"Best 30 Years War General?" Topic

In your opinion, which commander was the best?

Gustavus Adolphus, no contest

Got a soft spot for Tilly, but have to say a toss up between Gustavus and Wallenstien.

Gustavus Adolphus.

Another vote for the Swede!

Gustavus Adolphus.

Gustavus Adolphus.

Gustavus Adolphus certainly was a great.

Wallenstien.

Another plug for Gustavus Adolphus. Although Wallenstien was no slouch.

Wallenstien!

I always find this question tough.

GAs major battle results in German were, won one, lost one, drew one. But he certainly introduced a major sea change to European tactics of the time. And that alone probably earns him the title.

But then you have people like Turenne, who hung around a lot longer, had a lot more battlefield victories, and a significantly stabilising effect on French political history for the seventeenth century.

So, in terms of impact on the military history of the TYW overall -

Gustavaus closely followed by Wallenstein

In terms of battlefield success during the TYW -

Turenne, with Tilly in second place.

Tilly was practically unbeaten for over 30 years until he he was defeated by GA. By then he was in his 70s so possibly past his best. Wallenstein beat GA. OK, technically he lost Lutzen – but GA died… Also, he was a brilliant organiser and had to cope with fighting his own side as much as the enemy and was eventually assassinated by them…

So in the broader term I'm inclined to put both Tilly and Wallenstein above GA.

Phillius,
You are aware that there are a number of commanders who achived greater success on the battlefield during the TYW than Turenne? Torstensson to name one.

Turenne would become one of history's finest commanders in time but he had not yet reached that point during the TYW. As an independet commander he was badly defeated at Mergentheim and did not achive a single major battlefield victory. Conde was in command at the bloody French "victories" at Freiburg and Allerheim while Turenne held command jointly with Wrangel at Zusmarhausen.
Now to be fair he outperformed Conde at both Freiburg and Allerheim but while his actions at Allerheim in particular won the French the day they were not enough to balance out the set backs suffered elsewhere on the battlefield.

Also your score for Gustavus is incorrect, Gustavus waged war in Germany for roughly 28 months measured from the intital invasion to his death. In that time he personaly fought in the following battles:
The battle of Breitenfeld 1631(victory)
The battle of Rain am Lech 1632(victory)
The battle of Alte Veste 1632(defeat)
The battle of Lützen 1632(undecided at time of death)

GA was also involved a number of smaller scale "Actions" of which the more well known and sizeable were
The Action at Burgstall 1631 (victory)
The Crossing of the Rhine 1632 (victory)
The Action at Burgthan 1632 (victory)

The you have the assault operations like the Storm of Frankfurth & assault on Greifhagen. Frankfurt and Alte Veste are not that diffrent given that both were assaults on fortified positions, the only difference is that at Alte Veste the fortifications surrounded a military camp while at Frankfurt they protected a town. The actual number of troops engaged were also similar so one could argue that if Alte Veste is to be counted as a "lost battle" then Frankfurt an der Oder also ought to count as a victory.

I'm going to put in a bid for the Duc d'Enghein / le Grand Condé because he beat an 'invincible' army at the age of 21 (and because he was featured in 'Great Military Battles' which I was given one Christmas and which is the first book on military history I ever possessed}: link

Plus, he looks like a hero from 'The Flashing Blade":

Well it is fairly easy to remain unbeaten for 30 years if you spend many of those years at peace, the Langer Türkenkrieg ended in 1606, Tilly withdrew into civilian life two years later and sold all of his war related equipment in order to keep his creditors at bay. In 1610 he accepted Duke Maximilians offer to become Lieutenant-General of Catholic Leauge but he would not see action again until 1620. So at least 12 of the 30 years were not spent at war, the years of interal Habsburg strife which drove Tilly to end his military service were not exactly peace but neither were they full scale war.
Once active in the TYW he would achive an impressive string of victories fully justifying his nickname of "Der alte schlachtmeister" (The old battlemaster) but suffered a rare defeat at the hands of Mansfeld at Mingolsheim (1622).

There is little evidence that age diminished Tilly's spirit and abilities, he came closer to winning at Breitenfeld than he usually get credit for and despite his wounds he was back in the field in the Spring of 1632 and inflicted a sharp defeat on Gustav Horn at Bamberg. His defensive line at the Lech was well planned and as good as the shortage of troops allowed. It is doubtfull that any TYW army but the Swedish would have even attempted the crossing let alone been successfull.

I would actually argue that another Swede was in purely military terms the equal of Gustavus and almost as important for the course of the war.

Lennart Torstensson was undefeated during his tenure as Fieldmarshal and supreme commander of the Swedish troops in Germany. Between 1641 and 1645 he would win 3 battles. (Schweidnitz, 2nd Breitenfeld and Jankow), overrun much of Denmark, use manouver warfare to destroy Gallas Imperial army in 1644 and last but not least he would reach the gates of Vienna. He did this while being ever more ill from rheumatism, by late 1645 he was an invalid in all but name. While the campaign of 1645 ground to a halt outside Brünn and would fail to bring decisive victory it did establish the Swedes in a position of strenght from which they could not be forced.

While Torstensson lacked some of Gustavus strenghts (such as the King's exceptional battlefield charisma) he also lacked several of Gustavus flaws & weaknesses. This made him possibly the most well rounded commander of the war and one wonders what he would have had achived if he had not been in such poor health.

A toss up between GA and Torstensson who had an admirable career.

Daniel, yes, I was thinking about the Lech but left it out as I thought the numbers involved were much smaller than the other engagements? But I may have been wrong.

Yes, I keep forgetting about Turenne developing more after the TYW, and agree with your summation of his achievements in that war.

The crossing of the Lech involved 37000 Swedish troops against 22000 Catholic Leauge & Imperial regulars (plus unknown number of Bavarian militia). Neither side got all of it's troops into action before the Bavarians decided to withdraw but even if you only count the troops engaged it was Gustavus' 3rd largest battle. In actual numbers engaged Alte Veste was the smallest of the battles though both sides had large numbers of uncommited troops at hand.

Wallenstein for me.

As always the question is what qualifies a commander as the "best"? As wargamers we tend towards looking mainly at battles yet most TYW commanders did not regard large scale field battles as a sure way to gain an advantage. Torstensson was undefeated in battle yet wrote the following:

"There is nothing more hazardous than to venture a battle. One can lose it by a thousand unforseen circumstances, even when one has thorougly taken all precautions that the most perfect military skill allows for."

And even if one only looks at battles and "actions" is a large number of victories over enemies that were inferior in quality and leadership worth more than one or a few victories over veteran troops led by good or even outstanding commanders?

Not taking logistics or war economics into account would also bias the scoring system against some commanders, notably Wallenstein.

There is also the fact that the war went on for so long that no commander held his position for the entire lenght of the war. And like the the earlier 100YW the TYW was really a series of separate but connected wars so it would perhaps be more fair to break down the war into sub-periods and select a "best" commander for each of them?