A short halt was made at Chursitz, where the baggage was left behind, and the army then advanced against the Imperialists, who at once opened fire.
Wallenstein had posted his left so as to be covered by a canal, while his right was protected by the village of Lutzen.

On some rising ground to the left of that village, where there were several windmills, he planted fourteen small pieces of cannon, while to support his front, which was composed of the musketeers in the ditches on either side of the road, he planted a battery of seven heavy pieces of artillery.
The main body of his infantry he formed into four massive brigades, which were flanked on both sides by musketeers intermixed with cavalry.
Count Coloredo commanded on the left, Holk on the right, Terzky in the centre.
As the Swedish army advanced beyond Chursitz the seven heavy pieces of artillery on the side of the road opened upon them, doing much execution, while their own lighter guns could not reply effectively.

The Swedes pressed forward to come to close quarters.

The left wing, led by Duke Bernhard, was the first to arrive upon the scene of action.
Gallantly led by the duke his men forced the ditches, cleared the road, charged the deadly battery, killed or drove away the gunners, and rushed with fury on the Imperialist right.
Holk, a resolute commander, tried in vain to stem the assault; the ardour of the Swedes was irresistible, and they scattered, one after the other, his three brigades.

The battle seemed already lost when Wallenstein himself took his place at the head of the fourth brigade, and fell upon the Swedes, who were disordered by the rapidity and ardour of their charge, while at the same moment he launched three regiments of cavalry on their flanks.
The Swedes fought heroically but in vain; step by step they were driven back, the battery was recaptured, and the guns, which in the excitement of the advance the captors had omitted to spike, were retaken by the Imperialists.
In the meantime on the right the king had also forced the road, and had driven from the field the Croats and Poles opposed to him, and he was on the point of wheeling his troops to fall on the flank of the Imperialist centre when one of Duke Bernhard's aides-de-camp dashed up with the news that the left wing had fallen back broken and in disorder.
Leaving to Count Stalhaus to continue to press the enemy, Gustavus, accompanied by his staff, rode at full gallop to the left at the head of Steinboch's regiment of dragoons.