Albrecht E. W. von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland and Mecklenburg (1583-1634)

A typical military entrepreneur of the Seventeenth century, the Bohemian apostate Protestant Wallenstein represents a complex and somewhat mysterious figure. He acquired some considerable wealth and estates in Moravia by an advantageous marriage to a wealthy widow. When his wife died in 1614, he raised a cavalry regiment for Imperial service in the war against Venice, and after the Protestant defeat at the White mountain in 1620 he bought up the lands of the vanquished rebels at nominal cost, eventually ruling vast tracts of land in the north-east of Bohemia which he ran as a semi independent fiefdom.

In 1625 he rose to the command of the new Imperial army funded by Ferdinand II the Holy Roman Emperor for service in the Thirty Years' War (q.v.) against the Protestant princes of Germany. Wallenstein was victorious against Mansfeld at Dessau in 1626, and went on to defeat the Hungarians and Danes on behalf of the Emperor. For these services he received the Duchy of Mecklenburg from his grateful employer. Thereafter he began to pursue his own designs, unilaterally laying siege to Stralsund in 1628. Wallenstein organised his army as a business, and his ruthless exaction of contributions from the areas where his army operated led to his dismissal at the demand of the German Electors in 1630. This was unfortunate since shortly thereafter the Swedes invaded the Empire with an efficient and aggressive force, commanded by their belligerent king Gustavus Adolphus. Wallenstein was recalled in 1631 and became an independent political force after the death of his rival Tilly in 1632. The Swedish King was killed at Lützen (q.v.) in 1632, and freed from a major military threat, Wallenstein began a complicated intrigue with Saxony, Sweden, Brandenburg and France. The Emperor, unable to contemplate a loose cannon like this rattling about in his domains ordered Wallenstein's assassination by his own troops in 1634.

It is important to judge Wallenstein by the standards of his own age. Although we might see him as overweening and treacherous, many nobles of his time were equally ambitious and untrustworthy. He possessed undoubted skills in army administration, and battlefield handling, even if his diplomacy let him down in the end.