No one who looked attentively at Sweden at the beginning of the seventeenth century would for a moment have anticipated the fortune which in fact was about to attend her. Poor in material resources, sadly deficient in roads and means of communication, sparsely populated, frost-bound for half the year, cut off almost wholly by her old conqueror Denmark from the ocean, she seemed to be doomed to be pressed out of existence by her more fortunately placed neighbours. From this fate she was saved by one of the most remarkable races of kings of whom history makes mention. The monarchy. From Gustavus Vasa, the emancipator of Sweden from the tyranny of the Danes, who ascended the throne in 1523, to Charles XII., the terror and pride of Europe, who lost his life in 1718, there was not one sovereign of the House of Vasa who did not in some ways show the marks of fine and original genius. Well may the historian of Sweden exclaim, ‘The history of Sweden is the history of her kings,’ for in few countries have national characteristics and national development been so intimately bound up with the monarchy. The Lutheran Church. Gustavus Vasa achieved the independence of Sweden, and established his new monarchy on the ruins of the Church. Seizing with the eye of a statesman the close affinity between Lutheranism and state power, he introduced the Reformation into Sweden as a political measure, enriching the Crown and purchasing the support of the nobles by the confiscation of the Church lands. From that time Sweden had two enemies to contend against, the hostility of Denmark, and the power of the nobility; to which, under John III., the husband of Catherine Jagellon, the heiress of the Jagellon kings of Poland, a third was added, namely the Counter-Reformation. At the beginning of the seventeenth century this last was the most pressing danger, for Sigismund, the son of John III. and Catherine Jagellon, was an ardent Catholic. Attempt of Sigismund to restore Catholicism, 1592–1604. He had become king of Poland by election in 1587, and had done much to re-establish Catholicism in that country before he succeeded by inheritance to the crown of Sweden in 1592. On his attempting a similar policy in Sweden he found himself at once opposed by the self-interest of the nobility, who held so large a share of the Church lands, and by a spirit of nationality among the people, who resented the interference of Poles and Italians with a sturdy independence, which reminds us of the hatred of the medieval English for all ‘outlandish’ people. These feelings found a representative in Charles, the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, and uncle of Sigismund, who after a brief contest expelled his nephew from Sweden and seated himself on the throne in his stead in 1604.
Reign of Charles IX., 1604–1611.
This dynastic revolution strengthened Sweden by making her religion the symbol and the test of her liberty. Lutheranism became the political as well as the religious faith of the country. It weakened her by adding another to the number of her hereditary foes. If Denmark could not forget that she had once been the ruler of Sweden, neither could Poland forget, at any rate during the life of Sigismund, that her king had by law no less right to rule at Stockholm than at Warsaw. If, however, Charles IX. increased the external he diminished the internal difficulties of his country. Nobles and king had united together against foreign influence, and when raised to the throne, Charles succeeded by his wise administration in making the bond still closer and was able to hand on to his son, the young Gustavus Adolphus, the government of a united and prosperous nation. Nevertheless, patriotic and religious as Sweden was on the accession of Gustavus Adolphus in 1611, she had not yet passed through that crisis common to the infancy of nations, when extension of territory and influence becomes essential to the preservation of national-life. Since she had become an independent nation her mineral wealth had been much developed by her kings. Education and civilisation had made great strides. Since she had become Protestant, she had naturally been drawn into political and commercial relations with the English and the Dutch, who were rapidly establishing their commercial supremacy in the northern seas, and especially in the Baltic, on the ruins of the Hansa. Weakness of Sweden. But as yet Denmark held the southern provinces of the Swedish peninsula. Only in one place, at the mouth of the river Gota, where the fortress of Elfsborg stood and the houses and wharves of Gottenburg were beginning to rise, did Sweden touch the outer sea. For all practical purposes her trade was a purely Baltic trade, and could only reach the outside world by the permission, and subject to the regulations, of Denmark, who held the Sound and imposed tolls on all ships which passed through.
Policy of Gustavus Adolphus.
Within the confines of the Baltic itself the position of Sweden was by no means assured. The coast line which she held was large, but only because it included the inhospitable and semi-barbarous Finland. She had not a city, not even Stockholm, which could vie in riches or in trade with Lübeck or with Dantzig. Since the days of Ivan the Terrible, Russia had made her appearance in the north as a power which must be reckoned with, and threatened to claim her share of the Baltic. In the ‘troublous times’ which preceded the rise of the Romanoff dynasty Sweden saw her opportunity, and under Eric and Charles IX. had stretched across the sea, and made good her hold over the first of her Baltic provinces in Esthonia and Livonia; but situated as they were between hostile Poland and semi-hostile Russia, they could not be looked upon in any other light than that of an outpost to be withdrawn or reinforced as occasion might serve. Exceedingly precarious therefore was the position of the young monarchy. A combined attack by its three enemies must at any moment destroy it. Steady hostile pressure under the forms of peace might gradually stifle it. Sweden could not be safe until she had obtained supremacy in the Baltic, she could not be prosperous until she had gained free access to the ocean, she could not be dominant in the north until she had secured her supremacy over the Baltic by the acquisition of a substantial foothold on its eastern coast. These were the three main objects of Swedish national policy steadily pursued by Gustavus Adolphus, and after his death by his friend and chancellor Oxenstjerna. They necessitated an aggressive policy. To sit still was to die. The martial instincts and the youth of the king combined with motives of policy to urge him to a bold course, and the nation well understanding the nature of the crisis seconded him nobly.
War with Denmark, 1611–1613.
Denmark was the foe upon whom Gustavus was called to whet his virgin steel. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the minority of the new king, Christian IV. had seized upon Elfsborg and Calmar early in 1611. Directly Gustavus had been pronounced of age he marched to recover the fortresses, and learned his first lesson in the art of war in a year of frontier hostilities, which were ended through the mediation of James I. by the peace of Knarod in January 1613. By this treaty Calmar was at once restored to the Swedes, and Elfsborg covenanted to be restored on the payment of a million dollars, which were duly raised and paid in two years. Relieved from all present anxiety from the side of Denmark, Gustavus at once turned his attention to the growing power of Russia, now gathering itself together under Michael Romanoff. War with Russia, 1614–1617. In 1614 he invaded Ingria, and spent three years in desultory fighting, in which he was uniformly victorious in battle, and slowly occupied the country. Again England, who had trade relations with Russia, offered her mediation, and by the treaty of Stolbova, signed in February 1617, Sweden obtained from Russia the cession of Ingria and Carelia, thus gaining a continuous coast line on the Baltic from Calmar to Riga, and shutting Russia from the sea altogether. ‘The enemy,’ said Gustavus triumphantly, ‘cannot launch a boat upon the Baltic without our permission.’
War with Poland, 1617–1629.
Hardly was the peace of Stolbova signed, than an invasion of Swedish Livonia by Sigismund of Poland forced Gustavus to enter upon his third war. Poland was a much more difficult nut to crack than Russia had been, for behind Sigismund lay the forces of the Counter-Reformation, but from various circumstances neither side could press the war with vigour. Two armistices (from 1618–1621 and from 1622–1625) interrupted its lethargic course, and enabled Sweden to recruit her failing energies, and her king to perfect the improvements in military tactics for which he is famous. In 1625 he resumed the war in earnest, and crossing the Dwina overran and occupied Courland, pushing the Polish generals back into Lithuania. But neither Riga nor any of the Courland towns gave him what he most wanted, a place of first-rate importance, which he might make the centre of his operations; so in the next year he directed his attack on Dantzig, although it involved the violation of the neutrality of his brother-in-law, George William of Brandenburg. Dantzig was a town strongly fortified on the land side. The Swedish fleet was too weak to enforce the attempted blockade by sea. Hence, like Stralsund and La Rochelle, until cut off from the sea it was impregnable. For four weary years Gustavus attempted unsuccessfully to reduce it. Eventually in 1629, when the affairs in Germany rendered it essential for him to have his hands free, he consented to make peace without gaining the desired end. Yet the Polish war was not thrown away. By the treaty of Stuhmsdorf, Sweden gained the whole of Livonia, and some places in Prussia, and by the training both of himself and of his army in the four Polish campaigns, he had unconsciously made Sweden one of the most formidable military powers of the day.
Negotiations between England and Gustavus in 1624.