The acting commander after Creutz's sudden demise, Admiral Claes Uggla, was surrounded and his flagship Svärdet battered in a drawn-out artillery duel, then set ablaze by a fire ship.

The Danish King Christian V was able to ship troops over to the Swedish side of the Sound, and on 29 June a force of 14,500 men landed at Råå, just south of Helsingborg in southernmost Sweden.

At the Treaties of Brömsebro (1645) and Roskilde (1658), Denmark was forced to cede the islands of Gotland and Ösel, all of its eastern territories on the Scandinavian Peninsula, and parts of Norway.

The move was in part due to bold royal ambition, but also a result of Sweden's being a highly militarized society geared for almost constant warfare, a fiscal-military state.

[2] Disbanding the Swedish forces meant settling outstanding pay, so there was an underlying incentive to keep hostilities alive and let soldiers live off enemy lands and plunder.

Sweden had come close to almost complete control over trade in the Baltic, but the war revealed the need to work against the formation of anti-Swedish alliances that included Denmark, especially with France, the most powerful state in Europe at the time.

Under the Oldenburg King Frederick III, the foreign policy was aimed at isolating Sweden while setting itself up in a favorable position in future wars.

Bourbon France and the Habsburg-dominated Holy Roman Empire competed for continental domination while the Dutch Republic and England fought several wars over naval hegemony.

At the same time, Denmark sought to rid itself of the generous toll treaties it was forced to grant Dutch merchants after the Republic's assistance in the wars against Sweden.

A Swedish army of around 22,000 men under Carl Gustaf Wrangel advanced into Brandenburg in December 1674 and suffered a minor tactical defeat at the Battle of Fehrbellin in June 1675.

[5] In October 1675 the Swedish fleet under Gustaf Otto Stenbock put to sea, but sailed no further than Stora Karlsö off Gotland before it had to turn back to Stockholm after less than two weeks, beset by cold and stormy weather, disease, and the loss of vital equipment.

During the winter of 1675–76 the Swedish fleet was placed under the command of Lorentz Creutz, who attempted to put to sea in January to February 1676, but was iced in by exceptionally cold weather.

Previously, decisive action in naval engagements had been achieved through boarding and melee, but after the middle of the 17th century tactical doctrine focused more on disabling or sinking an opponent through superior firepower from a distance.

[11] A Danish fleet of 20 ships under Admiral Niels Juel put to sea in March 1676, and on 29 April his forces landed on Gotland, which surrendered.

Juel had by then left Visby, the main port on Gotland, to join up with a smaller Danish-Dutch force at Bornholm, between the southern tip of Sweden and the northern coast of Germany.

[18] The army captain Rosenberg told a later inquiry that Creutz "almost had a paroxysm in the night" over the conduct of Johan Bär (one of his flag officers) at Bornholm, and that he swore "never to go to serve at sea with such rascals".

The Swedes, forming a barely cohesive battle line, tried to sail ahead of Tromp's ships, hoping to get between them and the shore, thus putting themselves on the allied fleet's windward side and gaining the tactical advantage of holding the weather gage.

The Dutch ships of the allied fleet managed to sail closer to the wind and faster than the rest of the force, and slipped between the Swedes and the coast, snatching the weather gage.

[27] The allied fleet tried to capitalize further on its victory by giving chase, but the dash up the coast had scattered its forces and there was disagreement among the Danish commanders on how far they should pursue the Swedish ships.

The army that had been amassed in Denmark could now be shipped to Scania to take the war to Swedish soil and on 29 June 1676, 14,500 troops were landed at Råå south of Helsingborg.

[31] The Battle of Öland was the first of several major Swedish defeats at sea that ended in complete Danish dominance over the southern Baltic for the duration of the Scanian War.

[31] The lessons from the war also led to improvements in Swedish naval organization under the guidance of Hans Wachtmeister (1641–1714) which included better funding and maintenance, increased readiness for mobilization in the southern Baltic and permanent recruitment of skilled personnel through the allotment system.

[32] Within a week, the news of the failure at Bornholm and the major defeat at Öland reached King Charles, who immediately ordered that a commission be set up to investigate what had happened.

On 13 June, the King wrote "some of our sea officers have shown such cowardly and careless behavior" that they have "placed the safety, welfare and defense of the kingdom at great peril", and that "such a serious crime should be severely punished".

Creutz has quite consistently been blamed for the loss of his ship by historians, and has been described as an incompetent sea officer and sailor who more or less single-handedly brought about the sinking through lack of naval experience.

Naval historian Jørgen Barfod explains that the battle was fought "in a disorganized manner from beginning to end" since Tromp had given the order for each commander to attack the enemy ship closest to him.

[40] The captain of 't Hoen, the fireship that had set Svärdet ablaze after she had surrendered, was arrested and incarcerated directly after the battle, and was subjected to such harsh treatment that he died within a few days.