Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 30, 2015

The Battle of Öland (1676) was fought between an allied Danish-Dutch fleet and the Swedish navy in the Baltic Sea, east of Öland, during the Scanian War (1675–79). Sweden needed reinforcements for its northern German possessions; Denmark sought to ferry an army to attack Scania in southern Sweden. Just as the battle began, the Swedish flagship Kronan sank, taking with it the commander of the Swedish navy, Lorentz Creutz. The next in command, Claes Uggla, drowned while escaping his burning ship, Svärdet. The allied force under Dutch admiral Cornelis Tromp pressed its advantage, and the rest of the Swedish fleet fled in disorder. The battle resulted in Danish naval supremacy, then and throughout the war. The Danish King Christian V was able to ship troops over to the Swedish side of the Sound, and Scania became the main battleground of the war, culminating with the bloody battles of Lund, Halmstad and Landskrona. Danish and Dutch naval forces were left free to raze Öland and the Swedish east coast all the way up to Stockholm. The Swedish failure at Öland prompted King Charles XI to order a commission to investigate the fiasco, but in the end no one was found guilty. (Full article...)

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