Siege of Wesenberg (1574)

The Siege of Wesenberg (Rakvere, Rakovor) was an abortive Swedish siege of the Russian-held town of Wesenberg in Estonia from January through March 1574, during the Livonian War. The siege is infamous for a brawl and subsequent combat between German and Scottish mercenaries within the besieging army, which claimed the lives of about 1,500 Scots. Wesenberg was seized in a renewed Swedish assault in 1581.

While the Treaty of Stettin had formally ended the Northern Seven Years' War in the Baltic, the Livonian War dragged on for control of the Eastern Baltic coast, formerly controlled by the Teutonic Order State. The town of Wesenberg, Rakvere in Estonian and Раковоp in Russian, was a Russian-held stronghold situated near the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, about half-way between Reval (Tallinn), which had submitted itself to Sweden in 1561, and Narva, captured by Ivan IV of Russia in 1558.

John III, king of Sweden since 1568, faced a Russian offensive on the Swedish positions in Estonia during the early 1570s. Reval withstood a Russian siege in 1570 and 1571, but several smaller towns were taken by Russian forces. The Russian advance was concluded by the sack of Weissenstein (Paide) in 1573. After the capture, the Russian forces roasted alive some of the leaders of Weissenstein's Swedish garrison, including its commander, triggering John III to mount a retaliatory campaign with Wesenberg being the main objective.

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