The Battle of Oliwa was fought on 28 November 1627 off Gdańsk1 during the Polish-Swedish War. The young navy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ten mostly small ships under Admiral Arend Dickmann1, attacked a Swedish squadron of six ships blockading the port1. The Poles captured the Swedish flagship Tigern and destroyed the Solen2; both admirals were killed. It was the largest and most famous victory in the history of the Commonwealth's navy.
In 1627 Swedish warships held Gdańsk, the Commonwealth's richest port, in a stranglehold. On a November morning a small fleet of converted merchant ships, flying the royal colours of King Sigismund III, sailed out to break the blockade, and won.
A stranglehold on Gdańsk
In the war of 1626 to 1629, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden landed in Prussia and used his navy to blockade3 Gdańsk, choking the trade on which the whole Commonwealth depended.
A navy from scratch
King Sigismund III had built a small fleet, mostly from purchased merchant ships, crewed largely by foreign, often Dutch, sailors4 and Polish soldiers as marines. Its commanders, led by Admiral Arend Dickmann, resolved to attack the Swedish squadron of Admiral Nils Stiernsköld lying off Oliwa.
Boarding the Tigern
On 28 November 1627 the ten Commonwealth ships sailed out and closed with the six Swedish vessels. The flagship Ritter Sankt Georg grappled the Swedish flagship Tigern, and after a fierce fight the boarding party captured it. Another Swedish ship, the Solen, was blown up by its own crew to avoid capture5, and the rest of the squadron withdrew.
Victory at a price
Both admirals were killed: Dickmann was struck by a cannonball1, and Stiernsköld was mortally wounded on board the Tigern6. The blockade of Gdańsk was broken, at least for a time.
Why Oliwa matters
Oliwa did not change the course of the war; the next year, in July 1628, Swedish shore artillery bombarded the fleet at its anchorage near Gdańsk and sank two of its ships, among them the Ritter Sankt Georg that had led the attack at Oliwa. But it remains the largest and most famous naval victory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth2, celebrated in Poland as a symbol of the country's maritime tradition.