Battle of Weichselsmünde

Battle of Weichselsmünde
	Part of Polish-Swedish War (1626–1629) and Prussian campaign (1626–1629)
	; Fortress at Weichselsmünde
Date	15 July 1628
Location	Weichselsmünde, near Danzig (modern day Gdańsk)
Result	Swedish victory
Belligerents
Swedish Empire	Danzig
Commanders and leaders
Gustavus Adolphus ; Patrick Hume †	Unknown
Units involved
Alexander von Essen’s Finnish infantry regiment ; Swedish Army ; Eight cavalry companies	Commonwealth navy
Strength
Around 1,000 men ; 25 artillery	12-15 warships
Casualties and losses
12 killed	3 warships sunk ; 7 ships heavily damaged

The Battle of Weichselsmünde was a surprise attack by Swedish artillery on a Polish fleet stationed outside

Danzig

at Weichselsmünde in 1628.

Background

In May 15, 1628, Gustavus Adolphus returned to Pillau with reinforcements for the Swedish army, at this point around 12,000 men are in Gustavus' army. He goes to Danziger Haupt, where he awaits Axel Oxenstierna, one of his top advisors. Gustavus wanted to invade Lithuania, but Axel advises him not to, stating: "där kommer hans majestät avsides i världen." which roughly translates to: "there his majesty would get secluded from the world."^[2]

Battle

On July 15, Gustavus decided on a surprise attack on Danzig, and Gustavus himself leads a force of 25 leather cannons, which had excellent mobility.^[3] He brought it over a swamp that the Poles deemed impossible to cross.^[2]^[4]^[3] After this, a 6 hour long battle between the Swedish Army and the Commonwealths fleet began. The Commonwealth fleet suffered heavy casualties, with most ships being heavily damaged and 3 of the Commonwealths ships being destroyed, including the admiral ship.^[4]^[2]^[5] However, the rest of the fleet managed to retreat back into Danzig, and heavy rain would prevent the fleet from suffering further damage.^[4]^[2] The Swedes lost 12 soldiers, along with a company commander by the name of Patrick Hume.^[6]