Wolfgang von Mansfeld

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolfgang (III.) Count von Mansfeld (also Wolf ) (* 1575 ; † May 15, 1638 in Vienna ) initially served as an officer and envoy to various princes before he entered the imperial service . Most recently he was Field Marshal and Privy Councilor .

Wolfgang von Mansfeld

family

He was the son of Count Bruno II von Mansfeld-Vorderort from the Bornstedt line. The mother was Christine, née Countess von Barby und Mühlingen . He was the older brother of Bruno and Philipp von Mansfeld , both of whom later entered the imperial service. In 1618 Wolfgang married Sophie Schenk von Tautenburg , widowed Countess zu Solms -Sonnenwalde. With this he had five children.

Life

He served on the imperial side in the campaigns in Hungary and distinguished himself in the 1605 siege of Gran . During the Jülich-Klevischen succession dispute he served the Elector of Saxony as envoy in France. When it came to open combat in 1610, he served in the Saxon military service. After that he was temporarily governor of Darmstadt in the Hessian service before returning to the Saxon service. He was the ambassador of Electoral Saxony when Ferdinand II was elected.

At the beginning of the Thirty Years War in 1620 , he led the emperor to auxiliary troops from Saxony in Lusatia . Among other things, he took part in the siege of Bautzen .

Then he finally went into imperial service. In 1623 he became the commandant of Raab . For service rendered, he received the Lords Schluckenau and Hainspach . In 1624 he led the allied Spaniards to auxiliary troops in Italy. Back from Italy he probably had the honor of wearing the orb at Ferdinand's coronation as King of Hungary . In 1627 he converted to Catholicism. In the same year the emperor gave him Rothenburg . In 1628 he served as the imperial commissioner in the Bohemian parliament in Prague . He also became governor of the Archbishopric Magdeburg and the Hochstift Halberstadt . There he represented a strictly counter-Reformation course and only wanted to tolerate Catholics in Magdeburg. He wanted to rename the city Marienburg, but met with resistance from the emperor. He raised a new imperial army of 20,000 men with a meeting point near Ulm .

In the battle for Magdeburg he was used on a particularly competitive section. After the city was conquered and destroyed, he became its commander. During this time, his own territory was looted. After the Battle of Breitenfeld he had to leave his castle to the Swedes.

The Swedish troops locked him in Magdeburg in 1632. He successfully defended the city until the besiegers withdrew from the approaching Pappenheim . Mansfeld for his part withdrew with his only 2,000 men due to a lack of food in early 1633. He had had the fortifications blown up beforehand. Then he returned to his post in Raab. He was also the imperial chamberlain and from 1632 imperial councilor.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mansfeld, Wolfgang von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION imperial field marshal
DATE OF BIRTH 1575
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1638
Place of death Vienna