The Imperial gauntlet
Generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein raised, equipped, and led mighty armies for the Holy Roman Empire in its struggle against the Protestants in the Thirty Years’ War
Albrecht von Wallenstein was the most feared commander of the Thirty Years’ War
On 30 April 1619, in Olmutz, Moravia, a regiment of militia hastily prepared for a forced march on short notice. Their commander, 35-year-old Colonel Albrecht von Wallenstein, had no intention of supporting the Protestants who had seized power in Prague during the recent Bohemian Uprising. Instead he would march his troops to Vienna where they could join the Catholic war effort led by Archduke Ferdinand of Styria.
Wallenstein ordered a major called Khuen to start out with 900 foot soldiers on the 125mile trek to the Austrian frontier. He advised Khuen that he would catch up to him later with the regiment’s company of cuirassiers. Time was of the essence as a large Protestant army was bearing down on Olmutz. It was therefore imperative that Wallenstein’s regiment cross the Austrian frontier before it was overtaken.
Yet by nightfall Khuen had not departed. After squandering most of the day, the befuddled major rode in search of Wallenstein. The two men conferred while on their horses. Khuen said that the expedition seemed odd to him, partly because he had not received the customary billet order for his troops.
Wallenstein was enraged at the major’s impudence under such circumstances. He drew his sword and thrust it deep into the major’s chest. Khuen toppled from his saddle with a fatal wound.
Wallenstein selected a more obedient commander and sent him on his way with the foot soldiers. After the colonel and his cavalrymen had loaded chests containing 96,000 thalers into the wagons of their baggage train, they set off to overtake the infantry. Wallenstein’s regiment arrived safely five days later.
Shifting allegiance and faith
Although employed by the Protestant Moravian Diet, Wallenstein was politically aligned with Archduke Ferdinand’s party in its struggle for the kingship of Bohemia. Ferdinand was only four months away from the beginning of his reign as Holy Roman Emperor.
Ferdinand was already well-acquainted with the skills and devotion of the Czech colonel. In 1615 Ferdinand had gone to war against Venice to protect the Uskoks, a displaced people who had fled Turkish rule and settled on his lands. When the Venetians and their allies besieged the fortress of Gradisca on the Adriatic Sea, Wallenstein raised 280 men who joined the garrison at Gradisca in 1617. When the fortress was nearly encircled by the enemy, Wallenstein conducted a successful sortie to keep open the narrow corridor through which the fortress received supplies. As a reward for ensuring the fortress continued to receive supplies, Ferdinand made Wallenstein a count.
Wallenstein, who came from a Protestant Czech family of modest means, had joined the Imperial army as an ensign in 1604 and marched off to Hungary to fight the Turks. Afterwards, he converted to Catholicism.
During his formative years, the young soldier had dreamed of ascending through the ranks, but he found that his modest origins prevented him from rising to senior command. When a close confidante suggested that he might marry into the aristocracy, he followed his advice.
“WALLENSTEIN HAD DREAMED OF ASCENDING THROUGH THE RANKS, BUT HE FOUND THAT HIS MODEST ORIGINS PREVENTED HIM FROM RISING TO SENIOR COMMAND”
Wallenstein married the wealthy widow Lucretia von Landeck in 1609. When she died young, just five years later, he became extremely wealthy.
Commandant of Prague
Ferdinand was thrilled that Wallenstein had marched to his assistance during the uprising. But the emperor returned the Moravian thalers because, after all, these were his subjects and he did not want to rob them of their money.
Wallenstein’s first command in the Imperial army was a so-called double regiment consisting of 1,500 cuirassiers and 500 arquebusiers with which he helped protect Vienna. Because he was engaged suppressing Protestants on the Bohemian-saxon frontier, Wallenstein did not participate in the Catholic victory at White Mountain in November 1620, which secured the Kingdom of Bohemia for Ferdinand.
Ferdinand appointed Wallenstein to serve as commandant of Prague in 1622, a move that made him the de facto governor of Bohemia. Wallenstein made the most of the opportunity to purchase appropriated estates of treasonous Protestant Bohemians in Northeastern Bohemia. In doing so he amassed a large private domain in Friedland that was actually composed of numerous towns and villages.
His second marriage in 1623 to Isabelle catherine Harrach, whose father was one of Ferdinand’s principal ministers, catapulted Wallenstein into the upper echelon of Austrian society. The wealth that came from his two strategic marriages, as well as his acquisition of the confiscated estates in Bohemia made him one of the wealthiest men in Europe.
To assist the hard-pressed Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire, Danish King Christian IV entered the war in 1625. Since Ferdinand lacked the funds to recruit and equip large Imperial armies, he entrusted those tasks to Wallenstein. At that time, Ferdinand promoted Wallenstein to generalissimo, a rank higher than field marshal. The previous year Ferdinand assented to the creation of the Principality of Friedland, which would be Wallenstein’s sovereign domain.
Wallenstein excelled at all of the various tasks of fielding an army, including recruiting, planning, and logistics. Most of the Catholic troops in the war, whether part of the Bavarian-led Catholic League or the Imperial army, were mercenaries. With his wealth and organisational skills, Wallenstein recruited an entire Imperial army.
Although he should have been on top of the world because of his fame and fortune, he was stricken with gout in his 30s and plagued with it for the rest of his life.
“ALTHOUGH HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON TOP OF THE WORLD BECAUSE OF HIS FAME AND FORTUNE, HE WAS STRICKEN WITH GOUT IN HIS 30S AND PLAGUED WITH IT FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE”
Master of defence
The newly minted generalissimo transformed his domain in Friedland into a military depot that churned out uniforms and weapons. Wallenstein initially raised 50,000 troops for Ferdinand. He would raise many thousands more in the years that followed. Leaving a detachment under Colonel Johann Aldringen
at Dessau Bridge on the Elbe River to protect his supply line to Bohemia in early 1626, Wallenstein pushed west into Lower Saxony to reinforce the Catholic League commander Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, in his offensive against the Danish king.
Hoping to cut off Wallenstein from Bohemia, Protestant mercenary general Count Ernst Mansfeld led his 20,000 troops in a sweep across northern Germany that brought him into eastern Saxony. He then besieged the 2,000 Imperial soldiers guarding Dessau Bridge in midapril. After a series of probing attacks, Mansfeld launched an all-out assault on 25 April.
Unbeknownst to Mansfeld, Wallenstein had countermarched with 12,000 troops to reinforce Aldringen. Concealing his fresh troops in the woods, Wallenstein held them in check until Mansfeld’s troops had exhausted themselves. On Wallenstein’s orders, the Imperial troops emerged from their protected positions to overwhelm the Protestants. Threequarters of Mansfeld’s army was destroyed in a stunning Imperial victory.
Wallenstein conquered Jutland in 1627, thereby forcing Christian to withdraw to the Danish islands to escape the pursuing Catholic armies. In appreciation for defeating the Danes, Ferdinand bestowed upon Wallenstein the Silesian Duchy of Zagan. The following year Ferdinand gave Wallenstein the Duchy of Mecklenburg as a way to offset his enormous debt to Wallenstein for raising the main Imperial army.
The continued elevation of Wallenstein rankled high-born German princes who resented the generalissimo and considered him beneath them owing to his low birth. It gave them ample cause to plot against him.
“ON WALLENSTEIN’S ORDERS, THE IMPERIAL TROOPS EMERGED FROM THEIR PROTECTED POSITIONS TO OVERWHELM THE PROTESTANTS. THREEQUARTERS OF MANSFELD’S ARMY WAS DESTROYED IN A STUNNING IMPERIAL VICTORY”
Offensive blunder
Wallenstein faced a dilemma in early 1628 when one of his subordinates, Colonel
Hans Georg von Arnim, failed to capture the Protestant-held fortress of Stralsund on the Baltic Sea. Wallenstein marched to his aid with 14,000 troops, but Protestant troops from Scotland, Denmark, and Sweden came to the aid of the beleaguered militia defending the Pomeranian town. After several assaults, Wallenstein decided his best option was to quit the siege. Ferdinand blamed Wallenstein for the debacle, and it became a black mark on his military record.
The spitefulness of Wallenstein’s enemies in the Imperial army and at the Imperial court continued unabated. “I wage more war with a few ministers than the enemy,” Wallenstein lamented.
Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus’s army landed in Pomerania in July 1630. His reason for direct intervention in the Thirty
Years’ War was to liberate the oppressed German Protestants and, in the process, roll back the Catholic gains.
At the very time he was needed the most, the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire meeting at Regensburg moved to have Wallenstein dismissed from Imperial service. They asserted that Wallenstein only obeyed orders from the emperor when it suited him and that he had plundered great swaths of Germany. Ferdinand sacked Wallenstein in September to appease the powerful electors. Command of the Catholic forces devolved to Tilly.
After securing his bridgehead in Pomerania and Mecklenburg, Gustavus marched into
Saxony and defeated Tilly at the Breitenfeld on 17 September 1631. Without Wallenstein’s help recruiting Imperial troops, the Swedish juggernaut was unstoppable. In spring 1632 Gustavus invaded Bavaria where he won a decisive battle against Tilly at Rain on 15 April in which the old campaigner was mortally wounded.
Outwitting the Swedes
In desperation Ferdinand reinstated
Wallenstein. On 13 April Wallenstein met secretly at Gollersdorf with Austrian Minister Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg to negotiate the terms of his reinstatement as generalissimo. The Gollersdorf Agreement gave Wallenstein the power to raise an army of 70,000 men and negotiate alliances and treaties with the German electors without having to seek Ferdinand’s approval beforehand.
When Gustavus occupied Nuremberg in mid-june 1632, Wallenstein established a large fortified camp near an old hilltop castle known as Alte Veste a short distance away. The Swedes assaulted into the teeth of the Imperial defenses at Alte Veste on 3 September but were hurled back with substantial losses.
With his reputation tarnished by the fiasco at Alte Veste, Gustavus withdrew northwest to Franconia to lick his wounds. Wallenstein swept into central Saxony where he captured Leipzig on 1 November. Gustavus desperately wanted a major victory over the Imperialists to restore his reputation, and he attacked Wallenstein in another strong position on high ground adjacent to the town of Lutzen.
Defeat at Lutzen
Gustavus initiated the battle by leading the Swedish cavalry in a grand charge against the Imperial left wing. In the swirling smoke and fog he became separated from his bodyguard and was fatally shot by Imperial cuirassiers. However his second-in-command, Marshal Bernard of Saxe-weimar, succeeded in smashing the Imperial right wing. Wallenstein lost his nerve and began a withdrawal to Bohemia that night. He left his artillery and baggage behind for the victors.
The following year Wallenstein made diplomatic overtures to the Saxons and Brandenburgers in an attempt to draw them out of their respective agreements with the Swedes. Meanwhile Ferdinand’s ministers and rival generals undermined Wallenstein. When he learned of the schemes against him, he became highly paranoid and attempted to contact the Swedes to switch sides.
But Ferdinand had made up his mind. He sent emissaries to Pilsen in Bohemia demanding that Wallenstein relocate his army to Bavaria as a preliminary step to his removal. When Ferdinand learned that Wallenstein was considering switching sides, the emperor published a treatise on 24 January setting forth charges of treason against Wallenstein whom he regarded by that point as a threat to his rule.
Flight from Prague
Ferdinand officially terminated Wallenstein’s command on 18 February. The fugitive generalissimo Wallenstein fled to Eger on the frontier of the Upper Palatinate. Although it is not certain where he was headed, it is thought that he may have been trying to reach the Swedish army.
A group of English and Scottish mercenaries stormed into the Eger barracks intent on killing him. English Captain Walter Devereux ran upstairs to Wallenstein’s bedroom and ran him through with a halberd. The disgraced commander was shown no greater mercy than that with which he had slain the hapless major of the Moravian militia whom he summarily executed 15 years earlier.
“THE DISGRACED COMMANDER WAS SHOWN NO GREATER MERCY THAN THAT WITH WHICH HE HAD SLAIN THE HAPLESS MAJOR”