Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. II.

by Gustav Freytag

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 firearms 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 handgun, 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.