Chapter III: The Thirty Years’ War (1)

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, epidemics of bubonic plague and typhus fever were frequent occurrences in various parts of Central Europe, but they were usually kept localized by the strict measures that were adopted, in accordance with the best scientific knowledge of the time, to prevent them from spreading; the houses in which the patients lay were quarantined, strangers from infected places were forbidden to enter the cities under penalty of death, the clothes and beds used by the patients were burned, while in the streets and public squares fumigations took place. But in the storm and stress of the Thirty Years’ War such precautions could be taken only to a limited extent, and even when they were energetically carried out, they did no good, since diseases were so frequently borne from place to place. A further consequence of the long war was famine, which was caused by the devastation of the fields and the non-cultivation of the land, due to the lack of workers. This made it easier for pestilences to become unusually widespread throughout Germany. The fact that the scene of the war kept changing was also to a great extent responsible for the gradual dissemination of various diseases, since the regions in which the fighting was going on were always particularly exposed to pestilential devastation.

Unfortunately we possess, for the various pestilences, scarcely any accounts written by physicians, and with a few exceptions must rely upon the information given by chroniclers. In most cases, therefore, it is impossible to state with certainty just what the individual diseases were. Consequently, inasmuch as the word ‘plague’ is used in the chronicles for any serious pestilence, we have adopted it in this same general sense in our account, without necessarily meaning thereby bubonic plague. Certainly one of the most common ‘war diseases’ at that time was typhus fever, and diseases that were commonly called ‘burning, virulent fever’, ‘plague’, ‘head-disease’, ‘Hungarian disease’, and ‘Swedish disease’, were undoubtedly nothing else but that. At the same time real plague, bubonic plague, now and then occurred, and the word ‘plague’ is thus very often used in its proper sense, especially in reference to the pestilences of the years 1630–6. ‘In the history of this calamitous war,’ says Seitz,[26] ‘we see typhus fever like a malignant spectre hovering over the armies wherever they go, in their camps, on their marches, and in their permanent quarters, and preparing an inglorious end for thousands of valiant warriors. Its ravages among the non-belligerent population in town and country caused the inhabitants of many provinces to remember with hatred and loathing the departed soldiers, who were usually accused of having planted the seed of death.’

In general one may say that before 1630 the specific disease was usually typhus fever, and that after 1630 bubonic plague spread along with this disease throughout Germany; the death statistics of the larger cities, adduced at the end of this chapter, lead us to this conclusion. In addition to these two diseases, we find frequent mention of dysentery, scurvy, and, toward the end of the war, small-pox.

Innumerable articles, chronicles, &c., have described in detail the miserable condition of the German countries during the Thirty Years’ War. The following account is largely based upon a notable work by a physician named Lammert, who offers us a chronological enumeration of the pestilences of that time, and also an exhaustive bibliography.[27] Since it is impossible to discuss here thoroughly all the countless epidemics that occurred, we can merely point out their main features and indicate their connexion with warlike events. The figures quoted may be relied upon, if, as is usually the case, they are taken from church-registers; as regards statements taken from chronicles, on the other hand, there is more occasion for distrust. For a correct understanding of the facts, to be sure, we should have to know the exact population of the cities and towns, and this information is only in rare instances available. We must bear in mind, furthermore, that the country-people fled to the cities when armies were approaching, and also that nearly all cities were surrounded by walls and embankments.

The war began in Bohemia. After the battle on White Hill, near Prague (November 8, 1620), the soldiers of Count Mansfeld, who were already infected with typhus fever, marched down the Main to the Palatinate and to Alsace, devastating the country as they passed and leaving severe pestilences behind them. In the year 1625 the main scene of the war was transferred to the north, where numerous epidemics had already broken out in the course of that year. The disorder caused by the war, and especially the wild warfare of Wallenstein, who in the fall of 1625, after mustering his army, had joined forces with Tilly, were particularly favourable to the spreading of disease. Hence in the years 1625–6 we see precisely in North Germany the ‘plague’ doing the greatest damage.

The battle of Barenberg (near Lutter, August 1626) gave the Imperialists the upper hand in North Germany. This ascendancy was taken away from them, however, with the appearance of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who won a complete victory over Tilly in the battle of Breitenfeld (September 17, 1631). After that, Gustavus Adolphus advanced to the Lower Main (Frankfurt and Mayence), and the following year carried the war into Bavaria, which now became the principal scene of the fighting. After the battle of Nördlingen (September 7, 1634), the fugitive Swedish Protestant army, pursued by the Imperialists, retreated through Württemberg, Baden, and Hesse to the Rhine, where the war was now carried on for several years. Both armies were badly infected with disease, and spread pestilence wherever they went. After the battle of Nördlingen the war became decentralized, splitting up into a number of warlike movements throughout all Germany; and everywhere these movements occurred they added, if possible, to the misery of the people.

In the year 1631 that terrible epoch of plague began which reached its climax in the years 1634–5 and lasted well into the following year. Its widespread character was due to the innumerable plundering and devastating marches of the Protestant-Swedish and Imperialist-Catholic armies back and forth across the country, and also to the consequent famine. Everything the brutalized soldiers could not consume themselves or take with them, they destroyed or burned. There was an absolute dearth of farm-workers, and in addition to that, the year 1635 was dry and unproductive. Horrible are the descriptions of the hunger and misery which the people in all parts of Germany experienced at that time. Under such conditions pestilences could spread unhindered; to be sure, they relaxed a little after the year 1638, but by no means ceased entirely. Whenever real plague disappeared, typhus fever, which was prevalent in all parts of the army took its place; and thus diseases were borne from place to place until the very end of that disastrous war.

I. THE WAR IN BOHEMIA AND THE PALATINATE (1618–24)

The year 1620 saw the first warlike events of any importance; at the beginning they were confined to Bohemia, where in November 1619, Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate, had been crowned King of Bohemia. In the first part of the year 1620 typhus fever broke out in Austria and Bohemia among the poorly nourished troops of the Catholic League, carrying away, it is said, 20,000 Bavarian soldiers. After the League’s successful battle on White Hill (November 8, 1620), the disease was borne by Bavarian soldiers back to Upper Bavaria and Württemberg; it is stated that it caused an eruption of red spots over the entire body, and that headache, dizziness, and stupefaction were prevailing symptoms.[28] Munich, by adopting strict measures of precaution—isolation of the patients in houses outside of the city, disinfection of suspected effects and incoming letters, washing in vinegar of money sent in from infected localities—managed to exclude the disease from the city limits. In 1620 the troops of Count Mansfeld conveyed the disease, which was called ‘head-disease’, to Franconia, where in the following year it raged extensively. In consequence of their marauding expeditions, typhus fever also became very widespread in the Upper Palatinate—Neumarkt and Weiden are mentioned as places where it appeared; in Weiden 250 persons died, three or four times as many as in normal years. Count Mansfeld then marched down the Main and along the Neckar to Mannheim, and everywhere his soldiers went they left behind them the germ of typhus fever: e.g. in Boxberg (near Mergentheim), in Neckarelz (near Mosbach), in Eberbach, in Ladenburg and Viernheim (both near Mannheim), and in many other places.

In the following year Lorraine, the Palatinate, and northern Baden became the scenes of Count Mansfeld’s predatory incursions. Since the country-people fled to the cities, the latter became greatly overcrowded; in Strassburg, for example, whither 23,000 country-people had sought refuge, a severe pestilence (chiefly dysentery) broke out and carried away in the course of that year (1622) 4,388 people. ‘Headdisease’ broke out in Wimpfen-on-the-Neckar, after the battle fought there on May 6, in consequence of the arrival of over 900 hundred sick and wounded soldiers; the result was that a large proportion of the inhabitants were taken sick, and a third of them died. In the Palatinate, through which Mansfeld passed on one of his predatory raids, the mortality in town and country, in consequence of dysentery and other diseases, was very great. Again, in Frankfurt-on-the-Main typhus fever broke out in 1622, and 1,785 people died (as compared with 600–700 in normal years). In Mayence and vicinity the disease became very widespread in the year 1624. A plague also broke out in Nuremberg in October 1624, carrying away 2,487 people that year, and 2,881 the following year.

The Palatinate suffered terribly in the year 1623 from the continued marauding of Mansfeld’s army, and in consequence of cross-marches of Spanish and Walloon troops pestilential diseases were conveyed from there to Lorraine. In July 1623, according to Maréchal and Didion,[29] typhus fever or bubonic plague broke out in the village of Lessy and raged furiously for two months. Despite energetic measures that were taken to prevent the disease from spreading, neighbouring and even more or less remote villages were infected, so that in 1624 the entire country was suffering. In spite of the fact that all strangers were forbidden to enter the city of Metz under penalty of death, the disease made its appearance there in May 1625, and in less than ten months carried away 3,000 people. Of the cities surrounding Metz, all of which were infected, Verdun had a particularly high mortality. The epidemic spread from the Palatinate to Württemberg, Baden, Hanau, Nassau, and down the Rhine; for the most part it was typhus fever.

In the year 1623 the army of the Catholic League spread infectious diseases throughout Hesse, particularly in the region of the Werra. When the army withdrew, it left dysentery behind it, for example, in Witzenhausen, Eschwege, and Hersfeld; in July and August it carried away many victims. A pestilential disease broke out on June 3, 1624, in Hersfeld, carrying away from October 4, 1624, to January 1625, 316 persons. In 1625, ‘hunger typhus’ and bubonic plague appeared in Nassau; the pestilence began in Dillenburg on December 18, 1625, and lasted until October 30, 1626, carrying away in this time 378 people—about one-third of the population. The climax of the pestilence came in July. A plague also broke out among the soldiers in Walsdorf-on-the Ems, likewise in Idstein, remaining there for several years.

II. THE WAR IN SAXONY, THURINGIA, BRANDENBURG, AND POMERANIA (1625–30)

The years 1625 and 1626 were bad pest-years; according to Lammert, the various epidemics that occurred were partly typhus fever, partly bubonic plague, and partly dysentery. The pestilences spread over Saxony, Thuringia, Silesia, Eastern Prussia, Posen, Poland, and Moravia, and carried away large numbers of people. They were not always directly connected with warlike events, as shown by the fact that many provinces that were spared by the war were attacked by the diseases. On the other hand, the incursion of Wallenstein’s troops into Saxony and Thuringia caused pestilence to become unusually widespread.

From 1625 to the time of the battle of Breitenfeld (1631) Saxony suffered terribly from pestilences that were caused and prolonged by the war, though by no means as terribly as in the years 1631–3. Dresden and Leipzig, comparatively speaking, were but slightly affected. Of 13,000 inhabitants that Dresden had in the year 1626, 341 succumbed to a plague which began in April and disappeared in December; the disease was called ‘burning fever’, ‘spotted fever’, and ‘pestilential spotted fever’, while in the records of the town council we find mention of ‘spots, often the size of a groschen, all over the body’, and also of ‘swellings’. Inasmuch as abscesses and gangrene are often observed in cases of typhus fever, it seems likely that it was that disease.[30] Of 14,500 inhabitants in Leipzig only 122 succumbed to it, although houses in all the streets were infected. Here again, accordingly, we see how slight the danger to life is in the case of typhus fever.

The western part of the present kingdom of Saxony suffered considerably more than the eastern part. In the year 1625 plagues broke out in the cities of Plauen, Reichenbach (1,000 deaths), and Zwickau; the last-named city was revisited in June 1626, and between then and the end of the year 216 people died there. Pestilence also broke out in the vicinity of Leipzig in 1626—in Borna (70 deaths), in Grimma (350 deaths), and in Wurzen, where it appeared in August. The following places nearer Dresden were also the scenes of plagues that year: Rosswein (near Döbeln—376 deaths), Mitweida (outbreak on April 9, 1626—number of deaths before that day 22, between that day and the end of the year, 1,000), Frankenberg (581 deaths), Freiberg (752 deaths in the year 1626—500 of them due to the plague). The village of Dohna, south of Dresden, is also mentioned; in the year 1626 there were 157 deaths there, as compared with an average annual mortality of 60. In the Erzgebirge plagues appeared in various places in the year 1625; 134 people died in Annaberg and 323 people in Zöblitz. In 1626 there were 205 deaths in Schwarzenberg, 178 deaths in Gottesgabe, and 81 deaths in Breitenbrunn. Two towns in eastern Saxony, Bischofswerda and Zittau, are also mentioned; there were 182 deaths in the former in the year 1625.

All Thuringia suffered severely from pestilences in the years 1625–6. In the year 1625 the number of deaths in Eisenach had increased to 315, while in 1626 a plague raged so murderously that 769 persons succumbed to it; other reports say 2,500, but this number doubtless includes the refugees. In the following year the number of deaths decreased to 156. In Ruhla, a neighbouring village, 98 persons succumbed to the plague. In many Thuringian cities the epidemic had already secured a foothold in the year 1625, and was then spread over a very large territory by Wallenstein’s invasion. Schmalkalden was the scene of a plague from June to August, 1625, and in Gotha one broke out at the end of July, 1625, carrying away 722 persons that year and 209 the following year. In Erfurt, which had some 15,000 inhabitants, 3,474 people are said to have succumbed to a plague in the year 1626, the strict ordinances passed by the town council on December 25, 1625, being of no avail. The small communities and cities lying to the north of Erfurt, according to the reports, were very severely attacked; in the year 1625 Ballstädt, with a population of 600, lost 365, while in the year 1626 the number of deaths in Gräfentonna was 510, in Gebesee 275, in Kindelbrück 1,514, in Straussfurth 367, in Weissensee 500, and Cölleda 1,000. In the region south of Erfurt the village of Ohrdruf lost 203 inhabitants in the year 1625, and 143 in the following year. In Arnstadt 1,236 people succumbed in 1625 to ‘head-disease’ and bubonic plague—a number corresponding to one-quarter of the population. Gräfenroda had 1,630 deaths in the year 1625, and Tambach 400 deaths in 1626. Koburg and Rudolstadt were also visited by a plague in 1626, while towns in the vicinity of the latter, Königssee, Schwarza, Tanna, and Schleiz, had 707, 129, 195, and 181 deaths respectively. The neighbouring town of Pössnek in the year 1625 had already lost 1,000 inhabitants. Jena and Weimar both suffered, while there were 228 deaths in Gera and 1,100 deaths in Zeitz due to pestilence. Many other places in Thuringia that suffered from plagues are not mentioned here.

That part of Saxony which corresponds to the modern province of Saxony fared in much the same way as Thuringia, while those parts bordering directly on the kingdom of Saxony were relatively less severely attacked. A plague broke out in Eilenburg in September 1625, and carried away many persons there and in the surrounding country. At Delitsch (west of Eilenburg) a dangerous fever (_febris maligna_—probably typhus fever) spread through the wandering armies, and before the beginning of autumn carried away 150 persons. In the winter the disease subsided a little, but broke out again in June 1626, and carried away 880 people—in September alone there were 229 deaths, and numerous families were completely wiped out. A plague also raged in the vicinity of Halle; not until the following year, however, did it break out in the city itself, whither it was borne by Imperialist soldiers, and where it caused, from June to December, 3,400 deaths. In Eisleben (east of Halle) a plague began in May 1626, and carried away 30 to 50 people daily, so that the total number of deaths for the year was 3,068. Merseburg lost 341 inhabitants in the year 1626, and a plague raged in Naumburg in the years 1625–6. The town of Querfurt (west of Merseburg) in 1625 was for seven weeks the quarters of 3,000 of Wallenstein’s soldiers; they brought dysentery with them, and the result was that 200 citizens died. In the second half of the following year a plague broke out and carried away 1,400 inhabitants of the city (including 200 soldiers) and numerous inhabitants of the surrounding country. The town and vicinity of Sangershausen were also severely attacked; the pestilence began in the town in June 1626, and reached its climax in September with 570 deaths—1,323 deaths, all told, are recorded in the church register for that year, but the figure is said to be too small. Lammert mentions sixteen surrounding villages in which a total of 2,960 deaths occurred in the year 1626. In Sondershausen 54 people died up to the end of July of that year, 36 in August, 137 in September, and 143 in October; the mortality then decreased, but not until 466 persons had died, 400 of them in consequence of the plague. In the near-by towns of Frankenhausen and Langensalza the number of deaths was 915 and 913 respectively, the latter town having been visited by a plague the year before. Nordhausen, from January 1, 1626, to December 6, 1626, lost 3,283 inhabitants—2,504 natives and 779 refugees from other places. In Stolberg (north-east of Nordhausen) a plague broke out on June 27, 1626, and caused 623 deaths. Quedlinburg, Aschersleben, and Halberstadt were also attacked; in Aschersleben a plague broke out on June 15, 1625, and between then and the end of the year carried away 157 persons. The total number of deaths in the year 1625 was 534, in the following year 1,800 (1,066 in consequence of the plague), not including the soldiers; the years 1627–9 had a remarkably low mortality. In 1626 a plague carried away 549 persons in Gröningen (near Halberstadt). The cities on the Elbe and the surrounding country were severely attacked; a pestilence broke out in Dessau on September 3, 1625, and between then and the end of the year 224 persons were buried—399 in the entire year. The disease reappeared in the summer of the following year, having caused 662 deaths, while only 39 died in the year following. In Aiken-on-the-Elbe (below Dessau) 1,000 persons, including soldiers, succumbed to a plague in the year 1626. In the cities on the Saale, above its confluence with the Elbe, a plague raged furiously; in Bernburg it appeared in the second half of the year 1625, carrying away 1,340 persons in that year (the number of deaths in the following year being 425); Kalbe was also severely attacked. A plague broke out in Magdeburg at the end of June 1625, and lasted well into the next year; the wealthy citizens fled from the city, but were compelled to return by the approach of the Imperialists, and the result was that several thousand inhabitants died. The country to the south-west of Magdeburg, as far as Bode, suffered severely—Osterweddingen, Wanzleben, Gross-Salze, Förderstedt, Egeln, Wolmirsleben, and other places. Several soldiers quartered in Förderstedt had succumbed to a plague in June and July 1626, and had infected the citizens with the disease, which carried away 155 of them. A plague broke out in Egeln in October 1625, and reached its climax in February 1626; from January until August 16 of that year 296 persons died there. In Unseberg, which had been infected in August 1625, some 400 citizens and soldiers were buried in the year 1626, in addition to many who were secretly buried in gardens, thickets, and fields. The plague raged with particular fury in August 1626; in Volmirstadt 246 persons died between July 6 and October 1626—144 in September alone.

In Lower Saxony, in the region between the Elbe and the Weser, most of which to-day belongs to Hanover, a plague raged virulently in the years 1625–7. In Osterode, whither numerous country people had fled from the approaching war, a very severe pestilence broke out; in the Saint Aegidius community alone 1,500 persons died, among them many outsiders. In Klausthal 1,350, in Andreasberg 700, in Einbeck 3,000, and in Hameln 1,143 people succumbed to bubonic plague and ‘head disease’. In Goslar, where the pestilence had appeared in 1625, conditions were rendered particularly bad by the fact that many wounded Imperialists were brought there after the battle of Barenberg (near Lutter—August 27, 1626); most of these soldiers died there, 3,000 deaths due to pestilence having occurred in Goslar in the years 1625–6. Wallenstein’s soldiers also brought pestilence with them to Helmstedt (in the region of Brunswick); here one-third of the citizens died, and 295 houses were rendered tenantless. The university faculty fled several times to Brunswick, the students either going home or enlisting in the army. This plague did not come to an end for two years. The surrounding villages, furthermore, were severely attacked by it; during the siege of Göttingen by Tilly (June to August 12, 1626) it became very widespread, since the city was overcrowded with fugitives. From 50 to 60 persons were buried every day. In near-by Dransfeld 700 people died, in Wolfenbüttel 1,705. In Hanover, where a plague had already broken out in the year 1625, a reappearance of it in March 1626 drove out the garrison. The severity of this plague, which carried away 3,000 people, was increased by the numerous fugitives in the city; about one-third of the population survived. In the city of Nienburg, which was besieged by the Imperialists after the battle of Barenberg, a pestilence likewise broke out among the inhabitants and in the garrison. In Lüneburg it lasted from 1625 to 1628, and in Osnabrück from August 1625 to the end of the year.

In the years 1625–6 Wallenstein’s soldiers carried pestilence into the region north of Magdeburg; in Neuhaldensleben 76 persons were carried away between the end of August and the first of the year, not including those who were buried secretly. The following year it demanded a considerably larger number of victims—583; the maximum was in June—147. In the Altmark (north-eastern part of the province of Saxony) dysentery, bubonic plague, and typhus fever broke out almost everywhere during the years 1625–8. Dysentery appeared in the Danish garrison at Tangermünde and carried away 1,600 people, and on June 29, 1626, the Danes withdrew from the place. Stendal was also visited by a plague after the departure of the Danes; it broke out in July, and in a few months caused 2,511 deaths, the normal mortality being 280–290. Numerous bodies were secretly buried, while many peasants who had fled to the city were among the dead; thus the total number of deaths was estimated at 5,000. In Osterburg 624 people died in the years 1626–8, and in Bismark 163 persons died in the year 1626. In the city of Havelberg 668 persons succumbed to dysentery, ‘head-disease’, and bubonic plague, the latter alone carrying away about 400. A pestilence was conveyed to Gardenlegen by the soldiers of Count George of Brunswick, who had his head-quarters there; the number of deaths there in the year 1626 amounted to no less than 1,514. In Salzwedel 335 persons died in the year 1625, and 451 in the following year, the plague being responsible for 400 of the latter. In Seehausen dysentery first appeared, and soon gave way to ‘war-plague’ (typhus fever), which lasted until 1628; some 200 of the soldiers quartered there died, and as many as 1,100 inhabitants.

Brandenburg also suffered, particularly in the south-eastern part, when Wallenstein’s army, in pursuit of Count Mansfeld, turned into Silesia; there were 386 deaths in Luckau, 900 in Kottbus, 500 in Forst, 112 in Spremberg, and 902 in Jüterbog.

Further north, plagues were considerably less widespread in the years 1625–6. In 1625 typhus fever broke out severely in Lübeck and the surrounding country, carrying away 6,952 people, while in Bremen, which had had cases of plague in 1625, a widespread outbreak in 1627 carried away some 10,000 people, natives and refugees. Mecklenburg, being further away from the scene of the war, suffered somewhat less. In the year 1625 bubonic plague, ‘head-disease’, and dysentery appeared in Rostock, Wismar, Schwerin, Plau, and New Brandenburg. In the following year a plague broke out in Parchim, reached its climax in May, and lasted until November, carrying away 1,600 persons. In Flensburg a plague broke out during the occupation of the Imperialists (1627) and lasted until their departure (1630).

The pestilences of the year 1627 were not very widespread, and this applies also to the territory in Saxony and Thuringia which had suffered so severely in the years 1625–6. On the other hand, the countries in the northern part of Germany, particularly Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein, were severely attacked in those years, owing to the fact that Wallenstein had transferred thither the scene of the war. In the year 1628 Hamburg had taken in a great many foreign fugitives, and the result was that typhus fever soon broke out in the city and carried away many thousands of people. The war brought great misery into North Friesland and the Frisian Islands; the Imperialists and Danes oppressed the people by enforced quartering and extortions of all kinds, and the result was famine and plague, lasting until 1630. In Stade, which Tilly in 1629 had made his head-quarters, both the inhabitants and the garrison suffered terribly from a severe epidemic of dysentery. In the city of Schleswig a plague broke out in September, and again in November, in consequence of the quartering of Imperialist troops; it devastated the entire city, so that 211 houses stood absolutely empty on Christmas Day, 1628. Mecklenburg was revisited in 1629, and on August 13 of that year a plague broke out in Rostock and Teterow. Imperialist soldiers conveyed pestilence to the city of Plau, where they passed the night of November 29; but in 1630 it appeared in a much more severe form there and carried away 600 people. In the year 1630 a plague broke out in Mecklenburg, and in Gustrow one raged from May 7 to the beginning of September.

In the years 1628–9 Pomerania was ravaged by the Imperialists, with resulting pestilence and famine. Greifswald suffered for four years from a pestilence which reached its climax in the year 1631. Grimmen, Stargard (3,500 deaths in the years 1627–30), Freienwalde, and other places were also attacked. In Greifenberg, where soldiers had been quartered in large numbers, it raged with unusual fury; three-fourths of the city were devastated, and when the Swedes arrived only 42 houses were uninfected. Kolberg (on the Persante) in six months lost 3,000 inhabitants in consequence of a pestilence. On account of the oppression caused by the war, many citizens fled from Koslin, which, despite the decrease in population, lost 919 inhabitants in the year 1630. In Stolp 800 people died in consequence of a plague.

A plague was borne into Silesia in July 1623, and in Bunzlau an average of thirty persons per week died; of 760 deaths in the year, 640 were due to the pestilence. Many adults fled to near-by villages and died there. In the following year a plague broke out again in Bunzlau, but as only 130 people died there in 1625, it seemed as though the pestilence was over. In September and October, 1626, however, it broke out again, and of 228 deaths that occurred that year, 149 were directly attributable to the plague. In July 1624 it appeared in Friedeberg and carried away 51 persons. In Löwenberg it began in September 1624; the citizens fled from the city and set up tents in the fields, but in spite of this, from forty to fifty people died every day, and the total number of deaths for the year was some 3,000. In the year 1625 the pestilence was very widespread in Silesia—Hirschberg, Löwenberg, Herzogswaldau, Liegnitz, Neumarkt, Waldenburg, Neisse, and other places were attacked. In Breslau ‘head-disease’ raged from June to the end of that year, carrying away 3,000 people; 1626 was also a year of pestilence for Breslau. In Neustadt (Governmental District of Oppeln) a pestilence raged with particular fury from May till September 1625; for the years 1624 to 1627 the deaths were respectively 198, 420, 175, and 472. On August 21, 1626, an army of 6,000 Imperialists under Count von Merode encamped at Goldberg; most of them were infected with disease; and after their departure a plague broke out with such severity that a large part of the population died.

During this time, from 1625 to 1630, when epidemics were raging almost everywhere in North Germany, South Germany also suffered, since diseases were often brought there by Imperialist troops and wandering rabble. In the year 1626 Württemberg alone lost 28,000 people in consequence of plagues.[31] A pestilence in Augsburg (1628) became very widespread and caused 9,000 deaths. In the year 1629 ‘head-disease’ broke out in Württemberg and Alsace. During the isolation of the city of Hanau (from December 6, 1629, to March 12, 1630) by the Imperialist commander Witzleben, a pestilential disease, which the soldiers had brought with them, broke out and caused many deaths throughout the entire vicinity.

III. THE WAR YEARS 1630–40

1. _North Germany until the Peace of Prague_

In the year 1630 began in Saxony—in the wake of marching troops—that deadly pestilence which soon spread over all Germany and was chiefly responsible for the enormous loss of human life there in the course of the Thirty Years’ War. We may safely assume that bubonic plague was the most common disease, although both typhus fever and dysentery were of frequent occurrence. In the years 1630–1 the pestilence was confined for the most part to North Germany; the Electorate of Saxony suffered the worst, 934,000 people, according to the reports, having died there in consequence of the war and of diseases.[32]

The pestilence broke out in Leipzig in October 1630, and carried away 301 persons; it was borne there presumably by two foreign orange-pedlars. In October of the following year it broke out again, when the Imperialists, after besieging the city for several weeks, on September 13 had finally captured it. The number of deaths in the entire year was 1,754. In the year 1632 Leipzig was once more the scene of grave warlike events, and was compelled to live through a second siege by Wallenstein; the plague began in June, became very widespread in August, and from then till October caused a great many deaths, the total number for the year amounting to 1,390. In August 1633, Leipzig was again besieged, and this likewise caused the outbreak of a plague which lasted until December and carried away 761 persons; in 1634 it was apparently over, for of 306 deaths that are recorded for that year, only 24 were attributable to the plague. In the years 1636–7, however, it reappeared with great severity throughout the entire city. The country surrounding Leipzig suffered a great deal in the year 1633, which was the worst plague-year that Saxony passed through. In the year 1632 Altenburg was occupied by the Swedes, who were infected with some pestilential disease, the germ of which they left behind them when they withdrew on January 13, 1633. The disease spread rapidly, acquired a virulent character, and carried away 2,104 persons, among them many foreign refugees. Grimma and Borna were severely attacked in 1633, while Wurzen suffered less severely.

The country north-east of Leipzig suffered severely from plagues in 1631. After the battle of Breitenfeld (September 15, 1631) most of the wounded were brought to Eilenburg, where in a few weeks a plague broke out and spread so rapidly that 300 people died in the month of October alone. After an abatement during the winter, it recommenced in 1632; the number of deaths for that year was 670, although only 492 of them were due to the plague, while the disease did not entirely disappear until 1636. The city of Belgern, after it was plundered by Holk’s troops on October 1, 1632, was visited by a plague; also Dommitsch, Oschatz (where 563 deaths occurred in 1631, and many more in 1633–4), and Ortrand (where there were 800 deaths in the years 1631–3). Plagues raged very frequently in Leisnig, Colditz, and Mittweida, and in the villages and towns surrounding them. In February 1631, Palatinate, Imperialist, and League troops quartered in Leisnig, and the result was that ‘head-disease’ and bubonic plague became very widespread; in the following year they reappeared, causing 443 deaths, while many thousands are said to have died in the country districts. The same was true of the year 1633. A pestilence broke out in Colditz in the year 1631, and in the following year ‘soldier’s disease’ (typhus fever) was brought there by Swedish troops, while in 1633 bubonic plague caused 567 deaths. Mittweida suffered from plague in the years 1631–4, 243 persons dying there in the year 1634. In the year 1630 a very severe plague broke out in Freiberg; 1,147 people died in the course of the year, 1,000 of them in consequence of the disease. In the following year there were 124 more deaths. In the autumn of 1632 pestilence raged so furiously that several thousand people died in a short time—about one-third of the population. Most of the bodies were buried secretly, only about 3,000 regular funerals taking place. In the year 1633 there were 1,632 interments, not including those buried in secret. The plague affected the entire vicinity of Freiberg and spared scarcely a single village; many places were left empty and deserted.

In Chemnitz 1,234 interments for the year 1632 are recorded in the church register, and in the following year the plague raged even more furiously: almost every house was attacked, and the number of deaths amounted to 2,500. In Glauchau and vicinity, as in all Saxony, 1633 was the worst year; 964 people died there in that year. The plague raged most furiously from August to November, and lasted until 1634; many bodies were found in the open fields. In the neighbouring Waldenburg 392 people died in a few weeks in 1633, in Lichtenstein 370, in Thurm 400. In Marienberg, a village lying at the foot of the mountains, 1,000 people succumbed in the year 1633 to typhus fever; the plague spread into the Erzgebirge and caused 2,300 deaths in Schneeberg and 157 deaths in the adjacent Neustädtle. A plague had already broken out in Zwickau in 1632, and in the first part of 1633 it became so severe that 1,500 people died in two months in the summer of that year. The city was full of sick people and dead bodies, and the number of reported deaths for the year 1633 was 1,897; but the total number of deaths, excluding the soldiers, is said to have been no less than 6,000. Entire streets were devastated. Many of the inhabitants fled to near-by villages, and thus spread the infection. Crimmitschau was visited by a plague in 1630 (601 deaths), and again in 1633 (409 deaths); 92 families in the last-named year were completely wiped out. Many neighbouring places were also attacked; there were 700 deaths in Werdau, 300 in Steinpleiss, 150 in Königswalde, &c.

The invasion of Holk caused Vogtland to suffer terribly in August of the year 1632, while his second invasion in the summer of 1633 resulted in an even worse outbreak of disease. In Reichenbach and vicinity, typhus fever, bubonic plague, and dysentery prevailed in the year 1633; at first it was called ‘soldier’s disease’, and later ‘bright plague’ (_helle Pest_). Of 904 deaths that occurred that year, 785 were due to the plague. In Plauen the number of deaths in 1633 was 1,748, in Oelsnitz 325 (217 due to the plague). Holk himself succumbed to the plague in Adorf on August 30, 1633, while 1,000 of his troops also died.

The eastern part of Saxony was also attacked. In Dresden a plague broke out in 1632 and carried away numerous people; it continued to rage in the following year, since the war prevented the adoption of the usual measures of precaution. In the year 1632 the number of Protestants buried by the church was 3,129, and in the following year it was 4,585. Numerous families were wiped out, and many houses were rendered tenantless. In the year 1634 one half of the inhabitants fell victims to the pestilence, while a large part of the city was devastated in 1635. Since the reports of E. J. J. Meyer and of the town council continually speak of ‘swellings’, the disease was no doubt bubonic plague.[33] In Dippoldiswalde (south-west of Dresden) it raged so furiously in the years 1631–3 that entire families were wiped out; in those years there were 189, 510, and 250 deaths respectively. Pirna is said to have lost 4,000 inhabitants in consequence of the plague in the years 1632–4, while Dittersdorf (south of Pirna) lost 405 inhabitants in the year 1632. The pestilence was borne by Saxon troops to Sebnitz (south-east of Dresden). In Stolpen it raged from 1632 to 1634. In October 1631 the Croats brought pestilence to Bischofswerda, and more than 200 persons died in consequence of it. In March 1632 another pestilence broke out there, carrying away 660 persons, so that more than one-third of the houses stood empty. In the year 1631 there were 1,000 deaths in Camenz. In Bautzen there was a garrison of 500 men, almost all of whom died in the year 1631; including the residents that were carried away by the pestilence, the number of deaths there for that year was about 1,000. Nor did the pestilence disappear from Bautzen the following year.

Lusatia was also the scene of pestilence; only a few places were spared, and in Upper Lusatia 40,000 persons are said to have been carried away by pestilences in the years 1631–3. In the last part of September 1631, dysentery and bubonic plague broke out in Görlitz, which had a Saxon garrison, and carried away some 400 persons (excluding the soldiers) between then and the end of the year. In June 1632 there was a second outbreak of plague; it reached its climax in October, and carried away 6,105 people (including 106 soldiers) in the course of the entire year. In the following year 726 inhabitants and 435 soldiers succumbed to the disease. Zittau suffered severely; as early as 1633 several hundred soldiers and inhabitants succumbed to typhus fever, while in the year 1632 ‘burning fever’, dysentery, and bubonic plague appeared and carried away 1,246 persons (according to other reports, 1,642 persons). Petechial fever and bubonic plague, after a period of inactivity in the winter, recommenced in the first part of 1633; the latter disease reached its climax in September, carrying away 1,860 inhabitants in that year, in addition to many Imperialist soldiers. From October to December, 1634, Saxon and Brandenburg soldiers, after their return from Bohemia, encamped near Zittau, where various diseases soon broke out; the result was that hundreds died, and the entire region became infected.

The Province of Brandenburg was severely attacked by a plague in the year 1631, but in the next year suffered considerably less owing to the fact that the scene of the war was transferred to other parts of Germany. In Berlin 777 people succumbed to a plague in the year 1630, while in the following year it reappeared in a much severer form and carried away 2,066 persons. In Spandau, after the capture of the city by the Swedes on May 6, 1631, famine and pestilence broke out and caused 1,500 deaths. A plague in Potsdam caused 457 deaths between June and December, 1631. Neuruppin, in February of that year, after the occupation of the District of Ruppin by Tilly, suffered from a severe pestilence. Dysentery and ‘head-disease’ broke out in Rathenow in 1631, reached a climax in July, and carried away 662 people (not including those buried in secret). In Prenzlau 1,500 persons, about one-fourth of the population, died in the year 1631, while Havelberg had 227 deaths, Lindow 400, and Kyritz (after the soldiers had quartered there) 231. Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, which had been occupied by the Imperialists, on April 13, 1631, was captured by Gustavus Adolphus, whereupon a severe epidemic broke out and carried away entire families in the course of a few days; the alleged number of deaths was 6,000. Müncheberg (north-west of Frankfurt), Quilitz, Drossen, and Guben were also attacked; there were 365 deaths in Quilitz and 2,000 in Drossen. In the year 1634, when the Imperialists once more devastated the Electorate of Saxony, a severe plague broke out in Luckau, whither many country people had fled; the spread of the disease is said to have been favoured by the fact that the soldiers broke into and robbed the closed houses of the dead. In Seftenberg (near Kalau) a plague broke out in 1630 and carried away 305 persons that year; it remained there until 1633, and spread to many near-by villages.

Silesia, after the devastation caused by the pestilences of the years 1624–7, had a few years of rest. In the year 1632, however, infection was brought there from Saxony, though only to a limited extent. On August 1, 1632, Lauban was obliged to surrender to the Saxon garrison, so that for ten days the city and the surrounding country were crowded with troops; the result was that after their departure a severe epidemic broke out and between July and December carried away 1,400 persons. In the very next year severe plagues broke out all over Silesia, when Wallenstein appeared there for the purpose of driving out the Saxons and Swedes. The plague raged so furiously in Silesia that the armies were almost entirely exterminated, and whole communities were wiped out. Golgau, Bunzlau (and vicinity), Greiffenberg, and Friedeberg were attacked. An epidemic of typhus fever carried away 500 people in Hirschberg in the year 1632, and in the following year it became much more widespread and carried away 2,600 persons. ‘The infected persons are said to have looked very red, like drunkards, and to have died suddenly.’ Almost the entire population of Landshut died in the year 1633. Goldberg (south-west of Liegnitz) had been plundered by Wallenstein’s soldiers on October 4 and 5, 1633, and on October 10 Colonel Sparre quartered 200 ‘badly infected’ soldiers there; the result was that a severe pestilence broke out in the city. In August of the year 1633 such a severe pestilence broke out in Liegnitz that it was impossible to bury the victims in the regular way; deep, broad ditches were dug, and from 100 to 200 bodies laid in them. From August 14 to December 22 the number of deaths is said to have been 5,794. Breslau, which at that time had upwards of 40,000 inhabitants, was visited by a plague in September 1633; in the Protestant parishes 13,231 people died in that year, in the Catholic 4,800. Neumarkt (north-west of Breslau) had 1,400 deaths in the same year, while in Brieg, which had a Swedish garrison, there were 3,439 deaths. The city of Schweidnitz suffered terribly; 30,000 soldiers under Wallenstein and 25,000 Swedish soldiers were encamped there, and the plague was so severe that 8,000 of the former and 12,000 of the latter are said to have died. In the city itself, which was harbouring innumerable fugitives from the surrounding country, sick people and dead bodies soon filled all the streets; on August 25 alone, 300 people died. The number of the dead, including from 2,000 to 3,000 that were buried secretly, and also the outsiders, was 16,000 to 17,000; more than two-thirds of the population are said to have succumbed. The pestilence was borne from Schweidnitz to Peterswaldau and Nimptsch, where from 2,000 to 2,400 persons died. On May 31, 1633, Wallenstein came with his army to Glatz, bringing pestilence with him; in Glatz itself 4,284 people were carried away, while many hundreds died in the surrounding country. Petschkau was almost completely wiped out. In Neisse the number of victims is estimated at 6,000; 5,272 are recorded in the church registers.

Generally speaking, Thuringia was but slightly affected by plagues in the years 1631–3, but suffered terribly in the years 1634–5; for in those years there, as in all Germany, a great famine prevailed. In Koburg a plague broke out in the year 1630; in 1632 there was an epidemic of ‘head-disease’, which carried away 300 persons in October alone, and in 1634 an epidemic of bubonic plague, rendered even more destructive by famine, carried away 1,143 victims. Several pestilences (dysentery and ‘burning fever’) also broke out in the Koburg region, caused by the quartering and ravaging of Swedish troops; the inhabitants died by hundreds. Hildburghausen suffered from a plague from June on; whereas only 106 people had died there from January to May, the number of deaths in June alone was 215. In the following year 534 people died there from starvation and pestilence, while 169 died in near-by Streufdorf. Eisfeld (west of Hildburghausen) in 1632 had been plundered by Swedish troops, and from that time on suffered from pestilence. In Meiningen, in the latter part of 1635 and the first part of 1636, 500 people succumbed to a plague (106 in November alone). Suhl, which on October 16 had been burned by Isolani’s soldiers, and Themar—both near Meiningen—had 1,634 deaths. In the following year 519 people died in Schmalkalden and vicinity—250 in Tambach, 300 in Vachdorf, and 1,600 in Salzungen. In the year 1634 the number of deaths in Eisenach was 1,800, and in the following year 1,600; in the year 1636 there were only 405 deaths there. Erfurt suffered very little in 1635, while Ohrdruf had 1,065 deaths, Wechmar 503, and Arnstadt 464. In Weimar 1,600 people died in the year 1635, among them 500 foreigners from Franconia who had taken refuge there. The cities lying further east in Thuringia had been severely attacked in the years 1632 and 1633, in consequence of the pestilences in Saxony; for example, Gera, which had been infected in 1633 by Holk’s troops, the near-by village of Untermhaus, which in the two years had 211 and 600 deaths respectively, and also many other villages in the surrounding country. A plague in Schleiz carried away 600 persons in the year 1632.

In Rhineland and Westphalia pestilences broke out only sporadically in the years 1630–4, but in 1635 they became more general. In the year 1630 Münster was attacked, in 1631 Arnsberg, and in 1632 a pestilence raged furiously in the Berg country—in Lennep, for example, where the Imperialist troops were for a long time quartered. In Mühlheim-on-the-Rhine a pestilential disease broke out after the departure of the Nassau-Lorraine garrison in 1631. In the year 1632 the Imperialist and Swedish armies stood facing each other in Westphalia for six weeks, and the result was an outbreak of pestilence; 600 people succumbed to it in Bielefeld. In 1635 a pestilence raged furiously along the Rhine; in St. Goar 200 people died in the course of the summer. In that year Westphalia was the scene of warlike events and pestilences; Arnsberg, the villages on the Ruhr, Soest, Unna (near Hamm), Horstmar, and Kroesfeld were attacked. The Governmental District of Düsseldorf (on the left bank of the Rhine) was severely attacked by pestilence; many people died in Geldern, while there were 389 deaths in Strälen, 256 in Nieukert, and 700 in Lobberich.

2. _South Germany_

_(a) Bavaria and Upper Swabia_

After the battle of Breitenfeld (September 17, 1631) Gustavus Adolphus passed through Halle and Erfurt to Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, and Frankfurt-on-the-Main. Tilly had marched through Halberstadt, Fulda, and Miltenberg to Würzburg, in order to relieve that city, which had been captured by the Swedes, and then turned south. Thus the principal scene of the war was transferred to Bavaria, which from 1631 to 1634 suffered terribly from the ravages of the soldiers passing back and forth. No part of the country was spared. ‘The Thirty Years’ War’, says Lammert,[34] ‘was particularly fatal and disastrous to Bavaria from the year 1632 on; it converted the country into an uninhabited waste, especially because it was followed by pestilence. Like the Imperialist army under Tilly in the autumn of 1631, so the Swedish army on its marches consumed everything it found, and wherever it went in the years 1632–5 it spread ‘hunger typhus’ and ‘war typhus’ and bubonic plague; all the places along the Main lost at least one-half of their population.’ In September 1632, when Gustavus Adolphus withdrew from Nuremberg, Wallenstein turned south, and there on November 6, 1632, Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the battle of Lützen. After that Wallenstein returned to Bohemia, while the Swedes under Bernhard von Weimar marched back into Bavaria. The acme of misery was reached here in the year 1634. It is impossible to enumerate all the places that were infected by the brutalized, wandering soldiers; the most out-of-the-way and indigent regions, such as the Spessart and the Odenwald, were visited by them, and inasmuch as they brought pestilence wherever they went, the unfortunate villages were subjected to merciless devastation.

1. The region of the Main. Since Gustavus Adolphus first had Horn occupy the bishopric of Bamberg, and himself marched through Aschaffenburg to Nuremberg, while Tilly returned to Ingolstadt and later to Lech, the region of the Main, and later the region north of the Danube, were the first to be attacked by typhus fever and bubonic plague; not until later, from 1633 on, did the pestilences spread more or less extensively in the country south of the Danube.

In Aschaffenburg and vicinity a plague broke out in the summer of 1632 and almost wiped out several villages; the city of Aschaffenburg itself, which lost a large percentage of its inhabitants, was revisited in the year 1635. In Würzburg the pestilence began in August 1632, and in the last part of July of the following year another serious pestilence broke out there, in consequence of which 489 bodies were buried in the cathedral parish alone. The prolonged quartering of troops, notwithstanding all the precautionary measures that were adopted, caused the pestilence to rage with extraordinary fury; not until September did it begin to abate. In the year 1635, when infected soldiers were transferred from Schweinfurt to the stronghold of Marienburg, it appeared once more. In 1632 Schweinfurt lost ‘several hundred people’ in consequence of ‘pestilential purple-spots’ (typhus fever). The total number of deaths was 1,055. In December of the following year another rather large pestilence broke out, and again in August 1635; in the latter year it reached a climax in September and came to an end in December. In Bamberg many people succumbed in 1632 to Hungarian disease, which the Swedes had borne thither in the spring. This disease was also very widespread throughout the entire vicinity. In the year 1634 the Swedes came several times into the region around Bamberg and plundered the country, so that famine and plague caused great misery. In the summer of 1635 Bamberg was once more attacked by an infectious disease (typhus fever), and only two houses in the city were spared. In Kulmbach the plague raged extensively in the first part of the year 1633; the number of the dead was so large that the bodies could not all be buried in Kulmbach, and some had to be taken to the churchyards of near-by villages. In the following year the plague broke out anew, carrying away 60 persons in a single day. In Bayreuth 400 persons succumbed to a pestilence in the year 1632, and in the following year 360 died; it raged even more furiously after the city was plundered by the Master of Ordnance, von der Waal, on August 19, 1634. From July to October 1,927 out of 7,000 inhabitants died, while the average number of deaths amounted to only 167 per annum.