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INTRODUCTION 1

WAR PESTILENCES 4

THE TIME BEFORE THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 11

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 25

THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 79

THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEON'S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 92

THE EPIDEMICS OF TYPHUS FEVER IN CENTRAL EUROPE FOLLOWING UPON THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN AND DURING THE WARS OF LIBERATION 106

FROM THE AGE OF NAPOLEON TO THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 165

THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR OF 1870-1, AND THE EPIDEMIC OF SMALL-POX CAUSED BY IT 189

FROM THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR TO THE PRESENT TIME 286

EPIDEMICS IN BESIEGED STRONGHOLDS 302

CONCLUSION 328

INDEX 335

INTRODUCTION

In countries which have the misfortune to be the scene of protracted wars, the mortality regularly undergoes a considerable increase. This is caused chiefly by the infectious diseases which in war times so often appear in the form of epidemics. These diseases, moreover, not only afflict the country in which the war is waged, but are also carried by prisoners, returning soldiers, and in other ways, into the land of the victor, where it is possible for them to spread over a large territory. A report on the loss of human life among that part of a population which does not participate in a war has not yet been undertaken, writings on war pestilences usually confining themselves to the losses within the armies themselves. It is the purpose of the present study to investigate the losses sustained by the non-belligerent part of the population in consequence of epidemics caused by wars.

In doing this it seems advisable to select a few war pestilences which on account of their enormous extent are particularly notable, and to subject them to an exhaustive discussion. This method has the advantage that it will enable us to show in individual cases how it is possible for these pestilences to extend over such a vast territory, under what circumstances they spread from place to place, and how they enter regions remote from the scene of war. For this exhaustive discussion the writer has chosen the pestilences that occurred during the Thirty Years' War, the epidemic of typhus fever after Napoleon's Russian Campaign, and the pandemic of small-pox after the Franco-German War of 1870-1. These epidemics afford very instructive examples of what horrible losses both friends and enemies may sustain in consequence of war pestilences.

While the outbreaks of 'plague' in the course of the Thirty Years' War have already been made the subject of a comprehensive account, strange to say there are no such accounts of the other two epidemics; to give a clear picture of these pestilences the writer was therefore constrained to collect the necessary information from widely dispersed sources. In gathering his material a number of large German libraries assisted him most kindly--particularly, the Royal National Library at Stuttgart and the University libraries of Strassburg and T?bingen.

The other parts of the history of war pestilences are set forth in a more general way; for an exhaustive treatment of them would have necessitated several years of preliminary work, which the writer in the short time at his disposal was unable to undertake.

The writer has drawn as much as possible from original sources; this applies at least to the pestilences of the Napoleonic Period, and to the epidemic of small-pox after the Franco-German War. It would have been impossible to deal with the other wars in the same way without consuming considerable time. From the bibliographies it will appear what sources the author has consulted; rarely are quotations given from works which he has not seen, and in such cases it is indicated whence they were taken.

The causes of the origin and spread of pestilences during a war are clear. Every aggregation of people, even in times of peace, at celebrations and annual fairs, in barracks, and so forth, is necessarily exposed to the danger of pestilence; but this danger is ten times as great in large assemblages of troops during a war. The soldiers are then subjected to all possible kinds of hardship and suffering--lack of food, or food which is inferior and badly cooked, sleeping out in the cold and rain, fatiguing marches, constant excitement, and homesickness--and all these things greatly lessen their power of resistance. When large bodies of troops are obliged to remain in one and the same place for a considerable length of time, the additional difficulty presents itself of keeping the locality unpolluted by the excrement of men and animals, and by refuse of all kinds. If an infectious disease reveals its presence in such an aggregation of people, energetic and stringent measures must be adopted, even in times of peace, to prevent it from spreading. In war times it is often impossible to take the necessary precautions, since the attention of the commanders is directed toward very definite objects, to which all other considerations are subordinate. Whether the germ of the disease is already in the place, or whether the soldiers bring it with them, in either case there is danger that the fighting armies will cause the disease to spread over the entire scene of the war, and thus seriously endanger thousands of human lives.

Modern methods of sanitation have done much toward preventing the spread of army pestilences, not only in peace, but also in war. The last few decades have evinced that fact. Whatever attitude we may assume toward the question whether war can ever be wholly abolished, we must all agree that, if war has once broken out, all possible means must be employed to prevent the spreading of pestilence within the armies. Here the interests of the people and of the commanders coincide, since the efficiency of armies is often seriously interfered with by the outbreak of pestilence, and not infrequently the success or failure of a war depends, not upon the outcome of its battles, but upon the appearance or non-appearance of pestilence.

All infectious diseases may spread in consequence of war and develop into epidemics of varying extent. In the next chapter we shall see how the wars at the end of the fifteenth century favoured the spread of an epidemic of syphilis. In the Union Army, during the American Civil War of 1861-5, both measles and typhoid fever were very widespread, and together they were the cause of 4,246 deaths, or about 1?75 per cent of the total enlistment. Scarlet fever, influenza, yellow fever, relapsing fever, and malaria have also played an important r?le in many wars. But we give the name 'war pestilences' only to those infectious diseases which in the course of centuries have usually followed at the heels of belligerent armies, such as typhus fever, bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, and small-pox; we may also include here scurvy, the etiology of which has not yet been definitely determined.

The danger of the disease varies greatly in different epidemics; statements regarding this point diverge according as we refer to the statistical records of hospitals or to the private practice of physicians. With the latter the number of deaths is smaller, since persons suffering from the disease in mild form less often go to the hospitals. Epidemics in which a quarter of the patients, and even more, have succumbed have frequently occurred, especially in war times, during famines, &c. The cause of typhus fever is not known; according to recent investigations it is spread by vermin; Ricketts and others have fixed responsibility for it upon the body louse. The infection is communicated from man to man, and very often it is contracted from the clothes, linen, and other effects of typhus patients. Recovery from the disease usually renders a person immune against a second attack. Typhus fever frequently appears nowadays in the eastern and south-eastern parts of Europe, in Hungary and Galicia, and also in Spain, Italy, and Ireland.

In the Middle Ages an epidemic of plague ravaged all Europe. At the present time it is still endemic in India, in southern China, in Egypt, in Uganda, and perhaps in other countries, whence it frequently develops into general epidemics.

In the case of small-pox the infective agent is not yet known; infection is caused by contact with a patient, or with objects which he is using or has used. It is particularly dangerous to touch things on which the contents of the pustules have dried, for such articles remain infectious for a long time. Recovery from the disease usually renders a person immune for life. The mortality in different epidemics varies greatly; most dangerous of all is the so-called 'black small-pox' . The total number of deaths in an epidemic of small-pox is dependent upon whether the disease appears in a vaccinated or an unvaccinated community; in the latter case the mortality may reach thirty per cent, whereas in the former case only three or four per cent of the patients die. Vaccination renders a person immune for eight to twelve years, while, if the disease breaks out anywhere in spite of vaccination, the number of fatal cases is very few. It should be noted that small-pox was formerly dreaded, not only because of its danger to life, but also because it frequently leaves a person disfigured for life, and in rare instances causes total blindness.

During the Third Crusade, shortly after the death of Frederick Barbarossa , a severe pestilence broke out in the army that was besieging Antioch; according to Michaux only 5,000 infantrymen and 700 cavalrymen survived out of the entire German army. At the siege of Acre , which lasted from August 1189, to July 1191, there broke out in the winter of 1191 a terrible pestilence which played havoc in the pilgrim army; it was caused by an inadequate supply of food, and its symptoms betoken scurvy. It also appeared in the army of Saladin, but was much worse in the Christian army, in which from 100 to 200 crusaders died every day. Duke Frederick of Swabia succumbed to this disease on January 20, 1191.

At the time of the crusade against the heretics a serious pestilence broke out in Egypt in the army of the crusaders, which had already, on August 12, 1218, suffered from dysentery; it appeared in December during the siege of Damietta, after a heavy and continuous downfall of rain. 'The patients', says Wilken, 'were suddenly seized with violent pains in the feet and ankles; their gums became swollen, their teeth loose and useless, while their hips and shin bones first turned black and then putrefied. Finally, an easy and peaceful death, like a gentle sleep, put an end to their sufferings. A sixth of the pilgrim army was carried away by this disease, which no medicine could cure.' Only a few patients who survived the winter were helped to recovery by the warmth of spring. It was unquestionably a severe form of scurvy. The besieged, too, suffered from the destructive pestilence, and also from Egyptian ophthalmia. We read further in Wilken: 'A horrible sight greeted the pilgrims when they took possession of Damietta. Not only the houses, but even the streets were filled with unburied corpses; in the beds dead bodies lay beside helpless and dying invalids, and the infection of the air was intolerable. Of 80,000 inhabitants which the city had had at the beginning of the siege only 3,000 were left, while only 100 of these were healthy.' Other reports say that 10,000 inhabitants survived.

In a supplementary way we may add here that later wars also caused frequent epidemics of syphilis within narrow confines; instances of this kind are cited by A. Hirsch and H. Schwiening.

The disease usually began with a chill, headache, palpitation of the heart, difficulty in breathing, and later a profuse, very malodorous emission of sweat from all parts of the body. The patient quickly lapsed into a state of lethargy. The progress of the disease was uncommonly rapid; 'in one day either the disease or the patient came to an end,' says Fracastorius. Any patient who did not succumb, recovered completely after one or two weeks.

At the end of the fifteenth century typhus fever was prevalent in many parts of Europe; the first scientific account of it comes from the pen of Fracastorius, who had an opportunity to observe the disease during the epidemics in Italy in 1505-8, and who described it as a disease indigenous to Cyprus and the neighbouring islands and appearing for the first time in Italy.

The names given to the disease were numerous and cannot all be mentioned here; the name 'Hauptweh' or 'Hauptkrankheit' was current in Germany, while the additional words 'ohne Sterbedr?sen' expressly distinguish the disease from bubonic plague. T. von Gy?ry mentions a large number of synonyms--Hungarian disease, lazaret fever, spotted fever, petechial disease, &c.

In 1490 the disease was borne by Spanish soldiers, who had fought in the Venetian army against Turkey, from Cyprus to Spain, and during the war of Ferdinand the Catholic against the Moors it spread to Granada and did more damage to the Spanish army than the swords of the Moors.

In the year 1490 a serious epidemic broke out in Lorraine, which Mar?chal and Didion think was typhus fever; it appeared in that bitter and indescribably cruel conflict between Ren?, Duke of Lorraine, and the people of Metz. Despite the armistice proclaimed on June 18, the pestilence spread far and wide and in August entered Metz, compelling the inhabitants to take to flight; the nobles retired to their castles, and the citizens went out into the country. And although the city was strictly quarantined, the disease spread throughout Lorraine and northern Alsace.

In the year 1528 an epidemic of typhus fever occurred in connexion with warlike events. This pestilence broke out in Upper Italy and spread to Lower Italy, where a war was going on between French troops on the one side and German and Spanish troops on the other. The loss of human life was uncommonly large, 30,000 French soldiers and twice as many non-belligerent inhabitants are said to have died. And the pestilence was also borne from Italy to Germany.

The battles with the Turks in the east did a great deal toward spreading typhus fever throughout Europe; for that reason the name 'Hungarian disease' came into existence. Toward the end of the fifteenth century, hitherto prosperous Hungary, by endless wars with Turkey and by international strife, was brought to the very verge of ruin. Agriculture ceased almost entirely, the development of the country came to a standstill, large tracts of land, such as the Banat region, assumed the appearance of a vast swamp, while at the same time the alternate cold nights and hot days, together with the great dampness, were very unhealthy for the foreign soldiers, who were not accustomed to such a climate. Partly this, and partly the utter lack of sanitation, increased the baneful effects of camp-life. Dirt and refuse accumulated in heaps, vermin multiplied so rapidly that it was impossible to get rid of them, corpses were inadequately buried, while enormous numbers of flies and gnats molested the soldiers and did a great deal toward spreading infectious diseases. The hospitals were in a pitiable condition, and since the soldiers, after their previous experiences, had little hope of leaving the country alive, they gave themselves over to a most dissolute life, in consequence of which the country suffered terribly. Several contemporaries bear witness to the fact that a large part of the German troops never once faced the enemy, for the reason that they succumbed beforehand to 'Hungarian disease', which killed more of them than the swords of the Turks. Hence Hungary was called at that time the 'Cemetery of the Germans'.

'Hungarian disease' was typhus fever, which manifested certain unusual characteristics for the reason that the German troops, being unaccustomed to the local foods, inclined considerably toward intestinal catarrh and scurvy, while many of them also suffered from malaria, which weakened their power of resistance. The sudden beginning with a chill, the appearance of lenticular spots on the fourth, fifth, or sixth day, the duration of about fourteen days, the sudden fall of temperature--all these symptoms, mentioned by witnesses, definitely stamp the disease as typhus fever. If the disease has been identified by many historians with bubonic plague, the reason is that in serious cases of typhus fever suppuration of the salivary glands, gangrene of the lower extremities, of the nose and ears, &c., are not infrequent occurrences.

According to Gy?ry, the pestilence which raged so furiously in the army of Joachim, Margrave of Brandenburg, when the latter was in Hungary in 1542, was typhus fever. He assumes that the disease was borne thither by the Italian troops which the Pope had sent to help fight against the Turks, although he cannot base his assumption on any argument save that typhus fever was no rare disease in Italy. It is much more probable, however, that the disease was already endemic in Hungary at that time, whether from of yore, or whether the Turks had brought it there. So much, however, is certain, that the Germans suffered a great deal more from it than did the Hungarians and Turks, who had probably already survived attacks of the disease and had thus become immune.

'Hungarian disease' acquired greater importance in the year 1566, when it spread from Hungary over a large part of Europe. It was then that this name first came into fashion. According to Thomas Jordanus, who took part in the expedition, the disease broke out on the island of Komorn during the war of Maximilian II against the Turks; from there it spread further west and forced the Emperor to conclude a treaty of peace which favoured the Turks. After the dispersion of the army the discharged soldiers carried the disease in all directions. Vienna was hit very hard; not only separate houses, but also entire streets, were filled with victims of the disease. The returning Italians brought the disease first to Carinthia, where it broke out severely in Villach, and then to Italy. In the year 1567 the pestilence carried away 400 people in the little town of Villach, and from there it spread to Styria. In the same way it was carried to Bohemia, Germany, Burgundy, Belgium, and Spain.

At the end of the sixteenth century typhus fever appeared in Hungary with renewed virulence; during the siege of Papa it raged with particular severity among the Italian troops, and according to Coberus all the patients in the field-hospital died.

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, '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. 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 , 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 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 . After that, Gustavus Adolphus advanced to the Lower Main , and the following year carried the war into Bavaria, which now became the principal scene of the fighting. After the battle of N?rdlingen , the fugitive Swedish Protestant army, pursued by the Imperialists, retreated through W?rttemberg, 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 N?rdlingen 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.

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 , the disease was borne by Bavarian soldiers back to Upper Bavaria and W?rttemberg; it is stated that it caused an eruption of red spots over the entire body, and that headache, dizziness, and stupefaction were prevailing symptoms. 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 , in Neckarelz , in Eberbach, in Ladenburg and Viernheim , 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 broke out and carried away in the course of that year 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 . 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 Mar?chal and Didion, 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 W?rttemberg, 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.

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