Germany and Adjoining Territories, 1620 J Habsburg: Lands of the Wenceslas Crown ] Habsburg ] Brandenburg ] Wittelsbach Bavaria Hamburg Electorate of Saxony Boundary of the German i Be of Bre part of the Empire 1 Munster Brunswick Boundary7 of the Empire United outside Germany Provinces Han Boundary of the Lower Saxon Circle Lands that became Munster Wallenstein’s Ghent Cologne Brussels Lte of Hesse Frankfurt Lower Palatinate R Uppei Stuttgart Strasburg \yur^ern^erg FRANCE ¡SundgauV BaseL? Branche Comté y SWITZERLAND Lyon Dy of Savoy Mantua' 300 km K Dy of ^yýDy of Parma Modeně Danzig Dy of Prussia • Rostock •Güstrow Wolgasr ^Dyof (Mecklenburg ) f^omerania El of Brandenburg Warsaw Berlin POLAND Sagan GIogai Lusatia El of Saxo . Dy of Siles\ fS'L)y of . > Friedland ••••Gitschii Cracow Prague Olniütz nate < Kingdoms f Bohemia Mte of Moravia Coding Znaim. HUNGjARY Austria Gollersdorf avaria^^y^ ? v Vienna MunichS ” "'''"f ,s^bur® OTTOMAN EMPIRE Dy of Styria Abbreviations Be = Bishopric Dy of Abe = Archbishopric y Carinthia Dy = Duchy REPUBLIC 'Gdy of Dy of OF VENICE yGorizia Gdy = Grand Duchy Carniola Mte = Margravate Lte = Landgravate El = Electorate ties WALLENSTEIN WALLENSTEIN his life narrated by GOLO MANN Translated by Charles Kessler HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON NEW YORK Original German title: Wallenstein. Sein Leben erzählt von Golo Mann Copyright © 1971 by S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main English translation © 1976 by André Deutsch Limited, London, and Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. All rights reserved Published simultaneously in Canada by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Limited. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mann, Golo, 1909- WaUenstein, his life narrated. I. Wallenstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von, Herzog zu Friedland, 1583-1634. D270.W19M313 943’.O4’O924 [B] 76-4721 ISBN 0-03-091884-7 First published in the United States in 1976 Designer: Robert Eames Printed in Great Britain 10 987654321 Contents Foreword to the English-Language Edition 7 Childhood: A Mosaic with Many Stones Missing 9 The World in which he will have to Live 29 He Seeks his Course and Finds Help 60 He Observes the Ways of the World and Cautiously 88 Obtrudes The Bohemian Revolution 107 Bílá Hora 128 Victors? Return 146 Major Matters 169 Europe’s Feeble Resistance 193 Duke and Duchy 211 The Offer 253 The First Generalate 278 Germany’s Subjugation 331 An Adversary 382 Stralsund 401 Mecklenburg 418 Dialectics of Victory 438 Belief in The Stars 488 The Dismissal 496 Restless Retirement 537 The Duel 582 6 WALLENSTEIN The Labyrinth 666 The Camp at Pilsen 746 Piccolomini 790 Wallensteint Death 813 A Final Chapter 845 Postscript on Annotation 884 Bibliography 885 Index 887 Foreword to the English-Language Edition he English-language edition of my book has had to forgo the T scholastic backing found in the original. Instead I would like briefly to comment here on what my method of work has been. I have used the sources. All published ones - there are over twenty volumes of letters by Wallenstein, to Wallenstein, about Wallenstein - as well as unpublished ones located in the Prague State Archives. These would indeed have provided much else which is now being gradually disclosed, but hardly anything that could materially affect my delinea­ tion. My ambition was to write the definitive Wallenstein biography. A number of German critics have remarked that the book is also literature. To that I raise no objection. Should it however be claimed that it is simply literature, then I must protest. Literature lets the reader off more lightly than I can. This is a true story, not an invented one. In the original there is one annotation for every five sentences. The two “Nocturnal Fantasies”, attempts at the art of interior monologue, are the exception. They amount to not half a per cent of the whole. The historian has always to try to do two different things simul­ taneously. He must swim with the stream of events, allowing himself to be carried along as though he had been present. He must from outside converge on his subject from various directions, a later, better-informed observer, and catechize it, yet never quite have it in the hollow of his hand. How to combine these two methods so as to yield a semblance of homogeneity and without the narrative falling apart, that would be a man of letters’ concern. In this book the first approach preponderates. It even colours the language, which dallies distantly with that of the seventeenth century. In the text I have abstained from argument with my precursors. Illusion would have been destroyed. A few “discoveries” were made. That, for example, Wallenstein’s famous “Contract with the Emperor”, in 1632 and the all too favourite subject of donnish investigation, never existed but, like so much in the case of this life, is sheer legend. The kind of thing said as in an aside. Amidst the flow of facts it did not play the part 8 WALLENSTEIN which lay within the scope of the abstract personality elaborated by its proud detector. Another instance. During the last year of his life Wallenstein, aware of the great war imminent between France and Spain, wanted to keep Germany out of those hostilities. Nevertheless this strand of motivation was in his mind so entangled with others that I allowed it only discreet reverberation. At no point have I portrayed Wallenstein’s character. His career, as he dealt and was dealt by, his actions and reactions, constitutes his character. Of course that holds good for every historical figure. For this one in particular, though, because the issue is an individuality at once very strong and exuberant, eventually erupting into forfeiture of his own identity. I have given no summing up, no final verdict. Reality knows none. Marx, I am convinced, was in error. There is no single secret gist behind, nor due to, historical phenomena. Words and deeds show what men are and how events take shape. Narration and eluddation synchron­ ize. Should my book leave the English-language reader discontent, the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the author, not the translator. The latter has performed a difficult task in a way that could neither have been bettered nor more happily accomplished. I wish to thank him for it. GOLO MANN