WALLENSTEIN, ALBRECHT WEN ZEL EUSEBIUS, COUNT VON (val' len-stine), the great general of the Im perialists, in the Thirty Years' War; born in 1583, of an ancient and wealthy family of Bohemia. In his youth he re paired to Italy, where he studied phi losophy, astronomy, and the sciences then in vogue, and would have become an adept in the abstruse doctrines then so generally believed in, had not the condi tion of his country called him from the study of the occult sciences to the practice of war. As a soldier and leader he gained honor and distinction on his first field by defeating the Turks, who had penetrated into Hungary. From this time he devoted himself to the service of his country, and in a few years rose to be regarded as the most popular and consummate general in Europe; his vast wealth, immense estates, and extraor dinary popularity giving him a power and influence hardly less than sovereign. He became in a few years the mainstay and support of the Imperial cause, and, both alone and in conjunction with Tilly, obtained several victories, and more than once raised the empire from the verge of ruin by his counsel and skill as a com mander. For these services he received the dukedom of Mecklenburg, and im mense tracts of land both in Bohemia and Hungary. His power and his in fluence, however, procured for him many enemies, to whom his sovereign, forget ful of the services he had rendered, lent so willing an ear that Wallenstein, in dignant at the coldness of the emperor, threw up his commission and retired to the privacy of his paternal estates.
Hardly had Wallenstein quitted the court of his ungrateful master when the "Lion of the North," as he was called— Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden—invaded the empire with his Protestant army, and carried such defeat and ruin into the heart of the Imperial dominions, that the Emperor Ferdinand, seeing his gen erals slain, his armies routed, and the haughty foe advancing on his capital, was compelled to implore Wallenstein the man he had so deeply injured—to return, and not only save the empire from ruin, but his sovereign from humil iation. Having obtained his own terms
from the weak and ungrateful Ferdi nand, Wallenstein raised his banner, and so much was he beloved by the soldiery that in less than seven days he had armed and equipped 50,000 men at his own cost, and advancing against the suc cessful enemy, drove Gustavus out of Bavaria, and following him into Saxony, forced him at Liitzen to hazard a pitched battle, in which, though the Imperialists were defeated, the death of Gustavus, who fell in the moment of victory, was considered an ample equivalent. The death of the Swedish king made the rest of the war easy, and by Wallenstein's vigilance the empire was again saved. Ferdinand, once more firmly seated on his throne, again became envious of the man to whom he owed both life and crown, and, taking offense at the devo tion of Wallenstein's officers, accused their chief of treason, and issued an order to take him dead or alive. On this Wallenstein fled with a party of friends to the castle of Eger, where its comman der treacherously murdered him and all his devoted friends, in 1634.