(2) Denmark: Military History and Notable Events

1002 - St. Brice’s Day Massacre (All Facts)

• Massacre in which at least 37 Danes were killed, including Sweyn Forkbeard’s (the King of Denmark at the time) sister Gunnhild, on the orders of King Aethelred II “The Unready” of England

• Massacre which fueled Sweyn Forkbeard and the Danes to invade England

1016 - Battle of Ashingdon (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Canute of Denmark defeated Edmund Ironside of England in which they agreed to split England in half between the two

1030 - Battle of Stiklestad (All Facts)

• Battle in which Canute the Great and his “Farmer Army” forces defeated Olaf Haraldsson and his forces to become King of Norway as well as King of Denmark and King of England

  • Olaf Haraldsson was made a hero and a saint following his death

1397 - 1523 - Kalmar Union (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between the Kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden that joined them together as one sovereign state

• Treaty in which the three entities agreed to

  • be united under one monarch

  • carry out a common foreign policy

  • settle matters of royal succession by consensus

• The namesake entity constituted the second largest accumulation of European territories under one leader, Queen Margaret of Denmark, who spearheaded the treaty

• The namesake treaty had the namesake entity grow to some extent out of a general trend towards the creation of larger political entities at the time, such as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the expansion of Moscow in Russia

1450 - Treaty of Bergen (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between Denmark and Norway that was an act of union in which the two kingdoms agreed to always have the same king

1521 - 1523 - Swedish War of Liberation (All Facts)

• War in which Gustav Vasa and his rebel Swedish forces and peasants rose up and defeated King Christian II and his royal Danish forces, thus ending the Kalmar Union

• War after which Gustav Vasa became King of Sweden

1520s - 1600s - Danish Reformation (All Facts)

1534 - 1536 - Count’s Feud // Danish Civil War / War of Succession (All Facts)

• War in which Christian III and his Protestant forces defeated Christian II, Christopher of Oldenburg, and their combined Catholic forces

• War after which the Catholic Kingdom of Denmark became Protestant (Lutheran) and the Danish Reformation began

1544 - Treaty of Speyer (All Facts)

• Treaty in which Denmark granted the Netherlands full rights of trade and passage in the Baltic

1544 - Malmo / Koge / Jutland Witch Trials (All Facts)

• Series of trials in which 52 people were convicted of witchcraft and burnt at the stake

1558 - 1583 - Livonian War (All Facts)

• War in which Tsar Ivan IV and his Russian forces were defeated by Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Transylvania, and the namesake confederation

• War which Tsar Ivan IV began due to

  • his ambition to transform Russia, which, at the time, had a rudimentary agriculture and little industry; by taking control of the Baltic and its ports, as they had already become, at the time, important centers of international trade and offered the prospect of benefit from the more advanced western countries of the time

• War in which Tsar Ivan IV

  • sent his troops into the namesake kingdom / confederation in a lightning strike designed to secure the Baltic region for Muscovy (Russia) and give it an outlet to the west

• War in which Tsar IV and his Russian forces

  • seized several large towns and fortresses

  • disputed with one another in Moscow and ultimately destroyed their momentum

  • may have overreached themselves during that period of the Tsar’s imperial expansion, but the Baltic region would have been a considerable prize nonetheless

• War which saw

  • The Siege of Narva

  • The Siege of Pskov

• War during which

  • the namesake Order of Knights managed to improve its military and diplomatic posture, still being the area’s main defense force

  • Riga (modern-day Latvia; of the namesake confederation / order) put itself under the protection of Poland

  • the namesake confederation was partitioned as Sweden and Denmark were poised to take over (modern-day) Estonia and Courland

• War which ended when Russia made peace with Poland gave up its claims to the Baltic state of Livonia

1563 - 1570 - Northern Seven Years’ War (All Facts)

• War in which Sweden fought against Denmark, Norway, Poland, Lithuania, and Lubeck

• War which ended with the Treaty of Stettin

1570 - Treaty of Stettin (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Denmark and Sweden, which ended the Northern Seven Years’ War and restored the prewar frontiers of the states involved

1611 - 1613 - Kalmar War (All Facts)

• War in which King Christian IV and his Danish and Norwegian forces defeated King Charles IX and King Gustavus Adolphus and their Swedish forces

• War which began when King Charles IX provoked King Christian IV of Denmark into declaring war by Sweden’s constant hostility towards Danish ships in the Baltic Sea

  • War in which, within weeks of such provocation, the Danes had taken the strategic namesake stronghold, infuriating King Charles IX so much so that he challenged King Christian IV to a duel, but the Danish-Norwegian King scornfully rejected such a challenge

• War in which King Christian IV of Denmark was determined to gain full power over the Baltic, after having already controlled the Sound, without which it was landlocked

• War which had a serious effect of drawing resources from Sweden’s Russian front towards their front against the Danes

• War which featured a young Gustavus Adolphus leading the Swedes, which featured his modernized army, equipped with units of reindeer-drawn sledges and skiing units

• War in which Denmark’s capture of Kalmar turned the tide firmly in the Danish direction

• War which ended with the Treaty of Knared

1613 - Treaty of Knared (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Denmark and Sweden, which ended the Kalmar War

• Peace Treaty in which

  • Sweden gave up Finland

  • Sweden allowed Danish merchants to enter Livonia

  • Sweden gave Denmark Alvsborg as a surety

1618 - 1648 - Thirty Years’ War (All Facts)

• Conflict

  • between Catholics and Protestants in Germany following the failure to reconcile them via the Peace of Augsburg

• Conflict in which

  • 4.5M-8M people were killed from

    • the battlefield

    • plague and disease

      • the constant maneuvering helped to spread disease

    • famine

      • the constant maneuvering laid waste to vast tracts of farmland

        • Crops were destroyed

  • German towns lost as many as 50% of their populations from

    • being razed to the ground by siege and fire

    • plague borne by countless armies

  • the European continent was nearly destroyed

• Conflict which began

  • with the Defenestration of Prague and Bohemian Revolt

  • when Bohemia elected itself a new Protestant as king, Frederick V, previously the elector of Palatine, to replace the Habsburg King Ferdinand II, whom the Bohemian estates had previously “accepted” as king

• Conflict during which

  • The Protestant Union was dissolved

• Conflict during which

  • Johann Tserclaes (Count of Tilly) and his Catholic forces sacked the Heidelberg University Library

  • Bavaria (as well as Spain and Austria) invaded France with their armies and advance units of the Bavarian cavalry arrived in the Parisian suburbs

    • These armies invaded France but were driven back

• Conflict which saw

  • The Bohemian Revolt

    • The Defenestration of Prague

    • The Battle of White Mountain

  • The Vatellina War (between Spain and Switzerland)

  • The Battle of Lutter

  • The Battle of Dessau Bridge

  • The Sack of Magdeburg

  • The Battle of Breitenfeld

  • The Battle of Lutzen

  • The Battle of Nordlingen

  • The Battle of Wittstock

  • The Battle of Rheinfelden

  • The Battle of Freiburg

• Conflict which involved

  • The Eighty Years’ War / Dutch Revolt (between Spain and the Netherlands / Dutch Republic)

• Conflict which ended with

  • The Peace of Prague

  • The Peace of Westphalia

    • This took three years of negotiation in two cities, Munster and Osnabruck, to bring about the official signing

• Just four years prior to the start of the war,

  • Catholics and Protestants alike in Germany were already preparing for the conflict, which threatened to engulf the whole continent as

    • battle-lines were already being drawn up by then

    • fortunes were already being spent equipping private armies throughout Germany

    • Germany prepared itself to be the battlefield when the war would break out

  • In the Protestant north of Germany,

    • whole cities were ringed with star-shaped walls, bastions, and moats

  • In Catholic Bavaria and in the Rhineland,

    • great new fortresses pierced the skylines

  • intense diplomatic activity was taking place, particularly on the part of

    • Prince Christian of Anhalt-Bernburg

    • King James of England

• Conflict which ended when three successive salvos crashed out from 70 cannons on the walls of Munster to announce that peace came from a war-ravaged Europe after three decades of bitter conflict in which every power became involved both on land and sea

• Conflict after which

  • 100K+ mercenaries had to be paid and returned home lest they turn themselves into robber-bands adding even more torment to a war-weary Europe

  • the high cost of the war caused massive tax demands on both nobles and peasants, both parties of whom threatened revolt

1626 - Battle of Lutter (All Facts)

• Battle in which Johann Tserclaes and his Holy Roman forces and Catholic League defeated Christian IV and his Danish-Norwegian forces during the Thirty Years’ War

1626 - Battle of Dessau Bridge (All Facts)

• Battle in which Albrecht von Wallenstein and his forces defeated the Danish-Norwegian forces during the Thirty Years’ War

1634 - Burchardi Flood (All Facts)

• Tidal wave which destroyed Strand Island in the North Sea (in the Jutland of Denmark)

• Incident in which up to 15K people drowned

1643 - 1645 - Torstenson War (All Facts)

• War in which Axel Oxenstierna and his Swedish forces defeated King Christian IV and his Danish-Norwegian forces

  • War in which greed and envy on the part of King Christian IV forced Denmark-Norway to bow to its Swedish neighbor

  • Despite a hard-fought naval campaign, Denmark could no longer view the Baltic as its private lake

• War which began when King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway increased the Sound Dues, or a toll for non-Danish ships passing through the Danish Sound

  • Even though Sweden was exempt from these tolls, Christian IV

    • made it more difficult for Sweden’s ships

    • increased the toll for ships from any of Sweden’s newly-acquired territories

  • In response, Sweden withdrew its army in Moravia and attacked Denmark

    • The fleet of the Netherlands was prepared to join them

• War in which Swedish forces took Jutland and Skane

1655 - 1660 - Northern War (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts which began when Charles X Gustav of Sweden decided to invade Poland-Lithuania and took Warsaw, in a preemptive attack to protect Sweden from a Russian attack

• Series of conflicts over the Baltic Sea, which, like the Mediterranean Sea, was a vital route for seaborne trade, especially with southern Europe, and which

  • possessed prized resources for trade with Mediterranean countries including

    • iron

    • copper

    • salt-herrings (a vital source of food at the time)

    • grain (for the rest of Europe)

    • wood

    • naval supplies (that were in great demand)

  • was of such strategic and economic importance that other European countries supported Denmark-Norway to prevent Sweden from gaining complete control over the Baltic Sea, including

    • the Netherlands

    • the Holy Roman Empire and Brandenburg-Prussia

    • Russia

• Series of conflicts in which

  • Charles X Gustav of Sweden broke off his campaign against Poland to turn on Denmark-Norway in the First Dano-Swedish War

  • Denmark declared war on Sweden in the Second Dano-Swedish War

• Series of conflicts which thus included

  • The First Dano-Swedish War

  • The Second Dano-Swedish War

• Series of conflicts in which were signed

  • The Treaty of Konigsberg

  • The Treaty of Roskilde

  • The Treaty of Valiesar

• Series of conflicts which ended with

  • The Treaty of Oliva

  • The Treaty of Copenhagen

  • The Treaty of Cardis

1657 - 1658 - First Dano-Swedish War (All Facts)

• War in which Charles X Gustav and his Swedish forces defeated Frederick III and his Danish-Norwegian forces

• War in which the people of Copenhagen fought hard against a besieging Swedish army

• War which began when Sweden invaded from the south of Denmark-Norway, taking advantage of the frozen sea in an exceptionally cold winter to move rapidly from island to island, taking Jutland and Zealand and then attacking an undefended Copenhagen

• War which ended with the Treaty of Roskilde

1658 - Treaty of Roskilde (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Charles X Gustav of Sweden and Frederick III of Denmark-Norway which

  • ended the First Dano-Swedish War

  • gave Sweden the islands of Skane, Halland, and Blekinge, thus completing Sweden’s peninsula north of the Baltic Sea

  • gave Sweden the islands of Bornholm and territories in Norway

  • thus decisively delineated the mutually recognized boundaries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; boundaries which are almost exactly the same to this day

1658 - 1660 - Second Dano-Swedish War (All Facts)

• War in which Frederick III and his Danish-Norwegian forces, with help from the Netherlands, Poland, and Brandenburg-Prussia, defeated Charles X Gustav and his Swedish forces

• War in which Denmark declared war on Sweden, encouraged by the Netherlands and Austria

• Despite the prior Treaty of Roskilde, Charles X Gustav invaded Denmark again

• War in which Charles X Gustav of Sweden was killed

• War in which the courage of Copenhagen saved the Baltic Sea from becoming “a Swedish lake”

1660 - Treaty of Copenhagen (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Sweden and Denmark-Norway, which ended the Second Dano-Swedish War

• Peace Treaty in which

  • Sweden restored the diocese of Trondheim to Norway

  • Sweden restored the diocese of Bornholm to Denmark

  • Sweden retained Scania and other territories they conquered on their western borders

  • Denmark abandoned claims to southern Sweden

1672 - 1678 - Franco-Dutch War (All Facts)

• War in which King Louis XIV and the French defeated the Dutch, taking many previously Dutch-controlled territories

• War which began when the French crossed the Rhine River and captured city after city

• War in which, to halt the French invasion, the Dutch opened their dykes and caused extensive flooding to the lands France was invading

• War in which French troops conquered Franche-Comte

• War in which King Charles II of England declares war on the Netherlands, thus supporting King Louis XIV and France, in what became known as the Third Anglo-Dutch War, which overlapped with the namesake war

• War in which the Dutch forts in Senegal in West Africa were conquered and taken from them by France

• War which saw the

  • Battle of Turckheim

  • Battle of Salzbach

  • Battle of Fehrbellin

  • Messina Revolt

  • Fall of Ghent (the French capture of which forced the Dutch to the conference table)

• War which King Louis XIV declared in order to crush the Protestant Dutch and seize control of their maritime trade

  • Once the Dutch cut their dykes, and fought ever the more bravely under William of Orange, Louis XIV’s war aims became unfulfilled and he was anxious to make peace

• War during which Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia invaded Bremen, Verden, and Western Pomerania, Sweden’s enclaves in north Germany

  • War whose course was said to have changed drastically due to Frederick William’s intervention, which was said to have

    • discouraged the French who were less committed than prior to that point

    • encouraged Frederick William and his great plan of unifying Prussia

• War which ended with the Treaties of Nijmegen

1678 - 1679 - Treaties of Nijmegen (All Facts)

• Series of Peace Treaties signed between France and the Holy Roman Empire, ending the Franco-Dutch War

• Series of treaties in which France

  • gained Franche-Comte from Spain

  • regained control over the duchy of Lorraine

  • got a rationalization of the frontier in Flanders to give King Louis XIV the “dueling-ground” advocated by Vaubin