Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein (About this sound - TopicsExpress

Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein (About this sound pronunciation (help·info); Czech: Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna;[1] 24 September 1583 – 25 February 1634),[2] also von Waldstein, was a Bohemian[a] military leader and politician, who offered his services, and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men during the Thirty Years War (1618–48), to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. He became the supreme commander of the armies of the Habsburg Monarchy and a major figure of the Thirty Years War. An imperial generalissimo[3] by land, and Admiral of the Baltic Sea from 21 April 1628, who had made himself ruler of the lands of the Duchy of Friedland in northern Bohemia,[4] Wallenstein found himself released from service on 13 August 1630 after Ferdinand grew wary of his ambition.[5] Several Protestant victories over Catholic armies induced Ferdinand to recall Wallenstein, who again turned the war in favor of the Imperial cause. Dissatisfied with the Emperors treatment of him, Wallenstein considered allying with the Protestants. However, he was assassinated at Cheb in Bohemia by one of the armys officials, Walter Devereux, with the emperors approval.Wallenstein was born on 24 September 1583 in Heřmanice, Bohemia, into a poor Protestant branch of the Waldstein (Wallenstein, Valdštejn) family who owned Heřmanice castle and seven surrounding villages.[2][6] His mother Markéta (née Smiřická of Smiřice) died in 1593, his father Wilhelm (Vilém) in 1595.[7] They had raised him bilingually – the father spoke German while his mother preferred Czech – yet Wallenstein in his childhood had a better command of Czech than of German.[8] The religious affiliation of the parents was Lutheranism and Utraquism.[8] After the death of his parents, Albrecht for two years lived with his maternal uncle, Jindřich Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk, a member of the Unity of the Brethren (Bohemian Brethren), and adapted his uncles religious affiliation.[8] His uncle sent him to the brethrens school at Košumberk Castle in Eastern Bohemia. In 1597, Albrecht was sent to the Protestant Latin school at Goldberg (now Złotoryja) in Silesia, where the then German environment led him to hone his German language skills.[8] While German became Wallensteins everyday language, he is said to have continued to curse in Czech.[9] 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 town prison.[8] In February 1600,[8] Albrecht left Altdorf and travelled around the Holy Roman Empire, France and Italy,[10] where he studied at the universities of Bologna and Padua.[11] By this time, Wallenstein was fluent in German, Czech, Latin and Italian, was able to understand Spanish, and spoke some French.[8] 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 (1604–1606) against the Ottoman Turks and Hungarian rebels.[11] In 1604, his sister Kateřina Anna married the leader of the Moravian Protestants, Karel the Older of Zierotin.[12] He then studied at the University of Olomouc (Graduated 1606). His contact with the Olomouc Jesuits was partly responsible for his conversion to Catholicism in the same year.[10] The contributory factor to his conversion may have been the Counter-Reformation policy of the Habsburgs which effectively barred Protestants from being appointed to higher offices at court in Bohemia and in Moravia, and the impressions he gathered in Catholic Italy.[13] However, there are no sources clearly indicating the reasons for Wallensteins conversion, except for a subjunctive anecdote by his contemporary Franz Christoph von Khevenmüller about the Virgin Mary saving Wallensteins life when he fell from a window in Innsbruck.[10] 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.[14] In 1609, Wallenstein married Czech Lucretia of Víckov, née Nekšová of Landek,[15] rich widow of Arkleb of Víckov[16] who owned the towns of Vsetín, Lukov, Rymice and Všetuly/Holešov (all in eastern Moravia).[17] She was three years older than Wallenstein, and he inherited her estates after her death in 1614.[11] 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.[18] He later endowed a monastery in her name and had her reburied there. In 1623 Wallenstein married Isabella Katharina, daughter of Count Harrach. She bore him two children, a son who died in infancy and a surviving daughter.[11] Examples of the couples correspondence survive. The two marriages made him one of the wealthiest men in the Bohemian Crown.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 of challenging the naval power of the Scandinavian kingdoms and of the Netherlands.[23] Though he succeeded in defeating Christian IV of Denmark in the Battle of Wolgast and neutralizing Denmark in the subsequent Peace of Lübeck,[26] the situation further deteriorated when the presence of the Imperial catholic troops on the Baltic and the Emperors Edict of Restitution brought King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden into the conflict.[23] He attempted to aid 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.[27] Over the course of the war Wallensteins ambitions and the exactions of his army had made him a host of enemies, both Catholic and Protestant princes and non-princes. Ferdinand suspected Wallenstein of planning a coup to take control of the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperors advisors advocated dismissing him, and in September 1630 envoys were sent to Wallenstein to announce his removal.[19] 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.[28] However, circumstances forced Ferdinand to call Wallenstein into the field again.[19] The successes of Gustavus Adolphus over General Tilly at the Battle of Breitenfeld and on the Lech (1632), where Tilly was killed, and his advance to Munich and occupation of Bohemia, demanded action.[28] In the spring of 1632, 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, came the great Battle of Lützen, in which Wallenstein was forced to retreat but in the confused melee, Gustavus Adolphus was killed. Wallenstein then withdrew to winter quarters in Bohemia.[28] In the campaigning of 1633, Wallensteins apparent unwillingness to attack the enemy caused much concern in Vienna and in Spain. At this time the dimensions of the war grew more European. Wallenstein had, in fact, started preparing to desert the Emperor: he expressed anger at Ferdinands refusal to revoke the Edict of Restitution. Historic records tell little about his secret negotiations; but rumors told that he was preparing to force a just peace on the Emperor in the interests of united Germany, at the same time hesitating — as he used to do in other respects — and trying to stay loyal to the Emperor as far as possible. With this apparent plan he entered into negotiations with Saxony, Brandenburg, Sweden, and France. But, 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 at last resumed the offensive against the Swedes and Saxons, winning his last victory at Steinau on the Oder in October. He then resumed negotiations.In December Wallenstein retired with his army to Bohemia, around Plzeň. Vienna soon definitely convinced itself of his treachery, a secret court found him guilty, and the Emperor looked seriously for a means of getting rid of him (a successor in command, the later emperor Ferdinand III, was already waiting). Wallenstein was aware of the plan to replace him, but felt confident that when the army came to decide between him and the Emperor the decision would be in his favour.[28] On 24 January 1634 the Emperor signed a secret patent (shown only to certain of Wallensteins officers) removing him from his command. Finally an open patent charging Wallenstein with high treason was signed on 18 February and published in Prague.[19] In the patent, Ferdinand II ordered to have Wallenstein brought under arrest to Vienna, dead or alive.[29] Losing the support of his army, Wallenstein now realized the extent of his peril, and on 23 February with a company of some hundred men, he went from Plzeň to Cheb, hoping to meet the Swedes under Duke Bernhard. After his arrival at Cheb, however, certain senior Scottish and Irish officers in his force assassinated him on the night of February 25.[28] To carry out the assassination, a regiment of dragoons under the command of an Irish Colonel Walter Butler[30] and the Scots colonels Walter Leslie and John Gordon first fell upon Wallensteins trusted officers Adam Trczka, Vilém Kinsky, Christian Illov and Henry Neumann whilst the latter banqueted at Cheb Castle (which had come under the command of John Gordon himself), and massacred them. Trczka alone managed to fight his way out into the courtyard, only to be shot down by a group of musketeers.[25] A few hours later, an Irish captain, Walter Devereux, together with a few companions, broke into the burgomasters house at the main square where Wallenstein had his lodgings (again courtesy of John Gordon), and kicked open the bedroom door. Devereux then ran his halberd through the unarmed Wallenstein, who, roused from sleep, is said to have asked in vain for quarter. The Holy Roman Emperor may not have commanded the murder, nor even desired it, but he had given free rein to the party who he knew wished to bring in Wallenstein, alive or dead. After the assassination, he rewarded the murderers with honour and riches.[31] Wallenstein was buried at Jičín. The Wallenstein Palace in Prague. Portrait of Wallenstein, Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt