24 Wallenstein
Two developments led to a more active confrontation. Firstly inside
a month Thurn headed south with several thousand troops in order to
force Bohemian cities which had not immediately endorsed the revolt
to come into line. However an advance south could be seen in Vienna
as a threat to the Austrian heartland, thus strengthening the position of
those calling for military action against the revolt. Secondly in mid-July
1618 Ferdinand, aided and abetted by the emperor’s brother Archduke
Maximilian, carried out what amounted to a coup d’état by having
Matthias’s principal minister, Cardinal Melchior Khlesl, kidnapped and
locked away, after which Ferdinand effectively controlled the govern-
ment himself. Military preparations were promptly speeded up, and with
the aid of Spanish money and generals, Counts Bucquoy and Dampierre,
a first Imperialist army entered Bohemia during August and a second
one set out from Vienna before the end of the month.
Meanwhile the Bohemians had received covert support from the
duke of Savoy, an inveterate anti-Habsburg, who released to them the
small hired army he had until recently employed to assist the Venetians
in their war against Ferdinand. This army, effectively the property of
the freebooting mercenary general Count Ernst Mansfeld, arrived in
Bohemia just in time to prevent the Imperialists from making a deter-
mined advance on Prague, following which both sides preferred to
spend the autumn manoeuvring, skirmishing and ravaging the coun-
tryside rather than risk a major battle. In this Thurn fared rather
better than the Imperialists, while Mansfeld besieged Pilsen (Plzenˇ), an
important city which had not joined the revolt. Its eventual fall in late
November 1618 marked the end of the campaigning season, leaving
the troops to find their winter quarters and the governments to pursue
the conflict through diplomacy and propaganda until military action
could be resumed in the spring.
The revolt had so far been an entirely Bohemian affair, but one
watched anxiously in Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia, which also came under
the Bohemian crown. Moravia sought to mediate, sending a high-level
deputation to Vienna and Prague, comprising two leading Catholics,
Prince Karl Liechtenstein and Cardinal Franz Dietrichstein, together
with the leading Protestant, Wallenstein’s brother-in-law Zierotin.
Prudently the Moravian Estates also prepared to defend themselves if
necessary, mobilis ing their establishment of 2000 cavalry and 3000
infantry in the summer of 1618, the latter commanded by Wallenstein
with his long-standing commission as a Moravian colonel.^1 There can
have been little doubt as to where Wallenstein stood, as a Catholic, a
former long-serving member of Matthias’s entourage, and only recently