Hero Tales of the Far NorthRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
History
Hero Tales of the Far North
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
Scandinavia -- History
Where the famous pleasure garden Tivoli now is, the strength of the
enemy was massed against the redoubts at the western gate. The name
of “Storm Street” tells yet of the doings of that night. King Karl
had promised to give over the captured town to be sacked by his
army three days and nights, and like hungry wolves they swarmed to
the attack, a mob of sailors and workmen with scaling ladders in
the van. The moats they crossed in spite of the gaps that had been
made in the ice to stop them, but the garrison had poured water
over the walls that froze as it ran, until they were like slippery
icebergs. A bird could have found no foothold on them. Showers of
rocks and junk and clubs fell upon the laddermen. Three times Karl
Gustav hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven
back, broken and beaten. A few gained a foothold on the walls only
to be dashed down to death. The burghers fought for their lives and
their homes. Their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over
the breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams
and rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the
enemy. In the hottest fight Gunde Rosenkrantz, one of the king’s
councillors, trod on a fallen soldier and, looking into his face,
saw that it was his own son breathing his last. He bent over and
kissed him, and went on fighting.
In the early morning hour Karl Gustav gave the order to retreat.
The attack had failed. Many of his general officers were slain;
nearly half of his army was killed, disabled, or captured. Six
Swedish standards were taken by the Danes. The moats were filled
with the dead. The Swedes had “come in their shrouds.” The guns
of the city thundered out a triple salute of triumph and the
people sang Te Deums on the walls. Their hardships were not over.
Fifteen months yet the city was invested and the home of daily
privation; but their greatest peril was past. Copenhagen was saved,
and with it the nation; the people had found itself and its king.
That autumn a second Swedish army under the veteran Stenbock was
massacred in the island of Fyen, and Karl Gustav exclaimed when
the beaten general brought him the news, “Since the devil took the
sheep he might have taken the buck too.” He never got over it.
Three months later he lay dead, and the siege of Copenhagen was
raised in May, 1660. It had lasted twenty months.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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