Northern War and Norway
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Northern War and Norway (1655 to 1658)
From 1655 onward, the reign of Charles X of Sweden was expansionistic and is a history of war. Sweden rapidly became the strongest military power in the north.
Suffering under the humiliating loss of forever Danish provinces to Sweden in 1645, since Charles X appeared to be fully occupied in Poland, Frederick III judged the time appropriate for recapture of Skåne and the other Danish-Norwegian provinces. The King’s Council agreed to war, a decision that led rapidly to ruin.
The Norwegian phase of the war went well. A Norwegian force of 2000 men recaptured Jæmtland and Herjedalen. A Norwegian force set out from Bohuslån to join the Danish force invading Sweden from Skåne.
Reacting swiftly, by forced marches Charles X brought his hardened armies from Prussia to Holstein. Surprising the Danes, he advanced rapidly against limited opposition, taking Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland. Taking advantage of the unusually cold winter which froze the ice, allowing him to march his armies across, Charles marched onto the island of Seeland, leaving the humiliated Danes with no choice but to sue for peace on any terms.
As a result, the Treaty of Roskilde was negotiated in 1658. The terms were brutal:
- Denmark ceded the provinces of Skåne, Blekinge and Halland
- Norway as forced to hand over Trøndelag and Bohuslån
- Closing of the Sound to non-Swedish warships
Then Charles X, ignoring his recently negotiated Treaty or Roskilde, in August of 1658 invested Copenhagen. The Norwegian army mobilized under the leadership of Jørgan Bjelke. His goal was to recapture Trøndelag and to defend the Norwegain border at Halden, which Carl X had demanded be turned over to Sweden since it provided both an excellent port for timber export from the newly acquired Bohuslån and a point from which further invasions could be launched. In September of 1658 the new Swedish governor of Bohuslån invaded Norway with 1,500 men and attempted to invest Halden. The inhabitants put up a vigorous defense and the Swedes retreated to Bohuslån.
Five months later in February of 1659 the Swedes again attacked. Since ther first attack, Bjelke had directed the garrison be strengthened. Under the leadership of Tønne Huitfeldt the Norwegian forces again repulsed the Swedish forces. Concurrently, Huitfeldt began construction of fortifications. Cretzenstein, later to be renamed Fredriksten, was the citadel of the fortification system.
In early January of 1660, the Swedish forces again attacked Halden; it was to serve as the base for their advance on Akershus in Oslo. Huitfeldt responded to their demand that they surrender, that the 2,100 man garrison would defend Halden to the last man. After the attempt to storm the fortifications was unsuccessful, the Swedes prepared a regular investment. Under heavy bombardment the inhabitants begged the commandant to surrender, but putting his faith in his garrison, Huitfeldt held on. On February 22, 1660 the Swedes again were forced to retreat to Bohuslån. There they learned Charles X had died.
Peace negotiations were reopened. Although Sweden demanded that Norway vacate all land to the river Glomma, which was to serve as the new border, with the intercession of Hannibal Sehested, a separate Scandinavian treaty, the Treaty of Copenhagen, was negotiated which reaffirmed the Treaty of Roskilde, except that Trondhjem was returned to Norway and the clause closing the Sound was deleted.
References
The Struggle for Supremacy in the Baltic: 1600-1725 by Jill Lisk; Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1967
East Norway and its Frontier, by Frank Noel Stagg, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1956.
