Medal - Danish Naval victories in the War against Sweden

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Scene of the naval Battle in the Bay of Køge. Main scene depicts the Danish Admiral ship "Christianus V" forces the Swedish liner "Mars" to abandon the battlefield and take down the Swedish flag from the mast. More ships are fighting in the background.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
SIC CODANI IURBAS CONCILIASSE IUVAT.
I IULII ANNO 1677

Engraver: Christopher Schneider

Comment

After the Swedish fleet had recovered somewhat from the devastating defeat at the southern tip of Öland on June 1, 1676, the Swedish Admiral Freiherr Erik Sjöblad sailed from Göteborg on May 20, 1677 heading through the Kattegat in the south to join with the main body the Swedish fleet in the Baltic Sea. In order not to meet the superior Danish fleet, Sjöblad chose the further route through the Great Belt and not the nearer through the Öresund. South of the island of Møn, however, the battle broke out on June 1, 1677, in which Sjöblad's ships had to surrender or fled.
The Swedish main fleet sailed on June 11, 1677 under the command of Field Marshal Henrik Horn from the Stockholm archipelago south to prevent reunification of the Danish and Dutch fleets and to recapture the city of Malmö. On June 24, the Swedish fleet anchored at the island Møn: shortly thereafter appeared on the horizon in the Bay of Køge the Danish fleet under Admiral Niels Juel. Because Horn knew that the Dutch fleet was already under way with Admiral Cornelius Tromp, he decided to attack the Danes, who had far fewer ships and guns than the Swedes. It was a violent naval battle. Although the Danish admiral Niels Juel had to leave both his original admiral ship "Christianus V" and the replacement ship "Fredericus III" because of severe damage and finally led the command of the "Charlotte Amalia", the Danes decided the fight for themselves and added the Swede a catastrophic defeat too. While on the Danish side about 300 men were killed or injured, the Swedes had to complain to more than 4,000 dead, injured and prisoners. The Swedish fleet had practically disappeared completely.
King Christian V, who had been watching the battle from the land, commissioned court medalist Christopher Schneider to create an enormous medal of unprecedented magnitude to commemorate the event and manifest the status of Denmark as a major naval power. Schneider needed more than ten years for this job! The stamps in the Kgl. Mønt- og Medaillesamling are kept in Copenhagen and were also used in the 18th century because the Danish kings used the world's largest Baroque medal as a gift. After 1750, however, the Front page stamp falled to ground and this is the reason why one third of the copies known today has a stamp break.