THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--LIFE AND MANNERS OF THE SOLDIERS.
Almost all the people of Europe sent their least promising sons to the
long war. Not only did foreign mercenaries follow the recruiting drum
like crows to the battle-field, but the whole of Christian Europe was
drawn into the struggle; foreigners trampled on the German soil in
companies and regiments: English and Scotch, Danes, Fins and Swedes,
besides the Netherlanders (whom the people considered as countrymen),
fought on the side of the Protestants. Even the Laplanders came with
their reindeer to the German coast; in the winter months of 1630 they
brought upon their sledges over the ice, furs for the Swedish army. But
still more chequered did the Imperial army look. The Roumaun Walloons,
Irish adventurers, Spaniards, Italians, and almost every Sclavonic race
broke into the country; worst of all the light cavalry,--Cossacks,
Polish auxiliaries (who were for the most part slaughtered by the
country people in 1620), Stradiots (among them undoubtedly some
Mahomedans), and, most hated of all, the Croats. The position of the
Emperor in the beginning of the war was striking in this respect, that
he had almost nothing but Sclavonic and Roumaun soldiers, and only
Roumaun money to oppose the Germans. By them the national rising was
crushed, and it is probable that half the troops of the League consisted
of foreigners.
Each army was a sample of the different nationalities; in each there was
an intermixture of many languages; and the hatred of nations seldom
ceased even when fighting under the same colours. It was especially
necessary in the camp to arrange the regiments according to the good
understanding between them. Germans and Italians were always kept apart.
The Field-marshal or Quartermaster-general chose the site of the camp;
if possible by running water, and in a position which was favourable for
defence. First of all was measured out the place for the General and his
staff; large ornamented tents were raised on the ground thus set apart,
which was divided from the rest of the camp by barriers and by planting
spears, frequently even by fortifications. An open place was left close
to it for the main-guard; if the army remained long encamped, a gallows
was erected there as a warning. The position of each regiment and
company was marked out with branches; the troops were marched in, the
ranks were opened, the colours of each regiment were planted in the
ground in rows side by side; behind in parallel lines lay the encampment
of the company, always fifty men in a row; near the colours was the
Ensign, in the middle the Lieutenant, at the rear the Captain, and
behind all the tents of the superior officers and officials; the surgeon
next to the Ensign, and the chaplain near the Captain. The officers
lived in tents, often in conical forms fastened with cords to the
ground. The soldiers built themselves little huts of planks and straw.
The pikemen planted their pikes in the ground near the huts; the pikes,
short spears, halberds, partisans, and standards showed from afar the
rank and weapons of the inhabitant of the tent. Two or four soldiers
were generally housed in a hut, with their wives, children, and dogs.
Thus they lay encamped, company by company, regiment by regiment, in
great squares or circles, the whole camp surrounded by a large space
which served as an alarm post. Before the Thirty years' war it was
customary to set up a barricade round the camp; then the train or
baggage waggons were pushed together in double or more rows, and bound
by chains or fastenings to the great square or circle, leaving free the
necessary openings. Then also the cavalry had their camp next the inner
side of the waggons; the necessary partitions were erected for the
horses near the huts and tents of the horsemen. This custom had become
obsolete, and it was only occasionally that the waggons surrounded the
camp, but it was protected by trenches, mounds, and field-pieces. At the
openings sentinels were posted, outside the camp, troops of horse and a
chain of outposts of musketeers or arquebussiers were stationed. Each
Ensign planted the colours before his tent; near it was the drummer of
the company, and a musketeer kept watch with a burning match in his hand
and his musket supported horizontally on its rest.
In such a camp it was that the wild soldiery dwelt in unbridled licence,
insupportable to the neighbourhood even in a friendly country. The
provinces, cities, and villages were obliged to supply wood, straw,
fodder, and provisions, the waggons rolled along every road, and droves
of fat cattle were collected. The neighbouring villages quickly
disappeared; as all the wood-work and thatching was torn away by the
soldiers and employed in building their huts, only the shattered clay
walls remained. The soldiers and their boys roved about the
neighbourhood, plundering and stealing, and the cantineers drove about
with their carts. In the camp the soldiers congregated in front of
their huts; meanwhile the women cooked, washed, mended the clothes and
squabbled together; there was constant tumult and uproar and bloody
crimes, fighting with bare weapons, and combats between the different
services or nations. Every morning the crier and the trumpet called to
prayer, even among the Imperialists; early on the Sunday the regimental
chaplain performed service in the camp, then the soldiers and their
households seated themselves devoutly on the ground, and it was
forbidden for any one during service to loiter and drink in the
canteens. It is known how much Gustavus Adolphus inculcated pious habits
and prayers; after his arrival in Pomerania he caused prayers to be read
twice a day in his camp, but even in his army, it was necessary in the
articles of war to admonish the chaplains against drunkenness.
In the open space in front of the main-guard was the gambling ground,
covered with cloaks and set with tables, round which all the gamesters
crowded. There the card-playing of the old Landsknechte gave place to
the quicker games of the dice. The use of dice was frequently forbidden
in the camp, and stopped by the captain of the guard and the provost;
then the gamblers assembled privately behind the fence, and played away
their ammunition, bread, horses, weapons, and clothes, so that it was
found necessary to place them under the supervision of the main-guard.
Three square dice were rolled on each cloak or table, called in camp
language "_Schelmbeine_;" each set had its croupier; to him belonged the
cloak, table, and dice; he had the office of judge in cases of dispute,
and his share of the winnings, but also frequently of blows. There was
much cheating and cogging; many dice had two fives or sixes, many, two
aces or deuces, others were filled with quicksilver and lead, split
hair, sponge, chaff, and charcoal; there were dice made of stags-horn,
heavy below and light above, "_Niederländer_,"[11] which must be slid
along, and "_Oberländer_,"[12] which must be thrown "from Bavarian
Heights" for them to fall right; often the noiseless work was
interrupted by curses, quarrels, and flashing rapiers. Lurking
tradespeople, frequently Jews, slipped in, ready to value and buy up the
rings, chains, and booty staked.
Behind the tents of the upper officers and the regimental provost,
separated from them by a wide street, stood the shops of the cantineers
in parallel cross rows. Cantineers, butchers, and common victuallers
formed an important community. The price of their goods was decided by
the provost, who received a perquisite in money or in kind; for example,
he received a tongue for every beast that was killed. On every cask
which was to be tapped, he wrote the retail price with chalk. By these
compacts, and the favour of the powerful, which was to be bought by
time-serving, the purveyors of the army maintained a proportionably
secure position, and insured themselves the payment, though irregular,
of their long tallies, which were scored equally for the officers and
soldiers. In good times traders came from afar to the camp with
expensive stuffs, jewels, gold and silver workmanship, and delicacies.
In the beginning of the war especially, the officers set a bad example
to the army by their extreme luxury; every captain would have a French
cook, and consumed the dearest wine in great quantities.
The military signals of the camp were, for the infantry the beat of the
drum, for the cavalry the trumpet: the drum was very large, the drummer
often a half-grown boy, sometimes the fool of the company. In the
beginning of the war, the German army had in many cases a uniform beat.
Every command from the General to the camp, had to be proclaimed by a
herald riding through it with a trumpeter. On such occasions the herald
wore over his dress a "tabard" of coloured silk, embroidered before and
behind with the arms of the sovereign. This proclamation, which
announced to the camp in the evening the work of the following day, was
very destructive to secret and rapid operations; it was also very
injurious to discipline, for it announced to the loiterers and robbers
of the camp, the night when they might steal out for booty.
When times were prosperous, a battle won, a rich city plundered, or an
opulent district laid under contribution, everything was plentiful, food
and drink cheap; and it once happened, in the last year of the war, that
in the Bavarian camp a cow was bought for a pipe of tobacco. The Croats
of the Imperial army in Pomerania, in the winter of 1630 and 1631, had
their girdles overlaid with gold, and whole plates of gold and silver on
the breast. Paul Stockmann, a pastor at Lützen, relates, that in the
Imperial army, before the battle of Lützen, one horseman had his horse
decorated with a quantity of golden stars, and another with three
hundred silver moons; and the soldiers' women wore the most beautiful
church dresses and mass vestments, and that some Stradiots rode in
plundered priests' dresses, to the great mirth of their comrades. In
these times also carousers drank to one another in costly wine from the
chalices, and caused long chains to be made of the plundered gold, from
which, according to the old knightly custom, they severed links to pay
for a carousal. But the longer the war lasted the more rare were these
golden times. The devastation of the country revenged itself fearfully
on the army itself; the pale spectre of hunger, the forerunner of
pestilence, glided through the lines of the camp, and raised its bony
hand against every straw hut. Then supplies from the surrounding
districts ceased, the price of provisions was raised so as to be almost
unattainable; a loaf of bread, for example, in the Swedish army in 1640,
at Gotha, cost a ducat. Hollow-eyed pale faces, sick and dying men, were
to be seen in every row of huts; the vicinity of the camp was
pestilential from the decaying bodies of dead animals. All around was a
wilderness of uncultivated fields, blackened with the ruins of villages,
and the camp itself a dismal city of death.
A broad stream of superstition had flowed through the souls of the
people from ancient times up to the present day, and the soldier's life
of the Thirty years' war revived an abundance of peculiar superstitions,
of which a portion continues even now; it is worth while to dwell a
little upon these characteristic phenomena.
The belief that it is possible to make the body proof by magic against
the weapons of the enemy, and on the other hand to make your own arms
fatal to them, is older than the historical life of the German people.
In the earliest times, however, something gloomy was attached to this
art; it might easily become pregnant with fatality, even to its
votaries. The invulnerability was not unconditional, and succumbed to
the stronger counter-magic of the offensive weapon: Achilles had a heel
which was not invulnerable; no weapon could wound the Norse god Baldur,
but the waving of a branch of misletoe by a blind man killed him;
Siegfried had a weak spot between the shoulders, the same which the
soldiers of the Thirty years' war considered also as vulnerable. Among
the numerous Norse traditions are many accounts of charmed weapons: the
sword, the noblest weapon of heroes, was considered as a living being,
also as a slaying serpent or a destroying fire; when it was shattered,
it was spoken of by the Norse poets as dying. It was unnecessary to
charm swords forged by dwarfs, as there was a destroying magic concealed
in them; thus the sword of Hagens, the father of Hilda, was death to any
man when it was drawn from the sheath, magic Runic character being
scratched on the hilt and blade of it.
The introduction of fire-arms gave a new aspect and a wider scope to
this superstition; the flash and report of the weapon, and the distant
striking of the ball, imposed the more on the fancy, the less the
imperfect weapon was certain of hitting: the course of the deadly shot
was considered malicious and incalculable. Undoubtedly the literature of
the Reformation seldom touched upon this kind of magic; it first made
itself heard in the middle of the century, when it served to portray the
condition of the people. But in armies, the belief in magic was general
and widely spread, travelling scholars and gipsies were the most zealous
vendors of its secrets, one generation of Landsknechte imparted it to
the next: in Italy and in the armies of Charles V., Italian and German
superstitions were mixed, and in the time of Fronsperg and Schärtlin
almost every detail of the art of rendering invulnerable is to be found.
Luther, in 1527, inveighs against the superstition of the soldiery: "One
commits himself to St. George, another to St. Christopher, some to one
saint, some to another; some can charm iron and gun-flints, others can
bless the horse and his rider, and some carry the gospel of St.
John,[13] or somewhat else with them, in which they confide." He himself
had known a Landsknecht, who, though made invulnerable by the devil, was
killed, and announced beforehand the day and place of his death.
Bernhard von Milo, Seneschal at Wittenberg, sent to Luther for his
opinion on a written charm for wounds; it was a long roll of paper
written in wonderful characters.
When the Augsburg gunner, Samuel Zimmermann the elder, wrote the
experiences of his life up to 1591, in a folio volume, under the title
of '_Charms against all Stabs, Strokes, and Shots, full of great
secrets_,' he mentions only the defensive incantations, which he did not
consider as the works of Belial; but it is apparent from his manuscript
that many devilish arts were known to him, which he intended to conceal.
Another well-known Zimmermann, who was hardened, received a fearful blow
from a dagger; there was no wound to be seen, but he died shortly after
from the internal effect of the blow. In 1558 there was an invulnerable
soldier in the regiment of Count Lichtenstein, who, after every
skirmish, shook the enemy's balls off his dress and his bare body; he
often showed them, and the holes burnt through his clothes; he was at
last slain by some foreign peasants.
When the Italians and Spaniards entered the Netherlands in 1568, they
carried along with them, with little success, whole packets and books
full of magic formulas of conjurations and charms. The French found
talismans and magic cards fastened round the necks of the prisoners and
the dead, of the Brandenburg troops who had been led by Burgrave Fabian
von Dohna, in 1587, as auxiliaries to the Huguenots. When the Jesuit
George Scheerer preached at the Court Chapel at Vienna in 1594, before
the Archduke Matthias and his Generals, he found it necessary to exhort
them earnestly against the use of superstitious charms for cuts, stabs,
shots, and burns.
It is therefore unjust in later writers to state, that the art of
rendering invulnerable was introduced at Passau by a travelling scholar
in the seventeenth century, as Grimmelshausen informs us, or as others
will have it, that it was brought into the German army by Kaspar
Reithardt von Hersbruck, the executioner; for when Archduke Leopold, the
Bishop of Passau, raised the reckless and ill-disciplined bands which
spread terror through Alsace and Bohemia by their barbarities, his
soldiers only adopted the old traditions which were rooted in German
heathenism, and had lingered on through the whole of the middle ages;
nay, even the name, "_Passau art_," which has been customary since then,
may rest on a misunderstanding of the people, for in the sixteenth
century all who bore charms about them to render them invulnerable were
called by the learned soldier, "_Pessulanten_," or "_Charakteristiker_,"
and whoever understood the art of dissolving a charm was a "_Solvent_."
It is possible that the first of these popular designations was changed
into "_Passauer_."
Even in the first year of the Thirty years' war, the art of rendering
invulnerable was eagerly discussed. A good account of it can be found in
'The true narrative of the siege and capture by storm of the city of
Pilsen in Bohemia, 1619.' The passage according to our dialect is as
follows:
"An adventurer under Mansfeld, called Hans Fabel, once took a tumbler of
beer up to the city trenches and drank it to the besieged. They saluted
him with powder and shot; but he drank up his tumbler of beer, thanked
them, entered the trenches and took five balls from his bosom. This
'_Pilmiskind_,'[14] although he was so invulnerable, was taken very
sick, and died before the capture of the town. This magical art, 'Passau
art,' has become quite common; one would sooner have shot at a rock than
at such a charmed fellow. I believe that the devil hides in their skin.
One good fellow indeed often charms another, even when the person so
charmed does not know it, and still less desires it. A small boy from
fourteen to fifteen years of age was shot in the arm when he was beating
the drum, but the ball rebounded from the arm to the left breast, and
did not penetrate; this was seen by many. But those who use this magic
come to a bad end; I have known many such lose their lives in a terrible
way, for one delusion struggles against another. Their devilish sorcery
is expressly against the first and other commandments of God. Assiduous
prayer and faith in God gives other means of support. If any one in
presence of the enemy perishes not, it is God's will. If he is struck,
the angels take him to heaven, but those who are charmed are taken by
Black Kaspar."[15]
Numerous were the means employed by men to make themselves and others
invulnerable. Even this superstition was governed tyrannically by
fashion. Of very ancient date are the charmed shirts, and the Victory
and St. George's shirts; they were prepared in different ways for the
Landsknechte. On Christmas night, according to ancient tradition,
certain virgins used to spin linen thread in the name of the devil,
weave and stitch it; on the breast two heads were embroidered, the one
on the right side with a beard, and the left like that of king
Beelzebub, with a crown, dark reminiscences of the holy heads of Donar
and Wuotan. According to later custom the charmed shirt must be spun by
maidens under the age of seven; it was to be sewed with particular cross
stitches, laid secretly on the altar till three masses had been read
over it. On the day of battle such a charmed shirt was worn under the
dress, and if the wearer received a wound, it was owing to other thread
having been mixed with that which was charmed.
Superstition gladly availed itself of the miraculous power of the
Christian Church, even when in opposition to law. The gospel of St. John
was written elaborately on thin paper and placed secretly under the
altar cover in a Roman Catholic church, and left there till the priest
had thrice read the mass over it; then it was placed in a quill or the
shell of a hazel nut, and the opening was cemented with Spanish lac or
wax, or this capsule was framed in gold or silver and hung round the
neck. Others received the host at the Lord's supper, accompanying it
with a silent invocation to the devil; taking the wafer out of their
mouths again, they separated the skin from the flesh in some part of the
body, placed the wafer there, and let the wound heal over it. The most
reckless gave themselves up entirely to the devil; such people could not
only make other men invulnerable, but even eatables, such as butter,
cheese, and fruit, so that the sharpest knife could not penetrate
them.[16]
There was a change of form and name in the written parchments also which
contained charms.
"_Pope Leo's blessing_" originated in the early Landsknecht times; it
contained good Christian words and promises. Besides this there was the
"_Blessing of the Knight of Flanders_," so called because a knight who
had once worn it could not be beheaded; it was written in strange
characters and types interspersed with signs of the cross. Then there
was "_The benediction_," or charm in time of need, which in a moment of
danger arrested the sword or gun of the enemy.[17]
Similar were the "_Passau charms_" of the seventeenth century, written
on post paper, virgin parchment, or the host, with a peculiar pen in
bat's blood; the superstition was in strange characters, wizard feet,
circles, crosses, and the letters of foreign languages; according to
Grimmelshausen[18] the rhyme runs thus: Devil help me, body and soul
give I thee. When fastened under the left arm they expelled the shot and
closed the guns of the enemy. Sometimes even the charms were eaten. But
opinions concerning their efficacy were fluctuating. Some thought them
safeguards only for four-and-twenty hours; but according to others their
magic did not begin to work till after the first four-and-twenty hours,
and whoever was shot before that time belonged to the devil. Other
charms were also used for protection, everything odious and dismal was
collected together, and what had been fearful in the ancient mythology
continued to retain its old power. A piece of the cord or chain by which
a man had been hung, or the beard of a goat, the eyes of a wolf, the
head of a bat and the like, worn round the body in a purse of black
cat's skin, rendered a person invulnerable. Hair balls (a mass of hair
from the stomach of the chamois), and the caul in which children are
born, gave invulnerability; he who had never eaten kidneys was secure
from shot or pestilence, and it was believed at Augsburg, that a famous
knight and experienced General, Sebastian Schärtlin, had thus protected
himself before the enemy.
Old magic herbs, as endive, verbena, St. John's wort, chickweed,
vervain, mallow, and garlick were used as charms, and the most powerful
of all, the deadly nightshade. It was necessary to dig them up with the
best new sharpened steel, and never to touch them with the bare hand,
least of all with the left, and they were carried like an _Agnus Dei_.
They were circular, and only found on the battle-fields of great
battles, and were, as Zimmermann says, sacred for the sake of the dead.
Besides these there was a fire-coloured flower which Cabalists called
"Efdamanila;" it not only protected the wearer from shot, stabs, and
fire, but when it was hung over the wall in a besieged town near the
enemy's cannon, they were spell-bound for a whole month.
Amulet medals also were early in use: in 1555, at the battle of
Marienburg, between the Princes of Orange and Nevers, a little child was
struck on the neck by a shot, a silver medal was doubled up, and the
child remained unhurt; this great effect was then ascribed to an amulet
parchment which the child wore round his neck near the medal. But about
the same time the "Sideristen," who were experienced in astronomical
science, poured out heavenly influence in invulnerable medals of silver
and fine gold, which were worn round the neck. Thurneisser spread also
these kinds of amulets in Northern Germany. An accidental circumstance
brought the Mansfeld St. George's thaler into repute in the Thirty
years' war, especially those of 1611 and 1613, bearing the inscription,
"With God is counsel and action."
Not only the common soldiers, but many great commanders also had the
repute of being invulnerable: not Pappenheim, indeed, who was wounded in
almost every action, but Holk, who was supposed at last to have been
carried away to hell by the devil in person; Tilly, for whom, after the
battle of Breitenfeld, the affrighted surgeon found he had only bruises
to dress; Wallenstein and his kinsman Terzka; even the sword of
Gustavus Adolphus was considered to be enchanted. Ahaz Willenger also,
leader after the death of Fardinger, of the revolted Austrian peasants,
was rendered so hard that a cannon-ball at seven paces rebounded from
his skin without penetrating it; he was at last killed by an officer of
Pappenheim. All the Princes of the house of Savoy were considered
invulnerable, even, after the Thirty years' war. Field-Marshal
Schauenburg tried it with Prince Thomas when he besieged him in an
Italian fortress; the bullets of the best marksmen missed their aim. No
one knew whether the members of that noble house had especial grace,
because they were of the race of the royal prophet David, or whether the
art of rendering themselves invulnerable was hereditary.
There were hardly any who did not believe in the mystic art. The
renowned French General Messire Jacques de Puysegur, in the French civil
war in 1622, was obliged to compass the death of an opponent, _qui avait
un caractère_, by blows of a strong pole on his neck, because he had no
weapon that could kill him; he recounts this circumstance to his King.
At the blockade of Magdeburg in 1629, the complaint against these
practices became so general, that the parties engaged in this war
entered into negotiations concerning it. Gustavus Adolphus, in his first
article of war, earnestly forbade idolatry, witchcraft, or the charming
of weapons as sins against God.
But the dark powers which the soldier invoked to his aid were
treacherous. They did not protect against everything; it was, to say
the least, very unsatisfactory that they did not preserve from the hand
of the executioner: Zimmermann relates many cases in which the
far-reaching hopes of an invulnerable person and his adherents were
disappointed at the place of execution. Certain portions of the body,
the neck, and the back between the shoulders, the armpits, and the under
part of the knee, were considered not hard or invulnerable. The body
also was only charmed against the common metals of lead or iron. The
simplest weapons of peasants, a wooden club, bullets of more precious
metals, and sometimes inherited silver could kill the invulnerable. Thus
an Austrian governor of Greifswald, on whom the Swedes had fired more
than twenty balls, could only be shot by the inherited silver button
that a soldier carried in his pocket. Thus too a witch in Schleswig was
changed into a were-wolf, and shot by inherited silver.[19] The magic
also could be broken by other mixtures, by cast balls, and by magically
consecrated weapons. Rye bread which had been leavened and baked on
Easter night, was rubbed crosswise over the edge of the steel, and signs
were indelibly impressed on blades and barrels: it was known how to
cast balls which killed without injuring the skin, others which must
draw blood, and some which broke every invulnerability; these were
prepared by mixtures of pulverized grains of corn, antimony, and
thunder-stones, and cooled in poison. But these arts were considered
supernatural and dangerous. Besides these they tried "natural" devices
which might be resorted to with advantage, even by an honourable
soldier. They imagined they could prepare gunpowder with a mixture of
pounded dogs' bones, which would make no report. Powder was also
prepared by which the person shot was only stunned for hours; other
powder that did not explode, even when glowing steel was inserted. By a
mixture of borax and quicksilver they produced a mining powder by which
the enemy's pieces were blown up, in case there was not time to spike
them. They sought after the secret of giving a man double strength
without magic.
There was a peculiar and also very old kind of magic, which spell-bound
the enemy by mystic sentences, which were recited in moments of danger.
The adept could fix whole troops of horsemen and infantry: in the same
way, by other sentences, they could dissolve the spell. There was still
another kind of sorcery; horsemen were made to appear on the field of
battle, that is to say, when support was required in imminent danger,
deceptive appearance was produced, as if soldiers were approaching in
the distance. Both these conjurations are relics of the heathen occult
sciences, the echoes of which may still be discovered in manifold tales
and traditions, even up to the present day.
The gloomy provost was the man in the regiment who was held in the most
awe; he was naturally considered as pre-eminently an adept. In 1618, it
was supposed that the executioner of Pilsen could, with the help of an
assistant, fire daily three fatal balls against the camp of Mansfeld;
after the capture of the city, he was hanged on a special gallows. The
provost of the Hatzfeld army of 1636 was still more versed in sorcery:
he was killed by the Swedes with an axe, because he was magically
hardened. It was very much in the interest of these authorities to keep
up amongst the revengeful soldiery the belief in their invulnerability.
We may add to these delusions, the endeavours of individuals to read
from the course of the stars the events and issue of the war, and their
own fate. Prognostics accumulated, the terrors of the approaching year
were unweariedly prophesied from constellations, shooting-stars, comets,
and other atmospheric phenomena; the casting of horoscopes was general.
Some individuals also possessed second sight, they foresaw to whom the
approaching future would be fatal. When in 1636 the Imperial Saxon army
was lying before Magdeburg, there was an invalid mathematician in the
camp who foretold to his friends that the 26th of June would be fatal to
him. He was lying in a closed tent when a lieutenant rode up, and
unloosening the tent cords, forced himself in and begged the sick man to
draw his nativity. After refusing a long time, the invalid prophesied to
him that he would be hanged that very hour. The lieutenant, very
indignant that any one should dare to say such a thing to a cavalier,
drew his sword and killed the sick man. There immediately arose a great
tumult, the murderer then threw himself upon his horse and tried to
escape; it happened however, accidentally, that the Elector of Saxony
was riding through the camp with General Hatzfeld and a great retinue.
The Elector exclaimed, that there would be bad discipline in the
Imperial camp if the life of a sick man in bed could not be secured from
murderers. The lieutenant was hanged.
Whoever was considered the possessor of such secrets was feared by his
comrades, but not esteemed. "For if they were not cowardly, dastardly
ninnies, they would not use such charms." Certain officers in the
sixteenth century caused every prisoner to be hanged upon whom were
found jagged or iron-coated balls, "which were consecrated for the sake
of a soul." In the Thirty years' war, a coward begged of his comrade a
Passau parchment, who wrote on a strip of paper three times: "Defend
yourself, scoundrel," folded it up and made the dastard sew it in his
clothes. From that day every one imagined that he was invulnerable, and
he went about on all occasions amongst the enemies' weapons, as hard as
horn, like a _Siegfried_, and always came out unwounded.
But the soldier had not only to win the favour of the Fates, but still
more the approbation of his comrades. Whoever carefully examines this
period, without ceasing to view with horror the numerous and refined
atrocities which were practised, will at the same time perceive that
this scene of barbarity was occasionally brightened by milder virtues,
and sometimes healthy integrity comes to light. A peculiar code of
soldier's honour was soon formed, which preserved a kind of morality,
though a lax one. We have but few records of the good humour which arose
from consciousness of having the mastery over citizen and peasant. But
the proverbial modes of speech often bear sufficiently the impress of
the same disposition which is idealized in Schiller's "Reiterlied." "The
sharp sabre is my field, and booty making is my plough." "The earth is
my bed, heaven my canopy, my cloak is my house, and wine my eternal
life."[20] "As soon as a soldier is born, three peasants are selected
for him; the first provides for him, the second finds him a beautiful
wife, and the third goes to hell for him."[21]
We have reason to suppose that sensuality was in general unbridled and
shameless; the old German vice, drunkenness, prevailed as much amongst
the officers as soldiers. The smoking and chewing tobacco, or as it was
then called, "tobacco drinking"--"eating and snuffing," spread rapidly
through all the armies, and the guard-room was a disagreeable abode for
those who did not smoke. This custom, which at the beginning of the war
was introduced into the army by the Dutch and English auxiliaries, was
at the end of it so common, that a pipe was to be found in every
peasant's house, and nine out of ten of the day labourers and
apprentices smoked during their work.
The German language also was jargonized in the army; it soon became the
fashion among the soldiers to intermix Italian and French words, and the
language was enriched even by Hungarian, Croat, and Czech: they have
left us besides their "_karbatsche_" and similar words, and also
sonorous curses. Not only was their discourse garnished with these
strong expressions, but gipsy cant became the common property of the
army. It did not indeed begin in the great war, for long before, the
Landsknechte, as "Gartbrüder" and members of the beggars' guild, had
learned their arts and language. But now the camp language was not only
a convenient help to secret intercourse with the bad rabble who followed
the army, with guild robbers, Jewish dealers and gipsies, but it also
gave a certain degree of consideration round the camp fire to be able to
bandy mysterious words. Some expressions from the camp language passed
among the people, others were carried by runaway students into the
drinking-rooms of the universities.[22]
The daily quarrels gave rise amongst the common soldiers also to the
cartel, or duels regulated by many points of honour. Duels were strictly
forbidden; Gustavus Adolphus punished them with death even among the
higher officers; but no law could suppress them. The duellists fought
alone, or with two or three seconds, or an umpire was selected: before
the combat the seconds vowed to one another and gave their hands upon
it, not to help the combatants, either before, in, or after the
encounter, nor to revenge them; the duellists shook hands and exchanged
forgiveness beforehand, in case of the death of either. They fought on
horseback or on foot, with carbines, pistols, or swords; in the fight, a
throw in wrestling or unhorsing was sufficient; stabbing was considered
un-German, above all a thrust in the back was of doubtful propriety.[23]
As it was so usual to change parties, a corporation feeling was formed
amongst the soldiers which also embraced the enemy. The armies had a
tolerably accurate knowledge of each other, and not only the character
of the upper officers, but of old soldiers was known; any day an old
comrade might be seen in the enemy's ranks, or installed as a tent
companion to a former adversary. Indeed, quarter was often proffered:
but any one who fought against the customs of war, or was suspected of
using devilish acts, was to be killed even if he sued for pardon.
Cartels were concluded between the courteous conquerors and the
vanquished, the conquerors promised to protect, and the prisoners not to
escape; the weapons, scarfs, and plumes were taken away from the
vanquished; all that he concealed in his clothes belonged to the
conqueror, but he who got Dutch quarter, kept what was enclosed in his
girdle; a courteous prisoner himself presented what he had in his
pockets. If a desperate man did not stand by his conditions of quarter,
he was killed, if he did not rapidly escape. During the transport they
were coupled by the arm, and the string taken from their hose, so that
they were obliged to hold their small-clothes with the hand that was
free. The prisoners could be ransomed, and this ransom was fixed by
tariff in each army. Towards the conclusion of the war, when soldiers
became scarce, the common prisoners were summarily placed in the
regiments without giving them a choice. Such soldiers were naturally not
to be depended on; they gladly took the first opportunity to desert to
their former colours, where they had left their women, children, booty,
and arrears of pay. Distinguished prisoners were sometimes bought from
the common soldiers by the colonels of their regiments; they were
treated with great consideration in the enemy's quarters, and almost
every one found there either an acquaintance or a relative.
Booty was the uncertain gain for which the soldier staked his life, and
the hope of it kept him steadfast in the most desperate situations. The
pay was moderate, the payment insecure; plunder promised them wine,
play, a smart mistress, a gold-laced dress with a plume of feathers, one
or two horses, and the prospect of greater importance in the company and
of advancement. Vanity, love of pleasure, and ambition, developed this
longing to a dangerous extent in the army.
The success of a battle was more than once defeated, by the soldiers too
soon abandoning themselves to plundering. It often happened that
individuals made great booty, but it was almost always dissipated in
wild revelry; according to the soldier's adage: "What is won with the
drum will be lost with the fifes." The fame of such lucky hits spread
through all armies. Sometimes these great gains brought evil results on
the fortunate finders.[24] A common soldier of Tilly's army had won
great booty at the capture of Magdeburg, it was said to be thirty
thousand ducats, and was immediately lost in gambling. Tilly caused him
to be hanged after thus accosting him: "With this money you might have
lived all your life like a gentleman, but as you have not understood how
to make use of it, I cannot see of what use you can be to my Emperor."
At the end of the war a man in Königsmark's troop had obtained a similar
sum in the suburbs of Prague, and played it away at one sitting.
Königsmark wished in like manner to despatch him, but the soldier saved
himself by this undaunted answer: "It would be unfair for your
Excellence to hang me on account of this loss, as I have hopes of
acquiring still greater booty in the city itself." This answer was
considered a good omen. In the Bavarian army a soldier in the Holtz
infantry was famed for a similar lucky hit. He had been for a long time
musketeer, but shortly before the peace had sunk to be a pikeman, and
was ill-clad; his shirt hung behind and before out of his hose. This
fellow had obtained at the taking of Herbsthausen a barrel filled with
French doubloons, so large that he could hardly carry it off. He
thereupon absconded secretly from the regiment, dressed himself up like
a prince, bought a coach and six beautiful horses, kept many coachmen,
lackeys, pages, and _valets de chambre_ in fine liveries, and called
himself with dull humour Colonel Lumpus.[25] Then he travelled to
Munich, and lived in an inn there splendidly. General Holtz accidentally
put up at the same inn, heard much from the landlord of the opulence
and qualities of Colonel Lumpus, and could not remember ever having
heard this name among the cavaliers of the Roman empire, or among the
soldiers of fortune. He therefore commissioned the landlord to invite
the stranger to supper. Colonel Lumpus accepted the invitation, and
caused to be served up at dessert, in a dish, five hundred new French
pistoles and a chain worth a hundred ducats, and said at the same time
to the General: "May your Excellence be content with this entertainment
and think thereby favourably of me." The General made some resistance,
but the liberal colonel pressed it upon him with these words: "The time
will soon come when your Excellence will acknowledge that I am wise in
making this gift. The donation is not ill applied, for I hope then to
receive from your Excellence a favour which will not cost a penny." On
this, Holtz, according to the custom of that time, accepted the chain
and money with courteous promises to repay it under such circumstances.
The General departed, and the fictitious colonel lived on there; when
he passed by the guard, and the soldiers presented arms to do him
honour, he threw to them a dozen thalers. Six weeks after, his money
came to an end. Then he sold his coaches and horses, afterwards his
clothes and linen, and spent all in drinking. His servants ran away from
him, and at last nothing remained to him but a bad dress and a few
pence. Then the landlord, who had made much by him, presented him with
fifty thalers for travelling, but the colonel tarried till he had spent
it all; again the host gave him ten thalers for travelling expenses, but
the persevering reveller answered that if it was money to be spent, he
would rather spend it with him than another. When that also was
dissipated, the landlord offered him another five thalers, but forbade
his servants to let the spendthrift have anything. At last he quitted
the inn and went to the next one, where he spent his five thalers in
beer. After that he wandered away to his regiment at Heilbronn. There he
was immediately confined in irons, and threatened with the gallows,
because he had been away so many weeks. He insisted on being taken
before his General, presented himself to him, and reminded him of the
evening at the inn. To the sharp rebuke of the General he answered that
he had all his life wished for nothing so much as to know what were the
feelings of a great lord, and for that he had used his booty.
In the Hungarian war it was made a law, that the booty should be equally
distributed, but that soon ceased. Still those who were fortunate enough
to make great gains, found it advisable to give a share to the officers
of their company. This common interest in the booty, as well as the
necessity of maintaining themselves by requisition, in remote countries,
developed in great perfection partisan service. There were not only
whole divisions of troops, which performed in the armies the service of
marauding corps, as for example those of Holk and Isolani in the
Imperial, but there were also individual leaders of companies, who
selected the most expert people for this lucrative employment. A
marauding party, departing on a secret expedition, must consist of an
uneven number to bring good luck. These parties stole far into the
country to plunder a rich man, to fall upon a small city, or intercept
transports of goods or money, and to bring away with them cattle and
provisions. There was often an agreement made with the enemy's garrisons
in the neighbourhood, as to what was to be spared in the districts
common to them. Every kind of cunning was practised in such expeditions;
they knew now to imitate the report of heavy artillery, by firing a
hand-gun, doubly loaded, through an empty barrel; they used shoes with
reversed soles, and caused the horses to be shod in the same manner, the
feet of stolen cattle were covered with shoes, and a sponge was put in
the pigs' food to which a packthread was fastened. The soldiers
disguised themselves as peasants or women, and paid spies amongst the
citizens and country people of the neighbourhood. Their messengers ran
hither and thither with despatches, and were called in camp language
"_feldtauben_" (field doves); they carried these despatches in their
ears rolled up as small balls, fastened them in the hair of shaggy dogs,
enclosed them in a clod of earth, or sewed them with green silk between
the leaves of a branch of oak, that they might be able to throw them
away, without suspicion, in time of danger.[26] These despatches were
written in gipsy language or gibberish, in foreign characters, and if
there were runaway students in the companies, they were written perhaps
in French with Greek letters; they employed, for these purpose, a
simple kind of short-hand writing, displacing the letters of the words,
or agreeing that only the middle letter of the words should have
signification.[27] The transition from such partisan service to becoming
dishonourable marauders and freebooters was easy. In the beginning of
the war, the newly raised regiment of Count Merode was so reduced by
long marches and bad nourishment, that it could hardly set its guard; it
dissolved almost entirely, on the march, into stragglers, who lay under
the hedges and in the byways, or sneaking about the army with defective
weapons, and without order. After that time, the stragglers, whom the
soldier wits had before called "_sausänger_" and "_immenschneider_"
(drones), were now denoted as "Merode-ing brothers." After a lost battle
their numbers increased enormously. Horsemen who were slightly wounded,
and had lost their horses, associated themselves with them, and it was
impossible, from the then state of military discipline, to get rid of
them.
The most undisciplined, abandoned the route of the army, and lived as
highwaymen, footpads, and poachers. Vain were the endeavours of the
sovereigns, at the end of the war, to annihilate the great robber bands;
they lasted, to a certain extent, up to the beginning of the present
century.
Such was the character of the war which raged in Germany for thirty
years. An age of blood, murder, and fire, of utter destruction to all
property which was movable, and ruin to that which was not; and an age
of spiritual and material decay in the nation. The Generals imposed
exorbitant contributions, and kept part in their own pockets. The
colonels and captains levied charges on the cities and towns in which
their troops were quartered, and merciless were the demands on all
sides. The princes sent their plate and stud horses as presents to the
Generals, and the cities sent sums of money and casks of wine to the
captains, and the villages, riding horses and gold lace to the cornets
and sergeant-majors, as long as such bribery was possible. When an army
was encamped in a district, any landed proprietors of importance,
monasteries, and villages, endeavoured to obtain the protection of a
"_salva guardia_." They had to pay dear for this guard, yet had to bear
with much unseemly conduct from them. If a place lay between two armies,
both parties had to be asked for _salva guardia_, and both guards lived
by agreement in peaceful intercourse at the expense of their host. But
it was seldom that either individuals or communities were so fortunate
as to be able to preserve even this unsatisfactory protection; for it
was necessary for the army to live. When a troop of soldiers entered a
village or country town, the soldiers rushed like devils into the
houses; wherever the dung-heaps[28] were the largest, there the greatest
wealth was to be expected. The object of the tortures to which the
inhabitants were subjected, was generally to extort from them their
hidden property; they were distinguished by especial names, as the
"Swedish fleece," and the "wheel." The plunderers took the flints from
the pistols and forced the peasants' thumbs in their place; they rubbed
the soles of their feet with salt, and caused goats to lick them; they
tied their hands behind their backs; they passed a bodkin threaded with
horse-hair through their tongues, and moved it gently up and down; they
bound a knotted cord round the forehead and twisted it together behind
with a stick; they bound two fingers together, and rubbed a ramrod up
and down till the skin and flesh were burnt to the bone; they forced the
victims into the oven, lit the straw behind them, and so they were
obliged to creep through the flames. Ragamuffins were everywhere to be
found who bargained with the soldiers, to betray their own neighbours.
And these were not the most horrible torments. What was done to the
women and maidens, to the old women and children, must be passed over in
silence.
Thus did the army misbehave amongst the people, dishonouring every bed,
robbing every house, devastating every field, till they were themselves
involved in the general ruin. And the destruction of these thirty years
increased progressively. It was the years from 1635 to 1641 which
annihilated the last powers of the nation; from that period to the
peace, a death-like lassitude pervaded the country; it communicated
itself to the armies, and one can easily understand that the bitter
misery of the soldiers called for some consideration for the citizens
and peasants. The remaining population were once more reduced to
despair, as they had to pay the cost, maintenance, and peace subsidies
for the standing army. And the army dispersed itself amongst the
population.