Battle of Breitenfeld (1642)

For a related battle earlier in the same war, see Battle of Breitenfeld (1631).

Battle of Breitenfeld
Part of the Thirty Years' War
Lennart Torstenson's military campaign in 1642
Date 23 October 1642 Location Breitenfeld, Saxony (present-day Germany) Result Decisive Swedish victory
Belligerents
Swedish Empire	Holy Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Lennart Torstenson	Leopold Wilhelm Ottavio Piccolomini
Strength
15,000	25,000 46 guns
Casualties and losses
4,000 dead or wounded	10,000 dead or wounded 5,000 prisoners

The Second Battle of Breitenfeld, also known as the First Battle of Leipzig (23 October 1642), took place at Breitenfeld (some 7.5 km north-east of Leipzig), Germany, during the Thirty Years' War— fully eleven years after the first battle at the crossroads village had unbottled the Swedish forces under Gustavus II Adolphus wherein he had handed Field Marshal Count Tilly his first major defeat in fifty years of soldiering on the same plain.

Both battles were decisive victories for Swedish led forces during the protracted Thirty Years' War in their intervention on behalf of various Protestant "Princes" of the generally small German states against the German Catholic League formed to stamp out Protestantism in Central Europe.

In this second clash between ideologies for the prized Saxony city of Leipzig, the Protestant forces, led by Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson, defeated an army of the Holy Roman Empire, led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy, Prince-General Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi.

The Imperial army suffered 15,000 casualties, where of 5,000 were taken prisoner. Forty-six guns were also seized. 4,000 Swedes were killed or wounded; among them, General Torsten Stålhandske, who led the Finnish Hakkapeliitta Cavalry, received a serious wound.

The battle enabled Sweden to occupy Saxony. His defeat made Emperor Ferdinand III more willing to negotiate peace, and renounce the Preliminaries of Hamburg.

See also

• Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)
• Battle of Leipzig (1813)