Albrecht Wallenstein
Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein (1583 – 1634) was a Protestant Bohemian soldier who approached soldiering and war as financial transactions and business moves. He rose to command the armies of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years War, fought for the Catholics before switching sides to the Protestants, then switched back to the Catholics once again.
Born a Lutheran, Wallenstein was orphaned at age 13 and raised by an uncle who saw to his education. In 1604, he fought for the Habsburgs and ingratiated himself with them and the influential Jesuits at their court by nominally converting to Catholicism. His Jesuit confessor arranged for him to marry a fabulously wealthy elderly widow with huge estates, which wealth and lands Wallenstein inherited after her death in 1614, instantly vaulting him into the ranks of the powerful in the Habsburg realms.
He fought in numerous campaigns and battles, and earned a reputation for military brilliance. At the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, the Habsburgs feared that they would end up facing the Protestant-born Wallenstein. But calculating that serving the Catholics would prove more lucrative, Wallenstein offered his services and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.
Wallenstein then proceeded to thoroughly destroy Protestant armies and the Protestant cause in his native Bohemia. Particularly at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, so as to eradicate two centuries of a strong Protestant tradition, dating back to Jan Hus’ uprising in the early 1400s. From a Protestant stronghold in Central Europe, Bohemia was transformed into a Catholic bastion, and it remains Catholic to this day.
Wallenstein then proceeded to wreck the Protestant cause in western and northern Germany, but his successes and ambition, plus fears that he was preparing to switch sides, led Emperor Ferdinand to remove him from command in 1630. The Protestants recovered, and particularly under Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, won a series of stunning victories. Reasoning that a potentially treasonous general was better than incompetent ones, the Emperor recalled Wallenstein. Wallenstein stabilized the situation by defeating Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Alte Veste in 1632, and killed him at the Battle of Lutzen later that year.
However, Wallenstein grew increasingly resentful of his treatment by Ferdinand, and did little to hide his intent to switch sides and defect to the Protestant cause by joining the Swedes, as soon as he negotiated an agreeable deal. Word got back to the Emperor of Wallenstein’s planned defection, however, so he nipped the problem in the bud by having the problematic general assassinated in 1634.