Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland (; 24 September 1583 – 25 February 1634), also von Waldstein (Czech: Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna), was a Bohemian military leader, statesman and a major figure of the Thirty Years' War, fighting on the Catholic side as supreme commander of the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. His successful martial career made him one of the richest and most influential men in the Holy Roman Empire by the time of his death. He is considered one of the most important military leaders produced by the early modern period.
Wallenstein was born in the Kingdom of Bohemia into a poor Czech Protestant noble family, affiliated with the Utraquist Hussites. He acquired a multilingual university education across Europe and converted to Catholicism in 1606. A marriage in 1609 to the wealthy widow of a Bohemian landowner gave him access to considerable estates and wealth after her death at an early age in 1614. Three years later, Wallenstein embarked on a career as a mercenary by raising forces for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Uskok War against the Republic of Venice.
Wallenstein fought for the Catholics in the Protestant Bohemian Revolt of 1618 and was awarded estates confiscated from the rebels after their defeat at White Mountain in 1620. A series of military victories against the Protestants raised Wallenstein's reputation in the imperial court and in 1625 he raised a large army of 50,000 men to further the Imperial cause. A year later, he administered a crushing defeat to the Protestants at Dessau Bridge. For his successes, Wallenstein became an imperial count palatine and made himself ruler of the lands of the Duchy of Friedland in northern Bohemia.
An imperial generalissimo by land, and Admiral of the Baltic Sea from April 1628, Wallenstein found himself released from service in 1630 after Ferdinand grew wary of his ambition. Several Protestant victories over Catholic armies induced Ferdinand to recall Wallenstein, who then defeated the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus at Alte Veste. The Swedish king was later killed at the Battle of Lützen.
Wallenstein realised the war could last decades and, during the summer of 1633, arranged a series of armistices to negotiate peace. These proved to be his undoing as plotters accused him of treachery. Dissatisfied with the Emperor's treatment of him, Wallenstein considered allying with the Protestants. However, he was assassinated at Eger in Bohemia by one of the army's officials, with the emperor's approval.
Wallenstein [Valdštejn] was born on 24 September 1583 in Heřmanice, Bohemia, which is the easternmost and largest region in what was then the Holy Roman Empire, in the present-day Czech Republic, into a poor Protestant Wallenstein branch of an old Czech House of Waldstein, who owned Heřmanice Castle and seven surrounding villages. He was the son of Vilém (Wilhelm) IV z Valdštejna (von Waldstein) (1547–1595) and his wife, Markéta, Baroness Smiřická of Smiřice (1555–1593).
They had raised him bilingually – the father spoke both Czech and German while his mother preferred Czech – yet Wallenstein in his childhood had a better command of Czech than of German. His parents' religious affiliations were Lutheranism and Utraquist Hussitism. After their deaths, Albrecht for two years lived with his maternal uncle Heinrich (Jindřich) Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk (1549–1599), a member of the Unity of the Brethren (Bohemian Brethren), and adopted his uncle's religious affiliation. His uncle sent him to the brethren's school at Košumberk Castle in Eastern Bohemia.
In 1597, Albrecht was sent to the Protestant Latin school at Goldberg (now Złotoryja, Poland) in Silesia, where the then-German environment led him to hone his German language skills. While German became Wallenstein's "work" language, he is said to have continued to curse in Czech. 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 the town prison. He beat his servant so badly he had to purchase him a new suit of clothes on top of paying compensation.
In February 1600, Albrecht left Altdorf and travelled around the Holy Roman Empire, France and Italy, where he studied at the universities of Bologna and Padua. By this time, Wallenstein was fluent in German, Czech, Latin and Italian, was able to understand Spanish, and spoke some French.
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) in the Long Turkish War against the Ottoman Turks and Hungarian rebels.
In 1604, his younger sister, Kateřina Anna of Waldstein (1584–1605), married the leader of the Moravian Protestants, Karel the Older of Zierotin (1564–1636). He then studied at the University of Olomouc (matriculating in 1606). His contact with the Olomouc Jesuits is considered to be at least partially responsible for his conversion to Catholicism that same year. The contributory factor to his conversion may have been the Counter-Reformation policy of the Habsburgs that effectively barred Protestants from being appointed to higher offices at court in Bohemia and in Moravia, and the impressions he gathered in Catholic Italy. However, there are no sources clearly indicating the reasons for Wallenstein's conversion, except for a subjunctive anecdote by his contemporary Count Franz Christoph von Khevenhüller (1588–1650) about the Virgin Mary saving Wallenstein's life when he fell from a window in Innsbruck. 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.
In 1609, Wallenstein married the Czech Anna Lucretia of Víckov, née Nekšová of Landek (1582–1614), the wealthy widow of Arkleb of Víckov who owned the towns of Vsetín, Lukov, Rymice and Všetuly/Holešov (all in eastern Moravia). She was three years older than Wallenstein, and he inherited her estates after her death in 1614.
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. He later endowed a monastery in his late wife's name and had her reburied there.
In 1623, Wallenstein married Countess Isabella Katharina von Harrach (1601–1655), daughter of Count Karl von Harrach and his wife, Baroness Maria Elisabeth von Schrattenbach (1563–1653). They had two children: a son who died in infancy and a surviving daughter, Countess Maria Elisabeth von Kaunitz (1626–1662). Examples of the couple's correspondence survive. The two marriages made him one of the wealthiest men in the Bohemian Crown.
The Thirty Years' War began in 1618 when the estates of Bohemia rebelled against Ferdinand of Styria and elected Frederick V of the Palatinate, the leader of the Protestant Union, as their new king. Wallenstein associated himself with the cause of the Catholics and the Habsburg dynasty.
In the summer of 1618, Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn led 10,000 troops into Moravia to secure their loyalty to the rebellion. Nobles who wished for a rapprochement with Ferdinand faced a choice. Senior nobleman Zierotin's son-in-law, Georg von Nachod, commanded the Moravian cavalry and his brother-in-law, Wallenstein, the infantry. Both decided to take their regiment into Austria. Nachod's troops rebelled and he fled for his life. Wallenstein's major demanded authorisation from the Estates upon which Wallenstein drew his sword and ran him through, "A fresh major was immediately appointed and displayed greater tractability". Deserting the Bohemians, he marched his regiment to Vienna taking with him the Moravian treasury. There, however, the authorities told him that the money would go back to the Moravians – but he had shown his loyalty to Ferdinand, the future Emperor.