page_title: Magnus Stenbock
section_title: Director of the General War Commissariat
hierarchical_section_title: Magnus Stenbock / Great Northern War (1700–1713) / Campaign in Poland / Director of the General War Commissariat
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Karl XII och Magnus Stenbock vid Thorns belägring. Teckning av Alexander Wetterling.
context_page_description: Count Magnus Stenbock was a Swedish field marshal and Royal Councillor. A renowned commander of the Carolean Army during the Great Northern War, he was a prominent member of the Stenbock family. He studied at Uppsala University and joined the Swedish Army during the Nine Years' War, where he participated in the Battle of Fleurus in 1690. After the battle, he was appointed lieutenant colonel, entered Holy Roman service as Adjutant General, and married Eva Magdalena Oxenstierna, daughter of statesman Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna. Returning to Swedish service he received colonelcy of a regiment in Wismar, and later became colonel of the Kalmar and then Dalarna regiments.
  During the Great Northern War, Stenbock served under King Charles XII in his military campaigns in the Baltic and Polish fronts. As director of the General War Commissariat, Stenbock collected substantial funds and supplies for the maintenance of the Swedish army, earning the admiration of Charles XII. In 1705 he was appointed general of the infantry and Governor General of Scania.
context_section_description: On 18 August 1702 Stenbock was appointed to succeed Anders Lagercrona as director of the newly established General War Commissariat, and became responsible for the main army's food supply. With the help of war commissary Jöran Adlersteen, Stenbock decentralized the maintenance of the Swedish troops by appointing a commissary to each regiment, in order to monitor and record the collection of supplies. On 19 October Stenbock was ordered to personally command a contingent of 3,000 men to Galicia southeast of Kraków. His task was to collect substantial contributions, and to force the local magnate Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski and other Polish nobles to renounce their allegiance to King Augustus. He sent war commissars with proclamations about his collection to the villages and cities around Galicia, but when several commissars returned empty handed, Stenbock took severe measures. On October 28 he set an example by burning down the city of Pilzno. Between November and December the villages of Dębica, Wysoka, Wesola and Dub were burned on Stenbock's orders, acknowledged by Charles XII in their letter correspondence. In December Stenbock executed an expedition south to Krosno, but he soon returned to Reschow and travelled on to Jarosław. In January 1703, he continued across Oleszyce and Uhniv to Belz, and in February he passed Tyszowce and arrived at the fortified city of Zamość. Since he lacked troops and siege artillery to attack the city, he continued to Chełm and rejoined the main army in Warsaw on February 28. From Galicia, Stenbock collected over 300,000 riksdaler, including seventy wagons loaded with grain, slaughtered cattle and clothes. Stenbock filled his own coffers with church silver, which he sent with personal greetings to churches and friends in Sweden. Stenbock's expedition led to a strong anti-Swedish sentiment amongst the Galician nobility, a mood which over the years continued to grow throughout Poland.
  On 21 April 1703 Stenbock participated, along with Charles XII, in the Battle of Pułtusk against the Saxon Field Marshal Adam Heinrich von Steinau. On May of that year, Charles XII laid siege to Thorn on the Weichsel river. Since he lacked siege artillery, Charles XII ordered cannons and equipment from Riga and Stockholm, which had to pass through Danzig at the mouth of the Weichsel. Stenbock was sent incognito to Danzig to negotiate with the city's magistrate about a free passage for the Swedish transport vessels. At the end of July the transport fleet from Riga arrived at Danzig with 4,000 Swedish and Finnish recruits. Even though Stenbock was granted a contribution of 100,000 riksdaler, the city refused to open its harbor barriers for the Swedish vessels and Stenbock was forced to transport the siege artillery by land. He arrived at the Swedish field camp at Thorn with the artillery at the end of August. The city was bombarded during the autumn and, on 3 October, the city's garrison surrendered to Charles XII. In December a new conflict with Danzig was triggered by Stenbock attempting to recruit troops around the area, even though freedom from enlistment was one of Danzig's privileges. However, Charles XII demanded that recruitment must be allowed, and the city submitted to his demands in January 1704. Subsequently, however, the King further demanded a refund of 15,000 silver marks which the exiled Charles VIII of Sweden offered to the city nearly 250 years earlier in return for fishing revenue from Putzig. Members of the Gyllenstierna family had already presented the demands as heirs to Charles VIII the previous year, and Stenbock and the King returned to Danzig to press Gyllenstierna's demands. Eventually the city relented and paid 136,000 riksdaler in exchange for a letter of safe conduct from Charles XII.
  In 1704 Stenbock was commissioned to set up his own dragoon regiment. At first the regiment amounted to 600 men, which was expanded to 1,000 men in 1707. At the end of August 1704 Stenbock accompanied the King during the occupation and plundering of Lemberg in the southeast of Poland. During Charles XI
caption: Charles XII and Magnus Stenbock during the siege of Thorn. Drawing by Alexander Wetterling.
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