Talk:Siege of Bohus fortress

Some ideas of correction

There is a misleading focus on Hisingen in the article. The large island of Hisingen lies to the south of Bohus Fortresss, but the main attack always came from the north, or north-west (also in this last siege), where also the main siege artillery was always stationed. This is easy to realize when looking at the map; passing 200 m of water from Hisingen or 50 m water from the north. It was by no means necessary to have control of Hisingen to make a successful attack on Bohus - albeit in this case no attempt was ultimately successful due to the outstanding strengh of the fortress. I have found no mention of any attacks from Hisingen in documents about this or previous sieges, apart from that a minor part of the attacking artillery was normally placed there - most of the guns and all attacks always came from the north - except from some attempts from the Swedes from east during winter, when the ice was thick on Göta Älv; but that was during the 16 century. The "iron-gate on the Hisingen side" I have never heard of, what is that? Also I miss some clarification during the initial stages of the siege; Bohus was initially defended by 384 men under lieutenant-colonel Carl Gustaf Frölich, with a mix of Swedish and Finnish troops. After one or two days, colonel Fredrik von Börstell managed to pass the river Göta Älv, enter the fortress, take command and reinforce the garrison with some 100-200 men from the life company of Skaraborgs regemente. It is he who utters the order that whoever mentions "dagtingan" (honorable surrender) shall be immediately executed. Maybe the other officers signed the order, but that would not have been necessary. Later, more reinforcements did the crossing, and the garrison peaked at some 900 defenders (against 12-15 000 attackers - contemporary sources say 16 000, but may be exaggerated). After the battle 300 of the defenders were dead, 400 still in "fair condition", the rest (2-400) was injured and "had their arm or leg shot off". Most internal buildings were heavily damaged, most of the ammunition spent, and supplies were either spent or destroyed by fire. Outer walls and towers was also "laid in ruins", and the garrison would probably not have managed to withstand a final assault. Luckily field marshal Magnus Stenbock arrived with a relief force, and the Norwegians withdraw. The repairs took long time, due to bad economy, lack of labours, and lack of interest - Russia was now the main enemy, far from Bohus Fortress. Some buildings were not repaired at all, instead more or less left as they were 1678.

Minor errors it the article is perhaps that the bastion Larmposten is called "the Alarm Place" - it was a regular bastion, built in and adjacent with the fortress, with high walls of stone, and many guns - not a place from where you would raise alarm, despite its name. The same goes for "the Blockhouse"; this was not a Blockhouse in the traditional meaning, it was only a part of the above mentioned bastion Larmposten. The part that contained the second and more fortified gate - in Swedish called Blockhusporten (the Block house gate - maybe as "blocking the house", instead of "a house made of blocks/timber"). 94.191.137.6 (talk) 22:58, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello, can I ask where you got this information from? The source I used seems to have had no misconceptions from what I can tell.

By "iron-gate on the Hisingen side" this is a rough translation of the document, although it's about an iron-gate facing towards Hisingen, if I remember correctly.

"Alarm place" and "Block house" are also rough translation, I was not able to find out what they were and just directly translated them instead. Gvssy (talk) 08:30, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Of course! Nice to meet a fellow Wikipedian who is also interested in this old fortress.

The story of the last siege is mentioned in many sources, perhaps easiest available at https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belägringen_av_Bohus_fästning_1678 (in Swedish). Maybe start with search word "Bohus", go to Swedish Wiki and try to find the fortress (fästning), then the specific siege in 1678. This page gives a more or less day-to-day description of the events during the siege 1678, including number and types of missiles fired by the attackers. Similar (overall) wording is found in [1] below. Substantially less so in [2] and [3], among other sources.

For buildings/structures, distance and angles to attacking (presumed/normally used) battery stations, damages after the last siege 1678, cost for repairs, position and caliber (pounds) of defending cannons, amount of powder and bullets in store, et cetera, I refer to Riksarkivet, the Swedish National Archive (keeping documents from ancient times till now). Unusually, the documents for Bohus (1658-1783) are scanned and made public - normally you otherwise have to go to Stockholm, order them out from storage and read at place - but for Bohus you can read at home. Unfortunately the scanning is not top notch, the text is handwritten in 17-18 century Swedish - even I have a very hard time understanding. But you clearly see the buildings. If you are interested you can order a better scanned copy, at some 150-500 Euros; lower price if you know the exact description of the "item" in their inventory.

Start with: https://sok.riksarkivet.se/?

Then try (I do not know if you can handle the Swedish letters...):

Sokord=Bohus+fästning&EndastDigitaliserat=true&AvanceradSok=False&FacettFilter=arkis_ark_typ_facet%24Karta%2fritning%3a&FacettState=7p%2fdfg%3ac%7cundefined%3ac%7c&page=2&postid=Arkis+4f75163c-73a3-4130-a3f4-120aefbb9b9f&tab=post&ct=300&inc=6&exp=y&vol=n&s=Balder.

Some of the information from Riksarkivet is found in the sources 1-3 below - but I guess internet will be your prime source.

If you have problem finding the items at Riksarkivet I have most of the documents downloaded as rather poor pictures, and some of the "easiest-to-understand" transcribed to Microsoft Word (by me, mistakes included). And again, in Swedish.

A reasonable resume of the buildings and their history is also given in [1].

The gates were in 1678 at least 6 (following the normal approach). First, an arched opening in the low outer defense "Svingeln" (walls only 3-4 m high, mainly to prevent direct storming of the next gate, Svingeln being defended by 2 six-pound- and 5 three-pound guns). Then the Blockhusporten, being the real outer gate where the walls were considerably higher. Then in the middle of Larmposten another intermediate gate, defended by a 6-pound cannon. Then turning left you passed another gate, entering a tunnel (Kattenburg) which ended with the fifth gate. After this you passed a small open square were you could be shot from all directions, before entering a sixth gate, leading to the actual old castle (this gate was earlier protected by a draw bridge, but it was most certainly removed in 1678). Thereafter, again, a tunnel which may have had an intermediate and a final gate - supports for those gates have been found, but it is not clear if they were used only in the old days, or still in use 1678.

In addition to this there was two small "escape" or counter-attack exits. One from between the bastions Nedre Platt and Skarpe Nord, one from the bastion Lilla Våghals (my translation "Lower Flat", "Sharp North", "Little Daredevil" - but do not use them - names should not be translated but maybe explained; in this case there is no apparent cause for the names, except that that Skarpe Nord points to the north).

The gates faces: 1: West, 2: North, 3: North, 4: West, 5: North, 6: South (7: West, 8: West). The escape gates faced North-East and East respectively. The only one facing Hisingen is gate n:o 6, but there is no evidence that this should have been of iron. Many doors had iron brackets or reinforcements, maybe that is the root to your source´s description?

Today only one door exists, and that is the one at Blockhusposten - used to lock the fortress during night and out-of-season.

What is your source for the "iron gate"? - as you perhaps have understood I am gravely interested in Bohus.

(Note: the words Svingeln and Kattenburg are not possible to translate - they are probably not of Swedish origin, and no living person, encyclopedia, dictionary or internet page that I have found gives a plausible reason for the names).

A contemporary "guide" for the landscape or county Bohuslän is written by Johan Oedman in 1746, "Chorographia Bahusiensis thet är: Bahus-Läns Beskrifning", available on internet, found at Gothenburg University, digital version. It contains on two-three pages information about the fortress, including interesting stories about the well and the dungeons, and a probably not entirely true story of the first centuries of the castle. Seems my link is now broken, but I have a pdf copy if you are interested. Again, old Swedish :-(.

The oldest description of the fortress is from Erikskrönikan (the Eric chronicle), first half of the 1400th century, some 10-30 years after the founding of the castle. It gives little information about the castle, other than stating that it was originally made of wood and not of stone. Probably this was quickly fixed, because it was soon turned into the strongest fortress in the Nordic countries. Besieged at least 14 times, never conquered. The fact that it ended up in Swedish hands was due to treaties after happenings elsewhere.

Some sources:

[1] Bohus Fästning, Thomas Löfberg, 1975

[2] Svenska borgar och fästningar, Leif Thörquist et al, 2007

[3] Bohus Fästning – Vägledning för besökare, Adolf Tell, 1955

Most important are the documents/drawings from Riksarkivet, mentioned above. 94.191.136.169 (talk) 21:08, 17 May 2024 (UTC)