Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/331

 Rh foot soldiers, 3,431 of these also being Germans or Hungarians; and 4,000 Lithuanian cavalry, or thereabouts. Among the foreign officers was one George Farensbach, formerly a Colonel in the Danish service, and more recently a General in the Tsar's. His advice was probably most valuable. No more than 15,000 men in all, without reckoning for garrisons and reserves, proposed to invade the huge Empire of Muscovy and make it sue for mercy!

In the Polish camp the opening of the campaign partook of all the peculiarities of the European habits of that day. Before any powder was burnt, a very great deal of ink—even printers' ink—was spilt. Batory's declaration of war was preceded by a long historical exposition, crammed with dates, diplomatic texts, and epigrams. It did not forget Prous, the famous brother of Cæsar-Augustus, from whom Ivan claimed descent. A pamphlet published at Nuremberg in 1580, and of which very few copies now exist, contains, together with a very incorrect reproduction of this document, a vignette which shows Venceslas Lopacinski, the bearer of the message, in the act of performing his mission. The nobleman, a naked sword at his side, holds out the letter to the Tsar with a gesture of defiance. This picture is as unreliable as the letterpress accompanying it, which has lately been corrected by the Abbé Polkowski (Acta Historica, Cracow,. 1887, xi. 162). Ivan never admitted Lopacinski to his presence, and Batory chiefly reckoned for the effect to be produced by his declaration on the publicity he ensured by having it printed in Polish, Hungarian, and German, in the presses he carried about with him during the whole course of his campaign. At Svir, where he arrived on July 15, 1579. the King issued another manifesto, no doubt intended, in his mind, to justify his undertaking, and conciliate public opinion both within and without the borders of the country.

Never, indeed, in any document of the kind, had the leader of an army given proof of such generous feeling. Batory promised to respect the persons, property, and privileges of non-belligerents; he undertook to forbid and put down, as far as he himself was concerned, violence of every kind; nothing was lacking to the formula now grown so commonplace—as commonplace, alas! as it is deceptive. At this period it was a novelty, one of which the Poland of the sixteenth century may well be proud. Never did the leader of an expedition betray greater eagerness to keep himself in mental touch with a sensitive and easily offended public. All future incidents of the campaign were to become the subjects of similar publications. The bibliography of that period contains a mass of pamphlets and printed matter, official or semi-official, dilating