What happened at the Battle of Nyborg?
On 14 November 1659 an allied army of Danish, Dutch, Polish, Brandenburg and imperial troops under the field marshals Hans Schack and Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein defeated the Swedish army on the island of Funen outside the town of Nyborg. The next morning the Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter bombarded the town, and the Swedes surrendered unconditionally; about 3,000 men laid down their arms. The date is in the Julian calendar Denmark then used; by the Gregorian calendar it was 24 November.1
A ditch full of rainwater, a hedge, a wet November field. Again and again the allied horse rode at the Swedish line west of Nyborg and was thrown back with heavy losses. Then the Dutch infantry walked up to the ditch firing by ranks, and the Swedish army on Funen began to come apart.2
Two years before the Battle of Nyborg, Denmark had almost ceased to exist as an independent power. The museum at Nyborg Castle calls it the victory that restored the Danish state, though not its lost provinces.3
Background: a kingdom across the ice
The Karl Gustav Wars, as Danish historians call them, were two linked wars with Sweden, in 1657 to 1658 and 1658 to 1660. King Frederick III declared war in June 1657, hoping to win back earlier losses while Sweden was tied down in Poland. Charles X Gustav broke off his Polish war, overran Jutland, and in the hard winter of 1658 led his army across the frozen Little Belt to Funen and on over the ice to Zealand. The Treaty of Roskilde of 26 February 1658 cost Denmark Scania, Halland, Blekinge and Bornholm, and Norway lost Bohuslän and Trøndelag.4
Nyborg itself fell to the Swedes in that winter campaign. The one Danish success on Funen came in Nyborg Fjord, where Captain Peder Bredal's warships lay frozen in the ice; Bain tells how his men pumped water over the ships' sides so that they could not be boarded, until he could get them away out of range of the Swedish guns.5
Charles had barely left Denmark before he decided to finish the job. In August 1658 he landed on Zealand again and besieged Copenhagen. This time Denmark had help. Polish and Brandenburg troops drove the Swedes out of Jutland, a Dutch fleet beat the Swedish navy in the Sound in October and broke the blockade of the capital, and on the night of 10 to 11 February 1659 the Swedish storm of Copenhagen ended in a bloody defeat. Afterward Charles drew large parts of his army back to Funen.6 › Siege of Kolding, 1658
The great powers now tried to impose a peace. In 1659 England, France and the Dutch Republic agreed, in the so-called Hague Concerts, to end the war on the basis of Roskilde. Neither Scandinavian king gave way, and in the autumn the Dutch left Michiel de Ruyter's squadron in Danish waters to work with the Danes.7
Armies and commanders
Two allied armies. The allies attacked Funen from two sides with the help of the Dutch fleet. Field Marshal Hans Schack, who had organized the defense of Copenhagen and been made field marshal after the victory of February 1659, embarked a Danish and Dutch force at Kiel. Field Marshal Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein, a German veteran of the Thirty Years' War in Danish service since 1657, brought imperial, Brandenburg, Polish and Danish troops by land and crossed the Little Belt at Middelfart, his men rowing over while the horses swam behind the boats.8
Schack's first attempt to land at Nyborg failed in the dark and foul weather. He came ashore instead at Kerteminde, north of the town, and marched to Odense, where Eberstein joined him. The two field marshals disputed who should command. Manley, an English officer who served with the Dutch mediators, writes that they agreed each should lead his own men and take the vanguard by turns; Olsen's study of the sources finds the same arrangement.9
The Swedes. The Swedish army on Funen was commanded by the Count Palatine Philip of Sulzbach, with Field Marshal Gustaf Otto Stenbock sent to advise and support him. Stenbock was a veteran field marshal of Charles X Gustav's wars, who had commanded the Swedish army in Ducal Prussia in 1656. Manley puts the Swedes at no more than 5,000 effective men, Bain at about 5,000, and Nordisk familjebok and the Nyborg archaeologists at 5,500.10
The allies were stronger, but sources differ on how much. Manley and Nordisk familjebok give the combined army as about 9,000; Jesper Olsen of Østfyns Museer, working from Schack's and Eberstein's own reports, about 12,500.11
The battle in phases
The Swedish position. Rather than shut himself up in Nyborg, whose defenses were incomplete and exposed to the Dutch guns, Sulzbach drew up his army on the fields west of the town, between Lake Hjulby and the Juelsberg estate. The town and a wood covered his rear. Across his front ran a long ditch, holding water where the ground was lowest, with openings for the cavalry, and marshes guarded his flanks.12
Eberstein's attacks. On 14 November the allies found the Swedes in battle order. Eberstein, who had chosen the allied left to face the Swedish right, first sent 400 horse ahead to scout; they were beaten back. His cavalry then charged the ditch, where Swedish dragoons were posted, and was thrown back with heavy losses. All the officers of Eberstein's own regiment were killed or wounded.13
A battle in the balance. Schack's horse fared no better and was broken. Manley believed that only their own ditch kept the Swedes from following up and winning the day, and the Nyborg archaeologists conclude that the allies came close to losing the battle.14
Turning point: the Dutch foot at the ditch
The battle turned on the allied infantry. The Dutch auxiliaries, English, French and Dutch companies under Colonel Killigrew, advanced in good order to the ditch, firing by ranks, and forced the Swedish foot back. Larsen, writing for Østfyns Museer, calls them the infantry that turned the battle. The allied horse rallied behind the Dutch foot, and the Swedish line gave way.15
By evening the Swedes had fallen back inside the half-finished fortifications of Nyborg. The allies camped as close to the town as they could.16
Aftermath: the surrender of Nyborg
On the morning of 15 November the allies drew up in sight of the town and the Dutch and Danish fleet under De Ruyter opened fire on it. The Swedes asked for terms and were refused. They surrendered unconditionally, and about 3,000 Swedes are believed to have laid down their arms. Only Sulzbach and Stenbock got away: in the night they slipped through the allied fleet in a small boat and crossed to Zealand.17
Nyborg ended Swedish hopes of conquering all of Denmark and Norway. Charles X Gustav died on 13 February 1660, and the regency for his four-year-old son Charles XI wanted peace. The Treaty of Copenhagen of 27 May 1660 returned Bornholm and Trøndelag to Denmark and Norway, while Scania, Halland and Blekinge stayed Swedish for good.18
For Nyborg itself the battle ended a Swedish occupation that had begun in 1658, when the town surrendered to Charles X Gustav's army.19
Legacy and memory
In the words of Den Store Danske, the peace restored a military and political balance in the North. Bain judged that the Peace of Copenhagen came as a relief after a long series of disasters and confirmed the independence of the Danish state, even though Denmark had tacitly surrendered the mastery of the North to Sweden.20 › Battle of Filipów, 1656
The battle was celebrated across Europe in print. Larsen counts at least ten seventeenth-century copper engravings of it, among them the plates in Samuel von Pufendorf's history of Charles X Gustav, one of which is the picture at the top of this page. In the Dutch Republic the victory was hailed in verse: Larsen notes that Joost van den Vondel's poem Triomf over Funen was issued with Allardt's news print, and the Rijksmuseum keeps another printed song of victory on the conquest of Funen, by Jacob Westerbaen, from 1659.21
The anniversary is still kept. Nyborg has a memorial to the battle, which Salmonsen dates to 1909, and the 350th anniversary in 2009 was marked with commemorations in the town; the battlefield path was renovated for the occasion.22
Visiting today
The battlefield lies between Lake Hjulby and the Juelsberg estate, where a main road and a motorway now cross it. Much of what is known about the ground comes from recent archaeology: from 2008 to 2014 Østfyns Museer and the Odense City Museums surveyed the battlefield and studied the written sources, and a team led by Jesper Olsen located several of the events they describe.23
A marked battlefield trail of about 4.5 kilometers starts at Nyborg Castle and follows the Ladegårds Å past Lake Hjulby. It passes Svenskehøjen, a mound that local legend says holds the bodies of 2,000 Swedes; it is in fact a prehistoric barrow.24
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Nordisk familjebok, “Nyborg”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Nyborg”. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”. ↩
- Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”; R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia. ↩
- R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia; Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, “Nyborg”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Nyborg”. ↩
- Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”; Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia. ↩
- R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia; Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”; John Maalø Larsen, “Slagmarksbilleder”. ↩
- Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”; Den Store Danske, “Hans Schack”; Den Store Danske, “Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein”; Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Den Store Danske, “Hans Schack”; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Nordisk familjebok, “Nyborg”; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”; Den Store Danske, “Gustaf Otto Stenbock”; Sławomir Augusiewicz, “Swedish sources for the campaign of Field Marshal Otto Gustav Stenbock in Prussia and the Battle of Filipów (22 X 1656)”; R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Nordisk familjebok, “Nyborg”; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”; Nordisk familjebok, “Nyborg”; VisitNyborg, “Walk Slagmarken (the battlefield)”. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; John Maalø Larsen, “Slagmarksbilleder”; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- Nordisk familjebok, “Nyborg”; Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”. ↩
- Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark; Nordisk familjebok, “Nyborg”; R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia; John Maalø Larsen, “Slagmarksbilleder”. ↩
- R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia; Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”. ↩
- Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, “Nyborg”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Nyborg”. ↩
- Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, “Karl Gustav-krigene”; R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia. ↩
- John Maalø Larsen, “Slagmarksbilleder”; Rijksmuseum, “Zegezang op de verovering van het eiland Funen, 1659”. ↩
- Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, “Nyborg”; Stichting Michiel de Ruyter, “Herdenking van de 1659 Slag bij Nyborg, Denemarken, 14 november 2009”; Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; VisitNyborg, “Walk Slagmarken (the battlefield)”. ↩
- Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
- VisitNyborg, “Walk Slagmarken (the battlefield)”; Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”; Jesper Olsen, “Mellem fund og kilder”. ↩
Sources
- Nyborg Slot and Østfyns Museer, “The battle of Nyborg 1659”
- Sir Roger Manley, The History of the Late Warres in Denmark (London, 1670), part 3, pp. 99 to 104, Internet Archive, “The history of the late warres in Denmark, 1670”
- Nordisk familjebok, 2nd ed., vol. 20 (Stockholm, 1914), cols 187 to 188, Project Runeberg, “Nyborg” (in Swedish)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911), vol. 19, via Wikisource, “Nyborg”
- Jesper Olsen, Nyborg – før & nu 2013, pp. 61 to 96, Østfyns Museer, “Mellem fund og kilder: om undersøgelserne i forbindelse med Slaget ved Nyborg 1659” (in Danish)
- Gunner Lind and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, Den Store Danske (lex.dk), “Karl Gustav-krigene” (in Danish)
- R. Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia: A Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1513 to 1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1905), chapter 9, Internet Archive, “Scandinavia: a political history”
- Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, 2nd ed., vol. 18 (Copenhagen, 1924), Project Runeberg, “Nyborg” (in Danish)
- John Maalø Larsen, Østfyns Museer, “Slagmarksbilleder: Slaget ved Nyborg gengivet på samtidige kobberstik” (in Danish)
- Den Store Danske (lex.dk), “Hans Schack” (in Danish)
- Den Store Danske (lex.dk), “Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein” (in Danish)
- Den Store Danske (lex.dk), “Gustaf Otto Stenbock” (in Danish)
- Sławomir Augusiewicz, Komunikaty Mazursko-Warmińskie 301 (2018), “Swedish sources for the campaign of Field Marshal Otto Gustav Stenbock in Prussia and the Battle of Filipów (22 X 1656)”
- VisitNyborg, “Walk Slagmarken (the battlefield)”
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-81.879, “Zegezang op de verovering van het eiland Funen, 1659” (in Dutch)
- Stichting Michiel de Ruyter, “Herdenking van de 1659 Slag bij Nyborg, Denemarken, 14 november 2009” (in Dutch)
