Siege of Pärnu 1609
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 28 February 1609 – 2 March 1609 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1609 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Estonia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Polish–Swedish War of 1600–11 | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 58.3844, 24.4989 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Pärnu (Polish: Parnawa) took place between February 28 and March 2, 1609 during the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611).
The Grand hetman of Lithuania Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, while resting his forces in Birże (Biržai), learned of Swedish deployments from Pärnu (present-day Estonia) moving towards Daugavgrīva (in present-day Latvia) and set out to cut these off. However the Swedish units managed to enter Daugavgrīva before Chodkiewicz's arrival and as a result the hetman turned back and moved towards Pärnu, hoping to take the defenders there under command of Daniel von Wochen by surprise. Chodkiewicz's forces arrived on February 28, 1609 but when his troops tried to creep up to the city's walls unnoticed the Swedish garrison fired their cannons which established that a surprise attack was not going to work.
Chodkiewicz then, feigning a withdrawal, hid his forces in nearby woods forbidding his soldiers to even light camp fires, despite the freezing cold of the Estonian winter. After a night's wait he raised his troops and marched them back against the city and this time managed to surprise the defenders. The Polish–Lithuanian miners blew up three of the main gates of the city and Lithuanian troops fought their way to the city's center.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Pärnu (revision 1373819353), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Polish–Swedish War of 1600–11
- Siege of Weissenstein 1602
- Battle of Rakvere (1603) 1603
- Battle of Weissenstein 1604
- Battle of Kircholm 1605
- Capture of Daugavgrīva 1608
- Battle of Daugavgrīva (1609) 1609
- Battle of Salis 1609
All 13 battles of the Polish–Swedish War of 1600–11 →
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