Battle of Lund, 1676 – Sweden’s Bloodiest battle

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📢 Narrated by David McCallion

🎼 Music:
Epidemic Sounds
Filmstro

🖼 Images used:
Battle of Lund, painted by Johan Philip Lemke (year 1696). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slaget_vid_Lund_1.jpg & https://collection.nationalmuseum.se/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=79304&viewType=detailView
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Battle of Landskrona in 1677 during the Scanian War; the Danes were defeated by the Swedes, by Johann Philipp Lemke (1631–1711). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Landskrona.jpg & https://digitaltmuseum.se/021046500658/slaget-vid-landskrona
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

The battle of Öland, June 1, 1676, by Claus Møinichen (1665–1710) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claus_M%C3%B8inichen_-_Slaget_ved_%C3%98land_1._juni_1676.png
The author died in 1726, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.

Battle of Halmstad 1676 during the Scanian War, by Johann Philipp Lemke (1631–1711) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slaghalm1676.jpg
This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.

Ratification of the Peace of Münster between Spain and the Dutch Republic in the town hall of Münster, 15 May 1648. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_Munster,_Gerard_Ter_Borch_%281648%29.jpg
This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.

📚 Sources:
Richard Brezezinski & Richard Hook – The Army of Gustavus Adolphus 1 “Infantry”
Richard Brezezinski & Richard Hook – The Army of Gustavus Adolphus 2 “Cavalry”
Robert I. Frost – The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe
Lars Eric Hoglund – The Scanian War 1675-1679: Colors and Uniforms
Goran Larsson – The Battle of Lund 1676: Maps and Guide to the Battlefield

#swedishempire #history #documentary

It is one o’clock in the morning on a freezing  December night as the Swedish army of young King   Charles XI begins to stir itself and  make preparations for an advance.   Brought south to defend Scania from the  Danes and camped on the north side of the  

Frozen Kavlinge River, the Swedes have  been beset by lack of food and fuel,   frostbite, and the growing menace of disease. With ice grinding under the weight of their boots,   padded like their horses’ hooves in  cloth scraps to ensure silence from  

The ever-present ears of the Danes, the  officers commit a final inspection. They   make sure that anything metal is covered and  tied in place, lest it jangle and alert the   sentries. Loaded pistols and fixed swords  are concealed beneath thick cloaks.  

By 4 a.m., the 7 to 8,000 men and horses of the  Swedish army, about ⅔ their original number,   are walking across the river at Ringsbackmolla  and forming up to march toward the town of Lund,   to the north of which the Danes  have made their own camp.  

The plan is to maneuver around the town and  attack the Danes from the south, betting   everything on a cavalry charge catching the  enemy unawares and driving them from the field,   before winter does the same for the Swedes and  their own withdrawal becomes inevitable.  

The sheer size of the Swedish advance  cannot be hidden for long, however,   and by 7 o’clock, the Danes become aware of  what is happening while the Swedes are still   forming in the dark at Stangby Church. Denmark’s popular monarch Christian V,  

Almost a decade older than Charles but  just as inclined towards absolutism and   a martial approach to rule, gives orders for  the Danish army, 13,000 strong, with over a   thousand allied Dutch and supported by the local  populace, to ready themselves for battle.  

Hearing of this and surveying the rough  ground south and east of the Danish camp,   Charles orders a momentary halt. After a  brief consultation with his own commanders,   including the experienced general Baron  Simon Grundel Helmfelt, the King orders   that the Swedish army continue the advance. They are now to proceed directly toward the  

Heights north of Lund and hold them in advance  of an attack from the Danes, coming south on the   uneven terrain below their camp. Seeing what the Swedes intend,   Christian’s units on the left flank engage  the enemy in a hurried contest to try and  

Keep them from the high ground. In a sharp exchange between mounted   troops wielding pistols and sabres, the more  battle-ready Swedes manage to win the first   success of the day, and they take the heights. Dawn slowly breaks the dark, and figures begin  

To emerge amid the pall of gunpowder. Undeterred, Christian and his own commanders   regroup and begin to settle their regiments  into battle order. With the Swedes now   shooting down at the enemy from Windmill  Hill, the Danes give the order to attack,  

And the battle proper begins at 9 o’clock. What follows is one of the most extraordinary   back and forth engagements of the early  modern era, ending with likely the largest   number of Scandinavians killed  in any battle before or after.  

At the conclusion of the Second Northern War  and the signing of the treaties of Copenhagen   and Cardis in 1660 and 1661, the Swedish Empire  stands astride the Baltic Sea like the Colossus   of Antiquity. Its holdings stretch from Lake  Ladoga in the east, through Finland, modern Latvia  

And Lithuania, into parts of northern Germany,  and all the way to the Copenhagen Sound.   Despite ruling over no more than a  million residents – one twentieth that   of France – Sweden is among Europe’s Great Powers  and a guarantor of the Westphalian System signed  

Just over a decade before in 1648. But within the sheer scale of Sweden’s   achievements also lie the incontrovertible  signs of the delicate if not fragile   foundation of that very power. Primarily, Sweden’s low population   and lack of arable land make sustaining the ever  growing and more sophisticated field armies of the  

Early modern period difficult, if not impossible.  The cost of maintaining a large standing army   in Pomerania is particularly onerous. While Sweden does not lack for timber to   build a fleet, its geographic isolation from the  sea lanes of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean  

Hamper the growth of its trade behind that  of the other northern powers – England,   France, and the Netherlands. A country already punching above its weight   also has no shortage of dangerous enemies on the  borders of its expansive territories. Karelia,  

Finland, Engria and Estland are all  coveted by the menacing Russian Empire,   itself expanding expeditiously under  the second of the Romanovs, Alexis.   The occupation of Livonia has come at the  expense of the declining but still capable   Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while both  it and Bremen are desired by the hostile  

And militaristic Brandenburg-Prussia. The most enthusiastic of Sweden’s predators   is Christian V of Denmark and Norway, whose reign  begins in 1670, ten years after his kingdom lost   a third of its territory to Sweden in the Second  Northern War. Christian sees himself in the same  

Mold of absolute monarch as Louis IV, the  Sun King of France, and he eagerly begins   to look for allies who will assist him  in regaining Denmark’s lost prestige.   In addition to Scania and other territories on  the Scandinavian peninsula, Christian also desires  

The Swedish holdings in northern Germany, and  Sweden’s support for what are seen as pretenders   to the Danish throne do not improve relations. Christian’s young counterpart Charles of Sweden is   very much a medieval king ruling in a quickly  evolving modern era. Taking the throne at just  

Five years of age, in his teens and twenties  he has little understanding or interest in the   new economics of warfare. He is keen to rule by  leading great armies, just as his father Charles   X Gustav and ancestor Gustavus Adolphus did in  the preceding decades of the 17th century.  

For Charles, whichever monarch controls the  most land and acts with the most courage   will – with the help of God – be the victor.  The fact that Sweden cannot create a tax base   large enough to properly train and equip the  fleet necessary to supply and defend those  

Territories is alien to him. Should any of Sweden’s neighbours   attempt to encroach on his realm, Charles will  enthusiastically meet their advance in person at   the head of his Household Cavalry, a tendency that  rattles his older and more adroit ministers.  

To counter these threats, Sweden in  1672 signs an alliance with France,   now the premier power on the European mainland  since its eclipse of Spain and the other Habsburg   territories following the Thirty Years War and  the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees. France agrees to  

Pay hundreds of thousands of riksdaler to Sweden  for the maintenance of its continental armies,   in return for which Sweden will give its  support to France in the event of a war.   Much to Swedish dismay, France and Denmark’s ally  the Dutch Republic go to war that very same month,  

And the Swedes are left with little  else but hope that they will not be   asked to honour their bold commitments. Even this shred of optimism disappears the next   year when Brandenburg-Prussia, along with  Denmark-Norway and the Holy Roman Empire,  

Join the Franco-Dutch War on the Dutch side,  and France is not slow in demanding that the   Swedes earn their money and move from their shaky  holdings in Pomerania to attack the Prussians.   After a long period of prevarication  and unenthusiastic maneuvering,  

The Swedish army encounters the Prussian  military in Fehrballin at the end of June   1675 and comes second best to a smaller force.  It subsequently moves east once more.   Fehrballin galvanizes the already enthusiastic  Christian of Denmark into honoring the Danish  

Alliance with the Dutch Republic and he  launches an all out invasion of Scania,   the southern province of the Scandinavian  Peninsula ceded by Denmark to Sweden in 1658.   Swedish naval defeat at Oland to a joint Danish  and Dutch fleet in June 1676 – resulting in the  

Loss of 11 ships sunk or captured, along  with fourteen hundred dead – opens Swedish   waters and means that a power dependent on  the sea is now unable to defend itself.   Christian seizes the moment. While his forces land  at Helsingborg before advancing to Landskrona,  

Malmo, and east to Kristianstad, some 4,000  Norwegian soldiers are concentrated on the   northern Swedish border, moving into Bohuslan  and Varmland, with only 2,000 Swedish soldiers   in position at Munkedal to ensure they  do not pass any further. Undeterred,   the Norwegians take Vanersburg, and it  appears that Gothenburg will be next.  

While this is happening on the peninsula, the  now demoralized and battered Swedish forces in   northern Germany are isolated and without naval  support or reinforcement. A Danish army working in   conjunction with Brandenburg-Prussia takes Bremen  and the province of Wismar, shrinking the Swedish  

Holdings to small strips of territory. In Scania, Christian and the Danes receive   widespread assistance from the locals, almost all  of whom support the return of the province to the   Danish realm. Irregular bands of paramilitaries,  known as “Snapphanar,” harass Swedish forces and   lines of communication. While some of the Snapphanar  

Are relatively disciplined and effective  guerrilla units, led by Danish officers,   there are also many who operate simply as gangs  and what would today be classed as terrorists.   When they can engage with the Snapphanar,  the Swedes show them little mercy,  

Let alone the status of prisoners of war – and  Scania devolves into a bitter civil conflict   of barbarity, reminiscent of the outrages  in Germany during the Thirty Years War.   In spite of all these defeats, and the gargantuan  blow to Swedish prestige and its reputation for  

Military invulnerability, the twenty year old  Charles remains impervious to the pressure and   maintains his position with the army at Vaxjo. When in August, 1676, Christian dispatches his   Scottish born general, Jakob Duncan, north  with 3 to 4,000 men to link up with the  

Norwegians outside Gothenburg in the hopes  that they will take the city, Charles leads   a force of 6,000 to outmaneuver, trap, and  finally defeat the Danes at Halmstad.   The first Swedish victory in over a year of  fighting and a ray of light for the young monarch,  

It serves along with the fury over the  deprivations of the Snappenhaur to create a   surge of Swedish recruitment. By autumn, Charles  is leading an army of well over 12,000 men.   After advancing himself to try and unsuccessfully  take Halmstad in a siege, Christian withdraws  

South to Lund, and makes preparations for winter,  still very much in control of his campaign. But   Charles was just getting started. With his  restored army, he shadows the invader.   By November, the two armies are within sight of  each other, camped by the town of Lund, on the  

Two banks of the frozen Kavlinge River. Despite  occupying the same ground, it is the Swedes who   are suffering most from the freezing winter,  for they are effectively in enemy territory   with the attacks and raids of the Snappenhaur  affecting their supply lines from the north. By  

The end of the month, the Swedish army is greatly  reduced from its height during the autumn.   Charles takes a characteristically  bold approach to the situation,   and the Swedes attempt a daring action.  Before their army melts into inconsequence,  

Or they are forced to begin a hazardous, costly,  and humiliating retreat, Charles orders his army   to begin an all out surprise attack on the Danes,  not only in the middle of a stinging winter,   but also at night, literally walking across the  frozen river, which Charles’s commanders have  

Assured him will hold their weight. The gamble could descend into disaster   by any number of means, but for  Charles, the only alternatives are   the disasters of starvation coupled with  hyperthermia and embarrassing defeat.   By 9 a.m. on the 4th December, the Swedes  have possession of the heights north of Lund,  

Stretched along the road south from Stangby and to  the east of the villages of Vallkarra, Nobbelov,   and Lerbackshov. The Danes have moved south  from their camp at Skalshog to engage them.   With roughly 2,000 cavalry apiece at the start,  the two armies clash in a titanic struggle,  

Fighting in the closest quarters  with pistol, sword, and arquebus.   To differentiate their comrades from the enemy,  the Danes wear white armbands, while the Swedes   place a handful of straw into their hat bands. In a straight fight – and with the advantage of  

The high ground – the Swedish tactic of  firing pistols in the last moment of a   charge before laying into the enemy with  swords is superior to the Danish tactic   of having front line cavalry fire an arquebus  in formation and then ride to the flanks to  

Make space for the next row to fire in turn. By ten o’clock, the Danish left, with the King   Christian XI in its midst, begins to give way  and finally breaks after its commander Carl Von   Arensdorf is shot. They are pursued by the Swedish  right wing and its own King, Charles. His two  

Leading commanders, Baron Simon Grundel Helmfelt  and general of the cavalry Rutger Von Ascheburg,   ride with him, leaving the main body of the  Swedish army without its senior leadership.   The two royal detachments gallop north, along  the road out of Lund and back toward the Kavlinge  

River. Incredibly, Christian passes by the Danish  camp and then Charles and his men skirt it also,   some Swedes falling on its weakly defended  perimeter and forcing their way inside, while the   rest remain riding full tilt toward the river. Christian reaches the Kavlinge and gets across,  

Heading north to Landskrona and what he hopes  is safety. Unfortunately for him and his army,   the ice does not hold as it did for the Swedes  – possibly it has been melting slightly as the   day warms, or perhaps because Christian’s men  cross in mass panic and without order.  

Cracks soon turn to gaping holes on the  frozen river. Hundreds of Danish soldiers   are lost beneath the ice. More die in  the retreat from the camp which is now   being overrun by Charles’s Swedes. Those stuck on the near side are easy  

Prey for Charles and his cuirassiers, and they  fall on the trapped Danes and wipe them out.   Now in control of this northern sector and  close to his own camp, Charles finds a safe   point to cross the river and seemingly gives  chase to his enemy monarch once more.  

It might have appeared to the Swedish king that  he and his forces had carried the day, but back   at the battle site, the greater part of his  Swedish army is now under immense pressure from   the Danes who are still numerically superior and  on familiar ground close to their former camp.  

Having the Swedes in place before them, the  Danes are able to bring out their infantry,   supported by artillery. The infantry advance in the center,   supported by the Danish artillery, is  successful, and the Swedish artillery   is taken by the enemy. Gradually, the  Swedes are pushed south toward the town.  

By now, the battle is being contested  by perhaps 15,000 men on both sides.   The Swedes launch a counter attack which  heavily damages the Danish center.   The fighting rages on for more than two  hours before a respite creates some room   for reorganization. The final assault  

A Swedish soldier named Eric Dahlbergh rides   around the Danish lines and  heads towards the river.   Despite the break, the Swedish army is now  effectively trapped, caught between the   Danish forces who have cut off the road to the  north and the walls of Lund to the south.  

Remarkably, despite this predicament, the Swedes  make no attempt to surrender and instead fight   on as the day wears into afternoon. There  is even an account of a Swedish commander,   Bernard Von Liewen, fighting a duel in front of  the assembled armies with a Danish captain.  

It is possible that the Swedes are hoping that  the early winter dusk and onset of night after   3 p.m. will result in the Danes’ withdrawal.  But it’s Charles’ army that is losing strength   and suffering attrition. The Danes show  no sign of slowing their own attack.  

They have the Swedes where they want them, and  they gradually grind them down with deliberate   mercilessness. The Danish commanders  begin to prepare for a last charge to   clear the Swedish force in its entirety. But just as all seems lost for the Swedes,  

And the Danish commander Frederich Von Arenstorff  has pulled an unlikely victory from the jaws of   defeat for his departed king and mortally wounded  brother, the battle takes another turn.   A deafening war cry and thundering of hooves  sounds from the north, and the Danes, now facing  

South, turn to see Charles of Sweden along with  1,000 of his horsemen – the equivalent of nine   squadrons he has managed to pull together from  the scattered left wing that ravaged the Danish   camp and chased away King Christian. Eric Dalhbergh has successfully located  

The King and informed him that he  is needed with his soldiers.   Von Arenstorff wheels his remaining forces around  to face this fresh threat and the fighting begins   on a north south line along the road between  Lerbackshog and Nobbelhov. The Danish artillery  

And the pieces it captured from the Swedes  likely all aiming south at the main Swedish army   means that this clash in the northern sector is  another vicious all pistols and sabers affair.   The Danes just hold the Swedes, but they  are now fighting in two places at once.  

The Swedish squadrons before Lund are exhausted  from the hours of fighting and a night without   sleep before that, but yet again royal  intervention makes the difference.   Charles of Sweden – now with just five of his  companions, including Eric Dalhbergh – battles  

Through the Danish lines and miraculously rides to  his men with their backs to the wall of Lund.   Ecstatic at the sight of their monarch  galloping virtually alone to them under   enemy fire and thousands of Danish and  Dutch soldiers attempting to kill him,  

The Swedes rally through their fatigue. Charles  reaches their line, greeted with euphoria.   With him at their head, the Swedes charge the  Danes again, driving their horses forward. Now   pressed from both sides with a reenergized  opposing force, the remainder of the Danish  

Army admirably manages to stand for half  an hour before it disintegrates and its   shredded units try to make their escape. They are cut down in the fields between their camp   and the two villages of Vallkarra and Nobbelov,  the same fields that Charles and his commanders  

Had deemed impassable twelve hours earlier. With the afternoon already clothed in darkness,   the Swedes inflict terrible carnage, destroying  the Dutch company that had fought with the Danes   virtually in its entirety. The Danes are not  only struggling against the awful terrain,  

The darkness, and the cold, but they are  fighting desperately to make it back to a   camp that has already fallen to the enemy. For those that make it past this death trap,   there is the frozen waters of the Kavlinge which  claimed thousands of their comrades’ lives already  

That day. On witnessing what now amounts to  summary execution of the Danish and Dutch,   Baron Helmfelt orders an end to the slaughter,  and the fighting effectively ceases between   five and six o’clock in the evening. Though Christian and Denmark’s war to  

Regain Scania did not end with the disaster at  Lund, it was the making of Charles of Sweden and   the pivotal moment that turned the tide of the war  that was threatening to overwhelm his kingdom.  

After the crushing defeats of 1675 and early 1676,  it had appeared that Sweden was on the verge of   total disintegration. Charles and his people’s  resolution defied the odds, both strategically   in the wider war and then spectacularly  in the frozen meadows north of Lund.  

Christian retreated in the immediate aftermath  of Lund, his great army for the moment broken. In   order to delay and hamper any Swedish advance,  he ordered a scorched earth policy on farms,   villages, and towns across the region. This had  an inevitably negative effect on the previously  

Staunch popularity of the Danes in Scania. A battle fought the next year at Landskrona   resulted in another victory for the Swedes, albeit  with far fewer casualties than at Lund. Christian,   now requiring German reinforcement after the  losses of Lund and the failed siege of Malmo,  

Withdrew back to Zealand, ordering his Norwegian  army to do the same in the northwest.   The Scanian War along with the wider European  war was settled by France in 1679 with the   Treaty of Lund, allowing Sweden to keep all of its  territory by paying only a nominal compensation  

To Denmark. The war damaged Christian’s self  instigated aura of infallibility in Denmark,   though his prudent later rule did much  to rehabilitate his reputation.   The Swedes meanwhile launched a stern campaign of  justice in Scania after the depredations of the   Snappenahur, punishing many and demanding  loyalty from all others. Though Sweden  

Would eventually lose its European empire,  Scania was to remain Swedish in perpetuity.