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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

5. Nipping Another Coat Turn in the Bud

The murder of Wallenstein. Meister Drucke

Wallenstein’s success and ambition, plus fears that he was about to turncoat, led Emperor Ferdinand to remove him from command in 1630. The Protestants recovered, and particularly under Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolphus, won a series of stunning victories. Ferdinand reasoned that that a potentially treasonous general was better than incompetent ones, and recalled Wallenstein. He stabilized the situation by defeating Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Alte Veste in 1632, and killed him at the Battle of Lutzen later that year. However, Wallenstein grew increasingly resentful of his treatment by Ferdinand. He did little to hide his intent to switch sides and defect to the Protestant cause by joining the Swedes, as soon as he negotiated an agreeable deal. Word got back to Ferdinand that Wallenstein planned to turncoat, however, so he nipped the problem in the bud by having the problematic general murdered in 1634.

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.