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9.
Wallenstein's importance for North-Bohemia
Of
the many military leaders of the 30 Years War one was of
special importance for the Germans in Bohemia: Wallenstein. He
was born 1583 in Hermanitz at the Elbe as Albrecht von
Waldstein, and in spite of this name he was a descendent of an
old Czech lineage. His education began at the Lutheran Latin
School in Goldberg, Silesia, and continued at the Lutheran
University of Altdorf, near Nuremberg. Later on, he was
introduced into the Catholic society by Jesuits in Rome.
Through marriage this impoverished East-Bohemian squire
ascended to being an important Moravian landowner. His second
wife opened him the way into the higher nobility. During these
years, he had emerged as a great business manager, and
soldiering served him as a means to an end. He consolidated
his estate and pondered how he, as a private person, could
profit from the immense sums of money the state was
squandering on the war. He bought, sold, bartered and attained
in just a few years a practically closed area in North-Bohemia
extending from his inherited estate at the upper Elbe, across
the bow of this river to its exit from Bohemia. The duchy of
Friedland alone covered some sixty estates.
During
the 30 Years War, Wallenstein, as he then called himself,
offered his services to his imperial friend Kaiser Ferdinand
II to raise an army. He organized a modern, orderly force,
segmented in regiments, uniformly equipped with weapons,
helmets and headware. An administrative system provided
camping facilities, food and pay. This required a rigorous
discipline attainable only by paying the soldiers punctually
and not exposing them to hungriness. Wallenstein raised the
money by means of severe but regulated levies. The payments
went into the coffers of Wallenstein's army and from there
into coffers of his Bohemian property management which
provided whatever the army needed. North-Bohemia produced all
sorts of military materials. The powder mills, blacksmith
shops, clothiers and saddlers found work in heretofore unknown
volumes. This gave birth to the first cohesive regional
economy in central Europe, uniformly organized and promoted by
government. Approximately two thirds of this economic region,
i.e. the Duchy of Friedland, was located in German-speaking
areas. The war economy brought earnings large enough to enable
other lines of trade to prosper as well, such as glass
grinding, the cloth and linen weaving mills, paper mills.
Although these conditions lasted for only about half a
lifetime, it was a determining period for the further
development of Bohemia, especially German Bohemia.
Regardless
of how one views Wallenstein as a person, his martial skills
or his death, for the Sudetenlanders he remains a vivid
beholder of a "Bohemian Nationality", embodying a
closely bonded German and Czech heritage free of conflict.
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