New Sweden

In New Sweden, in May 1654, the Dutch Fort Casimir was captured by soldiers from the New Sweden colony led by governor Johan Risingh. Fort Casimir was renamed Fort Trinity (in Swedish, Trefaldigheten). Soon after Sweden opened the Second Northern War in the Baltic by attacking the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the DutchThe Dutch Republic was a confederation that existed from 1579, during the Dutch Revolt, to 1795. It was a predecessor state of the Netherlands and the first fully independent Dutch nation state. Although the state was small and contained only around 1.5 million inhabitants, it controlled a worldwide network of seafaring trade routes. The income from this trade allowed the Dutch Republic to compete militarily against much larger countries. It amassed a huge fleet of 2,000 ships, initially larger than the fleets of England and France combined.Dutch moved to take advantage and an armed squadron of ships under the direction of Director-General Peter Stuyvesant seized New Sweden. The Dutch moved an army to the Delaware River in the summer of 1655, easily capturing Fort Trinity and Fort Christina. The Swedish settlement was incorporated into Dutch New Netherland on September 15, 1655. At first the Swedish and Finnish settlers continued to enjoy local autonomy. They kept their own militia, religion, court, and lands.

• Outline of the Second Northern War (1655–1660)
  

  HISTORIC BATTLES

  Second Northern War (1655–1660)

  The Second Northern War (also First or Little 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. View Historic Battle »

  Prelude: Sweden, at that time an expansionist empire with an army designed to be maintained by the revenues of occupied territory, was conscious that a direct attack on her main adversary Russia could well result in a Dano-Polish–Russian alliance.

  Swedish campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: On the western front, Wittenberg was opposed by a Polish levy of 13,000 and an additional 1,400 peasant infantry.

  Occupation of Poland-Lithuania and the Brandenburgian intervention: In the north, the Royal Prussian nobles concluded a defensive alliance with the Electorate of Brandenburg on 12 November in the Treaty of Rinsk, permitting Brandenburgian garrisons.

  Polish–Lithuanian recovery: Charles X Gustav, with a force of 11,000 horse, reacted by pursuing Czarniecki's force of 2,400 men, confronting and defeating him in the Battle of Gołąb in February 1656.

  Brandenburgian-Swedish alliance and Russia's war on Sweden: On 25 June 1656, Charles X Gustav signed an alliance with Brandenburg: the Treaty of Marienburg granted Greater Poland to Frederick William in return for military aid.

  Swedish–Brandenburgian–Transylvanian–Romanian alliance and the truces with Russia: Rákóczi entered the war in January 1657, crossing into the commonwealth with a force of 25,000 Transylvanian-Wallachian-Moldavian men and 20,000 Cossacks who broke the Polish siege of Kraków before they met with Charles X Gustav, who had led a Swedish-Brandenburgian army southwards.

  Austro–Brandenburgian–Polish alliance, Danish campaigns in Sweden: On 1 December 1656, he signed an alliance with Ferdinand III of Habsburg in Vienna, essentially a declaration of Ferdinand III's intend to mediate a peace rather than provide military aid, which did not come into effect until Ferdinand's death on 2 April 1657.

  Denmark and Pomerania: The attack of Frederick III of Denmark in June 1657, aimed at regaining the territories lost in 1645, provided an opportunity for Charles X Gustav to abandon the unfortunate Polish–Lithuanian battlefields.

  Sweden entrenched: In 1659, the war was characterized by Swedish forces defending their strongholds on the southern Baltic coast against allied assaults.

  New Sweden: The Dutch moved an army to the Delaware River in the summer of 1655, easily capturing Fort Trinity and Fort Christina.

  Peace: Russia, still engaged in the Russo-Polish War (1654–67), settled her dispute with Sweden in the Treaty of Kardis, which restored Russian-occupied Swedish territory to Sweden.

RESOURCES
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Second Northern War", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.