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:
Today, the major road around Lund passes close to the monument,
which can be seen wide around,
still being one of the "landmarks" of Lund.
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This page was updated January 11th, 1997.