbarous army. Nay, more, even the

Holy Father began to fear the Emperor. The Pope himself united with

France in order to bring Swedish help to the Protestants. The lion of

the north disembarked on the German coast.

Now began the second period of the war. The swelling billows of the

Roman Catholic power had overflowed Germany even up to the Northern Sea.

From 1630 to 1634 came the Protestant counter-current, which flowed in a

resistless course from north to south over the third part of Germany.

Even after the death of their king, the Swedish Generals kept their

ascendency in the field; Wallenstein himself abandoned the Emperor, and

was secretly murdered. The Roman Catholic party had begun to lose

courage, when, by a last effort of collected strength, it won the bloody

battle of Nördlingen.

Then followed the third period of fourteen years, from 1634 to 1648, in

which victory and reverses were nearly equal on both sides. The Swedes,

driven back to the Northern Sea, girding up their whole strength, again

burst forth into the middle of Germany. Again the tide of fortune ebbed

to and fro, becoming gradually less powerful. The French, greedy of

booty, spread themselves as far as the Rhine; the land was devastated,

and famine and pestilence raged. The Swedes, though losing one General

after another, kept the field and maintained their claims with unceasing

pertinacity. In opposition to them stood the equally inflexible

Maximilian, Prince of the League. Even in the last decade of the war,

the Bavarians fought for three years the most renowned campaigns which

this dynasty has to boast of. The fanatical Ferdinand was dead, his

successor, able, moderate, and an experienced soldier, persevered from

necessity; he also was firm and tenacious. No party could bring about a

decisive result. For years negotiations for peace were carried on;

whilst the generals fought, the cities and villages were depopulated and

the fields were overgrown with rank weeds. Peace came at last; it was

not brought about by great battles, nor by irresistible political

combinations, but chiefly by the weariness of the combatants, and

Germany celebrated it with festivities though she had lost three

fourths of her population.

All this gives to the Thirty years' war the appearance of foredoomed

annihilation, ushered in as it was by the most fearful visitations of

nature. Above the strife of parties a terrible fate spread its wings; it

carried off the leaders and prostrated them in the dust, the greatest

human strength became powerless under its hand; at last, satiated with

devastation and death, it turned its face slowly from the country which

had become a great charnel house.

It is not the intention of this work to characterize the Generals and

battles belonging to this period of struggle, but to speak of the

condition and circumstances of the German people, both of the

destructive and suffering portions of the population, of the army, alike

with the citizen and peasant. Since the Burgundian war and the Italian

battles of Maximilian and Charles V., the burgher infantry had thrown

into the background the knightly cavalry of the middle ages.

The strength of the German army consisted of Landsknechte, freemen,

either citizens or peasants, and among them occasionally a few nobles.

They were for the most part mercenaries, who bound themselves

voluntarily by contract to some banner for a time. They carried on war

like a trade, sternly, actively, and enduringly. But the full vigour of

their power was of short duration: their decadence may be dated from

their revolt against the old Fronsperg; from that hour when they broke

the heart of their father, the gray-headed Landsknecht hero. Many

things combined to corrupt this new infantry: they were mercenaries,

serving only for a time, accustomed to change their banner, and not to

fight for an idea, but only for booty or their own advantage. They were

not called into existence in consequence of the application of gunpowder

to the art of war; but they more especially appropriated this new

invention to themselves. The introduction of fire-arms into the army,

certainly first showed the weakness of their opponents, the old cavalry

of knighthood, but at the same time soon caused the diminution of their

own efficiency, for these weapons were too clumsy and slow to insure

victory on the battle-field. The final result still depended on the

rushing charge of the pikemen and the onslaught of their great masses on

the enemy.

To this was added other detrimental circumstances; there were as yet no

standing armies: when there was threatening of a feud, troops were

assembled by the territorial lords great and small, and by the cities,

and at the conclusion of the war they were dismissed. These wars were

generally short and local; even the Hungarian wars were only summer

campaigns of a few months. The German rulers, always in want of money,

endeavoured to help themselves by the depreciation of the coinage,

striking a lighter coin expressly for the payment of the soldiers, and

also by faithlessly paying them less than had been agreed upon. This

unworthy treatment demoralized the men, no less than the shortness of

the service. Thus the Landsknechte became deceived deceivers,

adventurers, plunderers and robbers.

The infantry at the beginning of the war used either fire-arms or pikes,

the former to open the enemy's ranks, the latter to decide the battle by

hand-to-hand fighting. At this period we find that the pikemen were the

heavy infantry; they wore breastplates, brassarts, swords, and a pike

eighteen feet long with an iron point, the handles of the best were of

ash; the lance-corporals and subaltern officers had halberds and

partisans. The two species of fire-arms which prevailed in the army were

the musketoon (which with the Imperialists was a heavy weapon six feet

long, with matchlocks and balls, of which there were ten in the pound)

and the short hand-gun, a weapon of lighter and smaller calibre, which

in the beginning of the war bore amongst the infantry the old name of

arquebuss. The musketeer wore also at his side a hanger, a weapon with a

small curved point, and over his shoulder a bandolier with eleven

cylindrical cases in which the charges were placed, a match holder, and

a musket rest, a staff with a metal point and two metal prongs, on the

top of which the musketeer laid his weapon: his head was covered with a

helmet or morion; this last piece of armour was soon discarded. The foot

arquebussier did not carry a rest or a shoulder-belt; he loaded from his

shot-pouch and powder-horn. There were pikemen and musketeers in the

same company, and long even before the great war there were companies in

which fire-arms alone were borne. Out of the light infantry were formed,

in the middle of the war, what were called rifle companies, but among

whom only a few had rifles. The grenadiers, who threw hand-grenades,

were then formed in small numbers; for instance, in 1634, by the Swedes

at the siege of Ratisbon.

At the beginning of the war the pikemen, as heavy infantry, were

considered of importance, and they were put down in the muster-rolls as

receiving double pay; but in the course of it they were found to be too

unwieldy for long marches, helpless in attack, in short, almost useless,

since the last decision of the battle now devolved upon the cavalry;

thus they gradually sank into contempt, and the clever judgment

pronounced by the jovial Springinsfeld, accurately expresses the view

that was taken of their utility. "A musketeer is indeed a poor, much

harassed creature; but he lives in splendid happiness compared to a

miserable pikeman: it is vexatious to think what hardships the poor

simpletons endure; no one who had not experienced it themselves could

believe it, and I think whoever kills a pikeman whom he could save,

murders an innocent man, and can never be excused such a barbarous deed:

for although these poor draught oxen--they were so called in

derision--are formed to defend their brigades in the open field from the

onslaught of the cavalry, yet they themselves do no one any injury, and

he who throws himself upon their long spears deserves what he gets. In

short, I have during my life seen many sharp encounters, but seldom

found that a pikeman ever caused the death of any one." Nevertheless the

pikemen kept their ground till towards the end of the seventeenth

century. The musketeers who were, however, the great mass of the

infantry, were rendered more agile by Gustavus Adolphus; he discarded

from the Swedish army the musket rests, lightened their weapons and the

calibre of the balls, of which there were thirteen to the pound, and

introduced instead of the rattling bandoliers, paper cartridges and

pockets; but the musketeers, without bayonets, slow in firing,

unaccustomed to fight in close ranks, were little fitted to decide an

engagement.

The influence of the cavalry on the other hand increased. At the

beginning of the war there were two contending principles concerning

them, the method and arming of old knightly traditions were mixed up

with the Landsknechte characteristics, many of whom were also horsemen.

The heavy cavalry were still considered an aristocratic corps, the

nobleman still placed himself with his charger, his knightly armour, his

old knightly lance, and his troop of vassals, for whom he drew pay,

under the standard of the cavalry regiments. But the war made an end

gradually of this remnant of old customs. It was still, however, an

object of ambition to join the army as a soldier of fortune, either with

an esquire or alone, and whoever estimated himself highly or had made

much booty, thronged to the cavalry standard. In the German army there

were four kinds of regular cavalry, the Lancers, in full armour even to

the knightly spurs, without shield, with the knightly lance or the spear

of the Landsknechte, a sword, and two holster pistols; the Cuirassiers,

with similar armour, pistols and sword; the Arquebussiers, called later

Carbineers, half armed, with morion, and pistol proof back and breast

pieces, with two pistols and an arquebuss on a small bandolier; finally

the Dragoons, mounted pikemen, or musketeers, who fought either on foot

or on horseback. Besides these there were irregular cavalry Croats,

Stradiots, and Hussars, who almost a century before, in 1546, had made a

great sensation in Germany when Duke Maurice of Saxony borrowed them

from King Ferdinand of Bohemia. Their appearance was not displeasing;

they wore Turkish armour, a sabre, and a targe, but they were wild

robbers, and in the worst repute. Gustavus Adolphus brought to Germany

only Cuirassiers and Dragoons. His Cuirassiers were more lightly armed

than the Imperial, but far superior to them in energy of attack. During

the whole war the endeavour of the cavalry was to lighten their heavy

armour; the more the army separated into military companies the more

pressing was the necessity for greater activity.

In the sixteenth century the heavy guns were very varied in calibre and

length of barrel, and had divers curious names. The sharp metz, the

carronade, culverin and nightingale, the singer, the falcon and the

falconet, the field serpent and serpentine, with balls from one hundred

pounds down to one pound, besides the organ,[2] mortars large and small,

rifle-barrelled guns and rifles. But in the beginning of the Thirty

years' war the forms were already simplified; they cast forty-eight, and

twenty-four pounders, twelve and six pounders, with forty-two,

twenty-four, twelve and six pound balls;[3] the first were fortress and

siege guns, the last were field guns; besides these, disproportionately

long culverins and falconets, also chamber pieces for throwing shells,

or bomb mortars which were soon called howitzers, smaller mortars for

throwing fire-balls, stinkpots, &c.; and in the beginning of the war

bombarders, which fired pieces of iron, lead, small shot, and stones.

Lastly from forged pieces they fired half-ounce bullets, double,

single, and half-hooks, or grappling irons. But the length of the

barrels of the guns was too long for balls; the powder was bad, and the

aim consequently uncertain. Gustavus Adolphus introduced shorter and

lighter guns; his leather cannon, made of copper cylinders with thick

hemp and leather coverings[4] held together by iron hoops, soon ceased

to be used, probably because they were not sufficiently durable, but his

short four-pounders, two of which were given to every regiment, and

which worked best with grape shot, lasted over the war. These field

pieces fired not only from position but were moved with tolerable

rapidity during action, but the bombardes and petards were unwieldy; the

last were twisted round with ropes more like a sort of cannon than our

bombs and grenades, but were of uncertain effect because the locks were

badly prepared and they did not measure the time for the explosion. The

old disposition of the Germans to give life to the inanimate had already

in earlier times bestowed especial names on favourite guns, and the

custom remained, even after pieces of the same calibre were cast in

greater numbers; then particular guns, for example, were called after

the planets, months, and signs of the zodiac, like a high sounding

alphabet,[5] and in this case indicated by single letters. There was

always a new name given according to the calibre, which in spite of all

the simplification was still very varied. The progress of artillery and

its influence on the conduct of war was impeded in the last half of the

war by the want of experienced master gunners, the greater portion of

them were infantry commanders; the loss of an artillery officer of

capacity was difficult to replace.

The relative numbers of particular branches of the service were changed

during the war. In the beginning the proportion of the cavalry to the

infantry was as one to five, but soon they became one to three, and in

the latter period they were sometimes the strongest. This striking fact

is a proof both of the deterioration of the troops and of the art of

war. In the exhausted country, the army could only be maintained by a

strong force of cavalry, who could forage further and change their

ground with more rapidity. As all who hoped for independence or booty

pressed into the cavalry it was in better condition proportionately than

the infantry, who at last were reduced to support themselves by reaping

the scanty remains left by the horsemen. Undoubtedly the cavalry also

became worse, the want of good horses was at last more sensibly felt

than that of men, and the heavy cavalry could not be kept up, whilst in

the last year the service of the scouts and foraging parties for the

commissariat was brought to great perfection. Nevertheless the cavalry

were the most effective, for it was their task to decide the battle by

their charge. The last army with skilled infantry and Dutch discipline

was that of Bavaria under Mercy, from 1643 to 1645.

The tactics of armies had slowly altered in the course of the century.

The old Landsknecht army advanced to battle in three great squares,--the

advanced guard, the main body, and the rear guard--disregarding roads

and corn-fields; before it went pioneers, who filled in ditches and cut

down hedges to clear the way for the bulky mass. For battle, the deep

square masses of infantry placed themselves side by side, each square

mass consisted of many companies, sometimes of many regiments; the

cavalry formed in a similar deep position at the wings. There was no

regular reserve, only sometimes one of the three masses was kept back

for the final decision; a select body of men, the forlorn hope, was

formed for dangerous service, such as forcing the passage of a river,

covering an important point, or turning the enemy's flank. Since

fire-arms had prevailed over pikes, these great battalions were

surrounded by files of sharpshooters, and at last special bodies of

sharpshooters were formed and attached to them. In the war in the

Netherlands, the unwieldiness of these heavy squares led to breaking the

order of battle into smaller tactical bodies. But it was only slowly,

that formation in line and a system of reserve were organized. Much of

the old method continued in the Imperial army in the beginning of the

war. Still the companies of infantry were united in deep squares--in

battalions. To take firm positions and assume defensive warfare had

become too much the custom in inglorious campaigns against the wild

storming Turks. The weight and tenacity of deep masses might certainly

be effective, but if the enemy succeeded in bringing his guns to bear

upon them, they suffered fearfully, and were very unwieldy in all their

movements. Gustavus Adolphus adopted the tactical innovations of the

Netherlanders in an enlightened way; when in battle he placed the

infantry six, and the cavalry only three deep; he distributed the great

masses into small divisions, which firmly connected together, formed

the unity of the Swedish brigade; he strengthened the cavalry, placing

between them companies of sharpshooters, and introduced light artillery

regiments besides those that were in reserve and position, and

accustomed his soldiers to rapid offensive movements and daring

advances. His infantry fired quicker than the Imperial, and at the

battle of Breitenfeld the old Walloon regiments of Tilly were routed by

their close platoon firing; he also laid down for his cavalry, those

very rules by which a century later Frederick the Great made his, the

first in the world; viz., not to stop in order to fire, but at the

quickest pace to rush upon the enemy.

During the battle the soldiers recognized one another by their war-cries

and distinguishing marks, the officers by their scarfs. For example, at

Breitenfeld Tilly's army wore white bands on their hats and helmets, and

white lace round the arm, and the Swedes had green branches. The

Imperial colour in the field was red, therefore Gustavus Adolphus

prohibited his Swedes from wearing that colour,[6] the scarfs of the

Swedish officers at the battle of Lützen were green, those of Electoral

Saxony during the war were black and yellow, and later, after the

acquisition of the Polish crown, red and white.

The soldiers were formed in troops or companies, and these were combined

in regiments which had administrative unity. The German infantry

regiments consisted of three thousand men, in ten companies of three

hundred men; they seldom reached their normal strength, and lost their

men in the war with frightful rapidity, so that there were frequently

regiments of from a thousand to three hundred, and companies of seventy

to thirty men. Cavalry regiments were required to be from five hundred

to a thousand men strong; the numbers of the troops were different, and

their effective war strength was still more variable.

The titles and duties of officers had already much similarity to the

modern German organization. He who had raised a regiment for his

Sovereign, was called the colonel of the regiment, even if he had the

rank of General; under him were the Lieutenant-colonel and Major. More

important for the object of these pages were the officers of companies;

the Captain of infantry or cavalry, with his Lieutenant, an Ensign, and

sergeant, or troop sergeant-major, non-commissioned officers and

lance-corporals, and finally the provost-marshal.

When an officer at the mustering of his company in a circle, was

installed as chief captain and father, he begged his dear soldiers, in a

friendly manner, to be true and obedient to him, recounted to them

their duties, promised to stand by them in every emergency, and as an

honest man, devote himself to them in life or death, and leave them

whatever he had. Unfortunately the captain's first duty was to be

faithful in money concerns, both towards the colonel and his own

soldiers, to procure clever good soldiers for the reviewing officer, not

to charge for more mercenaries than was right, and to give the soldiers

their full pay; but this seldom happened. The temptation to a system of

fraudulent gain was great, and conscientiousness in the uncertain life

of war was a virtue which quickly disappeared; even the most honourable

fell upon dangerous rocks when the pay had been long in arrear, or not

fully given. Besides this, it was necessary for him to be an energetic

experienced man, just and kind in disposition, but strict in maintaining

rights. During the week, he was, according to the old proverb, to look

severe, and not to smile upon the soldiers before Sunday; when there was

preaching in the camp, the soldiers sat on the ground, but stood up,

taking their hats off, before the captain, but he who wore a morion kept

it on. On the march, the captain rode, but before the enemy he went on

foot, carrying either the pike or the musket of his company.[7]

The banner of the infantry, which was held sacred by the company, had a

standard about the size of ours, but the silken flag, like an enormous

sail, reached almost to the end of the standard; it was of heavy

material, according to the taste of that time, with allegorical pictures

painted on it, and short Latin sentences beautifully illuminated. The

"_cornete_" of the cavalry, sometimes vandyked, were smaller, and fixed

to the standard like our banners. The regiments were sometimes called

after the colours of the banners; for example, in Electoral Saxony,

where the ground of the banners was always of two colours, they were

called the black and yellow, blue and white, red and yellow, regiments;

each of the ten banners of the regiment also had its especial emblem and

motto, and different combinations of the regimental colours, grained,

striped and in squares, yet the chief standard showed the regimental

colours only on the border. The "_cornete_" of the cavalry had a ground

of only one colour: the corps of cavalry were denoted according to the

colours of their banners, and not by their uniforms, which they hardly

ever wore; for example:--"two corps of orange-coloured cornet

cuirassiers," "five corps of steel-green cornet arquebussiers." The

Swedes also distinguished their brigades, which were in Germany

frequently called regiments, by the colour of their banners; thus,

besides the yellow (Body Guard) there were the green, blue, white, and

red. The colours of regiments were often chosen from the armorial

bearings of the colonel, especially if he had raised the regiment.

Gradually, however, it became the custom in all the armies to call the

regiments after the names of the officers.

The flag was attached to the standard and erected in the midst of the

circle of enlisted soldiers; then the Colonel delivered the banner to

the Ensign, and thus gave it into his charge:--"As your bride or your

own daughter, from the right hand to the left; and if both your arms

should be shot or cut off, you should take it with your mouth; and if

you cannot preserve it thus, wrap yourself therein, commit yourself to

God so to be slain, and die as an honourable man." As long as the

colours were flying, and a piece of the standard left, the soldiers were

to follow the Ensign to the death, till all should lie in a heap on the

battle-field, that no evil-doer or blameworthy person should be

sheltered by the flag; if any one should transgress against the banner

oath, the Ensign was to furl the banner, and forbid the transgressor to

march under it or mount guard, and he was obliged to go among the bad

women and children with the baggage till the affair was arranged: the

Ensign was not to leave the colours a single night without permission;

when he slept he was to have them by him, and never to separate himself

from them; if they should be torn from the standard by treachery or some

roguish attendant, the Ensign should be delivered over to the common

soldiers to be judged for life or death, according to their will. It was

necessary for him to be tall, powerful, manly, and valiant, and a

cheerful companion, friendly to every one, a mediator and peace-maker;

he was not to inflict punishment on any one, that he might incur no

hatred. In the open field under the unfurled colours appointments were

declared and the articles of war read. A trooper was not, without

permission, to be out of sight of the colours when the army was marching

or encamped; whoever fled from the colours in battle was to die for it,

and whoever killed him was to be unpunished: if an Ensign should abandon

a fort or redoubt before he had held out against three assaults without

relief, he transgressed the rules of war; a regiment lost its colours if

from cowardice it yielded a fortress before the time. It was not long

since pike-law was given up, the severe tribunal of the Landsknechte,

where, before the circle of common soldiers, the provost-marshal accused

the evil-doer, and forty chosen men, officers and soldiers, pronounced

judgment: at the beginning of the trial the Ensigns furled their

colours, and reversed them with the iron point in the ground, and

demanded a sentence, because the colours could not fly over an

evil-doer. If the transgressor was condemned to the spear, or to be shot

by the arquebussiers, then the Ensign thanked them for their judgment on

the offender, unfurled the colours, and caused them to fly towards the

east, comforted the poor sinner, and promised to meet him halfway, and

thereby to deliver him by taking him under the protection of the

colours. When the line of pikes was formed they went to the end of it

with their backs towards the sun; but the transgressor had to bless the

soldiers and pray for a speedy death, then the provost gave him three

strokes with his staff on the right shoulder and pushed him into the

lane. Whoever had disgraced himself, if the colours were waved three

times over him, was freed from his disgrace. The Ensign received every

three years, money for a new flag or dress (from eighty to a hundred

gulden), and for that he was to make a present to the company of two

casks of beer or wine.

The office of Cornet of cavalry was less responsible. It was his duty to

rush vigorously upon the enemy, and after the attack to raise his

standard on high, that his people might collect round him. In the

Hungarian war the Cornet passed sometimes into the rank of Lieutenant,

and in some regiments (the Wallenstein army for instance) this custom

was kept up.

The most important man of the company next to the Captain was the

Sergeant; he was the drill-master and spokesman for the soldiers, and

had to mark out with flags the position to be taken up by the troops of

the Imperial batons, or Swedish brigades, to arrange the men, placing in

the front and rear ranks and at the sides, the best armed and most

efficient men, to mingle the halberds and short weapons, to lead and

keep with the arquebussiers; he was the instructor of the company, and

knew the proper and warlike use of his weapons.

As the "mob" who came together from for and near under a banner were

difficult to keep in order, the greater part of them not to be depended

on, and unskilled in the exercise of their weapons, the number of

non-commissioned officers was necessarily very great, frequently indeed

they formed more than a third of the troop. Any one who had military

capacity or could be depended upon, was marked out by the subordinate

commander for higher pay and posts of confidence. Amongst the numerous

functions and manifold designations of the subalterns, some are

particularly characteristic. In the beginning of the war every company

had, according to the old _Landsknecht_ custom, their "leader," who, in

the first instance at least, was chosen by the soldiers. He was the

tribune of the company, their spokesman, who had to lay their grievances

and wishes before the Captain, and to represent the interests of the

soldiery. It may easily be understood that such an arrangement did not

strengthen the discipline of the army; it was done away with in time of

war. Even the thankless office of quartermaster was of greater

importance than now; the complaints of the soldiers, who quarrelled

about the bad quarters he had provided for them, he met with defiance,

and inspired them with fear of his usurious practices. When a company

came to a deserted village, the serjeants threw their knives into the

hat of the quartermaster; he then went from house to house, sticking the

blades as they came to his hand in the door-posts, and every band (of

six or eight men) followed their leader's knife. When poor members of

the nobility, candidates for commission, of whom the number was often

great, presented themselves, their names were inscribed on the list of

lance-corporals. Old vagabonds full of pretension were designated in

the military kitchen Latin by the title of "_Ambesaten_," and

afterwards "_Landspassaten_;" they were orderlies and messengers

receiving higher pay, representatives and assistants of the Corporals.

There was a general endeavour to add a deputy to every office, as the

Lieutenant to the Captain, an under Ensign to the Ensign, to the

Serjeant an under Serjeant, and frequently with the infantry a vidette

for the sentinels at outposts; in the same way serjeants were deputies

to the officers, and the "_Landspassaten_" to the Corporal, and the

provost to the provost-general, &c., &c.

The army consisted, with few exceptions, of enlisted soldiers. The

Sovereign empowered an experienced leader by patent to raise for him an

army, a regiment, or a company; recruiting places were sought for and a

muster place established where the recruits were collected. The recruits

were paid their travelling expenses or bounty; at the beginning of the

war this was insignificant, and sometimes deducted from their pay, but

later the bounty increased, and was given to the soldiers. At the

beginning of the war negotiations were carried on with every mercenary,

about the pay, at the muster-place. The soldier in quarters received

nothing but his pay, which in 1600, for the common foot soldier,

amounted to from fifteen to sixteen gulden a month.[8] With this they

had to procure for themselves weapons, clothing, and food. Garrisons

were provided with stores by the quartermaster, the cost being

reimbursed to him. During the great war, however, the arrangements about

pay were often deviated from, the distribution of it to the soldiers was

very irregular.

In the Imperial army the pay, exclusive of food, was nine gulden to the

pikeman and six to the musketeer. In the Swedish army it was still

lower, but was in the beginning more regularly paid, and there was more

care about the provisions. The whole sustenance of the army was charged

upon the province by a hard system of requisition, even on friendly

territory. The maintenance of the upper officers was very high, and yet

formed only a small share of their income. During the time of service

the troops were entered on the muster-roll by a court of comptrol, the

reviewing officer, or commissary of the Prince; in order to prevent the

officers and commanders drawing too much pay, when they were assembled

round the flag, the names of the deserters were written apart, and

beside each name a gallows was painted. At the time of muster if any one

was unserviceable or had served a long time, he was taken off the

muster-roll, and declared free, given his discharge, and provided with a

pass or certificate. Whoever wished for leave, obtained a pass from the

Ensign. The soldier had to clothe himself, uniforms were only found

exceptionally; the halberdiers of the life-guards, and the heavily armed

cavalry, so far as armour was concerned, were generally furnished by the

Sovereign; but before the war it was only occasionally done, and then

pay was deducted for it, or the Colonel took back the armour after the

campaign.

The military discipline of the Germans was, in the beginning of the war,

in the worst repute. The German soldiers were considered by other

nations as idle, turbulent, refractory bullies;[9] they had been not a

little spoilt by service in half-barbarous countries, as Hungary and

Poland then were, and against the barbarian Turks. When individuals had

to chaffer about their pay, discontent began; when the Captain would not

satisfy the claims of the enlisted mercenary, the malcontent threw his

musket angrily at the feet of the former, and went off with the money

for his travelling expenses, there was no means of detaining him. Though

the Ensign was bound by oath, the Captain only too frequently found

advantage in favouring plunder and the nightly desertion of the banner,

for he had his share of the soldier's booty; the worst thieves were the

best bees.

The paymasters were always deeply hated, because they generally gave the

regiments short pay and bad coin; they and other commissaries of the

sovereign were exposed to much insult when they came to the camp. The

worst things are related of the Commanders-in-chief, above all, that

they received more pay than they distributed to the soldiers; still

worse were the Generals. Frequently open mutiny broke out, and then the

mutineers placed a Colonel or Captain in the middle of them, and chose

him for their leader. The same thing took place in Hungary. Indeed it

happened, during the armistice preceding the Westphalian peace, that in

a Bavarian dragoon regiment, a corporal of the garrison of Hilperstein

nominated himself Colonel of the regiment, and by the help of his

comrades drove away the officers; the regiment was surrounded by loyal

soldiers, the new Colonel with eighteen of the ringleaders were

executed, the muskets were taken from the regiment, it was resworn and

formed anew as a cavalry regiment. The arrears of pay were the usual

cause of mutiny. In the year 1620, the regiment of Count Mansfeld

mutinied. He began to pay, but meanwhile leaving his tent, struck down

two of the soldiers with his own hands, severely wounding them; he then

mounted his horse, sprang into the midst of the mutineers, and shot many

of them. He alone with three captains subdued the insolence of six

hundred men, after having slain eleven, and severely wounded

six-and-twenty. If it was difficult to secure obedience to military

commands whilst the banner was waving, still greater was the burst of

resentment when it was furled and the regiment was disbanded. Then the

provost, the prostitutes, and the soldiers' sons hid themselves; the

Captain, Lieutenant, and other commanders were obliged to submit to

abusive language and challenges, and to hear themselves thus accosted:

"Ha, you fellow, you have been my commander, now you are not a jot

better than I; a pound of your hair is of no more importance to me than

a pound of cotton; out with you, let's have a scuffle!" Whenever

punishment was administered, the commanders were in danger from the

revenge of the culprit or his friends. The disbanded soldiers quarrelled

amongst each other, as they did with their officers, and sometimes there

were as many as a hundred parties in one place engaged in duelling. The

most wanton death-blows were dealt, and murders perpetrated, such as

have never been heard of since the beginning of Christianity. When the

banner was unfurled, it was customary for the combatants to join hands

and vow to fight out their quarrel when their term of service was ended,

and till then to live together in brotherly love. When this disbanding

took place, the most disorderly of the soldiers combined together and

began an "armour cleaning" of those comrades to whom, during service,

the officers had shown favour; that is to say, they robbed them of all,

deprived them of their clothes, beat and almost killed them. All these

crimes were tolerated, and the powerless commander-in-chief looked

passively on these proceedings as a mere custom of war.

During the Hungarian campaigns the soldiers adopted the habit of only

remaining by their banners during the summer months; they found their

reckoning in serving a short time, and mutinying if more was desired of

them; for during the autumn and winter they went with two, three, or

more boys as "_Gartbrüder_"[10] through the country, a fearful plague to

the farmers in eastern Germany. In the frontier countries, Silesia,

Austria, Bohemia, and Styria, it was even commanded by the sovereigns to

pay a farthing to every soldier who was roving about as "_Gartbrüder_."

Thus by their refractory conduct they daily obtained a gulden or more;

their boys pilfered where they could, and were notorious poachers.

Wallhausen, whilst making other energetic complaints, reckons that the

support of a standing army would cost less to the princes and states,

and secure greater success against the enemy, than this old bad system.

More than once during the long war, these wild armies were brought under

the constraint of strict discipline by the powerful will of individuals,

and each time great military successes were obtained; but this was not

of any duration. The discipline of the Wallenstein army was excellent in

a military point of view; but what the commander permitted with regard

to citizens and peasants was horrible. Even Gustavus Adolphus could not

preserve for more than a year, the strict discipline which on his

landing in Pomerania was so triumphantly lauded by the Protestant

ecclesiastics. It is true that the military law and articles of war

contained a number of legal rules for all soldiers, concerning the

forbearance to be observed even in an enemy's land towards the people

and their property. The women, invalids, and aged were under all

circumstances to be spared, and mills and ploughs were not to be

injured. But it is not by the laws themselves, but by the administration

of them, that we can judge of the peculiar characteristics of a period.

The punishments were in themselves severe. With the Swedes,--for the

embezzlement of money intended for the hospitals or invalid soldiers,

the wooden horse with its iron fittings was awarded, or running the

gauntlet (for this hardy fellows were hired to take upon them the

punishment), or loss of the hand, shooting, or hanging. For whole

divisions,--the loss of their banners, cleaning the camp and lying

outside it, and decimation. In the beginning of the war many of the old

Landsknecht customs were maintained, for instance, their criminal court

of justice, in which the law was decided by the people through select

jurymen. And before the war, together with this, court-martials had been

introduced. During the war a military tribunal was organized according

to the modern German method, under the presidency of the

advocate-general, and the provost-marshal superintended the execution.

But even in punishments there was a difference between the army and the

citizens and peasants. The soldier was put in irons, but not in the

stocks or in prison; no soldier was ever hanged on a common gallows, or

in a common place of execution, but on a tree or on a special gallows,

which was erected in the city for the soldiers in the market-place; the

old form by which the delinquent was given over to the hangman was thus

expressed: "He shall take him to a green tree and tie him up by the

neck, so that the wind may blow under and over him, and the sun shine on

him for three days; then shall he be cut down and buried according to

the custom of war." But the perjured deserter was hanged to a withered

tree. Whoever was sentenced to death by the sword, was taken by the

executioner to a public place, where he was cut in two, the body being

the largest and the head the smallest portion. The provost and his

assistant also were in nowise dishonoured by their office; even the

avoided executioner's assistant, the "_Klauditchen_" of the army, who

was generally taken from among the convicts, and who was allowed to

choose between punishment and this dishonourable office, could, if he

fulfilled his office faithfully, become respectable when the banner was

unfurled; he could then receive his certificate like any other gallant

soldier, and no one could speak evil of him.

There was one circumstance which distinguished the armies of the Thirty

years' war from those of modern days, and which made their entrance into

a province like an eruption of a heterogeneous race of strangers: each

soldier, in spite of his short term of service in the field, was

accompanied by his household. Not only the higher officers, but also the

troopers and foot-soldiers, took their wives, and still more frequently

their mistresses with them in a campaign. Women from all countries,

adorned to the utmost of their power, followed the army, and sought

entrance into the camp, because they had a husband, friend, or cousin

there. At the mustering or disbanding of a regiment, even respectable

maidens were, through the most cruel artifices, carried off by

disorderly bands, and when the money was all spent, left sometimes

without clothes, or at some carousal sold from one to another. The women

who accompanied the soldiers cooked and washed for them, nursed the

sick, provided them with drink, bore their blows, and on the march

carried the children and any of the plunder or household implements

which could not be conveyed by the baggage waggons. It is known that the

King of Sweden on his first arrival in Germany would not suffer any such

women in the camp; but after his return from Franconia, this strict

discipline seems to have ceased. Whoever peruses the old church records

of the village parishes will find sometimes the names of maidens, who,

having been carried off, returned at the end of a year to their village

home, and submitted themselves to the severest Church penances in order

to die amongst the ruined population of their birthplace. The women of

the camp were also under martial law. For great offences they were

flogged, and driven out of the camp; the soldiers too were hard masters,

and little of what had been promised them in the beginning was kept.

The children accompanied the women. In the Swedish army military schools

were established by Gustavus Adolphus, in which the children were

instructed even in the camp. In these migratory schools strict military

discipline prevailed, and a story, which cannot be warranted, is told of

a cannon-ball having passed through a school in the Swedish camp, and

having killed many of the children, but the survivors continued their

sum in arithmetic.

Some soldiers maintained one or more lads, a crafty, stubborn set of

good-for-nothings, who waited upon their masters, cleaned their horses,

sometimes bore their armour, and fed their shaggy dogs; nimble spies who

prowled about far and near on the traces of opulent people, and on the

look-out for concealed money.

The plundering by the baggage-train was almost worse in a friendly

country. When the soldiers with the women and children came to a

farmhouse, they pounced like hawks upon the poultry in the yard, then

broke open the doors, seized upon the trunks and chests, and with

abusive language, threatened, importuned and destroyed, what they could

not consume or take away. On decamping they compelled the owner to horse

his waggons and take them to their next quarters. Then they filled the

waggons with the clothes, beds, and household goods of the farmers,

binding round their bodies what could not otherwise be carried away.

"Frequently," says the indignant narrator Wallhausen, "the women did not

choose to be drawn by oxen, and it was necessary to procure horses,

sometimes from a distance of six miles, to the great cost of the country

people, and when they came with the waggons to the nearest quarters,

they would not allow the poor people to return home; but dragged them

with them to another territory, and at last stole the horses and made

off."

In the beginning of the war, a German infantry regiment had to march for

some days through the country of their own sovereign; there were as

many women and children with the baggage-train, as soldiers, and they

stole in eight days from the subjects of their sovereign almost

sufficient horses for each soldier to ride. The colonel, a just and

determined man, frequently dragged the soldiers himself from the horses,

and at last enforced their restoration by extreme severity. But it was

impossible to prevent the women from riding; there was not one who had

not a stolen horse, and if they did not ride them they harnessed them

three or four together to the peasants' carts.

Only a few of the otherwise copious writers of that time make mention of

this despised portion of the army; yet there are sufficient accounts,

from which we may conclude that great influence was produced by the

baggage-train on the fate of the army and the country. Especially by the

enormous extent of it. At the end of the sixteenth century Adam Junghans

reckons, that in a besieged fortress where the camp-followers were

reduced to the smallest possible number, to three hundred infantry

soldiers, there were fifty women and forty children, besides sutlers,

horseboys, &c., &c., somewhat more than a third of the soldiers. But in

the field the proportion was quite different even in the beginning of

the war. Wallhausen reckons as indispensable to a German regiment of

infantry, four thousand women, children, and other followers. A regiment

of three thousand men had at least three hundred waggons, and every

waggon was full to repletion of women, children, and plundered goods;

when a company broke up from its quarters, it was considered an act of

self-denial if it did not carry away with it thirty or more waggons. At

the beginning of the war a regiment of north German soldiers, three

thousand strong, started from the muster-place where it had remained

some time, followed by two thousand women and children.

From that time the baggage-train continued increasing to the end of the

war. It was only for a brief space of time that great commanders, like

Tilly, Wallenstein, and Gustavus Adolphus were able to diminish this

great plague of the army. In 1648, at the end of the great war, the

Bavarian General, Gronsfeld, reports that in the Imperial and Bavarian

armies there were forty thousand soldiers who drew war rations, and a

hundred and forty thousand who did not; on what were these to subsist if

they did not obtain their food by plunder, especially as in the whole

country where the army encamped, there was not a single place where a

soldier could buy a bit of bread. In the year 1648 the camp-followers

were more than three times the number of the fighting-men. These numbers

tell more significantly than any deductions, what a dreadful amass of

misery surrounded these armies.

Before we proceed to describe the influence which armies thus composed

exercised upon the life of the German people, we must once more remind

the reader, that this monstrous evil was not created by the Thirty

years' war, but for the most part already in existence. Some

observations will therefore be here introduced from the above-quoted

and now rare little book, written by Adam Junghans von der Olnitz, at

that period when the worth and capacity of the old Landsknecht army

passed away into the wild dissolute life of mercenaries. It appears here

as the prologue to the monstrous tragedy which began twenty years later.

"Each and every officer, captain of horse, or other captain, knows well

that no doctors, magisters, or any other God-fearing people, follow in

his train, but only a heap of ill-disposed lads, out of all kinds of

nations; strange folks, who leave wives and children, abandon their

duties, and follow the army; all that will not follow the pursuits of

their fathers and mothers, must follow the calf-skin which is spread

over the drum, till they come to a battle or assault, where thousands

lie on the field of battle, shot or cut to pieces; for a Landsknecht's

life hangs by a hair, and his soul flutters on his cap or his sleeve.

Besides, three kinds of herbs always grow with war; these are, sharp

rule, fifty forbidden articles, and severe judgment with speedy

sentence, which fits many a neck with a hempen collar.

"It is not enough that a soldier should be strong, straight, manly,

tyrannical, bloody-minded, in his actions like a grim lion, and behave

like a bully, as if he himself would catch and eat the devil alone, so

that none of his comrades should partake of him; but these

trigger-pullers wantonly bring themselves to destruction by their

stupidity, and other good fellows with them. Another is a snorer, and a

kicker, and stamps like a wild horse on the straw, and when he goes

into battle, and the balls whistle about his head, he is a martyr and

poor sinner, who would for very fear soil his hosen, and allow his

weapon to fall from his hand. But when they sit at the tap, or in the

cantinières' stalls, or in public-houses, then they have seen much and

can do nothing but fight, then a fly on the wall irritates them, there

is no peace with them, then they are ready to fight the enemy with great

curses. Such 'bear-prickers' are generally found out; one seldom finds

one who is not maimed in the hands or arms, or has a scar on the cheek,

and they have never really all their lives long, faced the enemy. The

captain may well keep clear of such fellows, for they are generally

seditious mutineers. A wise soldier avoids quarrels and public-house

brawls whenever he can, that he may have his skin whole and uninjured

to bring in front of the enemy. To be wounded by the enemy is an

honour, but he who injures himself wantonly must expect scorn and

derision, and is of no use to any army. Such a fellow must remain all

his life a paltry beggar; he roves about the country, begs bread and

sells it again, feeds like a wolf, and when the rats and mice are

drowned in the countrywoman's milk, he maintains himself on the cheese

made from it, and must submit to the rough words of the peasants, and

herd with other poor beggars to the end of his life. Besides these,

there are many who wish to be soldiers, mothers' sons, beardless boys,

like young calves, who know nothing of suffering, who have sat beside

the stove and roasted apples, and lain in warm beds. When they are

brought to a foreign country, and meet with all kind of strange

arrangements, food, drink, and other things, they are like soft eggs

that flow through the fingers, or like paper when it lies in the water.

It is thus not only with foot Landsknechte, but also with young nobles.

When they are led to the field in devastated countries, where all is

consumed and laid waste, and they can no longer carry their well-filled

bread wallets and drinking-flasks on their necks, they first pine away,

hunger and thirst, then eat and drink unusual things, from which result

all kinds of maladies. These delicate vagabonds ought to remain at home,

attend to the tillage, or sit in the shop by the pepper-bags, and shift

for themselves, as their fathers and mothers have done, fill their

stomachs at eventide, and go to bed; thus they would not be slain in

war. It is truly said that soldiers must be hardy and enduring people,

like unto steel and iron, and like the wild beasts that can eat all

kinds of food. According to the jocose saying, the Landsknechte must be

able to digest the points of their wheel-nails; nothing must come amiss

to them, even if necessity required that they should eat dogs' or cats'

flesh, and the flesh of horses from the meadow must be like good venison

to them, with herbs unseasoned by salt or butter. Hunger teaches to eat,

if one has not seen bread for three weeks. Drink one may have gratis,

for if one can get no water from the brook, one can drink with the geese

out of the pond or the puddle. One must sleep under a tree, or in the

field; there is plenty of earth to lie on, and of sky for a canopy; such

must often be the Landsknecht's sleeping-room, and from such a bed no

feathers will stick to his hair. Hence arises the old quarrel between

the fowls and geese and the Landsknechte, because the former can always

sleep in feathers, whilst the latter must often lie in straw. There is

another animal that clashes with the Landsknechte, that is the cat; as

the soldiers know well how to pilfer, they are enemies to the cats, and

friendly to the dogs. According to the old doggerel, a Landsknecht

should always have with him a beautiful woman, a dog, and a young boy, a

long spear, and a short sword; he is free to seek any master who will

give him service. A Landsknecht must make three campaigns before he can

become an honourable man. After the first campaign, he must return home

wearing torn clothes; after the second, he should return with a scar on

one cheek, and be able to tell much of alarms, battles, skirmishes and

storming parties, and to show by his scars that he has got the marks of

a Landsknecht; after the third, he should return well appointed, on a

fine charger, bringing with him a purse full of gold, so that he may be

able to distribute whole dollars as he would booty-pence.

"It is truly said, that a soldier must have to eat and drink, whether it

is paid for by the sacristan or the priest; for a Landsknecht has

neither house nor farm, cows nor calves, and no one to bring him food;

therefore he must procure it himself wherever it is to be found, and buy

without money whether the peasants look sweet or sour. Sometimes they

must suffer hunger and evil days, at others they have abundance, and

indeed such superfluity, that they might clean their shoes with wine or

beer. Then their dogs eat roast; the women and children get good

appointments, they become stewards and cellarers of other people's

property. When the householder is driven away with his wife and

children, the fowls, geese, fat cows, oxen, pigs, and sheep have a bad

time of it. The money is portioned out in their caps, velvet and silk

stuffs and cloth are measured out by long spears; a cow is slaughtered

for the sake of the hide; chests and trunks are broken open, and when

all has been plundered and nothing more remains, the house is set on

fire. That is the true Landsknecht's fire, when fifty villages and

country towns are in flames. Then they go to other quarters and do the

like again; this makes soldiers jolly, and is a desirable life for those

who do not pay for it. This entices to the field many a mother's child,

who does not return home, and forgets his friends. For the proverb says:

'The Landsknechte have crooked fingers and maimed hands for work, but

for pilfering and plundering all the maimed hands become sound.' That

has been so before our days, and will remain so truly after us. The

longer the Landsknechte learn this handiwork the better they do it, and

become circumspect, like the three maidens who had four cradles made,

the fourth as a provision in case one of them had two children. Wherever

the soldiers come, they bring with them the keys of all the rooms, their

axes and hatchets, and if there are not enough stalls in a place for

their horses, it does not signify, they stall them in the churches,

monasteries, chapels, and best rooms. If there is no dry wood for fire,

it matters not, they burn chairs, benches, ploughs, and everything that

is in the house; if they want green wood, no one need go far, they cut

down the fruit trees in the nearest orchard; for they say, whilst we

live here we keep house, to-morrow we go off again into the country,

therefore, Mr. Host, be comforted; you have a few guests you would

gladly be free from, therefore give freely and write it on the slate.

When the house is burnt the account is burnt also. This is the

Landsknechts' custom; to make a reckoning and ride off, and pay when we

return.

"The French, Italians, and Walloons are as adverse to the Germans as to

dogs, but the Spaniards are friendly to them; they however have an

unheard-of weakness for women, and are disposed to profligate and

godless conduct. Altogether, the Germans are but little thought of by

these nations, who call them nothing but drunkards, proud featherpates,

mighty braggadocios, blasphemers of God, '_Hans Muffmaff_' with the

beggar's wallet, who would willingly play the great man. And if one

comes to look at it, it is not far from the truth. For there is a new

custom amongst the North Germans when they go to war, or collect

together under a master, they spend all their goods and possessions on

ostentatious splendour, as if they were going to a bride, or riding to a

banquet. Thus the Germans who were formerly called the Blackriders, come

riding along with silver daggers, seven pound in weight, in velvet

clothes, and shining boots, with short holster pistols inlaid with

ivory, and large wide padded sleeves; they are ashamed of carrying

cuirass or armour, or indeed a spear, or any other murderous weapons, as

in the olden time. Hence it arises, that they never hold together. Then

when Hans Spaniard comes with his tilting spear and proof armour, these

chaw-bacons, with their short holster pistols, must run away or yield

their money and blood.

"Further, it is a misfortune to the Germans, that they take to

imitating, like monkeys and fools. As soon as they come amongst other

soldiers, they must have Spanish or other outlandish clothes. If they

could babble foreign languages a little, they would associate themselves

with Spaniards and Italians. The Germans would like to mingle with

foreign nations, and take pleasure in outlandish dress and manners, 'but

one should not place the vermin in the fur, it comes there without.' It

is clear that foreign people have become our neighbours, and it is to be

feared that they will in a few years come nearer. The frontier lords,

who still rest in tranquillity, fight against the wind, speak quite

wisely thereupon, comfort themselves, and have in talk, all their cities

and villages full of soldiers to defend the country and withstand all

enemies. But I fear that they prefer sitting by the stove in winter, and

in the shade in summer, playing draughts, or striking the guitar, or

dancing with _Jungfrau_ Greta, to providing their houses with good

weapons or armour.

"On this account, and because all foreign nations cry out all over

Germany, '_Cruci, cruci, mordio, mordio!_' and grind their teeth like

ravenous wolves, and desire and hope to bathe in German blood, one must

earnestly pray God not to withdraw his hand, but to take under his

protection this little vessel, tossed on the wild sea, cover it with his

wings, and preserve it from all storms; for we see how the Roman Empire

has declined from day to day, and still continues to do so. These

sufferings come from nothing but the proceedings of the ecclesiastics,

whereof the whole world complains. If one finds one right-minded

preacher there are ten to the contrary; every tradesman praises his own

wares, everyone will feed his own flock, and lead them the right way to

heaven, yet no one knows, save the devil and our Lord, where the false

shepherds go to themselves. Every one abuses, slanders, and condemns the

other; when they stand in the pulpit, the devil is their preceptor, who

helps them to manage so that one kingdom is at variance with another,

one country rebellious against the other; neighbour can no longer agree

with neighbour; nay one finds even at one table four or five different

faiths, one will worship on this mountain and another on yonder. May the

eternal Almighty God strengthen the hearts of the dear North Germans,

give them an upright spirit, and raise them up again, that they may one

day rise from the ashes, and renew their ancient repute, and their good

name. God help the righteous."

Thus writes an honourable officer before the year 1600.