Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly
Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly was a field marshal who commanded the Catholic League's forces in the Thirty Years' War. From 1620–31, he had an unmatched and demoralizing string of important victories against the Protestants, including White Mountain, Wimpfen, Höchst, Stadtlohn and the Conquest of the Palatinate. He destroyed a Danish army at Lutter and sacked the Protestant city of Magdeburg, which caused the death of some 20,000 of the city's inhabitants, both defenders and non-combatants, out of a total population of 25,000.
Count Tilly on a portrait by Anthony van Dyck.
Bronze statue of Count Tilly in the Feldherrnhalle on Odeonsplatz in Munich
Statue of Tilly in Altötting
Statue of Tilly in the hall of fame of the Museum of Military History, Vienna
The Catholic League was a coalition of Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire formed 10 July 1609. While initially formed as a confederation to act politically to negotiate issues vis-à-vis the Protestant Union, modelled on the more intransigent ultra-Catholic French Catholic League (1576), it was subsequently concluded as a military alliance "for the defence of the Catholic religion and peace within the Empire".
Mural in Donauwörth in memory of the Kreuz- und Fahnengefecht
Foundation of the Catholic League, 1870 painting by Karl von Piloty
Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria
Frederick V of the Palatinate as King of Bohemia