Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries Volume Ii Part 2

In the open s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sembled 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, "_Niederlander_,"[11] which must be slid along, and "_Oberlander_,"[12] which must be thrown "from Bavarian Heights" for them to fall right; often the noiseless work was interrupted by curses, quarrels, and flas.h.i.+ng 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 workmans.h.i.+p, 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 quant.i.ties.

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 Lutzen, relates, that in the Imperial army, before the battle of Lutzen, one horseman had his horse decorated with a quant.i.ty of golden stars, and another with three hundred silver moons; and the soldiers' women wore the most beautiful church dresses and ma.s.s 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 superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tions, 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 succ.u.mbed to the stronger counter-magic of the offensive weapon: Achilles had a heel which was not invulnerable; no weapon could wound the Norse G.o.d 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 n.o.blest 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 superst.i.tion; 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 superst.i.tions were mixed, and in the time of Fronsperg and Schartlin almost every detail of the art of rendering invulnerable is to be found. Luther, in 1527, inveighs against the superst.i.tion 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 t.i.tle 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 ma.n.u.script 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 superst.i.tious 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 Pa.s.sau 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 Pa.s.sau, 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, "_Pa.s.sau 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 "_Pa.s.sauer_."

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 pa.s.sage 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 b.a.l.l.s 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, 'Pa.s.sau 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 G.o.d. a.s.siduous prayer and faith in G.o.d gives other means of support.

If any one in presence of the enemy perishes not, it is G.o.d'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 superst.i.tion was governed tyrannically by fas.h.i.+on. Of very ancient date are the charmed s.h.i.+rts, and the Victory and St. George's s.h.i.+rts; 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 st.i.tch 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 s.h.i.+rt must be spun by maidens under the age of seven; it was to be sewed with particular cross st.i.tches, laid secretly on the altar till three ma.s.ses had been read over it. On the day of battle such a charmed s.h.i.+rt 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.

Superst.i.tion 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 ma.s.s over it; then it was placed in a quill or the sh.e.l.l 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 "_Pa.s.sau charms_" of the seventeenth century, written on post paper, virgin parchment, or the host, with a peculiar pen in bat's blood; the superst.i.tion 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 b.a.l.l.s (a ma.s.s 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 Schartlin, 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 o 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 circ.u.mstance brought the Mansfeld St. George's thaler into repute in the Thirty years' war, especially those of 1611 and 1613, bearing the inscription, "With G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l 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 n.o.ble 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 compa.s.s the death of an opponent, _qui avait un caractere_, by blows of a strong pole on his neck, because he had no weapon that could kill him; he recounts this circ.u.mstance 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 G.o.d.

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 b.a.l.l.s, could only be shot by the inherited silver b.u.t.ton 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 hors.e.m.e.n and infantry: in the same way, by other sentences, they could dissolve the spell. There was still another kind of sorcery; hors.e.m.e.n 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 a.s.sistant, fire daily three fatal b.a.l.l.s 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 acc.u.mulated, 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 b.a.l.l.s, "which were consecrated for the sake of a soul." In the Thirty years' war, a coward begged of his comrade a Pa.s.sau 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 h.e.l.l 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 "Gartbruder" 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 pa.s.sed 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 Konigsmark's troop had obtained a similar sum in the suburbs of Prague, and played it away at one sitting. Konigsmark 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 circ.u.mstances. The General departed, and the fict.i.tious colonel lived on there; when he pa.s.sed 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 b.a.l.l.s, fastened them in the hair of s.h.a.ggy 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 "_sausanger_" and "_immemchneider_" (drones), were now denoted as "Merode-ing brothers." After a lost battle their numbers increased enormously. Hors.e.m.e.n who were slightly wounded, and had lost their horses, a.s.sociated 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 pa.s.sed 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. Ragam.u.f.fins 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 pa.s.sed 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 la.s.situde 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.