After the battle of Lützen (May 2, 1813) some 8,000 wounded French and Prussian soldiers came to Erfurt, necessitating the immediate erection of lazarets. After the battles in August, when the scene of the war moved closer to Erfurt, the misery in the city was greatly increased, resulting in a rapid dissemination of typhus fever. In the latter part of August, when 9,000 sick and convalescent soldiers arrived in the city, the citizens were obliged to quarter them; the number of soldiers that succumbed to typhus fever was appalling, while as many as 17 civilians often died in a single day; in the week before the battle of Leipzig 504 soldiers died in the hospitals. On October 20–23 the French lazarets were cleaned out as thoroughly as possible. During the siege, which began on October 25 and lasted seventy-three days, the misery was extreme, and typhus fever raged more and more furiously. From November 1 to November 17 some 400 civilians died, while no less than 1,472 soldiers died in the military hospitals; 143 soldiers died on December 9 and 10. The houses of a few citizens were rendered absolutely tenantless. In the year 1813 Erfurt lost 1,585 citizens, as compared with an average of 554 for the years 1811–12; the number of deaths in the year 1814 was 1,121. Typhus fever also raged so furiously among the Prussian besiegers, that the lazarets were soon overcrowded, and it was necessary to house the troops in other places.[[149]]

In Fulda, which was forced to take in thousands of sick soldiers, typhus fever soon began to spread rapidly, as it also did in the country surrounding the city. In Giessen, where a Russian field-lazaret for 1,800–2,000 men was erected, the epidemic soon spread to the civil inhabitants.

At Hanau the French retreat was opposed by General Wrede with an army of 50,000 Bavarians and Austrians, a much smaller number than the French had. The two days of fighting that ensued (October 30 and 31, 1813) caused the pestilence to develop murderously. Kopp has given us a good description of this epidemic in Hanau.[[150]] Since the beginning of the war the city had always had a military hospital, which lay outside the city. During the battles in Saxony the number of sick and wounded increased, so that it was necessary to erect a second lazaret within the city. Many sick-attendants and sub-surgeons contracted typhus fever, which was prevalent in the hospitals, and several cases also occurred in the city, especially among people who quartered soldiers for money in their homes; many soldiers were thus crowded together in small rooms, and among them were a great many convalescents from Saxon hospitals. The infectious nature of the disease and its consequent dangerousness was shown by the fact that as a rule entire families gradually contracted it, although the epidemic was confined to individual houses. The engagement at Hanau, from which the French emerged victorious, resulted in the unfortunate city being stormed and plundered. ‘Even while the battle was going on,’ says Kopp, ‘a corps of the French army scattered throughout Hanau. This corps had brought with it from Saxony the germ of infection; for the region around Dresden could be looked upon as the great breeding-place where, in view of the enormous assemblage of people representing so many nations, and owing to the concurrence of so many unusual factors, the soil was uncommonly fertile for pestilential diseases.’ After the engagement a multitude of French prisoners, greatly weakened by hardships and hunger, came to the city. The dissemination of typhus fever was especially helped along by the fact that many poor inhabitants engaged in looting on the battlefield, and took home with them the knapsacks and other effects of the dead. The clothing of the dead came into the possession of those who were charged with burying them, and later got into the hands of the poorest families in the city and in the neighbouring villages. ‘I often entered the houses of poor people,’ Kopp goes on to say, ‘and found the entire family suffering from typhus fever, and on the walls of the low sick-room the uniforms, shirts, and other effects of the dead soldiers would still be hanging.’ The result was that the number of patients greatly increased after the battle, and in less than two weeks an epidemic began to develop; at first it was rather mild, but later on it carried away large numbers of people, and lasted until the end of February, having reached its climax in December. From December 1, 1813, to January 4, 1814, 248 people died, whereas the normal mortality for the month of December was but 30. The total number of deaths, including the soldiers, between October 26 and March 1 was 613, while in ordinary years only 125 people died, on the average. The middle class suffered worst of all, while of the upper classes three physicians and several clergymen died. Of the 192 typhus-fever patients that Kopp himself treated, 21 died (10·9 per cent), but these figures do not include a rather large number of very mild cases. People of all ages and both sexes were attacked; children suffered less than adults, while old people and heavy drinkers were the most liable to succumb. The disease lasted from two to three weeks; death usually occurred on the fourteenth to twentieth day, often somewhat sooner.

Frankfurt-on-the-Main suffered terribly in the year 1813 from enforced quartering. Even in the spring, after the newly-organized French armies had passed through the city, the Frankfurt lazarets were overcrowded with sick and wounded soldiers from Saxony, which was then the scene of the war. Accordingly it was decided in Frankfurt to build barracks adapted to the expected requirements; and in order to protect the city as much as possible from the infection of typhus fever, the barracks were erected outside the city limits, before the Allerheiligen Tor, and were situated in the Pfingstweide along the Main. The building of these barracks was a large and very expensive undertaking, but they undoubtedly served a very useful purpose by protecting the inhabitants for a considerable length of time against the infection of typhus fever.’[[151]] On September 21 and 22 large numbers of sick and wounded soldiers came to Frankfurt; they filled all the lazarets, and many of them had to be quartered in the homes of citizens. From that time on typhus fever began to spread throughout the city. Fortunately for Frankfurt, the retreat of the French army from Hanau to Mayence passed by the city, since the French generals were afraid that they would be unable to get their troops out of Frankfurt again. On October 29 all the sick and wounded French soldiers in the Frankfurt hospitals were taken out and conveyed by boat to Mayence. The hospital on the Pfingstweide, which had room for 1,480 patients, was immediately cleansed and made ready for the army of the Allies, who were marching into Frankfurt in large numbers. Typhus fever now reached its climax. The arrival of the German and Russian armies almost doubled the number of people in the city; the soldiers were quartered in the homes of citizens and immediately infected them with the pestilence. On January 14, 1814, there were more than 4,000 typhus-fever patients in the city alone, while in the district their number far exceeded 6,000. How the mortality among the civil inhabitants was thereby increased is shown by the following figures, which include only the deaths in the civil population:

July (1813)86
August83
September93
October103
November328
December289
January (1814)264
February248
March212
April132
May135
June76

Four physicians and seven surgeons succumbed to the epidemic in Frankfurt. Of 668 typhus-fever patients taken in by the Hospital zum Heiligen Geist, 100 died. Generally speaking, Frankfurt-on-the-Main fared pretty well, for the reason that most of the patients were housed outside the city; the lower classes, particularly servants and maids, suffered the most. In the city itself the disease was confined chiefly to the narrow streets of the Altstadt. In March and April the pestilence began gradually to abate, and in May it ceased altogether.

After leaving Hanau the retreating French army went on to Mayence and France. The great loss of human life due to typhus fever during the siege of Mayence will be discussed in the tenth chapter. Wiesbaden[[152]] was attacked very severely; 800 men are said to have died in the military lazaret there, while of the native inhabitants, who numbered 4,000 at that time, 466 contracted the disease and 141 succumbed to it.

From Mayence the pestilence spread and infected the Rheingau; the outbreak in Oestrich (below Hattenheim on the Rhine) is described by Thilenius.[[153]] In October sick and wounded French soldiers were taken down the Rhine, and in the latter part of that month 500 soldiers on three boats were held up by a severe storm at Oestrich, where the bad weather compelled them to remain for twenty-four hours. The patients, contrary to orders, left the ships and were taken in by the inhabitants of Oestrich. Before they went away fourteen of them died; a number had already died on the boats. On November 7 five or six citizens of Oestrich contracted the disease; before the 9th more than thirty had been taken sick, and on the 10th there were 93 typhus-fever patients in the city. All told, 330 people in Oestrich contracted the disease, and 103 succumbed to it. In the latter part of November neighbouring places were infected by dispersed French soldiers, by the small lazarets of the troops of the Allies, by visits to the sick, and by participation in funeral ceremonies. Particularly hard hit was the town of Kiedrich, where 336 people contracted the disease and 69 succumbed to it.

As in Oestrich, so in Winkel (near Rüdesheim), according to J. B. von Franque, the pestilence broke out on November 5, 1813, when a boat-load of infected French soldiers was driven ashore there; sixty or seventy of the patients entered the village of Winkel, where they were housed in a schoolroom. Presently a large number of the inhabitants (91 all told) contracted the disease, and 31 of them died. In the small neighbouring community of Espenschied the pestilence broke out in a Prussian military lazaret and spread to all the houses with the exception of one.

Kraft[[154]] gives us some interesting information regarding the appearance of typhus fever in Runkel-on-the-Lahn (above Limburg). This outbreak affords an example of how quickly the pestilence spread in small places. Shortly after the arrival of the Allies, traces of lazaret fever revealed themselves there, and in the latter part of November 1813, several sick soldiers were brought there and housed in the homes of citizens. Presently typhus fever broke out all over the town; in the first part of December the castle at Runkel was converted into a lazaret, and it was very soon filled with patients. The poor allowed themselves to be employed for short periods as sick-attendants, and the result was that they either contracted the disease themselves or else conveyed it to their homes; it was not long before the entire town, as well as the surrounding country, was infected. The convalescents from the military lazarets were not isolated in separate houses, but taken to the surrounding towns and villages (for example, Weyer, Villmar, Münster, and Erfurt), many of whose inhabitants were taken sick. The pestilence raged far and wide; at the climax of the epidemic (February to the middle of March) entire families lay sick, and a great many physicians and surgeons were attacked; the disease disappeared about the middle of May. In Runkel itself, which had 850 inhabitants, 214 contracted the disease and 70 died; the total number of deaths between December 1, 1813, and July 1, 1814, was 94, whereas the normal number of deaths for an entire year was but 17. In the village of Münster, which had 760 inhabitants, 86 were taken sick and 22 died; and in the village of Weyer, which had 727 inhabitants, 179 were attacked and 58 died; the average number of deaths per annum in both villages was 12. As in these small places, so in all the towns and cities the pestilence broke out wherever a sick soldier of either army passed.