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]]