We haven’t had a game-assisted biography on this blog for two years! Let’s rectify that with one of the most legendary and mysterious generals of all time – Wallenstein, the emperor’s chief commander in the first half of the Thirty Years’ War. Wallenstein, the mercenary. Wallenstein, the astrology addict. Wallenstein, the traitor. …or was he all of these things? We’ll find out!

In this first part, we’ll cover the fundamental conflicts in Wallenstein’s world, his own youth, and his meteoric rise at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. Let’s go!

You can read all posts in the series here:

• Wallenstein: Rise
• Wallenstein: Zenith
• Wallenstein: Decline
• Wallenstein: Fall

The Conflicts of the Time

The early 17^th century was a time of barely contained tension in Europe. Four fundamental conflicts would provide the spark, the oxygen, and the fuel for the great conflagration of the Thirty Years’ War:

• Since Luther’s 95 Theses had brought forth a new interpretation of the Christian faith, Protestantism, the Catholic church and Catholic princes had aimed to extinguish it. The denominations had reached a tenuous compromise in the mid-16^th century based on the principle that the princes could set the religion for their dominions (cuius regio, eius religio). Yet shifts in the balance of religious power since then – mostly in favor of the Catholic counter-reformation, with the notable exception of the lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia), where the Protestant nobles forming the estates gained in power – threatened the compromise.
• The Holy Roman Empire had traditionally been a state where power was shared between the emperor and the princes (most importantly, the seven electors which, as the name indicates, elected the emperor). Other states Spain, France, and England saw a centralization of power around their respective kings. Such a centralization – a true monarchy – also appealed to the emperor.

• In the north, the Holy Roman Empire bordered the Baltic Sea. Whoever controlled its shorelines, liberally dotted with merchant cities which had gotten rich in the trade with timber, grain, fish, and many other valuable commodities, would hold the dominium Maris Baltici – the command of the Baltic Sea. The chief contenders in the early 17^th century were the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, and the Kingdom of Sweden… yet others would surely be interested, if only they could gain a foothold on the shores of the Baltic Sea.

• The emperor came from the House of Habsburg (or Hapsburg, as it is sometimes spelled in English). Half a century before Wallenstein’s birth, Emperor Charles V had ruled not only the Habsburg possessions in the Holy Roman Empire (including Austria and the Crown of Saint Wenceslas), but had also been King of Spain and held extensive territories in Italy and Burgundy (in modern-day France and the Benelux countries). Charles had split the Habsburg holdings between his brother Ferdinand who succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor and his son Philip who had inherited all the lands and titles in Spain, Italy, and Burgundy (as well as Spain’s overseas colonies). Individually, the two Habsburg branches were powerful. And together, they were on the verge of European hegemony.

Bohemian, Noble, Soldier, Convert

Wallenstein was born on September 24, 1583, in the Bohemian village Heřmanice, as Albrecht von Waldstein, a scion of an old, but poor Bohemian noble family. While the family name (in either the original Waldstein or Wallenstein’s own preferred Wallenstein spelling) may sound Germanic, Wallenstein’s native tongue was Czech. However, his education in Silesia and Franconia taught him German and Latin, his subsequent European tour as a young man Italian as well as a dose of French and Spanish.

Wallenstein had been orphaned at the age of eleven. As a young nobleman and landholder, he had to chart his own path in life. His lands were neither extensive enough for a comfortable income nor to command his full attention. For a fruitful ecclesial career, Wallenstein was too lowborn. Instead, he resorted to the third suitable career paths for nobles – war – and enlisted in the imperial army for two years in the Long Turkish War.

Wallenstein returned from the war aged 23. Over the next years, he made several momentous decisions. The most important – and least understood – is his conversion. Wallenstein had been raised Protestant like most Bohemians, but converted to Catholicism around the end of his military service. While we cannot search Wallenstein’s heart for his religious convictions, we know that he never displayed particular religious zeal later – and he was remarkably tolerant of other faiths, and regularly entrusted Protestants with important positions under him. From a more worldly perspective, Wallenstein’s conversion isolated himself from most of his Bohemian peers. It was in that regard, though, that his conversion proved fruitful a few years later: When the wealthy Catholic widow Lucretia of Víckov sought to remarry, Wallenstein was one of the few eligible Catholic nobles in the region. He thus came to manage her extensive holdings in Moravia, and, when she died in 1614, the inheritance turned him into one of the richest landholders sworn to the Crown of Saint Wenceslas.

Finally, these years saw another event which would be of great importance to Wallenstein’s biographers (but not so much to him): Following the fashions of the time, he requested a horoscope from the leading astronomer of the time, Johannes Kepler. As horoscopes go, it foretold some things which would happen (albeit at different times than predicted, like his marriage to a wealthy woman), others which wouldn’t (an interest in alchemy and sorcery), and a good deal of vague fluff which could be applied to most people.

Rise in the Conflagration

In 1617, Wallenstein went to war again. This time, he paid out of his own pocket for a cavalry company to join the war against Venice commanded by Ferdinand of Habsburg, Emperor Matthias’s appointed successor. Soon after Wallenstein had joined the fray, Matthias fell seriously ill and Ferdinand was recalled to ensure a smooth transition of power as both the Crown of Saint Wenceslas and the imperial crown were elective. Despite Ferdinand’s reputation as an ardent Catholic counter-reformer (he had forced the conversion of his Protestant subjects in Styria and Carinthia as one of his first acts as an adult ruler), the Protestant-majority Bohemian estates elected Ferdinand king in an act of doubtful strategic vision.

Ferdinand was careful not to violate Protestant rights too flagrantly, yet the estates soon found out that he retained his counter-reformatory spirit when he decided any arising small property disputes in favor of Catholic claimants. Redoubling on their strategic ineptitude, the Bohemian estates now defied the king they had accepted as legitimate just one year before: They threw three of Ferdinand’s counselors out of a window (all of them miraculously survived the fall) on May 23, 1618, and rose in armed rebellion. As their new king they chose Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate and the son-in-law to King James I of England. When Matthias died in 1619, Frederick would be the only of the seven electors not voting for Ferdinand II to become Holy Roman Emperor – a devastating setback for the Bohemians who had hoped that Frederick’s second vote as King of Bohemia would be acknowledged, and that the Protestant electors of Saxony and Brandenburg would also support Frederick.

Wallenstein had been born in Bohemia, but the estate inherited from his wife lay in Moravia. The Moravian estates delayed their commitment to the Bohemian cause which suited Wallenstein well – he had no sympathy for the rebellion. As one of the chief military officials of Moravia, he raised a cavalry regiment which he offered to Ferdinand. Push came to shove when one of the Bohemian armies under Count Matthias of Thurn marched into Moravia in 1619 to rouse the Moravians into supporting the Bohemian rebellion. Wallenstein attempted to spirit his regiment away (knowing the soldiers’ and officers’ sympathies for their Bohemian neighbors). When the major in charge of logistics attempted to swing the regiment in favor of the rebellion, Wallenstein slew him on the spot with his saber. Then he brought the regiment to the emperor’s seat Vienna, and with it, the war chest of the Moravian estates – a welcome present to the always cash-strapped emperor.

Wallenstein had gained the emperor’s favor. While he was not personally involved in the decisive imperial victory over the Bohemian forces at White Mountain (albeit some of his soldiers served under the commander of the Catholic League’s army, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly), that favor gave him access to the inevitable spoils of victory. And here his genius first showed.

Wallenstein became a part of the imperial coin consortium tasked to supply silver and mint debased coins to pay for the emperor’s war efforts. That was a mildly profitable endeavor in itself, but more importantly, it got Wallenstein in touch with men of finance, chiefly the Dutch banker Hans de Witte. Wallenstein used his new-found access to credit to take out huge loans with which he purchased vast estates in Bohemia confiscated from the defeated rebels, and as so much land was auctioned at the same time by the imperial crown, Wallenstein paid bargain prices to became one of the chief Bohemian magnates.

The loans still needed to be repaid. Wallenstein expended most of his energy on developing his estates in the following years, and turned them into an efficiently administered, wealthy domain, for which he was granted the title of Prince of Friedland. Wallenstein’s activities as a landed aristocrat are represented in the most famous game featuring him, Wallenstein (Dirk Henn, Queen Games), which has up to five players (one of them Wallenstein) build markets, churches, and palaces in their holdings… and make some war on the other players should good opportunities arise.

Wallenstein remarried in 1623. His wife Isabel was the daughter of the imperial count Karl of Harrach from the emperor’s inner circle of advisors, giving Wallenstein access to inner workings of the imperial court. Yet despite his successes, Wallenstein was anxious.

His holdings were not secure as long as the exiled Bohemian rebels had hopes of recovering them. Wallenstein thus needed peace, peace on the Emperor’s terms. Yet while the imperial armies had won one victory after another, not only crushing the Bohemian rebels but also invading the Palatinate homeland of their erstwhile King Frederick, the emperor did not know how to make peace. He found himself unable to deal with the roaming armies of Protestant warlords like Ernst of Mansfeld or Christian of Halberstadt. And instead of extending an olive branch to the princes fearing imperial domination, he deposed Frederick and gave the title of elector to his ally Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria – an unthinkable breach of princely privileges.

As Ferdinand also seemed on the verge of rolling back Protestantism in central and northern Germany, the Protestant princes and the powers of the Baltic Sea grew concerned. King Christian IV of Denmark was anxious on both accounts. If he opposed Ferdinand, he could certainly count on the Protestant warlords and Bohemian exiles, and he sounded out eventual allies

• among the northern German princes,
• the Protestant Dutch (embroiled in their own struggle with for independence from the Spanish Habsburgs),
• the English (whose King James I resented the snub to his son-in-law Frederick), and even
• Denmark’s rival Sweden, a rising Protestant power in the north.

Nobody knew how big the Protestant intervention from the north would be. Yet it was almost certain that it would come. And the imperial region closest to Denmark was Bohemia. Wallenstein despaired over the emperor’s lack of preparation (caused both by the eternally empty imperial coffers and Ferdinand’s anxiety that raising an army would cause the Protestants to take measures of their own, thus causing the war he wanted to avoid). Wallenstein became convinced that he needed to take the security of his principality into his own hands. He offered to raise and equip an army for the emperor, paying for it up front. After long delaying, Ferdinand accepted his offer.

Ferdinand made Wallenstein chief imperial general in the Holy Roman Empire (contrary to the traditional title of lieutenant general based on the fiction that the actual commander was the monarch himself), created him Duke of Friedland lest he be outranked by other aristocratic commanders, and tasked him to raise his army. Wallenstein would apply himself to the task with his characteristic energy… in the next instalment of this series.

Games Referenced

Holy Roman Empire (Mark McLaughlin, 3W)

Baltic Empires: The Northern Wars of 1558—1721 (Brian Berg Asklev Hansen, GMT Games, forthcoming)

Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War (Francisco Gradaille, GMT Games, forthcoming)

Thirty Years War: Europe in Agony, 1618—1648 (David A. Fox/Michael Welker, GMT Games)

Wallenstein (Dirk Henn, Queen Games)

Further Reading

A recent biography which succeeds at dispelling the Wallenstein myth is Mortimer, Geoff: Wallenstein. The Enigma of the Thirty Years’ War, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2010.

For an older, more encompassing biography with literary aspirations, see Mann, Golo: Wallenstein. His Life Narrated, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York City, NY 1976.

On the reception of Wallenstein and his changing image from his contemporaries all the way through the 20^th century, see Bahlcke, Joachim/Kampmann, Christoph: Wallensteinbilder im Widerstreit: Eine historische Symbolfigur in Geschichtsschreibung und Literatur vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert [Conflicting Conceptions of Wallenstein: A Symbolic Figure from History in Historiography and Literature from the 17^th to the 20^th Century], Böhlau, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2011 [in German].

For a short introduction to the Thirty Years’ War, see Schmidt, Georg: Der Dreißigjährige Krieg [The Thirty Years’ War], C.H. Beck, Munich 2010 [in German].

A magisterial monography on the entire war is Wilson, Peter H.: Europe’s Tragedy. A New History of the Thirty Years’ War, Penguin, London 2009.

You’ll find a short discussion of the various origins of the war in Gutmann, Myron P.: The Origins of the Thirty Years‘ War, in: Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, 4, 1988, p. 749—770, online here (free registration required).