Norwegian campaign (1718)
The Norwegian campaign of 1718 was one of the Swedish King Karl XII. Assault campaign undertaken in the final phase of the Great Northern War .
prehistory
Since the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Sweden had been pushed back beyond the borders of its own motherland and had to evacuate all foreign possessions including Finland and Swedish Pomerania by 1715.
The previous Norwegian campaign of 1716 ended in an unsuccessful termination of the offensive. With a renewed offensive in the Danish ruled Norway , Charles XII hoped. to achieve better peace conditions for the peace congress already taking place on Aland and with the other war opponents.
course
A Swedish force of around 20,000 men invaded Norwegian territory along the coastline. A second Swedish force marched further north towards Trondheim and besieged it. The campaign ran from the beginning with mixed results. Major combat operations did not take place, however, there were losses in smaller skirmishes.
The northern Swedish division had to cease its siege activities and withdraw in the high winter. A cold snap resulted in frostbite and high human losses on the so-called Carolinian death march . The southern section was also unable to establish itself permanently. At the siege of Frederikshald in November and December 1718, King Charles XII finally found. death. The besieging Swedes then withdrew to Swedish territory.
literature
- Different from Fryxell: History of Charles the Twelfth. New edition. Mustard, Leipzig 1865.
- Not so Fryxell: Life story of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden. Based on the Swedish original, freely transcribed by Georg Friedrich von Jenssen-Tusch. Volume 1. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1861, digitized .