Fabian von Fersen (7 February 1626-30 June 1677) was a Swedish field marshal who fought in the Torstenson War, the Thirty Years' War, the Deluge, the Second Northern War, and the Scanian War.
Biography[]
Fabian von Fersen was born in Reval, Livonia (Tallinn, Estonia) in 1626, and he studied in Stockholm before becoming a courtier under Queen Christina of Sweden. He served in the Swedish Navy in 1644 and became a captain of Field Marshal Lennart Torstensson's life guards in Bohemia in 1645. Von Fersen rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in William Forbes' regiment in 1646, and, after the end of the Thirty Years' War, he studied in the Netherlands and France before returning to his regiment at Stade. He went on to recruit his own infantry regiment in Bremen, enlisting 700 men by 1654. He accompanied the Swedish vanguard into Poland in 1655 and was garrisoned in Krakow. He suffered heavy losses during the battles against the Polish resistance, and he remained in Krakow until the city's capitulation in August 1657. He was froced to march to Pomerania and from there to Holstein and Jutland, where he commanded a brigade in the taking of the Danish fortress of Frederiksodde. In 1658, he enlisted two companies of Danish soldiers and fought aboard Swedish ships during the Battle of Oresund. Von Fersen was seriously wounded during that battle, and he was promoted to major-general on his recovery. He participated in the 1659 storming of Copenhagen and besieged Stralsund that same year, remaining until 1662. In 1664, he was appointed Governor of Riga. In 1674, he was made a baron and became an advisor to the young King Charles XI of Sweden. He strengthened the defense of the Scanian promises amid the Scanian War before defending Malmo from a Danish siege. However, he was wounded in the head during the siege and died shortly after; he had, before his death, been assigned to command the army being established in the Baltics and Karelia to rescue the Swedish troops in Pomerania.