Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Drachinifel" channel.

When I stood outside the museum I had not much expectations at all. I thought I would see an ugly black-brown wreck large as a school bus, and that the rest of the museum would just be filled with random maritime items of various time periods. But I was wrong. Instead did I see a gigantic ship 5 floors tall and also very long and wide. Its wood was dark and ugly. But when you walked closer to it you could still see great handicraft and sculptures everywhere in the ships rear which were amazingly preserved. I tried to photo the ship a hundred times. But not a single photo can do this gigant justice. The ship is simply too big to capture with a camera from any angle. I walked up some stairs to look down on the top of the ship - and there I could see ropes, masts and holes going down to the ships interior and such details. Its amazing to see what a typical ship of the 1600s could looklike. This ship is like the pirates of the Caribbean for real. The ship is huge and must have been very heavy. 10.000 oak trees died to build this gigant. But still is this ship only half the size of ships that entered service only some decades later. Its fantastic that this big ship could be brought up from the bottom despite being so heavy and huge. And that it is so well preserved despite being so old.
10
I think what he meant is that this ship itself is uninteresting. It sank and never played any important role in history. But it is VERY interesting ship today because of all the things we can learn from it since it is so well preserved. Its a huge goddamn warship made from 10.000 trees that very well preserved god damnit! Thanks to Wasa we can now know what cannons looked like on a typical warship of the 1600's. We can now what sailors life was like how they were dressed what they ate. We can see what sculptures and statues on ships looked like. We can know where the different rooms on a typical warship was located. We can study the materials used to make sails and other items to make the sails, and thus get a historical insight into the European shipbuilding industry of the 1600's as much textiles was imported from Germany and Netherlands to make the sails, so you did indeed to some extent have global economy back then. This ship is of course of special interest to us Swedes for many reasons. But foreigners have a good reason to care too. This ship gives us much clues how warships from Spain, England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and such looked in the 1600s and what life was onboard these ships. Warships from this time period that is this size and so well preserved is rare, so therefore is this ship unique. The ship itself is boring since it sunk even before it could see battle. But as a historical source of information this ship is extremely interesting. So the museum is worth a visit. Especially if you are interested in warfare in the early modern period or in naval history. I have seen this ship and I can say that it is HUGE! Like 4 floors at least. And the top of the ships mast is also probably twice as tall. 10.000 oak trees was cut down to make this monster. So it was a huge ship for its time. But then of course would much larger warships enter service after her in the 1700s. But this ship still gives you a glimpse on what a ship in pirates of the Caribbean could have looked like in real life ;-)
3
Sweden's fleet was not the most powerful, but it is impressive that it actually could get a navy to begin with since other countries in the same situation failed to do so. Both Poland and Germany came out from the middle ages with a much larger naval tradition than Sweden. They had the Hanseatic league, all trade in their rivers and fishing. While Sweden totally lacked all that and only had a small scale local fishing at most. But Sweden did however have an early state formation and an efficient state apparatus and rulers determined to build a strong navy to protect he country. Poland and Germany did not have an efficient central government, so their navies quickly got wiped out by the Danish and Swedish fleets. And that also gave the Swedish army a huge advantage that their enemies lacked. Troops could now faster be transported than what they could by land, while Sweden's enemies did not have that luxury. Cities under siege could be supplied from ships. Ships could provide supporting fire to the ground troops, and the enemy was forced to station troops to protect cities against amphibious landings. Sweden became a naval empire. Stockholm became a Capital city in the middle of this Baltic Sea empire with German, Baltic, Finlandic and Swedish provinces surrounding it. And the only thing that could tie together all those spread out provinces was a strong navy. Sweden's main enemy: Denmark knew this, so they too also put resources into a strong navy to cut Swedens supply lines and to make it impossible for Sweden to get troops transported from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Germany and Russia to help the Swedish motherland in the case of Danish troops launching an invasion on Swedish soil. Denmark-Norway (and Iceland, Greenland) also had provinces spread out which needed protection the same way Sweden needed to protect their own. So the Swedish navy could also be an offensive tool, to cut of a Danish province from help from the rest of Denmark. So much was at stake in winning dominance over the Baltic sea. Over half of Denmark's state income came from the Sound toll (Øresundstolden) which foreign ships had to pay every time they wanted to get in or out from the Baltic sea. The Swedish navy became unique for this time period. The Spanish, British, French, Portuguese and Dutch fleets all had to import their naval supplies to build their own ships. But Sweden didn't. Sweden was the only country in Europe with huge access to all of those resources needed. It got iron and copper from Sweden. It got oak trees from German Pommerania, or the Baltics which were all part of Sweden back then. It got tar from Finland and rope from the Baltics. Sweden did not have as much experienced crews as the Dutch or English. But to compensate did this country already in the 1500s go for technological superiority of their ships instead and relied on gun powder "before it was cool". The Baltic naval battlefield had some unique challenges. You needed big warships and a deep water fleet if you wanted to fight Denmark, Poland or Germany in the Baltic or in the North sea. But in the shallow waters around Finland or outside Stockholm they were unpractical, because they could get stuck in the shallow waters or sink, and it was difficult to maneuver in such terrain. Therefore did Sweden also have to invest resources into building a galley fleet - since this small ship type was much better in navigating in the shallow waters along FInland's coast and they could become very practical when fighting against the Russians. When Sweden stood at the height of its power in the early 1700's was the Swedish navy a superior force that dominated the Baltic. But the problem was that it was all based around the big battleships. So when the Russian's began mass producing galleys and spamming them out, there was no real effective counter-measured that the Swedish navy had to retake control over the seas in the shallow waters of the eastern Baltic. The Russian navy spammed out ships out of low quality timber and the ships quickly became unworthy of sailing within just a few years, and the Russian sailors were just peasants with no naval experience. But they built so many ships that the balance of power in the Baltic sea quickly changed. The Swedish navy had no problem with crushing the Russians in open sea, but in the shallow waters there was not much that could be done.
3
@Vonstab Its a tragedy. Also most of the writings of Sweden's early history was lost in those flames. Who knows what medieval treasures, Chronicles and statistics that could have been lost there? Its one of great tragedies in world history along side the burning of the library in Alexandria.
3
"Denmark-Norway had the whole western border of Sweden" I think he is right since the Norwegian border was for the most wars a not very important front. Scania (today's southern tip of Sweden) was the place of interest for Denmark and Sweden. It was this place the two countries were fighting about. Denmark-Norway did usually have the superior forces at their hands, so Sweden could usually not afford to spend troops to guard the border towards Norway. But on the other hand was there not much harm in temporarily losing the northern provinces to Norway since those provinces did not have any large population or economic importance. Norway did conquer Jämtland, Härjedalen plus a few more places here and there in the war of 1658, but these losses were not of any major importance. The war ended with a disaster for Denmark anyways as Copenhagen the capital was under threat.. and the Danish King in desperation for peace once even thought about giving away not just Scania, Bohuslän and Halland.. but also Iceland, and all of Norway to Sweden. But luckily for Denmark could skilled Danish negotiators soften up the harsh peace terms, and the Swedish King also wanted to end the war as soon as possible so he accepted the peace. He thought that he could invade and conquer all of Denmark the next year, so why bother so much about the peace terms now? was his thinking. Sweden would also not gain much from invading Norway, and it would be a difficult to take because of all difficulties in transporting supplies and the good defensive terrain in the country. And even if a large part of Norway could be conquered, it would still be difficult to keep what had been taken. Western Sweden along the southern part of the Norwegian-Swedish border was important for Sweden. But not for the reason that people might think today, since Göteborg was a small an unimportant city back in the 1600s and 1700s. The place was more of importance since it gave Sweden access to the Atlantic without having to cross the Øresund and paying toll on all Swedish trade which passed there. And having a naval base there also offered some advantages (you could for example easily send out ships to cut off all communications between Denmark and Norway). Bohuslän province was Sweden's only window towards the Atlantic ocean, so losing that geographical area would mean that Swedish ships was locked inside the Baltic sea. Sweden did twice lose wars about this place (in 1571 and 1613) and had to large amounts of money to Denmark to get it back.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84lvsborg_Ransom_(1613) It was an important place for the reasons mentioned so the Swedish government was eager to get it back. During the Great Northern war did Norway try to invade Sweden, but Tordenskiolds attempted amphibious raid on Göteborg failed. And Denmark was unable to send troops to Norway and ship supplies to Norway so it could launch a large military invasion of Sweden. And when Norway's lacked all those resources it decided to prospone the invasion. Which shows that Drachinifel is right - The way to invade Sweden did go from the sea. Because without food and cannon balls from Denmark, could Norway not invade Sweden. So the Swedish navy and privateers did effectively stop a land invasion. And the opposite was also true. Sweden's invasion of Norway in 1716 also failed because the Swedish army could not get supplies shipped at seas, so the army had no other option than to return back to Sweden and give up the attempt to take Norway after Tordensiold had wrecked a Swedish fleet in the battle of Dynekilen in 1716 and thereby denying the Swedish army supplies from the sea. Sweden would however learn their lesson and try to transport large amount of supplies by road into Norway in 1718. The plan was to conquer Norway and thereby ending the war with Denmark, and perhaps would also Norway's timber and fishing also offer a nice reward for a campaign. And then could the Swedish troops in Norway be shipped to take back the Baltics, and when the badly protected Baltic harbors fell into Swedish hands, then would Russia be unable to get food to their troops in Finland, and have to retreat and give it back to Sweden. And thereby would Sweden take back all land that had been lost in the war. But the war did of course end at Fredriksten before that plan could be achieved.
2
If I like warships I would see the huge Vasa ship which is like 4 floors tall without the mast. And then after that I would also see the Maritime museum in Stockholm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Museum_(Stockholm) And if you are into military history in general then I can recommend Armémuseum and Livrustkammaren. There you can see the clothes of Gustavus Adolphus had when he died in 1632, and also his real horse he had that day stands there. I also think the national gallery is worth a short visit for it surprisingly large amount of famous paintings of Rembrandt or old portraits of Martin Luther. The Vasa museum costs money to visit, but the other places didn't cost me anything to visit when I was there. The folk museum was not my cup of tea however. It costs money to visit and its very centered around nordic culture - so if you are not into that, then I don't think you will find it interesting. The Swedish history museum is more interesting in my opinion, and its free.
2
Sweden's maritime history is underestimated. Not only did Sweden build some of the worlds largest warships of the 1600's. But it was also the country where most other countries bought their naval supplies of oak tree, iron, copper, rope, and tar. This gave Sweden a unique advantage as a naval power which other countries did not have. The Swedish navy and merchant navy was also depending on the year, among the worlds largest. French, British and Dutch traders took their ships to Sweden and asked for the permission to sail under the Swedish flag and pay Swedish taxes in times of war. And since England and the Netherlands fought many wars against each other in the late 1600's it became very practical to sail under the neutral Swedish flag to avoid getting their ships attacked by the enemy and stolen or sunk. So during the war years of the late 1600s did roughly one and a half thousand ships sail under Swedish flag. And when the war was over would about only about five hundred or so remain in Swedish service.
2
The Swedish navy have a bad reputation. And sure, Danes and Dutch were better sailors. But the Swedish navy was better than its reputation. I think it was Herman Lindquist who said that the Swedish navy won a victory until Svensund in 1790. Which is untrue, Sweden did win a few naval battles here and there. Sweden was a new player in naval warfare in did make some noob mistakes in the first 150 years. And it also had much bad luck and got many of its most powerful ships lost by wind.. so the great military power Sweden had to invest all of its GDP for like 20 years to rebuild all battleships that had been lost in the wars of the 1670s. It was an extremely costly affair. But on the other hand did Sweden learn a lot from its mistake and built a modern powerful navy and the naval base was moved from Stockholm to Southern Sweden (Karlskrona). Now Sweden had conquered much land in northern Europe and felt comfortable moving its home base for the fleet and it was also expected that all future wars would be fought against the fleets of Denmark, Germany and Poland. So having the new base closer to the weaker enemies did make sense. The war of 1675–1679 had shown great disadvantaged in having the fleet stationed in Stockholm. It took a year before it could do combat. It had to stay in base for months because of bad weather and then it had to spend days before it could go south and do something useful. But when Sweden finally had learned from all their mistakes and started to do everything right, then all this knowledge had no value at all. The next war was the Great Northern war. And Sweden alone had to fight against Denmark-Norway, Saxony, Poland and Russia. And the big Swedish battleships together with the Dutch fleet won a fast victory over Denmark and knocked it out of the war. But against the Russian fleet was those big ships not very practical, since they could not maneuver well in the shallow waters along the coast-line outside Stockholm or the coast of Finland and Russia. Russia did what they always do best: so they mass produced low quality galley ships that could move in shallow waters, and they lost enormous amounts of ships in combat and to wind and bad seamanship - but they did end up becoming the new dominant force in the Baltic sea anyways and won the war. So the big warships had not been the right kind of ships Sweden needed for its future wars. And having the naval base in southern Sweden was dumb when the road to Stockholm laid bare for a naval invasion, and the Capital city needed protection from its fleet. One can say that the Great Northern war ended even with Denmark. Gathenhielm and similar Swedish pirate captains nearly brought Denmark to its knees after it had rejoined the war against Sweden. It was almost like Germany's uboat war against Britain. But Denmark would get some time to recover when the fleet was ordered by the King to move to northern Germany to try to save the Swedish army there from destruction. But this mission failed, and Denmark got the time it needed to recover from the great harm Swedish privateers had caused Danish and Norwegian shipping. And soon would revenge be taken, with the Norwegian naval hero Tordenskiold launching one daring raid after another that caused great losses on Swedish shipping and forced the Swedish army to stop its invasion of Norway when its supply ships was burned down. And in the end was both sides very much exhausted after the huge losses after 20 years of war. Gathenhielm lived a short life and was a pure criminal in my opinion. A pirate. But Tordenskiold was a more sympathetic man with a more interesting story suitable for movies with his daring raids. He even asked the Danish King for permission to enter Swedish service after the war so he could help Sweden fight off its Russian threat. But that plan would never happen. All this shows that the life at sea got a very international culture among sailors and captains. They don't mind entering service with other countries they just have fought a war against, and they feel a strong sense of brotherhood with captains and sailors of other countries. Tordenskiold is a typical example of this, just like captains from Sweden, England, France, the Netherlands and other places.
2
Lots of people will die and get wounded during a battle. Hundreds of people on a small ship will quickly make it all covered with blood and dead bodies. Soon there is no place to put your feet. So normally would you throw enemies and former friends into the ocean after they died. And the floor would be so much covered in blood that it would become slippery and you will easily fall to the ground in this disgusting mess. So sanding the floor made sense in order to avoid this from happening. It would make the floor less slippery, just like when you throw sand upon the ice during the winter so don't fall down. In battle it would also be important to cover areas of the ship with water and skin to prevent deadly fires from breaking out and destroying the ship.
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2-4 hours is enough. But thoughts of this ship constantly comes back. It gives an excellent concrete example of what a wooden warship looked like.
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Wasa took the lives of 10.000 oak trees to built. And remember, that was in the early 1600s. The next time Sweden would build the worlds largest warship was only a few decades later, and that ship was twice as large. And then you of course got the royal navy with more ships than any other navy with its many hundreds of warships..
1
Either the splinters managed to cut a blood vessel and made the person did bleed to death. Or it could hit an inner organ and cause severe damages so the person died - it could perhaps penetrate someones gut so all bacteria leaks out into the body and kills the man. Or it could cause a sepsis and kill the person. Even a minor injury could get filled with microorganisms. And the wound was treated early with modern methods it would not be any deadly. But since they did not have any oxygen gas, antibiotics, or intravenous fluids, and anti-inflammatory medicine to give back then could even a minor problem cause death. The infection itself might not be the main problem, but rather would it be ones own immune system that overreacts and starts attacking not only the foreign microorganisms, but also ones own body and cause one-self to die.
1
Vasa is just one of Sweden's great warships. The country used to be one of the greatest military powers in Europe during the 1600s and early 1700s. Its military conquered Moscow, Poland, Denmark and all of modern day Germany. So the history of the Swedish army is more impressive than the history of its navy. But Vasa was the most powerful warship in the world when it was built. Kronan was also the most powerful warship in the world. So Sweden built lots of warships and it did had one of the strongest navies in Europe. Only Spain had a stronger navy. And if one walks a bit longer into modern time, then only France and England would have stronger navies than Sweden. The maritime world have always been a global one. And ships and commanders could serve one country after another, seamen were an international community. Tordenskiold (Norway's naval hero and equivalent to Admiral Nelson) even planned to move to Sweden help Sweden fight against Russia, only a few years after the long war between Norway and Sweden was over. During the many wars in the late 1600's would the neutral Sweden become the largest naval power in the world, because France, England and the Netherlands were constantly at war with each other, and their merchant ships came to Sweden, and wanted to register their ships as Swedish merchant ships. And sail under the Swedish neutral flag - to not get plundered by British, French or Dutch warships or privateers. Sweden also supplied all navies in Europe with the materials they needed - iron and copper from Sweden, tar from Finland (Österbotten), rope from the Baltics, and Oak tree from the Baltics, Pomerania and Sweden (Blekinge).
1
I love my country Sweden. But I cannot say I like the current generation of people living in it. It's currently in a dark age. But when it pulls it shit together, then it can be the best country in the world. Then it can conquer Moscow and Prague. And it can innovate the worlds most sold medicine of its day (Losec) and being the worlds strongest economy. And totally dominate music creation worldwide like Max Martin.
1
For Swedens part there is plenty of wood for ship building. With the loss of its oak producing provinces in northern Germany and the Baltics was Sweden forced to rely on its own oak tree production in south eastern Sweden where oak trees have been very common historically. So in the 1800s was a huge oak tree plantation project started and gigantic oak tree forrests was created. But as everything in the 1800s was a failure for Sweden was this costly project also a failure. When the trees finally began to mature had wooden ships started to become outdated and being replaced by iron warships. It would however be a shame to cut down those beautiful trees to make ships. They are so rare and majestatic so I wish more of them are grown. And then we can build a few ships.
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@tomservo5347 Most surgeons were ignorant about what worked and what didn't so they reused tools from patient to patient. And they loved wearing old dirty clothes stained with blood because it made them look like a professional doctor that had done much surgery before. Had I walked into a time machine I would have done like the arabs and sterilized my instruments by heating them over a fire before a surgery. And I would stop a bleeding by doing like the arabs and use fire to close the blood vessels and stop the bleeding. It is of course easy for me to in hindsight declare every doctor living before 1880 a dumb idiot. And there is much truth to that. Just as it is true that most World war I Generals were bloody fools. But on the other hand was there no germ theory back then and surgery was much more a low status occupation than being a doctor that only involved himself in matters of medicine. And just like religion could not be questioned, was Galenos teachings seen as sacred and could not be questioned - even after one autopsy after another had proven his ancient Greek knowledge to have been wrong and outdated. Galenos himself had never cut up a human open, so he himself just assumed that the human body looked the same inside as that of a dog. So doctors were just taught Galenos nonsense in medical schools, so the idiotic idea of blood letting remained popular up to the 1880s. And doctors killed more people than they saved up until the 1800s. Surgery was however a difficult matter as no effective painkillers existed, and no antibiotics, and not much else either. So not eveyrthing can be blamed on the doctors.
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Naval history is an endless topic. You can discuss warfare at sea, trade, passenger ships, fishing, life on board a ship, life in harbor, shipyards and ship design traditions, what resources great powers had at their disposal and how it affected their naval doctrines and strategy etc.
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It for ramming other ships
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I heard that it took 5% of the GDP of the mighty Swedish empire to build this ship. So of course it was a painful loss. Just look at the 5% drop of the GDP of Greece during the Eurocrisis and one realize that even a seemingly small GDP number drop can be felt hard. It was also a prestige loss to lose this ship. And Sweden's enemies surely felt some relief by seeing the most powerful ship of its day, the Bismarck of the 1600's falling into the ocean shortly after setting sail. One should however not over-state the disaster either which I feel like Swedish historian often do. This loss was by far not the worst loss of the Swedish navy. The Scanian war was much more a disaster for Sweden. Half the Swedish navy was wiped out by naval battles and the other half was in stormy waters... so Sweden had to rebuild its entire battle fleet after the war. Sweden was a Great Power back in the 17th century. So it was of course unthinkable that Sweden would not have to rebuild its navy, despite its reconstruction would eat up a large part of the GDP the coming years or even decades. And also remember that Sweden did look very different on European maps than it does today. Sweden was the largest country in Europe. It had territories not just in Sweden to defend, but also Finland, Germany and the Baltics. And having a strong navy was essential to defend the country against its many hostile neighbors. It enabled fast troop transports. It enabled amphibious landings behind enemy lines and prevented the enemy from doing the same. And it could protect trade and threaten enemy trade and support sieges. The disasterous war gave Sweden also the advantage of not being stuck in past paths. Now it could move its base of the Swedish navy to a more suitable location - from Stockholm it was moved to Southern Sweden in a town named Karlskrona. And the new fleet would have the most modern ships which were mass produced.
1
Warships were usually built with strong oak tree. While merchant ships were often built with cheap junk wood like spruce to lower production costs. But that crappy wood made the ship less sea worthy and more fragile in battle.
1
It was in the lower end of such a type of ship I guess. But on the other hand do I think that the importance of the European trade with China 1500-1850 has been enormously overrated, including the trade that great sea powers like Britain, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands did. Swedens naval adventures outside of Europe could basically be ignored as they lack importance. Sweden was a great naval power, but never when it came to far distance trade or colonization. Even Denmark was much more succesful in that regard. Denmark had a colony in India and their trade with Asia was much larger than that of Sweden. So I imagine that the sea trade with China was never a large thing for Sweden, and thus were there never any real need for big ships. The Swedish East India company rather had asiatic trade as sideshow of tiny importance, while most of the economic gains came from scamming Swedish tax payers and giving money from the poor to rich aristocrats in the Swedish government that owned this company.
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@JohnOlimb The Swedish (including Finland's and northern German) market for asian products was tiny. The population numbers was not that high, and the population was poor. It was therefore more profitable to just smuggle all tea from China into Britain and sell it there. Sweden and many other countries did that. So Swedish East India company was not important. Especially not if one looks at it from a wider European perspective. The Swedish merchant navy was relatively small compared to that of the Netherlands and Britain despite Sweden had many years of peace and good access to cheap shipbuilding materials which it all had within its own borders. And after reading the Zandéns book "Origins of Globalization" can I only conclude that the trade between Europe and Asia was always very small in the amount of tonnes of goods transported each year, and the amount of ships visiting Asia. And the armounts of yearly silver inflows from America to Asia was also very limited. And trade was also mostly only done in light weight high value commodities that only rich people could afford. So aside from a rare few products was the importance of this trade very limited. Indeed, the imports of silver and copper from Japan to China and the imports of south east asian tin to indochina reduced the need of imports from Europe and America to pay for all the imports from China and India into Europe. So I think that the importance of intercontinental trade has been greatly exaggerated.
1
I don't think the skin is much of a source of infection (unless you got Aids or undergo chemotheraphy to treat a cancer and therefore have an extremely weak immune system). I think wood and clothes would be worse sources of infection - especially if you got such things pushed into your chest or stomach. Either you die from a bleeding or either you die from a sepsis resulting from the infection. In land warfare did cannon shots fly into a line of men and usually instantly kill a few men that the cannon ball flew into. And those men standing near those poor bastards would likely be injured from all skeleton bones, muskets, swords and other things flying around in the air from cannon ball victim. So you will have a few who die instantly, and you will have a bunch of wounded people. And you might have 20 persons who are deeply chocked after what they have just witness and totally paralyzed as a friend just died and now his remains cover their uniforms... all hit blood and brain substance and whatever is now on their uniforms. And this is just the effect of one cannon ball. Imagine then the effect canister shot fired at close range... one such shoot would be enough to delete an entire infantry company out of existence. Most people on a battlefield of the early 1700s would probably die from musket fire however, since one side would probably start fleeing as the swords and pikes were drawn up for a melee fight. Once again does the location of the wound matter much for the chances of survival. Just as it do today. And small bullet flying at low speed like a bullet from a pistol or a submachine gun will do less damage than shot coming from a more powerful weapon like a hunting rifle or an assault gun. When you get hit by large bullet flying at high speed you will get a bigger hole into your body, and the shot will penetrate deeper into the body and often come out on the other side. Sometimes will the bullet travel a long way through the body at a strange angle and drill through multiple organs and thereby cause large damage. The bullet can also hit a skeleton bone and make it fly around inside the body and make almost as much damage as the hard bullet that is flying around. And while I can admire many ancient doctors, I would still say that it is strange how primitive and worthless medical care was up until the 19th century. And this despite people around the world already in the 1600s knew one thing or two that could have allowed them to - atleast in theory make a sterile operation to remove objects from wounds. But strangely they never used any such methods. Arabs knew how to make knives and other tools sterile before an operation to not cause infection, and they did so by leaving them over a fire and let all bacteria on the knife burn away. The Romans used honey for desinfect wounds since honey got anti-bacterial properties and is still used in treatment of certain types of wounds to this day. The Greeks used wine containing alcohol to clean the skin around a wound to lower the risk of infection by letting alcohol kill bacteria. No painkillers did exist back then so they had to rely on alcohol and opiods to reduce the pain of cutting in someones body. Another way to reduce pain was to work extremely fast and a skilled surgeon could finish an operation in perhaps only 20-30 seconds... but of course, when you got a patient who wildly bends around in pain its very difficult to operate, and when you work fast its a high risk that you make dangerous mistakes. So if someone was taking a serious damage into the middle of the body I do not think the surgeons would be able to do much in most cases. Most doctors did, as I understands it, not use any of the methods I suggest pre-modern doctor could have used to minimize the risk of infection. Germ theory was unknown, and bloodletting was still believed to be a miracle cure to all kinds of problems.
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@erictaylor5462 The only put Chlorhexidine on your skind before they put a needle in your arm to minimize the risk of infection. There are no scientific evidence that proves that this have any effect says my nursing textbook. So why then do this procedure? - I would guess its because its just an extra safety measure. If you are a patient without a strong immune system because you got AIDS, cancer or eating medicine that keeps your immune system weak (after an organ transplantation for exampel) then it could be a good idea to not put unnecessary armounts of bacteria into your body. This disinfectant does however not give any 100% protection. You will probably still push some bacteria on your skin into your own body as the nurse press the needle into your arm.
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And the risk of infection is also different depending on what part of the body we are dealing with. If you cut your finger on a paper and start bleeding its not likely that it will end up as something serious. But if you are doing a surgery on a non-periferal part of the body then an infection could often become fatal. So safety procedures are enormous. People are washing their hands multiple times, wear special suits over their normal uniforms. Patients have taken a shower before surgery. And in the operating room they get their skin disinfected with Chlorhexidine. And then all tools used are sterile. Gloves and aprons are sterile, and if you put down your hands even once you need to step aside as merely the bare suspicion than you have become unsterile is enough for you to be as sterile. Even if there is only a 0.5% chance your gloves actully touched something you are still not allowed to partake in the operation anymore. And you could be forced to stand there for hours as people are not allowed to go in or out of the room because of the risk that bacteria could wander around in the room if people walk in and out. So yes, not all types of surgery is the same.
1
For what I read after a quick googleing is that that forest was grown in the 1830s by the navy. Which is quite understandable given the dramatically changed strategic situation for Sweden. It had just lost Finland and the Baltics to Russia and Pomerania had been lost to Prussia. So most of the oak tree growing areas had been lost when Sweden lost its Baltic and North German provinces. And the need for timber was important for national security. Warships made from iron and steel had still not had their breacktrough. So oak timber was needed for warships. Since this type of wood is very hard and durable, it is therefore being the gold standard material for building warships (While cheap low quality wood from spruce was used to build some merchant ships). The strategic situation had changed along with Sweden's new borders. Stockholm was no longer located in the middle of the Swedish Baltic empire. With the loss of Finland did now Russian troops now sit very close to the Swedish capital which now were located on the eastern part of the new Sweden. Having a navy to protect this vulnerable Capital from an amphibous invasion now became important. In the past was Sweden's main shield against Russian aggression the Swedish army and the border fortresses in Finland along the border with Russia. But they fell into Russian hands after bribes and treason, and Finland was thereby lost in 1809. And so did Swedish owned Finland history end after 800 years. Anyways. I am no tree expert but I think that a tree needs about 30 years to grow. So I don't think centuries of planning is necessary. But decades of planning is however long term indeed. Especially back in those days when people died at the age of 35 or 50. But I think this project did indeed involve much planning. You need many oak trees (10.000!) just to build a warship like Vasa which was less than half the size of the warships of the 1700s. And making a forrest and then cutting down all trees at once doesn't work if you want a long term substainable supply of timber for the navy for all time to come. At most can you cut down 1-3% of all trees in a forrest if you wanna stay within a substainable rate. So you can cut down 3 trees out of 100. And then you have to plant new trees and wait 30 years before they can replace the trees you just have cut down.
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Sweden also had Lasse Gathenielm, its own naval "hero" ("pirate" is probably a more fitting term) of the early 1700's. His job as a privateer was to attack merchant shipping of countries which were at war with Sweden or supported Sweden's enemies. The difference between a privateer and a pirate was that the government had given permission to attack ships of a certain nationality. Lasse was very successful in plundering and stealing enemy ships. But he did do his job because it made him rich, and patriotism was not something he cared about. He also plundered ships of neutral nations, and did so often that Britain and the Netherlands started to escort their merchant ships not only in the Baltic sea but also in the Atlantic because attacks had become so frequent. Britain alone lost 136 ships to Swedish privateers on the Swedish west coast. And many many hundreds of ships fell victims to Swedish privateers. So the royal navy gathered 300 warships in a great projection of power to show their disappointment with Sweden's aggressive naval policies during the Great Northern war. It was a sharp signal of threatening Sweden with war if it did not stop attacking British ships. But the privateers felt no reason to stop. They got rich from stealing ships and selling their cargo. They even plundered Swedish inside Stockholms harbor, and they changed public opinion in favor of Sweden's enemies as they dragged the Netherlands and Britain into war against Sweden - which was already having enough problems with alone fighting for its own survival against an enemy coalition of Denmark-Norway, Poland, Saxony, Brandenburg, Hanover and Russia. The Swedish King saw the diplomatic problems in all this. This was a 1700's version of Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare during World war 1. But the King also feared that his chances of getting back the Baltic provinces that the Russians had stolen from him would diminish if they could start benefitting from the trade income they generated and all war materials that could be transported from their harbors. And the war at sea had been successful in many ways for Sweden. Privateers had nearly brought Denmark to its knees as trade between Denmark and Norway had been nearly totally destroyed and supplies to Danish troops in Norway had been cut off. Denmark was a sea empire, and its merchant navy was sinking at a fast rate and would things continue at this path, then all of Denmark's merchant fleet would soon being laying down at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. So so far had Lasse Gathenhielms adventures been successful. He did even make up plans to join forces with the largest pirate fleet in the world in Madagascar, and getting the famous John Norcross and his thousands of pirates and 60 warships to join the great Northern war on Sweden's side, along with the Swedish navy and the 150 warships of Swedish privateers. Negotiations were made to station them in city Göteborg. But the plans ended when the Swedish King died in 1718 and the war came to an end.
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Foreign subsidies were of limited importance. For example did the large subsidies France paid to Sweden during the 30-years war only cover 20% of Sweden's war expenses when Sweden was desperate for money to pay for an army of 200.000 soldiers. And France was also unwilling to pay Sweden anything, until the war with Spain started to go bad for France and Paris became threatened by Spanish troops in Belgium and the French came to Sweden begging desperate for help. Sweden was desperate for money and agreed to relief pressure on the French in exchange for money, and an alliance was signed. The Swedish army in Germany was probably the largest in Europe at that time. Spain with her many territories and American silver "only" had 80.000 men. So how did Sweden pay for its war? Swedish tax payers paid about 30%. French subsidies 20%. And the rest was paid by Sweden's German allies (who often sometimes threaded by Swedish aggression if they didn't joined in and paid up for the war). And plundering enemy lands was also important. So not even when Sweden had its largest army ever did foreign subsidies cover the majority of all costs. And the 30-years war is an extreme example since most wars where not fought with so large armies or with such a high proportion of mercenaries. And that means that the financial burden was much easier for Denmark and Sweden, and that the influence of foreign money was even smaller than that in the 30-years war. And also, while the Danish army often used German mercenary troops, was the same not possible for Sweden. There was no large market for mercenary troops in Eastern Europe like in Germany and Italy. So the wars with Poland and Russia had to be fought with Swedish troops. But Sweden and Denmark was very militarized as you say. Denmark did spend more money on its navy, while Sweden took more interest in fielding a large army. The efficient state apparatus and a clever conscription system allowed Sweden to mobilize large armies that stood out of proportion to its small population. The country was thus able to punch above its own weight and even beat huge empires with populations 20 times larger such as Austria, Poland and Russia. Mercenary troops importance would also diminish in the 1700's. They were important for Sweden in the 1500's when the Swedish King fought the Danes and crushed Swedish farmers rebellions. And in the 1600's they played an important role in for example the invasion of Poland and Denmark in 1658, and in Sweden's involvement in the 30-years war. Sweden could of course have used much more Swedish troops to fight in Germany instead. But instead of wasting Swedish blood in fighting battles, were the Swedish army units sent to the Baltics or to southern Sweden to guard the border against Russia and Denmark. So was mercenary troops important? Yes and no. They were important in the 1600's, because they offered experienced soldiers and large armies which you could put together very fast. But on the other hand were those troops badly disciplined, unreliable and costly. They did however offer a strategically important advantage to country. If Sweden would be attacked by many countries at the same time, then it would be difficult to get enough troops to fight on all fronts, but with mercenary troops this problem could be solved. So it was therefore important for a King to show the world that he was able to pay his mercenary soldiers. Sweden could of course have told its German mercenary to throw themselves into a lake and refused to pay them when the war was over. That would have saved the Swedish state enormous amounts of money equal to a large chunk of the country's GDP: And doing so would have been devastating. Sweden would never again be able to get mercenary troops to fight for her. Because what soldier who only fight for money would ever accept fighting for a King who tell mercenaries to fight for him and then refuse to pay them? No one. All Sweden's enemies would be able to gather huge armies. But Sweden could only rely on its own army, and would not get any help at all from any mercenary troops if it got a reputation for as a scammer who didn't pay mercenary troops. So here you can see why Sweden was did not demand so much land in its peace terms with Germany in 1648. Sweden wanted money to pay for the war most of all. And despite Sweden had won the war, and conquered all of Germany... it was not so much interested in taking German land. It was more important that the losers of the war gave up money instead, so Sweden could afford to pay for all mercenary troops it had used. So Sweden's reputation would not be damaged, so Sweden could use mercenary troops in future wars if needed. together In hindsight, one could of course say that Sweden made a dumb decision. Mercenary troops would stop being important in the 1700's. So why spend so much energy on becoming popular with mercenary troops? The Swedish army during the Great Northern war 1700-1721 consisted almost entirely of conscripted farmers and almost no mercenaries at all. And yet could Sweden field an army of 100.000 men.
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Sweden do have some great naval historians such as Jan Glete, Leos Müller and Lars Ericson Wolke. I don't know why a foreginer got to work for the museum, but he is clearly very knowledgeable and speaks English that is pleasant to my ears.
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Some people say that galleys played an important role in the Mediterranean in bringing down fortification. When ships switched over to gun power did a revolution happen, and fortified cities came down. Sweden's naval supremacy also allowed it provide fire support for amphibious landings - like in the battle of Düna in 1701. Personally I am a bit skeptical for these claims and think that not enough evidence has been provided yet for me to buy into this thesis of Jan Glete and the historians he follows. I think it is an over-statement to say the revolutionized warfare. There sometimes very helpful for an attacker in bring down a fort, but I don't think their impact was so dramatically large as claimed. Anyways, I'm not an expert... One thing I do however think is interesting how large amounts of artillery the Swedish fortress artillery had. In 1699 did Sweden have 3,750 guns - which is 2 guns per artillery man. And 93% of those guns were made out of iron. (source: https://www.bokus.com/bok/9781912390182/the-swedish-army-of-the-great-northern-war-1700-1721/ ) To me this was a surprisingly large number. Especially since the Swedish artillery in the great northern war did not get anywhere near as much interest as infantry and cavalry. And guns captured on the battlefield were valuable trophies in the 1700's by all armies. But when guns are so plentiful I begin to wonder why Sweden put their guns on fortreses and not on warships or within the army instead. Building all those guns would have also sucked up gigantic amounts of money, and I wonder if all that money could have been better spent on other types of weapons instead. If guns was so valuable that people even back in the 1600s thought it was worth sending out divers to pick up guns from Vasa after she had sunk, then I wonder why they did put guns on fortresses instead of warships - like they did with Vasa's guns. Sweden was the largest producer of iron and copper in the world at this time period, so I can understand that Sweden did have the luxury to make guns in amounts few other could. But I am wondering why Sweden did put their guns of fortresses instead for offensive use or used them more for fire power on the battlefield. At the battle of Poltava did Sweden only put 4 guns against the Russians... while the Russians brought over 300 guns to use against the Swedish army and slaughtered the Swedish army with deadly shrapnel.
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Land warfare in the 1700s was not pretty. A cannon ball would be flying towards you in about 350 meters per second that would be slow enough for you to see this ball coming towards you, but also too fast for you to have the chance to jump to the side and avoid it. And when the ball did fly into your line of men, then the effect would be devestating. It would plow a hole into your ranks of three men, and those hit by the ball would likely die instantly on the spot. A Swedish soldier hit by a Russian cannon ball at Poltava was cut in half as his bones and the entire lower part of the body instantly got detached from his body he made soft sound and died nearly instantly on the spot. And all his comrades around him got their uniforms stained red with their former friends blood and what remained of his body. Teeths, skeleton bones, swords, and iron and wood parts from the muskets would also fly around as a soldier got hit and killed, and those hard sharp objects could be very deadly as they did fly around in high speed and hit the poor guys who stood near they man who got hit by the cannon ball. The energy and power of the cannon ball was immense. Would the man stand in ranks 20 men deep, then the losses could be gigantic from cannon fire as the men would fall like dominos and men around them would get either injured or severly psychologically wrecked from seeing their friends dying such a brutal death. 18th century warfare was like on movies with colorful pretty uniforms, nice flags, orderly line formations and military music with trumpet fanfares, taiko drums from horesemen, or fifes and drums of the infantry. But what you don't see on movies are the backside of the coin - afraid people who poop their pants, people who get blown up by artillery so there is nothing left of their bodies and brain substance flying around and splatter cover the flags of the company. Cannon balls could be devestating. If you managed to somehow was able to get the chance to fire on the enemy from the sides then the effect could enormous - a single cannon ball could then (theoretically) kill an entire line of 150 men of company with a lucky shot that would make all those men fall like dominos to the enormous power and energy from the cannon ball. And not only could cannons fire from far away and reload at a faster rate than muskets. At closer ranges could cannons also switch over to another type of ammunition - shrapnel - and the effect of that fire was even more horrible. Entire Swedish companies of hundreds of men was wiped out by a single one of those shots at the battle of Poltava in 1709. So all those tiny pieces of metal perfectly illustrates the power of splinters as a single shot from a Russian cannon wiped out the entire Kalmar infantry batallion. And I think I have made clear the powerful effects of normal cannon balls as well. So their effects on wood and turning it into deadly splinters and blocks of wood doesn't surprise me at all.
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