Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly
Commander of the Catholic League army (1559–1632)
Biography
Tilly was born in Brabant, in what is now Belgium. As a young man he learned tercio tactics in the Spanish army, and he gained further experience fighting the Ottoman Empire. He lived simply, never married, and spent his whole life with the army, which earned him the nickname 'the monk in armour'; he was strict with his officers but well trusted by his soldiers.
In 1610 he took charge of training the army of the Catholic League founded by the Duke of Bavaria, and when the Thirty Years' War broke out he led that army into Bohemia. At White Mountain in 1620 he pushed a frontal attack uphill against an enemy holding the high ground and settled the battle in about two hours. Over the following decade he beat the armies of one Protestant prince after another and gained a reputation as a commander who did not lose.
The heaviest shadow over his name is Magdeburg in 1631. After a siege of nearly half a year the city fell, and the fire that followed killed most of its people. Tilly said he had never ordered it, and responsibility is still argued over today, but in Protestant lands he came to stand as a symbol of massacre.
That same year at Breitenfeld he met Gustavus Adolphus's new tactics head-on for the first time. His deep, slow formations were outflanked by the thin, fast-moving Swedish line and broke — his first great defeat. The next spring, defending a river crossing at the Lech, he was hit in the leg by a cannon shot and died of the wound.