12 DDT — Killer of Killers 



the disease — ^many more than were killed by the weapons 

 of the Moors. 



And in 1528, typhus decided the fate of Europe by en- 

 tering into the battle between Charles V and Francis I for 

 control of Italy. In 1527, the Imperial Army of Charles V 

 marched through Italy, sacked Rome, and made a prisoner of 

 the Pope, Clement VII, who was allied with Francis I of 

 France. Then plague broke out in the city and killed a large 

 proportion of the population as well as the soldiers of the 

 Imperial Army. Even the Imperial General, Lannoy, died 

 of the disease. The army of Francis I was not long in com- 

 ing, and the decimated Imperial troops were in no condition 

 to put up a fight. The remnants of the once-proud Imperial 

 army managed to get to Naples where they fortified the city, 

 and here they were besieged by the French Army under 

 Lautrec. The surrounded army was dying of starvation and 

 was ready to giwe up when typhus suddenly struck the French 

 army of 25,000 men and reduced it within 30 days to about 

 4,000 survivors, at least according to some accounts. Lautrec 

 was forced to retreat, Clement VII and Charles V patched up 

 their differences, and, in 1530, Charles V was crowned ruler 

 of the German Empire. 



And yet, to show the impartiality of typhus, Charles V 

 was forced to abandon the siege of Metz in 1552, when his 

 armies were stricken with a typhus epidemic and 30,000 men 

 died from disease. 



A number of other outbreaks of typhus occurred during 

 the remaining years of the l6th century, usually when armies 

 were on the march — and then came the Thirty Years' War, 

 from 1618 to 1648. Few periods of history held so much 

 suffering for so many people. It was not the battle casualties 

 alone, or even the atrocities perpetrated upon helpless civilian 



