Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
Daniel I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but it doesn't match my sources.
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I get my information from extensive studies of the 2nd Northern war published by Swedish, Polish, German and Danish historians. For an overview of the operational movements of the armies "Wojna polsko-szwedska 1655-1660" which was edited and partly written by Prof. Jan Wimmer is essential, Danish historian Finn Askgaard covered the naval warfare in his "Kampen om Östersjön" while Arne Stade, Lars Tersmeden and Jonas Heberg covered various aspects of the Swedish war effort. For example Heberg wrote devoted a volume of his extensive history of the Swedish artillery to the campaigns of Karl X Gustav.
Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
Which seem to imply that not only the Swedish Army, but Carl himself were directly involved with Danzig and hoping to capture it. |
Well it certainly implies that but the writer of the historyofwar.org page makes a lot of error. He clearly does not fully understand the geography of Prussia which at the time was divided into two parts, Royal Prussia in the west and Ducal in the east which was ruled by the Elector of Brandenburg. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons..._Ducal.png
On top of that the narrative includes both operations which the Swedes intended to carry out but never did while leaving out the fact that Karl Gustav was busy with the conquest of the southern Polish provinces.
This the map of the 1655 campaign from the Swedish edition of Wimmers work mentioned earlier
As you can see Swedish troops were busy with just about every part of Poland except the territory around Danzing. Apart from two small scale naval landings defeated by the Danzigers & local troops Swedish troops did not get with in 40 kilometers of Danzig. Karl Gustav was busy chasing first the Poles and then the Elector of Brandenburg and never got closer to Danzing than his campaign in Ducal Prussia. The troops closest to Danzig in the winter of 1655 was the corps of G O Stenbock which did indeed capture Elbing.
Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Danzig_...%931660%29 and http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/eceurope/danzig15571660.html |
Both of these are inaccurate in many parts, hard to see how a city can be besieged when the enemy army is not even with 40 kilometers of it.
Jean Henri Chandler wrote: |
The wiki on the Northern War further states that when the combined Dutch / Danziger forces lifted the Swedish blockade in 1457, Carl Gustav himself was only 55 miles away at Elbing. They list their source as Frost, Robert I (2004). After the Deluge. Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655-1660. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54402-5. |
I have Frost next to me and there is nothing on page 178 which the wiki quotes as a sources about a Swedish blockade of Danzig or Karl Gustav being in Elbing. The Dutch intervention refered to in the wiki links to the treaty of Elbing in 1656 and there was no Dutch fleet in the Baltic in 1657 so the Wiki writer must have gotten the years confused.
In 1656 the Dutch fleet arrived outside Danzig on July 17th, on that date Karl Gustav was with his army at Zakroczym (which is over 330 kilometers away) where he was preparing to fight the battle of Warsaw which began the next day.
Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | ||||
The people at militaryhistory.org seem confused on this point too then, because they said:
Specifically what the Dutch fleet did was re-open the Danzig harbor, from what I understand. The wiki on the Treaty of Elbing also mentions the Dutch 'intervention' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Elbing The wiki also agree with my assertion as to the reason for the Dutch intervention here:
and goes on to mention the exact number of the Dutch land forces, 'forty-two Dutch and nine Danish vessels ...carrying 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 guns.' |
The Dutch & Danes certainly intended to break any Swedish blockade of Danzig which they found, the thing is that they never found one. The main Swedish fleet took a long time to outfit in 1656 and the only ships near Danzing were a squadron of 4 small ships commanded by Strussflycht. He did indeed harass ships sailing to Danzing but he did not have the ships or the firepower to establish a blockade. Danzig's own armed merchants & privateers could have broken his "blockade" any time they were willing to force a confrontation. He had been ordered elsewhere by the time the Dutch arrived hence the lack of confrontation between the Dutch and the Swedes. In effect the blockade had been lifted pending the arrival of the main body of the Swedish fleet.
With the Dutch & Danes on station outside Gdansk the Swedes decided not to risk a war and the issue was settled by negotiating the treaty of Elbing. Wikipedia is basicly accurate but does leave out one important but controversial aspect of the treaty which is that Danzig never fullfiled it's obligation to become a neutral part in the war but rather kept waging war against the Swedes.
The wiki entry is also an interesting example of how information gets distorted as it is translated and quoted, the number of warships & cannon right but the Wiki turns every single man in the joint fleet into "soldiers", the actual strenght of the Dutch fleet was 4787 sailors & naval gunners, 1187 soldiers and 1659 cannon, the nine Danish ships added 1615 sailors & soldiers together about 400 cannon.