6. Generalissimus Albrecht von Wallenstein
Albrecht von Wallenstein was an excellent military leader and tactician. He was at the height of his military glory between 1625 and 1633.
GENERALISSIMUS
In 1625, Wallenstein took command of the imperial armies, was appointed generalissimo and reaped success in the Falklands, Danish and Swedish wars. He coordinated his campaign with the commander of the Catholic League troops, John Tsarclaes Tilly, but there was some rivalry between the Imperial and the League armies. This was primarily because the commander-in-chief, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, was seeking to consolidate Bavaria's power and thus weaken the Emperor. Wallenstein, on the other hand, sought to consolidate the power of the Emperor, even wanting to create a hereditary monarchy out of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, but these grand plans of his were eventually disowned by the Emperor himself.
His army consisted at first of 30,000 men, but gradually grew to 100,000. The president of the Imperial Military Council, Rombald Collalto, went into battle with him, but after six months he returned to Vienna and sued him for disagreements. The emperor then put Wallenstein in charge of reorganising the army, but this made him many enemies.
His greatest opponent on the battlefield, however, was King Christian IV of Denmark, who within two years had completely dominated the whole of northern Germany and aroused great enthusiasm among the Protestant population. In 1626 Wallenstein defeated the Protestant commander Mansfeld at the Battle of Dessau and pushed his troops out of Silesia. In 1627 he then occupied the Duchy of Pomerania and gained access to the Baltic Sea
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In 1627 Wallenstein bought the Principality of Zahan and the following year was granted the Duchy of Mecklenburg, he was appointed General of the Imperial Naval Army and General of the Oceanic and Baltic Sea. In the same year he receives the Order of the Golden Fleece, which only the true European elite could boast. But at the same time, his only son, Prince Charles, and his protector, Charles of Harrach, die. In 1628, he defeated the Danish troops at the Battle of Wolgast, thus finally ending Danish involvement in the war, but failed in the siege of Stralsund, which was defended by Swedes and Scots. In March 1629 the emperor issued the so-called Edict of Restitution against the Protestants, which Wallenstein disagreed with and which drew Sweden into the war.
From the spring of 1629, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria criticised Emperor Ferdinand II for his excessive tolerance of Wallenstein's campaigning and plundering. Because the emperor needed to confirm the election of his son Ferdinand as king of Rome, he sacrificed Wallenstein and removed him from command at the Diet of Reims in September 1630 because of his alleged indecision towards the Danish king's actions. This dismissal became a financial disaster for Wallenstein and his companions. He threw himself into other businesses, establishing breweries, mills, and textile and armaments manufactories. He lived in the newly furnished Wallenstein Palace on the Lesser Town in Prague.
REVERSALBy May 1632 he had gradually liberated Bohemia and Bavaria. At the beginning of August he was victorious at the Battle of Fürth. In November, the Battle of Lützen took place, which did not end in his victory but in a draw. In this battle, however, the Swedish king Gustav II fell. Adolf and his army was greatly demoralised. The Swedes wanted to continue fighting, although their losses were enormous, but Wallenstein gave the order to retreat from the battlefield. Vienna accepted the victory as their own, and the preacher Gaus showered Wallenstein with praise in front of the entire court. Even so, Wallenstein earned the harsh criticism of the abbot of Strahov, Kaspar of Questenberg, and the president of the war council, Henry Šlik. Nine thousand men died in the battle. Among the dead were Wallenstein's cousin Berchtold and the Prince-Abbot of Fulda. Of all those who fell in the bloody battle, the most honours went to the famous Field Marshal Gottfried of Pappenheim, in whose honour Wallenstein had all the churches in Prague ringing bells for three days at his own expense.
However, Wallenstein was just as adamant about punishing desertion - he faced a trial of 17 guilty officers and randomly drawn soldiers from regiments that had fled from battle during the Battle of Lützen. The verdicts were handed down on 11 February, and as expected, no one received a pardon from Wallenstein. The execution scaffold stood on Old Town Square, symbolically on the same spot where the twenty-seven lords were executed (21 June 1621). The same executioner, Jan Mydlář, was summoned to execute the deserters. The event went down in history as the Prague Blood Trial. Wallenstein also refused a request for clemency for the eighteen-year-old ritualist Staitz, who had impressed everyone by his appearance and demeanour, although Holk, Piccolomini and other officers asked for clemency for the young nobleman.<