Great Sleigh Drive

The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806 that played a pivotal role in the history of Germany and Central Europe.

The Battle of Fehrbellin was fought on June 18, 1675, between Swedish and Brandenburg-Prussian troops. The Swedes, under Count Waldemar von Wrangel, had invaded and occupied parts of Brandenburg from their possessions in Pomerania, but were repelled by the forces of Frederick William, the Great Elector, under his Feldmarschall Georg von Derfflinger near the town of Fehrbellin. Along with the Battle of Warsaw (1656), Fehrbellin was crucial in establishing the prestige of Frederick William and Brandenburg-Prussia's army.

The siege of Stralsund was an armed engagement between the Electorate of Brandenburg and the Swedish Empire from 20 September to 15 October 1678, during the Scanian War. After two days of bombardment on 10 and 11 October, the severely devastated Swedish fortress of Stralsund surrendered to the Brandenburgers. The remainder of Swedish Pomerania was taken by the end of the year, yet most of the province including Stralsund was returned to Sweden by the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Peace of Lund, both concluded in 1679.

Stralsund, officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund, is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg and Greifswald, and the second-largest city in the Pomeranian part of the state. It is located at the southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the Pomeranian mainland.

The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.

Pasłęk is a historic town in northern Poland, within Elbląg County in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. In 2017, the town had 12,298 registered inhabitants.

Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry, mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine infantry.

A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies. In some countries, battalions are exclusively infantry, while in others battalions are unit-level organizations.

Sambia or Samland or Kaliningrad Peninsula is a peninsula in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. The peninsula is bounded by the Curonian Lagoon to the north-east, the Vistula Lagoon in the southwest, the Pregolya River in the south, and the Deyma River in the east. As Sambia is surrounded on all sides by water, it is technically an island. Historically it formed an important part of the historic region of Prussia.

A militia is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional and/or part-time soldiers; citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel; or, historically, to members of a warrior-nobility class. When acting independently militias are generally unable to hold ground against regular forces; militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. Local civilian laws often limit militias to serve only in their home region, and to serve only for a limited time; this further reduces their use in long military campaigns. Militias may also, however, serve as a pool of available manpower for regular forces to draw from, particularly in emergencies.

Cuirassiers were cavalry equipped with a cuirass, sword, and pistols. Cuirassiers first appeared in mid-to-late 16th century Europe as a result of armoured cavalry, such as men-at-arms and demi-lancers, discarding their lances and adopting the use of pistols as their primary weapon. In the later part of the 17th century the cuirassier lost his limb armour and subsequently wore only the cuirass, and sometimes a helmet. By this time, the sword or sabre had become his primary weapon, with pistols relegated to a secondary function.

A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation.

Natangians or Notangians was a Prussian clan, which lived in the region of Natangia, an area that is now mostly part of the Russian exclave Kaliningrad Oblast, whereas the southern portion lies in the Polish Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship.

Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat with swords and firearms from horseback. While their use goes back to the late 16th century, dragoon regiments were established in most European armies during the 17th and early 18th centuries; they provided greater mobility than regular infantry but were far less expensive than cavalry.