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Trčka’s Gorget

by Matias Travieso-Diaz

There’s no such thing as chance
And what to us seems merest accident
Springs from the deepest source of destiny.

Friedrich Schiller, The Death of Wallenstein, Act II, Scene III

On February 24, 1634, Generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland and Mecklenburg, arrived in Eger, western Bohemia, from his army’s winter quarters in Pilsen. He was lodged in town, in a large residence known as the Pachelbel house that served as headquarters to Colonel John Gordon, the commandant of the citadel and town of Eger.

Upon his arrival, Gordon invited Wallenstein and his top lieutenants to a banquet at the Eger Castle. Wallenstein was in ill health and declined the invitation, but his four top lieutenants accepted it. They were Adam Erdmann Trčka von Lípa, General Christian Count Ilow, Count Wilhelm Kinsky, and cavalry captain Heinrich Nieman. Trčka was one of Wallenstein’s closest confidants, and the two were related by marriage.

Readers familiar with the violence and subterfuge which had characterized the Thirty Years’ War will not be surprised that the banquet invitation was part of a plot developed by Gordon, Colonel Walter Butler (who led a regiment of nine hundred Irish dragoons in Wallenstein’s army), and others to carry out an order issued by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II that the decorated hero be brought under arrest to Vienna, dead or alive. The conspirators had decided that Wallenstein was to be put to death.

The Bohemian warlord was by then supreme military leader of the Holy Roman Empire and had led the Imperial Catholic forces to victory in repeated encounters with Protestant German states and their foreign allies, then Denmark and Sweden, in the protracted internal war that had racked the Empire since 1618. However, starting in 1633 he had become less active in pursuing the war effort and was rumored to be planning to force Ferdinand II to reach a peaceful settlement on Wallenstein’s terms. The Generalissimo was accused of negotiating with Protestant German states, Sweden, and France to achieve his plans and further aggrandize himself, perhaps by becoming king of Bohemia. Those reports had prompted Ferdinand to order that Wallenstein be imprisoned or killed.

The four invitees arrived at Eger Castle in their carriages, wearing formal attire but no armor, for this was billed as a celebration among friends. Trčka, however, had on a “parade gorget” over his civilian clothes. An ornate gilded collar with plates which covered the upper chest and back, it was a fancy ornament besides being a protective device.

Dessert was being served at the banquet when Captain Walter Devereux with twelve dragoons of Butler’s contingent and Sergeant Major Geraldine with another eight burst into the dining room from opposing doors, surprising the banquet guests. Wallenstein’s lieutenants were set upon by the dragoons, who slayed Kinsky, Ilow and Nieman before they could attempt to defend themselves. Trčka, however, was bruised with blows but his gorget protected him from serious injury. He bounded through the back door and ran out of the castle, but was shot in the courtyard by a group of musketeers that Gordon had deployed to prevent any of the victims from escaping. Trčka lay on the ground for a few minutes, unmoving, while the musketeers turned their attention to three of Trčka’s servants, who had been posted outside the castle and came in defense of their master brandishing knives and cudgels.

While the servants were being dispatched, Trčka got up and lost himself in the darkness of the castle grounds. He was wounded, but the gorget had prevented musket balls from penetrating his chest. He proceeded to Eger town and tumbled to the Pachelbel house, pounding on its door desperately. As the startled servants opened the way into the residence, Trčka bellowed: “Quick! Awaken the Duke! I fear they are coming to kill him!”

#

Wallenstein and Trčka managed to escape from Eger less than an hour before their executioners arrived. Traveling all night and the following day in Trčka’s carriage, they went east towards the most isolated rural area of his vast estates in Bohemia. Wallenstein was suffering terribly from his gout, which the long carriage trip had aggravated. Nonetheless, after a fitful day seeking to recover from the voyage, he insisted: “We must find a way to reach the Emperor and seek his pardon. I cannot risk being captured and do not desire to lead the life of a fugitive.”

“Why do you think the Emperor would want to pardon you? He is probably behind the assassination attempt” questioned Trčka.

“He clearly does not trust me, but the Swedes and the Protestants will take advantage of my absence to make mincemeat out of the imperial armies, as happened years ago at Breitenfeld and Rain. Before we know, they will be marching into Vienna. So, Ferdinand will sooner or later realize he needs me. Hopefully sooner.”

After hesitating for a day, they decided that neither could safely attempt to approach the Emperor in person, and would need to send an emissary to make Wallenstein’s case before Ferdinand II. They selected for this purpose Hans Ulrich von Schaffgotsch, a Bohemian nobleman who had been promoted to the rank of general by Wallenstein, and later elevated to become Field Marshal. He headed the Empire’s military operations in Silesia and had been one of the signatories of the First Pilsner Reverse, a declaration of personal loyalty to Wallenstein that many of his officers had signed just before the assassination plot was hatched.

Schaffgotsch was stationed in Troppau, Silesia, and Trčka immediately went to meet him and asked him to perform a great service to Wallenstein: the marshal was to rush to Vienna and seek an audience with Ferdinand II to present Wallenstein’s protestations of loyalty and convey the generalissimo’s proposal to cede his Mecklenburg duchy to the Emperor and raise an army out of his own pocket to fend off the Swedish threat. Schaffgotsch, who was an honorable man and beholden to his hero, agreed to plead his case to the Emperor and left for Vienna a week after the foiled attempt on Wallenstein’s life.

It would have been difficult for Schaffgotsch to gain admission to the Hofburg to meet with the Emperor, but one of Ferdinand’s ministers was of Bohemian ancestry and distantly related to the man’s family. He alerted the Emperor of Schaffgotsch’s claim to speak on behalf of Wallenstein and arranged for him to meet with Ferdinand II.

The meeting did not go well. The Emperor tried to learn Wallenstein’s hiding place by threatening the general with torture and execution. Schaffgotsch was not moved by the threat and, after being incarcerated, continued to press for acceptance of Wallenstein’s proposals.

Wallenstein’s fate remained unresolved for several weeks, until the Emperor received notice that a Swedish army was reinforcing the blockage of the Spanish Road, an overland supply route running from Italy to Flanders through the western states of the Empire. The Road was used by Spain, then allied to the Empire, to move troops in support of her war against the Dutch Republic. Spain was offering to send an army to help dislodge the Swedish from the Road, but Ferdinand had reservations about their ability to carry the day against the well-organized Swedes. Teetering between various alternatives, Ferdinand finally released Schaffgotsch from imprisonment and agreed to reinstate Wallenstein to command the Imperial forces, provided the latter made good on his other promises and was able to raise an army of 20,000 men to bolster the Spanish contingent.

Ultimately, Wallenstein accepted the Emperor’s terms, with one caveat: he would be the sole leader of the combined armies, repeating a statement he had made two years earlier following his reinstatement after an earlier dismissal: “Never would I accept a divided command, were God Himself to be my coadjutant.” Ferdinand had no alternative but to again place the Empire’s military fortunes wholly in Wallenstein’s hands.

#

Wallenstein’s assumption of the command of the Empire’s forces was providential. On September 6, 1634, the army raised by Wallenstein, augmented by Spanish contingents, arrived at the southern Bavarian town of Nördlingen, which was then held by the Swedes. There, they engaged and decisively defeated a Swedish-German army commanded by Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. That victory forced the Swedish forces to retreat from Bavaria.

Wallenstein then set out to bring the war effort to the Protestant states of Northern Germany, and that threat forced the elector of Saxony to sue for peace, culminating in the signature of the Peace of Prague on 30 May 1635, under whose terms Saxony and many of the Protestant states reconciled with Emperor Ferdinand II. One of the Peace provisions was the rescission of the Edict of Restitution, issued by the Emperor in 1629. The Edict had reversed the secularization of lands held under Catholic church officials who had converted to Protestantism, and had resulted in the expulsion of thousands of peaceful Protestants from their homes.

The Peace of Prague and the rescission ended the religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant states and resulted in the consolidation of all the armed forces loyal to the Emperor into an Imperial army led by Wallenstein. It did not end the war, however. France, which up to that point had not participated directly in the hostilities, hired mercenaries led by Bernard of Saxe-Weimar for an offensive in the Rhineland on France’s behalf, and then entered the conflict itself as an ally of Sweden. Later that year Wallenstein routed the Swedish armies in northern Germany in the Battle of Wittstock and forced Sweden to end its active participation in the conflict.

Wallenstein then continued to lead campaigns against the French-sponsored forces through the rest of 1636, and early the following year engaged the mercenary army led by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and defeated it decisively in the Battle of Rheinfelden. He then led an Imperial army into Alsace, threatening Paris and forcing the humiliated French to sue for peace.

In December of 1637, the Diet of Regensburg met to formally approve the selection of Ferdinand III as the heir to the Empire to replace his father, Ferdinand II, who had passed away months earlier. Wallenstein appeared before the Diet and forcefully argued that the electors should surrender their sovereignty and accept fully the command of the Emperor. “There must be a unified Germany, speaking with a single voice in its dealings with other nations, and the head and sole, uncontested leader of our nation should be the Emperor. The power of such a united Germany has just been demonstrated by our decisive victory over France. I am the loyal instrument of the Holy Roman Empire, and shall fight against all foreign powers that try to occupy our lands and dictate our destiny.” Wallenstein was never subtle: his plea was given weight by the presence in Regensburg of a force of over ten thousand troops, which he had pointedly deployed in the center of the city, in full view of the Town Hall where the electors met. Unsurprisingly, the assembly voted to bestow sole power over foreign affairs upon the Emperor.

The wars in Germany came to an end in early 1638, and the belligerent parties – France, Sweden, the Holy Roman Empire, and the remaining German states that had opposed the Emperor – negotiated a peace treaty, which was signed in Münster the summer of 1639. Under the treaty, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire was recognized by all parties.

Thereafter, the unified German state became a major force that served as a check against France’s territorial ambitions for many years to come; while Spain and France continued their ongoing conflict over the Low Countries, that war, and others that followed, had to be carried out outside the boundaries of Germany.

Wallenstein died of his many infirmities shortly after the Münster peace treaty was signed. He never carried out retribution against those who had attempted to assassinate him, and failed to achieve his reputed goal of becoming King of Bohemia. Yet, despite the flaws in his character – he was calculating, shrewdly acquisitive, duplicitous, and enormously ambitious – he would be revered by future generations as the father of the modern German state.

~

Bio:

Born in Cuba, Matias Travieso-Diaz migrated to the United States as a young man. He became an engineer and lawyer and practiced for nearly fifty years. After retirement, he took up creative writing. Over one hundred and fifty of his short stories have been published or accepted for publication in a wide range of anthologies and magazines, blogs, audio books and podcasts. A first collection of his stories, “The Satchel and Other Terrors” is available on Amazon and other book outlets; additional anthologies of his work are scheduled for publication in 2025.

Philosophy Note:

I took to creative writing a few years after my retirement from a career as engineer and lawyer. The transition was demanding, for it forced me to call upon my fifty years of experience in objective, fact-based writing and refocus it to generate works in which reality must join hands with (and is often replaced by) visions of the world as it could, or should, be. This type of writing is intended to elicit consideration of new or controversial ideas, views on world history, and philosophies, as exemplified by works like Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World. I find such stories difficult to create but always satisfying. Journals, like Sci Phi, that publish writing of this type make an important contribution to the realm of literature and the thoughtful consideration of new or alternative concepts of human society.

Bentham In Hell

by Alexander B. Joy

[A stone plateau, wreathed in flame. At its center, the celebrated English philosopher JEREMY BENTHAM is stretched over a rack. RIMMON, a talkative and affable demon, operates the controls at his side.]

RIMMON: Well, Mr. Bentham, I’m afraid I’m not allowed to apologize for the accommodations. Any discomfort you feel is rather more a feature than a bug, you see. Comes with the territory and all. But, with any luck, perhaps you’ll not be down here long.

BENTHAM: That’s something of a relief to hear, Mr.—

[Nearby, human bodies soar upward and out of view like marionettes yanked offstage, taking Bentham’s attention with them.]

RIMMON: Be seeing you!

[A few moments pass before Bentham collects himself.]

BENTHAM: You know, I had previously believed the colonies’ violent rebellion over tea taxes would prove the most bizarre sight my eyes would ever witness, but that airborne train of humanity eclipses it completely. Please do pardon my distraction. Nonetheless, I apologize for the rudeness of abandoning you mid-sentence, Mr… Ah…

RIMMON: Rimmon, sir. But I’ve gone by many other names, none of which have managed to offend me. You may call me what you please.

BENTHAM: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Rimmon, it is indeed a relief to imagine that your, ah, most attentive ministrations may not continue in perpetuity. Not solely because I wish an end to your astonishingly painful hospitality (though I confess its cessation would bring me inestimable pleasure), but because it would show me God’s boundless capacity for forgiveness firsthand, and confirm my understanding of His infinite mercy. I could not deny the fundamental goodness of creation if His absolution extends even to the pits of Hell to grant mercy to old sinners like me.

RIMMON: Oho, my dear Mr. Bentham! There is no such God. And I say this not to compound your despair, but to relate a matter of fact. Consider it knowledge extended as a professional courtesy to one who loved wisdom in life. Truly, how could you believe that the God of Deuteronomy – who threatens damnation over something as trifling as mixing fabrics! – could ever be a god of mercy? Ah, look over there! A new shipment is arriving. I’d bet you good money my old friend Gloria is included.

BENTHAM: A new what now?

[In the distance, shrieking bodies drop from unseen heights like irregular hailstones. Bentham regards them with bewilderment.]

BENTHAM: But I don’t understand, my good Mr. Rimmon. If an all-forgiving God is not part of the equation, how else might I be delivered of this agonizing place?

RIMMON: Why, Mr. Bentham, because of the rules. For mortals like yourself, Heaven and Hell are contingent states.

BENTHAM: Sir, you leave me still more confused.

RIMMON: Then further professional courtesy is in order! I suppose I should begin with what may constitute good news from your perspective.

BENTHAM: I would welcome the momentary reprieve from my current anguish, Mr. Rimmon.

RIMMON: Ha ha! That’s the spirit, Mr. Bentham. In that case, it is my honor and privilege to inform you that your vision of ethics was, in fact, correct. How did you put it again? “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong?” Such a lovely turn of phrase! You truly hit the nail on the head with that one – recognizing that the fallout of an action is what matters, intention be damned. (Do pardon the choice of terminology. I haven’t your gift of diction.) Well, what do you say to that? Surely it pleases a philosopher like yourself to learn that he’s managed to carve reality at the joints!

BENTHAM: It does bring me some measure of satisfaction to be told I’ve articulated a fundamental moral law, though I hope I’ll be pardoned the accompanying twinge of pride. But surely I am not being punished for revealing that truth?

RIMMON: Not at all, Mr. Bentham! If anything, your efforts to communicate it to humanity are a mark in your favor. But you see, we must now apply and extend that moral law of yours. If an action’s goodness depends on how much benefit it has delivered unto the world – and likewise, its wickedness judged in proportion to the mischief it has wrought – then it implies two core facets to every action.

BENTHAM: The first being that the goodness or badness of an action is not inherent in the action itself, but contingent upon its consequences?

RIMMON: Correct, Mr. Bentham, absolutely correct. While the second – and perhaps more important for your purposes – is that this contingency is tied to a particular moment in time.

BENTHAM: How so?

RIMMON: Oho, look at me! Talking shop with such a renowned philosopher! Do forgive my enthusiasm if you find it unbecoming. It’s simply that I’m an ardent fan of your Panopticon; or The Inspection-House. Can’t praise it enough, really. Nor am I alone in my appreciation. Management thinks so highly of it that they named it required reading.

BENTHAM: I assure you, Mr. Rimmon, of all that has transpired throughout our at once too brief and too lengthy acquaintance, this is not what I will hold against you.

RIMMON: You have my thanks. Now then, let us think of an action not as a thing, like a fly-bottle or a stick bent in water, but as an event – a succession of intervals comprising a beginning, middle, and end. For instance, let’s consider… What action shall we consider, Mr. Bentham?

BENTHAM: Freeing me from this exceedingly uncomfortable rack?

RIMMON: An excellent example!

BENTHAM: Or removing the, what did you call them, “urethral centipedes?” In fact, I suggest we strongly consider that one…

[Bentham trails off upon realizing Rimmon is too lost in thought to heed his remarks.]

RIMMON: Now, we could say that the beginning of the action is when I conceive of releasing you from the rack, the middle is when I endeavor to do it, and the end is when I succeed or fail. The point is that all of these do not happen at once. There is a time when the action begins, a time when it executes, and a time when it concludes. Are we agreed?

BENTHAM: I should like to test this particular example first, lest I answer you erroneously.

RIMMON: Ha ha! Why, Mr. Bentham, we both know philosophers are masters of the hypothetical, and have seldom needed to see a thing work in practice in order to declare that it works in theory. Therefore, in that spirit, I shall proceed as though you agree with me. In any case, the takeaway from our example is that timing is everything when it comes to actions, because the state of affairs varies at any given moment. The action is either done, or it isn’t; its consequences either have or have not occurred. And, of course, the consequences of an action function the same way – they are best framed as events. As are their consequences, and those that follow them, and so on.

BENTHAM: I begin to grasp your meaning. We might say that the consequences of an action are always ongoing. Their full extent is never completely realized, because we can only determine the ethical content of their consequences at a given moment in time.

RIMMON: Precisely.

BENTHAM: And in turn, this would mean that the goodness or badness of an action is not determined solely at the time of its commission, but during each successive moment thereafter. For example, we might imagine a city planner who orders the construction of a dam, thereby flooding a small village and displacing its inhabitants. These displaced persons suffer from their forced evacuation, making the city planner’s actions wicked in that moment, before his intended outcomes have been realized. But perhaps the rerouted river provides potable water for thousands more people once the dam and city are completed. At that point, because the increase in happiness has finally taken effect, the city planner’s actions would be considered virtuous. And perhaps his actions would revert to wickedness once more if the residents of his city prove bellicose, and subject blameless neighboring populations to harm.

RIMMON: Indeed so, Mr. Bentham. And thus you arrive at the reason why Heaven and Hell are contingent states. Goodness and badness are matters of unceasing recalculation. As long as time marches on, the moral implications of one’s deeds are never fully settled – and neither is the question of whether a person has proven virtuous or vicious. Therefore, we cannot ever say that someone belongs in Heaven or Hell permanently. The fairest course is to shuttle them between the two in accordance with their present moral state, as computed via the ramifications of their actions at any given moment. Souls are regularly whisked from one to the other and back as their deeds reverberate throughout the ages.

[A lone figure vaults overhead, graceful in flight, as if carried by her volition alone.]

RIMMON: Ah, there goes one now. Why, it’s Gloria again! Look at her graceful ascent heavenward! She’s been down and back several times this past year already. You know, during her first transfer, she was taken by such surprise that she found herself stuck in an undignified posture, and crossed the threshold of Heaven rump first. Ha ha! But by this point, she’s an old hand at the business, and rises through the air like a ballerina leaping across the stage. Awesome move! Or, I had better say, “Sick transit, Gloria!” Onward and upward. Be seeing you.

BENTHAM: But Mr. Rimmon, I’m still unclear on some key matters. What I have I done to wind up here? And how long do you suppose I’ll remain?

RIMMON: The future’s not ours to see, Mr. Bentham. But if I were to venture a prediction… You could remain with me some while yet. After all, the current reason you’re assigned to me is that your magnificent tract on the Panopticon has begotten some rather nasty business.

BENTHAM: Given all we’ve discussed – and my own sorry state at this moment – I am afraid to ask what mischief my work has wrought. And yet I must.

RIMMON: Oh, Mr. Bentham, your Panopticon has done some serious damage indeed. Where to begin? For starters, it has encouraged corporations to intrude upon the private lives of their employees as they claim the need to monitor a steadily more invasive stream of biometrics – from the amount of time their workers spend exercising, to the number of hours they sleep, to the frequency and extent of their lavatory breaks. It has turned remote schooling and standardized testing into a series of increasingly arcane rules that have little to do with actual education, such as demanding students keep their eyes affixed to certain parts of their computer screens in the name of preventing dishonesty. And most heinous of all, Panopticism has armed totalitarian governments with an excuse to claim powers of global surveillance, thereby enabling and expediting the murders of dissidents and journalists and other species of truth-tellers…

BENTHAM: My word!

RIMMON: Yes, my dear Mr. Bentham. It’s a grim situation – for you and the world alike. Take heart, however. The future is vast, and full of possibility. Maybe your departure from this place is imminent. But between you and me, I would suggest you settle in for the long haul.

~

Bio:

Alexander B. Joy lives and works in his native New Hampshire, where he spends the long winters reading the world’s classics and composing haiku. In the nonfiction realm, he typically writes about literature, film, and philosophy. At long last, his Twitter feed (@aeneas_nin) features dog pictures.

Philosophy Note:

This story came to me after a friend and I discussed what the “statute of limitations” on an action should be within a utilitarian framework. How long can action be held against you, for example, and how many subsequent causes would be calculated in an action’s overall utility? I wondered what it would look like if the answers to both were “forever” and “all of them.” What you read here is the result.