USO Canteen FReeper Style ~ Thank A Vet during the Holidays ~ December 3 2002

68-69TonkinGulfYatchClub and FRiends of the Canteen

[Valin]

1934 - USMC Veteran and LindaSOG's Father ~ Happy Birthday Dad!


And he doesn't look a day over 68.

[Valin]

Everything you never needed to know about
The Battle of Lund 1676


On December 4th, 1676, the ferocious Battle of Lund raged immediately outside the town gate north of Lund.

Pre-history

Sweden was one the great winners of the Thirty-Years' Wars, and in the Westphalian Peace Treaty (in 1648) got new provinces (Vor-Pomerania, Wismar with Neuenkirchen, Bremen-Verden, Wildeshausen, and other smaller areas) in Germany. In the peace agreements of Roskilde (in 1658) and Copenhagen (in 1660, after the "sudden" death of Charles X Gustavus), Sweden finally acquired the provinces of Skåne, Blekinge, Halland, and Bohuslän from Denmark. Sweden was now the "Northern Great Power" of Europe and one the Trustors of the Westphalian Peace.

King Charles XI inherited the throne in 1660 (after his father, Charles X Gustavus, who died unexpectedly in Gothenburg) at the age of only 5. In 1672, at the age of 17, he was declared being of ruling age. In a recently-formed alliance with France, Sweden had agreed -- in return to a large yearly French financial subsidy -- to launch a large field-army (10,000 men) in its German provinces in case of an armed conflict in Europe. In 1675, Sweden had to fulfill its promise. However, the army was much smaller (and weaker and worse-equipped) than promised and it was badly treated by an opposing Brandenburgian force at the ensuing battle of Fehrbellin (north-west of Berlin). (The immediate outcome of the battle as such was more or less a draw, but since the wavering Swedish command treated it as a loss it became a loss!) Now the Danish King Christian V saw his opportunity to re-conquer the above-mentioned former Danish provinces.

Mid-June 1676, a Danish force made a diversionary attack from Norway into Bohuslän, and on June 29th Christian himself landed his main army near Helsingborg and swiftly took possession of most of Skåne. Only the heavily fortified city of Malmö resisted the Danish forces. Many of the inhabitants -- especially the poorer peasants in the north-Scanian woodlands -- joined forces with the Danes and harassed the remaining Swedish forces. On July 24th, a Swedish wagon-train (of no less than 250 carriages) was robbed and destroyed in the famous ambush of Loshult (on the provincial border between Skåne and Småland). A war-chest of 50,000 silver-coins, the King's personal tent, and his household-silver disappeared for ever. (This incident was a blow against the immediate war operations, but not such an irreplaceable loss as it was once alleged by the enemy propaganda: the total amount corresponded to only three weeks' subsidies from France!) The Danish diversionary force continued to penetrate the western parts of Sweden from Norway.

The only 21-year-old King Charles XI personally took command of his newly-conscripted main army and marched down from the Swedish heartlands to stop the Danish armies. The Danish expansion was stemmed in the battle of Fyllebro (situated in the province of Halland; the name "Fyllebro" is incredibly funny in Swedish, it means approximately "Bridge of Drunkards") on August 17th. However the Danish resistance (together with the opposition of the local Scanian population) made it an overwhelming task to drive the Danes out of Skåne. The Danish army made its retreat skillfully across Skåne in order to keep in its possession what it had conquered and to destroy the possibilities for Charles to feed and to maintain his army. The Danes also tried to isolate the city of Malmö, which was the only Swedish fortress in Skåne that still held out (Christian already held the fortified towns of Helsingborg, Kristianstad, and Landskrona together with the towns of Lund and Ystad).

As the Danish Navy was superior to the Swedish, Charles had to rely on a few passable roads for his communications with the capital of Stockholm and also all his supply transports had to go by wagon-trains. The Swedish situation was very bad: despite the bad communications with the other parts of Sweden, the army had to stay in Skåne at any price in order to keep the Danish army "busy" so that it wasn't able to encircle och starve ut the city of Malmö. The autumn of 1676 was terrible: the fields were flooded by torrential rains and the bad roads transformed into boggy ditches. On November 20th Christian finally decided to let his army go into well-selected winter quarters in the area north-east of Lund. Charles could not find equivalent quarters, but he decided to let his army rest about 7 miles north-west of Lund (on the other side of the Kävlinge River). During the very last night of November, the weather suddenly changed and it was much colder. All small rivers froze at once, and Charles decided to wage a final battle during his 1676 campaign.

The battle

The Danish army comprised about 6,300 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and a field artillery of 56 heavy guns. Staff and baggage train included, it totalled nearly 15,000 men. The Swedish army was considerably smaller. It had only 2,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and an artillery of only 8 heavy guns. Staff and baggage train included, it totalled less than 9,000 men. Charles had to rely heavily on the advantages of quick movement and total surprise.

Charles scouted carefully and began to cross the Kävlinge River at 0400 hours on December 4th. At 0530 hours his army had crossed the river, taken its flank stand against Christian's encampment, and started its march south-eastwards to Lund. Christian's troops were, as hoped, taken by total surprise. (At the Danish inquests afterwards, it was said that most Danish soldiers were drunk and that the Danish advance guard wasn't detached properly that night.) At 0830 hours the Swedish head had reached the northern gate of Lund, but now a virtual "race for the town" had started. At 0900 hours the Swedes took possession of the highest hill-ridge north of Lund. Charles engaged in the combat with great courage, personally leading one of the attacking wings. During the morning's battle his horse, "Thotten", was shot under him, and he had to change to his reserve horse, the bright stallion Brillant, a coronation gift (in 1673) from King Louis XIV of France. (In Swedish history, Brillant is better known under its nick-name, Brandklipparen (i.e. "The Fire-Buck"). This horse was inherited by his son Charles XII, who rode him until he finally died in Lund in 1716, thus being at least 43 years old!!)

The battle was very fierce when the Danes had recuperated from their initial shock. After some hours' combat, a large part of the Danish army retreated north-westwards over the Kävlinge River. The ice broke under the strain and a number of Danish soldiers and horses were drowned in the river. King Christian and Prince George of Denmark retired to the fortress of Landskrona already at midday together with the main army and left the command of the remaining troops to other generals for the rest of the day. (For the sake of justice, it was rather natural that they probably considered the battle lost already at that time of day.) A Swedish force secured the Danish camp at about 1130 hours.

At midday, the Swedes hesitated whether to continue the ongoing battle and/or to pursue the fleeing Danes. The Swedish infantry was strongly outnumbered. It also had a bad tactical position and was forced back towards the walls of Lund. Charles, whose wing hade thrown the Danish main army over the Kävlinge River, was still very worried about his infantry outside Lund and at 1400 hours he decided to return to his infantry's rescue together with the remains of his cavalry (nine squadrons). At this stage, the combat was rather confused. Charles rode directly towards what he thought were Swedish troops, but very soon he realized that he had (almost alone) started a daring ride straight through the Danish lines! However, he managed to get through safe and sound and also managed to rally his melting army. The Danes were encircled in a Swedish pincer-movement and they were crushed in a virtual massacre between 1500 and 1700 hours.

On the night after the battle, the about 4,000 remaining Swedish soldiers could go to sleep in the former Danish quarters (which, as late as the previous night, had accommodated about four times as many soldiers).

During the day, the Swedes took nearly 2,000 Danish prisoners, the Danes only about 50 Swedes. (Most of these prisoners were exchanged the following year.) Darkness had already fallen when the battle ended, and many of the wounded froze to death during the following night.

The killed were counted very accurately during the days after the battle. According to official Swedish reports, 8,993 dead were found on the battlefield. Altogether, more than 9,000 soldiers (6,000 Danes, including some Dutch Marine Infantry, and 3,000 Swedes) died afterwards owing to injuries inflicted on the battlefield. This makes the Battle of Lund is one of the bloodiest ever in Europe. More than 40 % (the Danish losses being even nearly 50 %!) killed on the battlefield was an immense figure at that time. (At that time, armies often lost only about 10 % in killed directly on the battlefield even at decisive defeats.) No Napoleonic battle reached that figure, and it was reached again (and even exceeded) only during the First World War (at the Western Front in Belgium and France). (As another comparison, the Swedish losses in killed at the disastrous battle of Poltava in 1709 was "only" about 35 %.) Due to the severe winter of 1676/77, many of the bodies couldn't be buried until many months later. It was not known afterwards where all these bodies were buried, the locations of the mass graves were (for one reason or another) not recorded officially. (By pure chance, one mass grave was actually found on the chuch-yard of my own home parish, Norra Nöbbelöv, during the foundation last year (1995) of a new entrance-hall to the church.)

Aftermath

Much of the Danish offensive power was broken, but due to his insufficient remaining forces Charles could not exploit his victory into a complete strategic success. The war lasted yet another two years, one of the main reasons being that the Danish Navy was much superior to the Swedish throughout the war. On July 13th, 1677, the Swedish army once again defeated the Danish army outside Landskrona in another rather large battle. Christian tried to expand the war to other Swedish provinces, but reached no decisive victory. However, the fortresses of Landskrona and Helsingborg were held by the Danes until the end of the war. The war in Vor-Pomerania got on worse and worse for the Swedes.

On August 11th 1678, the central parts of Lund were (more or less accidentally) set on fire by a Danish stray patrol. More than half of the town was destroyed, but the Cathedral was saved undamaged.

In 1679 the war ebbed out on the different theatres and through French mediation peace could be agreed with the Roman Empire early in 1679 and with Brandenburg in S:t Germain on June 29th, 1679. Peace negotiations with the Danes started in Lund on May 12th, 1679. On August 23rd, King Louis XIV settled a peace agreement (in Fontainebleau) with Denmark (including peace terms for Sweden). The peace terms were favourable for Sweden, but Charles was proud and would not allow a final peace agreement to be decided by proxy! He wanted to make a peace of his own, so the Swedish and the Danish delegations met again in the Cathedral of Lund and signed literally the same peace treaty again. In addition to the Fontainebleau agreement, the Swedish and Danish delegations also agreed upon a contract of marriage between Charles and Christian's younger sister Ulrica Eleonora (in Swedish history called "the elder", since one of her daughters -- the sisters of Charles XII -- also was called Ulrica Eleonora). Thus, the war was officially brought to an end through the Peace of Lund at midnight September 26th/27th, 1679.

The peaces of 1679 were very cheap for Sweden. By the assistance of France, Sweden had kept all the former Danish provinces and had to cede only a few minor, comparatively insignificant, areas to its German enemies. Denmark lost much more (economically and politically) on the war, and it brooded on revenge until its opportunity came about twenty years later (through the so-called Great Nordic War).

Personally, Charles won much popularity from his martial merits. On Sunday December 12th 1679 a general thanks-giving was held in all Swedish churches, and in 1680 the Estates declared "His Majesty being responsible to God alone for His deeds". In 1682 he was granted the exclusive legislative powers, and in 1693 he was declared "absolute ruler". In 1697 his only surviving son, Charles XII, inherited not only the kingdom but also the prestige of the royal office itself.

The Memorial

In 1876 a public appeal was announced, which asked for contributions to the erection of a memorial of the Battle of Lund. An obelisc (made of concrete) was erected in 1882/83. The material soon began to wither, and in 1930 a new obelisc (made of 300 tons of granite) was raised on the Lerbäck Hill, the strategic hill-ridge immediately north of Lund. On the obelisc is inscribed:


1676
On December 4th
Struggled and Bled
Here
Peoples of the Same Origin
Reconciled Descendants
Erected this Memorial
1876