WALLENSTEIN, ALBRECHT WENZEL EUSEBIUS. — General, born on 24 Sept. 1583 at Hermaniè near Arnau (eastern Bohemia), died on 25 Feb. 1634 at Eger.
Orphaned at the age of thirteen, he studied at the Lutheran Latin school of Goldberg (Silesia) and then at the Altdorf Academy in Nuremberg. During a journey to Italy in 1606 he converted to Catholicism. In 1609 he married a wealthy widow from Moravia, who died in 1614, and in 1617 placed a contingent of armed men at the disposal of Ferdinand, Archduke of Styria (later the Emperor Ferdinand II), for the war against Venice. He assisted the Emperor financially against the Bohemian rebels, but did not take part in the Battle of White Mountain. He purchased the lands confiscated from the rebel nobles at great advantage, becoming the owner of a large part of Bohemia. In 1624 Ferdinand II created him Duke of Friedland, after he had married Isabella of Harrach the previous year, further strengthening his ties with the imperial court. Following Denmark’s intervention in the Thirty Years’ War, he created an army of 24,000 men from nothing for the Emperor and became its commander-in-chief. He contained and drove back the enemy in Silesia, then turned against Christian IV, occupied Jutland, and compelled Denmark to make peace. The Emperor granted him the Duchy of Sagan in Silesia and Mecklenburg in fief. Deprived of his rank in 1630 because he was disliked by the princes of the Empire, he withdrew to Bohemia, where he maintained a princely lifestyle. Desiring ever greater power and to become one of the electors of the Empire, he did not hesitate to conduct secret negotiations with the King of Sweden and with the Bohemian emigrés. After Gustavus Adolphus’s victories in Germany, however, he once again accepted supreme command of the imperial troops. Defeated at Lützen (16 Nov. 1632), he withdrew to Bohemia and maintained an ambiguous attitude. The Emperor, under the influence of his enemies, deprived him of command, until, accused of having betrayed the imperial cause, W. fell victim to a conspiracy among his officers, fomented by the court of Vienna.