Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "SandRhoman History" channel.

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  2. Russia have always been poor, authoritarian and a little bit barbaric. This was very much true in the 1600s. Even the poor Finland (the poorest and most underdeveloped part of the Swedish empire) was much richer than Russia on the other side of the border and often even got a few economic migrants from Russia for that reason since a few seeked a better life in the west. When it comes to religious tolerance I think that things are a bit more complicated. Protestant Bohemia (Czech Republic) did produce the hussites and they did start the 30 years war by throwing out people from a window. Catholic Austria tried to force their religion down the throats of protestant Germans with war. And Austrians did lile religious persecution - a tradition they kept into the 1900s, as an Austrian man with a little mustache did his thing. And 90% of death camp commendants were Austrians. The wars between Russia and Sweden was always nasty affairs with war crimes on both sides. Part of this could of course have to do with religion and the backwards barbarity of Russia. The Swedish wars with Denmark, Germany and Poland was not as brutal. And the fighting in the Baltics in 1944 reminds me much of the wars Sweden had with Russia in the late 1500s up until 1721. The SS did nasty war crimes. And the Russians tortured German soldiers and then crusified them upside down and cut their bodies open so their intestines were hanging out. The Swedish crusades against Novgorod during the middle ages was probably more defensive wars than offensive ones, since Russian horsemen was usually the attackers and plunged deep into Finnish territory and murdered local Finns and burned down villages. And the Swedish Kings felt forced to act on behalf of their subjects who were terrorized by Orthodox riders. And with the hope expanding Swedish territory, gaining loot and spreading catholicism did Swedish Kings launch large military operations known as crusades.
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  4.  @notalecguinness3221  Without a strong Swedish core units, swedish organisation and leadership from swedens best generals would the protestant cause have been doomed without sweden. Brandenburg and Saxony wanted to give up and get peace, while sweden wanted to keep the war going until victory. Sweden could muster more manpower if it wanted to, but it rather kept its troops guarding the border to russia, and letting mercenaries dying on the field of battle instead. This was a way to trying to keep swedish losses low to not get public opinion against the war. The role of french subsidies have been greatly exagerated - so much so that I would call it an outright lie when dumbs like Duran claims that most of the Swedish war effort was paid for by France. French subsidies covered more like 20% of Swedens war time costs at most. And for many years of this war did the French not pay Sweden any money at all. The German contributions were more important than the french. However they were more unreliable than the Swedish homelands contribution to its army. Also in the late 1500s and early 1600s did Sweden build the largest navy in Europe measured in the number of ships. And many of the Swedish ships were also the biggest and most powerful in Europe, such as Mars (aka Makalös), Vasa, and Kronan. And the Swedish army had a standing army of 125.000 men during the Great Northern War. And this was a force nearly only consisting of men from the Swedish core provinces including Finland. That made it one of the most powerful armies in Europe. Especially since its troops had higher quality than its enemies. So the numbers are a bit misleading to how powerful it actually was. Ass to that Sweden made two extra big waves of mobilization during the war. It was also the first country to apply the concept of total war and mobilize all of society to fight this war. Even in modern times it is difficult and nearly impossible to mobilize its economy fully for war - especially for backwards countries with a low GDP per capita.
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  5. Well little brother is a coward and he did eventually learn that he will get beaten up very often. We were better at war simply put. Denmark's constant provocations led to the war in 1643, which they lost. Denmark started the war of 1658 - which they lost and half of all Denmarks provinces fell into Swedish hands. Then they tried again in the 1680s and failed. Then they made a last attempt in the Great Northern war for in the 3rd time in a row trying to retake provinces they lost and fail. And all those wars were started when Sweden was busy fighting in other countries. Their diplomatic thinking was perhaps correct, but they underestimated the Swedish army. And they was so eager to declare war on Sweden during the deluge aka Charles the 10th Polish war, that they started the war with an army in a poor horrible shape and thought they could win. While the Swedish military was a well drilled military machine which had been in constant wars for decades and fought under Gustavus Adolphus in the 30 years war. And the result became a disaster for Denmark. Personally I would think it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Sweden played the diplomatic game in a similiar way. Like allying with the Persians and Ottomans to destroy Russia. Gustav IIIs war could have been a great success - St Petersburg laid unprotected and within grasp of Swedish forces while the Russians were fighting the turks. But then the Swedish nobility committed treason, and all officers refused to fight the war. And the succesful war turned into a loss only because the nobility was butthurt about their King not giving them enough priviligies. Anyways... if Sweden did not have the most worthless nobility in Europe. Then maybe the Baltic provinces could have been retaken in 1788 and Sweden could have become a great power again and dominated the Baltic sea.
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  6.  @XScorpionXful  I don't think it is surprising, I mean countries loves to read and talk about their military victories but not so much about depressing and humiliating defeats. To me as a Swede is it a bit funny when I listen to Norwegian military podcast, and the Norwegian wars in the 1600s and 1700s are just quickly passed over while the Napoleonic war is much more talked about. Probably because thats the only war with Sweden it did do well. The Norwegian military history is sparse.. it does not have much military glory, its more of a country of great explorers that found iceland, greenland, america... and travelled antartica. Likewise do the French love to talk about Napoleon, but the 1700s does not get much love from them. And here in Sweden is it not much written about Pomeranian war that went badly for Sweden. After 1613 have Denmarks military history only seen defeats. Torstenssons war was a disaster for Denmark, and the war of 1658 was the worst catastrophy Denmark's history - its like when Germany lost Prussia or when Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory in 1920. The Scanian war was unsuccesful in taking back all lost lands from Sweden. And likewise was the Great Northern war. The country easily got bullied into submission during the Napoleonic wars. And 1864 was it time for Denmark to get beaten up by the Prussians. And the country lost to nazi-germany in just a few hours of fighting. So from having been a great power during the viking age and medieval times and a pretty powerful Kingdom also under the Kalmar union... have Denmark faded into a tiny plot of land without much power. So I can understand if a Dane think the historical trend have been depressing. Another reason for the lack of Danish literature is probably the fact that Denmark have historically been more of a naval power, unlike its Swedish neighbour which was a land power. Like England did the strong Danish nobility probably feel more comfortable with a strong navy than an army that the King could use to supress rivals for power. And Denmarks borders in year 1520 was much different from today. Not only did Jylland and Själland need a sea connection. But so did also the connection between Denmark and Norway, Denmark and Iceland, Denmark and Gotland and Denmark and Scania, Denmark and Bornholm. And Denmarks imperialist ambitions in the Baltic sea and its attempts to take Saaremaa also required a navy. Denmark was also had a big merchant navy. And it was also the most succesful colonial power of all the countries in the Baltic sea, and its possessions in America, Africa and India needed a navy. Its navy had a much higher quality than the army, and could score many victories against the Swedes even later on. So its not much surprising that the navy gets more attention than the arm.
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  9. The catholics had been murdered everyone who was not like them - Arians, cathars, hussites, and Spain murdered jews, muslims and opressed Dutch calvinists, and catholic france murdered huguenots... So yes the Catholics waged a war of extermination against the protestants. But in Swedens case things were different. Swedens turn to protestantism was unglorious. Swedens first King - Gustav - made the country protestant only because he needed money to steal from the catholic church so he could repay loans to Lübeck he had taken during the war with Denmark. So you could say Swedens reformation had nothing to do with religious conviction. Just as King Henry VIII of England and his divorce and creation of the Anglican church had very little to do with warm religious beliefs. Even Martin Luther himself was a Catholic. His intention was never to divide up Europe and create his own church. He just wanted the Catholic church to change course a little bit and get rid of corruption and improve and turn more towards following the teachings of the Bible. And many Catholic priests agreed with him. But the break up and divorce happened anyways. Protestants will say its because the Catholics refused to get rid of corruption and reform. While Catholics say that reforms were needed, but Luthers reforms went too far, and that they did not just aim to get rid of old junk in the church, but they did also throw out good things - Luther wanted to throw out the baby with the bathwater. In the late 1500s did Sweden get a religious war with the Sigismund thing... And this despite protestants and catholics in Sweden had been trying to get along for almost a hundred years and finding some compromise. Charlex XI made the country super-protestant. Not because he was an extreme believer in protestantism. But because religion was a political weapon he could use to block Sigismund from claiming the Swedish throne. So in this religious war you could say that the protestants was the aggressors. It was Charles who tried to commit a genocide on the nobles that supported Sigismund and all the annyoing catholic clergy that also sided with him. So large amounts of noblemen and priests had to flee to Poland once Charles took power over Sweden. And Sweden introduced a law that made it a crime for a Swede to be a catholic, and the punishment was death. Some ignorant Swedish historian say this is an evidence that Sweden was a crazy protestant religious theocracy. But that is not true. This ban had more to do with the protestant Swedish King Charles power struggle with the catholic King Sigismund of Poland.
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  10.  @somedude5951  "In fact, Catholicism is still prohibited in the British parliament today." If for say the Swedish monarch would break Swedish law by changing his religion, then I think that the Swedish law would lose. Politically correct politicians would think it would be the most extremely important thing in the world to change that law as soon as possible. And even if they for some reason refused, then would the media and the general public demand that this stupid law would be abolished. - And so it would. So its not like it is dangerous for a Catholic to travel ot England, Sweden or the Netherlands today. I think laws are still on the books only because law makers are too lazy to remove them. "King Henry VIII of England had a lot of interest in theology" Well he didn't exactly live like God's best child, so to speak with his 6 wives and his habit of beheading them. "Martin Luther" Luther also changed his views on the Communist peasant rabble that claimed to follow him. He despised them. And rightfully so. Luther himself murdered a man in a duel while he was an university student and he felt much psychological pain after that. So the man was not behaving like a saint. "This "divided the church" is nonsense." That is not how Luther and many Kings looked at it. John III of Sweden sincerly wanted to create a middle of the road church that both Catholics and Lutherans could accept. Just as many Catholic and Orthodox christians wished to unify christianity again. "Benito Mussolini, Joseph Mengele, Pol Pot, Francesco Franco, Adolph Hitler, and many more like that. Catholic power today is greater than ever, and Hitler has never been excommunicated." True. But protestant christianity is hardly free from mass murders either. It have Cromwell who killed Irish. You can say that Charles IX was something like Swedens Cromwell - he fought a civil war and afterwards he murdered the pro-Sigismund Catholic nobility in Linköpings bloodbath. And afterwards he instated a military dictatorship with religious fundamentalist principles. And the Anabaptists reign of terror in Münster was pretty awful even by the standards of the 1500s German civil war - which you can hear about in an episode by Dan Carlin. And just like many popes were perverts, pedophiles, decadent, gambled, and were corrupt and wasteful... can the same be said about many reformers. Luther as I said was an anti-semite who killed a man in duel. John Knox is said to have been a real motherf*cher. And Jan van Leiden was a sexually obsessed pervert and massivly decadent, bloodthirsty and enjoying torture. Southern Europe would go however go more full reé-tard than the north in religious matters. Spain shot themselves in the foot by kicking out all muslims and jews - and those talented people sought refuge in protestant countries - like Spinoza's family who fled to the Netherlands or the family of the economist David Ricardo who fled to England. And Prussia would save French huguenots from murder and prosecution. France and Spain lost some of their most highly educated people, while north European protestant countries benefitted from taking in those entreprenorial skilled people. Many Waloons from Belgium also moved to Sweden to escape religious opression from Spain. So if the Catholics had been more tolerant towards other religions, then they would have kept protestant Europe poorer, while the Catholic countries would have kept their most talented workforce. And controlling the Indian ocean would probably have been easier if the Portugease had not over-extended themselves by declaring war on anyone who wasn't a fanatical catholic. They managed to make themselves enemies with everyone: muslims, protestants, hindus, arabs, europeans, indians.. and sure the Portugease were great sailors and had modern ships that could sink enemies at far distance. But even superior quality would not be enough for a country with a million people... if you are going to fight a world war with everyone who have the wrong religion. They made themselves too many enemies. And while Spains crusader spirit perhaps helped to drag the country into exploring America, it also hampered the country by dragging the country into religious wars, and making educated people flee the country. And the Netherlands began to revolt against religious opression and demand independence. Had Spain not tried to tax the Netherlands and force catholicism upon them, then they would likely have been happy to stay under Spanish rule and undisturbed making lots of money from trade in the Baltics.
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  11. Sounds like the "Age of liberty" in Sweden. The power of the King was strongly limited. It was also a nobleman democracy. Foreign powers also bribed the political parties. Foreign powers played the game to keep this system in place so that Sweden would remain weak and dysfunctional. The Swedish speaking nobility in Finland began lusting for Finland to break off from the country and become independent or fall under Russian rule instead. The Spanish empire had some of the same problems too. Only Castile paid taxes, which is of course absurd when you see that not just Castile but also all of Spain needed military protection, and so did Italy, North Africa, South America, Belgium, the Netherlands and other places of the empire. The nobles in the rest of the empire refused to pay their fair share. And the King backed down from confrontation, the wars was not so costly to begin with and American gold could pay for them. But then more and more wars was started. And war debts grew. And the gold and silver was not enough to cover the costs. So King was forced to raise taxes to avoid bankruptcy. Holland hated taxes and religious opression so they declared independence. And a war in Holland sucked more money. Taxes had to increase even more. But the nobility in Italy and Spain refused to pay anything unless they got more independence from Spain. So Spain fought wars on foreign countries, Holland and Portugal declared independence. The economic problems were huge and parts of the Kingdom became more and more independent from Spain in exchange for the right to Spain to tax those lands. And finally was the Spanish monarchy as weak as it was before the empire was created. Also France, Denmark and the Austro-Hungrian empire was left dysfunctional because of their strong nobility. Denmarks nobility refused to pay taxes or to let their farmers join the army. So Denmark could therefore not build a professional standing army. And that made them instead rely on mercenaries which in the long run gave them an army less effective than that of other countries which had a standing army (like Spain and Sweden). So the country got badly beaten in some wars with its neighbours. And once the country had learned its lesson and forced the nobility to loosen their grip, then it was already too late. Half of the country's provinces had already been lost to foreign powers. One country would however have serfdom and remain succesful - and that was Russia. A country where the nobility was so strong that it would be more fair to call people slaves instead of serfs. The country would however remain much backwards in the 1800s and 1900s.
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  15.  @Jauhl1  "Sweden's history is hardly unknown, if you aren't referring to pre-christian times." It is. Unless you count Adam of Bremen and Olof Rudbeck and such people as credible sources... personally I think that is just all fiction, fantasy and mythology crap. So we do not know much about Sweden's first Kings. So talking about the founding of Sweden is a bit like talking about Romulus and Rhea founding Rome. Believe it if you want. Personally I don't think we know much when Sweden was founded. And that is why I say we know very little about Swedens early history. "The nobility in Sweden was always quite weak" Relativly weak compared to other countries. But none the less have they been the ones that have steered much of the development of this country up until the 1800s. Only possibly the Kings have held more power. The country was poor so the nobility was therefore also poor. The many forrests provided excellent terrain for defensive warfare of peasants while nobility cavalry would be vulnerable in such terrain. So it was therefore had to establish a strong nobility. And the many genocides on the nobility would then help keeping them in check for the most part up until 1721.. when they took over the country and mismanaged it for a hundred years. "Saying that "Sweden fell under Danish rule" during the Kalmar union is incorrect." The centre of power in this union was Denmark. The Kings and Queens was from Denmark. It is therefore not wrong to say that Sweden was ruled from Denmark. "and Danes were for example was forbidden from holding office in Sweden." Not according to all Swedes favorite historian - Herman Lindqvist. This was the main reason why the Swedish nobility was upset with the Danish rule. The Danish King tried to solve the problem of Swedish nobles revolting against Denmark with making a genocide on them. Unfortunatly for him it did not solve the problem of anti-Danish revolts. And a Danish military conquest of Sweden was a too difficult project even when Denmark was a Great Power. Swedens forrests provided excellent defensive terrain and places for ambushes. So a long lasting military occupation of Sweden was never a realistic option. If I was Christian I would have thrown the Swedish nobles a bone so they would shut the f*ck up and not revolt. And then I would try to Danishfy the country in a slow piecemeal fashion. You can not eat an elephant in just one bite. You have to eat it up piece by piece. "On several occasions the king was deposed." That proves nothing. I see that as miscontent within the ruling class rather than as a nationalist uprising. The peasants in Finland often rose up against the opression by the nobles, then it had everything to do with mistreatment, unfairness, and economic exploitation. But none of these revolts had any nationalist liberation as a cause. They were just concerned with how the nobles treated them. And in the same way was the Swedish nobles dissapointed in the Danish King, and their revolts had very little to do with romantic visions of saving Sweden.
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