Northern Seven Years' War - Peace Negotiations and Consequences

Peace Negotiations and Consequences

At this point, both armies were exhausted. This led to further negotiations toward peace. In September 1570 a peace negotiations meeting began in Stettin and peace was finally reached on 13 December 1570 with the Treaty of Stettin. The Swedish king withdrew the claims to Norway, Skåne, Halland, Blekinge and Gotland, while the Danes withdrew their claims to Sweden. The Baltic Sea was declared sovereign Danish. In addition, the Kalmar Union was declared dissolved. The Swedes ransomed Älvsborg with 150,000 riksdaler and had to hand back captured warships. The disputes concerning the Three Crowns insignia was unsolved and a source for future conflicts.

Perhaps the most significant consequence of this war was initiation of a standing Swedish army. This war, followed by a virtually continuous involvement of Sweden over the next century in other wars, produced a military capability which made Sweden, for a period, the greatest military power in northern Europe.

This war, with its extreme destruction and wanton civilian casualties strengthened the hatred between Swedes and Danes, while polarizing the until-then ambivalent Norwegian opinion to one of fear and resistance to Sweden. Nonetheless, the war was followed by a forty-year period of peace. The invasion routes of Norway also presaged the attacks on Norway in the next century and defined Norwegian defensive policy.