On 30 December 1658 the Swedish garrison of Toruń marched out of the city it had held for three years, ending a siege of nearly six months by the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Emperor. Toruń had been one of the strongest Swedish fortresses on the Vistula. Its recapture, after a bloody night assault in November and weeks of negotiation, opened the way for the allied offensive into Royal Prussia. Two days later King John Casimir rode into the city.
A Swedish fortress on the Vistula
When Charles X Gustav of Sweden invaded the Commonwealth in 1655, Toruń chose not to resist. The Toruń regional museum records that the terms of its surrender were settled on 4 December 1655, and that the next day Swedish troops entered the city, followed by the king. By 1658 the war had turned. Poland had allies, and the Emperor's army was fighting beside it, and Toruń, held by a garrison that Bogusław Dybaś puts at more than 2,500 men and Jerzy Ronikier at 2,400, was one of Sweden's strongest fortresses on the Vistula.1
In June 1658 an allied council of war decided to attack it. Imperial troops under General Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches arrived before the city on 2 July, and Polish forces followed. In September and October more Polish troops came up, including the division of Field Hetman Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski, and the besieging army grew to about 23,000 men; Ronikier counts 18,700 Polish and 4,600 Imperial soldiers. King John Casimir was present with his court, but Lubomirski held the real command.2
The assault and the capitulation
The besiegers were mostly cavalry and had only about 40 guns, most of them field pieces, too few for a regular siege on a large scale. In early November Lubomirski pressed for an assault, and it was made on the night of 16 to 17 November. The city was not taken, but the attackers seized bastions on the western and northwestern front, and Ronikier writes that the capture of three bastions decided the fortress's fate, at a cost of about a thousand Polish casualties. Ronikier's lexicon entry dates the assault to the night of 16 to 17 September, but Dybaś, who studied the archive plans of the siege, places it in November, and the Toruń museum also dates the night attack, which it describes as a bombardment, to 16 to 17 November.3
After a heavy bombardment on 14 December, talks on surrender began the next day. On 22 December the terms were agreed, and they were mild for the Swedes, who were allowed to leave the city with honor. On 30 December the garrison marched out, and on 1 January 1659 John Casimir made his ceremonial entry into Toruń. The museum notes that the king stayed for 18 days, and that a Polish garrison of 1,300 men was then quartered in the city at the burghers' expense.4
What it meant
Aleksander Baczkowski, writing on the campaign of 1659, says the capture of Toruń was of key importance for the allied plans for an offensive northward, weakened the Swedish position in Prussia and opened the way toward Prussia and the Vistula delta. The war ended with the Peace of Oliva in 1660. Dates here follow the Gregorian calendar used in Poland; the Swedes still used the Julian calendar, ten days behind.5
