He possessed great military talents, and had threatened to enter Lorraine at the head of forty thousand men, in the course of the ensuing summer.

The court of France, alarmed at this declaration, is said to have had recourse to poison, for preventing the execution of the duke's design.

At his death the command of the imperial army was conferred upon the elector of Bavaria.

This prince having joined the elector of Saxony, advanced against the Dauphin, who had passed the Rhine at Fort-Louis with a considerable army, and intended to penetrate into Wirtemberg; but the duke of Bavaria checked his progress, and he acted on the defensive during the remaining part of the campaign.
The emperor was less fortunate in his efforts against the Turks, who rejected the conditions of peace he had offered, and took the field under a new vizier.

In the month of August, count Tekeli defeated a body of imperialists near Cronstadt, in Transylvania; then convoking the states of that province at Albajulia, he compelled them to elect him their sovereign; but his reign was of short duration.