Ernst, count von Mansfeld

Ernst, count von Mansfeld (born 1580, Luxembourg—died Nov. 29, 1626, Rakovica, near Sarajevo, Bosnia) was a Roman Catholic mercenary who fought for the Protestant cause during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48); he was the Catholic League’s most dangerous opponent until his death in 1626.

An illegitimate son of Peter Ernst, Fürst (prince) von Mansfeld, governor of the duchy of Luxembourg in the Spanish Netherlands, Mansfeld served in the Habsburg army, first in the Netherlands (from 1594) and then in Hungary (cavalry captain, 1603). In 1610 he accepted a higher position in the army of the Protestant Union, led by Frederick V of the Palatinate. Six years later the Protestant Union allowed Mansfeld to raise a regiment to serve in Italy, where Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy struggled with Spain for control of the marquisate of Mantua.

When the fighting ended in 1618, Charles Emmanuel offered to lend Mansfeld’s regiment to the Bohemian estates, in rebellion against the Habsburgs, and to pay half of its costs if Frederick would pay the rest. The estates appointed Mansfeld general of artillery, and he captured Pilsen (Plzeň); in June 1619, however, Habsburg forces defeated him at Záblatí in southern Bohemia. Eighteen months later, under Johann Tserclaes, count von Tilly, they defeated him again at the Battle of White Mountain. Mansfeld’s forces surrendered to Pilsen shortly afterward.

In 1622, with the aid of Dutch subsidies, Mansfeld raised another army for Frederick in southwest Germany, with the intention of recovering the Palatinate, but Tilly defeated him. Mansfeld now led the remnants of his forces to the Dutch Republic, where, despite another defeat by the Habsburg army that pursued him, he managed to raise the Spanish siege of Bergen op Zoom. Although the Dutch (and later, in 1623, the French) provided small subsidies to maintain Mansfeld’s army, he lacked the resources to mount a campaign.

In 1624 Mansfeld went to England to raise an army for a new anti-Habsburg coalition, and, although he achieved nothing in 1625, he and his allies devised a bold strategy for the following year: while Christian IV of Denmark fought Tilly in Lower Saxony and Prince Gábor Bethlen of Transylvania attacked in Hungary, Mansfeld would march on Bohemia. Opposed by the imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein, however, Mansfeld failed to get across the Elbe at Dessau and so marched toward Hungary, with Wallenstein in hot pursuit. Far from his base and depressed by news of Christian’s defeat by Tilly at the Battle of Lutter (Aug. 27, 1626), Mansfeld signed a cease-fire with the imperialists, intending to return to England via Venice, but he died on his way toward Venetian territory. Despite his many defeats, Mansfeld showed remarkable success in keeping armies together and thus demonstrated the truth of his motto: “War feeds war.”