The New International Encyclopædia/Breitenfeld

BREITENFELD, brī'ten-fĕlt (Ger. breit, broad + Feld, plain, field; referring to the plain near by). A village in Saxony, about five miles north of Leipzig, noted as the scene of two battles between the Swedes and the forces of the German Empire. On September 17 (new style), 1631, Gustavus Adolphus and the Elector of Saxony overthrew Tilly at Breitenfeld, shattered his army, and saved the cause of Protestantism, which had been imperiled by the fall of Magdeburg. Eleven years later, November 2, 1642, Torstenson, the pupil of Gustavus, signally defeated the Archduke Leopold and General Piccolomini on the same spot. Breitenfeld also had some of the fighting around Leipzig in October, 1813. Consult Opitz, Die Schlacht bei Breitenfeld 1631 (Leipzig, 1892).