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 cannonball 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.