Draft:Siege of Tönning (1713-1714)

Siege of Tönning
Part of the Great Northern War
Magnus Stenbock capitulates to Frederik IV at Hoyerswort on 20 May.
Date 14 February 1713 - 7 February 1714 Location Tönning, Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp Result Coalition victory
Belligerents
1713: Holstein-Gottorp Sweden 1714: Holstein-Gottorp	1713: Denmark Russia Saxony 1714: Denmark
Commanders and leaders
1713: Zacharias Wolf Magnus Stenbock (POW)  1714: Zacharias Wolf	1713: Frederik IV Carl Rudolf of Württemberg-Neuenstadt Jobst von Scholten Christen Thomesen Sehested Alexander Danilovich Menshikov 1714: Carl Rudolf of Württemberg-Neuenstadt Jobst von Scholten Johan Anthon von Paulsen
Strength
1713: 1,900 Gottorpers 16,000 Swedes 1714: 1,900 Gottorpers	1713: 31,000 combined 1 ship-of-the-line 2 frigates 10 smaller ships 1714: 7,000 Danes 10 smaller ships
Casualties and losses
1713: 3,000 Swedes dead 500+ Swedes deserted 12,467 Swedes captured 1714: 1,500 Gottorpers dead	1713: Unknown 1714: Unknown

The Siege of Tönning 1713-1714 was an engagement during the Great Northern War that took place from February 1713 to February 1714. Three years of failures and setbacks for the Danish war effort had culminated in the Swedish victory at the Battle of Gadebusch, leading to the entry of Swedish commander Magnus Stenbock onto Danish soil. Frederik IV of Denmark, however, managed to muster the forces of the anti-Swedish coalition under his direct command, and Stenbock was pursued by this Danish-led force onto the Eiderstedt peninsula in Schleswig. Trapped, he made a signed a secret pact with the Gottorper administration, giving him free passage into their fortress of Tönning.

Stenbock came under siege, and was forced to capitulate to Frederik IV in May 1713. He and the remnants of his army marched into Danish captivity. The next year the fortress itself surrendered, which brought all of Schleswig into the grasp of King Frederik. The siege was the most important Danish victory of the war, ending in the annihilation of the only active army that Sweden was fielding, as well as the fulfillment of Denmark's main war aim of vanquishing Gottorper power in Schleswig.

Prelude at Gadebusch

The first years of war after Denmark's re-entry on the side of the anti-Swedish coalition had not necessarily developed to Denmark's advantage. The first campaign of the Danish Army had ended in a decisive rout at the Battle of Helsingborg in 1710, as well as with the critical wounding of Overgeneral Jørgen Rantzau. It was only through bluff and skilled planning that the army managed to evacuate its remnants back to Sjælland.

The wrecked army had to be rebuilt into an effective fighting force again, necessitating the set-up of an array of additional taxes to pay for new horses, equipment and ammunition. New soldiers to replace those fallen or captured were cheaper, as soldiers from the country militia were simply conscripted into the professional regiments. To assist in the organisation and execution of this endeavour, Frederik IV had also hired a new Overgeneral. This was to Jobst von Scholten, a Dutch-born engineer, taken out of retirement, with almost fifty years of service in the Danish Army behind him. As Overgeneral, Scholten was to command Danish forces in the field, though he had never done so independently before. Nonetheless, Scholten was a very skilled siege engineer, administrator and especially economist.

Come the late summer of 1710, great progress towards the re-establishment of the army's fighting power had already been made. The army began making offensive plans again. Now disease came as a spoiler to the Danish war effort, however. The plague outbreak of the Great Northern War, spreading from Swedish Livonia to Stockholm, was banging on gates of Helsingør sometime in November of 1710. Frederik IV sealed off the city from the outside world on 25 May 1711, as the suspicions of a plague outbreak in Helsingør had been all but confirmed by then, and as cases had even reached the local garrison. The harbour town that served as the entrance to the Baltic was thus closed to the outside world, yet the outbreak managed to evade the army-imposed quarantine. The plague reached Copenhagen, which too was put in quarantine. These quarantines would be lifted and gone by February 1712, but they had placed an additional burden upon the Danish government as it was preparing its 1711 campaign against Sweden. Soldiers catching the plague, and the spreading of the plague to Holstein - the base of operations for the Danish field army - was of great concern to Frederik IV and his ministers. Nonetheless, Denmark and Danish society proved very resilient in the face of this calamity. The government and the army were able to continue its preparations for an offensive unabated.

Magnus Stenbock's war had not been marred by defeat in the manner of his fellow generals in the Swedish Army, nor in manner of his liege, Charles XII, who was currently in exile in the Ottoman Empire following the downfall of his army at Poltava.

Sources

• Andersen, Dan H. (2021a). Store Nordiske Krig. Bind I. 1700-1710 - Store Planer (in Danish) (1 ed.). Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag.
• Andersen, Dan H. (2021b). Store Nordiske Krig. Bind II. 1710-1721 - Triumf og Tragedie (in Danish) (1 ed.). Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag.
• Petersen, Karsten Skjold (2023). Nederlag og Triumf (in Danish) (1 ed.). Copenhagen: Gads Forlag.
• Tuxen, August; With-Seidelin, C. L.; Hansen, A. L. (1906). Bidrag til Den Store Nordiske Krigs Historie. Felttogene i Nordtyskland og Baahuslen, i Østersøen og Kattegat. 1710-1712 (in Danish). Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag.
• Tuxen, August; With-Seidelin, C. L. (1910). Bidrag til Den Store Nordiske Krigs Historie. De Nordiske Allieredes Kamp med Magnus Stenbock. 1712-1713 (in Danish). Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag.
• Tuxen, August; With-Seidelin, C. L. (1915). Bidrag til Den Store Nordiske Krigs Historie. Kampen om Tønning 1713-1714 og Stenbocks Hær i Dansk Fangenskab 1713-1719 (in Danish). Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag.