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Outward peace was precariously maintained between the Scandinavian powers, when the seizure of a number of Swedish ships in the Sound in 1643 made Oxenstierna resolve upon a bold stroke. Without any declaration of war the Swedish general, Torstensson, was ordered to lead his victorious army from North Germany into Denmark and to force King Christian to cease intriguing with the enemy.
As the Swedish historian Fryxell truly says, "all that was won by the statesmanship of Oxenstierna, by the sword of Baner, Torstensson and Wrangel, in a desolated Germany streaming with blood, has been already lost again; but the benefits which Louis de Geer brought to Sweden, by the path of peaceful industry and virtue, these still exist, and bear wholesome fruit to a late posterity."
Bauer, Torstensson, and Von Wrangle were the flaming swords which finally overwhelmed that power, but the brain which brought the fearful Thirty Years' War to a final close, and established the evangelical cause upon its lasting basis of security by the Peace of Westphalia , was that of Axel Oxenstiern, the very man who sent to Pennsylvania its original colonists as the founders of a free state.
For the moment King Christian was everywhere triumphant. On July 11 he gained a signal victory over the Swedish fleet at Colberg Heath, and he had the satisfaction of seeing Torstensson compelled by the Imperialists to retreat from Jutland. But the energy and pertinacity of the Amsterdam merchant saved the situation.
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