PROBLEMS AND SOURCES

In the period 1625–30 the destruction of old Bohemia was completed by an administrative coup embodied in the Renewed Constitution (Verneuerte Landesordnung, Obnovené zřízení zemské). In this revolutionary change a part was played by Albrecht Wallenstein who, more by management than by military action contributed to averting the ruin which threatened the Habsburg dynasty. Modern historians have quite legitimately focused on the problem of intervention in central Europe by Denmark and the Coalition in 1626–7, on Spanish ‘maritime’ plans in northern Germany, and finally on the ‘Italian period’ of the Thirty Years' War – the conflict over Mantua.

In the 1930s the Wallenstein question was the subject of controversy between Josef Pekař, who saw Wallenstein as a ‘timorous traitor and foolish intriguer’, and Heinrich von Srbik, who regarded the Generalissimo as an idealistic fighter for a united Germany. A. Ernstberger has assessed Wallenstein's greatness as an entrepreneur. In an article ‘Zur Problematik des Dreissigjährigen Krieges und der Wallensteinfrage’ I have attempted to bring together the various aspects of the problem. The basic book now is Wallenstein by Golo Mann. M. Hroch has investigated Wallenstein's government in Mecklenburg and questions of European trade during the war. Our knowledge of Wallenstein's economic activities has been enlarged considerably by two important unpublished dissertations of the Charles University at Prague: K. Vít's work on Jan de Witte and his fall, and K. Stanka's study of mining and manufacture at Raspenava.