Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Knowledgia"
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Pewdiepie, IKEA, vikings, Greta Thunberg, the corona strategy, ABBA, Absolut Vodka, and being a social democratic fantasy utopia for Bernie Sanders around the world is what people know Sweden of.
The Swedish establishment are ashamed of the Pirate Bay and Pewdiepie and they love Greta Thunberg and Spotify. But personally I feel the opposite way about those things.
I more think of Sweden as a great power during the 1600s and early 1700. And a country of scientists/innovators (Scheele, Linneaus, Nobel, Ericson), and country with the best snacks, candy and sugary drinks in the world (trocadero, julmust, pommac, loranga, etc).
Sweden is also the home of much rock music and Max Martin - the father of nearly all pop music in the world the last 30 years.
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I guess Denmark would soon have been eaten up by Sweden. The Kola peninsula would become Swedish. And Archangelsk would have become Russias most important port in the north. Poland would probably be swallowed by the Swedish sphere of influence. More Swedish colonies in the new world would become a thing.
Sweden would probably try to stay out of more future wars since it already had enough problems with consolidating all conquests, and integrating all new territories into the country.
Norway would probably undergo an intensive campaign to become Swedenified, like the stolen Danish provinces were.
And Finland would perhaps become next on the line.
Without wars would the empire prosper. And neighbouring countries would think twice before attacking its strong neighbour. Poland would be too weak to attack Sweden. Prussia and Russia would be too weak to attack Sweden on their own.
Swedens population (including all stolen land) would now be over 50% larger than that of the Netherlands.
But in the late 1800s would probably the cracks in the empire appear. Russians, Poles, Balts, Germans, Danes and perhaps also Finns and Norwegians would have their hearts filled with nationalism and dream about independence. And they would start seeing Sweden as an obstacle to their dreams, and therefore they would hate Sweden and try to destroy it.
Much like slavs hated the Austro-Hungrian empire, and how poles resisted their German and Russian occupants.
Sweden would become dysfunctional as a democratic state.
The Swedish minority could not stay in power under democracy, so it would have to be an opressive regime to keep minorities in their place. But if it tried to be generous to minorities, they would still remain ungrateful Sweden haters and want independence - like Norway did.
So nothing could be gained form appeasement, so the empire would probably be doomed once nationalism led to movements for independence. Civil wars could break out. And foreign powers would probably be more than willing to help independence movments to weaken Sweden and divide it up.
The days of the empire would then be numbered.
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@MrFosite
"My conclusion, the fault lies squarely on the nonsensical move to try and become a military power over an maritime one, considering resources at disposal the limitation of manpower, and a history of shipbuilding."
Your post is nonsensical.
Sweden was never a shipbuilding nation. It became one thanks to efforts from the Swedish state. And for no other reason. Before the state decided to build a navy there existed no naval tradition at all in Sweden. Germany had Lubeck, Poland had Gdansk, Denmark had Copenhagen and Sweden had nothing. No fishing industry. No large trading centre. No seamen. No ships. Nothing.
So that Sweden did get a strong navy at all should be seen as a miracle. And the only reason it got one was because it needed to be able to transport troops safely from Sweden to Finland, Germany, the Baltics or Poland and preventing Swedens enemies from transporting troops to invade Sweden.
So it was for the sake of its army it did start to build a navy and not the other way around.
And having a strong army was necessary when you are neighbour with Denmark and Russia, and are involved with dynastic struggles with Poland - which was a Great power back in the 1500 and 1600s.
And without an army would no Sweden have existed. It would be called Denmark today. And Finland would have been called Russia.
That is what would have happened if your ideas had been tried out.
"A military power requires a contentious stream of manpower which small nations cant afford"
You make the mistake of thinking that warfare in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s are the same as in modern times.
Well it isn't. Back in those old days could a small country have a much greater chance of beating a big one.
Sweden conquered Moscow, Warzaw, Prague, Germany. Would that be possible today? I highly doubt that.
The little Macedonia and the Mongols conquered gigantic plots of land with their relativly tiny population.
Prussia went from a small province with no natural resources into becoming modern day Germany, much thanks to its ability to beat many big countries at the same time in the Seven years war.
"If Swedish Empire would have gone the way the Dutch Republic did, it might have ended up overshadowing them."
The Dutch had been a part of the Spanish empire and had been shipping goods to America and the pacific. They knew all the routes to all secret new lands. While Sweden didn't.
The Dutch was an experienced maritime power that had been sailing ships during the middle ages. While Sweden was a total new comer in sailing the seas. The Netherlands had an easy access to the new world. While Swedens road to the Atlantic ocean was blocked by its enemy Denmark.
And much of its waters was frozen during the cold winters, while the milder climate allowed the Dutch to sail.
And using wind and water power to cut timber was easy when your water did not freeze into ice like it did for Sweden. And building canals is possible when you have a high population density, a rich population and not so much winter cold - but Sweden did not have that option to ship things across canals like the Dutch or British did.
So of course it could never create the same rich trade within the country.
The Netherlands were located between France, Germany and England and had perfect access to capital from all those areas and could therefore build a huge banking sector. Sweden did not have the same perfect location for becoming a banking centre of Europe. And get money and cheap loans for building large fleets.
And if one look at price levels on Swedish goods, do they usually have more in common with price levels in cities like Hamburg than they do with a Swedish city 100 kilometres away. And that is because it was easier to transport things by ships than by land. And as I said earlier, Sweden lacked good waterways like the Netherlands because of the curse of nature.
So of course it would have a harder time creating a flourishing trading empire. Its best chance rather laid with letting the army conquer cities in the Baltics and northern Germany and then continue to conquer the Polish and East German coast and turning all the coast line of the Baltic sea into Swedish territory. This the same way as Rome took over every part of the mediterranean.
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@mishaten5548
"What kind of rescue of Russia from destruction are you talking about?"
Russia had lost battle after battle against the Swedes for 9 years. It now stood alone against Sweden. Tsar Peter did have a rocky start of his rule and he made himself unpopular with his westernization reforms. The war dragged on with no victory in sight. War taxes were going up. Men were dying and victory was no closer than 9 years ago.
The country had humiliated itself internationally at Narva, and most foreigners now expected Sweden to win this war.
Another victory like Narva, and that could have been the straw that finally broke the camels back.
A Swedish victory at Poltava would have left the possibility of Ukrainians and Crimean tatars to join the Swedish army as the Russians left the Ukraine alone. And another loss could have triggered war tired Russians to either pressure the Tsar into surrender with the Swedes, or another civil war could have started as the Tsar now would be more unpopular than ever after another big defeat.
And a divided Russia could not stand up foreign aggression - just as it couldn't when Sweden took Ingria and Kexholm from Russia a hundred years earlier.
A weak Russia would also be a tempting target for its enemies - Persia and the Ottoman empire.
The Ottomans had captured the Tsar during the war - which shows that the Russian army was not this improved amazing military machine that historians claim it was after 9 years of war witht he Swedes.
"And by the way, even according to Swedish historians, the Battle of Poltava was the beginning of the end of the Swedish Empire."
Bengt Liljegren is a clownworld popular historian I have no respect for. Peter Englund's book "Poltava" contain lots of references too clown books so I cannot take all his personal opinions seriously.
I think the author Peter From is more correct in his book about the battle of Poltava when ha makes the claim that I just earlier - A Swedish victory could have sparked a revolt against Peter the Great, and thus would a civil war throw the country into chaos and the war tired Russia would had to agree to a peace that was more or less on Swedish terms.
Poltava was just a meaningless milestone in Swedish history in my opinion. You do in a typically Russian way lie and pretend that Swedens resources was depleted - which they were not. Two more armies was created. Big victories was also won at Gadebusch in 1712 and Helsingborg 1710 after the loss at Poltava.
You forget that the war dragged on for another 12 years - and this despite your Russia had multiple allies at your side Denmark, Saxony, and Poland and later on also Hanover(+England) and Brandenburg.
So no, I am not impressed by the Russian army unlike the "historians" your refer to as experts on this topic.
And even after the loss at Poltava could things have ended very differently for Sweden. The battle at Napue could have been won if the Finnish militia had not been acting like cowards and deserted instead of fighting. Then Finland would have remained in Swedish hands. Had the Swedish King not died in 1718, would Norway likely had fallen into Swedish hands since Fredriksten fortress in Southern Norway was about to surrender - and with that surrender would the door to western Norway lay open for the Swedish army. And in the North was Armfeld's army about to bring the city of Trondheim to its knees. And he was also almost able to capture the city without a fight in the autumn after the pathetic flight of the Norwegian troops from the two redoubts that guarded the road to the town.
And with the fall of Norway, would peace with Denmark be achieved on favorable terms for the Swedes.
And troops could now be freed up to retake lost territories in Germany from the weak Kingdom of Hanover,
and with a little military pressure would this be an easy win for the larger, stronger and better Swedish army.
And with diplomacy and economic pressures would England, break ties with their Hanoverian Kings foreign policy.
And without Englands backing would Hanover be forced to surrender to the Swedes.
Diplomacy had successfully played Swedens enemies out against each other. Saxony had grown suspicious of Russia and it wanted to sign a peace before Denmark, Russia, and Brandenburg left the war so it could get more favorable peace terms. At this late point of the war it was happy to surrender to the Swedes in exchange for a guarantee than Stanislaus Leczinsky should not be supported to retake the throne in Poland from Augustus the Strong. Saxony had heard rumours that the Swedish-Russian peace talks were going well, and a fear existed that Russia could agree to supporting Stanislaous.
Brandenburg had been pretty much pro-Swedish for much of the war, and could accept changing sides in the conflict - it even proposed that it would get Stettin from Sweden and inexchange would Brandenburgian troops help Sweden fight against Denmark and Hanover to get territories at those countries expense as compensation. But the stubborn Swedish King refused the idea.
So with Denmark and Hanover out of the way, would peace deals with Saxony and Brandenburg be easy.
And against Russia did Sweden have many cards to play also after Poltava. The Swedish deepwater navy remained the most powerful navy in the Baltic sea, and surprise attacks over shallow waters that deepgoing ships could not reach was all that the Russians got. Russian galleys made out of low quality junk timber were ships with no long life span.
Thanks to Görtz diplomacy of delaying peace talks that led to nowhere and only gave Sweden more time to recruit more soldiers and playing out Swedens enemies against each other had largely been succesful 1714-1718.
Enemy countries had grown suspicious of each other. Denmark and Russia could for example not come to an agreement of a combined Danish-Russian invasion of Sweden in 1716.
And England and Russia was succesfully played out against each other. No one of those countries wanted to be the last sucker to not come into a peace agreement with Sweden. So concessions had to be made. Peter could accept an alliance with Brandenburg and Sweden - but Carolus Rex could not accept any peace that included any loss of land. So the plans of Russia helping Sweden to take territories on Denmarks expense could not come into being because of the stubborness of the Swedish King.
But none of this was known to the Russians during the peace talks. The talks just led to nowhere. And the secret peace talks Russia made with Sweden made Russias military allies suspicious and hostile towards her. Just the same way as Russia became suspicious of England and her will to not let the Russians grow too powerful.
And the Swedish support for the Jacobines was used as a diplomatic tool to pressure England into surrender and joining the Swedes. If Sweden agreed to not support the Jacobines then it would be a big plus for Britain in the peace negotiations. And the fight between Tsar Peter the Great and his son Alexei was also used by Swedish diplomacy, but it acted too late to get his son to Sweden, and play him out as a card against Russia. Instead he went to Russia to see his father - which was not happy with him and his ties with the Swedes so he tortured and murdered him.
Russia was very eager to come to peace fast since the war had dragged on for a very long time, and the Russians feared a British intervention on Swedens side and that Russias allies would abandon her.
So if Denmark and Germany gave up and left Russia alone - then would Russia also have to give up pretty soon and moderate their demands, and not just give back Finland but also the Baltic provinces except St. Petersburg and parts of Ingria.
Perhaps the dogmatic Carolus Rex could not even accept those peace terms... but even if the story would end here would the Swedish empire remained almost untarnished in terms of lost territory.
But I see that Sweden had a pretty good chance of winning in the east after the conquest of Norway. The plan of Carolus rex was to ship his troops from Norway over to the Baltics and retake the harbors there in this place which was almost left unguarded by Russian troops.
And without the harbors would the Russian army be forced to leave Finland. Because Finland was a poor country that could not produce enough food to feed a Russian army of over 20,000 men. And roads on land was in poor condition, indeed almost no roads at all existed in Finland before the mid-1700s so there was no way that enough horse carriages could carry food from Russia into Finland that way.
So the Russian army would now either have to starve to death or leave Finland.
So in this way would both Finland and the Baltics go back to Sweden. And everything Sweden had lost would be as good as retaken by now. And if the Tsar was wise and realistic, then he would sue for peace by now, and accept a peace that returned to the pre-year 1700 borders.
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"Sweden tried several times to take Norway by military force every time it went wrong"
In 1716 and 1718. Aside from that was only half-assed attempts made. The struggle with Denmark over Skåne (Scania) was a much more important front. Norway was not as important. Not strategically, not economically, and it did not have a large manpower pool either. To this day its still the Nordic country with the smallest population.
In the early 1700s its main incomes came from timber and fish, so it was not that economically important. Trondheim had 2000 inhabitants - which doesn't make this town much larger than an average sized village today.
Norways importance rather came from being a diplomatic pond in a game with Denmark. If Norway was taken, then would Denmark be forced to be making peace with Sweden on generous terms. And territorial gains was just a bonus. And it would of course be nice if Norway did not threaten Göteborg - Swedens window towards the west. A harbor which could not be blocked by the Danes or the sound toll.
Otherwise did the Norwegian military not pose a great threat to Sweden. At least not its army.
Its captain Tordenskiold however, does however deserve respect for his bold raids that did cause much problems for Swedish shipping. A true naval hero. But even his large contributions to the war effort was not enough to change the larger strategic situation, except for one occasion - when his victory at Dynekilen ended all hopes of a Swedish conquest of Norway in 1716 when all supply ships were sunk so the Swedish army was forced to go back home to Sweden again.
"Sweden never managed to occupy Norway."
It had a union with Norway. And the 1718 was about to succed bringing down Norway to its knees. Fredrikstens fortress was only 1 week away from surrendering. And when that happened, then the road to Kristiania laid open, and the door to western Norway laid open for the numerically and qualitative superior Swedish army.
Also in the north had tides changed. Trondheims was under siege and running out of supplies, while the Swedish army began to get supplies as the weather finally had changed and turning the tides on the northern front.
If you would give me a time machine, and let me gamble over 1000 Euros, then I would say that Norway's defences would likely fail both in the north and south if the Swedish King had not died and the invasion of Norway had been aborted.
"During attacks on Norway, Sweden was drained of soldiers and resources."
The 1716 invasion did not cause any losses at all. And the 1718 invasion was not important either from a Swedish perspective. The Swedes nearly captured Trondheim in the autumn, but rain and floods prevented the Swedish army from crossing a river and going into the city. The Norwegian army was in a pathetic shape. They lost two fortresses along the way from Jemtland to Trondheim. The Norwegian troops fled and gave up almost without a fight, and the Swedish victory came at the price of only 1 man dead. While Norwegian losses was far higher.
Norway was as always a relativly peaceful country, while the Swedish army consisted of battle hardned veterans from fighting all over Europe the last 20 years. So unsurprisingly was the Swedish army better, and the Norwegians gave their enemy much respect for that reason. Perhaps even too much respect and caution, since they did not even put up a fight when they had excellent defensive positions.
Not much fighting happened in the north. But half of the Swedish army had to return home because the men became undernourished and sick. And when the war was over did the troops try to return home, but got caught in a snow storm that killed 3000 men. More men died from snow and cold than from all fighting with Norwegian troops. A perhaps a tragic fate for Jemtland which lost all its young male population. But it was not a big deal for the country as a whole.
The battle of Lund in 1676 killed almost twice as much Swedish troops as a comparison. Sweden lost nearly 50.000 men and women, soldiers and civilians at Poltava and Perevolotjna. So the losses against Norway was tiny by comparison.
"Charles XII of Sweden died in Norway"
Pure luck or misfortune depending on how you look at it.
It could just as well have happened earlier or later.
He was a man who was leading his men in the frontline. He was shot in the foot in Ukraine. And before that he was also under fire multiple times. He spent his 18th birthday on board a ship that sailed away to invade Denmark. And as soon as he landed on the Danish beach at Humlebæk he came under enemy fire.
He asked a major general what the whistling sounds around him was, and got the reply that it was enemy soldiers firing.
And Charles responded: "Good, this will hencefourth become my music". And just as he had said that, then a bullet flied past just next to his shoulder and hit one Lieutenant who died instantly.
Now Charles happened to die in Norway. Probably because of random Norwegian artillery shot that was fired in the dark and the Norwegian troops probably had no idea that they had managed to kill the Swedish King.
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USA only have one culture - and that is American culture. And I don't think it is much multi-ethnic either since everyone speaks the same language and have the same values, traditions and follow the same laws - with the Spanish-speaking minority as an exception, because for some strange reason do they seem unable to learn another language like everyone else..
People might be blacks, asians, caucasian, or native americans. But they are all english speakers and consider themselves to be Americans first and foremost.
Problems will always be involved with multi-culturalism as I sees it. Should torturing animals, marrying children, mutilating kids, and stoning gays, jews and atheists be legal?
If two groups in a society have very strong different view on those issues regarding moral values, laws and traditions you will be unable to make a compromise that make both sides happy. So you get a cultural clash, and mutual hatred between the two groups.
Dividing up the country could be a good idea so each half of the country can have the laws that they wish. But if you have to share your country with a people you despise, then you will have a cultural clash and perhaps even a civil war.
So multiculturalism is never a good thing.
Multiculturalism is much more than just eating pizza, noodles, fish&chips, hamburgers, and falafel.
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@erodinspikewing6917
I think there is a big difference between a soldier and a hunter. And I think there is a big difference between a hunter and a guy who has never hold a rifle before in his life. There are lots of different skill levels in handling weapons, and also in knowledge how to behave in combat on a battlefield. How you should form a formation in battle, how you should behave in urban combat without getting yourself killed, etc.
Not much is known about the leidung among historians, and how it was designed and so on. However the impression I get is that a fleet was set up for a short military campaign. And as soon as it was over was the fleet disbanded and fighters returned to their homes.
The problem as I sees it with such a system is that the fleet stops to exist. All knowledge gained in battle is soon forgotten as the fleet is gone and the men who did the fighting have gotten old and died.
This is why there was a big improvement when we one decided that we should also keep our navy in times of peace. And that we should draw lessons from the wars we have fought, and see what worked well, and what worked bad and what changes do we need to do to improve our navy so we can be more succesful in the next war? Changes to our tactics? changes to our weapons? Better routines on our ships? Better training?
So I think there is a big difference between a navy, and some guys jumping into a boat driving off to a foreign land to plunder just for fun without any standardized military training, tactics or anything.
Its like comparing a soldier to a hunter. Soldiers will normally be much more effective in combat.
The difference between professional and unprofessional armies might have been small in Scandinavia in the 1500s. But what made Sweden such a powerful war machine on the battlefields of the 1600s and early 1700s was that we had driven our professionalism to our armies further than any other country in the world.
Poland was country of winged hussars, brave knights in shining armor with enormous personal courage and iniative. But they lacked team spirit and well organized tactics. Sweden on the other hand lacked any glorious chivalry in their warfare. When you looked at the Swedish army over a battlefield of the 1600s you rather saw large formations of men moving in formation. It was like watching a big machine moving over the battlefield when you saw a big column of men swallowing polish knights in a very methodical and organized way with tactics organized into perfection.
Sweden enemy Denmark also lacked the Swedish armys professionalism. And for most part it worked for them. In the wars of the 1500s was Denmark richer and stronger than Sweden. They laid close to Germany and had lots of money and could buy German mercenaries, which easily did cut Swedish farmers with no military training into pieces. Swedish troops were cheaper and could be effective in ambushes in forests, but overall were our troops inferior. Unless the war was long and lasted for years because then it was too costly to keep the mercenary troops, because they were much more expensive to use than giving farmboys a weapon.
Denmark won victories, but they learned nothing from them. Because as soon as the war was over was all mercenary regiments disbanded, and all Danish farmers was sent home.
Sweden on the other hand learned from their mistakes. The worst defeat in Swedish military history was the battle of Kirchholm in 1605 where a large Swedish force despite enormous numerical advantage got totally crushed by a tiny Polish force. This disaster was a wake up call to Sweden that many improvements to the Swedish military had to be done. And everything was improved, training, organisation, tactics everything.
So the next wars we fought we improved our army even more, and in the next even more. And soon did we have a very combat experienced army and the best military machinery in northern Europe.
So the next time Denmark would face Swedish troops we did kick their asses and in two wars was had Denmark been dealt catastrophic defeats. Denmark was 100 years behind Sweden in organisation because they had been lazy and relied on mercenaries to win their wars instead of trying to build an army for both times of peace and war with could bring knowledge, skills, tips and tricks further from one generation of soldiers to the next. From father to son.
So therefore did Denmark always start their wars with no knowledge at all about tactics and such and made the same stupid mistakes as in previous wars. And while the Swedish soldiers had been training togheter for years and the men know each other since they came from the same town or village and had a great team spirit - could the same not be said about Denmarks troops. Denmark hired German men to fight for them and forced some Danish farmboys to become soldiers and all those men were now just thrown togheter into the same regiment, and none of these men knew each other before, they had not been training togheter with each other before the war... so of course their manouvers on the battlefield was always a bit more clumsier, less diciplined and the men did not have the same willingness to fight and die for the rest of the men in their own company as the Swedish troops.
The Swedish troops had been friends with each other for years, while the men in the Danish regiments barely knew each other.
And when it comes to navies do I likewise think there is hell of a difference between a professional navy that uses experienced seamen who spent 10-20 years at sea (like the Dutch or Danish navies) and a navy that uses mostly land based peasant with little or no maritime experience at all (like the Swedish navy of the 1500s and 1600s).
And I also think there is a big difference between the permanent navy Gustav Vasa created, and the viking fleets that was used for small military missions that might last a few months or years and then was disbanded.
Gustav Vasas navy of the 1500s often used farmboys on galley ships. Such ships used much manpower. But on the other hand was peasants cheap compared to experienced professionals. And using galley ships was excellent for the shallow waters around Stockholm, Finland and russia where big ships could not sail without a risk of getting stuck or sink. And sometimes it was also an advantage to use oars.
Later on would Sweden build some of the biggest battleships in Europe with much firepower such as Mars, and very much technological cutting edge. But despite that was it extremely uncommon that ships tried to fight each other with cannons and sink the other ship. Usually did ships fire the cannons on each other and then did men try to rush over to the other ship with swords and pistols and trying to take it over.
Because it was funnier to steal an enemy ship than to sink it.
And sinking an enemy ship was usually very difficult back then. Cannons had a very bad range... probably with an accuracy of less than 300 meters. and a big ship made out of wood do usually not want to sink quickly in the first place.
It was not until the late 1600s it started to become common to try to sink enemy ships with guns. And by then had the Swedish navy become much more professional.
However before then was there not much difference between a sea battle and a land battle. As ships were filled with many hundreds of soldiers from the army that was used for trying to take over the enemy ships.
"The general agreement among historians that Sweden had far superior naval forces to Poland and Germany"
Nope. Had you asked someone to rank the best navies in the baltic sea in year 1520 when Sweden became indepedent I think they would rank Lübeck as number 1 best. Denmark as no 2. Poland with its rich big cities that made Stockholm looklike a village by comparison as number 3.
Some serious attempts were also later on made to build a navy by poland during the wars King Sigismund waged against Gustavus Adolphus. And there was a big fear that the Spanish navy would come and help catholic Poland invade Sweden. And to combat this threat was the ship Vasa build along with other warships.
Poland was a rich superpower back in those days and culturually, economically and technologically superior
to Sweden in almost every way.
And after the defeat at Kirchholm in 1605 was it probably few people who believed that Sweden would ever become a great power.
"Also, the point about the English and Dutch navies is blatantly false"
Sweden did not exactly sail to America or the pacific on a regular basis like those fleets did, so of course we did have less experience. And even if the Swedish merchant navy was impressivly strong by the late 1600s during Swedens height of its power, would I still say that 1000, 2000 or maybe 3000 merchant ships in the Swedish merchant marine is quite a tiny number compared to the 28.000 ships strong Dutch merchant navy of the same time.
When the Great Northern War began did Charles XII have an impressive fleet of 49 warships. However that should be compared to 172 British warships and 118 Dutch ships. With navies with sailors that were more experienced than ours.
One could of course make a few advantages out of the Swedish system, like it was fast and easy to mobilize Swedish sailors and quickly make them ready for battle while for Denmark you first had to transport them from Norway to Denmark and then put them on a ship before the Swedish navy cut off the communications between Norway and Denmark.
Sweden also had an uniqely good access to building materials for its navy. And Swedish warships were often very well maintained and could often last for many decades. There are for example ships that Gustaf III built that remained in service for 80 years! I think it is extremely rare that ships lasted anywhere near that long in other navies. Especially in the russian navy that use spruce trees for their ships instead of oak - which resultet in extremely poor quality ships.
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"Basically serbian propaganda"
Nope. I think he tries to be neutral. As a westerner the knowledge of this topic is limited and thus most people prefer a neutral stance. And you take neutrality as being pro-serbia, which is not. I personally blame Serbia for the war and sugarcoat things less. But nevertheless do I understand why people carefully avoid strong statements on this. Its not easy to access good information here in the west.
"I am sick and tired of foreigners patronizing the Balkan nations"
Its easy for us who are done with our state building process to look down on other parts of the world which have not come as far. I can see why people want independence. The EU have made me realize that independence and democracy for my country cannot be taken for granted.
I do endorse civic nationalism.
But ethno-nationalism is something I mostly only got negative feelings about... black lives matter in USA and muslims in Western Europe only cause hatred and divide. They put their own groups self-interest above the interest of their country. So I only got contempt for this movement.
But if foreigners and racial minorities act loyal to their country then I have nothing against them.
The tragedy of the Balkans is that you got similar language, culture, history and everything. But yet you kill each other. You have a nice climate and beaches, but instead of enjoying life you fight wars.
Your countries are smaller than the Swedish province I live in. But still wars are fought for this tiny plot of land. And the land is not even holy like Jerusalem or containing oil - nope. It was a poor Ex-Communist country back in the 1990's, and wars were fought getting control over poor areas. A meaningless war in my opinion. Perhaps a breakup was inevitable as people in the comment section say. But why wasn't it then done peacefully at least.
When Norway broke up with Sweden in 1905, it didn't lead to a war. And today are relations between the two countries very good. Sweden had peace for 200 years now.
But will all Nordic countries form a Scandinavian country together? I doubt that.
We Swedes ruled Finland for 800 years. We gave them our laws, our religion, and the most modern state apparatus in Europe back in the 1600's. Our school system and railway system is the same. The finns were treated as equals when they were part of the same Kingdom. They had their seats in the Swedish parliament. Swedish troops fought to defend Finland against Russia, and Finnish troops fought for Sweden.
But the language difference is still great. Finlands language got more in common with Asian languages than it got with European ones. So all efforts winning the hearts and minds of Finns for 800 years have been wasted. They do not want to become Swedes again after they have declared independence from Russia.
And as a Swede I cannot blame them. I would not want to be ruled by another country that speaks another language either. No matter how rich, sophisticated and kind they might be.
So if 800 years of kind occupation did not work to turn Finns into Swedes, then I am not surprised Austro-Hungrian empire got torn apart either with it much greater cultural barriers.
And the EU project of merging 30 European countries from all 4 corners of Europe just seems like insanity created by historically ignorant people.
"I'm disgusted by Serbs who fail to condemn the politics of Slobodan Milošević"
I agree. Not all Serbs are bad people. But those who cannot even condemn this warmonger, dictator and murderer then I got nothing more to talk about with them. They have a rotten moral compass. They are the reason why I dislike that country.
"After WWII ended, German enclaves in the east disappeared"
The German world fell apart already in 1918. German was until pretty recently having almost the same status as English on the Balkans, since it was the language of the Austrohungrian empire and all small countries that sprung up from that empire had to learn it.
So if Czechs, Hungarians and Yugoslavs wanted to speak with each other they could use German. But after the empire fell apart and also Germany got mutilated in the next war - there was very little reason to keep on using this language. And the German speaking minority got kicked out from many places in Europe after WW2.
A typical thing of a fallen empire I guess.
Personally do I think that countries with provinces with a large foreign minority should try to be respectful and sensitive to that minorities demand and don't try to shave its will down their will with force. France is granting Alsace-Lorraine much independence, but the province is still a part of France despite the majority of the population are Germans.
And same goes for Åland, which have a 90% Swedish population but is part of Finland.
So ethnical conflicts and tensions can be minimized and war being avoided. Personally do I think that both Åland and Alsace should change owners. But the 2nd best alternative is probably much local self-determination.
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@antemesinMisericorde
"You say all six nations of ex-Yugoslavia have the same culture, what you basically mean is, Serbian culture is seen as the norm. Otherwise, let me tell you, there is no difference between Scots, Welsh and the English."
There is an British culture and there is an English culture. They are closely linked.
Same goes for Croatia and Yugoslavia.
And that makes this conflict seem so unnecessary and tragic. The cultural differences are so small that reasonable people should have been able to work them out. At least most of them.
It would have been another thing if you shared your country with ISIS... then it would have been more difficult to combine pork, beer, short skirts, and music with the fundamentalist values of the other half of the population. So I would see why a failed state would have been unavoidable in such a case.
Not all countries end up in civil wars like Syria, Iraq and such. Switzerland isn't having Italians, Germans and French trying to kill each other. So sometimes I do think that cultural differences can be worked out.
"Croatia and Slovenia are accused of sabotaging federal financing of which they were actually largest contributors"
I agree with you here.
I can also admit my ignorance about Eastern Europe in the 1990's.
Richer part of countries suddenly did not want to pay for poorer parts. Richer Czechia broke off from poorer Slovakia, so Czechoslovakia became two countries.
And Yugoslavia also got torn up.
Personally I do not see economic plus and minus between provinces as a problem, since every country haves them. But on the other hand, if you do not feel solidarity with that particular part of the country you get a problem...
Germany's unwillingness to pay for Greece economic problems in one such example.
So would you like to work your ass off each month and put all your salary into a bank account which you share with your lazy unemployed drunk uncle who constantly like to over-spend money?
- Personally I can understand if people have a bit mixed feelings about this idea.
"Serbian culture is seen as the norm"
All I am saying is that it is related to the other cultures on the Balkans.
Just as it would be tragic if the English, Irish, Scots, Wales, Canadians, Americans, and Australians would fight a war against each other.
Of course do all those nationalities have their own sub-group of British culture. They are similar but different.
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@gustav331
There are many things I agree with you with and some where you are just wrong. With Torstenssons war you completely ignore that Denmark was the warmongering part in this war that constantly tried to stab Sweden in the back because it hated to see Sweden being succesful in the 30 years war and Denmark constantly offered to join the war on the side of Swedens enemies. So to neutralize that threat did Sweden invade Denmark at the first good opurtuinity to destroy the Danish enemy in the rear that threatened Swedish supply lines in Northern Germany and threatened Sweden with a land grab.
"The Scanian War was started by the Swedes when they invaded Denmark's ally"
Sweden did not want a war, as its army was in a terribly bad shape because the nobles had given themselves tax cuts that left the army underfunded. Instead did the Swedish corrupt nobles hope that Sweden could gain security by an alliance with a powerful country like France that no one would dare to go to war against. And so would peace be secured.
But that plan did not work out well. Because France had a warmonger King that dragged Sweden into a meaningless war against its will.
Sweden had a reputation of being impossible to defeat on the battlefield after its victories in the 30 years war, Russia, Denmark and Poland. But now was that reputation by a silly tiny unimportant battle at Fehrbellin where a "Swedish" force (that consisted of 2/3 Germans) was defeated.
And that propaganda victory encouraged half of Europe to declare war on Sweden when they saw that Sweden was possible to beat on the battlefield.
The next disaster was that half the navy was lost in a big storm.
Everything seemed lost, until the Swedish King took the bold decision to take all power back from the useless nobles and won the battle at Lund - and that in turn doomed all Danish attempts to retake Scania.
"it was Sweden that declared war and re-invaded Denmark in 1658."
An excemption from the rule. And yes Charles X was a warmonger King and quite reckless. The march across the belts could just as well have ended with a disaster for Sweden if the weather had been slightly warmer and the entire army would have fallen through the ice and drowned while Sweden was at war with entire Northern Europe.
"The Great Northern War was a Danish victory."
The King of Denmark betrayed its promises of friendship with the Swedish King and declared war on his cousin. But Denmark was knocked out of the war in just a few weeks after the Swedish landing at Humlebäck. Then was a peace signed.
But in 1710 did Denmark break that peace deal, due to lack of honour, and much cowardice to not dare to attack Sweden before the Swedish defeat at Poltava.
Anyways the Danish army was defeated at the battle of Helsingborg in 1710 by a Swedish force that half consisted of poorly trained reservist units.
So even after Poltava was Sweden still a superior force to other armies in the world. It would also prove that in Gadebusch in 1712.
Denmarks army was not so good. But its navy was. And Tordenskiold did with his victory at Dynekilen doom Swedens 1716 invasion of Norway.
Sweden tried again in 1718 and would probably have won if not Charles XII had died at Fredriksten.
But don't take my words for it. This is what Geir Pollen wrote in his book about the siege of Trondheim, and said that the Norwegian troops only had 2 weeks of food left when the Swedish troops abandoned the siege after the Swedish King died.
And the fortress at Fredriksten would likely have fallen after 3 days due to food shortages if the Swedish King had not died.
And once Fredriksten fell would there be nothing that stood between the Swedish army and the conquest of Oslo and western Norway. And with the additional fall of Trondheim would that be the final nail in the coffin for Danish rule over Norway.
Denmark would have been forced to make peace on Swedish terms and hand over Norway or parts of it to Sweden.
But the new King of Sweden was a German who did not care about the war. He just wanted to be King so he abandoned the Swedish invasion on day 1 at the throne.
And that stupid move only prolonged the war and gave unfavorable peace terms for Sweden. But he did not care. He was a lazy King that cared more about sex and pleasure than doing his job as a King.
"Denmark was clever enough to not involve itself in more wars in the 1700s, unlike Sweden, which had the most incompetent and corrupt government in all of Europe between 1721 and 1772."
Here I will actually agree with you. And I hope more Swedes would share this point of view. Because you are absolutly correct.
It have wrongly been seen as a period of peace and progress. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Sweden did start two stupid wars (against russia and prussia) and lost them both and ended up with a national debt that was worse than that after the Great Northern War. And while everyone complains about Charles XII's costly wars nobody criticise the wasteful stupid spending by our useless noblemen republic.
The Great Northern war at least a necessary war and an existential defensive war. While the two wars that our nobles started was dumb offensive military adventures. Charles XII was no warmonger
because he never started any new war. But our noblemen on the other hand did set the world on fire and started new wars.
Had our noblemen had one braincell should they have learned the lesson from Denmark in 1658 - DO NOT START A NEW WAR WHEN YOUR ARMY IS IN TERRIBLE SHAPE.
But our nobles never learned. The disasterous Scanian war was their fault. So was the war against Russia in 1741. And the war against Prussia.
The war against russia in 1788 started like a success story but ended with a failure because the noblemen who were officers in the Swedish army did mutiny and commited treason against the Swedish King.
So the war never became a victory because of their fault. And it was also the noblemens fault that Sweden lost Finland to russia.
I also think Denmarks downfall should much be blamed on its nobles unwillingness to allow the creation of large standing army consisting of Danish farmboys. But instead did Denmark quickly recruit German mercenaries for the wars it fought... but that army lacked the cumulative experience of a standing army that had gathered knowledge from decades of war. And the fighting morale was also low in such regiments, as everyone in this quickly mobilized and poorly trained unit did not know each other. While the Swedish troops all knew each other within the regiment after years of combat training and drills togheter.
This is what made standing armies like the Tercious in Spain and the Swedish army so superior.
Denmark would later on try to correct this error but by then it was already too late and it had lost many provinces to Sweden.
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