Terror Tactics or Unauthorized Excesses?: ‘Articles of War’, Discipline, and Atrocity in the Thirty Years’ War

Between late-August and mid-October 1632, thirty-five Saxon towns and villages were burned down by the soldiers of Field Marshal Heinrich Holk in a campaign ordered by the imperial Generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein. However, in 1627 Wallenstein had ordered the execution Colonel Adam Wilhelm Schellart von Dorenwert, Freiherr zu Gürzenich, for committing the same actions in Saxony. This article examines Wallenstein’s apparently contradictory attitude towards the campaigns of Gürzenich and Holk, showing that the acceptability of plunder and terror depended on specific contexts and that the worst ‘excesses’ committed by the imperial troops in Saxony in 1632 were not ordered by Holk. This article highlights the difficulties facing commanders of the Thirty Years’ War in ensuring their soldiers complied with their army’s ‘Articles of War’, contributing to debates on the normativity of violence against civilians and the use of atrocity during the most destructive war in pre-twentieth century Europe.