More than once during the long war, these wild armies were brought under the constraint of strict discipline by the powerful will of individuals, and each time great military successes were obtained; but this was not of any duration. The discipline of the Wallenstein army was excellent in a military point of view; but what the commander permitted with regard to citizens and peasants was horrible. Even Gustavus Adolphus could not preserve for more than a year, the strict discipline which on his landing in Pomerania was so triumphantly lauded by the Protestant ecclesiastics. It is true that the military law and articles of war contained a number of legal rules for all soldiers, concerning the forbearance to be observed even in an enemy's land towards the people and their property. The women, invalids, and aged were under all circumstances to be spared, and mills and ploughs were not to be injured. But it is not by the laws themselves, but by the administration of them, that we can judge of the peculiar characteristics of a period. The punishments were in themselves severe. With the Swedes,--for the embezzlement of money intended for the hospitals or invalid soldiers, the wooden horse with its iron fittings was awarded, or running the gauntlet (for this hardy fellows were hired to take upon them the punishment), or loss of the hand, shooting, or hanging. For whole divisions,--the loss of their banners, cleaning the camp and lying outside it, and decimation. In the beginning of the war many of the old Landsknecht customs were maintained, for instance, their criminal court of justice, in which the law was decided by the people through select jurymen. And before the war, together with this, court-martials had been introduced. During the war a military tribunal was organized according to the modern German method, under the presidency of the advocate-general, and the provost-marshal superintended the execution. But even in punishments there was a difference between the army and the citizens and peasants. The soldier was put in irons, but not in the stocks or in prison; no soldier was ever hanged on a common gallows, or in a common place of execution, but on a tree or on a special gallows, which was erected in the city for the soldiers in the market-place; the old form by which the delinquent was given over to the hangman was thus expressed: "He shall take him to a green tree and tie him up by the neck, so that the wind may blow under and over him, and the sun shine on him for three days; then shall he be cut down and buried according to the custom of war." But the perjured deserter was hanged to a withered tree. Whoever was sentenced to death by the sword, was taken by the executioner to a public place, where he was cut in two, the body being the largest and the head the smallest portion. The provost and his assistant also were in nowise dishonoured by their office; even the avoided executioner's assistant, the "_Klauditchen_" of the army, who