Mind-Munitions

112 Propaganda in the Age of Gunpowder and Printing
Misery also appeared in a soldier’s uniform. In his Art of War on
Foot (1615), Johann Wallhausen listed the qualifications required
by a good soldier, including discipline and having ‘God in his
heart’. The brutality of European armies as they crossed
backwards and forwards across the countryside was one of the
main characteristics of the Thirty Years War. Soldiers could hardly
argue that they had not been warned of the miserable conditions
they faced. One widely printed poem went:
You must help God and Fatherland
For protection and honour
And often duck, hump your load and crawl
Often sleep but little, lie uncomfortably,
Often hunger, thirst, sweat and shiver
And anywhere to be ready for your fate or fortune.
Mercenary troops, as we have seen, were notoriously indisciplined
and unreliable, despite the attempts of articles of war and oaths of
loyalty to restrain them. They often preferred to spend their initial
pay and travelling expenses on wine, women and song rather than
on uniforms or weapons. Unless the prospect of booty was sufficiently
attractive to keep them in the field, desertion and mutiny
were rife. But increased attempts were made to drill and train them
into some form of coherent fighting unit, most notably by Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden. Pay and training were regularized and the
king himself led his men into battle amidst a colourful array of
flags and banners. Morale increased accordingly and it was said of
Swedish troops that they ‘preferred to die chivalrously rather than
flee’. When the Swedish army entered the war in 1630, its superior
discipline, morale, and tactics were illustrated at the victories of
Breitenfeld, Rain, and Lützen (1631-2) and the lesson of using
indigenous troops rather than mercenaries was not lost on many of
its opponents. However, with the drain on Scandinavian manpower,
together with the death in battle of Gustavus Adolphus himself at
Lützen in 1632, even the patriotic troops of Sweden began to
assume the lawless characteristics of other European armies.
Too one sided a picture must not be painted. Discipline and
morale of a sort were maintained by time-honoured devices, such
as stirring music and flying flags, which were used to control the
line of battle and issue orders. Drums and trumpets were also useful
in drowning battlefield cries of fear. Psalms and hymns soothed the