The Battle of Strömstad took place on July 19, 1717 at

Strömstad Strömstad is a locality and the seat of Strömstad Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden with 6,288 inhabitants in 2010. For historical reasons, Strömstad is called a ''city'' despite its small population. Strömstad became part of S ...

during the

Great Northern War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedi ...

. The

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

army of about 1,800 men under the command of Johan Giertta defeated the

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

fleet of several larger vessels and perhaps 4,000 men under

Peder Tordenskjold Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold (28 October 1690 – 12 November 1720), commonly referred to as Tordenskjold (), was a Norwegian nobleman and flag officer who spent his career in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the ran ...

. Peter tried to destroy the stocks of supplies Sweden had gathered for the upcoming

invasion of Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. In the battle about 200 Swedes were either dead or wounded and about 350 Norwegians.

Battle

On the night of July 8, the Norwegian ships were thrown towards Strömstad harbor, where they anchored up at 4 o'clock in the morning and began shelling the harbor fortifications. The liner ships concentrated on Laholmen and the barges on the other batteries. After a few hours of artillery preparation, six galleries were sent in to disembark on Laholmen. However, the defense was not defeated and only two galleys managed to be placed on the beach, where they could be damaged by Swedish infantry. Tordenskjold himself was wounded in the leg and the Norwegians were forced to withdraw with a loss of 350 men. The Swedish losses should have been considerably smaller.

Aftermath

The Swedes managed to defend their connecting lines for the army's operations in Norway. After the two unsuccessful attacks on Gothenburg and Strömstad in 1717, Tordenskjold was deprived of command of the Danish navy in the Kattegat for 1718 and subjected to the Schoutby night Rosenpalm. The successful defense of Gothenburg and Strömstad again strengthened the Swedes' confidence after the previous defeats. The Danish North Sea Squadron henceforth remained more in the shadows and limited its operations to purely defensive companies. Swedish ships could soon go undisturbed between Gothenburg and Strömstad, at least if they had coverage.

References

* Knut Lundblad, Georg Friedrich Jenssen-Tusch: Geschichte Karl des Zwölften, Königs von Schweden, Band 2, Hamburg (1835). pp. 542–547. {{DEFAULTSORT:Battle of Stromstad Stromstad Conflicts in 1717 Stromstad 1717 Stromstad 1717