In 1636 his great victory over Saxon and imperial forces at the Battle of Wittstock restored both Sweden’s morale and (for a time) its paramount influence in central Germany. In 1637, hard pressed by the enemy’s armies and almost surrounded, he made a strategic retreat into northern Germany that provoked the contemporary comment that “the enemy had put him in the sack but had forgotten to tie it.” By the end of 1638, however, Banér had collected reinforcements, with which he began a new offensive toward central and southern Germany.
