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Reval (Tallinn), the primary city of Swedish…

Reval (Tallinn), the primary city of Swedish…

December 1710 CE

Reval (Tallinn), the primary city of Swedish Estonia, had been approached by a Russian force of five thousand commanded by Christian Bauer in August 1710, and due to a decision by the local officials and nobles, had capitulated on September 30 without actually being attacked.

Behind its walls in August was a population of about twenty thousand people , composed of the regular inhabitants, soldiers, refugees and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, which had been demolished by the defendants on August 18.

By mid-December, about fifteen thousand of them have died of the plague, and the number of inhabitants has been reduced to nineteen hundred and ninety inside the walls and two hundred in the adjacent villages.

The rest had either fled elsewhere, or in the case of the surviving Swedish troops and some citizens, had been allowed to leave by ship after the surrender, carrying the plague to Finland.