The Battle of Lund, part of the Scanian War, was fought on December 4, 1676, in an area north of the city of Lund in Scania in southern Sweden, between the invading Danish army and the army of Charles XI of Sweden. The Danish had an army of about 13,000 under the personal command of 31-year-old King Christian V of Denmark, aided by General Carl von Arensdorff. The Swedish army, which numbered about 8,000, was commanded by Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt and the 21-year-old Swedish king Charles XI. It is one of the bloodiest battles in percent of casualties on both sides ever fought in Scandinavia. Events leading up to the battle After the Swedish defeat at the Battle of Fehrbellin and a number of Danish triumphs at sea, the Swedish military was occupied retaining their tenuous hold on dominions in Brandenburg and Pomerania. The Danes saw this as an opportunity to regain control over the Scanian lands, which had fallen to Sweden with the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde. The Danes invaded via Helsingborg in late June 1676 with an army of 14,000 men, where they found themselves supported by the local peasantry. This made it impossible for the outnumbered Swedish troops to effectively defend the recently acquired province. After a month, only the fortified town of Malmö remained under Swedish control. In August, a Danish detachment tried to advance north, but Swedish King Charles XI had prepared a new army in the province of Småland, and the Danish advance was halted at the Battle of Halmstad. The Swedes had gathered 14,000 men by October, of which three-fourths were mounted, and felt confident enough to march south. They slowly fought their way in an attempt to break the siege of Malmö. Swedish supply lines were thin due to frequent interceptions by local peasants under the command of Danish officers. In early November, the Danish king and his army had taken post at Lund, south of the Kävlinge River. The Danes controlled all the river crossings, and the Swedish army was forced to camp on the north side. For one month this situation endured, but snow arrived in late November, and the river surface began to freeze. On the morning of December 3, the Swedish General of Fortifications Erik Dahlberg reported to the king that the ice would hold their weight. The Danes assumed that the Swedes had gone into winter