Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "SandRhoman History"
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The traditional view of Sigismund is the following:
"As it was, Sigismund proved to be a weak monarch, being tardy, disposed to procrastination, of vacillating spirit, diffident of his own judgement, prone to accept bad advice, and-most irritating of all considering his sovereign power - timorous of grasping the initiative. Even his Jesuit advisors and not least his Apostolic Nuncio in Poland, the brilliand Germanico Malaspina, were bewildered at his unruffled composure in moments of crisis, which led him so to trust the rightwousness of his own policies that he could let matters drift in the firm belief that the Almighty would set things right if He so willed."
And he never won the hearts and minds of the Poles and Lithanians.
Charles IX was on the other hand a strong King which got things done. And having a bloody reign is a good thing in my opinion. Sweden was well runned because Christian of Denmark, Erik XIV, John III, and Charlex IX had scared the sh1t out of the Swedish nobility so they never again dared to oppose the King.
So Sweden never became a weak dysfunctional decentralized serfdom state like Poland, Denmark or Spain.
Instead did Swedish farmers have a high degree of freedom and the power of the King was strong so he could lead the country for the sake of the greater good, rather than have a dysfunctional country ruled by hundreds of nobles own personal self-interest.
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"He didn`t have the numbers to face that army and it was his equal or better in terms of quality."
Wrong his army defeated Austria and Poland.
"Authoritarian governments are able to be more ruthless"
I think there is a difference between being authoritarian and being centralized. They are not the same thing.
Sweden was not a Hitlerite dictatorship under Gustavus. The country was still having remains left from its time as old feudal state. The King had to make concessions to the nobility before he could become King. Otherwise would they not accept to vote in favor of letting him become the new King at his young age.
When wars were fought in Germany and more money was needed, did the King need to negotiate with the peasant class and beg them kindly to accept extra war taxes.
The King also realized his own limitations and did delegate out responsability of economic matters to his advisor Axel Oxenstierna. The King was a passionate man with strong feelings, temper, energy, impatience and big dreams... while Oxenstierna was a pragmatic realist, a man with a big brain, and a very cynical and macchiavellian view of the world. The two was close friends and in combination were those two men invinceable.
The King laid out bold plans and invested his energy to make them work. While Oxenstierna made the King calm down and abandon his most wild and unrealistic ideas, but keeping most ot the rest of the plan and fixed all money and logistics to make it work. He always found out ways to get money, he was an expert negoatiator and he was a clever player in diplomacy that could lure Denmark into playing their cards wrong and lose despite a strong hand.
If I could make a clone out of one brain to rule Sweden - then I would pick Axel Oxenstiernas.
So Sweden was never authoritarian in that sense that the King had unlimited powers. The Swedish King was in fact pretty weak compared to the absolutist Kings of the 1700s, like Carolus Rex who did not have to listen anyone except God.
But Sweden was a centralized state. The King, his advisors, the nobility and the peasants all stood unified to win the war in Germany. The nobility did not try to stab the King in the back and use dire times to expand their own powers at the expense of the King - like what often happened in other countries.
Instead did the nobility realize that they had a common interest with that the King and country was doing well.
If the nobles did their duty and fought the war and did it well, then they would get rich from plundering cities, and they would get more power and status by showing strong capabilities as a General on the battlefield.
By making themselves useful for the state would they help the country, and in return would the country help them get rich and promote their career.
It was a system of win - win for everyone involved.
So one can say that Sweden was an extremely centralized state. And extensive documentation was done to make best use of limited resources like money and manpower. Churches did document how many locals lived in their area so the state would know how much taxes that could be collected, and the newly born male children were put into the system so the state would know how many potential future soldiers it had available.
Its perhaps no coincidence that Sweden with this obsession also became the first country in the world to get a Central Bank, and in 1749 also first in the world to regulary count population numbers on an annual basis.
This institution responsible for all statistics gathering already existed back in the 1600s so even long before 1749 was government control without equals.
But even with such a massive "surveillance state" I would not call Sweden opressive. The tax burden was more equal and fairly distributed than in most other countries - like France, Austria, Denmark, Russia.
A peasant back in those days would probably have been most free if had been born in the Netherlands, Britain or Sweden.
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" the Swedes were almost expelled from the Holy Roman Empire"
And Frederick the Great was almost crushed in the seven years war, and the Romans were at the brink of disaster after the defeat at Cannae, so what is your point?
"the ones who won the war were the French"
Thats like saying Brazil won World war 2 for the allies. The majority of all troops fighting in Germany was under the Swedish flag. The Swedes fought this war longer than the French did. France begged for Swedish help when Spanish troops threatened Paris.
And it was mainly Swedish troops that made the final push to end this war.
"they were the ones who almost dominated the whole continent in various phases from the second half of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century"
France was the strongest power in Europe up until 1815. Or at least until after the Seven years war. However it was no unrivaled super power. It had several mighty neighbours that kept it in check. And that was possible to do back then because England, Holland, Sweden and Brandenburg were countries well with well managed government administrations that allowed larger military than what badly mismanaged countries like France, Austria, Poland and the Ottoman empire had.
They also tended to build up militaries that also was able to punch over their own weight - and so in particular in the case of Sweden and Brandenburg. The English army was not any remarkable, but the English navy was so enormous in size that by the 1700s that no country on its own could ever hope to defeat it.
Even the second and third largest navies in Europe would togheter have less ships than England.
"It is almost impossible that they could have dominated all of Europe with such a small population without the help of allies like France or England"
It dominated the area called northern Europe and the Baltic sea. It did not have much power ouside of that area. Just like Spains, France and Englands power in the Baltic sea was very limited. Did England and Spain have much saying in what happened on the Balkans in the 16th and 17th and 18th century? - No.
But that fact does not mean that they were powerful great powers. And Sweden was the dominant great power in northern Europe in the 17th century. If you asked Poland, Brandenburg, Denmark-Norway, Saxony, Russia, and Kurland which country around the Baltic sea they feared the most, then they would answer Sweden.
In the end was it tiny Prussia that came to dominate Germany and not Austria. And little England would dominate the world and not France despite it had a 5 times larger population than England back in the 1500s. And it was Sweden who occupied and bullied the much larger Polish-Lithunian commonwealth at multiple times and not the other way around.
In the past it was easier for small countries punch above their own weight. And it is stupid and historically ignorant to try to apply game rules from the 1900s and 2000s back on the past. Then you will not understand anything. And you will have no clue why England came to domitate the world. How Portugal and the Netherlands could build sizeable colonies worldwide, and how Sweden could beat the crap out of big countries like Germany, Russia and Poland and build the largest navy in Europe in the late 1500s and early 1600s.
Had one travelled back in time it to the 1500s and proposed your worldview. Then people would have felt certain that the Ottoman empire would be the strongest country on the planet. And the incestious Habsburgs would continue to gobble up more land with royal marriages. And France would forever be the most powerful country in western Europe as it had the largest population and a good climate that allowed the place to be rich thanks all the bounty of food their lands produced.
After all, did the muslims call crusaders for "franks" since most and nearly all of them came from France - the most powerful and most populated country in Europe at that time. England on the other hand was militarily weak and had a small population. It could not win any wars on its own but constantly had to ally itself with a strong land power like Prussia.
"they did not even prevent the Russians from winning the Great Northern War a century later."
I think it is astonishing that Sweden came close to winning the war at multiple occasions.
Sweden stood alone against Denmark, Norway, Saxony, Poland, Russia, and later on also against Hannover and Brandenburg.
The enemy had a 13 times larger population than Sweden, but for two decades were they force Sweden to the negotiating table. Compare that to Frederick the Greats Prussia which had to fight against enemies with a population of only 9 times stronger, and Frederick also had allies like Britain, Hanover and Hessen that provided troops that could help fight off French and German empire attacks before they reached Prussia.
But despite all this, and despite many impressive military victories stood his Kingdom at the brink of total destruction after the defeat at Kunersdorf after just 3 years of war. However the Russians remained passive and that saved Prussia from destruction, as Frederick had no troops left after that defeat to stop a push into Brandenburg. Frederick kept on fighting the war, but by late 1761 had his luck runned out again as the Austrians had for the first time made a succesful winter campaign. After that could only a miracle have saved Prussia.
And that is what Frederick got when the Russia empress died, and the mentally ill prussian fanboy King Peter III took power in russia and made peace with Frederick and decided to join the war on Fredericks side.
So which side handled the war better? I would argue that Sweden did. And many of Prussias military defeats just oved to Fredericks own stupidity, hubris and arrogance - like Hochkirch and Kunersdorf.
Sweden on the other hand continued to fight outnumbered for the entire war, but despite that deliever impressive victories time and time again: Narva 1700, Düna 1701, Rauge 1701, Kliszow 1702, Saločiai 1703, Pultusk 1703, Jakobstadt 1704, Poznan 1704, Poniec 1704, Gemauerthof 1705, Warsaw 1705, Fraustadt 1706, Grodno 1708, Holowczyn 1708, Malatitze 1708, Rajovka 1708, Oposhnya 1709, Krasnokutsk–Gorodnoye 1709, Helsingborg 1710, Gadebusch 1712, Stäket 1719.
Indeed had Charles XII not died in 1718 had Norway likely fallen into Swedish hands as two of Norways biggest cities were only weeks from falling. Fredriksten fortress, was the gateway to Oslo and it was estimated by both sides to fall within half a week. And Trondheim only had food for two more weeks before it had to surrender.
And after that would Denmark be kicked out from the war. Saxony was already eager to make peace and saw no reason to keep on fighting as it likely would not lead to any territorial gains, and the King have become more hostile towards Russia and Brandenburg.
The tiny Hanoverian army could easily have been crushed by Swedish forces after Norway was taken, and no Danish navy could block Swedish troops from being sent to Germany. And with Denmark and Hanover out of the way would Brandenburg stand no chance alone against the Swedish troops and would likely soon have surrendered as well.
So then would only Russia be left to defeat. And while the strong Swedish navy would protect Sweden from a russian invasion could Swedish troops march into the undefended Baltics and retake the breadbasket of Sweden. And without the Baltic harbors would the entire russian army in Finland starve to death - so russia would have then been forced to retreat.
So basically all the land gains by Swedens enemies since 1721 would have been undone by that point.
So even at the last years of the war did Sweden stand a good chance of winning the war.
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They were the first standing army. That gave Spain an advantage over other countries, and is perhaps the main reason why Spain turned into the mightiest empire of the world. The tercios were trained in Italy and the men trained togheter and their experience were maintained over time - unlike other countries armies which were dissolved as soon as a war was over.
But the tercios learned from their combat experience and passed their knowledge on to new troops.
Spain became a country for inspiration for other countries and many spanish words have become standard use in other armies.. I don't access to Jan Glete's book so I type from my own fallible memory now, but I think he said that the word spanish word regimiento from that time was copied by other countries and came into use all over Europe.
So Spain became an empire that included America, Italy, the Benelux countries and Portugal thanks to royal marriages and exploration.
Its army was super modern for its day. But the empire itself was a relic of the past. It was a feudal medieval Kingdom.
All those small places were members of the Spanish empire but they paid nearly no taxes and the Spanish state had limited power over those areas. And the push for more centralization, more catholicism and more taxes angered the Netherlands who declared independence. Italy and Portugal did not want to pay taxes either. And the Spanish state did for a while let them get away with it.
The Spanish army was good. Too good for Spains own good. The Spanish Kings stopped caring about longwinded and difficult diplomatic negotiations with other countries to get what they want. But instead did they take the faster and more easy solution to use the worlds most powerful army to ram through their will. And it first it did work well. But soon did all dreams and imperial ambitions and use of force become too much for Spain.
They got involved in war after war. They fought against the Netherlands who sought independence. They fought against North African pirates. They fought against the muslim Ottomans. They sent their Spanish armada towards England. They involved themselves in the 30 years war and fought against Swedish and French troops. Portugal had enough of all wars that had costed them their colonies so they also started a war with Spain.
And all those wars did cost money. But the decentralized Spanish state could not afford it - especially not since it only was Castile who paid taxes, while Italy, Belgium and Portugal did not. The Spanish state were in desperate times, and the many provinces finally agreed to paying a little taxes to the Spanish state - but only if they got more local independence.
So the once strong and centralized Spanish state which had been ahead of the rest of the world did not become more decentralized and weak compared to other countries. Its economy was in decline while other countries were on the rise
with more centralized and effiecent buraucracies.
England, Netherlands, Sweden and France was on the rise. And Spain never really retook its once dominant role in Europe.
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Swedens past is unknown. Much of the documented history of the middle ages was probably lost forver when the Royal castle three crowns burned down in 1697.
It is believed that Eric the Victorious was Swedens first King when he took the throne in 970AD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_the_Victorious
Later on would he be follwed by a bunch over other Kings and Finland was settled around 1000-1100 AD. It was a weak state with much nobles that held most of the power. Civil wars happened because some nobles lusted for more power.
And the country fell under Danish rule with the Kalmar Union.
Denmark was richer and more densly populated than Sweden and modern ideas from Europe had a closer reach to Denmark than to backwards Sweden, so it became natural for the Danish-Swedish-Norwegian King to have his seat in Denmark and not in Sweden.
That made the Swedish nobles feel like the Danish Kings took no interest in Sweden and that they constantly favored Denmark at Swedens expense. And when the Danish King tried to centralize the rule of the Kingdom and take away Swedens independence it did cause much anger within the Swedish nobility. And when Danish noblemen did know the Danish King better and had his trust, then they were much more likely to get the top jobs of ruling over Swedish provinces.
And that angered the Swedish nobility so much that war with Denmark was started. But then Christian II of Denmark settled peace with Sweden. He came to Sweden to Stockholm to celebrate that he had become King, and all former enemies was invited and forgiven he said. So they had a meal inside a castle. And almost the entire Swedish nobility was there.
But then suddenly the doors were locked and guards arrested all the nobles. And the entire nobility was led outdoors and had their heads cut off one by one...
This event is known as "Stockholm's bloodbath" because so many people died that day that the streets were covered in blood from hundreds of people that the Danish had killed.
One Swedish nobleman never trusted the Danish King so never came to his party. That was Gustav Eriksson Vasa.
His father was one of those noblemen that Christian had killed.
Gustav realized that also his life was in danger so he tried to flee up into northern Sweden where the Danes would have it difficult to find him. And he managed to get some Swedish miners on his side in an uprising against the Danes. And more people joined the uprising when they heard the news of what the Danish King had done. And soon it became impossible for the Danes to keep control over the country. Only a few castles could still be defended, while the countryside was impossible to control. Gustav Vasa now became the first King of the modern day Sweden.
He only had one problem. And that was that he could not conquer the key cities of Sweden because he lacked artillery and mercenary troops. So he talked with the German Hanseatic league, who happily helped him making their enemy the Danish King weaker.
Gustav Vasa could now finally get all of Sweden under his control. The war was won.
But the economy was bad. He now had huge debts to the Hansa. And if he could not pay them, then his Kingdoms days would soon be numbered.
So what did the Swedish King do?
- He plundered the churches. Gustav was a greedy person who lacked morals and he had no religious conviction.
He made his country protestant only so he could get control over the church and being able to steal all silver, church bells and other valuable stuff the church had. And now he could pay off his debts to the Hansa.
The problem was now solved.
He was a totalitarian dictator who ruled the country with an ironfist. And taking control over the church was all about increasing his own power. He now had control over the news that was spread in churches and used it for his own propaganda.
For the first time did Sweden now get a system where the King did inherit his throne from his father after he died.
His oldest son Eric the 14th became the 2nd King of Sweden when Gustav died. And after him did John III take over after his brother had become mentally insane, John was also a son of Gustav. And Gustav also had another young son, Charles which I soon will mention...
John's son Sigismund was supposed to take over the country after the John III. But his uncle Charles did not accept that. He felt like it was his turn to become King, so over the span of a few years he made a smear campaign of Sigismund and said all kinds of bad things about him...
And then finally a day he started an uprising with a few nobles on his side to remove Sigismund as the King of Sweden.
The uprising was succesful and Charles became the new King of Sweden, and now became known as Charles the 9th (or Charles IX, aka "Duke Charles").
To lock out Sigismund and any other of his sons or polish noblemen from the Swedish throne, did Charles make a law that only a protestant could become King of Sweden. And being a Catholic was now a crime in Sweden that could give you the death penelty.
So as you see, Swedens hard stance on religious issues had very little to do with religion. And very much to do with the Swedish Kings power struggles and need to secure their own power and stealing money.
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@notalecguinness3221
"And Protestant Germany enabled it when they saw Gustav II Adolf as their only possible savior from "restitution" or destruction like at Magdeburg."
After Swedens first victories did more and more German states join the Swedish side and soon had those German states togheter with the Swedes built a huge army no one had ever seen before, an army of 200.000 men. Much of it was just troops in garrisons in big forts scattered all over Germany but still..
Two-thirds of the funding for this army came from Swedens German allies. Either because of friendship or due to fear of threat of violence. However the rulers of Brandenburg and Saxony were the most powerful protestant states, and they wanted peace and as German patriots did they not wanna break all bonds with the German emperor even if he was a catholic Austrian.
The war could quickly have ended here. However as Swedens former allies switched side would the balance of power in the war in Germany change and the enormous protestant army faded away and garrisons fell into catholic hands.
Things did not help as the French from time to time stabbed the Swedes in the back when they feared that they were becoming too powerful. And the French had their own military alliance in south-western Germany they rather wanted to grow, while they hoped that the Swedish military alliance of protestant states would fall apart.
And naturally were the French not that interested in paying for Swedens war. And the Dutch also declined the offer of paying for Swedens war.
So much of the funding of the Swedish war machine had to come from its success on the battlefield. With plunder it could pay its troops, and victories on the battlefield would keep protestant German states willing to pay for the burdensome upkeep of large forces.
The Swedish army did well in Germany, but the sudden change of side of some German protestant states over to the catholic side made it hard for Sweden to win. Austria and Bavaria struggled against the Swedes, while the French did what they could of promoting their own interests instead of letting Sweden win the war.
However, when Spain achieved great military success and started to threaten Paris. Then France stood there with very little troops at their disposal in a dire situation. They now desperatly asked Sweden for help, and now gave in to all the Swedish demands of subsidies - and later on would those subsidies grow and France would join a military alliance with Sweden where none promised to make peace without the other.
And in return did the Swedish army march to south western Germany to take some pressure off the French and the situation could be stabilized.
"Without lot's of cash disposable in one shot, you couldn't undertake an offensive because you couldn't raise new troops or buy and transport large stocks of provisions to or through the devastated war zones where contributions wouldn't bring you much."
Most of the money came from Swedens German allies. A little more than a third of all war costs were paid for by Sweden, while two-thirds were paid for by the German allies. Sweden needed all the money it could get - and it was the number 1 concern. But the French subsidies just played a minor importance in this war.
And Sweden managed to build up a 200.000 strong Swedish-German army before any France funds had arrived.
And once the French subsidies came, they covered about 20% of the war costs.
You say Sweden was dependent on France and protestant Germany. But it is equally true that France and Germany was dependent on Sweden. For years had the Germans struggled and not scored any victories against the catholics. And France needed help against a Spanish invasion, and the newly formed French army was neither effiecent or large enough to be able to defeat the catholic German forces on its own.
" That's what limited the Emperor in the 1640s - he could still defend his home territory but not gain ground because the Spanish subsidies had mostly stopped."
The thirty years war was basically a world war, with Habsburgs against everyone else - the Swedes, the French, the Dutch, the protestant Germany, Swiss, Venice, England, Turks, Portugal... and not even all gold in america could pay for all this. The catholic military setbacks, and with France and Portugal fighting against Spain it became difficult for them to spare any resources to help Austria.
Had the world been ruled by common sense, then this war would have ended 10 years earlier than it did. The Austrians would just have accepted Swedish peace terms of war reparations.
"Although, unfortunately France seemed to have gained much more in the long run by it than Sweden."
Sweden was an exhausted victor in this war. Now afterwards we can conclude that the Swedish priorities at the peace negotiations could probably have better served Swedens long term interests if it just demanded more German land instead of money to pay off all its mercenary troops.
This would have made those troops angry and upset and never again would Sweden be able to hire any mercenary troops after it had scammed them out of their money. And Sweden would likely have had extreme difficulty of finding any extra troops for its future wars. But on the other hand mercenary troops were becoming more a thing of the past for most armies of the early 1700s. Gaining some income from nice German harbors and being able to field some extra German regiments in the Swedish army could have been more helpful in the Great Northern War.
And Brandenburg would become weaker and Sweden would have been stronger if all of Pomerania had been given to Sweden in the peace negotiations instead. And who knows? Maybe then Brandenburg would never could have grown into a great power after that? Would this weak kingdom even have dared going to war against Sweden in the Franco-Dutch war or the Great Northern War?
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@kamilszadkowski8864
"The tax burden was in fact much higher in France"
Wrong. The French farmer only paid more taxes because the rich paid no taxes at all.
If half the country only pay taxes, then of course you have to pay twice as much. Which country got into economic problems? France or England?
- France.
You can read more in "The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History, 1500-1914"
"France was also far more centralised at the time and would become one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe."
No wrong again. It was a weak decentralized state where the nobles had too much say. They paid no taxes. So the country could not get a permanent standing army until very late (around the 1650s). Spain had been created a standing army in their tercio 150 years or so earlier.
And France was only powerful because it had the largest population in Europe. It had 20 million people in year 1600. While the Netherlands only had 1.5 million. But France did not accomplish 10 times as much as the Netherlands.
So France performed very badly considering the large size and resources it had. The Netherlands could mobilize an army of 170.000 men while France had an army of 200.000 in the late 1600s. I think that says a lot how much more effiecent the state apparauses of some other countries were.
France did have a 4 times larger population than England, but England could still build a more powerful navy.
So France was a very ineffiecent decentralized state. It had tolls along the rivers within its countrys borders and had militarized armed police (gendarmes) to guard such borders within the country to extraxt tollbooths from the peasants.
And here is one reason why we have this conversation today in English and not in French.
"What you describe is tyranny."
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Countries were generally better runned and more free under a strong King that made sure that the nobility did not opress the peasantry. And when the land was owned by the state or the farmers then it could be taxed - which provided the state with the resources it needed for a strong army and good finances.
But if you let noblemen run things, then you got opression of the peasants and a weak mismanaged state, and economic problems for the government as the nobles did not pay any taxes. So if the nobles owned 80% of all lands in a country and all the farmers on that land paid no taxes at all.
Then would it be very difficult to find money for the government to pay off debts or having a well equipped army.
Swedens mistake after 1721 was it stopped its tradition of killing nobles.
"Sweden was never even close to achieving the population and territorial span of at least two of those countires."
Sweden was the largest country in Europe. Only perhaps Russia could be said to been larger.
"Poland grew several times in size"
The problem with royal marriages as I sees it is that they are associated with a very backward fedual order. Spain and Austria did expand to large empires thanks to skilled diplomacy. But those empires was very decentralized. Even in the late 1700's did the Austrian King complain that he had nearly no control over his own country since it was the nobles in the different provinces that did run the country.
So the resource extraction was very ineffiecent because the nobles owned much of the land. And the country was military weak for that reason. And since the nobles in Bohemia, Hungary and other places were strong would concessions be made to them. They had their own units and their own defence budgets.
So coordinating the large Austrian army became more difficult. There was no standardized equipment or standardized training.
Hungary made up a third of the population and land of the Austrian empire under Maria Theresa, and yet did they pay less than 10% of all taxes the Austrian state got.
"Ironically the Swedish social unattractiveness was one of the reasons why almost none of its territorial gains were permanent."
Once again are you going in the 180 degrees wrong direction.
The reason why Sweden never held on to its lands was because the lack of opression. The provinces which were opressed the most are Swedish today. The former Danish provinces Scania, Halland, Gotland and Jämtland were opressed. I myself live in such a province and consider myself to be a 100% Swede and 0% Norwegian or Danish.
Books in Danish were burned. Walking over the border to Denmark to visit relatives on the other side was crime. Churches began preaching in Swedish while Danish was banned.
Swedish troops were placed in the former Danish provinces to marry the locals in order to turn those areas more Swedish. And meanwhile was the men in those provinces pressed into military service and sent far away.
And the result was that after 20-30 years or so had those provinces become culturally Swedish.
Sweden never did that to other parts of the empire. And that is the reason why Finland, Norway, the Baltics and Northern Germany are not speaking Swedish today.
So in hindsight maybe too little opression was a mistake seen from a Swedish perspective 😉
In Latvian and Estonian history is the 150 years of rule under the Swedish known as the good time in their history. A time of freedom after the Teutonic overlords that had opressed their peasants. The Swedish empire allowed the Estonians to keep their laws and traditions and language. The East European serfdom was reduced so farmers got less opressed. So most people therefore loved Swedish rule. While a few nobles and traitors (like Patkul) got upset.
But he should have been careful for what he wished for. Russian occupation of the Baltics did not mean more independence for the people in the Baltics - It meant much less. And serfdom became more opressive than ever.
And the country was once again thrown into a dark age.
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Maybe I should add that the Swedish empire not treated all provinces the same.
Just like the Roman empire did not treat all provinces the same. Provinces that was conquered in war could be playground for a Roman emperor to do what ever he want - Including murdering people, introducing new laws, taxing people, demand that people do military service, force a new language upon the subjects and whatever else he seemed fit.
Rome did this to North Africa after they had conquered Carthage. And Sweden treated Scania the same after it had been taken from Denmark.
Romes eastern provinces was never conquered through military means. Most of them choose to join the Roman empire because their rulers asked Rome if they were allowed to join their empire. Rhodes joined the empire, and since they choose to do so out of their own free will was they allowed to keep their own laws, traditions, and not having to pay much taxes or having to provide the empire with troops.
Those provinces could not be treated how the emperor liked because they had rights. And the same was true in the Swedish empire. Estonia choose to join the Swedish empire out of their own free will, which meant that they could keep their own laws and did not have to provide the King with troops like other provinces in the empire.
Finland was considered a part of Sweden. So it had the same rights and duties as all other Swedish provinces.
Finland did pay taxes and provide troops and in return were they allowed to send politicians to the Swedish parliament to vote on different issues. Finland had the same laws, the same King, same currency, same religion and the same everything as all other parts of Sweden.
So it was never opressed. In fact, they have kept most of their Swedish heritage to this day. Today they have the same school system, same laws, same traditions and so on. Only the language is and was different.
And that is probably the reason that the country choose to become independent instead of rejoining Sweden after being the same country for 700 years.
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@ChillDudelD
"Sweden didn’t even occupy half of Poland during the Deluge"
Sweden took most of the land, but it never managed to keep any area under control for long. Had the war continued, then Sweden would certainly have lost with very little if any gains at all.
"During the Deluge Poland was attacked by like 8-9 different enemies"
At the same time Swedens campaign in Poland started to slow down and run into problems with guerilla wars all over the huge country and not enough troops to deal with all rebellions, did Russia go to war with Sweden.
Denmark and Norway also started a war with Sweden, and their ally the Netherlands joined in. And soon also Brandenburg and Austria joined in in the war against Sweden.
A thing quite typical of the Swedish King Charles X Gustav (who was really a German) was that he liked to gamble.
Everything was all or nothing for him. He gambled high and risked the total destruction of his Kingdom. He did gamble in 1658 and won the most total military victory a Swedish King ever won by marching over the Baltic Sea when it was frozen and making a surprise attack on Denmarks capitol Copenhagen, and forced the Danish King to give away half his country in exchange for peace.
But things could have gone bad... the ice cold just as well have melted had it only been a few degrees warmer... and then thousands of men and horses would have drowned. And then would Sweden suddenly have no army, while the country was at war with Russia, Denmark, Netherlands, Poland, Brandenburg and Austria at the same time.
I don't think a Swedish King would ever have been so reckless with Sweden. But this guy was a German so he didn't care.
I think feels strange that I am the only person who seems to have this opinion of this King. He is usually seen as great conqueror. But I see him more as a guy who played Russian roullette.. He ended up lucky once, and then he died young, and that probably saved him from wrecking his own reputation later on. His war with Poland never led anywhere. And the next war with Denmark ended with a minor loss.
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The most important factor for resource mobilization in world war 2 and world war 1 was rather how modern and well developed a society was. You could say that GDP per capita is almost a measurement of that... yeah; I know its not 100% perfect, but lets just go with it for now.
What countries see their economies crash first?
- The poor and under-developed countries. Russia did see her war economy collapse first of all Great Powers in WW1.
Already in 1915 was the weakness of Russian industry so appearant that Russian field guns only could fire about a dozen shots per month - while German and British guns fired almost the same amount in a single day. And Russian soldiers had to attack German machine gun nests without there being enough rifles for everyone - so it was basically an attack à la enemy at the Gates.
Farmers had to go to the cities and work for the industry. And the shortage of food led to higher prices, and war time shortages led to high inflation and people had enough and the economy collapsed.
Opressive Tsarist Russia could no longer keep the country togheter, and Russia surrendered to Germany in 1917.
Next on the line to surrender was the Great Power with the 2nd lowest GDP per capita: Austria-Hungary. Which gave up a year later.
And after her did Germany give up. And the last man standing was Britain which was the richest country in this club.
Another trend one can see is that developed countries with a high GDP per capita are usually better at resource mobilization. Rich countries like USA, Britain and Germany could afford to plow down 80% of their GDP into military spending. But for a poor country like Italy, Japan and Russia this is not really possible - a more realistic number for such poor countries would be 40% or perhaps 60% at most. At least for not a long period of time.
America was probably the best historical example of how a perfect resource mobilization should be made.
Their military expanded from a few thousand men into a gigantic machine with 12 million men in uniform - and they could probably have expanded their military even more if they had wanted too, but since it was quite clear already in late 1943 that the Axis was losing the war did they start to demobilize their military and cut down wartime production already by then!
USA produced more military aircrafts than the rest of the world combined. And it spammed out liberty ships, warships and army weapons, oil and enough food to feed not just its own army and civilian population but also that of USSR.
All this production wonder was possible thanks to much mechanization. Tractors could be used to increase agricultural production while at the same time fewer farmers were needed. American industry used more machines and tools than other countries so the output produced for each worker was therefore much higher than that of other countries.
So once again could they produce more stuff than other countries and with less workers.
German industry was very ineffiecent in this regard... its agriculture both lacked tractors and fertilizer, and it lacked machinery in industry. It did instead rely on skilled workers. While American production had been dumbed down so that unskilled workers - like women easily could do the job of spamming out parts from a machine - parts which later on could be assembled into a tank or airplane.
This was an old American tradition. In the late 1800s did America get many immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe that could not understand English language, so simple jobs done with machines that any idiot could handle was an art the Americans were masters at in the 1940s.
Poor countries could not afford tractors and machines. War was expensive enough and having to use steel to build tractors in the middle of the war would probably have angered many Generals. It was not possible to replace farmers with tractors, so if you did move a farmer away from his farm and put in uniform - then you would get lose food produced, and food shortages would create inflation and starvation.
You could not take a miner and put him in uniform, because then your industry would stop as there would not be enough coal or iron to keep to keep things running. And you could not take an industrial worker and put him in an amy uniform either without it leading to fewer weapons being built or repaired.
So poor countries have fewer options.
It is remarkable that Russia did not collapse in WW2. But that was probably only thanks to the Russian government had stockpiled mountains of resources before the war... but in late 1942 they began to run out. But then did the war start to go badly for Germany and southern Russia could be liberated and lend lease help began to arrive so the strangle hold on the Russian economy could be reliefed.
Japan did also do more impressive than one could expect - it was also like Russia able to spend 80% of its GDP on the war for a short period of time - which is not normal for poor countries like these.
But that was only in 1944 Japan did this in her last fanatical attempt to win the war... but then soon resource shortages put a stop to this insanity.
Japan never really industrialized. Its dilemma of the 1930s was always - produce more military stuff for the war in China? or produce goods to export to America so machinery could be imported so Japan could industrialize?
With the embargo by USA was the policy of exports closed down. And Japan went to war and in record time conquered the most resource rich area in the world in record time - South East Asia had oil, coal, aluminum, copper, rice, cotton, sugar, rubber.. everything. But Japan did not have enough ships to transport all plunder back to Japan. So the cargo was stuck in their home countries and left to rotten to no use to anyone.
And this problem only got worse and worse and American uboats sank ship after ship. So Japan then never got the resources to win an industrial war anyways.
Italy failed in its war effort. Much thanks to its lack of oil. And it Military spending never reached more than 60% of GDP.
Germany was probably the biggest dissapointment in this war. It was only in late 1943 and in 1944 that her spending took off. And very late into the war did she learn some basics in mass production - but it was too little too late.
And murdering jewish workers did probably not help. In 1942 did the Axis powers have a land mass of conquered territory almost equal to that of the allies in numbers of people living under Axis control, and the Axis lands GDP was almost equal to that of the allies.
But the Axis failed to exploit this oppurtunity to win the war. And its ineffiecent war production was one major reason why it lost. Germany did do a bad job of producing weapons. As a rich country it did punch below its own weight. While the same could not be said about Britain and USA. Even poor Russia managed to outproduce Germany.
Most of the blame of Germanys poor performance should probably be blamed on Germanys decision to start a total war in 1941, without being ready for mass production until late 1943. It could not have started mass producing weapons earlier however, since about 25% of the GDP was spent on building new factories and workers, steel and concrete had to go to those projects and could not be used to build guns instead.
And when those factories finally was ready, then the war had already been lost. It was too late to recover from the mistakes done at Midway, Stalingrad, El-Alamein, Tunisia, Guadacanal and the lost battle of the Atlantic. Germany was fighting a 5 front war in west, south, east and land and sea and it was unlikely that it could turn the tide by late 1943.
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I think we are very different countries. But I would say that I like and admire Poland in many ways.
They value independence and do not sell out their own country for a bag a peanuts, like Sweden does in the EU. They are not naive when it comes to immigration.
Sweden have been a country under freedom and long times of peace. While Poland have been the doormat of Europe with its hostile neighbours in all directions. The dark history of Poland makes any horror movie looklike a rosy childrens fairytale by comparison, with all the grimdark horrible things during the Holocaust, the Deluge, the Katyn massacre and long list of foreign invasions.
Sweden is unreligious today. While Polands hold Catholicism very dear, perhaps as it was a last thing to cling on to as the country was occupied by neighbours that wished to wipe out the Polish culture and national identity.
Sweden was a country of free farmers and the main exports were shipbuilding materials such as timber, tar and rope and cannons, iron, and copper.
While Poland was a country under serfdom that sold food to England and the Netherlands.
Today is Poland a low wage country with a hardworking population, while Sweden economic policy of the 1900s has been high wages and a strong welfare state. The high wages makes it more profitable to replace expensive workers with machines - which makes the Swedish economy high tech. And the abundance of cheap electricity from hydroelectric powerplants and nuclear plants gave Swedish industry low production costs to help Swedish products compete out in the world and it allowed high wages for Swedish workers.
Poland is a country of pork, potatoes and vodka.
While Sweden is a country that do not drink much alcohol aside from perhaps beer. IKEA meatballs are cheap and delicious, but I would prefer eating wild animals from northern Sweden with its large forrests filled with moose and reeinder.
A French or Italian might prefer their own cuisuine. However when it comes to candy, snacks and sugary drinks is Sweden the best in the world. USA got 33 times more people than Sweden, and yet it does get outclassed in this area.
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@pawekobylinski4634
I see nobles as a bunch of men who put self-interest before national interest. A class of useless parasites.
When you let nobles opress their farmers and steal all their hard work and underpay them and put all the gains in their own pocket then of course will the economy not prosper. You will have a stagnant economy like in Rome.
For industrialization you need mass consumption in order to get mass production.
And if you plunder all farmers so they cannot afford to buy anything, then of course you will kill all industries like in Rome. The furniture factories close down. Same with textiles for clothes, pottery for storing food, beer and so on.
The only few tiny parts of the economy can prosper when a small group of rich people holds all the money in a country. Like a few stores making luxury products like jewelry and wine. While Romes balance of trade became bad as they imported massive amounts of purple silk.
And the same is true for today. If you let bankers and landlords steal the wages of all the workers in a country, then what money will make your industry survive?
Who will be able to buy home electronics, toys, and food from a resturant? You will kill those jobs. And the government will get less tax revenues and having to feed the poor. I see this as a bad thing.
While the nobles sees this as a good thing. If people get unemployed, then more people compete for the jobs and press down the wages so they can keep even more of the profits and not sharing it with the workers.
You can the give the nobles even more power. The government with its falling tax revenues gets forced to sell out parts of it - to the same people who caused the problem.
Roads gets sold to rich people. And then they put a tollbooth on the road so you now have to pay money every time you drive on it. And those extra costs will make it more and more unprofitable to run a small buisness.
So people give up, workers are fired and become unemployed while the government gets less tax revenues.
So in my point of view is it important for every country to keep this class of rich people in check.
They should never be allowed to get rich on other peoples expense. Had I lived back in the 1700s then would my goal be to keep land rents low at a minimum. And if I live today would my economic policy be to opress bankers, landlords and capitalists. While workers/Consumers are the job creators I wanna help.
Your consumtion is the profit that keeps a buisness alive and makes it possible for it to expand and hire workers.
When Western Europe had the black death was nobles forced allow their workers higher wages or else they would pick to work for someone else. So the wages went up and the profits for landlords went down.
Higher wages led to more consumption. People could now afford to buy furniture and clothes and the industry in the cities began to flourish like never before. Peoples standard of living increased. And as industrialization took place did technological development speed up. Because when you got mass consumption and need to produce massive amounts of stuff, then it can be smart to invest in new modern machines that makes it easier and cheaper to make stuff.
If you are just going to make your own chair you can use your own hammer and saw.
But if you are going to sell tens of thousands of chairs, then maybe it would be smarter to let a windmill or a water wheel cut the timber for you. It would not make sense to buy an expensive windmill to only make one or two chairs, but when you start making large amounts of stuff it makes sense to invest in expensive machinery.
So that is my leftwing view on things. And my explanation why France, Austria, Poland, Spain and Russia underperformed in the 1500s to year 1900. The Ottoman empire also stagnated because of tax farming and such crap that allowed the rich to opress the poor.
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@alexanderrose1556 "nationalism (the cancer of all politics"
Nothing wrong with nationalism. I much prefer that over the fascist globalism we have today. The world was in many ways better 30 years ago than what it is today with EU destroying one freedom after another - spying on its citizens, censoring freedom of speech, removing the right for people to decide over their own body, etc.
I can say that I only hold all Europhiles and "world citizens" in utter contempt. They are traitors to their own countries and traitors against democracy.
We can look at globalist ideologies that have murdered far more people than nationalism: Islam, Communism, neoliberalism, Christianity.
Personally I do think its very doubtful if the crimes of nazism deserves to be assigned to nationalism, since their ideology was a hybrid that also included fascism, socialism, social-darwinism, and possibly some inherited christian hatred of the jews from Luther and the catholic crusades.
I see nothing wrong in celebrating a countrys own culture and history. And nationalism was also one of the main driving forces for creation of democracy in the 1800s. And nationalism drove liberation movements in the 3rd world against western explotation. And patriotism was probably the most important source of motivation why allied soldiers took up arms against Hitler. Few people did risk their lives for Stalin, Communism, and such.. and the mass gassings of the holocaust only began in 1942 - 3 years after the war had began. And most people back then knew almost nothing about what happened in Germany's 6 top secret murder camps inside Poland.
So once again, the patriotism was the main motivation why allied troops fought against Hitler.
So it is nationalism we have to thank for bringing an end to Hitlers terror.
Like it or not, but it is thanks to men who fought for mother Russia, uncle Sam, Polands independence and so on which brought an end to Hitlers reich. And I'm not even taking anything away from Jews who just fought for their own survival or French Communists who simply just hated nazis. All I'm saying is that patriotism was probably the most important thing for most soldiers. Hitler had declared war on Russia and declared war on USA, and dropped bombs on England... so now soldiers had to go out and defend their country.
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