In the battle, Imperial troops under Octavio Piccolomini defeated the Swedish army under Field Marshal Johan Baner.

In preparation for the campaign against Regensburg, Swedish troops under Johan Baner made their winter quarters in 1640/1641 in the Upper Palatinate at Cham near the Bohemian border, with the aim of joining forces with the regiments of the French commander, Jean Baptiste Budes de Guébriant.

[1] Baner was forced to beat a hasty retreat to Saxony using the shorter route via Bohemian soil, pursued by Imperial cavalry regiments.

Piccolomini sought to pre-empt Baner's move by taking a shorter, but more difficult route across the crest of the Ore Mountains to occupy the Preßnitz passes in the Bohemian Forest, but he was half-an-hour too late.

The Swedish infantry, covered by the cannon behind the wagon fort, had an advantage over the heavy imperial cavalry in the thickly snow-covered and muddy terrain, but their opponent's superiority in numbers proved too much.