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23f; HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. [1612—
CHAPTER XVI.
GUSTAVUS II. ADOLPHUS. THE DANISH, RUSSIAN, AND POLISH WARS.
MILITARY POSITION OP OLD SWEDEN. THEORY OF THE WARLIKE MEASURES OF GUSTAVUS II. CAMPAIGN
OF 1612 AGAINST THE DANES. DANISH INVASION UNDER CHRISTIAN IV. AND RANTZOU DEFEATED. PEACE
OF 1()13 WITH DENMARK. ALLIANCE WITH HOLLAND. CONTINUATION OF THE RUSSIAN WAR. TREATY OF
PEACE IN 1617. STATE OF RUSSIA IN THIS AGE. PERSONAL RELATIONS OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AND
SIGISMUND OF POLAND. ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMIES OF GUSTAVUS. INVASION OF LIVONIA IN 1621,
AND SIEGE OF RIGA. REDUCTION OF LIVONIA AND COURLAND. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN PRUSSIA.
MILITARY OF FRANCE. SIX YEARs’ TRUCE WITH POLAND.
A. D. 1612—1629.
A NEW generation finds it difficult to conceive the
situation of the country in times when Blelvinge,
Scania, Halland, and Boliusland were not Swedish
possessions, wlien Sweden was sliut out from tlie
Sound, and ahnost completely from the North Sea.
Therein is implied a wliole antiquity of darkness,
weakness, and barbarism, exclusion from Europe,
and the direction of the first Swedish conquests to
the East. With the increase of powei’, after Gusta-
vus Vasa, this confinement became in all respects
intolerable. Gustavus Adolplnis Ijroke through its
bonds ;
and this by an attempt which, if we con-
sider the cii’cumstances, appears almost desperate.
The hero who ended by dictating laws to Europe,
began by what was in the strictest sense a course
of self-defence against a predominant enemy in the
heart of the land, and had the keys of his own
kingdom to recover in Calmar and Elfsborg, in
order, as he himself said, to save his crown by a
hard peace *.
"
Sweden, ever unvanquished by external ene-
mies," has become a standing phrase in modern
Swedish eloquence. Our forefathers, who averted
the danger, were far from not acknowledging both
its possibility and reality ;
it had gone too near
the life fur that. So long as Denmark, as they
themselves used to say, could " bite Sweden in the
heel
"
at her pleasure, Sweden was lamed. In
recenter times not a few have wondered that the
Swedes did not begin by shaking off the nearest
foe—nay, reproached Gustavus Adolphus and his
comrades with passing by Scania, Halland, and
Blekinge, to seek conquests on the other side of
the Baltic. Fortunate wisdom, which, placed
without the orbit of events, sets laws to its course !
Gustavus Adolphus concluded his peace with
Denmark, not as he wished, but as he could ;
he
fought not from choice, but necessity, against Russia
and Poland; at last he crossed to Germany in
a cause vital to Protestantism and to his own
crown. But if we suppose that he forgot what his
age had many reasons to remember better than
ourselves, we either know not or forget that on the
Swedish side there was more than once a question
of a change of front of the German war against
Denmark ;
that Gustavus Adolphus considered it,
that Oxenstierna after him carried it into effect,
and that the work of Charles Gustavus was accom-
plished on a plan inherited from both. Besides, is
<
According to Axel Oxenstierna’s statement in the council,
IC’13. Palmsk. MSS.
5 Pomerania and the sea-coast are like a bastion for the
crown of Sweden ; therein consists our safety against the
emperor, and therein lay the chief cause of his late majesty’s
taking up arms. The respect which we now have from
it
forgotten that a foe may be outflanked ? and that
out of Germany, by the invasion of Jutland and
Zealand, Scania, Halland, and Blekinge were won ?
Conquests were never made at Denmark’s cost in
another mode. Thus it came to pass, that Sweden
first fully established herself within her natural
limits, after she had planted her advanced posts
beyond the sea, by the occupation of the Baltic
coasts lying over-against her own, which in the poli-
tics of Gustavus Adolphus’ age were styled
" a
bastion for the crown of Sweden ^." Now the
outworks are taken, and we philosophize in the
citadel itself.
All the hilly region of Smaland was formerly a
frontier tract between Sweden and Denmark, and
like borders in general, full of insecurity. Homi-
cides, peace-breakers, and smugglers, escaped
easily from one kingdom to the other ;
and the
frequent prohibitions against the export of wares
were continually set at nought. The neighbours
on both sides were at feud during peace, and held
together in time of war, the border parishes then
often mutually entering into a so-called peasants’
peace. The Smalanders and Dalecarlians were
reputed at this time to be the most unruly of all
the Swedes ^. The dangerous revolt of the former
under Dacke in the time of Gustavus Vasa ex-
tended its roots on both sides of the borders, and
Gustavus Adolphus had once during his reign
cause to fear a like rebellion. The country was
also the scene of conflicts arising out of the forays of
robbers. The wild habits and stubborn hostility of
the foresters of Scania and the Blekingers, long
preserved even after their union with Sweden, had
their source in similar relations. Calmar was now
in the power of the Danes, and Smaland lay open
to the enemy. On the western side Danish Hal-
land and Norwegian Bohusland encompassed almost
entirely Swedish West-Gothland, a province which,
bountifully endowed by nature, was cut off from all
the rest of the kingdom, in the north by duke Charles
Philip’s, in the south by duke John’s principality,
both imder separate governments. These Avere
inconvenient neighbours ;
for the queen dowager,
who governed for her younger son, was more than
reasonably bent on her own gains, and the ad-
ministration of duke John was an example of bad
economy. West-Gothland extended to the sea
Poland, we have by reason of Pomerania, because it lies by
the side of Poland." Axel Oxenstierna, in the council, 1644,
1. c. Of his plan in the Danish war, herewith connected,
more in its place.
6 " Those of Smaland and the Dales are ticklish folk."
The steward, Peter Brahe, in the council, 1645. Palmsk.
MSS.
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