3. Albrecht Wallenstein and His Mercenaries Devastated Central Europe
Albrecht Wallenstein (1583 – 1634), a Bohemian soldier who approached warfare as a business, devastated Central Europe during the Thirty Years War. Although a Protestant, he took service with the Catholic Hapsburgs in 1604, and earned a reputation for military brilliance. When the Thirty Years’ War broke out, the Protestant-born Wallenstein calculated that serving the wealthier Catholics would prove more lucrative than fighting for the Protestants. So he offered his services and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 mercenaries to the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II.
Wallenstein then wrecked the Protestant cause in his native Bohemia, before wrecking Protestants in western and northern Germany. His mercenaries lived off the land, looting, raping, pillaging, massacring, and turning Germany into a nightmarish mess. Fears that he was preparing to switch sides led the Emperor to remove him from command in 1630, which allowed the Protestants to stage a comeback. The Emperor, reasoning that a potentially treasonous general was better than incompetent ones, recalled Wallenstein, who stabilized the situation. However, he grew resentful of his treatment, and when he displayed an intent to switch sides and defect to the Protestants, the Emperor had Wallenstein assassinated in 1634.