The great theoretician of statesmanship and warfare, the diplomat and historian Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), considered four things to be fundamental to all warfare: men, weapons, bread and money. Several other essential things, also vital in non-military fields, had to be seen to as well: accommodation, transport, legal and moral norms, chaplaincy, medical care, and more besides. But most of these things were attainable through one thing: money. For most of the supreme commanders in the Thirty Years' War this was scarce, thus in its place methods of sanctioned and unsanctioned violence were used in order to guarantee supply and the battle-readiness of the troops. A certain stock of liquid, "good" money was a prerequisite for any efforts to recruit, train, equip, supply and transport units of troops for the purpose of organised military violence. [1]

In addition to private creditors, financially weak warring parties were assisted by the subsidies of allied states which put liquid assets at their disposal.

Some of the best known examples are the French subsidies to Sweden (from 1631 onwards), the Spanish aid to the Emperor (from 1619 onwards, often dependent on the arrival of the silver fleets from the Americas), and the Pope's assistance to the Emperor and the Catholic League. [2]

The central figure of the war was the professional soldier, who generally joined up and served of his own free will: the freeman mercenary. As heir and successor to the "Landsknechte" - mercenaries hired for a certain time - the mercenary troops attained both permanence and a high level of refinement. Working for a money wage was an element of late-feudal society and economy. The phenomenon of mercenary "wage labour" as a rule only functioned on a large scale, thus demanding the provision of large sums of money as punctually and regularly as possible. The mercenaries largely served purposes of destruction, thus placing a burden on the economy and finances of the commanders and their countries. Profits were to be made from the military profession, particularly by those commanders who were enterprising and had a mind for exploitation, and who either owned, administered or extorted the requisite money.

It has been estimated that the armies active in the Empire until 1630 reached a total strength of 150,000 men; in the years that followed their number increased to 250,000, only to drop by the end of the war to the previous number. The baggage-train of the armies is not included in this figure. Given such numbers, the proportion of soldiers and camp-followers in the overall population oscillated around one percent, but economically they were almost exclusively unproductive. [3]

In financing an army there were three types of costs: wages and the costs of training troops (recruitment allowance or "earnest money"; first pay or "marching money"), the costs of equipping them (with weapons, ammunition, horses and means of transport), and the costs of their upkeep and supply (pay for the ordinary soldiers, salary for officers and staff, partially as provisions). The largest part was paid in currency, but as needs required payment was frequently made in kind: in grain suitable for baking bread, in beer, clothing and footwear. [4]

In order to set up a military unit it was necessary for a legitimate supreme commander (the emperor, a prince, or a free city) to issue a recruiting permit to an experienced army officer. Preference was given to such people who were solvent, who could pay personnel and equipment costs in advance - cavalry was twice the price of infantry. The holder of a recruiting permit was usually also the future commander of the unit - the roles of financial administrator and military commander were in the same hands. The recruitment entrepreneur and colonel of a regiment in turn gave out recruiting permits to lower-ranking officers so that these would enlist a company (troop) of men. The mercenaries hired at the recruitment points (marketplaces, streets, inns), received recruitment money in hand ("earnest money" or "marching money") and a note giving the assembly point to where they were to proceed immediately, but only in small contingents. There were often complaints about the new hirelings disappearing with the marching money on the way. Assembly points were chosen so as to limit any inconvenience to the local population or damage to their property. Experiences with troopers who had been enlisted but were not yet subject to martial law and often behaved with great license provided ample grounds for taking this measure. At the assembly point the holder of the recruitment permit provided the newly-enlisted soldiers with accommodation, initial supplies, and also with equipment, if they had not brought any with them. The commanders deducted the cost of this equipment from the soldiers' pay. As a rough estimate the price of a musket was about equal to one month's pay. From their pay the soldiers had to cover their costs of living (food, clothing, footwear). [5] The usual monthly pay of 4 imperial thalers for foot soldiers and twice that for horsemen was scarcely more than a poverty wage, so the soldiers were continually in search of opportunities to shop cheaply or to profit on the side. The market in the camp and in resting-places was not least a place for the exchange of goods and money from dubious sources.

The finances indispensable for setting up a unit of mercenaries were provided by the supreme commander himself or advanced by solvent officers. The supreme commander largely paid off his debts by transferring to the colonel (in the case of a regiment) income, estates, rights, privileges, sinecures and titles. If money from the supreme commander entered the regiment's coffers, it was barely enough for three months' wages, and the regimental commander usually diverted a share into his own pockets. This was an embryonic form of what was later to become the "company business". Grimmelshausen's parable about the tree of the military hierarchy which riches rained down on but where virtually nothing trickled down to the lower levels, reflects common practice at the time, if only the monetary side. In the months when those "down below" got no pay they had to find other sources of income - and working for money was what they did least of all. [6] These sources were to be found in the region where a unit was located. The soldiers were quartered in private houses in the colder five or six months of the year, foot soldiers in the cities, horsemen mainly in the villages. Their maintenance (board and lodging, heating, light, etc.) was at the expense of the households concerned. Exceptions were made for the homes of princes, nobles, councillors and the priesthood depending on the discipline of the soldiers and as long as the supply situation permitted.

Here is an ordinance of the City Council of Leipzig from the year 1639. "The following order is issued by E.E. Rath. Each and every citizen and inhabitant of this city who is billeting a lance corporal or common soldier is urged to give their lodger in addition to the usual billeting allowance of wood, salt and light - or instead 1 groschen - not more than one portion of soup, a side dish of vegetables, cheese and bread, and one tankard of beer per day. However, so that the lance corporals have some advantage over the common soldiers, in addition to the above-mentioned victuals they should be given meat twice a week." [7]

In everyday relations between the soldier lodgers and the townsfolk things were often quite different. Records tell without ambiguity that billeting the soldiers was often perceived as an intolerable burden which people tried to resist or to buy their way out of.

The costs of maintaining the army were thus shifted onto the population, which meant that this was a kind of substitute wage for the soldiers. Often the quartering was accompanied by another kind of burden - the "contributions". These heavy, once-off levies with short terms of payment were imposed by the commanders on cities, regions and countries, which could only raise the money at such short notice by taking up a loan. This was one of the ways in which polities ran up debts which they then often could not pay, thus resulting in the ruin of the creditors. At the end of the war, governments sought to meet this state of affairs by declaring moratoriums.

The "contribution" as a means of war finance and private enrichment has been attributed to Wallenstein, but other commanders proceeded in a similar fashion. If conditions allowed, a contractual agreement was concluded between the military and the local authorities so as to reduce the taxation of the population to a level which would not jeopardise the existence of trade, production and food supply. [8]

The essential features of the military's quartering and its practice of levying the population can be seen in the contracts which various commanders concluded with the duke of Pomerania. On 10 November 1627, the latter was forced to sign the two-page "Franzburg Capitulation" by field marshal Hans Georg von Arnim, acting on behalf of Wallenstein, after which eight regiments (around 24,000 men) took up quarters. In a royal "Contribution and Taxation Ordnance" of 7 January 1628, the domestic government sought to specify and break down the payments to be made in support of the army. The Franzburg agreement obliged the soldiery to abide by a series of restrictions and rules of conduct: not to interfere with commerce, markets, production and traffic, to stick to particular routes of march, to make do with the billeting allowance and the food offered, to restrain from lighting fires of their own, to do away with the hordes of "camp-followers and womenfolk, servants and baggage horses - which are to be found with every regiment and who it is impossible to supply with victuals [...]", etc. Officers were also to make do with their stipulated special ration and to take stern measures against any soldiers found guilty of misbehaviour toward townsfolk or farmers. The "countryman" should be able to go about his work unhindered and be protected from "violent attacks, horse theft or unsolicited horse swapping, theft of livestock or grain, robbery, and other coercive acts [...] under threat of corporal or capital punishment [...]". [9] The everyday reality of the quartering, which extended over many years, deviated substantially from these norms, as duke Bogislav XIV, who was at pains to be faithful to the emperor, described in a tract entitled "Dreyjährige Drancksahl des Hertzogthumbs Pommern [...]" (The Three-Year Tribulations of the Duchy of Pomerania) after the ousting of the imperial troops in 1630. [10]

After the landing of a Swedish army under king Gustavus Adolphus on 26 June 1630 and the repelling of the imperial forces from Pomerania, Swedish forces took up quarters in their place. The legal basis for this was the "Capitulation and Alliance" of 10 July (also concluded under duress) and also the "Pomeranian Defence Constitution" of 30 August 1630. The mutual obligations and the rules of conduct intended to govern the coexistence of the military and the civilian population were similar to those of the Franzburg agreement. However, the treaties with Sweden put the country under a new obligation - the payment of 200,000 imperial thalers in three instalments. This sum was intended to remunerate the Swedes for their contribution to defence; further levies were designed for the case of a major defence effort. [11] This was a contribution from the country as a whole and was raised from the population in the form of a tax. As the Swedish military presence and the state of war in the Empire continued, the Swedes could justify further levies and enforce payment regardless of any resistance. Often the estates of the country lacked liquid assets and thus offered payment in kind. In contravention of the treaties new customs were levied, above all in the harbour cities on the coast. The customs revenue largely went towards stocking up Sweden's war-chest.

While the armies dragged along a large, unwieldy but indispensable baggage-train, "above" them burgeoned a caste of senior officers with their staff and servants. Kirchhof counted the following classes of person as living off a typical "colonels' state": preachers, scribes, stewards, chefs, equerries, bodyguards, lackeys and cooks. As "offices of the master" he includes coach masters and coachmen, clerks, pipers, drummers, surgeons and interpreters. These functionaries described by Wallhausen as "command figures" and the mobile household of a regimental commander was also accompanied by persons holding "offices of the common man". By this one meant the appendix of assistants and servants who saw to the implementation of disciplinary and penal measures. Companies and troops also had a "head" of this kind, albeit on a smaller scale. It accounted for at least one tenth of a unit's total costs. [12]

As can be seen from the above, the regiments and companies as well as their staff had a pool of vehicles at their disposal. If this was inadequate for the transport of people and goods the military would make use of the population's transport vehicles (usually without payment) or requisition peasants' teams and carts. The records of the period are full of complaints about the confiscation of draught animals. In many cases the cavalry's demand for horses could not be met; soldiers stealing livestock in general and horses in particular was a widespread source of complaint. Another was that of army horses grazing on and damaging young crops after hard, hungry winters.

In view of the specific relations during the Thirty Years' War, it is appropriate to distinguish between the maintenance of an army on the one hand and its financing on the other. The procurement and investment of liquid assets in the pre-financing, equipping and partial payment of an army makes up the monetary side of maintaining an army; the other side consisted in the extraordinary efforts demanded of the civilian population, particularly in the areas where the army was quartered.

Alone the amount of liquid money required annually for the upkeep of a "Southern German" foot regiment (about 3,000 men) with its heraldry and weaponry was put by Wallhausen at 324,000 florins, albeit in reference to the period before the "Great War". Given a rate of one and a half florins marching money per new recruit, this entailed initial recruitment costs of 45,000 florins. If the men of the future regiment were at the assembly point, 60,000 florins had to be generated per month. An adequate sum for marching and discharge was estimated by Wallhausen - an extraordinarily experienced commander - at 45,000 florins. [13] According to other calculations relevant to the war period the annual costs of maintenance were higher - 400,000 to 450,000 florins for an infantry regiment, and 260,000 to 300,000 florins for a cavalry regiment (1,200 men and at least as many horses). The baggage-train is not mentioned separately, since it either lived off the main body of the army or supplied itself independently.

If ten regiments were brought together to form an army of around 30,000 men, as a rough estimate the following things needed to be bought: 30,000 sets of clothing and underwear, 60,000 pairs of shoes (which wore out quickly given the frequent and long marches - soldiers marching bare-footed was not uncommon), 30,000 sabres or rapiers, according to the type of troops in question a corresponding number of muskets, pistols, pikes, protective clothing (helmets, body armour) etc. with the necessary ammunition, entrenching tools, carts and flags as well as musical instruments. [14] In 1625 Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony-Weimar calculated 300 florins for the purchase of ten flags. [15]

In the autumn of 1625, the same prince and commander sent a memorandum to his supreme commander, King Christian IV of Denmark, regarding the accommodation and care for 4,000 troops who had fallen ill. Their financing was incumbent upon the war-chest. Johann Ernst suggested that for every ten soldiers who were ill one woman should be employed as a nurse for a weekly wage of one florin. Therefore four hundred women had to be enlisted, as well as three to four doctors, a chemist and "a number of preachers", the latter for a monthly wage of 25 florins. Food was to be delivered by peddling sutlers and to be paid for out of the money for caring for the soldiers. According to these sources, and given a constant number of infirm soldiers, weekly expenses amounted to significantly more than 400 florins. However, it would seem that such expense was usually gone to only with quality troops. [16]

When initially the war affected only a few regions of the empire and armies even of 20,000 were considered very large, production and trade were able to provide the necessary equipment and financial resources; there was no difficulty recruiting soldiers. The Empire also had an advanced mining and metal-processing industry. In addition to a range of specialised craft guilds there were also export-oriented textile-producing regions in southern Germany, Saxony, Bohemia and Silesia. From northern Germany grain and grain products (flour, malt, beer) as well as livestock were transported by water to other countries. Under these conditions there was definitely capacity for the development of a war as an exogenous economic phenomenon.

The possession of arms and military equipment was nothing unusual in society at that time; it was a right and a duty of the nobility, of the urban polity and its free citizens, in some places also of the peasants. The larger royal residences and free cities had substantial supplies of arms and provisions at their disposal in their arsenals and fortresses. The armourers' trade and the production of cutting and stabbing weapons had a long tradition in Germany (Augsburg, Nuremberg, Innsbruck and elsewhere), as did metal casting, which in some places had to change from making bells to cannon barrels. [17]

At the time there was a disposition to apply organised military force since some parts of the empire were affected by external wars - either directly, or indirectly by armies marching through them. In the south-east there were campaigns to repel the Turks, in the north-west there was protracted strife between Spain and the United Netherlands, and in the north-east the Swedish-Polish conflict. The demand created by these wars was met by arms producers in various cities and territories of the empire. The large quantity of artillery pieces captured by Tilly in his victory over Duke Christian of Brunswick at Stadtlohn on 6 August 1623, shows the dimensions of the armaments and their origins: 8 Half-"Kartaunen" (in part with Dutch coats of arms), 6 "Dutch guns", 3 mortars, 2,000 cannonballs, 119 hand grenades, 75 hundredweights of gunpowder, 195 lengths of fuse, 386 barrels of musket shot; unspecified numbers of carts and quantities of artillery equipment, boards, crowbars and wood of many varieties; in terms of fortification tools there were 1.800 shovels and spades, 575 mattocks, 275 picks and 170 axes. The vanquished "crazy Halberstadter" (he was at the same time the administrator of the diocese of Halberstadt), who lost all but 6,000 of his 20,000 men, had been equipped in the Netherlands and German territories. [18] It was similar with other armies of the Thirty Years' War - Spanish troops were traditionally supplied from plentiful sources in Spain and Italy; Danish and (above all) Swedish troops were supplied from domestic sources. The current state of research does not allow a full overview of the mass production of arms and military equipment, munitions, clothing, footwear and supplies, nor of the trade with these wares. But even an incomplete picture gives us some impression of its scale. [19]

In particular the small town of Suhl in Thuringia (in the Duchy of Henneberg) stands out as a centre of the mass production of arms. Here metal-processing reached a high level of development in the local smelters, hammer mills and smithies owing to the proximity of ore deposits, the availability of water power and the supply of wood. But other factors were the well-managed large-scale distribution business, skilled market orientation and careful quality-control, as well as an advanced division of labour in the production process. As well as Suhl there were production centres in Essen, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Brescia and Liège. It is reported that the master craftsmen of Suhl also worked at night in order to satisfy the demand for rifle barrels and all kinds of equipment. Rifle barrels or complete muskets and pistols were delivered by the thousand to Hungary, Poland (Gdansk), the Swiss Confederation, Denmark, and to customers in Germany itself). At the production centre in Suhl members of the Klett family of master craftsmen took on the leading role of intermediaries on the market while at the same time, like many others, not scorning the trade in articles of "Nuremberg ware" (gunpowder flasks, pieces of armour). [20] It has been established that before the war (1603-1613) the Kletts annually delivered 2.300 musket barrels with accessories, half-body armour and powder flasks to the Swiss Confederation alone. After that trade declined, but even until 1634 did not drop off entirely. During the war the prices rose, but debts also grew significantly. [21] Both in this regard and also due to the quantities of articles delivered, a "Specification" drawn up by the Suhl Council in 1632 gives a clear picture of "Outstanding Debts to the Gunsmiths of Suhl for Firearms Delivered":

Debt in imperial thalers Debtor/Ware

3,862 Prince Elector of Saxony

2,716 The same, for 1,296 muskets delivered to the prince's dealer

in Wittenberg

4,044 Duke William of Saxony-Weimar (as Swedish general)

5,773 Duke Bernhard of Saxony-Weimar and Landgrave William of

Hessen, delivered to Kassel

6,000 Gustavus Adolphus, delivered via the Swedish General War

Commissioner Sigmund Heußner, but captured by Tilly near

Bamberg

8,000 Prince Elector of Brandenburg

1,388 Henneberg region, for the regional reserve

1,950 Council of Aschersleben

750 Bishop of Halle (owing for a very long time)

The Council of Suhl was recognised by Gustavus Adolphus for its efforts "in support the Protestant cause". [22] But among the customers for arms deliveries from Suhl were their enemies, the Catholic princes. On several occasions between 1621 and 1623, Archduke Leopold of Tyrol, regent of the forelands, placed orders for thousands of muskets, pistols, fuses and sets of armour with the traders in Suhl. The emperor, making up contact via Tyrol, even surpassed these quantities and in December 1630 placed an order for 10,000 muskets and sets of armour. Until this time the imperial army had been supplied by Wallenstein from his duchy of Friedland. But before Wallenstein was able to start up his own armaments programme from scratch, in 1625 he had complete sets of equipment delivered from Suhl for seven regiments (about 15,000 men). [23] In 1634 the upward trend of the Suhl mass-production of armaments ended abruptly - the town was occupied by Duke William of Weimar (as a general in Swedish service), and in a countermove was plundered and razed to the ground by troops of the imperial general Isolani in October 1634. A competing centre of production then arose in Zella where, as it was put, "a big firm of distributors" was set up. [24] After just a few years the Suhl master craftsmen were working once again, this time so as to fulfil a very large order from the imperial court. The court was at pains to establish efficient domestic production in the emperor's hereditary lands, and in 1639 a new centre of weapon production in Steyr began delivering the market. In 1648, the traders in Steyr committed themselves to producing 15,000 rifles for the imperial army in the space of five years. But this did not impinge significantly on the Suhl suppliers' market position. Their losses were due to the poor financial discipline of the imperial authorities - a widespread phenomenon which, as shown above, was also quite common with royal Protestant customers. In order to at least partially discharge its debts the Vienna court paid in iron, steel and semi-finished metal products. It even planned to entrust its creditors in Suhl with the mining of underground ore deposits. Since the chain of wars in Europe continued after 1648 Suhl remained an important centre of large-scale weapon production. [25]

The second efficient production centre for hand-held firearms was Essen which supplied both sides in the Spanish-Dutch war. In 1620 the Essen traders sold 15,000 rifles in the scope of the first major upswing. After a decline in the years 1623 to 1630 sales increased again during the "Swedish War", to culminate again in the 1640s with 7,400 rifles in 1642, 6,500 in 1644, 3,400 in 1645 and 4,300 in 1648. [26] The production of such quantities in a short space of time also resulted in some inferior and unusable specimens, for which payment was refused. The transport business had found a lucrative, albeit high-risk source of profit, as testified by the complaints of carriers and hauliers. [27]

The duchy of Friedland has been the subject of detailed research and can be taken as an unique example of an agricultural and industrial landscape born in wartime and devoted to war production. The mighty commander Wallenstein saw to it that large war businesses were created virtually out of nothing. Indeed, Wallenstein ruled here with an iron fist and in the space of just a few years had largely tailored the economy to the needs of the imperial army, which he commanded as of 1625. At the same time he integrated the territory into a large-scale system of army supply, the backbone of which was the river Elbe. Grain bought up from farmers and estates of the nobility was stored centrally for shipping or was milled and baked to make large batches of bread (rusk); craftsmen of various trades produced large quantities of clothing, footwear, leather goods, entrenching tools, but also saltpetre and fuses, weapons of cold steel, and firearms. The relatively small ironworks and hammer mills in Raspenau and Hohenelbe were rapidly extended to include foundries and smithies. Managers and experts from Italy brought innovation and imparted a dynamic approach. After Wallenstein's fall and death the duchy of Friedland was crushed - decline and destruction followed. [28] Such adjustment to the needs of the war was also made by smaller production centres such as the Hessen Works ("Hessische Hütte") in Fischbach and several foundries in the Harz mountains. The cannon-foundries under the skilled hand of master craftsmen like the Herolds in Dresden, Martin Frey in Munich, Johann Hilger in Freiberg and Gerdt Benning in Gdansk had hitherto worked with artistic sophistication, but now, no doubt, had to orient themselves to plain mass-production. [29]

The army with which Gustavus Adolphus landed on the territory of the empire in 1630 and the contingents of reinforcements brought from Sweden virtually on an annual basis were almost exclusively equipped with domestically-produced gear and weapons. Here the upward economic trend sparked off by the war seems to have been more conspicuous than in the traditional German production centres because the king, a great expert on the military profession, consciously fostered it or brought it about by force. He also made use of the business connections and capital of immigrant Calvinist businessmen such as the Trip and de Greer families and of the highly-developed skill in wrought-iron of the Walloon master craftsmen brought from Belgium. Not least due to the demand emanating from the "German War" there thus arose a whole landscape of armaments industries in Central Sweden based on conventional small-scale production, mining, iron smelting, rich timber supply and water-power. This was one of the conditions for the development of Sweden as a great power. The impediments, ruptures and catastrophes which hampered development in the war-torn empire did not effect Sweden. [30]

At the beginning of Sweden's "German War" the Swedish head of state and his military high command were able to finance their armies there and maintain supply, albeit with difficulty. The finances came from domestic and foreign sources such as the French subsidies and monies from the occupied or allied German territories (Pomerania, Brandenburg). Sweden's own contribution sank ever more noticeably the more the army in the German theatre of operations grew and the larger the area under its control became. The costs of the army rose from 3.5 million imperial thalers in 1630 to 10.4 million in 1632, but then remained at that level. After the death of Gustavus Adolphus there was an acute financial crisis which revealed that Swedish resources had been overstretched. There was unrest in the army, and the Imperial Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, in charge of continuing the war effort, had to reorganise the war finances.

In the framework of the "League of Heilbronn" (1633-1635) he shifted the task of generating and administering the war finances onto the German imperial estates. Thus the war was nourished largely from German sources, though the command remained in the hands of the chancellor. The whole bureaucratic system which had been built up for raising, administering and distributing the domestic and foreign resources (which included, not least, monies confiscated under the law of war) and for shifting three quarters of the overall burden onto the German partners only functioned when Sweden was in a victorious position and had greater strength. It collapsed after the Swedish defeat at Nördlingen in 1634 and the subsequent withdrawal from southern Germany. Sweden was forced to return to financing the war from domestic sources. However, this required supplementation from French subsidies if an offensive war were again to be conducted. This return to the German theatre of operations was accompanied by an attempt to reinstitute the previous well-tried model of financing, but it proved to be only partially successful. Not least for this reason the final phase of the "Swedish War" was a confused, uncoordinated and arbitrary undertaking which sooner or later was doomed to failure. [31]

In Germany, the Netherlands and parts of the Swiss Confederation the ongoing enormous demand for military equipment and supplies stimulated the involvement of trade and interest-bearing capital. Innumerable merchants and owners of capital, and also a number of enterprising nobles and peasants attempted independently to join in the trade and credit business; some were forced to. At the end of the "Bohemian War" (1621) the well-known agent and diplomat of the Saxonian electorate, Friedrich Lebzelter, reported that he had travelled to southern Germany to take up loans at an interest rate of 7-8 %. In Nuremberg he raised a total loan of 70,000 florins from the Viatis and Peller, im Hoff, Gebhardt and Gamersfeld. The Italian bankers Benicioni and Sini agreed to negotiate a loan of 230,000 florins from the archduke of Tuscany but for this service wanted to be appointed Agents to the Court. In Augsburg, Lebzelter called on the Fuggers, who were again in funds after the arrival of a Spanish silver fleet. They also functioned as guarantors for Genoan bankers who financed the armed forces of the Catholic League with credits at the rate of 12%. The cities of Erfurt and Mühlhausen provided 50,000 and 20,000 florins respectively at the usual interest rate of 5%. [32]

A whole series of other significant commercial houses such as Fugger, Rehlinger, von Bodeck, de Witte, Bassevi, Burlamachi, Blommaert, Herwarth - to name just a few - made large and small-scale transactions with partners in the military profession locally and afar. Amsterdam traders and merchants constantly delivered lead, saltpetre, sulphur, fuses (in 1629 a delivery of 1,000 hundredweights), munitions, artillery, spears and muskets. A portion of these went to the enemy, Spain. [33] Agents and residents of warring powers (Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Spain, the dukes of Brunswick) took up residence in Hamburg so as to collect and dispatch information on the developments of the war, to follow the movements of prices, to scout out new sources of supply and credit, and to conduct espionage. Just as Nuremberg was most important for equipping the army Wallenstein raised after 1625, in northern Germany Hamburg played the leading role in the arms trade from 1598 to 1660, followed by Emden and Bremen. [34] The county of Oldenburg was considered an important address for the purchase of horses. Along with the cities of the Swiss Confederation, Gdansk, Lübeck, Bremen, and the territories Salzburg, Vorarlberg and Tyrol, these places were "islands of neutrality" or undisturbed areas in the raging, unpredictable sea of war. Without their resources the war of attrition could not have gone on for so long.

The multifarious destruction caused by the war led to an overall decline in productive forces, of capital, money and resources. The attempts to meet this state of affairs by depreciating money or circulating low-value copper coins minted in Sweden soon failed. The return to a state of peace in the empire - both de jure and de facto - and the restoration of stable government was an essential condition for the general re-establishment of money transactions and the circulation of goods on an ongoing basis.

FOOTNOTES