Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  Frederick William trumpeted his victory at Fehrbellin across Europe convincing many the Swedish Army was impotent. Sweden’s old enemies quickly joined the fray. Emperor Leopold I, the Netherlands, even Christoph Bernhard von Galen (bishop of Münster) declared war on the great northern power. Christian V of Denmark formally entered the war against Sweden, imprisoned his brother-in-law, Christian Albert of Holstein-Gottorp, then rushed south with 9,600 infantry, 5,500 cavalry, 1,200 dragoons and 312 guns to help Frederick William drive the Swedes from Germany, closing Denmark’s back door in preparation for an attack to recover the lost provinces on the Scandinavian Peninsula.

  At sea the center of power was also shifting. During a decade of Regency rule in Sweden (1661 to 1672) the country had built fifteen warships of 17,000 tons. Denmark, which had been ruled by Christian V as absolute monarch, had constructed twenty-four battleships of 18,000 tons during the same period. This considerably strengthened navy was supplemented by Dutch warships, forcing the Swedes to turn to converting merchantmen into ships of war, a practice completely outdated by the advances in naval technology.

  In October 1675 a Swedish fleet under Gustav Otto Stenback was defeated by the coalition. Danish Admiral Niels Juel defeated a Swedish fleet between Bornholm and Rügen in May 1676, opening access to the northern Baltic and a potential Swedish blockade. A mainly Dutch fleet under Admiral Cornelis Tromp defeated the Swedes off Öland in June 1676 and again at Köge Bay effectively ending Sweden’s domination of the Baltic. Sweden lost 20 warships and 4,000 casualties. No longer would the Swedes be able to swoop down from the sea and attack Baltic coasts at will. The movement of troops and supplies from one port to another became problematic. Sweden was constrained from reinforcing and resupplying her German possessions.

  Christian V attacked Wismar and Bremen while Frederick William invaded Swedish Pomerania. France could offer only money. England and Hamburg sided with Sweden, but provided no troops. Wismar fell in late 1675, Bremen followed and Brandenburg took Stralsund and Stettin. With the fall of Greifswald in November 1678 Sweden lost her last stronghold in Germany.

  Christian had the upper hand both at sea and in Germany. It was time to pursue his real interests, the lost Danish provinces in Scandinavia. In June 1676 he launched a two pronged attack. A Danish-Norwegian force entered Bohuslän from Norway and on June 29 Christian landed at Helsingborg with a large, well equipped army of Danish conscripts, German mercenaries and Dutch auxiliaries. The population of Skåne, particularly the peasants of the northern woodlands, rose up against the Swedish occupiers. On July 24 a Swedish train of some 250 wagons bound for the army was ambushed at Loshult on the Småland-Skåne border by these partisans. A war chest of 50,000 silver coins was taken. These kinds of attacks were to continue for the remainder of the war.

  As the Danish-Norwegian army continued to advance through Bohuslän into western Sweden, Christian swiftly took Helsingborg, Kristianstad, Lanskrona, Lund and Ystad, securing Skåne except for Malmö, which resisted a Danish siege.

  King Karl XI, now twenty-one years of age, had not taken a strong hand in the government, allowing the Regency to continue its rule. With the homeland in imminent peril, however, Karl finally stepped in to take an active part. He raised a new army of mostly conscripts and headed south to intercept Christian. The Danish king had sent a force west, possibly to connect with the Norwegian-Danish army in Western Sweden. Karl moved to intercept. The two armies met at the Battle of Fyllebro four miles from Halmstad in Halland. The Swedish conscripts should have been routed by the well equipped Danish professionals, but Karl’s advantage in cavalry proved decisive. The Danish army was crushed and sent in flight back into Skåne.

  Karl XI pursued, but the going was tough. As Christian retreated in the face of the Swedish advance, he laid waste to the countryside depriving the Swedes of food and forage. Partisans harassed and ambushed Karl’s troops. That autumn was unusually cold and wet. Torrential rains flooded fields and turned roads into bogs. Christian could supply his troops by water, but Karl was forced to rely on the scanty road network back to the Swedish heartland. His momentum stalled. On November 20 Christian decided it was safe to let his troops go into winter quarters. He selected an ideal location north-east of Lund. Karl hunkered down with his starving, ill supplied army about seven miles away, north-west of the town.

  On November 30 a cold snap froze the swollen streams and rivers. Karl decided to try one last battle before year’s end. On paper Christian had all the advantages. His well fed and equipped troops numbered 5,000 horse, 1,300 dragoons, 6,000 foot and 56 heavy guns. Against this Karl could hurl only 6,000 cavalry, 2,000 infantry and 8 guns. He needed the element of surprise to have a chance.

  At 4:00 A.M. on December 4, 1676, Karl moved his army across the Kävlinge River and launched a daring pre-dawn assault. The Danes were caught by surprise, but quickly rallied and brought the Swedish advance to a halt. The fighting was furious with Karl in the thick of it. His battle horse, Thotten, was shot out from under him. After eight hours of slugging it out in a battle of attrition, a battle the numerically inferior Swedish force was going to lose, Karl mounted a cavalry charge against the Danish left wing. The Danish left, made up mostly of horse, collapsed. The usually disciplined Swedish cavalry pursued the fleeing enemy back to their camp which the Swedes proceeded to loot. It took an hour and a half for Karl to round up nine squadrons of cavalry and return to the field of battle.

  Meanwhile, the Swedish infantry and artillery were being steadily pushed back until they were pinned against the walls of Lund. They were on the verge of being overrun when Karl appeared at the Danish rear with his cavalry. Caught in the vise of the two Swedish wings the Danes were slaughtered until Karl called for a ceasefire and gave quarter.

  It was the bloodiest battle of the Swedish-Danish wars. On the field lay 6,000 Danes, German mercenaries and Dutch Marine Infantry, half of Christian’s army. Another 2,000 were prisoners of war. The Battle of Lund broke the back of the Danish invasion and made Karl a national hero.

  After Lund, Karl moved on to take Helsingborg, but was unable to do more. His activity did, however, take the pressure off Malmö and it remained in Swedish hands for the rest of the war. At the end of the campaign season Christian held only Landskröna and Kristianstad, little enough considering he controlled the seas and had come with a large, well supplied army.

  The year 1677 saw no significant action. Christian failed in two attempts to retake Helsingborg and was driven back at Malmö. Danish forces were defeated outside Landskröna in July and thereafter avoided open pitched battles with the Swedes. To the west Magnus de la Gardie took over command of Swedish forces in Västergötland fighting the Norwegian-Danish army. He suffered a severe defeat at Uddevalla damaging his reputation. This would have far reaching political consequences for both himself and Swedish foreign policy.

  By 1678 the Scanian War had ground to a stalemate. With his bigger and better provisioned army Christian was able to retake Helsingborg, but lost Kristianstad in spite of a 12,000 man relief force sent to rescue it. The non–Scandinavian belligerents were pushing hard for a settlement with France as the mediator.

  With Karl constantly at the front, a power struggle was emerging in Stockholm between de la Gardie and Johan Gyllenstierna. Magnus was losing ground and his descent got a kick with his defeat at Uddervalla. This combined with his pro–French foreign policy that had gotten Sweden into a devastating war led to his down fall. Karl took Gyllenstierna as his chief advisor. Johan favored a foreign policy aimed at developing an alliance with the northern maritime powers of the Netherlands, England and Denmark, cutting out Sweden’s dependence on France. It was a policy that seemed logical, but ignored the long standing animosity between the two Scandinavian countries.

  In early 1679 peace with the emperor was arranged. Brandenburg settled in July and in August King Louis XIV arranged a peace between Denmark and Sweden. The treaty was signed at Lund in September 1679. Sweden emerged from the n
egotiations almost unscathed due to French maneuvering on her behalf and Denmark’s weak bargaining position. Sweden’s German possessions were returned except some minor counties. She retained all her Scandinavian territory and exemption from the Sound toll. Denmark gained nothing, even losing what control she had over Holstein-Gottorp. It was nearly a total victory for Sweden and a crushing defeat for Denmark.

  As part of the negotiations, the Swedish and Danish delegates, guided by Gyllenstierna, arranged a political alliance between the two countries to be sealed by the marriage of Karl XI to Ulrica Eleonora, youngest sister of Christian V. The shift in Swedish foreign policy was complete. De la Gardie and the French were out; Gyllenstierna and the northern alliance were in.

  The Scanian conflict had demonstrated clearly Sweden’s unpreparedness for the war. Christian’s absolute monarchy had allowed him to raise a large army and build a strong navy. He had been able to direct the military and the country’s resources for greatest effect. Sweden’s ruling Regency, on the other hand, had allowed the country’s military to degenerate to that of a second class power. De la Gardie’s dependence on French subsidies to maintain defenses had proven woefully inadequate and had turned Sweden into a French client state, dragging her into an unwanted war.

  Newly acquired Danish provinces, particularly Skåne, had evidenced loyalty to their former country. But most of all, the state of Sweden’s army and navy were revealed to be appalling. Only Karl XI’s ability to raise troops through Sweden’s förläning (assignment of farmland to a soldier), utskriving (Swedish conscription system) and indeling (system where soldiers were assigned to individual farms and officers were given farms to operate in peace time) had saved the country. All these deficiencies had to be dealt with and Karl XI set about making corrections with determination.

  His leadership in the successful defense of the homeland had made him popular among the people. He capitalized on his status to push for more political power. In December 1680 the Riksdag granted the king full powers, effectively canceling the aristocracy’s hard won 1634 Form of Government. Further, Karl was released from consulting the Råd and was declared responsible to God alone. Karl had his authority, now he moved to secure his domain.

  Of the provinces acquired from Denmark, Härjedalen, Jämtland and Gotland had been assimilated without serious problems. Of particular importance was the replacement of Danish clergy with Swedish, accomplished through attrition and appointment from Stockholm. These were areas with mostly peasant populations and never tied closely to Denmark. The provinces at the southern end of the Scandinavian Peninsula were another matter. While Bohuslän was more Norwegian and Blekinge had ties to Sweden through centuries of trade and cross-border marriages, Halland and particularly Skåne were long time Danish subjects. Unlike the other provinces Skåne was mostly fertile plain ruled by an oligarchy of some forty noble families. Danish rule favored these nobles more than did Swedish rule. Resistance was strongest here. Karl appointed Gyllenstierna governor-general of the province and he began a program to remedy the situation.

  Skåne’s partisan activity had been met with summary executions and the burning of farms and villages. But with the peace, Karl showed great leniency requiring only an oath of loyalty for return of individuals and families to his good graces, a goodwill gesture that was not reciprocated.

  Gyllenstierna’s plan was one of forced assimilation. About a third of the farms in Skåne were empty due to the devastation of the war. The governor-general invited Swedes from the north to come and settle this land. By the terms of the peace treaty any inhabitants that wanted to leave the province and emigrate to Danish territory were allowed to leave. Gyllensteirna encouraged such moves freeing still more land for Swedish occupation. In short Gyllenstierna’s program was one of ethnic cleansing. His early death in 1680 ended the project before it could be carried out.

  Karl next appointed Rutger von Ascheberg governor-general. His approach was entirely different. Instead of bringing in Swedes, he elevated local individuals who showed loyalty to the Swedish king. He encouraged cross-border marriages with Swedes. Gradually he reorganized the church along Swedish lines encouraging the use of Swedish hymnals and catechisms. He pressured families to petition the king for status as full Swedish citizens. Karl responded by canceling the investigations into war crimes. Within a few years the territories conquered from Denmark were fully assimilated as Swedish provinces.

  At the same time Karl was pressuring the Riksdag to resume the reduktion. Here he could play the lower Estates off against the high nobility. The lesser nobles were lobbying for a Table of Ranks based on government service rather than land ownership. The aristocracy was divided. The clergy and burghers hoped the reduktion would reduce their tax burden. Finally, the peasants would rather work for the crown than the oppressive nobility. Karl pushed the Table of Ranks and the reduktion through the Riksdag in 1680. A second and even more severe reduktion was passed in 1682. Fully one-third of the aristocracy’s lands were returned to the crown. Hardest hit were the great magnates including the de la Gardie family. The power of the great land magnates of Sweden was forever broken. The peasantry, on the verge of domination by the nobility, perhaps being forced into serfdom common in other European countries, was set free. Never again would the peasants’ traditional freedoms be seriously threatened.

  The newly acquired crown lands brought in 4 million riksdalers annually. Karl used this money to reduce the national debt from 40 million riksdalers in 1681 to 10 million in 1697. Most importantly, Karl now had money to pay an adequate civil service and build his military.

  In terms of recruitment, Karl worked on refining the förläning, utskriving, indeling system already in place. Under his plan each province was responsible for maintaining a certain number of regiments of a fixed size (1,200 men in the case of infantry). For infantry, farms were grouped in pairs called rota (files). Each rota was required to provide and equip one soldier. As to cavalry, one or more prosperous farms made up a rusthåll which supplied one or more cavalrymen. Karl extended the system from just crown peasants to tax paying peasants as well distributing the load more evenly. There were incentives for farmers to enter into the arrangement. Special tax privileges were extended to participants and the soldiers were obliged to work as farm hands when not at war or in training. The whole system was known as the indelningsverk. One of the advantages over the old system was that uncertainties were removed. The requirement was constant in war or in peace.

  By 1697 this system provided 11 cavalry regiments and 23 infantry, that is 11,000 horse and 30,000 foot of native, well trained and equipped troops. Money freed by the system allowed the government to hire an additional 25,000 mercenaries for overseas garrison duty.

  The indelningsverk and reduktion also made funds available to reconstitute the navy. By 1700 Sweden had a fleet of 53,000 tons compared to Denmark’s 46,000. A new naval base was constructed at Karlskrona providing an ice-free port earlier in the year than at Stockholm. This build up of the military was designed to keep Sweden out of wars. This was Karl XI’s intention and the centerpiece of his foreign policy, armed neutrality.

  At the death of Gyllenstierna in 1680, Bengt Oxenstierna, as chancellor, assumed direction of foreign policy. The next year he and the king formed alliances with the emperor and the Netherlands to contain Louis XIV. To the east, Russia and Poland were occupied trying to hold the line against the Ottoman Turks and various Tartar inclusions.

  In 1683 Denmark threatened an attack on Sweden backed by the French fleet and several German states openly discussed joining the attack on what they believed was as yet a weakened Sweden. That same year the Turks drove all the way to Vienna and laid siege to the city. The attack on Vienna failed and marked the high tide of Turkish advance into Europe.

  Denmark finally threw down the gauntlet to Sweden by seizing portions of the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. Karl did not take the bait, but looked for other avenues to resolve the issue. In 1686 the League of Augsburg w
as formed against Louis XIV at the instigation of the emperor, Leopold I. The emperor was joined by the Palatinate, Bavaria and Brandenburg. The German states gained the alliance of Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. Sweden joined the league and in return the emperor arranged the Conference of Altona to settle the Holstein-Gottorp question. However, Denmark hung tough and the conference accomplished little.

  Louis XIV’s aggression, in 1688, in the Palatinate-Rhineland area of Germany resulted in the Nine Years War involving all the major powers of Europe except Sweden. In launching the war the French king had expected England’s James II, a Catholic and French sympathizer, to tacitly support him. But that same year the English people rebelled against their king in favor of his sister, the protestant Mary. Mary’s husband, William of Orange, a stadtholder (governor) in the United Provinces, invaded England with an army of 14,000 men. London fell to the Dutch force which was supported by most of the population. James II fled to France and Mary took over the English throne jointly with her husband as Mary II and William III. William and Mary joined the Grand Alliance and declared war on France in May 1689. The war, called the War of the Grand Alliance, the War of the League of Augsburg or the Nine Years War, is known as King William’s War in America and was the first of the French and Indian wars in the colonies.

  By 1689 Karl had lost patience with Danish foot-dragging and convinced the Riksdag to authorize funding for war. He mobilized Swedish forces against Denmark. Just as war seemed imminent, Christian backed down, restoring the lost territory to the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp.