Capitulation of Franzburg The Capitulation of Franzburg ( ) was a treaty providing for the capitulation of the Duchy of Pomerania to the forces of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years ' War . It was signed on 10 November ( O . S . ) or 20 November ( N . S . ) 1627 by Bogislaw XIV , Duke of Pomerania and Hans Georg von Arnim , commander in chief of an occupation force belonging to the army of Ferdinand II , Holy Roman Emperor , led by Albrecht von Wallenstein . While the terms of the capitulation were unfavourable for the Duchy of Pomerania already , occupation became even more burdensome when the occupation force did not adhere to the restrictions outlined in Franzburg . Stralsund resisted with Danish , Swedish and Scottish support , another Danish intervention failed . Imperial occupation lasted until Swedish forces invaded in 1630 , and subsequently cleared all of the Duchy of Pomerania of imperial forces until 1631 . Background . The Duchy of Pomerania had adopted Protestantism in 1534 . With the Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618 , the Thirty Years ' War started as a primarily Catholic - Protestant conflict between Ferdinand II , Holy Roman Emperor and the Catholic League on the one side and Protestant nobility and states on the other . Pomerania was a member of the internally divided Protestant Upper Saxon Circle , that most prominently included the electorates of Saxony and Brandenburg , and had declared neutrality in 1620 . Facing a victorious Catholic League , the Saxon electorate switched to the emperor ' s side in 1624 , while Brandenburg and Pomerania kept resisting imperial demands . Aware of the League ' s military superiority however , they refused an alliance offered by Protestant Denmark . In 1625 , imperial forces led by Albrecht von Wallenstein occupied the Lower Saxon prince - bishoprics of Magdeburg and Halberstadt , thereby also occupying and looting the Upper Saxon counties of Honstein and Wernigerode . Wallenstein ' s army had been raised to support the League ' s forces commanded by Johann Tserclaes , Count of Tilly . As a countermeasure , Danish forces led by Ernst von Mansfeld occupied the Brandenburgian regions Altmark and Prignitz southwest of Pomerania also in 1625 , but were defeated by the Imperial troops in the Battle of Dessau Bridge in 1626 . Except for The Electorate of Saxony , which was treated by Wallenstein as a " de facto " member of the Catholic League , the Upper Saxon states , bare of sufficient military means for self - defence , were subsequently occupied and devastated by the imperial forces after Denmark had been neutralized . Formally , the circle maintained neutrality . In November 1626 , the Swedish Empire recruited troops in Pomerania even though the duke had disapproved . In February 1627 , Swedish troops crossed the duchy for Poland , an imperial ally Sweden was at war with . In July , imperial troops crossed into the duchy near Pyritz ( now Pyrzyce ) . To prevent the pending occupation , duke Bogislaw XIV offered 60 , 000 Taler s in October , later raised to 200 , 000 Talers . Unimpressed Albrecht von Wallenstein instead ordered Hans - Georg von Arnim to occupy all Pomeranian ports and to confiscate all vessels . The occupation of Pomerania was a strategical measure rather than punishment for prior disobedience . It was implemented to secure the southern coastline of the Baltic Sea for the empire against Christian IV of Denmark , whose land forces were operating on imperial soil until the Treaty of Lübeck in 1629 , and whose naval dominance in the Baltic Sea the empire was unable to challenge . Provisions . The treaty ruled on the conditions of the billeting ( " " hospitatio " " ) of the Imperial troops . Sources vary on whether Bogislaw XIV obliged himself to the intake of eight or ten regiments ( approximately 24 , 000 soldiers ) . According to Herbert Langer , twenty multi - ethnic regiments with a total of 31 , 000 infantry and 7 , 540 cavalry were actually counted . To this number added military staff and civilian baggage of unknown number . In general , all towns and villages were required to quarter the troops , exempted were specified domains of the House of Pomerania , estates of knights , houses of clergy , councillors and academics , as well as the ducal residences Damm ( now Szczecin - Dąbie ) , Köslin ( now Koszalin ) , Stettin ( now Szczecin ) and Wolgast . The capitulation also included restrictions on the army , in particlular it forbade among others the interference with trade , traffic and crafts ; holdups and robberies which would harm towns , burghers , peasants or travellers ; looting and extortion ; rape of decent women ; quartering of soldiers ' families and servants ; and frivolous use of arms . Contributions , which were to pay to the imperial forces by the duchy , were fixed at a weekly 407 Reichstaler s per company and an additional 2 , 580 Reichstalers per respective staff . Implementation and consequences . The towns of Anklam , Demmin , Greifswald and Kolberg ( now Kolobrzeg ) were made seats of a garrison each , while in other towns , smaller units took quarter . Cavalry was stationed primarily in villages due to both the easier handling of the horses and the lower proportion of desertion compared to infantry . Although not ruled out verbatim in the capitulation ' s text , the conditions of quartering in Pomerania followed established practice : House and estate owners were to provide the soldier with bed , vinegar and salt , and also share kitchen and heatable living room at no cost . In theory , food had to be paid for ; the soldiers were to either compensate their hosts or buy their victuals in special depots set up by the military . Wallenstein had promised Ferdinand II , Holy Roman Emperor to fund his army himself . In practice , this meant that the army was fed and paid by contributions of the occupied territories and war loot . Since the higher ranks often kept the already small fraction of war loot and contributions thought to pay the lower ranks for themselves , the soldiers satisfied their needs at the expense of the local population instead ( " bellum se ipsum alet " ) . In addition to the disobedience of the capitulation ' s provisions by the military , the quartering resulted in epidemics breaking out more often , higher amounts of insufficiently disposed garbage , and shrinking natural resources . By 7 May 1628 , Pomerania had already paid 466 , 981 Reichstaler as contributions – twice as much as the whole Upper Saxon Circle ’ s annual output . Suffering in Pomerania was " undescribable and became proverbial " . John George I , Elector of Saxony , who still perceived the Upper Saxon Circle his sphere of influence and anticipated imperial occupation of his thitherto spared electorate , sharply criticized Wallenstein ’ s practices , yet without result . Stralsund was the only town in the Duchy of Pomerania to resist imperial occupation , resulting in the Battle of Stralsund . Unwilling to surrender the considerable independence it had long enjoyed as a Hanseatic town , Stralsund ignored the duke ' s order to adhere to the capitulation , instead turned to Denmark and Sweden for support and was aided in her defense by both . Christian IV of Denmark deployed a Scottish force raised by Donald Mackay , and the Scots Alexander Seaton and Alexander Leslie were in charge of the defense when the former colonel , Holke , retired to seek reinforcements . Wallenstein laid siege to the town , and in July 1628 commanded several unsuccessful assaults in person . When Stralsund turned out to become his first serious misfortune in the war , he lifted the siege to win a last battle against Christian IV near Wolgast . Christian IV , who had already destroyed Wallenstein ' s naval facilities in Greifswald , had intended to secure another Pomeranian port besides Stralsund there , but was utterly defeated and retreated to Denmark . Stralsund however signed an alliance with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden , providing him with a bridgehead on imperial territory manned with a Swedish expeditionary force and thus ultimately marking the Swedish entrance into the Thirty Years ' War . In February 1629 , Bogislaw XIV pledged to ease the occupation , and though Ferdinand II re - assured the duke , he took no action . Instead the imperial Edict of Restitution of March advertised the re - Catholization of the empire ’ s Protestant states . The Treaty of Lübeck , which ended the hostilities between the Danish king and the emperor in May , likewise did not result in a relief or a lift of the occupation , even though the capitulation of Franzburg had been justified with the emperor ' s right to recruit military support from his subjects to their own and the empire ' s protection . After France had mediated a truce between the Swedish Empire and the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth in September 1629 , Sweden was ready for an invasion of the Holy Roman Empire . The invasion was started when Gustavus Adolphus ' troops landed on Usedom island in the spring of 1630 , while simultaneous assaults on Rügen and the adjacent mainland by the Stralsund garrison cleared his flank . As a consequence , the capitulation of Franzburg was replaced by a Pomeranian - Swedish alliance confirmed in the Treaty of Stettin . Legacy . The capitulation of Franzburg marked the beginning of the Thirty Years ' War in the Duchy of Pomerania . The severe plight the capitulation inflicted on the people only foreshadowed the utter devastation of the duchy by the end of the war , when two thirds of the population were left dead . The successful resistance of Stralsund to the terms of the capitulation granted the Swedish Empire a foothold in the Holy Roman Empire - especially after Denmark withdrew her forces following the Treaty of Lübeck . The Swedish garrison in Stralsund was the first on German soil in history . A Riksdag commission had approved of Gustavus Adolphus ' plans to intervene on the empire ' s soil already in the winter of 1627 / 28 , and in January 1629 , the Riksråd approved of an offensive war , put into effect in the following year . Swedish forces invaded Pomerania in 1630 and by 16 June 1631 had cleared the last imperial stronghold , Greifswald . With short war - caused interruptions , Sweden kept her continental foothold in what became known as Swedish Pomerania until the Congress of Vienna of 1815 . Bogislaw XIV , Duke of Pomerania , who had just part by part inherited the previously internally partitioned duchy to become her sole ruler in 1625 , issued a paper called " Dreijährige Drangsal " ( " three years of distress " ) after the Swedish take - over , which read that the capitulation in Franzburg had been forced upon him by the military . At the same time , he wrote a letter to the Holy Roman Emperor apologizing for the Swedish alliance , saying he had no choice but to obey Swedish demands , and included a passage in the Treaty of Stettin stating the alliance be for the empire ' s best . Bogislaw did not survive the war : He died without issue in 1637 , terminating some 500 years of rulership of the House of Pomerania . The town of Franzburg , where the capitulation was signed , fell victim to the war , too : It was devastated completely . In 1670 , a mere 70 people lived in the town . Only in 1728 was Franzburg resettled .