The Battle and its Aftermath

Tracing the Danish Campaign of 1567

1. During my 15 minutes on stage I will try to describe a project that has started quite recently. With limited resources – as you will notice – we have tried to follow in the tracks of an invading Danish army 445 years ago. Our aim has been to locate and analyze the remains of a forgotten battlefield from this campaign; a skirmish where professional soldiers fought and defeated Swedish regular troops and local militia. This was the starting point for the Getaryggen 1567-project – but we saw the need to go further – beyond the battle itself, and look at the consequences the campaign had for a whole region. Because this is (without being critical) one of the shortcomings of battlefield archaeology as it is mostly performed in Scandinavia today. The research tends to focus on what happened during a single day … The object to study is usually the tactics employed and the soldiers themselves – the men who fought, died and left their gear behind for us archaeologists to pick up and identify.But what happened afterwards, when the guns fell silent? What became of the poor wretches; the peasants that just happened to live where armies passed and laid an “enemy territory” waste?

2. Today the popular image of Småland – a county in southern Sweden – is somewhat too idyllic. The picture presented to attract tourists uses a lot of early 20th century imagery full of happy and uncomplicated farm life. The famous children books of Astrid Lindgren have been instrumental in this process – and although the red cottages of Bullerbyn does exist, and although Emil in Lönneberga was based on a real character – it’s still just a small part of the whole story.During the mid 19th century Småland was the scene of a massive emigration – mainly to the USA. Poor crofters fled starvation, left an overcrowded and over cropped countryside – hoping to find a brighter future across the Atlantic.But our story takes us even further back – to the centuries when Småland was a disputed border region – a kind of shock absorber, stuck between Sweden and Denmark in a seemingly endless period of war and lesser conflicts.

3. One of the major conflicts that affected these hundreds along the border in a particularly serious way was the Nordic Seven Years War that lasted from 1563 to 1570. Basically it was a struggle between Denmark and Sweden for control of the rich trade in the Baltic. Denmark also hoped to have the Nordic Union of 1397 restored and had until now been the dominating power in the region, while Sweden was something of an upstart country with great ambitions. This conflict has been called the first “Modern” War in Scandinavia. And it did include large armies on both sides and battles were fought on a scale hitherto unseen – on land as well as on sea. Famous events such as the Danish capture of Älvsborg castle in 1563 and the battle of

Axtorna in Halland in late fall 1565 were countered by a number of Swedish naval victories in the Baltic. But it was also a war fought so severely, with a bitterness seldom seen before. Massacres of civilians occurred in several towns – Danish Ronneby was destroyed by the Swedes in 1564, Lödöse by the Danes the following year. But these are the well documented atrocities – we know much less when it comes to what sufferings the ordinary people in the countryside had to endure.

4. Archaeology might be a way to reveal what actually happened – although that is still an untried method. But there is a source to these events, a source both fascinating and terrifying in its clear and sober details. That is the tax registers that were made so that the Swedish government could estimate the losses of income for the Crown. Here we get a picture of the magnitude of the devastation that hit some areas. It’s possible to follow the tracks of the enemy units that were laying waste the parishes across the border.

5. But in 1567 the war had reached a stalemate. The treasuries on both sides were almost empty – the mercenary soldiers feared they wouldn’t get paid. War-weariness spread rapidly among both soldiers and ordinary people. Soon it would be impossible to keep the units of the Danish army together – something had to be done. A large scale attack was launched from the Danish costal province of Halland with the aim to strike a decisive blow against the Swedish heartland. The army consisted of some 8500 men, including 4000 soldiers on foot and 3000 cavalry. Provisions were carried on a wagon train of 900 wagons and carts. Even cannons were carried along the very primitive roads into Småland.The force was expertly led by Daniel Rantzau – the victor at Axtorna two years earlier. Including a large number of foreign mercenaries (mainly Scotsmen and Germans) it was a unit well equipped with modern weapons, well trained and battle wise after four years of intense fighting.

6. Rantzaus raid didn’t meet much resistance until the troops were some 20 km west of Jönköping in northern Småland. The commander writes himself in his war diary that a Swedish force was deployed in a strong position, overlooking a steep up-hill slope on the road towards Jönköping. After a short, but fierce fight the Danish vanguard cleared the way. Jönköping was occupied two days later and the army continued into Östergötland. There they stayed until lack of reinforcements made Rantzau retreat back to Danish soil. Though a brilliantly conducted early version of blitzkrieg tactics, in the end nothing was accomplished...And it’s here that our research project starts. With field walking, studies of maps and archives. And metal detecting on the spot picked out as the most likely location for this small and insignificant struggle, merely a footnote in the war diary of Daniel Rantzau.

7. After two years (but only a few days spent out in the field) we have been able to get a surprisingly clear picture of what happened on that fateful day in late October 1567. The Swedish position was indeed strong, but manned with a combination of regular troops and local militia. They held out until outflanked and overrun by their experienced adversaries.

The finds distribution along the top of the ridge tells us of a battle fought over a distance, with numerous projectiles. To the east, in the Swedish encampment there’s all possible indications of panic, of man to man fighting …of a massacre where peasants faced professional soldiers. Rantzau lost 19 of his men; the fallen Swedes numbered several hundred.

8. Still, it had been a planned sacrifice. By delaying the Danish advance the defenders had time to destroy the causeways and bridges across the vast Dumme mosse bog. And by doing so, winning time to evacuate – and burn – the fortress and town of Jönköping, thus depriving Rantzau of an operational base for the winter.As a result, Daniel Rantzau became the first eyewitness describing in detail Jönköping and its new castle. He mocks the Swedish commanders for not having the balls to defend such a strong and modern fortification against him.By sheer coincidence the walls of this castle – of which the last ruins were demolished in the 1870s – are being excavated this year!

9. So – two years ago the battlefield at Getaryggen was found and is now under legal protection as a registered ancient monument. Now, that’s great news, something that the media and the general public likes a lot. But we felt it was time to move on, to expand the view and include the surrounding countryside – the parishes that supplied men to the militia, the men that fell at Getaryggen.Using the tax registers of 1568 gives us a clear picture. Almost everything along the road within reach for the marching army and its scouting parties has been either burned or plundered. And several parishes were so badly affected that their churches were never reconstructed after 1567. These parishes just ceased to exist.

10. Vallgårda is such a place. Both its timber church and the five farms were destroyed by the Danish units shortly before the battle at Getaryggen. It was never reestablished. The arable land continued to be used though and today the former village is a nature reserve. This is one site we hope to excavate in the near future – a place deserted on a certain day, from reasons too well known.

11. Västra Jära village is another such site. Here the village lived on although the church that went up in flames on October 31st 1567 was never replaced. The probable site of the churchyard was tested with GPR with good results. The old fields in Västra Jära – as seen on the map from 1849 – is believed to have been used for the Danish encampment harboring 8000 men, countless animals and loads of gear. That makes these fields another high priority target for metal detecting within the Getaryggen project.

12. Another consequence of the Rantzau Raid – an indirect one – was that Jönköping became an important fortress town although the Crown never had the resources to both restore and modernize the castle and build the impressive fortifications planned around the city. But by the founding of two Royal Chartered Factories it became one of the main providers of equipment to the armed forced. And Sweden was to become one of the most aggressive actors in North European politics during the 17th century…

13. And finally – a very interesting question concerning the Nordic Seven Years War is why it is forgotten today. One reason might be that despite all suffering and bloodshed no one gained anything from the war. Sweden had to pay a large ransom to get the important castle of Älvsborg back, but the borders stayed the same as they were before 1563. Another reason is that the sites of several important Danish victories – such as Axtorna – became Swedish territory in the peace treaty of Roskilde in 1658. And no one was interested in erecting memorials for defeats in the nationalistic days of the 19th and early 20th centuries. So no monument marks the place where all those local farmers fell, protecting a hill on the Nissastigen road. Their sacrifice forgotten and the battlefield itself turned into a dense, planted coniferous forest.But still – memories do exist, if not as official history. A vivid oral tradition flourishes in this region once so affected by the border wars. Here each and every cairn, Iron Age cemetery, standing stone or otherwise inexplicable features are explained as something in connection with “the Danes”. Very often the stones are seen as marking the site where “a Danish soldier, a scout or a messenger is buried”. And maybe this was the best way to deal with the trauma that came from experience of massacres, battles and seeing your farm being burned down – to invent stories where “we” fought back. Legends where the victims became victorious?And of course there are real traces too – like the bullet marks in the church door at Ödestugu (dating back to another Danish invasion in 1612). We have also encountered people with artifacts found a long time ago and kept in local collections ever since. Like the misericorda, found in 1952 in the potato field of a small farm west of Jönköping.So, even though Småland is today regarded as the most peaceful place on Earth, a region very popular among Danish buyers of summer cottages, the traces of our old conflicts are still there. And from these traces we might be able to learn something important – that peace is nothing to take for granted; that it is a rare gift that should be treated carefully and with great respect – even in Sweden!