4 The Baltic succession (p. 19-20)

Swedish imperialism

At the Peace of Westphalia (1648) Sweden emerged as the dominant power in the Baltic region. She acquired Bremen, Verden and Wismar in the Holy Roman Empire, and western Pomerania on the southern shore of the Baltic. These, and earlier territorial additions giving Sweden control of Finland, Ingria, Estonia and Livonia, threatened to transform the Baltic into a Swedish lake. Indeed, the thrust of Swedish policy ever since the establishment of the Vasa dynasty (1525) had been to create a Baltic empire. The newly independent state of Sweden had few natural resources and only a small population. The region’s greatest wealth lay in the lucrative Baltic trade which the Swedes aspired to take over. If they were to succeed in that ambition they would have to control the important Baltic ports and the river mouths opening into the Baltic sea. However, the gradual encirclement of the Baltic littoral in pursuit of that aim stretched Sweden’s resources to the limit. Each additional commitment added to her vulnerability as much as to her strength. The power of the Swedish empire therefore rested upon a fragile foundation, particularly since after Westphalia her arch-enemy Denmark still possessed Scania, on the southern tip of the Swedish peninsula, and therefore maintained control of the access to the Baltic through the Sound channel. For some years after 1648 Sweden maintained her expansionist policy. Charles X (1654–60) declared war on Poland in 1655 (the War of the North) in the hope of acquiring the port of Danzig. He failed in this aim but succeeded in wresting Scania from the Danes by the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660).

One effect of Swedish imperialism was to cause unease among the Maritime Powers. The Dutch in particular had a large stake in the grain trade through Danzig, and both the Dutch and the English depended upon Baltic naval stores for the maintenance of their fleets. During Charles X’s campaign the Dutch Republic used its diplomatic endeavours to prevent Sweden from adding to its domination of the region, especially by the capture of Danzig. The War of the North was concluded through the diplomatic good offices of France. Sweden had been a French ally since the days of King Gustavus Adolphus’s involvement in the Thirty Years War (1618–48) and the French were keen to maintain a relationship which would help to offset Habsburg power in Germany.

Charles XI (1660–97) profited from this relationship at the end of the Scanian War (1676–79) against Denmark. Despite suffering a series of defeats the Swedes were able to preserve the status quo in the Treaty of Lund, thanks to the powerful intervention of Louis XIV. However, Charles XI was on the point of undertaking a dramatic reversal of Swedish policy, forsaking the traditional aggressive expansionism of his predecessors in favour of neutrality. The Swedish army, for so long considered invincible in the north, had been defeated in 1675 at the Battle of Fehrbellin by the rising power of Brandenburg-Prussia. The Elector of Brandenburg, ‘the Great Elector’, having already acquired eastern Pomerania on the Baltic at the Peace of Westphalia, was casting envious eyes at the adjacent Swedish Pomerania. Further east, the ancient struggle between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy was at last beginning to turn in the latter’s favour. At the Peace of Andrusovo (1667) the Muscovites regained the key cities of Kiev and Smolensk on the river Dnieper. This signal victory opened the way for renewed Russian contacts with the west and turned Moscow’s attention once more to the Baltic. On several previous occasions the Muscovites had succeeded briefly in breaking through to the Baltic shore. Their most recent attempt had ended in 1617 when, at the Treaty of Stolbova, the Swedes acquired Ingria at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland and once more excluded Muscovy from the Baltic. Charles XI appreciated that new predators were now joining the old enemy Denmark in seeking to dismember Sweden’s vulnerable empire. He knew too that the Swedish navy could no longer dominate the Baltic.