Chapter III: The Thirty Years’ War (2)

2. The region between the Main and the Danube suffered no less. Nuremberg and vicinity was severely attacked by pestilence in the year 1632. In the summer of that year Wallenstein encamped near Fürth, and Gustavus Adolphus near Nuremberg; they watched each other for a long time without venturing a battle. The country people had all fled to the city. In the Swedish army and in the overcrowded city, which had some 50,000 inhabitants, scurvy and typhus fever carried away many thousands.[35] Only 4,522 bodies were buried by the Church, but many more thousands died. Two weeks after his disastrous attack on Wallenstein’s camp on September 4, Gustavus Adolphus marched south, while Wallenstein turned into Saxony. The plague continued to rage in the vicinity of Nuremberg, and many people contracted the disease by visiting the deserted camp of the Imperialist army and appropriating the left-behind implements, weapons, and kitchen utensils. Scurvy was still raging in Nuremberg in the following year. In the year 1634 the plague broke out and carried away 18,000 persons. In December 1631 Forchheim was besieged by the Swedes under General Horn, and the result was that a pestilence broke out in the year 1632 and carried away 578 inhabitants; the average number of deaths per annum was 45. In March of that year the Swedes had deserted the city, and in June 1634, when they reappeared there, the mortality increased again. In the years 1631–2 Uffenheim suffered a great deal from the predatory raids of the Swedes and also from plague, which in the year 1634 became very widespread there as in all Bavaria, carrying away one-half of the inhabitants of the town. While the Swedes and Imperialists were establishing their camps near Nuremberg, many people from Ansbach and other places fled to Windsheim, which thus became greatly overcrowded; the consequence was that people died there by the hundred, and their bodies were buried, thirty or forty at a time, in large ditches. When the Swedes left Nuremberg and appeared in Windsheim, they left behind them 450 men who were infected with disease; in the entire year 1,564 bodies were counted. In the following year the city was besieged by the Imperialists (October 12–23, 1633), and during this time 360 persons succumbed to a pestilential disease; the number of deaths in the entire year, including the outsiders, was 1,600. Windsheim also suffered greatly in the two following years; at the end of the year 1635 there were only 50 inhabitants left. In near-by Burgbernheim, where typhus fever raged in the year 1630, 155 persons died in the year 1632, 165 in 1634, and 107 in 1636. In Schwabach, which had been plundered by the Imperialists in the latter part of July, 1632, various diseases broke out—‘Hungarian disease, dysentery, and even bubonic plague.’ In the year 1633 there were 298 deaths in Weissenburg; in 1634, on the other hand, there were 642. Eichstätt had 494 deaths in the year 1632, 827 in 1633, and 982 in 1634; in the last year the town was besieged and captured by the Swedes, and for a few days thereafter pestilences raged furiously. The country districts throughout Central Franconia, like these cities, were almost completely depopulated by flight and pestilence.

The Upper Palatinate was also severely attacked by pestilence (typhus fever and bubonic plague), which spread far into the Bavarian Forest. In Amberg an epidemic of typhus fever and dysentery broke out in the year 1633, and in April of the following year bubonic plague appeared; the latter disease carried away from 15 to 20 persons on many days of that month, while in July and August as many as 40 people died every day. In the spring of 1634 Weiden became infected with typhus fever and shortly after that with bubonic plague; from August 17 to November 6, some 1,800 people died. The bodies were corded up like piles of wood, placed in ditches in groups of 200 and 300, and covered with quick-lime. In Schwandorf (north of Regensburg) the Imperialists had encamped in the summer of 1634; after their departure a pestilence characterized by ‘swellings and large unknown spots’ broke out and carried away almost one-third of the inhabitants. In Hemau (north-west of Regensburg), after the Swedes had passed through the town, ‘the malignant pestilence’ (typhus fever) had broken out in the year 1633; and in 1634, after the devastations committed by the troops of Bernhard von Weimar, bubonic plague appeared and carried away one-half of the inhabitants.

3. The cities on the Danube. In the year 1632 Neuburg was occupied by the Swedes; after their departure, on October 18, an epidemic of Hungarian head-disease broke out and carried away many soldiers and citizens (more than 900 in eight months). Again in the two following years pestilence caused great devastation. On April 29, 1632, the Swedes appeared before Ingolstadt, but in a few days withdrew; there was a strong garrison in the city, however, and many fugitives had gathered there. In this overcrowded population typhus fever broke out and carried away large numbers of people. In the following year the disease became even more widespread, and 1,039 people succumbed to it before the end of November. In the first part of the year 1635 the pestilence abated. In the second half of the year 1634 Regensburg was attacked by bubonic plague, and despite all measures of precaution it carried away two-thirds of the population (according to other reports there were 3,125 deaths). The entire vicinity suffered from the plague. The mortality in Straubing during the siege of the Imperialists (March 1634) increased greatly; even in the year before it had been very high (294 deaths). The total number of deaths in the year 1634 is not known, but of three parishes St. Jacob’s alone had 631 burials. Deggendorf and Passau fared similarly.

4. Upper Bavaria and Lower Bavaria south of the Danube. On May 17, 1632, Gustavus Adolphus had occupied Munich, and during his short sojourn of three weeks apparently no epidemic diseases made their appearance among the Swedes. But since typhus fever had broken out everywhere in the vicinity, strict measures of precaution were adopted by the city authorities. According to G. von Suttner[36] 124 people in the quarantine-house before the Schwabinger Tor succumbed to ‘burning fever and headache’ between August and the end of the year. According to a report published in 1632 the poor people suffered in particular, while red spots, continual headache, and later on diarrhoea, characterized the disease. A very severe pestilence broke out in Munich in the year 1634. ‘The epidemic was caused’, says Seitz,[37] ‘by the arrival of 4,000 Spanish soldiers in July of the year 1634; they were called there from Tölz and Weilheim when the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and General Horn were threatening the city. Although shortly after that, in August, a few evidences of disease were noticed, it was not regarded as infectious. Finally, however, a real plague broke out with such fury that four lazarets and a garden outside of the city had to be made ready for the care of the sick. It raged most furiously in the months of October and November, when from 200 to 250 dwellings, among them entire houses, were quarantined every week. Thus it went on until the end of December.’ Unfortunately there exists no medical description of the disease, the most important characteristics of which were chills, accompanied by internal fever, violent headaches, great lassitude, haemorrhage, plague-spots, and swellings. All told, some 15,000 persons are said to have died in the year 1634—about one-half of the total population of the city. The bodies of victims became so numerous that they were piled up in the streets and houses, without attempt to keep a record of the names, and buried in ditches forty at a time. Strict isolation of the patients by closing up the houses was enforced, and the use of the clothes and bedding of the dead was forbidden under severe penalties; such effects were burned outside of the gates. Only two gates remained open, and in front of one of them a garden was made ready to receive strangers who were denied admittance into the city. In February 1635, the pestilence had almost entirely ceased, but in September it broke out anew and did not disappear until February 1637.

In the years 1633–4 typhus fever and bubonic plague were spread throughout all Upper and Lower Bavaria by the continued marauding of the Swedes. The Imperialists, no less than the Swedes, helped to devastate the country, while the Spanish soldiers had the worst reputation of all. Again in the year 1635, especially in the autumn, the pestilence appeared. A plague broke out in Freising after the town was plundered by the Swedes on July 16, 1634 (Landshut had already been captured by them on May 10, 1632), and after their departure they left behind them an infectious disease which was diagnosed by the town-physician as Hungarian fever. A pestilence broke out in the city when it was plundered by the soldiers under Bernhard von Weimar, on July 10, 1634, and carried away one-third of the inhabitants; according to a list furnished by the court the number of deaths was 738, but there were many more with whose legacies the court had nothing to do. The bodies were piled up on wagons and conveyed to cemeteries, while the dwellings of diseased persons were closed. In Dingolfing, which was occupied by the Swedes from July 22, 1633, to June 1634, a plague raged with such fury that it was thought the city would be completely wiped out. Simbach-on-the-Inn and the near-by market-town of Thann suffered greatly from a plague in the year 1634. In Thann many bodies lay for a long time in the houses unburied, while entire families among the poorer population were wiped out of existence. The plague also raged in the surrounding localities, and many bodies lay in the streets as food for scavenger birds. A plague raged in the years 1633–4 in Traunstein, which had already had a few isolated cases of disease in the previous year; 123 people died terrible deaths in the two years mentioned, and also in the years 1635–6. In the year 1634 a pestilence caused 500 deaths in Rosenheim, while severe outbreaks of pestilence were reported from many surrounding places—Aibling, Miesbach, Wasserburg, and Tegernsee.

In Tölz twenty-seven adults succumbed in May and June 1633, to Hungarian disease; a pestilence also broke out in the spring of 1634 and carried away hundreds of people in the months of May, June, and July. From July on, the church-registers contain no more entries; the patients with black swellings usually had but a few hours to live. In Oberammergau ‘wild headache’ raged in the years 1631 and 1633, and many people succumbed to it. In September 1634, the town became infected with bubonic plague, and up to October 28, eighty-four people succumbed to the disease—about one-fifth of the population. The epidemic caused the people to vow that they would produce the Passion Play there every ten years. Murnau, Weilheim, and other places were severely attacked in the year 1634. In Andechs the mortality was increased in the year 1634 by an outbreak of dysentery and typhus fever, and on July 27 bubonic plague also appeared and remained until November, carrying away 200 of the 500 inhabitants of the town. In Landsberg typhus fever broke out very seriously in the year 1630. ‘All over the bodies of the people who contracted the disease’, says Lammert,[38] ‘red spots appeared, and then the victims lost control of themselves and knocked their heads against the walls. Many who seemed scarcely to have contracted the disease died suddenly. Dead bodies were found everywhere, even in public squares.’ In the following year the disease spread even further; the vicinity of Landsberg was infected by the soldiers, who were constantly marching back and forth. After the terrible plundering of the city in April and September of the year 1633, a plague broke out and carried away a large proportion of the few inhabitants that were left.

5. The governmental district of Swabia fared no better than the aforesaid Bavarian countries, while the region on the northern side of the Lake of Constance suffered terribly from the predatory raids of the Swedes and the consequent epidemics. In Augsburg, which from April 1632 to 1635 was occupied by the Swedes, the suffering began when the city was besieged by the Imperialists. During a siege of seven months (September 1634 to March 1635) famine and pestilence did a great deal more damage among the population than the bullets and swords of the enemies. Whereas this population numbered from 70,000 to 80,000 in the year 1624, by October 12, 1635, it had dwindled to 16,422. After the city had surrendered to the Imperialists, people still continued to die in consequence of pestilential diseases; the town council therefore gave orders on July 7, 1635, that all refuse should be removed from the city. Not until the winter did the pestilence disappear. In Memmingen there were 1,200 deaths in 1633, and 1,400 deaths in the following year; the worst year was 1635, when the pestilence is said to have carried away 3,000 persons. The towns surrounding the city were also severely attacked. In Kempten, which was oppressed by the Swedes and Imperialists in the years 1632–3, a pestilence broke out in the year 1634 and lasted well into the next year, carrying away 3,000 people. In the surrounding country, pestilence raged so furiously that many places were completely wiped out. In the near-by towns of Kaufbeuren, Immenstadt, Pfronten, Füssen, &c., the pestilence was likewise very widespread; in 1635 there were 1,600 deaths in Füssen—about one-quarter of the inhabitants.

The predatory incursions of the Swedes extended even to the Lake of Constance. In the year 1634 the number of deaths in Lindau was 800; at the beginning of the year 1633 Weingarten, Wangen, and Tettnang were occupied by the Swedes, who brought infectious diseases with them wherever they went. Tettnang, which in 1633 had more than 2,500 inhabitants, in 1636 had but 150. In Ravensburg a plague broke out in the year 1635, reached a climax in September, and in six months carried away 3,100 people. In Constance Hungarian disease raged in 1633, and is said to have carried away its victims within a few hours; in 1635 bubonic plague also broke out and caused 2,000 deaths.

_(b.) South-western Germany_

The battle of Nördlingen (September 5 and 6, 1634) was an important turning-point in the war, important for Bavaria for the reason that it freed the country from the predatory incursions of the Swedes, and disastrous to Württemberg, Baden, Hessen, and the Upper and Middle Rhine region, whither the defeated Swedish-Protestant army retreated, and where the fighting was now carried on for the next few years. Nördlingen had been besieged by the Imperialists, who were supported by a Spanish army; Bernhard von Weimar and Horn tried to relieve the city, but were completely defeated in the attempt. The Swedes turned and fled to the Rhine, and in a few weeks the entire south-western part of Germany was filled with Imperialists who had followed in pursuit.

The sufferings of the inhabitants of Württemberg, partly on account of the deeds of violence committed by the Imperialists, and partly on account of pestilences, were frightful.[39] On September 10 the Imperialists entered Stuttgart, which they continued to occupy until March 30, 1638. In the year 1631 the city had 8,300 inhabitants, and in the year 1634 the number of deaths was 936, of which 672 were due to the pestilence. In the following year the pestilence became more widespread, being helped along by numerous fugitives from the surrounding country and by famine; the number of deaths was 4,379, and it was necessary to dig large ditches and bury a hundred bodies at a time. From January to July 1636, there were 319 deaths due to the pestilence, which in the following year raged even more furiously and carried away 945 persons. The mortality was equally high in the year 1638, when the city was occupied alternately by the Swedes and Imperialists; the latter, when they departed in October, left behind them 6,000 diseased and wounded men. In near-by Cannstatt 1,300 people died in 1635. In Esslingen a plague broke out in 1634 and in 1635 became more and more widespread in consequence of the continual marching back and forth of the soldiers. It made havoc especially among the 12,000 fugitives from the surrounding country, who were packed together in stables and barns, and in many cases under the open sky. Owing to the incipient famine the pestilence spread with great rapidity; 12,000 people are said to have died, among them 600 out of 1,000 citizens, notwithstanding the fact that various measures of precaution were adopted (removal of refuse, fumigations on a large scale, &c.). In Göppingen, which was occupied by Imperialist soldiers a few weeks after the battle of Nördlingen, pestilence soon broke out and carried away 656 persons between October 1 and the end of the year (1634); in the following year there were 904 deaths. In the year 1636 Gmünd had a very severe pestilence, which on many days carried away from thirty to forty persons; large graves were dug and from forty to fifty bodies buried at a time. Aalen, in consequence of the continual marching back and forth of the soldiers, of quartering, and of extortions, suffered severely; there, and in the country round about, a plague raged furiously in the year 1634. Krailsheim and Hall, comparatively speaking, fared well. In Hall, the parish of St. Michael, in which the average number of deaths for the years 1621–30 was 112, in the year 1634 had 1,116 deaths (999 in the months of August-December), while there were 372 deaths in the year 1635.[40] The fugitives in the city and the people who died there are not included. In Oehringen, after the town was plundered by the Imperialists from September 13 to 18, a very severe pestilence broke out and carried away 1,131 persons. The neighbouring towns and villages also had a great many deaths due to pestilence—Neuenstein 1,100, Waldenburg 452, and Künzelsau 900. The entire Hohenlohe Plateau was severely attacked by pestilence; in the little town of Grossbottwar, first ‘head-disease’ broke out in 1635, then dysentery, and finally bubonic plague; between the months of July and December 692 persons succumbed to these three diseases. In June 1635, there were 775 deaths in Lauffen-on-the Neckar, 1,609 in Heilbronn, 646 in Weinsberg (out of 1,416 inhabitants), 1,802 in Vaihingen (only 48 in 1631), and 1,019 in Bönnigheim (among them many outsiders).

In the towns on the Upper Neckar and on the northern border of the Swabian Alp a very severe pestilence likewise broke out. Nürtingen was devastated by the Imperialists after the battle of Nördlingen, and in the years 1634–5 there were 1,154 deaths in consequence of a pestilence. The surrounding country also fared badly; for example, Urach and the near-by Alp villages. In the year 1634 a plague broke out in Tübingen, and in the following year it spread widely in consequence of famine, compelling the university faculty to leave the city. The highest mortality was reached in October (386 deaths), while the total number of deaths for the entire year was 1,485. The plague raged no less furiously in Rottenburg-on-the-Neckar. Nor was the Swabian Alp spared; in the village of Gruibingen there were 90 deaths in 1634 and eighty-six deaths in the year 1635. Böhmenkirch was almost completely wiped out. In Gussenstadt, whither many inhabitants of the surrounding country had fled, the usual mortality per annum was 12 or 14; in the year 1634 there were 313 deaths up to December 7, while in the year 1635 there were 137 deaths up to September 23. In the months of November and December (1634) alone there were 157 deaths, and the inhabitants frequently died at the rate of 4–6 per diem.[41]

After the battle of Nördlingen thousands of the inhabitants of the surrounding country fled to Ulm, where epidemics had broken out in the year 1634 and carried away 1,871 persons. In June 1635, the general misery caused a plague to break out there; in the morning many dead bodies would be found lying in the streets and in front of houses. In the course of eight months 15,000 persons were carried away, among them 4,033 fugitives and 5,672 beggars; in the following year only 496 persons died, all told. Even the Black Forest district of Württemberg suffered in consequence of the war and of pestilence; Tuttlingen in the year 1635 had 546 deaths, Calw 772, and Freudenstadt 434; Neuenburg, Nagold, Sulz, and other places were also attacked.

How terrible was the loss of human life in Württemberg in consequence of the war and of pestilence is shown by the fact that the population of the city decreased from 444,800 in the year 1622 to 97,300 in the year 1639; the population in 1634 was 414,536. In the short period of five years (1634–9), in consequence of the invasion of the Imperialists after the battle of Nördlingen, and of the pestilence and famine caused thereby, the country lost 300,000 inhabitants, or about three-fourths of its population.

The northern part of Baden suffered severely in the years 1634–6; Pforzheim lost at least one-third of its inhabitants in consequence of famine and pestilence, while Durlach and Mannheim are also reported to have been attacked.

That part of Hessen lying on the right side of the Rhine was likewise visited by pestilence. In Wimpfen-on-the-Neckar a plague broke out in August, 1635, and in the period between August 12 and December 31 there were 494 deaths there. Bensheim, Zwingenberg, Gernsheim, Babenhausen, and Seligenstadt fared no better. Darmstadt, with 212 deaths in 1633 and 220 deaths in 1634, had an increased mortality, but in 1635 some 2,200 bodies are said to have been buried there; at first it was ‘head-disease’, and afterwards ‘a poisonous pestilence’.

The Lower Main region suffered terribly in the year 1635 from famine and pestilence; the Wetterau, the Palatinate, and Alsace-Lorraine were all attacked. Frankfurt-on-the-Main had been occupied by the Swedes in the latter part of 1631, and after that the mortality increased; whereas in the years 1630–2 the average number of deaths was 1,598, in 1633 it increased to 3,512, in 1634 to 3,421, and in 1635 to 6,943. This includes all the Protestant population, only a part of the Catholic population, and none of the Jews. The large number of country-people who had fled to the city rendered the general condition worse and helped to spread the pestilence. The worst month was September 1635, in which 1,112 persons died. According to a Frankfurt physician, Hörnigk, the crisis came on the fifth or sixth day, while many people contracted the disease not only once, but as many as seven times.[42] We see from this last observation that the various infectious diseases at that time were not distinguished, but were regarded as different stages of one and the same disease.

In near-by Hanau, after it was occupied by the Swedes and Hessians on October 2, 1634, famine and pestilence appeared; in June 1635, an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out there, reaching a climax in August, and gradually disappearing with the beginning of the cold weather. The mortality among the citizens and fugitives was very great, but the statement that 21,000 people died in Hanau is perhaps an exaggeration. Upper Hesse was devastated in 1635 by famine and pestilence; in Giessen, for example, 1,503 people died (according to the grave-diggers’ records), and in Lich, a small fortified town, there were 1,225 deaths, including 22 soldiers and 549 fugitives from the surrounding country.

In the Rhenish Palatinate, after it was occupied by the Imperialists, conditions were terrible; famine and pestilence lasted from 1635 to 1639. In the year 1635 General Gallas retreated from Dieuze to the Rhine, and in the same year serious diseases broke out there (dysentery, typhus fever, &c.), so that the streets and fields were covered with the bodies of his soldiers. Wherever he went these diseases were transmitted to the local inhabitants, so that many places lost more than half of their population. Pestilence was also transmitted to other cities and towns in the Palatinate; in Zweibrücken, which had 3,000 inhabitants, 250 married persons died between August 1, 1635, and April 1, 1636; many villages in the vicinity were entirely depopulated. In Kaiserslautern, which on August 17, 1635, was stormed by the Imperialists under General Hatzfeld, and was thereafter subjected to an inhuman sacking, a severe plague broke out in the year 1636 and carried away large numbers of people. In Worms numerous people succumbed that year to dysentery.

In Alsace an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in August 1636; it had been brought there by the troops of the Count-Palatine von Birkenfeld and became very widespread among the fugitives in the overcrowded city of Strassburg. From thirty to forty bodies were buried in a single day, and in the entire year there were 5,546 deaths, including 1,000 fugitives and soldiers. The disease continued to reveal its presence until the next spring, and by that time 8,000 persons are said to have died in Strassburg. In the year 1635–6, owing to the perpetual condition of war, which made it impossible to cultivate the fields, there ensued a terrible famine, and this did a great deal to further the dissemination of pestilence. Zabern, where there was a strong garrison, and where many soldiers were quartered, suffered terribly in the year 1634, and again in the years 1635–6 widespread pestilences broke out; in 1636 the Imperialists died there ‘like cattle’.

Lorraine also suffered terribly. In the year 1635 Bernhard von Weimar and Cardinal La Valette were obliged to retreat before Gallas to the vicinity of Metz, where they arrived on October 1; the troops brought fever, dysentery, and ‘Swedish plague’ with them; the last-named disease, which has been held to be typhus fever, became more widespread in Metz in the year 1636 than it had ever been before—it was _la plus meurtrière et la plus désastreuse des temps modernes dans notre pays_.[43] The precautionary measures of the city administration—cleaning of the streets, isolation of the patients, closing of infected houses—were of no avail. Many bodies were cast into the Mosel, and before the gates of the city the streets and fields were covered with dead men and horses. Also in the neighbouring cities, especially in Verdun and Nancy, the losses in consequence of the pestilence were great.

Conditions were equally bad in the adjacent Luxemburg. ‘The French as enemies,’ says Lammert,[44] ‘the Croats, Hungarians, and Poles as defenders, committed the most terrible devastations in the country through which they passed. Famine, poverty, and a furious pestilence completed the misery. Entire villages were wiped out; in the city of Luxemburg the churchyards no longer had room for the bodies, and places for burial had to be prepared within the fortifications. Throughout the entire province 11,000 persons, one-third of the inhabitants, lost their lives.’

In the year 1637 Count Bernhard von Weimar transferred the scene of the war into southern Baden, where, during the siege of Breisach, from July 5 to December 18, 1638, an epidemic of scurvy caused increased misery. In the year 1639 large numbers of people in the Lörrach district were carried away by the pestilence, among them Count Bernhard himself.

_3. North Germany (1636–40)_

In North Germany the war against the Imperialists was continued by the Swedes under Banner. On October 4, 1636, the Imperialists were defeated at Wittstock (province of Brandenburg, district of East Priednitz), whereupon the Swedes in that very same year overran Saxony and Thuringia. In 1637, to be sure, they were thrown back into Pomerania by Gallas, but in 1638 they reappeared in Saxony, and in 1639 won a brilliant victory at Chemnitz. Thereupon Banner undertook a campaign into Bohemia, whence, in 1641, he was forced to retire. Shortly afterwards (May 10, 1641) he died in Halberstadt.

These campaigns spread severe pestilences throughout the above-mentioned regions of North Germany, particularly the southern part of Brandenburg and the modern province of Saxony. The largest part of the Altmark resembled a ‘large lazaret’; in Wittstock itself there were 305 deaths in the year 1636, in Bismark 163, and in Salzwedel 193; in Werben a plague broke out after the soldiers had been quartered there and lasted well into the next year. In Stendal it began in June 1636, and carried away 1,992 persons in that year, as compared with an average annual mortality of 120–30; nor does the number include the peasants that had fled to the city, 3,000 of whom died. The pestilence spread over the entire vicinity and wiped out whole villages. In Tangermünde a pestilence broke out even before the battle of Wittstock; it was borne thither by Imperialists and Saxon artillerymen. In Gardelegen, where Banner had his head-quarters, 500 people in the parish of St. Nicholas, and 1,205 in the parish of St. Mary, succumbed in the year 1636 to bubonic plague and other diseases, among the dead being 195 soldiers. In Neuhaldensleben, whither many country-people had fled, a plague broke out in May 1636, and spread throughout the entire vicinity; in many days in September, thirty and more bodies were counted, while the incomplete church register records 778 deaths. The total number of deaths is said to have been 2,560.

Typhus fever and other infectious diseases raged furiously in Magdeburg, and, as before, the country south-west of Magdeburg also suffered. In Gross-Salze, which had received many fugitives, 701 persons succumbed in the year 1636 to dysentery and bubonic plague, among them 329 outsiders; the climax of the pestilence occurred in July, when there were 162 deaths. In Egeln, as in Gross-Salze, a plague broke out in May 1636, carrying away 164 persons (134 of them outsiders) in June, 63 natives and 84 outsiders in July. In Wolmirsleben a pestilence raged from April to the middle of September 1636, and carried away 130 people. In Atzendorf typhus fever and bubonic plague broke out in the spring of the year 1636 and carried away 617 persons, inclusive of outsiders. In Wanzleben 600 persons succumbed in the year 1636 to bubonic plague, and 300 to other diseases and starvation. In Aschersleben a pestilence broke out on April 2, 1636, reached a climax in November with 217 deaths, and carried away, all told, 1,125 persons in that year (including 499 outsiders and soldiers). In Zerbst, where infected soldiers were quartered, the epidemic was particularly widespread; of the fugitives in the city 1,500 succumbed. In Wittenberg and vicinity dysentery and typhus fever broke out in the year 1636, and in the fall of that year bubonic plague also made its appearance and lasted well into the following year, carrying away thousands of people. In Merseburg, in the parish of St. Maximus alone, there were 942 deaths in the years 1636–7, and in Eisleben there were 1,598 deaths (including the outsiders) in the year 1636. Halle and vicinity, in the summer of 1636, had an outbreak of ‘spotted fever with dysentery’ and bubonic plague; the number of deaths was not less than 3,440.

In Thuringia a plague raged extensively in the years 1636–7. In Hildburghausen there were 648 deaths due to a plague in the year 1636, in Jena 691 (not including the outsiders), while in the year 1637 there were 307 deaths in Arnstadt and 525 in Zeitz. In many smaller places dysentery and bubonic plague broke out, having been borne there by soldiers and wandering beggars.

In Saxony (present kingdom) pestilences reappeared after the invasion of Banner in the year 1637. In Leipzig a great many homeless people took refuge; within three months 2,500 persons died there, and in the entire year 4,229 out of 15,000 inhabitants succumbed to various diseases. Pestilences also broke out with renewed strength in near-by cities and towns; by September 1,000 natives and 2,000 outsiders died in Grimma. In Leisnig, fever, ‘head-disease’, and diarrhoea appeared. After the burning of the city by the Swedes, a plague broke out and carried away 2,200 persons in six months, including the outsiders. Colditz, which had suffered great losses in the last six years, had 352 deaths; the population so dwindled away that in the year 1638 it amounted to only 28. In Döbeln there were 674 deaths, in Oschatz 2,000 (including the outsiders), and in Mügeln more than 1,000. The near-by cities, belonging to the governmental district of Merseburg, also had a very high mortality; in Belgern there were 765 deaths, in Delitsch 881 deaths, while in Eilenburg 8,000 natives and outsiders are said to have died. In Dresden, where in the year 1635 only 79 persons had died in consequence of plague, there were 1,097 deaths in the year 1637. In the following years, moreover, cases of plague continued to appear. A high mortality prevailed even in the Saxon Erzgebirge, caused for the most part by typhus fever.

In Brandenburg a severe pestilence raged in the years 1637–8. Berlin was repeatedly attacked in 1637 and again in 1639. In Spandau it raged very extensively, and lasted well into the following year. In Luckau 500 inhabitants died in the year 1637. The pestilence was conveyed to Neu-Ruppin by an infected soldier, and in the church register of that town 600 deaths are recorded. In Gransee a pestilence broke out in May 1638, and in a short time carried away 1,000 persons. Four neighbouring villages were completely wiped out. In Wittstock 1,599 persons succumbed in the year 1638 to bubonic plague and other diseases, and in Pritzwalk 1,500 people died (not including the soldiers and fugitive country-people). In Lychen (district of Templin) numerous fugitives and two-thirds of the native inhabitants died. In Angermünde, but 40 out of 700 families were left, and in Prenzlau a pestilence likewise raged furiously.

Pomerania, while the war was going on between the Swedes and Imperialists, fared no better. In Massow 400 persons succumbed to a plague. In Ueckermünde, in consequence of a plague caused by the capture of the city by the Swedes, only eight men and seven widows are said to have survived the year 1638.

Mecklenburg suffered terribly in the years 1637–8 from the quartering of Swedish troops there. Thousands succumbed in a short time to dysentery and bubonic plague, especially in the months of August and September 1638. Güstrow, in the year 1637, is said to have lost 2,000 persons (most of them doubtless fugitive country-people). Sternberg, the population of which was completely wiped out by the pestilence, stood empty for half a year. In New Brandenburg, where many country-people had taken refuge, 8,000 people died in the year 1638, according to the church register. Bützow had 261 deaths.

IV. THE WAR YEARS (1641–8)

After the death of Bernhard von Weimar and of Banner, all centralized warfare in Germany ceased, and there began an endless series of futile marches across the country. The great depopulation of Germany, the difficulty of properly nourishing the few that had survived, and the wide prevalence of camp-fever, made it impossible to carry out any more large enterprises. Severe pestilences scarcely ever occurred, for the simple reason that there were so few people to contract and spread diseases. Typhus fever had become epidemic everywhere. ‘In Germany,’ says Schnurrer,[45] ‘where fighting had been going on for twenty-two years, and where soldier-life had almost supplanted civil and rural life, a certain war-plague revealed itself in places where there were soldiers, and where the war had left its vestiges. This war-plague was characterized by a mucous fever, began with a chill, accompanied by coughing, diarrhoea, and, in the case of women, by increased and irregular menstruation; at the same time the tongue became dry, headache and insomnia ensued, and at the crisis either the brain or the throat became inflamed, or else petechiae or purpura (then for the first time observed in Lower Saxony) broke out. Moreover, this war-plague, if it appeared to have passed a crisis on the fourteenth or twenty-first day, manifested a remarkable tendency to relapse. It was quite as infectious as bubonic plague, and was called by several names—Hungarian fever, head-disease, and soldiers’ disease.’ We distinctly see in this description a mixture of various diseases (especially typhoid fever, typhus fever, and others). Schnurrer’s authority was Lotichius, a Frankfurt physician.

The continuation of the war was disastrous to Austria, for the reason that the Swedish general, Torstensen, pressed on to Moravia and Lower Austria. As early as the year 1642 he had undertaken an expedition through Silesia to Moravia and Bohemia; in the year 1644 he advanced again, defeated the Imperialists at Jankau in Bohemia in the spring of the year 1645, and besieged (unsuccessfully) both Vienna and Brünn. In the year 1645 he was hard pressed by the Austrians and compelled to evacuate Moravia and Bohemia. Torstensen’s campaigns resulted in the outbreak of severe pestilences throughout all Austria.

Bohemia had suffered as much as Germany from the hardships of the Thirty Years’ War, while Austrian Silesia, and at times those parts of Austria which bordered on Bavaria, had not been spared. Only in the year 1634 was Austria itself attacked by pestilences, obvious consequence of the fact that both Saxony and Bavaria were badly infected. The incursion of Banner into Bohemia, in the year 1639, had likewise caused a widespread epidemic.

As far back as the year 1644, and hence before Torstensen’s invasion of Austria, severe plagues broke out in Hungary, Croatia, Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Görz. People who contracted the disease usually died in the first three days. Torstensen’s invasion caused the pestilence to spread very extensively. In Vienna it broke out in August 1645, having been borne thither by Rakoczi’s troops, and carried away from thirty to forty people daily. Tuln, St. Pölten, and New Vienna are also mentioned as places that were attacked. Styria was particularly afflicted in the year 1646; the district of Cilli is said to have lost 10,000 inhabitants, while the city of Cilli alone had some 400 deaths. In Graz, as in all Upper Styria, the loss of human life was not so great.

V. WAR PESTILENCES IN NON-GERMAN STATES DURING THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR

1. The Netherlands. In the summer of the year 1623 there raged in Mansfeld’s camp in East Friesland an epidemic of typhus fever, which soon spread among the Netherlandish troops and over the Netherlands. Antwerp, Brussels, Ypres, Leyden, Delft, and Amsterdam were all severely attacked. In Leyden 9,897 persons died between October 1623 and October 1624. In Amsterdam 32,532 people died in the year 1624, 11,795 of them in consequence of the pestilence. In the year 1625, Breda, which for eight months had been defended by Flemish and Walloon troops in conjunction with the English and French, fell into the hands of the Spaniards; famine, pestilence, and scurvy had raged so furiously in the besieged city that 8,000 people died there, whereas the well-nourished Spaniards did not suffer at all from pestilence.[46]

In the years 1635–7 typhus fever and bubonic plague again made their appearance in the Netherlands. An epidemic of the latter occurred in Leyden in the months August-November 1635, and carried away 20,000 people in the course of the entire year. The pestilence caused great devastation in Nimeguen during the siege of the city by the French and Dutch; in the summer of 1635 dysentery and typhus fever broke out there, and in November bubonic plague appeared and slowly extended its area in the course of the winter. From April to October 1636 it raged furiously, and spared scarcely a single house; from August 1, 1635, to August 1, 1636, some 6,000 persons died in the city, and the pestilence did not come to an end until February 1637. It also spread to the country around Nimeguen, especially to Montfort, where half of the inhabitants succumbed to it.[47]

2. France. In the years 1620–30 a large part of the country was visited by pestilence, especially the southern provinces during the war of extermination that was carried on against the Calvinists. In Montpellier, after the siege in 1623, a virulent fever (_febris maligna pestilens_) raged for eight months, and carried away one-third of the people who contracted it. According to Lazarus Riverius the skin became covered with red, livid, or black spots, similar to flea-bites; they appeared between the sixth and ninth days, and developed for the most part on the loins, breast, and neck.[48] In the years 1628–33 France experienced some very severe outbreaks of pestilence, which undoubtedly involved bubonic plague as well as typhus fever. Lyons had 50,000 deaths, Limoges 25,000, while Paris, Angers, Châlons, Aix, Montpellier, Avignon, Marseilles, Agen, Dijon, Vienne, Villefranche, and Toulouse were also attacked. In Montpellier, whither the pestilence had been borne from Toulouse, 5,000 people died between October 1630 and April 1631—almost one-half of the entire population. The city of Digne, where a plague broke out in 1629, had a terrible fate; it was completely surrounded by soldiers, in order to prevent the plague from spreading further, and by April 1630 some 8,500 out of 10,000 inhabitants had died.

3. Switzerland. The proximity of the scene of the war, which brought numerous fugitives into the country, and the marching back and forth of troops through the Grisons, resulted in numerous outbreaks of pestilence in Switzerland. In the year 1622 some 3,000 soldiers were carried away by an epidemic of typhus fever in the county of Mayenfeld. Pestilences raged extensively in Switzerland in the years 1628–9. On August 5, 1628, a plague broke out in Schaffhausen, reached its climax in October of that year, and carried away, all told, 2,595 persons; 2,000 people died in the country around Schaffhausen. In Zug a pestilence broke out in September 1628 and lasted until December 1629, carrying away 468 persons; in Sursee there were 600 deaths, in Sempach 100, in Frauenfeld 400. In Basel the number of deaths in the year 1629 was 2,656. In the same year St. Gall, Toggenburg, and Altdorf were severely attacked. In the year 1635 another pestilence broke out; the constant misery caused by the war, and the consequent famine, brought swarms of beggars and vagabonds from South Germany into Switzerland, which they infected with various diseases. The city of Zürich, for example, on June 14 of one year was compelled to drive out 7,400 beggars. All Switzerland was attacked by pestilence at that time, even the most out of the way valleys.

4. Italy was the scene of severe pestilences in the years 1629–31; according to Ozanam they were borne there by German troops, and according to Häser by French troops. At all events the outbreak occurred in connexion with the war which France was waging in Mantua against Austria and Spain over the succession. According to a Venetian physician, Grossi, the specific disease was not bubonic plague; Häser,[49] however, assumes that both typhus fever and bubonic plague occurred. Lammert seems to think that camp-fever in Upper Italy had little to do with the high mortality. Ozanam mentions buboes, plague-sores, inflammation of the salivary glands, and black and violet petechiae. Death is said to have occurred in from one to seven days. Brescia was first attacked; after the battle of Villabona (May 26, 1629), the pestilence, conveyed by retreating Venetian troops, spread throughout Upper and Central Italy. In Verona the number of deaths was 32,895, in Milan 86,000, in Venice (1630) 45,489, (1631) 94,164, in Mantua 25,000. In the territory of the Venetian Republic 500,000 persons are said to have succumbed to various pestilential diseases. Genoa, Turin, Padua, Bologna, Lucca, Florence, Parma, and other cities were also attacked. Regarding the outbreak of pestilence in Milan, Ozanam gives us no further information.[50] In October and November isolated instances of disease occurred among people who had acquired articles from German soldiers. Strict measures of precaution (burning of all effects, and quarantining of all persons who had come in contact with infected people) prevented the pestilence from spreading. But during the Carnival these measures were carried out less vigorously, and the result was that in the latter part of March 1630 a pestilence broke out in various quarters of the city. Accordingly, two more lazarets and 800 straw huts were erected outside the city, and shelter for relatives of the sick was provided. Notwithstanding this, the pestilence spread to such an extent that some 3,500 persons died every day. In Florence, Grand Duke Ferdinand II adopted energetic measures against the dissemination of the disease; infected people, with or against their will, were taken to the Hospital of San Bonifacio, where the physicians themselves were obliged to remain. Recovered patients were held in quarantine, and their clothes and other effects were burned. Some 9,000 persons are said to have succumbed to the pestilence in Florence.

5. In England typhus fever repeatedly broke out after the year 1622. In the spring of the year 1643 it appeared in the parliamentary army and in the royal garrison during the siege of Reading. The disease, which is described by Thomas Willis, spread from there to Oxford and the surrounding country.[51]

VI. A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE LOSS OF HUMAN LIFE IN GERMANY DURING THE
THIRTY YEARS’ WAR

Even if it is impossible to give an accurate numerical account of the losses due to pestilence in the course of the Thirty Years’ War, we have seen in a general way how epidemics of dysentery, typhus fever, and bubonic plague followed at the heels of armies, how they were borne from place to place, and how the devastation of the country caused by the war led to an absolute dearth of the necessaries of life, and thereby helped the pestilences to spread. We have mentioned only those places regarding which we have specific information, and they can be regarded only as examples of how these pestilences appeared; as a matter of fact, however, conditions were very much the same in all parts of the country. At the same time these examples show satisfactorily that the great depopulation of Germany during the Thirty Years’ War was chiefly caused by severe epidemics of typhus fever and bubonic plague.

It will be of interest to assemble the figures (such as have been recorded) relating to the number of deaths that occurred in a few of the larger cities during the Thirty Years’ War. We include Basel among those cities, since, being situated close to the border of that part of Germany where the war was carried on during two rather long periods, it was necessarily attacked by the prevalent pestilences. At the same time Basel affords an example of how quickly these pestilences disappeared from the cities, even in the seventeenth century, if external conditions permitted the authorities to take the necessary measures of prevention and precaution, and if the cities were not constantly being reinfected. We give the total number of deaths, and merely remark that the population in all German cities in the course of the Thirty Years’ War decreased considerably. In the case of Leipzig, Dresden, and Frankfurt-on-the-Main the still-births are included, but not in the case of Augsburg, Basel, and Strassburg. As a rule the country-people who fled to the cities are not included among the dead; only in the case of Strassburg, and perhaps also in that of Breslau for the year 1633, are they included.

The total loss of human life in the Thirty Years’ War can be estimated only approximately. The statement attributed to Lammert, that the population of Germany, which amounted to sixteen or seventeen millions before the war, had dwindled down to four millions after the war, is perhaps an exaggeration. Other estimates state that Germany lost one-half of its population. In the case of a few states we have more exact figures, which probably approach more closely to the actual loss. Thus the electorate of Saxony, which was much larger in area than the modern kingdom of Saxony, in the years 1631–2 is said to have lost some 934,000 persons. The population of Bohemia is said to have decreased during the Thirty Years’ War from three millions to 780,000. In Bavaria 80,000 families are said to have been wiped out. The population of Württemberg decreased from 444,800 in the year 1622 to 97,300. The population of Hesse decreased by about one-quarter. So much, however, is sure: that in the regions where the war was carried on for several years the population decreased by far more than one-half. The most positive proof of this is afforded by the hundreds of burned-down and unrebuilt houses found in so many German cities, and the numerous unpeopled, or almost unpeopled, places which Germany had to show at the end of the war.

DEATHS (1618–48).

_Year._ _Leip- _Dres- _Bres- _Augs- _Frank- _Strass- _Ba-
zig._ den._ lau._ burg._ furt._ burg._ sel._
[52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]

1618 422 400 1,205 1,354 625 1,343 535
1619 569 332 1,313 1,485 544 1,258 257
1620 477 472 1,456 1,667 670 996 259
1621 613 491 1,652 1,517 674 1,019 352
1622 580 381 1,045 1,959 1,785 4,388 450
1623 500 421 1,050 1,875 725 1,738 336
1624 812 411 1,260 1,370 955 1,491 297
1625 718 481 3,000 1,392 1,871 1,350 297
1626 1,268 740 1,874 2,440 963 2,590 330
1627 537 412 1,227 2,494 773 1,669 266
1628 388 469 1,020 3,611 680 1,513 527
1629 506 398 1,116 1,265 832 1,786 2,656
1630 881 480 1,156 909 927 1,425 220
1631 1,754 844 1,795 859 1,132 1,383 221
1632 2,789 3,129 1,395 3,485 2,900 2,675 284
1633 1,445 4,585 13,231 3,364 762 5,546 456
1634 306 721 1,010 4,664 3,512 2,115
1635 603 597 949 6,243 6,943 560
1636 1,218 594 873 790 2,301 600
1637 4,229 1,897 1,060 823 3,152 424
1638 552 531 863 638 1,079 527
1639 955 1,845 928 674 948 1,923 515
1640 469 935 1,273 586 1,034 239
1641 482 525 1,088 887 735 713 195
1642 1,080 601 1,343 593 883 680 242
1643 1,034 1,041 1,332 638 523 532
1644 604 489 1,570 659 491 707 337
1645 458 532 1,133 758 678 220
1646 331 481 1,042 1,488 774 651 205
1647 403 471 1,273 1,338 662 573 238
1648 469 606 1,111 1,208 575 643 235