Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War

Swedish Intervention
	Part of the Thirty Years' War
	; Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Breitenfeld
Date	1630–1635
Location	Germany, Bohemia, Baltic Sea
Result	Peace of Prague
Belligerents
Swedish Empire ; Electorate of Saxony (from 1631); Heilbronn League (from 1633); Hesse-Kassel ; Brandenburg-Prussia; Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg	Habsurg Monarchy; Spanish Empire; Liga; Bavaria; Duchy of Lorraine
Commanders and leaders
Gustavus Adolphus †; Axel Oxenstierna; Johan Banér; Lennart Torstenson; Gustav Horn; Bernard of Saxe-Weimar; Alexander Leslie; John George I; Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg; George William; George von Brunswick; William V of Hesse-Kassel; Peter Melander;	Ferdinand II; Ferdinand III ; Albrecht von Wallenstein X; Count Tilly †; Gottfried Pappenheim †; Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand; Count Leganés; Duke of Feria; Maximilian I of Bavaria
Strength
1630: 70,600; 13,000 men landing in Germany 10,000 infantry; 3,000 cavalry; 24,600 men garrisoning Sweden; 33,000 German allies and mercenaries; 1632: 140,000; 25,000 Swedes and Finns in Germany; ~115,000 German allies and mercenaries	1632:; 110,000 pro-Imperial troops in Germany
Casualties and losses
86,300 killed, captured and deserted	80,760 killed, captured and deserted

Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War began in July 1630 when troops under Gustavus Adolphus landed in Pomerania. Under his leadership, the Protestant cause, previously on the verge of defeat, won several major victories and changed the direction of the war.

Following the Edict of Restitution by Emperor Ferdinand II on the height of his and the Catholic League's military success in 1629, Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire was seriously threatened. In July 1630, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden landed in the Duchy of Pomerania to intervene in favor of the German Protestants. Although he was killed in battle at Lützen, southwest of Leipzig, the Swedish armies achieved several victories against their Catholic enemies. However, the decisive defeat at Nördlingen in 1634 threatened continuing Swedish participation in the war. In consequence, the Emperor made peace with most of his German opponents in the Peace of Prague – essentially revoking the Edict of Restitution – while France directly intervened against him to prevent the Habsburg dynasty from gaining too much power at its eastern border.

Sweden was able to fight on until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 in which the Emperor was forced to accept the "German liberties" of the Imperial Estates and Sweden obtained Western Pomerania as an Imperial Estate.