BERNHARD OF DUKE (1604-1639), a celebrated general in the Thirty Years' War, the eleventh son of John, duke of Saxe-Weimar, was born in Weimar on Aug. 16 1604. At the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War he took the field on the Protestant side. When Gustavus Adolphus landed in Germany Bernhard joined him, and for a short time he was colonel of the Swedish life guards. After the battle of Breitenfeld he accom panied Gustavus in his march to the Rhine, and between this event and the battle of the Alte Veste Bernhard commanded numerous expeditions in almost every district from the Moselle to Tirol. At the Alte Veste he displayed the greatest courage, and at Liitzen, when Gustavus was killed, Bernhard immediately assumed the command, killed a colonel who refused to lead his men to the charge, and finally by his furious energy won the victory at sundown. At first as a subordinate to his brother William, who as a Swedish lieutenant-general succeeded to the command, but later as an independent commander, Bernhard continued to push his forays over southern Germany ; and with the Swedish General Horn he made in 1633 a successful invasion into Bavaria, which was defended by the imperialist general Arldinger. In that year he acquired the duchy of Wiirzburg, installing one of his brothers as Stadthalter and returning to the wars. A stern Protestant, he exacted heavy contributions from the Catholic cities which he took, and his repeated victories caused him to be regarded by German Protestants as the saviour of their religion. But in Bernhard suffered the great defeat of Nordlingen, in which the flower of the Swedish army perished. In 1635 he entered the service of France, which had intervened in the war. In his great campaign of 1638 he won the battles of Rheinfelden, Witten weiher, and Thann and captured successively Rheinfelden, Frei burg, and Breisach, the last reputed one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. Bernhard had in the first instance received definite assurances from France that he should be given Alsace and Hage nau, Wiirzburg having been lost in the debacle of 1634, and he hoped to make Breisach the capital of his new duchy. But he died on July 18 1639, at the beginning of the campaign, and the gov ernor of Breisach was bribed to transfer the fortress to France. The duke was buried at Breisach, his remains being subsequently removed to Weimar.
See J. A. C. Hellfeld, Geschichte Bernhards des Grossen, Herzogs v. Saxe-Weimar (Jena, 1747) ; B. Rose, Herzog Bernhard d. Grosse von Saxe-Weimar (Weimar, 1828-29) ; Droysen, Bernhard v. Weimar (Leipzig, 1885).