Charles X Gustav of Sweden holds a council of war, three months after the peace treaty with Denmark had been signed, in which he decides to simply wipe Denmark from the map and unite all of Scandinavia under his rule.

Once again, the Swedish army arrives outside Copenhagen.

However, this time the Danes did not panic or surrender.

Instead, they decide to fight and prepare to defend Copenhagen.

Frederick III of Denmark has stayed in his capital and now encourages the citizens of Copenhagen to resist the Swedes, by saying he will die in his nest.

Furthermore, this unprovoked declaration of war by Sweden finally triggers the alliance that Denmark–Norway has with the Netherlands.

A powerful Dutch fleet is sent to Copenhagen with vital supplies and reinforcements, which saves the city from being captured during the Swedish attack.

Furthermore, Brandenburg-Prussia, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Habsburg monarchy have gathered large forces to aid Denmark–Norway and fighting continues into 1659.

East Central Europe (1540–1683 CE): Reformations, Habsburg Frontiers, and the Thirty Years’ War

Geography & Environmental Context

East Central Europe includes the greater part of Germany east of 10°E (Berlin, Saxony, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Bavaria east of the Lech), together with the Middle Elbe, Oder, and Vistula basins, the Sudeten and Ore Mountains, and the upper Danube around Vienna. Anchors include the Elbe corridor (Dresden, Leipzig, Magdeburg), the Oder basin (Breslau/Wrocław), the Vistula headwaters, the Alpine forelands of Austria, and the great cities of Vienna, Prague, Munich, and Berlin. This subregion was the hinge between Western Europe, the Baltic, and the Danubian plain.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Little Ice Age persisted, bringing cooler summers and harsher winters. Grain harvests faltered in poor years, especially in upland Saxony and Silesia. The Elbe and Danube frequently flooded, damaging towns and crops, while plagues and famine cycles periodically thinned populations. Yet fertile alluvial plains and river trade sustained growing towns despite instability.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Agriculture: Rye, barley, and oats dominated sandy soils; wheat and hops were raised in river valleys; vineyards dotted Franconia and Austria. Alpine valleys supported dairying. Peasants lived under manorial dues, though freeholding persisted in Saxony and Thuringia.

• Urban centers: Prague and Vienna remained imperial capitals; Leipzig hosted major fairs; Berlin grew under the Hohenzollerns. University towns like Wittenberg and Jena became intellectual hubs.

• Settlement pattern: A mix of fortified towns, episcopal sees, free cities, and rural villages. Warfare and epidemics, particularly during the Thirty Years’ War, reduced populations sharply in the early 17th century.

Technology & Material Culture

• Agrarian tools: Wooden plows with iron tips, scythes, and water mills; new crops like potatoes had not yet widely diffused.

• Crafts: Cloth weaving, mining (silver in Saxony, salt in Salzburg), and brewing flourished.

• Architecture: Renaissance palaces, baroque churches (especially post-1650), and rebuilt Gothic cathedrals. Fortified towns thickened their walls in response to gunpowder artillery.

• Everyday material life: Timber-framed houses, pottery, woolen textiles, and pewter; upper classes displayed imported luxuries via Leipzig fairs.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Rivers: The Elbe linked Saxony to Hamburg and the North Sea; the Oder tied Silesia to Baltic ports; the Danube carried Austrian grain, salt, and wine to Hungary and beyond.

• Trade fairs: Leipzig’s biannual fairs linked Italy, the Low Countries, and Poland-Lithuania.

• Pilgrimages & scholarship: Wittenberg and Jena became Protestant study centers; Vienna, a Catholic fortress and pilgrimage site.

• Military corridors: Armies marched across Saxony, Bohemia, and Austria during the Thirty Years’ War, using river valleys as invasion routes.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Reformations:

  • Protestantism spread from Wittenberg (Luther’s theses, 1517) into Saxony, Brandenburg, and much of Germany east of the Rhine.

  • Catholic Counter-Reformation regained ground in Austria, Bavaria, and Bohemia through Jesuit colleges and baroque revival.

• Arts: Bach family predecessors in Thuringia, Silesian baroque poetry, and Bohemian glassmaking signaled cultural vitality.

• Religion & ritual: Village life revolved around church festivals, processions, and seasonal calendars, though divided by confessional allegiances.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Communal fields: Three-field rotation remained standard; open fields distributed risk.

• Forests: Timber for fuel and construction, regulated increasingly by lords.

• Famine resilience: Town granaries and parish charity helped buffer crises.

• Rebuilding: After war and plague, communities resettled abandoned fields and rebuilt churches with baroque grandeur.

Political & Military Shocks

• Habsburg consolidation: Austria became the seat of the Catholic Habsburgs, who fought Ottomans on their eastern front and Protestants at home.

• Schmalkaldic War (1546–47): Protestant princes challenged the emperor; temporary Catholic victory but Protestantism persisted.

• Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648): Began with the Bohemian Revolt; devastated Bohemia, Saxony, and Austria. Cities sacked, villages burned, and populations halved in some regions.

• Peace of Westphalia (1648): Confirmed religious pluralism and fragmented the Holy Roman Empire, though Habsburg Austria emerged stronger in Central Europe.

• Ottoman pressure: Sieges of Vienna (1529 earlier; 1683 at the end of this period) defined Austria’s role as Christendom’s bulwark.

• Hohenzollerns: Brandenburg-Prussia began to rise, building a disciplined army and efficient bureaucracy.

Transition

Between 1540 and 1683, East Central Europe was a contested frontier of empire, confession, and war. Protestant and Catholic reformations tore apart its religious unity, culminating in the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War. Habsburg Austria held against Ottoman expansion, culminating in the siege of Vienna in 1683. Economic life revolved around grain, mining, and fairs, while cultural vitality flourished in universities and churches despite catastrophe. By the late 17th century, the subregion was battered but poised: the Habsburgs consolidated Austria and Bohemia, Brandenburg-Prussia emerged as a new power, and the Ottoman frontier pressed hard—shaping the struggles of the century to come.

Elblag has become the chief East Prussian port for trade with England by 1580.

Lying along the Elblag River near the Nogat River, which is the eastern mouth of the Vistula River, Elblag had been founded in 1237 by the Teutonic Knights; the castle and settlement were granted town rights in 1246 and joined the Hanseatic League in the late thirteenth century.

King Sigismund III Vasa of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth has received military support of five thousand infantry and reiters from emperor Ferdinand II.

Stanisław Koniecpolski, Field Crown Hetman of Poland, leads the Commonwealth army.

Reinforcements, led by Imperial general Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg and by Ernst Georg Sparr, had arrived in Prussia in late spring 1629 and set up camp near Graudenz (Grudziądz).

Gustav Adolf had arrived in May.

Several skirmishes (recorded as Scharmuetzel) have occurred, one on June 17, 1629 at Honigfeld(t) or Honigfelde near Sztum, where Gustav Adolph leads his army of total of four thousand cavalry and five thousand infantry from Marienburg (Malbork) against the Imperial and Polish forces.

The Swedish king narrowly escapes capture: wounded several times, Gustavus is at one point was saved by one of his men—Eric Soop.

During the battle, a relatively minor affair in eastern Prussia, the Swedish cavalry suffers serious losses, with about six hundred dead and two hundred captured by the Poles, including many high ranking officers.

The Swedish infantry, however, remain mostly intact, so the balance of forces in the war does not change.

The skirmishes continue in July and August and end with stalemate.

The Polish parliament (Sejm) had not imposed new taxes in order to pay the soldiers of the imperial army fighting under Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg.

Due to low morale some of them had mutinied or gone over to the Swedish side.

Several other countries intervene diplomatically and Sigismund III is eventually forced to enter truce proceedings.

Sweden's negotiating position with Poland is somewhat weakened after the recent setbacks that Sweden and its allies have suffered in Germany, such as the Battle of Nördlingen and the defection of the Electorate of Saxony.

The recent Polish victories against Muscovy and the Ottoman Empire have made many Swedes uneasy, as they remind themselves that the Commonwealth is a foe not easily defeated.

Nonetheless, the Swedes realize that their recent gains in Germany are much less easy to defend than the territories they have captured from the Commonwealth in Prussia and Livonia, and so they are more ready to give up German than Prussian territories.

They are, however, willing to give up their conquests in Prussia if Władysław will renounce his claim to the Swedish crown and they can retain their conquests in Livonia.

Sweden's position is also weakened by the disagreements within its government, as there is a power struggle between Swedish chancellor Axel Oxenstierna and his opponents in the Swedish Parliament.

Some of these struggles have led to leaks that have given leverage to the Polish side.

King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland, from the Swedish House of Vasa, wants to regain the Swedish crown, which had been held and then lost by his father Sigismund III Vasa.

As this is a daunting task, his less ambitious motivations are to gain fame and strengthen his position in the commonwealth, where Golden Liberties make the king's position among the weakest in Europe.

He had hoped these goals would be achievable during the Thirty Years War war and has argued that the commonwealth could gain more by warring with Sweden; however, he is also not averse to peaceful resolution if it were to give him what he wanted.

He thinks the negotiations with Sweden will give him the opportunity to trade his right to the Swedish crown for a hereditary claim to one of the regained lands (he is supported by the primate of Poland, Jan Wężyk), and has entrusted this matter to the Prussian mediators.

The szlachta (Polish nobility) advisors to Władysław, representing the Polish parliament (Sejm), are not convinced that war would be beneficial, although many (like Chancellor and Bishop Jakub Zadzik, Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski, and Royal Secretary and Voivode Stanisław Lubomirski) agree that the Swedes have to leave Poland—by negotiations, if possible, by war, if necessary.

Few, however, wish the war to continue for the sake of helping Władysław regain the Swedish crown, and, as usual, there is much disagreement between allies of the king, who want to strengthen his power, and those who fear that any victory for the king would mean loss for the nobility.

Many European powers are interested in the outcome of the negotiations between Sweden and Poland-Lithuania, and they had also been named as mediators by the 1629 Truce of Altmark, giving them ample opportunity to influence the outcome of the Polish–Swedish negotiations, which begin on January 24, 1635 in the Prussian village of Preussisch Holland (Pasłek).

Polish negotiators are led by Bishop and Chancellor Jakub Zadzik, and include Hetman Krzysztof Radziwill, Voivode of Bełsk Rafal Leszczyński, Crown referendarz Remigian Zaleski, Starost of Dorpat, Ernest Denhoff and Starost of Stężyce, Abraham Goluchowski.

Swedish negotiators are led by Per Brahe (the younger) and include the governor of Prussia, Herman Wrangel, and advisors Sten Bielke, Achacy Axelson and Johan Nicodemi.

The early negotiations are unsuccessful, as both sides play delaying tactics, disputing the titles of their monarchs, and awaiting most of the international mediators (only Brandenburg is present).

Although the Swedes expect that the delay will be to their benefit, Władyslaw plays their refusal to negotiate to the Sejm, and, with the support of some magnates, like Albrycht Stanisław Radziwill (who advocates the expansion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Navy), the Sejm is persuaded to vote for new, significant taxes.

Even before the vote is passed, Władyslaw has gathered a new army of about twenty-one thousand soldiers, sent Jerzy Ossoliński to gather Polish allies in non-occupied Prussia, and with the help of Danzig (Gdańsk) merchant Georg Hewel (Jerzy), bought ten ships to be converted into warships, and established the 'Sea Commission' (Komisja Morska) led by Gerard Denhoff.

The military and political situation of Sweden has further worsened in the past few months, with more defeats in the field, and more allies defecting to the Holy Roman Empire.

The Swedes are more willing to discuss their retreat from Prussia, and are more wary of the war with Poland.

They are ready by the end of March to accept most of the Polish terms.