1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wrangel, Karl Gustav von

WRANGEL, KARL GUSTAV VON (1613–1676), Swedish soldier, was descended from a family of Esthonian origin, branches of which settled in Sweden, Russia and Germany. His father, Hermann von Wrangel (1587–1643), was a Swedish field marshal in Gustavus Adolphus’s wars. Karl Gustav was born near Upsala on the 23rd of December 1613, and at the age of twenty distinguished himself as a cavalry captain in the war against the Army of the League. Three years later he was colonel, and in 1638 major-general, still serving in Germany. In 1644 he commanded a fleet at sea, which defeated the Danes at Fehmarn on the 23rd of October. In 1646 he returned to Germany as a field marshal and succeeded Torstensson as commander-in-chief of the Swedish army in Germany, which post he held during the last three campaigns of the Thirty Years’ War. Under Wrangel and Turenne the allied Swedish and French armies marched and fought in Bavaria and Württemberg. At the outbreak of a fresh Polish war in 1655 Wrangel commanded a fleet, but in 1656 he was serving on land again and commanding, along with the Great Elector of Brandenburg, in the three days' battle of Warsaw. In 1657 he invaded Jutland and in 1658 passed over the ice into the islands and took Kronborg. In 1657 he was appointed admiral and in 1664 general of the realm, and as such he was a member of the regency during the minority of Charles XI. But his last campaign was unfortunate. Commanding, ineffectively owing to his broken health, in the war against Brandenburg, he was recalled after his stepbrother Waldemar, Freiherr von Wrangel (1647–1676), had been defeated at Fehrbellin. He died at Rügen shortly afterwards, on the 5th of July 1676.