- The Swedish Wars I - The early oldenburger kings.
Machiavelli, Locke and Montesquieu recommended a three-part division of power to ensure the best decisions and thus a stable society.
In fact, the Christian kingdoms of the European Middle Ages were originally characterized by a three-part division of power, as it was divided between the king, the church and the nobility. But with the Lutheran Reformation, the royal power was able to overcome one of the other powers, namely the church.
For 500 years, kings, queens and nobles had bequeathed land and entire villages to monasteries and churches for the salvation of their souls. Churches and monasteries were immortal, and they never let go of anything they had once received. They constantly became richer and richer.
But with the transition to Protestantism, all this unimaginable wealth fell into the lap of the early oldenburger kings, who thereby gained overwhelming strength in relation to the other remaining power, namely the nobility.
The early oldenburger kings, namely Christian 3. Frederik 2. and Christian 4. were not absolute rulers, but thanks to the enormous wealth of the royal power and the king's absolute position in the duchies, they were very difficult for the nobility to control. Which led to Christian 4.'s bad decisions, in particular to take part in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, which was disastrous for Denmark-Norway.
25. The Swedish Wars
Swedish-born rulers of Sweden during the Union period usually held the title acting regent, such as Karl Knutsson Bonde, Sten Sture, Svante Nielsson and Sten Sture the Younger. But in 1523 the Swedes crowned Gustav Vasa as king, marking the end of the Kalmar Union.
Painting of Frederick 2. from 1581. We must believe that the portrait likeness is quite good. Photo Hans Knieper Wikipedia.
The wars, that we call the Swedish Wars, took place after the demise of the Kalmar Union over a period of 157 years, from 1563 to 1720, during which time Denmark-Norway and Sweden fought seven wars - assuming that one counts the "Great Northern War" as only one war and does not include various episodes of the Napoleonic Wars.
After many years of sacrifice, loss and suffering, the Swedes lost their appetite for war when their warrior king, Karl 12., on November 30, 1718 found his death in a trench in front of the Norwegian fortress, Frederiksten, which is located about 30 km southeast of Fredrikstad, near the border with Sweden.
Denmark-Norway was forced into the Napoleonic Wars on the French side due to the unprovoked British attack on Copenhagen in 1807.
At the Vienna Congress in 1814-15 which ended the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark-Norway ceased to exist, as Norway was given to Sweden as compensation for the loss of Finland, which was given as a reward to Russia, the latter being the main victor of the war.
Great Britain allowed Denmark to keep the North Atlantic Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, as they considered them an economic burden, a loss-making business that they did not want to burden their Swedish ally with.
Denmark was thereby reduced to a small state, unable to take the initiative in a war, which made wars against Sweden unthinkable.
Furthermore, during the century of the 1800s, the political movement called Scandinavianism emerged as a counterweight to the rising German nationalism and pan-Germanism.
According to Scandinavianism, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes are Nordic brother peoples with a common history, culture, language, and similar ethnic type. It advocated a united Nordic region or a commonwealth between the Scandinavian countries, which would make internal wars an impossibility
26. The Nordic Seven Years' War
Christian 3. died on 1 January 1559 at Koldinghus at the age of 56 after several years of illness. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Frederik 2., who had already been crowned king during his father's lifetime.
Nevertheless, the young Frederik had to sign a "hand binding contract", which stated that Denmark was an electoral kingdom, and upon the king's death the kingdom's castles were to "be held in the hands of the council". Taxation and declarations of war required the consent of the Council of State.
Duke Adolf of Gottorp, who was Frederik's uncle, conceived the plan for Frederik and himself to conquer the Ditmarsken. This was what had failed for King Hans 60 years earlier and subsequently brought him international humiliation, leading to the loss of Sweden. But this time Adolf and Frederik had the experienced Holstenian general, Johan Rantzau, at their disposal and the conquest in 1559 proceeded according to plan.
Frederik 2. supported the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe, who received the island of Hven as a fief. On this occasion, Tycho Brahe had the observatories Uranienborg and Stjerneborg built with royal support.
In Sweden, Gustav Vasa's son Erik 14 ruled. He was a very intelligent and well-educated man, but he suffered from a morbid suspicion to everybody and imprisoned all members of the Sture family. One day he ran into the prison and murdered Niels Sture and ordered the guards to kill a number of other inmates.
It is somewhat unclear what really triggered the Nordic Seven Wars between Denmark-Norway and Sweden in 1563. It is said to have broken out over a dispute over the right to use the three crowns in the royal coat of arms.
It is certain that Sweden was the first to use the three crowns. Magnus Smek used the symbol extensively, presumably to symbolize his three kingdoms, namely Sweden, Norway and Scanialand. King Albrecht of Mecklenburg used them in 1364 in his seal. Some believe that they symbolize the three original parts of the Swedish kingdom, namely Västra and Östra Gästaland and Svealand around Mälaren.
Queen Margrethe and Erik of Pomerania used the three crowns in their coats of arms, clearly as a symbol of the Kalmar Union. The union kings Christopher of Bavaria, Hans and Christian 2. used the three crowns, even before they won the real Swedish crown, they were nevertheless crowned kings of the three kingdoms as children.
Frederik 1, who never became king of Sweden, never used the three crowns. At first his son Christian 3. followed his example, but later he added the three crowns to his coat of arms. His son Frederik 2. used the three crowns from the very beginning, claiming that they were merely a memory of the union.
This irritated King Erik 14. of Sweden. He believed that these symbols in the coats of arms expressed that the owners of the coats of arms believed they had the right to rule over the territories that the crowns symbolized. Therefore, he retaliated by incorporating both the Norwegian and Danish lions and all the hearts into his shield, to show that he believed he had the right to rule over Norway and Denmark.
The Kalmar Union apparently only faked dead, there was only a lot of disagreement about who should be king.
In May 1563 a Swedish fleet took three Danish-Norwegian ships in the waters off Bornholm.
Denmark took its time to seek allies and gained an alliance with Lübeck as well as support from Poland and several North German states. It was not until July 31, 1563 that Denmark delivered a declaration of war to the Swedish King Erik.
In September 1563 the Danish-Norwegian army captured the fortress Älvsborg at the mouth of the Gäta River in the Kattegat near present-day Gothenburg, which was Sweden's only access to the Kattegat and the Atlantic Ocean.
In May 1564 admiral Herluf Trolle made contact with the enemy off the coast of Öland. The Swedish fleet was superior to the Danish-Norwegian and Lübecker fleets in number of ships, but was nevertheless defeated.
The fortress of Älvsborg. Engraving from 1690-1710 from Erik Dahlbergh's Suecia antiqua et hodierna. Photo Wikipedia.
The Swedish fleet included the brand new ship "Mars", also called "Makaløs", which was considered one of the largest ships of the time. It was also called "Juthehataren".
"Mars" had just been captured by the Lübeckers and there were several hundred Lübeckers and Swedes on board, when the gunpowder magazine suddenly exploded and the ship sank to the bottom of the sea with men and mice.
The ship was found on the bottom of the sea off the coast of Denmark in the summer of 2011.
But in a subsequent battle at Fehmern, admiral Herluf Trolle was fatally wounded.
In Niels Hemmingsen's funeral sermon, he quoted Herluf Trolle as having said of Denmark's nobility that they may wear golden chains and had land estates, but for this they had a duty to risk their lives for king and fatherland. Herluf Trolle has given his name to the boarding school Herlufsholm.
Despite his madness, the Swedish king Erik 14. was an educated and learned man. He had read Machiavelli's "The Prince", which states that in order for a prince to be sure of keeping conquered land, he must replace the original inhabitants with his own.
His French general Claude Collat was ordered to invade Norway and "slaughter and kill before foot, for it is better if it is a deserted land than an enemy's land." General Clas Horn was to "burn Halland across and along" and he did not have to bother taking prisoners, but "slaugter the Jutes, the best God gives grace to". Another French general, Charles Mornay, was to make Skåne "so that the cheaters may not any more be able to do us harm here in the kingdom".
King Erik himself moved into Blekinge and personally led the storm on Ronneby. Where he was responsible for one of the most disgusting episodes of the war, which was "The Ronneby Massacre".
Early in the morning of September 4. 1564 the Swedes attacked, and after bitter fighting they took the city.
In a letter from King Erik, which he wrote a few days later, it says: "The water of the river was colored red as blood from the bodies of the dead. The enemies were so frightened that we did not have much trouble with them, but drove them down like a herd of pigs, so that in the city more than two thousand men were killed, besides women and children, whom the Finns killed."
The author Lars Lindeberg quotes a contemporary account: "The women, who ran in the street and had their babies in their arms, and those, who were lying in labor, they took and threw into the fire, so that before long the German landsknechte knew of this pitiful murders. They went to the field colonel and spoke to him harshly, saying that they had been in many wars before, but had never seen such unchristian murders. Thus the drums were immediately beaten, that no one should kill women and children."
"The surviving women and children were subsequently gathered in the clothes they were wearing. They were told that King Erik because of intercession from some councilors had spared their lives, but that they should be taken to Sweden and slave for the Swedes for the rest of their days. The next day the prisoners were divided into two groups, each led by an officer, a group for girls and young women and a group for older women and older children."
The men are not mentioned anywhere, they had probably already been killed.
Then the death march to the north began. Along the way, Swedish horsemen rode up on next to the first group of prisoners and freely picked out among the young women to take them away and do with them as they pleased. Infants were torn from their mothers and thrown into the field.
Erik 14. of Sweden - the mad King. He was a well-educated and flamboyant Renaissance prince. Portrait attributed to the Flemish painter Steven van der Meulen. Photo Steven van der Meulen - Nationalmuseum Wikipedia.
The Swedish officer in charge of the group of more mature women was a decent man, who let many of his group escape while the prisoner column moved in the forests. King Erik 14. later threatened him with the death penalty for this crime.
The old city of Varberg, which the Swedes razed to the ground, lay a little further north than today's Varberg.
The Swedes unsuccessfully stormed old Varberg five times before they succeeded in taking the city on 28. August 1565. As punishment for the inhabitants' resistance, they burned the city to the ground, demolished the ramparts and filled the moat. Today there is nothing to suggest that a town has ever been there. Europa road 6 leads across the flat field, where it once lay.
Only the Swedish rhymed chronicle hints at the fate of the inhabitants:
No one was spared in anger and resentment
In addition to both women and children
there were so many dead.
On land, the war's only major battle took place at Axtorna, about 20 km northeast of Falkenberg in Halland.
Frederik 2.'s Holstenian general, Daniel Rantzau, besieged the fortress of Varberghus, which the Swedes had taken on 15. September 1565. Due to a lack of artillery, he had difficulty retaking the fortress. When the cannons finally arrived, Rantzau received reports that a numerically superior Swedish army under Jacob Henriksson Höstsko was advancing from the east. He also received report that the Swedish army had recently been assembled at the same time as it advanced, and consequently he estimated that it could not be an efficient unit, and therefore he chose to raise the siege and lead the troops against the enemy and deliver a battle at Axtorna on 20. October 1565.
Many Swedish units at Axtorna did not engage in the battle at all, and they lost around 2.000 men and all their artillery, it is said. But the victory was hard-earned. The Danish losses were as great as the Swedes'.
Bornholm was energetically defended by the Lübecker bailiff Ketting. He wrote to Frederik 2. that "- I have some German soldiers and peasants in decent armor, use diligence day and night, lie on the beach myself and keep the peasants under severe punishment, that they should fight the enemy."
On the night between 28. and 29. July 1566 the Danish fleet was struck by a severe accident, some would say bad seamanship. A Danish nobleman had been killed in an encounter with some Swedish ships, and they wanted to bury him on land. But off Visby on Gotland, where the fleet anchored at the coast, they could not get the anchors to hold, as the bottom was too hard. Admiral Hans Lauridsen dismissed his men's warnings: "It doesn't storm every night".
But that night it stormed, and 15 ships were made smashed into pieces against the coast and 4,000 sailors drowned, it is said.
King Erik's insanity continued to worsen, and in 1568 he was deposed by his two brothers Johan and Karl. King Johan 3. was more flexible than Erik 14. had been. He immediately deleted the three Danish lions and the Norwegian lion from his coat of arms, and soon the negotiating table was set in Roskilde. However, the Danish compensation demands were so unreasonable that the Swedes could not accept them, so the war dragged on.
Detail of Copperplate engraving in Rerum Danicarum, which is the chronicle of the Danish King Frederik 2.'s deeds in the Seven Years' War, which shows several naval battles and the Danish-Norwegian and Lübecker fleet that sank in a storm off Visby in Gotland in 1566. Photo Gasparis Ens Lorchensis Wikipedia
At the initiative of the German emperor, peace negotiations were held in Stettin in 1570.
Denmark-Norway and Lübeck emerged victorious, but this did not change much. There was no question of land cessions. Sweden paid Denmark-Norway 150,000 silver dalers for the return of älvsborg.
In the years after the Seven Years' War, Frederick 2. had the old castle at Helsingør, Krogen, rebuilt into the Renaissance castle Kronborg with towers, and at the same time he had the defensive works rebuilt so they corresponded to the warfare of the time. He had Frederiksborg Castle built.
He was not often in Norway, but he founded the city Frederiksstad.
At the death of Frederik 2. in April 1588, the priest Anders Sørensen Vedel said in his funeral sermon that the king's death should be attributed to excessive alcohol consumption: "If His Grace had could be excused for the daily association of foreign princes and legates and other good men to abstain from the common, harmful drink, which is now all too common among princes, nobility and commoners all over the world, then it seems to human eyes and thoughts that His Grace could have lived many good days longer".
27. The Kalmar War
At his father's death in 1588, his eldest son, Christian, was only 11 years old, and a guardian government was therefore formed led by Chancellor Niels Kås. In August 1596, the son was crowned king in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen as Christian 4. of Denmark. The coronation gave rise to one of the most lavish celebrations in Danish history. There were knightly tournaments and fireworks, and on Amagertorv there was a fountain that gushed with wine.
Christian 4. was to rule Denmark-Norway for 60 years. With his wife, Queen Anna Cathrine of Brandenburg and several mistresses, he had at least 23 children.
On the occasion of his coronation, the young king had the tower Blåtårn built at Copenhagen Castle with a spire adorned with three gilded crowns, which was a clear message to Sweden that he could well imagine ruling over three kingdoms.
But it was not only the crowns and Christian's ambitions that were the cause of the Kalmark War, which broke out in 1611 and raged for two years until 1613. It was also to say the battle for the Arctic.
After the Swedes had conquered the Russian ports on the coasts of the Baltic, they thereby came to act as an expensive intermediary in trade with Russia, and therefore became the new sea route north of Norway to the newly built Arkhangelsk increasingly popular.
Denmark-Norway claimed dominion over the northern seas, and at the fortress Vardøhus customs were collected from seafarers.
Furthermore, upon his coronation in 1607, the Swedish Karl 9. had assumed the title "King of the Lapps" and had begun to collect taxes from the Lapps.
Karl 9. of Sweden. Photo Sveriges Nationalmuseum. Wikipedia.
The Lapps, or Sami as they are also called, followed their reindeer herds throughout northern Scandinavia between Narvik and Arkhangelsk regardless of the borders between Norway and Sweden. Which would mean that the "King of the Lapps" would have access to the Atlantic Ocean at Narvik and Tysfjord. In this way, the Swedish king would have succeeded in breaking the confinement of Sweden, that Denmark-Norway practiced.
The young King Christian was eager for war, however, the Council of State was very worried.
But the Council only represented Denmark, and Christian was also King of Norway and Duke of Slesvig and Holsten, which last ones was hereditary duchies, that is, the duke was elected automaticly, and no one could come up with any terms or conditions.
Christian threatened that if the council did not declare war, he would go to war himself as Duke of Slesvig and Holsten. Finally, the Council gave in and sent a letter of feud to Sweden on 4. April 1611.
On the same day that the Council accepted to declare of war, King Christian mobilized the kingdom's cavalry, which was organized into noble banners, the Zealand Banner at Næstved under Peder Basse to Sørup, the Aarhus Banner under Knud Brahe to Engelsholm, the Aalborg Banner under Ulrik Sandberg to Kveldstrup, the Ribe Banner under Albert Skel to Fusinge, commander of Riberhus, the Funen Banner under Korfits Rud to Fuglsang and Sandbolt, commander at Hindsgavl, the Scania Banner under Anders Bille to Råbelev and Rosendal, commander of Helsingborg and the Halland Banner under Tage Krabbe.
Each banner numbered around 200 horsemen.
In total, the actual Kingdom of Denmark provided a force of around 4,000 horsemen. In addition, the king's cousin, Duke Philip of Sønderborg, provided a cavalry banner of 200 horses, the governor of Holsten, Gert Rantzau, provided a cavalry banner and a foot regiment, and Godske Ahlefeld from Slesvig provided a foot regiment.
Infantry, called "landsknechts", was mainly recruited abroad.
On the left, a Swedish peasant soldier and on the right, a German landsknecht. Drawing by the landsknecht Paul Dolnstein circa 1502. Photo Wikitrans
But the planned recruitment of landsknechts abroad did not work so well.
On a lübecker ship that arrived in Stockholm in June 1611 were two travelers, one of whom could tell that the King of Denmark had recruited 7,000 men in Germany. But when they learned that the king wanted them in Sweden, they instead sought the Duke of Braunsehweig, who wanted to start the war against Stade again. The other traveler, a Dutch merchant, said that a few miles from Bremen there had been 7,000 men, that the King of Denmark had recruited, but when they were about to board the ships, they refused and instead took service with the Duke of Braunsehweig.
Christian had planned to attack Sweden with a pincer movement with three army divisions in the approaching spring of 1611..
The eastern army group was to assemble at Kristianopel, advance into Småland along the coast, and besiege and capture Kalmar and Kalmar Castle. The western army group was to advance from Halmstad in Halland along the Nis River towards Jönköping, the capital of Småland. Following the capture of Kalmar, the two divisions were to meet in Jönköping and then push further north towards Stockholm. The third army group was to invade Västra Götaland from Norway and provide support to the other two army groups.
Even before the attack on May 1. 1611, Councellor Breide Rantzau complained in letters to the Chancellor that the soldiers lacked both clothing and provisions. Furthermore, the disease that would later wreak such havoc among the army and navy personnel was already beginning to appear.
On May 1. Karl 9. wrote to King Christian 4. and the Council of the State in Denmark, stating that "he had indeed learned from their printed proclamations, which were being circulated throughout the kingdom, that they intended to break the peace, but this he did not want to do, and therefore he proposed submitting the matter to arbitration".
But Christian had other plans. That same day at dawn, the eastern army division set out from Kristianopel and marched into Småland, led by the king himself. After a brief skirmish, the Swedish cavalry under Pehr Michelsson fell back, suffering only a few wounded.
That same evening, news of the attack reached Kalmar. The Swedish signal, two cannon shots, sounded out from the castle tower to muster all defenders within the ramparts, while the tolling of the alarm bells and the rolling of drums warned the townspeople of the looming danger.
They immediately began moving all valuables from the town into the castle and sending away women and children. On the morning of the third day, the vanguard of the Danish army was sighted.
A Dutch copperplate engraving from 1611 depicting the Danish siege of Kalmar in 1611. Christian 4. s troops are positioned just outside the city, which is surrounded by modern fortifications and defended by a few thousand men. Karl 9. s army is depicted in the upper right. An inset map in the top left corner shows Kalmar s location relative to Öland. Swedish and Danish naval forces are fighting for control of Kalmar Sound.
The Danish army deployed in front of the town and immediately started working on earthworks. Trenches and breastworks quickly sprang up.
Kalmar was a strong fortress that had withstood a three-month siege during an internal Swedish conflict in the winter of 1598-99 and had since been significantly reinforced. Thanks to a Swedish fleet stationed off the castle and Pehr Michelsson s cavalry, Kalmar held a very large garrison, well-supplied with food, gunpowder, and bullets. The inhabitants and the garrison felt confident that their king would come to their rescue.
The situation facing the attackers was, in reality, more difficult. Crossing the border with a force as meager as 5,000 to 6,000 men, right under the noses of the substantial forces at Sweden's disposal, was, in effect, a daring gamble.
But the explanation lies in the hope that Christian placed in that the dissatisfaction among the population of Sweden itself would be in his favor.
In 1599, Kalmar was besieged so severely by the later Karl 9. during his rebellion against his nephew, King Sigismund, that it must still be fresh in one's memory, one would think. The city was the last stronghold for King Sigismund. After the city was conquered, Duke Karl had 22 noblemen and other leaders in Kalmar executed because they had resisted.
But the reception of Christian's army in Kalmar on May 3. destroyed all hopes of support and sympathy among the city's inhabitants, and things did not go any better with the common people in the country, despite the Danish king's efforts to win their support.
Member of the council Breide Rantzau said something similar in letters he sent to the chancellor: "The peasants are more on King Karls' side than had been thought", he wrote, "they have their chieftains, who gather them in groups of 3 to 400 men, so that His Majesty has to send both horsemen and landsknechts to keep them at bay".
The Danish army was too small to hold Kalmar completely surrounded, but the city was far too strong to be bypassed. The king had to hope that the western army division's advance from Halmstad towards Jönköping would soon tie down the Swedish main army.
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Member of the Council of State, Breide Rantzau, often had to remind the Chancellor that the troops lacked both beer and bread, and even fuses and gunpowder. Again and again he had to plead for these important things, the absence of which always led to desertion among the enlisted landsknechts.
On the whole, Breide Rantzau had a very pessimistic view of the position of the Danish army. "What prospect do we have of capturing the city", he wrote on 9. May to the Chancellor, "I cannot write to you and it is to be feared that if the others do not move from Halmstad, the Swedish force will be sent up here and we will be besieged in the rear, the harbour with provisions taken from us, so we must let both guns and goods behind and fight our way through as best we can"
Kalmar Castle 2011. Photo Bengt A Lundberg/Riksantikvarie ämbetet Wikipedia.
The Danish army had to conquer at least the city of Kalmar before it was attacked from outside by King Karl.
For many days the artillery had been firing a breach in the wall, and at midnight on May 26. 1611 the army arrived under arms. Christian himself led the landsknechts to the breach and shouted some encouraging words.
After a hard fight the Danish forces retreated over the moat, to the cheers of the defenders. Fresh forces were brought forward, and soon the battle raged again in the breach with the same ferocity as before, but also with the same success for the defenders. Once again the king saw his soldiers retreat and heard the triumphant shouts of the enemy.
But third time is the time of luck. Finally, early in the morning, he saw his guard's banner wave from the top of the rampart, planted by his ensign, the young Palle Rosenkrans. Without further resistance, the defenders sought refuge in the castle.
After that, the entire city of Kalmar was in King Christian's hands, but the castle itself was still controlled by the Swedes.
Shortly after the capture of the city, two engineers arrived, whom Gert Rantzau had sent to Kalmar from the Western Army Division in Halmstad at his brother's request. They reported that the army in Halland was still around Halmstad and had not taken a single step towards Jönköping.
In fact, the army division, that was to attack Sweden from Halland towards Jönköping at the beginning of May and thereby relieve the army around Kalmar, was not at all complete at this time. The troops for the western part of the army arrived very slowly. Only on 7. May 1611 did the Aarhus Banner under Knud Brahe arrive, on 10. May did the Aalborg Banner under Ulrik Sandberg arrive at Kvelstrup and on 13. May did the Ribe Banner under Albert Skel arrive at Varberg.
A Swedish leather cannon was a cannon with a thin barrel covered with leather. The leather covering was supposed to enable the barrel to withstand the pressure in the chamber associated with firing despite a small thickness - and thus low weight. It was a Swedish invention out of several from the Thirty Years' War, which made cannons lighter and more mobile than before. Overall, Gustaf Adolf developed the artillery, so that cannons became much lighter and could be better used in cooperation with infantry and cavalry. Wikimedia.
It was not only the slowness with which the troops were assembled that hampered the Western Army Division, it was also very slow in receiving supplies of any kind.
The marsk, Sten Maltesen Sehested, who was to lead the western army division, could not, like the king at Kalmar, expect to receive supplies from his homeland by sea after he had crossed the Swedish border. He had to bring everything he needed with him himself from the beginning.
To gain clarity on where the Swedish army was, Breide Rantzau rode out from Kalmar with a detachment of horsemen and found King Karl's army at Ryssby, only about 2 miles (Danish mile = 7.5 km) north of Kalmar.
Therefore, King Christian decided to leave the camp in Kalmar to impress upon the western army the need for the entire western coast army to come to his aid. On 10. June 1611 he traveled by road to Kristianopel and continued to Sölvesborg at the western end of Blekinge. From there he sent messengers through Skåne and Halland to the western army in Halmstad.
In 1599, Christian 4. had the city of Kristianopel built in eastern Blekinge near Karlskrona, not far from the Swedish border. It was a heavily fortified city, designed as an impregnable Renaissance fortress with moats and bastions. The city was to ensure Danish sovereignty and function as a trading center.
The commander of Kristianopel, Jens Sparre, had himself marched with the army to Kalmar and had handed over command to the Halland nobleman, Jens Bjørnsen. When the latter received information that the Swedes were gathering near the border, he sent a messenger to Jens Sparre to ask him to provide the fortress with a stronger garrison. But the letter fell into the hands of the Swedes, and King Karl immediately decided to try to take the city by surprise before the desired reinforcements arrived.
Modern Kristianopel. The city was built on a long, narrow isthmus in Kalmar Sound, where it was to be easy to defend. It was originally surrounded by a 4 to 6 meter high stone wall with bastions and ramparts. Photo Jan Norrman/Riksantikvarieämbetet Wikimedia.
To this end, he sent his 16-year-old son, Gustaf Adolf, with two cavalry banners, who in the evening approached Kristianopel, where he temporarily kept his people hidden in a nearby forest.
Between one and two in the night between the 25. and the 26. of June 1611 they approached the city, where everyone, including the guards, lay in the deepest sleep, and no one suspected anything. The gatekeeper believed that the advancing horsemen were the expected reinforcements and therefore failed to pull up the drawbridge, while a message was sent to the commander.
The four Swedish horsemen, who formed the vanguard thus had the opportunity to approach the gate, plant an explosive charge on it and blow it up, just as Jens Bjørnsen arrived, summoned by the guard's report. As a brave soldier, he immediately stood in the gate to stop the invading enemy. The first Swedes fell to his sword, but he soon fell to the ground, and over the commander's dead body the enemy entered the city.
Prince Gustaf Adolf galloped through the city's main street to the square and stopped there while his people scattered throughout the city to murder, rob and plunder. A contemporary account reads: "Then it was pitiful to see how some were killed on their beds, some who had just gotten up and even had no clothes on, many jumped over the wall and escaped, some women first threw their children down from the rampart, many of whom died, then the women themselves jumped after, and a some beat their arms and thighs, some went out through the water gate on boats, so that among them there were three boats overloaded with men, women and children, which sank to bottom."
The looting and murders lasted until morning, then the Swedes left again after setting fire to the city.
For Christian 4. the fire of Kristianopel was a severe blow. Here he had gathered equipment both for the army he had under arms and for the conscripted troops he was expecting from Germany. The enemy took them away with them, and quantities of clothing and equipment were consumed by the fire.
Kristianopel lay unguarded for some time. On July 5. the enemy came to the city again and set fire to what the previous fire had destroyed. The Swedes were masters of eastern Blekinge, and King Karl sent an open letter to the common people with the offer that if the population would surrender to the Swedish crown what they had previously been, and pay 20,000 dalers in fire tax, no harm would befall them. But if they did not, he threatened to punish them with murder and arson and let the fire consume their houses and homes.
But in July 1611, Gert Rantzau's regiment from the Western Army Division approached Kristianopel and forced the Swedes back across the border. They had avoided Swedish territory and had passed through Gønge shire in Skåne.
Typical ship from the 1600's century. A replica of the Dutch ship Batavia on the Markermeer during a film shoot. The original ship, Batavia, sank in 1629 off the Houtman Abrolhos about 50 km off the coast of Western Australia on its maiden voyage to the Dutch East Indies. Photo ADZee Wikipedia.
Christian 4. settled the situation in Kristianopel, embarked with Gert Rantzau and 6 companies of his regiment and reached Kalmar by sea on 7. July 1611. The rest of Rantzau's troops arrived the following day.
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The Danish army at Kalmar then consisted of 4 cavalry battalions and 25 companies of infantry, totaling between 7,000 and 8,000 men.
In a similar way, the Swedish king worked to increase his strength. King Karl's' army thus reached a strength of around 20,000 men, among whom, however, were a large proportion of conscripted peasants with poor weapons and poor fighting skills.
On July 17. 1611 between 5 and 6 in the morning, two shots rang out from Kalmar Castle, signaling one of the bloodiest battles in Nordic history. The Swedish army attacked the city of Kalmar's defenses from both north and south. The enemy managed to plant their flag on the wall several times, but after fierce close combat, they were again defeated, cut down, or driven back.
The defense was led by Gert Rantzau and King Christian in person. Rantzau carefully deployed his reserves, so that whenever the enemy believed they had broken through, they encountered fresh resistance, while King Christian encouraged the soldiers to hold firm by displaying great personal courage.
At the same time as the attack on the city walls - when the two cannon shots rang out - the castle's drawbridge went down and a crowd of English and Irish landsknechts threw themselves over the Danish batteries and trenches at the beach. They managed to capture a large part of these and then pushed into the city. They would have won, if they had resisted the temptation to plunder. But this gave Godske Ahlefeld time to organize his people and then drive the enemy back in fierce chaotic close combat.
But on the retreat of the English and Irish landsknechts to the castle, they set fire to the town's houses, greatly damaging the new Danish supplies that were stored there.
Among the burning houses, Godske Ahlefeld found the hero's death, and several other leading officers were severely wounded.
Map of the Scania lands with relevant place names. Own work.
Thus the Danes maintained their control over the city of Kalmar, which was now burned down. But the Swedes still controlled the castle.
King Karl feared being too close to the enemy, when he did not have control of the sea, and therefore the following night, July 23. 1611, he quietly left his camp and headed north. The tent ropes were torn, the tents overturned, and the camp put on fire.
As soon as the Danish guards saw this, the army was rallied, and in full battle order Christian advanced, but found in the empty, burning Swedish camp only a wounded English nobleman, who was rescued from the flames with difficulty.
The Swedish army retreated to its previous position at Ryssby, where they had their flanks well secured by impassable areas.
Kalmar Castle had not yet suffered any damage from the siege. It had a sufficient garrison, many cannons, a good supply of food, and the walls and ramparts were intact. But it was sorely lacking in one essential thing, namely gunpowder.
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The castle commander Christer Some could see the Swedish army withdrawing from the castle tower, and he could see the Danish-Norwegian fleet operating freely in the sea off the castle. There was no prospect of him getting any gunpowder in the foreseeable future. During the following negotiations, Christian offered him an estate in Holsten in exchange for surrendering the castle, which he preferred to a heroic death on the wall without gunpowder.
After that, the Danes were masters of all of Kalmar.
Karl 9. weakened by disease challenged Christian to settle the dispute between the kingdoms in the good old fashioned way by a duel between the kings. King Karl wrote:
"We Karl 9. king by the grace of God, let you Christian 4. King of Denmark know, that you have done, what no honest Christian king would do. Without any given reason you have broken and destroyed the friendly peace treaty which was established in Stettin forty-two years ago."
"But God will punish you", continued King Karl, "To avoid further bloodshed on your behalf, you must surrender, according to the lawful usage and custom of the ancient Goths".
Karl simply challenged Christian and two of his nobles to a duel, just as Uffe had challenged the Saxon king's son and two of his men at a duel in the Eider. Karl wanted to fight alone.
But Christian would not give up his war. He rudely rejected Karl's challenge in a long and detailed letter.
Winter approached, and early in the morning of September 11. 1611, Christian 4. rode from Kalmar with 6 cavalry banners and arrived September 25. in Copenhagen.
When Karl 9. learned that the Danes were going into winter quarters, and that the king and almost all of the cavalry had departed for Denmark, he also sent some of his landsknechts home.
But the disease that Breide Rantzau had written about already May 1611 continued to plague the Danish ranks well into the autumn. Out of the 10 Danish infanteri regiments that Christian left in Kalmar, by the end of September there were only 1,000 men, who were able use weapons. Worse still, the fleet's crews were so badly affected that it was impossible to keep the ships afloat. They had to take shelter under the castle as the crews were too weak to sail the ships.
Throughout the war, this disease, the Kalmar disease as it was called, killed more of King Christian's soldiers and sailors than enemy bullets.
Today we can have no doubt that it was scurvy. Provisions, which had to be brought from afar, had to be salted pork, yellow peas, dried bread and similar long-lasting things, all of which are characterized by the absence of vitamin C. But they did not know that at the time.
Battle of Kalmar 1611. Tapestry from 1619 by Karel van Mander II, reproduced here by F.C. Lund. (1825-1901) in Illustreret Tidende 1859.
It was very difficult to obtain fresh food in the area around Kalmar. Breide Rantzau reported that horsemen sent from the camp at Kalmar to forage "found farms and towns empty, but ambushes in all the forests."
To the author's knowledge, there are no reports that the Swedish army had similar problems with this disease. Probably because they operated in their own country and had an easier time obtaining fresh food.
The peasants on Öland could not help but notice the Danish-Norwegian weakness. The fear of the Danes disappeared when the main mass of their army departed. On the other hand, they were painfully aware that King Karls' army stood at Ryssby as a constant threat, and when the disease had displaced the Danish ships from the sea, the Swedish warships began to appear.
Under these circumstances, the Öland peasants began to regret having given their island under the king of Denmark-Norway.
The Swedish Prince Gustaf Adolf quietly assembled a transport fleet of merchant ships from the nearest cities, and on the evening of September 26. 1611 he set sail for the Öland with an army. By agreement, the Öland peasants simultaneously attacked the coastguards in the rear and then provided the landed troops with wagons for rapid transport.
The Danish soldiers were scattered across the island and were quickly cut down. With the help of the horses and carts provided by the peasants, the Swedes quickly advanced towards the castle Borgholm.
Gert Rantzau with three companies of landsknechts and two cavalry banners were confined in the castle, while the entire open country again fell into the hands of the Swedes.
Borgholm was not provided with food for a siege. Even though the Swedes had not brought cannons with them, there could be no doubt about the fate of the castle.
Rantzau realized the hopelessness of the defense, and so one evening he rushed with 50 landsknechts against the Swedish sentries and fought his way down to the beach, where he had three small ships lying. He tried to sail around the Öland to Kalmar, but a storm from the southwest forced him to go to Gotland and wait there for a ship to Kristianopel.
On October 7. 1611, Borgholm's commander, Kristen Hansen, agreed with Prince Gustaf Adolf that he would surrender on condition of free march out with full military honor, burning fuses, waving banners and security of life and property for all.
But a very large part of his German landsknechts immediately took the opportunity to join the Swedish army.
There was also fighting on the western theatre of war in Halland. The Swedish commander of the castle of älvsborg, Nils Bengtsson, entered the Norwegian countryside of Hisingen and plundered and burned in the usual way. He then attacked the town of Kongsbak in Halland. The small garrison surrendered immediately, but was nevertheless cut down, and the town was plundered and burned.
On September 21, 1611 Nils Bengtsson was again on the warpath, but then his luck ran out. That same day, Knud Brahe and Ulrik Sandberg had ridden out from Varberg with their men. At noon they stopped for a rest a little mile south of Kongsbak. Here a fleeing farmer told them that the Swedes were in the area. Thick clouds of smoke rising west of Kongsbak showed that he spoke the truth.
King Gustaf Adolf of Sweden on a painting attributed to Jacob Hoefnagel. By redesigning the musket and converting large parts of the infantry into musketeers, Gustaf Adolf made firearms dominant on European battlefields. He made cannons light and mobile. He was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632,
which year he fell at the Battle of Lützen in Germany. Photo Wikipedia.
The rittmeister immediately called his people together, and they rode with loose reins towards the north.
Between the rocks, where they advanced, the land was full of fleeing peasants with wives, children and maids, who at the sight of their Jutland compatriots fell to their knees to pray for victory for them.
Only towards evening did they encounter the Swedes, who were on their way home, driving a few hundred pieces of cattle ahead of them.
As soon as they became aware of the Danes, they abandoned their prey and arranged themselves for battle, waving their banners and shouting their usual war cry: "Come on juthe".
When Nils Bengtsson saw that the Danish horsemen did not immediately attack, he thought that they feared his superior numbers - his four divisions numbered about 600 men, and the two Danish ones about 200 - and prepared to continue the march home again. But the Jutes united in a closed line and threw themselves at the nearest Swedish division, completely breaking it up.
Nils Bengtsson tried to bring his foot soldiers to the rescue, but they got into disarray between the cattle and the fighting horsemen, and thus the Swedish resistance was broken. Nils Bengtsson himself was wounded and taken prisoner, and three banners were captured.
The slaughter lasted until midnight. The Swedish landsknechts sought refuge between the rocks, but there they were killed by the peasants, so only a few escaped. Of the Danish only one rider fell.
The reason why the Swedes - despite their triple numbers - so quickly drew the shortest straw was partly that their people - both horsemen and landsknechts - were conscriptet peasants who could not compete with the Jutland nobles and their journeymen in either skill or equipment, and partly that Nils Bengtsson, confident that the Danes would not attack his numerically superior force, carelessly arranged it in marching order and thereby exposed his flank.
In Nyköping Castle on 30. October 1611, Karl 9. closed his eyes for good. After some negotiation, it was agreed to declare the 17-year-old crown prince, Gustaf Adolf, of legal age and on 26. December 1611 he was declared King of Sweden.
Neither Gustaf Adolf nor the Swedish councill of State wanted to continue the war against Denmark-Norway, and the young king immediately gave proof of his peaceful disposition by omitting "King of the Lapps in Norrland" from his royal title.
On New Year's Day 1612 the Swedish councill wrote to the Danish councill, recalling the many attempts that had been made by the Swedish side to prevent the war, and declared itself ready for negotiations, provided that the Danes would return Kalmar and what else undoubtedly belonged to the Swedish crown. This letter was sent across the Danish border by a trumpeter, but the he was held up in Halmstad until Christian 4. himself arrived there in January. He acknowledged receipt of the letter, but otherwise did nothing in the matter.
Christian 4. 1612, painted by Pieter Isåcsz Photo Wikipedia.
With a force of about 2,500 horsemen and landsknechts, Christian set out from Varberg on 25. January 1612 towards the castle Guldborg, which was situated on a high cliff on the eastern bank of the Göta River, where the Mölndal älv flows into the Göta River, actually in modern Gothenburg, about 50-60 km north of Varberg. The weather that same day turned to fog with rain, sleet and slush, which made the march very difficult.
The castle was defended by the famous Morten Krakau and his no less famous wife, "karlwulna fru", Emerentia Pauli.
Christian and his men reached Guldborg very early in the morning on January 27.. In the dark winter night they managed to attach a so-called "Petarde", which was an explosive charge, to the gate and blow it up. But they found the gate vault behind it filled with stones and earth.
Early in the fight, Morten Krakau broke one of his legs in a fall from the wall and had to leave the defense to his warlike wife.
25-30 landsknechts managed to climb over the mound of earth in the gate opening and enter the inner gate vault. But Mrs. Emerentia gathered the castle's wives to defend themselves. They poured boiling lye over the attackers and threw barrels and tubs into the vault, making it almost impassable, and then pulled two small cannons onto the roof of a house near the gate to fire from there at the landsknechts, who were trying to clear the obstacles.
After five attacks in vain, the storming of Guldborg Castle was abandoned.
Also further east, in Småland, the Danes were active in the new year.
On January 21. 1612, Breide Rantzau crossed the border at Loshult and marched through Småland, plundering and burning in the direction of the town of Växjö.
The commander of Kronoberg Castle in Växjö, Hans Hofman, called all the men of the houses to defend themselves against the enemy. But the hastily assembled men were only able to resist the well-armed Danish army poorly. The entire town of Växjö with its beautiful Cathedral and many book treasures went up in flames, along with the old Kronoberg Castle.
The fate of Växjö soon became known to the young king, Gustaf Adolf. On February 5. at nightfall, the Swedes at Loshult broke into Skåne, which was soon lit up by burning villages, while the roads were filled with fleeing peasants with women and children.
On February 8. and 9. the Swedes, who were still not able to do anything, "Juthen grazed, scolded, burned and killed completely after our own Will," as Gustaf Adolf later wrote to Duke Johan, headed towards Markaryd. The villages of Vinsløv, Sørby, Gumløse, Enbring, Stoby, Hornie, Rygh, Ägerup and Vittsjø were burned.
On February 10. the Swedes camped at Vittsjö, only a mile from the border. Most of the cannons were sent back to Sweden from here, accompanied by some of the Swedish landsknechts. The rest of the army made themselves comfortable to rest after their exertions. The horses were stabled in the church, and with the church benches they lit a large bonfire in the churchyard.
But already on February 8., Breide Rantzau broke up from Ystad together with the Court Banner and the Zealand Noble Banner. On the way north, they joined up with the banners of Joachim Bülow and Markvard Pentz, who had retreated in front of the superior enemy's attack. They now rode boldly forward against the far more numerous Swedes.
They didn't have to search long, smoking ruins marked their path, and there were enough vengeful refugees to tell, where the enemy was.
The memorial for the battle of Vittsjö 1612. Photo Bengt Oberger Wikipedia.
At Vittsjøon 11. February 1612 at dusk, five Danish cavalry banners attacked the careless resting enemies and scattered them before they could prepare for battle. Most of the Swedish leaders were either killed or taken prisoner.
In the dark, King Gustaf Adolf jumped on a horse to save himself by taking the way to Markaryd and Sweden. But on the river Sågen, which connects the two small lakes, Øretorp Sø og Vid Sø,, the ice broke under him, and here he had almost ended his heroic life, before it had really begun.
To this day, a stone in the stream, the "King's Stone", is displayed where, according to legend, the sinking king found his footing. Fortunately, the peasant Per Baner and a rider under the Uppland banner, Thomas Larsson, saw their lord's distress and rushed to his aid.
After a failed Swedish attempt to invade Norway, Duke Johan and Jesper Mattsson retreated into their own country with an army of about 4,000 men. At the pass by Lake Weselången they broke into Halland and went down through the country with plunder and fire to Varberg, which they reached on the evening of February 20. 1612. The city had a small garrison of German landsknechts, and the resistance was short-lived. The city was stormed, plundered and burned. The next day the Swedes went away again, raiding and plundering, and that evening they camped in Skällinge parish.
However the Swedes were not allowed to rest for long. Soon their scouts reported that the enemy was approaching, and the troops were hastily assembled and arranged for battle.
It was King Christian with seven cavalry banners who, after a ride of at least seven miles along the bad winter roads in Halland, finally found the enemy he was looking for, and without paying attention to the fatigue of the horses or the superior strength of the opponent, he galloped boldly forward to attack. The king was probably eager to achieve similar honor that had been achieved by Knud Brahe and Ulrik Sandberg at Kongsbak and Breide Rantzau at Vittsjø.
But the Swedes did not allow themselves to be surprised as at Vittsjø. Duke Johan and Jesper Matsson stood ready to meet their enemy. On Kølleryd Heath in Skællinge ParishFebruary 21. 1612 the Danish and Swedish armies met.
This heath is bounded to the north by the lake Møsen, to the east and west by cliffs, to the south by a small lake. The ground was filled with bushes and covered with snow. Between the cliffs the Swedish musketeers found good cover and from there sent their bullets at the Danish horsemen.
"Be careful! remember you are the last of your family line", shouted a friend to the young Sten Olafsen Rosensparre. "You are right, it is a fine thought, a good name is above all," replied the chivalrous youth and threw himself into the thickest fighting and found a hero's death. With him fell Frants Rantzau of Brobygård, Breide and Gert's brother, and many other noblemen.
When the Swedish superior force had broken the ranks of the exhausted Danish horsemen, King Christian himself had to flee to avoid falling into the enemy's hands and found a side road to the west.
Soon the dark February night covered the Danes' escape and forced the Swedes to abandon the pursuit. "If only the day had lasted longer," Duke Johan later wrote to Gustaf Adolf, "then my eyes would have seen the defeat of the enemies of the fatherland."
Christian 4. took the city of Nyløse without encountering resistance around January 29. 1612, and the city subsequently received a very strong garrison on the paper.
The city is located about 10-15 kilometers north of the mouth of the Göta River, which at that time was part of Norway. Today it is probably part of modern Gothenburg.
After the king's departure, Nyløse's garrison consisted of 4 companies of German landsknechts and 300 Norwegian skirmishers, approximately 1,000 men. Company leader Mathias Kockheim had left and had handed over his company to his lieutenant, and Markvard Rantzau had gone to Bohus on official business.
Scottish mercenaries under George Sinclair went ashore at Isfjorden in Norway in August 1612. Two ships with 200-300 Scottish landsknechts intended for Swedish military service sailed into Isfjorden at the innermost part of Romsdalsfjorden with the intention of reaching Sweden overland. They went ashore at Åndalsnes. There they forced the two Norwegians to be guides, one of whom was Per Klungnes. He showed the Scots the way along the north side of the fjord at Klungnes, where the road ran along the fjord on one side and a steep mountainside on the other. On the mountains at Kringen, the Norwegian peasants had prepared a "vælte", which was a large amount of timber and stones, which were thrown down on the Scots at a given signal. Most of the Scots were killed instantly and the rest were subsequently massacred. Photo Detail of painting by Adolph Tidemand Wikipedia.
After the victory at Skællinge, Jesper Matsson marched towards Nyløse. On the evening of February 26, 1612 he arrived in front of the town and immediately began to set up batteries. The following morning he opened fire on the town and at the same time sent a trumpeter calling for surrender.
The two remaining captains, Adam von Køten and Anthonius Freudemann, immediately began to negotiate with the Swedes, regardless of the rather large force they had at their disposal and the help they could expect from Bohus. Without offering resistance, they surrendered the city with cannons, provisions, ammunition, standards and personal weapons.
Yes, they were even sly enough not to include the 300 Norwegian gunners in the agreement on safety of life that they made for their own people.
The German landsknechts immediately took service with the Swedes.
Jesper Matsson then ordered the Norwegian gunners to lay down their weapons and enter the church. Once inside, he had the German defectors prove their loyalty to their new masters by shooting down all the Norwegians.
In March 1612, Christian 4.'s queen, Anna Catharina, died, but that did not stop him from making plans for the war in the coming summer. Encouraged by past experiences, he decided to take better care of the security of his own countries before attacking across the border, by strengthening the border guard.
The plan for the war in the coming summer of 1612 was very similar to the plan for 1611. They were to reconquer Öland, hold Kalmar, conquer Älvsborg and Guldborg and from both east and west push forward towards Jönköping and from there further into Sweden.
Christian instructed his fleet to "seek the Swedish fleet, attack and shell it and with the utmost diligence try to achieve what good fortune God would most graciously grant them against the enemies of the kingdoms." - "And since the Swedes have hitherto refused to give quarter, no matter how much we have offered them, then our admirals shall be justified in having killed the enemy's people, whom the take prisoner and not bother to take them as prisoners, as has happened so far".
Gert Rantzau was given command of the eastern army division at Kalmar, while Christian himself took command of the western army division.
On May 2, 1612, the king himself boarded the warship "Victor" in Helsingør and sailed, accompanied by a transport fleet, which brought 4 companies of landsknechts and probably heavy siege guns and other siege equipment, towards the mouth of the Göta älv and Älvsborg.
The troops were landed on 5 May at night without encountering resistance. At the same time, the four companies that had been stationed at Bohus since February arrived. The king immediately advanced towards the fortress and surrounded it.
Simultaneously with the shelling from the deployed batteries, work was carried out eagerly in the mine shafts, where the carpenter Sibrand Janssen and his 5 journeymen worked day and night and already on May 17. 1612"They were fifteen feet inside under the wall and rampart".
Important places in the Western theatre of war during the Kalmar War. Own work.
On May 22, 1612 early in the morning, began the breche shelling against a round tower in the castle rampart. Before lunch, a large part of the tower collapsed, along with the cannons that were in it. The king immediately ordered his landsknechts to storm the breche. They entered the tower, but when the defenders ignited some gunpowder and other flammable materials, they had to withdraw again with a loss of about 200 men.
The next day, a Swede and an officer of the castle, the German Han Otto, met in the king's camp, and in return the king sent Jens Juul and Otto Skel as hostages into Älvsborg.
After some negotiation, during which Albert Skel entered the castle three times to speak with the wounded lord of the castle, it was agreed that the garrison would march off the next day with waving banners, spears and sidearms, wives, children and luggage, and hand over the castle with cannons, ammunition, provisions and whatever else was in the castle to the Danes. Hans Otto remained in the Danish camp and later received a gift of 800 dalers, when he returned home in June.
On May 28, 1612, the Danish Jørgen Lunge broke up from the Mölndals älv with a detachment of cavalry and went to the castle Guldborg at the mouth of the Mölndal älv into the Göta älv. At night, he occupied some trenches that the garrison had built in front of the castle. The next day, King Christian came from Älvsborg with the rest of the cavalry.
The commanders of the castle, Thomas Est and Poul Wulff, did not show the same heroism as their predecessors, Morten Krakou and his warlike wife, Emerentia Pauli. But they had just seen how the larger fortress, Älvsborg, had been taken.
At the first call for surrender they replied that if a larger force were brought against them, they were not unwilling to do so. King Christian understood the half verse. A trench was dug, some cannons were set up and a few shots were fired at the castle. The garrison at Guldborg surrendered on 1. June 1612 in return for a promise of free march, and the Danes took possession of the castle.
On June 6., the successful - but now rather large - army broke up from Guldborg and headed north along the Göta älven. On this short stretch, the difficulties of supplying the troops were already apparent. The dreaded Kalmar disease began to plague the army again, as it had done the year before.
Albert Skel wrote to his wife that the shortage in the army was so great that even the leaders drank more water than beer.
Among the English landsknechts, 800 were sick or dead by alone in June, and discipline was developing very badly. The quartermaster, Otto Skel, wrote to Manderup Parsberg: "God help us that we can bring entertainment to them, when we get further up in the country, otherwise it will not go well, for our exercitus is composed of several strange people"
The king had been informed that there were 5 companies of English and Irish landsknechts in Lidkøbing who had refused to serve Gustaf Adolf due to lack of payment. In order to surprise these troops, if possible, Kristian advanced towards Lidkøbing. But when he arrived, the nest was empty. The troops had chosen to follow Gustaf Adolf on his retreat anyway.
Christian 4. had thus, perhaps inadvertently, entered rather deep into the enemy's country and the army was already surrounded by armed peasants, who cut down all laggards and made communication with the homeland difficult.
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When quartermaster Otto Skel, accompanied by 18 horsemen, rode from Södertälje near Lidkøbing to Älvsborg to obtain supplies, he counted the bodies of 30 soldiers, who had been killed by armed peasants, on the way.
On this expedition deep into Sweden with a very large army, Christian conquered no territory, and he did not destroy any of the enemy's fortresses, nor did he annihilate the enemy's army in a decisive battle. But he consumed many of his own resources, including the lives of soldiers.
In the eastern theater of war, there was also good progress for the Danes, at least in the beginning.
The Ryssby Rampart fell into the hands of the Danes on May 1. 1612. The details are not known to the present writer.
On May 21, 1612 the Danish fleet arrived in Kalmar, which was the signal to retake Öland.
Whitsunday on 31. May 1612 at dawn the Danish fleet headed towards the coast of Öland. The canon fire of the warships forced the defenders away from the coast, and the landing took place without losses. Horsemen pursued the retreating Swedes.
Tapestry showing the Kalmar War, probably the landing on Öland in 1612. Photo unknown Wikipedia.
Öland was in a wretched state following this third conquest, because the year before, despite having voluntarily submitted to Denmark, they had nonetheless cast their lot with their old compatriots. From north to south, unruly landsknechts roamed about, killing, burning, and plundering. All the cattle and horses had either been slaughtered or lay scattered around, their legs pointing skyward.
The dreaded Kalmar sickness also raged early on among the navy's crews.
On July 30. and 31. the navy s 21 warships arrived in Copenhagen. At that time, there were barely enough able-bodied sailors to man the vessels. As soon as the fleet had entered, Copenhagen s gates and harbor booms were closed, and new crews were conscripted for the ships, so that they could put to sea again as soon as possible.
On July 10. 1612, Christian set out from Älvsborg to begin the long-planned march toward Jönköping. The march proceeded slowly, primarily due to a lack of provisions.
Albert Skel skrev til sin Hustru: "Om vi nå Jønkøping eller ikke, må Gud vide thi Fetaljen for fodfolket går flux med."
The army was met with little resistance and successfully reached Jönköping, but as they had brought no siege artillery, they were unable to capture Jönköping Castle. The defenders set fire to the town and withdrew to the castle, where they were not significantly bothered.
According to the plan, Christian was supposed to meet the eastern army group under Gert Rantzau near Jönköping. But Gert Rantzau never showed up.
To gather intelligence on what was happening to the east, he therefore decided to dispatch a reconnaissance detachment, and he appointed Albert Skel, with 100 selected horsemen, to carry out this dangerous mission.
On Sunday, July 26. Albert Skel set out and, without incident, reached a point four miles east of Jönköping, where he encountered some horsemen from Gustav Adolf's army. He captured them and learned that Gert Rantzau was retreating, pursued by the Swedish army. Rantzau had begun the march toward Jönköping as agreed, but near Vimmerby, he was forced to turn back due to a lack of provisions, sickness, and mutiny.
Gustav Adolf followed close behind his enemy and cut down the sick, who were left behind on the road, yet kept enough distance to avoid any major engagement.
The Swedish king wrote to his mother that "God had nevertheless visited them with a mighty hand and struck them with terror, hunger, and disease, so that many hundreds were left behind on the road and killed by the Swedes following in their wake, in addition to the throngs cut down by the peasants. And those who reached Kalmar were so exhausted, that for the next four weeks they could accomplish nothing, neither by land nor by sea."
Upon receiving the crucial intelligence regarding Gert Rantzau s retreat to Kalmar, Albert Skel and his 100 horsemen turned back. However, the return journey was not as easy as the outward one. The Swedes had had time to regroup, and ambushes lurked everywhere. They had occupied three passes that the Danish horsemen were forced to traverse. Albert Skel wrote to his wife that he had his horse shot out from under him several times and that many of his loyal men fell.
Afterwards, Christian's large army was forced to withdraw from Jönköping without having achieved its objective.
The King was compelled to acknowledge the words of his experienced Councillors at a council meeting in Odense in 1604: "Sweden is a very rugged land, with mountains and vast lakes, such that they at strategic points can prevent an enemy coming with a small force from advancing. Furthermore, the nature of the Swedish area is such, that if a strong enemy force enters the country, they find no means of sustenance, whereas if a weak force enters, they are defeated by their adversaries."
The English King James 1. deserves great praise for his persistent attempts to establish peace in Scandinavia.
Memorial stone commemorating the Treaty of Knärød 1613, erected in 1925 by the Halland Museum near Sjöared. Photo: Cerrito, Wikipedia.
Towards the autumn of 1611, the English envoy Robert Stuart attempted to mediate and wrote to both his own king and King Christian. The latter rejected the proposal with a smart remark: "It is a tough business, when such fine gentlemen set out to broker peace between potentates. Once he has received his payment, he ought to be satisfied with whatever outcome arises between Denmark and Sweden."
In the summer of 1612, the English king once again attempted to mediate peace. He sent Robert Amstreuter to King Christian at the camp near Älvsborg, where he arrived on July 2.. At the same time, he sent Jacob Spens to Stockholm on the same mission.
At this time, Amstreuter did not find a particularly receptive ear with King Christian. The King was just about to set out for Jönköping, where he was to meet Gert Rantzau.
In Sweden, Spens was met with greater success. In the Council s letter to the young king announcing the arrival of the English envoy, the Council wrote that the proposal should be accepted. The king was immediately willing to enter into negotiations.
Negotiations were resumed only when King Christian returned to Copenhagen in mid-September. By then, he had realized that he could achieve nothing more against Sweden, and any hope of winning the third of the Scandinavian crowns had been dashed.
The war ended with the Treaty of Knärød in 1613, which required Sweden to pay a monster sum of money to regain älvsborg, a feat the Swedes actually succeeded in accomplishing in 1619.
The Treaty of Knärød stipulated that Sonnenburg Castle on the island of Ösel was to be transferred to Denmark. Both kingdoms were permitted to display the Three Crowns in their coats of arms, though this did not imply any Danish claim to dominion over Sweden. Sweden ceded to Norway all authority over the Sami people along the coast from Tysfjord to the Russian border, furthermore, should the Swedish kings resume the title "King of the Lapps in Norrland," this was to be understood as referring solely to the Sami of Lapmark, who were subject exclusively to the Swedish king.
Sweden was to be exempted from paying the Sound Dues, and Swedish subjects were to be permitted to trade duty-free in Denmark, just as Danish subjects could in Sweden. Trade with Riga and Kurland was to be free for Danish ships, or those of other nations, sailing through the Sound. Kalmar, Ryssby Skanse, Borgholm, and öland were to be returned to Sweden. Härjedalen and Jämtland were to be returned to Norway. All prisoners not yet exchanged were to be released without ransom or compensation for their entertainment.
The Peace of Stettin was to remain in force regarding all points that had not been altered by new provisions.
28. Christian 4.
When he was not ruining his lands with unnecessary wars, Christian was a very committed and active king for all his lands.
Unlike his royal predecessors since Christopher of Bavaria, all of whom spoke German, Christian wrote and presumably spoke in Danish.
As mentioned above, Frederik 2. gave his unwavering support to Tycho Brahe and his astronomical work. However, after the king's death, his successor, Christian 4., began criticizing Brahe for failing to fulfill his obligations as a feudal lord, and he was accused of mistreating his peasants. He was stripped of more and more privileges, and in 1597, he took the decisive step of leaving Denmark to join the Emperor in Prague.
The Icelandic Trading Company, which held a monopoly on trade with Iceland, was founded in 1602.
In 1605, the King placed the Scot John Cunningham in command of a three-ship expedition to Greenland. The ships were named "Trost", "Løven", and "Katten". He was accompanied by the renowned pilot James Hall, who was familiar with the conditions in Greenland. Godske Lindenov, who would later serve as an admiral during the Kalmar War, was the captain of "Løven". The expedition reached the west coast of Greenland and claimed the territory for Denmark. They went ashore at several locations along the west coast and brought some Inuits back to Copenhagen.
In 1614, he had the fortified town of Kristianstad built in Scania.
The East India Company was established by royal charter on 17. March 1616.
In 1616, he founded the city of Glückstadt in the Duchy of Holsten, on the northern bank of the Elbe north of Hamburg. His intention was to establish a rival to Hamburg. It was to be an impregnable fortress and port city.
In 1618, he founded Christianshavn as a fortified trading town on the island of Amager, designed by Dutch engineers with canals and bastions.
The vast majority of the approximately 1,000 witches executed in 17th-century Denmark were burned during the reign of Christian 4.. Following his "witchcraft ordinance" of 1617, at least 600 women convicted as witches were burned over the next eight years, including 25 in Iceland.
In 1619, King Christian sent the Norwegian Jens Munk off with the frigate "Enehjørningen" and the smaller ship "Lamprenen" to find the Northwest Passage.
They sailed into the vast bay, "a mighty sea without boundaries", which Hudson had discovered just a few years earlier. Wintering at the mouth of the Churchill River proved disastrous. By spring, only Jens Munk and two others remained alive. The rest of the 64-man crew had succumbed to scurvy. The survivors managed to sail back to Norway in the smaller ship, the "Lamprenen", which was an extraordinary feat of seamanship.
Detail from an old map of Christiania, founded by Christian 4. in 1624. Note the straight streets. Akershus Fortress is located on the headland south of the city. Photo: Stockflet s map of Christiania, 1784. Nasjonalbiblioteket Wikimedia Commens.
The colony of Tranquebar in India was established in 1620.
Unlike his father, who visited Norway only once, though he did found Frederikstad, Christian visited the country 25 times. In 1623, he established the silver mines at Kongsberg, leading to the founding of the town of Kongsberg. In 1624, he initiated mining operations at Røros following the discovery of copper ore, which became a significant factor in Norway's industrial development.
After a fire in the city of Oslo in 1624, he relocated and rebuilt the city, naming it Christiania. The streets were laid out at right angles to one another and were designed to be 15 meters wide. The city center was surrounded by high defensive ramparts, it was accessible through the city's three gates. He upgraded the Vardøhus fortress in Northern Norway.
Christian founded the towns of Kristianstad and Kristianopel in Scania, and in 1641, Kristiansand as an important port city in southern Norway.
Christian believed that the guilds' monopoly on urban craftsmanship resulted in poor quality and excessive prices, and that it was too difficult for new artisans to establish themselves. Consequently, he abolished the guilds' statutes in "1613". However, this caused considerable unrest, and he was forced to reinstate them.
He was an eager builder, who commissioned many structures that still stand today, including the Round Tower, Regensen, Nyboder, and the Børsen, but the prestigious Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød was particularly close to his heart.
The King established silk weaving mills, cannon foundries, smelting furnaces for bog iron, a copper mill at Kupfermühle near Flensborg, silver and copper mines in Kongsberg, and more.
29. Christian 4. in the Thirty Years' War
Christian 4's participation in the German "Thirty Years' War" marked the beginning of Denmark's historical decline, which reached its low point in 1864.
In 1618, some Protestant nobles threw two imperial - and Catholic - envoys out of a window at Prague Castle. They survived, a fact later attributed to a dung heap. The Bohemian estates subsequently asserted their right to choose their own king. They deposed Emperor Ferdinand and instead elected the leader of the Protestant Union, Frederick 5. of Pfalz.
The Emperor sent an army led by Johan Tilly, "the monk in armor". The Catholic troops defeated the Bohemian army, and Frederick 5. of Pfalz was forced to flee Prague and go into exile. Most of the rebellious Bohemian nobles were executed.
An old prophecy foretold that a lion would come from the north to defeat the eagle, representing the Holy Roman Emperor. Many in Northern Germany regarded the dynamic Danish-Norwegian king, Christian 4., as the lion, who would fulfill the prophecy.
Christian wished to be this lion, but the Council of the State firmly rejected the idea of Denmark going to war against the Emperor.
However, the Council of State held authority only over the Kingdom of Denmark. To the Council's great dismay and concern, the headstrong Christian 4. allowed himself to be drawn into the Thirty Years' War as the Duke of Holsten..
Johann Tserclaes Tilly the "Monk in Armor," commander of the Catholic League's army. Photo: Pieter De Jode/after Antoon van Dyck - Jean T'Serclaes, Count of Tilly. Wikimedia Commons.
The Council of State then sent the king a letter in which they made it perfectly clear that Christian alone would be held responsible for the calamities, he was thereby bringing down upon his unfortunate people.
In 1625, Christian was elected Colonel of the Lower Saxon Area within the Protestant Union in Germany. He did not receive much of the support promised to him by England, France, and the Netherlands, yet he managed well initially.
But on August 14. 1626, Christian 4. marched south with the Protestant army to Lutter am Barenberg, located on the northwestern edge of the Harz mountains. The army continued its march southward, and on August 16. 1626, it unexpectedly made contact with Tilly's Catholic army.
Tilly withdrew because he wished to join forces with another Catholic army under Wallenstein, which was close by. Christian attempted to prevent the two armies from uniting. However, Wallenstein chose an unexpected route, and the two armies united nonetheless.
Tilly now went on the offensive with his reinforced army, and during constant minor skirmishes, the Protestant army retreated northward.
The main battle took place on the plain near Lutter am Barenberge. After an arduous night march from Seesen, the king had his army draw up in battle formation on August 27. 1626, north of a marshy valley traversed by a small stream running east-west. Tilly deployed his army in battle formation south of this valley.
The entire morning was taken up by an artillery duel, though the Protestant guns do not appear to have participated to any significant extent. As the king still showed no signs of attacking, Tilly sent a few infantry units, accompanied by cavalry, across the stream after midday to provoke the enemy into a counterattack.
The King allowed himself to be drawn into a counterattack. "Avec une grande r solution," as Tilly later wrote. The Protestant forces surged forward with their cavalry to drive Tilly's units back across the stream, and, carried by their momentum, they pressed on to reach Tilly's artillery positions.
However, Tilly was an experienced and cautious commander. He had ordered trees to be felled and arranged to protect the cannons. Consequently, the Danish cavalry could achieve nothing against them and was forced to retreat. During the withdrawal, the Protestant organization appears to have collapsed; the Catholic troops had an easy game with the disorganized regiments, which were attacked from both flanks and possibly the rear, thereby completely destroying them.
There are various explanations for the Protestant defeat. The prevailing explanation is that King Christian fell victim to a Cannae style tactic. By withdrawing the Catholic center, the main Protestant force was lured so far forward that it became vulnerable to attacks from the flanks.
Another explanation suggests that the counterattack was organized in three waves. The Danish cavalry formed the first wave, while the second wave consisted of German cavalry. However, the German cavalry did not advance quickly enough, allowing Tilly's soldiers to exploit the gap between the two waves and attack the Danes from the rear as well. Yet, this is essentially just a variation of the Cannae tactic.
Markwart von Pentz. Painting in the Town Hall of Glückstadt. Markwart von Pentz was the commander of the Protestant cavalry in the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge. He was severely wounded in the battle and died the following year. Markwart left behind a son, the later Count Christian von Pentz, named after the Danish King Christian 4. Markwart had served as a page at the King's court in his youth and was a friend of the monarch. His son Christian was married to Sophie Elisabeth, born as a Princess of Slesvig, the daughter of Christian 4. from his marriage to the left hand with Kirsten Munk. Christian von Pentz was thus one of the sons-in-law whom Frederik 3. fought so intensely against, and he was also stripped of his rank by that same king. Photo: Gremmelin, Wikimedia Commons.
Tilly had studied his opponent. He wrote: "I have never seen a commander, who better understood how to array his army and lead it into battle with greater courage, and who showed more presence of mind in remedying confusion and rallying those, who were giving ground, than this King Christian of Denmark."
There is no doubt that Christian possessed great personal courage and an inspiring personality. However, Tilly had likely also studied his opponent, for instance, in accounts of the Kalmar War fifteen years earlier, when Christian and his cavalry, their horses exhausted from a long ride, launched a rash attack against a well-prepared and superior enemy force on Kölleryd Heath in Skällinge Parish on February 21. 1612. He may have concluded that Christian was prone to attacking, when he felt under pressure, and devised his tactics accordingly.
The Danish contingent of the Protestant army almost certainly spearheaded the counterattack across the stream at the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, likely led by Christian himself in a death-defying manner. The noble cavalry from Holstein and Denmark, which had achieved such great triumphs in the Kalmar War, must have been completely destroyed.
The remnants of the Protestant army streamed into Jutland, where they ruthlessly robbed and plundered, hotly pursued by the Catholic army led by Tilly and Wallenstein, who likewise showed no restraint.
Tilly and Wallenstein conquered the duchies and all of Jutland. It was a question of whether Denmark as a nation had any future at all. Yet, miraculously, we got off the hook quite lightly in the Treaty of Lübeck in May 1629.
Ferdinand II and the Catholic League agreed to return Jutland to Denmark and the duchies to the king, on the condition that the Danish king promised not to interfere in the German war in the future.
The Swedish King Gustav Adolf fell in the Battle of Lützen against Wallenstein on 16 November 1632. He was succeeded on the Swedish throne by his daughter, Christina. However, Queen Christina was only six years old, when her father died; consequently, Sweden was governed by a government under Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna until 1644, the year Queen Christina turned eighteen.
Gustav Adolf's death on the battlefield at Lützen did not mark the end of Sweden's military involvement in Germany. Oxenstierna insisted that Sweden remained in the war to secure compensation for the sacrifices it had made.
30. The Torstenson War
The war in Germany had been costly, and Christian had paid for it out of his own pocket, so to speak, since the Council of State refused to levy taxes for this purpose.
However, all revenue from the Sound Dues belonged to the king, who exercised sovereign control over this source of income. Christian sought to win his losses back by increasing the fees charged to each ship. Under Christian 4. the rates reached unprecedented levels. Annual revenue rose from 233,000 rigsdalers in 1635 to as much as 499,000 rigsdalers in 1641.
The peace in Knærød 1613 said that Swedish ships were to be exempted from the Sound Dues. However, for reasons lost to history, Christian 4. unilaterally abolished this provision after a few years, much to the Swedes' dismay.
The Netherlands was a major maritime nation that paid large sums in Sound Dues. They grew irritated by Christian's greed and allied themselves with Sweden.
The Torstenson War was largely Oxenstierna's idea. He observed the wretched state of Denmark-Norway following its defeat in the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge. His aim was to gain territory from Denmark and to be exempted from the Sound Dues. He may have felt that Sweden's access to the Kattegat and the open sea via Gothenburg was far too vulnerable. Denmark had captured Älvsborg twice. Furthermore, Denmark was relatively isolated internationally, likely precisely because of the Sound Dues, and thus an easy target.
He also believed, like all Swedish kings throughout history, that the Scanian lands belonged to Sweden, because they had both bought and paid for the territories, when they redeemed the Counts of Holsten s pledge during the reign of Magnus Smek in 1332. When Valdemar Atterdag reclaimed the lands in 1359, he paid nothing.
Ships wait to pay tolls off Kronborg Castle off Helsingør. The Sound Dues remained in effect for more than 400 years, until 1857. Throughout that time, they were a significant source of revenue for the Danish kings. During Christian s reign, they accounted for two-thirds of the Crown's income. Fredensborg, Rosenborg, and all the other castles and beautiful buildings erected by Christian IV were typically financed by the Sound Dues.
The amount of the fee varied over time, but a typical payment was 1 2% of the cargo's value. Photo: Old drawing of unknown origin.
Without any prior declaration of war, the Swedish general Lennart Torstensson advanced from the south into the duchies and on into Jutland on 13. December 1643. During the spring of 1644, Torstensson gained complete control over the entire Jutland peninsula.
In the spring of 1644, a Swedish army under Gustav Horn invaded Scania and, supported by Dutch warships, captured the towns of Helsingborg and Landskrona.
The Danish military forces were caught completely off guard, even though Christian actually had information about the impending attack.
The Danish envoy in Stockholm, Peder Vibe, had obtained information about the Swedish plans for attack and informed Christian, but the king turned a deaf ear. On 12. December 1643, the day before the attack, he wrote to his son-in-law, High Steward Corfitz Ulfeldt, stating that Peder Vibe was "busily preparing for the onset of war" merely an ironic aside in a letter that dealt with matters far removed from relations with Sweden.
Both Zealand and Funen were now under threat. A Dutch fleet bringing reinforcements to the Swedes was successfully destroyed in Listerdyb, wherever that body of water may be located.
However, no sooner had this threat been averted before a Swedish fleet set sail from Stockholm to prepare for a landing of Swedish troops on Zealand. Aboard the ship Trefoldigheden, Christian 4. personally hastened to meet the Swedes at the head of a fleet of 40 ships, and on 1. July 1644, the Battle of Kolberger Heide, meaning Kolberge Rhed, took place between Fehmern and Kiel Fjord. It was during this battle that the king lost one of his eyes.
While the 66-year-old King Christian stood on the bridge "amidst smoke and steam", he was struck by shrapnel or wood splinters and fell bleeding to the deck. However, he quickly got back on his feet and ordered the battle to continue.
The King had got 10 12 wounds to his head. The ship's surgeon removed several wood splinters and fragments of shrapnel from his face, but his right eye was so severely damaged that he lost sight in it.
The Battle of Kolberger Heide ended in a draw, but the Swedish fleet was forced to seek shelter in Kiel Fjord, off the fortress of Christianspris, to repair damages. For nearly a month, the Danish fleet managed to prevent the Swedish ships from leaving the fjord, but on August 1. they nevertheless slipped past the Danes.
The Danish admiral Peder Galt was held responsible, and Christian sentenced him to death. The Council of State recommended a pardon, but the king refused to let him off, and the elderly admiral was executed in the square in front of Copenhagen Castle.
On August 9 10. 1644, a new Dutch fleet sailed unchallenged through the Sound and subsequently joined the Swedish fleet. In October 1644, in the waters between Fehmern and Lolland, the now-united Swedish-Dutch fleet inflicted a crushing defeat on the Danish navy under Admiral Pros Nielsen Mund. Only three of the seventeen Danish ships that took part in the battle managed to return to Copenhagen. Pros Mund himself fell in the battle.
France and the Netherlands did not want the Swedish king to rule on both sides of the øresund, and therefore they pressured Sweden into negotiations. For Denmark, there was no alternative.
The Peace Stone at Brömsebro, erected in 1915 in the middle of the islet in the Landa Stream (Brömse Stream). The stone bears the inscription "Minne af Freden i Brömsebro Axel Oxenstierna Corfitz Ulfeldt". Henrik Sendelbach Wikipedia.
After many months of difficult negotiations, the peace treaty was signed in Brömsebro, on the border between Sweden and Blekinge, on 13. August 1645. Denmark was forced to cede Gotland and Ösel, and the vast Norwegian territories of Jämtland and Härjedalen were incorporated into Sweden. Finally, Sweden received Halland as a pledge for 30 years.
When the day came for the ratification of the peace treaty ending the Torstenson War, with the entire Council of the State in attendance, Christian 4. initially refused to sign. In front of the whole council, he humiliated his chief negotiator, Corfitz Ulfeld: "You sign them; you drew them up according to your own ideas." Ulfeld defended himself, citing his instructions and his efforts to secure the best possible peace terms. The King flew into a rage and persisted in his refusal to sign. Ulfeld then warned of the wrath of the King of France and spoke of the difficulties involved in continuing the war. At that point, the King snatched the treaties from Ulfeld s hands, signed his name, and tossed them back to him with the words: "There you have them, just as you made them."
The final years of Christian's life were marked by disagreements with his sons-in-law, especially Corfitz Ulfeldt.
In 1647, the king s eldest legitimate son and designated successor, Prince Christian, known as "the Chosen Prince", died. The prince had led a dissolute life. He quickly became lethargic and obese, and presumably died from excessive alcohol consumption.
On February 21. 1648, Christian IV died at the age of 71 at his beloved Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen. By then, he had been King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Slesvig and Holsten for just under 60 years. He is buried in Roskilde Cathedral.
31. First Karl Gustav War
With the death of the designated prince in 1647, Frederik, Christian 4.'s second-eldest surviving son, became a candidate for the succession.
His father had secured his appointment as Prince-Bishop of Bremen-Verden, a position in which he ruled for nearly twenty years. However, during the Torstenson War, 1643 45, he lost all his territories in Northern Germany.
He became commander-in-chief and president of the war council in Glückstadt but failed to achieve anything of note against Torstensson in 1643, other than making himself an enemy of the marsk of the kingdom, Anders Bille of Rønnowsholm.
On November 23. 1648, Frederik 3. was crowned King of Denmark in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen.
The Danish nobility had vivid memories of the headstrong Christian 4. and all the disasters he had caused. They had little confidence in his son Frederik, who was required to sign a very strict hand binding contract, the last of its kind in Danish history.
The authority to levy taxes rested solely with the Council of State. The Council could veto the king s declaration of war against other powers. He was prohibited from imposing customs duties. He could only appoint new councilors from among candidates designated by the Council of State. He could not grant Danish noble privileges to foreigners without the Council s consent. He had to acknowledge that Norway, too, was an elective kingdom subject to conditions similar to those of Denmark.
Frederik 3. was implacably hostile towards the Council of State and, indeed, against the entire old Danish nobility, likely both before and after the coronation hand binding contract.
He immediately turned against Christian 4. s sons-in-law, many of whom possessed significant international military and political experience as well as language skills, and targeted all those, whose wives were daughters of Kirsten Munk.
Corfitz Ulfeldt was one of Christian 4. s sons-in-law. He served as "rigshovmester", which was the highest office in the kingdom after the king, under both Christian 4. and Frederik 3. Highly gifted, he spoke Spanish, French, and German. He conducted negotiations with the French queen in Spanish and corresponded with Frederik 3. in French. Holberg notes that the French envoy, Comte d'Avaux, was not only astonished by his command of languages but also regarded him as "an exceptionally intelligent man."
Frederik 3. and posterity have branded him the ultimate traitor for defecting to the Swedish king.
However, we should bear in mind that during the era of the union, many Swedish nobles and bishops desired for Sweden to be subject to the Danish king, or, more precisely, a union monarch of Danish descent. For four hundred years, Norwegian nobles quite naturally served Danish kings. Is it then reasonable to label Corfitz Ulfeldt as history's greatest traitor for believing that Denmark would be better off under the Swedish King Karl 10. Gustav, especially considering the catastrophes that Christian 4. and Frederik 3. brought upon the kingdom. Moreover, Frederik 3. had almost certainly intended a grim fate for him, which he escaped only by fleeing Denmark. Photo Own photo reproduction of an expired work of art. Wikipedia.
As a first move, Frederik succeeded in 1648 in having Christian 4.'s son-in-law, Christian von Pentz, dismissed as commandant of Glückstadt and governor of Holsten. He was the son of Markwart von Pentz of Segeberg, who fell in the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge. Christian von Pentz was married to Christian 4.'s daughter, Sophie Elisabeth.
While Corfitz Ulfeldt was negotiating an alliance with the Netherlands, the king initiated an investigation in 1650 into the conduct of his kinsman Ebbe Ulfeldt while governing on Bornholm, specifically regarding irregularities in the accounts and the mistreatment of the peasants. Ebbe Ulfeldt was married to Christian 4.'s daughter Hedevig. He left for Sweden and later became a member of the Swedish Council of State.
Hannibal Sehested was married to Christian 4. s daughter, Christiane. In 1651, King Frederik accused him of embezzlement. The affair ended with the King confiscating all of Hannibal Sehested s assets in Norway, which included land, sawmills and mines. Sehested himself was forced to go into exile abroad.
The Lord High Steward Corfitz Ulfeldt was accused of plotting to assassinate King Frederik 3. When Ulfeldt succeeded in having the key witness, Dina Vinhofvers, convicted of lying, the King immediately retaliated in 1651 by demanding an investigation into Ulfeldt's conduct regarding the Sound Dues. Corfitz Ulfeldt subsequently chose to flee the country.
Corfitz Ulfeldt was married to Christian 4.'s daughter Leonora Christina, whom Frederik 3. imprisoned in the Blåtårn and held captive for 22 years.
Holberg notes that a French envoy, Comte d'Avaux, in addition to being astonished by Ulfeldt's extensive linguistic skills, regarded him as "an exceptionally intelligent man."
It was likely the case that the meticulous accounting practices of modern times were not common in Denmark at that time.
Frederick 3. s methods can be compared to those of the Chinese emperors and the practices found in modern China. No officials receive a significant salary, after all, they hold power, so they can simply find the funds for themselves. Everyone is corrupt by modern standards, yet the emperor and President Xi only crack down on those they wish to get rid of.
During the reign of Frederick 3, it was likely only merchants, who kept anything resembling accurate accounts. Well into the 19th century, it was considered acceptable to take money from the cash box, provided one remembered to put it back. Consequently, it was the merchant class, that understood the accusations of financial irregularities leveled against Ebbe and Corfitz Ulfeldt and Hannibal Sehested. It was at them that this propaganda was aimed.
In Sweden, Queen Christina abdicated in 1654 and handed over power to her cousin, Karl 10. Gustav. Shortly thereafter, Axel Oxenstierna died. The new king had gained his military experience during the Thirty Years' War, having been a 'student of the Swedish expert in lightning warfare, general Torstensson.
The fortified town of Krempe, which is about 5 km north-east of Glückstadt. The city's ground plan in 1652 according to Danckwert. Photo: Mejer - Ausschnitt aus Karte von Schleswig-Holstein aus: Danckwerth/Mejer, Neue Landesbeschreibung der zwei Herzogtümer Schleswig und Holstein, Husum 1652. Wikipedia.
In 1657, the Swedish King Karl 10. Gustav was busy waging war in Poland, and he had already conquered Warsaw and Krakow.
Frederik 3. believed the opportunity had arrived while the Swedish king was occupied elsewhere, and on June 1. 1657, he declared war on Sweden, a conflict that would become known as the First Karl Gustav War. It was not until June 20. that the Swedish king received the declaration of war in the city of Torun, Poland, located about two hundred kilometers northwest of Warsaw on the Vistula River.
As early as June, before or at the same time as Karl Gustav received the declaration of war, Danish troops recaptured Frederik 3. s beloved diocese of Bremen-Verden in northern Germany.
Upon receiving the Danish declaration of war, Karl 10. Gustav s interest in Poland cooled, and he immediately turned his attention to Denmark. On July 7. the Danish marsk, Anders Bille, received word that Karl 10. Gustav had broken camp in Poland with approximately 6,000 men and was marching towards Jutland.
On July 20. 1657, the Swedish king crossed the border of Holsten. Itzehoe fell on August 8. and the marsk, Anders Bille, withdrew to the fortresses of Glückstadt and Krempe. However, the Swedes bypassed these strongholds and continued northward. They were able to do so because most of the Danish cavalry had moved north, and the Swedish king assessed that the fortresses lacked the mounted troops necessary to deliver a powerful counter-attack. This is reminiscent of the German Blitzkrieg tactics used during World War II.
The Swedish army also marched past Rendsburg, and on August 23. 1657, the swedish king established his headquarter in Kolding.
However, near present-day Fredericia, the newly constructed fortress town of Fredriksodde, which blocked the crossing to Funen, awaited. In September, 1,000 men under the command of Anders Bille arrived by sea, sailing north around Skagen, to reinforce the fortress.
The Danish army's major weakness was a lack of qualified senior officers. There were no longer any figures like Johan Rantzau, Daniel Rantzau, or Sten Sehested to chart the overall strategic course of the war. We must assume this was linked to Frederick 3.'s hostility toward the entire old Danish and Holstenian nobility, a class that typically took pride in possessing such qualifications.
Fortress Frederiksodde on old swedish drawing. Wikimedia Commens.
On September 4. 1657, the Swedish king left the Jutland theater of war and traveled to Wismar to explore the possibilities of transporting Swedish troops to the Danish islands by ship. He entrusted the command of the siege of Frederiksodde to Karl Gustav Wrangel.
A naval battle in the waters between Møn and Falsterbo on September 12 13 proved inconclusive, and both fleets sought port for repairs. However, the Danish-Norwegian fleet under Admiral Henrik Bielke was quickly ready for action again and, starting October 4., blockaded Wismar, where the Swedish fleet had taken refuge, thereby thwarting Karl Gustav's plans to transport troops to the islands by ship.
While Charles 10. Gustav was staying in Wismar, he was approached by Corfitz Ulfeldt, who offered to collaborate against Frederik 3.
The Swedes also gained other allies.
The Duke of the Gottorp part of Slesvig-Holsten loyally participated in Christian 4. s Kalmar War, but subsequently grew weary of being tied to a Denmark in rapid decline and of suffering the devastation that accompanied Christian s ambitious involvement in the Thirty Years' War and the Torstenson War, and now Frederik 3 s reckless breach of the peace in 1657, which unleashed endless looting and ravaging of his lands.
In January 1657, he wrote to his son-in-law, Karl 10. Gustav, asking him, if war broke out, to secure a degree of neutrality for Slesvig and Holsten, as this would enable him "to separate the duchies from the Danish".
On September 10. 1657, the Swedish-Gottorp alliance was concluded in Kiel. The alliance was directed against Denmark, and the Duke pledged to provide 5,500 men, of whom 1,500 were to be kept in constant readiness to serve Sweden. In return, Sweden would ensure in a subsequent peace treaty that the joint administration of the duchies was abolished and the Duke would be released from his vassalage to the Danish king. Furthermore, should Karl 10. Gustav conquer all of Denmark, the Duke was to receive both the royal and the ducal parts of Slesvig-Holsten.
Now, that was high treason of the highest order. That is why the alliance was kept strictly secret and only became known long afterwards.
As early as the beginning of September, Major General Bötticher advanced with a detachment of the Swedish army through Northern Jutland, overcoming all Danish resistance along the way. It was only at the crossing of the Limfjord that they encountered serious resistance from groups of armed peasants.
On October 24. 1657, early in the morning, the Swedes stormed the fortress of Frederiksodde. They broke through the ramparts at a point that was not yet fully constructed. The inexperienced Danish peasant soldiers fled in panic. Only the Jutland cavalrymen fighting in the northern part of the town refused to yield and fought to the last man. Marsk of the kindom Anders Bille was mortally wounded during the battle and was taken prisoner along with his brother-in-law, Councellor Mogens Høgh.
Karl 10. Gustav 1622 1660. Miniature portrait in enamel by Pierre Signac, a contemporary French miniature painter based in Stockholm. Photo: Digitaltmuseum, Nationalmuseum, Pierre Signac, identification number NMB 2173. Wikimedia Commons.
Thus, the Swedes were masters of all of Jutland. In accordance with long-standing custom, the town of Frederiksodde was abandoned to looting, rape, and slaughter.
Public outrage and disappointment over the fall of the new fortress were directed at Anders Bille and his fellow nobles.
The king succeeded in persuading some experienced international officers to enter Danish service, thereby strengthening the defense of the Danish islands. Among them were the commandant of Hamburg, Hans Schack, and the German Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein, who had fought for Sweden and several German princes during the Thirty Years' War.
In Norway, Jørgen Bielk succeeded in recapturing Jämtland in November 1657.
However, the weather conditions that later generations have dubbed the "Little Ice Age" had begun. In late December 1657, temperatures dropped dramatically, and the frost set in early. It turned out to be one of the coldest winters in living memory, and Little Belt became completely covered in ice.
During January, the Swedes assembled a force of 6,000 cavalry and 2,500 infantry in the village of Hejls, on the coast of the Lille Bælt between Kolding and Haderslev.
In the middle of the night on 30 January 1657, the Swedish army began its march across the ice of the Little Belt. Via Brandsø, they continued to Funen, where they went ashore at Tybrind Vig, between Middelfart and Assens.
At the last moment, the Danes had assembled a rather small force of cavalry and infantry at Tybrind Vig to attack the Swedes as they landed. However, the Swedes landed at several locations, kilometers apart, and were able to get behind the Danish lines. A few days later, they were in control of the entire island of Funen. They captured Nyborg as early as January 31.
Early on the morning of February 5, Karl 10. Gustav and his army marched out onto the ice of the Great Belt between Langeland and Lolland, and by midday, they landed on Lolland without encountering resistance. They bypassed the fortress of Nakskov without attacking it; the citizens of Nakskov themselves drove the Danish soldiers down from the ramparts.
On February 10, he had his entire army of 7,000 men assembled on Falster, and the following day they crossed the Store Strømmen strait to Zealand. One of the most extraordinary operations in military history was thus brought to a highly successful conclusion, and the Danes were completely paralyzed.
Karl 10. Gustav and the Swedish army go over the ice on Little Belt by Tybrind Vig - painting by Johan Filip Lemke.
Peace negotiations were taking place in Vordingborg while hostilities continued, as Karl Gustav refused to agree to a ceasefire. Corfitz Ulfeldt was one of the Swedish negotiators. The Danes objected to negotiate with Ulfeldt, but the objection was rejected.
The Swedish demand was that the state of war should be replaced by a relationship of close friendship and alliance between the two kingdoms. This was to be achieved by Denmark-Norway refraining from alliances that could directly or indirectly harm Sweden, withholding any form of support for Sweden s enemies, and prohibiting warships from sailing through the Danish straits into the Baltic Sea. Furthermore, the Treaty of Brömsebro was to remain in force, including the provision for duty-free passage through the Sound for Swedish ships.
Denmark-Norway was to cede Blekinge, Halland, and Scania, along with the islands Hven, Saltholm, Bornholm, Møn, Anholt, and Læsø, as well as Bohuslen to Sweden for ever. Furthermore, the fiefs of Trondheim, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the County of Pinneberg on the Elbe were to be ceded to Sweden.
Denmark-Norway was required to pay one million rigsdalers in war reparations and hand over 12 fully equipped warships. Furthermore, Corfitz Ulfeldt, his wife, and his children were to have all their confiscated property returned, and Ebbe Ulfeldt was to receive redress.
The final peace treaty was concluded in Roskilde on February 26, 1658. Denmark-Norway lost Scania, Bornholm, Bohuslän, and Trondheim County.
In return, the Swedes guaranteed the inhabitants of the ceded Danish and Norwegian territories that they could retain their old rights, laws, privileges, and freedoms, including the Scanian Law and the use of Danish in church services.
Nevertheless, in the years that followed, a process of "Swedishization" of the conquered territories was set in motion without the Danish government protested.
32. Second Karl Gustav War
However, Karl 10. Gustav later regretted not having finished the job. As early as August 1658, he assembled an army of 6,000 men in Kiel and transported them by ships to Korsør. From there, they marched towards Copenhagen, set up camp at Brønshøj, and began a siege of the city.
Copenhagen's defense was led by the former commandant of Hamburg, Hans Schack, whom the Danes had succeeded in persuading to enter Danish service.
Frederik 3. declared that he would "die in his nest," as stated in the Book of Job verse 18, which sparked widespread jubilation among the Copenhagen citizens. Mayor Hans Nansen assured the king of the citizens' loyalty, stating "that they would stand by him and risk life and property for His Majesty."
In August 1658, Frederik 3. tasked Captain Svend Poulsen, known as the "Gønge Chief", with organizing a popular uprising on Zealand, but the inhabitants showed little inclination to support him. Only a small band, apparently consisting mainly of people, who had personal scores to settle with the Swedes, joined him.
Denmark was saved as a nation primarily due to intervention from abroad.
Student participation in the defense of Copenhagen on the night of February 10 11. 1659. Photo Vilhelm Rosenstand Wikipedia.
Thanks to the defensive alliance with the Netherlands that Corfitz Ulfeldt had concluded on Denmark's behalf in 1649, a Dutch relief fleet arrived in Copenhagen on October 30. 1658, following a naval battle in the Sound. It brought both supplies and soldiers to the city.
In Norway, the Swedes were driven out of Trondheim Len by Norwegian troops led by Jørgen Bielke.
The people of Bornholm, led by Anker and Kofoed, liberated their island themselves in 1658 and handed it over to King Frederik.
On the night of February 10 11. 1659, after a siege lasting about six months, Karl 10. Gustav attempted to storm the besieged city of Copenhagen. However, the attack collapsed, resulting in heavy Swedish losses. The defenders lost only about twenty men.
The Swedes subsequently accused Corfitz Ulfeldt of having betrayed the attack plans to his compatriots.
Polish, Brandenburger, and Austrian forces conquered the Jutland peninsula. The Poles captured Kolding, followed by a terrible bloodbath. On May 19. 1659, the Swedes abandoned their last position in Jutland at Frederiksodde and took up positions on Funen.
On Funen, Nyborg was the only fortification of significance, even though it was in poor condition. However, the Swedes were working to improve it. An allied army under Eberstein was marching across Funen. It joined forces with another allied army, which had landed at Kerteminde under Hans Schack. Together, they attacked the Swedish positions 3-4 kilometers north of Nyborg on November 14. 1659. The Swedes retreated to Nyborg and surrendered the following day.
Karl 10. Gustav watched the battle from Korsør. Upon realizing the defeat, he returned to Sweden.
On February 13, 1660, Karl 10. Gustav died after a brief illness at the age of 37, whereupon all parties were ready to conclude a new peace treaty.
England, France, and the Netherlands decisively dictated the Treaty of Copenhagen on May 27, 1660.
It proved to be a disappointment for Denmark-Norway. England and France desired a strong Sweden as a counterweight to the Habsburgers, and the Netherlands wanted Denmark-Norway to be deprived of the eastern shore of the Sound. Sweden was allowed to retain all the territorial gains from the Treaty of Roskilde, except for the Trondheim region and Bornholm.
