Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/333

 Rh observed. Karamzine speaks of a number of Polish prisoners who were put to death during the early days of the siege of Polotsk by the defenders of that town, and whose bodies were sent floating down the Dvina under the besiegers’ very eyes; but the Polish army set the world an example which might well have been a lesson to the most civilized nations of that period, and hardly ever indulged in reprisals. Provost-Marshals, endowed with far-reaching powers, kept up severe discipline in every rank. The King himself did not spare his own person, and set the best of examples in every way. He forbade all dissipation and all unnecessary luxury, frequently slept on a heap of dry leaves, ate his meals on a wooden trestle 'without a cloth,' and showed no mercy to marauders. At the same time, he strove to raise and keep up moral feeling among his men by appealing to the religious sentiment which was so strong in most of them. Even the passwords he gave them served this purpose. One day it would be 'Lord, forgive us our sins!' and another, 'God punishes the evil-doer!'

All this did not put a stop to certain practices usual, and considered indispensable, in those days, such as that of torturing prisoners to extract information from them. The extreme ardour of the Polish warriors, gentlemen and peasants alike, resulted, especially at the beginning of the war, in some excesses which nobody was able to prevent. Private troopers, riding their horses full gallop, would smash their lances against the walls of a besieged town. Such madmen were not always easy to restrain. The Hungarian infantry, skilled as it was in all siege work, and always first, not only on the breach, but when a chance of pillage offered, was often insubordinate. And between one battle and the next, the turbulent spirit of the szlachta often claimed its rights, and the army discussed the scope of the advantages already gained, and the conditions of the fresh effort demanded of it. But, on the whole, and considering the inherent cruelty of such sanguinary sports as these, at every period and in every country, the war, on the Polish side, was a noble war, and the annals of the sixteenth century have not registered its like in any other country.

Though the courage of the opposing forces was quite as great, the other features apparent in the hostile camp were very different.

If Batory's attempt to get help for his campaign from Sweden had failed, Ivan's at Vienna had met with no better success. Vainly had Kvachnine, whom he had despatched to Rudolph in 1578, striven to obtain the conclusion of the alliance