Attack on Marstrand

The Attack on Marstrand
Part of Great Northern War
The Swedish Carlsten fortress, Marstrand 1719
Date July 10–16, 1719 Location Marstrand, Bohuslän, Sweden Result Danish victory
Belligerents
Denmark-Norway	Swedish Empire
Commanders and leaders
Peder Tordenskjold	Henrich Danckwardt
Strength
600–700 soldiers and sailors. 18 ships such as barges, galleys and mortar ships.	227 soldiers, 54 artillery men, 107 sailors totalling 388 men. 6 frigates, 3 galleys, 1 barge, 2 burner ships.

The Attack on Marstrand was a successful Dano-Norwegian siege of Marstrand and Carlsten fortress which took place from July 10–16, 1719 during the final parts of the Great Northern War. The Danes had subjected the Swedish city of Gothenburg to a blockade during the spring of 1719, to combat the Swedish privateers. After a Dano-Norwegian assault on northern Bohuslän, ships under the command of Peder Tordenskjold had also assaulted the Marstrand harbor and the immobile naval ships in the Swedish Gothenburg Fleet. After these ships had been sunk, the Danes mounted their final assault on Carlsten fortress, whose garrison surrendered swiftly, partly because of psychological warfare. The commander of the fortress, Colonel , was later sentenced to death by a Swedish court martial for abandoning the fort while it was still deemed defendable.

The surrender of the strong Carlsten fortress in 1719 is still surrounded by a number of myths and legends.

After the death of Charles XII on November 30, 1718 at Fredriksten fortress in Norway, the Swedish army marched its way back over the border to Sweden. The Great Northern War which had been fought without interruptions since 1700, had depleted fighting forces on both sides. Due to the Russian Pillage of 1719–1721, a threat posed by the Russians against the Swedish eastern seaboard, Denmark-Norway seized the opportunity to retake territories on the Swedish west coast. There were also significant plans of a naval and land invasion of Bohuslän.

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