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 Maréchal and Didion,[29] 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 Württemberg, 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. II. THE WAR IN SAXONY, THURINGIA, BRANDENBURG, AND POMERANIA (1625–30) The years 1625 and 1626 were bad pest-years; according to Lammert, the various epidemics that occurred were partly typhus fever, partly bubonic plague, and partly dysentery. The pestilences spread over Saxony, Thuringia, Silesia, Eastern Prussia, Posen, Poland, and Moravia, and carried away large numbers of people. They were not always directly connected with warlike events, as shown by the fact that many provinces that were spared by the war were attacked by the diseases. On the other hand, the incursion of Wallenstein’s troops into Saxony and Thuringia caused pestilence to become unusually widespread.