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Turncoat Generals – Commanders From History Who Switched Sides

Khalid Elhassan April 3, 2025 17 min

Turncoat - Benedict Arnold — Benedict Arnold. Smithsonian Magazine

7. A Commander Who Kept Switching Sides

Wallenstein at his camp, by Rudolf Otto von Ottenfeld, 1913. Wikimedia

Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein (1583 – 1634) was a Protestant Bohemian soldier who treated soldiering and war as financial transactions and business moves. He commanded the Holy Roman Empire’s armies during the Thirty Years War, fought for the Catholics, turned coat to join the Protestants, switched back to the Catholics once again, and only his sudden death prevented his turning coat for a third time. Born a Lutheran, Wallenstein was orphaned at age thirteen and raised by an uncle who saw to his education. In 1604, he fought for the Hapsburgs and ingratiated himself with them and the influential Jesuits at their court by nominally converting to Catholicism. His Jesuit confessor arranged for him to marry a fabulously wealthy elderly widow with huge estates. Her wealth and lands, which Wallenstein inherited after her death in 1614, instantly vaulted him into the ranks of the Hapsburg realm’s most powerful figures.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.