Once More unto the Breach 143equipping their regiments and companies, advances which they antici-
pated recovering with considerable interest both from official payments
during service and from the less official profits of war. Other loans were
raised wherever possible, although offers were less easy to find than
before. When everything was added up it was still not enough, but it
had to suffice.
Men too were getting more difficult to come by. Successive waves of
recruitment had reduced the pool of potential volunteers, while the
unprecedentedly large armies now being raised greatly increased the
demand. Moreover many parts of the Empire were no longer available to
Imperial recruiting officers because they were controlled by Gustavus
or his Protestant allies and sympathisers. As a result Wallenstein’s
regiments had an average of well below half their official complement
of men, although this at least had the advantage that the colonels’ and
captains’ advances went a bit further. Offsetting this was the rise in price
caused when demand exceeds supply, not here in terms of subsequent
pay but in the amount of cash in hand which had to be offered to men
as a signing-on inducement. This was the only payment of which a
recruit could be sure, and during the rebuilding of Wallenstein’s army it
rose to as much as three or four times the traditional level, substantially
increasing what was in any case one of the larger outlays in the process.
Nevertheless Wallenstein got his 100,000 men, or possibly rather more,
so far as can be judged from the sketchy, unreliable and not infrequently
fraudulent figures of the period.^3
Organising and equipping this number of men – huge by the stand-
ards of the time – was a formidable task and one which Wallenstein led
personally, although equally essential was his ability to find, select and
delegate to staff officers with the right talents for the job. They were
not, of course, starting from scratch, as many units from the old army
still existed and were drawn into the rebuilding process. Even if sadly
depleted in numbers and lacking in adequate or even basic equipment,
these and their officers and sergeants still provided a nucleus and a
structure which permitted more rapid progress than a completely fresh
start. There were professionals of every kind and at every level to help,
men who knew how to specify artillery and munitions, and knew where
they could be obtained, others who knew how to order and issue boots,
picks and shovels, still others experienced in recruiting wagoners and
arranging fodder for their horses, or in organising supplies of bread
from civilian bakers, finding charcoal for the blacksmiths, running the
regimental secretariat, and a thousand and one other necessary jobs.
Tough, experienced sergeants knew how to drill raw recruits, and to