Has the Jury reached a verdict?
Ongoing project involving history students in Czech Republic, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, France, Spain and Germany on an epochal event in Eger 1634 which changed European history: the assassination of the head of Emperor Ferdinand’s army Generalissimo Albrecht Valdštejn (Wallenstein) by the young Norman-Irish soldier Captain Walter Devereux on the orders of the Emperor.
Note: This is a study of the character of two individuals in the Thirty Years War whose interaction could be said to have changed the course of European history. The project is being progressed in conjunction with that of Devereux’s descendant, Josef Ryzec – One Man’s Quest.
An incident in the town of Eger (now Cheb) on the border between Bohemia and Saxony on February 1634 could be argued to have changed the course of European history. Sixteen years after the ‘Defenestration of Prague’, a Norman Irish knight from Balmagyr in County Wexford, Walter Devereux, killed the famous and powerful General Wallenstein (Valdštein) on the orders of his emperor, Ferdinand II, who believed that Wallenstein had turned traitor and intended to make peace with the Swedish army.
Devil or hero? Was Walter Devereux a murderous assassin, or a loyal and faithful servant of the Emperor?
Wallenstein, who had been a very effective general leading the Emperor’s army was suspected of wanting to make peace with the opponents (particularly the Swedes) and set himself up as king of Bohemia where he had his power base. What if he had succeeded?
Historians have never been able to agree whether the killing of Wallenstein in Eger in 1634 was a brutal act of murder and treachery, or whether the killing was a justifiable action to stop the traitor Wallenstein going over to the Swedish enemy. But there is ample evidence available which will allow a circumstantial verdict to be reached on one side or the other.
History has been unkind to Walter Devereux. Schiller’s play and most European historians have written him off as a mercenary assassin, interested only in his own self-advancement, who killed a defenceless and ailing old man. But was Schiller a fair witness? And how might Europe have evolved had Wallenstein succeeded in making peace with the Swedish army in 1634? The Czech historian Petr Čornej himself has argued that ‘for almost two centuries scholars have been arguing passionately whether Valdštein betrayed the Emperor Ferdinand II, or the Emperor the Duke, his generalissimo?’ He goes on to say that ‘he (the Duke) had started a complicated game (playing the Swedes off against the Emperor) with a purpose that historians have never satisfactorily explained’.
History students in Czech Republic, Ireland and Sweden are invited to become the jury, do the research, and agree a verdict. The project will, of course, be extendable (depending on interest) to other regions which had been involved in the 30 Years War.
It is expected that the schools selected will co-operate with each other in the research, and the European Union will be asked to provide funding for interchange of participants.
Note:
The first battle of the Thirty Years War was fought at Bíle hora in 1620, so coming up to its 400th anniversary is an appropriate time to launch this project. Funding will be sought from the European Union because this war, ending as it did with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, can be seen as the impetus to the founding of the new Europe, whose reverberations continue down to the present day.
The European Union is at a crucial stage of its existence. The onset of ‘Brexit’ in the UK and the growth of ‘populist’ movements elsewhere threatens a disintegration of the European project which has been developed with great effort and expense. Now is the time for reflection. Now is the time to learn from our common history.