Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1865-08-18
The Thirty Years War in Ger.
many.

Archbishop Trench states that toward
the close of the Thirty Years War in
Germany an Imperial army of forty
thousand men was found to be attended
by the ugly accompaniment of one hun
dred and forty thousand camp followers,
and be draws the following startling pic
ture of what such an army must have
been. We quote from Hours at Home i;
"The conflict had in fact by this time
lasted so long that the soldiery had be
come as distinct nation, camping in the
midst Of another; and the march Of an
army like that of some wild nomad horde,
moving with wives and children through
tue land And not with these only
There were others too in its train, as
may easily be supposed: troops Of un-
cbaste women-readers of Walter Scott
will remember Dugald Dalgeuy's mop
perfume attempt to explain to the Lady
of Ardenvohr the arrangements for pre-
serving some sort of order among these
gangs of gipsies, hordes of Jewish snt-
lers, watching to make their gain by pur-
chasing his booty from the soldier, with
all of wick eldest and worst which the war
had bred, or drawn by too sure attrac-
ton to itself. Marauders too there were,
soldiers of Count Merode,' or Microbes
brothers, as the plundering skulkers from
the ranks were now called. The foot
soldier who had thrown away his musket.
with cavalry-soldier who had sold or lost
his horse, with many more who loved
the license but shrank from the toll and
danger of war--these, not so much seek
ing to gather up what the armies had
left, for that would have been little, but
to be the first where spoil was to be got
ten or havoc made, were the evil harbin-
gers of worse evil behind. 1t is
thought to make one shudder, the passage
of one OF these armies with its foul retinue
through some fair and smiling and well
ordered region--what it found and what
it must have left it, and what its doing9
there had been. Bear in mind that there
was seldom in these armies any attempt
whatever at a regular commissariat -
rations were never issued except to the
actual soldiers, and most irregularly to
them; and then it will be possible re-
motely to conceive what a weltering mass
of misery endured and misery inflicted
must have ever foated round such a
camp as it moved"
We have great reason to be thankful
that this country was not doomed TO pass
through thirty years of such terrible
scenes as almost depopulated Germany
and converted fruitful territories into
barren wastes. Whenever an army.
friends or foes-for all plunder-
ed alike-approached village, the entire
population would take flight, with what
ever they could carry away, and hide
themselves in The depths Of the forests, 10
morasses, in deserted quarN
ries, or wherever they could conceal them.
selves, and wait, often for weeks or
months, till the devouring and destroying
host had passed on.
"When the danger was for the moment
over and they ventured to return, it would
be oftenest to black and smoking ruins :;
always to houses stripped of every thing,
which could be carried away, and what
could not be carried away trodden under
foot and so far as possible destroyed -
for it was a rule to leave nothing to an
which might be of advantage
to an enemy. In vain had the most art
full places of conceament been devised
for the hiding Of some precious objects,
if any such still remained to hide though
when we read, as in Mord Arundel's
Travels, of villages which had been plum
dered eight and'twenty times, and some
twice in one day, there must soon have
been very little to conceal. The skill Of
the finders was more than match for
that of the hiJers. Water was poured
everywhere on the ground /; wherever it
sunk rapidly into the earth, there some
thing had recently been buried. Every
wall was tapped with the butt end Of the
musket, that any hollow sound might be-
tray the cunningly contriyed recess, with
the little hoard which had there been
lodged. The church-vaults bad burst
open, the cofiius broken in pieces, for in
such loatbsome receptacles, among the
very bones of the dead, it was sometimes
sought to conceal little remnant of
food. All had been discovered, and all
swept away"
These outrages naturally created nm
intense hatred between the peasantry and
the soldiers, and the Doors, lurking in the
woods, hanging on the skirts of armies,
above all of armies defeated and retreat
ing, watched for stragglers, marauders,
ror sick and wounded who dropped be-
hind, and put them to death amid horrible
.ortures. The soldiers retaliated fear
fully, and the poor peasants, as might
have been expected, only suffered thr
worse. When all within the immediate
of armies was wasted arm
ID bands, in various DISCUSSES, as mel
chants, gipseys, travellers, or sometimes
Is women, would penetrate far into the
and then by aid of treacherous intelli-
,ence which they had before obtained
would surprise and carry off the richer
inhabitants of the small towns and viii
ages. and compel them to ransom them
oftentimes to death,
hose who refused or were unable to pro-
luce the sums demanded Of them. Nor
vas the condition of the large towns much
,etter. Says the Archbishop:
"Under conditions ike these, il is not
wonderful that the fields were left nearly
II alioeeiher nntilled--for who would SOW