Albrecht von Wallenstein
Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, also von Waldstein, was a Bohemian military leader, statesman and a major figure of the Thirty Years' War, fighting on the Catholic side as supreme commander of the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. His successful martial career made him one of the richest and most influential men in the Holy Roman Empire by the time of his death. He is considered one of the most important military leaders produced by the early modern period.
Wallenstein was born in the Kingdom of Bohemia into a poor Czech Protestant noble family, affiliated with the Utraquist Hussites. He acquired a multilingual university education across Europe and converted to Catholicism in 1606. A marriage in 1609 to the wealthy widow of a Bohemian landowner gave him access to considerable estates and wealth after her death at an early age in 1614. Three years later, Wallenstein embarked on a career as a mercenary by raising forces for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Uskok War against the Republic of Venice.
Wallenstein fought for the Catholics in the Protestant Bohemian Revolt of 1618 and was awarded estates confiscated from the rebels after their defeat at White Mountain in 1620. A series of military victories against the Protestants raised Wallenstein's reputation in the imperial court and in 1625 he raised a large army of 50,000 men to further the Imperial cause. A year later, he administered a crushing defeat to the Protestants at Dessau Bridge. For his successes, Wallenstein became an imperial count palatine and made himself ruler of the lands of the Duchy of Friedland in northern Bohemia.
An imperial generalissimo by land, and Admiral of the Baltic Sea from April 1628, Wallenstein found himself released from service in 1630 after Ferdinand grew wary of his ambition. Several Protestant victories over Catholic armies induced Ferdinand to recall Wallenstein, who then defeated the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus at Alte Veste. The Swedish king was later killed at the Battle of Lützen.
Wallenstein realised the war could last decades and, during the summer of 1633, arranged a series of armistices to negotiate peace. These proved to be his undoing as plotters accused him of treachery. Dissatisfied with the Emperor's treatment of him, Wallenstein considered allying with the Protestants. However, he was assassinated at Eger in Bohemia by one of the army's officials, with the emperor's approval.
Early life
Wallenstein was born on 24 September 1583 in Heřmanice, Bohemia, which is the easternmost and largest region in what was then the Holy Roman Empire, in the present-day Czech Republic, into a poor Protestant Wallenstein branch of an old Czech House of Waldstein, who owned Heřmanice Castle and seven surrounding villages. He was the son of Vilém IV z Valdštejna and his wife, Markéta, Baroness Smiřická of Smiřice.They had raised him bilingually – the father spoke both Czech and German while his mother preferred Czech – yet Wallenstein in his childhood had a better command of Czech than of German. His parents' religious affiliations were Lutheranism and Utraquist Hussitism. After their deaths, Albrecht for two years lived with his maternal uncle Heinrich Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk, a member of the Unity of the Brethren, and adopted his uncle's religious affiliation. His uncle sent him to the brethren's school at Košumberk Castle in Eastern Bohemia.
In 1597, Albrecht was sent to the Protestant Latin school at Goldberg in Silesia, where the then-German environment led him to hone his German language skills. While German became Wallenstein's "work" language, he is said to have continued to curse in Czech. On 29 August 1599, Wallenstein continued his education at the Protestant University of Altdorf near Nuremberg, Franconia, where he was often engaged in brawls and épée fights, leading to his imprisonment in the town prison. He beat his servant so badly he had to purchase him a new suit of clothes on top of paying compensation.
In February 1600, Albrecht left Altdorf and travelled around the Holy Roman Empire, France and Italy, where he studied at the universities of Bologna and Padua. By this time, Wallenstein was fluent in German, Czech, Latin and Italian, was able to understand Spanish, and spoke some French.
Wallenstein then joined the army of the Emperor Rudolf II in Hungary, where, under the command of Giorgio Basta, he saw two years of armed service in the Long Turkish War against the Ottoman Turks and Hungarian rebels.
In 1604, his younger sister, Kateřina Anna of Waldstein, married the leader of the Moravian Protestants, Karel the Older of Zierotin. He then studied at the University of Olomouc. His contact with the Olomouc Jesuits is considered to be at least partially responsible for his conversion to Catholicism that same year.
The contributory factor to his conversion may have been the Counter-Reformation policy of the Habsburgs that effectively barred Protestants from being appointed to higher offices at court in Bohemia and in Moravia, and the impressions he gathered in Catholic Italy. However, there are no sources clearly indicating the reasons for Wallenstein's conversion, except for a subjunctive anecdote by his contemporary Count Franz Christoph von Khevenhüller about the Virgin Mary saving Wallenstein's life when he fell from a window in Innsbruck. Wallenstein was later made a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
In 1607, based on recommendations by his brother-in-law, Zierotin, and another relative, Adam of Waldstein, often mistakenly referred to as his uncle, Wallenstein was made chamberlain at the court of Matthias, and later also chamberlain to archdukes Ferdinand and Maximilian.
In 1609, Wallenstein married the Czech Anna Lucretia of Víckov, née Nekšová of Landek, the wealthy widow of Arkleb of Víckov who owned the towns of Vsetín, Lukov, Rymice and Všetuly/Holešov. She was three years older than Wallenstein, and he inherited her estates after her death in 1614.
He used his wealth to win favour, offering and commanding 200 horses for Archduke Ferdinand of Styria for his war with Venice in 1617, thereby relieving the fortress of Gradisca from the Venetian siege. He later endowed a monastery in his late wife's name and had her reburied there.
In 1623, Wallenstein married Countess Isabella Katharina von Harrach, daughter of Count Karl von Harrach and his wife, Baroness Maria Elisabeth von Schrattenbach. They had two children: a son who died in infancy and a surviving daughter, Countess Maria Elisabeth von Kaunitz. Examples of the couple's correspondence survive. The two marriages made him one of the wealthiest men in the Bohemian Crown.
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War began in 1618 when the estates of Bohemia rebelled against Ferdinand of Styria and elected Frederick V of the Palatinate, the leader of the Protestant Union, as their new king. Wallenstein associated himself with the cause of the Catholics and the Habsburg dynasty.In the summer of 1618, Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn led 10,000 troops into Moravia to secure their loyalty to the rebellion. Nobles who wished for a rapprochement with Ferdinand faced a choice. Senior nobleman Zierotin's son-in-law, Georg von Nachod, commanded the Moravian cavalry and his brother-in-law, Wallenstein, the infantry. Both decided to take their regiment into Austria. Nachod's troops rebelled and he fled for his life. Wallenstein's major demanded authorisation from the Estates upon which Wallenstein drew his sword and ran him through, "A fresh major was immediately appointed and displayed greater tractability". Deserting the Bohemians, he marched his regiment to Vienna taking with him the Moravian treasury. There, however, the authorities told him that the money would go back to the Moravians – but he had shown his loyalty to Ferdinand, the future Emperor.
Wallenstein equipped a regiment of cuirassiers and won great distinction under Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Bucquoy in the wars against Ernst von Mansfeld and Gabriel Bethlen in Moravia. Wallenstein recovered his lands and after the Battle of White Mountain, he secured the estates belonging to his mother's family and confiscated tracts of Protestant lands.
He grouped his new possessions into a territory called Friedland in northern Bohemia. A series of successes in battle led to Wallenstein becoming in 1622 an imperial count palatine, in 1623 a prince, and in 1625 Duke of Friedland. Wallenstein proved an able administrator of the duchy and sent a large representation to Prague to emphasize his nobility.
File:Albrecht Wallenstein as Mars.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|Wallenstein depicted as Mars, the god of war, riding the sky in a chariot pulled by four horses. Ceiling decoration in the main hall of the Wallenstein Palace
In order to aid Ferdinand against the Northern Protestants and to produce a balance in the army of the Catholic League under Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, Wallenstein offered to raise a whole army for the imperial service following the bellum se ipsum alet principle, and received his final commission on 25 July 1625. Wallenstein's successes as a military commander brought him fiscal credit, which in turn enabled him to receive loans to buy lands, many of them being the former estates of conquered Bohemian nobles. He used his credit to grant loans to Ferdinand II, which were repaid through lands and titles. Wallenstein's popularity soon recruited 30,000 men. The two armies worked together over 1625–27, at first against Mansfeld.
Having beaten Mansfeld at Dessau, Wallenstein cleared Silesia of the remnants of Mansfeld's army in 1627. His army ravaged and burned down many Silesian towns and villages, including Prudnik, Głogówek, Żory, Pszczyna, Bytom, Rybnik, Koźle, and Strzelce Opolskie.
At this time he bought from the emperor the Duchy of Sagan. He then joined Tilly in the struggle against Christian IV of Denmark, and afterwards gained as a reward the Duchies of Mecklenburg, whose hereditary dukes suffered expulsion for having helped the Danish king. This awarding of a major territory to someone of the lower nobility shocked the high-born rulers of many other German states.
Wallenstein assumed the title of "Admiral of the North and Baltic Seas". However, in 1628 he failed to capture Stralsund, which resisted the Capitulation of Franzburg and the subsequent siege with assistance of Danish, Scottish and Swedish troops, a blow that denied him access to the Baltic and the chance to challenge the naval power of the Scandinavian kingdoms and of the Netherlands.
Although he succeeded in defeating Christian IV of Denmark in the Battle of Wolgast and neutralizing Denmark in the subsequent Peace of Lübeck, the situation further deteriorated when the presence of Imperial Catholic troops on the Baltic and the Emperor's "Edict of Restitution" brought King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden into the conflict. Wallenstein attempted to aid the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth under Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski, which were fighting Sweden in 1629. However, Wallenstein failed to engage any major Swedish forces and this significantly affected the outcome of the conflict.
File:Peter Snayers - The battle at Lützen, 1632.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|The battle of Lützen was one of the most important battles of the Thirty Years' War, in which the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus was killed.
Over the course of the war Wallenstein's ambitions and the abuses of his forces had earned him a host of enemies, both Catholic and Protestant, princes and non-princes alike. Ferdinand suspected Wallenstein of planning a coup to take control of the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor's advisors advocated dismissing him, and in September 1630 envoys were sent to Wallenstein to announce his dismissal. The decision was taken at Regensburg on 13 August 1630 on the following day Wallenstein's financier De Witte committed suicide.
Wallenstein gave over his army to General Tilly and retired to Jičín, the capital of his Duchy of Friedland. There he lived in an atmosphere of "mysterious magnificence".
However, circumstances forced Ferdinand to recall Wallenstein into the field. The successes of Gustavus Adolphus over General Tilly at the Battle of Breitenfeld and the Lech, where Tilly was killed, and his advance to Munich and occupation of Bohemia, required a vigorous response. It was during this time that Wallenstein had taken inspiration from the reforms of Gustavus Adolphus, instituting harsh discipline by providing rewards for bravery and punishment for disorder, thievery, and cowardice and with this in mind Wallenstein raised a fresh army within a few weeks and took to the field. He drove the Saxon army from Bohemia and then advanced against Gustavus Adolphus, whom he opposed near Nuremberg and, after the Battle of the Alte Veste, dislodged. In November, the great Battle of Lützen was fought, in which Wallenstein was forced to retreat but, in the confused melee, Gustavus Adolphus was killed. Wallenstein withdrew to winter quarters in Bohemia.
In the campaigning of 1633, Wallenstein's apparent unwillingness to attack the enemy caused much concern in Vienna and in Spain. At this time the dimensions of the war had grown more European, and Wallenstein had begun preparing to desert the Emperor. He expressed anger at Ferdinand's refusal to revoke the Edict of Restitution. Historic records tell little about his secret negotiations but some sources indicated he was preparing to force a "just peace" on the Emperor "in the interests of united Germany". With this apparent "plan" he entered into negotiations with Saxony, Brandenburg, Sweden, and France. Apparently the Habsburgs' enemies tried to draw him to their side. In any case, he gained little support. Anxious to make his power felt, he resumed the offensive against the Swedes and Saxons, winning his last victory at Steinau on the Oder in October. He then resumed negotiations.