Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "The Swedish Empire | Animated History" video.

  1. If Sweden had such a big army at Poltava it would probably have won the Northern war. Charles only had about 40.000 men during his Russian campaign. Sweden is not a country like Russia that can sacrifice 200.000 men per year and still win a war at the end. Charles army was the biggest and most well equiped - and trained army in Swedish history. But even with all efforts of absolutist monarch and a military state and the most effiecent buraucracy in Europe it would be able to field an army even half the size of other great powers like France, Austria, Russia or the Ottoman empire. It is rather surprising how big and might the Swedish empire could become despite its limited resources (for example did Charles enemies did have 40 times more manpower than he did). And it nearly won at Poltava - and that could have perhaps have encouraged Ukrainian cossacks and Ottomans to join Charles in his war against Russia, while a big military defeat at Poltava could have created further dissatisfaction with Peter unpopular rule. Peters western reforms was unpopular. And blodshed and war taxes would just encouraged revolts even further to de-throne Peter, and who knows what Russia then would looklike today? None the less do I think that Swedens imperial glory would have been fading away even with a victory in the Great Northern war. Even with all conquered lands and huge Polish puppet state do I think that Sweden didn't have enough silver and blood to defend this huge empire that many wanted a piece of. Prussia, and Austria was still powerful enemies. Russia and Denmark was not so serious threats in their own right, but these countries was by no means small compared to Sweden and were therefore threats that couldn't be ignored. They were latent enemies that would join military alliances with Swedens enemies and attack Sweden whenever they saw a weak monarch on the Swedish throne. Nor did Sweden have much of an overseas empire besides a few plots of land in Africa, west indies and North America. And the GDP per capita was one of the lowest in western Europe. And the Swedish navy was not necessarily bad, but it was always out of luck and would never produce a single great maritime victory before the battle of Svensksund in 1790. The only major strenghts of this empire was its good buraucracy, modern army and tactics, its mines (Russia and Sweden did togheter produce more than 90% of all iron in Europe) so Sweden had some military advantages thanks to its iron industry. And it had some diplomatic and propagandistic strengts too, as the home of Gustavus - the defender and saint of all protestant nations and the formidable Swedish army. Sweden was a poor country. It never built any Versaille palaces like France, produced music like Vienna or was a commercial hub with Dutch paintings like Amsterdam. Sweden was a poor country made up of peasants, and the country was only good at two things: melting iron and making Cannons.
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  2. military music from the Great Northern war Swedish: No. 8, Grenadieur Tropp https://youtu.be/2rdxAU7JHj0 No. 10, Revaille https://youtu.be/U--rH8OJ3GE No. 6, General March https://youtu.be/mqfTlPkhiP4 No. 11, March https://youtu.be/eDkCgRH1gt8 Tappto https://youtu.be/xomZ377waWg Svea Livgardes Gamla Marsch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiCw0PduV9E Danish Den gamle danske march https://youtu.be/nmtx-luZ_cs Russian March of the Preobrazhensky Regiment https://youtu.be/7FY1NV1pBL0
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  3. But this Adolf actully won his world war and took Moscow.
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  4. He was a gambler who could have turned the country either into a great power or into a pile of burning ruins and have all lands taken over by foreign powers. I could admire his boldness and courage, but at the same time I do think that he was reckless and irresponsible with the country that he inherited by chance.
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  5. No loss. It stopped Austria from occupying Germany and pooling all Germanys resources togheter in the hands of a catholic emperor - which would have become the most powerful man in Europe. Not even France would have been strong enough to beat the German empire if that thing would have happened. And to a protestant empire with limited resources this was seen as a horrible threat - especially since the German empire was allies with Poland which was a great empire back then that had recently fought many wars against Sweden. The king of Poland was Sigismund Wasa who had Swedish royal blood in his veins and thus lawful claims to the Swedish throne, while Gustavus Adolphus was just a king who got his crown from his father who had made a rebellion against Sigismund and kicked him out of the country. So Gustavus Adolphus was therefore paranoid about the polish threat. Some say that the reason why he joined the 30 years war was because of the Austro-polish alliance, and Gustavus invasion of Russia was mostly due to his fear that Poland might take more baltic sea provinces and put a polish king on the Russian throne and then form an alliance against Sweden. So to counter this threat he invaded Russia and took Moscow and installed a Swedish king on the Russian throne and fought some battles against the Poles inside Russia. He could have kept his war going, but he ended his half-hearted war with a peace treaty that gave him multiple provinces, and most importantly of all Ingria which gave him a landbridge between Finland and Estonia to counter any potential Polish invasions. So I would say that Swedens military was quite succesful for most of the 1600s. It was seen as the best army in the world. But the empire lacked the population and the economic muscles to become this global world power in the same rank as Spain, France, the Netherlands and England.
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  6. This war were mostly defensive in nature for Swedens part. No one wanted to fight the mighty Austrian empire, but everyone realized that if they did do nothing and let the emperor take over all of Germany then he would become too powerful to defeat. So there was no other choice than to fighting him now instead of later - because in the future he would be too strong to beat. And Sweden was far from alone in feeling threatened. Denmark also joined the war against the emperor. And so did even the mighty France, despite being a catholic country with the largest population in Europe. A united Germany was a nightmare to the protestants in Europe. And a world war was fought to stop this from happening. The Spanish and the Austrian Habsburg dynasty tried to take over the world and they faced resistance in Italy, the Netherland and Northern Germany... and then would all those separate conflicts get tied into one big - just as World war1 could trace its roots back to old conflicts on the balkans and colonial rivalry between France and Germany and multiple separate conflicts. World warII is another example with the Spanish civil war and Japans wars in Asia tied into it, even if Japan officially only really joined the Axis in late 1941. I think Sweden did well in the 30 years war. And founding a north German federation of states under Swedish control was more just a dream of Gustavus than hard set military goal of his campaign. His goal was stop the emperor from Annexing Northern Germany and in that goal he was very successful. Sadly he died way too early to crush his enemy so the war dragged on for another decade. He was an irreplaceable leader with multiple talents as a statesman, general, politician, diplomat and economist. He was the best king Sweden ever had and he was one of those rare kings like Frederick the Great with a great mind.
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  7. Swedish royal anthem https://youtu.be/YcctnSMvyYk?t=36s https://youtu.be/y5_26jjDa2I
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  8. Well you are an ignorant dumbass. It managed to win wars both against Polish Lithuanian commonwealth, Russia and Austria. And Finland was taken by military conquests during the crusades against Novgorod. And Denmark was great power during the middle ages, and later on continued to be a regional great power until 1814 when Sweden took Norway from it. The Hanseatic league was also once a respectable foe to fight against. And it managed to defeat small countries as well, like Saxony which was the richest country in Europe by the early 1700s. It also managed to take Moscow - while neighter the Kaiser or Hitler managed to do that thing. So it managed its fights with her mighty neighbours. And fighting Spain and France would be pointless since they were countries far away with not much conflicting interests. France was also a Swedish ally, while the Habsburgers in Spain and Austria failed to take over the world thanks to resistance from France and the Swedish army. The Swedish army had 200.000 men during the 30 years war - which made it the most powerful military force in Europe. And according to your own logic you contradict yourself, since Germany empire shouldn't be called an empire since unlike Swedens territory in Finland, all Austrian lands were taken by royal marriages or other peaceful means - like the Netherlands, Bohemia, and Hungary.
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  9. It had been more glorious if he died on a horse though
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