|
The Bremen-Verden Campaign ((ドイツ語:Bremen-Verdener Feldzug)) was a conflict during the Northern Wars in Europe. From 15 September 1675 to 13 August 1676〔Note: at that time, Sweden was operating under the Julian Calendar. Unless otherwise stated this article uses the Gregorian Calendar for all dates.〕 an anti-Swedish coalition comprising Brandenburg-Prussia, the neighbouring imperial princedoms of Lüneburg and Münster, and the Kingdom of Denmark, conquered the Duchies of Bremen and Verden. Bremen-Verden, a remote outpost of Sweden's Baltic Sea empire, was the third Swedish imperial fief in North Germany granted under the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, alongside Swedish Pomerania and the Barony of Wismar. Following its conquest it remained in allied hands until the end of the war in 1679, but was then fully returned to Sweden in the wake of the Treaties of Nijmegen. For the major warring parties of Sweden, Brandenburg and Denmark, this theatre of war in northwest Germany was only of secondary significance. == Background == After France had invaded the General States in 1672 as retribution for the outcome of the War of Devolution, an alliance formed up against her. The conflict escalated into the Dutch War. In order to relieve her increasingly stretched forces, therefore, France urged its traditional ally, Sweden, to go to war against her enemies, who, in addition to the States General, included the House of Habsburg and the Electorate of Brandenburg. At the end of 1674, a Swedish army under the imperial commander, Carl Gustav Wrangel, invaded the Margraviate of Brandenburg which was militarily almost unprotected, while the Brandenburg army under Elector Frederick William I found herself at war with France. In a short summer campaign in 1675, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg succeeded in defeating the Swedish army and pushing it back to Swedish Pomerania. Encouraged by the Brandenburg victory, on 17 July 1675 the imperial ban was imposed on the Swedish king in his capacity as an imperial prince in Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Bremen-Verden and war was declared by the Holy Roman Empire against Sweden. The Westphalian and Upper Saxon Circles were charged with the enforcement of the ban against the Swedes. A little later came the declaration of war by Denmark on Sweden. In this large-scale war, the Allies, Denmark and Brandenburg, initially intended to conquer the Swedish possessions in northern Germany, then turn use their full might in the theatres of war in Scania. But with the conquest of Bremen-Verden, located on the southern border of Denmark, Sweden would have secured a potential springboard against Denmark.〔Henning Eichberg, p. 534〕 Another political power factor was that it would give the Swedes opportunities to recruit mercenaries. The war planning that took place on the Swedish homeland envisaged military victory being achieved through the deployment of the Swedish fleet which was likely to defeat the Danish fleet in the Baltic Sea, thus relieving Sweden's North German possessions, so it could then, in a further step, land on Zealand, the heart of the Danish kingdom. Sweden's chances in the Duchy of Bremen-Verden, therefore, lay principally in the strength of her own fleet, which was to have ensured a military victory by dispatching additional troops from the motherland. However, since the Swedish fleet could not sail due to delays in equipment, Bremen-Verden was not reinforced and had to rely on its in-place forces. Sweden's forces in the Duchy of Bremen-Verden were numerically weak and distributed across several fortified bases. The bulk of the Swedish army was in Stade, Carlsburg and seven other small fortresses. They would only be able to oppose large scale offensive operations with delaying tactics. The Swedish defence plans were based on siege warfare. The number of the fortified places would force her potential opponents, to fight a series of arduous, small sieges, but it also fragmented the troops available to the defenders and prevented them from forming a mobile field army.〔Henning Eichberg, p. 535.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bremen-Verden Campaign」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|