However, although significantly weakened by the defeat and forced onto the defensive, the Imperial Army prevented them from fully exploiting their victory and kept John George I, Elector of Saxony from making peace with Sweden.

With the help of their French and Guelph allies, the remnant of the Swedes repelled the Imperials at Wolfenbüttel[7] but only the arrival of Lennart Torstensson in November with fresh recruits and the outstanding pay saved them from mutiny.

Therefore, the Imperial commander Archduke Leopold Wilhelm was compelled to retreat from Genthin in the Bishopric of Magdeburg to move into winter quarters in late February.

While a mobile force under Hans Christoff von Königsmarck raided westward towards Quedlinburg as a distraction, Torstensson moved east to Lusatia from where he invaded Silesia.

The Imperial commander in Silesia, Franz Albrecht of Saxe-Lauenburg, collected a small army of 7,500 men and called Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria for aid.

Leaving a blockading corps at Olomouc, on 25 July his vanguard under Raimondo Montecuccoli defeated a Swedish detachment at Troppau which was screening the siege of Brieg, forcing Torstensson to abandon it and retreat across the Oder river.

Assuming the Swedes were in disorderly retreat, the Archduke and his war council decided to attack against the advice of Piccolomini who considered them too strong for a direct assault.

[1] Despite the disparity in numbers, the two forces were roughly equivalent because the Imperial army included many irregular Croatian and Hungarian cavalry of questionable combat value, as well as some dragoons and old-fashioned arquebusier regiments.

The Imperial right under Annibale Gonzaga and Count Bruay shattered most of the Swedish left under Erik Slang and pushed them back onto their reserve under Königsmarck which continued to resist.

Under pressure from two sides, this broke while Piccolomini and the Archduke used their personal bodyguards along with the Alt- and Neu-Piccolomini, Mislik, Borneval and Luttke regiments as a rear guard to cover their retreat.

Its loss gave the Swedes a secure base in Saxony and was a serious blow to Elector John George, although most of the Imperial prisoners who joined the Swedish army after Breitenfeld deserted during the siege.

Having rebuilt the Imperial Army in Bohemia, Piccolomini arrived outside Freiberg on 27 February, forcing the Swedes to abandon the siege,[22] an action that may have stopped John George from leaving the war.

Confronted with this insubordination, the Archduke resigned his command and in February was temporarily replaced by Piccolomini before he decided to enter Spanish service and stepped down in April.