Karl Gnstaf Wrangel, count, a Swedish soldier, born Dec. 13,1613, died in the island of Rugen in July, 1676. In the thirty years' war he served under Gustavus Adolphus, Bernhard of Weimar, Baner, and Torstenson. In 1644, as commander in the navy, he defeated the Danish squadron off Femern. He was made a count in 1645. In 1646 he succeeded Torstenson as chief commander of the army in Germany, and in 1647, in conjunction with Turenne, he compelled the elector Maximilian of Bavaria to conclude an armistice. When the latter broke it, he defeated him and his Austrian allies near Augsburg in May, 1648, and occupied Bavaria. The war being ended in the latter part of the same year, he retired from active service, but in 1655 joined Charles X. in his Polish campaign, and in 1656 commanded in the battle of Warsaw. In 1658, as high admiral, he compelled the surrender of the fortress of Cronburg, and would have taken Copenhagen but for the reënforcement of the Danish by a Dutch squadron. He prevented the Danes, however, from taking the island of Fiinen in 1659. At the close of the war in 1660 he became grand marshal and generalissimo.

When Sweden joined France in 1674 against Germany, Wrangel with 16,000 men suddenly invaded the electorate of Brandenburg; but his health failing, his troops were defeated and obliged to evacuate the territory and part of Pomerania, and he resigned.