While Gustavus Adolphus thus maintained his superiority within the
empire, fortune, in another quarter, had been no less favourable to his
ally, the Elector of Saxony. By the arrangement concerted between these
princes at Halle, after the battle of Leipzig, the conquest of Bohemia
was intrusted to the Elector of Saxony, while the King reserved for
himself the attack upon the territories of the League. The first fruits
which the Elector reaped from the battle of Breitenfeld, was the
reconquest of Leipzig, which was shortly followed by the expulsion of
the Austrian garrisons from the entire circle. Reinforced by the troops
who deserted to him from the hostile garrisons, the Saxon General,
Arnheim, marched towards Lusatia, which had been overrun by an Imperial
General, Rudolph von Tiefenbach, in order to chastise the Elector for
embracing the cause of the enemy. He had already commenced in this
weakly defended province the usual course of devastation, taken several
towns, and terrified Dresden itself by his approach, when his
destructive progress was suddenly stopped, by an express mandate from
the Emperor to spare the possessions of the King of Saxony.

Ferdinand had perceived too late the errors of that policy, which
reduced the Elector of Saxony to extremities, and forcibly driven this
powerful monarch into an alliance with Sweden. By moderation, equally
ill-timed, he now wished to repair if possible the consequences of his
haughtiness; and thus committed a second error in endeavouring to repair
the first. To deprive his enemy of so powerful an ally, he had opened,
through the intervention of Spain, a negociation with the Elector; and
in order to facilitate an accommodation, Tiefenbach was ordered
immediately to retire from Saxony. But these concessions of the
Emperor, far from producing the desired effect, only revealed to the
Elector the embarrassment of his adversary and his own importance, and