Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. II.
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Title: Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. II.
Author: Gustav Freytag
Translator: Mrs. Malcolm
Release date: September 22, 2010 [eBook #33795]
Most recently updated: December 31, 2022
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33795
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE IN THE XVTH, XVITH, AND XVIITH CENTURIES, VOL. II. ***
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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.
CHAPTER II.
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.
CHAPTER III.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--THE VILLAGES AND THEIR PASTORS.
Oft have the soldier's sword
And jeering Croat horde,
With usage rude and fierce,
Threaten'd my heart to pierce.
Yet I drew unhurt my breath,
No mishap could bring me death.
In water, 'gainst my will,
Plunged deep, I far'd but ill;
Closed in a wat'ry grave,
God deign'd my life to save;
Wond'rous 'tis I was not drown'd;
Brought to land all safe and sound.
Into my mouth once or more,
As 'twere a tub, they did pour
A mess of liquid dung;
Four churls, cords round me strung;
Yet I drew unhurt my breath,
No mishap could bring me death.
One of an exile band,
There in Thuringia's land
At Notleben, I dwelt,
Till I God's blessing felt,
And to Heubach's parsonage pass'd
Where kind Heaven sent peace at last.
God's servant, here have I
The church kept orderly,
Have preach'd the word therein,
The bad expell'd, of sin
Absolv'd the penitent heart,
And labour'd truth to impart.
_From 'Four Christian Hymns of Martin Bötzinger_.' (1663.)
Whoever could portray the desolation of the German people, would be able
to explain to us the striking peculiarities of the modern German
character; the remarkable mixture of fresh youth and hoary wisdom,
aspiring enthusiasm, and vacillating caution; but above all, why we,
among all the nations of Europe, still strive in vain after much which
our neighbours, not more noble by nature, not more strongly organized,
not more highly gifted, have long secured to themselves.
The following documents will only furnish an unimportant contribution to
such an explanation. Individual examples will render the ruin of the
village and city communities comprehensible, and what counteracting
power there was, together with the destroying power which supported the
remaining vitality, and prevented the final annihilation of the nation.
From these we shall see thoroughly the condition of one particular
province, which suffered severely from the miseries of war, but not more
than most other parts of Germany, not indeed so much as the Margravate
of Brandenburg and many territories of Lower Saxony and Suabia. It is
the Thuringian and Franconian side of the "Waldgebirge," which formed,
in the middle of Germany, the boundary between the north and south; more
especially the present Dukedoms of Gotha and Meiningen. The following
details are taken from the church documents and parish records, and
many, from the voluminous church and school stories which were published
by clerical collectors in the former century.
Germany was supposed to be a rich country in the year 1618. Even the
peasants had acquired during the long peace a certain degree of
opulence. The number of villages in Franconia and Thuringia was somewhat
greater than now; they were not entirely without defences, and were
often surrounded by broad ditches and palisades, or clay and stone
walls; it was forbidden to form entrances in them, but at the end of the
main streets were gates which were closed at night The churchyard was
usually defended by particularly strong walls, and more than once it was
used as the citadel and last refuge of the inhabitants. There were night
and day patroles through the villages and fields. The houses were indeed
ill formed and only of wood and clay, often crowded together in narrow
village streets, but they were not deficient in comfort and household
furniture. The villages were surrounded by orchards, and many fountains
poured their clear waters into stone basins. Small poultry fluttered
about the dung-heaps in the enclosed courtyards, immense troops of geese
fed in the stubble fields, teams of horses stood in the stables, far
more numerous than now, probably of a larger and stronger stamp; they
were rustic descendants of the old knightly chargers, the pride and joy
of their owners; and besides these were the "Kleppers," the small and
ancient race of the country. The large parish herds of sheep and cattle
grazed on the stony heights and on the rich grass marshes. The wool
fetched a high price, and in many places much value was attached to a
fine breed; the German cloths were famed, and these were the best
articles of export. This national wool, the result of a thousand years
of cultivation, was entirely lost to Germany during the war. The
district round the village (where the old Franconian divisions of long
strips were not maintained) was divided into three fields, which were
much subdivided, and each division carefully stoned off. The fields were
highly cultivated, and fine grained white wheat was sown in the winter
fields. Woad was still zealously cultivated with great advantage in the
north of the Rennstiegs. Although even before the war the foreign indigo
competed with the indigenous dye, the yearly gain from the woad in
Thuringia could be computed at three tons of gold; this was principally
in the territory of Erfurt and the Dukedom of Gotha; besides this, anise
and saffron produced much money; the cultivation of the teazel also was
formerly indigenous, and the wild turnips, and (by the Rhine) the rape
seed were sowed in the fellows. Flax was carefully prepared by steeping
it in water, and the coloured flowers of the poppies, and the waving
panicle of the millet, raised themselves in the corn-fields. But on the
declivities of warmer situations in Thuringia and Franconia there were
everywhere vineyards, and this old cultivation, which has now almost
disappeared in those countries, must in favourable years have produced a
very drinkable wine, as now on the lower range of the Waldgebirge; for
the wine of particular years is noted in the chronicles as most
excellent. Hops also were assiduously cultivated and made good beer.
Everywhere they grew fodder, and spurry and horse-beans. The meadows,
highly prized, and generally fenced in, were more carefully handled than
two hundred years later; the mole-heaps were scattered, and the
introduction and maintenance of drains and watercourses was general.
Erfurt was already the centre of the great seed traffic, of garden
cultivation, also of flowers and fine orchards. On the whole, when we
compare one time with the other, the agriculture of 1618 was not
inferior to that of 1818. It must be confessed in other respects also,
our century has but restored what was lost in 1618.
The burdens which the peasants had to bear both in service and taxes,
were not small, and greatest of all on the properties of the nobles; but
there were many free villages in that country, and the government of the
rulers was less strict than in Southern Franconia or in Hesse. Many
ecclesiastical properties had been broken up; many domains, and not a
few of the nobles' estates, were farmed by tenants; leases were a
favourite method of raising the rent of the ground. All this was for the
advantage of the peasant. The damage done by game indeed occasioned
great suffering, and there still continued much of the old bond-service
on the property of the impoverished nobles. But the greater part of the
country people were pronounced by lawyers, newly educated in the Roman
law, to be possessors of their property; it was the greatest blessing
bestowed by Roman law on the Germans in the sixteenth century. It is an
error to suppose that the bureaucratic rule is a production of modern
days; it already prevailed in those times, and the villages had often to
pay the small travelling expenses of the ducal messenger who brought
them their letters. It was already decided by superintending officials
how many fire buckets every one was to procure, and how many doves were
to be kept; they saw to the clearing of the fruit trees from
caterpillars, the cleansing of the ditches, and the annual planting of
young trees. The parish accounts had for nearly a hundred years been
kept in an orderly manner, and inspected by the government of the
country, as also the district certificates and registers of birth. There
was also a good deal of commercial intercourse. A large commercial road
passed through Thuringia, in a line almost parallel with the mountains,
from the Elbe to the Rhine and Maine; and from the descent of the
mountains near to the Werra, lay the military road which united the
north of Germany with the south. The traffic on these unconstructed
roads demanded numerous relays of horses, and brought to the villages
gain, and news from the distant world, and many opportunities of
spending money.
After the Reformation there were schools, at least in all the villages
where there was a church; the teachers were often divines, and sometimes
there were schoolmistresses for the girls. Small sums were paid for the
schooling, and a portion of the inhabitants of the village were
initiated into the secrets of reading and writing. The difference
between the countryman and the citizen was then still greater than now.
The "stupid peasant" was the favourite object of ridicule in the rooms
of the artisans, who attributed to him, as characteristic qualities,
roughness, simplicity, disingenuous cunning, drunkenness, and love of
fighting. But however retired his life then was, and poor in varied
impressions, we should do him great injustice if we considered him
essentially weaker or less worthy than he is now; on the contrary, his
independence was not less, and was frequently better established. His
ignorance of foreign states was undoubtedly greater, for there were as
yet no regular gazettes or local papers for him, and he himself
generally did not wander farther than to the nearest town, where he sold
his products, or occasionally over the mountain when he had to drive
cows; or if a Thuringian, to go to the woad market at Erfurt, if a
Franconian, perhaps to Bamberg with his hops. Also in dress, language,
and songs, he was not fashionable like the citizens; he preferred using
old strong words, which they considered coarse; he swore and cursed
after the ancient style, and his ceremonial of greeting was different
from theirs, though not less precise. But his life was not on that
account deficient in spirit, morals, or even in poetry. The German
popular songs were still vigorous, and the countryman was the most
zealous preserver of them; the peasant's feasts, his domestic life, his
lawsuits, his purchases and sales, were rich in old picturesque customs
and proverbs. The genuine German pleasure also in beautiful specimens of
handicraft, in clean and artistic heir-looms, was then shared alike by
the countryman and citizen. His household gear was superior to what it
is now. Ornamental spinning-wheels, which still pass for a new
invention, neatly carved tables, carved chairs and cupboards, have in
some instances been preserved to our times, with the earthenware apostle
jugs, and similar drinking-vessels, which may be bought by art
collectors. Great were the treasures of the countrywomen in beds, linen,
clothes, chains, medals, and other ornaments, and not less worthy of
note were the numerous sausages and hams in the chimneys. A great deal
of ready money lay concealed in the corners of chests, or carefully
buried in pots or other vessels, for the collection of bright coins was
an old pleasure to the peasantry; there had been peace as long as they
could remember, and woad and hops brought a high price. The peasant had
abundance, and was without many wants; he bought lace in the city for
his clothes, and silver ornaments for his wife and daughters, spices for
his sour wine, and whatever metal utensils and implements were necessary
for his farm and kitchen. All the woollen and linen clothes were wove
and made up by the women of the house, or the neighbour in the village.
Thus did the peasant live in middle Germany, even after the year 1618.
He heard in the ale-houses on Sunday of the war alarms in Bohemia,
about which he cared little; he bought indeed a flying-sheet of a
crafty dealer, or a satirical song on the outcast King of Bohemia; he
gave some of his bread and cheese to a fugitive from Prague or Budweis,
who came begging to his door, and shook his head as he listened to his
tale of horror. An official messenger brought into the village an order
from the sovereign, from which he found it was expected of him to
deliver into the city, money and provision for the newly raised
soldiers; he was indignant, and hastened to bury his treasures still
deeper. It soon, however, became clear that bad times were approaching
him also, for the money which he received in the town was very red, and
all goods were dear; thus he was involved in the wretched confusion
which after 1620 was brought upon the country by the coinage of bad
gold. He went no longer to the city, but kept his corn and meat at home:
he had constant disputes however with the townsmen and his neighbours,
because he wished to rid himself of the new gold in his own payments,
whilst he would receive only the good old money: his heart was full of
ominous forebodings. Thus it went on till the year 1623. He then saw
evil coming in another quarter; theft and burglary increased, foreign
vagabonds were often seen on the high-roads, trumpeters rushed into the
towns with bad news, hired soldiers, insolent and bragging, drew up
before his farm demanding entertainment, stole sausages, and carried off
his poultry in their knapsacks. _Defensioners_, the newly raised country
militia, galloped into the village, quartered themselves upon him,
demanded provisions, and molested him more than the rogues whom they
were to drive away from the cattle-sheds.
At last began--in Thuringia not till after 1623--the passage, of foreign
troops through his country, and the great sufferings of the war fell
upon him; foreign soldiers of strange appearance, reckless from blood
and battle, marched into his village, occupied his house and bed, ill
treated him and his, demanded provisions and other contributions besides
gifts, and broke, destroyed, or plundered whatever came before their
eyes. Thus it went on after 1626, worse and worse every year, troop
followed upon troop, more than one army settled itself round him in
winter quarters, the requisitions and vexations appeared endless. The
yeoman saw with dismay that the foreign soldier had the power of
tracing--which he ascribed to sorcery--the treasures which he had
concealed deep in the earth; but if he had been too sly for them, his
fate was still worse, for he himself was seized, and by torments which
it would be painful to describe, compelled to make known the place where
his treasure was concealed. On the fate of his wife and daughter we must
remain silent; the most horrible was so common, that an exception, was
extraordinary. Other sufferings also followed; his daughters,
maid-servant, and his little children were not only maltreated, but were
in imminent danger of being carried off by persuasion or force, for
every army was followed by the coarse, worthless baggage-train of women
and children. But the yeoman's homestead was devastated in still other
ways; his farming-man had perhaps borne for some years the blows of the
foreign soldiers, at last he himself was exposed to them; the team was
dragged from the plough, the cattle were fetched from the meadow, and
the tillage of the fields thus often rendered impossible. Yet pitiful
and helpless as was his position in the beginning of the war, up to the
death of Gustavus Adolphus, its horrors were comparatively bearable; for
there was as yet a certain system even in plundering and destruction,
some degree of discipline kept together the regular armies, and an
occasional year passed without any great passage of troops. It is
possible for us to discover at this time how many exactions were made on
particular parishes, for there were already country authorities who sat
in their offices, and after the passage of troops through a parish,
demanded the usual liquidation of their loans, the amount of which was
indeed seldom returned to them. Whoever will glance over the
liquidations in the parish archives, will find the names of ill-famed
commanders, whom he may know from history or Schiller's Wallenstein, in
very near connection with the history of a Thuringian village.
The effect produced by such a life of insecurity and torment on the
souls of the country people, was very sad. Fear, trembling, and dread
pervaded and enervated all hearts: their minds had always been full of
superstition, now everything was sought for, with impulsive credulity,
which could be significant of the attacks of supernatural powers. The
most horrible countenances were seen in the heavens, the signs of
fearful wickedness were discovered in numerous abortions, ghosts
appeared, mysterious sounds were heard on earth and in the heavens. In
Ummerstadt for example, in the dukedom of Hildburghausen, white crosses
illuminated the heavens when the enemy entered; when they forced their
way into the court of chancery, a spirit clothed in white met them and
motioned them back, and no one could advance; after their departure, a
violent breathing and sighing was heard for eight days in the choir of
the church which had been burnt. At Gumpershausen a maid-servant made a
great sensation through the whole country; she rejoiced in the visits of
a little angel, who appeared, sometimes in a blue, sometimes in a red
shirt sitting on the bed or by the table, cried out "Woe," warned
against cursing and blasphemy, and predicted horrible bloodshed if men
would not give up their vices, their pride, and their stiff blue
ruffs,--then a new fashion. When we look at the zealous protocols which
were drawn up by the ecclesiastics concerning the half-witted maiden, we
find that the only circumstance which was matter of surprise to them,
was that the angel did not visit themselves instead of a simple maiden.
Not only terror, but a spirit of defiance and wild despair possessed all
souls. A moral recklessness prevailed fearfully among the country
people. Wives abandoned their husbands, children their parents; the
customs, vices, and maladies of the passing armies left lasting traces,
even when the pillagers had quitted the desolated and half-ruined
villages. The brandy drinking, which had been introduced among the
people since the Peasant war, became a general vice; respect for the
property of others disappeared. In the beginning of the war the
neighbouring villages were disposed to help one another; if the soldiers
had driven away the cattle from one village, and disposed of them again
at their next night-quarters, the buyers often returned their new
purchase to the former proprietors at the purchase price. This was done
in Franconia, by both Catholic and Protestant communities, out of pure
kindness. Gradually, however, the country people began to rob and
plunder like the soldiers; armed bands combined together, passed the
frontiers into other villages, and carried off whatever they needed.
They waylaid the stragglers of the regiments in dense woods or mountain
passes, and often after a severe struggle took a bloody revenge on the
vanquished; indeed, they far surpassed the skill of the soldiers in the
contrivance of barbarities; and there were wooded hills, in whose shades
the most horrible crimes were now committed by those who had formerly
frequented them as peaceful wood-cutters and stone-breakers, singing
their simple songs. There arose gradually a terrible hatred betwixt the
soldiery and peasantry, which lasted till the end of the war, and caused
more than anything else the ruin of the villages of Germany. There were
feuds also between the provinces and individual towns; that which is
related here was only a harmless one of that gloomy time.
A violent enmity subsisted for many years after the war between the
citizens of Eisfeld and the monastery of Banz, on account of the two
fine-toned bells of their parish church, the "_Banzer_" and the
"_Messe_." A Swedish officer had carried off both bells from Banz and
sold them to the town. Twice, when the Catholic army was stationed at
Eisfeld, the monks had come with waggons and ropes to fetch back their
bells, but the first time they fell into a quarrel with a certain Croat
who was quartered there, because they wished to take away with them the
steeple clock. The Croat rushed upon the pious men with his sword, and
he and his comrades ran up the tower and vehemently pulled the bell, so
that the monks of Banz could not fetch it down, and were only able to
take away the clock with them. The second time they did not succeed
better; at last, after the peace, another bell was offered to them as
compensation. But when they discovered this sentence upon it: "Preserve
us, Lord, by thy word," they returned to their house shaking their
heads. At last the pious Duke Ernest arranged the affair; he took for
himself as a thank-offering the small bell, and hung it on the
Friedenstein in Gotha.
The villages did all in their power to defend themselves from the
rapacity of the soldiers. As long as they had money, they endeavoured to
buy off the officers who were sent forward to seek for quarters, and
many rogues took advantage of their fears, and appearing under the
disguise of quartermasters, levied heavy contributions on the deluded
villagers. Watchmen were placed on the church towers and elevations of
the plain, who gave signals if troops were visible in the distance. Then
the countryman brought whatever he could save, and the women and
children their movable chattels, hasting to some distant place of
concealment. These hiding-places were selected with great sagacity; by a
little additional labour they were made still more inaccessible, and for
weeks, indeed months, the fugitives passed their anxious existence
there. On the dark moor, midst ditches, rushes and elders, in the deep
shade of woody glens, in old clay-pits, and amid the ruins of decaying
walls, did they seek their last refuge. The countryman in many places
still shows with emotion such spots. There is a large vault with an iron
door in an old tower at Aspach, whither the Aspachers fled whenever
small bands of soldiers approached the village; for a more distant
refuge they had a field of many acres, overgrown with thick hornbeam,
and there they planted thorns which from the fertility of the soil grew
into large trees and became like a thick wall. Within this barricade,
which could only be attained by creeping on the belly, the villagers
often concealed themselves. After the war the thorns were rooted up, and
the land changed into hop, and afterwards cabbage grounds. But a portion
of this land is still called the "Schutzdorn," "thorn-defence." When the
soldiers had withdrawn, the fugitives returned and repaired with their
scanty means what had been laid waste. Often, indeed, they found only a
smoking pile.
All however who fled did not return. The more wealthy sought a refuge
for themselves and their property in the cities, where martial
discipline was a little more rigorous, and the danger less. Many also
fled into another country, and if they were threatened by enemies there,
again into another; and most of them assuredly had not less misery to
suffer there. Those who remained in the country did not all return to
their own fields. The wild life in hiding-places and woods, the rough
pleasure in deeds of violence and pillage, turned the boldest of them
into robbers; provided with rusty weapons, which they had perhaps taken
from some dead marauder, they carried on a lawless life under the
mountain pines, as companions of wolves and crows, as poachers and
highwaymen.
Thus did the population of the plains decrease with frightful rapidity.
Even in the time of the King of Sweden many villages were entirely
abandoned, the beasts of the woods roamed about among the blackened
rafters, and perhaps the tattered figure of some old beldame or cripple
might be seen. From that time ruin increased to such an extent, that
nothing like it can be found in modern history. To the destructive
demons of the sword were added others, not less fearful and still more
voracious. The land was little cultivated and the harvest was bad. An
unheard-of rise in prices ensued, famine followed, and in the years 1635
and 1636 a pestilence attacked the enfeebled population, more terrible
than had raged for more than a century in Germany. It spread its pall
slowly over the whole of Germany, over the soldier as well as over the
peasant, armies were dissipated under its parching breath, many places
lost half their inhabitants, and in some villages in Franconia and
Thuringia there remained only a few individuals. The little strength
which had remained in one corner of the land was now broken. The war
raged on still twelve long years after this time of horror, but it had
become weaker, the armies were smaller, the operations without plan or
stability, from the want of provisions and animals, but where the fury
of war still blazed, it devoured mercilessly what remained of life. The
people reached the lowest depths of misfortune; a dull apathetic
brooding became general. Of the country people of this last period there
is little to be told; they vegetated, reckless and hopeless, but few
accounts of them are to be found in village records, parish books, and
small chronicles. They had forgotten in the villages the art of writing,
nay even their crying grievances. Where an army had carried devastation
and famine raged, men and dogs ate of the same corpse, and children were
caught and slaughtered. A time had now come when those who had held out
during twenty years of suffering, laid violent hands on themselves; we
read this in the accounts of ambassadors, who for years worked in vain
for peace.
It may be asked how, after such sufferings and utter ruin, the survivors
could still form a German nation, who at the conclusion of peace could
again cultivate the country, pay taxes, and after vegetating in poverty
for a century, again engender energy, enthusiasm, and a new life in art
and science. It is certainly probable that the country people would have
entirely scattered themselves in roving bands, and that the cities would
never have been in a condition to produce a new national life, if three
powerful causes had not contributed to preserve the German countryman
from being altogether lost,--his love of his paternal acres; the
endeavours of the magistracy; and above all, the zeal of those who had
the care of his soul, the village pastors. The love of the peasant for
his own field, which works inimically against the most benevolent
agrarian laws, is even now a strong feeling, but in the seventeenth
century was still more powerful. For the peasant knew very little of the
world beyond his own village, and it was difficult for him to pass the
boundaries which separated him from other vocations, or from
establishing himself on the property of other lords. He ever returned
with tenacity from his hiding-place to his devastated farm, and
endeavoured to collect together the trampled corn, or to sow the few
seeds he had been able to preserve. When his last beast had been stolen,
he harnessed himself to the plough. He took care not to give his house a
habitable appearance; he accustomed himself to dwell amidst dirt and
ruins, and concealed the flickering fire of his hearth from the gaze of
marauders, who might perhaps be seeking in the night for some warm
resting-place. He hid his scanty meal in a place which would disgust
even a reckless enemy, in ditches and coffins, and under skulls. Thus he
lived under the powerful pressure of habit, however little hope there
might be that his labour would prove advantageous to him. If a landed
proprietor stood valiantly by his village, even in times of comparative
tranquillity, he accompanied his beasts to the fields, armed to the
teeth, ready to fight against any robbers who might pounce down on him.
It was no less the interest of the landed proprietor and his officials,
than of the peasant himself, to preserve the villages. The smaller the
number of tax-payers became, the higher was the tax on the few who
remained. The rulers, from the cities in which they resided occupied
themselves during the whole war through their officials, bailiffs, and
receivers, with the fate of the villages, nay even of individuals. The
keeping of the parish records was only interrupted during the most
troubled time, and was always recommenced. Certificates, reports,
memorials, and rescripts passed hither and thither amidst all the
misery.[29] Petitions for remission of rents and liquidation of costs
were incessantly demanded, and many a poor schoolmaster obediently gave
his service as parish writer whilst the snow floated into his schoolroom
through the shattered windows, the parish chests lay broken in the
streets, and the parishioners, whose accounts he was writing, went armed
into the woods with dark illegal projects, which were never reported to
the government. Useless as this system of writing in many cases was, it
formed numerous links which bound individuals more closely to their
states; and in the pauses of the war, and at the conclusion of it, was
of the greatest importance, for it had preserved the mechanism of the
administration.
It was however to the country clergy and their holy office that the
maintenance of the German people is chiefly owing. Their influence was
undoubtedly not less in the Catholic than in the Protestant provinces,
though there remain few accounts of it; for the Catholic village pastors
were then as averse to writing as the evangelical were fond of it. But
the Protestant pastors had a far greater share in the mental cultivation
of their time. The Reformers had made the German learned education
essentially theological, and the village clergy were, in the estimation
of the noble proprietors and peasantry, the representatives of this
intelligence. They were generally well skilled in the ancient languages,
and expert in writing Latin and elegiac verses. They were powerful
disputants, and much experienced in dogmatic controversy, stubborn and
positive, and full of zealous indignation against the followers of
Schwenkfeld, Theophrast, Rosenkreuz, and Weigelia, and their teaching
was more full of hatred to heretics than love towards their
fellow-creatures. Their influence on the consciences of the laity had
made them arrogant and imperious, and the most gifted among them were
more occupied with politics than was good for their characters. If an
order may be considered responsible for the imperfection of the mental
cultivation of the period, which it has not formed, but only represents,
the Lutheran ecclesiastics were deeply and fatally guilty of the
devastation of mind, the unpractical weakness, and the dry wearisome
formalism which frequently appeared in German life. The ecclesiastics,
as an order, were neither accommodating nor especially estimable, and
even their morality was narrow-minded and harsh. But all these errors
they atoned for in times of poverty, calamity, and persecution, more
especially the poor village pastors. They were exposed to the greatest
dangers, hated in general by the Imperial soldiers, and obliged by their
office to bring themselves under the observation of the enemy; and the
rough usage which they, their wives, and daughters had to suffer,
fatally injured their consideration in their own parish. They were
maintained by the contributions of their parishioners, and were not
accustomed, and ill fitted to obtain their daily food by bodily labour;
they were the greatest sufferers from any decrease in the wealth,
morality, or population of their villages. One must bear witness that a
very great number of them endured all these dangers as true servants of
Christ. Most of them adhered to their parishes almost to the very last
man. Their churches were plundered and burnt, chalice and crucifix
stolen, the altar desecrated with disgusting ordures, and the bells torn
from the towers and carried away. Then they held divine service in a
barn, or an open field, or in the cover of a green wood. When the
parishioners had almost perished, so that the voice of the singer was
heard no more, and the penitential hymns were no longer intoned by the
chanter, they still called the remains of their congregation together at
the hour of prayer. They were vigorous and zealous both in giving
comfort and in exercising discipline; for the greater the misery of
their parishioners, the more reason they had to be dissatisfied with
them. Frequently they were the first to suffer from the demoralization
of the villagers: theft and insolent wantonness were willingly practised
against those whose indignant looks and solemn admonitions had
heretofore overawed them. Hence their fate is particularly
characteristic of that iron time, and we happily possess numerous
records concerning them, frequently in church documents, in which they
bemoaned their sufferings, when no one would listen to them. From such
records of Thuringian and Franconian village pastors, only a few
examples will here be given.
Magister Michael Ludwig was pastor at Sonnenfeld, about 1633; there he
preached to his parishioners in the wood under the canopy of heaven;
they were called together by the sound of the trumpet, instead of the
bell, and it was necessary to place an armed watch whilst he preached;
thus he continued for eight years, till his parishioners entirely
disappeared. A Swedish officer then appointed him preacher to his
regiment; he was afterwards made president of the army consistory at
Torstenson, and superintendent at Wismar. Georg Faber preached at
Gellershausen, read prayers daily to three or four hearers, always at
the risk of his life: he rose every morning at three o'clock and learned
his sermon entirely by heart; besides that, he wrote learned treatises
upon the books of the Bible.
In the neighbouring towns of the interior, the clergy had as much to
undergo. For example, the rector at Eisfeld, about 1635, was Johann
Otto, a young man who had just married; he had in the worst times kept
the whole school during eight years, with only one teacher, and provided
the choir also gratis. The smallness of his income may be seen from the
notes which the excellent man has written in his Euclid: "2 days
thrashing in autumn, 1 day working in the wood in 1646. 2 days thrashing
in January, 1647. 5 days thrashing in February, 1647. 4 marriage letters
written. Item, 1/2 day binding oats, and one day reaping," and so on. He
persevered, and administered his office honourably for forty-two years.
His successor, the great Latin scholar, Johann Schmidt, teacher of the
celebrated Cellarius, had become a soldier, and when on guard at the
Royal Castle was reading a Greek poet; this was perceived by his officer
with astonishment, and was mentioned by him to Ernest the Good, who made
him a teacher.
The superintendent at the same place, Andreas Pochmann, was, when an
orphan, carried off with two little brothers by the Croats. He escaped
with his brothers in the night. Later, when a Latin scholar, he was
again taken prisoner by the soldiers, was made an officer's servant, and
then a musketeer. But he continued to study in the garrison, and found
among his comrades students from Paris and London, with whom he kept up
his Latin. Once, when a soldier, he was lying sick by the watch fire,
under his sleeve was the powder pouch, with a pound and a half of
powder, the flames reached the sleeve and burnt half of it; the powder
pouch was unconsumed. When he awoke he found himself alone, the camp was
abandoned, and he had not a penny of money. Then he found two thalers in
the ashes. With this he struck across to Gotha; on the way, he turned
off to Langensalza, to a lonely small house near the walls: an old woman
received the wearied man, and laid him on a bed. It was the plague
nurse, and the bed was a plague bed, for the malady was then raging in
the city; he remained unhurt. His life, like that of most of his
cotemporaries, was full of wonderful escapes, sudden changes, and
unexpected succour, of deadly perils, penury, and frequent changes of
place. These times must be accurately observed, in order to understand
how, just at a period when millions were brought to ruin and
destruction, there was fostered in the survivors a deep belief in that
Divine Providence, which, in a wonderful way, encompassed the lives of
men.
From almost every village church one can obtain reminiscences of the
sufferings, self-devotion, and perseverance of their pastors. It must be
said, that only the strongest minds came out unscathed in such times.
The endless insecurity, the want of support, the lawless proceedings of
the soldiers and of their own parishioners, made many of them petty in
their ideas, cringing and beggarly. We will give one example among many.
Johanne Elfflein, pastor at Simau after 1632, was so poor that he was
obliged to work as a day labourer, to cut wood in the forest, to dig and
to sow; twice he received either alms from the poor-box at Coburg, or
what was placed there at the baptism of children. At last the consistory
at Coburg sold one of the chalices of the church to procure bread for
him. He considered it an especial piece of good fortune, when he had
once to perform the funeral of a distinguished noble, for then he got a
good old rix-dollar, and a quarter of corn. When shortly afterwards he
confidentially complained to a neighbour of his want of food, and the
latter replied with desperate resolution, he knew well what he should do
in such a case, then, firm in faith, Magister Elfflein said, "My God
will provide means that I shall not die of hunger; He will cause a rich
nobleman to die, that I may obtain money, and a quarter of corn." He
considered it was ordained by Providence, when soon after, this
melancholy event actually occurred. His situation was so pitiable, that
even the rapacious soldiers, when they sent their lads in the
neighbourhood after booty, emphatically ordered them to leave the pastor
at Simau unmolested, as the poor simpleton had nothing for himself. At
last he got another parish.
At the source of the Itz, where the mountains decline in high terraces
towards the Main, lies the old village of Stelzen, a holy place even in
heathen times. Close to the church, from the corner of a spacious
cavern, overshadowed by primeval beech and lime trees, springs up a
miraculous well; near the well, before the Reformation, stood a chapel
to the Holy Virgin, and many a time did hundreds of counts and noblemen,
with numberless other people, flock together there as pilgrims. The
village was entirely burnt down at Michaelmas, 1632, only the church,
the school, and shepherd's hut remained standing. The pastor, Nicholas
Schubert, wrote to the authorities in the winter as follows: "I have
saved nothing but my eight poor, little, naked, hungry children. I
continue to dwell _ex mandato_ in the very old, and on account of the
want of a chimney, a floor and so forth, dangerous school-house, where I
can neither attend to my studies, nor do anything for my support. For I
have neither food nor clothes, _longe enim plura deficiunt_. Given at my
castle of misery, Stelzen, 1633. Your willing servant, and obedient poor
burnt-out pastor, Nicholas Schubert." Shortly he was removed. His
successor likewise was pillaged, and stabbed in the left hip with a
rapier; he too was removed; a second successor also was unable to
maintain himself there. After that, the parsonage house was uninhabited
for fifteen years, but the neighbouring pastor, Götz of Sachsendorf,
came every third Sunday, and performed service in the ruined village.
For two years there came no pence to the church coffers. At last, in
1647, the church was entirely burned to the bare walls.
Gregory Ewald was pastor at Königsberg; in 1632, Tilly burnt down the
city, and Ewald was taken prisoner in a vineyard by two Croats, and
robbed; when they could not withdraw a gold ring from his finger they
prepared to cut off the finger, but at last had so much consideration
that they took only the skin with the ring, and demanded a thousand
dollars ransom. Ewald released himself by this stratagem; he took the
simple soldier, who was left with him to fetch the ransom, first to the
door of a cellar in order to give him a drink of wine, and under the
pretext of fetching the key he escaped. In his great necessity he took
an appointment as Swedish army chaplain, and after the battle of
Nördlingen, lived as an exile for a year in a foreign country, from
thence he returned to his ruined parish, where for some years he and his
family endured want and misery.
Among the most instructive of the biographical accounts of Protestant
pastors, is that of the Franconian pastor, Martin Bötzinger. We see with
horror, both the village life in the time of the war, and the
demoralization of the inhabitants, distinctly portrayed in his
narrative. Bötzinger was not a man of great character, and the
lamentable lot he had to bear did not strengthen it; indeed, we can
hardly deny him the predicate of a right miserable devil. Nevertheless
he possessed two qualities which render him estimable to us, an
indestructible energy with which there was not the slightest frivolity
united; and that determined German contentment which takes the brightest
view of the most desolate situations. He was a poet. His German verses
are thoroughly pitiful, as may be seen by the specimen heading this
chapter, but they served him as elegant begging letters by which, in
the worst times, he endeavoured to procure sympathy. He celebrated all
the officials and receivers of the parish of Heldburg in an epic poem,
as also the melancholy condition of Coburg, where he tarried for a
certain time as a fugitive.
Of the career which he noted down, the beginning and the last portion
were already torn out when Krauss, in 1730, incorporated it in his
history of the Hildburghaus church, school, and province. The following
is faithfully transcribed from this fragment; only the series of events
which are intermingled in his autobiography are here arranged according
to years. Bötzinger was a collegian at Coburg and a student at Jena,
during the _Kipper_ time;[30] and in 1626, he became pastor at
Poppenhausen. In the spring of 1627, the young pastor entertained the
idea of marrying the only daughter of Michael Böhme, burgher and
counsellor at Heldburg, whose name was Ursula.
"In the year 1627, on the Tuesday after the Jubilate, all necessary
preparations being made, on this very day, a body of eight thousand men,
people from Saxe Lauenburg, together with the Prince himself, encamped
before Heldburg; pitched their camp on the cropped ground, and in eight
days ruined the city and land belonging to the corporation, so that
neither calf nor lamb, beer nor wine, could any more be procured.
Provisions were brought from all the neighbouring districts, and yet
even the royal officers and officials could hardly be maintained. They
were, on account of the cold, quartered some days in the city and
villages. It was then, for the first time, I was plundered in the
parsonage house at Poppenhausen, for not only had I not secured
anything, but rather had I made preparation as if I had to lodge an
honourable guest or officer; I lost my linen, bedding, shirts, and so
forth, for I did not yet know that the soldiers were robbers, and took
everything away with them. The prince of the country, Duke Casimir, was
himself obliged to journey to Heldburg; he ordered for the Lauenburger a
princely banquet; he presented him with fine horses and eight thousand
thalers if he would only take himself away. After this misfortune, the
blessing of God made itself miraculously visible everywhere. Owing to
the thousands of huts, quarters and fires, which made the fields look
like a wilderness, it was thought that the winter seed was lost in the
ground. Nevertheless, there grew from these burnt huts and ditches so
thick a crop, that in the same year, there was a superfluity of winter
food. A miracle! Thus my wedding could take place on the Tuesday after
the _Exaudi_, and was celebrated at the Town Hall.
"For five years there was rest in the land till 1632, except that
several Imperial corps, consisting of two, three, or more regiments,
passed to and fro, who often took up their quarters in the township of
Heldburg, and exhausted it. I wanted for nothing at Poppenhausen. I
could wish that I was now as well off as I was before the war. As,
however, the fury of war at last arrived, the neighbouring bishops began
to reform vigorously; sent Jesuits and monks with diplomas into the
country, and examined the ecclesiastical benefices and monasteries. The
princes had their militia here and there, who now and then pilfered in
the neighbouring Papal states, and stirred up the hornets there. Every
intelligent person could discover that things would become worse. The
noblemen also fled with their pastors, bailiffs, and all belonging to
them, to our little towns and villages, hoping for greater security
there than in their own places.
"In 1631, at Michaelmas, King Gustavus came from Sweden suddenly through
the wood, just as if he had wings. He took Königshofen and many other
places, and went on very flourishingly. Our nobles enlisted people for
the king, who were as bad as the enemy in pilfering and robbing. They
more especially took from the neighbouring Catholics their cows, horses,
pigs, and sheep; then was there a great sale; a ducat for one cow, and a
thaler for a pig. The Papists often came hither and saw how and who
bought their cattle, and frequently redeemed them themselves. They were
however so often taken, that they wearied of redeeming them, and it went
ill with the poor neighbouring Papists. We all at Poppenhausen preserved
for those in the neighbourhood, their bits of property in churches and
houses, as far as we could. But when in the year 1632, the tables were
turned, and the three Generals, the Friedlander, Tilly, and the Bavarian
prince, took possession of Coburg and the country, the neighbouring
Papists helped to rob and burn, and we found no faith or safety with
them.
"When on the eve of Michaelmas, all the guns were heard from Coburg, as
a signal that the enemy was approaching, and every one took care of
himself, I went with all those whom I had lodged for some weeks, to
Heldburg, where I had previously sent my wife and child. The town was on
its guard, but did not imagine what evil would betide it; the
burgomaster and some of the councillors ran away, my father-in-law of
blessed memory, having the charge of the powder, lead, and linstocks,
which he served out to the guard as need required, was obliged to remain
in the town. I had a great desire to leave the town with my wife and
children, but he would not let me go, and still less his daughter, and
bade us remain at home; he had a tolerable purse of thalers with which
he intended to make off in case of disaster. But before midday on the
feast of St. Michael, fourteen horsemen presented themselves; they were
supposed to be Duke Bernhard's people, but it was very far from the
case. These they were obliged to admit without thanks for it. They were
soon followed by some infantry, who from the beginning searched about
everywhere, and knocked down and shot whoever resisted them. In the
middle of the market, one of these fourteen struck my father-in-law with
a pistol on the head, so that he fell down like an ox. The horseman
dismounted, and searched his hosen, and our citizens who were at the
Town Hall saw that the thief drew out from thence a large mass of money.
When the stupefaction from the blow had passed away, my father-in-law
stood up: he was made to go to the Star Inn, where they found somewhat
to eat, but nothing to drink; then he said he would go home and bring
some drink. Now as they thought he might escape them, they took the
platters and food with them, and accompanied him to his house. It was
not long before one of them demanded money; and when he excused himself,
the scoundrel stabbed him with his own bread-knife in the presence of
his wife and mine, so that he sank to the ground. 'God help us!'
screamed out my wife and child. I, who was hid in the bath-house, in the
straw over the stable, sprang down and ventured amongst them. The wonder
was that they did not catch me in the parson's cap. I took my
father-in-law, who was reeling about like a drunken man, into the
bath-room, that he might be bandaged. I was obliged to look on whilst
they took off from your mother[31] her shoes and clothes, and laid hold
of you, my son Michael, in their arms; hereupon they quitted the house
and the street. I went from the little court of the bath-house to my
father-in-law's room; I carried over there pillows and mattresses,
whereon we laid him. I had to venture still further. I went into the
cellar, wherein his brother, Herr George Böhm, pastor at Lindenau, had
placed in three large butts, two tons of good wine. I wished to fetch a
refreshing drink for my father-in-law, but the vent peg was so carefully
and firmly driven into the butt that although I pulled out the spigot
nothing would flow. I was obliged to stay a long time, at great risk,
before I could get a spoonful. I had hardly gone over there, before a
scoundrel went into the bath-house, threw the invalid off the bed, and
searched everywhere. I had crept under the sweating bench, where indeed
I got a good sweating, for the day before had been the bath day.
"As there was now a great butchery and shooting down in the town, so
that no one was secure, divers citizens came at intervals to have
themselves bandaged. Then my father-in-law consented that I should seek
for a hiding-place and leave the town, but would not let my wife and
children accompany me. So I went to the castle garden, and ascended the
height behind the castle, that I might look out towards Holzhausen and
Gellershausen, to see if it was safe. Then the citizens and their wives
came to me for comfort and to journey with me. Thus I crossed over the
Hundshanger lake into the wood, and wished to go up to Strauchhahn. When
we came to the common, eight horsemen, who were Croats, rode up the
heights. As soon as they saw us they hastily galloped up to us. Two
citizens, Kührlein and Brehme, escaped; I had most to endure. They took
off my shoes, stockings, and hosen, and left me only my cap. With my
hosen I had to give up my purse full of money, which I had hid there
three hours before, and thus had preserved from the first pilferers. The
danger was so urgent that I did not think of my purse till I saw it for
the last time. They demanded first a thousand thalers, then five
hundred, and lastly a hundred, for my life. I had to go with them to
their quarters, and to run with them a whole hour barefoot. At last they
perceived that I was a _pap_ or _pfaff_, which I also confessed; then
they began to thrust at me with their sabres without discretion, and I
held my hands and arms towards them, and through God's protection only
got a few wounds on the wrist.
"Meanwhile they discovered a peasant who had hidden himself in some
bushes. It was the rich Kaspar of Gellershausen, so they all rode off to
him, and only one remained with me, who was by birth a Swede, and had
been made prisoner. This one said to me, 'Priest, priest, run, run,
otherwise you must die.' He was a good Swede: I placed confidence in
his counsel, and begged of him to feign to ride after me, as if he
would fetch me back. Thus it happened that I escaped the Croats. But the
rich Kaspar met a miserable death at that place; for as he would not
come forth from thence, they hewed off his legs, as I saw, at the
knees. Therefore he was obliged to lie in that place, where after their
withdrawal he was found. But I ran through a great oak wood for almost
an hour, and could see no thick bushes wherein to conceal myself, and
fell at last into a pool of water out of which an oak root had grown,
and I was so tired of running that I could go no further, and my heart
beat so that I knew not whether it was the horses' hoofs that I heard,
or my heart.
"Thus I sat till it was night; then I rose up and continued in search of
a thick cover, till I came out and could see Seidenstadt. I slipped into
the village, and as I heard dogs bark, I hoped to find people at home,
but there was no one; I therefore went into a shed, and was desirous of
passing the night on the hay. But God granted that the neighbours, who
had hid themselves in Strauchhahn, had come together behind this shed,
and took counsel where they should reassemble, and where they should go
to. This I could distinctly hear. I therefore descended and went to the
house. The peasant had just come in, had struck a light, and was
standing in the cellar taking the cream off the milk, which he intended
to drink. I was standing above the opening, spoke to him and greeted
him; he looked up and saw the under part of my body, namely, my shirt
and naked legs, and it was dark above. He was much frightened; but when
I told him that I was the pastor at Poppenhausen, who had been carried
off by the soldiers, he brought the milk up, and I begged him to procure
me some clothes of his neighbours, as I wished to accompany them
wherever they were going. He went out, and meanwhile I regaled myself on
his pot of milk, and entirely emptied it. In my whole life no milk had
ever tasted so good. He came back with others, and one of them brought
me a pair of old leather hosen, which smelt badly of cart-grease,
another a pair of old latchet shoes, and another two woollen stockings,
one green and one white. This livery was not suitable either for a
traveller or for a pastor; yet I took it with thanks, but could not wear
the shoes, for they were frozen too stiff. The soles of the stockings
were torn, thus I went to Hildburghausen more barefooted than shod. When
we looked around us we saw that many places in Itzgrund were in flames.
At that time, Ummerstadt, Rodach, Eisfeld, and Heldburg were burnt to
the ground.
"I was, on my arrival, such a spectacle as to create terror and fear at
Hildburghausen; no one--though many thousand strangers had come
there--felt secure, although the city had a strong guard. My only
anxiety was to get a respectable dress, stockings, shoes, &c., before we
departed from thence. I went, therefore, barefoot to the burgomaster,
Paul Walz, and to the curate, and begged them to give me something to
clothe me respectably. Herr Walz gave me an old hat which was almost an
ell in height, which disfigured me more than anything else; nevertheless
I put it on. Herr Schnetters Eidam, now curate at Römhild, gave me a
pair of hosen, which came over my knees, these were still good, Herr
Dressel a pair of black stockings, and the sexton a pair of shoes. Thus
I was rigged out, so that I could appear without being ashamed before so
many thousand strangers, who had sought security in the town; and could
show myself amongst the citizens. But the hat disfigured me very much,
therefore I sought an opportunity to obtain another. Now it came to pass
that the whole ministry, the authorities of the high school and
councillors, had agreed, without the knowledge of the citizens
generally, that they would have the gates opened at nine o'clock at
night, and go away with their wives and children: having learned this, I
went to the lodging of the town-clerk, where the gentlemen were all
assembled; but no one knew or noticed me. I placed myself alone by a
table in the dark; there I discovered that a good respectable hat was
hanging on a nail. I thought that if this should remain hanging on the
breaking up of the assembly, it would suit me. What matter; all would be
ruined after the flight. What I wished and thought came to pass: then
there began a wailing and leave-taking on their departure, and I laid my
head on the table as if I were asleep. Now when almost every one was
gone, I hung the long stork on the wall, made the exchange, and went
with the other gentlemen into the street.
"The arrangements for flight now became known to the people. Countless
numbers therefore sat with their packages in the streets; horses were
put also to many waggons and carts, all prepared to go out of the gate
with those who were departing. When we came into the open country we saw
that the good people were all dispersed about the streets. There were
thousands of lighted torches to be seen, some had lanterns, some burning
wisps of straw, others links. In short some thousands came mournfully
out. I and my flock came about midnight to Themar, the townspeople there
rose up and joined us, so that some hundreds more were added to us. The
march proceeded to Schwarzig and Steinbach, and when towards morning we
arrived at a village, the people were so terrified that they abandoned
their houses and farms and accompanied us. When we had been about an
hour at an inn, the news came that the Croats had fallen upon Themar
this very morning, had cut up the escort and plundered the carrier's
goods; had split the burgomaster's head, robbed the church, and carried
the organ pipes off to the market; and it was high time for us to have
evacuated it. Hildburghausen had afterwards to ransom itself by a large
sum of money and its chalices, otherwise the town would like all the
others have been
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