ing the number of the
army; the troops of France and Weimar showed little zeal; those of
Lunenburg forsook the Swedish colours; the Princes also of the House of
Brunswick, after the death of Duke George, had formed a separate treaty
with the Emperor; and at last even those of Hesse quitted them, to seek
better quarters in Westphalia. The enemy profited by these calamitous
divisions; and although defeated with loss in two pitched battles,
succeeded in making considerable progress in Lower Saxony.

At length appeared the new Swedish generalissimo, with fresh troops and
money. This was Bernard Torstensohn, a pupil of Gustavus Adolphus, and
his most successful imitator, who had been his page during the Polish
war. Though a martyr to the gout, and confined to a litter, he
surpassed all his opponents in activity; and his enterprises had wings,
while his body was held by the most frightful of fetters. Under him,
the scene of war was changed, and new maxims adopted, which necessity
dictated, and the issue justified. All the countries in which the
contest had hitherto raged were exhausted; while the House of Austria,
safe in its more distant territories, felt not the miseries of the war
under which the rest of Germany groaned. Torstensohn first furnished
them with this bitter experience, glutted his Swedes on the fertile
produce of Austria, and carried the torch of war to the very footsteps
of the imperial throne.

In Silesia, the enemy had gained considerable advantages over the
Swedish general Stalhantsch, and driven him as far as Neumark.
Torstensohn, who had joined the main body of the Swedes in Lunenburg,
summoned him to unite with his force, and in the year 1642 hastily
marched into Silesia through Brandenburg, which, under its great
Elector, had begun to maintain an armed neutrality. Glogau was carried,
sword in hand, without a breach, or formal approaches; the Duke Francis
Albert of Lauenburg defeated and killed at Schweidnitz; and Schweidnitz
itself with almost all the towns on that side of the Oder, taken. He
now penetrated with irresistible violence into the interior of Moravia,
where no enemy of Austria had hitherto appeared, took Olmutz, and threw
Vienna itself into consternation.

But, in the mean time, Piccolomini and the Archduke Leopold had
collected a superior force, which speedily drove the Swedish conquerors
from Moravia, and after a fruitless attempt upon Brieg, from Silesia.
Reinforced by Wrangel, the Sw