d-for-nothings, who waited upon their masters, cleaned their horses,
sometimes bore their armour, and fed their shaggy dogs; nimble spies
who prowled about far and near on the traces of opulent people, and on
the look-out for concealed money.

The plundering by the baggage-train was almost worse in a friendly
country. When the soldiers with the women and children came to a
farmhouse, they pounced like hawks upon the poultry in the yard, then
broke open the doors, seized upon the trunks and chests, and with
abusive language, threatened, importuned and destroyed, what they could
not consume or take away. On decamping they compelled the owner to
horse his waggons and take them to their next quarters. Then they
filled the waggons with the clothes, beds, and household goods of the
farmers, binding round their bodies what could not otherwise be carried
away.

"Frequently," says the indignant narrator Wallhausen, "the women did
not choose to be drawn by oxen, and it was necessary to procure horses,
sometimes from a distance of six miles, to the great cost of the
country people, and when they came with the waggons to the nearest
quarters, they would not allow the poor people to return home; but
dragged them with them to another territory, and at last stole the
horses and made off."

In the beginning of the war, a German infantry regiment had to march
for some days through the country of their own sovereign; there were as
many women and children with the baggage-train, as soldiers, and they
stole in eight days from the subjects of their sovereign almost
sufficient horses for each soldier to ride. The colonel, a just and
determined man, frequently dragged the soldiers himself from the
horses, and at last enforced their restoration by extreme severity. But
it was impossible to prevent the women from riding; there was not one
who had not a stolen horse, and if they did not ride them they
harnessed them three or four together to the peasants' carts.

Only a few of the otherwise copious writers of that time make mention
of this despised portion of the army; yet there are sufficient
accounts, from which we may conclude that great influence was produced
by the baggage-train on the fate of the army and the country.
Especially by the enormous extent of it. At the end of the sixteenth
century Adam Junghans reckons, that in a besieged fortress where the
camp-followers were reduced to the smallest possible number, to three
hundred infa