Johan Tzerclaes, Count of Tilly
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Johann Tserclaes Count of Tilly |
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Count Tilly on a portrait by Anthony van Dyck.
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| Nickname(s) | The Monk in Armor |
| Born | February 1559 Castle Tilly, Walloon Brabant, Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium) |
| Died | 30 April 1632 (aged 73) Ingolstadt, Bavaria |
| Buried at | Altötting |
| Allegiance |
 Spain Holy Roman Empire Bavaria
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| Service/branch |
Army of Flanders Imperial Army |
| Years of service | 1574–1632 |
| Rank | Generalfeldmarschall |
| Battles/wars |
Long Turkish War
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Long Turkish War
Thirty Years' War
Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (Dutch: Johan t'Serclaes; February 1559 – 30 April 1632) was a field marshal who commanded the Catholic League's forces in the Thirty Years' War. He had a string of important victories against the Protestants but was then defeated by forces led by the King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Along with Duke Albrecht von Wallenstein of Friedland and Mecklenburg, he was one of two chief commanders of the Holy Roman Empire’s forces in the first half of the war.
Johann Tserclaes was born in February 1559 in Castle Tilly, Walloon Brabant, now in Belgium, then the Spanish Netherlands. Johann Tserclaes was born into a Roman Catholic Brabantine family and after receiving a Jesuit education in Cologne, he joined the Spanish army at age fifteen and fought under Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza in his campaign against the Dutch forces rebelling in the Eighty Years' War and participated in the successful Siege of Antwerp (1584–1585) in 1585. After this he joined in the Holy Roman Empire’s campaign against the Ottoman Turks in Hungary and Transylvania as a mercenary in 1600 and through rapid promotion became a field marshal in only five years. When the Turkish Wars ended in 1606, he remained in the service of Rudolf II in Prague until he was appointed commander of the Catholic League forces by Bavaria under Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria in 1610.
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