Northern Wars

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and... Finland, and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Øresund. At 450,295 square kilometres , Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. Sweden has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre with the population mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population live in urban areas. Sweden's capital city is Stockholm, which is also the largest city. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire. The empire grew to be one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries.
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The Dano-Swedish War of 1657–58 was a war between Sweden and Denmark. In 1657 Charles X of Sweden and his Swedish army was bogged down in... Poland. Frederick III saw this as an opportunity to recover the territories lost in 1645 and attacked Sweden. The outbreak of war with Denmark provided Charles with an excuse to withdraw from the Polish campaign and move against Denmark. A harsh winter had forced the Dano-Norwegian fleet in port, and frozen the Great Belt and Little Belt. After entering Jutland from the south, a Swedish army of 7,000 battle-hardened veterans marched across the icy Little Belt on 30 January 1658. It captured the island Funen within few days, and soon thereafter Langeland, Lolland-Falster. The Swedish army continued to Zealand, threatening the Danish capital Copenhagen. The rapid Swedish attack across the frozen Belts was completely unexpected; Frederick III was compelled to surrender and signed the Treaty of Roskilde on 26 February 1658. Sweden had won its most prestigious victory, and Denmark had suffered its most costly defeat. Denmark was forced to yield the provinces of Scania, Halland, Blekinge and the island of Bornholm.
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The Dano-Swedish War of 1658–60 was a war between Denmark–Norway and Sweden. It was a continuation of an earlier conflict between the... two belligerents which had ended just months earlier, after Sweden and Denmark brokered a peace agreement in Roskilde in 1658. In the aftermath of that conflict, the Swedish king Charles X Gustav desired to add the province of Royal Prussia in Poland to the Swedish realm, but his position in the region was not strong enough with the opposition of Brandenburg and Austria. However, the Danes stalled and prolonged the fulfillment of some provisions of the earlier peace; the Swedish king decided to use this as a pretext to attack with an ambitious goal: to vanquish Denmark as a sovereign state and raze the capital of Copenhagen. A quick and decisive defeat of Denmark was however only seen as a means to a greater end. The long-term goal was to wage war in Europe without fearing Danish interference. The Swedish army surrounded Copenhagen, hoping to starve it into submission.
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The Second Northern War was fought between Sweden and its adversaries the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Russia , Brandenburg-Prussia , the... Habsburg Monarchy and Denmark–Norway . The Dutch Republic often intervened against Sweden. In 1655, Charles X Gustav of Sweden invaded and occupied western Poland–Lithuania, the eastern half of which was already occupied by Russia. The rapid Swedish advance became known in Poland as the Swedish Deluge. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania became a Swedish fief, the Polish–Lithuanian regular armies surrendered and the Polish king John II Casimir Vasa fled to the Habsburgs. Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia initially supported the estates in Royal Prussia, but allied with Sweden in return for receiving the Duchy of Prussia as a Swedish fief. Exploiting the hurt religious feelings of the Roman Catholic population under Protestant occupation and organizing Polish–Lithuanian military leaders in the Tyszowce Confederation, John II Casimir Vasa managed to regain ground in 1656.
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The term Deluge denotes a series of mid-17th century campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a wider sense it applies to the... period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, thus comprising the Polish–Lithuanian theaters of the Russo-Polish and Second Northern Wars. In a stricter sense, the term refers to the Swedish invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth as a theater of the Second Northern War only ; In Poland and Lithuania this period is called the Swedish Deluge . During the wars the Commonwealth lost an estimated one-third of its population as well as its status as a great power. In 1648, the Ruthenian feudal lord Bohdan Khmelnytsky led a popular uprising of Dnieper Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants discontented with the rule of Polish and Lithuanian magnates.
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