Go, Captain, Greet the Danish King 101Stralsund was not the largest or most important port on the Baltic coast,
and nor, like Lübeck, was it a free city of the Empire. Instead it belonged
to the duke of Pomerania, who had previously had difficulties enough
with its faction-ridden council. Hence when Arnim reached agreement
with the duke to place Imperialist garrisons in Pomerania’s towns and
cities late in 1627 it was perhaps not surprising that Stralsund was the
one which objected most vociferously. More surprising was the city’s
decision to resist by barring the gates and looking to its defences. Arnim
was willing to negotiate, and a payment of 100,000 taler for exemption
from billeting was agreed, with a first instalment of 30,000 actually paid
over. Nevertheless the city still refused a garrison and continued to build
fortifications, recruit militia, and bring in weaponry, establishing itself
in a warlike state which could only be regarded as a provocation. Arnim
countered by landing troops on the tiny island of Dänholm, which
straddles the entrance to Stralsund’s harbour. The council responded
first by mounting guns to threaten the island, and then by using their
much superior shipping to blockade it, so that in April 1628 Arnim was
forced to withdraw his men. Prestige was now involved, and in a further
escalation Arnim besieged the city from the landward side and started
to make threatening moves against its defences, hoping to frighten the
citizens into adopting a more compliant attitude.^36
Opinion in the city was divided, with the rich, who had most to
lose, generally inclined to a settlement, while the radicals and have-
nots favoured further resistance. Help from Denmark had initially been
declined, but now their military supplies were accepted, while Gustavus
sent a gift of munitions and an offer of further assistance. These moves
were noted by Arnim’s observers and informers, so in mid-May he
increased the pressure on the city by means of gunfire and sallies against
its fortifications. At Whitsun he proposed a truce, but the city council
instead sought further help, and in early June 1000 troops commanded
by Holk, who was now back in Danish service, were landed in the city
from the sea, and 600 Swedes soon joined them. This converted what
had begun as local recalcitrance, irritating to the authorities but by no
means unheard of in this unruly age, into an act of war. It also deprived
the city of control over its own destiny, as inviting foreign forces in was
one thing, but persuading them to leave again would be quite another.
Before his men landed Gustavus specified a formal twenty-year alliance,
albeit one supposedly not directed against the Empire, but in the event
Stralsund remained under Swedish control until 1815.^37
Wallenstein had followed the reports of the developing confronta-
tion, although in the main leaving it as a local problem for Arnim to