The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

♦Greatest Baltic extent of Poland and Lithuania.♦

This acquisition of Livland and of the superiority over Prussia and Curland raised the united power of Poland and Lithuania to its greatest extent on the Baltic coast. ♦Union of Lublin, 1569.♦ Meanwhile the union of Lublin joined the kingdom and the grand duchy yet more closely together. But, long before this time, the eastern frontier of Lithuania had begun to fall back. ♦Russian advance.♦ The central advance of Russia to the west had begun. ♦Its causes.♦ A revived state, such as Russia was at the end of the fifteenth century, must advance, unless it be artificially hindered; and the new Russian state was driven to advance if it was to exist at all. It had no sea-board, except on the White Sea; it did not hold the mouth of any one of its great rivers, except the Northern Dvina, a stream thoroughly cut off from European life. The dominions of Sweden, Lithuania, and the Knights cut Russia off from the Baltic and from central Europe. To the south and east she was cut off from the Euxine and the Caspian, from the mouths of the Don and the Volga, by the powers which represented her old barbarian masters. Russia was thus not only driven to advance, but driven to advance in various directions. She had to win back her lost lands; she had, if she was really to become an European power, to win her way to the Baltic and to the Euxine. ♦Advance to the north-east.♦ Her position made it almost equally needful to win her way to the Caspian, and made it unavoidable that she should spread her power over the barbarian lands to the north-east. Of these several fields of advance the path to the Euxine was the longest barred. ♦Order of Russian advances.♦ First, at the end of the fifteenth century, began the recovery of the lost lands, a work spread over the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Then, in the sixteenth, came the eastern extension at the cost of the now weakened Mongol enemy. Strictly Baltic extension was in the sixteenth century merely momentary; it did not become lasting till the beginning of the eighteenth. ♦The Euxine reached last.♦ But Russia had been established on the Caspian for more than two centuries, she had become a Baltic power for more than two generations, before she made her way to the oldest scene of her seafaring enterprise.

♦Recovery of the lands conquered by Lithuania.♦

The recovery of the lands which had been lost to Lithuania began before the end of the fifteenth century. Ivan the Great won back Severia, with Tchernigof and the Severian Novgorod and part of the territory of Smolensk. ♦1514.
1563.♦ Under Basil Smolensk itself followed; under Ivan the Terrible Polotsk again became Russian. Then the tide turned for a season. Russia first lost her newly-won territory in Livland. ♦Recovery of Smolensk by Poland. 1582.
Polish conquest of Russia, 1606.♦ The recovery of Smolensk by Poland was followed by the momentary Polish conquest of independent Russia, and the occupation of the throne of Moscow by a Polish prince. ♦Second revival of Russia, and second advance.♦ The Muscovite state came again to life; but it was shorn of a large part of the national territory, which had to be won again by a second advance. ♦Cessions to Poland.♦ Smolensk, Tchernigof, and the greater part of the Lithuanian conquests beyond the Dnieper, were again surrendered to the united Polish and Lithuanian state. In the middle of the century came the renewed Russian advance. ♦Lands recovered by the Peace of Andraszovo, 1667.♦ The Treaty of Andraszovo gave back to Russia most of the lands which had been surrendered fifty years before. ♦Recovery of Kief. 1686.♦ By the last advance in the seventeenth century Russia won back a small territory west of the Dnieper, including her ancient capital of Kief. ♦Superiority over the Ukraine Cossacks.♦ At the same time Poland finally gave up to Russia the superiority over the Cossacks of Ukraine, between the Bug and the Lower Dnieper. ♦Russian lands still kept by Poland.♦ But, with this exception, Poland and Lithuania still kept all the Russian lands south of Duna and west of Dnieper, with some districts beyond those rivers. Nor was Russia the only power to which Poland had to give way on her south-eastern frontier. ♦Podolia lost to the Turk.♦ In this quarter the Ottoman for the last time won a new province from a Christian state by the acquisition of Kamienetz and all Podolia.[67]

But Poland had during this period to give way at other points also. This was the time of the great growth of the Swedish power. ♦Growth of Sweden and Russia compared.♦ The contrast between the growth of Sweden and the contemporary growth of Russia is instructive. The revived power of Moscow was partly winning back its own lost lands, partly advancing in directions which were needful for national growth, almost for national being. The growth of Sweden in so many directions was almost wholly a growth beyond her own borders. ♦Russian advance lasting.
Swedish advance temporary.♦ Hence doubtless it came that the advance of Russia has been lasting, while the advance of Sweden was only for a season. Sweden has lost by far the greater part of her conquests; she has kept only those parts of them which went to complete her position in her own peninsula.

On the Swedish conquest of Esthland followed a series of shiftings of the frontiers of Sweden and Russia which lasted into the present century. ♦Advance under and after Gustavus Adolphus. 1611-1660.♦ During the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, and the period which we might almost call the continuation of his reign after his death, Sweden advanced both in her own peninsula and east of the Baltic, while she also gained a wholly new footing on German ground, both on the Baltic and on the Ocean. ♦Wars between Sweden and Russia. 1576-1617.
Peace of Stalbova.♦ A long period of alternate war and peace, a time in which Novgorod the Great passed for a moment into Swedish hands, was ended, as far as Sweden and Russia were concerned, by the peace of Stalbova. ♦Sweden gains Ingermanland.♦ The Swedish frontier thus fixed took in all Carelia and Ingermanland, and wholly cut off Russia from the Baltic and its gulfs. Such an advance could not fail to lead to further advance, though at the expense of another enemy. ♦Wars between Sweden and Poland. 1619-1660.
Swedish conquest of Livland, 1621-1625;♦ The long war between Sweden and Poland gave to Sweden Riga and the greater part of Livland. ♦of Dago and Oesel, 1645.♦ Her conquests in this region were completed by winning the islands of Dago and Oesel from Denmark.

♦Advance of Sweden against Denmark and Norway.♦

This last acquisition, geographically connected with the Swedish conquests from Russia and Poland, was politically part of an equally great advance which Sweden was making at the cost of the rival Scandinavian power, the united realms of Denmark and Norway. ♦Conquest of Gotland and Bornholm. 1645.
Of Jämteland.♦ Along with the two eastern islands, Denmark lost the isle of Gotland for ever and that of Bornholm for a moment,[68] and the Norwegian provinces east of the mountains, Jämteland and Hertjedalen. The treaty of Roskild yet further enlarged Sweden at the expense of Norway. ♦Of Trondhjemlän. 1658.♦ By the cession of Trondhjemlän the Norwegian kingdom was split asunder; the ancient metropolis was lost, and Sweden reached to the Ocean. ♦Of Bohuslän, and Scania, &c.♦ With Trondhjem Sweden also received Bohuslän, the southern province of Norway, and, more than all, the ancient possessions of Denmark in the northern peninsula, with her old metropolis of Lund. Here comes in the application of the rule. ♦Trondhjem restored to Norway. 1660.♦ In annexing Trondhjem Sweden had overshot her mark; it was restored within two years. It was otherwise with Bohuslän, Scania, and her other conquests within what might seem to be her natural borders; they have remained Swedish to this day.

♦Lands held by Sweden in Germany, Pomerania and Rügen, Bremen and Verden. 1648.♦

The Swedish acquisition of the eastern lands of Denmark was made more necessary by the position which Sweden had now taken on the central mainland. The peace of Westfalia had confirmed her in the possession of Rügen and Western Pomerania on the Baltic, and of the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden which made her a power on the Ocean. These lands were not strictly an addition to the Swedish realm; they were fiefs of the Empire held by the Swedish king. Here again comes in the geographical law. The Swedish possession of the German lands on the Ocean was short; part of the German lands on the Baltic was kept into the present century.