18th Century oval picture of Frederick Wilhelm I, ‘The Great Elector’ of Brandenburg-Prussia. Circa 1760. (c. 1760 Germany)

The scene depicts the siege of the Hanseatic League Town of Anklam in Western Pomerania. The League represented a union of German towns and states with free-trade guilds which held dominion over trade throughout the Baltic and the majority of Northern Europe. Due to the city’s strategic position on the Peene River, which flows out to the Baltic Sea and its economic importance, Anklam was continually under attack from foreign powers such as Swedes who held the city after The Thirty Years War. Frederick Wilhelm I retook the town in 1676 in a year long siege in his quest to acquire port cities with access to the Baltic to further his nation building enterprises.