Swedish Naval Administration, 1521-1721: Resource Flows and Organisational Capabilities (The Northern World)

Swedish Naval Administration i

1521-1721 Resource Flows and Organisational Capabilities

Jan Glete

Swedish Naval Administration, 1521-1721

The Northern Work North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 A.D. Peoples, Economies and Cultures

Editors

Barbara Crawford (St. Andrews) David Kirby (London) Jon-Vidar Sigurdsson (Oslo) Ingvild 0ye (Bergen) Richard W. Unger (Vancouver) Piotr Gorecki (University of California at Riverside)

VOLUME 46

IT

000004201221

3

Swedish Naval Administration, 1521-1721 Resource Flows and Organisational Capabilities

By

Jan Glete

BRILL

LEIDEN . BOSTON 2010

Cover illustration: Tlie Vasa, a Swedish warship, raised f r o m Stockhohn Harbor in 1961, 333 years after her ill-fated maiden voyage in 1628. © Photograph by Ake E:son Lindnian. With kind permission of the Vasa M u s e u m , Stockholm. H i e research for this book has received support f r o m the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Tliis book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Glete, Jan, 1947Swedish naval administration, 1521-1721 : resource flows and organisational capabilities / by Jan Glete. p. cm, — (The n o r t h e r n world, ISSN 1569-1462 ; v. 46) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17916-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Sweden. Flottan—History. 2. Sweden. Flottan—Management—History. 3. Sweden, Flottan—Appropriations and expenditures—History. 4. Sweden—History, Naval. 5. Naval art and s c i e n c e Sweden—History, 6. State, The. 7. Imperialism—Sweden—History. I. Title. II. Series. VA593.G547 2009 359.009485'0903-dc22 2009032790

ISSN 1569-1462 ISBN 978 90 04 17916 5 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill N V incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, I D C Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSR All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission f r o m the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill N V provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to TTie Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, M A 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. P R I N T E D IN T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

CONTENTS

Preface List of Tables and Diagrams Maps Abbreviations Terms and Explanations Chapter One Resources, organisational capabilities and control of the sea 1.1 State formation, complex organisation and naval power 1.1.1 Introduction 1.1.2 State formation and protection-selling 1.1.3 Complex organisations in early modern Europe 1.1.4 Early modern navies 1.1.5 Naval administration and entrepreneurship 1.1.6 Technology and organisational capabilities 1.2 Sweden, naval power and the Baltic 1.2.1 The Swedish fiscal-military state and naval power 1.2.2 State formation, international relations and Baltic historiography 1.2.3 Baltic geostrategy 1.2.4 Swedish naval historiography Chapter Two The Swedish dynastic state and its navy 2.1 Naval power and political power 2.2 From Nordic Union to a Swedish dynastic state, 1448-1558 2.2.1 Before 1521: The Oldenburg campaigns for a Baltic empire 2.2.2 The gamble for a new monarchy: The Vasa battle fleet, 1521-1536 2.2.3 Defending a new monarchy: The Vasa galley fleet, 1536-1558 2.2.4 Conclusion: Naval power and a new monarchy

xi xiii XV xix xxi

1 1 1 8 12 14 19 22 25 25 28 39 46 51 51 52 52 61 70 74

VI

CONTENTS

2.3

2.4

Chapter 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

3.10

The navy and Swedish empire-building, 1558-1660 2.3.1 Control of the Baltic Sea 2.3.2 Success of organisation: The Sv^redish battle fleet, 1558-1570 2.3.3 The navy and Sweden's eastern policy, 1570-1595 2.3.4 Dynastic crisis and increased ambitions, 1595-1617 2.3.5 The amphibious navy and the creation of the Baltic empire, 1617-1645 2.3.6 Western naval power in the Baltic, 1645-1660 2.3.7 Conclusion: The flexible navy Defending a Baltic empire, 1660-1721 2.4.1 The failure of the aristocratic navy, 1660-1679 2.4.2 The rise of the professional navy, 1679-1700 .... 2.4.3 The fall of the empire, 1700-1721 2.4.4 Conclusion: Organisation, dynamics, and inertia Three Naval operations and control of the Baltic Sea Control of the sea as an administrative problem The War against Christian II, 1521-1524 Hie War against Lubeck, 1534-1536 The Nordic Seven Years War, 1563-1570 The Kalmar War, 1611-1613 The Swedish assault on Denmark, 1643-1645 The War of the Baltic Sea, 1655-1660 War and crisis in the Swedish empire, 1675-1679 The Great Northern War at sea, 1700-1721 3.9.1 Introduction 3.9.2 1700: The last Swedish amphibious attack on Sjaelland 3.9.3 1701-1709: Karl XII in Poland and Peter I at Neva 3.9.4 1709-1715: A war in the Baltic Sea 3.9.5 1716-1721: Great Britain, the Baltic powers, and the end of the war 3.9.6 Conclusion Battles, administration and operational achievements

78 78 80 85 90 96 105 112 114 114 119 123 131 135 135 139 142 145 161 165 175 184 197 197 201 203 207 223 232 234

CONTENTS

Chapter Four Swedish naval administration: Scope, complexity, and structm-es 4.1 State, society and naval administration in Em-ope 4.1.1 Resomxe flows, entreprenems, and bm-eaucracy 4.1.2 Medieval and early modern naval administration 4.2 Passing the threshold: The early phase of Vasa naval administration 4.3 The royal entrepreneurs: Vasa naval administration, 1540-1618 4.3.1 Tax-raising, the double contract, and the power of the dynasty 4.3.2 A state administrating material resources 4.3.3 A navy in a functionally organised state 4.3.4 Shipbuilding and resource extraction 4.4 Royal power, aristocratic administrators, and private contractors, 1618-1680 4.4.1 Governance through hierarchy, divisions, and budgets 4.4.2 The navy emerges as an organisation, 1618-1634 4.4.3 Administration, aristocrats, and Amiralitetskollegium 4.5 Absolutism and professionalism: Naval administration, 1680-1721 Chapter Five Warships and naval strength 5.1 Warships, naval strength, and state formation 5.2 Technology, typology, and rating systems 5.2.1 Swedish warship types 5.2.2 Swedish rating systems 5.2.3 Master shipwrights and naval technology 5.3 Shipbuilding and naval strength in a Baltic context, 1521-1617 5.3.1 The new navy, 1521-1539 5.3.2 The galley navy, 1540-1558 5.3.3 Erik XIV's battle fleet, 1559-1570 5.3.4 Johan Ill's shipbuilding programs, 1571-1592 ... 5.3.5 TheCivil War navies, 1593-1599 5.3.6 Administrative overreach, 1600-1617

Vll

241 241 241 246 253 260 260 266 268 280 287 287 292 296 306 313 313 320 320 326 332 346 347 353 357 364 376 385

Vlll

5.4

5.5 5.6

CONTENTS

Shipbuilding and naval strength in a European context, 1618-1721 5.4.1 Gustav II Adolf's navy, 1618-1634 5.4.2 Stability, 1635-1658 5.4.3 The great ships, 1659-1679 5.4.4 Battle fleet, 1680-1699 5.4.5 Battle fleet, cruisers, and shallov^ Vk^ater flotillas, 1700-1721 Armed merchantmen The structure of Swedish naval power in two centuries

Chapter Six Cordage and canvas: Fitting out the navy 6.1 Introduction 6.2 H e m p and sailcloth 6.3 Inventories 6.4 Growing royal administration, 1521-1590 6.5 Expansion and crisis, 1591-1614 6.6 Tackel and tag on contract, 1615-1628 6.7 A more ambitious policy: Aims and reality, 1629-1679 6.8 Absolutism and naval fittings, 1680-1721 Chapter 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

394 395 410 418 424 428 434 443 449 449 452 460 467 475 484 492 501

Seven Bronze and iron: Swedish naval ordnance Introduction Gun technology Gun types and calibres Swedish naval ordnance: Production and organisation Early Vasa naval ordnance, 1521-1557 The great expansion, 1558-1570 Stability and stagnation, 1571-1615 Gustav II Adolf and naval gunnery, 1616-1643 From bronze to cast iron, 1644-1674 A navy with cheap guns, 1675-1721 Armament weight and shipbuilding technology

521 526 532 538 545 554 566 570

Chapter Eight A peasant society at sea: Men, leaders, and provisioning 8.1 The problems and the sources 8.2 Seamen, gunners, and soldiers

575 575 583

7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11

505 505 510 513

CONTENTS

8.3 8.4 8.5

Leaders Provisioning and health A peasant society goes to sea

Chapter Nine Conckision: Power through Organisation 9.1 Interest aggregation and organisational capabilities 9.2 Hie dynamics of complex organisations and changing institutions 9.3 Resource flows and new capabilities for war 9.4 A dynastic enterprise at sea 9.5 Resources and entrepreneurship 9.6 State formation and naval power 9.7 Swedish naval power in a European perspective

IX

609 635 642 645 646 651 654 658 663 666 668

Appendices 1 List of Swedish warships, 1521-1721 2 Swedish naval strength, divided in different sizes of warships, 1520-1721

735

Bibliography Index

745 771

675

PREFACE The studies that have resulted in this book started many years ago, and some results have been published in articles, the earliest in 1976. The book has been possible to write thanks to a grant from Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Most of the archival research has been undertaken at Riksarkivet and Krigsarkivet, Stockholm, and the staffs of these archives have been most helpful. A special thank to Jan Brunius, Riksarkivet, who some years ago rearranged the important archival series Skeppsgdrdshandlingar (the shipyard accounts) and gave every document an individual number. This has made references to them much easier. Many years of cooperation with the Swedish Maritime Museums (Vasamuseet and Sjdhistoriska Museet in Stockholm and Marinmuseum in Karlskrona) have been important for my work. In later years, especially Dr Fred Hocker of the Vasa museum and Lars Einarsson, head of the Kronan project at Kalmar Ldns Museum, Kalmar, have been very helpful in providing information. Niels M. Probst has provided me with much information about the Danish navy, especially his detailed list of Danish warships. I have also benefited from communication with Dr Martin Bellamy, who has published a major study of the Danish navy in the age of Christian IV. For many years I have discussed early modern Swedish state formation and warfare with several historians. I especially wish to thank Professors Harald Gustafsson (Lund University), Jan Lindegren (Uppsala University), Gunnar Arteus (Swedish Defence College), Nils Erik Villstrand (Abo Academy) and Lars Ericson (Swedish Defence College) and Associate Professor Maria Sjoberg (Gothenburg University). Many colleagues at Stockholm University have helped me with ideas, comments and information. In this preface, I must limit my thanks to those w h o m I have worked with in later years; Associate Professors Jonas Nordin and Mats Hallenberg, Drs Anna Maria Forssberg, Johan Holm and Ulrica Soderlind, MA Ingvar Sjoblom, MA Klas Ostman, MA Dan Johansson and MA Hakan Jakobsson. Dan Johansson has very generously given me access to his detailed notes about the navy in Riksregistraturet (The King's letters).

Xll

PREFACE

Samuel Svard produced the maps with innovative ideas of his own, and Juleen Eichinger made an excellent copy-editing. This book is a combination of several ideas, which have guided my studies since many years. It emphasises technology, the importance of maritime lines of communication in North European strategy and the central role of organisational capabilities in state formation. The book also covers two centuries of dynamic and dramatic history. Tlie result is that it is very long. I have in the past considered writing books about Swedish naval technology, Swedish imperial expansion and the rise of organisational capabilities as the central part of early modern European state formation. Increasing age and declining health makes it unlikely that these books ever will be written. I hope that the present book at least makes some of my ideas comprehensible. My wife Yeo Sang Kum and our daughter Jihi are thanked for being present in my life. Stocldiolm, April 2009 Jan Glete

LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS

Tables 3.1 3.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 8.3

Battleships in commission in the Baltic, 1709-1721 The tactical outcome of major naval battles in the Baltic Sea, 1563-1715 The size of the Swedish, Danish, and English navies, 1520-1720 Sv^^edish warships at the end of 1539 Swedish warships at the end of 1558 New construction of major Swedish warships, 1558-1570 Swedish warships at the end of 1570 Major Swedish warships, launched 1574-1578 MajorSwedish warships, launched 1579-1588 Swedish warships at the end of 1588 Swedish warships, brought to Poland by King Sigismund in 1598 Swedish warships at the end of 1599 Swedish warships at the end of 1610 Swedish warships at the end of 1624 Swedish warships at the end of 1634 Swedish warships at the end of 1654 Swedish warships at the end of 1675 The size structure of the Swedish navy, 1539-1718 Normal Swedish types of bronze guns, 1564-1615 The total inventory of Swedish naval guns, 1624-1700 ... Naval manning 1557-1579: Normative plans Naval manning 1599-1721: Normative plans Seamen and gunner companies, 1634-1680

233 235 314 352 357 359 364 366 371 376 382 384 392 401 410 417 422 443 517 565 586 587 603

Diagrams 5.1 5.2

The Swedish and Danish navies, 1520-1620 Major Navies in Northern and Western Europe, 1620-1720

346 395

MAP 1 The Baltic and Sweden's territorial expansion, 1561-1660

| \ 'Frederiksten A

arlskrona

BALTIC SEA

Ji

C

Bprnholm

6®o Stettin

1.Bornholm 9/6 1535 17. Southern Oland 1/6 1676 2. Svendborgsund 16/6 1535 18. Femern Belt (Femern Straits) 31/5-1/6 1677 3. Bornholm 30/5 1563 19. Koge Bay 1/7 1677 4. North of Gotland 11/9 1563 20. Koge Bay 23-26/9 1710 5. Northern Oland 30-31/5 1564 21. Hango Udd (Hango Point) 26-27/7 1714 6. Oland 11-15/8 1564 22. Femern 13/4 1715 7. Bukow 4/6 1565 23. Riigen 28/7 1715 8. Bornholm 7/7 1565 24. Dynekilen 26/6 1716 9. Northern Oland 26/7 1566 10. Kolberger Helde (Femern) 1/7 1644 11. Femern 13/10 1644 12. Mon 12-13/9 1657 13. The Sound 29/10 1658 14. Between Femern and Lolland (Rodsund) 30/4 1659 15. Aebeltoft23/7 1659 16. Between Riigen, Bornhom and the Sound 25-26/5 1676

MAP 2 Important naval battles in the Baltic, 1521-1721

ABBREVIATIONS AK AOSB AR B Bran BS BU C D Dan dsm E FM FRA FS G GR H HKR HSH HT K KAR KARS KFA KrA LA LAD LM M M MM MR NNS

Amiralitetskollegium Axel Oxenstiernas Skrifter och Brewaxling Arldirakningar (KrA) Bought Brandenburg* BIockship=^ Broken up Built under contract Discarded; Deleted from list Danish daler silvermynt Enskilda arkiv (RA) First mentioned Finska Riksarkivet, Aldre rakenskapsserien Converted to fireship"^ Given away Konung Gustaf Is Registratur Hired"^ Hertig Karls Registratur (RA) Handlingar rorande Skandinaviens historia Historisk Tidskrift Kungliga och furstliga arkiv (RA) Krigskollegium, Artilleridepartementet, Rakenskaper (KrA) Krigskollegium, Artilleridepartementet, Rakenskaper, Stockholms slotts arkli (KrA) Karolinska Forbundets Arsbok Krigsarkivet Lost in action"^ Lost in action, through self-inflicted destruction"^ Last mentioned Militara amnessamlingar (RA) Merchantman"^ Mariner's Mirror Militieriikenskaper (KrA) Nya Nummerserien (KrA)

XX

P pdr R RA Ret RR S SBL SH SHMA SHMF Sig. sm SRA SRP SS SST Tp Wr OR

ABBREVIATIONS

Prize taken from or by the enemy pounder, pounders (guns) Riksdagsacta (RA) Riksarkivet Returned from or to a previous owner"*^ Riksregistraturet (RA) Sold Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon Skeppsgardshandlingar (RA) Strodda Militieliandlingar, Armen (RA) Strodda Militiehandlingar, Flottan (RA) Sigismund, King of Poland 1587-1632, King of Sweden 1592-99'*^ silvermynt Svenska Riksdagsakter Svenska RiksrMets Protokoll Sandbergska Samlingen (RA) Stockholms Stads Tankebocker Converted to naval transport"^ Wrecked Orlogsfiottans rakenskaper (KrA)"^

Only used in Appendix 1.

TERMS AND EXPLANATIONS

Calendar Dates in this book are Old Style/Julian Calendar, which dominated in the Baltic until the 18th century. The special Swedish calendar, used 1700-12, where the dates were one day ahead of the Julian Calendar, is not used.

Explanations Amiralitetskollegium Batsman Bosseskytt Holmamiral Krigsarkivet Ldn

Ldrft Lodja Oversteamiral Pram Reduktion Riksamiral Riksarkivet Riksfdrestdndare Riksmarsk Riksrddet Riksregistratur Riksviceamiral Skeppare Skeppshdvitsman Stat Stormstycke Underamiral Vadmal

of Swedish

Words

Admiralty Board Seaman Gunner Admiral in c o m m a n d of the main naval yard War Archives Non-hereditary territory administrated by a member of the aristocracy (until the 16th century) Textiles made of flax Large boat, originally a Russian type Lord High Admiral (16th century) Flat-bottomed transport vessel Return of donated land to the Crown Lord High Admiral (17th century) National Archives Regent Lord High Constable The Council of the Realm The King's out-letters Deputy Lord High Admiral (17th century) Master (mariner) Sea officer (16th century) Budget Short gun firing hailshots Deputy Admiral Textile made of wool

XXll

TERMS A N D EXPLANATIONS

Swedish Weights, Measurements Skeppund Skeppund Lispund Skdlpund

general 170 kilograms metal 136 kilograms 8.5 kilograms 0.425 kilogram

Famn Aln Fot Tum

1,78 meters 594 millimeters 297 millimeters 24.75 millimeters

and

Currency

Dakr silvermynt unit of account: from 1609 2/3 riksdaler, f r o m 1665 8/13 of a riksdaler, from 1681 1/2 riksdaler and from 1716 1/3 riksdaler. Riksdaler a coin of 25.6 grammes silver (from 1540).

Rulers of Sweden,

1521-1721

Christian II, 1520-21; also King of Denmark and Norway, 1513-23. Gustav Eriksson (Vasa), regent 1521-23; King Gustav I, 1523-60. Erik XIV, 1560-68. Johan III, 1568-92. Sigismund, 1592-99; also King of Poland, 1587-1632. Karl, Duke of Sodermanland, regent, 1599-1604: King Karl IX, 1604-11. Gustav II Adolf, 1611-32. Christina, 1632-54; regency government, 1632-44. Karl X Gustav, 1654-60. Karl XI, 1660-97; regency government, 1660-72. Karl XII, 1697-1718; regency government, 1697. Ulrika Eleonora, 1719-20. Fredrik I, 1720-51; also Count of Hessen-Cassel, 1730-51.

The Most Senior Admiral,

1569-1721

Klas Eriksson Fleming, dversteamiral 1569-97. Joakim Scheel, 1599-02. Axel Ryning, riksamiral 1602-1612. Goran Gyllenstierna, riksamiral 1612-18.

TERMS AND EXPLANATIONS

XXlll

Karl Karlsson Gyllenhielm, riksamiral 1620-50. Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna, riksamiral 1652-56. Karl Gustav Wrangel, riksamiral 1657-64. Gustav Stenbock, riksamiral 1664-83, suspended 1676-77 and after that not active as leader of the navy. Hans Wachtmeister, amiralgeneralldjtnant 1679-81, amiralgeneral 1681-1713, president of the Amiralitetskollegium 1683-1713. Klas Sparre, overamiral and acting president of the Amiralitetskollegium 1715-1727.

Sweden's Wars,

1521-1721

The War against Christian II, 1521-24. Usually called the "War of the Liberation". In alliance with Liibeck and other Hanse cities from 1522 and with Frederik I of Holstein and Denmark-Norway from 1523. The War against Christian II, 1531-32. In alliance with Frederik I of Holstein and Denmark-Norway. The Count's War, 1534-36. A Danish civil war, where Sweden, Holstein and Prussia were allied against Liibeck. The War against Russia, 1554-57. The Nordic Seven Years' War, 1563-70. Denmark, Liibeck and PolandLithuania (until 1568) in alliance against Sweden. The War against Russia, 1570-95. There were truces 1583-89 and 1593-95. The Civil War, 1597-99. King Sigismund against Duke Karl. The War against Poland-Lithuania, 1600-1660. There was a truce with occasional warfare in 1611-20 and a long truce 1629-55. The War against Russia 1609-17. The Thirty Years War. Sweden was unofficially involved from 1628 and officially f r o m 1630 to 1648. The War against Denmark, 1643-45. The War against the City of Bremen, 1654. The Northern War, 1655-60. Sweden was at war with Poland-Lithuania, Russia, Denmark, Brandenburg, Austria and the Dutch Republic, although there were periods of peace and truces with most of these powers. The War against the City of Bremen, 1666.

XXIV

TERMS A N D EXPLANATIONS

Sweden's participation in the West European War, usually called The Scanian War, 1674-79. Brandenburg, Denmark and the Dutch Republic in war with Sweden, which was allied with France. The Great Northern War, i 7 0 0 - 2 i . Sweden was at war with Russia 170021; with Denmark in 1700 and 1709-20; with Poland-Lithuania and Saxony 1700-06/07 and again from 1709; with Prussia 1715-20; with Hanover 1715-19, and unofficially with Great Britain 1716-19.

CHAPTER ONE

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES AND CONTROL OF THE SEA

1.1 1.1.1

State formation,

complex organisation

and naval power

Introduction

State formation has been explained by historians and social scientists as a result of the rise of national consciousness, political interaction between rulers and socioeconomic groups, or war and international politics. Most explanations regard competition between states as the driving force behind resource extraction and the development of strong structures that form states. Changing military technology has frequently been used as an explanation for state formation, especially in the early modern period. Such explanations ignore the organisational context, however, particularly a state's capability to make more efficient use of resources. Although many studies have emphasised inefficiency and waste in the use of resources in early modern European warfare, few have used economic theories about resource utilisation and innovation in their exploration of state formation, and fewer still have regarded organisational capability as the most central phenomenon in state formation. This book offers a different perspective on domestic political interaction, warfare, and the growth of early modern European states. The key words are violence, protection, organisation (capability to use resources), and institutions (rules of h u m a n interaction). Violence was often used to settle domestic conflicts, but conflicts, warfare, and violence before the rise of strong states cannot be neatly divided into domestic conflicts and international wars. Military-political alliances frequently crossed political borders, which often were diffuse. Protection from violence was m u c h in demand, but the rules of human interaction strongly favoured local solutions to the protection problem. Political power has its root in the ability to create a tolerable order of life for a majority of the population, and power derived from personal presence has an advantage over more distant power-holders who act through local agents. Distant power-holders had to provide something markedly superior in quality and efficiency to become

2

C H A P T E R ONE

accepted. Consequently, the rise of states as complex organisations, raising resources from wide territories and providing protection to them with permanent armed forces, coincided with a marked change in rules of h u m a n interaction. Society agreed to pay higher taxes if the new type of state, which claimed that it had a monopoly on violence, was able to show that it markedly improved order and predictability in daily life. When such a state was, or seemed to be, threatened by external enemies, taxpayers might be willing to make heavy sacrifices to maintain this stability, as the alternative was highly unpredictable. This makes it important to study the creation of complex organisation for protection and the changes in political institutions which resulted. One of the most often overlooked examples of an early modern European organisation that was essential to state formation is navies.' This book examines the rise of one complex organisation (the Swedish navy) as a new agent of change in early modern Europe and emphasises the importance of control of the sea in early modern state formation. In particular, the book focuses on the growth of naval capabilities as a part of the formation of the dynastic Swedish state and of the rise and fall of the Swedish Baltic empire. Northern Europe is a highly maritime region. It is shaped by the Baltic Sea, its outlets to the Atlantic, and the several large rivers which flow to this sea. Navies were highly complex, and policy-makers must coordinate and administrate several types of capabilities and resources if a navy should have an operational value. If naval power to secure control of the sea was important for state formation, it ought to be visible in the Baltic region in the period when the early modern states developed. A study of naval technology in its organisational context may also provide perspectives on technology in state formation. Studies about Swedish imperial expansion are predominantly focused on military and continental operations, even though the empire was created around a sea. Historians seldom show much interest in how control of the sea was achieved and rarely acknowledge the importance of large-scale amphibious warfare. Surveys of the Swedish impe-

' This chapter is partly based on Jan Glete, Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650: Maritime conflicts and the transformation of Europe, London, 2000, 1 - 1 6 , 60-75, and Jan Glete, War and the State in Early Modern Europe: Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as fiscal-military states, 1500-1660, London, 2002, 42-66. A s u m m a r y of m y recent research: Jan Glete, "Warfare, Entrepreneurship and the Fiscal-military State", in Frank Tallett and D. J. B. T r i m (eds), European Warfare, 1350-1750, Cambridge, forthcoming.

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

3

rial experience often leave the reader with the impression that it was possible to deploy large military forces around the Baltic Sea and build an empire with small and easily achieved naval capabilities. Actually, the Swedish navy was, until the mid-17th century, one of the largest in Europe, and the absence of any competing strong naval power on the eastern and southern coasts of the Baltic was a precondition for Swedish expansion. Control of the sea gave the Swedish army greater operational freedom in the Baltic region, as many important lines of army operations crossed the sea. The persistent absence of competing navies shows that the development of naval power was difficult and required a long-term policy and capabilities which most Baltic powers lacked. Denmark did have a powerful navy and thus was a particularly dangerous enemy, but the Danish political system prevented Denmark from competing with Sweden for a Baltic empire. The historiography of early modern European state formation has usually left navies out of narrations and explanations. Navies have been regarded as cheap compared to armies and mainly related to wars about trade and European expansion overseas. The leading maritime states in early modern Europe—the Dutch Republic and Great Britain—were until recently seen as classical examples of rather undeveloped state power. This seemed to confirm that navies were unimportant for state formation and that sea power even might be a way to avoid high taxes and centralised states. Naval historians have often emphasised that navies are complex and require long-term policies in order to be efficient, but they have seldom been interested in relating their subject to state formation. Naval power was inherently complex and required states to possess a certain degree of stability and sophistication in order to achieve it. Studies of the growth of navies may improve our understanding of the dynamic process by which European states developed into complex organisations. These states were not only agglomerations of human, financial, and material resources under more centralised control. They were also centres of competencies which transformed resources into structures with new capabilities. That made it possible to develop new forms of social control from the top of a hierarchy. From this top, political decision-makers could enforce centrally determined policies with operational forces, which could act with a certain degree of autonomy from the society in which they existed. They could also project resources and power over long distances and could dominate societies which had weaker state organisations. This was what happened

4

C H A P T E R ONE

during the Swedish imperial expansion, and the break-up of the empire resulted only when other states also developed efficient organisations for warfare. Tliis book outlines how the Swedish state during two centuries wrestled with the problem of developing organisational capabilities which made it possible for a society with scarce maritime and mercantile resources to use the sea to its advantage. Organisational capability is defined as an organisation's ability to transform and integrate external resources with its core competencies and create an advantage in competition with other h u m a n activities, organised as well as improvised.^ Competition between states is in this perspective essentially a competition in efficient use of resources for warfare. The Swedish navy is studied as a complex of core competencies, which handled a flow of external resources; manpower, social authority, food, timber, metals, sailcloth, hemp, etc., and transformed them into sea power. Lack of maritime resources which are easy to transform into naval power may be compensated for by the competence to raise and transform other resources into such power. This book shows that the Swedish dynastic state for two centuries primarily searched for cheap domestic resources to develop strong naval power and used organisational rather than maritime capability to transform the resources. Successful development of organisational capabilities usually results in organisational growth. With an interpretation of corporate growth formulated by Edith Tilton Penrose, such grov^^th typically occurs when the organisation has at least some under-utilised capability which can be used to catch opportunities for expansion.' An organisation which shows good results—a corporation or a state—is also able to raise more resources from financial markets or taxpayers and is able to develop more capabilities, which may be used in turn for further growth. From an economic perspective, the early modern fiscal-military state was a new, large-scale actor in an old market; the market for protection and

^ This definition is inspired by Giovanni Dosi, Richard R. Nelson, a n d Sidney G. Winter, "Introduction: The nature and dynamics of organizational capabilities", and David J. Teece, Gary Pisano, a n d A m y Shuen, "Dynamic Capabilities a n d Strategic Management", b o t h in Giovanni Dosi, Richard R. Nelson, and Sidney G. W i n t e r (eds), The Nature and Dynamics of Organizational Capabilities, Oxford, 2000, 1 - 2 2 , 334-62. ^ Edith Tilton Penrose, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, Oxford, 1959 (3rd ed. 1995); Christos Pitelis (ed.). The Growth of the Firm: The legacy of Edith Penrose, Oxford, 2002.

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

5

control of violence. It sold protection against violence to society by raising taxes through the fiscal organisation and delivered the service through its armed forces. In a state formation perspective, profit from protection-selling is the same as increased access to resources by efficient control of violence. These resources were often used for expansion, either peaceful extension of protection to new regions or violent wars against competing protection-sellers. Tlie development of European fiscal-military states was an uneven and protracted process, where some states developed and grew early and extended their control of territory and trade, while others caught up with the pioneers in a competitive process. The supply of organised protection was, however, an innovation stimulated by demand. Societies need protection, and the skills and capability to organise it are scarce. Consequently, protection-selling is an effective instrument of power over society, used by m e n with a comparative advantage in violence, who make themselves accepted and even respected as powerholders. In the early modern period it was those innovators who were most efficient in organising protection as a large-scale enterprise who gained power over society. They gained it in competition with both other protection-selling enterprises and with traditional, local forms of protection. The organisation for protecting society, however, first of all protected those who controlled the organisation. Rulers protected their own interests (their share of the market) when they protected a society. The Swedish development of a fiscal-military state and a Baltic empire can be studied in this perspective. The Vasa dynasty in the 16th century developed an enterprise in protection of Sweden in competition with other protectors and old institutions for protection and social order: the Nordic Union monarchy, the aristocracy, the peasant militia, the Cathohc Church. This enterprise was successful and provided the dynasty with domestic resources and organisational capabilities, which could be used on the Baltic market for protection. The creation of a navy allowed the state to intervene at sea and on territories across the sea, which gave it a major advantage in competition with powerholders without naval power. Most of the territorial conquests around the Baltic were made not from local power-holders (they frequently cooperated) but from other large-scale protection-sellers who tried to build empires. A century of wars ended with a Swedish Baltic empire, which the state then had to protect against other states which gradually developed capabilities to resist and counter-attack. The empire

31 C H A P T E R ONE

was destroyed in the early 18th century when several powers developed sufficient capabilities, including naval power, to overpower the Swedish state. Naval power can be decisive in state formation and expansion of states if it can cut strategic lines of communication for competing power-holders and can open them for transfer of resources. The ultimate test of a strong naval power is usually its ability to change the strategic and political situation by deploying a battle fleet to a distant or contested sea and then being able to influence or decide the outcome of a conflict by control of the lines of communication. Another important part of naval power is the ability to cooperate with army forces in combined operations across the sea, or in operations in littoral regions where land and water meet. Both types of operations require warships of suitable design, weapons, outfitting, provisions, men, leadership, and capability to coordinate these widely different resources in a timely fashion. This book explores how naval policy and administration were related to state formation and empire building. It intends to show as concretely as possible how efforts to create and maintain naval power required a continuous inflow of resources in order to maintain a continuous output of hardware, manpower, and competence to sail and fight at sea. The chapters are organised around those resource flows which converted raw material, semi-finished products, manpower, social authority and political and administrative competence into warships, fittings, weapons, men and leadership. The chapters about the material side of naval power are longer than the parts of the book devoted to men. The author's research agenda is concentrated to the material side of naval power, and the chapter about m e n and leaders mainly brings together results f r o m several other studies and interprets them in a long-term perspective. Comparisons with other navies are brief and mainly made with quantitative methods. Quantification is also used to connect the diff"erent administrative efl^orts and make it easier to understand that naval power is shaped by proper and timely combinations of ships, sails, rigging, cables, guns, men, leaders, and provisions. Qualitative aspects of naval power can only be analysed if the quantitative aspects are accounted for. Studies of early modern naval policy and administration frequently cover a broader spectrum than this book. Naval bases, finance, and the acquisition of naval supplie§ from markets are often prominent in such studies. These subjects have either been studied in earlier books about Swedish naval power or require more empirical research before

• T.

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

7

they can be placed in the long-term perspective which dominates this study. Earlier studies in Swedish provide adequate information about shipyards, gun production, and the formal structure of naval administration. With the exception of the establishment of Karlskrona as a new naval base from 1680, investments in yard facilities were only a small part of the cost of naval power. Naval finance and the acquisition of naval stores were closely integrated with the Swedish state's extraction of domestic material resources and manpower. This study cannot cover all parts of these questions, but it analyses features in the Swedish system that were unusual in a European perspective. Technical aspects are emphasised, but this is no attempt to write a comprehensive technical history of the Swedish navy. It is a book about an organisation which used technology, not about technology as such. The archival remains of naval administration are probably the most complicated remains of the early modern Swedish state. Most sources about naval administration from the 1520s to the 1620s may be found in many archival series from the early Treasury {Kammaren), which kept and audited the king's accounts. Previous studies on naval history have mainly used series directly connected with the navy, primarily the shipyard accounts (Skeppsgdrdshandlingar). However, much more may be found if all relevant Treasury series are investigated. From the 1630s, the navy emerged as an organisation, administrated by the Amiralitetskollegium. This created more homogeneous archival series, but unfortunately many sources have been lost or are in disarray, especially for the 17th century. This has made studies of resource flows in the naval organisation difficult. The present study shows that if evidence which survives in several series is put together, a more complete picture appears. Earlier studies of the Swedish navy have made much use of the important archival series Riksregistraturet (the King's out-letters) and the Amiralitetskollegium's board minutes and correspondence files. Some naval historians, primarily Axel Zettersten, Hjalmar Borjeson, and Einar Wendt have also left their detailed notes from these series in their manuscript collections deposited at Krigsarkivet, Stoclcholm. These notes, as well as souixe references in earlier literature, have made it less necessary to read these huge archival series in their entirety.'' I have been able to concentrate my attention on a selected number of

I have also, fortunately, been able to use M A Dan Johansson's detailed notes f r o m Riksregistraturet 1561-1630 and f r o m Duke Karl's registratur 1568-98.

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C H A P T E R ONE

letters and minutes of special importance for this study. I have made an extensive search for information about the navy in archival series which earlier have been little used, at least by historians who have published their results. These series are primarily in the early Treasury archive (1521-1630), the ordnance accounts from 1535 to 1645 {Arklirdkningar, Artillerihuvudhdcker), the naval part of the state's yearly main ledgers (Rikshuvudbocker, containing summaries of the state's accounts) from 1623 to 1677, the detailed naval accounts f r o m 1634 to 1721 (Orlogsflottans rdkenskaper), Krigsarkivet's large collection of provisionally indexed naval papers {Nya nummerserien), and inventories of ships f r o m the 1640s to 1718. The collection of naval documents in the Kings' and the Chancellery's archives {Militara dmnessamlingar and letters from the Amiralitetskollegium) have also been important. The use of several series has provided new results, as many documents scattered in various series can be placed in their relevant context if used together with documents in other series. Chapter 1 surveys the problems, theories and explanations related to state formation, complex organisation, and naval power. It also outlines Swedish geostrategy and historiography. Chapter 2 outlines naval policy, while chapter 3 analyses major naval operations with an emphasis on the importance of administration for success and failure at sea. After that, chapters about central naval administration (4), warships (5), sails, cordage and cables (6), guns (7), and manning and provisioning (8) follow various resource flows through the organisation, and the development of capabilities which together created sea power. For readers without previous knowledge of the wars in which the Swedish navy was involved, it may be difficult to follow the arguments in chapters 4 to 8 without an introduction to what the navy actually was used for. That is provided in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 3 also provides an overview of the administrative eff'orts analysed in chapter 4 to 8, even though the logical place for such an overview might have been after these chapters. 1.1.2

State formation

and

protection-selling

State formation is the growth of authority, resources, and organisational structures connected to a political centre which claims to control a territory.' A state is based on material, financial, and h u m a n

Surveys of studies of early m o d e r n state formation: Charles Tilly,

Coercion,

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

9

resources extracted from the society and brought under control of the central authorities. Hiere is broad agreement that a new type of state developed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. In various historiographical traditions this has been called the nation state, the absolute state, the pov^er state (German Machtstaat), the fiscal or tax state (German Steuerstaat), the military state (common in Swedish historiography), or the fiscal-military state.*^ The latter term is at present the most useful for generalisations and explanations connected with capabilities and resources. It puts equal emphasis on the income and expenditure parts of the resource flow through the state, and on its two main organisational parts: the fiscal apparatus and the permanent armed forces. It was a crucial part of European state formation that the fiscal and military organisations formed separate chains of control and patronage which were connected at the central, political level of the state. Armed men could not tax society, and fiscal agents could not use taxes for privately controlled armed forces. The central authority gained a new importance with its capability to coordinate and transform large resources through complex organisations. Politically and administratively (not necessarily physically), resources flowed from the local level to the central state before they was distributed to military units spread around the society or waging wars abroad. The divided yet coordinated fiscal and military structures made more efficient use of limited resources than local structures. It was also easier to create loyalty to a political centre when both tax-collectors and armed men were dependent on the authority and legality of the ruler. States which derived their power f r o m permanent and hierarchical fiscal and military organisations were more powerful than medieval states, which were administratively dependent on local power elites with uncertain loyalties. The power of local elites did not disappear, but these groups and the new states developed new rules of interaction. This process took centuries, because rulers and elites often ran

Capital, and European states, A.D. 990-1990, Oxford, 1990, 1-37; Wolfgang Reinhard (ed.), Power Elites and State Building, Oxford, 1996, 1-18; l l i o m a s Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building states and regimes in medieval and early modern Europe, Cambridge, 1997, 1 - 1 9 . Terminology: Leon Jespersen, A Revolution from Above? The Power state of 16th and 17th century Scandinavia, Odense, 2000, 27-30. Sweden as a military state: Sven A. Nilsson, De stora krigens tid: Om Sverige som militarstat och bondesamhdlle, Uppsala, 1990. The t e r m "fiscal-military state" was first used in John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, money and the English state, 1688-1783, London, 1989.

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into conflicts about control of resources. In some countries, notably those with a maritime economy, elite groups eventually formed constitutional states fashioned to their own interests, rather than to the interests of dynastic rulers. In both dynastic and elite-dominated fiscal-military states, elite groups bargained with the central authority about what it could deliver in terms of better protection and opportunities for careers and business. Politically, this was as a process of interest aggregation between different groups in society and between them and the central state.' The fiscal-military states raised resources f r o m agriculture and trade, activities vulnerable to violence and war. This made landowners, peasants, and merchants willing to pay for protection and make political concessions to those who could provide it. In pre-modern Europe, this protection normally had been provided by local elite groups, who both protected their own property and made others pay for being protected. These local elite groups could raise temporary armed forces for the central political authority, but these forces could equally well be turned against the political centre or be used to settle local conflicts. Tlie new type of state kept the raising of resources and the control of violence in two separate hierarchies. It was careful not to let the armed forces have direct access to taxes or give local elites direct control over the military chain of command. The officers and men were dependent on the central authority's ability to raise taxes to pay and feed them. The taxpayers were dependent on the same authority's ability to control its armed forces and use them for efficient defence. It was mandatory that the central authority convinced those who served in the hierarchies that their social position and possibility to make a career depended on loyalty to the central authority. The central authority in such a state had to be creative and innovative in order for the transformation of resource flows to be successful. In the early modern period, that authority was often controlled by a dynasty. Some dynasties ruling early fiscal-military states were new and had gained power by their ability to combine various interest groups and develop new organisational capabilities. Sweden is prob-

' European state formation as a result of bargaining between rulers a n d elites is central in Tilly 1990. A study emphasising connections between central and local politics is Ertman 1997. Changing rules of h u m a n interaction (institutions) as precondition for growth of complex a n d a n o n y m o u s economic structures: Douglass C. North, Understanding the Process of Economic Change, Princeton, 2005.

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11

ably the best example of this. This study covers the two centuries when Sweden was a dynastic fiscal-military state, with the monarchs as political and administrative leaders. The main challenge facing such leaders was control of violence and the use of violence to defend and promote the interest of their own dynasty. While doing so, they also had to protect the territory they ruled, but the territory was also used for resource extraction for dynastic purposes: conquests and dynastic warfare. Nationally oriented historiography has often not observed the difference between the interests of the rulers, who ran an enterprise in protection-selling, and the interests of the taxpayers they protected. State formation and control of violence are intertwined phenomena. Economically, the state can be defined as an organisation with a comparative advantage in violence in a territory whose boundaries are determined by its power to raise taxes.® This definition is useful in an early modern context, where sovereign rulers often did not have a complete monopoly on violence but increasingly showed that states had advantages in violence-control compared to more decentralised systems of protection. An economic definition of the state makes it easier to analyse state formation as an entrepreneurial activity, developing organisational capabilities. The state can be studied as an enterprise in violence-control and protection-selling, where the entrepreneur's aim is to gain power through improved use and control of violence. In this process, new rules of h u m a n interaction (institutions) and organisations may develop and make both resource extraction and violencecontrol more efficient. A theory of protection-selling as an economic and entrepreneurial activity was introduced by the economic historian Frederic C. Lane. States can be analysed as producers of a utility—protection—and as enterprises with interest in profits. In a political and social context, this profit appears as increased power for those who are successful organisers of protection. It may also appear as economic growth as a result of reduced destruction and insecurity. Pre-modern and early modern states might be interpreted as enterprises, as they normally were shaped by groups who gained power f r o m their comparative advantage in the use of violence. Originally they mainly used this for plunder of peasants and merchants, but gradually they found it more rational to make society pay regular tributes for not being plundered.

Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History, N e w York, 1981, 21.

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Tliis also gave the wielders of violence an incentive to protect those who paid them from attacks from other violent groups. They became rulers (feudal lords, kings) and the tributes became taxes paid by those who preferred to pay for protection rather than organise it on their own in peasant communities, cities or republics. The relationship that developed between rulers and society could in this perspective be seen as a long-term contract between a protection-selling enterprise and a community of customers.' Early modern Germany and the Nordic-Baltic region were parts of Europe where two or several powers often attempted to sell protection to the same territory and the same trade route. The Swedish dynastic state for a time was the most successful of these protection-selling enterprises. Competition about protection-selling is the same as conflict and war, and success is the same as expansion. This competitive process took place in a maritime region, and the ability to control strategic sea lines of communication was often decisive for success. The Swedish navy was a central part of an ambitious entrepreneurial project in protection-selling and embodied some of the crucial organisational capabilities which gave the Swedish state an advantage. 1.1.3

Complex organisations

in early modern

Europe

The results of early modern state formation, the large and complex fiscal and military organisations, were not only agglomerations of resources. They were articulated actors with a dynamic of their own. Human, financial, and material resources were not only raised and expended when they were used in permanent armed forces. They were combined and developed in a new pattern, which was intended to increase the efficiency of resource utilisation. The general diffusion of the fiscalmilitary state is strong evidence of that the end result of this transformation was a more efficient form of violence control than earlier institutional patterns.'" From an economic point of view, these states can be analysed as early examples of complex organisations and the results of attempts

' Frederic C. Lane, Profits from Power: Readings in protection rent and violencecontrolling enterprises, Albany, 1979, esp. 1 - 3 6 , 5 0 - 6 5 (articles f r o m 1941, 1942, a n d 1958). N e o - W e b e r i a n organisation theory: Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations: A critical essay, 3rd ed., New York, 1&93. Several theoretical approaches: W . Richard Scott and Gerald F. Davis, Organizations and Organizing: Rational, natural and open system perspectives. U p p e r Saddle River, NJ, 2007.

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

13

by rulers and various interest groups to use scarce resources in an innovative and more rational way. The economic idea with an organisation is to convert an input of resources into a more efficient output of goods and services. The fact that some medium-sized states became more powerful than states with much greater resource bases shows that the organisational capability to mobilise and transform resources developed unevenly in early modern states. The Dutch Republic's wars against those two powers which after each other were Europe's leading military powers, Spain and France, are perhaps the best example. Sweden's empire-building is another obvious case, as it successfully fought Russia, Poland-Lithuania, and a coalition of German princes led by the Habsburg emperors. The organisation of resources matters more than the fact that resources exist, and different types of organisation may provide widely different results. The anatomy of organisations is therefore important for understanding historical change and the transformation of the international power structure. Complex organisations divide labour, reduce transaction costs, process large volumes of information, and develop monitoring systems and chains of command, which makes it possible for a centre to control the flow of vast resources through hierarchies. Complex organisations with long-term control of resources can also make investments in capital assets and can develop specialised competencies which otherwise would not exist. The capacity of an individual to develop skills and gather information is by necessity limited, and the individuals' rationality is bounded by their experience and the information to which they have access. H u m a n beings create organisations in order to reduce these limitations. Most of the technical, commercial, and administrative competencies that form the base of modern society require complex organisations as a precondition for their very existence. They act as social "containers" of these competencies which otherwise would not exist. A permanent organisation may develop advanced technical and administrative systems, which makes it superior to a temporary organisation. A permanent organisation is usually also a superior form to develop social cohesion and team spirit, which prepare individuals for collective actions under stress, such as combat and extended military and naval operations under adverse conditions. In the early modern period, effective control of the sea through naval forces is an outstanding example of h u m a n efforts that greatly benefited from the development of complex organisation. Hierarchical organisations of the type that became dominant in the European armed forces are also excellent instruments of power

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exercised from the top. They create leverage effects, which make it possible for rulers to control vast resources efficiently. In an environment of fragmented and unorganised resources, a complex organisation has power far beyond the individual resources accreted to it. Efficient leadership of an organisation is, however, a demanding task, and early modern rulers must recruit individuals with a special talent for organisational leadership (ministers, bureaucrats, officers) to take charge of many operational decisions. At each level of the hierarchy, the individuals who exercise power on behalf of the top level must be given authority, social prestige, and access to patronage, which make it possible to exercise power over others. The development of officer corps is a typical result of this process of power delegation. Like individuals, complex organisations are not perfectly rational. They are normally more or less path-dependent, that is, they are better at solving the problems they were created for than they are at solving new problems." To introduce new competencies or reforms that may change the existing power structure in the organisation is difficult and requires firm leadership from above. An organisation might also become so complex that the central authority cannot control it efficiently and maintain its ultimate purpose. In that case, the various parts of the organisation, each in possession of highly developed skills, authority, and patronage, might sub-optimise and might develop in ways that suit them rather than in ways that address the c o m m o n goal of the whole organisation. Typically, the border zones between armies and navies (combined operations, coastal warfare) became organisational problems when the two types of complex organisations became firmly entrenched in the structure of the state. 1.1.4

Early modern

navies

There are several important studies which show that navies were combinations of military, maritime, technical, industrial, and administrative capabilities that welded them into the most complex organisations of their age. Their political and administrative connections to the growth of the fiscal-military states are easy to observe, and naval historians underline these connections in more recent s t u d i e s . T h e r e

" Path-dependence: Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter, An Iheory oj Economic Change, Boston, ,1982. The British navy: John E h r m a n , The Navy in the War of William III,

Evolutionary 1689-1697:

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15

is, however, a long tradition to primarily relate navies to sea power and competition between states and societies about command of the sea. This puts the focus on the importance of naval power for trade and maritime empires and underlines the special features of navies compared to other organisations, including armies. For an analysis of why navies were created and continued to exist as parts of political processes, it is fruitful to simply regard them as embodiments of power. In that perspective, the driving forces and perspectives are the same as those that guide political behaviour in general: ambitions, opportunities, threats, and interests. It makes it possible to analyse navies as a more general phenomenon: organisations as instruments of power. Historical studies about early modern navies and sea power are rather uneven in their coverage of various regions, periods, and themes. Most studies are concentrated to the Atlantic battle fleet navies in the period 1650 to 1815, and much of the empirical research about them was accomplished in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. This is not surprising, as these navies were important in the struggles between the great powers and key instruments for the spreading of European trade and political power around the world. The American sea officer Alfred Th. Mahan is the best known of several naval historians

Its state and direction, Cambridge, 1953; Daniel A. Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole, Princeton, 1965; N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A naval history of Britain, vol 1, 660-1649, London, 1997; N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A naval history of Britain, 1649-1815, London, 2004; James Scott Wheeler, The Making of a World Power: War and the military revolution in seventeenth century England, Phoenix Mill, 1999. The Habsburg-Spanish navy: 1. A. A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620, London, 1976; Carla Rahn Phillips, Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial defense in the early seventeenth century, Baltimore, 1986; David G o o d m a n , Spanish Naval Power, 15891665; Reconstruction and defeat, Cambridge, 1997; Giulio Fenicia, II regno di Napoli e la difesa del Mediterraneo nell'etd di Filippo II (1556-1598): Organizzazione efinanziamento, Bari, 2003. The French nav)': Marline Acerra, Rochefort et la construction navale frangaise, 1661-1815, 4 vols, Paris, 1993; Patrick Villiers, Marine royale, corsaires et trafics dans lAtlantique de Louis XIV a Louis XVI, 2 vols, Dunkirk, 1991; Daniel Dessert, La Royale: Vaisseaux et marins du Roi-Soleil, Paris, 1996; Alan James, Navy and Government in Early Modern France, 1572-1661, Woodbridge, 2004. The Dutch navy: J. R. Bruijn, De admiraliteit van Amsterdam in rustige jaren, 1713-1751: Regenten en financien, schepen en zeevarenden, A m s t e r d a m / H a a r l e m , 1970; J. R. Bruijn, The Dutch Navy of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Columbia, SC, 1993; Louis Sicking, Zeemacht en onmacht: Maritieme politiek in de Nederlanden, 1488-1558, Amsterdam, 1998. D e n m a r k - N o r w a y : Martin Bellamy, Christian IV and his Navy: A political and administrative history of the Danish navy, 1596-1648, Leiden, 2006. A comparative study: Jan Glete, Navies and Nations: Warships, navies and state building in Europe and America, 1500-1860, 2 vols, Stocldiolm, 1993.

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who placed navies in this historical context. Hie analytical framework developed by Mahan and others has its obvious relevance as it places command of the sea in the centre of an important historical process where Europe became the centre of global trans-oceanic empires with maritime lines of communication. It is also natural that Anglo-Saxon historians have dominated in studies of this process, as its outcome was a world in which British and, later, American naval power became the foundation of world power.'' The uneven coverage of early modern navies and the vintage of much of the existing historical scholarship must be observed and understood. Most of what we know about European navies is still formed by studies made in a period when the 19th- and 20th-century national state was seen as the self-evident outcome of historical change. Its army and navy were regarded as instruments of national political interests and policies. Navies were evaluated as efficient if they adhered to 19th- and early 20th-century ideas about operational doctrines, professional officer corps, centralised and state-run administration, and the primacy of the gun-armed battle fleet. With that perspective, the large sailing battle fleets of the period 1650-1815 became classical examples of what the nation state could achieve through a systematic long-term policy. Many historians seem, explicitly or implicitly, to have drawn the conclusion that the importance of sea power rose with the great naval organisations for controlling the sea and that the history of sea power before their appearance is less important for general history. Pre-1650 naval policies and technologies have frequently been evaluated in comparison with what was achieved later. Not surprisingly, they have been found to be short-sighted, primitive, and lacking in theory." Other periods and regions require different interpretative frameworks if the central historical problems should be visible, and compari-

" Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The man and his letters, Annapolis, 1971; John B. HaUendorf (ed.), The Influence of History on Mahan, Newport, 1991; Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The classic works of Alfred Thayer Mahan reconsidered, Baltimore, 1997. The problem with applying an Atlantic perspective on all early m o d e r n naval history: John F. Guilmartin, Jr, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing technology and Mediterranean warfare at sea in the sixteenth century, Cambridge, 1974, 16-41. John B. Hattendorf and Richard W. Unger (eds). War at Sea in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Woodbridge, 2003, is a collection of essays about various aspects of control of the sea before 1650. A brief survey of naval history before 1650: Jan Glete, "Naval Power, 1450-1650: The formative age", in Geoff M o r t i m e r (ed.). Early Modern Military History, 1450-1815, London, 2004, 81-100.

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17

sons should be made with both earlier achievements and contemporary concerns. Early modern European history begins around 1500 or even earlier, much of it is not centred on Atlantic history, and the mature early modern state with its fiscal-military apparatus was the outcome rather than the start of the process. The importance of control of the sea for European trade, warfare, and political power did not begin with the development of the great battle fleets and the control over the oceans exercised by European states. It was a pervasive phenomenon in European history long before that. It is a consequence of the fact that Europe is a huge peninsula with smaller peninsulas, inland seas, islands, and important seaways with several narrow passages around its long coasts. Even in an age dominated by agriculture, many Europeans lived close to the sea or inland waterways leading to the sea, and trade in agricultural products depended on seaborne transportation. Control of the sea has often been exercised by those who have had immediate use of it for their living: the coastal communities, merchants, and pirates. Europeans have been seafarers since thousands of years, and the fact that territorial states usually were unimportant as naval powers before the 16th and 17th centuries does not mean that control of the sea was less important than in later centuries. There are problems with bringing in all parts of the Atlantic (or Mahanian) framework in all studies of control of the sea as a political, economic, and naval problem. That framework is based on the existence of mature fiscal-military states with firm organisational structures, professional officer corps, and nationally determined policies implemented by the navies. The long period of formation of such states and their navies, as well as control of the sea in more diffuse struggles about territories and seas, fit less well into this framework. The struggles were frequently not national in a meaningful sense; they were local, mercantile, dynastic, or adventures in plunder. Operational fleets often consisted of temporarily armed merchantmen, warships were smaller than in the age of the battle fleet, and oared galleys were still important. Tactics and strategy were often subordinated to privateering interests of plunder, and naval commanders were usually noblemen or men with mercantile background rather than professional officers. Navies and warfare at sea were much more regional and were often operationally more connected with warfare on land than in Atlantic warfare.'^

Glete2000.

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However, in a late medieval/early modern perspective, even the earliest and comparatively small European forces of specialised warships were important. They could shift the balance of power both in domestic and international struggles by closing or opening an important sea line. Control of various parts of the sea, even shallow and narrow waters, ability to shift military power from one region to another across the sea, and ability to control trade to major ports and through important narrows could be very useful to rulers and local powerholders. In this perspective, the early naval forces were modern and rational solutions to the problems faced by those who developed them. Regional control of the sea and early naval development to achieve that were essential to the transformation of Europe f r o m a continuum of small autonomous cities and societies with power confined to local elites into a continent of territorial states with an effective monopoly of violence controlled from political centres. From this state formation perspective, it is fruitful to see early navies as instruments of ambitious rulers and rising elites rather than of nascent nation states with nationally determined strategies of sea power. Princes and leaders of republican regimes often had to fight for their survival in an age when rebellions and civil wars were common. The future of the rulers was often at stake, and this stimulated the search for innovations and capabilities which strengthened their power and gave them leverage in relation to competitors. With an awareness of the political, financial, organisational, and technical constraints on early modern sea power, historians may see efforts to handle these problems as important. The post-1650 development of navies can also be put in a state formation perspective rather than the sea power perspective that has been prevalent. Navies were parts of the fiscal-military states as much as the armies were. The latter half of the 17th century saw a drastic growth of both armies and navies and a stabilisation of the European states into fairly homogeneous fiscal-military states. Navies and armies rapidly grew in size and operational capabilities because several states had become able to develop complex organisations with a decisive advantage over earlier private and temporary forms of sea power. By the late 17th century, a distinct European model of how an army and a navy should be administrated, trained, and commanded had emerged. The power of states could be measured roughly in number of regiments and ships-of-the-line, and stiates with permanent armed forces had gained a practical monopoly of violence within their territories and in the waters around Europe.

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19

Naval power, based on complex organisation and the fiscal power of the state were part of a broad transformation process in which the central state rather than decentralised structures of violence-control had become fundamental to European perceptions of both domestic and international power on land and on sea. Europeans expected that their state should defend their coasts and protect and promote their maritime interests, and they were willing to pay taxes for that. The few major political entities which had not fully adapted to the new type of state either had to do that in a quick reform process (like Russia) or face the prospect that they would disappear f r o m the European scene of independent political actors (like Poland). European naval history has also largely been written as separate national histories. Comparative studies of naval policy, administration, technology, and operations have been rare. During the formative phase of naval history, various national paradigms about individual navies developed. They were either parts of national historiography or of a more specialised naval history, frequently written by sea officers or historians with a special interest in sea power. It was c o m m o n to find heroes and scapegoats, periods of glory and neglect, and some kind of national identity or mentality, which influenced or determined naval power. Corrupt administrators and parsimonious policymakers were typical scapegoats while certain officers often became heroes. Seamanship under sail was highly regarded while naval architecture often was seen as backward until theory arrived. Various ideas about the early modern societies and their states, which were prevalent among earlier generations of historians, were adapted by naval historians and integrated with naval history. These paradigms of national naval histories, which were shaped until the mid20th century, have proved to be vigorous. Without benchmarks for comparison, various legends and entrenched ideas about pioneering efforts or backwardness, efficiency, or failures, neglect or far-sighted naval policy have became firm parts of naval historiography. Much of it is still visible in historical synthesis. New synthesis must show a critical attitude to these traditions. It is more productive to take a fresh look at naval history as part of general trends in European history of political, economic, and social transformation. 1.1.5

Naval administration

and

entrepreneurship

Early modern rulers had two alternatives when they raised armed forces. They could organise them on their own: build ships, acquire

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weapons, and recruit officers, soldiers, seamen, and the necessary administrative staff to do the job. This normally meant that all organisational capabilities and a considerable part of the resources had to be kept and paid for in peacetime. Alternatively, they could hire private entrepreneurs in warfare who ran the administration on contract and frequently also commanded the operational forces. Combinations of these two systems were common. In a European macro-perspective, armies and navies developed from a predominantly contractual model in 1500 to a predominantly state-administrated model two centuries later. In this process, the states acquired several entrepreneurial skills and combined them into complex organisations. The Swedish armed forces very early became administrated by the ruler. W h e n the Swedish state in the early 17th century increasingly turned to entrepreneurs for the recruitment of foreign soldiers, naval shipbuilding, and weapon procurement it did so with a long experience of military and naval administration. It already had the core competencies and could increase its power by integrating private organisational capabilities with the capabilities of the Swedish state. This created a rapid increase of Swedish military power."' Naval administration is a term for both managerial activities and organisational structures, which transform policy and ambitions into operations at sea. Financial control of naval expenditure, bookkeeping, auditing, and the handling of large amounts of money were major administrative tasks in the early modern navies. Warships, weapons, and naval bases are major investments which require long-term planning, search for and management of advanced technology, and negotiations about large contracts. Recruitment, muster, and payment of naval personnel are major administrative duties. In early modern times, when transmission of information was slow and national registers of population were lacking, navies required extensive paperwork to keep track of seamen living along coasts or serving on ships operating far f r o m the base. The supply of provisions, munitions, and naval stores to operational forces involved purchase, storing, and distribution of m a n y types of products, often in several countries. The preservation

" Hiis section is a s u m m a r y of results in Glete 1993. See also Jan Glete, "Naval Administration", in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, II, N e w York, 2007, 640-48.

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of health on ships and the care of sick and wounded required properly preserved food, hospitals, and systematic measures against contagious diseases. Naval administration must be able to meet sudden demands for mobilisation of resources for war by combining state-controlled and civilian-owned resources into a combat-ready fleet. A naval campaign requires rapid and well-coordinated concentration of large resources: ships, weapon, provisions, and competent men. In medieval and early modern societies with strong mercantile and maritime interests, it could be advantageous to leave much of the naval administration to private interests. These groups knew how to equip ships for sea and how to recruit crews and merchants, and they had the professional expertise to buy provisions and naval stores in large quantities. They often also had experience of weapons and fighting, as merchant shipping had to be protected. Until the 16th century, a naval mobilisation in a maritime society was usually a temporary transfer of private resources to the state rather than a mobilisation of resources permanently administrated by the state. Even when these states organised permanent navies, the maritime society was important both for its administration and for supplementing it with additional resources when required. In a society like Sweden, with few private maritime resources and litde private know-how about large-scale shipping, the state faced the challenge of either developing its own resources for naval warfare or depending on foreign maritime interests. The latter was usually possible, as such groups were willing to sell their services. Until the latter half of the 17th century, fleets of armed merchantmen with officers, men, weapons, and provisions could be hired f r o m maritime groups in Europe. Several states did that. This often provided them with good seamen and commanders, without any obligation to pay for them in peacetime. The disadvantages were that they was expensive when they served, that the state became dependent on foreign interests, that ships and men often were unavailable to meet sudden demands, and that there was no close connection between policy, administration, and operational forces. It is often difficult for a state to make its armed forces undertake unusual and dangerous tasks, and it may be even more difficult if the policy-makers and operational forces have no other common interest than a temporary contract. In the long run, large and strongly built warships with many heavy guns also proved

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to be a superior weapon system, and this eliminated armed merchantmen as front-hne warships.'^ An early modern state which chose to create its own navy had to develop a complex organisation with an administrative staff. It had to build and maintain warships, develop logistical systems to equip, provision, and arm ships for war and administrative, and develop legal systems to recruit, discipline, and pay seamen with different skills. Most important, this required financing in peacetime. This was a difficult threshold, as subjects usually were unwilling to pay taxes for armed forces when there was no war. If this threshold was passed and the ruler was able to use the resources effectively, he had gained an instrument of great political power. He, rather than private groups, could control the sea through the ability to pay and feed men and send armed ships to sea. With naval administration under his own control, the ruler could increase his power by developing technology, embodied in ships, weapon, and naval competence. Political leaders who developed efficient naval administration could harness maritime and technical resources to their political ambitions and could promote the growth of these resources in the society. 1.1.6

Technology and organisational

capabilities

Technology is one of the most important factors in the development of the modern world. A m o n g the competencies which mattered in early modern Europe were the abilities to design, build, and maintain warships, produce dependable and cheap guns, create efficient crews out of men with various skills, and navigate and command warships in combat and during expeditions to little-known parts of the world. These abilities were scarce resources, which could be developed only by strong and sustained demands for them. Technical competence is usually little appreciated in state formation studies, and the history of technology is often studied outside its organisational and institutional context. This marginalisation of technology in political history and of politics and organisation in technological history has made the dynamic role of navies in early modern Europe less easy to understand.'®

" Market and hierarchy (organisation) as alternative f o r m s of governance is studied in transaction cost economy: Oliver Williamson, The Mechanisms of Governance, Oxford, 1996. Examples of historians and economists w h o argue that technology m u s t be stud-

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Historians and economists often have an ambiguous attitude toward the role of technology in the transformation of society. It is normally accepted that it is of fundamental importance, but technology is frequently regarded as something which comes from somewhere else other than f r o m the individuals or organisations which the historian or economist is studying. Therefore, explanations including technology have been regarded as deterministic, because they seem to place the origin of change outside of that political or economic sphere which the individuals and organisations can influence. However, technology consists of h u m a n skills in interaction with both nature and society, and as such it is central in h u m a n culture. Technical skills are parts of political and economic processes, and they respond to changes in rules of h u m a n interaction (institutional changes). They may improve as responses to demands f r o m h u m a n beings and as expressions of human instincts to gain profit and power f r o m ingenuity. Technological breakthroughs may create major changes in political and military power, but this does not turn inventors, engineers, and artisans into independent actors. Power-holders who are not immediately identified as technical actors may, on closer investigation, be the real entrepreneurs behind technological change. They demand new solutions to political and economic problems which result in innovations, they create new infrastructures adapted to new technology, and they raise resources to finance major investments in new technology. Technology is part of many political, social, and economic processes studied by historians and economists, and technical skills are often decisive for success and failure in h u m a n activity." One consequence of the prevalent attitudes among historians toward technology is that navies have been given little weight in explanations of state formation. State formation is connected with the development of new competence and new technology, and this is especially visible

ied in a context of political restraints, business corporations, scientific knowledge, and the characteristics of influential persons: Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology, Cambridge, Mass., 1987; Giovanni Dosi, Renato Giannitti, and Pier Angelo Toninelli (eds). Technology and Enterprise in a Historical Perspective, Oxford, 1992. " Glete 2002, 55-58, 63-66. My own approach to technological development as an interaction process between markets, a complex industrial organisation, a n d longterm networks between producers and customers was developed in Jan Glete, ASEA under hundra ar: En studie i ett storfdretags organisatoriska, tekniska och ekonomiska utveckling, Viisteras, 1983.

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in the naval sector, where technical change often was integrated with changing policies.^" State formation interacted with naval and military transformation, and naval and military transformation interacted with technical change. This created military and naval capabilities embodied in personnel, operational units, weapons, warships, fortifications, and logistics, combined with the competence to plan, direct and finance major military operations. This became essential foundations of a new type of state. In early modern military history, various explanations of the interaction between state formation, war, and technology have appeared, especially in the "Military Revolution Debate", which has been important in Anglo-Saxon historiography. Changes in military (army) tactics and technology have been used as explanations for changes in the size of armed forces, which in their turn explain the growth of states. At the same time, political change and increased cooperation between rulers and social elites have been seen as explanations behind transformations in the military sphere.^' The present author has argued that efl'ective heavy guns gave rulers a window of opportunity to increase their power in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and that this, if put in its organisational and entrepreneurial context, is a part of the explanation of the general stabilisation of European states and Mediterranean empires up to 1560.^^ This was, however, only a temporary stabilisation, and after it there came a long period of crisis in European state formation (around 1560 to 1660). Innovations in organisations and political interest aggregation were more difficult to achieve than technical innovations and taxpayers, local eUtes, and entrenched power structures were often efl:ective obstacles to the growth of complex states." The successful Swedish expansionism in the period 1560 to 1660 shows that the Vasa state had achieved early successes in developing and combining political and organisational innovations. Technical and tactical innovations were available to every European state, but they required organisational capabilities if resources for war should

Glete 1993 emphasised this approach to state formation, ' ' Clifford J. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe, Boulder, 1995, especially the contributions of Michael Roberts, Geoffrey Parker, and Jeremy Black, 13-54, 95-114. '' Glete 2002, 19. " This periodisation a n d sequence of driving forces was suggested in Glete 1993, 6 - 9 , and further developed in Glete 2002, 10-41.

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be used with efficiency. Because the success of the Swedish expansionistic policy was disproportionate to Swedish resources (population, economy) in relation to the adversaries, a comparative advantage in use of innovations must have existed. The most effective promoters of European state formation in this period may have been those few states which kept major permanent armed forces early and gained in competence to administrate them. These competencies gave them the ability to use resource flows more efficiently than states which raised resources without controlling the core competencies. Their success forced other societies to react and to imitate the pioneers by creating similar states in order to survive. In Northern Europe, Sweden was the power which showed that the fiscal-military state was a superior instrument of power. The navy was the part of this state that bridged the Baltic Sea for expansion on the continent.^"* 1.2 1.2.1

Sweden, naval power and the Baltic

The Swedish fiscal-military state and naval power

Parts of Sweden's early modern history are well integrated with mainstream European history. The 17th-century imperial expansion, the military reforms of Gustav II Adolf, and the administrative reforms connected with the Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna are regarded as important in a European perspective. Other parts of early modern Sweden—the long-term development of army, navy, and administration; the 16th and early 17th-century power struggles in Eastern Europe; and an ambitious and innovative 16th-century royal d y n a s t y are usually regarded as unimportant. Frequently, the explanation of military success is sought in Sweden's ability to wage wars with foreign resources. W h y Sweden had an unusually high ability to raise such external resources and hnk them to the state's core competencies is not explained. It must be sought in Sweden's superior ability to occupy foreign territories and extract resources and in the inability of Sweden's neighbours' to occupy Swedish territory. One part of this explanation is that most of these territories were separated by the sea

This idea is developed in Glete 2002, a study of the Spanish monarchy, the D u t c h RepubUc, and Sweden as the three European states which first developed both permanent armies and p e r m a n e n t navies.

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and that Sweden, but not her neighbours, had the capability to control the sea. Swedish and Finnish historians, in many monographs, have studied the operational, organisational, and financial aspects of the early modern army, administrative reforms, the domestic effects of resource extraction for warfare, and the political struggles between king, nobility, and the lower estates. There are few broad syntheses, however, and strong traditions have divided the historiography into 16th- and 17th-century studies.^^ Seventeenth-century studies have dominated in later decades, and it is mainly Swedish 17th-century history that has interested historians in other countries. This has left the impression that there was a major break in the development of the Swedish state in the early 17th century and that it had been backward in a European perspective until then. Actually, few comparisons with organisational achievements in other states have been made. In a comparative European perspective, the timing of Swedish expansion and the scale and tenacity of Swedish 16th-century warfare are proofs of a decisive change in organisational capabilities already by the mid-16th century. Explanations for Sweden's expansionist policy are typically focused on driving forces (economic or political), not on the causes of success. These driving forces ought to have influenced several powers in the Baltic region, and yet Sweden expanded while her neighbours, some with much larger populations, lost territories. How could the rulers of poor and sparsely populated Sweden even dream that they could make conquests around the Baltic—and how could they succeed? Was there anything special about the state created by the Vasa dynasty since the 1520s, which gave it an advantage in ability to concentrate and organise resources in armed conflicts? From an organisational perspective, it is easy to see that there were in fact important features that made this state unusual and that these deviations from the normal European pattern denoted modernity rather than backwardness. Sweden was the only 16th-century state in Northern Europe with both a permanent army and a permanent navy. They were backed up by a tax-raising organisation, which already by

" An i m p o r t a n t exception is G u n n a r Arteus, Till militdrstatens forhistoria: Krig, professionalisering och social forandring under Vasasdnernas regering, Stockliolm, 1986, 72-79.

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the mid-16th century had penetrated deep into the local society, where it searched and found cheap resources which were used by the state in an innovative fashion. State formation turned into empire building when the Vasa dynasty began to look to territories outside the medieval Swedish realm for further protection-selling and power penetration. For a long period, capability to control the sea made imperial expansion around the eastern and southern coasts of the Baltic more successful than attempts to defeat Denmark, which had a navy able to defend the country from seaborne invasion. In terms of political interest aggregation, the Swedish fiscal-military state had passed the critical threshold by the mid-16th century, before most European states. The ruler's subjects reluctantly paid taxes and sent soldiers and seamen requested by the king, normally under the pretext that they were necessary for defence. This supply of resources made it possible for the rulers to develop organisational capabilities with numerous officers and bureaucrats loyal to the dynasty that paid them. After the mid-16th century, serious domestic violence (1563, 1568, 1596-99) were generated by conflicts within the ruling dynasty, not by elite or peasant rebellions. Perhaps the most important political feature of the Swedish state was its ability to raise large resources for war without the tax revolts, civil wars, and resistance f r o m local elites, which struck nearly all European states between 1560 and 1660. The Swedish empire was created in this period, when most of Europe was involved in domestic power struggles between state and society. Swedish expansion was checked and finally turned into decline when other states had developed fiscal-military structures similar to those of the Swedish state. In spite of the great interest for war and administration among Swedish historians, the most complex administrative structure of the Swedish armed forces, the navy, has not been given much attention. Its existence has more or less been taken for granted in spite of the fact that, in a Baltic and European perspective, it was unusual to have such an organisation in the 16th century. Its size and administrative complexity has been underestimated and its strategic role for Swedish expansion and defence only partially understood. The lack of maritime competencies has often been regarded as a source of weakness for Swedish naval and imperial policy. The ability of the Swedish state to maintain a large navy in this unfavourable environment has not been seen as the proof of this state's unusual organisational capabilities, which it actually was, in a comparative perspective. The superiority

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of a complex organisation in competition with other forms of sea power became obvious very early in the Baltic Sea. The anatomy of the organisation, which created Swedish power at sea, may have something to say about the anatomy of this state. Swedish naval policy was dynastic. The Vasa dynasty was founded with support by naval power acquired from abroad by its founder, and every new king found that control of the Baltic Sea had to be a cornerstone in their policy. For historians who are interested in how an early modern dynastic state could penetrate deep into a rural society in order to raise and combine a wide variety of resources into a complex organisation, the Swedish navy offers an excellent case to study. The state could not appeal to a society of experienced seafarers and maritime warriors who took control of the sea in their own interest. It could not organise the administration of naval power by contracting with men who had maritime experience unless it decided to turn to cities and regions beyond its territorial control. That would have been expensive, politically dangerous, and difficult to coordinate. The taxpayers would have to pay with cash rather than with local resources of men and material, and large taxes in cash were notoriously difficult to raise in Sweden. What the Swedish rulers could and did do was search for cheap and under-utilised resources (material, men, and know-how) at h o m e and combine them as efficiently as possible into permanent naval power. They did this in a distinctly Swedish pattern in which the lack of powerful local elites to serve as intermediates was turned into an advantage. The Vasa state developed direct links with peasants in local communities and burghers in small towns and used political persuasion and administrative competence to raise the under-utilised resources which were critical for the organisation of an army and a navy. This was combined with the import of key technical and maritime competencies, but transfer of know-how was organised in ways that made them politically safe. This combination of cheap resources and advanced know-how was an entrepreneurial achievement and a central part of the state formation process in Sweden. 1.2.2

State formation,

international

relations and Baltic

historiography

Swedish historians have seen Sweden's early modern wars as results of aggressive neighbours, of an unfavourable geostrategic position, of a policy to control trade between Eastern and Western Europe, or of a

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policy to legitimise transfer of agricultural surplus from peasants to king and aristocracy. No historian has attempted to bring together modern studies of economy, domestic power relations, administration, international power struggles, and military performance in a long-term synthesis. Syntheses about Swedish foreign policy and warfare have often been written by non-Scandinavian historians, usually in a Baltic or North European perspective. Tliey frequently follow old historical traditions and regard Sweden as a peripheral state in the 16th century which, suddenly, appears on the "European" scene as a great power around 1630.^'^ In this tradition, sixteenth-century Sweden is seen as backward, with a primitive administration and armed forces of doubtful quality. The Vasa monarchy is often described as living in the shadows of a powerful Danish state, with aspirations to recreate the Kalmar Union, and the Danish navy is supposed to have dominated the Baltic Sea. Sweden's geostrategic position is described as unfavourable. Unfriendly neighbours—Denmark-Norway, Russia, and Poland-Lithuania—"encircled" Sweden and reduced fts ability to "reach" Europe and the Atlantic. Denmark's control of the entrance to the Baltic is described as a major strategic and economic problem for Sweden. Even Sweden's survival as an independent state is supposed to have been in doubt as late as the early 17th century. Then, in the 1610s and 1620s, something decisive happened, which made Sweden a European great power and a modern state.^'

Historiography: Glete 2002, 174-78. Recent surveys are David Kirby, Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period: The Baltic world, 1492-1772, London, 1990; Stewart P. Oakley, War and Peace in the Baltic, 1560-1790, London, 1992; Robert 1. Frost, The Northern Wars: War, state and society in northeastern Europe, 15581721, Harlow, 2000; and Paul Douglas Lockhart, Sweden in the Seventeenth Century, Basingstoke, 2004. See, for example, Michael Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus: A History of Sweden, 1611-1632, I, London, 1953, 1 - 5 , 8 - 1 0 , 47-48; and Michael Roberts, The Swedish Imperial Experience, 1560-1718, Cambridge, 1979, 1-42. Robert's interpretation has been influential in Anglo-Saxon scholarship. There are traces of encirclement, Danish supremacy, Danish plans for a new u n i o n or Sweden as a low-performing military power struggling for survival before the age of Gustav II Adolf in Oakley 1992, 18, 46, and Frost 2000, 7, 102-04. Lockhart 2004, 13-15, 26, 40, 94, 107, emphatically restates the encirclement t h e m e as the explanation of Swedish imperialism and that D e n m a r k Norway's geographical position was an obstacle for Swedish contacts with Western Europe. In contrast, Kirby 1990 avoids generalisations about geostrategy and national policies as causes of war. A critical review of these arguments: Jan Glete, "Varfor flyttade

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Tliis perspective on Swedish history is shaped by historians (including Swedish historians), who regard Western Europe as the centre of European history and the rest of the continent as peripheral. Sixteenthcentury Western Europe was not yet the centre of Europe, however, and Sweden's geographical position made it a part of Eastern and Central European political and economic power struggles rather than of conflicts, alliances, and dynastic strategies in Western Europe. The rise of the Swedish Vasa state in the 16th century did rapidly make it a power player in the Baltic of equal importance as Russia and PolandLithuania, two of Europe's largest states. By the end of this century, Russia's attempt to become a Baltic power was defeated, and PolandLithuania was ruled by the Vasa dynasty after a successful electoral competition with the Habsburgs. In the early 17th century, both the Swedish and Polish branches of the Vasa dynasty were serious contenders for the Russian throne. Denmark was of only marginal importance in these Baltic power struggles, especially after 1570. The following century made Sweden into a continental power player in both Eastern and Western Europe, a position which at that time it shared only with the Austrian Habsburgs. This 17th-century rise to "European great power" status has overshadowed what was achieved by the early Vasa state, especially in comparison to the unimportant position which 15th-century Sweden had in international politics. The early Vasa state and its armed forces had significantly changed the power structures in the Baltic region, and the upstart Vasas had become a major European dynasty. Even if Sweden never had become a Western European great power, these achievements alone would have been regarded as major successes. The present study is focused on administrative and technical capabflities in a state formation perspective, and it evaluates Sweden's degree of modernity by comparing the ability to control the sea with similar abilities in other states. This has resulted in a re-evaluation of important aspects of Swedish and Baltic history. The study emphasises continuity rather than discontinuity in policy and capabilities between the 16th and 17th centuries, and Sweden's 16th-century international position is interpreted as stronger than in earlier syntheses. This is partly inspired by penetrating empirical studies made by Nordic his-

Sverige viisterut?" in Lennart Palm and Maria Sjoberg (eds), Historia: Christer Winberg den 5 juni 2007, Gothenburg, 2007, 105-16.

Vdnbok

till

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torians since the mid-20th century, especially Sven Lundkvist's and Frede P. Jensen's studies of Swedish and Danish 16th-century foreign policy and the Nordic balance of power. Harald Gustafsson's study of the dissolution of the Nordic union, which emphasises that it was a result of state-formation activities f r o m two centres rather than a natural outcome of different national identities, has also been important. My own view of Swedish, Nordic, and Baltic international relations in a state formation perspective is outlined here, as an alternative to more traditional interpretations of Swedish and North European power politics.^® The Kalmar Union was not a Danish imperial project. The tensions which weakened and destroyed it were not between antagonistic nations but between groups with different interests. Two Union kings—Erik of Pomerania in the 1430s and Christian II in 1523—were deposed by rebellions in both Denmark and Sweden. Two other kings—Christian I and Hans—were only deposed in Sweden, but in a Swedish perspective this was the normal fate of medieval rulers. Most Swedish kings from the 12th to the 14th century had been deposed by domestic opponents. Rebellion was a normal Swedish political behaviour. It was similar to that in other medieval kingdoms, although Swedish rebellions were unusually successful in actually dethroning kings. In the 14th century, the Nordic kingdoms became connected by personal unions; first Sweden and Norway, later Norway and Denmark. The final result was a union between all three kingdoms. It was inherently fragile, because Denmark and Sweden remained elective monarchies with separate elections of kings, and it did not resuh in any lasting change of Swedish rules of political interaction. At first, a serious attempt was made to create a strong centralised monarchy, but after the revolts in the 1430s this policy was abandoned in all three countries. Control over castles and taxes from incomes was transferred from royal bailiffs to aristocratic governors {Idntagare) and in Sweden the aristocratic Council became the centre of political power. Kings, German-Danish as well as the Swedish-born Karl

Sven Lundkvist, Gustav Vasa och Europa: Svensk handels- och utrikespolitik, 1534-1557, Uppsala, 1960; Frede P. Jensen, Danmarks konflikt med Sverige, 1563-1570, Copenhagen, 1982; HaraldGustafsson, Gamla riken, nyastater: Statsbildning,politiskkulturoch identitet under Kalmarunionens upplosningsskede, 1512-1541, Stockholm, 2000. See also Jespersen 2000 and Esben Albrectsen, Karl-Erik Frandsen, and G u n n e r Lind, Dansk udenrigspolitiks historic, 1. Konger och krige, 700-1648, Copenhagen, 2002.

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Knutsson Boiide, continued to be opposed and deposed by various coalitions, not because of their nationality but because the power of the state they ran was insufficient to resist strong domestic opponents. From 1470 to 1520, the Swedish aristocracy, in alliance with local peasant communities, almost continuously ruled the country as an aristocratic republic and elected an aristocrat as regent (riksfdrestdndare) to handle the central administration in the absence of effective royal authority. Political actions became more inter-Nordic in character, however. The union was a framework both for dynastic efforts to create a more centralised Nordic monarchy and for aristocratic efforts to keep peace between three decentralised kingdoms without increasing royal power. Conflicts within the union were often clashes not between its three members but between various interests groups with connections across the borders. Danish and Swedish peasants living in the border regions tried to keep local peace when the elite groups feuded, while Danish and Swedish elite families frequently intermarried and established branches in both kingdoms. The regents Sten Sture (the older) and Svante Nilsson, who traditionally have been regarded as leaders of a national Swedish policy against Denmark, were married to Danish noblewomen. Sten Sture (the older) gained much of his power position from his marriage into the powerful Danish Tott family, which was in feud with Christian I and lived in exile in Sweden. The early 16th-century effort to bring Sweden under control of the Oldenburg rulers was a dynastic policy to create a strong monarchic state. It was not the result of national Danish ambitions, and resistance against a powerful monarchy was strong also in Denmark. This policy led in 1521 to a Swedish rebellion with peasants and aristocrats in alliance; in 1523 to an aristocratic rebelUon in Holstein and Denmark, a split within the Oldenburg family, and a series of civil wars in Denmark and Norway (1523-36), where the new Swedish Vasa monarchy supported the junior branch of the Oldenburg family. Interest alliances across the borders continued after 1523, the year the union is normally regarded as dissolved. For a few decades the two new dynasties cooperated in order to create two strong states, a parallel and interdependent series of events that is surprisingly unobserved by historians. The first Vasa king, Gustav I, was neither a national champion for a fledgling independent state nor an arch-enemy of a strong Danish state. He was struggling for the creation of a centralised dynastic state

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under his own control. The resistance came f r o m interior rather than exterior forces and from old political institutions which favoured decentralisation of power and a weak monarchy. The dynasties in the two new states were usurpers who cooperated against enemies within and outside the old union; aristocrats and commoners who rebelled against increased royal power, the senior Oldenburg branch and their Habsburg relatives, Liibeck's mercantile power, and the Catholic Church. It is striking that the two dynasties helped each other rather than tried to destabilise the other regime. This cooperation between two centres may have been decisive for establishing the strong state power, which the Union monarchy had failed to achieve when it tried to create a single state. It is only with the gradual stabilisation of the Vasa and Oldenburg states after the 1530s that it is meaningful to analyse Nordic conflicts as primarily national in character. When the domestic foundation for the new state was secured, the Vasas began a policy of expanding their influence in the Baltic region. They were not the only contenders for Baltic power, but in comparison to Denmark, Poland, and Russia they were the most systematic innovators. They had created a state which could fight long wars in a region where ability to control both the sea and littoral territories mattered. Oldenburg Denmark maintained a powerful navy but lacked financial and military structures to fight long wars on land because it relied on German mercenaries for major military efforts. Poland and Russia did not support their Baltic policy with naval forces and had great political and administrative difficulties in concentrating their potentially huge resources to sustained warfare in the Baltic. After easy successes in dividing the territories of the German Order around 1560, these three states were unable to extend their territories or spheres of power in this region. Their military capabilities were sufficient to fill a power vacuum but it would have required major innovations in their political, fiscal and military structures to achieve Baltic supremacy. Such innovations came only later in Denmark and Russia and never in Poland. In contrast, the Swedish monarchy was already in the 16th century efficient in raising and administrating resources for warfare on both land and at sea, especially long wars of attrition. It participated in the division of the territories of the German Order around 1560, and it almost continuously fought major wars against one or more of the other three powers in order to defend and extend its conquests. It gradually learned to adapt its administrative and military resources to

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offensive warfare, and conquests of territories from much more populous enemies followed. Sweden was up to the mid-17th century one of the few states in Europe which administrated both an army and a navy without the help of private entrepreneurs. Swedish and foreign entrepreneurs recruited soldiers to increase the Swedish army when it fought wars on foreign territories, but the core competence to run the armed forces were firmly retained within the dynastic state. Tliis state also early developed an efficient local administration, which penetrated deep into the society and in a European perspective made the king unusually independent of local elites for control of the society.^' Geostrategy cannot be used to explain why Sweden became expansionistic, and the encirclement of Sweden by its neighbours is a rather bizarre idea.^" Many European countries were encircled by their neighbours, as that is what neighbours do on a continent. Sweden had a wide territory with an unusually rich and varied resource endowment, which made it largely independent, and not reliant on imports. Already the long distances made offensive operations on land against central Sweden difficult. The long land borders to Denmark, Norway, and Russia were also covered by wide forests or mountains, which were difficult to penetrate with army forces. The borders between Finland and Russia and between Norway and Sweden were unsuited to major offensives even in World War II. Sweden also had a long Baltic coast. This made the country vulnerable to superior naval power but also easy to defend with such power. Provided that Sweden organised a proper defence on land and at sea, the country was almost impossible to conquer within its medieval borders. They were ideal for defence of a wide territory with a small population in relation to its size. Economic "encirclement" is an equally flawed explanation to Swedish expansionism. Denmark's control of the entrance to the Baltic was the very opposite of the "stranglehold" on Baltic and Swedish trade it frequently is described as. In contrast to the Hanse's traditional attempt to channel trade between Eastern and Western Europe through Liibeck and use force against those who used the Sound, the Danes kept the Sound open for international trade. Denmark was no predator on international trade; it was its self-interested but efficient

' ' This is argued in Glete 2002, 174-212. A review of tlie encirclement idea: Frede P. Jensen, "Den danske 'inkredsning' af Vasa-tidens Sverige, Svensk historietoltaiing i Karl Xll-renaessancens tegn", (Danish) Historisk Tidsskrift, 76. 1976, 1-24.

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protector. Danish naval control of the southern Baltic Sea made the Baltic into the safest region for long-distance shipping anywhere in Europe. The Sound Toll was a part of a Danish protection-selling policy where incomes to the state made it possible for this state to control violence along the coasts and protect long-distance international shipping against piracy and armed competitors. Baltic trade, not to mention trade between Sweden and Western Europe, benefited from this. Swedish shipping was especially privileged, because it did not pay the Sound Toll before 1720. Furthermore, contrary to a common belief, the Swedish 17th-century conquest of the eastern side of the Sound did not break Danish control of the entrance to the Baltic. Denmark, with its main naval base in the Sound, could still control shipping through the straits. If anything broke this control, it was the rapid mid-17th-century rise of Western European naval power, which made it possible for the Western maritime powers to protect their shipping with battle fleets deployed to the Baltic Sea.'' Politically, the "encirclement" interpretation of Sweden's imperial expansion is also flawed, because none of Sweden's neighbours actually were seriously hostile to Sweden within its pre-1561 borders. Arguments to the contrary are frequently rather uncritical repetitions of the domestic propaganda, which the Swedish dynastic state spread as a legitimisation of its wars and its intense resource extraction for mihtary purposes.'^ The neighbours became seriously hostile only after Sweden had made major conquests from them, and then for obvious reasons. Denmark was not pursuing a long-term policy of restoring the Kalmar Union.'' Russia's interest in Finnish territory was weaker than the longterm Swedish-Finnish drive for colonisation east of the vaguely defined 14th-century border to Russia. Before 1561, Poland-Lithuania had never been in war with Sweden. Liibeck, the German power that had been able to exercise power in Scandinavia, was decisively defeated in the 1530s by the Vasa and the Oldenburg (junior branch) dynasties in cooperation. This cooperation shows that the new dynasties had strong common interests. Alliances or a tacit understanding to direct ambitions to expand in other directions (Denmark to the south and Sweden to

'' Glete2000, 112-30; Glete 1993, 184-87. ^^ Anna Maria Forssberg, Att hdlla folket pa gott humor. Informationsspridning, krigspropaganda och mobilisering i Sverige, 1655-1680, Stockholm, 2005. New light on this problem, Jensen 1982, 34-72.

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the east) were common in Danish-Swedish relations after 1523 and until the early 17th centmy. The conflicts in the 1560s and 1570s were exceptional rather than normal. Sweden was a strong power in the Baltic already from the 1530s, having actively used military and naval power in order to gain diplomatic and economic advantages by threats and pressure. It acted from a position of strength, not weakness. From the 1560s Sweden was openly expansionistic. Not even a coalition of three neighbours—Denmark-Norway, Lubeck, and Poland-Lithuania (replaced by Russia in 1570)—was in the 1560s able to inflict a decisive defeat on the Vasa monarchy. It continued its ambitious territorial and dynastic policy in the eastern Baltic after 1570, while the Oldenburgs gave up their ambitions in this region. After 1523, Denmark never fought a war with Sweden unless the Vasa state had at least one other war to fight. Denmark's ability to wage such a war alone with success is uncertain. Until the early 17th century it had no permanent army. The mercenary forces, which the Oldenburg rulers hired on the continent for warfare against Sweden, were expensive and less suitable in the Nordic environment, where opportunities for battles in the open fields were few. It is also doubtful if skilled military entrepreneurs and numerous soldiers would have been available in times of major wars on the continent. Denmark's offensives against Sweden with German mercenaries in 1520, 1563, and 1611 were launched during brief periods of peace between the major European powers, when many military entrepreneurs were available. After these wars, Denmark formed a permanent army, but it proved too small during the next two wars with Sweden (1643-45 and 1657-60). Danish naval power was strong and well administrated, but the navy was normally not larger than the Swedish. Its main role was to defend the territorial integrity of the Danish state, which was connected with sea lines of communication and, consequently, vulnerable to superior sea power. The geostrategic idea that Sweden was encircled by notoriously hostile neighbours may also be inspired by the mental power of modern Nordic borders and the common European idea of the "natural" borders of a national state. They have created an impression that Sweden, by its mid-17th-century conquests of several Danish and Norwegian provinces, had achieved its natural borders and that the earlier borders

Lundkvist

1960, esp. 197-200, 383-87, 391-96; Jensen

1982.

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were an unavoidable cause of instability and war. Historically, however, these borders had developed because they were natural; deep forests at a distance from the centres of the three Nordic realms. Russia and Poland-Lithuania had more problems with "reaching" Western Europe and the Atlantic than Sweden, and their contacts with Western Europe were threatened by Swedish expansion. Sweden, in contrast to Denmark, had a policy of directing and controlling the flow of trade between Eastern and Western Europe.'^ It is more realistic to describe Sweden's neighbours as unfortunate victims of their geostrategic position. They had to live with the aggressive and expansionistic Swedish monarchy, which from an almost impregnable central position around the Lake Malaren with ample natural resources for warfare (iron, copper, timber, naval stores, and provisions) could launch strikes against their weak spots with seaborne forces. Sweden's ability to do that was a result not of geography but of the Vasa dynasty's creation of administrative, military, and naval capabilities. Russia, Poland-Lithuania, and the German powers did not develop substantial naval power, and they were consequently unable to launch offensives against Sweden within its pre-1561 borders. Denmark could pose a threat to Sweden with its navy, but its long borders to Sweden made it vulnerable on land from a power that had a permanent army and good ability to launch a sudden attack on the fertile regions in eastern Denmark; Skane and Halland. Sweden's ability to create a position as a great power was very much a result of that the neighbours had inferior capability to organise resources for war. Their population, agricultural production, and trade were much larger or at least equal to that of Sweden, but they were backward in fiscal-military organisation. The Swedish empire was a result of the uneven European state formation process where Swedish capabilities for warfare for a long period were superior to other powers in the Baltic and to most European states. This superiority culminated from the 1620s to the 1650s, but it had existed since at least the 1560s, when imperial expansion began and prevailed in fierce competition with other powers. Swedish expansion reached an end when other powers began to catch up in formation of fiscal-military organisations. The empire was finally divided when the Swedish superiority

The main study remains A r t u r Attman, The struggle for Baltic nmrkets: Powers in conflict, 1558-1618, Gothenburg, 1979 (Swedish edition, 1944).

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in organisation of resources became too small to compensate for the great inferiority in resources. An interpretation which emphasises that formation of fiscal-military states was decisive for Baltic and European warfare makes it impossible to uphold the vague but persistent idea of Sweden as "backward" or undeveloped in a European context. Hie Swedish economy before the 17th century was less sophisticated than in many other parts of Europe, but the state was unusually modern. It was better able to recruit, pay, feed, arm, and control armed forces on its own than most other European states. Sweden is one of the few 16th-century European states for which it is possible to calculate the real number of soldiers and seamen in the armed forces from detailed lists of men who were paid and provisioned by the king's officers and administrators. From a naval perspective, backwardness is out of the question, as Sweden from the early 16th century was one of the rather few European states which maintained a modern sailing gun-armed navy. Sweden was also open to foreign entrepreneurs and foreign technology, and the state actively searched for new competencies, which might strengthen the state and the economy. Social conditions in Sweden, with a majority of peasants not subordinated to traditional feudal obligations, were not in any meaningful sense backward. One important military effect of this situation was that Swedish rulers were less afraid of arming peasants and using them as soldiers than most European rulers. Another effect was that the aristocracy had less power to resist royal policy than in many other European societies. Some aristocrats became attracted to the idea of a strong centralised state, fighting offensive wars as an alternative outlet for their ambition to rule. Aristocratic support for such a state was much stronger than in Denmark and especially Poland-Lithuania, where the aristocracy blocked state formation. The rise of a Swedish Parliament centralised political interest aggregation and made it possible for the state to raise taxes and conscript soldiers with less resistance from the population. It also channelled protests against the state and the aristocracy into political action rather than desperate revolts. The obstacles against resource flows f r o m the society to the central state were markedly weak in Sweden, and that favoured "modernisation" in the sense that the state became stronger earlier than most other European states. Sixteenth-century Sweden was surrounded by autonomous mercantile and maritime cities, more or less aristocratically dominated territorial

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states and a Russia ruled by despotic tsars, with ambitions but with a low ability to innovate. From the perspective of innovative and entrepreneurial rulers like the Vasas, that meant opportunities at least as much as threats. To the Swedish taxpayers and to the outer world they described their neighbours as political and religious threats, which the monarchy had to guard its subjects from by armed force and preemptive offensive warfare. Historians still often accept much of this analysis and play down the markedly aggressive ambitions of the dynasty itself The Vasa dynasty had from its very beginning consistently sought and usually found the most recent political, administrative and military-technical instruments for power. One of them was a gun-armed permanent navy. The Vasa military and naval policy made it possible for a society with originally less than a million inhabitants to reshape the political geography in a region inhabited by societies with several million inhabitants. From political, organisational and military perspectives, the Swedish society and the centralised Swedish territorial state represented the future rather than an underdeveloped part of Europe. Its expansionistic policy forced other societies in the Baltic to modernise and transform their political institutions and organisations for war. 1.2.3

Baltic geostrategy

The political and strategic usefulness of naval power is that it can change geostrategic preconditions if sea lines of communication are important. Control of the sea is important because heavy objects, large quantities of cargo, and large numbers of men can move easily and cheaply when they are supported by the lifting power of water. Control of the seas around the Nordic countries was important for trade, for political dominance of Nordic territories, for projection of military power to territories around the sea, for defence of territories against invasion, and for enforcing and breaking blockades. Full control of the sea in Northern Europe required both major ships able to operate on the open sea and small craft to control coastal and inshore waters. Baltic strategy is also inherently amphibious and difficult to divide into army and navy strategy. Both parts of the armed forces depended on each other for operational freedom, and they must be able to cooperate both strategically and tactically. A navy requires at least one base to which resources can flow, and an administrative centre, which coordinates the resources. In the

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16th-century geography and poUcy made Stockhohn into the obvious main naval base and administrative centre of the Vasa navy. The city was protected from land attacks by large distances to enemy territories and from seaborne attacks by an archipelago with narrow passages, easy to defend with fortifications and ships. Stockholm was a deep-water port and a communication centre for several regions with men, provisions, timber, tar, iron, and copper. Strategically, Stockholm, together with forward bases in southern Sweden and the Gulf of Finland, was conveniently situated both for anti-invasion defence, protection of trade, blockade of foreign ports in northern and central Baltic Sea, and combined operations with the army to the other side of the sea. With the navy close at hand in Stocldiolm, the kings and the central administration could supervise its maintenance and preparations for campaigns. The navy was always near the political centre. W h e n Sweden had gained an empire, it became strategically important to move the main base to the southern Baltic. This resulted in the foundation of Karlskrona, where the central naval administration also was located. The naval leadership's absence from the political and administrative centre of the state gradually created frictions and increased the risk that the navy and the central state saw politics, strategy, and operational priorities from different perspectives. Distance mattered in poUcy-making and administration. Sweden and Denmark had no major mercantile marines until far into the 17th century. For their navies, trade protection mainly meant keeping ports open to German and Western European ships which carried most of trade to and from the Nordic powers. Trade blockades had to be enforced with awareness of political consequences among neutral powers. It was only from the mid-17th century that Western sea powers were able to protect their trade with their own naval forces sent to the Baltic. The dominance of foreign shipping and the inability of foreign rulers to protect it also made it important and profitable for the Baltic powers to make foreigners pay for protection by custom duties. This required control of important ports and chokepoints in maritime lines of communication. The ideal narrows were the Danish straits, which connected the Baltic Sea with the North Sea. This was exploited by the Danish kings, and the Sound Toll became an important part of their incomes. Baltic river estuaries were also suitable to raise customs and sell licenses. This was exploited by the Swedish monarchy; although duties paid on export and import in Swedish ports were also important f r o m the 17th century onward, when Swedish trade greatly increased.

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Control of the sea was important for a ruler's domestic power. Early modern rulers' control of a territory was related to their ability to use superior armed force against domestic competitors. These competitors were often armed or in contact with foreign groups who might support them with armed force. Because the Nordic states consisted of territories intersected by the sea, control of the sea gave the ruler ability to transfer armed forces within his territory and to deny competitors the ability to concentrate their forces or receive help from other countries. Danish-Norwegian 16th-century kings had no permanent army but were, after 1536, in full control of their kingdoms, which were intersected by straits and seas and connected by waterways. Their personal control of the navy was an important part of their ability to convince the local elites that the Oldenburg kings had to be taken seriously. In Sweden, naval power for control of the sea was important in a civil war as late as in 1597-99. Baltic geography and transport systems often dominated army operations. Before the transport revolution of the 19th and 20th century, large-scale wars on land could be waged only in agriculturally rich areas or in areas supplied from the sea or through inland waterways. Whichever power controlled the sea could concentrate superior forces to a decisive place and win by superior logistics. The total size of an army often mattered less than the ability to deploy it continuously to strategically important regions. Early modern military operations were often sieges of cities and fortresses, and such operations required transports of heavy siege guns and continuous provisioning of the army. The sea provided lines of transportation, and because most major Baltic cities were situated at coasts, they could be attacked with amphibious forces but also supplied f r o m the sea if under attack from land. If an army was to be safely supplied with reinforcements, food, and munitions, it ought to be placed at one end of a maritime line of communication controlled by a friendly fleet.^® Grand strategy often aims at solving defensive problems with as small forces as possible in order to concentrate forces on off'ensive operations, which might decide the war. In the Baltic this meant strategic interaction between armies and navies even when they operated in widely different theatres of war. In a region with long coasts, deep

A r m y logistics in Finland: Christer Kuvaja, Porsdrjning av en ockupationsarme: Den ryska armens underhdllssystem i Finland, 1713-1721, Abo, 1999; Martin Hardstedt, Om krigets fdrutsdttningar: Den militdra underhallsproblematiken och det civila samhdllet i norm Sverige och Finland under Finska kriget, 1808-09, Umea, 2002.

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bays, several islands, and territories connected by the sea, a navy may be important because it increases the operational freedom of the army and limits the operational freedom of the enemy's army. Coasts and islands are vulnerable to enemy invasions if the enemy controls the sea. Hiat may tie the army in defensive positions and severely limit its operational freedom, even if it is superior to the enemy's army. The coasts of the Nordic states are very long in proportion to their population, and this required naval control of the nearby seas if the army were to not be left with more or less impossible defensive tasks. The problem was solved if a battle fleet could be maintained in the enemy's home water and could limit his operational freedom on land and sea. Early modern Denmark-Norway and Sweden consisted of territories intersected by seas. It was necessary to keep control of these waters if the regions should not be isolated and rendered incapable of supporting each other. The Swedish empire was separated and connected by the sea, and it could only survive if the navy kept the lines of communication open. Sweden did, however, have a large and resourceful territory in its centre that was not dependent on control of the sea and that made survival possible without strong naval power. In contrast, Denmark-Norway consisted of peninsulas, islands, or territories, with Sweden on one side and the sea on the other. If the Danish monarchy lost control of its home waters, its army could not be concentrated or sent to an area attacked by the enemy, nor could allies send help without support of a fleet. If the army were concentrated in one area, the enemy might strike in another, to which the army could not be transferred by sea. Even worse, the navy could be immobilised by a surprise attack, because the seamen in times of peace were spread around Denmark and Norway while the warships were laid up in Copenhagen. More than any other state in Europe, Denmark depended on her navy for survival. W h e n the navy lost control of the sea (1644-45, 1658, 1700, and again during the Napoleonic wars), Denmark was easily defeated. For Sweden, ability to launch amphibious assaults on the Danish isles became a prime concern for military and naval decision-makers. Baltic naval warfare was an early example of the use of battle fleet strategy. The aim of both Danish and Swedish naval operations was to create a mobile strategic position at sea in order to influence or decide the outcome of a conflict. Early modern navies only gradually gained the technical and logistical ability to stay at sea for several months, and control of distant waters was difficult to achieve. Warships must

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receive fresh provisions and vi'ater on a frequent basis, and repairs of rigs and hulls were easier to make in sheltered waters, hi the Baltic it is, however, possible to control important sea lines of communication with a battle fleet without enforcing a close blockade on the enemy's main base. A fleet was normally strongest near its base, and it could often exercise a considerable control of the sea just by cruising close to the base or even by staying there, keeping ready to sail when its presence at sea was necessary. The Baltic Sea in a strategic analysis may be divided into a northern and southern zone with a border from the island Oland to Courland (today western Latvia). For Denmark, offensive battle fleet operations required a fleet in the northern Baltic. The basic defensive task of the Swedish navy was to make this impossible. The Swedish navy's main offensive task was to place a battle fleet in the southern and especially southwestern Baltic, near or within the Danish straits. That would force the Danish fleet to protect its home waters, thus protecting Swedish coasts and the hnes of communication across the Baltic. A middle-way Swedish strategy was to place the battle fleet in Kalmarsund, between Oland and the Swedish mainland. This made it difficult for the Danish fleet to sail north of Oland without exposing the sea lines in the southern Baltic to attacks. From Kalmarsund the Swedish fleet might also escort convoys to and from German ports. A more offensive Swedish battle fleet strategy was to cruise around the island of Bornholm, where the lines of communication between southern, eastern, and northern Baltic meet. Danish and Swedish fleets both often cruised in these waters, and if both wanted to fight a decisive battle for control of the southern Baltic, this was a logical position for a contest. The most aggressive Swedish strategy was to deploy the fleet to the southern entrance of the Sound or to Koge Bay, south of Copenhagen, where the Danish fleet often anchored to get provisions. This would force to the Danish navy to fight a decisive battle or retreat to Copenhagen and give up control of all parts of the Baltic Sea. If the Swedish fleet were to support an invasion of the Danish isles with an army in Germany or Jutland, it might also cruise in the waters between the island of Riigen and the Danish straits, typically close to the island of Femern. If the fleet defended the communications with Germany, it either had to blockade the Danish fleet at the entrance of the Sound or cruise in the open sea between Skane and Riigen. Continuous operations in these waters required a temporary forward base as long as

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Stockholm remained the main naval. Before Karlskrona was founded in 1680, Landskrona at the Sound and Wismar in Mecklenburg served as such bases in some wars. It is no coincidence that most naval battles in the Bahic are named after Oland, Bornholm, Koge Bay, Femern, or Riigen. The location of major battles in which the Swedish navy was involved from 1521 to 1721 shows that most of them took place when it fought for control of the southern Baltic Sea and the Danish straits. It did so as an instrument first of an expansionistic power and, later, of an imperial power with trans-Baltic territories to defend. The transfer of the navy's main base from Stoclcholm to the newly founded naval city Karlskrona in the 1680s was a logical consequence of the fact that the new Swedish empire had made the southern Baltic into the decisive theatre for naval operations in the Baltic. The third operational area for a Swedish fleet was the Western Sea {Vasterhavet): Kattegatt and Skagerack. Until 1645, Sweden had only a narrow coast in the west. It was situated at the Gota Alv estuary, an excellent base for a fleet as well as an important commercial port. This river estuary is deep enough for large ships but narrow enough to be defended by gunfire. It was situated in the centre of strategic lines of communications on sea and land between Denmark and Norway. Even a small Swedish force operating from this base could cause great problems, and the Danish navy had to defeat it or blockade it with by superior forces. These had to be detached from the Baltic Sea and that reduced Danish operational strength there. The peace of 1645 added Danish Halland to Sweden, and from 1658 the Norwegian province of Bohuslan was also Swedish. These conquests gave Sweden a long western coast but did not change naval strategy. The Danish navy was still in control of the Sound as long as it was not decisively defeated, and Swedish naval commitments in the Western Sea remained limited to a cruising force intended to divert superior Danish forces f r o m the Baltic Sea by posing a threat to internal Danish-Norwegian communications. Swedish ports on the west coast could not replace ports in the Baltic Sea for trade with Western Europe, partly because of Swedish economic geography but also because a Danish naval blockade in the Skagerack could be almost as effective as Danish control of the Sound. But this was no great problem for Swedish trade with Western Europe, because neutral shipping normally went on as usual during Swedish-Danish wars.

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The Baltic Sea and the Western Sea have unusual geographic conditions for naval operation and amphibious warfare. Several important coastal and littoral areas v^ere suitable neither for sea-going battle fleets requiring deep water and open seas nor for conventionally operating armies requiring territories uninterrupted by water. Archipelagos with many small islands, shallow water, and narrow passages cover much of the Swedish Baltic coast and the southern coast of Finland. The entrances to several ports, including Stockholm, are narrow and winding and possible to block with fortresses, blockships, and physical obstructions. The coast between the Gota Alv estuary (Gothenburg) and the Osloi^ord is archipelagic but not shallow, and it is suitable for cooperation between sailing and oared warships. Southern Finland and the coast between Gothenburg and Oslo were agriculturally poor but important for major army forces in wars between Sweden, Russia, and Denmark-Norway. These armies had to be supported f r o m the sea, and control of the archipelago was the key to control of the littoral territory. The Sound is narrow enough to be easily crossed by an invasion army. The southern entrances (the Drogden and Flintriinnan passages) were restricted in depth (they have been deepened in modern times), which made them complicated for large sailing warships, especially under combat conditions. Drogden is easy to defend. The northern entrance is deep and, contrary to a c o m m o n misunderstanding, too wide to be controlled by early modern guns at Helsingor and Helsingborg. The coasts along the eastern and southern parts of the Baltic Sea are open but not uncomplicated. The Neva estuary and the inner part of the Gulf of Finland are shaflow, and the coasts of Prussia and Pomerania are covered by sandbanks, islands, and wide river deltas. This creates inland waterways of strategic importance for army operations. Saihng warships might blockade these coasts, but if they were to be attacked or defended in amphibious operations, special shallow-draught vessels were required. The large rivers—Neva, Narova, Diina (Daugava, Dvina), Vistula, and Oder—could also provide an attacker with convenient routes for troops, artillery, and provisions to inland areas of operation. This frequently determined Swedish offensive operations. Similarly, the great lakes in Sweden (Malaren, Hjalmaren, Vanern and Viittern), Finland (Saimen and others), and on the border between Finland, Estonia, and Russia (Ladoga, Peipus) were important for combined operations and army logistics. The lakes

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around the Baltic make this area unique in Europe. The only parallel is in North America, where naval control of the Great Lakes was important in continental warfare.'^ Swedish armed forces penetrated and took control over the littoral areas in the eastern and southern Baltic one after another f r o m the 1550s to the 1630s, when the Baltic empire was created. In that process they developed an unusual competence in combined operations and offensives from the sea into shallow waters and coastal regions with rivers, deltas, and lakes. Operations in shallow waters and littoral regions required both strategic and tactical cooperation and interaction between army and navy forces, especially in archipelagos where oared warfare required large numbers of soldiers as oarsmen. This also made the army more mobile and flexible, because oared vessels were landing craft and troop transports as much as they were fighting vessels. The ability to transport large army forces on conventional sailing ships and to make assault landings against organised resistance was also important. In the Baltic it could be argued that wars were won not by the power which had the best army or the best navy but by the power which was most successful in coordinating them in strategy, organisation, and tactical operations. Such coordination was achieved during the Swedish expansion up to 1660 and during the Russian off"ensives in the early 18th century. 1.2.4

Swedish naval

historiography

There are several general surveys of Swedish naval history. There are also studies of more specialised subjects which will be mentioned in the relevant chapters. The first general Swedish naval history was published in 1788 by the sea officer Karl Gustav Tornquist. It was an operational history covering wars up to the end of the Great Northern War.^** Carl August Gyllengranat, later admiral and minister of the navy, published the next survey in 1840. It took the story of Swedish naval operations

" Sweden h a d naval forces on Lake Bodensee on the German-Swiss border in 1632-34 and 1646-48; Fran Pemern och Jankow till Westfaliska freden, Stockhohn, 1948, 190-93; Jurg Meister, "Svensk sjokrigforing pa Bodensjon u n d e r trettioariga kriget", TiS, 130, 1967, 474-98. Karl Gustaf Tornquist, Utkast till svenska flottans sjdtdg, 2 vols, Stockholm, 1788. Tornquist served in the French navy d u r i n g the American W a r of I n d e p e n d e n c e and pubUshed a b o o k about it in Swedish in 1787. It has been translated into English: Karl Gustaf Tornquist, The Naval Campaigns of Count de Grasse During the American Revolution, 1781-1783, Philadelphia, 1942.

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47

up to 1790. A third general naval history was published in 1884 by Per Olof Backstrom, a senior civilian naval administrator who also was a prolific author of popular history. It emphasised policy and administration more than earlier works, and the chapters about the 18th and 19th centuries gave much new information. These books were based on the historical literature, published sources, and some unpublished narrative sources. Except for Backstrom's survey of the later centuries, the naval archives were little used.'' The next major work was very different. In 1890, Axel Zettersten, a naval administrator, who had begun to organise the Swedish naval archives, published a comprehensive study of Swedish naval history from 1522 to 1634. It covered administration, shipbuilding, warships, guns, personnel, and naval operations, and it had many references to unpublished sources. It showed the navy as an organisation, and the chapter on operations was only about a fifth of the book. W h e n published, this approach was unusual in European naval history. It was also the first historical work that systematically studied a part of the Swedish state as an organisation. Zettersten made extensive use of the rich collections of naval accounts (Skeppsgardshandlingar) in the archive he organised. These accounts were, together with the letters from the king, the main sources for his study. Zettersten was critical of the earUer literature and its uncritical use of narrative sources and old political history. A second volume covering the period 1635 to 1680 was published in 1903.'"' Zettersten's two books have remained standard works in Swedish naval history. They were truly pioneering, and their methodology was modern for this time. Zettersten was not a professional historian, but he was trained in handling accounts and understood their importance as sources better than most historians. It must be remembered, however, that his studies were made more than a century ago. Zettersten's first volume was written in his spare time when he prepared the inventory of naval accounts up to 1634, and he worked with a type of sources for which neither he nor contemporary historians had established methods to rely on. Much of the information it provides is unreliable, actually wrong in important parts. Zettersten often drew too hasty conclusions

' ' Carl August Gyllengranat, Sveriges sjokrigs-historia i sammandrag, 2 vols, Karlskrona, 1840; Per Olof Backstrom, Svenska flottans historia, Stockholm, 1884. Axel L. Zettersten, Svenska flottans historia, 1522-1680, 2 vols, Stockholm, 1890 and Norrtalje, 1903.

48

C H A P T E R TWO

from what he saw in the sources, and many of the relevant sources were difficuh to locate at this time. Important sources for 16th- and early 17th-century Swedish naval history are spread in several archival series which are not predominantly naval, and they were not used by Zettersten. Tlie inevitable result is that many conclusions in Zettersten's first volume cannot be used without checking the sources. It is still a useful starting point for research but is not a reliable standard work. The second volume is more reliable, mainly because the navy allowed Zettersten to work for three years as a full-time historian when he prepared it. The sources for this period are also better structured, because the navy from the 1630s was administrated by a separate department of the state, the Amiralitetskollegium, which has a well-preserved series of minutes and letters. Zettersten also left many notes from the sources, also for the period after 1680, which were used by later naval historians.'" The last general survey of Swedish naval history, Svenska Flottans Historia, 1521-1945, was published in three large volumes f r o m 1942 to 1945. It was written by sea officers and historians and covered foreign policy, warships and weapons, shipyards and bases, personnel, life on warships, and naval operations. Much of the text relies on earlier research, although the chapters on warships and weapons by Hjalmar Borjeson were to a large extent new and based on the author's many years of studies in the naval archives. This work provided a comprehensive survey of existing knowledge of Swedish naval history, and it has a lasting value as a collection of important illustrations, reproduced in high quality printing. The references to the sources are very brief, however.''^ From the early 20th century, surveys of Swedish naval history became more specialised. For some decades, history was important in the education of sea officers, and officers researched naval history using scholarly methods. Their inspiration came from the growing international interest in naval history and from the Swedish General Staff, which (like the

•" Jan GJete, "Axei Zettersten ocli den svenska flottans historia", in Historia, krig och statskonst: Vdnbok till Klaus-Richard Bohme, Stockliolm, 2000, 27-44. Svenska flottans historia, 1521,-1945, 3 vois, Malmo, 1942-45. For tlie period relevant for this study, the work is divided into three chronological parts: 1521-1611 and 1611-1679 in vol. I; and 1680-1721 in vol. II.

RESOURCES, ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES

49

German General Staff) used military history for education of officers."'' Gunnar Unger, a sea officer who made naval history a central part of his career (he became a rear-admiral), wrote a two-volume work on Swedish naval operations until 1814, which he re-wrote as chapters in the three-volume naval history published in the 1940s. Unger's books were partly the result of research in the naval archives by himself and other sea officers but there are no references to the sources."'* A carefully researched and well-documented work by several officers covered naval administration and operations on the Swedish west coast up to 1870."= Civilian historians have dominated in later studies. The central naval administration has been the subject of a five-volume work, in which the period 1634-95 was studied by Einar W e n d t and 1696-1721 by Lars Otto Berg.""^ Swedish naval and mercantile shipbuilding was surveyed by several authors in a work, which was a notable achievement in technological history when it was published in 1963."'^ A study of the Karlskrona naval yard was published in 1993, where the period 16801721 was studied by Lars Ericson and Urve Lepasoon.''® Provisioning during naval operations has been studied by Ulrica Soderlind and the sculptures of Swedish warships by Hans Soop.*" Military and naval operations in 1521-60 have been investigated by the army officer Bertil Barlcman, while the present author has pubUshed

The Swedish navy formaUsed its historical research into a section of the Navy Staff in 1930. It was merged with the army's historical b r a n c h in 1937 as a section in the new Defence Staff. These organisations were i m p o r t a n t centres of early m o d e r n Swedish miUtary and naval history until the 1960s, when the Section of military history had to change pohcy and concentrate on research about the 20th century. G u n n a r Unger, Illustrerad svensk sjokrigshistoria, 2 vols, Stockholm, 1909-23. It was intended as a textbook for naval cadets, with emphasis on strategy. Published studies and notes f r o m the archives m a d e by Axel Zettersten and the sea officers Svante Knutsson Natt och Dag, Arnold M u n t h e , a n d H e r m a n Wrangel were i m p o r tant for Unger's books. Goteborgs eskader och diiogsstation, 1523-1870, Gothenburg, 1949. Einar W e n d t , Amiralitetskollegiets historia, 1634-1695, Stocklrolm, 1950; Amiralitetskollegiets historia, 1696-1968, 4 vols, Malmo, 1974-83. Gustaf Halldin (ed.), Svenskt skeppsbyggeri: En oversikt av utvecklingen genom tiderna, Malmo, 1963. "" Lars Ericson, "Pionjarer och rustningar", in Karlskronavarvets historia (ed. Erik Norberg), Karlskrona, 1993,1, 9 - 6 4 , Urve Lepasoon, "Orlogsvarvets planlaggning och aldre byggnader", in Karlskronavarvets historia, II, 203-42. "" Ulrica Soderlind, Skrovmdl: kosthallning och matlagning i den svenska flottan fran 1500-tal till 1700-tal, Stockholm, 2006; H a n s Soop, Plytande palats: Utsmyckning av aldre svenska orlogsfartyg, Stockholm, 2007.

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a study of Swedish warships and naval policy in the same period.^" Hiere is little Swedish research about the important naval war in the 1560s, and the period 1571-1610 is a "dark age" in Swedish naval historiography. This has created misunderstandings about Swedish naval policy and the balance of power in the Baltic in these decades. There are detailed studies of naval operations in the age of Gustav II Adolf (1611-32) and of the wars of 1643-45 and 1655-60,=' but no detailed and comprehensive studies of Swedish naval operations in the war periods 1675-79 and 1700-21. TTiey remain challenges for studies of policy, strategy, administration, and operations in a maritime region, as many military operations in these wars depended on control of the sea.

» Bertil G s o n Barkman, Kungl. Svea Livgardes historia, I, 1523-1560, Stoclcholm 1937; Jan Glete, Svenska orlogsfartyg, 1521-1560: Flottans grundlaggning under ett tekniskt b r y t n i n g s s k e d e F o r u m navale, 30, 1976, 5 - 7 4 ' 31 1977 2 3 - 1 1 9 Sveriges sjokrig 1611-1632, Stockliolm, 1937 (.also 'Sveriges big ' 1611-1632. Magsband 1 Stockholm, 1937); Arnold M u n t h e , Svenska sjdhjdltar, V- Klas Fleming, Karl GustafWrangel, Martin Jhijsen Anckarhielm: Danska kriget 1643-1645 1-2-1-2 S t o c ^ o m, 1905-10; Finn Askgaard, Kampen om Ostersjon pa Karl X Gustavs tid, Stockho m 1974. M u n t h e has n o detailed references to the sources, but it is often easy to see which soiirces he has used. Askgaard's s t u d y ^ w r i t t e n by a Danish historian in a Swedish research p ' o j e c t s - i s the most useful of all operational histories of Baltic naval history, because the a u t h o r has used archival sources f r o m all participant navies

CHAPTER T W O

THE SWEDISH DYNASTIC STATE A N D ITS NAVY

2.1

Naval power and political

power

Studies about naval policy must avoid making naval power appear to be an end in itself. This has been c o m m o n in Euro-American naval historiography, and Sweden is no exception. In this perspective, a navy is something that exists as a normal part of every maritime nation's life, and politicians and taxpayers are there to support it and understand how it works. Actually, a navy is a costly instrument of political power. Taxpayers must make sacrifices for its existence, and political decision-makers must make choices about how it should be organised and used for political ends. Naval power must be placed in a political and socio-economic context of domestic and international conflicts and compromises. A navy is created and maintained to serve a purpose, and studies of naval policy must try to find and analyse that purpose, how it may have changed over time, and how it may have created operational tasks for the navy. The concrete task of a navy is to achieve or deny control of important sea lines of communication. The connections between political power and naval power are most easy to see by asking why certain lines of communication were politically and economically important. Navies are used to exercise political, military, or economic power. Studies of why a navy exists and why it changes are therefore studies of power in general, not of sea power as an isolated phenomenon. The tasks of a navy are determined by the power-holders, although they act in a context of international politics, domestic interest groups, economic conditions, and public opinion. The rulers' and the ruling elite's ideas about the purpose of their navy are formed by the interests, opportunities, and threats they are able to perceive, not by general and abstract ideas about sea power. Permanent navies are, like other complex organisations, the result of long-term investments in several capabilities and expensive hardware, rather than reliance on short-term solutions to every contingency. However, they are also the results of changes in rules of h u m a n

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interaction (institutions), which make it possible to achieve sufficiently broad coalitions of interests behind long-term investments. Rulers and taxpayers must at least tacitly agree about a naval policy that makes it possible to invest in an organisation controlled by the state. This could be based on a perception that organisation is superior to other solutions of the same problem. Naval and military transformation in early modern Europe is, to a large extent, the history of how earlier armed social institutions, such as local militias and fleets of merchantmen armed by trading cities, were replaced by permanent armed forces run by states. This was not possible without a change in those rules of h u m a n interaction which earlier had favoured local and temporary forms of protection. Tliis chapter is a chronological survey of Swedish naval policy, which also serves as an introduction to the development of the Swedish navy up to 1721. The intention is to explain why the navy existed. It did not replace any important armed social institution in Sweden, and it was not an outgrowth of a flourishing maritime and mercantile economy. It appeared suddenly as an instrument of an ambitious power-seeker who founded a dynasty. It continued to exist under various strategic and political conditions, at a time when rather few European states had permanent military and naval organisations. W h y did the Swedish society accept the allocation of large resources to warships, naval ordnance, seamen, and naval provisioning? There are few easy answers in declarations of naval policy or political debates about the navy. In order to find answers, this chapter seeks the reason why the decisionmakers allocated resources to naval power. W h y did control of the sea matter, and which threats and opportunities impelled the creation of the navy? What role did it have in different phases of the dynastic Swedish state: its foundation and stabilisation, its growing ambitions in Baltic power politics, its successful conquest of an empire and its defence of that empire?

2.2 2.2.1

From Nordic Union to a Swedish dynastic state,

1448-1558

Before 1521: The Oldenburg campaigns for a Baltic

empire

The break-up of the Kalmar Union between the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway and its replacement by two early modern monarchies with articulated administrative, fiscal, and military structures was a slow process. The differences in language, culture, religion.

T H E SWEDISH DYNASTIC STATE AND ITS NAVY

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and political institutions were small and did not stimulate conflicts between the countries. Hie final fate of the Union only looks natural afterwards, when various elite groups, who earlier had cooperated or confronted each other within a union framework, had adapted to national political frameworks. These frameworks were, to a considerable extent, created by two new dynastic states, the Oldenburg state and the Vasa state, and the national frameworks have since then also shaped most historical studies of what happened. Their power to create sharp limits and even bitter conflicts between the Nordic societies is an illustration of the potential of the new fiscal-military concept of state formation. It was, however, not an inherently natural and predetermined process that created two, rather than one or three, states out of the three old realms in Northern Europe. That outcome was shaped by the ambitions of rulers and pretenders to power and their ability to achieve organisational innovations and develop alliances with local elites and local communities in the Nordic societies.' The demise of the Union m a y b e dated to 1448, 1471, 1501, 1523, or even the 1530s. The date depends on whether the emphasis is placed on the Union as a political idea and a possible alternative, or as a working political unit in which control of violence was centralised to one political authority. The idea died much later than the reality, and Nordic identity has survived until the present day. Even after the disappearance of the Union, a special relationship existed between the two states that emerged out of it: Sweden (including Finland) and the conglomerate state that usually is called Denmark (Denmark, Norway, Holstein, Iceland). The two Councils of the Realm continued to meet in negotiations until the early 17th century, and the two states agreed that they, and no other state, had a dominium over the Baltic Sea. This present survey of what actually happened is focused on the growth of interest aggregations behind two early fiscal-military states, especially the naval parts of the states. The Kalmar Union of 1397 was the result of political and dynastic circumstances in the late 14th century. These circumstances allowed

' The Nordic Union: Erik L o n n r o t h , Sverige och Kalmarunionen, 1397-1457, Stockholm, 1969 (1st ed. 1934); Aksel E. Christensen, Kalmarunionen og nordisk politik, 1319-1439, Copenhagen, 1980; Esben Albrectsen, Danmark-Norge 1380-1814: I, Faelleskabet bliver til, 1380-1536, Oslo, 1997; Gustafsson 2000; The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 1: Prehistory to 1520 (ed. K n u t Helle), Cambridge, 2003, esp. 679-770 (by H e r m a n Schuck a n d Jens E. Olsen).

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the creation not of a centralised union but of fairly strong monarchical power in all the three Nordic kingdoms simultaneously. These conditions did not last, however. No viable fiscal-military structures controlled by the Union monarch developed. From the 1430s, aristocrats took political control of both Sweden and Denmark. This made the future of the Union dependent on their willingness to cooperate with each other. Both countries were elective monarchies in which aristocrats controlled the elections. It soon turned out to be difficult to run a union with few unifying forces. In Sweden, ambitious aristocrats who wished to become rulers of Sweden, if possible also of Norway, turned up, while other Swedish aristocrats preferred to maintain at least a loose union. The Danish aristocracy preferred to elect kings from junior branches of German princely houses rather than from their own ranks. One effect was that these kings were involved in north German politics and not entirely focused on the Union's problems. As a permanent political unit with one ruler, the Union broke up in 1448 when Denmark and Sweden elected different kings. After that, the three kingdoms were effectively unified only during brief periods: 145764 (under Christian I), 1497-1501 (Hans), and 1520-21 (Christian II). From 1448 on, Denmark, in union with Norway and f r o m 1460 also with the German principality Holstein, was ruled by the Oldenburg kings Christian I (r. 1448-81) and his son Hans (r. 1481-1513). They created a working relationship with the Danish Council, and they gradually gained control of considerable financial resources, especially from the Sound Toll. The Danish Council consisted of the land-owning aristocrats who controlled local communities and armed forces on land. Every new king had to promise to cooperate with the Council and guarantee the dominant position of the landowners. In return, they had to keep domestic peace and support what the Council had agreed to after discussions with the king. As a compromise between traditional and decentralised forms of authority and modern centralisation, it usually worked until the mid-17th century.^ Danish aristocrats were usually satisfied with developing their estates in one of the most fertile regions of Europe. They showed little interest in territorial conquests, and they were not interested in a permanent

' Danish general history: Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie: VI, De fire staender, 1400-1500 (by Troels Dahlerup); VII, Pa Guds og Herskabs ndde, 1500-1600 (by Alex W i t t e n d o r f ) ; VIII, Ved afgrundens rand, 1600-1700 (by Benito Scocozza), Copenhagen 1989.

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army and the growth of territorial fiscal structures outside their control. A union with Sweden was not important for them, but peace with their Nordic neighbour was desirable. Until 1523 they supported the Oldenburg policy of creating peace by enforcing a lasting union, but their willingness to support this policy with violent means was limited. The Danish aristocrats were not uninterested in defence, but the Sound Toll, which was raised on foreign shipping, could pay for a defensive pohcy. The feudal levy was of limited importance, except in domestic conflicts. Into the 17th century, major Danish armies were organised by military entrepreneurs who recruited German mercenaries under contracts from the king. They served only in wartime. This system worked, because the kings also were German princes with good contacts with the German market for military entrepreneurs. Junior members of the Oldenburg family frequently worked in that market themselves. Such armies could be formed rapidly, at least at times when there was peace on the continent. Tliey were expensive, however, and tended to rapidly exhaust the accumulated financial resources of the Danish state. The armies had to win quickly as Denmark could not afford long wars of attrition, as Sweden proved able to.' To hire armies run by private entrepreneurs was normal among German princes. The Oldenburg rulers of Denmark were, however, also innovative, and they developed a permanent navy, controlled by them and largely financed by the Sound Toll. Because Denmark was close to northern Germany, whose many towns might have hired ships to the Danish king, the decision to create a permanent royal navy was far from obvious. It was an innovative act by entrepreneurial rulers who wished to have an instrument of power under their own direct administration. At least f r o m the 1480s, they had major gun-armed warships of their own and a growing naval infrastructure: a shipyard at the castle in Copenhagen, guns to arm ships, and a number of men who gained experience in fitting out and commanding ships and fleets for war. Danish kings could also sequester foreign merchantmen in the Sound and use them when they needed additional lifting capacity for power projection against Sweden. Together with ships supplied by towns, the nobility, and the bishops, the Danish kings thus could

' The Danish army: Knud J. V. Jespersen, "Social Change a n d Military Revolution in Early M o d e r n Europe: Some Danish evidence", Historical Journal, 26, 1983, 1-13; Gunner Lind, Haeren ogmagten i Danmark, 1614-1662, Odense, 1994, 21-38, 128-46, 283-90; Michael H. Mortensen, Dansk artilleri indtil 1600, Copenhagen, 1999.

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concentrate a considerable naval force under their control. Hiis was essential during their conflicts with the groups which controlled Sweden as their centre of power around the Lake Miilaren, and Stocldiolm was easier to reach from the Baltic Sea than through the deep forests of southern Sweden. Danish sea power was also a challenge to the German Hanse, with Liibeck as the leading city in the Baltic. This protective alliance between trading cities had for centuries been able to dominate the Baltic Sea with armed merchantmen and easy access to the German market for mercenary soldiers. This had also enabled them to interfere with Nordic domestic politics and with shipping from outside the Baltic."* The Baltic and Swedish policy of the early Oldenburg kings was to a large extent a quest for a maritime-orientated empire. Control of Sweden and, with that, the entire western and northern coast of the Baltic Sea would, together with control of the Danish straits, make it possible to dominate the Baltic region and reduce the power of the German cities. At the same time, such domination would make it easier to keep Sweden under political control and easier to form alliances with local elite groups in Swedish society. Sweden had long coasts, with the sea separating the eastern and western parts of the kingdom, Finland and Sweden; and coastal and lake shipping was a major part of the Swedish transport system. Swedish peasant societies were largely self-supporting, but imported salt for food preservation was important. The iron- and copper-mining districts in central Sweden were interested in export trade with Germany. Most Swedish towns and castles could be attacked f r o m the sea but also provisioned f r o m the sea. In brief, Sweden was both vulnerable and accessible to sea power. A ruler who controlled the sea lines of communications to Sweden could use this as a political leverage for control of Swedish territory by making the population weary of regimes that could not protect them on the sea. As events in the early 16th century were to show, full political control of Sweden could only be achieved by rulers who were able to cooperate with local elites and keep control the Baltic Sea at the same time. Political development in Sweden f r o m the 1430s on was more dynamic, or rather chaotic, than in Denmark. Traditionally this has

Pierre Dollinger, The German H^nsa, London, 1970. Sweden and the Hanse: Kjell Kumlien, Sverige och hanseaterna, Lund, 1953.

T H E SWEDISH DYNASTIC STATE AND ITS NAVY

57

been interpreted as a conflict between a nationalist party and a union party, but the frequent shifts of political alliances and the fact that Danish and Swedish aristocrats were on both sides in the conflicts with the Oldenburg kings indicate that this traditional explanation is anachronistic. The driving force behind political development in Sweden was the ambition of various aristocrats to control the resources of the state. A union or not was, in that perspective, a matter of expediency, not of principles. By 1470 Sweden in practice became an aristocratic republic under the administration of a regent {riksfdrestdndare) elected by the Swedish Council of the Realm {Riksrddet). The regents also developed close personal contacts with the peasant communities, which had become used to acting with political and military self-confidence. The peasant militia was effective as a defensive infantry and, when fully mobilised, was a more important part of the Swedish military system than the feudal cavalry and the armed retainers organised by the nobility and the Church. The regents were, however, leaders of aristocratic factions, not sovereign rulers, and so they might at any time be removed from office by a majority in the Council. This severely limited their ability to develop fiscal-military structures and invest in expensive naval hardware.^ Sweden was a fairly typical medieval society, with much local power and no monopoly of violence controlled by an organisationally powerful state. Instead, coherence was created by family alliances between aristocrats, the organisational structure of the Church, sohdarity between peasants, and vertical contacts between the local communities and such members of the elite who were trusted by the peasants and could act as their leaders. Apart f r o m the king, the state consisted of the Council of the Realm {Riksrddet), consisting of bishops and aristocrats, and regional and local courts {landsting and hdradsting), which also were political assemblies dominated by the nobility and the peasant elite. This provided a political and judicial framework for peaceful resolution of conflicts, and most Swedes probably regarded this state as a defensive alliance of provincial communities. If strong interest

^ Salomon Kraft, Sveriges historia till vara dagar, 3;II, Senare Medeltiden, 1448-1520, Stockholm, 1944; Sven Ulric Palme, Sten Sture den aldre, 2nd rev. ed., Stockholm, 1968 (1950); Ingrid H a m m a r s t r o m , Finansfdrvaltning och varuhandel, 1504-1540: Studier i deyngre sturarnas och Gustav Vasas statshushdllning, Uppsala, 1956; H e r m a n Schiick, "Sweden as an Aristocratic Republic", Scandinavian Journal of History, 9, 1984, 65-72.

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groups resisted this embryonic state, it had little ability to act, however, which meant that violence and feuds were frequent methods of handling conflicts. The Oldenburgs, with littie experience of politically conscious and military capable peasants, usually failed to understand how this system should be managed in their own interest. This was a serious handicap in their quest for political control over Sweden.® The Swedish policy of Christian I, Hans, and the latter's son Christian II (r. 1513-23) was formally based on claims that they were lawful kings of Sweden as well as of Denmark and Norway. They had indeed been elected as kings or heirs to the throne during periods when a majority in the Swedish elite supported the idea of a Nordic union. These elite groups were, however, usually not interested in giving the Oldenburgs the practical possibility to rule Sweden: to raise taxes, to place their men as commanders on the royal castles, or to develop any kind of military forces under royal control. Several Swedish aristocrats favoured the idea of a union between the three kingdoms, but they did not favour a strong monarchy. The lack of an effective Swedish king who held the prestige and prerogatives connected with this title checked the development of central authority and embryonic fiscalmilitary structures of the type that appeared in several other European states in the decades around 1500. One resulting wealcness was that Sweden, in contrast to Denmark, had little effective naval power. From 1448 on, intermittent war flared between the rulers of Denmark and Sweden. It ended with a major defeat of Christian I's army at Brunkeberg outside Stockholm in 1471. It was typical for this war that Christian had been able to land an army outside the walls of Stoclcholm without meeting any resistance at sea. On land the two powers were fairly equal, but at sea the Danish naval forces dominated. The Oldenburgs could attack trade to Sweden, ravage the coasts, and land army forces wherever they wished, and they preferred to take the sea route to Stockholm rather than try to bring an army through forests and unfertile regions that had few roads. Increasingly, the Oldenburg attempts to recreate the Nordic union took on a character of Baltic empire building, with predominately seaborne armed forces. The first

The late medieval state, the nobility, the peasants, and the use of violence: Gabriela Bjarne Larsson, Stadgelagstiftning i senmedeltidens Sverige, Stockholm, 1994; Dick Harrison, Uppror och allianser: Politiskt vdld i 1400-talets svenska bondesamhalle, Lund, 1997; Peter Reinholdsson, Uppror eller resningar? Samhdllsorganisation och konflikt i senmedeltidens Sverige, Uppsala, 1998.

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three Oldenburg kings frequently led major campaigns against Sweden from their fleet. Some summers, the fleet with the king and a force of soldiers stayed in the sheltered waters outside Stoclcholm for months, engaging in negotiations, blockade, or amphibious operations/ The ability to enforce a continuous blockade on Swedish ports, however, was limited both by the naval technology of the time and the fact that Sweden's powerful trading partners, the Hanse cities, were able to protect their shipping with armed force. Sweden's own naval forces were small. Karl Knutsson Bonde, who periodically was king from 1448 to 1470, owned ships, including at least one very large ship that he used for trade with Western Europe. Both as an aristocrat and as a king, he was interested in trade, politics, and land in the eastern Baltic, and he waged privateering campaigns against his enemies when he was in exile in Prussia from 1457 to 1464.'^ In spite of this interest in the sea lines of communication, Karl did not develop anything that looks like a consistent naval policy. After 1470, the regents elected by the Swedish Council and their aristocratic allies had few major ships, and they did not try to compete with Oldenburg sea power. They could not defeat major Oldenburg fleets, and it was out of the question to take the war to Danish waters by naval power. There were few major Swedish merchant ships that could be fitted out for war, and there were few opportunities to sequester foreign merchantmen for temporary service like the Oldenburgs did in the Sound. The low degree of private enterprise (privateering) in violence at sea during even a long period of war shows that Swedes were little used to maritime warfare.' In 1497, King Hans took control over Sweden after a campaign in which his navy's ability to land army forces at strategic points on the Swedish coast was important. The main reason for the success.

' Kraft 1944, 29-36, 60-63, 141-57, 272-75, 298-300, 306, 327-34, 364-90; Jorgen H. Barfod, Flddens fodsel, Copenhagen, 1990, 40, 42, 45-46, 83, 86-87, 104, 144-48, 153-54. ' John Fincham, A History of Naval Architecture, London, 1979 (1st ed., 1851), 30, mentions that a ship of nearly 1,000 tons b u r t h e n , belonging to King Charles of Sweden, arrived in England in 1455. If the tonnage is correct, it was larger than any ship owned by the English king at that time. Karl Knutsson Bonde owned one m a j o r ship (a hoik) and five smaller vessels at the time of his death in 1470, see Gottfrid Carlsson, "Karl Knutssons testamente", HT, 63, 1943, esp. 22-28. ' Early Swedish naval forces: Gottfrid Carlsson, "Svante Nilssons finlandsexpedition 1504 och Soren Norby", HT, 69, 1949, 41-50; Kumlien 1953, 393-94; Hammarstrom 1956, 53, 87-88, 169-70, 179-86; Glete 1976, 45-48.

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however, was that he enjoyed considerable support from the Swedish elite. This soon evaporated, and in 1501 the Oldenburgs were again thrown out from most of Sweden, partly because they were also preoccupied with rebellions in Ditmarsken (northern Germany) and in Norway. The old regent Sten Sture (regent 1470-97) regained executive power in Sweden. When he died in 1503, he was succeeded by Svante Nilsson (regent 1504-12), an aristocrat, who as late as 1497 had been one of King Hans's supporters. Tlie king retained control over the important fortified port of Kalmar and the Borgholm castle on the island of Oland in southeastern Sweden. His fleet could support his garrisons there, and, in combination with diplomacy, it could also enforce a blockade on trade with Sweden. Occasionally the small Swedish naval forces successfully attacked his cruisers, but normally the Danish fleet and the privateers, among whom were some from Scotland, were able to disrupt trade to Sweden. The Danish fleet was visible as an instrument of power in the northern Baltic Sea and even in the Gulf of Finland. The blockade was unpopular among German merchants, however, and in 1509 Liibeck began to escort its trade to Sweden with a fleet, a policy that soon brought about a war with Denmark. The small Swedish naval forces joined Liibeck's fleet, and together they were able to cut the supply of provisions to Kalmar and Borgholm, which had to capitulate to Swedish forces in 1510 after almost a decade of failed eff'orts to take them. The demonstration of the importance of sea power for keeping the ports open to trade and control of strategic positions on the Swedish coast was obvious.'" A truce was concluded in 1512. It might have been the beginning of a new period of uncertain but non-violent political relations between the Oldenburgs and the Swedish and Danish elites. Europe was in a dynamic period, however, where royal power grew and the Catholic Church was entering a crisis. In Sweden, Svante Nilsson's young son Sten Sture was elected regent against the will of several important aristocrats. He soon showed aspirations to found a royal dynasty, and he ran into a severe conflict with the archbishop, Gustav Trolle, another ambitious young aristocrat." King Hans' son. Christian II (r. 1513-23),

Kraft 1944, 333-34; Barfod 1990, 85-118. " G u n n a r T. Westin, Riksfdrestdndaren och makten: Politiska utvecklingslinjer i Sverige, 1512-1517, Lund 1957. This regent, usually called Sten Sture the younger, was not of the same family as Sten Sture (the older), regent 1470-97 and 1501-03.

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continued his father's poHcy and made it into a more pronounced program for an early modern prince with radical ideas. Christian hoped to reconquer Sweden, to create a centralised Nordic monarchy, and to found a trading company in Copenhagen and Stockholm for trade between the Baltic and Western Europe. His economic policy aimed at reducing the economic and political power of the Hanse. A powerful navy with large gun-armed ships and an increased Sound Toll were corner-stones in this policy. Christian married one of the sisters of the young Habsburg prince Charles, soon to become king of Spain (1516) and German emperor (1519). Because Charles was the hereditary ruler of the Netherlands, this dynastic alliance might create bonds of interest between Denmark and the rising mercantile centre in Western Europe. Christian II attempted to conquer Sweden with amphibious attacks against Stockholm in 1517 and 1518, but his army was defeated when it landed. The Swedish regent Sten Sture mainly relied on the effective peasant militia over which he held political control. In comparison, his navy was small, although three ships acquired in the late 1510s did survive in Liibeck and Danzig to provide a nucleus for a post-1520 Swedish navy.'^ During 1520, an Oldenburg army of foreign mercenaries was able to occupy central Sweden while the fleet as usual sailed to Stockholm and cut off foreign trade and supply. The Sture party was shattered when Sten Sture was killed in combat, and Sweden's elite groups more or less willingly accepted Christian II as king. For a brief time it looked as if the Nordic Union had again become a reality. Perhaps the wave of rising 'new monarchies' that swept through Europe in this period had reached Northern Europe, and a new Nordic state with a powerful navy controlled by a naval-minded dynasty might emerge out of the loose Kalmar Union. 2.2.2 The gamble for a new monarchy: The Vasa battle fleet, 1521-1536 Northern Europe had indeed reached a turning point in the formation of state power and naval power connected with the state. Events did not turn out exactly as Christian II had hoped, however. His mercenary army, which had brought him to the Swedish throne, was too

Glete 1976, 45-48; Glete 1977, 33-34. " Kraft 1944, 364-99; Barfod 1990, 139-54; Gustafsson

2000, 41-72.

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expensive to be maintained. He remembered how members of the Swedish ehte, who pretended to be loyal when the king was present in strength, had thrown out his father and grandfather from Sweden. This, as well as his radical ideas about political change, may have stimulated Christian II to use the opportunity to do something different, in spite of the amnesty he had promised his earlier enemies as a part of the political settlement. Together with some of his Swedish supporters, he arranged a trial followed by executions of several aristocrats, two bishops, and many Stocldiolm burghers in November 1520. This act must have been intended to pave the way for a strong monarchy by eliminating men able to lead an opposition. In this. Christian II was successful, but ultimately it was not he who would create the strong monarchy in the power vacuum left by the decimation of the Swedish political elite. Christian II's massacre alienated many members of both the Swedish and the Danish elite. His betrayal of an amnesty smelled tyranny and disrespect for aristocrats and bishops alike. One Swedish leader who survived by being absent was the young aristocrat, Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa family, whom Christian had earlier taken prisoner by treacherous means. Gustav had escaped to Liibeck, where he built valuable contacts among the merchants. He returned unnoticed to Sweden in a small vessel in 1520, but he never accepted Christian's amnesty, which he distrusted. Many of those executed by Christian II in November were Gustav's friends and relatives, including his father and his brother-inlaw. In early 1521, peasants in various parts of Sweden rose against Christian II's bailiffs, possibly because the king had ordered the peasants to be disarmed. This attempt to eliminate the peasant militia had the opposite effect, and Gustav Eriksson rapidly became accepted as the military leader of the various militias. He was also appointed as regent by aristocrats and bishops, who saw Christian's power vanish when most of his mercenaries had left. After a short campaign, the militia controlled most of Sweden. Christian could keep Stockholm and some other seaside towns, which could be supplied by his fleet, and with this he could also regain control over Einland." Oldenburg control over Sweden again proved to be

" The wars f r o m 1521 to 1532: Barkman 1937, 1-162, which integrates warfare on land and at sea; Barfod 1990, 154-90; Jonas Hedberg, Kungl. Artilleriet: Medeltid och dldre Vasatid, Stockholm, 1975, 363-68; Mortensen 1999, 349-56. PoHtical history:

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maritime in character. The king could control fortified towns, enforce blockades, and support forces where maritime lines of communication were predominant, but he had little ability to control the rural areas of Sweden without the cooperation of local elites and peasant communities. On the other side, Swedes who wished to throw out the Oldenburgs again faced Danish naval superiority as a severe obstacle. The situation in 1521 was familiar, as it had been essentially the same for seven decades. This military-political stalemate might have continued indefinitely had there been no innovation. But Gustav Eriksson was an innovator and, in addition, a first-rate political manager and negotiator. In winter and spring 1522, he used his contacts in Liibeck to buy a fleet of armed merchantmen. He hired German crews for the ships and mercenary soldiers to serve on the ships mainly as a mobile army. This naval power f r o m Liibeck was supplied on credit, which Gustav Eriksson was expected to pay by taxes and trading privileges when he gained full control over Sweden. It was a power game with high stakes and far beyond the naval ambitions of any of his predecessors in Sweden. The buyer was a group of rebels, led by a young aristocratic landowner who only with the benefit of hindsight can be identified as the founder of a powerful dynasty. Tlie sellers were private merchants with interests in trade with Sweden, but they acted with support from the ruling oligarchy in Liibeck, where apprehension over Christian II's ambitions was growing. From Liibeck's side it was an investment in future control of Swedish trade. In the summer 1522, the city openly joined the Swedish rebels in the war against Christian II, and a joint Swedish-Liibeckian fleet took control of the Baltic Sea. The Swedish part of this fleet was in 1522-23 managed by German shipmasters and mercenary officers. Gustav Eriksson was not always able to make them obey his orders, but its very existence meant a dramatic change in his position: he suddenly had a share in the control of the Baltic Sea.i5

Lars-Ofof Larsson, Gustav Vasa: Landsfader eller tyrann?, Stockholm, 2002; H u g o Yrwing, "Lybeck, de nordiska rikena och konungavalet i Strangnas 1523", Scandia, 24, 1958, 194-254; Sven Lundkvist, "Sverige och Nederlanderna, 1524-1534", Scandia, 27, 1961, 9-52; Gustafsson 2000, 72-202. State finance; Hammarstrom 1956. Glete 1976, 48-49; Glete 1977, 34-41.

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Christian II's regime in Denmark had become increasingly insecure, and in early 1523 the nobility sided with Liibeck under the leadership of the king's uncle, Duke Frederik of Holstein. In spring 1523, Christian left Copenhagen with most of his fleet and sailed to the Netherlands. Hie victorious rebels in the Nordic countries immediately elected new kings. Frederik of Holstein became king of Denmark and Norway, while Gustav Eriksson was elected king of Sweden. Frederik I had to accept the new political situation in Sweden and allied himself with Gustav I against Christian II, but he lacked major naval forces. It was the allied Hanse and Swedish fleets which, during 1523, blockaded Stockholm, Copenhagen, and other fortified towns into surrender. The remaining Danish fleet was loyal to Christian II and did its best to resist from its base in Visby on the island of Gotland. From a later perspective, we know that the events of 1521-23 shaped a solution to the Nordic state formation problem, which proved to be durable. From then on, Sweden and Denmark developed as two separate monarchies and, increasingly, as fiscal-military states with Stockholm and Copenhagen as central military and naval arsenals and administrative capitals. Contemporary observers, including the two new kings, had no possibility to know that they had passed a turning point in history. Hie kings were very much occupied with preventing history from turning against them. The political situation was dynamic and uncertain. Norway had not rebelled against Christian II, and Frederik's control over that country was weak. Christian II had sailed to the Netherlands in order to organise a counter-attack on land and at sea with the help of his brother-in-law. Emperor Charles V, who ruled the Netherlands. This failed, but Christian's admiral, Soren Norby, a man equally skilled in fighting and political bargaining, continued the resistance in the Baltic on sea and on land up to 1526.'® In 1524, Gustav I made a major effort to use his new navy and army to retake possession of the island of Gotland (lost to Denmark in 1361), which Norby now controlled. This failed, and Gotland was returned to the Danish crown when Norby left the island. Gustav had to accept

This admiral is a legend in Nordic history: Lars J. Larsson, Soren Norby och Ostersjdpolitiken, 1523-1525, Lund, 1986; Bo Grafiton, Soren Norby: Sjokrigare i Ostersjon pa 1500-taleU Visby, 1995. His account book for 1523-24 includes the accounts for his naval force based on Gotland: Evert Melefors and Tryggve Siltberg (eds), Soren Norbys rakenskapsbok for Gotland 1523-24, Visby, 2003.

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this, as he needed the alliance with Frederik I as much as Frederik needed cooperation with Gustav. Christian II might return with armed force, and he had powerful relatives; it was conceivable that several members of the Nordic elites would join him if Frederik I and Gustav I were unable to satisfy their demands. Especially the usurper Gustav, who from a European perspective came f r o m nowhere and became a king, had strong incentives to prepare for a fight for survival. Gustav I had to satisfy his Liibeckian friends with trading privileges and repayment of the debt from the war. This he did for several years. However, he also used the debt to Liibeck as a pretext for increasing the financial base of his new monarchy. Again and again, their king told the Swedes that he (personally, as he used to emphasise) had run up a huge debt to acquire ships, weapons, and men for the liberation war against the tyrannical Christian II. He increased taxes and in 1527, the state took over the property of the Church by a decision of the Parliament, partly under the pretext that the debt must be paid. Lutheranism was a welcome theological motivation for this radical shift of economic and political power, but for the king, the immediate aim was to gain increased resources for military and naval purposes. Actually, Gustav I never fully paid his debt to Liibeck, and he instead used much of the new resources to develop a new type of armed forces. The royal castles, which for centuries had been centres for territorial control and defence under more or less reliable aristocrats, were neglected. A small army of German and Swedish mercenaries was maintained, guns were acquired, and new large warships, able to carry heavy guns, were built. The king also hired shipbuilders, shipmasters, and seamen for his new navy. The armed forces were limited in size but were modern and mobile. Because warships still to a large extent were intended to carry infantry, the armed forces were actually one unit which may bring soldiers and heavy guns on ships to any place in the Baltic that could be reached f r o m the sea.'^ Gustav I in these early years was not the founder of a long-term policy for national defence. He was a usurper in a kingdom where kings normally were dethroned, and he preferred a limited but mobile striking

" General: Gustafsson 2000, 105-32, Larsson 2002, 79-197. The debt to Liibeck; Hammarstrom 1956, 403-25. The a r m y a n d fortresses: Barkman 1937, 163-90; Hammarstrom 1956, 204-08, 352-56. The navy: Glete 1976, 49-51; Glete 1977, 4 1 50.

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force under his own control rather than a traditional territorial defence and its problems with uncertain loyalty. He used these forces against domestic enemies almost as much as against foreigners. The armed forces gave him an advantage both in domestic conflicts and as seller of protection to Swedish elite groups and peasants. The military potential in the Swedish society was only gradually brought under his control, but a start was made by the elimination of the Church as a military power. Control of the local communities in order to raise taxes and stabilise the new regime was achieved by political management that kept various opponents to his regime divided, a policy that was supported by occasional shows of force by the new army. The considerable resources used for the new navy in these years show that Gustav I believed that it was necessary to maintain control the sea lines of communication if his power was to last. Invaders might use these lines, but control of them might also be useful against possible enemies within Sweden. The Oldenburgs had shown that control of the Baltic Sea was one of the keys to power in Sweden, and Gustav I acted as if he had understood this lesson. The Vasa navy might also be used for strikes against enemies abroad, something which the king could not have failed to notice after the operations against Copenhagen and Gotland in which his navy had taken part during 1522-24. Christian II did finally return in autumn 1531. He had gathered a fleet and sailed to Norway with a Habsburg-sponsored army. He was met by resistance from Sweden on land and by a Danish-Lubeckian fleet and was taken prisoner by Frederik I in 1532. But the power base of the junior branch of the Oldenburg dynasty was still far from secure. When Frederik I died in 1533, the Councils of Denmark and Norway, which included the Catholic bishops, still had a Catholic majority. Frederik's oldest son, Duke Christian of Holstein, was a firm Lutheran and was unwilling to be elected king of a Catholic state, but the councils had no realistic alternative. In 1534, a civil war started in Denmark. The aristocrats were divided, while peasants and burghers revolted against the aristocrats. Events took a dramatic turn when Liibeck intervened in cooperation with Danish burghers and took control of the cities of Copenhagen and Malmo on the opposite sides of the Sound. Liibeck also gained control over the Danish royal warships. They used their former enemy Christian II as figurehead, but their real intention was to install Liibeck's military commander, Count Christoffer of Oldenburg, as governor of Denmark-Norway and successor to Christian 11. This was part of a

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radical political and mercantile program in which the old Hanse city tried to close the Sound to the Dutch and regain favourable trading privileges in Scandinavia. Liibeck also intended to depose its former Swedish ally from the throne it had helped him to gain in the early 1520s. Gustav I had cancelled Liibeck's privileges in Sweden in 1533, a step in his reorientation of Swedish trade policy. He had also ceased to repay his financial debt to Liibeck, something he could do because he had a navy of his own. Sweden no longer had to rely on an alliance with Liibeck to keep its ports open against blockades.'® The developments in Denmark in 1533-34 and the armed conflict between his two allies from 1523, the junior Oldenburgs and Liibeck, was both a threat and an opportunity for Gustav. He had strong reasons to support Duke Christian, who was his brother-in-law, a Lutheran, and an enemy of Christian II, who he kept imprisoned. If Liibeck's radical policy was successful in Denmark, its next victim was probably himself He had domestic and foreign enemies and could not even trust relatives. Gustav's brother-in-law, the German Count Johan of Hoya, whom he had appointed governor in eastern Finland, sided with Liibeck in 1534 with the motivation that he as negotiator in 1529 had personally guaranteed Liibeck that the king should pay his debt. Many Stoclcholm merchants were Germans with close contacts to Liibeck. The Trave city also had a reputation as a traditional friend of Sweden, which might make it a rallying point for opposition leaders against the Vasa regime. Gustav knew better than anyone how effectively a rebel in Sweden might be supported from the financially powerful merchants in that city. During the early summer of 1534, Gustav began to deploy his new mobile armed forces for an intervention on Duke Christian's side. This included his ships, which now for the first time were mobilised for war and formed into a battle fleet without the technical and professional support of Liibeck. The fleet was first sent to Reval, where it attacked Lubeckian merchantmen. It may have been a demonstration of strength during negotiations with Count Johan of Hoya, who was in Reval but also still in control of the castles of Viborg and Nyslott in eastern Finland. Gustav had heard rumours that Liibeck had promised

Hie war 1533-36: Wittendorff 1989, 166-206; Jorgen H. Barfod, Christian 3.s flade: Den danske flddes historic, 1533-1588, Copenhagen, 1995, 9 - 5 3 ; Mortensen 1999, 356-63; Gustafsson 2000, 203-62. Swedish trade a n d foreign policy: Lundkvist 1960, 97-148. The Swedish war effort, Barktnan 1937, 191-215.

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Count Johan the Swedish throne when Gustav was deposed, and Gustav may have suspected that Liibeck's ships in Reval had been sent as a part of that conspiracy. The Count departed for Liibeck and became a commander of its mihtary forces. He was killed in combat in 1535. Hie garrison of Viborg, under its German commander, was persuaded to give up the strong castle in August 1534, apparently without violence. The fleet's appearance in the Gulf of Finland probably made it clear to the garrison that Liibeck could not supply Viborg from the sea. This was the last time that Swedish military forces were used against an aristocrat and garrisons in a feud against the ruler. It was the end of a long era during which such conflicts had been endemic in medieval Sweden." After its return from Reval, the Swedish fleet was sent south in early July to Kalmar, but it undertook no further operations in 1534. Liibeck had gained control over the Danish royal warships and the arsenal in Copenhagen, but the Swedish naval presence in the southern Baltic helped render Liibeck's blockade of Sweden ineffective, by encouraging other German cities to choose neutrality and continue to trade with Sweden in spite of Liibeck's diplomatic attempts to make them join the city's war. Reval and Riga considered supporting Liibeck, but during the autumn of 1534, Swedish threats of a trade blockade forced them to remain neutral. The existence of an operational Swedish fleet as far south as Kalmar made such threats credible and Liibeck's threats of a blockade of Swedish ports rather hollow. Swedish naval control of the northern Baltic Sea began to show political effects.^" During the autumn, Gustav's army marched into eastern Denmark (Skane and Halland), which was brought under his and Christian's control. In spring 1535, Gustav's fleet, with large ships, heavy guns, and a considerable part of his infantry sailed to the southern Baltic in a campaign against Liibeck. It was joined by small ships sent by Christian and his supporters and by a fleet sent by their ally, the duke

" Barkman 1937, 194-95 regards the expedition to Reval as strange and a possible pretext for avoiding sending the fleet to the Sound. The crisis a r o u n d C o u n t Johan can be followed in Gustav's letters May to Aug. 1534, GR 9, 1534, esp. five letters 27/5-34, 119-23, 11/6-34 (instruction to the fleet), 140-41, 20/6-34, 56-157, five letters 7/8-34, 209-17, two letters 4/9-34, 261-63. Lubeck had actually promised Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg to become king of Sweden but Duke Johan was promised a share of the country, Lundkvist 1960, 112-13. Lundkvist 1960, 111-16; Hammarstrom 1956, 446-49.

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of Prussia, but the Swedish fleet had most major warships in the alUed fleet. Christian's little fleet is, in Danish naval history, traditionally described as "Danish", although the royal warships which were in Copenhagen in 1534 actually served on the other side, and a considerable n u m b e r of Danes probably served on the fleet that opposed the Vasa-Oldenburg-Hohenzollern alliance. Had the outcome of the war been different and had another branch of the Oldenburg dynasty gained lasting control of Denmark, it is likely that the naval war would have been described as a Danish victory against the inexperienced Swedes and the Holstein rebels. Actually, the naval campaign of 1535 was a rapid success for the allied fleet. Two enemy fleets were defeated, and the allies secured the lines of communication in the Danish straits. Sjalland was invaded, and Copenhagen was besieged f r o m land and blockaded f r o m the sea. The Swedish fleet spent the winter of 1535-36 in Landskrona, on the eastern side of the Sound. Tlie intervention of Gustav I had tipped the balance of power in favour of Christian, who was able to take control of D e n m a r k and Norway in swift campaigns during 1535-36. As King Christian III, he used the opportunity of victory in a civil war to strengthen royal power by firmly establishing Lutheranism, confiscating Church property, and reducing Norway to a part of the Danish kingdom. He also reorganised the navy, but, in contrast to the new Vasa regime, he did not form a standing army. The Danish kings continued to rely on the alliance with the aristocracy and the control of the sea around D e n m a r k and Norway to rule their state. There remained a special political and mental relationship between the two states, which emerged out of the Kalmar Union. One part of that relationship was that the two states respected one another's right to have a navy and opposed any attempt of any other Baltic power to create such a force. Trade between the countries remained free, and Danish kings exempted Swedish m e r c h a n t m e n f r o m paying the Sound Toll. Foreigners paid the Toll in return for protection by the king of Denmark when they passed through his waters. But because Sweden had its own navy, Swedish m e r c h a n t m e n did not to need this protection. The two Nordic kingdoms, less maritime in their economy than the trading cities on the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea, claimed that they had an exclusive right to exercise dominium over the Baltic, as well as the right and duty to protect shipping and raise customs on international trade to finance that activity. This claim grew

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into a political and naval fact during the 16th century, when the two kingdoms developed powerful navies to exercise their dominium?^ 2.2.3

Defending a new monarchy: The Vasa galley fleet,

1536-1558

Hie events from 1531 to 1536 were the end of the Nordic union as a political idea. Hiey showed that it was unlikely that internal opposition or strong external enemies could destroy the two new regimes, even if these forces acted in concert. Instead, the two new regimes continued to form administrative systems and armed forces, which were distinctly Swedish/Vasa and Danish/Oldenburg in character. There remained the possibility that the two regimes might destroy each other by wars or that very powerful European enemies might attack them. In practice, "powerful European enemies" meant the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, Christian II's brother-in-law, who could act from both Germany and his hereditary provinces in the Netherlands. He was capable of providing naval support by mobilising large fleets of armed merchantmen.^^ This threat existed for a time in 1536 but came to nothing as the two Nordic rulers won a rapid victory which consolidated their power. However, both were usurpers, and both had also taken the fateful step of breaking with the Catholic Church in order to gain control of the economic and political power of the Church. In 1541, Gustav I and Christian III signed a treaty intended to provide long-term security against external threats, internal enemies, and the possibility that the two regimes should destroy each other. The treaty agreed that conflicts between the two kingdoms should be solved peacefully and that both countries should cooperate against external threats. Both kings also allied themselves with anti-Habsburg France and had contacts with the German Protestant princes who opposed the emperor. This

'' Dominium maris Baltici, Fredrik Westling, "Sveriges forhallande till D a n m a r k fran freden i SteUin till Fredrik II.s dod (1571-1588)", HT, 39, 1919, 55-102, 123-54, esp. 151-52; Sven Ulric Palme, Sverige och Danmark, 1596-1611, Uppsala, 1942, 4 0 - 4 ^ 77; Nils A h n l u n d , "Svensk ostersjopolitik u n d e r det tidigare 1600-talet", Forum navale, 7, 1946, 3-15; Leo K. T a n d r u p , Mod triumf eller tragedie: En politisk-diplomatisk studie overforlobet af den dansk-svenske magtkamp fra Kalmarkrigen til Keiserkrigen, 2 vols, Aarhus, 1979, esp. 1:75-78, 296, 302, 406-07, 483-510, and 2:73-74, 224. ' ' Danish-Norwegian history after'1536: Oystein Rian, Danmark-Norge, 1380-1814: 2, Den aristokratiske fyrstestaten, 1536-1648, Oslo, 1997; Wittendorff 1989, 207-25.

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was the first time tliat Sweden ever took part in the European alliance system." The following year, Denmark joined France in the war against the emperor, closed the Sound to his shipping, and deployed the Danish fleet to the North Sea. Christian, who recently had seen a powerful Swedish fleet operate in the Baltic Sea, believed that Gustav would be interested in sending it for a joint operation against the Netherlands. Gustav, however, faced a serious peasant rebellion in the province of Smaland in southern Sweden during 1542-43, and he feared that German princes, allied with the emperor might use this to inflhrate Sweden from Mecldenburg. Hie German princes had contacts with the rebels, and Gustav had to think of defence in the Baltic. During 1543— 44, his fleet was used mainly to patrol the sea in order to keep the domestic and foreign enemies separate. As a token naval participation in the continental war, Gustav sent one of his major warships to the Sound in 1543 to help the Danes keep it closed.^'' The emperor was victorious in Germany during 1543, and Gustav turned to further defensive measures. The period of gambling with high stakes, as in 1521-23 and 1534-36, was over for him. Gustav changed his administrative, military, and naval policy to a cautious and defensive but systematic development of that over which he already had gained control. The most important political part of the new policy was the decision by a specially assembled Parliament of 1544 that the Vasas should be the hereditary dynasty in Sweden. There should be no more opportunity for a power game around the succession to the throne. Policymaking became linked to a dynasty, which increased the possibility that longterm policies might be implemented effectively and favour the creation of organisational capabilities. Administratively, Gustav took firm control of his country as a resource base for the new dynasty by appointing many new local bailiffs who raised taxes, registered farms, selected men for the army and navy, kept contacts with the peasants, traded with food raised as taxes, and developed industrial enterprises for the king. This penetration of the local society gave the Vasa monarchy the fiscal apparatus to raise taxes without cooperation from local

" Georg Landberg, De nordiska rikena under Bromsebroforbundet, Uppsala, 1925; Lundkvist 1960, 149-267. Landberg 1925, 72-89; Lundkvist 1960, esp. 192-97, 246. Naval operations in 1542-44: m a n y letters in GR 14-16, 1542-44; defensive war plans for 1544: SRA, 1:1, 325-37, 399-404.

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elites and gave them a good grasp of the potential for resource extraction. Agricultural Sweden was to supply most of the resources for the future Swedish fiscal-military state: men and provisions for the army and navy, oak for warships, saltpetre for gunpowder, iron for weapons and shipbuilding, labour for fortress building and for cutting and transporting timber for shipbuilding. The information base and the extraction apparatus for this project of organisation of resources from above were developed after 1536, especially during the 1540s.2' The king also integrated the military power of the local communities with the forces under his own control. The great rebellion in Smaland in 1542-43 had given food for thought. For almost a year, a peasant republic based on the power of an improvised militia had existed in Gustav's kingdom, and his professional German and Swedish soldiers had proved rather inefficient in their attempts to retake a region dominated by forests. The army was drastically changed. The old peasant militia, organised and controlled by the local communities and led by local elites, was reorganised as a royal militia, led by royal officers, paid by the king, and armed with modern gunpowder weapons supplied by the king. It was a part-time army only, but because it was much cheaper than professional soldiers, it could be expanded to a considerable size: around 17,000 soldiers in 1560. It also meant that the king took control over the mobilisation and organisation of young members of the peasant society for violence-based political actions, a major transfer of political power to the state. Legally, the base of the new army was the free peasants' traditional duty to defend the country under the leadership of the king. Seamen could be recruited to the navy under the same legal obligation.^'^ The new policy and the development of an army strong in manpower made it possible to reshape the navy. Sixteenth-century naval

'' Lundkvist 1960, 271-322; Larsson 2002, 210-362; Mats Hallenberg, Kungen.fogdarna och riket: Lokalforvaltning och statsbyggande under tidig Vasatid, Stockholm, 2001. Barkman 1937; Arvo Viljanti, Gustav Vasas ryska krig, 1554-1557, 2 vols, Stockholm, 1957; Lars-Olof Larsson, "Gustav Vasa och 'den nationella haren'", Scandia, 33, 1967, 250-69; Sven A. Nilsson, Pa vdg mot militdrstaten: Krigsbefcilets etablering i den dldre Vasatidens Sverige, Uppsala, 1989, 3 - 9 ; Sven A. Nilsson, De stora krigens tid: Om Sverige som militdrstat och bondesamhdlle, Uppsala, 1990, 9 - 1 4 , 10716; Mats Hallenberg, "Militar eller civil? Kungatjanare och valdsverkare fore professionaliseringen", Militdrhistorisk Titiskrift, 2002, 145-172; Mats Hallenberg, "Bonder i vapen: Mobilisering, makt och m o t s t a n d i 1500-talets Sverige", MilMrhistorisk tidskrift, 2005, 13-37.

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forces were still very much manned by infantry, and it is therefore misleading to equal infantry with land power and ships with sea power. In 1540, Gustav I introduced Mediterranean-style oared galleys as a new type of warship in the Baltic. He was personally interested in galley design, and he systematically developed a galley force. By the time of his death in 1560, it had 23 units requiring at least 2,000 oarsmen. Soldiers manned the oars, and one of the tasks of the galleys was to make the infantry mobile at sea. Oared galleys armed with heavy guns were in 1540 a modern weapon system, which in the Mediterranean had practically ousted sailing warships in that sea. French galleys proved useful in wars against England in the 1510s and 1540s when they did much of the active fighting at sea. Sailing warships were still rather immature, and the rather few and expensive heavy guns could be usefully deployed on warships which could manoeuvre with precision and independent of the wind. For Sweden, the archipelagic coasts were suitable for galleys but Gustav I also used them as a seagoing force that could shelter in the archipelago in heavy weather.^' Hie Swedish galley fleet was in the 1540s and 1550s a modern and powerful force, and several galleys were kept in service even during peace. They patrolled the coasts and border zones and transported the king, his court, and important cargo, such as silver.^® Galleys could also dominate the great Swedish lakes. In plans for defensive war, they were intended to attack sailing ships passing through the archipelago to Stocldiolm with gunfire f r o m positions which sailing ships could not reach. An invading fleet at that time would largely have consisted of armed merchantmen with wealdy built hulls, vulnerable to the few but well-aimed heavy guns on galleys. This galley fleet was unique in the Baltic at this time. There was one obvious reason for that: Gustav I was the only ruler in Northern Europe who had the cheap manpower of peasant-soldiers to use as oarsmen. The galleys made these men useful in amphibious warfare, and they were also a new technical solution to bring the powerful but still scarce heavy artillery to sea. In confined

" Galleys in Europe: Glete 2000, 25-32, 93-111, 137-44; N. A. M. Rodger, "The Development of Broadside Gunnery, 1450-1650", M M , 82, 1996, 301-24. Swedish galleys: Glete 1976, 38-43, 55-60; Glete 1977, 58-63; Jan Glete, "Vasatidens galarflottor", in Hans N o r m a n , Skargardsflottan: Uppbyggnad, militar anvdndning och forankring i det svenska samhciUet, 1700-1824, Lund, 2000, 37-49. Galley operations in 1550, a typical year of peace, GR 21, 1550, 121-22, 160, 193, 208, 252.

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waters, such as the Gulf of Finland and the Sound, they could be used for offensive amphibious warfare. During the 1550s, Sweden gradually turned its interest eastward: to the security problems along the border with Russia, the increasing trade passing through the Gulf of Finland, and the growing political crisis in the eastern Baltic, which for centuries had been ruled by the German Order of Knights. In the 13th and early 14th centuries it had also been a region of Swedish expansion, with oared fleets projecting power to the coast of Finland and the Neva estuary. Gustav I now began to make his power visible in the gulf with patrolling warships. He used them to favour Western trade with Russia through his ports, Viborg and Helsingfors (Helsinki). The latter was founded in 1550 as a rival to the old German-dominated port Reval (Tallinn) in Estonia. Gustav also used naval power to put pressure on Reval, and in the 1550s this city gradually adapted to a new role as a client to Sweden.^' Russia under Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible) had ambitions to expand westward. During 1554/55, Gustav faced a crisis along the FinnishRussian border, and in 1555 he mobilised the army and the galleys and sent them to Finland. After a failed attempt to take the Russian fortress Noteborg at the river Neva with an amphibious attack, the Swedish forces were used defensively until peace was concluded in 1557.^" In addition to their amphibious lift capability, the galleys also could control both shallow coastal waters and the open sea close to coasts against naval forces of small vessels which the Russians might improvise. The war was inconclusive, but Sweden's new armed forces had shown mobility and a degree of readiness that may have encouraged the young Vasa princes Erik and Johan (both future kings) to think in terms of expansion in the east, even against opponents with inherently larger resources. At least that was the policy they would follow with determination after their father's death in 1560. 2.2.4

Conclusion: Naval power and a new

monarchy

The role of Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) as an innovative fiscal-military entrepreneur is evident from this survey of sea power and political power in Sweden f r o m the mid-15th to the mid-16th century. He gained control over Sweden when he bought a considerable fleet with

'' Lundkvist 1960, 333-41; Glete 1976, 52. Viljanti 1957.

T H E SWEDISH DYNASTIC STATE AND ITS NAVY

/b

a large loan, the classical behaviour of an innovative entrepreneur who creates a new combination in hope that future profits will repay the loan. His most original military achievements were the creation of a substantial sailing navy, the conversion of the peasant militia into a royal infantry militia, and the introduction of a galley force. Gustav I established a dynasty by his ability to organise permanent armed forces under his own direct control, in combination with his ability as political leader and economic administrator. In Swedish historiography he is usually remembered for his latter two roles, while his military and naval achievements are overshadowed by those of his grandson, Gustav II Adolf (r. 1611-32). The latter, however, merely reformed the military, naval and administrative system that his grandfather had founded. The 16th-century armed forces of Sweden are often regarded as rather backward in an international perspective. In a comparative perspective this is not correct. As instruments of dynastic power in a Europe where permanent armed forces were still scarce and based on fragile political and financial bases, Gustav I's armed forces were strikingly modern rather than backward. They gave the ruler good ability to control violence in his own territory, to defend it against competitors, and to use threats in international negotiations. On the European scene in 1560, only France and Sweden had a complete array of permanent armed forces: an army, a sailing navy, and a galley navy. And the French armed forces, especially the navy, were soon to be disorganised in a long civil war. The armed forces of the new Swedish monarchy were shaped by the experiences of a long conflict with Denmark. This conflict had taught the Swedish elite that control of the infantry forces which the peasants might field, and control of the sea lines of communication to Swedish ports, were necessary in order to rule Sweden effectively. The member of the elite who converted these lessons into a coherent and rational program of innovation was Gustav Eriksson. His success as administrative, military, and naval innovator made him the founder of a dynasty. His most important political achievement was that he made these military and naval innovations acceptable to the power base, with which a successful ruler in Sweden must cooperate: his fellow aristocrats and the free peasants. Gustav was able to show that his new system worked, that it provided better protection and security than earlier systems, and that it was worth its cost. The unpleasant alternative he could point to was the experience of long, destructive.

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and frustrating wars with an earlier decentralised system of defence. It must be appreciated that many of the resources that Gustav gained control of and developed were used to support his new armed forces. He established the main components of a modern fiscal-military state as he both created a new fiscal system and permanent armed forces. In Sweden, as earlier in Denmark, the rise of organised sea power was a part of a rise of a new type of state. It was a state in which the kings controlled armed forces of their own in order to protect the country and enforce a monopoly of violence. Navies gave them political leverage against both domestic and foreign enemies and combinations of these two groups. The medieval Baltic had been politically fragmented, and political factions—aristocrats, bishops, cities, merchants, military orders, semi-piratical seafarers, and local communities—had frequently made alliances across national borders and across the sea. This political scene was definitely changed with the civil war in Denmark 1534-36 and Gustav I's successful isolation and repression of various rebellions against his regime up to 1543. From then, two dynasties were in control of clearly defined territories and of the sea lines of communication to the rest of the Baltic. In other regions in the Baltic, political fragmentation continued and made them open to seaborne power projection and protection-selling from the new Northern states. Strategically, both states were almost islands, except for the long borders they had with each other. They could therefore be protected by naval power, which also could secure their trade with neutral ports. Royal control of territory could also be exercised from the sea lines of communication, most effectively in Denmark and Norway but also with considerable effect in Sweden-Finland, if sea power was combined with cooperation with local elite groups. In a period when armies were still small, it was usually more efficient to send them by sea to the capital of the enemy rather than across wide forests with few roads and little food for men and horses. The repeated attacks f r o m the sea on Stockholm and Copenhagen show this. The Oldenburg kings and, later, Gustav I drew the rational conclusion f r o m these experiences and invested in naval power. The Oldenburgs had an early advantage in that control of the Sound gave them income, while Gustav had to found his navy first on credit, later on taxes on land and confiscated Church property. The rise of efficient gunpowder weapons cannot be ignored. The Nordic Union monarchy from around 1390 to 1435 had been strong

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a n d a m b i t i o u s , n o t t h e least at sea. B u t it liad n o t d e v e l o p e d a n y t h i n g w h i c h m i g h t b e d e s c r i b e d as a p e r m a n e n t n a v y o r a c o m p a r a tive a d v a n t a g e in specialised w a r s h i p s . T h e r e a r e n o s i g n s t h a t s u c h a n a d v a n t a g e existed, a n d t e m p o r a r y sea p o w e r f r o m p o w e r f u l t r a d ing cities w i t h m a n y large m e r c h a n t m e n w a s effective. T h a t p o w e r rapidly e v a p o r a t e d b e t w e e n t h e 1520s a n d t h e 1560s. By t h e n , specialised g u n - a r m e d w a r s h i p s , b u i l t a n d m a i n t a i n e d b y

permanent

navies, h a d b e c o m e so s o p h i s t i c a t e d t h a t t r a d i t i o n a l a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n w e r e severely h a n d i c a p p e d in c o m b a t . G u s t a v I i n v e s t e d m u c h of his r e s o u r c e s in specialised w a r s h i p s a n d d e v e l o p e d t h e d o m e s t i c skills a n d i n f r a s t r u c t u r e s n e c e s s a r y t o m a i n t a i n a p e r m a n e n t n a v y a n d d e p l o y it as a n o p e r a t i o n a l f o r c e . T h e i m p o r t a n c e of h e a v y g u n s i n t h e state f o r m a t i o n p r o c e s s is best u n d e r s t o o d in a c o m p a r a t i v e p e r s p e c t i v e . T h e rise of a n u m b e r of relatively s t r o n g m o n a r c h i e s in E u r o p e d u r i n g t h e late 15th a n d early 16th c e n t u r y is well k n o w n . F r a n c e , t h e S p a n i s h m o n a r c h y , t h e O t t o m a n Empire, England, Portugal, D e n m a r k , a n d Sweden are the best e x a m p l e s of t h i s t r e n d . E x p l a n a t i o n s f o r t h i s a l m o s t s i m u l t a n e o u s d e v e l o p m e n t in large p a r t s of E u r o p e a r e n u m e r o u s : e c o n o m i c growth, military innovations, technology, or dynastic accidents. The similarities a r e so m a n y t h a t it is p r o b a b l e t h a t t h e r e w e r e c o m m o n factors, w h i c h gave c e n t r a l r u l e r s a m o r e m a r k e d c o m p a r a t i v e a d v a n tage in t h e exercise of v i o l e n c e - c o n t r o l . It is p o s s i b l e t o a r g u e t h a t t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of heavy^ g u n s w a s o n e of t h e s e f a c t o r s , a l t h o u g h it c o u l d only b e i n f l u e n t i a l if r u l e r s u s e d t h e n e w t e c h n o l o g y i n n o v a t i v e l y . A t sea, h e a v y g u n s i n c r e a s e d t h e i m p o r t a n c e of specialised w a r s h i p s , a n d rulers w h o i n v e s t e d in s u c h s h i p s a n d t h e i r d e v e l o p m e n t g a i n e d a n advantage. Sixteenth-century Vasa naval p o w e r was, to a large extent, f o r m e d b y a c o m b i n a t i o n of m o d e r n g u n s a n d specialised g u n - c a r r y ing warships.^' G u s t a v E r i k s s o n ' s revolt a g a i n s t C h r i s t i a n II w a s t h e last s u c c e s s f u l action of its k i n d in S w e d e n , b u t h i s a w a r e n e s s t h a t e n e m i e s c o m ing f r o m a b r o a d c o u l d s t a r t r e b e l l i o n s c a n b e o b s e r v e d in his letters until his d e a t h . H e f r e q u e n t l y o r d e r e d h i s p a t r o l l i n g w a r s h i p s t o b e o n g u a r d a g a i n s t real o r i m a g i n e d e n e m i e s a n d a n t a g o n i s t s . C o n t r o l of t h e Baltic Sea w i t h r o y a l w a r s h i p s w a s t h u s a p r e - c o n d i t i o n f o r u n d i s t u r b e d state f o r m a t i o n a n d c e n t r a l i s a t i o n of p o w e r in D e n m a r k -

Glete2002,

16-21.

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N o r w a y a n d S w e d e n . T h e c e n t r a l political role of t h e t w o r o y a l n a v i e s is visible i n t h e fact t h a t t h e ships, t h e g u n s , a n d t h e s h i p y a r d facilities w e r e c o n c e n t r a t e d t o t h e capital cities a n d l o c a t e d as close t o t h e royal castles as possible. T h e y w e r e m o b i l e i n s t r u m e n t s of p o w e r t h a t w e r e easy t o k e e p u n d e r close c o n t r o l b y t h e r u l e r s a n d t h e i r m o s t loyal servants.

2.3 2.3.1

The navy and Swedish empire-building,

1558-1660

Control of the Baltic Sea

T h e w a r w i t h R u s s i a of 1 5 5 5 - 5 7 w a s n o i s o l a t e d e p i s o d e . It w a s t h e first sign t h a t S w e d e n m i g h t b e i n v o l v e d in a p o w e r s t r u g g l e in t h e east. T h e i n v o l v e m e n t w a s n o t u n a v o i d a b l e . A strictly d e f e n s i v e f o r e i g n policy was an option. The Russian war h a d showed that the Swedish a r m e d f o r c e s w e r e a d e q u a t e f o r d e f e n c e in this r e g i o n , a n d t h e agric u l t u r a l l y p o o r F i n l a n d w a s h a r d l y a t t r a c t i v e f o r f o r e i g n aggressors. The long Swedish-Danish borders, with few roads a n d m a n y forests, could be adequately d e f e n d e d by the n u m e r o u s Swedish militia army, a n d S w e d e n ' s fleet c o u l d d e f e n d t h e sea lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n to o t h e r Baltic p o r t s . D e n m a r k , Liibeck, a n d , especially, P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a were rather unlikely enemies unless they were threatened by Sweden. S w e d i s h i m p e r i a l e x p a n s i o n c a n b e s e e n partially as a r e s u l t of several d e c a d e s of a r m y a n d n a v y d e v e l o p m e n t h a v i n g c r e a t e d a s u r p l u s of p r o t e c t i v e capacity. It w a s t e m p t i n g t o u s e t h i s c a p a c i t y in a s i t u a t i o n w h e n t h e e s t a b l i s h e d s t r u c t u r e f o r p r o t e c t i o n in t h e e a s t e r n Baltic s u d d e n l y fell t o p i e c e s a n d a m a r k e t f o r p r o t e c t i o n - s e l l i n g a p p e a r e d . T h e e x p a n s i o n b e g a n w i t h a n i n v i t a t i o n f r o m t h e elite g r o u p s in n o r t h e r n Estonia, which asked the Swedish king for protection. They saw that he h a d the military and naval m e a n s to protect them; otherwise they w o u l d h a v e a s k e d s o m e o n e else. P r o t e c t i o n w o u l d r e m a i n t h e official p r e t e x t f o r m a n y of S w e d e n ' s i n t e r v e n t i o n s in t h e future.^^

Sweden d u r i n g the century of empire-building; foreign policy: Wilhelm Tham, Den svenska utrikespolitikens historia, 1:2, 1560-1648, Stockholm, 1960. The Parliament: H e r m a n Schtick, "Sweden's Early Parliamentary Institutions f r o m the Thirteenth Century to 1611", a n d Goran Rystad, "The Estates of the Realm, the Monarchy, and Empire, 1611-1718", in Michael F. Metcalf (ed.), The Riksdag: A history of the Swedish parliament, Stockholm, 1987, 5 - 6 0 a n d 61-108. The dynasty: Lars-Olof Larsson, Arvet efter Gustav Vasa: En berattelse omfyra kungar och ett rike, Stockholm, 2005. The economy: Janken Myrdal and Johan Soderberg, The Agrarian

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O n e p r e c o n d i t i o n f o r t h e c e n t u r y of e m p i r e b u i l d i n g t h a t f o l l o w e d t h e w a r w i t h Russia w a s t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e S w e d i s h a r m y as a n increasingly efficient f o r c e f o r o f f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n s in e n e m y t e r r i t o ries. A n o t h e r a n d a r g u a b l y e v e n m o r e i m p o r t a n t t r a n s f o r m a t i o n w a s that t h e S w e d i s h society w a s a d a p t e d t o a p o l i c y of c o n t i n u o u s w a r fare a n d large-scale e x t r a c t i o n of r e s o u r c e s f o r w a r . I n this p r e s e n t study, it is i m p o r t a n t t o e m p h a s i s e t h a t t h e e m p i r e w a s largely c r e a t e d a r o u n d t h e Baltic Sea. Its c o n q u e s t r e q u i r e d n a v a l p o w e r a n d t h e ability to use t h e sea f o r logistical s u p p o r t a n d c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n s . T h e e m p i r e was also f o r m e d in r e g i o n s w i t h m u c h m a r i t i m e t r a d e a n d cities t h a t lived o n t h a t t r a d e . N a v a l p o w e r c o u l d c o n t r o l t h e sea lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n u p o n w h i c h the Swedish imperial efforts were based a n d c o u l d c o n t r o l t h e t r a d e t h a t f l o w e d t h r o u g h t h e Baltic Sea a n d its ports. H i e S w e d i s h k i n g w a s o n e of t h e v e r y f e w p o w e r - h o l d e r s in t h e Baltic w h o actually h a d w a r s h i p s of h i s o w n . H o w w a s t h i s o r g a n i s e d naval p o w e r d e v e l o p e d as a p a r t of a m b i t i o u s policies, w h i c h e x t e n d e d Swedish p o w e r f a r b e y o n d t h e t r a d i t i o n a l b o r d e r s of t h e k i n g d o m ? A b a t d e fleet m a y b e u s e d t o c r e a t e a m o b i l e s t r a t e g i c p o s i t i o n in a n area w i t h i m p o r t a n t sea l i n e s of c o m m u n i c a t i o n . G i v e n t h e Baltic g e o g raphy, a S w e d i s h fleet s t r o n g e n o u g h t o c o n t r o l t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic Sea f r o m bases in c e n t r a l S w e d e n d i d n o t o n l y p r o t e c t t h e S w e d i s h - F i n n i s h coasts a n d t r a d e t o S w e d e n . It also c r e a t e d a b r i d g e f o r S w e d i s h p o w e r p r o j e c t i o n a c r o s s t h e Baltic t o E s t o n i a a n d L i v o n i a a n d t h e p o r t s in t h a t

Economy of Sixteenth-Century Sweden, Stockliolm, 2002; Ake Saiidstrom, Mellan Tornea och Amsterdam: En undersokning av Stockholms roll som fbrmedlare av varor i regional- och utrikeshandel, Stocldiolm, 1990. The Baltic trade: A r t u r Attman, Den ryska marknaden i 1500-talets baltiska politik, 1558-1595, Lund, 1944; Artur Attman, The Russian and Polish Markets in International Trade, 1500-1650, Gothenburg, 1973; Attman 1979; Stefan Troebst, "Debating the Mercantile Background to Early M o d e r n Swedish Empire-building: Michael Roberts versus A r t u r Attman", European History Quarterly, 24, 1994, 485-509. State finance: Birgitta Oden, Kronohandel och finanspolitik, 1560-1595, Lund, 1966. The military state: Sven A. Nilsson, Krona och frdlse i Sverige, 1523-1594: Rusttjdnst, Idnsvdsende, godspolitik, Lund, 1947; G u n n a r Arteus, Till militdrstatens forhistoria: Krig, professionalisering och social fordndring under Vasasdnernas regering, Stockholm, 1986; Nilsson 1989; Nilsson 1990; Jan Lindegren, Maktstatens resurser: Danmark och Sverige under 1600-talet, unpubl. Nordic state formation: Harald Gustafsson, "Hie Conglomerate State: A perspective on state formation in early m o d e r n Europe", Scandinavian Journal of History, 23, 1998, 189-213; Jespersen 2000. Finland: Rainer Fagerlund, Kurt Jern, Nils-Erik Villstrand, Finlands historia, II, 1523-1809, Esbo, 1993. Swedish expansion f r o m an East European perspective: Robert 1. Frost, The Northern Wars: War, state and society in northeastern Europe, 1558-1721, Harlow, 2000. Broad surveys in English: Michael Roberts, The Early Vasas: A history of Sweden, 1523-1611, Cambridge, 1968; Roberts 1979.

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r e g i o n . Similarly, a m o r e a m b i t i o u s a n d o f f e n s i v e S w e d i s h n a v a l p o l i c y t h a t m a d e it p o s s i b l e t o d e p l o y a b a t t l e fleet t o t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic Sea f o r b l o c k a d e - b r e a k i n g a n d a t t a c k i n g e n e m y t r a d e also c r e a t e d a b r i d g e t o t h e G e r m a n c o a s t a n d t h e p o r t s o n t h a t coast. O a r e d v^rarships, suitable f o r d e f e n c e of t h e a r c h i p e l a g i c S w e d i s h coast, c o u l d e q u a l l y well b e u s e d f o r o f f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n s in s h a l l o w a n d p r o t e c t e d w a t e r s . T h e c r e a t i o n of a p e r m a n e n t S w e d i s h n a v y t h u s f o r m e d a d y n a m i c e l e m e n t in S w e d i s h Baltic policy. Its o r i g i n w a s w i t h o u t d o u b t to s e c u r e t h e coasts, t h e t r a d e , a n d t h e survival of t h e n e w d y n a s t y , b u t its v e r y exist e n c e c r e a t e d a n i n s t r u m e n t of p o w e r t h a t a n a m b i t i o u s r u l e r m i g h t u s e f o r o f f e n s i v e p u r p o s e s at a n y o p p o r t u n e m o m e n t .

2.3.2

Success of organisation:

The Swedish battle fleet,

1558-1570

H i e d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e S w e d i s h n a v y u n d e r G u s t a v I h a d m a d e t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d i n t o a z o n e d o m i n a t e d b y S w e d i s h p o w e r . O t h e r p o w ers c o u l d n o t b r i n g n a v a l p o w e r t o this a r e a w i t h o u t r i s k i n g a c o n f l i c t w i t h a fleet s e n t o u t f r o m Stoclcholm, a n d t h i s a l l o w e d t h e S w e d i s h m o n a r c h y t o p r o m o t e its i n t e r e s t s in t h i s r e g i o n . T h e m o n a r c h y c o u l d have r e n o u n c e d territorial ambitions, developed Swedish

economic

activities i n t h e area, a n d b o l s t e r e d t h e i m p o r t a n c e of S w e d i s h m e r c h a n t s a n d s h i p p i n g in t h e t r a d e b e t w e e n R u s s i a a n d W e s t e r n E u r o p e b y u s i n g t h e S w e d i s h n a v y t o p r o t e c t s u c h t r a d e . It w o u l d h a v e t a k e n t i m e to a c c u m u l a t e capital, c o n t a c t s , a n d c o m p e t e n c i e s b u t it w o u l d probably have attracted foreign m e r c h a n t s with capital a n d c o m p e t e n c e . F o r e i g n b u s i n e s s m e n w e r e , in fact, p r e s e n t in S w e d e n , a n d s o m e d e c a d e s later t h e y w o u l d b e c o m e i m p o r t a n t f o r d e v e l o p i n g t h e S w e d i s h e c o n o m y . I n t h e 18th c e n t u r y , w h e n t h e e m p i r e w a s lost, S w e d e n w a s i m p o r t a n t in E u r o p e a n s h i p p i n g . I n t h e 16th c e n t u r y , h o w e v e r , t h e V a s a s w e r e m e r c a n t i l e in t h e i r o u t l o o k b u t t h e y w e r e p r i m a r i l y t e r r i t o r i a l r u l e r s a n d e n t r e p r e n e u r s in p r o t e c t i o n - s e l l i n g . W h a t l o o k e d p r o m i s i n g to t h e m , g i v e n t h e i r existi n g o r g a n i s a t i o n a l capabilities, w a s t o sell p r o t e c t i o n t o t h o s e w h o t r a d e d in t h e area. P a y m e n t c o u l d c o m e t h r o u g h c u s t o m s o n t h e g o o d s w h i c h p a s s e d t h e Gulf, a p o l i c y i n s p i r e d b y t h e S o u n d Toll. T h e n a v y c o u l d p r o t e c t s h i p p i n g in t h e area, a n d t h e u p h e a v a l t h a t b e g a n i n t h e e a s t e r n Baltic a r e a in 1558 c r e a t e d a s u d d e n d e m a n d f o r p r o t e c t i o n . Significantly, t h e S w e d i s h n a v y w a s s t r e n g t h e n e d f r o m 1 5 5 8 - 5 9 w i t h t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of several n e w large sailing w a r s h i p s . B u t t h i s p r o t e c t i v e policy b e c a m e interwoven with territorial ambitions and ambitions to

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c o n t r o l cities a n d river e s t u a r i e s of s t r a t e g i c a n d e c o n o m i c i m p o r t a n c e in t h e e a s t e r n Baltic. It w a s realised t h a t t r a d e s h o u l d n o t o n l y b e p r o tected b u t also c o n t r o l l e d a n d m o n o p o l i s e d w i t h a r m e d f o r c e . " The e a s t e r n Baltic r e g i o n o f f e r e d i n t e r e s t i n g o p p o r t u n i t i e s w h i c h could b e t u r n e d i n t o t h r e a t s if o t h e r p o w e r s u s e d t h e m w i t h success. The G e r m a n ( T e u t o n i c ) O r d e r h a d f o r c e n t u r i e s r u l e d t h e t e r r i t o r i e s t h a t t o d a y are E s t o n i a a n d Latvia in c o o p e r a t i o n w i t h t h e r e g i o n a l m e r c a n t i l e cities, w h i c h w e r e d o m i n a t e d b y G e r m a n s . I n 1558, Russia, u n d e r its a m b i t i o u s tsar I v a n IV, t o o k t h e city of N a r v a in t h e G u l f of Finland, an i m p o r t a n t port for Russian trade with W e s t e r n Europe. In a f e w years, t h e O r d e r d i s a p p e a r e d as a t e r r i t o r i a l r u l e r , a n d t h e t o w n s a n d n o b i l i t y of t h e e a s t e r n Baltic f r e n e t i c a l l y b e g a n t o l o o k f o r p r o t e c tors against R u s s i a n e x p a n s i o n . A large m a r k e t f o r classical p r o t e c t i o n selling s u d d e n l y e m e r g e d . T h e island of Osel ( S a a r e m a a ) b e c a m e a D a n i s h p r o t e c t o r a t e in 1559, a n d Livonia a n d C o u r l a n d s u b m i t t e d t o P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a in 1561. I n t h e s a m e y e a r , t h e S w e d i s h k i n g a c c e p t e d t h e i n v i t a t i o n t o b e c o m e p r o t e c t o r of Reval ( T a l l i n n ) a n d m o s t of n o r t h e r n E s t o n i a . Reval h o p e d t h a t S w e d e n w o u l d u s e its n a v a l p o w e r in t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d to c h a n n e l t h e R u s s i a n t r a d e t h r o u g h t h a t city in e x c h a n g e f o r t h e r i g h t t o raise c u s t o m s . T h e t h r e e p r o t e c t i n g p o w e r s — P o l a n d , D e n m a r k a n d S w e d e n — s o o n r a n i n t o a c o n f l i c t a b o u t t h e i r s p h e r e s of interest, a n d P o l a n d b e c a m e i n v o l v e d i n c o n f l i c t w i t h R u s s i a as well. F r o m a m a r i t i m e p o i n t of view, t h e c o n t r o l of t h e v a l u a b l e t r a d e t o Narva, Reval, P e r n a u , a n d Riga w a s at stake. S w e d e n b e g a n t o c l a i m a d o m i n i o n o v e r t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d , a n d its fleet b e g a n t o c a p t u r e s h i p s f r o m Liibeck a n d o t h e r t o w n s , w h i c h d i d n o t f o l l o w S w e d i s h d e c r e e s that their R u s s i a n t r a d e m u s t b e d i r e c t e d t o S w e d i s h - h e l d Reval a n d that t h e p r o f i t a b l e N a r v a t r a d e s h o u l d b e left t o t h e s u b j e c t s of t h e Swedish k i n g . These conflicts a b o u t p o w e r a n d t r a d e in t h e e a s t e r n Baltic w e r e added to other conflicts between Sweden a n d D e n m a r k , which b e c a m e intense w h e n G u s t a v I a n d C h r i s t i a n III d i e d i n 1560 a n d 1559 r e s p e c tively. T h e y h a d b o t h a v o i d e d e s c a l a t i n g m i n o r c o n f l i c t s i n t o crises, t h e y had fought wars against c o m m o n enemies, a n d they h a d gained their politically i m p o r t a n t l a u r e l s as s u c c e s s f u l w a r l e a d e r s w h e n t h e y w e r e y o u n g . O n e r e s u l t w a s t h a t t h e y h a d a v o i d e d costly c o m p e t i t i o n s at sea

Attman

1944, 119-62; Glete 1976, 60-63.

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a n d h a d k e p t t h e i r s a i h n g n a v i e s at a stable level. By 1560, t w o y o u n g a n d a m b i t i o u s kings, E r i k X I V (r. 1 5 6 0 - 6 8 ) in S w e d e n a n d F r e d e r i k II (r. 1 5 5 9 - 8 8 ) in D e n m a r k , w e r e in c o n t r o l . T h e y h a d n o c o m m o n e n e m y , a n d t h e Baltic political s c e n e w a s in t u r m o i l . N o w , t h e p o w e r that gained m o s t might b e c o m e superior to the other. Older N o r d i c h i s t o r i o g r a p h y o f t e n d e s c r i b e s a crisis c a u s e d b y a D a n i s h a t t e m p t t o recreate the Kalmar U n i o n , but that question was not on the agenda of e i t h e r y o u n g k i n g . I n fact, s u c h a n a t t e m p t w o u l d m o s t likely h a v e c r e a t e d a n a n t i - D a n i s h alliance b e t w e e n several p o w e r s . I n s t e a d , t h e r e is m o r e e v i d e n c e t h a t E r i k X I V h a d a m b i t i o n s t o m a k e S w e d e n t h e l e a d i n g p o w e r in N o r t h e r n E u r o p e a n d t h a t F r e d e r i k II w a s d e t e r m i n e d to prevent that. Both kings were apparently too inexperienced t o realise h o w difficult it w a s t o w i n a w a r , b u t F r e d e r i k at least t o o k t h e p r e c a u t i o n of f o r m i n g alliances w i t h Liibeck a n d P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a as a p a r t of h i s p r e p a r a t i o n f o r t h e war.^"* E r i k ' s a m b i t i o n s a r e visible in several s p h e r e s at t h e s a m e t i m e . H e u s e d t h e c o n s i d e r a b l e silver t r e a s u r y g a t h e r e d b y h i s f a t h e r t o r a p i d l y i n c r e a s e t h e a r m y a n d navy. H e w a s a firm believer in t h e i m p o r t a n c e of h i e r a r c h i c o r g a n i s a t i o n led b y h i m s e l f , a n d in t h a t spirit h e t r i e d t o f o r m m o r e specialised c o r p s of p r o f e s s i o n a l officers a n d a d m i n i s t r a t o r s loyal t o t h e k i n g . T h e n a v a l p a r t of his a m b i t i o n s w a s a l a r g e b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m of sailing w a r s h i p s , a n i n t e n s e p r o d u c t i o n of h e a v y c o p p e r g u n s , a n d a firmer o r g a n i s a t i o n of n a v a l p e r s o n n e l . O n t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l scene, E r i k t r i e d t o a r r a n g e a m a r r i a g e alliance w i t h

Queen

E l i z a b e t h of E n g l a n d . This p l a n w a s c o n n e c t e d w i t h r a t h e r n e b u l o u s idea of m a k i n g S w e d e n a n i m p o r t a n t i n t e r m e d i a r y f o r t r a d e b e t w e e n Eastern a n d W e s t e r n Europe, an idea that m a y have impelled Erik's i n v o l v e m e n t in t h e e a s t e r n Baltic. I n o r d e r t o a c h i e v e t h i s p l a n , h e n e e d e d a b a t t l e fleet, w h i c h c o u l d n o t o n l y d e f e n d t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic b u t also act o f f e n s i v e l y a n d fight f o r t h e c o n t r o l of t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic, t h r o u g h w h i c h t h e lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n t o t h e W e s t p a s s e d . It w a s a m a r k e d i n c r e a s e of S w e d i s h n a v a l ambitions.^^

" Sture Arnell, Die Aufldsung des livldndischen Ordensstates: Das schwedischen Eingreifen und die Heirat Herzog Johans von Finnland, 1558-1562, Lund 1937; Walther Kirchner, The Rise of the Baltic Question, Newark, D e l , 1954; Tham 1960, 12-36; Jensen 1982, 34-72. T r a d e and foreign policy, Ingvar Andersson, Erik XIV:s engelska underhandlingar: Studier i svensk diplomati och handelspolitik, Lund 1935. Tlie army: Bertil C:son Barkman, Kungl. Svea Livgardes historia, IL 1560-1611, Stockholm 1938-39, 1-47.

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F r o m 1559/60 t o 1562, E r i k X I V ' s g r o w i n g fleet of sailing w a r s h i p s w e r e c o n c e n t r a t e d in t h e o n l y S w e d i s h p o r t i n t h e west, A l v s b o r g ( G o t h e n b u r g ) . E r i k p l a n n e d to travel t o E n g l a n d in g r a n d style, w i t h a m a j o r fleet, a l t h o u g h t h a t v o y a g e n e v e r t o o k place, f o r v a r i o u s r e a sons. This f o u r - y e a r g r a d u a l b u i l d - u p of a n o p e r a t i o n a l sailing b a t t l e fleet gave t h e c r e w s t r a i n i n g a n d e x p e r i e n c e at sea. B u t F r e d e r i k II b e c a m e s u s p i c i o u s w h e n h e s a w h i s rival c o n c e n t r a t e so m u c h n a v a l p o w e r in w e s t e r n S c a n d i n a v i a , in t h e v e r y c e n t r e of his o w n t e r r i t o r i e s . A l v s b o r g w a s strategically well s i t u a t e d f o r a s u d d e n S w e d i s h a t t a c k o n C o p e n h a g e n o r o t h e r p a r t s of D e n m a r k a n d N o r w a y , w h i c h in combination with the p e r m a n e n t Swedish a r m y forces m i g h t be dang e r o u s f o r t h e D a n i s h state, w h i c h k e p t n o a r m y in p e a c e t i m e . Erik's d i p l o m a t i c activities, i n c l u d i n g d e m a n d s of G o t l a n d a n d h i n t s of f u r ther Swedish territorial d e m a n d s o n D e n m a r k , did n o t h i n g to reduce D a n i s h suspicions.^'' Several s m a l l e r S w e d i s h w a r s h i p s w e r e d e p l o y e d to t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d t o raise toll a n d " g u i d e " f o r e i g n m e r c h a n t m e n to p o r t s c o n t r o l l e d b y S w e d e n . D u r i n g 1562, t h i s c a u s e d a c o n f l i c t w i t h Liibeck, w h e n several s h i p s f r o m t h a t city w e r e c a p t u r e d . While diplomatic negotiations a n d preparations for war intensified, an i n t e r m e z z o at sea at t h e e n d of M a y 1563 s t a r t e d t h e w a r . E r i k XIV h a d given u p h i s E n g l i s h m a r r i a g e p l a n s a n d h a d s e n t a fleet to R o s t o c k t o b r i n g a H e s s i a n p r i n c e s s t o S w e d e n as h i s b r i d e (she n e v e r t u r n e d u p ) . F r e d e r i k II s e n t o u t a fleet t h a t , a p p a r e n t l y at t h e initiative of its a d m i r a l , d e m a n d e d t h a t t h e S w e d i s h a d m i r a l s h o u l d p a y r e s p e c t to D a n i s h s o v e r e i g n t y in t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic Sea. T h a t w a s d e n i e d a n d in t h e f o l l o w i n g b a t t l e t h e D a n i s h fleet w a s d e f e a t e d , t h e first of a series of D a n i s h u n d e r e s t i m a t i o n s of S w e d i s h n a v a l p o w e r . T h e t w o p o w e r s n o w m o b f l i s e d f o r a full-scale w a r . O n l a n d it w a s f o u g h t b e t w e e n the S w e d i s h m i l i t i a a r m y a n d a D a n i s h m e r c e n a r y a r m y r e c r u i t e d in G e r m a n y . T h e latter h a d its first a n d , as it t u r n e d o u t , o n l y l a s t i n g success w h e n at t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e w a r it t o o k c o n t r o l of A l v s b o r g , S w e d e n ' s o n l y p o r t t o t h e west. A t sea, t h e w a r w a s f o u g h t b y t h e Swedish n a v y a n d t h e c o m b i n e d D a n i s h - L i i b e c k i a n navies. A t t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e w a r , t h e latter t w o p r e d o m i n a n t l y c o n s i s t e d of a r m e d merchantmen."

'' Jensen 1982, 47-60. " The latest study of this war is Jensen 1982. Swedish a r m y operations: Barkman 1938-39, 48-270. The war in the Eastern Baltic: Sture Arnell, Bidrag till helysning av den baltiska fronten under det nordiska sjudrskriget, 1563-1570, Stockholm 1977.

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T h e w a r , u s u a l l y called t h e N o r d i c Seven Years W a r

(1563-70),

actually w e n t o n d u r i n g e i g h t c a m p a i g n s e a s o n s , w i t h a r m i e s a n d fleets t h a t w e r e f a r larger t h a n in earlier w a r s b e t w e e n S w e d e n , D e n m a r k , a n d Liibeck. T h e i m p o r t a n c e of n a v a l p o w e r is s h o w n b y t h e fact t h a t the navies were m u c h increased d u r i n g the war, while the armies did n o t g r o w b e y o n d t h e i r level in 1 5 6 3 - 6 4 . S w e d e n also h a d t o k e e p a n a r m y in E s t o n i a t o fight t h e Poles. W i t h i n S w e d e n t h e r e w e r e t w o brief civil wars: first b e t w e e n E r i k X I V a n d his b r o t h e r D u k e J o h a n in 1563; a n d s e c o n d b e t w e e n E r i k a n d h i s b r o t h e r s , t h e d u k e s J o h a n a n d Karl, in 1568. T h e d o m e s t i c conflict e n d e d w h e n E r i k w a s d e p o s e d b y his o l d e s t b r o t h e r , w h o s u c c e e d e d h i m as J o h a n III (r. 1 5 6 8 - 9 2 ) . T h e c h a n g e of r u l e r in S w e d e n led t o a c h a n g e of alliance p a r t n e r s , as J o h a n w a s m a r r i e d t o a sister of t h e P o l i s h k i n g a n d p r e f e r r e d c o o p e r a t i o n w i t h P o l a n d r a t h e r t h a n w i t h Russia. I n r e t a l i a t i o n , Russia a t t a c k e d S w e d i s h - c o n t r o l l e d E s t o n i a in 1570, giving S w e d e n a m o r e aggressive e n e m y i n t h e east t h a n P o l a n d h a d b e e n . T h e scale a n d l e n g t h of t h e w a r w a s in itself p r o o f of t h e u n p r e c e d e n t e d rise of p o w e r t h a t h a d t a k e n p l a c e in b o t h N o r d i c m o n a r c h i e s d u r i n g t h e last d e c a d e s . C o n s i d e r i n g t h a t S w e d e n w a s f i g h t i n g a g a i n s t a n alliance t h a t p o s s e s s e d i n h e r e n t l y l a r g e r r e s o u r c e s , t h e p e r f o r m a n c e of t h e n e w p e r m a n e n t a r m e d f o r c e s w a s c r e d i t a b l e . T h e S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleet g r a d u a l l y g a i n e d c o n t r o l of t h e Baltic Sea, a n a s t o n i s h i n g p e r f o r m a n c e against two powers with strong naval and m a r i t i m e traditions. D u e to Erik XIV's d e t e r m i n e d effort to channel physical resources, m e n , a n d o r g a n i s a t i o n a l capabilities t o h i s n a v y , S w e d e n w a s f r o m 1565 able t o d e p l o y a b a t t l e fleet t o t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic, t h u s g a i n i n g c o n t r o l of t h e sea lines t h r o u g h t h e Baltic a n d w i t h i n D a n i s h - L i i b e c l d a n h o m e w a t e r s . T h e fleet w o n t h r e e of t h e s e v e n m a j o r b a t t l e s it f o u g h t f r o m 1563 t o 1566 a n d lost o n l y o n e (in M a y 1564). Its s u p e r i o r i t y w a s p r i m a r i l y g a i n e d b y a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , logistics, i m p r o v e d discipline, a n d a d v a n c e d t e c h n o l o g y c o m b i n e d w i t h allied wealcness in g u n p o w e r . This i n c r e a s i n g l y f a v o u r a b l e s i t u a t i o n w a s u s e d t o m a i n t a i n t h e b l o c k a d e of N a r v a , t o p r o t e c t t r a d e b e t w e e n S w e d e n a n d n e u t r a l G e r m a n p o r t s , a n d t o m o r e o r less f o r c i b l y i n d u c e W e s t e r n s h i p p i n g t o safl t o Sweden. C o n t r a r y t o earlier a n d later w a r s i n t h e Baltic, c o n t r o l of sea w a s not used to s u p p o r t m a j o r a m p h i b i o u s operations. The Swedish and D a n i s h a r m i e s h a d g r o w n in size t o t e n s of t h o u s a n d s , a n d t o lift o n e of t h e m a c r o s s t h e sea w o u l d Jiave r e q u i r e d a n a m p h i b i o u s c a p a c i t y t h a t w a s n o t p o s s i b l e w i t h o u t r e q u i s i t i o n of a large n u m b e r of f o r e i g n

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m e r c h a n t m e n . T h e S w e d i s h a r m y w a s n e v e r able t o r e a c h t h e S o u n d region, w h e r e a s h o r t c r o s s i n g w i t h s m a l l vessels w o u l d b e p o s s i b l e if t h e n a v y p r o t e c t e d it. N o r d i d t h e S w e d i s h n a v y h a v e e n o u g h soldiers t o c o n s i d e r a n a t t a c k o n C o p e n h a g e n w h e n it o p e r a t e d close t o t h a t city. N o n e t h e l e s s , S w e d i s h n a v a l p o w e r w a s decisive f o r a v o i d ing a d e f e a t b y a b l o c k a d e , f o r b l o c k a d i n g L u b e c k ' s t r a d e in t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d , a n d f o r p r e v e n t i n g S w e d e n ' s t h r e e e n e m i e s f r o m i s o l a t i n g Swedish f o r c e s in E s t o n i a .

2.3.3

The navy and Sweden's eastern policy,

1570-1595

Peace a m o n g S w e d e n , D e n m a r k , a n d Liibeck w a s c o n c l u d e d at Stettin in late 1570. N o m i n a l l y , t h e latter t w o p o w e r s a p p e a r e d as v i c t o r s , b u t t h e t r e a t y d i d n o t reflect t h e real p o w e r s i t u a t i o n in N o r t h e r n E u r o p e . J o h a n III h a d b e e n a n x i o u s t o c o n c l u d e t h e p e a c e in o r d e r t o c o n c e n trate all e f f o r t s o n t h e n e w w a r w i t h Russia, a n d S w e d e n still c o n t r o l l e d t h e sea. This b e c a m e clear in t h e y e a r s a f t e r 1570. L u b e c k ' s d e m a n d for f u l f i l m e n t of w h a t t h e city h a d g o t in t h e t r e a t y — f r e e t r a d e w i t h N a r v a , 75,000 daler in r e p a r a t i o n s f o r c a p t u r e d g o o d s , a n d b e t t e r t r a d ing privileges in S w e d e n — w a s s i m p l y i g n o r e d . D e n m a r k c h o s e n o t t o s u p p o r t t h e s e claims, a n d L u b e c k c o u l d d o little a l o n e . A t t e m p t s t o sail t o N a r v a in d e f i a n c e of t h e S w e d i s h b l o c k a d e e n d e d in large-scale c a p t u r e s of ships, especially i n 1574.'*' D e n m a r k h a d in 1570 b e e n p r o m i s e d t e r r i t o r i e s in E s t o n i a in a c o m plicated s c h e m e t h a t s h o u l d h a v e i n v o l v e d t h e e m p e r o r , b u t in p r a c tice, c o n t r o l o v e r E s t o n i a w a s d e t e r m i n e d b y t h e fierce w a r b e t w e e n S w e d e n a n d Russia. F r e d e r i k II h a d n o d e s i r e t o j o i n e i t h e r side in t h a t war, a n d D a n i s h t e r r i t o r i a l a m b i t i o n s in t h i s r e g i o n e v a p o r a t e d d u r ing t h e 1570s. This r e m o v e d o n e m a j o r c o n f l i c t b e t w e e n S w e d e n a n d D e n m a r k , as F r e d e r i k II b y d e f a u l t h a d a c c e p t e d S w e d i s h (or R u s s i a n ) p r i m a c y in this r e g i o n , s o m e t h i n g h e h a d n o t b e e n p r e p a r e d t o d o in t h e early 1560s. I n spite of t h i s p e a c e f u l D a n i s h policy, D e n m a r k is n o r m a l l y d e s c r i b e d as t h e s t r o n g e r p o w e r of t h e t w o , a n d at sea t h e D a n i s h n a v y is s u p p o s e d t o h a v e e n j o y e d s u p r e m a c y a f t e r 1570.^'

Attman 1944, 229-96, esp. 263-67; Oden 1966, 195-96. '' Tham 1960, 51-73; Westling 1919. The war in the east 1570-95; Barkman 193839, Supposed Danish naval supremacy after 1570: Tandrup 1979, I, 74, Frede P. Jensen, "Frederik II og truslen fra de katolske magter: Linjer i dansk udenrigsoch sikkerhedspolitik 1571-88", (Danish) Historisk Tidsskrift, 93, 1993, 233-78, esp. 253-54; Barfod 1995, 223-74.

86

CHAPTER TWO

S w e d i s h n a v a l p o l i c y f r o m 1570 t o t h e early 17th c e n t u r y h a s o f t e n been seriously misinterpreted. Naval historiography has

tradition-

ally d e s c r i b e d t h e r e i g n of J o h a n III as a n age of d e c l i n e a n d n e g l e c t c o m p a r e d t o t h e g r e a t d a y s of E r i k X I V a n d e v e n c o m p a r e d t o t h e s m a l l e r n a v y m a i n t a i n e d b y G u s t a v I. This p i c t u r e w a s b a s e d o n o l d e r h i s t o r i a n s ' v i e w of J o h a n as a b a d a d m i n i s t r a t o r a n d a n i n c o n s i s t e n t policy-maker, and naval sources were interpreted within that framew o r k . Political h i s t o r i a n s h a v e a c c e p t e d t h i s w i t h o u t i n v e s t i g a t i n g t h e a c t u a l size of t h e n a v y , b u t 2 0 t h - c e n t u r y h i s t o r i a n s h a v e given J o h a n a p o s i t i v e r e - e v a l u a t i o n a n d e v e n h a v e d e s c r i b e d h i m as t h e a r c h i t e c t of t h e S w e d i s h i m p e r i a l p o l i c y in t h e Baltic. T h e p i c t u r e left b y S w e d i s h h i s t o r i o g r a p h y is t h a t this e m p i r e w a s f o u n d e d b y a c o n s i s t e n t a n d t e n a c i o u s p o l i c y a b o u t e i t h e r n a t i o n a l s e c u r i t y o r c o n t r o l of m a r i t i m e t r a d e ( o r b o t h ) b u t w i t h o u t a l o n g - t e r m n a v a l policy. W h i l e E r i k X I V a n d G u s t a v II A d o l f a r e n o r m a l l y d e s c r i b e d as r u l e r s w h o b u i l t large n a v i e s t o s u p p o r t i m p e r i a l policies, J o h a n III is s u p p o s e d t o h a v e foll o w e d a n i m p e r i a l p o l i c y b u t n e g l e c t e d t h e navy.'"' This p i c t u r e is i n c o r r e c t . J o h a n III w a s a c t u a l l y a n a v a l i s t w h o s e n a v a l p o l i c y c a n o n l y b e e x p l a i n e d b y a c o n v i c t i o n t h a t c o n t r o l of t h e e a s t e r n Baltic a n d t r a d e t h r o u g h t h a t area w a s d e p e n d e n t o n c o n t r o l of t h e sea lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n in t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic Sea. This c o n t r o l h a d b e e n e s t a b l i s h e d b y t h e n a v a l p o l i c y of J o h a n ' s f a t h e r a n d b r o t h e r , a n d h e h a d n o i n t e n t i o n of l e t t i n g it slip a w a y b y n e g l e c t i n g t h e n a v y . H i s C o u n c i l a d v i s e d h i m t o save m o n e y b y selling ships,"*' b u t , a l t h o u g h h e f r e q u e n t l y d i d so, h e a c t u a l l y s p e n t m u c h m o r e o n c o n s t r u c t i o n of n e w w a r s h i p s . It is t r u e t h a t t h e g r e a t n a v y h e t o o k o v e r f r o m E r i k X I V w a s c u t d o w n d u r i n g t h e first y e a r s a f t e r 1570, b u t m u c h of t h e l a r g e i n v e n t o r y of n a v a l g u n s f r o m E r i k ' s d a y s w a s r e t a i n e d . F r o m 1574 t o 1578, a large s h i p b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m r e c r e a t e d a s t r o n g navy. I n five years, J o h a n b u i l t a b o u t as m a n y m a j o r w a r s h i p s

Johan III in Swedish naval historiography: Backstrom 1884, 53-64; Zettersten 1890, esp. 365-67; Arnold M u n t h e , Sjdmaktens inflytande pa Sveriges historia, I: Fran dldsta tid till omkring 1640, Stockliolm, 1921, 250-51; Sveriges sjokrig, 4, 31; Svenska flottans historia, I, 53-54, 192-93; Jan Glete, "Johan Ills Stora Skepp: Att finna ett skepp i 1500-talets skeppsgardsrakenskaper", Forum navale, 49, 1993, 5 - 1 7 . Johan III and the historians: Birgitta Lager, "Johan III", SBL 20. A r t u r A t t m a n ' s view of Johan III:s imperial policy: Artur Attman, "Den svenska Ostersjopolitikens arkitekt", in Vetenskap och omvdrdering: Till Curt Weibull pa hundradrsdagen 19 augusti 1986, Gothenburg, 1986. Oden 1966, 191, 387, 390-91, 395, 399.

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as his f a t h e r h a d d u r i n g 30 y e a r s ( 1 5 3 0 - 6 0 ) . Tliis w a s a c h i e v e d at a t i m e w h e n t h e w h o l e S w e d i s h w a r e f f o r t in E s t o n i a w a s t h r e a t e n e d b y a f i n a n c i a l disaster a n d t h e a r m y f o r c e s i n t h a t a r e a w e r e f r o m 1575 t o 1577 r e d u c e d t o t h e a b s o l u t e m i n i m u m f o r d e f e n c e . The a i m of J o h a n I l l ' s n a v a l p o l i c y m u s t h a v e b e e n t o k e e p a b a t t l e fleet f o r a n e w c o n t e s t w i t h D e n m a r k . This fleet w a s of n o u s e in t h e w a r w i t h Russia t h a t h e actually f o u g h t , b u t t h e r e w e r e several c o n flicts w i t h D e n m a r k in t h e 1570s, a n d J o h a n f r e q u e n t l y f e a r e d a w a r . F r e d e r i k II's a n d his C o u n c i l ' s p e a c e f u l p o l i c y a g a i n s t S w e d e n w a s w i t h o u t d o u b t sincere, b u t it m u s t h a v e b e e n s h a p e d w i t h a n a w a r e ness t h a t J o h a n h a d n o i n t e n t i o n of g i v i n g u p n a v a l c o n t r o l of t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic. A n y D a n i s h a t t e m p t t o m a k e a n i n t e r v e n t i o n a g a i n s t S w e d e n in this r e g i o n w o u l d h a v e b e e n m e t b y n a v a l f o r c e j u s t as s t r o n g as D e n m a r k ' s . D u r i n g t h e 1570s, J o h a n III m a d e c o n s i d e r a b l e e f f o r t s t o c r e a t e a n alliance w i t h a m a j o r E u r o p e a n p o w e r , p r i m a r i l y S p a i n . H e d i d this for religious, political, a n d financial r e a s o n s a n d in o r d e r t o solve o n e c o n c r e t e p r o b l e m : t h e release of p r o p e r t y i n Italy w h i c h J o h a n ' s w i f e h a d i n h e r i t e d f r o m h e r I t a l i a n m o t h e r . B o n a Sforza. F r o m t h e S p a n i s h p o i n t of view, a n alliance w i t h S w e d e n w o u l d b r i n g a sailing n a v y , s o m e t h i n g P h i l i p II b a d l y n e e d e d a g a i n s t t h e D u t c h rebels. B e f o r e t h e c o n q u e s t of P o r t u g a l in 1580, P h i l i p a l m o s t t o t a l l y l a c k e d a p e r m a n e n t sailing n a v y a n d h a d t o rely o n h i r e d m e r c h a n t m e n f o r every e f f o r t at sea o u t s i d e t h e M e d i t e r r a n e a n . S w e d e n w a s also a p o t e n t i a l s u p p l i e r of n a v a l s t o r e s a n d g u n s t o S p a i n . J o h a n ' s y o u n g e r b r o t h e r , D u k e Karl (later Karl IX), m a d e s e r i o u s e f f o r t s t o b e c o m e a n a v a l e n t r e p r e n e u r for K i n g P h i l i p II. I n 1578, t h e n e g o t i a t i o n s b e t w e e n J o h a n III a n d P h i l i p II b e c a m e m o r e s e r i o u s w h e n P h i l i p s e n t a n officer t o S t o c k h o l m t o n e g o t i a t e a n d gain i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e S w e d i s h n a v a l r e s o u r c e s . H e p r o p o s e d t h a t S p a i n s h o u l d lease 30 o r 40 w a r s h i p s a n d t h a t J o h a n III s h o u l d b e c o m e a n e n t r e p r e n e u r in n a v a l w a r f a r e u n d e r S p a n i s h

control.

This w a s typical f o r t h e S p a n i s h a n d M e d i t e r r a n e a n t r a d i t i o n of raising n a v a l f o r c e s t h r o u g h c o n t r a c t r a t h e r t h a n d i r e c t administration.''^ Spain also w i s h e d t o u s e A l v s b o r g o n S w e d e n ' s w e s t c o a s t as a n o p e r a tional base a g a i n s t t h e D u t c h rebels. N o t h i n g c a m e o u t of t h e s e n e g o tiations, a n d t h e p l a n m a y l o o k e s o t e r i c . J o h a n c o u l d h a r d l y s e n d his

Thompson

1976, esp. 163-205, 256-73; Glete 1993, 139-52.

CHAPTER TWO

fleet o u t s i d e t h e Baltic t o serve Spain, b e c a u s e d o i n g so w o u l d e n d a n ger S w e d i s h s e c u r i t y a n d h i s Baltic policy. T h e d i s c u s s i o n s w e r e a p a r t of d i p l o m a t i c m o v e s in 1 5 7 7 - 8 0 , h o w e v e r , w h e n E n g l a n d , D e n m a r k , s o m e G e r m a n princes, and the D u t c h rebels discussed a Protestant alliance a g a i n s t P h i l i p II. S p a i n h a d t o c o u n t e r t h i s w i t h d i p l o m a c y of its o w n , a n d f o r a t i m e J o h a n III t o o k t h e n e g o t i a t i o n s seriously. H e probably h o p e d that Philip would supply f u n d s to complete Johan's large s h i p b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m . If S w e d e n p o s e d a s e r i o u s n a v a l t h r e a t a g a i n s t D e n m a r k , it c o u l d d e t e r F r e d e r i k II f r o m s u p p o r t i n g t h e D u t c h rebels. J o h a n ' s d e c i s i o n t o b r e a k off n e g o t i a t i o n s a b o u t a S p a n i s h n a v a l c o n t r a c t in late 1578 c a m e a f t e r h i s r e l a t i o n s w i t h D e n m a r k h a d m a r k edly i m p r o v e d a n d t h e i m m e d i a t e n e e d f o r m o r e m o n e y f o r t h e n a v y h a d disappeared."*^ A f t e r 1578, J o h a n III c o n t i n u e d t h e w a r a g a i n s t R u s s i a in E s t o n i a and

Finland, with

i n c r e a s i n g success. H e b l o c k a d e d

Narva

until

S w e d e n t o o k t h a t p o r t i n 1581. T h e b l o c k a d e w a s n o t total ( J o h a n sold licenses t o t r a d e ) , b u t t h e n a v y h a d t o e n f o r c e it a g a i n s t m a n y active a n d f r e q u e n t l y b e l l i g e r e n t b l o c k a d e - b r e a k e r s f r o m Baltic p o r t s a n d W e s t e r n E u r o p e . P r o t e s t s c a m e f r o m several f o r e i g n p o w e r s , i n c l u d i n g E n g l a n d , b u t o n l y D e n m a r k w a s in a p o s i t i o n t o e n f o r c e c o n c e s s i o n s . T h e s e D a n i s h e f f o r t s w e r e l i m i t e d , h o w e v e r , as F r e d e r i k II f o r r e a s o n s of his o w n w i s h e d t o r e s t r a i n t r a d e w i t h Russia. Especially in 1574, large i n c o m e s f r o m c a p t u r e d s h i p s a n d g o o d s w e r e essential in o r d e r t o p r e v e n t a f i n a n c i a l collapse of t h e S w e d i s h a r m y in Estonia."" T h e fleet w a s also active in s u p p o r t i n g t h e a r m y in its w a r , p a r t i c u l a r l y w i t h

"Depescher fran det spanska sandebudet till Sverige, kapten Francisco de Eraso, 1578-1579", HT, 6, 1886, 1-50; Karl Hildebrand, lohan III och Europas katohka makter, 1568-1580: Studier i 1500-talets politiska historia, Uppsala, 1898, esp. 2 0 9 12; Jham 1960, 73-78; Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales, "La comision' del capitan Francisco de Eraso a Suecia: U n a posible alternativa al conflicto con Flandes", Jose Martinez Millan (ed.), Felipe II (1527-1598): Europa y la Monarqma Catolica, I, Madrid, 1998, 617-30; Concepcion Saenz-Cambra, "Una a r m a d a sueca para Felipe II", Revista Historia Naval, 23, 2005, 71-84. Connections with Johan's Danish policy: Oden 1966, 191-92. The Protestant alliance: Paul Douglas Lockhart, Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark's role in the Wars of Religion, 1559-1596, Leiden, 2004. D e n m a r k ' s attitude to the Spanish-Swedish negotiations: Jensen 1993. The naval situation in Western Europe in the 1570s: Glete 2000, 151-57. It is possible that a plan f r o m 1578 for how 31 warships should be m a n n e d and provisioned for three m o n t h s is connected to the Spanish negotiations: Ett fdrslag pa mantalet till Kongl Maittz orligz skip anno 1578, S M H F 4:8, RA. Tliirty ships was the n u m b e r usually m e n t i o n e d in the Spanish negotiations. Westling

1919; Attman

1944, 251-96; Oden 1966, 194-97.

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attacks o n N a r v a . D u r i n g t h e decisive c a m p a i g n in 1581, it b r o u g h t in soldiers, p r o v i s i o n s , a n d artillery i n a w e l l - t i m e d c o n c e n t r a t i o n of r e s o u r c e s f o r t h e siege of N a r v a . N a v a l f o r c e s also s u p p o r t e d t h e a r m y a r o u n d t h e lakes L a d o g a a n d Peipus.'*' W i t h s h a l l o w coastal w a t e r s , a r c h i p e l a g o s , rivers, a n d lakes, t h e t h e atre of o p e r a t i o n s a g a i n s t R u s s i a w a s ideal f o r o a r e d w a r s h i p s . I n t h e early 1580s, J o h a n b e g a n t o b u i l d a series of galleys, a t y p e of w a r ship f e w of w h i c h h a d b e e n b u i l t s i n c e 1560. By 1590, S w e d e n h a d a r o u n d 30 galleys, at t h a t t i m e t h e f o u r t h largest galley fleet in E u r o p e , after V e n i c e , t h e O t t o m a n E m p i r e , a n d P h i l i p II's S p a n i s h - I t a l i a n galley force."*® F r o m 1586, a r e d u c t i o n of t h e sailing fleet b e g a n . Several w a r s h i p s w e r e s o l d to r e d u c e d e b t s a n d p a y f o r w a r e f f o r t s in t h e east. The d e c i s i o n t o r e d u c e t h e sailing fleet w a s t a k e n w h e n p e a c e w i t h D e n m a r k s e e m e d s e c u r e a n d a f t e r t h e d e a t h of t h e

naval-minded

F r e d e r i k II i n 1588. H i e r e g e n c y g o v e r n m e n t f o r h i s s o n C h r i s t i a n IV u n t i l 1596 w a s c a u t i o u s in its f o r e i g n p o l i c y a n d m a d e s u b s t a n t i a l r e d u c t i o n s in t h e D a n i s h navy. T h e r e w a s little risk of a D a n i s h n a v a l i n t e r v e n t i o n in t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic i n t h e y e a r s a r o u n d 1590, a n d t h a t m a d e it p o s s i b l e t o r e d u c e t h e S w e d i s h sailing fleet. H o w e v e r , a l r e a d y in 1 5 9 1 - 9 2 a m a j o r p r o g r a m of s h i p b u i l d i n g s t a r t e d t o i n c r e a s e t h e Swedish sailing fleet a g a i n . W h e n t h e w a r w i t h R u s s i a s t a r t e d a g a i n i n 1590, t h e galley fleet was t h e m a i n o p e r a t i o n a l n a v a l f o r c e . It t r a n s p o r t e d t r o o p s , g u n s , a n d s u p p h e s a n d c o n t r o l l e d t h e sea a g a i n s t i m p r o v i s e d R u s s i a n forces, b u t it w a s n o t u s e d w i t h m u c h strategic v i s i o n . A r m y off'ensives w e r e c o n c e n t r a t e d in a r e a s w h e r e S w e d e n ' s n a v a l s u p e r i o r i t y a n d ability t o s u p p l y t h e a r m y h a d little i m p o r t a n c e . T h e w a r e n d e d w f t h a t r u c e in 1593 a n d a p e a c e in 1595 w h e r e i n R u s s i a a c c e p t e d S w e d e n ' s c o n quests in E s t o n i a a n d t h e F i n n i s h c o l o n i s a t i o n of t e r r i t o r i e s f a r b e y o n d t h e old ( a n d f o r g o t t e n ) b o r d e r of 1323. T h e b o r d e r b e t w e e n S w e d e n a n d Russia w a s e s t a b l i s h e d i n a n o r t h - s o u t h d i r e c t i o n f r o m V i b o r g t o t h e A r c t i c O c e a n , w h e r e S w e d e n also g a i n e d a n i l l - d e f i n e d c l a i m o n a n o r t h e r n coast. R u s s i a also a g r e e d t h a t its t r a d e t h r o u g h t h e G u l f

Ian Glete, "Amphibious W a r f a r e in the Baltic, 1550-1700", in M a r k Charles Fissel and D. J. B. T r i m (eds), Amphibious Warfare, 1000-1700: Commerce, state formation and European expansion, Leiden, 2006, 123-47, esp. 129-30. Zettersten 1890, 324, 336, 366, has, due to misreading of the sources, described lohan Ill's galleys as small vessels intended for an extravagant court life. See Glete 2000b, 43-45. The strength of the galley fleets: Glete 1993, 501-21.

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of F i n l a n d s h o u l d b e c h a n n e l l e d t h r o u g h S w e d i s h - c o n t r o l l e d p o r t s . This w a s a n a c c e p t a n c e of t h e fact t h a t S w e d e n c o n t r o l l e d t h e sea a n d c o u l d b l o c k R u s s i a n a t t e m p t s t o t r a d e at t h e N e v a e s t u a r y , w h e r e St P e t e r s b u r g w o u l d b e e s t a b l i s h e d m o r e t h a n a c e n t u r y later. S w e d e n ' s p l a n s t o gain c o n t r o l of t h e b u l k of t h e R u s s i a n t r a d e w i t h t h e W e s t w e r e f a r f r o m realised, h o w e v e r . S w e d i s h n a v a l r e a r m a m e n t w a s in full swing, b u t b y 1595 its i m p e t u s w a s a d o m e s t i c crisis r a t h e r t h a n e x t e r n a l t h r e a t s o r a n a m b i t i o u s i m p e r i a l policy.

2.3.4

Dynastic crisis and increased ambitions,

1595-1617

I n o n e r e s p e c t , J o h a n III w a s u n i q u e a m o n g t h e Vasas: h e m a d e a s u c c e s s f u l d y n a s t i c alliance. H i s m a r r i a g e in

1562 w i t h

Katarina,

sister t o S i g i s m u n d A u g u s t , t h e last r u l e r of t h e Jagiello d y n a s t y in P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a , m a d e J o h a n a n d his m a l e d e s c e n d a n t s likely c a n d i d a t e s t o t h e t h r o n e of t h e m o s t p o w e r f u l s t a t e in E a s t e r n E u r o p e . J o h a n ' s P o l i s h r e l a t i o n s m a d e it p o s s i b l e f o r h i m t o s t o p t h e w a r w i t h P o l a n d in 1568 a n d shelve t h e c o n f l i c t a b o u t E s t o n i a . I n 1587, J o h a n ' s a n d K a t a r i n a ' s s o n S i g i s m u n d w a s elected K i n g of P o l a n d a n d G r a n d D u k e of L i t h u a n i a , in c o m p e t i t i o n w i t h a H a b s b u r g c a n d i d a t e . B e c a u s e S i g i s m u n d also w a s h e i r t o t h e S w e d i s h t h r o n e , a p o t e n t i a l l y v e r y p o w e r f u l c o m b i n a t i o n of t e r r i t o r i e s f r o m t h e Black Sea t o t h e A r c t i c s e e m e d possible. O n e of S i g i s m u n d ' s assets as a c a n d i d a t e w a s t h a t m a n y P o l e s b e l i e v e d t h a t h i s S w e d i s h fleet w o u l d p r o v i d e n a v a l s u p p o r t t o P o l a n d in t h e Baltic Sea."*^ There were complications, however. Sigismund had chosen m o t h e r ' s C a t h o l i c religion, o u t of c o n v i c t i o n , n o t as a n

his

opportune

m o v e t o s e c u r e t h e t h r o n e in C a t h o l i c P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a . W h e n h e i n h e r i t e d t h e S w e d i s h t h r o n e in 1592, h i s u n c l e D u k e K a r l m a d e t h e t h r e a t f r o m t h e k i n g ' s r e l i g i o n t o P r o t e s t a n t S w e d e n a n i m p o r t a n t issue in t h e p o w e r s t r u g g l e t h a t f o l l o w e d . Karl, w h o c o n t r o l l e d a d u k e d o m w i t h c o n s i d e r a b l e r e s o u r c e s in c e n t r a l S w e d e n , i n t e n d e d t o b e r e g e n t w i t h r o y a l a u t h o r i t y in S w e d e n in S i g i s m u n d ' s a b s e n c e . S i g i s m u n d h a d o t h e r ideas. H e t r i e d t o c o n t r o l S w e d e n f r o m P o l a n d b y a p p o i n t i n g provincial governors a n d military c o m m a n d e r s w h o took their orders f r o m h i m a n d n o t f r o m Karl. I n this way, S i g i s m u n d g a i n e d full c o n t r o l of F i n l a n d a n d t h e c o n s i d e r a b l e m i l i t a r y a n d n a v a l f o r c e s w h i c h h a d

Iham

I960, 46-68. SBL 32, biography of Sigismund by Stefan Ostergren.

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b e e n g a t h e r e d t h e r e d u r i n g t h e w a r a g a i n s t Russia. T h e s e f o r c e s w e r e c o m m a n d e d b y t h e dversteamiral

( L o r d H i g h A d m i r a l ) , Klas E r i k s s o n

Fleming. Several s h i p s w e r e b u i l t o r a c q u i r e d in F i n l a n d b e y o n d t h e c o n t r o l of D u k e Karl. U n t i l F l e m i n g ' s d e a t h in 1597, m a n y sea officers m a y h a v e b e e n m o r e loyal t o h i m t h a n t o t h e duke."*® As a d u k e , Karl h a d i n v e s t e d m u c h in s h i p p i n g , t r a d e , a n d i n d u s t r y . H e o w n e d several a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n , w h i c h h e u s e d f o r t r a d e in t h e Baltic Sea a n d t o W e s t e r n E u r o p e , a n d a s h i p y a r d at h i s castle in N y k o p i n g , s o u t h of Stockholm."" F r o m 1593, h e f r e n e t i c a l l y w o r k e d to gain c o n t r o l o v e r t h e r o y a l n a v a l forces, a n d h e t o o k a d m i n i s t r a t i v e c o n t r o l of s h i p b u i l d i n g in t h e w e s t e r n p a r t of t h e r e a l m ( p r e s e n t - d a y Sweden). H e also r e c r u i t e d sea officers willing t o fight f o r h i m a g a i n s t t h e k i n g if n e c e s s a r y . D u r i n g 1597, Karl b e g a n t o u s e his n a v a l f o r c e in a c t i o n s a g a i n s t S i g i s m u n d ' s loyal c o m m a n d e r s in K a l m a r a n d A b o , a l t h o u g h t h e s e i m p o r t a n t castles s o o n r e t u r n e d t o S i g i s m u n d w h e n Karl's l i m i t e d f o r c e s w e r e s o m e w h e r e else. h i 1598, K i n g S i g i s m u n d m a d e a m a j o r e f f o r t t o o u s t Karl f r o m h i s p o s i t i o n s in S w e d e n . H e sailed f r o m D a n z i g w i t h a fleet of h i r e d ships, of w h i c h o n l y a f e w w e r e w a r s h i p s , c a r r y i n g a s m a l l a r m y to b o l s t e r his loyal f o r c e s in S w e d e n . H i s a t t e m p t t o o r d e r t h e m a i n S w e d i s h fleet in S t o c k h o l m t o P o l a n d h a d b e e n politically a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e l y d e f e a t e d b y D u k e Karl. Several s h i p s i n S t o c k h o l m w e r e s i o n e d in s p r i n g 1598. It is u n c e r t a i n w h e t h e r t h o s e w h o

commisfitted

out

a n d c o m m a n d e d t h e s h i p s b e h e v e d t h a t t h e y s h o u l d sail t o P o l a n d to b r i n g S i g i s m u n d t o S w e d e n o r resist h i m w i t h a r m e d f o r c e , b u t in late J u n e t h e d u k e p e r s u a d e d t h e P a r l i a m e n t t o f o r b i d t h e fleet t o sail

The naval aspects of the political power struggle f r o m 1592 to 1599: Hugo Sommarstrom, Finland under striderna mellan Sigismund och hertig Karl: I, Klas Flemings tid, Stocldiolm, 1935, 118-19, 132-43, 171-78, 184, 187-93, 201-03, 111, 252, 258-60, 264; Pentti Renvall, Klaus Fleming und der Finnische Adel in den Anfangsphasen der Krise der neunziger Jahre des 16. Jahrhunderts, T u r k u , 1939, 2 9 0 99, 343-52, 356-60; Sven Tunberg, Sigismund och Sverige, 1597-1598: Fore andra resan. Samuel Laskis beskickningar, Uppsala, 1917, 3, 9, 25-29, 91-95, 106, 111, 121; Sven Tunberg, Sigismund och Sverige, 1597-1598: 2. Andra resan till Sverige, Uppsala, 1918, 25-31, 47-49, 65, 90; Daniel Toijer, Sverige och Sigismund, 1598-1600: Fordraget i Linkoping - Riksdagen i Linkoping, Stockliolm, 1930, 7, 62-63, 72-83, 87-88, 119-25, 130, 136-37; Sven Ulric Palme, " K o n u n g Sigismunds flotta i Ostersjon 1599", Skrifter utgivna av Sjdhistoriska Samfundet, 3, 1943, 3 - 1 9 . Christer O h m a n , Nykoping och hertigdomet, Uppsala, 1973; Lennart Hedberg, Foretagarfursten och framvdxten av den starka staten: Hertig Karls resursexploatering i Ndrke, 1581-1602, Orebro 1995. There is n o study of D u k e Karl's shipping and international trade activities.

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t o Poland.^" I n s t e a d , t h e S t o c k h o l m s h i p s w e r e b r o u g h t u n d e r Karl's c o n t r o l a n d j o i n e d his o w n s h i p s f r o m N y k o p i n g . S i g i s m u n d i s s u e d a p r o c l a m a t i o n t o h i s p e o p l e t h a t it w a s t h e d u k e ' s r e f u s a l to s e n d the king's o w n ships and m e n to Poland which h a d forced h i m to c o m e t o h i s c o u n t r y w i t h f o r e i g n s h i p s a n d m e n . ^ ' C o n t r o l of S w e d e n was, as usual, d e p e n d e n t o n b o t h c o n t r o l of t h e sea a n d s u p p o r t f r o m local g r o u p s , i n c l u d i n g local a r m y u n i t s . D u k e Karl u s e d h i s p r i v a t e r e s o u r c e s as a d u k e , his political skill, a n d his l o n g e x p e r i e n c e of t h e i n f r a s t r u c t u r e of t h e S w e d i s h state t o w i n b o t h . It was, h o w e v e r , a p o w e r g a m e w h o s e o u t c o m e w a s f a r f r o m c e r t a i n . N e i t h e r of t h e t w o c o n t e n d e r s w a s w i d e l y p o p u l a r a m o n g t h e elite g r o u p s . I n s u m m e r 1598, a f o r c e of s h i p s c o n t r o l l e d b y S i g i s m u n d ' s a d h e r e n t s w a s in F i n l a n d . It w a s u s e d in a n a t t e m p t t o l a n d a n a r m y f r o m F i n l a n d n o r t h of S t o c k h o l m . This w a s d e f e a t e d b y a n i m p r o v i s e d a r m y a n d b y Karl's fleet, b u t in t h e m e a n t i m e , S i g i s m u n d m a d e a n u n o p p o s e d l a n d i n g at S t e g e b o r g in O s t e r g o t l a n d . P a r t of h i s h i r e d fleet w a s s c a t t e r e d b y b a d w e a t h e r a n d a r r i v e d i n S t o c l d i o l m . This e n a b l e d S i g i s m u n d ' s s u p p o r t e r s t h e r e t o t a k e c o n t r o l of t h e city, b u t n o t t h e fleet. H i s w e a k l y a r m e d fleet w a s n e u t r a l i s e d , h o w e v e r , a f t e r a f e w w e e k s b y Karl's m a i n fleet w h e n it a r r i v e d at t h e c o a s t of O s t e r g o t l a n d . S i g i s m u n d w a s n o w in a p o s i t i o n w h e r e h e m u s t give u p o r fight a decisive b a t t l e o n l a n d t o gain p r o v i s i o n s a n d s h o w u n c o m m i t t e d milit a r y c o m m a n d e r s t h a t he, a n d n o t t h e d u k e , w a s in c o n t r o l of t h e situa t i o n . H e t r i e d a n d lost in t h e b a t t l e of S t a n g e b r o . Sigismund negotiated a truce with the duke and was allowed to use several w a r s h i p s t o sail t o S t o c l d i o l m , w h e r e h e w a s s u p p o s e d t o stay d u r i n g t h e w i n t e r a n d call a P a r l i a m e n t f o r f u r t h e r n e g o t i a t i o n s w i t h t h e d u k e . I n s t e a d , h e sailed t o P o l a n d , w h e r e s o m e of t h e s h i p s n e x t year were used for an unsuccessful attempt to take Alvsborg f r o m the sea. Karl h a d o n l y c o n t r o l l e d a m i n o r p a r t of t h e S w e d i s h a r m y w h e n t h e c a m p a i g n s t a r t e d , b u t his b e t t e r access t o t h e n a v a l o r g a n i s a t i o n w a s a g r e a t a d v a n t a g e , e n a b l i n g h i m t o k e e p his o p p o n e n t s a p a r t a n d d e f e a t t h e m p i e c e m e a l . W h e n K a r l d u r i n g 1599 c o u l d b r i n g all S w e d i s h naval forces u n d e r his control, he h a d a larger navy t h a n any Swedish

™ SRA, 1:1:4, 709-15, 731. A later pamphlet against D u k e Karl accused h i m of having used physical violence against noblemen w h o in the Parliament opposed his request to deny Sigismund the use of the royal warships: Nils A h n l u n d , Sveriges Riksdag, III; Stdndsriksdagens utdaning 1592-1672, Stockholm, 1933, 63-64. RR 2/8 1598, RA.

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ruler b e f o r e h i m . H i s r e g i m e w a s safe f r o m f u r t h e r n a v a l i n t e r v e n t i o n s f r o m Sigismund.®^ In Sigismund's

absence, the Swedish

Parliament

declared

him

d e t h r o n e d , a n d d u r i n g 1 5 9 9 - 1 6 0 0 K a r l t o o k c o n t r o l of F i n l a n d a n d Estonia. T h e P a r l i a m e n t of P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a d e c l a r e d t h a t it d i d n o t give a n y m i l i t a r y s u p p o r t t o S i g i s m u n d ' s a s p i r a t i o n s t o r e t u r n

to

Sweden, a n d t h e conflict m i g h t h a v e b e e n s h e l v e d f o r a n i n d e f i n i t e p e r i o d . B u t Karl w a s n o t i n t e r e s t e d in t h a t . H i s d o m e s t i c s i t u a t i o n was still i n s e c u r e , a n d it is p o s s i b l e t h a t h e s a w a n o p p o r t u n i t y f o r a n easy c o n q u e s t if h e r a p i d l y u s e d t h e g r e a t f o r c e s h e h a d g a t h e r e d d u r ing t h e civil w a r . H e d e c i d e d t o l a u n c h a m a j o r o f f e n s i v e i n t o P o l i s h Livonia w i t h t h e largest a r m y S w e d e n h a d ever s e n t a b r o a d . T h e a i m was a m b i t i o u s : t o r e a c h t h e r i v e r D i i n a ( D a u g a v a , D v i n a ) a n d t h e g r e a t t r a d i n g city Riga at its e s t u a r y a n d t o b r i n g all L i v o n i a u n d e r S w e d i s h rule. T h e s m a l l b u t efficient P o l i s h a r m y c o u n t e r a t t a c k e d . T h e w a r in Livonia w e n t o n u n t i l 1609, b u t , in spite of g r e a t efforts, S w e d e n g a i n e d n o t h i n g . S w e d e n ' s n a v a l s u p e r i o r i t y m a d e it p o s s i b l e t o k e e p the w a r o u t s i d e S w e d i s h t e r r i t o r y , t o t r a n s p o r t a r m y f o r c e s a n d p r o v i sions t o Livonia, a n d t o e n f o r c e b l o c k a d e s of Riga a n d o t h e r L i v o n i a n ports, b u t t h e o p e r a t i o n a l c o o r d i n a t i o n of m i l i t a r y a n d n a v a l f o r c e s was u n i n s p i r e d . R e p e a t e d a t t e m p t s to t a k e c o n t r o l of t h e D i i n a e s t u a r y f r o m t h e sea h a d n o l a s t i n g results, a n d t h e S w e d i s h s h i p s a n d a r m y u n i t s w e r e o f t e n n o t able t o m a k e efficient u s e of t h e S w e d i s h c o n t r o l of t h e sea at t h e tactical level. T h e m a i n S w e d i s h a r m y o p e r a t i o n s w e r e l a u n c h e d f r o m E s t o n i a , a t o o s m a l l p r o v i n c e t o serve as a logistical base f o r a m a j o r a r m y , r a t h e r t h a n w i t h f u l l - s c a l e logistical s u p p o r t f r o m S w e d e n a c r o s s t h e sea, w h i c h m i g h t h a v e m a d e it easier t o k e e p up sustained offensives." T h e n a v y of K i n g Karl IX (as t h e d u k e b e c a m e i n 1604) w a s i m p r e s sive in t o n n a g e , b u t it h a d severe s t r u c t u r a l w e a k n e s s e s . Karl d i d n o t acquire g u n s , sail-cloth a n d h e m p in s u f f i c i e n t q u a n t i t i e s , a n d

he

left several s h i p s i n c o m p l e t e o r u n - r e p a i r e d f o r several years. T h e s e w e a k n e s s e s w e r e r u t h l e s s l y r e v e a l e d w h e n D e n m a r k , u n d e r its n a v a l m i n d e d k i n g C h r i s t i a n IV (r. 1 5 8 8 / 9 6 - 1 6 4 8 ) , a t t a c k e d S w e d e n in 1611. C h r i s t i a n h a d , s i n c e t h e late 1590s, b e e n t e m p t e d t o t a k e a d v a n t a g e of t h e volatile political s i t u a t i o n i n S w e d e n , a n d he, a l t h o u g h n o t t h e

" Tlie civil war: Zettersten 1890, 440-46; Barkman 1938-39, 353-87. ' ' The war 1600-10; Zettersten 1890, 44-68; Barkman 1938-39, 439-552.

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D a n i s h C o u n c i l , m a y h a v e h a r b o u r e d d r e a m s of a n O l d e n b u r g c o m e b a c k in this c o u n t r y . H i s n a v a l policy, w h i c h r e s u l t e d in a n i n c r e a s e of t h e D a n i s h n a v y a n d a d r a s t i c i n c r e a s e of its artillery d u r i n g t h e first d e c a d e of t h e 17th c e n t u r y , m u s t h o w e v e r also b e seen as a r e s u l t of t h e large e x p a n s i o n of t h e S w e d i s h n a v y s i n c e t h e early 1590s. It s t a r t e d earlier t h a n C h r i s t i a n ' s i n v e s t m e n t s in w a r s h i p s a n d g u n s . B e c a u s e this Swedish naval expansion has n o t been studied by historians, D a n i s h n a v a l p o l i c y h a s b e e n r e g a r d e d as o f f e n s i v e l y o r i e n t a t e d t o w a r d s Baltic s u p r e m a c y , w h i l e it a c t u a l l y w a s n e c e s s a r y in o r d e r n o t t o b e o v e r w h e l m e d b y s h e e r S w e d i s h q u a n t i t a t i v e superiority.'"' C h r i s t i a n w a s also p r o v o k e d b y Karl's o p e n a s p i r a t i o n of s h a r e d c o n t r o l o v e r a p a r t of t h e c o a s t in n o r t h e a s t e r n N o r w a y , w h i c h S w e d e n c l a i m e d t h a t R u s s i a h a d c e d e d in t h e p e a c e of 1595. C h r i s t i a n w a s (or p r e t e n d e d to be) f u r t h e r p r o v o k e d b y t h e S w e d i s h b l o c k a d e of Riga, a p o r t l o c a t e d i n t h e p a r t of t h e Baltic Sea w h e r e D e n m a r k c l a i m e d dominium,

d u e t o t h e D a n i s h p o s s e s s i o n of t h e i s l a n d of O s e l a n d its

s u r r o u n d i n g w a t e r s . A l r e a d y in 1610 h e b r o k e this b l o c k a d e w i t h his fleet. W h e n a p a r t of t h e S w e d i s h a r m y f r o m 1609 w a s s e n t t o Russia, i n v o l v e d in t h e R u s s i a n civil w a r . C h r i s t i a n I V s a w a c h a n c e t o m a k e a s u c c e s s f u l s u r p r i s e a t t a c k . It w a s m a d e easier b y t h e i n c r e a s i n g l y e r r a t i c b e h a v i o u r of t h e ailing K a r l IX, w h o u n d e r e s t i m a t e d D e n m a r k a n d t r i e d t o k e e p all a d m i n i s t r a t i v e r e i n s in h i s o w n h a n d s . " T h e D a n i s h - S w e d i s h W a r of 1 6 1 1 - 1 3 ( t h e K a l m a r W a r ) w a s d o m i n a t e d b y t h e S w e d i s h inability t o m a k e u s e of n u m e r i c a l s u p e r i o r i t y o n l a n d a n d sea e v e n i n a d e f e n s i v e w a r . D a n i s h m i l i t a r y a n d n a v a l f o r c e s w e r e well a r m e d , efficiently c o o r d i n a t e d , a n d d e p l o y e d i n a c o n c e n t r a t e d f o r m t h a t d e f e a t e d t h e S w e d i s h efforts. C h r i s t i a n also w a s able t o e x p l o i t s u r p r i s e a n d Karl's u n w i l l i n g n e s s t o realise t h e s i t u a t i o n . C h r i s t i a n c o n c e n t r a t e d h i s first o f f e n s i v e in s p r i n g 1611 o n K a l m a r , w h i c h w a s t a k e n a f t e r a siege f r o m l a n d a n d a b l o c k a d e f r o m sea c u t off s u p p l i e s t o t h e g a r r i s o n . T h e D a n i s h fleet also w a s u s e d t o t r a n s port m o r e a r m y forces to Kalmar w h e n Swedish a r m y counterattacks b e c a m e t h r e a t e n i n g . A r o u n d 30 p e r c e n t of t h e S w e d i s h fleet h a d b e e n laid u p in t h a t p o r t a n d h a d t o b e s c u t t l e d in o r d e r t o a v o i d c a p t u r e . T h e n a v a l f o r c e s in S t o c k h o l m a n d N y k o p i n g w e r e m o b i l i s e d in a p i e c e m e a l f a s h i o n a n d w e r e u n a b l e t o k e e p t h e lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n

Bellamy 2006, 135-61, 275-79.>Danish ordnance: Mortensen Background to the war; Palme 1942.

1999, 285-87.

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95

w i t h K a l m a r o p e n . Several S w e d i s h s h i p s w e r e n e v e r s e n t t o sea d u r ing 1611 b e c a u s e t h e y l a c k e d sails, rigging, a n d cables. In 1612, C h r i s t i a n l a u n c h e d a m a j o r a m p h i b i o u s a t t a c k o n

spring

Alvsborg

( G o t h e n b u r g ) at t h e S w e d i s h w e s t coast, w h i c h w a s t a k e n w i t h f u r t h e r loss of S w e d i s h w a r s h i p s in t h e p o r t . N o relief a r m y a r r i v e d in t i m e , possibly b e c a u s e t h e a t t a c k f r o m t h e sea h a d b e e n easy to c o n c e a l u n t i l t h e last m i n u t e . T h e S w e d i s h n a v y t h r o u g h o u t 1611 a n d 1612 w a s u n a b l e to f o r m a c o n c e n t r a t e d b a t t l e fleet s t r o n g e n o u g h t o l a u n c h a c o u n t e r o f f e n s i v e in D a n i s h w a t e r s o r e v e n fight t h e D a n i s h fleet w h e n it a p p e a r e d in t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic. T h e i r s u p p l y of e q u i p m e n t , g u n s , a n d m e n w a s insufficient. I n a c o m p a r a t i v e p e r s p e c t i v e , t h i s s h o w s t h e o r g a n i s a t i o n a l a c h i e v e m e n t b e h i n d t h e s u c c e s s f u l S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleet p o l i c y of t h e 1560s. P e a c e w a s c o n c l u d e d in 1613, a n d S w e d e n h a d t o p a y a large r a n s o m t o r e g a i n A l v s b o r g a n d h a d t o r e n o u n c e its c l a i m s o n a n Arctic coast in n o r t h e r n N o r w a y . A t t h e s a m e t i m e , t h e D a n i s h w a r effort h a d b e e n h a l t e d as s o o n as c e r t a i n a d v a n t a g e s h a d b e e n g a i n e d , a policy t h a t h a d b e e n d e t e r m i n e d b y t h e c a u t i o u s D a n i s h C o u n c i l a n d rising f i n a n c i a l p r o b l e m s w i t h t h e m e r c e n a r y soldiers. D e n m a r k m a d e n o a t t e m p t t o i n t e r f e r e w i t h S w e d i s h p o s i t i o n s in t h e e a s t e r n Baltic, a n d S w e d e n d i d n o t recall its e x p e d i t i o n a r y f o r c e in Russia, w h i c h d u r ing 1611 h a d m a j o r successes, p r i m a r i l y t h e c o n q u e s t s of t h e K e x h o l m fortress a n d t h e large city of Novgorod.'® Peace w i t h D e n m a r k a n d a t r u c e w i t h P o l a n d e n a b l e d t h e

new

Swedish k i n g , Karl's s o n G u s t a v II A d o l f (r. 1 6 1 1 - 3 2 ) , t o c o n c e n t r a t e o n t h e R u s s i a n w a r . It w a s a c o n t i n e n t a l w a r , a l t h o u g h t h e n a v y s e c u r e d t h e Gulf of F i n l a n d , t h e rivers a n d t h e lakes i n t h e o p e r a t i o n a l area, a n d m a d e it p o s s i b l e t o s u p p l y t h e a r m y d e e p i n t o R u s s i a n t e r r i t o r y . Peace w a s c o n c l u d e d in 1617 w h e n R u s s i a h a d t o c e d e I n g r i a a n d t h e K e x h o l m p r o v i n c e , t h u s l o s i n g c o n t a c t w i t h t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d a n d c o n t r o l of t h e river N e v a . " T h r o u g h o u t t h e w a r s w i t h R u s s i a s i n c e 1570, S w e d e n h a d b e e n able t o c o n t r o l all sea lines of o p e r a t i o n in t h e area, a strategic, logistical, a n d tactical a d v a n t a g e w h i c h gave t h e

Sveriges krig 1611-1632, I, Stockholm, 1936; Sveriges Sjokrig, 63-122; Niels M. Probst, Christian 4.s fldde: Den danske flddes historic, 1588-1660, Copenhagen, 1996, 107-22. " Helge Almqvist, Sverige och Ryssland, 1595-1611: Tvisten om Estland, Forbundet mot Polen, de ryska grdnslandens erofring och den stora dynastiska planen, Stockholm, 1907; Sveriges krig, I, 360, 380, 385, 479, 504-5, 514; Sveriges sjokrig, 1611-1632, 122-30.

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a r m y leverage in fights a g a i n s t larger R u s s i a n forces. R u s s i a d e v e l o p e d n o n a v a l p o l i c y o r n a v a l f o r c e s of its o w n , a fact w h i c h s h o w s t h a t n a v a l f o r c e s w e r e f a r f r o m s e l f - e v i d e n t . P o l a n d h a d also, u n t i l t h e n , f o l l o w e d t h e s a m e passive p o l i c y o n t h e sea. F o r S w e d e n , w i t h g r e a t a m b i t i o n s b u t l i m i t e d r e s o u r c e s , it r e m a i n e d t o d e v e l o p o p e r a t i o n a l c a p a b i l i t y t h a t m a d e full u s e of t h e a d v a n t a g e at sea t h a t e n e m i e s w i t h f a r s u p e r i o r p o t e n t i a l r e s o u r c e s left t o S w e d e n . C h r i s t i a n I V ' s o p e r a t i o n s a g a i n s t K a l m a r a n d A l v s b o r g in 1 6 1 1 - 1 2 h a d b e e n i n t e r e s t i n g d e m o n s t r a t i o n s of h o w l i m i t e d b u t skilled a r m y a n d n a v a l forces, u n d e r t h e d i r e c t c o o r d i n a t i o n of t h e k i n g , c o u l d s u c c e e d in c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n s . A n u n i n t e n d e d result of this m a y h a v e b e e n t h a t it gave t h e y o u n g a n d i n n o v a t i v e G u s t a v II A d o l f f o o d f o r t h o u g h t a b o u t h o w h e s h o u l d c o n q u e r t h e Baltic.

2.3.5 The amphibious 1617-1645

navy and the creation of the Baltic

empire,

G u s t a v II A d o l f is k n o w n p r i m a r i l y as a n a r m y r e f o r m e r of E u r o p e a n i m p o r t a n c e a n d a n a r m y c o m m a n d e r w i t h g r e a t strategic, o p e r a t i o n a l , a n d tactical capability. I n E u r o p e a n h i s t o r y h e is r e m e m b e r e d f o r h i s brief p a r t i c i p a t i o n in t h e T h i r t y Years W a r , f r o m 1630 t o 1632. I n t h e Baltic, w h e r e h e a c t u a l l y s p e n t n e a r l y all his active life as a r u l e r a n d c o m m a n d e r , h e o u g h t t o b e r e m e m b e r e d as t h e i n n o v a t i v e o r g a n i s e r of g r e a t a m p h i b i o u s e x p e d i t i o n s a n d a t y p e of w a r f a r e in w h i c h t h e s m a l l e r p o w e r s u c c e s s f u l l y u s e d t h e a d v a n t a g e of c o n t r o l l i n g t h e sea lines of o p e r a t i o n s . H e d i d n o t o v e r l o o k t h e fact t h a t t h e n a v y m u s t b e able t o act as a c o n c e n t r a t e d b a t t l e fleet. G u s t a v A d o l f r e a l i s e d t h a t t h e g u n p o w e r of his n a v y h a d t o b e s t r e n g t h e n e d a n d t h a t it r e q u i r e d m o r e sea officers a n d s e a m e n if it s h o u l d b e able t o fight t h e D a n i s h n a v y , t h e s m a l l b u t g r o w i n g n a v y of S i g i s m u n d i n D a n z i g , o r t h e S p a n i s h I m p e r i a l H a b s b u r g fleet, w h i c h a p p e a r e d in t h e Baltic in t h e 1620s. B u t t h e c o n c r e t e w a r e f f o r t s h e o r g a n i s e d w e r e of a d i f f e r e n t type.'®

^^ The literature about the wars and military reforms of Gustav II Adolf is vast. Sveriges krig, 1611-1632, 6 vols and 2 supplementary vols (including Sveriges sjokrig, 1611-1632), Stockholm, 1936-39 is still essential. A classical synthesis in English, Michael Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus: A history of Sweden, 1611-1632, 2 vols, London, 1953-58. A m o d e r n biography, Sverker Oredsson, Gustav II Adolf, Stockholm, 2007, Tlie power struggle f r o m a Danish point of view: Tandrup 1979; Paul Douglas Lockhart, Denmark in the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648: King Christian IV and the decline of the Oldenburg state, Selinsgrove, 1996. The Polish perspective: Frost 2000, 102-55. Sweden's foreign policy: Tham 1960, Axel Norberg, Polen i svensk politik, 1617-26,

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G u s t a v A d o l f i n t e n d e d t o fight in P o l a n d ' s m a r i t i m e f r i n g e s in t h e Baltic: Livonia, C o u r l a n d , a n d P r u s s i a , r e g i o n s d o m i n a t e d b y G e r m a n a n d L u t h e r a n elite g r o u p s . It w a s a c o n t i n u a t i o n of t h e p o w e r - p r o j e c t i o n policy a g a i n s t t e r r i t o r i e s in t h e e a s t e r n Baltic, w h i c h h i s p r e d e c e s sors h a d f o l l o w e d , b u t t h e r e w a s a n e w o p e r a t i o n a l d o c t r i n e . I n s t e a d of u s i n g t h e n a v y o n l y as a t r a n s p o r t a n d logistical f o r c e , sailing w i t h men, munitions, and provisions f r o m one Swedish-controlled port to a n o t h e r , h e also u s e d it as a n a m p h i b i o u s assault f o r c e a g a i n s t m a j o r e n e m y t a r g e t s of g r e a t strategic i m p o r t a n c e . S u c c e s s f u l

combined

o p e r a t i o n s w e r e to b e decisive f o r S w e d i s h ability t o gain c o n t r o l o v e r t h e Baltic. A r m y e x p a n s i o n a n d r e f o r m s h a d p r i o r i t y , a n d t h e results w e r e s o o n impressive. T h e a r m y h a d b e e n p e r m a n e n t s i n c e t h e r e i g n of G u s t a v I, b u t it w a s n o w given a p e r m a n e n t o r g a n i s a t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e of c o m p a n i e s a n d r e g i m e n t s . Its r e g i o n a l r e c r u i t m e n t w a s o r g a n i s e d

more

systematically, p r i m a r i l y b y giving t h e n e w r e g i m e n t s a d i s t i n c t p r o vincial identity. T h e

flexibility,

firepower,

a n d o f f e n s i v e c a p a c i t y of its

tactical u n i t s w a s m a r k e d l y i n c r e a s e d . R e f o r m s of t h e n a v y p r i m a r i l y a i m e d at m a k i n g it m o r e efficient as a c o n c e n t r a t e d f o r c e at sea f r o m s p r i n g t o a u t u m n a n d as a n a m p h i b i o u s assault force. S m a l l galleys a n d o t h e r light c r a f t w e r e b u i l t in series t o p r o v i d e t h e s o l d i e r s w i t h tactical m o b i l i t y a n d fire s u p p o r t in t h e s h a l l o w w a t e r s , rivers, deltas, a n d s h e l t e r e d w a t e r s w h i c h a r e typical f o r t h e e a s t e r n a n d s o u t h e r n coasts of t h e Baltic Sea. A n early o p e r a t i o n of t h i s t y p e w a s l a u n c h e d already in 1617, w h e n t h e fleet a n d a n a r m y f o r c e t o o k P e r n a u a n d D i i n a m i i n d e b y s u r p r i s e . O n l y P e r n a u c o u l d b e k e p t , b u t this w a s a successful o p e r a t i o n w i t h l i m i t e d m e a n s . ' ' The

first

of G u s t a v A d o l f ' s m a j o r a m p h i b i o u s

operations

was

l a u n c h e d i n 1621 w i t h 11,000 s o l d i e r s a n d t h e e n t i r e navy. T h e t a r g e t

Stockholm, 1974. The Swedish peasants and the state during the period of increased resource extraction for war: Johan Holm, Konstruktionen av en stormakt: Kungamakt, skattebdnder och statsbildning, 1595-1640, Stockholm, 2007. Conscription a n d its socioeconomic consequences: Jan Lindegren, Utskrivning och utsugning: Produktion och reproduktion i Bygdea, 1620-1640, Uppsala, 1980; Nils Erik Villstrand, Anpassning eller protest: Lokalsamhdllet infor utskrivningarna avfotfolk till den svenska krigsmakten, 1620-1679, Abo, 1992. Army reforms: Bertil C:son Barkman, Gustav II Adolfs regementsorganisation vid det inhemska infanteriet: En studie over organisationens tillkomst och huvuddra^ gen av dess utveckling mot bakgrunden av kontinental organisation, Stockholm, 1931. Amphibious warfare 1617-30: Glete 2006, 132-37, 140-41. The operation in 1617: Sveriges krig, II, 29-45, Sveriges sjokrig, 131-37.

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w a s Riga, a city f a r l a r g e r t h a n S t o c k h o l m . It c a p i t u l a t e d a f t e r a siege of six weeks. N e x t y e a r t h e o p e r a t i o n c o n t i n u e d w i t h a n o f f e n s i v e a l o n g t h e D i i n a River. H i e Riga o p e r a t i o n w a s t h e largest c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n u n d e r t a k e n in t h e Baltic u p to t h e n , a n d it s t a r t e d a d e c a d e of m a j o r S w e d i s h p o w e r - p r o j e c t i o n o p e r a t i o n s b a s e d o n t h e n e w ability of t h e a r m y a n d n a v y t o c o o p e r a t e o p e r a t i o n a l l y b o t h o n t h e strategic a n d t h e tactical level. P a r t of t h e e x p l a n a t i o n m a y h a v e b e e n a u n i f i e d c o m m a n d , b e c a u s e G u s t a v II A d o l f p e r s o n a l l y led all m a j o r c o m b i n e d operations.® The n e w confidence in Sweden's a m p h i b i o u s c a p a b i l i t y w a s s h o w n in 1624 w h e n a s e r i o u s political crisis d e v e l o p e d between D e n m a r k and Sweden. D e n m a r k was u n p r e p a r e d for war, w h i l e S w e d e n h a d a large a r m y (38,500 m e n ) a n d t h e w h o l e n a v y in r e a d i n e s s f o r a n assault. A s G u s t a v A d o l f e m b a r k e d t h e m a i n fleet a n d h e l d 13,000 s o l d i e r s r e a d y t o sail w i t h it, t h e t a r g e t f o r t h e p l a n n e d offensive m u s t have been the S o u n d a n d C o p e n h a g e n . Christian IV realised t h e s e r i o u s n e s s of t h e s i t u a t i o n a n d m a d e concessions.''' T h e n e w S w e d i s h a m p h i b i o u s c a p a b i l i t y w a s a m a j o r political a n d s t r a t e g i c asset. If Riga c o u l d b e t a k e n a n d D e n m a r k f o r c e d t o m a k e c o n c e s s i o n s u n d e r t h r e a t , a n y city o r r e g i o n o n t h e Baltic Sea w a s o p e n to threats or protective efforts f r o m Sweden. In a b r o a d e r perspective, t h e S w e d i s h c a p a b i l i t y m a d e it n e c e s s a r y f o r t h e Baltic p o w e r s t o either s u b m i t to Swedish imperial ambitions or create strong

fiscal-

m i l i t a r y states of t h e i r o w n in o r d e r to resist t h e S w e d i s h a m b i t i o n s . B o t h policies w e r e u s e d d u r i n g t h e f o l l o w i n g c e n t u r y , w h i c h s a w t h e rise a n d fall of S w e d i s h Baltic i m p e r i a l i s m . Its rise w a s d e p e n d e n t o n t h e ability t o l a u n c h c o n c e n t r a t e d a m p h i b i o u s o p e r a t i o n s f o r o f f e n c e a n d d e f e n c e ; its l i m i t s d e p e n d e d o n t h e n e i g h b o u r s ' ability t o resist s u c h o p e r a t i o n s w i t h m i l i t a r y a n d n a v a l m e a n s of t h e i r o w n . T h e e n d of t h e S w e d i s h Baltic e m p i r e w a s t h e rise of R u s s i a n s u p e r i o r i t y in archipelagic a m p h i b i o u s operations. The next m a j o r Swedish c o m b i n e d operations were directed against Polish-controlled Prussia a n d the Vistula estuary. The intention was to gain control over the economically i m p o r t a n t Polish grain export a n d t o b l o c k a d e t h e n a s c e n t P o l i s h fleet. A n a r m y of a r o u n d 14,000 m e n a n d t h e m a j o r p a r t of t h e fleet w i t h m o r e s o l d i e r s t o f o l l o w w e r e i n v o l v e d . A f t e r t h e initial p h a s e of S w e d i s h success, t h e P o l i s h r e s i s t a n c e

"

Sveriges krig, II, 68-95; Sveriges sjokrig, 137-42. Sveriges krig, II, 157-65; Sveriges sjokrig, 152-54; Tandrup,

II, 265-360.

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m a r k e d l y i n c r e a s e d . F r o m 1626 t o 1629, S w e d e n a n d P o l a n d c o n c e n t r a t e d t h e i r r e s o u r c e s t o a w a r of a t t r i t i o n in P r u s s i a . O n t h e S w e d i s h side t h e c a m p a i g n r e t a i n e d m u c h of its a m p h i b i o u s c h a r a c t e r , i n v o l v ing m a j o r p a r t s of t h e navy.®^ D u r i n g 1628, t h e g r e a t w a r in G e r m a n y s p r e a d t o t h e Baltic Sea. The I m p e r i a l a n d C a t h o l i c a r m y , w h i c h h a d d e f e a t e d t h e D a n i s h a n d German Protestant armies and occupied Jutland, began to organise a S p a n i s h - f u n d e d fleet in W i s m a r a n d s t a r t e d a siege o n P r o t e s t a n t Stralsund.*^^ D a n i s h a n d S w e d i s h t r o o p s a n d w a r s h i p s w e r e s e n t t o d e f e n d t h a t city, a n d a large-scale I m p e r i a l siege o p e r a t i o n a g a i n s t it failed. S w e d e n w a s n o w i n v o l v e d in t h e G e r m a n w a r , a n d G u s t a v II Adolf s a w t h e rise of a H a b s b u r g fleet in t h e Baltic Sea as a s e r i o u s t h r e a t t h a t m u s t b e e l i m i n a t e d . I n w i n t e r 1629, P o l a n d s e n t its fleet f r o m D a n z i g t o W i s m a r , w h e r e it w a s p l a c e d u n d e r H a b s b u r g c o n t r o l ; a n d d u r i n g 1629, P o l a n d r e c e i v e d h e l p f r o m t h e I m p e r i a l a r m y a g a i n s t S w e d e n in P r u s s i a . This h e l p h a d n o effect, a n d w i t h little h o p e of further help f r o m the Habsburgs, the Polish-Lithuanian nobility was n o l o n g e r willing t o s u p p o r t S i g i s m u n d ' s w a r e f f o r t s a g a i n s t his old c o u n t r y . D u r i n g 1629, D e n m a r k c o n c l u d e d p e a c e w i t h t h e e m p e r o r while S w e d e n a n d P o l a n d c o n c l u d e d a t r u c e , w h i c h left S w e d e n i n c o n t r o l of Livonia a n d , f o r six years, also in c o n t r o l of p a r t of P r u s s i a a n d t h e s u b s t a n t i a l i n c o m e s f r o m tolls o n P o l i s h g r a i n exports.'^"' This released t h e S w e d i s h a r m y a n d n a v y f o r a p o s s i b l e i n t e r v e n t i o n i n t h e German W a r without any interference f r o m Poland. The m o s t s u i t a b l e a r e a f o r a m a j o r a m p h i b i o u s o p e r a t i o n w a s t h e O d e r estuary. O d e r w a s t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t line of c o m m u n i c a t i o n f o r a p e n e t r a t i o n of G e r m a n y f r o m t h e Baltic Sea a n d g e o g r a p h i c a l c o n d i t i o n s in its e s t u a r y w e r e s i m i l a r t o t h o s e i n P r u s s i a t o w h i c h t h e S w e d i s h forces w e r e u s e d . T h e e n e m y h a d ( n o m i n a l l y ) m o r e t h a n 50,000 m e n , a n d G u s t a v A d o l f p l a n n e d t o l a u n c h a n i n v a s i o n w i t h a r o u n d 38,000 soldiers. It w a s n e c e s s a r y t o l a n d w i t h a s t r o n g c o n c e n t r a t e d f o r c e ,

® Sveriges krig, II, 236--301; Sveriges sjokrig, 159-98. " Jonathan I. Israel, "The Pohtics of International T r a d e Rivalry d u r i n g the Thirty Years War: Gabriel de Roy and Olivares' mercantilist projects, 1621 -1645", International History Review, 8, 1986, 517-49; Michal W a n n e r , "Albrecht of Wallenstein as 'General of the Oceans and the Baltic Seas' a n d the N o r t h e r n Maritime Plan", Forum Navale, 64, 2008, 8 - 3 3 . Danish naval operations in 1628-29: Probst 1996, 173-84, Einar W e n d t , Det svenska licentvasendet i Preussen, 1627-1635, Uppsala, 1933; Klaus-Richard Bohme, Die schwedische Besetzung des Weichseldeltas, 1626-1636, Wiirzburg, 1963.

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almost 14,000 and build up strength in the bridgehead by faster concentration of resources by the sea than the enemy could achieve on land. This operation, which involved the entire Swedish navy and a large number of hired transports, was successfully executed during the summer 1630. By September 1630, the Swedish army in Germany was strong enough to start offensive operations against the Imperial and Catholic forces. Hie last and most important of Gustav Adolf's combined operations and one of the largest ever undertaken in early modern Europe had been concluded.®® Swedish offensive warfare in the Baltic f r o m 1621 to 1630 thus had been highly amphibious. Strategically, the ability to make amphibious assaults resulted in that Gustav Adolf could choose areas of operation that suited his political intentions and military resources. Riga and the Diina line proved superior to Estonia for the conquest of Livonia; the Weichsel (Vistula) estuary and the Polish grain export provided Sweden with incomes and was important enough for the PoUsh nobility to force them to mobilise major resources for expensive counteroffensives. Sweden's ability to remain in Prussia with support from the sea—at a heavy cost in soldiers' lives—made the grain-exporting Polish nobility impatient with their Swedish king Sigismund and his dynastic quarrels, and he was forced to sign a truce with territorial losses. Finally, the ability to land and concentrate a large army on the open coast of Germany made it possible to intervene in the German War without any German ally who might have provided ports and a sufficient base area. Since 1628, Sweden had a bridgehead in Germany in Stralsund, but a landing of the whole army in that city was not reaUstic because of logistical problems. Operationally, the Swedish armed forces could use their long experience of amphibious and riverine warfare. The navy had developed suitable shallow-draught vessels and know-how about troop transport; the army knew the conditions on board ships and how to land large forces and quicldy gather the soldiers back into coherent fighting units. Cooperation between light naval craft and army units became routine. Logistically, the Swedish military administration had learnt how large

^^ The strength of the first force that landed has in the literature often been erroneously quoted as the entire Swedish invasion force, for example in Richard Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 1494-1660, Oxford, 1991, 195; Lockhart 2004, 50. Tlie figures are real strength during musters of regiments m a d e in May a n d June 1630. ® Sveriges krig, III, esp. 340-48, 380-444; Sveriges sjokrig, 206-21,

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forces (close to 20,000 men, including the crews of the ship) should be concentrated to Stockholm during springs and be ready to sail with enough provisions to feed the troops during the early phase of the landing. Before the 1610s, this had often proved to be impossible even with smaller forces, and amphibious operations had been cancelled or delayed until late summer when the operational season was close to an end. The challenging administrative task was to concentrate a large number of ships (expensive to keep in service), conscripted Swedish soldiers (likely to desert), foreign mercenaries (unwilling to fight when not regularly paid), and provisions for a large force in the months of May and June, when the agriculturally poor Sweden often had little food left. The army and navy had then to sail across the Baltic as a coherent force, able to carry out offensive operations immediately after landing. In an international perspective, these amphibious operations were not unique. Sixteenth—and 17th-century Medfterranean warfare was often amphibious, and the Iberian powers, the English, and the Dutch frequently made amphibious assaults in their wars in America, Asia, and Africa. The Spanish-Portuguese reconquest of Bahia in 1625 was an operation involving about the same number of soldiers as the Swedish conquest of Riga in 1621. Most of these operations, however, were directed against islands or cities without much military support from the surrounding territory. The Swedish operations were unusual because it was the main army that was lifted to a new area of operation by the sea. They were also sustained for years by supply and reinforcements sent by sea. In spite of the fact that the Polish and German enemies could concentrate men and munitions f r o m wide territories for counterattacks, supply from the sea proved able to sustain the Swedish army in the invaded area.®^ In September 1631, Gustav Adolf won the battle of Breftenfeld, and his operations in Germany became successful beyond the most optimistic dreams. In early 1632 Wismar fell, and with that port the entire Habsburg fleet in the Baltic Sea was captured. It might have been natural if the king's interest in the navy had lessened when its control of the Baltic was secured and his campaign in central and southern Germany reached its climax. Instead, his naval ambitions markedly increased. During 1630 to 1632, he ordered m a n y new ships to be built, that the

Glete 2000, 93-111, 157-64, 169-77.

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oak forests in occupied Livonia and Prussia should be exploited for that purpose, and that new construction should be concentrated on large ships for a naval war with Spain, which he began planning. The latter idea seems to have been based on his (not unfounded) belief that Spain was the origin of Habsburg power in Germany and that a Swedish-Spanish conflict was probable in the near future. Possibly he thought that new resources extracted from Germany would be available for this very ambitious naval policy. He hoped to start a smallscale naval war against Spain in 1633. The Swedish Council, which was more worried than enthusiastic about the Spanish project, was in fact discussing it at the time they received the news that Gustav Adolf had been killed in combat at Lixtzen in November 1632. The change in naval policy was immediate. Most new ships on order that were not yet begun were cancelled, as were the plans for a naval war against Spain.^'' For several years, new construction for the navy was at a low level. This does not mean that the regency government for Queen Christina, which ruled Sweden f r o m 1632 to 1644, neglected the navy. The Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna was personally interested in naval organisation and in the development of Swedish maritime trade, and in this he seems to have been representative of several aristocrats. In 1637, Sweden even started a colonial adventure in Delaware as a concrete example of its increased mercantile ambitions outside the Baltic.® During the regency years the Council expressed no opinion that the navy should be reduced. After 1632, the recruitment of seamen, still a weak point in the Swedish naval organisation, was a top priority. The regency government even decided that the army had to give up certain areas of soldier recruitment in favour of the navy, an interesting policy in a period when the army but not the navy was engaged in a great war on the continent. Dutch sea officers were recruited for employment in the Swedish navy f r o m the mid-1630s, even though they were not needed for any immediate war. Naval operations before 1644 mainly consisted of troop transport and routine sea control operations in the Baltic and naval support to the Swedish army in northern Germany. Any hngering possibility that Spanish naval forces might penetrate the

Gustav II A d o l f s naval policy in 1631-32: see chapter 5. The Council's discussion of a naval war against Spain 6/12 a n d 7/12 1632: SRP 2, 243-51. "" Stellan Dahlgren and H a n s N o r m a n , The Rise and Fall of New Sweden, Stockholm, 1988.

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Baltic to support the Catholic side in the German War vanished when the Dutch won a crushing naval victory over Spain in 1639/° Tliat did not influence Swedish naval policy at all. The navy was in fact kept strong for another possible war, a showdown with Christian IV's Denmark. Even when Sweden and Denmark were not at war with each other, they competed for supremacy in the southern Baltic. If one power gained control over territories in the eastern Baltic or northern Germany its power position increased in relation to the other." Sweden had by the early 1640s achieved a military position that made it probable that it would control parts of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in any future German peace treaty. For Christian IV, this was worrying, because any such Swedish military and naval bases would be a constant threat to Denmark.^^ He oriented his policy closer to Sweden's Habsburg enemies. In order to finance increased armed forces, he enforced his Sound Toll policy more aggressively, which made him disliked in both Sweden and the Dutch Republic. These two powers formed a defensive alliance in 1640 primarily as a reaction to this policy. For the Swedish government, the possibility of creating an empire in the southern Baltic stimulated ideas about a Swedish conquest of eastern Denmark in order to reach the Sound and forge a closer contact with the new territories in Germany. Sweden had controlled Skane, Halland, and Blekinge (eastern Denmark) for a short period in the 14th century (1332-60), and their "reconquest" had been on the agenda of some later Swedish rulers. Denmark and Christian IV also had a bitter personal enemy in Axel Oxenstierna, and the Chancellor probably hoped to defeat Denmark before he had to hand over power to Queen Christina in late 1644. Unlike Gustav Adolf in 1624, he did not use war as a threat in his negotiations with Christian, who after all once had yielded to such a threat. Oxenstierna did not strive for a

™ Glete 2000, 180-85. " This aspect of Swedish-Danish relations is central in Tandrup 1979. For a survey in English concentrating on the 1620s: K n u d J. V. Jespersen, "Riva ry W i t h o u t Victory: Denmark, Sweden and the struggle for the Baltic, 1500-1720", in Goran Rystad, KlausR. Bohme, and Wilhehn M. Carlgren, (eds), In Quest of Trade and Security: The Baltic in power politics, 1500-1990, I; 1500-1890, Stockliolm, 1994, 132-76. In a discussion in the Council on 16/5 1643 about a Danish war and the Swedish conditions for a peace in Germany, Axel Oxenstierna stated that the most i m p o r t a n t argument for keeping Pomerania was that Swedish bases there m a d e it easy to reach the Danish isles with a seaborne invasion. He stressed the difficulties of achieving that from bases in Sweden, SRP 10, 154.

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diplomatic triumph; he desired a war of conquest. The final decision for an offensive war was taken in autumn 1643." Hie main features of the operation were that the Swedish field army in Germany should move northward and attack Jutland; the Swedish home army should attack Skane and Halland; while the Swedish navy and an auxiliary fleet of armed merchantmen hired by the arms merchant Louis De Geer in IHfolland should take control of the Danish straits. The total Swedish occupation of Denmark would then be possible and Christian IV would be forced to make major territorial concessions. It was the concept of amphibious power projection once again, but because the Swedish attack on Jutland started in late 1643, the Danes had time to mobilise their fleet before the Swedish fleet arrived in Danish waters. The naval operations of summer 1644 showed that the Swedish fleet, although superior in size to the Danish, could not gain undisputed control of the Danish straits. The problems were tactical as well as logistical. Tlie battle with the Danish main fleet ended in a draw, and it was followed by a period during which the appearance of the Imperial army in Holstein and the lack of provisions made offensive Swedish operations impossible. The fleet returned to Stockholm, but in the autumn 1644 a selected part of it, combined with the hired Dutch merchantmen, inflicted a crushing defeat on a m u c h reduced Danish operational fleet. By that time, the Swedish army in Germany had turned south to fight the Imperial forces, and there was no immediate possibility of inflicting a total defeat of Denmark. Denmark had lost control of the straits, however, and was open to both invasion and naval aggression, which in 1645 also came from the Dutch navy, which forced the defeated Danes to reduce the Sound Toll. Denmark was partially occupied, the incomes from the Sound Toll were much reduced, and the Danish navy had lost control of the home waters. In order to get peace. Christian IV had to concede substantial territories to Sweden: the islands of Gotland and Osel, Halland (for 30 years), and the inland Norwegian provinces Jamtland and Hiirjedalen. The traditional Swedish freedom from the Sound Toll was extended to ships from

" There are no m a j o r works on a r m y operations d u r i n g the Swedish-Danish W a r of 1643-45, but the broad survey of the pohtical, naval, and military history of the war in Munthe 1905-10 is still useful. The latest Danish studies of this war; Lind 1994, 76-82, 197-207, 331-37; Probst 1996, 227-56.

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all Baltic and German provinces conquered by Sweden; a sign that Sweden had a maritime policy for its new Baltic empire. 2.3-6

Western naval power in the Baltic,

1645-1660

The peace of Westphalia in 1648 formalised Sweden's control over most of Pomerania including Stettin and Stralsund, the island of Riigen, the important port Wismar in Mecldenburg, and the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, the latter taken f r o m the Oldenburgs in 1645. Sweden had become a great power with permanent commitments on the European continent. Sweden now had good bases against Denmark in the southern Baltic but also scattered territories, which required control of the sea to defend. The navy needed to control the southern Baltic if this empire was to survive and if Sweden was to remain a power on the European continent. Sweden had also acquired several German and eastern Baltic ports with considerable shipping and maritime trade, and Stockholm had grown into an important centre for large-scale Swedish export and import.^"* This Baltic Sea was also a part of the new Dutch economic empire, however. Dutch shipping had been important in the late medieval Baltic, and during the 16th century the rise of Nordic sea power and the elimination of the Hanse as an armed trade cartel had made it safe, cheap, and easy for the Dutch to sail in the Baltic. Both Nordic states were, on the whole, positive about the rise of the Dutch, a Protestant power with no territorial ambitions in the Baltic. By the end of the 16th century, Dutch merchants dominated trade through this sea, and Sweden began to benefit f r o m Dutch investments and competence in industry and trade. At the same time, Swedish mercantile shipping reached a nadir. It could not compete with the cheap and efficient Dutch shipping services, even though it was exempt from the Sound

''' Swedish foreign policy: Georg Landberg, Den svenska utrikespolitikens historia, 1:3, 1648-1697, Stockliolm, 1952, 49-80; Sven Ingemar Olofsson, Efter Westfaliska freden: Sveriges yttre politik, 1650-1654, Stockholm, 1957; Bertil Rimborg, Magnus Durell och Danmark: Studier i information, Gothenburg, 1997. " Aksel E. Christensen, Dutch Trade to the Baltic about 1600: Studies in the Sound Toll Register and Dutch shipping records, Copenhagen, 1941; Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740, Oxford, 1989; Anja Tjaden, "The D u t c h in the Baltic, 1560-1720"; in Rystad et al. 1994, 61-136.

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Sweden and Denmark had from time to time attempted to remedy this inferiority by discriminating custom duties and privileged companies, to promote domestic shipping. Both states hoped to create fleets of armed merchantmen useful for long-distance trade, which in wartime might strengthen the navy. Up to 1645, these efforts were failures in Sweden. Therefore, when suitable Swedish ships did not exist in 1644, Sweden had to turn to the Dutch to hire auxiliary warships. From 1645, a more efficient system of protection of shipping was instituted. Swedish-owned ships, able to carry a substantial armament, got reductions in tariffs. This resulted in a major wave of investments in such ships. The origin of the capital behind these investments is obscure. It was partly aristocrats and officers who invested their gains from the Thirty Years War in ships, but Dutch capital may also have been involved.^*^ In 1651, the Swedish government founded a Board of Commerce {Kommerskollegium), which was instructed to promote Swedish mercantile and shipping interests and to exploit Sweden's new power position for economic purposes.^' The reality became less impressive than the intentions, but in Holland it was perceived as a threat and a parallel to the English Navigation Laws of 1651, which soon became an important cause of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54). Especially in Amsterdam, Sweden began to be regarded as a hostile rather than friendly power, and the traditional friendship with Sweden waned. These English and Swedish initiatives were part of a more general phen o m e n o n wherein rulers and elites in Northern and Western Europe looked with a mix of envy, admiration, and fear upon the phenomenal rise of the Dutch entrepot for world trade and Dutch commercial and technological superiority in industry and trade. Sweden, England, and (from the 1660s) France began to use political and naval power to compete with the Dutch. Brandenburg and, in a later generation, Tsar

Hjalmar Borjeson, Stockholms segelsjdfart: Anteckningar om huvudstadens kofferdiflotta och dess man med en overblick av stadens och rikets sjofartsforhdllanden jran dldsta tid intill vara dagar, Stockholm, 1932, 124-257; Birger Fahlborg, "Ett blad ur den svenska handelsfloUans historia (1660-1675)", HT, 43, 1923, 205-81; Eli F: Heckscher, "Den svenska handelssjofartens ekonomiska historia sedan Gustaf Vasa", Skrifter utgivna av Sjdhistoriska samfundet, 1, 1940, 5 - 3 1 ; Sven Gerentz, Kommerskollegium och ndringslivet, 1651-1951, Stockliolm, 1951, 91-166. A survey in Laos Miiller, "Sjomakten och den civila sjofarten, 1650-1809", Norman 2000, 342-52. The Danish mercantile marine: Ole Degn and Erik Gobel, Dansk sofarts historic: 2, Skuder og kompagnier, 1588-1720, Copenhagen, 1997. " Gerentz 1951, 15-35.

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Peter in Russia, were continental rulers who became very interested in developing maritime policies and navies to imitate the Dutch. One effect of the new power struggle about maritime trade and the sea was the rapid rise of the English, Dutch, and French battle fleets in the 1650s and 1660s. Hiese forces also influenced the power struggle in the Baltic, one of most important regions for international maritime trade in Europe.^® Swedish naval policy from 1645 to 1655 gave no indication that a new contest for supremacy in the Baltic Sea was contemplated. Queen Christina (r. 1632/44-54) was interested in the navy but favoured a steady replacement program rather than expansion. Dutch sea officers continued to be recruited to gain foreign experience, but the ageing fleet declined in size. There was obviously no immediate preparation for another offensive war against Denmark for the purpose of gaining even more territory. State finance was a major problem in these years, but the financial condition in the territorially reduced Denmark was similar, and as long as the Danish navy was smaller than the Swedish, the power position looked fairly satisfactory for Sweden in a purely Baltic perspective.^' The Danes were strong enough to defend themselves but too weak to seriously threaten Sweden's sea lines of communication. The problem of Sweden's future Baltic policy in a new European economic and naval situation where the Dutch were free from the long war with Spain and prepared to defend their economic empire with violence seems not to have been perceived in Sweden before 1656. When Christina abdicated in favour of her cousin Karl X Gustav (r. 1654-60), Swedish foreign policy immediately changed. The new king intended to continue imperial expansion in any direction that looked feasible. His brief period of rule made Swedish imperial policy in the Baltic and Eastern Europe a central question in European power politics. It involved Poland-Lithuania, Russia, Brandenburg, Austria, Denmark, and the Dutch Republic in war against Sweden while England was interested in limiting Dutch influence in the region and

™ Glete 1993, 178-206. " Danish political, financial and military development u p to 1660; Erling Ladewig Petersen, The Crisis of the Danish Nobility. 1580-1660, Odense, 1967; Erling Ladewig Petersen, "From D o m a i n State to Tax State", Scandinavian Economic History Review, 23, 1975, 116-48; Erling Ladewig Petersen, "Defence, W a r and Finance: Christian IV and the Council of Realm, 1596-1629", Scandinavian Journal of History, 7, 1982, 277-313; Lind 1994.

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France interested in maintaining Sweden as an ally against Habsburg. It was Karl X Gustav's great ambitions that mobilised so many enemies against him. The aim of these ambitions changed more than once, when opportunities and problems arose, but the centre of the struggle was the Baltic region; control of the sea, the littoral territories, and trade flowing through the region. Karl Gustav started the war without any review of Swedish military and naval policy, and the excellent army developed since Gustav II Adolf's time became his main instrument, while the navy was regarded as sufficient for control of the sea against Baltic opponents. When operations at sea gradually became important, he showed much interest in naval administration and new construction of warships. In 1658-59, he was primarily the commander-in-chief of a naval and amphibious war, and he seriously contemplated commanding the fleet personally. It was too late to build a navy that had a chance to gain the superiority at sea, however, which Karl Gustav's vast ambitions actually required. To do so would have required a firm alliance with a western naval power. Karl Gustav tried to induce Oliver Cromwell to join him against Denmark and the Dutch, but English policy in the area was too cautious to be anything more than limited help.®" In early 1655, Karl X Gustav chose to attack Poland, which already was in serious trouble due to a revolt in Ukraine and threats f r o m Russia. He used the navy to ship the army across the sea, an operation that was achieved without problems. The attack caused a political breakdown in Poland and Lithuania and, for a short time, influential groups in these countries cooperated with Karl Gustav as their saviour from Russia and chaos.®' The Swedish army could for a time take control of large territories, and the fleet began to blockade Danzig and raise custom duties on trade f r o m Prussia, except on English ships, which Karl Gustav favoured for political reasons. Suddenly the navy had to prove that it was capable of controlling the sea in southern

™ The wars f r o m 1655 to 1660: Carl X Gustav-studier (several authors and titles), 8 vols, Stockholm, 1965-79. Central naval administration: Wendt 1950, 152-90. Foreign policy: Landberg 1952, 81-122. The Danish army: Lind 1994, 92-106, 223-48, 348-71. A broad survey of the war: Peter Englund, Den odvervinnelige: Om den svenska stormaktstiden och en man i dess mitt, Stockholm, 2000. Swedish domestic war propaganda: Forssberg 2005. Andrej Kotljarchuk, In the Shadows of Poland and Russia: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden in the European crisis of the mid-17th century, H u d d i n g e , 2006.

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Baltic, which Sweden's new empire required for its survival. It was no longer a question of only containing a possible naval threat from Denmark. Tlie Dutch looked upon their Baltic trade as one of the pillars of their position in the world economy, and they were prepared to fight for it. They became worried that Sweden intended to take control over Danzig and other Baltic ports of importance for their trade. This would create a Swedish monopoly on the outlets for Baltic trade, which, in combination with a tariff policy that favoured Swedish subjects and friends, might undermine the Dutch economic position. With the new large battle fleet they had built during the war with England (1652-54), the Dutch had a new powerful instrument for influencing Baltic politics. The Danish king and elite groups feared that Sweden would become even more powerful and place the Danish state in an isolated and vulnerable situation, so Denmark looked to the Dutch Republic for help. During 1656, the Dutch sent a large fleet to Baltic. It was joined by a Danish squadron and sailed to Danzig. Karl X Gustav avoided a naval conflict and signed an agreement (the treaty of Elbing) with the Dutch, which guaranteed that the Dutch would be treated as the most favoured nation in all Baltic ports controlled by Sweden now or in the future. The treaty was so vague, however, that it allowed Sweden to protect its own shipping and trade against competition, and further negotiations were soon necessary. Denmark was disappointed; it had hoped that the Dutch would be involved in war with Sweden, especially because Sweden's new provinces in Germany had seriously weakened the Danish ability to defend Jutland and the isles. The Danish king and Council hoped that a great (if loose) coalition with the Dutch, the Austrian Habsburgs, Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and Brandenburg could be formed in order to divide Sweden's gains in the last wars. The Danes now took the initiative and declared war on Sweden on 1 June 1657. This gave Sweden a diplomatic advantage, as the Danish-Dutch alliance was purely defensive. Denmark, in contrast, gained the advantage by mobilising its fleet before war was declared, which prevented a rapid Swedish combination of army and navy for an attack on Copenhagen. Karl X Gustav had in fact decided already in May 1657 to leave Poland with his main army and attack Denmark f r o m Germany. To the surprise of the Danish leadership, he did exactly that in response to their declaration of war, and he quickly overran Jutland. The Swedish fleet arrived in Danish waters in September and met the smaller Danish

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fleet in a battle, which ended in a tactical draw. Fate, in the shape of a cold winter, intervened and created a bridge of ice upon which the Swedish army could march from Jutland to Sjalland and dictate a peace in early 1658. Denmark had to cede to Sweden important territories: Skane, Blekinge, Bornholm, Bohuslan, and the Trondheim province in mid-Norway. They further had to agree that they together should block attempts from foreign fleets to enter the Baltic Sea. Karl X Gustav had also asked that the Danish navy, or part of it, be delivered to Sweden, but he did not press that demand hard in the peace negotiations. In his enthusiasm about his great victory, he seems to have seriously believed that the Danes would help him seal off the Baltic from the West. That would have given his armies great advantages for decisive operations in the coastal territories in North Germany and the eastern Baltic where he now had his remaining enemies. Negotiations between the two powers about how the closure of the Baltic should be implemented led to nothing. Karl X Gustav saw that the Danes were unprepared for a renewed war, but he also feared that Denmark might become the base for future Dutch and Danish naval operations against his Baltic empire building. Tlie military situation in Poland, Prussia, and Brandenburg did not look promising for a Swedish offensive. Karl Gustav probably also saw the possibility that a conquest of Denmark and the Danish straits would make it unnecessary to conquer more Baltic ports because control of the straits would give Sweden customs on all trade passing in and out of the Baltic Sea.®^ A maritime rather than continental end to Swedish empire building seemed possible. Karl Gustav decided that he should take the chance and destroy Denmark as a state. In August 1658 he launched a surprise attack f r o m Kiel. The fleet was able to land an army on Sjalland without any Danish naval resistance. For once, everything worked according to the Swedish ideal of an amphibious assault directed at the heart of the enemy's power. Denmark was saved by the rapidly organised intervention of the Dutch Republic, which under no circumstances wished to see a unified Scandinavian state in control of the Sound and most Baltic ports. A strong Dutch fleet broke the Swedish blockade of Copenhagen and provided the Danish capital with soldiers and

Birgitta Oden, "Karl X Gustav och det andra danska kriget", Scandia, 53-156.

27, 1961,

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munitions, which made it possible to resist the Swedish army during the winter 1658-59. Karl X Gustav was determined to use his fleet for a tenacious defence of his control of most of Denmark. The strategic situation was unique as it was the Swedish king who had to defend the Danish isles against superior naval power. The Swedish navy could now take advantage of the transfer of Skane to Sweden and made Landskrona at the eastern side of the Sound its base. This made it possible for Karl Gustav to take the strategic initiative and invade the smaller Danish isles in spring 1659, which would have been impossible if the fleet had returned to Stoclcholm for the winter. During the summer 1659, the Dutch fleet was largely passive, because a truce had been negotiated together with England and France, which attempted to mediate. In spring 1659, England also sent a large fleet to Danish waters to observe the Dutch, who in their turn sent more ships. Sweden also recruited English sea officers, partly because the Dutch officers in Swedish service were regarded with suspicion. In September, the Dutch resumed their participation in the war. With overwhelming naval strength at their disposal, they could invade Fyn and defeat the Swedish army forces on the island. In a long perspective, the appearance of strong Dutch and English fleets in the Baltic meant that naval policies determined by mercantfle and non-territorial interests had returned to the region after having been absent since the decline of the Hanse and Liibeck's last efforts as a naval power in the 1530s and 1560s. After more than a century of Nordic dominance of the Baltic Sea, the great entrepots for Baltic trade were back on the naval scene. In the Middle Ages, Liibeck had been the great entrepot and also the leading sea power in the region. After 1650, Amsterdam could use the Dutch navy to protect its trading interests, and later the English merchants could also trust that the English navy would keep the Baltic open for their trade. At its peak, from June to October 1659, the Dutch Republic had around 70 warships in Danish waters, the largest naval force ever seen in the Baltic until then. Just like Liibeck, these western maritime powers could influence Nordic power politics through control of the sea lines of communication. This was mainly due to a new type of state formation in Western Europe wherein territorial power and merchant capital had joined forces in a way that the North German cities and territories never managed to do. Nordic naval power, based on efficient organisation of territorial resources and protection-selling to foreign shipping, had dominated

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the Baltic Sea f r o m the early 16th century to the mid-17th century. After that, the Baltic was integrated into the European state system in which control of the European seas belonged to the strongest battle fleet or combination of battle fleets. Sweden's policymakers had to adjust to a new Europe in which their regional naval power was part of an interregional balance of power. Tlie sudden death of Karl X Gustav in early 1660 made it at least possible to conclude a rapid series of peace treaties between Sweden and her several enemies. Apart from the Trondheim province in Norway and the island of Bornholm, Sweden retained all conquests from Denmark, which was the great loser in the Baltic wars of 1655 to 1660. John Kasimir, the last Polish king of the Vasa dynasty, had to give up his claim to the Swedish throne, and Poland formally accepted the transfer of Livonia to Sweden, a conquest actually made in the early 1620s. The Swedish ambitions of conquest in Prussia and Courland were dropped, and with that a central part of the traditional Swedish aims in the east. An extensive Swedish empire had been created, however, and it was to a large extent connected with Sweden by the sea or, in the case of the ex-Danish provinces, separated from potential enemies by the sea. Sweden now even had a long west coast to defend. Control of the sea would remain essential for its future defence. 2.3.7

Conclusion: The flexible navy

For a century, the Swedish navy had been an instrument of imperial conquest in the Baltic. Using the navy thus allowed Sweden to deploy limited but well organised resources against several countries of which three—Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and Habsburg Austria—had much larger populations and more lucrative potential tax bases. North German principalities and trading cities also would have been superior to Sweden had they acted with some degree of unity. However, they did not participate in the contest against Sweden, except Liibeck in the 1560s and Brandenburg in the late 1630s and late 1650s. Denmark, a state with about the same population as Sweden, was the most dangerous enemy, because it controlled an effective naval force that could threaten Sweden's control of the Baltic Sea and hinder Sweden from launching amphibious assaults on the centre of Danish power in the Sound. The development of the Swedish navy from around 1560 to 1660 reflects its use as an instrument for offensive operations in pursuit

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of empire building. Operations in different periods were different in character, and in order to be successful as an instrument for expansion, the navy had to be flexible. The navy did show ability to adapt to changing political and strategic circumstances. The galley navy of the 1550s was rapidly changed to a successful sailing battle fleet in the 1560s. This was again changed to a predominately oared fleet in the 1580s and back to a sailing navy in the following decade. This force was used to support major army operations in Livonia. It failed as a battle fleet in the war with Denmark in 1611-13, mainly because the king had believed that a naval war was unlikely and had neglected to prepare for one. The navy was changed into an amphibious striking force with improved battle fleet capability in the 1610s and 1620s. From the 1630s to 1660, its main task was to protect the southern Baltic against Danish interference with Swedish imperial ambitions. This meant that the Swedish navy needed to be able to support an invasion on the Danish isles, a task that could be achieved only under favourable circumstances. The navy did not develop excellence and undisputed superiority in any type of operation, but it certainly was able to change and adapt to new strategic doctrines. The navy was not the main instrument of royal policy. The army clearly had priority, simply because it had to be the cutting edge against several powerful continental enemies. The navy typically faced enemies who had inferior naval forces, if any. Its task in war against these powers was to make full use of Sweden's control of the sea. It should hinder the enemy from using the sea to support his army, blockade ports against armed merchantmen, send the army ashore in strategically important areas, supply it with provisions, munitions, and reinforcements, and blockade or destroy any naval forces an enemy might improvise. These requirements were to a considerable extent determined by the requirements of operations on land. The navy needed an organisational infrastructure that allowed it to be rapidly mobilised and sent to sea at the right m o m e n t to give Sweden the initiative. The navy had to be able to sail early each spring and return back in late autumn, demanding requirements for 16th- and early 17th-century sailing warships, which were a far cry f r o m the advanced ships used in later phases of European warfare under sail. Amphibious warfare also meant that the navy had to build oared warships and other small craft for inshore and riverine service in close cooperation with the army. As a battle fleet navy, the Swedish navy was also tasked with fighting for control of the sea. It had to be able to fight an enemy battle

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fleet and, in offensive operations, had to be able to win. During the century of Swedish imperial expansion, the Danish navy was the only in the Baltic which had the strength to meet the Swedish navy in battle fleet contests. It was only during the Seven Years War of 1563-70 that Denmark, together with Liibeck, seriously attempted to interfere with Sweden's expansion in the eastern Baltic. This was a failure, and the attempt was not repeated, except when Denmark in 1610 showed that it regarded a purely naval blockade of Riga as an infringement on their dominium of the waters close to Osel, a Danish territory. The Danish navy was successful in 1611 and 1612, but, apart from the Riga trade, it did not use its superiority to interfere with Swedish activities in the eastern Baltic. The wars of 1643-45, 1657-58, and 1658-60 were, f r o m a Danish point of view, all defensive wars against an aggressive Sweden. The battle fleet was Denmark's ultimate weapon of defence, but as such it had to be used cautiously and kept in home waters. There was no question of offensive Danish naval operations in the Baltic, and the Swedish fleet could normally control the sea by keeping the Danes occupied at home. This was of great strategic importance; it secured the Swedish coasts and gave the Swedish home army freedom to concentrate on operations against Danish territories. But Sweden had spent much on its battle fleet in the hope that it might defeat the Danes and clear the sea for an invasion. W h e n the two fleets met in combat (summer 1644 and autumn 1657), the battles ended in draws. Sweden was twice (autumn 1644, summer 1658) able to gain control of the Danish straits by strategic surprise and once (winter 1658) by the intervention of cold weather. The limit of Swedish imperial expansion against Denmark was reached when the Dutch battle fleet intervened.

2.4 2.4.1

Defending a Baltic empire,

The failure of the aristocratic navy,

1660-1721

1660-1679

The death of Karl X Gustav left Sweden with a small boy, Karl XI (r. 1660-97), as king. An aristocratic regency government ruled for almost 13 years (1660-72). They had to face the political, social, and financial problems and contradictions which Swedish state formation and empire building had created or left unsolved. During the long wars, the Parliament had been willing to pay high taxes and postpone major discussions about domestic political problems. The peace period

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1648-55 and the long peace after 1660 saw increased economic problems for the state and more articulated conflicts between social groups and the parliamentary estates. The three non-noble estates and many recently ennobled officers and civil servants thought that the aristocracy since the early 17th century had appropriated too much political power and control over the incomes f r o m the state's landed wealth.®^ Tlie rise of aristocratic power within the Swedish state may have been a necessary step in the state formation process in order to bring the traditional landed elite with their social networks, authority, and political leverage into the core of the fiscal-military state. In contrast to many other European aristocracies in this period, the Swedish aristocracy favoured centralisation and the development of complex organisation and attempted to combine hierarchical solutions to organisational problems with their vision of an aristocratic society containing a firm social hierarchy. This made the Swedish state work efficiently in a transitional period, and unlike for example Poland, Denmark, or France, it was not troubled by active resistance from the elite. But the mid17th-century Swedish state was increasingly run by career bureaucrats and officers who saw the aristocracy less as patrons and more as an established and conspicuously rich interest group blocking the way to the centre of power for aspiring new men. Like other part of the Swedish state, the navy had since the early 17th century been administered by the aristocracy, f r o m 1634 formally in the Amiralitetskollegium, one of the colleges which ran the various branches of the Swedish state. From the time of Gustav II Adolf, the navy can no longer be seen as only a project run by the Vasa dynasty. It was also supported by the aristocratic elite and, increasingly, by its officers and civil servants who, when they were ennobled, gained a voice in the Parliament. Until the 1650s, the most important leaders of the navy had been men associated with royal power rather than with aristocratic group interests. They also had experience from service at sea, as admirals and as administrators of shipbuilding, recruitment

Foreign policy 1660-72: Birger Fahlborg, Sveriges yttre politik, 1660-1664, Stockholm, 1932; Birger Fahlborg, Sveriges yttre politik, 1664-1668, 2 vols, Stocldiolm, 1949; Birger Fahlborg, Sveriges yttre politik, 1668-1672, 2 vols, Stockliolm, 1961. Financial policy 1660-72: Georg Wittrock, Karl Xl:s formyndares finanspolitik, 2 vols, Uppsala, 1914-17. Domestic political power struggle: Goran Rystad, Johan Gyllenstierna, rddet och kungamakten: Studier i Sveriges inre politik, 1660-1680, Lund, 1955; Sven A, Nilsson, Pa vag mot reduktionen: Studier i svenskt 1600-tal, Stockholm, 1964.

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of seamen, and naval mobilisation. From the 1660$, the senior positions in the Amiralitetskollegium were entrusted to aristocrats without naval experience. Family connections and support of the political and economic interests of the aristocracy determined these appointments, which also blocked the way to the top for admirals who had made a long career in the navy. The sea officers were usually men of non-noble origin or members of the poorer noble families who had to work for the state to support their status. During the regency years, they found that their and the seamen's wages were in arrears, often for a year or more, while the aristocrats at the top increasingly used the navy as their bank to get loans.®"* The aristocrats were not uninterested in naval power or maritime and commercial questions. Some of them invested in shipping as well as industry and, as a group, they had strong vested interests in the Swedish state raising large customs f r o m a flourishing trade through Swedish-controlled Baltic ports. Commercial success would reduce the strain on state finances, secure their own freedom from taxation, and lessen demands f r o m the lower estates of a policy that aimed at returning as much as possible of the incomes from land, which the aristocracy had appropriated for various services in the past (a reduktion). The problem with these ideas was that—apart from mining and industries related to iron, copper, and arms manufacturing—the new more mercantile and dynamic Swedish economy developed slowly. In the short term it required tax exemptions and privileges from the state to grow. Customs on Swedish trade were important but far f r o m sufficient to cover the deficit in the state finances.*' Customs from Baltic trade and taxes from the provinces were to a large extent absorbed by local expenditures in the war-stricken provinces."'

administratipn and the aristocratic leadership: Wendt 1950 191300. U e aristocratic elite: Kurt Agren, "Rise and decline of an aristocracy: The Swedish social a i ^ political elite in the 17th century", Scandinavian Journal of History, 1, 1976 55-80. The n a v y s debts and claims 1660-72, N N S II, 147-58, KrA lor/oi^' ekonomiska historiafran Gust'av Vasa, 1:2, Stockholm, 1956, 284-88; Sven A. Nilsson, Reduktion eller kontribution: Alternativ i n o m 1600talets svenska finanspolitik", Scandia, 24, 1958, 68-114; Peter Englund, Det hotade huset: Adhga forestallningar om samhallet under stormaktstiden, Stocldiolm, 1989 esp 128-52; Maj-Britt Nergard, Mellan krona och marknad: Utidndska och svenska entreprenorer mom svensk jdrnhanteringfrdn ca 1580 till 1700, Uppsala, 2001 H e l m u t Piirimae, "Die finanziellen Beziehungen Livlands und Estlands zum schwedischen Staat im 17. Jahrhundert", in A n u Mai K61I (ed.), Time of Change in

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Tlie regency government was determined to preserve Sweden's position as a European great power. It was important for their prestige. Tliey wished to promote Sweden as a powerful state able to take a leading part in international alliances, although one important motive was actually the hope of getting foreign subsidises. Hiese had never before been important in Sweden's foreign policy, but in the regency years they began to be seen as convenient substitutes for increased taxes. The regents were not interested in offensive warfare and had no plans for further expansion. They tried to preserve peace and to keep the expenditure of the state as low as possible, not the least to counter the threat of increased taxation on their own property or a reduktion. This contradictory policy ended in failures for the foreign policy, the financial policy, and the naval policy during the war from 1675 to 1679. The naval part of that disaster was especially severe and led to sweeping reforms. The problem was not that the aristocratic regime failed to build warships. During the regency period, several new large ships were built while the size of the army was left unchanged. In 1664, the Parliament even voted an extraordinary supply for shipbuilding {skeppshjdlpen) in order to rapidly strengthen the navy, which resulted in the construction of three large warships. The Parliament decided that the extra tax for shipbuilding should be sent directly to the Amiralitetskollegium instead of to the Treasury. It was suspected that the funds might otherwise be diverted to more urgent financial needs than investments in warships. Such suspicions were well founded, as it later turned out; a similar extra supply to naval shipbuilding voted by the estates in Livonia had been used for local garrisons due to acute financial problems.®^ In terms of tonnage, the navy which the regency left to Karl XI in 1672 was larger than ever before and around 50 per cent larger than the navy that Karl X Gustav had left in 1660. This was visible strength, and it was important to have it. Guns, sails, and cables necessary to send ships to sea were less visible, and by 1672 the navy had great

the Baltic Countries: Essays in honour of Aleksander Loit, Stockliolm, 2000, 31-56. It was only in the 1680s and 1690s that the provinces of Estonia and Livonia p r o d u c e d considerable net incomes for the Swedish state. Wittrock 1914, 254-58; Ahnlund 1933, 352-53. The Livonian supply: Wittrock 1917, 163.

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deficiencies in material readiness. Frenetic efforts to remedy these deficiencies were made up to 1675, but when the fleet should have been mobilised for war in that year, the mobilisation was delayed because of remaining material deficiencies. Officers and seamen could be found to man the enlarged fleet, but 15 years of peace had reduced their competence. The navy had, up to 1660, maintained the personnel's competence mainly because it had been at least partially in commission for war service for an entire century. Peacetime training was unknown, and the few ships that served as troop transports or convoy escorts during the 15 years of peace were insufficient to keep competence alive. Recruitment of foreign officers had ceased after 1660, and few Swedish officers had served in foreign navies. Finally, no naval base had been established in the southern Baltic Sea, although it had long been obvious that this was the most important area of naval operations and that the use of Wismar in 1644-45 and of Landskrona in 1658-60 had been successes. The regency government's search for subsidises had finally been successful in 1672, when Louis XIV was eager to secure allies for his attack against the Dutch Republic. Sweden undertook to keep a subsidised army in northern Germany as a threat against the Republic's potential allies. W h e n this alliance dragged the reluctant Nordic great power into war against Brandenburg, Denmark, and the Dutch RepubUc in 1675, the navy performed miserably. During 1675, it was not able to sail to the southern Baltic. The next year it was out early to fight the Danes and the Dutch, but this operation ended in a largely self-inflicted disaster during combat. Officers were too inexperienced to maintain formation and understand orders, and senior officers had difficulty implementing any kind of tactics that took advantage of the firepower of the many new and great ships. By 1677, discipline and order had improved, but that only led to an even greater disaster in a combat against the Danes. The fleet fought with determination but insufficient skill and lost several ships. Denmark now had a vast superiority at sea and could, for the first time since 1612, control the Baltic. This was used to isolate and attack Sweden's German provinces, which all were lost by 1678. Even more disastrously, the Danish army invaded Skane in 1676 and then used it as the main theatre of military operations. In the end, the competence of the Swedish army and the success of Sweden's ally Louis XIV restored Sweden's invaded territories. The navy had been the weakest part of the Swedish defence system, and the defeats of the navy had also revealed that defence of Sweden's empire

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was dependent on control of the sea. Sweden had a maritime empire which was nearly lost due to deficient naval policy.®'' The naval disasters and other problems revealed by the war had provided the king and the critics of the aristocrats with telling arguments. In 1675, the king suspended or dismissed aristocratic admirals and forced them to answer for the shortcomings before a special commission. By 1680, the Parliament was ready to definitely reduce the political and economic power of the established elite. Karl XI became a king with absolute power in relation to the Council, although the Parliament still controlled taxation. Land, which had been turned over to the nobility as payment for loans and services in the past, were to a large extent taken back by the state. State finances were brought into order, the army's recruitment and maintenance system was improved, officers and men could be paid regularly, and means were available for a large investment in and reorganisation of the navy. The navy's dependence on the organisational and financial power of the state had become obvious, and the king as well as the new bureaucratic elite was willing to make great efforts for its restoration. 2.4.2

The rise of the professional navy,

1679-1700

From 1678 to 1713, the leading m a n in the Swedish navy was Hans Wachtmeister, from 1681 with the new title admiral-general. His long period as leader of the navy was unique in its history, and it gave him time to implement reforms and create strong personal power. Wachtmeister was a leading architect of a new strategy; he was the leader of the navy's shipbuilding, administration, and economy; and he acted as its operational commander during major campaigns. Wachtmeister was one of the new men in the Swedish leadership who had reached their position during the war when Karl XI had placed his confidence in energetic and ambitious men who advised and helped him with the war efforts. It was ultimately the king who made the decisions about naval policy, on Wachtmeister's advice.®'

The war of 1675-79: Landberg 1952, 175-212; Finn Askgaard and A r n e Stade (eds), Kampen om Skane, Copenhagen 1983; G o r a n Rystad, Karl XI: En biografi, Lund, 2001, 40-119. Swedish domestic war propaganda: Forssberg 2005. General; Rystad 2001; A n t h o n y F. U p t o n , Charles XI and Swedish Absolutism, Cambridge, 1998. Foreign pohcy: Landberg 1952, 213-61. Naval pohcy and administration; Sven Grauers, Atten Wachtmeistergenom tiderna, II: Grevliga dtten Wachtmeister

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Tlie king's relation with Wachtmeister and the navy is typical for the new power structure in which the monarch could develop absolute rule with broad support from oliicers and civil bureaucrats who preferred a strong state with high taxes and few privileges for the aristocracy. They were primarily interested in regular salaries and an efficient state organisation that was not continuously starved of funds. At the important session with the Parliament in 1680, Admiral Wachtmeister acted as the king's leading spokesman in the House of Nobles when he argued for a break with the privileged position of the aristocrats. He made it clear that the reconstruction of the navy and its future maintenance in a high degree of readiness required much money. In order to get them quickly, he asked for an investigation into the conduct of the regency government that would levy heavy fines on those who were found to have neglected their duties. He also supported the demand for a reduktion of crown land donated to the nobility since the beginning of the 17th century. This would increase the regular flow of income to the state. These demands received support from many members of the nobility who primarily lived from their incomes and who also preferred that promotions should be according to merits rather than to social origin.'" A central part of Wachtmeister's reform program was that it represented the definite breakthrough of a professional navy in which officers and administrators who had devoted their careers to the navy were given control of administration and access to the top career positions in the hierarchy. Future sea officers, even those of aristocratic origin, had, at least formally, to start their careers at the bottom to learn the profession as a seaman. No future admirals were transferred f r o m the army or the civil service, as frequently had been the case in the aristocratic navy. Increasingly, this officer corps was recruited from sons of sea officers and naval administrators. In the 18th century, the navy was to a considerable extent run by a number of "naval families" whose networks and professional careers interacted. Both the

av Johannishus, Stockholm, 1946; Wendt 1950, 301-462; Amiralitetskollegiets II, 1696-1803, Malmo, 1974, 9 - 5 0 (by Einar W e n d t and Lars Otto Berg). Grauers 1946, 98-125; Rune Blomdahl, Formyndarrafstens huvudskede: i Stora Kommissionens historia, Stockholm, 1963, 23-102.

historia, En studie

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army and the navy developed into economic-political interest groups for officers.'' Tlie Dutch interventions in the wars in the 1650s and 1670s had shown that Sweden must have a navy ready to meet the threat f r o m the new Western sea powers. In the war of 1675-79 it had become obvious that Sweden had a new problem because two neighbours, D e n m a r k and Brandenburg, had successfully followed Sweden's own fiscal-military policy. Both had t u r n e d to absolutism, they had created strong p e r m a n e n t armed forces, and the Danish navy had chosen a better balance between quantity and professional competence. Both powers now had the ability to strike quickly at an enemy, an advantage that in earlier wars usually had belonged to Sweden, with its combination of p e r m a n e n t armed forces and aggressive expansionism. Other German powers were developing similar armies. U n d e r certain political conditions these might be combined against Sweden, which since the Thirty Years W a r had been a G e r m a n power. After 1679, Sweden as far as possible avoided military c o m m i t m e n t s in Germany, but defence of her possessions m a d e it necessary to conclude various defensive alliances with G e r m a n princes. The duchies of HolsteinGottorp and Mecklenburg-Giistrow, located between Pomerania and Bremen-Verden, were m o r e or less permanently protected by formal alliances with Sweden, which required Sweden to send army forces to their aid. The protection of Holstein-Gottorp against Danish attempts to enforce sovereignty was a cornerstone in Swedish foreign policy in the 1680s and 1690s. Sweden would not only need strong armed forces to counter this threat. It required a new strategy for a defensive foreign policy in a new world with well-armed enemies. N e w types of operations were more important than the earlier offensive strikes, planned and prepared in advance by Sweden. The navy must be ready to sail to any threatened area of the empire at short notice with reinforcements for the army and it must be able to fight an e n e m y battle fleet to reach its destination. A r m y units might also have to be transferred across the sea f r o m one Baltic province to another at short notice in order to achieve concentration at the right spot. Otherwise they would be

" James Cavallie, De hoga officemrna: Studier i den svenska militdra hierarkien under 1600-talets senare del, Stockholm, 1981; Bjorn Asker, Officerarna och det svenska samhdllet, 1650-1700, Uppsala, 1983. H i e 18th century: G u n n a r Arteus, Krigsmakt och samhdlle i frihetstidens Sverige, Stockholm, 1982.

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defeated in detail by more mobile enemy forces. The same type of mobility was necessary for Sweden to fulfil obligations toward allies and clients, primarily Holstein-Gottorp. Hie navy must also be able to reduce the operational freedom of enemy armies in order to help the Swedish army defend the vast empire. The most important requirement was that the navy must pose a serious threat of seaborne invasion against Denmark and Copenhagen in order to keep the Danish army in defensive positions at home and deter it from launching invasions against Sweden and its German provinces. When most neighbours had strong armies, the Swedish army could no longer depend on its traditional ability to quickly occupy foreign territories and live on them. It might be more dependent on supply from home, and the navy must secure this supply. Sweden did need armed forces that could act as a fire brigade. It should quickly respond to threats to the periphery of the empire and counter them with resources from within the empire itself. Control of the maritime lines of communication was necessary to make the army mobile within the Baltic empire. It meant a high degree of material and personal readiness in the navy and a naval base close to the main operational area, the southern Baltic. Already from 1678 the fleet was deployed to Kalmar as a forward winter base. In 1679, development of an entirely new base on an island in the Blekinge archipelago was initiated. Named Karlskrona, it rapidly developed into a new city with a large naval yard. By 1689, the fleet, the main naval yard, and the central naval administration had been concentrated to Karlskrona.'^ The number of permanently employed seamen had increased, and many of them lived in regions close to Karlskrona, which made mobilisation rapid. The fleet was much increased in size, guns were acquired in sufficient number already in peacetime, ships were kept in good condition by systematic repairs, and enough sails, cables, and anchors were kept in store to quickly bring the fleet to sea. Three mobilisations of the whole navy in 1683, 1689, and 1700 showed that the new system worked. The final part of Wachtmeister's new system, a strong squadron of cruisers based in Gothenburg to protect Swedish westward trade and disturb communications between Denmark and Norway, was realised from 1700 to 1702.

Gustaf Clemensson, Flottans fdrldggning till Karlskrona: frdganfore dr 1683, Stockholm, 1938; Ericson 1993.

En studie i

flottstations-

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2.4.3

The fall of the empire,

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1700-1721

The new system was put to the test with the outbreak of the Great Northern War in 1700.'' It worked smoothly during the initial phase. Sweden and its dient Holstein-Gottorp were attacked by a coalition consisting of Denmark, Poland-Saxony, and Russia. Hie navy was mobilised at full strength, and together with an Anglo-Dutch fleet it secured the passage across the Sound for the main Swedish army. The landing on Sjalland in July 1700 was the only entirely successful major Swedish amphibious operation in this war. It was achieved on an open beach with deep water close to the shore where battleship guns could cover the landing and it was not necessary to use specially built amphibious craft. It may have given the young Karl XII (r. 16971718), who was present, the impression that amphibious operations were fairly easy and something his army and navy could achieve without any reorganisation. Copenhagen came under threat from the Swedish army, and Denmark quickly left the anti-Swedish coalition.

" The literature about the Great N o r t h e r n W a r is vast. A recent synthesis, concentrated to the continental campaigns f r o m 1700 to 1709: Frost 2000, 226-329. Swedish foreign policy: Jerker Rosen, Den svenska utrikespolitikens historia, 11:1, 1697-1721, StocUiolm, 1952; Gustaf Jonasson, Karl XII och hans radgivare: Den utrikespolitiska maktkampen i Sverige, 1697-1702, Uppsala, 1960; Gustaf Jonasson, Karl XILs polskapolitik, 1702-1703, Stockholm, 1968; G o r a n Rystad, "Ryssland eller Polen? Karl XII:s planer efter Diinaovergangen, Nagra synpunkter", Scandia, 27, 1961, 298-336. Swedish military history: Karl XII pa slagfaltet: Karolinsk slagledning sedd mot bakgrunden av taktikens utvecklingfran dldsta tider, 4 vols, Stockholm, 1918-19, a study concentrated on tactics and operations led by Karl XII f r o m 1700 to 1709; G u n n a r Arteus, Krigsteori och historisk fdrklaring: I. Kring Karl XILs ryska falttag; II. Karolinsk och europeisk stridstaktik, 1700-1712, Gothenburg, 1970-72; Jan Lindegren, "Karl XII", Kungar och krigare, Stockholm, 1992, 149-225. Swedish strategy and warfare against Russia f r o m a naval perspective: Arnold M u n t h e , Karl XII och den ryska sjdmakten, 3 vols, Stockliolm, 1924-27. Historiography: Karl-Gustaf Hildebrand, "Till Karl Xll-uppfattningens historia, I-II", HT, 74, 1954, 353-92, 75, 1955, 1-46; Sverker Oredsson, "Livskraften hos Karl Xll-forskningens 'nya skola'", in Historia, krig och statskonst: Vdnbok till Klaus-Richard Bohme, Stockholm, Probus, 2000, 45-70. Central naval administration: Amiralitetskollegiets historia, II, 51-157, 2 8 3 - 9 8 (Lars Otto Berg and M a g n u s H a m m a r ) . Danish military a n d naval history: Bidrag till den Store Nordiske Krigs Historie, 10 vols, Copenhagen, 1899-1934. Russian political, military and administrative history: Paul Bushkovitch, Peter the Great: The struggle for power, 1671-1725, Cambridge, 2001; Evgenij I. Porfiriev, Peter I: Grundldggare av den ryska reguljdra armens och flottans krigskonst, Stocl<Jiolm, 1958 (Russian ed. 1952); Ljubomir G. Beskrovnyj, Russkaja armija iflot v XVIII veke (Ocerki), Moscow, 1958; Claes Peterson, Peter the Great's Administrative and Judicial Reforms: Swedish antecedents and the process of reception, Stockholm, 1979. Biographies: Ragnhild M. Hatton, Charles XII of Sweden, London, 1968; M. S. Anderson, Peter the Great, London, 1995 (1st ed. 1978).

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Karl XII then sailed with an army to the eastern Baltic, where local forces held up the enemies at Riga and Narva. After a crushing defeat of the Russians at Narva in late 1700, Karl turned south and became step by step involved in a new continental war of the old type, iirst in Poland and Saxony and then, from 1707, in Russia and Ukraine. The policy that evolved was to bring Poland under the control of aristocratic groups allied with Karl XII and secure this vast territory as a huge base for the Swedish army's operations. In Eastern Europe, it was still possible for the Swedish army to take control of large territories and live on them for years. This did not solve the problem of how to defend Sweden's Baltic provinces, however. That required concentration of military strength and logistical supply at places that were attacked by the Russians, and it required close cooperation between army and navy. Tsar Peter I had already in the 1690s built a considerable fleet for use on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.'"* He thus started the Baltic war, not only with dreams of reaching the open sea but also with an embryo of a naval organisation with shipbuilders, sea officers, and seamen as well as ideas of how to use rivers and the sea to gain operational advantages. The tsar at an early stage began to organise naval forces and naval bases in the Baltic, efforts which he often directed personally. He did not have the best army and certainly not the best navy in this war, but the armed forces he organised—the army, the galley fleet, and the battle fleet—were more flexible and integrated than other European armed forces. The fact that the navy was new and the army was drastically reorganised in these years probably made these organisations open and responsive to new combinations and unorthodox behaviour. This was an asset in an amphibious environment, where seamless cooperation between different armed forces is important. In a Baltic perspective, the struggle between Sweden and Russia was fought between two eccentric rulers who both deviated from the traditional policies of their states. The Swedish empire had been created by kings who were deeply interested in naval development and amphibious operations. Gustav I, Johan III, and Gustav II Adolf had, without any bureaucratic delays, created galley forces when they wished to control narrow and shallow waters. Gustav II Adolf had spent most

Edward J. Phillips, The Founding of Russia's Navy: Peter the Great and the Azov Fleet, 1688-1714, Westport, Conn., 1995.

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of his military career leading campaigns in which the army and navy closely cooperated, and the army made much use of the navy's ability to supply it from the sea and on rivers. Karl X Gustav had spent his last years in personal command of highly amphibious operations. Russia had for centuries been a purely continental power without even improvised naval forces. In contrast, Tsar Peter was very much navalminded and focused on gaining control of ports and developing a navy which could work in close coordination with the army. He showed this by his personal presence during campaigns in the Baltic, a presence which probably also made it easier to carry out combined operations, as the ruler was there to make operational decisions and limit the scope for inter-service conflicts. In this he behaved like a normal Baltic Sea ruler who frequently commanded combined operations.'® From 1701 to 1704, Russian forces took control of the lakes Ladoga and Peipus, the province of Ingria with the Neva River, Narva and the innermost shallow-water part of the Gulf of Finland. Having thus gained a foothold in the Baltic Sea, Peter quicldy founded St Petersburg and the naval base Kronstadt"' and built a fleet of light sailing vessels and galleys. He was very interested in developing a Baltic naval policy. Karl XII did not see this as a serious challenge to Swedish control of the Bahic Sea. Until 1707 he was engaged in a struggle to establish a Polish king dependent on him, so he did not return to the Swedish Baltic provinces to see for himself. He was not interested in coordination of army and navy for littoral warfare and from the autumn of 1700 to 1715, he never participated in naval or amphibious operations. Karl XII had an excellent army, up to 1709 possibly the best in Europe, and his navy was more competent as a conventional sailing batde fleet than it had ever been before. The problem was that the professionalism and the allocation of funds and resources were closely connected with two separate organisations: army and navy. They required firm control and guidance from above if new competencies should be developed and resources reallocated to create something new, such as warfare on rivers, in archipelagos and in shallow water, and combined operations. Regional commanders of field armies had no resources or

Most m a j o r Baltic amphibious operations in the 17th century were personally directed by rulers; Christian IV, Gustav II Adolf, Karl X Gustav, and Christian V: Glete 2006. Kronstadt was built on the island of Retusaari (Russian Kotlin) outside St Petersburg. It got its n a m e in 1723 but for simplicity "Kronstadt" is used here.

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authority to build flotillas of minor warships to cross water, and Hans Wachtmeister in Karlskrona was focused on battleship strength. He even obstructed suggestions from local commanders to create shallowwater forces, probably because he suspected that funds for the battle fleet would be reallocated. Tliis had the positive effect that the batde fleet was ready for a long defensive war in 1709, but it left the king without any pressure or inspiration from the navy about an alternative strategy for the defeat of Russia. Karlskrona sent battleships and frigates to blockade the Russians in the Gulf of Finland, but there was no solution to the problem of how to control the shallow and narrow waters or how to roll back the Russian conquest of littoral territories. Karl XII's plans for a decisive campaign against Russia were not revealed until 1707-08, when he brought his main army from Saxony across Poland and into central Russia. The operation aimed to force the tsar to fight a decisive battle for Moscow and the traditional centre of Russian power. As Tsar Peter was fighting his war with Sweden with the intention of gaining and keeping a foothold in the Baltic Sea, it might have been politically and strategically possible for Karl to force his opponent to fight a decisive battle for St Petersburg or give up access to the Baltic Sea. It has often been noted that such a strategy would have caused logistical problems, but it was such problems that blocked the march to Moscow. The choice was fateful and meant that Karl, for his main campaign against Russia, did not use the comparative advantage he had in the Baltic: command of the sea, local bases, and a safe retreat route for his army if something went wrong. Operations in the Baltic might have been logistically supported from various parts of the Swedish empire by sea. The army could have been considerably smaller (with less food consumption) and yet able to concentrate in strength at the decisive m o m e n t and the decisive spot, especially if a major flotilla of oared craft had been built for such operations. Because the Swedish army was of a high quality, limited units with less need for food than the Russians might have been successful. There are no signs that Karl ever contemplated such operations or that Swedish command of the sea entered his strategic thinking as an asset which could be used for an offensive. He deployed large army units to Finland and the eastern Baltic but did not instruct the government in Stockholm or the navy in Karlskrona to build the large number of oared vessels that would make this army seaborne. No preparation for large-scale logistical support of army forces f r o m the sea was made, and Karl XII never asked his generals and admirals for

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advice about alternative strategies and operational plans. When faced with great logistical problems due to Peter's scorched earth strategy, Karl XII turned south into Ukraine. For a time, his army even posed a serious threat to Peter's Black Sea fleet at Voronezh at the upper Don River, and Peter hastily evacuated his warships downriver.'^ It was a remarkable development of a campaign, which was fought for defence of Sweden's positions in the eastern Baltic and to destroy Russian naval power in the Baltic Sea. The Swedish main army was finally defeated at Poltava and capitulated at Perevolochna in July 1709, only about 300 Idlometres from the Black Sea but about 1,500 kilometres f r o m the Baltic Sea. The destruction of the main field army and the subsequent Russian conquest of Estonia in Livonia in 1710 forced Sweden to fight a war in the Baltic. The war turned maritime, and operations became dependent on the sea lines across the Baltic and along archipelago coasts in Finland, Pomerania, and western Sweden (Bohuslan). It is often not appreciated that this phase of the war lasted 12 years and that this reflects both the remaining strength in Sweden, including the battle fleet, and the advantages Sweden had in a defensive maritime war in the Baltic. The long war is even more remarkable when it is realised that Sweden between 1709 and 1715 gained numerous new enemies, which on paper had army forces of overwhelming strength. Denmark, Saxony-Poland, Prussia-Brandenburg, and Hanover joined Russia in a growing anti-Swedish coalition; and Great Britain, where the elector of Hanover became king in 1714, was an unofficial but powerful naval enemy from 1715 to 1719.'" The problem for the allies, however, was to concentrate their armies for a decisive attack on Sweden in a maritime region such as the Baltic, where control of the sea rather than quantitative army strength decided operations. A major complication for Swedish policy-making and administration was that Karl XII stayed in the Ottoman Empire from 1709 to 1714 and pursued an increasingly unrealistic policy of re-establishing Sweden as a great power on the European continent. Large army forces, which would have been useful for defence of the remaining Swedish territories and possibly for a seaborne counter-offensive against St

" Phillips 1995, 106-07. " Sweden a n d H a n o v e r in British p o l i c y - m a k i n g 1714-21: Jeremy Black, Continental Commitment: Britain, Hanover and interventionism, 1714-1793, L o n d o n , 2005, 48-58.

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Petersburg and the tsar's navy, were, from 1711 to 1715, spent on vain efforts to regain the initiative in Poland and northern Germany. The king and the home government had different ideas about strategy and foreign policy, with the consequence that the king became suspicious and gave Stocldiohn and Karlskrona httle scope for initiative. Tlie decisive struggle for the sea Hnes of communication was divided into a battle fleet contest about the open sea and several separate contests with light forces for strategically important sheltered waters. On the open sea, the Swedish battle fleet showed good ability to protect both the communications to the continent and the Swedish coast, in spite of an increasing quantitative inferiority compared to the allies. The Danish battle fleet limited Sweden's operational freedom, but it normally operated with caution and only in the Southern Baltic Sea, and it was loath to risk a defeat that might open the Danish isles to Swedish invasion. The two battles fought between the Danish and Swedish main fleets in 1710 and 1715 ended in tactical draws despite Danish quantitative superiority. This was a marked improvement in Swedish battle-fleet performance compared to the earlier war, and it may have contributed to the fact that the Danish king refused to hsten to Tsar Peter's demand that a Danish fleet be sent to the northern Baltic to support a Russian landing near Stockholm or that they mount a joint Danish-Russian strike against Karlskrona. The tsar created his own battle fleet in the 1710s, but he had realised that it was too immature to launch an offensive on its own. It was not until a British fleet began to cooperate with the alUed powers in 1716 that they gained command of the Baltic Sea. Even then, plans for a decisive invasion of Sweden came to nothing. Swedish investments in a large battle fleet, a large organisation of officers and seamen, and the Karlskrona base paid off in these years. Arguably, they made it impossible to enforce a decisive defeat on Sweden for several years after Poltava.'' Contests in narrow and shallow Russia had created a large oared decisive for the Russian conquest considerable shallow-water force,

waters went less well for Sweden. flotilla, which in 1713-14 proved of Finland. Denmark also built a which proved to be decisive in

" The interaction between diplomacy and military and naval operations in the Baltic, including the failures to achieve naval cooperation between Russia and D e n m a r k : Vv'alther Mediger, Mecklenburg, Russland and England-Hannover, 17061721: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Nordischen Krieges, Hildesheim, 1967, 186-89, 234-48, 297-98, 303-12, 328-29, 381-82.

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Pomerania in 1712 and 1715 and during the Swedish invasion of Norway in 1716. If Sweden in 1709-14 had imitated the tsar and the Danish king and had allocated the resources which were spent on warfare in Germany on an oared flotilla manned by the army, it might not only have defended Finland but also threatened the centre of Russian sea power: St Petersburg-Kronstadt. It was only in 1715-16 that Karl XII began to invest in major shallow-water forces to gain control of strategically important archipelagos. This investment paid off in a few years, and during Karl's second invasion of Norway in 1718, the oared force could protect the army's flank and its seaborne logistics. Early that year Karl also began to prepare a large amphibious force in the Baltic Sea, and these preparations continued during 1718. Provisions were also to be stored in Stockholm at a time when the army was being concentrated against Norway. Ships with a total capacity of 17,000 soldiers and 4,000 horses were prepared in Stockholm, while ships for 4,600 men and 700 horses were available in Karlskrona.'"" In addition, Swedish warships had the capacity to transport several thousand soldiers, especially the 25 galleys in Stocldiolm and Gothenburg. If combined, the Swedish naval and amphibious forces would have given Karl XII a formidable capacity to project power to any point accessible from the sea. It was a far larger transport capacity than Gustav II Adolf ever had during his amphibious campaigns in the Baltic from 1621 to 1630, when 14,000 soldiers had been the upper level. As usual, Karl's ultimate aims are not known for certain. He might have been considering an invasion of Sjalland if Denmark was not willing to make peace after a partial occupation of Norway. He might also have been preparing an instrument for a campaign in the east when Denmark had left the war. A combination of his main army, his batde fleet, his shallow-water flotillas in Gothenburg and Stockholm, and the large number of transport ships kept in readiness would have been sufficient for a campaign in Finland or Estonia or a strike against St Petersburg and the centre of Russian naval power. The outcome of such operations cannot be predicted, because Tsar Peter also had large forces available. It is evident, however, that Karl XII, in his last years, understood the strategic possibilities of combined operations and no

Lindegren 1992, 210-16; list of transport ships and vessels in Stockholm 25/1 1718 and their capacity, M 1720, RA; hst of transport vessels available in Karlskrona 21/2 1718 and their capacity, M 1741, RA.

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longer intended to be a victim of enemy superiority in the archipelagos. It was a bit late in the day to try this strategy, which would have been much easier when Sweden still controlled large territories in the east. Karl XII was killed on 30 November 1718, during the siege of Frederiksten on the border between Sweden and Norway. This immediately ended the Swedish offensive against Denmark-Norway as well as Swedish absolutism, and with that royal control of the army and navy. From 1719 Swedish policy was controlled by the Parliament, not by the ruling monarch, Karl XII's sister Ulrika Eleonora (r. 1719-20) and her husband Fredrik I of Hessen-Cassel (r. 1720-51). During the turmoil in 1719, there was litde coordination of policy, strategy, and administration, and this proved fatal during the summer months, when Denmark and Russia launched simultaneous offensives from the sea on Sweden's western and eastern coasts. The Swedish naval forces did not receive adequate supplies of money and provisions to be mobilised for effective defence until it was too late."" The extraordinarily high taxes, which Karl XII had enforced to keep up the Swedish war efforts, were reduced, and no attempt was made to keep the army up to the strength it had had in 1718, around 60,000 men. Tlie peace treaties concluded with Hanover, Prussia, and Denmark in 1719-20 were intended to give Sweden the potential to concentrate its war efforts against Russia and to make the British battle fleet in the Baltic an ally rather than an enemy. The war in 1719-21 was largely naval f r o m all sides, and Sweden became dependent on Great Britain's willingness to send a battle fleet to the Baltic in order to force Russia to make peace, which suited British interests. The Swedish army was now too small for offensive operations across the Baltic, and the Russians retained their superiority in amphibious warfare. Sweden was, at least for the time being, unable to control anything really important in the Baltic on her own. Her age as a great power was at an end, and with Russia's new ability to use naval power, one of the major advantages against Sweden's great continental neighbours in the Baltic region was lost.

"" H e r m a n Wrangel, Kriget i Ostersjon, 1719-1721, 2 vols, Stockholm, 1906-07 (new edition 2007) remains the best study of the war in these years.

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2.4.4

Conclusion: Organisation,

131

dynamics, and inertia

After 1660, Sweden fought two wars in order to defend the empire that had been created in the preceding century. Both wars were faih ures, but the causes of the failures were different. Tlie main reason for defeat in the war from 1675 to 1679 was that Sweden was unprepared for a major defensive war. Hiis was obviously not the case in 1700. In the 1670s, Sweden was initially defeated at sea and on land in North Germany but was saved by the political alliance with France, which was the origin of the war. In the Great Northern War, Sweden fought without allies but with remarkable military capacity against several enemies and showed great ability to mobilise resources for a long war. These assets were not used with sufficient political shrewdness, however, and potential allies against Russia were turned into enemies by Karl XII's unwillingness to make compromises. These general circumstances are well known. In a study of naval policy and administration it is more important to see if there was something in the Swedish military and naval organisation that contributed to the failures. By 1660, Sweden had built an empire that strategically was maritime and amphibious at least as much as it was continental. Swedish territories and spheres of influence (HolsteinGottorp, Mecklenburg) were spread out from the North Sea to the northern Baltic Sea. It required both a strong army and a^strong navy to defend them, and it was necessary to control the sea that connected them with Sweden. A look at the most likely areas of operations shows that shallow water, archipelagos, and river estuaries were key areas because they formed important routes for logistical support and provided access to important ports and fortresses. The ability to operate in such areas was important when the empire was created, and it remained important for its defence. Swedish naval policy became gradually less amphibious in character during the 17th century. The rise of the West European battle fleets, the Dutch interventions in the Baltic in 1656-60 and 1675-77, and peace with Russia and Poland after 1660 moved the focus of Swedish naval policy from amphibious warfare to battle-fleet strength. The main task of the navy became to defend the sea lines against the Danish battle fleet and any Western battle fleet that might intervene in the Baltic. This required large ships and competence to handle a battle fleet. The main amphibious tasks of the navy became to transport army forces to Baltic ports already under Swedish control and to achieve a landing

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on Sjalland, an island with open coasts and deep-water ports. Such operations could succeed without any oared craft and without any reallocation of soldiers to man such craft. Sweden's naval doctrine became centred on the sailing battle fleet and its ability to fight the best battie fleets in Europe, a task that naturally was a challenge to the organisation. Hie main lesson of the war of 1675-79 was that the navy's ability to control the southern Baltic with a battle fleet must be secured at any cost, and that determined much of the reforms of the following decades. The navy markedly increased its professional competence f r o m the low mark it had reached in 1675-77. In the Great Northern War, sea officers knew how to handle individual ships and how to manoeuvre in a formal battle line; the crews could handle the sails and were good gunners. Swedish warships sailed in the Baltic Sea under adverse climatic conditions in almost every m o n t h of the year and blockaded Russian controlled coast as far as it was possible for sailing warships. The battle fleet's performance against the Danish fleet in major battles was the best since the 1560s, and the Danish fleet strategy became markedly cautious. A successful Swedish battle fleet doctrine for control of the open sea had been established. The Swedish army had already from the early 17th century developed a battle doctrine, which emphasised coherent companies and regiments of infantry and cavalry and close cooperation between them and the field artillery. The key to success was to drill the soldiers into units, which worked as machines on the battlefield. This doctrine was very successful. Service on warships, especially smafl oared craft, was not part of it, however. It gave little scope for drill and maintenance of formation in combat. This development of separate naval and army doctrines of warfare is easy to understand. The armed forces met difl'erent challenges and opportunities, and both central decision-makers and officers charged with implementing doctrines in the organisations had to make choices. The transformation was also a part of a contemporary European development of more professionalised and specialised army and navy officer corps and bureaucratic organisations for war on land and at sea. This development also created inertia, however. The organisations jealously guarded the resources they had and saw changes and reallocations of funds as threats. When the Great Northern War posed new challenges, the organisations were slow to react on their own. The only decision-maker who had power to change priorities, reallocate resources, and demand a war-winning and task-orientated amphibi-

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ous doctrine was the king. Karl XII was not interested in the problem. He did not delegate the right to make changes, and it had to wait until 1715, when he finally got personal experience of warfare in shallow waters. The Russian army and navy were less experienced than their Swedish counterparts, but they were rationally combined when required, and the tsar frequently personally commanded amphibious operations. After the catastrophe at Narva in 1700, he soon found that the weak spot in Sweden's defence was in shallow waters, and he began to exploit it. Later, even the Danes had an important^ advantage in shallow-water operations. Late in the war, Sweden finally created a substantial oared flotilla. During the 18th century it grew in size and maturity, and by the end of the century it was the most successful part of the Swedish armed forces. In the Swedish-Russian war of 1788-90, Swedish superiority in archipelagic warfare saved the country from defeat. The fact that it took decades to reallocate resources, however, is an indicator that strong organisation creates not only efficient use of resources. Strong organisation may also create inertia, which make it difficult to use resources in radically different ways. The resources channelled through an organisation are closely tied to competence, prestige, and vested interests within the organisation. Once a competitor found the weak spots in the defence of the empire, the organisations proved unable to change with sufficient speed to meet the challenge.'"^

Swedish naval policy, administration, strategy and operations after 1721 is discussed in Jan Glete, "Den svenska linjeflottan, 1721-1860: En oversikt av dess struktur och storlek samt nagra synpunkter pa behovet av ytterligare forskning", Forum navale, 45, 1990, 9-68; Jan Glete, "En styrka mest pa papperet? Historiografiska synpunkter pa 1700-talets svenska linjeflotta", in Studier i modern historia tilldgnade Jarl Torbacke den 18 augusti 1990, Stocldiolm, 1990, 97-112; Jan Glete, "1700-talets svenska linjeflotta—en offentlig institution m e d omstallningsproblem", Historieldrarnas Forenings Arsskriji, 1990-1991, 41-51; Jan Glete, "Kriget till sjoss", in G u n n a r Arteus (ed.), Gustav IILs ryska krig, Stockliolm, 1992, 110-74; Jan Glete, "Beredskap och vidmakthallande, Varvet och linjeflottan, 1772-1866", in Karkkronavarvets historia, I, 145-252; Jan Glete, "Sheldon, af C h a p m a n och de svenska linjeskeppen, 1750-1800", in E m m a Having (ed.), Marinmuseum. Modellkammaren 250 dr—ett marinmuseums fodehe, Karlskrona, 2002, 18-31.

1

CHAPTER THREE

NAVAL OPERATIONS AND CONTROL OF THE B A L t i C SEA

3.1

Control of the sea as an administrative

problem

Tlie strategic concepts of command of the sea and control of the sea have been defined in various ways. C o m m o n definitions associate command of the sea with power exercised by concentrated battle fleets deployed to strategically important waters where they limit or eliminate the enemy's freedom of operation at sea and even on land. Control of the sea is associated with dispersed naval forces protecting important sea lines of communication for shipping and military logistics. In oceanic warfare, the differences are ol^en important, because a battle fleet may fight or blockade the enemy main force in one part of the ocean and control important sea lines of communication in another. In the Baltic Sea, a rather narrow inland sea with intense maritime commerce and long vulnerable coasts, the difference is less relevant. In major naval wars, the battle fleet and a limited number of cruising vessels could effectively defend one part of the sea if the fleet was placed in a strategically advantageous position, between the enemy base and the part of the sea that should be protected. Fleet commanders on both sides were normally unwifling, or forbidden, to expose their home waters by allowing the enemy fleet to stay between them and their base. This usually created strategic situations in which most available warships were concentrated in the battle fleets and rather few ships were escorting merchantmen and transports. These could sail behind the protective shield created by the battle fleet. In this chapter, the expression "control of the sea lines of communication" will be used to focus the reader's attention on the importance of the sea for movements of military logistics and commercial trade. The reader must be aware, however, that the chapter concentrates on battle fleet operations, not convoys. C o n t r o l o r c o m m a n d of t h e sea u s u a l l y h a s b e e n s t u d i e d as a strategic p r o b l e m , w i t h q u e s t i o n s of h o w a n d w h e r e n a v a l f o r c e s s h o u l d

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be deployed with the best effect and why battles are fought. Battles often are seen as very important for achieving strategic goals, and the term "decisive battle" has an almost mythical importance in traditional battle-oriented analysis of warfare on land and at sea. To achieve control of the sea, however, is also an administrative problem, a question of sending ships to sea in sufficient number and of maintaining them as an operational force as long as necessary. Studies of how it was possible to achieve control of the Baltic Sea must be concentrated on how resources were used in administrative processes rather than on decision-making about strategy. There were few narrow passages, strategic positions, and lines of operation to choose between for achieving control, and strategic decision-making was primarily determined by available resources. Naval operations required the ability to concentrate and coordinate officers, men, provisions, naval stores, guns, and ships into operational units (fleets), which could be sent to fight at a considerable distance from the base. The administrative task of making one large warship into an effiicient and well-provisioned fighting unit was challenging. Tlie task of repeating this in many ships at the same time was often overwhelming. Frequently it failed. Sometimes fleets were delayed so long that they could no longer achieve the operational goal; sometimes they sailed too unprepared to succeed. Permanent organisation creates routines, patterns of behaviour, and professional competence that help to overcome such obstacles. It can also keep resources ready for use whenever required. This explains why rulers and elite groups became increasingly eager to organise navies as permanent organisations. The most demanding task for a Baltic naval organisation was to send out all available warships in a concentrated and combat-ready battle fleet, deploy it at a strategically important position, and maintain it there f r o m spring to autumn. This posed major problems of timing, as men, ships, provisions, guns, munitions, and various kinds of equipment had to be ready to send to sea at the same time. It also required the administration to organise a steady supply of provisions and water and to continuously find men to replace losses caused by illness. A reserve of masts and spars, sails, cables, and anchors had to be kept to replace damaged and lost equipment. In order to maintain control of the sea, the fleet had to be ready to fight a major battle at any time, and the administration had to be able to repair damages. If the fleet was to support a major amphibious operation, there were

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additional administrative problems, as the army also required provisions and transport ships. Available resources and organisational capabilities normally decided the strategy. If these were sufficient, the fleet could be used for an offensive strategy. If not, it was best to keep the fleet in home waters and conserve the resources as much as possible. But this meant that control of most of the sea was left to the enemy. In practice, battle fleets in the Baltic often achieved only partial control of the sea, by taking a position somewhere between their own base and the enemy's base. If full control were to be achieved, the enemy fleet would need to be defeated or effectively blockaded, and this would require a fleet strong enough to fight the enemy under unfavourable conditions, close to the enemy base, and after a long period at sea. This required a marked superiority in resources or in quality, and such superiority required large administrative efforts. This chapter is an analysis of the result of Swedish naval administration in terms of sea control achieved by operations with the fleet. It may also fill a need for a modern survey of the more important naval operations in the Baltic.' The political context and its connection with grand strategy and army operations are discussed in chapter 2. The central theme in this chapter is to find to which extent in terms of time and geography the participating navies were able to control the sea during major wars and how that influenced the wars. It is limited to periods of battle-fleet warfare, when the Swedish fleet faced one or more major enemy fleets at sea. The long periods of power-projection warfare, when the fleet supported army operations ashore, are briefly outlined in chapter 2. The decades f r o m the late 1590s to 1630 also saw major naval operations, frequently with afl available warships. Several warships were also mobilised in the 1550s, the 1570s, and from 1631 to 1648 to support Swedish army operations and control trade on enemy ports. These operations must be kept in mind if Swedish naval policy is to be understood, but to include them in this chapter is beyond its scope.

' Until replaced by a new authoritative standard work, R. C. Anderson, Naval Wars in the Baltic, 1522-1850, London, 1910 (repr. 1969) remains useful. It is dated and it does not cover policy, strategy, or administration, but it is reliable on operations and the only book written f r o m first-hand knowledge of literature in the Scandinavian, German, Russian, and English languages.

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A comprehensive study of the administrative efforts to control the sea should include information about the number and size of warships and guns at sea as well as the number of seamen and how they were provisioned and cared for when they fell ill. This chapter only gives brief information about the forces that were at sea, simply in order to show the magnitude of the administrative tasks and how it changed during two centuries. Hie strength of the operational Baltic fleets is measured with the approximate total displacement (the weight of the ship and its load) of their ships in metric tonnes. Contemporary administrators did not use this measurement.^ If only one measurement must be used for simplicity, the displacement is the most useful, because fighting power, cost, capacity to carry guns and provisions, and manning requirements were closely related to the displacement. This relationship, however, were not constant. During the 16th and 17th centuries there were changes in the number of men and a successive increase of the weight of the guns in proportion to the displacement. These questions are discussed in chapters 8 and 7, respectively. Warships and guns differed enormously in size and weight. The number of ships and guns, consequently, are often misleading in calculations of the strength of a fleet, especially in comparisons across two centuries. Warships could be anything from small craft of a few tens of tonnes to large ships of 3,000 tonnes. Guns could be anything from light swivel guns to heavy pieces of ordnance weighing three to four tonnes. In the 16th century, a large number of "guns" mounted on ships were actually heavy anti-personnel weapons, largely replaced by infantry muskets by the end of the century. The crew of one combatant unit could vary from a handful of m e n to 1,000 men or more. The smallest units were cheap and of little importance in major fleet operations, and information about them is often incomplete. A minim u m size of ships included in the calculations of fleet strength is therefore necessary. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the number of warships in the size range of 100 to 300 tonnes were considerable, and it is relevant

^ The displacement figures in this chapter are estimated by the author a n d are mainly the same as those in Glete 1993. The composition and size of the Danish navy up to 1660 is n o w better known, however, thanks to research undertaken in the 1990s by Niels Probst, w h o has permitted m e to use his unpublished information about Danish warships f r o m 1523 to 1660.

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to include combatants of about 100 tonnes and larger in wars up to 1613. However, in analysis of naval battles during the war of 1563-70, only ships of around 300 tonnes and larger are included. Smaller units were of little importance in main battles, and the sources often are silent about whether they actually participated in battles or were somewhere else in the Baltic Sea. From the 1620s, the number of combatants smaller than 300 tonnes was unimportant, and 300 tonnes has been used as the minimum size for warships included in estimates of fleet strength. In 17th-century battles, in which the composition of the fleets normally is known, ships smaller than 300 tonnes seldom participated in battle-fleet contests, except as auxiliaries. They are only mentioned when the total size of an operational fleet is important. For the Great Northern War of 1720-21, the estimates of fleet size are concentrated on the battleship force. Battleships or ships-of-the-line were by then a well defined category of ships in aU navies. Frigates and minor vessels are mentioned when they were important in naval operations. The geography of Stockholm as a naval base was of importance for Swedish naval operations until the 1670s. The passage through the archipelago from the Baltic Sea to the city of Stockholm is long, narrow, and winding (but deep), and it often took a ship several days to sail from the city to the open sea or back. From the 1560s, operational fleets actually used Dalaro in the southern part of the Stockholm archipelago as a port from spring to autumn. Only ships requiring major repairs were sent back to the shipyard in the city. Seamen and provisions sent by sea from various parts of the country were more conveniently assembled in the archipelago than in the city, and this made Dalaro the place where ships usually received their complete crews and supply of provisions. A sheltered port for provisioning and minor repairs developed here, and it was lightly fortified f r o m 1623. Slightly to the south of Dalaro, the waters around the small island of Alvsnabben, close to the 20th-century naval base at Musko, were often used as an anchorage for fleets preparing to go to sea. The date when a fleet left or arrived at Stockholm is in this chapter normally the same as its departure from or arrival at Dalaro or Alvsnabben.

3.2

The War against Christian II,

1521-1524

The first naval war of the Vasa dynasty was in one respect the most important. It is highly uncertain if the young aristocrat Gustav Eriksson

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(Vasa) would have founded a royal dynasty if he had not been able to organise a navy. The peasant militia, which he led, gained control of most of Sweden during 1521, but King Christian II's fleet controlled the Baltic Sea. With control of the sea, the king could retain control of Stocldiolm, Kalmar, and Finland and could blockade Sweden. During 1521, the Swedish rebels could only muster small vessels for local guerrilla warfare. A larger ship, fitted out as a Swedish privateer by merchants in Danzig, was captured by the Danes. Three ships owned by the former Swedish regent Sten Sture (killed in combat in 1520) were inactive in Liibeck and Danzig due to lack of funds.^ Tlie financial means and the administrative competence to organise a Swedish navy were provided by a private group of Liibeck merchants, primarily those interested in trade with Sweden and Russia. They were worried by King Christian's plans for reorganising trade between the Baltic and Western Europe. These men were resourceful ship-owners, they knew how to arm, equip and provision major ships, they could raise money, and they had a well-established network to ship-masters and experienced seamen who were willing to undertake a dangerous expedition if they were paid for it. In spring 1522, they sold a fully equipped and manned fleet of eight ships to Gustav and sent it to Sweden, together with two of Sten Sture's ships in Lubeck. The fleet also carried weapons and mercenary soldiers for operations in Sweden. Almost simultaneously, the city of Liibeck fitted out a fleet of its own for war against Christian IL Gustav Eriksson had only nominal control of his Liibeck-administrated fleet, and during the summer 1522 it served together with ships from Lubeck, Stralsund and Danzig in attacks against the Danish isles and for gaining control of the Sound. In early October, the new Swedish fleet had grown to 13 major ships, including two bought from Stralsund and a new flagship, Lybske Svan, bought in Liibeck in September. The fleet was now sent forth in a decisive campaign for control of Sweden. It had been refitted and provisioned in Liibeck and now sailed northward, together with eight additional ships hired from Liibeck. Defying an autumn gale, it arrived in the northern Baltic Sea and took control of the entrance to Stockholm. The size of the fleet is uncertain, but the Swedish-owned part of it had

^ Naval and military operations 1521-24: Barkman 1937, 1-156; Barfod 1990, 154-69. Warships and naval policy: Glete 1976, 45-49; Glete 1977, 33-41, 83-84.

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a total displacement between 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes. The Danish fleet was first unaware of the new situation, allowing the Swedish fleet to capture a Danish supply convoy on its way to Stockholm, although the Danish warships escaped. In late November, a Danish fleet of nine warships and four or five provision ships under command of Admiral Soren Norby tried to break the blockade. It reached the vicinity of Vaxholm in the archipelago, but came no further. There was no battle, but the Swedish fleet blocked the way to Stockholm and landed guns on islands from which the Danish fleet could be reached by gunfire. On 10 December, Norby was forced to leave the archipelago. Considering the time of the year—ice was beginning to cover the archipelago—this failure was a heroic last effort of the Christian II's fleet. The king's garrison in Stockholm was cut off from supplies but held out until midsummer 1523, when the newly elected king, Gustav I, could enter his capital. Liibeck had in 1522 proved that it still had the administrative and financial resources to organise sea power for control of the Baltic. The new Swedish regime had contributed practically nothing directly to the efforts at sea and was left with a debt of around 120,000 Liibeck mark for the naval and mihtary help it had received. In exchange, it had obtained several ships which stayed in Sweden during the winter 1522/23 and began to be administered with resources raised by taxation in Sweden."* Liibeck's fleet was now in control of the southern Baltic Sea, while the Swedish fleet controlled the northern part of this sea. Holstein and Jutland rose in rebellion against Christian II, who fled on a part of his fleet to the Netherlands in spring 1523. His energetic admiral Soren Norby continued to harass trade from Visby on Gotland. He was unable to support Christian's forces in Stocldiolm, Kalmar, and Finland, however, and these parts of Sweden were taken by Gustav's forces during the summer 1523. In the autumn, at least one Swedish ship participated in the blockade and siege of Copenhagen, which ended with the city's capitulation. Next year the Swedish navy lifted the army to Gotland in an attempt to take the island from Norby and incorporate it with Sweden. This failed, but Norby was forced to pay allegiance to the new Danish king, Frederik I. During 1525-26, the

•* Accounts f r o m the naval expedition of 1522: Hanserecesse, 3: 1477-1530, 1910, esp. 570-83; Strodda kamerala handlingar, 62, RA.

8, Leipzig,

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new Swedish navy continued to operate at sea in order to protect the new order in the Nordic countries. Among the Swedish naval forces at sea in these years were small vessels {jakter) fitted out by the noblemen who administrated the royal castles in the provinces, especially Finland. This was the traditional Swedish naval power in the late medieval period. The king, however, quickly took administrative control of the new navy with major ships {holkar, kraveller), with the help of burghers in Stoclcholm who had maritime experience. These administrative efforts were effective, and the naval accounts of the Stockliolm naval shipyard, which have been preserved for the years 1526 to 1531, reveal a working naval administration. The active fleet was smaller than in 1522-24, however, and the ability of the new administration to send a major fleet to sea without technical and administrative help from Liibeck, or from the merchants and seafarers of German origin who dominated Stocldiolm's economy, remained unproven.

3.3

The War against Lubeck,

1534-1536

From 1534 to 1536, both Sweden and Lubeck intervened with mihtary and naval forces in a politically and socially complex conflict in Denmark-Norway, known as The Counts' War {Grevefejden)} Gustav I and Lubeck were already in conflict with each other from summer 1533, but they were not in open war. Then, in spring 1534, Gustav mobilised about ten warships with a total displacement of around 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes, with three major units of 300 to 600 tones. In June this fleet was sent to the Gulf of Finland and attacked Lubeckian merchantmen in Reval with gunfire. After that, the fleet was ordered to Kalmar, to join naval forces organised by Gustav's ally and brotherin-law, Duke Christian of Holstein. The rapid and dramatic progress

^ Naval operations: Barkman 1937, 191-216; Barfod 1995, 16-53. Swedish warships: Gkte 1976, 49-55; Glete 1977, 41-50, 84-87. Gustav I's out letters f r o m 1534-36 are to a large extent about the political, military, naval, and administrative sides of this war and they provide insights in the king's ambitions a n d worries when he took decisions, OR 9 - 1 1 . The most important naval accounts that remain f r o m the war are the payrolls for the crews f r o m 1535-36, which give detailed information about the composition of the crew (excluding soldiers) of every Swedish warship, S M H F 1.1-3, RA. Rantekammarbocker, vols 7 - 9 , 1534-36, RA, provide some additional information.

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of Liibeck's intervention in Denmark, however, made it impossible to start offensive operations in Danish waters in 1534. Duke Christian was elected king as Christian III in July, but he was only supported by the nobility on Jutland and on Fyn, while most of Denmark was beyond his control. Liibeck sent an invasion force, which in July gained control of Copenhagen, the Danish royal warships, and the royal arsenal. Especially important was the capture of Michel and Samson, the two great ships in the Danish navy. This drastically increased Liibeck's naval power, and Gustav ordered his fleet to stay at Kalmar until autumn 1534. As mentioned in chapter 2, its very existence in the southern Baltic Sea helped to stabilise the uncertain political and mihtary situation in Sweden itself The castle of Viborg returned to Gustav's control, and the Hanse cities choose to remain neutral and ignore the trade blockade that Liibeck had declared on Sweden. The next year, a considerably larger fleet of ten ships of 4,000 to 4,500 tonnes displacement was ready to sail f r o m Stockholm as early as April. The main additions were two great ships, Gustav's Store Kravelen and the Kamperman, a Dutch carvel-built merchantman, which had been sequestered in 1534 and fitted out as warship. The fleet joined a fleet of small vessels sent by Christian III f r o m the territories he controlled: Holstein, Jutland, and Gotland. A somewhat larger force was sent by the duke of Prussia. King Gustav was anxious that the three fleets should join forces before they sailed for the southern Baltic, where Liibeck's fleet was in control. However, it was his own fleet which formed the bulk of the allied fleet with most of its major warships. Sweden also supplied the fleet with most of its infantry (around 1,800 men), which was still regarded as the major fighting component of a fleet. The allied fleets rapidly defeated the naval forces of Liibeck and their Danish allies. The battle of Bornholm on 9 June 1535 forced their main fleet to seek protection in Copenhagen. One week later the allied attacked the Lubeckian fleet guarding the Danish straits in Svendborgsund. It was captured and divided between the three aUied fleets. At least the Bornholm battle was fought and decided by gunfire, partly because the winds were too fresh for boarding. It was mainly the two largest Swedish ships. Store Kravelen and Kamperman, which took part in that battle, because their sailing abilities left most of the fleet behind during the chase of the Lubeckian fleet. The allied fleet had now secured control of the southern Baltic Sea, and Christian Ill's

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army could invade the Danish isles and start a siege of Copenhagen from land and a blockade from the sea. The fleet controlled by Christian III had been increased with captured ships and ships which became available when he conquered Danish territories, but it was still smaller than Liibeck's naval forces. The Swedish fleet spent the autumn outside Copenhagen, because Tiibeck still had a fleet in the city and organised a new fleet for the relief of their forces in the Danish capital. By this time, the Swedish fleet had been increased with new and captured ships to around 7,000 tonnes, including eight major warships of around 300 to 1,800 tonnes. When it became clear that the enemy would try to hold Copenhagen during the winter, Christian III and the Danish Council asked Gustav to let the Swedish fleet stay in the Sound during the winter. In September, Christian III even left Denmark and made a brief visit to Gustav in Stockholm to negotiate about help during the winter, the only time in the early modern period when a Danish king visited Stocldrolm. Gustav I expressed serious objections, as he feared that the fleet might be lost due to sneak attacks from Liibeck's supporters in Denmark or to treason from the allies. He described the loss of the fleet as the loss of "half Sweden", but at the same time he admitted that Liibeck's fleet might break the blockade of Copenhagen if his fleet left the southern Baltic. Reluctantly, Gustav allowed it to spend the winter of 1535-36 in Landskrona, where a provisional Swedish naval base was established. Liibeck admitted defeat and left the war during the winter, leaving Copenhagen and the captured Danish warships to Christian III. The Swedish fleet returned to Stockholm on 10 June 1536 after an absence of about 14 months.*^ The expedition against a major naval enemy, Liibeck, which also had gained control over the bulk of the Danish navy, had been surprisingly successful. The Swedish king had been able to drastically enlarge his active fleet from 2,000/2,500 tonnes in 1534 to 7,000 tonnes in 1535 when the war eff"ort required that. He could find men, guns, equipment, and provisions to keep this force in service far f r o m its base, and he was no longer dependent on Liibeck for naval administration. That outcome was far f r o m certain and was probably a surprise for m a n y contemporary observers. Liibeck clearly underestimated the strength

The fleet's winter station in the Sound: Gustav I's letters in GR 10, 247 (2/9 1535), 262 (13/9 1535), 263-64 (13/9 1535) and 285-86 (31/10 1535); the quotation is in the last letter.

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Gustav was able to gather, and they had based their bold strategy—an attempt to install clients as rulers in all three Nordic kingdoms—on a b e l i e f that they had naval superiority in Northern Europe. This proved false, but the mistake is understandable, given that Sweden never before had sent a major fleet to sea without Liibeck's administrative support. Gustav I in 1535-36 had proved that his new regime had enough naval power to control the northern Baltic and launch offensives in the southern Baltic Sea against major enemies. This created a new balance of power in the Baltic and placed his regime on a more secure footing. It was unlikely that it should fall to a seaborne intervention f r o m the Baltic trading cities in cooperation with domestic opposition groups. Unlike the pre-1520 Swedish regimes, it was not seriously vulnerable to Danish sea power. The sailing fleet was never again fully mobilised during Gustav's reign, but he maintained it as a permanent deterrent. The war had made that deterrent credible. 3.4

The Nordic Seven Years War,

1563-1570

From 1563, Sweden fought a war against Denmark-Norway, Liibeck, and Poland-Lithuania. It was the first of several wars between the two new Nordic monarchic states. It was also the first of Sweden's conflicts about power in the eastern Baltic and the only conflict before the 18th century in which other naval powers tried to intervene in the northern Baltic and the Gulf of Finland. Poland ceased to be an enemy from 1569, but from 1570 Russia became a more determined enemy. Sweden had to fight three enemies during eight campaign seasons and could not concentrate all its forces on any one enemy. The outcome showed that Sweden was the strongest power in Northern Europe, although this superiority was not sufficient to defeat a coalition.^

' Tlie Swedish literature about naval operations the Nordic Seven Years is incomplete and dated. Fredrik W^estling, Det nordiska sjudrsbigets historia, Stocldiolm, 1879-80, provides a chronological f r a m e w o r k to Swedish diplomacy a n d military a n d naval operations with references to the sources; Zettersten 1890, 412-30, and Svenska flottans historia, I, esp. 155-57, 168-92, 5 0 8 - 1 5 (text by Carl E k m a n and G u n n a r Unger), provide general surveys but lack detailed references to m a n y of the sources. Carl Ekman, "Nagra data o m Erik XIV;s sjokrigskonst", TiS, 109, 1946, 50-83, is an analysis of the first years of the war. Of the Danish studies, H a n s D. Lind, Fra kong Frederik den andens tid: Bidrag til den dansk-norske somagts historie, 1559-1588, Copenhagen, 1902, 1-162 has detailed quotations f r o m narrative and administrative Danish sources;

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Sweden's enemies had different and sometimes conflicting goals for their operations, and that weakened their alliance. The war at sea was fought with Denmark and Liibeck, although Poland participated with privateers from Danzig. Liibeck was the junior partner in the naval alliance, and a Danish admiral commanded the allied main fleet, which normally operated as a single unit. Liibeck was the only one of the three contending powers that had a large merchant fleet and an important stake in trade throughout the Baltic Sea to protect. Its main aim in the war was to eliminate Sweden's interference with Liibeck's profitable trade with Russia through ports in the Gulf of Finland. Liibeck also hoped to regain at least some of its old trading privileges in Sweden. Lubeck was to be the great loser in this war; none of its goals were achieved, and it suffered severe losses in shipping. The Danish king Fredrik II went to war partly because he had ambitions of his own and partly because Swedish policy under the new king, Erik XIV, looked threatening. Denmark had no army in peacetime and was vulnerable to a sudden attack from the partly mobilised Swedish army and navy. W h e n Frederik began to organise a mercenary army, he was almost forced to use it quickly, as it was very expensive to maintain. The naval part of this war is interesting from technical, tactical, strategic, and logistical points of view. A detailed study of it would reveal the limitations and capabilities of early gun-armed sailing fleets in a period which offers few other battles and major operations with such fleets to study. However, the well-preserved Swedish naval accounts about armament, provisions, and ships are largely unused for studies of the administrative efforts behind the naval operations.® On the

E. Briand de Crevecoeur, Herluf Trolle: Kongens Admiral och Herlujsholms Skoles stifter, Copenhagen, 1959, 69-138 is detailed about letters f r o m the Danish commander-in-chief d u r i n g 1564^65; while Barfod 1995, 163-227, is a survey based on this literature and additional sources. Herbert Kloth, "Liibecks Seekriegswesen in der Zeit des nordischen Siebenjahrige Krieges, 1563-1570: Bin Beitrag zur deutschen Seekriegsgeschichte im 16. Jahrhundert", Zeitschrift des Vereins fur Lubeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 21, 1923, 1-51, 185-256; 22, 1925, 121-52, 325-79, is a t h o r o u g h study of administrative sources in Lubeck. ® These sources are here mainly used for information about the size and a r m a m e n t of the operational fleets. Administrative archival series f r o m the naval war 1563-70, Militara amnessamlingar (M), M 1272, M 1761, M 1848; SH, vols 9 - 2 5 (shipyard accounts, inventories of ships, register of guns and m u n i t i o n s on ships, payrolls, provision accounts); SMHF, vols 1 - 3 ( s u p p l e m e n t a r y to Skeppsgardshandlingar); P r o v i a n t r a k e n s k a p e r 1563-70 for Stockholm, Kalmar and other ports; Kaperirakenskaper, vols 1 - 6 (accounts of goods captured by royal warships); Sandbergska samlingen (SS), littera Z, all in RA; o r d n a n c e accounts, primarily AR 1563/9, 1563/20, 1564/14, 1564/15, 1566/2, 1566/13,

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Danish and Lubeckian side, there are few accounts but several narrative sources, primarily letters f r o m admirals. Danish historians have used these, while Swedish historians have relied much more on the letters from the king to his admirals and his administrators.® There are also Swedish narrative sources based on now lost letters and reports from participants in the operations. These can be used, but only after an analysis of their origin.'" The definite history of the war at sea must be based on combinations and comparisons of sources from all three contending powers, and on sources which show how the war affected Baltic trade, an undertaking not yet achieved. Tliis section is focused on to which extent the contending fleets were able to control various parts of the Baltic Sea. Denmark and Liibeck desired first of all to keep control of the southern Baltic Sea, their own home water. The offensive aim of the Danish-Lubeckian naval operations was to gain control of the northern Baltic Sea, blockade the Swedish ports, and open the Gulf of Finland for trade unhindered by Swedish warships. If Danish army operations were successful, the fleet might support a decisive war effort in the Lake Miilaren valley with transports of soldiers, heavy guns, and provisions. If the allied fleet was successful in taking control of the Gulf of Finland, it might cut Swedish communications in the region, isolate Estonia, Finland and Sweden from each other, and support a Polish conquest of Estonia. Tlie first aim of Swedish naval operations was twofold: to keep the trade routes between Sweden and Germany open and to maintain naval control over the Gulf of Finland in order to cut off vital enemy trade and protect internal communication. The second and more ambitious aim was also multi-fold: to gain control over the southern Baltic Sea, raise custom duties at the Sound, attack Liibeck's trade in its home water, and threaten the Danish isles with invasion or destruction. If the Swedish army was able to march through Skane and the navy able to enter the Sound, a final operation against Copenhagen

1567/1,1567/3,1568/2, 1568/12,1569/lc, 1570/16, KrA. The provisioning of the Swedish fleet in 1563-70, Soderlind, 150-59. ' The copies of the king's outgoing letters in Riksregistraturet, RA, is a central source for Swedish 16th-century history. I have benefitted f r o m the copies of letters about naval questions in Riksregistraturet m a d e by M.A. Dan Johansson, Historiska institutionen, Stockholm University. Hasse Petrini, Kdlhtudier till Erik XIV: s och Nordiska sjuarskrigets historia, Lund, 1942, provides a critical discussion of the origin of Swedish narrative sources about this war, see esp. 54-71. It has not yet been used for studies of the naval operations.

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would be possible, with the navy bringing in soldiers, heavy guns, and provisions. Tlie war started with an incident at sea that led to a naval battle at Bornholm between Sweden and Denmark on 30 May 1563. Both Frederik II of Denmark and Erik XIV of Sweden were willing to provoke a war, but Frederik had underestimated the strength of the fleet Erik had sent out. The Danes had ten ships of around 3,000 tonnes, half of them major warships of around 300 to 800 tonnes. Hie size of the Swedish fleet is uncertain, but it had at least 16 warships of around 5,000 tonnes, five of them of 300 to 1,200 tonnes, and it had a much heavier armament." Both fleets were large enough to be commanded by senior admirals, the Danish by Jakob Brockenhus and the Swedish by Jakob Bagge. The Danish admiral demanded that the Swedes offer marks of respect to the Danish king in the waters under his dominium. This was denied, and in the battle that followed the Swedes captured the Danish flagship Hercules and two other major warships and damaged the other two major Danish warships. Danish attempts to engage in close combat were answered with Swedish gunfire, which dismasted the flagship. This difference in tactics was repeated in the four following battles and reflects the Swedish fleet's considerable superiority in gunfire. This victory gave Sweden control of the Baltic Sea for a time. But during the summer of 1563, Denmark and Liibeck mobilised a large joint fleet, which in early August, under command by the veteran Danish admiral Peder Skram, sailed into the southern Baltic Sea. One m o n t h later it reached Gotland, which was to be the base for its operations in the northern Baltic Sea. The Danish part of the fleet consisted

" A list of 12 warships (total size a r o u n d 5,500 tonnes) is provided in an early 17thcentury work, Erik Joransson Tegel, Konung Erics den XIV: des historia (ed. Anders A n t o n von Stiernman), Stocldiolm, 1751, 85. Tegel had access to sources in the royal archives that now are lost. The list is accepted by Zettersten 1890, 414, but it cannot be correct, because one of the listed ships, St Christopher, was not ready for service until 1564 while another, Hector, is not m e n t i o n e d in the o r d n a n c e accounts a m o n g ships fitted out for sea before 30/5 1563, AR 1563/20, KrA. Carl Ekman, who m a d e extensive research in the administrative sources f r o m 1563-64 estimated its strength to nine large and medium-sized warships, six barks (small sailing warships built for speed), two boyers (small two-masted vessels), and two galleys, Svenska flottans historia, I. 171. This agrees with a list of ships provisioned at Stockholm 2 1 / 5 - 6 3 in U p p l a n d s handlingar, 1563:32:1, RA and also with ships fitted with o r d n a n c e in the spring 1563, AR 1563/20, KrA. The total displacement of this fleet was a r o u n d 5,000 tonnes, but a few a r m e d Swedish m e r c h a n t m e n may also have sailed with the fleet and participated in the battle.

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of a r o u n d 20 m a j o r warships of a r o u n d 300 to 1,500 tonnes, while Liibeck had five major warships. Tlie total size of the fleet was at least 12,000 tonnes, but most of the ships were large m e r c h a n t m e n , which had been bought or hired during the s u m m e r , and most of these were probably only lightly armed with guns. In the a u t u m n of 1563, Sweden had mobilised 40 sailing warships and 11 galleys of a r o u n d 12,000 tonnes, but most of these ships were small, and several served in the Gulf of Finland or patrolled along the coast. The main Swedish fleet had stayed in a defensive position in the northern Baltic Sea since the s u m m e r and had m a d e only a raid on Gotland. U n d e r its cover, the Swedish blockade force in the Gulf of Finland captured a large n u m b e r of m e r c h a n t m e n , mainly f r o m Liibeck, including four m a j o r ships, which became Swedish warships. On 11 September, the two m a i n fleets met in a battle between Gotland and the Stockholm archipelago. The Swedish fleet may have had as many as 27 units, but of these, only 12 of a r o u n d 7,500 tonnes were major warships of 300 to 1,200 tonnes. The allies thus had a great superiority in m a j o r ships. But the Swedish fleet mainly consisted of purpose-built warships, and several of the smaller Swedish ships m a y have had a stronger gun a r m a m e n t than the larger allied ships. The Danish admiral, Skram, attempted to achieve a decisive victory and gain control over the n o r t h e r n Baltic Sea, while the Swedish admiral, Bagge, probably fought because Erik XIV d e m a n d e d a battle. Bagge may have hoped to inflict so m u c h damage o n the enemy fleet that it would be forced to return to its base for repair. The allies tried to come to close combat while the Swedish fleet avoided that, and the battle ended without losses of ships o n any side. The Swedish fleet retreated to the archipelago whfle the aflies cruised in the open sea close to Gotland until late October. For about two autumn months, beset by gales and cold weather, they had exercised control of the n o r t h e r n Baltic Sea, a creditable performance with a largely improvised fleet. King Fredrik complained, however, that merchantmen were stfll sailing f r o m Stralsund to Sweden. It was in fact impossible to achieve a blockade of the entire Swedish coast with its

" Information about the n u m b e r of Swedish warships in active service is in this section primarily derived f r o m the yearly o r d n a n c e accounts in SH, RA and AR, KrA, h i f o r m a t i o n about D a n i s h warships in active service is f r o m Niels Probst's list of Danish warships 1523-1660 and lists of ships in service in Unci 1902 and Barfod 1995. Information about Liibeck's warships, Kloth 1923-25, esp. 1923, 208-09.

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many ports and with an archipelago as a protected route for small ships, but the allied fleet had forced the Swedish fleet into a fleet-in-being strategy." If the allied fleet could return to the northern Baltic Sea next year and stay there, it might both open the Gulf of Finland for Liibeck and make it hazardous for neutral shipping to sail on Stockliolm and Finland during the normal season for shipping. Tliat would have been what most contemporary observers might have expected of a combination of the Danish royal navy with the largest shipping city in the Baltic. Actually, events were to take a different turn. Both fleets were at sea early the next year. Jakob Bagge now had a main fleet of 34 sailing warships and three galleys of around 13,000 tonnes. Of these, 16 were major warships of 300 to 1,800 tonnes, a total of around 10,000 tonnes." The allied fleet under the Danish admiral Herluf Trolle had at least 15 Danish and ten Lubeckian major warships of around 14,000 tonnes and some smaller vessels.'^ The fleets met in battle off northern Oland on 30 and 31 May. Bagge initially held the windward position and was able to fight with guns and avoid boarding. Some allied ships were damaged, and a Lubeckian ship was sunk, but during the night the Swedish fleet lost cohesion, and only five or six major ships seem to have participated on the second day of the battle. The allies were able to damage the rudder of the large Swedish flagship, Mars, which was abandoned by the remaining Swedish ships. The allies boarded the flagship, but it caught fire and blew up when one of its guns exploded. Probably around 550-600 men were killed, while Jakob Bagge and around 100 men were taken prisoners. This was the first and last allied victory at sea in the war. It did not result from forcing the Swedish fleet into a decisive action. Except for Mars, Swedish losses were actually light, reportedly 101 dead and wounded,'® and the fleet soon proved able to sail again. Fighting morale

" A detailed account of Danish naval operations u n d e r Peder Skram in 1563 is in E. Briand de Crevecoeur, Peder Skram: Danmarks Vovehals, C o p e n h a g e n , 1950, 132-61. The n a m e s of ships and olficers are listed in the minutes f r o m the investigation about the conduct of the officers which took place after the battle of 30-31 May, "Ett bidrag till flottans historia u n d e r Erik XIV", HT, 13, 1893, 69-71. Danish naval logistics in 1564: Jesper Christiansen, "Den danske flades forsyningssituation i den Nordiske Syvarskrigs forste ar", Marinehistorisk Tidsskrift, 15, 1982, 3-17. Westling 1879-80, 60.

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rather than damaged ships seems to have been the main problem on the Swedish side. Bagge appears to have been determined to fight a decisive battle with superior firepower, but several of his captains proved unwilling or unable to bring their ships within effective fighting range. Hie allied fleet sailed to Gotland for repair, but it soon had to return to the southern Baltic, due to lack of equipment, munitions, provisions, and increasing illness among the crews. Lubeck's naval commanders even insisted that the fleet stay as far west as off Rostock until it had been provisioned, a policy that would have left even the southern Baltic open to the Swedes. Liibeck had reached a nadir in its ability to administrate a naval war. The Danes were less willing to give up the southern Baltic. The allied fleet sailed on 24 June from Godand, but only to Bornholm. Logistical limits had made it impossible to use the victory at Oland to gain control of the northern Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland. The opportunity would not return in this war. However, around 20 Lubeckian merchantmen used what they believed was a good opportunity to sail from Narva with a rich cargo of Russian products, including naval stores such as flax, hemp, and cordage. The Swedish blockade force in the Gulf of Finland arrived too late to stop this convoy, but its departure must have been observed, and the main Swedish fleet may have been informed about it. The main fleet had returned to the Stockholm archipelago after the battle of Oland but left again for the southern Baftic on 4 July under command of the young aristocrat Klas Fleming. Aflied scouting vessels observed this departure, and aflied commanders made the fatal decision to leave Bornholm and safl to the German coast, believing that the Swedish fleet intended to escort troop transports f r o m Germany. Actually, the Swedish main fleet anchored oft' Bornholm on 14 July and attacked the convoy from Nai-va when it arrived the next day. The convoy lost nearly afl its ships and their cargoes, a severe economic loss for Liibeck and a great gain for Sweden. The allies seem to have been unaware that the convoy was approaching Bornholm when it did. It is unknown whether the Swedish fleet's timely appearance at Bornholm was a pure accident or if ft had received reports about the convoy from scouting vessels or merchantmen. Several prizes were fitted out as warships, and naval stores f r o m these and other captured merchantmen went straight to the Swedish fleet, making it easier to prepare the enlarged fleet, which went to sea in 1565. The loss of naval

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stores probably made the preparation of the allied fleets more difficult the next year and may explain some of the delays they encountered. Tlie capture of the convoy, more than any of the other battles, may have been the decisive turning point in this naval war.'^ Hie Swedish fleet sailed back to northern Kalmarsund with its booty but Erik XIV urged Fleming to go to sea again. He did so but soon returned after having sighted the enemy fleet between Oland and Bornholm on 4 and 5 August. Gunfire was heard on land, but there are no reports from any of the fleets about a real battle. It is possible that the weather was foggy and that the two fleets could not locate each other. Erik became dissatisfied with Fleming and replaced him with one of his best army commanders and administrators, the aristocrat Klas Horn. At this moment, both field armies operated in the southeastern border zone between Sweden and Denmark, and control of the coast of Danish Blekinge and Swedish Smaland influenced their operations. The allied fleet had been provisioned, and Herluf Trolle, who eagerly sought for a decisive action, brought it northwards to the waters between Oland and Gotland. He may have had 17 Danish and nine Lubeckian major warships of around 15,000 tonnes against 19 major Swedish ships of around 10,000 tonnes, but it is uncertain how many ships actually participated on both sides. From 11 to 15 August, a series of actions took place between Oland and Gotland. The events and even their dating are uncertain, as the sources are partly contradictory. Action seems to have started with an allied attack from a north-easterly windward position on the Swedish fleet in the northern part of Kalmarsund on 11 and 12 August. It was foHowed on 13 August by an allied landing on Oland, where they burned farms. Early on 14 August the Swedish fleet returned to action f r o m a windward position, but it fought only with guns and avoided close action. The allied fleet first met it at anchor. What then happened is uncertain, but both fleets went to sea. Trolle claimed that he sent some of his best sailers to sea, that Horn chased them, and that this gave the allies the possibility to gain the windward position and follow the Swedish fleet. It is equally possible, however, that Horn deliberately left the windward position to the allied fleet in order to

" The captured goods: Bjorn Sandahl, "De svenska kaperierna i Ostersjon 15621566", Forum navale, 56, 2001, 20-34. Danish problems with lack of cordage and cables in early 1565: Lind 1902, 76.

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draw it to sea so that they would stop ravaging Oland. In any case, this is what the alUed fleet did. Horn probably also hoped to inflict as much damage as possible with gunfire in order to force the enemies to return to their home waters. Nothing indicates that he intended to fight a decisive action of the type Jakob Bagge had attempted ten weeks earlier. We are left to speculate, however, because no reports from Horn have survived. In his letter to Frederik 11, Trolle described the action as a chase of an enemy who consistently avoided close-range action and used his superiority in speed and ability to sail close to the wind to keep the distance, engage and disengage at will, and finally regain the lost windward position. The difference between a fleet mainly consisting of purpose-built warships and a fleet with many armed merchantmen is obvious. Trolle claimed, however, that he had been able to split the Swedish fleet and that one Swedish warship had run aground, although he admitted that this was not a large ship. Other Danish reports, however, claimed that more Swedish ships, including large ones, ran aground and were lost and that one of these ships had been the Swedish flagship, Elefanten. Trolle hardly claimed that he had won a victory, but Frederik II did, and Danish historians have into the 21st century often believed him. The Swedish avoidance of close action has frequently been described as flight, even though fighting at a distance with guns was the Swedish tactic explicitly ordered by Erik XIV. Actually, it was a split in the allied fleet that had serious consequences. The action ended with three Danish warships—B^en^ Love, David and Morian—being captured east of Oland on 15 August by the Swedish fleet and 500 to 600 m e n being taken prisoners. Horn had disengaged his fleet f r o m Trolie's during the night of 15 August, when Trolle sailed east to a pre-arranged meeting for the fleet at Gotland. Horn sailed back to Oland without being pursued by Trolle, and causing the loss of the isolated Danish ships. The Swedish fleet lost no ships in this battle. Elefanten did indeed run aground somewhere in Kalmarsund at some date after the battle (probably 16 August), but the ship was salvaged and brought to the naval yard at Bjorkenas, north of Kalmar, for repair. It accidentally sank there in shallow water

The battle is described as a victory for Trolle as late as in Dansk Udenrigspolitiks historic, 1, Konger och krige, 700-1648, Copenhagen, 2002, 311-12. Crevecoeur 1959, 109-18 extensively quotes Danish reports. Swedish tactics: Ekman 1946, Svenska flottans historia, I, 512-15.

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sometime in September 1564, while under repair. Danish reports seem to have mixed up rumours about this event with earlier report about Swedish ships running aground during the battle on 14 and 15 August. Attempts to raise Elefanten in 1564-65 failed, and in the 20th century the wreck became an important object for underwater archaeology." After the batde, the Swedish fleet sailed to Kalmar while the allied fleet returned to Bornholm. Without an enemy fleet cruising along the Swedish coast, Erik XIV could launch an army offensive in late August into Blekinge, the eastern province of Denmark, which he devastated. Trolle made no further attempt to cruise in the northern Baltic Sea but stayed at Bornholm until early October. The allied fleet burnt southern Oland f r o m 22 to 27 September, with no attempt by the Swedish fleet to stop it. It was a revenge for Swedish behaviour in Blekinge but also a strike against the fertile Oland as a source of provisioning for the Swedish fleet. Erik XIV had already on 18 September ordered the main part of the fleet back to Stockholm, because it lacked provisions and its crew suffered f r o m severe diseases. It left Kalmar on 27 September. A small Danish fleet cruised in the southern Baltic until the end of the sailing season to cut off the trade between Sweden and Germany. Naval operations in 1564 ended in a stalemate that left the Swedish fleet in control of the northern Baltic and the allied fleet in control of the southern Baltic. The Swedish fleet had not opened trade with Germany, and the aflies had sufl^ered severe losses when they tried to open the trade with Russia. Both sides experienced great logistical problems when they attempted to place their fleet in a forward position far f r o m their main bases. Danish-Lubeckian efforts to bring the fleet to the northern Baltic were repeatedly frustrated by lack of provisions, epidemic illness, and various damages, which especially made the Lubeckian commanders unwilling to risk operating far f r o m the main base. The Swedish fleet showed the same behaviour after

" Carl E k m a n , "Stora Kravein Elefanten", Svenska Flottans Historia, I, 8 9 - 9 8 ; Jonathan Adams, Ships Innovation and Social Change: Aspecs of carvel shipbuilding in Northern Europe, 1450-1850, Stockholm, 2003, 87-93. Swedish narrative sources m e n t i o n that the ship ran aground on 16 August, but this is uncertain. Elefanten is mentioned as a damaged ship which should be repaired and sent back to fleet in a letter f r o m Erik XIV to Kalmar, RR 31/8 1564, RA. It is first m e n t i o n e d as sunk at Bjorkenas in a letter f r o m Erik XIV to Klas H o r n , RR 18/9 1564, RA. Erik was close to Kalmar in this period a n d must have been well i n f o r m e d about the fleet's largest ship.

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the defeat in late May, but after late July it began to use the sound between Oland and the mainland as a base f r o m which it made forays to disturb allied operations. The effect was that the allies preferred to stay at Bornholm, making it impossible to interfere with Swedish operations in the northern Baltic and protect allied trade in this part of the sea. The next year, the Swedish fleet was increased in size, and the logistical preparations for a long offensive campaign proved adequate. The main fleet under Klas H o r n had 25 m a j o r warships of around 12,000 tonnes. It left the Stoclcliolm archipelago on 15 May 1565 and sailed to the coast of Pomerania to release merchant ships blockaded in Stralsund. A m u c h smaller allied squadron was at sea blockading the German ports for Swedish shipping. O n 21 May, four allied ships were burnt to avoid capture by the Swedish fleet, while five took protection in neutral Pomerania, where they were interned until the end of the war. The losses in warships were serious for the allies, who were surprised by the early appearance of the main Swedish fleet in the southern Baltic. The blockade of Sweden was broken, and Horn began to exercise control of the sea in southern Baltic, capturing enemy merchantmen, raising toll at the southern entrance of the Sound, and attacking Liibeck's outport Travemunde. The allies had been slow to mobilise their fleets, and when Herluf Trolle on 4 June attacked the Swedish fleet near the town Bukow in Mecklenburg, he had only 11 Danish and ten Lubeckian m a j o r warships of around 13,000 tonnes. It was another battle in which the allies tried to board the Swedish ships and in which the Swedish ships avoided this and fought with guns. No ships were lost on either side, but Trolle was mortally wounded. In spite of battle damages, the Swedish fleet continued to control the southern Baltic while the allied fleet, now under command of Otto Rud, was strengthened with more ships. On 7 July it made a new attempt to force the Swedish fleet out of the southern Baltic by attacking it at Bornholm. H o r n may at this time have had as many as 27 major warships of at least 12,000 tonnes, whfle the allied fleet had 15 Danish and 12 Lubeckian major warships of around 16,000 tonnes. The allied fleet attacked from a windward position and, for once, the Swedish fleet did not avoid close-range action. As the Swedish fleet successfully had avoided that in four earlier battles we must assume that the change of tactics was deliberate. It is known that the number

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of soldiers on the ships had been much increased since 1564, from around 2,000 to around 4,000, and this may reflect that Horn, an army commander turned admiral, thought that the time was ready to meet the allies in a close combat.^" A fierce battle developed and lasted from morning to evening. A small Swedish ship was sunk by collision, one of around 300 tonnes was taken by boarding, and a third ship of around 450 tonnes was destroyed by fire towards the end of the battle. According to the Danish account, the burning ship drifted into the allied fleet and caused a panic, which forced the whole fleet to retreat. It left the fleet flagship, the Danish Jaegermesteren (1,100 tonnes) as a Swedish prize with Rud as a prisoner, while another Danish ship of around 400 tonnes was sunk by gunfire. The losses in life were heavy on both sides, although the figures quoted in the literature must be taken with caution.^' It is very unlikely that the allied fleet would have retreated and abandoned its admiral only because one enemy ship had caught fire. The allies must have been exhausted and felt that the battle was not going their way. The Swedish fleet was apparently too exhausted to pursue the enemy. ^^ The net result was an allied defeat, and they lacked resources to try to gain the initiative at sea this year. The battle had been intense, however, and the Swedish fleet did safl back to Stockholm for repair and provisioning. It had been at sea continuously for two months, during which it had fought two major and two minor battles and had exercised full control of the Baltic Sea. The allies were only able to send limited forces to sea, and they returned to port when the Swedish fleet returned to the southern Baltic in early September. Horn remained there untfl 25 October, when his fleet left Kalmar for Stockholm. He used Kalmar

A r m y units and n u m b e r of soldiers on the fleet in 1563-70: Axtorna: En studie i organisation och taktik, Stocldiolm, 1926, 116-17. " Swedish losses are stated as 362 killed and 523 wounded: Zettersten 1890, 419; but it is not clear if these figures include losses on the three lost ships. Losses in m e n on both sides require a critical analysis, as there are widely different figures in the literature. ^^ Danish, Lubeckian, and Swedish reports of the battle overstate e n e m y losses of warships and, somewhat mysteriously, naval historians in b o t h countries have repeated these overstatements even though the real losses are well k n o w n in the literature f r o m each side; see for example Barfod 1995, 206, a n d Svenska flottans historia, I, 185-86. Swedish reports claimed that Lubeck's ship David a n d an u n n a m e d Danish ship sank and that another Danish ship was captured, while Danish reports claim that Swedish Hector a n d Vasterviks Barken sank. These losses are all u n c o n f i r m e d , a n d the two Swedish ships existed until 1589 and 1578 respectively.

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as a base but sent out squadrons to protect trade; one squadron held a forward position at Bornholm. During 1565 the Swedish fleet had been able to keep trade between Sweden and Germany open, and for most of the year it had been able to seriously disturb allied trade in the whole Baltic Sea and raise toll on neutral trade. In 1566, the Swedish fleet again started early, taking control of the southern Baltic in June. Again tolls were levied on foreign merchantmen, and 52 Dutch sah-carrying ships were forced to sail to Sweden to sell their cargo at unfavourable prices. This radically improved the Swedish supply of salt, one of the few commodities which Sweden must import.^' The fleet arrived back at the Stockholm archipelago for provisioning on 6 July but sailed south again already on 15 July. The organisation for provisioning was obviously up to its task this year, and the fleet could return to operational duties without delays.^"' The allies had made great efforts to gather a large fleet, and on 26 July it met the Swedish fleet in an intense but indecisive action off Oland. Interestingly, both sides adhered to gunnery tactics in this battle. The allies probably had 18 major Danish and 11 Lubeckian warships of around 18,000 tonnes, while the Swedish fleet may have had up to 30 major warships of 14,000 tonnes.^^ Detailed information about the armament of the allied ships is not avaflable. After the battle the allied fleet sailed to Gotland, where it was caught at anchor on a lee shore when a severe gale arose. About half of the fleet, nine Danish and three Lubeckian major warships and maybe five smaller (a total of around 9,000 tonnes), were wrecked off the town of Visby on the night between 28 and 29 July. Several thousand m e n died. It was the greatest catastrophe of its kind in early modern Bahic warfare, and it was at least partly caused by the fact that severe gales are unusual in the Baltic in July. The roadstead was open, however, the anchorage was not good, and the Danish admiral, Hans Lauridsen (who were a m o n g the victims), had acted against the advice of experienced seamen and the governor of Gotland when he

Karl-Gustaf H i l d e b r a n d , "Salt a n d Cloth in Swedish E c o n o m i c History", Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2, 1954, 9 6 - 9 7 ; Oden 1966, 167-73. A paper dated 14/6 1566 with a brief list of h u g e quantities of beer, butter, cheese, meat, fish, etc. required for provisioning 8,653 m e n in t w o m o n t h s was obviously a preparation for this logistical operation, S M H F 3:2, RA. ^^ The Swedish fleet had 27 m a j o r warships in spring 1566 a n d three m o r e , Tantheijer, Halvmanen, a n d Prydsen, were a d d e d to the Swedish fleet d u r i n g the s u m m e r . Their participation in the battle is uncertain.

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ordered the fleet to stay there. The Swedish fleet stayed at sea and lost no ships in this gale, but it had to return to the Stoclcholm archipelago on 6 August. Several major ships were sent to the Stockholm shipyard for repair, indicating that the gale must have been extreme. Tliroughout 1566, smaller squadrons were sent out to protect trade with Germany. From 1567, plague, financial problems, and a deep political crisis that resulted in a brief civil war in 1568 increasingly handicapped Swedish war efTorts. The main fleet was usually kept in the Stoclcholm archipelago while squadrons of medium and small warships based at Stocldiolm, Kalmar, and in Finland were sent to sea to protect trade and control trade with ports in the eastern Baltic. During 1567, the main fleet cruised in the southern Baltic Sea only during about two weeks in late July and early August. The allied main fleet also was slow to gather and did not sail far from the Sound during this year, but the allies were able to protect their own trade in the southern Baltic with smaller squadrons. During 1568, the allied fleet made brief cruises in the southern Baltic, while Swedish squadrons cruised in the northern Baltic with occasional appearances in the southern part of the sea. In July and August, a Swedish squadron supported an amphibious expedition to the Danish-controlled island of Osel, resulting in the conquest of Sonnenburg castle. The two main fleets were unable to sail in full strength, mainly due to lack of men. This situation continued on the Swedish side during 1569, while the allies were able to make an expedition to Reval, which was blockaded during two or three weeks in July. In 1570, Sweden made a final major effort at sea and sent the main fleet to the southern Baltic, where it arrived in mid-July. It captured a number of merchantmen and a Danish warship, after which it attempted to conquer Gotland. A surprise attack failed, and the fleet was back in the Stockliolm archipelago by mid-August. Preparations for a more systematic conquest of Gotland started but were not carried out. The war had shown that administration and the ability to mobilise resources for naval operations determined naval strategy. The c o m m a n d e r s on both sides knew what they wished to achieve, but their ambitious aims required a large fleet. It proved difficult to keep a large fleet at sea, far f r o m it base, and ready to meet an enemy that came straight f r o m its base with fresh forces. Smaller squadrons could be kept at sea for extended periods, but operations with

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the main fleets tested the administrations to their hmits. The most important problems for all three fleets t h r o u g h o u t the war were food and epidemic illness. The fleets needed provisioning at least every second m o n t h , and food was often difficult to find and bring to the fleets. At least up to 1566, the problem of finding sufficient crews at the start of every campaign seem moderate, but widespread disease usually soon reduced the n u m b e r of m e n w h o could serve. Repairs of ships and rigs after gales and battles were increasingly d o n e at sea, which probably reflects improved competence. Swedish warships were mainly acquired by new construction and capture of enemy warships and armed merchantmen, while the allies initially relied heavily on requisitioned or purchased armed merchantmen. Sweden had an advantage in its ability to mass-produce copper guns with domestic resources. During the 1560s, Swedish gun foundries produced guns that kept the navy well armed for several decades ahead. Newly built warships were almost exclusively armed with copper guns, and the several captured ships, which predominantly were armed with wrought-iron guns of limited efficiency, were rearmed with copper guns. The allies were initially m u c h inferior in m o d ern gunnery and had to acquire cast-iron guns f r o m abroad. These were more powerful against ships t h a n wrought-iron guns, but, as Denmark later replaced t h e m with copper guns, they must have been regarded as inferior to Swedish gunnery. In a longer perspective, the administrative achievements of both the Swedish and the Danish navies are impressive. They operated at sea with much greater strength than ever before, they made great efforts to stay at sea from spring to autumn, and they repeatedly tried to change the strategic situation with major battles. They also built several large gun-armed warships during the war, some of them the largest in the world. Liibeck's naval effort was not smaller than in earlier wars, but it was overshadowed by the two larger royal fleets. Compared to earlier wars, when naval operations often had been concentrated in confined waters such as the Danish straits and the Swedish archipelago where the strain from the weather was less intense, the fleets were now in the open sea for long periods. This new type of naval operations required

Danish artillery: Mortensen 1999, esp. 273-&7. Swedish gun production: Theodor Jakobsson, Lantmilitar bevdpning och bekladnad under dldre Vasatiden och Gustav II Adolfs tid, Sveriges Krig 1611-1632: Bilagsband II, Stockhohn, 1938, 25-48.

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intense preparations during the winter and a well-planned supply of food, sails, cables, anchors, munitions, and equipment during the operations. Swedish naval administration had f r o m 1563 to 1566 been able to expand the fleet to the largest sailing fleet in Europe. The efforts of keeping a fleet at sea did not begin f r o m nothing in 1563. Since 1559, Erik XIV had kept an increasing n u m b e r of ships in commission for his marriage expeditions to the British Isles and for control of the Gulf of Finland. Already during 1562, ships (of a r o u n d 100 tonnes displacement and larger) with a total displacement of a r o u n d 8,000 tonnes had been in service, fully armed (but not all fully m a n n e d ) for war, the largest fleet Sweden ever had kept in commission. In the a u t u m n 1563, fully m a n n e d warships with a total displacement of a r o u n d 12,000 tonnes were at sea. The next spring, ships of about 15,000 tonnes were sent to sea, and a year later, in spring 1565, the active fleet had a total strength of a r o u n d 17,000 tonnes. It remained at that level the next year. The strength of the fleet sent out in 1570 was even slightly larger, primarily due to the commissioning of three new large ships, although the operations were shorter and less intense. Behind this was a large new officer corps of men who were generalists and administratively skilled rather than specialised as seamen officers. Together with the administrative staff at the shipyards, the ordnance depots, the gun foundries, and the provisioning organisation these men channelled men, food, and material resources to a large operational fleet during eight years of war. It was an administrative effort of a much greater magnitude than ever before in Swedish naval history, and it shows the major steps towards a fiscal-military state, which had been taken in a few decades. The effects on the war of these efforts were also considerable. The navy had been able to break the blockade of neutral trade with Sweden, it had controlled communications at sea between Sweden, Finland and Estonia, and it had periodically taken control of enemy h o m e waters in the southern Baltic Sea. The first two achievements kept Sweden f r o m being defeated; the effect on D e n m a r k and Liibeck of periodical Swedish control of the southern Baltic is less clear. Liibeck likely suffered the most, because its trade could be taken over by neutrals, and that may have been one reason why this was the last time that the old capital of the Hanse tried to exercise sea

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power. Liibeck was the one obvious loser in this war, and the defeat had taken place at sea. 3.5

The Kalmar War,

1611-1613

The Danish attack on Sweden in spring 1611 came as a surprise for Karl IX, even though his own policy against D e n m a r k had been provocative. The Danish fleet in 1610 had already been mobilised to a large extent for a possible war. In that year it broke the Swedish naval blockade of Polish Riga, as Christian IV saw it as an infringement of his dominium over the waters south of Danish Osel. The Danish readiness for a naval war was obvious to the Swedish naval commanders who avoided combat in 1610, but Karl choose to ignore the warning and failed to keep his forces prepared for a Danish attack. Karl had for a long time been confident in his belief that the aristocratic Danish Council would hinder Christian IV f r o m starting a war, and he shaped his strategy and the administrative efforts for his armed forces to this belief Sweden's war efforts for 1611 were directed against Russia, where Karl hoped to make one of his sons tsar with the support of a faction in the civil war. The army m a d e rapid advances during the winter and s u m m e r of 1611, culminating in the conquest of the large city of Novgorod. Swedish domestic politics, however, were in crisis by 1611, dominated the ailing Karl IX's increasingly erratic efforts to control his realm. Karl had seldom been a good strategist, and the great resources he had been able to raise for his army and navy often had not been efficiently used. His illness and declining strength m a d e this problem worse, because the central administration was still very much dependent on the king's personal efforts. The aristocrats in the Swedish Council had a m o r e realistic view of Danish intentions, but they had no direct influence over h o w the armed forces were deployed, administered, or commanded.^^

" Naval o p e r a t i o n s in this war: Sveriges sjokrig, 6 3 - 1 2 2 ; Probst 1996, 107-22. Important Swedish sources are Riksregistraturet 1611-12; M 1761, M 1848; SH, vols 63-64 (shipyard accounts for Stockholm 1611, inventories of ships 1611, registers of guns and munitions on ships 1611-12, payrolls 1611-12); SMHF, vol. 7 (supplementary to Skeppsgardshandlingar); Proviantrakenskaper, Stockholms slott 1611-12, all RA; AR 1611/1 and 1612/1 (ordnance accounts), KrA.

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Hie main task of the Swedish fleet in spring 1611 was to deUver provisions and equipment to the army in the east and blocicade ports. Small squadrons were sent already in April to Livonia and the Gulf of Finland. It soon became apparent that the fleet was ill prepared to m o u n t a full-scale mobilisation for a major naval war against another battle fleet. During the long war with Poland, a considerable part of the fleet had been based in Kalmar so as to be able to sail early in spring and return late in autumn without being hindered by ice. During the winter 1610-11, 16 warships of around 7,300 tonnes were in Kalmar. Five ships of around 1,800 tonnes were in Alvsborg, while the rest of the fleet—43 ships of around 16,500 tonnes—was in Stocldiolm and Nykoping, south of Stocldiolm. These figures include warships of around 100 tonnes displacement and larger. There were also numerous smaller vessels, mainly useful for amphibious and archipelagic warfare. Except for a few galleys, these craft were armed only with light guns, however. Christian IV initially sent two squadrons to blockade Kalmar and Alvsborg, and these had already arrived at their stations when he declared war on 4 Aprfl 1611. The main Danish fleet was mobilised in April and May and sent out into the Baltic in three squadrons to control the sea, part of it cruising between Oland, Gotland, and the Swedish coast. The Danish main army advanced to Kalmar and started a siege under the king's c o m m a n d . The Swedish Kalmar squadron was only partially armed, and the ships were in such an exposed position that they had to be sunk in shallow water to avoid destruction. By mid-June, a Swedish army under Karl IX arrived to relieve Kalmar, but only oared craft and small safling vessels for shallow-water operations were available at sea. In Stoclcholm and Nykoping, the mobilisations of the main fleet had proved to be a slow process, and far f r o m all ships were made ready for sea. On 8 July, 11 ships of around 5,000 tonnes arrived at Kalmarsund (the sound between Oland and the mainland) and broke the blockade of Kalmar. It was closed again on 21 July, when the Danish blockading squadron was strengthened with ships f r o m the main fleet and the Swedish squadron (with one ship f r o m the Kalmar squadron) had to make a nightly escape through the Danish fleet, losing one ship. The squadron sailed to Barosund in the Ostergotland archipelago, well north of Kalmarsund, where it repaired and awaited reinforcements f r o m Stoclcholm and Nykoping. In these ports, several

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ships in otherwise seagoing condition were waiting to receive sails and other equipment before they could sail. Before any reinforcements could arrive, a superior Danish fleet forced the Swedish squadron to retreat to the Stockliolm archipelago in early August. At the same time, the strong castle in Kalmar capitulated. Fifteen warships of almost 7,000 tonnes, m o r e t h a n one fourth of the entire Swedish fleet, were sunk and lost at the castle. Tlie Danes could only raise three of the smallest vessels, but the Swedish loss had changed the balance of power in the Baltic Sea. Lack of essential naval stores for the fleet had caused a m a j o r disaster. H i e capture of one Danish ship by a flotilla of m i n o r vessels on the night of 30 July was only a small consolation. The m a i n Swedish fleet m a d e a new attempt to reach Kalmarsund in early September but returned when it faced superior Danish forces, which captured one ship. Karl IX died on 30 October 1611, and a period of intense negotiations between the 16-year-old Gustav II Adolf and the aristocratic Council followed. It ended with a political agreement about future cooperation, but this had little effect on the naval war of 1612. On the west coast, the Swedish Alvsborg squadron had not left port during 1611, partly due to deficient outfitting. The Danish forces were superior in strength but did not always keep a close blockade, so merchantmen were able to sail to the port. Danish operations in 1612 started with a large-scale attack on Alvsborg with around 10,000 soldiers. The operation was lead by Christian IV, and a part of the army came with the fleet. The fortress with the naval squadron, five ships, and one small vessel of around 1,800 tonnes capitulated on 24 May, another m a j o r disaster for Sweden. At the same time, a Danish squadron landed army forces with siege guns on Oland. The fortress on the island, Borgholm, capitulated on 11 June. Christian IV had shown that he was able to undertake two amphibious operations simultaneously. In the 1560s, the Swedish navy had been able to arrive in great strength in the southern Baltic Sea as early as in May. But in 1612, only 11 ships of around 4,000 tonnes were ready in Stockholm by late May, followed by eight more (around 4,000 tonnes) by mid-June. A brief cruise around Gotland was made in June, followed by a serious attempt to find the Danish fleet with a cruise between Stockholm and Danzig f r o m 24 July to 10 August. The attempt failed, however, because the Danish fleet was forced by a severe epidemic disease to return to Copenhagen at the end of July.

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Christian IV now decided to send all the naval forces he could assemble on a major sweep through the Baltic Sea in order to find and defeat the Swedish main fleet. His offensive war on land had stagnated, but an offensive at sea was possible. Seamen were freshly recruited and 36 ships were ready to sail from Copenhagen on 13 August, only two weeks after the fleet had been forced to return to port. This was an impressive demonstration that Denmark-Norway had manpower reserves for its navy. The king took command of this fleet himself, and the search for the enemy took him to the Stockliolm archipelago and the Vaxholm fortress, which together with the Swedish fleet blocked the entrance to the capital. This last visit by an Oldenburg king to the Stockholm archipelago was brief, only around ten days, and he had no army with which he could attack Stockholm. He returned with the fleet to Copenhagen on 17 September. The two fleets were reduced to squadron strength and cruised in the Baltic Sea during the autumn mainly in order to protect and attack trade. The Swedish fleet lost one ship, which was captured by the Danes under unknown circumstances.^® The Swedish navy was defeated both by lack of strategic imagination and large administrative deficiencies. On paper, the war started with a considerable Swedish superiority at sea in terms of ships: 64 with a total displacement of around 26,000 tonnes against 31 Danish ships of around 15,000 tonnes (warships of 100 tonnes and larger). In actuality, the effective Swedish navy was much smaller than this in size. In 1611, only 25 of 43 available ships (of 100 tonnes or more) in Stockholm and Nykoping went to sea. The next year, 14 of 38 available ships remained in port throughout the year, even though there had been more than a year to make them ready for sea.^' The ships left in port were not generally old and obsolete; several of them were at sea after 1612. Many were incomplete or in need of repair or lacked masts and spars, sails and cables, and the gun inventory was not sufficient

^^ There are no reports f r o m the two fleets f r o m the a u t u m n 1612, a n d it has been unclear whether or not the Swedish s q u a d r o n was at sea: Sveriges sjokrig, 121. The gun inventory of 1612, SH, 64:1, RA, shows that the guns of the Swedish ship Gula Lejonet were captured in 1612. This ship is last m e n t i o n e d in Proviantrakenskaper, Stockholm, August 1612, RA. Niels Probst's unpublished list of Danish warships has a Swedish prize with the n a m e Loven (Lejonet), taken in 1612, which m u s t be this ship. Consequently, some Swedish ships m u s t have been at sea in the a u t u m n 1612. The total n u m b e r of hulls (100 tonnes and larger) available at Stockholm and Nykoping at the beginning of 1612 was 44, but six of t h e m were old a n d discarded during 1612,

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to provide all ships with their full armament. The loss of the Kalmar squadron was especially disastrous, because nearly all its ships were serviceable. The political crisis in Sweden and lack of administrative coordination made the system for mobilisation of resources much too slow in a war with a well-prepared enemy. Seamen and provisions were not major problems in this war, although this must be related to the limited number of ships in service. Sweden was obviously not yet ready to fight a successful two-front war with one eastern power and Denmark. The success of the initial Danish surprise attack, which caused the loss of Kalmar and almost one fourth of the fleet, was largely the result of a political and strategic misjudgement by Karl IX. Even if he could not have known if and where Christian IV would start a war, the risk for such a war was obvious, as the situation at sea was tense already in 1610. In such a situation, a naval squadron in an exposed border port like Kalmar should either be kept in a high degree of readiness or it should be somewhere else. With a well-prepared fleet, Christian IV gained the initiative at sea right f r o m the beginning and kept it throughout the war. His fleet controlled the southern Baltic during the whole war. This caused serious difficulties for Swedish foreign trade, although the fact that many merchantmen were captured in 1611 indicates that neutral ships continued to sail to Swedish ports. Furthermore, the war did show that Denmark, even with Kalmar under its control and with a superior fleet, only briefly could control the northern Baltic Sea. 3.6

The Swedish assault on Denmark,

1643-1645

This war was planned by the Swedish government as a surprise attack on an unprepared Denmark, with the use of the forces already organised for the great war in Germany.^" The intended enemy had only a

The main Swedish study of this war is still Munthe 1905-10. It is dated and lacks detailed references to sources but it has a broad discussion of the operations on both sea and land and a good sense for logistical and practical problems connected with naval warfare. See also Zettersten 1903, 357-79, and Slaget vid Femern, 1644-1944: Minnesskrift utarbetad av Forsvarsstabens krigshistoriska avdelning, Uppsala, 1944. Olav Bergersen, Fra Henrik Bi'elke til Iver Huitfeldt: Utsyn over den dansk-norske fellesfldtes historie i perioden 1630 til 1710, I, T r o n d h e i m , 1953, 29-293, is detailed, especially about hired merchantmen. Tlie most recent work about Danish naval operations is Probst 1996, 227-56, with m u c h new information. I have also received valuable personal information from Niels M. Probst. Swedish provisioning: Sdderlind 2006, 159-68.

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small permanent army and was cut off from the market for German mercenaries by Swedish control of northern Germany. The Swedish main army in Germany under Field-marshal Lennart Torstensson invaded Jutland in December 1643, while the Swedish home army under Field-marshal Gustav Horn invaded the Danish provinces east of the Sound in early February 1644. The second stage of the plan was an invasion of the Danish isles, primarily Fyn and Sjaelland. It was initially optimistically hoped that this might be achieved during the winter 1644 by the army alone, with transport vessels gathered from Danish and German ports. The Dutch-Swedish merchant Louis de Geer went to Holland and hired a fleet of Dutch armed merchantmen and transports, which were intended to protect and support this invasion. It left Dutch ports in April and early May.^' Tlie Danish navy, however, at an early stage of the war sent out light forces, which patrolled the Danish straits and destroyed vessels that the Swedish army might use for an amphibious operation. Furthermore, the Imperial army began to move its main force to northern Germany, making it difficult for Torstensson to detach a sufficiently strong force from his army for an invasion of the Danish isles. Christian IV also mobilised considerable parts of his fleet during early spring. In April and early May, a squadron under his personal command blockaded

Naval diaries and letters to and f r o m naval Swedish c o m m a n d e r s have been extensively used a n d quoted in Munthe 1905-1910. I m p o r t a n t Swedish sources about naval operations and the strength of operational fleets in terms of ships, m e n , a n d guns are in AK till Kunglig Majestat, vol. 1 (letters f r o m the Admiralty to the queen); Militara amnessamlingar, M 1761, M 1848; Skoldostersamlingen, E 8560 (Karl Gustav Wrangels papers as c o m m a n d e r of the Swedish fleet in the southern Baltic f r o m September 1644 to the s u m m e r 1645); Kammarkollegiet, Handlingar angaende statsverket, vol. 1 (the distribution of soldiers on warships in 1644); P o m m e r n - W i s m a r , Reviderade rakenskaper I, 1629-1805, vol. 1645:42-45 (wages and provision to the W i s m a r squadron in 1645), all in RA; Krigskollegiet, Artilleridepartementet, Artillerihuvudbok 1644-45 (artillery inventory for several ships); Krigskollegiet, Stocldiolm slotts arkli, Arklirakningar 1644-45 (inventory of the navy's artillery); AK, K a m m a r k o n t o r e t , Rakenskaper, Rakningar over proviantleveranser, 1642-1645, vols 1 - 2 (provisioning of the fleet f r o m Stockholm 1642-45); N N S II, 12a, (several ship-lists 1644-45), all KrA; Nordinska samlingen, vol. 134, 5 (Order of sailing 22/5 1645), UUB. The a r m y origin of the hired fleet is reflected in that its costs, 735,835 daler, 29 ore, were paid by the a r m y {Krigskollegium), not the navy (Amiralitetskollegium), Kammarkollegiet, Rikshuvudbocker, vol. 70 (1644), fol. 657. De Geer a n d the war: Erik Wilhelm Dahlgren, Louis De Geer, 1587-1652: Hans lifoch verk, 2, Uppsala, 1923, (2nd ed., Stockholm, 2002), 439-505. There are accounts for the hired fleet in Louis de Geer's papers, Leufstaarkivet, vols 45-49, RA.

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Gothenburg, the only Swedish port on the western coast. He ordered the Norwegian army to attack the city and hoped that this would force the Swedish home army northward and out of eastern Denmark. Information about the approach of de Geer's hired fleet from Holland forced him to break the blockade of Gothenburg, however, and sail to the North Sea. Christian IV found most of the hired fleet at Listerdyb on Jutland's west coast and attacked it. Two engagements revealed the vulnerability of armed merchantmen to the heavy artillery of purposebuilt warships, and the hired fleet returned to Holland at the beginning of June with its crews in a state of mutiny. It was reorganised, however, and ready to sail again one m o n t h later.'^ During spring 1644, the main Swedish fleet was fully mobilised. It left the Stocldiolm archipelago on 1 June 1644, arriving in the southern Baltic just two days later. This fleet was the largest ever mobilised by any Baltic power up to then. Including ships on detached service, it had 36 major warships (300 to 1,700 tonnes) with a total displacement of around 25,000 tonnes." Its task was to take control of the southern Baltic Sea and the Danish straits, but how that control should be used was dependent on the military situation on land. Ideally the fleet should protect the main Swedish army's invasion of the Danish isles and cut communication between Sjaelland and the fortified city Malmo in Skane, the main remaining Danish position in the province east of the Sound. The war zone was wide, however; information about both the Danish and Imperial enemies and the various Swedish forces were incomplete; and the Swedish government under Axel Oxenstierna had given the commanding admiral, Klas Fleming, wide latitude to take decisions in cooperation with the commanders of the two Swedish armies. The fleet made a brief visit to the southern entrance of the Sound in the hope of forcing the Danish fleet into battle. It found Drogden fortified and found only a part of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen,

The sources for the battles between the Danish fleet and the hired fleet: Ian Magnus Fahlstrom, "Kring den politiska och militara b a k g r u n d e n till slagen i Listerdyb den 16 och 25 maj 1644", Shifter utgivna av Sjdhistoriska Samfundet, 6, 1945, 79-109. " Of 43 warships of 300 to 1,700 t o n n e s which existed in early 1644, St Jakob, Jungfrun, Wismarske Delfin, and Wismarske Meerman were commissioned as fireships, Konung David was listed a m o n g ships to be commissioned but is not k n o w n to have been at sea, Fama was on an expedition to N e w Sweden (Delaware), and the large Applet was not commissioned until 1645.

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as parts of it were still operating in the North Sea against the hired Dutch fleet. This left the possibility open for a Swedish operation into the Sound, but Fleming hoped that the absence of part of the Danish fleet might give Torstensson's main army the opportunity to launch an invasion of the Danish isles f r o m Jutland. This required the transport capacity of the warships to be used, and Fleming sailed west into the straits between Germany and the Danish isles to gain contact with Torstensson in Holstein. He found that the field-marshal was expecting the arrival of the main Imperial army. This made it difficult to launch an immediate attack on the Danish isles, and made the collection of more transport vessels imperative. It was known that the hired fleet was preparing for a new attempt to sail f r o m Holland to the Baltic, and Torstensson hoped to launch an invasion later in the s u m m e r when it had arrived. With available forces, only a limited amphibious operation, an invasion of the island of Femern, was achieved in late June. Meanwhile, the two Danish North Sea squadrons had returned to Copenhagen, and practically all serviceable Danish warships left the city on 29 June for an operation against the Swedish fleet. Tlie fleet consisted of 25 major warships (300 tonnes and larger) of around 16,000 tonnes, seven small warships, and eight hired merchantmen of maybe 3,000 tonnes. The Swedish fleet had 34 major warships of at least 24,000 tonnes, two minor vessels, and seven fireships, the latter a French-inspired innovation, which appears not to have been introduced in the Danish navy at this time. The three largest ships— Kronan, Gota Ark, and Scepter (1,350 to 1,700 tonnes)—were larger than the two largest Danish units, Trefoldighed and St Sophie, both around 1,300 tonnes. The two fleets met on 1 July in combat west of Femern (the battle of Kolberger Heide). The engagement lasted f r o m n o o n to darkness. The Swedish fleet had the windward position, and Fleming initiated no fewer than four attacks on the Danish fleet but fafled to bring about the intense general action he had desired. Swedish losses are reported as 101 killed and wounded, and Danish looses as 210, of which no fewer than 112 were on two flagships.'"' A m o n g the wounded on these ships were the Danish Lord High Admiral Jorgen Vind, who later died, and Christian IV, who lost the

List of Danish losses: Bergersen, I, 95-96.

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sight of one eye. Both Fleming and Christian were critical of many of their captains, and the small losses in a long battle indeed do not show much willingness to fight on any side. The battle was a strategic setback for the Swedish fleet, however, which had failed to exploit its considerable quantitative superiority and the windward position to inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy. Fleming sailed to the Bay of Kiel for repair and provisioning. In this improvised base, the fleet could keep contact with the main army for an invasion if the opportunity arose. It did not. Instead, the provisioning question became critical. In spite of the Swedish military control of Jutland and the G e r m a n coast, there was no organisation ready to find food for up to two m o n t h s for almost 6,000 m e n on the fleet. A large Swedish army had been on Jutland for more than six months, and food was becoming scarce in the region. The nearest fortified Swedish-controlled port was Wismar, but it was too far away for close cooperation with the army. The Danish fleet waited outside the bay, the Imperial army had arrived in the vicinity of Kiel, and the situation began to look critical. The Swedes stifl waited for de Geer's hired fleet, but it became increasingly clear that the military situation in Germany made it unlikely that the main Swedish army could invade the Danish isles this year. The Danish fleet landed guns on the southeastern side of the bay in order to fire on the Swedish ships. The Swedish army eliminated the battery, but not until a shot had killed Admiral Fleming. He was replaced by Major General Karl Gustav Wrangel f r o m Torstensson's army, who earlier had been in charge of the preparations for an amphibious operation. By late July, the Swedish fleet intended to leave the southern Baltic as soon as it had received sufficient provisions. Its fighting potential was declining due to illness a m o n g the crew, and the invasion must in any case be postponed due to the situation on land. Wrangel expected that the Danish fleet, which had waited outside the Bay of Kiel, would offer battle, but when the Swedish fleet sailed out of the bay for a cruise f r o m 29 July to 1 August, the adversary did not fight. Strategically, this behaviour was justified: a Danish defeat would have been a catastrophe and a victory over the larger Swedish fleet would have been unlikely. After receiving additional provisions, the Swedish fleet finally left the waters a r o u n d Kiel and Femern on the night of 2 August. A favourable wind carried it into the Stockholm archipelago on 5 August. The w o u n d e d Christian IV had been on

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his fleet during the operation but not in formal c o m m a n d of it. He had spread the impression that his fleet had blockaded the enemy fleet, and he was emotionally upset when the Swedish fleet had left Danish waters unhindered, even though its departure improved D e n m a r k ' s strategic situation. He chose to make Admiral Peder Gait a scapegoat. Gait was put on trial and executed on 31 August, the only admiral ever to meet this fate for having avoided a fight with a Swedish fleet. Meanwhile, the hired Swedish fleet had left Holland and passed the Sound on 9 and 10 August. It was sighted by parts of the Danish fleet when it left the Sound, but the armed merchantmen were faster than the Danish warships and continued unharmed to Kalmar. Its arrival encouraged the Swedish government to make a new attempt to gain control over the southern Baltic during 1644. The cost of the hired fleet was very high, it was reasoned, and it might be worthwhile to make use of it quicldy while it was available. The plan was to select a number of Swedish warships, place the best oflicers in charge, and concentrate on them as many guns, soldiers, and seasoned seamen as possible. This squadron would join the hired fleet and operate with it until the Dutch ships returned to Holland late in the autumn. W h a t the fleet should achieve was left open to circumstances: the strength and behaviour of the Danish fleet and the strength of the Swedish army forces. From an administrative and strategic point of view, the plan had one entirely new feature: the Swedish ships would not return to Stockholm but would spend the winter in a Swedish-controlled German port in order to resume operations at an early date in the spring. This would limft the freedom of operations for the Danish armed forces, which normally held control of the southern Baftic untfl at least the end of May during every operational season. The Swedish squadron and the hired fleet joined forces and sailed f r o m Kalmar on 5 October under command of Karl Gustav Wrangel. After being strengthened with ships f r o m Wismar, the whole fleet consisted of 14 major warships of about 8,500 tonnes and 19 armed merchantmen of about the same displacement (only ships of 300 tonnes or more included).^^ There were also three flreships and five small vessels. At this time, only 15 major Danish warships of around 8,000 tonnes

The displacements of the hired ships have been estimated f r o m their dimensions, Leufstaarkivet, vol. 47, RA.

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remained in service. They had about 1,870 men against 4,300 (planned strength, probably largely achieved) on the Swedish side. The Danish fleet had guns that could fire around 5,000 pounds of shots; the Swedish warships had around the same gun power, while the hired Dutch ships could fire around 3,300 pounds. The purpose-built warships in the two royal fleets, especially the Danish fleet, had firepower concentrated in large-calibre guns of 24 to 30 pounds, while the hired merchantmen had most of their firepower in 8- and 6-pounders.^'' The Swedish fleet thus had a great superiority in men but a less marked superiority in firepower. The earlier battle of Listerdyb had shown that the lightly built and weakly armed Dutch merchantmen were no match for the more heavily armed Danish warships, which, in turn, were markedly slower than the Dutch ships. The reduction of the Danish fleet was a result of the expectation that its tasks were to guard the straits against minor Swedish forces and the hired Dutch ships if they attempted to sail back to Holland. Christian IV concentrated his resources for a counteroffensive in Skane, and for that he had also deprived the fleet of its soldiers, making it highly vulnerable to a close combat. Mentally, the king lived in an older strategic situation in which Sweden had no ports in the southern Baltic and was unable to deploy a battle fleet in this part of the sea during late autumn. When the reduced Danish fleet met Wrangel's fleet close to Femern on 11 October, it faced a m u c h superior force. Its commander, Admiral Pros Mund, chose to accept battle. He was killed in the battle, so never had the opportunity to explain his decision. He may have believed that he had met a fleet with a sizeable army force and that a fight was necessary to prevent an invasion of the isles, but he must also have considered the recent execution of Peder Gait. Christian IV had shown that he expected his admirals to fight.

^^ A r m a m e n t on Swedish warships: Kort Fdrslagh opa Efterschrefne Skepps Utredning in September Anno 1644, M 1848, (12 ships) a n d a r m a m e n t on three ships based in Wismar, E 8560. A r m a m e n t on hired D u t c h ships: Leufstaarkivet, vol. 47, (17 ships). A r m a m e n t on Danish ships: Leufstaarkivet, vol. 47 (detailed list of every captured Danish gun, its calibre, weight, and age); E 8560, (inventory of ten captured ships), all RA; Krigskollegiet, Artilleridepartementet, Artillerihuvudbok 1644, KrA ( a r m a m e n t of ten captured ships); OR 1645:3 (artillery inventory for captured Danish ships), KrA. Hie calculations do not take into account that guns of the same calibre had widely different weights and that their effect was proportional to their weights rather than their calibres. Weights are k n o w n only for Danish guns.

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Tlie battle of Femern was fought on 13 October after a delay of one day caused by severe winds. The larger Swedish warships concentrated their efforts on the largest Danish ships, while the Dutch chased the smaller enemy ships when they tried to escape. Hie result was the capture of ten Danish ships and the destruction of two by fireships. Hie Swedish side only lost a hired Dutch armed merchantman, which had been exposed to a broadside from one of the largest Danish ships and had quickly sunk. The contrast to the earlier battles at Listerdyb and Kolberger Heide was marked, with the Swedes and Dutch acting aggressively. Their quantitative superiority cannot explain the entire difference, as it had existed already in summer 1644. But this time the Swedish officers and crew had been selected among the best; the purpose-built Swedish warships could overwhelm the largest Danish ships; and the Dutch, with their more vulnerable ships, could use speed and seamanship to catch the smaller Danish ships. The battle radically changed the balance of power in the Baltic. At the beginning of 1644 the Swedish navy had 43 major warships (300 tonnes or more) with a total displacement of around 28,000 tonnes, while Denmark had 37 of around 23,000 tonnes. After 13 October, Sweden had 53 ships of 36,500 tonnes against 26 Danish ships of around 16,000 tonnes (all figures excluding hired merchantmen). The Swedish fleet was suddenly more than twice as large as its adversary. The Danish army had to break off its offensive in Skane in order to strengthen the defence of Copenhagen and the isles. The Swedish army forces in the region were actually not strong enough for an invasion of the isles. But Christian could not know that, and because Sweden had about 45,000 soldiers in Germany at the time, it seemed obvious that a powerful invasion army could be formed if the Swedish government decided to temporarily give up parts of Germany in order to occupy the Danish isles.^^ Wrangel could now release the expensive hired fleet, which returned to the Netherlands. He divided his Swedish and ex-Danish ships between Wismar and Gothenburg for the winter. Four warships arrived f r o m Stockholm to Wismar, loaded with naval stores for a provisional shipyard in that port. At the end of 1644 there were 25 major

The strength of the Swedish army in G e r m a n y at the beginning of 1645: Julius Mankell, Uppgifter rorande svenska krigsmagtens styrka, sammansdttning och fdrdelning sedan slutet av femtonhundratalet jemte ofversigt af svenska krigshistoriens vigtigaste hdndelser under samma tid, 2 vols, Stockholm, 186!5, 278-81.

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warships (300 tonnes or more) in Stockholm, 21 at Wismar, and five at Gothenbm-g, while two ships, sailing back from the Swedish colony in Delaware, were in Holland. Five ships were sent from Wismar to Gothenburg in March 1645. For the first time ever in a Danish-Swedish war, Sweden could move naval forces freely between the Baltic Sea and the Western Sea and could start operations from ports close to Copenhagen. The Swedish fleet was thus in a position to fight for the control of both the waters between Denmark and Norway and the southern Baltic Sea in the spring of 1645. Christian IV had not lost his offensive spirit, however, and chose to make a new attack on Gothenburg as his first operation in 1645, before the fleet from Stoclcholm arrived in the southern Baltic Sea. Most of his remaining fleet, as well as army forces f r o m Norway and Denmark, tried to lay siege to the city in May 1645 in an attempt to repeat the successes of 1563 and 1612 when Denmark had conquered Sweden's only west-coast port. This operation ended, however, when a gale struck the Danish fleet and the flagship St Sophie was wrecked. The fleet returned to Copenhagen at the end of May and stayed there through the summer months. It had to guard against a new threat: a Dutch fleet of 49 warships, mainly hired armed merchantmen convoying 300 Dutch merchantmen, arrived in the Sound in June. The Dutch Republic was formally neutral and acted as mediator between Sweden and Denmark, but the Republic had decided to use Denmark's suddenly weak naval position to negotiate for a reduced Sound Toll with a fleet in the Sound as a threat. They intended to use Danish resistance as a pretext for joining Sweden, but the Danes carefully refused to be provoked.^** Meanwhile, the Swedish fleet in Wismar had begun to operate in the southern Baltic Sea. Army forces for an invasion of the larger Danish isles were stiU lacking, but the fleet occupied Bornholm on 8 June, partly in order to gain provisions. The intention was to start an operation in the Sound as soon as the main fleet under Admiral Erik Ryning had arrived from Stockholm. Malmo would be isolated from Copenhagen and placed under siege in order to clear Skane of Danish forces. If this operation was successful, the next step would be to bring together available army forces for an attack on the Danish isles, or at

G. W. Kernkamp, De sleutels van de Sont: Het aandeel van de Republiek Deensch-Zweedschen oorlog van 1644-1645, The Hague, 1890.

in den

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least make that into a credible threat during the peace negotiations, which already had started. The main fleet began its voyage from the Stockl-iolm archipelago on 22 May. It arrived at Bornholm on 5 July, after more than six weeks. When it finally arrived, provisions began to run short, and the search for food delayed offensive operations. This surprising, indeed unique, setback was the result of extremely unfavourable winds and severe gales. As a comparison, the same fleet had twice sailed the same distance in about two days during 1644. The problems with Stockholm as a main base for control of the southern Baltic Sea were again demonstrated. The unexpected absence of the main fleet delayed the planned offensive in the Sound. The Danes had also sunk ships and built batteries in order to make the passage through Drogden impossible to pass. The alternative passage into the Sound f r o m south, the Flintrannan east of Saltholm, was unknown to foreigners, and the Swedes had to survey these waters in order to find a passage navigable for warships. The operation against Malmo was thus only about to begin when the Peace of Bromsebro was concluded on 13 August 1645. It was a major victory for Sweden, and it is possible that it might have been even more favourable if the weather in the Baltic Sea had not been abnormal in the first half of the s u m m e r of 1645. The unusually tempestuous s u m m e r of 1645 might have saved Skane for Denmark for another 13 years, just at the province was lost by unusually cold weather in winter 1658.^' There were two reasons why the early Swedish successes on land and the crushing naval victory at Femern in October 1644 did not result in a total occupation of Denmark. First, the main Swedish army in Germany was only briefly available in great strength against Denmark. Its main task was to fight the Imperial army, and its operations during 1644-45 indeed did result in an almost decisive victory at Jankow in Bohemia, which eliminated the Imperial army as an offensive force for the remainder of the Thirty Years War. W h e n the army was free to operate against the Danish isles, in winter and spring 1644, the

' ' Evidence that the s u m m e r had unusual weather are, apart f r o m the extreme delay of the Swedish m a i n fleet to reach the southern Baltic, the severe gale that wrecked the large Danish ship St Sophia off G o t h e n b u r g on May 24 and another gale in the end of June that wrecked three m a j o r and one m i n o r Swedish warships off B o r n h o l m and Pomerania. Gales of such severity that warships cannot be controlled at sea are very unusual in Baltic summers.

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Swedish fleet was unavailable in the southern Baltic. W h e n the fleet from October 1644 controlled the entire Baltic Sea, the main army was far away in Central Europe. Naval operations in 1644 and 1645 had shown that the Swedish fleet was in fairly good administrative condition. Ships, guns, men, and equipment were ready, and practically all the fleet's ships were mobilised for service at sea as early as May in both years. The main obstacle for continuous operations in the southern Baltic Sea during 1644 was not the fleet's inability to defeat the concentrated Danish fleet (as Christian IV believed and, with him, m a n y later historians) but the lack of organised provisioning f r o m local resources. Kalmar was no longer used as a forward base, possibly a lesson f r o m 1611, and no preparations for provisioning the fleet in Germany had been made. In 1644 the idea appears to have been that the fleet should rely on provisions raised locally by the army, which was accustomed to provision itself during the German War. This was overly optimistic, however, given the fact that the army was barely able to find enough food for itself in Jutland and Holstein after several m o n t h s of occupation. Further, the army and the navy had different provisioning systems; m e n operating on land required local provisioning on a day-to-day basis, while a fleet required that provisions for m o n t h s be concentrated in one place before the fleet could set sail. The organisation of a naval base in Wismar in late 1644 was important. If a major fleet had not been based there during the winter, Sweden would have been powerless in the southern Baltic Sea for a long period during the tempestuous summer of 1645. Wismar, which had been taken from the Imperial forces in 1632, was formally ceded to Sweden at the Westphalian peace in 1648. The Swedish territorial gains in northern Germany in that year meant that Denmark would remain under a constant threat from the south, where Sweden might concentrate both army and navy forces for an attack or at least forces strong enough to radically reduce Danish freedom of operation in future wars. Denmark found itself in a situation where it urgently needed allies who might be interested in reversing the Swedish expansion.

3.7

The War of the Baltic Sea,

1655-1660

Karl X Gustav of Sweden started his invasion of Poland-Lithuania in 1655. Thirty-four warships of around 22,000 tonnes, almost the entire

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fleet, were mobilised, primarily for troop transport duties.'"' The fleet also raised the toll off Danzig, the most important port in the Baltic, a policy that elicited Dutch antagonism toward Karl Gustav's expansionism. In 1656, a large Dutch fleet of 42 warships of around 27,000 tonnes, together with nine Danish warships of around 5,500 tonnes, were sent to Danzig to ensure that the Swedish fleet did not blockade it again. Karl X Gustav avoided a war with the Dutch through diplomacy, concluding a treaty that, on paper, gave the Dutch guarantees against discrimination while the Danish gained nothing. Karl Gustav mobilised most of his fleet, 24 major warships of 16,000 tonnes, but left its main force in the Stoclcholm archipelago in order not to provoke the Dutch. The visit of the Dutch fleet to the Baltic had caused considerable anxiety in Sweden. It became obvious that the Swedish coasts, and especially the islands, were vulnerable to the great fleets that England and the Dutch Republic had created in the last few years, as long as they could use Copenhagen as a base. The Danes now took the initiative and declared war on Sweden on 1 June 1657. Because they were the aggressor, they received no help from the Dutch, but they also had the advantage of mobilising their fleet before war was declared. The Swedish fleet was only partially in service for the wars against Poland and Russia. From June to September, Denmark controlled the southern Baltic Sea, but the hope that their fleet could capture the Swedish king when he returned from Poland to defend his country turned to nothing. He had other ideas about how to wage a war against Denmark. Karl X Gustav rapidly moved his main army f r o m Poland to Jutland, occupied the peninsula, and waited for his fleet to bring his army to the Danish isles. The Swedish main fleet was gradually made ready for sea during June and July; it was a rather slow process that shows that it was caught unprepared by the new war. It consisted of 24 major warships of 17,000 tonnes together with eight hired armed merchant-

Askgaard 1974 is the m a j o r work on naval operations in this war, and most of this section is based on it. A later work of importance is Probst 1996, 285-324. Operations a r o u n d G o t h e n b u r g 1657-58: Ernst Bergman, "Kompaniskeppen i Goteborg och den danska blockaden", in Arne Stade (ed.), Carl X Gustaf och Danmark: Kallkritik och krigshistoria, Stocldiolm, 197-219. For archival sources I have used AK till Kunglig Majestat, vol. 1 (letters from the Admiralty to the king); M 1761, M 1850 (mainly reports f r o m the fleet and list of ships, their a r m a m e n t a n d their crews), RA a n d scattered but i m p o r t a n t accounts and reports about ships and m a n n i n g questions in N N S II, 12a, 141-47, KrA. Most of the naval accounts f r o m this war are lost.

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men of around 4,000 tonnes.*" It left the Stocldiolm archipelago on 27 August under command of Admiral Klas Bielkenstierna. He met the Danish fleet of 17 major warships of 14,000 tonnes and seven armed merchantmen of around 4,000 tonnes under command of Admiral Henrik Bielke on 12 September between Riigen and the Danish isles. A two-day battle, called the battle of Mon, followed in which the Swedish fleet, despite a quantitative superiority, was unable to defeat the Danish fleet and gain control of Danish waters. Bielkenstierna complained about his captains' unwillingness to attack at close range and keep formation, a battle performance that was similar to Kolberger Heide in 1644. The Danes seems to have concentrated their fire on the rig of the Swedish ships, while the Swedes fired on the hulls. The net effect of this was that the Swedes had only 40 killed and wounded against Danish losses of around 100 men, while the rigs of several Swedish ships were much damaged. The efl:ect of two days of Swedish gunfire must be regarded as unsatisfactory. The battle ended when the Danish fleet retreated into Drogden in good order, covered by the largest ships, which made it impossible for the Swedes to follow into these narrow waters. The deployment of the Swedish fleet to the southern Baltic Sea had forced the Danes to concentrate their fleet to their h o m e water and leave the rest of the sea open for Swedish operations. The failure to gain control of the Danish straits was, however, a serious setback for Karl Gustav's plan to bring the war to a rapid end. The situation f r o m the last war repeated itself, although this time the Swedish fleet sailed to its own well-protected port of Wismar for repair and provisioning. Obviously, both Karl Gustav and the admirals considered it unlikely that another battle would give a better result, and they believed that the Danish fleet had been strengthened with more ships. In reality, the fighting potential of that fleet gradually deteriorated, due to serious problems with provisioning, sickness, severe a u t u m n gales, and disciplinary problems with crews of hired ships. But it stayed at sea in order to prevent the Swedish fleet f r o m combining with the army, first by a brief stay

Displacement figures for Swedish a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n are m o r e a p p r o x i m a t e than for warships, because d i m e n s i o n s usually are unavailable a n d the t o n n a g e in Idster given in ship-lists often are contradictory. The displacement has primarily been calculated f r o m the m e r c h a n t m e n ' s a r m a m e n t a n d crew when they served as warships. During 1657, there were also two warships a n d eight hired a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n in Gothenburg, but they were only partially a r m e d a n d m a n n e d .

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outside Wismar and then by cruising between the German coast and the Danish isles. On 24 October, the Swedish army took Frederiksodde, the Danish main fortress on Jutland, and destroyed large parts of Denmark's field army. Even if the decisive Swedish operation against Sjaelland and Copenhagen had to wait until next year, Karl Gustav believed that it now was possible to take the island of Fyn and use it for provisioning of the army during the winter. He ordered three major warships from Wismar to the narrow strait between Jutland and Fyn (Lillebaelt) in order to secure the passage of his army on small craft. They passed the Danish fleet unhindered and unnoticed, but the Danes quickly sent seven major ships to the strait as a countermeasure. The Swedish king then ordered six more major ships from Wismar to the strait, but only two arrived due to the unusually early ice formation in December 1657. The exhausted Danish main fleet did not interfere with these movements, and it seems as if the Swedish ships were in a better condition to sail after their rest in Wismar. This illustrates the difficult choice between staying at sea or in port in a period of severe weather. A long period at sea under adverse conditions reduced the ability to control the sea against an enemy fleet that could rest in a port and sail when it suited its operational requirements. The main Swedish fleet was regularly provisioned in Wismar, a better administrative performance than in 1644. It finally left Wismar for Stockholm on 9 December, and it seemed as if further operations had to wait until next spring. On the Swedish side, the king prepared plans for a major fleet with many additional hired ships which next year would force the Danish fleet to leave the open sea and would give him total freedom to move army units within the Baltic.''^ In December, it looked as if the Danes had won the race for naval control of the strait between Jutland and Fyn. But then the ice, which had made it impossible for some Swedish ships to reach the strait, soon turned the tables and gave the Swedes a decisive advantage. The water between Jutland and all the Danish isles froze into a bridge that in January and February 1658 allowed Karl Gustav to take his army to the vicinity of Copenhagen. He could then dictate a peace that

The plans are discussed in Ernst Bergman, "Carl X Gustaf och flottan 1657-1658", in Stade 1965, 221-51. The king hoped to form a fleet of 36 m a j o r warships (two of t h e m blockships in the Stockholm archipelago), 34 a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n , 22 small warships, and five fireships.

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mutilated Denmark-Norway and gave him control of the eastern side of the Sound. The Swedish king began to prepare for his next move in the power game about the Baltic and, unexpectedly, chose to try to annihilate Denmark as a state with a surprise assault. D e n m a r k did not mobilise its fleet during spring and s u m m e r 1658. The Swedish fleet was partially mobilised for troop transports and support of military operations on the continent. It was therefore easy for Karl Gustav to conceal his intentions and launch a totally surprising invasion on Sjaelland on 7 August, supported by a naval squadron. The next day, another Swedish squadron appeared off Copenhagen and started a blockade. With the capital under siege f r o m land and blockaded f r o m the sea, the Danes had no possibility bringing in seamen for a largescale mobilisation of their fleet. The situation was the same as it had been in 1523 and 1535-36, when the power that controlled the straits could isolate Copenhagen and gain D e n m a r k and Norway. This time, however, it was not an Oldenburg pretender to the Danish throne, supported by a Swedish fleet, but a Swedish king who was in control of the straits. Denmark was saved because its ally, the Dutch Republic, since the times of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54) had possessed a large navy, which quickly could be mobihsed and deployed to the Baltic."'' Thirty-three major warships and two armed merchantmen of around 20,000 tonnes and transport ships carrying 2,000 soldiers and supplies for Copenhagen were sent to the Sound. Karl Gustav had foreseen this, although he may have underestimated the rapidity with which the Dutch could organise a strong fleet. He ordered as many warships and hired merchantmen as possible to be fitted out in Stockholm and sent to the Sound. On 29 October, the Dutch fleet safled into the Sound. It was met by a Swedish fleet of 28 major warships of 20,000 tonnes, 2 minor warships, and 13 armed merchantmen of around 8,000 tonnes, almost all Swedish ships in commission at that time. The two fleets were under command of their most senior naval commanders, the Dutch Ueutenant-admiraal** Jacob van Wassenaer-Obdam and the Swedish riksamiral Karl Gustav Wrangel, both primarily army officers. The Dutch had waited for a northwesterly wind that made it easy

This revolutionary change of the strategic situation at sea is studied in Glete 1993, 178-206. Displacement figures of D u t c h a n d English fleets in this chapter are calculated by the author. " The title was used for the commander-in-chief of the D u t c h navy.

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to sail into the Sound and follow its eastern coast. Hie Swedish fleet first attempted to meet the Dutch on a northeasterly course and then turned to south-southeast, following the Dutch. This manoeuvre was complicated during a fierce battle and caused disorder in the Swedish battle formation. In the battle that followed, the Dutch were better at keeping a tight formation and better at supporting each other. The battle continued from the morning to the afternoon and ended close to the island of Ven when the Swedish fleet found that seven Danish warships (total around 5,500 tonnes) from Copenhagen were approaching. By then, both contending fleets were severely mauled. The Dutch fleet had a crew of around 4,000 seamen and probably around 1,000 soldiers, not including the 2,000 soldiers on transport ships of which at least some took part in the battle. There were 439 men killed (including two of the three admirals), 269 men were taken prisoner, and around 650 were wounded—a loss of more than 25 per cent of the crews. The second largest ship in the fleet, the flagship of Admiral Witte de With's {Brederode, 850 tonnes), was sunk. Another Dutch ship was captured and its crew was taken prisoner, but it was abandoned when the Swedes believed that a fire on board was beyond control. The ship was, in fact, retaken and brought to port by other Dutch ships. On the Swedish side, an armed merchantman sank and another was captured, while one warship was run aground and burnt and two were captured. The total loss of ships was around 3,000 tonnes. Wrangel reported a loss of around 500 dead and wounded on the surviving ships. To that should be added dead, wounded, and prisoners from the five ships that had been lost, which brings up the total close to 1,150 to 1,200 men. The Swedish fleet had around 6,500 men, so their losses were close to 20 per cent. On the Dutch side, several ships were much damaged in their hulls, while Swedish damages were more concentrated to the rigs. It was again a battle where the Swedish fleet had aimed on the hufls and their adversaries on the rigs."*' Strategically, the battle was a major Dutch-Danish victory; the reinforcements were safely brought into Copenhagen and were in large measure responsible for that city surviving the Swedish siege during the coming winter. Tactically, the outcome of the battle was more even. The Dutch lost slightly more men than the Swedes, and the markedly

Tlie losses in the battle are discussed in Askgaard

1974, 249-56.

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larger total losses of Swedish warships were partly balanced by the damage to several Dutch ships. That made it difficult for the allied side to gain control of the sea next spring. The Dutch had, as could be expected, shown a better ability to manoeuvre in formation, but Swedish gunfire had been effective, and the Swedish captains had been much more willing to come to close action than in 1657. The presence of the king on Kronborg may have put pressure on the captains to do their utmost. After the batde, the fleet sailed to Landskrona, the best port on the eastern coast of the Sound, which had been Swedish for less than one year. Karl Gustav decided that the fleet should stay there during the winter, the first time since the winter of 1535-36 that the whole Swedish fleet spent a winter in the southern Baltic. Landskrona lacked storehouses and yard facilities, but with the king in the vicinity, administrative eflforts to keep the fleet operational were fairly effective. From now on, the king was deeply engaged in the operations and administration of his navy. The Dutch expedition to Copenhagen had made it clear that the Danish capital would not capitulate, and more help from the Dutch was expected next spring. On the night of 11 February 1659, Karl Gustav attempted to take Copenhagen by storm. This failed, forcing him to fight a long war in Denmark. The decision to base the fleet in Landskrona made it possible for him to take the initiative at sea in early spring. Ships began to sail already in early February, and by the end of April the Danish islands of Langeland, Falster, and Lolland had been occupied with amphibious expeditions, one of them commanded by the king. The Dutch and the Danes in Copenhagen had difficulty bringing their much larger forces of warships to sea from the still-isolated capital, partly because of the Dutch losses of personnel and damage to their ships in the battle of the Sound. W h e n they appeared at sea, much below their full strength of ships, they engaged the Swedish fleet in battle between Femern and Lolland on 30 April 1659 (also called the battle of Rodsund). Unfortunately, the composition of both fleets is only partly known. The Swedish fleet had 20 major ships, while the allies had three Danish and between 12 and 19 Dutch ships. The wind was fresh, and the side that had the windward position, first the allies and later the Swedes, had difficulty in using their lower battery. The battle ended in a draw, when the wind increased, with small losses on both sides. The Swedish fleet retreated to Landskrona when the allied fleet was reinforced.

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England and France, both friendly to Sweden, now forced the Dutch Republic to engage in peace negotiations. From May 29 to late August, the Dutch fleet could not participate in the war because the Republic had declared a truce with Sweden. A large English fleet, 40 major warships of around 37,000 tonnes, arrived in the Sound on 6 April and stayed in Danish water during the summer, in order to counter-balance the Dutch fleet. Another Dutch fleet, 39 ships of around 30,000 tonnes, arrived in Danish water in early June, and a formidable fleet of 72 Dutch warships of roughly 50,000 tonnes spent the summer in the Baltic. The English had deployed around half their battle fleet to this operation, while the Dutch had sent most of their battle fleet. Sailing battle fleets of this size had never before operated in the Baltic, nor anywhere else, except during the 1652-53 Anglo-Dutch War. The two largest navies in Europe had deployed huge operational forces to the Baltic in a demonstration of their new abiUty to act as great powers at sea anywhere in Europe. The highly visible appearance of two battle fleets entirely composed of specialised warships, most of them fewer than ten years old and, in the English case, larger than the average Nordic warships, presented the Swedish (and Danish) political and naval leadership with food for thought about the future. It was evident that Nordic naval poUcy had to adapt to a new standard of naval power in Europe.""^ The truce was not uninterrupted and complete; Dutch warships did, in fact, participate in certain aUied operations, and the Dutch fleet positioned itself so as to intimidate Swedish squadrons at sea. However, the truce gave the Swedish fleet the possibility to operate with considerable freedom, because Denmark—still to a large extent an occupied country—could not send more than seven or eight ships to sea at the same time. Sweden had 30 major warships of around 22,000 tonnes and 14 armed merchantmen of around 9,000 tonnes in service during 1659, although they were not fully manned and at sea at the same time. Karl Gustav became critical of how his admirals used this opportunity. He was satisfied, however, when a squadron of his fleet under Major (Rear-admiral) Owen Coxe, an English officer in Swedish service, attacked three Dutch and two Danish warships at Aebeltoft on 23 July. One Dutch warship exploded and the others were captured. They had

Mary Elizabeth Ailes, "Ships, Sailors and Mediators: England's naval aid to Sweden, 1658-1659", The Historian, 67, 2005, 275-98.

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protected a transport fleet, which was preparing for an amphibious assault on Fyn from Jutland by Brandenburg's army under command of the Elector Friederich Wilhelm. Around 100 transport vessels were burnt, temporarily eliminating enemy amphibious capacity."*^ In terms of warships, the net result of various operations in 1659 was favourable for Sweden. The fleet lost two major warships captured by the allies, one before and one after the truce, and one was run ashore and lost when chased by Danish warships. However, during the truce the fleet captured five major warships and destroyed three more. In addition, the Swedish army took four armed merchantmen f r o m the Duke of Courland in 1659. These successes did not matter much when the truce with the Dutch ended. From September 1659, the Dutch battle fleet under Michiel de Ruyter was in firm control of Danish waters. It used this for a successful invasion of Fyn in November, a serious setback for Karl Gustav. But de Ruyter did not agree to Danish demands for further amphibious operations this year, because he lacked provisions for the crews and believed that it was too late to keep the fleet at sea. The Swedish fleet was laid up for a second winter at Landskrona, and Karl Gustav prepared for new operations, including an ambitious program of new construction of amphibious vessels. However, the Swedish king died on 13 February 1660 after a brief illness, the Dutch renewed the truce, and the new Swedish government decided to negotiate peace treaties with its several enemies. Peace with Denmark and the Dutch was concluded on 27 May 1660, and the naval part of the war was over. For the Swedish navy, the war had begun as a major troop transport expedition for a continental war. The war soon became maritime, and increasingly it was the navy's ability to provide battle-fleet strength that determined Swedish army operations. The fleet was smaller and older than in the former war (1643-45). Great efforts were made to keep the veterans f r o m the 1620s and 1630s serviceable, but the total force of major warships at sea never exceeded 22,000 tonnes, and this only for brief periods. The stocks of sails, cables, equipment, and guns were strained but proved sufhcient to keep these ships at sea. A major difference f r o m the earlier war was that a considerable fleet of large

Archaeological remains f r o m this battle: Miklcel H. Tliomsen, "En sadan nasestyver; O m en slem overraskelse for den dansk-hollandske flade—eg for arkaeologen", Maritim Kontakt, 28, Copenhagen, 2006, 69-93.

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Swedish merchantmen suitable to be armed for war had been built since 1645. In 1658, 24 merchantmen with a total displacement of around 12,000 tonnes were armed for war. They represented a major part of the operational fleet. Most of them were new and, in contrast to some of the old warships, in good condition. Officers and men could be found to m a n this fleet when it reached its peak strength in the autumn 1658, even if many of the ships were manned at less than their full complement during the battle in the Sound. This was a remarkable achievement, because Swedish manpower resources were severely strained by the army's demand for more soldiers. The improvised base at Landskrona also worked quite well and gave the fleet major operational advantages compared to previous years when it had been sent back to Stockholm during winters. Even winter operations in December and January were achieved in 1657 and 1658-59, although the crews suffered terribly from the weather. The performance of the fleet against the battle-experienced Dutch fleet in the Sound in 1658 was not brilliant but was fairly creditable, especially the effective gunnery. In terms of tactical efficiency, it was the peak of the Swedish fleet's performance in the 17th century.

3.8

War and crisis in the Swedish empire,

1675-1679

After fifteen years of peace, Sweden became involved in a new war in 1675. It was the first defensive war Sweden had fought after its rise as an imperial power in the Baltic, and the main naval enemy, Denmark, was out for revenge and reconquest of lost territories. The war had actually started with a reluctant and unsuccessful Swedish involvement in the great continental war, which had begun when France invaded the Dutch Republic in 1672. Sweden was allied with France, which paid for a Swedish army in northern Germany. Brandenburg was allied with the Dutch, while Denmark was uncommitted but interested in joining an anti-Swedish alliance at an opportune moment. Brandenburg proved to have become an efficient military power, and in summer 1675, the Swedish army had been forced to retreat to Pomerania after a defeat.''®

A survey of this war: Finn Askgaard and Arne Stade (eds), Kampen om Skdne, Copenhagen, 1983. The m a i n Swedish worfc on navaf operations in this war is still Zettersten 1903, 458-512, although Clemensson 1938, 36-117, supplements it with an

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Tlie fact that a major Swedish army was in northern Germany when the war began determined m u c h of the naval operations. But the Baltic operations were also a part of a European naval war, although this has generally been forgotten, both in studies of the AtlanticMediterranean war in the 1670s and in studies of the Baltic war. France and Sweden were allied, so their total naval power ought to have mattered much against the Dutch Republic, Denmark, and Spain, which fought on the other side. On paper, France had a considerably naval superiority over the Dutch, and it might have been expected that the French would have been able to keep their main enemy occupied in the North Sea. It would also have made strategic sense if France had sent a squadron to the Baltic in order to join the Swedish fleet and discourage Denmark f r o m joining the enemy alliance. Even a French North Sea squadron, using Gothenburg as a base, would have given the French and the Swedes considerable leverage against the Danes and the Dutch."*' The recently expanded French navy, however, was still immature and defensively orientated.'" It was actually the quantitatively inferior Dutch who, in 1675, acted offensively. They deployed

analysis of strategy and operations based on m a n y sources not used by Zettersten, and Grauers 1946, 30-98, has made extensive use of original sources in his biography of Hans Wachtmeister. There are several Danish and Norwegian studies, of which Bergersen, 11, 7-454, is the most detailed a n d also makes use of Swedish archival sources. It is controversial in its attitude towards the Danish admiral a n d national hero Niels Juel, whom Olav Bergersen (a Norwegian sea officer) reduced to a not very ambitious naval commander. A n o t h e r attitude prevailed in Jorgen H. Barfod, Niels Jiiels flade: Den danske flades historie, 1660-1720, Copenhagen, 1997, 41-95, where Barfod (a Danish historian) summarises his earlier research about the Danish na\'y in this period and the life of Niels Juel. See also Jorgen H. Barfod, Niels Juel: A Danish admiral of the 17th century, Copenhagen, 1977. A survey of the war at sea with emphasise on operations in 1677 is H a n s Chr. Bjerg (ed.), Slaget i Kdge Bugt 1. Juli 1677, Copenhagen, 1977. For archival sources of importance for naval operations and the strength of the fleet I have consulted AK till Kunglig Majestat, vols 2 - 3 (letters f r o m the Admiralty to the king); M 1853-1854 (papers related to naval operations sent to the king), RA and scattered but i m p o r t a n t accounts and reports about ships and m a n n i n g in NNS II, 12a, 160-69, KrA. Nearly all naval accounts f r o m the war years are lost. I have calculated the total displacement of the two navies at the end of 1675 to 138,000 tonnes for France and 89,000 tonnes for the Dutch Republic. At the end of 1680, these figures were 135,000 and 66,000 t o n n e s respectively. Tlie figures are approximate, and the Dutch navy is slightly underestimated, as information about some ships is incomplete. The rough relation in warships between the two navies, however, was 3 to 2 in 1675 and 2 to 1 in 1680. Tlie D u t c h were allied with Spain, which h a d a navy of 20,000 to 25,000 tonnes, but it was ditficult to m a n even this limited force. Glete 1993, 195. Dessert 1996, 239-48, 2 8 0 - 8 1 discusses the limitations of the French navy in the 1670s.

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one naval squadron to the Mediterranean to protect Dutch trade and help Spain keep connection to Habsburg territories in Italy, and another squadron to the Baltic to support Brandenburg and stimulate the Danes to join the war. The Dutch, rather than the French, acted as a great power at sea and that had great importance for the war in the Baltic. Nine Dutch warships of around 6,000 tonnes arrived in Sound in June 1675, and the Danish navy was partly mobilised as well. The Dutch fleet intended to influence the balance of power in the Baltic, not protect Dutch trade. Sweden and the Dutch Republic had concluded an agreement according to which they should leave their mutual trade and shipping relations outside the war.'' W h e n Denmark declared war against Sweden on 2 September, a Danish-Dutch battle fleet of 17 major warships (300 tonnes and larger) of around 15,000 tonnes was already cruising in the southern Baltic Sea. It should cut off Sweden f r o m Germany and protect the Danish army's lines of communication when it attacked Swedish positions in Germany. A Danish-Dutch squadron of seven major warships (around 5,000 tonnes) sailed to Kattegatt to protect these waters from the squadron Sweden began to organise in Gothenburg.'^ Even though the Swedish government had seen the crisis coming since 1674, it had been slow to mobilise a force to protect communications with Germany." Financial problems were the immediate cause, but their roots were political, a part of the conflict between the aristocracy and the lower estates. The whole summer of 1675 was more or less wasted, and only in August did naval mobilisation begin in earnest. The main fleet left the Stockholm archipelago on 9 October under command of the riksamiral Gustav Stenbock and two other admirals who were also members of the Council. These three men had been responsible for the navy's administration since the 1660s, but none were seamen officers. Theirs was an impressive fleet of 28 major warships of around 28,000 tonnes, 11 armed merchantmen of around

Sven Ulric Palme, "Sverige och Holland vid Lundakrigets utbrott 1674-1675", KFA, 29, 1938, 84-172; Oscar Bjurling, "Stockholms forbindelser m e d u d a n d e t under 1670-talets vaxlingar", Forum navale, 10, 1951, 3 - 3 7 . Anderson 1910/1969, 105; Bergersen, II, 55, and Barfod 1997, 41-43, have slighdy different information about the composition of these squadrons. I have attempted to c o m b i n e them. " A special commission was appointed 12/11 1674 to support the mobilisation of the navy, AK 213, RA.

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5,500 tonnes, eight fireships, 17 minor warships, and two armed transports—the largest fleet sent out from Stockholm up to then.^'' It met a u t u m n gales and suffered considerable damage, and already on 17 October its flag officers (including several professional seamen) decided to return to Stocldiolm. The reasons stated were damaged and lost ships, lack of provisions, illness a m o n g the crew, and the late season when gales were inevitable. The provisioning problem had been k n o w n when the fleet sailed, gales are normal in October, no important ships had been lost, and even after the damaged ships had been sent h o m e the fleet still had a considerable quantitative superiority over the Danish-Dutch fleet cruising in the southern Baltic. It is striking that realistic preparations had not been made before the war to have a part of the fleet in a high degree of readiness even if resources for a total mobilisation were lacking. The king in 1673 and 1674 had instructed the Amiralitetskollegium to prepare such plans, and before the fleet sailed he had urged his admirals to sail with what was available.'^ The enemy fleet also suffered much f r o m illness (its c o m m a n d e r , Cort Adeler, died), it also had to endure a u t u m n gales, and the Danes were far f r o m ready to send their entire fleet to sea in 1675. Nonetheless, it stayed at sea until its mission was accomplished. The performance of the Swedish fleet is probably best explained by its large n u m b e r of inexperienced officers and men, especially compared to the very war-experienced Dutch. The leaders must have been painfully aware of that and must have tried to compensate by forming a fleet of superficially overwhelming strength. This took time, however, and time gave the enemy the opportunity to isolate the Swedish army in Germany and provide the Danish army with undisturbed communications. The fact that the Swedish fleet never arrived in the southern Baltic had disastrous results. Wismar, the best Swedish naval base in the southern Baltic Sea, capitulated on 14 December 1675, together with one warship, Falken. Wolgast in Pomerania was lost in November, and most of Bremen-Verden was overrun. Karl XI had intended for the fleet to supply the garrisons for the winter and also bring back the cavalry regiments f r o m Pomerania

The composition of the main Swedish fleet in 1675-78 is f r o m Zettersten 1903, 461-503. He has classified all boyers as transports (L), however, when in reality they served as m i n o r warships in these years. Some of the hired a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n served periodically as naval transports. '' Wendt 1950, 244-48, 259-60.

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SO that he could use them in the invasion of Sjaelland f r o m Skane, which he hoped to achieve as soon as possible. Now, the cavalry had to stay in Pomerania, where it consumed resources without being useful for the offensive operations for which it was best suited.'® The lack of control of the sea also made it impossible to transfer more Swedish soldiers to the continent for an attack on Denmark f r o m Germany, the strategy that had worked so well in 1644 and 1657. Financially, that meant that Sweden lost the possibility of feeding the main army f r o m enemy territory. For the first time since 1611-13, Sweden had to fight Denmark defensively with mainly domestic resources." Without control of the sea, the Swedish army could not be deployed where resources and strategy made it optimal to use it. Karl XI lost confidence in the men who had led the navy. He suspended Stenbock and started an investigation of the conduct of the navy. The naval failure confirmed the financial and administrative misconduct of which the aristocratic leadership of the Swedish state had been accused by its many critics during the session with the Swedish Parliament, which took place at the same time. The investigation of the navy was the first of a series of political and judicial actions against the aristocratic regents who had ruled Sweden during the minority of Karl XI (1660-72). These actions brought the fall of aristocratic power in Swedish politics in 1680.'® At the express order of the king, a part of the fleet was kept in commission during the winter 1675-76, and repeated attempts were made to bring it to sea from Stockholm in spite of gales and ice. These desperate measures to send some relief to the army failed, however. Karl XI appointed an experienced and energetic civilian administrator, Lorentz Creutz, to reorganise the navy. Creutz was also appointed as its commander-in-chief, even though he totally lacked naval or military experience.

Nils Wimarson, "Amiral Ugglas expedition vinteni 1676", HT, 20, 1900, 341-69. " Berndt Fredriksson, Forsvarets finansiering: Svensk krigsekonomi under skanska kriget, 1675-79, Uppsala, 1976. Strategy and war finance, esp. 15-16. Kommission for rannsakxiing angaende flottans hastiga aterkomst och for paskynd a n d e av dess utlopande, 1675-76, AK 63, RA; Koniniissorialratt over amiralitetet, 1676-77, AK 64, RA. Stenbock was sentenced to pay a fine of 209,341 daler sm for his conduct d u r i n g the campaign of 1675. Early in 1677 this was reduced to 100,000 daler sm, provided that he paid it immediately to s u p p o r t the war effort. As a comparison, the yearly expenses for fitting out the navy in 1676-79 varied between 400,000 to 550,000 daler sm, Fredriksson 1976, 58, 69.

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In April 1676, a Danish squadron made an early spring cruise in the Baltic, resulting in the loss of two Swedish armed merchantmen and a surprise capture of Gotland on 1 May. Hie Swedish main fleet this year was prepared for an early operational start, however, and on 19 May, 30 major warships of around 29,000 tonnes, nine armed merchantmen of around 4,500 tonnes, eight fireships, and 13 minor warships left the Stockholm archipelago. Its material condition was good, but it still suffered from deficiencies in seamanship and ship-handling, and its admirals and captains were not accustomed to sail and fight in a large formation. This was revealed in a battle against an inferior fleet of 18 Danish and nine Dutch major warships of around 21,000 tonnes between Riigen, Bornholm and the entrance to the Sound on 25 and 26 May. Confusion about how to attack the enemy prevailed, and although the Swedish demonstrated some good gunnery, the dominant impression of accounts f r o m the battle is that the officers did not master the art of bringing broadside guns to point in the direction of the enemy at suitable moments. The fleet failed to profit from its quantitative superiority, and the allies could retreat to the Sound, where they were strengthened with five Danish and three Dutch ships. It had now a total strength of 35 major warships of 28,000 tonnes, but it was still smaller than the Swedish fleet. Surprisingly, Karl XI ordered (or allowed) his fleet to retreat to the northern Baltic Sea in the hope that the allied fleet would foHow it and give battle close to the Swedish archipelago, somewhere between the north cape of Oland and Landsort (south of present-day Nynashamn). Strategically this gave the enemy the option to control the southern Baltic even without a battle. Tactically, it left the question open if the fleet would be able to sail this long distance without being forced to fight a battle in the open sea. The fleet left the Trelleborg roadstead east of the entrance to the Sound on 30 May. The allied fleet, under c o m m a n d of Cornells Tromp, a very experienced Dutch admiral serving as Danish admiral-general, followed it and on 1 June forced the Swedish fleet to give battle off southern Oland. From what followed, it is evident that the Swedish naval leadership had not prepared for the eventuality that the enemy would follow in hot pursuit and seek battle in the open sea. The battle started with confusion over whether the fleet should fight on a northerly course or turn south, and when at the start of the battle the fleet flagship Kronan (2,300 tonnes) began to turn, it capsized and blew

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up. Creutz was killed, and the fleet lost whatever cohesion it had possessed. The second largest ship Svdrdet (1,700 tonnes), with the experienced admiral Klas Uggla, was left to fight a long action that ended only when the Svdrdet was destroyed by a fireship. The losses of m e n on these two ships were probably close to 1,400. The deaths of these m e n were especially disastrous, because the best gunners and seamen had been selected to serve on the flagships. Two small ships were captured, a total loss of four ships of a r o u n d 5,000 tonnes. The fleet fled to the Stocldiolm archipelago, where it spent the rest of the operational season guarding the capital and the n o r t h e r n Baltic. Applet (1,400 tonnes), another of the fleet's largest ships, was lost in the archipelago due to bad ship-handling during a gale, another incident that showed that the fleet lacked basic professional skills. A new investigation into the conduct of several officers during this campaign began and lasted about a year.'' After the campaigns of 1675 and 1676, the two commanders-in-chiefs and all five admirals w h o had comm a n d e d squadrons were either dead or dismissed f r o m sea service. Tiiis at least opened the door for a new generation of naval leaders. Tlie allies were left free to launch an invasion of Skane, followed by an attack on Blekinge f r o m the fleet. O n e m a j o r and one m i n o r Swedish warship were captured incomplete at the yard in Karlshamn in Blekinge. The Swedish army in the end was able to contain and defeat the Danish army at the battle of Lund in December 1676, but they could not force the Danish army out f r o m Skane where it held important fortresses, because the Danes controlled the sea. The Danish army was reorganised for a new campaign and in spring 1677 was stronger than the Swedish army. For Karl XI, w h o personally comm a n d e d the Swedish army in Skane, naval control of the Sound was essential, while the Council in Stockholm seems to have been more concerned about helping the army in Pomerania. As a part of the preparations for a decisive campaign in 1677, the king ordered the G o t h e n b u r g squadron to sail to the southern Baltic Sea in the spring and join the m a i n fleet f r o m Stockholm in an operation in the Sound before the Dutch arrived. H e hoped that the main fleet would arrive

Kommissorialratt angaende sjostridenia 25 och 26 m a j samt 1 juni, 1676-77, AK 65, RA. The records f r o m this committee are published in Kurt Lundgren (ed.), Sjdslaget vid Oland: Vittnesmdl, Dokument 1676-1677, Borghohn, 2001.

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already in May, and he seems to have acted on erroneous information that the Danes were slow to mobilise their warships.®" To sail a small force through waters where the Danes could easily detect it and where the Danish main fleet was close at hand was a highrisk operation. Distance and the unpredictability of winds also made coordination of operations from Stockholm and Gothenburg very challenging. Hie order was also questionable because a Gothenburg squadron usually tied a superior Danish force to Kattegatt, and reduced the Danish fleet in the Baltic. Karl XI may have regarded the squadron mainly as useful for communications with Bremen-Verden and may have believed that it had lost its relevance when these provinces were lost in mid-1676; and he also may have hoped to rapidly end the war with an invasion of Sjaelland. After considerable difficulty finding men for the squadron, two warships and six armed merchantmen, a force of around 5,500 tonnes, finally left Gothenburg on May 1677, together with three minor warships and two fireships. Unfavourable winds made progress slow, and when the Gothenburg squadron used the delay for a raid on Fyn, its presence was revealed. A much superior Danish force, 13 warships of 11,000 tonnes, was sent out f r o m Copenhagen and met the squadron when it tried to enter the Baltic through the Femern Belt. In a battle on 31 May and 1 June, four Swedish ships were captured and one was destroyed to avoid capture. Two ships escaped to join the Swedish main fleet, while another, together with a small vessel, hoisted English flags and passed in disguise through the Sound back to Gothenburg. The Swedish main fleet, under c o m m a n d of Field-marshal (temporary Admiral-general) Henrik Horn, did not leave the Stoclcholm archipelago until 11 June. A total of 27 major warships of 24,000 tonnes, nine armed merchantmen of 5,000 tonnes, six fireships, and 11 minor warships were commissioned, although some were detached on various missions. Karl XI still hoped that the fleet could take control of the Sound by defeating the smaller Danish fleet before the delayed Dutch fleet arrived. Members of the Council in Stockholm still preferred that the fleet protect reinforcements to Pomerania rather than try to enter the Sound, a difftcuft operation with the deep-draughted ships which now dominated the fleet. Horn and the admirals probably thought

Bergersen, II, 157-59, discusses this operation with the use of Swedish and Danish sources.

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the same, but they intended to fight the enemy fleet if it was in the Baltic Sea.®' In spite of the urgency to fight before the Dutch arrived, the Swedish fleet spent a few weeks cruising in the southern Baltic to give the officers and crew training, which experience had shown that they needed. Horn must have believed that he had a chance to achieve something useful by a battle, a normal attitude for a Swedish fieldmarshal who had been trained in a battle-oriented army. Without express order from the king, the Danish commander, Admiral Niels Juel, accepted the challenge and did not retreat into the Sound until the Dutch fleet arrived. The result was the battle of Koge Bay on 1 July, the most decisive defeat ever sufli"ered by a Swedish battle fleet. The Danish fleet had 24 major warships of around 21,000 tonnes, including one armed merchantman, while the Swedish fleet had 22 major warships of 21,000 tonnes and eight armed merchantmen of 4,000 tonnes. What actually happened during the battle has been interpreted in widely diff'erent ways in the Danish-Norwegian naval historiography." From Horn's report, it seems clear that the Swedish fleet initially attempted to use its windward position to come close to the Danish ships and decide the battle by boarding, supported by a fireship attack. This failed, apparently because the Danish were able to keep a close formation in line ahead and expose the Swedes to devastating broadside fire. The rest of the battle is obscure, except that Juel evidently was able to split the Swedish fleet and concentrate his fire on some ships." Draken ran aground on the Danish coast and was captured, Mars struck its colour when it became unmanoeuvrable, Caesar was taken by boarding, three ships fled into the Sound, and

" In Radsprotokoll, vol. 69, RA, fol. 117, there is a discussion about the aim with the fleet's operation. A detailed study of decision-making a r o u n d strategy and resource allocations to the armies in Skane and Pomerania and to the fleet in 1677 would be interesting. The king and the central administration in Stockholm m a y have followed divergent ideas, possibly because they had diflferent information. ^^ H a n s Chr. Bjerg, in Bjerg 1977, 67-93, summarises the historiography of the battle u p to 1977. Later contributions to the debate are Jorgen H. Barfod, "Slaget i Koge Bugt den 1. juli 1677", (Danish) Historisk Tidsskrift, 80, 1980, 287-324; lb Gram-Jensen, "Vind og taktik i Koge Bugt 1. juli 1677", Tidsskrift for Sovaesen, 158, 1987, 149-227; a n d 11 articles by Mogen Haerning, lb Gram-Jensen, Jorgen H. Barfod, E m a n u e l Bassols, and Niels M, Probst in Marinehistorisk Tidsskrift, 24-26, 1991-93; Barfod 1997, 65-77. The line-of-battle tactic was developed during the Anglo-Dutch W a r s f r o m 1652 to 1674, but it was often squadrons rather than whole fleet that m a n o e u v r e d in line: Brian Tunstall, Warfare in the Age of Sail: The evolution of fighting tactics, 1650-1815 (ed. Nicholas Tracy), London, 1990, 16-47; Frank L. Fox, A Distant Storm: The Four Days'Battle of 1666, Rotherfield, 1996.

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Flygande Vargen ran aground on the southwestern tip of Skane and was taken. Svenska Lejonet was taken during the retreat, but otherwise the Danes soon gave up pursuit of the retreating Swedish fleet, which sailed faster. The next day, a Dutch squadron arrived in the Sound and took Mercurius and St Hieronymus, two of the Swedish ships there while the third, Kalmar, was burnt to avoid this fate. The total Swedish losses were eight ships of around 7,500 tonnes, of which seven were added to the Danish navy. Total losses of men may have been as high as 3,000, most of them prisoners on captured ships. Danish losses were 76 dead and 211 wounded, but these figures do not include losses on three of the most damaged ships, so a total of between 350 to 400 men is probable. Tliis time the Swedish fleet had fought a hard battle for around ten hours, and in contrast to 1675 and 1676, there were no investigations about misconduct or unwillingness to fight. Most of the fleet returned to Stockliolm, but Admiral Hans Wachtmeister sailed with a squadron to Kalmarsund. He decided to stay there when he was recalled to Stoclcholm by Horn, who had no ambitions beyond defending Stoclcholm. Wachtmeister actively defended Kalmarsund on land and at sea when the Danish fleet attacked the region in August 1677. He could not prevent the Danes from burning part of Oland and the town of Vastervik, but his conduct was approved by Karl XI, who appointed him commander-inchief of the fleet for 1678, a post he held for 36 years.'^" From 1 July 1677 until the end of the war in August 1679, the Swedish fleet had to use strictly defensive tactics in order to limit the efl^ects of Danish command of the Baltic Sea. In round numbers the fleet had major ships of 21,000 to 22,000 tonnes in service against an active Danish fleet of 35,000 tonnes, although the strength and deployment of the Danish fleet in these years are only incompletely known f r o m the literature."^' The Dutch fleet did not appear in the Baltic after 1677. Yet at the same time, Brandenburg began to create a small navy and had several smaU vessels and privateers in action during the sieges

" Wachtmeister's initiative and its consequences, Grauers 1946, 41-50. " Tlie estimate of the size of the active Danish fleet is based on R. C. Anderson's reconstruction of a list of the operational Danish fleet in 1678, Anderson 1910/1969, 124, and a list of officers on active Danish ships on 13 May 1679 in Bergersen, II, 313-22, Danish a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n are not included, but they appear to have operated only in the waters between D e n m a r k and Norway, n o t in the Baltic Sea. Tlie n u m b e r of Swedish a r m e d m e r c h a n t m e n commissioned as warships declined: seven to nine ships in 1678 and probably four in 1679.

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of Stettin, Greifswald, and Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania in 1676-78. Sweden also had a squadron of minor warships in Pomerania in these years. On 7 September 1677, the Danes landed an army unopposed on Riigen, but the island was retaken by the Swedish Pomeranian army in January 1678 when the Danish fleet was laid up for the winter. Wachtmeister started his first campaign on 6 June 1678 by sailing from the Stocldiolm archipelago to a position at the southern entrance of Kalmarsund. He stayed in this region during the summer, and the Danish fleet found it impossible to attack it successfully. In practice, the much inferior Swedish fleet could control the northern Baltic Sea from its position in Kalmarsund. It could do nothing to support the army in Pomerania, however, which until then had been strikingly successful in resisting superior enemy forces during more than three years of war. The Danes and the Brandenburgers decided to made a final effort in this region where they could concentrate their forces undisturbed. In September 1678, the Danish fleet protected the landing of 15,000 Brandenburg soldiers on Riigen, and during the next two months Stralsund, Greifswald, and the rest of Pomerania capitulated. The importance of the sea lines of communication is obvious in this case, when one realises that the Brandenburg army had failed to overrun Pomerania from land since 1675.®'^ The Swedish fleet did not return to Stocldiolm for the winter. It stayed in Kalmar and began an active search for a new deep-water naval base in the Blekinge archipelago; partly because a large French fleet was anticipated in the Baltic in 1679 to help Sweden. France had concluded peace with the Dutch Republic and Spain in 1678. Denmark was now the only remaining naval enemy for France and Sweden, which together had a vast naval superiority. Actually, no French fleet did appear in the Baltic, but the threat of doing so was used as a diplomatic tool to force Denmark to conclude peace. During 1679, naval operations were again concentrated in the Kalmarsund area, where the Danish fleet tried unsuccessfully to bring the Swedish fleet to action or to destroy it in its base. Although the Swedish fleet lost two ships; Nyckeln, which blew up in action, and Laxen, which was captured, when it twice sent squadrons to sea, its fleet-in-being tactic worked fairly well. The Danes had hoped to make attacks on various parts

A t h o r o u g h study of the war in Germany, including local naval operations is Nils W i m a r s o n , Sveriges krig i Tyskland, 1675-1679, 3 vols, Lund, 1897-1912.

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of the Swedish coasts, but the presence of the Swedish fleet close to the southern Baltic kept it occupied and limited its offensive capability. This lesson was not lost on Karl XI and Wachtmeister. The main Swedish battle fleet never returned to Stockholm after the experiences of 1678-79. The Swedish empire in Germany was lost, however, and only restored because Louis XIV h o n o u r e d his obligations as an ally and forced D e n m a r k and Brandenburg to give back practically everything they had occupied. The importance of not only a large but also a combat-ready battle fleet for the preservation of the empire was obvious. The navy had not only been unable to supply the threatened garrisons and reinforce the field army in Germany but also, possibly even m o r e important, had been unable to prevent the enemy f r o m transferring men, material, and provisions to the Swedish territories in Germany by sea. Swedish political leaders had been well aware that their empire was dependent on the sea lines of communication, but since 1660 they had not sufficiently understood how m u c h progress the other navies had made in tactical performance and ability to operate at sea. The result of the war was a fundamental reorganisation of the navy, including the foundation of a new city and naval base, Karlskrona, in the Blekinge archipelago. In the future, the Swedish empire would be defended with a fleet based in the centre of the southern Baltic Sea.®^ Much has been written about the failures of the Swedish fleet in this war, partly because these failures shaped m u c h of the course of the war and partly because they decisively discredited the role of the aristocracy in the centre of the Swedish state. These failures have normally been attributed to material deficiencies, inexperienced officers and crew, and the appointment of three successive commanders-inchief who had no naval experience. O n a m o r e general level, the failures have been attributed to the m i s m a n a g e m e n t of state finances and administration by the regency of Karl XT'"* Little has been said about the strategic decision-making behind the disastrous naval operations. This silence began already in the 1670s, obviously because the king was involved in this decision-making, but it has continued in the historical literature. The failure in 1675 cannot be blamed on Karl XI, who had inherited the problems and who in fact for two years had

Clemensson 1938: Grauers 1946, 61-77, 84-5 Blomdahl 1963.

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instructed the admiralty to keep a limited number of ships in readiness for emergencies. His later direction of the naval war is more questionable, however. Tlie decision to send the fleet back to the northern Baltic Sea after the battle on 26 and 27 May 1676 was unique in Swedish naval history until the disastrous operations against Russia in the Gulf of Finland in 1742. An undefeated, well provisioned fleet in good material condition and of superior quantitative strength in ships and men left the decisive area of operation to the enemy in a rather naive attempt to lure this enemy to combat at a time and place determined by the Swedish fleet. A more conventional decision would have been to stay in the southern Baltic, pose a threat to enemy operations and lines of communication, and as far as possible protect the Swedish lines of communication to Pomerania. The fleet could have sailed to Karlshamn (where the navy had a shipyard), to the sheltered waters in eastern Blekinge,*^' or to Kalmar; or it could have cruised in the open sea in a formation suited for a defensive combat. The fleet was evidently not ready for complicated manoeuvres in combat, but its sheer size should have made it possible to at least maintain a simple defensive formation or a defensive position at anchor and leave the problems of attacking to the enemy. How the admirals reached the decision to sail northwards and how they intended to implement it tactically has never been studied, and because Karl XI approved of the strategic retreat, it has not in itself been regarded as controversial. If the king appears as a rather timid strategic decisionmaker in mid-1676, his decisions about naval strategy in spring 1677 show an abundance of aggressiveness and confidence in the Swedish navy. These decisions were taken after the king had gained self-confidence and prestige f r o m his victory in the battle of Lund in December 1676. They show over-optimism about the possibility to coordinate fleets f r o m Gothenburg and Stockholm and underestimation of Danish naval readiness and of the navigational problems with bringing in a fleet of large warships into the Sound from the south.

® The possibility to use the deep waters behind the islands Hasslo, Aspo, Tjurko, and Sturko in eastern Blekinge as a temporary naval base for a fleet-in-being strategy was evidently not understood at that time. These waters were, even 18 years after Blekinge had become Swedish, practically u n k n o w n to the Swedish navy. It was only the operations in 1677-79 that m a d e their importance obvious and that led to the f o u n d a t i o n of Karlskrona as the m a i n naval base, Clemensson 1938, 36-103.

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These decisions show that the young Karl XI (20 years old in 1675) lacked insight into naval strategy and the realities of naval operations and that he lacked an experienced naval advisor on whom he could trust. The rise of the young admiral Hans Wachtmeister to the position of commander-in-chief was not the least explained by his ability to formulate and implement a strategically sensible plan for how the much-reduced fleet could contribute to the defence of Sweden. Wachtmeister had been one of the king's close friends ah'eady before the war, and this explains why he was appointed to high naval command with only limited experience of the sea. In the early days of the war, Wachtmeister showed no special skill in understanding how geography, operational problems and opportunities, and the strength and limitations of the Swedish navy should be combined into successful strategy. However, he did show good ability to learn his profession, and by 1677 he was the mature naval commander and advisor that the king needed.^" 3.9 3.9.1

The Great Northern

War at sea,

1700-1721

Introduction

The Swedish navy was rebuilt and reorganised in the 1680$ under the direction of Karl XI and Hans Wachtmeister. The reorganisation was centred on the need for a battle fleet in the southern Baltic that could be mobilised at least as quicldy as the Danish fleet in Copenhagen in order to control the sea lines of communication to Germany or cover an invasion of the Danish isles. The development of Karlskrona as a full-scale naval yard and base and the organisation of corps of officers and seamen living close to the base were essential parts of this program. The navy's ability to mobflise a batde fleet quickly was successfully tested in 1683 and 1689 when Sweden was on the brink of war with Denmark. The location of the base also meant that the Danish fleet would have to expose the Danish isles to the Swedish fleet if it attempted to sail east and north of Karlskrona. As the experience of the war would show, the Danish king did not allow his fleet to do that, because it was indispensable for communications within his kingdom.

™ The operations in 1678 and 1679 are discussed f r o m the perspective of the conimander-in-chief, Grauers 1946, 51-60, 77-84.

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Finally, a Gothenburg squadron of large cruisers was being formed at the time of the outbreak of the w a r / ' Tlie Great Northern War has been much studied and analysed as a continental war between armies. Most studies are concentrated on the period up to 1709, when the war indeed was continental. In 1700 and again from 1709 to 1721, however, it was a Baltic war in which control of sea lines of communication determined the operations. The fact that the war continued 12 years after the battle of Poltava in 1709, which usually is regarded as decisive, shows that the outcome of the Baltic phase of the war was far from decided. The naval, amphibious, and joint operations in the Baltic Sea and the waters west of Sweden were important for its outcome, and they were large-scale operations involving several armies and navies. Control of the Baltic region was also the cause of the war and its longevity. Tsar Peter was determined to gain a Baltic coast where he could develop a navy and trade directly with Western Europe, and Karl XII was equally determined to keep all territories he had inherited from Sweden's long war efforts to control the Baltic coasts. Much of the great contest between Sweden and Russia can therefore be analysed in terms of their ability to control the sea, the archipelagos, and the littoral territories in the Baltic. In that perspective, Karl XII's long and successful campaigns in Poland-Lithuania until 1707, about which much has been written, look peripheral compared to Tsar Peter's equally successful but more lasting effort to gain a foothold in the Baltic in the same period. W i t h the exception of the Danish General Staff's study of the Danish part of the war, the literature usually fails to combine its continental and maritime aspects. The close interaction between army and navy operations and the armies' great dependence on seaborne transports and logistics in the Baltic are often underlined in special studies about individual operations, but it is not studied as the pervasive p h e n o m e n o n it actually was. O n e effect of this omission is that the highly innovative character of Peter I's naval policy and the problems he faced in its implementation are underestimated, while the neglect of Karl XII to reorganise his armed forces for the new situation in the Baltic is given little attention. A n o t h e r effect is that we lack a study focused on the problem h o w the control of the sea lines

The f o u n d a t i o n of Karlskrona and the yard during the war: Ericson 1993. M 1762, RA has reports to the king about the navy's readiness in the 1680s.

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of communication f r o m 1709 determined the deployment of the increasingly superior military forces which Sweden's enemies had. A third effect is that the Swedish strategic alternatives are little u n d e r stood. Was a counteroffensive against the root of Russian naval and amphibious power in the Gulf of Finland really impossible? W a s it not in fact the best alternative to bring Tsar Peter to a decisive battle, even after Poltava? Were the counteroffensives on the continent up to 1713, the tenacious defence of the G e r m a n provinces up to 1716, and the offensives against Norway 1716-18 the only options? Both Swedish and allied war efforts deserve to be m o r e studied, not as a series of more or less r a n d o m events (battles, operations) but as results of strategies, administration and resource allocation, choices of technology, and conflicts between policy-makers. Because this book is a study of the importance of organisation, special emphasis will be placed on h o w the established Swedish military organisations reacted to new operational demands.^^ Like other navies, the Baltic navies had by 1700 introduced the battle-line concept, and the strength of the battle fleets was measured by the number of ships-of-the-line or battleships." The average size

Swedish naval operations f r o m 1700 to 1721: Munthe 1924-27; Svenska flottans historia, II, 120-62 (by G u n n a r Unger); Grauers 1946, 2 2 5 - 8 5 ; Goteborgs eskader, 59-179. Except for operations in the Western Sea, there is no standard work on Swedish naval operations in this war. Detailed knowledge of t h e m m u s t be based on articles and books covering individual operations. Danish naval operations: Bidrag 1899-1934; Barfod 1997. Russian naval operations: Anderson 1910/1969, which retains its value because of the author's unusual ability to read b o t h Russian a n d the Nordic languages. The Danish General Staff's Bidrag m a d e m u c h use of Swedish archival sources, and it often provides m o r e detailed information about Swedish naval operations than the Swedish literature. The sources f r o m this war are e n o r m o u s c o m p a r e d to earlier wars, especially in the archival series of Amiralitetskollegium, Karlskrona station, Stockholms station, Goteborgs station, Orlogsflottans rakenskaper, Marinens Rullor, a n d Nya n u m m e r s erien, all KrA. I have primarily consulted the letters f r o m the Admiralty to the king and home government 1700-21, AK till Kunglig Majestat, vols 21-39; Militara amnessamlingar, mainly letters to the king and the h o m e g o v e r n m e n t f r o m fleets and squadrons and f r o m the naval bases in Karlskrona, G o t h e n b u r g and Stockholm, M 1689, M 1720-1721, M 1728-1730, M 1740-1741 a n d M 1858-1866, all in RA. Enclosures with lists of ships, the condition of the crews, a n d economic estimates with the planned disposition of the ships and the projected strength of the crews have been of special interest. " The w o r d ship-of-the-line (Swedish linjeskepp) was n o t m u c h used before the latter half of the 18th century. Rangskepp Ijecame the c o m m o n Swedish term, the Danish usually called such ships orlogsskibe, and in Russia the w o r d korabel was used. In this book, the w o r d battleship is used for ships that the navies intended to use in the battle line.

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of warships had continued to increase compared to earlier wars. In this section, the strength of the major operational forces will normally be measured as the total displacement of the participating battleships. The m i n i m u m size of such ships by 1700 was around 700 tonnes, although the Danes and Russians did have a few even smaller ships that formally (but often not in practice) were counted as battleships. Such ships had at least 12-pounders in their main (lower) battery, although most battleships were larger (usually 900 to 2,300 tonnes) and had 18- or 24-pounders in the main battery. Smaller three-masted ships were classified as frigates in the three Baltic navies. In this war they were usually of around 250 to 500 tonnes and typically armed with 4-, 6-, or 8-pounders in their main battery, although Sweden built some larger frigates with 12- and even 18-pounders. Denmark and Sweden also built frigate-size ships of shallow draught with full lines and a battery of 12- or 18-pounders, primarily intended for shallow waters. Even smaller warships (up to 250/300 tonnes) were usually twomasters and were classified as snows or brigantines, typically with 3- and 4-pounder batteries. The Swedish navy preferred to have threemast rigs even on vessels of 170 to 250 tonnes, and they called such vessels frigates. There were a number of bomb-vessels in the Baltic, a new type of small warship armed with mortars (usually two) which could fire shells against immobile targets ashore. Galleys were built in various sizes, and most Baltic galleys in this war were m u c h smaller than the typical Mediterranean galleys of around 300 tonnes displacement. Information about the size of Russian galleys is often incomplete, while Danish and Swedish inshore flotillas were composed of both broadside-armed sailing ships and oared craft with the main armament in the bow. The differences and the incomplete information make it impossible to measure the strength of inshore forces in simple terms such as displacement. In this section, which cannot discuss the force level in detail, the strength of inshore flotillas is normally only expressed in relative terms. Shallow-draught warships with broadside batteries had various designations: frigate, pram, floating battery, or blockship. The latter word is normally used in this section.^''

Information about warships in Swedish operational forces 1700-21 is f r o m a 19thcentury manuscript hsting every warship commissioned in Karlskrona 1700-87, copy in Axel Zetterstens arbetspapper, vol. 10, KrA; warships commissioned in Gothenburg: Goteborgs eskader, 112-67 (incomplete); warships commissioned in Stocldiolm: Gunnar

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1700: The last Swedish amphibious

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attack on Sjaelland

The ultimate test of the reorganised Swedish battle fleet's mobilisation system came in 1700.^' A secret coalition formed against Sweden by Denmark, Russia, and August (king of Poland-Lithuania and Elector of Saxony) began a series of coordinated operations. August started a siege of Riga in February, Frederik IV of Denmark invaded Sweden's ally Holstein-Gottorp in March, and Tsar Peter declared war and started a siege of Narva in August 1700. The Danish attack on Holstein-Gottorp was not unexpected. The dukedom had been reinforced with Swedish troops in 1699, and both Denmark and Sweden had sent 12 battleships each to sea in the autumn of 1699 as demonstrations. Frederik IV had hoped that Karl XII would be forced to commit his main army to defence in the east, but Karl decided to make his first counter-strike against Denmark. One reason was that he had allies in this conflict, and that would make it possible to defeat Denmark rapidly. Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the Elector of Hanover were—like Sweden—interested in the preservation of HolsteinGottorp's autonomy, and the two sea powers decided to send a joint fleet to the Baltic.^"^ Thirteen Dutch and ten British battleships of 15,000 and 11,000 tonnes respectively arrived off Gothenburg on 8 June. Denmark had mobilised practically the entire fleet—29 shipsof-the-line of about 36,000 tonnes—and 21 of these left Copenhagen on 11 May in order to blockade Karlskrona. Sweden, however, was mobilising no fewer than 38 ships-of-the-line of around 46,000 tonnes in its new base. This fleet, by a wide margin the largest Sweden had sent to sea up to then, was ready to sail on 16 June. As a test of the

lingers arkiv. 1 (unpublished list of warships based in Stockholm since 1715), KrA. Studies about individual operations usually provide i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t warships in commission and their deployment to various parts of the Baltic. I n f o r m a t i o n about the operational strength of Danish fleet is mainly f r o m Bidrag and Barfod 1997, while Anderson 1910/1969 provides information about the Russian, British, and D u t c h fleets in the Baltic 1700-21. Calculations of displacements are m a d e by the author. " Financial and administrative aspects of the naval mobilisation in 1700: l a m e s Cavallie, Fran fred till krig: De finansiella problemen kring krigsutbrottet ar 1700, Uppsala, 1975, 195-212. ™ Baltic naval operations in 1700: Bidrag, I, 374-458, 468-81; Karl XII pd slagfaltet, 2, 245-97, which uncritically follows Karl XII's ideas about naval operations a n d believes that they were realistic; Grauers 1946, 225-45; Bergersen, III, 696-768; Bergersen, IV, 7-156; Gustaf Jonasson, "Kriget m o t D a n m a r k ar 1700: Forberedelserna for landstigningen pa Sjalland och b a k g r u n d e n till fredsslutet", KFA, 43, 1962, 129-72, which analyses sources not used by earlier authors; Barfod 1997, 117-26.

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mobilisation system, this shows major differences compared to 1675, especially because the Swedish army made a full-scale mobilisation at the same time. The Danish fleet was caught between two forces and returned to the Sound in order to defend Drogden, the deeper of the two channels leading into the Sound f r o m the south. Drogden was also, as usual, protected by batteries on the islands Amager and Saltholm and by the removal of navigation marks. Hie Swedish plan for this campaign originally had been that the fleet should protect the transfer of more troops to Germany to fight the main Danish army in Holstein. The potential to gain control of the Sound together with the Anglo-Dutch fleet stimulated Karl XII to alter this into an attack on the Danish fleet, which he hoped to destroy. Admiral-general Hans Wachtmeister, who commanded the Swedish fleet, was ordered to enter the Sound and attack the enemy, although it remains a mystery how the young king imagined that the Danish fleet would allow itself to be destroyed at sea in the immediate vicinity of its well-fortified base in Copenhagen. With Drogden blocked, there remained only the eastern passage into the Sound— Flintrannan, between Saltholm and the Skane coast—for the Swedish fleet. In contrast to earlier wars, this passage had now been surveyed by the Swedish navy, and a passage for the fleet was known. It was too shallow for the five largest Swedish ships, however, which drew more than 20 (Swedish) feet. They returned to Karlskrona, and three other battleships were detached for various reasons. The fleet passed through Flintrannan on 2 and 3 July. In the Sound, 30 Swedish battleships joined the 23 Anglo-Dutch ships. The Danish fleet returned to Copenhagen, which twice was bombarded by the allied fleets without much effect. The next step was to land a Swedish army on Sjaelland, in order to attack Copenhagen and destroy the fleet. Sjaelland was isolated from the main Danish army by Swedish warships in the Great Belt, and there were only 4,500 soldiers avaflable for the defence of the capital. In addition, the Danish fleet had several thousand seamen in Copenhagen, which would have been available for the defence. An amphibious force was rapidly organised, and 4,900 Swedish soldiers were landed at Humlebaek between Copenhagen and Helsingor on 24 July, under the protection of a naval bombardment. A bridgehead was established, and after two weeks more than 10,000 m e n could march against Copenhagen. About 6,000 more were avaflable in

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Skane. Frederik IV was now under great military and diplomatic pres5yj-e_-and without help f r o m his two allies. He quicldy signed a treaty in which he promised to give no further support to the anti-Swedish coalition and guaranteed continued autonomy for Holstein-Gottorp. Karl XII was dissatisfied, because he still hoped to achieve a drastic reduction of the Danish fleet, but the British and the Dutch did not see a total defeat of Denmark as in their interest, and they were unwilling to support continued operations. The Swedish fleet in the Sound had been reduced by detachments of four more battleships, and it was not strong enough to both guarantee communications with Sweden and continue to isolate Sjaelland from the main Danish army. Karl had to sign the treaty and ship his main army to Livonia and Estonia, where it had to face both a Polish-Saxonian and a Russian army. For several years, the Swedish fleet was partly mobilised for the transportation of Swedish army forces across the Baltic.^^ 3.9.3

1701-1709: Karl XII in Poland and Peter I at Neva

After Swedish victories against Russia and Saxony-Poland in the east between 1700 and 1702, Karl XII marched into central PolandLithuania and waged a war to depose August of Saxony as Polish Icing. Just like in his Danish campaign, Karl XII wanted to gain more than an advantageous position for peace negotiations; he hoped for some kind of total victory. Baltic warfare and control of the sea faded into the background for him, although large resources were used to keep his battle fleet up to strength and in parity with Denmark. Karl did not take the naval ambitions of Tsar Peter seriously, even though the tsar in the 1690s had built a substantial navy for operations in the Sea of Azov. Russia followed an entirely new policy, which also meant that the tsar had naval competence to transfer to the Baltic. With great determination, Peter concentrated his war efforts against Sweden on gaining a foothold for his navy in the innermost part of the Gulf of Finland. In 1702, Russian small craft forced the Swedish flotilla on Ladoga to evacuate this lake. The tsar immediately founded a naval yard at the lake and began to produce smaU frigates, minor

' ' Sven Grauers, "De militara t r a n s p o r t e r n a over Ostersjon under stora nordiska krigets forsta skede, 1700-1708", Historiska studier tillagnade Folke Lindberg, Stockholm, 1963, 79-95.

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sailing crait, and galleys. The Russians continued with an offensive in Ingria and took Nyen, the Swedish town at the mouth of the river Neva, in May 1703. During 1703-04, Peter rapidly fortified his positions in what was to become St Petersburg in Neva's delta estuary and the naval base Kronstadt on the island Retusaari (Russian: Kotlin) outside this city. The narrow deep-water passage to Neva was heavily protected by fortifications at Retusaari, and it became impractical for an enemy fleet to reach St Petersburg except with shallow-water vessels. During 1702-04, a Swedish flotilla also operated on Lake Peipus until Russian forces annihilated it. Most surprisingly, the strongly fortified city of Narva, a cornerstone in the Swedish empire since 1581, fell to the Russians in 1704, partly because the Russians were able to supply their siege army from the sea.'® Initially only small Swedish forces were sent to Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland to counter the Russian threat. In 1703, four frigates and ten new brigantines were sent, but it was only in 1704 that the navy began to deploy substantial forces to the Gulf of Finland: two small battleships, eight frigates, six brigantines, one bomb-vessel, and one small galley. This fleet attacked Retusaari in June, without success, and it could not reach the Neva estuary. A Swedish army from Finland attempted to attack St Petersburg but failed to come across Neva, which was controlled by Russian light craft. It was obvious that a Swedish counteroffensive in Ingria and a conquest of St Petersburg would require control of Neva and Ladoga.'' In 1705, a larger Swedish fleet with a landing force from the army made repeated attacks on Retusaari but was beaten back by Russian naval forces and batteries on land. The Swedish "Nyen squadron" this year consisted of seven battleships, nine frigates, three brigantines, and two bomb-vessels. It was vastly superior to the Russian naval forces, but the Russian superiority in oared, shallow-draught vessels in combination with batteries on land made it impossible for the Swedish fleet to gain control of the shallow waters in the innermost parts of the Gulf of Finland. Sailing warships could blockade the Russian f r o m entering the open sea but

Tlie Russian offensives in 1702-04: Munthe 1924-27, I, 70-77, 115-30, 152-59. Lake Peipus: Lars Otto Berg, "Peipuseskadern 1701-1704: Dorptska skeppsflottan", Aastaraamat. Annates societatis littemrum Estonicae in Svecia, 11, 1988-90, Stocldiolm, 1992, 27-38. ™ Munthe 1924-27, I, 238-56.

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could not launch a counterofFensive into shallow and narrow water. The small brigantines were no solution, because they only were armed with 3-pounders and were vulnerable to galleys with one large-calibre gun in the bow.^" The obvious countermeasure of creating a Swedish oared flotilla was not seriously attempted. When Karl XII in August 1705 authorised the building of 40 to 50 armed landing craft for a landing on Retusaari, Wachtmeister expressed his doubts about the plan, apparently because he feared that the navy would be charged with the cost of defending the island against Russian counterattacks.®' The cost of building a large number of oared craft was not prohibitive, especially not compared to the cost of the large battleships, which actually were built from increasingly scarce oak timber of great dimensions. Cheap timber of small dimensions and local private yards could be used to build oared craft. Sweden later proved able to rapidly mass-produce such craft during crises or wars with Russia (1720-21, 1748-49, 1789-90, and 1808-09) without seriously reducing other naval and military efforts."^ An oared flotilla was expensive only because it required a large number of oarsmen, but that was not a problem if an army, requiring seaborne transportation, was available. To such an army, the oared flotilla was an opportunity, not a problem. An oared flotilla was in fact primarily an amphibious force, which would have made Swedish infantry, siege artillery, and logistics mobile on the waters around Retusaari and St Petersburg and could have allowed them to annihilate the Russian foothold in the Baltic. The technical means to integrate the army and the navy, however, so that these two organisations could combine firepower and mobility in shallow and narrow water, were not addressed. The root of the problem was that the two organisations had developed a professional thinking and a firm division of responsibilities that made a shallow-water operation an inconvenient problem rather than a tempting opportunity to gain advantages over the enemy. It is obvious that Karl XII had to take the necessary decisions if resources were to be re-allocated, but he had no experience of

" Munthe 1924-27, II, 293-306. " Lars Otto Berg, "Karolinsk flotta: Studier och tabeller", Forum navale, 25, 1970, 21-25. Later Swedish construction of oared craft: Oscar Nikula, Svenska skargardsflottan 1756-1791, Stocldiolm, 1933, esp. 163-87; Glete 1993, 707-08.

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shallow-water operations. In contrast, Peter I saw such operations as opportunities, and he frequently took personal command over them. Hie Swedish army did not lack men for oared craft. It had large forces in Finland, Estonia, and Livonia, which from 1704 to 1709 were strong enough to resist further Russian offensives. It also had considerable reserves of soldiers in Sweden. At its peak in 1707-08, Karl XII's army had a total effective strength of around 100,000 men.®^ With the exception of a few years in the Thirty Years War (1631-34), the Swedish army was larger than ever before and its quality was good. At the same time, the Swedish navy had grown (at the end of 1708) to 43 battleships, 20 frigates, 21 minor cruising vessels (mainly brigantines), four bomb vessels, five galleys, and numerous transports of various sizes. The galleys were based in Gothenburg for service in the Bohuslan archipelago, a region where no hostilities occurred before 1709. It was the largest navy Sweden ever had during the two centuries studied in this book, but its structure was almost entirely related to control of the southern Baltic in a confrontation with DenmarkNorway. This army and this navy were sufficient to control the open sea in the Baltic and vast continental territories in Eastern Europe. At the same time, these huge organisations had proved unable to retake the small Swedish province of Ingria and the very limited waters in the innermost part of the Gulf of Finland, a region in which combined operations and control of shallow waters, a large river, and a lake were decisive. From 1706 to 1709, the navy continued to blockade the Russian fleet in the Gulf of Finland with a squadron of sailing warships: five to eight small battleships, seven to ten frigates, and five to seven brigantines.®'' Meanwhile, the main army under Karl XII forced King August to give up the Polish throne by a campaign in Saxony. In 1707, this army marched through Poland into Russia at such a distance from the Baltic that logistical support from the sea and operational cooperation with the navy was out of the question. Karl XII evidently hoped to achieve a decision by a battle for control of Moscow and central Russia, rather than for St Petersburg and Tsar Peter's new positions in the Baltic,

Carl OUo N o r d e n s v a n , "Svenska a r m e n aren 1700-1709", KFA, 7, 1916, 12080.

Munthe 1924-27, II, 309, 380-85, 398-413. Naval operations in the Gulf of Finland in 1707: Fredrik Hjelmqvist, Kriget i Finland och Ingermanland 1707 och 1708, Lund, 1909, 40-57.

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even though they evidently were the tsar's main war aim. When Karl during 1708 was met by a Russian scorched-earth strategy and had to give up the direct route to Moscow, he choose to march to the south and Ukraine rather than to the north and his own Baltic territories. The Swedish army was not inactive in the Gulf of Finland region. In August 1708, 11,600 soldiers of the army in Finland attacked Ingria while the fleet supplied it from the sea outside the innermost part of the Gulf The army was able to cross Neva by a feint, which lured away the Russian oared flotilla, but the operation ended in failure. The fleet had to evacuate the entire army f r o m the southern side of the Gulf of Finland in October. The fiasco was partly caused by uninspired leadership, but its outcome obviously would have been different had it been possible to send provisions and heavy guns across the sea to the Neva estuary for a determined siege of St Petersburg.®® It is also obvious that a greater part of the Swedish army could have been deployed to such an assault and supported from the sea had a large oared flotilla been available. Tlie naval forces used in 1708 were only a minor part of the navy. Several thousand seamen as well as many sailing warships would have been available to support army logistics in the Gulf of Finland, if the last part of the line of operation to St Petersburg had been controlled with a shallow-water force. It would have required careful planning and major administrative efforts, but the Swedish armed forces and the state bureaucracy had m u c h experience of organising largescale operations. 3.9.4

1709-1715: A war in the Baltic Sea

After the defeat of his main army at Poltava in July 1709, Karl XII escaped to the Ottoman Empire. He stayed there until 1714 and tried to direct Swedish politics and strategy f r o m a great distance. Sweden's situation was in no way hopeless. The resources for a defensive war against Russia, Denmark, and Saxony-Poland (August quicldy regained his Polish kingdom after Poltava) were considerable; and if used with political, strategic, and administrative skill, they were sufficient for a counter-off'ensive in at least one direction. Karl XII's choice was to recreate a continental army for operations in Poland and Saxony. He

Hjelmqvist 1909, 166-213; Munthe 1924-27, II, 398-413; Einar W e n d t , "Med Nyeneskadern i osterled 1708", Forum navale, 17, 1960, 3 - 3 8 .

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seems to have never considered an alternative: an amphibious force for defensive and counter-offensive operations against Russia in the Gulf of Finland. To this end, he vetoed the neutralisation of the Swedish and Danish provinces in Germany, which Sweden's enemies had agreed to in March 1710 in a treaty between Prussia, Hanover, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the Emperor.'^® The treaty would have given August and Peter free hands in Poland and would have protected Denmark from Swedish assaults from Germany, but it would also have left Sweden free to make seaborne assaults on Denmark-Norway and the Russian-occupied Swedish provinces in the east. Operational planning in these directions would inevitably have focused the interest on a major oared flotilla, but that question was again shelved for some years. The first phase of the new Baltic war was a Danish invasion across the Sound in early November 1709. It continued with an army offensive against Karlskrona in the hope of annihilating the Swedish fleet. Tliis threat was eliminated by a counteroffensive f r o m the Swedish home army, which inflicted a serious defeat on the Danish army at Helsingborg on 28 February 1710. The Danish fleet had to evacuate the remnants of the army. The naval aspect of this winter campaign was small, although a Swedish squadron of 12 battleships of 15,000 tonnes was mobilised in late 1709 and the navy made defensive preparations against the threat of a Danish siege of Karlskrona.®^ Tsar Peter used his sudden superiority on land after Poltava to launch a series of campaigns, which in 1710 led to the conquest of Livonia and Estonia and also of Viborg, the fortified town in southeastern Finland that, since the late 13th century, had been a Swedish bulwark against Russia. In spite of the new war with Denmark, Sweden as usual deployed a naval squadron to the Gulf of Finland and the eastern Baltic: seven small battleships, eight frigates, two brigantines, and one bomb-vessel. It came just too late to stop the Russian fleet f r o m bringing in supply and heavy artillery to the siege of Viborg in April and early May, immediately after the ice had begun to break up in these waters. The lack of a Swedish oared flotilla made it, as

Jorg Philipp Lengeler, Das Ringen urn die Ruhe des Nordens: Grossbritanniens Nordeuropa-Politik und Ddnemark zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main, 1998, 168-95. Bidrag, II; J. A. Lagermark, "Forsvaret av det egentliga Sveriges ostersjokust 1709", KFA, 14, 1923, 87-119, esp. 114-19; Bergersen, IV, 446-89.

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usual, impossible to think of a counter-offensive f r o m the sea in these waters, and Viborg was lost. Tliree of the frigates and one bombvessel were initially sent to Riga with reinforcements, but it proved impossible to pass the Russian batteries at the Diina estuary, and the largest Swedish city in the east capitulated in July 1710. Pernau also fell, and the Swedish squadron was left with the tasks of containing the Russian fleet in the Gulf of Finland and evacuating the garrison in Reval. There were not sufficient naval forces to defend the island of Osel, which was conquered by the Russians in 1710.®® Meanwhile, the Danish fleet made a very large mobilisation in order to achieve something decisive together with Russia, after the failure of the invasion of Skane.*' From March to June 1710, no fewer than 37 Danish battleships of 51,000 tonnes, as well as many frigates and smaller vessels, were commissioned. It was the largest Danish battle fleet mobilisation in this war and, in fact, ever. An agreement with Russia called for the Russian army to supply 10,000 (later reduced to 6,000) soldiers at Danzig. They would be used for a new invasion of Sweden's mainland, protected by the great Danish fleet. In May, Sweden had sent 16 battleships and four frigates to sea in the southern Baltic, to supplement the Gulf of Finland squadron; and the Gothenburg squadron of three small battleships, seven frigates, six brigantines, and five galleys was at least partially commissioned. The latter squadron posed such a threat to Danish-Norwegian communications that six Danish battleships were sent to Kattegatt in early July, thus weakening the Baltic Sea fleet. The threat f r o m the Gothenburg squadron was partly a Swedish deception: it actually was much undermanned, but the Danes could not know this. Regardless, it was easy to send seamen from Karlskrona to bring the squadron up to strength and, thereby, change deception to reality. The Swedish main fleet during the summer was concentrated at Karlskrona. Manning and provisioning were difficult challenges, but the fleet was kept ready to sail at short notice if the Danish-Russian invasion began to materialise. In Copenhagen, wildly optimistic plans of a raid against Stockholm circulated. The Danish naval leaders, who

" Munthe 1924-27, II, 4 4 6 - 5 7 ; J. A. L a g e r m a r k , " F o r s v a r e t av det egentliga Sveriges ostersjokust 1710", KFA, 15, 1924, 127-207; Fredrik Arfwidsson, Forsvaret av Ostersjoprovinserna, 1708-1710, Giivle, 1936, esp. 304-33. " Swedish a n d Danish naval operations in 1710: Bidrag, III, 80-138; Lagermark 1924- Goteborgs eskader, 119-21; Bergersen, IV, 490-767.

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experienced problems with both ships and crews, were much less optimistic and had no great confidence in their ability to defeat the Swedish main fleet. Tlie Danish fleet and the transport ships for the Russian soldiers finally sailed to Danzig on 3 September. Tlie fleet was struck by a gale and had to return to Koge Bay, although about 40 transports continued to Danzig. Many battleships were damaged, and four dismasted battleships had to be sent to Copenhagen. The Swedish main fleet, commanded by Admiral-general Hans Wachtmeister, left Karlskrona on 20 September and sailed to the Koge Bay three days later. The Danish fleet under Admiral-general Ulrik Christian Gyldenlove had 26 battleships of 41,000 tonnes against 21 Swedish of 31,000 tonnes; the Danish superiority in firepower was about 20 per cent.®" The Danish ships and seamen were not in good condition, however, because the fleet had been at sea during most of the summer. Furthermore, the Danes allowed themselves to be surprised: their battleships were anchored deep in the bay, partly in disorder, and no scouting vessels were searching for the Swedish fleet at sea. Wachtmeister attacked from a windward position, and several Danish battleships were not able to beat out of the bay and join the battle-line before increasing winds forced both fleets to break off the action and anchor. The losses on both sides were small except for two dramatic events. The Danish battleship Dannebrog (2,200 tonnes) caught fire and exploded with the loss of 550 men, and the Swedish battleships Tre Kronor (2,000 tonnes) and Prinsessan Ulrika Eleonora (1,600 tonnes) ran aground south of Amager and had to be burnt by their own crews. The Swedish material losses were thus larger, but the Danish suffered a greater loss of men. After the loss of the two ships, Wachtmeister made no further attempt to fight close to the Danish coast. A fireship attack on the Danish fleet had no effect. Two days after the battle, 39 ships of the transport fleet from Danzig, returning without Russian soldiers, were captured or destroyed by the Swedish fleet without any interference from the Danish fleet. Wachtmeister sailed to the east and waited briefly for the Danish fleet to renew the action in the open sea. It did not follow him, and both fleets returned to their bases.

The gun a r m a m e n t of the Swedish ships: Ship-list 1/12 1713, R 4878, RA and N N S II, 12b, " R e m o n s t r a t i o n " (a s u m m a r y of naval g u n s in K a r l s k r o n a 1699 to 1727) 13/7 1728, KrA. Danish ships: yearly lists of a r m a m e n t in Soetaten after 1655, Sokrigskancelliet, SK 924, Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen.

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The campaign of 1710 had revealed that the Danish battle fleet, even when fully mobilised, was in no condition to support offensive allied operations against Sweden, not even when the latter had to deploy part of its strength to the Gulf of Finland. Furthermore, the leaders of the Danish fleet lacked confidence in its ability to defeat the Swedish battle fleet and did not seriously try to fight it when they were offered an opportunity. Tlie Danish fleet was indispensable for Denmark's own defence and consequently was used with great caution, but this reduced its value as an offensive force. Central and southern Sweden could not be threatened by a seaborne invasion unless the Russian fleet was drastically increased or another major naval power joined Sweden's enemy. It was another question if the Swedish naval forces were strong enough to support operations in Germany or protect Finland from an invasion with an amphibious galley fleet, or both at the same time. During 1711, Swedish and probably also Danish naval operations were restrained by a severe plague that struck Northern Europe." No fewer than 6,000 to 7,000 persons died in Karlskrona alone. The Russians were occupied with a war against the Ottoman Empire, in which they were defeated and lost access to the Sea of Azov. That left them free to concentrate their naval efforts on the Baltic, however. The first Russian battleships appeared in the Gulf of Finland in these years. The Swedish blockade force in the northern Baltic Sea (seven small battleships, six frigates, two brigantines, and one bomb-vessel) could only contain the Russian fleet, not blockade all ports under Russian control in Livonia and Estonia. Western merchantmen began to arrive in Russian-occupied Swedish ports. Sweden prohibited trade with these ports and began to attack merchant vessels with privateers. Privateers were also active against vessels sailing between Denmark and Norway. In 1711, the Danes commissioned ten battleships for the Kattegatt and North Sea, an indication of the threat that the Swedish Gothenburg squadron and the increasing Swedish privateering activity posed in these waters.'^

" Naval operations in 1711: Bidrag, III, 154-73, 220-22, 229-60, 294-307, 31-320, 335-54, 393-95, 405-23; J. A. Lagermark, "Forsvaret av det egentliga Sveriges ostersjokust, vastra Sverige och Finland 1711", KFA, 19, 1928, 10-96. ® This war is the only one in which Swedish privateering was important: Olof Traung, Lars Gathenhielm: Kaperiverksamheten under Karl XILs tid 1710-1719, Gothenburg, 1952; Lars Ericson, Lasse i Gatan: Kaparkriget och det svenska stormaktsvaldets fall, Lund, 1997.

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In the southern Bahic, 22 Danish battleships cruised in order to cut off Swedish communications with Pomerania and Wismar, which were under attack by Russian and Polish-Saxonian forces. Hiis fleet also planned to invade Riigen and bring heavy siege guns to Stralsund, but these operations were delayed and finally cancelled due to autumn gales. It was a major failure, considering that it probably saved the Swedish German provinces for four years. The Swedish fleet, 24 battleships of 33,000 tonnes, in December could escort a convoy with 4,000 soldiers to Pomerania after the Danish fleet had been laid up. After this fleet returned, a smaller force shipped one regiment to Wismar, although one small battleship and a frigate were lost in severe gales. With this, these Swedish possessions in Germany were safe for the time being. In 1712, the main Swedish effort was to transfer a major army across the Baltic in order to start the ofl?'ensive into Poland, which Karl XII demanded.'^ Around 10,000 soldiers and much equipment were gathered for an expedition to Pomerania that would raise the Swedish forces in Germany to a level where they could start the offensive. The wisdom of this operation was widely doubted in Sweden, especially because the Ottomans had concluded peace with Russia in 1711 and no longer threatened Russia. The safety of Sweden and Finland was uppermost in the mind of the decision-makers in Stocldiolm, but the command of the absent but absolute king was still powerful enough to overcome political and administrative problems. Russia did in fact launch a major invasion in Finland during 1712 but made only limited progress, and Sweden's four small battleships, four frigates, and two brigantines deployed to the Gulf of Finland could still contain the Russian fleet in the open sea, although not in the Finnish archipelago. The Russian oared forces could support the army's oflJ'ensive before the Swedish squadron arrived on the open coast at Bjorko (northwest of Retusaari/Kronstadt) to cut off communications between St Petersburg and Finland. W h e n the squadron was there, a small Russian oared force was able to pass it wfth the help of a feint and period of calm weather. This was not sufficient to turn the flank of the Swedish army, however, and the Russian army retreated.''' The Swedish Gothenburg

" Naval o p e r a t i o n s in 1712: Bidrag, IV, 1 - 8 8 ; Munthe 1924-27, III, appendix, 3-118. D a n i e l Almqvist, " D e n ryska offensiven i F i n l a n d ar 1712", KFA, 34, 1943, 149-235.

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squadron was active early and tied five to six Danish battleships and six frigates, with an additional three Russian frigates, to Kattegatt and the North Sea. Danish naval efforts showed a new and ingenious pattern when a force of shallow-draught ships and small craft arrived to the New Deep, the relatively shallow eastern entrance to Stralsund in July 1712. The Swedish naval force in this region was inferior in strength, and after repeated counterattacks it had to give up the attempt to control the New Deep. Hie Danes were now in control of the entrance to the port of Stralsund just when Sweden was gathering strength for the transfer of the army to Pomerania. This meant that the Swedish army had to be landed on the open coast of Riigen, where it could be vulnerable to the Danish main battle fleet. The Danish fleet brought in siege artillery to Stralsund in August, and the allies, now commanded by Tsar Peter, also attempted to land Saxonian troops on Riigen with the Danish fleet in August. This plan failed when the Swedish battle fleet under Hans Wachtmeister appeared at sea on 23 August with 24 battleships. The Danish fleet of 16 battleships retreated to a defensive position in Drogden. They recalled part of their Kattegatt squadron when they found that the Swedish Gothenburg squadron had been laid up and the crews had been transferred to m a n the Swedish main fleet in Karlskrona. The Swedish fleet did not remain outside the Sound. Wachtmeister became worried for the safety of the army convoy when reports came about Danish cruisers at sea. Wachtmeister worried that the Danes might send their Kattegatt squadron into the Baltic Sea through the Great Belt and Femern Bek and, thus, attack the convoy behind his back. When General Magnus Stenbock, the commander-in-chief of the army, demanded six more ships as escort, Wachtmeister decided to use the whole Swedish battle fleet as escort force to the convoy. In reality, the cautious Danish Admiral-general Gyldenlove had no plans to split his fleet or take the risk of sailing through Drogden to break Wachtmeister's blockade. Wachtmeister had a fleet of 24 battleships of about 35,000 tonnes, while the Danes, after having concentrated their forces, appeared at sea with 22 battleships of around 37,000 tonnes. The Swedish fleet had a small superiority in firepower.'^ From 16 to

' ' The a r m a m e n t of tlie Swedish ships; ship-list 1/12 1713, R 4878, RA and N N S n , 12b, "Remonstration" 17/7 1728, KrA. Danish ships: yearly lists of a r m a m e n t in Soetaten efter 1655, Sokrigskancelliet, SK 924, Rigsarldvet, Copenhagen.

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18 September, the two fleets manoeuvred off Riigen while the Swedish army disembarked. The Danish fleet was not interested in a battle but aimed at attacking the transport vessels. On 18 September, a shift of the wind allowed the Danish frigates to attack the Swedish transports. Many of these failed to use the wind to sail into safety, and about 60 to 70 were destroyed or captured. The soldiers were ashore by then, but part of the army's equipment and provisions were lost. The two batde fleets separated and returned to their bases after a brief exchange of broadsides on long distance on 19 September. Hans Wachtmeister has been almost unanimously criticised for his decision to leave Drogden and allow the Danish battle fleet to appear at sea without a fight.^® Wachtmeister, whose health had deteriorated after a stroke in early 1711, may have been overcautious; a few fast ships sent for reconnaissance in the Femern Belt could have warned him if a Danish squadron really had been sent f r o m Kattegatt. Ironically, his critics indirectly credit him for the respect the Swedish navy (which he had led since 1678) had instilled in its traditional adversary. They take it for granted, correctly, that a Swedish fleet could blockade a Danish fleet of equal strength and that the Danes would not risk sending a limited striking force into the Baltic for the destruction of an important convoy. Compared to the war of 1675-79, it is remarkable that Sweden could send an army across the Baltic in the presence of a Danish battle fleet of the same strength as the Swedish fleet. The final part of the operation in 1712 was a setback, although the importance of the losses for the army's operations has never been properly investigated. The possibility of re-occupying Poland was small when the size of the Russian, Saxonian, Pohsh, and Danish army forces in northern Germany is considered. The Swedish army under Magnus Stenbock won a victory against a Danish-Saxonian army at Gadebusch on 9 December 1712, the last Swedish victory on the continent ever, but provisioning problems forced it to capitulate at Tonning in Holstein

H a n s Wachtmeister's only staunch defender has been G u n n a r Unger: G u n n a r Unger, "Sj5histoiiska vrangbilder", TiS, 88, 1925, 511-35; H u g o Larsson, "Var flotta u n d e r det stora nordiska kriget", TiS, 89, 1926, 5 7 - 7 5 (inckiding reply by G. Unger); H u g o Larsson, "Flottoperationerna i sodra Ostersjon 1712", TiS, 89, 1926, 191-95; G u n n a r Unger, "Flottoperationerna i sodra Ostersjon 1712. Slutreplik", TiS, 89, 1926, 251-64. Critique against W a c h t m e i s t e r f r o m authors w h o are sympathetic to him: Munthe 1924-27, III, appendix, 45-71; Grauers 1946, 263-76.

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on 5 May 1713.'" The last Swedish offensive operation on the European continent was over. The large resources gathered for a counter-offensive were spent in an attempt to re-establish Sweden as a continental power rather than being sent to the Gulf of Finland to eliminate the Russian naval threat to Sweden as a Baltic power and to the eastern part of the old kingdom, Finland. It was a fateful choice. Tsar Peter had wasted little time after Poltava to begin to build a Baltic battle fleet. Five small 50-gun battleships had been laid down in 1708-09 (before Poltava) and launched in 1710-12. Six medium-sized battleships were laid down in St Petersburg in 1711-12, and seven small battleships in Archangelsk (White Sea) in 1712-14. Eleven more large and medium-sized battleships (66 to 96 guns) were laid down in St Petersburg in 1714-16. This was a large battle fleet, but it took several years to build, and most of the St Petersburg-built ships were not launched until 1717-21. In the meantime, the tsar used the opportunity offered by the end of the Spanish war of Succession: both shipping and manpower resources had been freed up for use elsewhere. Officers and seamen were recruited in Western Europe; 16 battleships were purchased second-hand between 1712 and 1714, from Britain, the Dutch Republic, France, and Hamburg; and three battleships were built in the Netherlands to Russian specifications. Most of these purchased battleships were actually armed merchantmen, small and weak compared to most Swedish and Danish battleships, but together they formed a powerful force that could influence Baltic strategy.'" During 1713, military and naval operations in and around Pomerania and Riigen continued, but they were not intense, and a local truce was concluded in the autumn. The Danish fleet had severe problems finding seamen, and only in August was the main fleet brought up to its intended strength of 18 battleships. It stayed close to its base, and in September it failed to intercept a Swedish supply and reinforcement convoy to Stralsund, protected by 15 battleships. In the autumn, Denmark had to commission three of its oldest battleships for escort duties in the North Sea, where Swedish privateers, some of

" The most recent study of diplomacy and politics a r o u n d this operation is Lengeler, 196-271. The creation of a Russian battle fleet can be followed in the historical ship-lists in Feodor. F. Veselago, Spisok russkich voennych sudov, 1668-1860, St Petersburg, 1872, 8-19, 74-79. The purchase of ships: R. C. A n d e r s o n , "Second-hand M e n - o f - w a r in 1712-14", M M , 17, 1931, 321-26.

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them foreigners with privateering experience from the Spanish War of Succession, had become increasingly active.'' With large Swedish forces deployed to the continent, Tsar Peter in 1713 took the opportunity to concentrate his offensive efforts to that part of Sweden where control of the open sea was not decisive: Finland.'™ For the first time, his galley flotilla showed its full potential. In early May, a squadron of Russian sailing warships took up a position at Bjorko between Retusaari/Kronstadt and Viborg, where the open coast might give Swedish sailing warships an opportunity to block the Russian galleys. With that position under control, around 200 galleys and small craft rapidly brought a Russian army into the Finnish archipelago, landing it at Borga. The galleys could use the archipelago as a protected transport route for both soldiers and their provisions, and with this amphibious force, southern Finland was rapidly overrun by the Russian army during the summer of 1713. Once west of Bjorko, the Russian galley fleet could not be stopped until it reached the Hango peninsula in southwestern Finland, where land projects out into the sea without a covering archipelago of islands. The Swedish Gulf of Finland squadron, a total of nine battleships this year, was still in control of the open sea and took its position off Hango. There it cut off seaborne supply for the Russian army forces occupying southwestern Finland and Abo. The Russian army had to retreat to the east, a sign of how dependent the army was on seaborne logistics."" During 1713, the Russians increased their battleship strength to 12, but one ship was lost by grounding and one purchased ship was captured by the Swedish fleet on its way from England. The presence of the Russian battleship force made naval operations more complicated for the Swedish squadron making it impossible to keep a tight blockade of all Russian-controlled ports in the Baltic. Trade between Western Europe and Russia's new Baltic ports revived, although it remained at a lower than normal level until 1722.'"^

" Bidrag, V, 197-244. The planned commissioning of three m o r e battleships was not fulfilled. Naval operations against Russia in 1713: H u g o Uddgren, Kriget i Finland 1713, Stockholm, 1906, 72-85. "" Russian logistics in Finland: Kuvaja 1999. G5sta Lindeberg, Svensk ekonomisk politik under den gortzka perioden, Lund, 1941, 34-48.

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In 1714, Swedish naval efforts were concentrated in the Gulf of Finland.'" Denmark intended to commission 19 battleships but actually manned only 15. Of these, only iive to six battleships were continuously at sea in the Baltic Sea, while three were in Kattegatt and Skagerack. Swedish convoys to Stralsund passed practically unhindered. Financial problems severely restrained further Danish war efforts, and Tsar Peter's plans in late 1713 and early 1714 that the Danes and Russians should join their army and navy forces for an invasion of central Sweden or a destruction of Karlskrona and the Swedish fleet lacked realism. Sweden commissioned 11 battleships for the southern Baltic, but Danish inactivity made it possible to send three of them to the Gulf of Finland. There, a force of 16 battleships, six frigates, three brigantines, three bomb-vessels, two shallow-draught blockships, and 11 galleys was concentrated during May and June in order to continue to prevent the Russians galleys from passing Hango and in order to contain the growing Russian batde fleet. The blockships and galleys were built in 1713 as a belated answer to the Russian galleys, but it was a minor force compared to the 118 galleys, with 17,000 soldiers, which the Russians commissioned this year. The Russian battle fleet was concentrated in Reval and commanded by the tsar, officially as rear admiral, his present rank in the Russian navy. It consisted of 16 battleships, five frigates, and three small vessels, but its battleships were small, half of them only armed merchantmen, and the entire fleet was undermanned. After a brief counterattack against a Swedish squadron on 17-18 July, it returned to Reval and acted as a fleet-in-being. It did not support the galley fleet, which waited east of Hango at a suitable m o m e n t to pass this point. The tsar ordered that an attempt should be made to transport galleys on land across the narrow Hango peninsula. The Swedish fleet had detached half of the archipelago flotilla to the archipelago in southwestern Finland. W h e n reports about Russian preparations for bringing small galleys across the peninsula reached the fleet, the other half of the flotilla was detached on 25 July to the archipelago west of Hango, where it was charged with stopping this activity. The next day was totally calm, allowing the Russian galley fleet to use its oars and

Naval operations in 1714: Bidrag, VI, 252-84; H u g o Uddgren, Kriget i Finland 1714, Stockholm, 1909, 2 6 - 2 9 , 5 1 - 5 9 , 1 1 1 - 4 4 ; a Russian a c c o u n t : P. A. Krotov, Gangutskaia bataliia 1714 goda, St Petersburg, 1996.

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pass unharmed around the Swedish battle fleet. It then re-entered the archipelago, captured the Swedish flotilla (one blockship, six galleys, and three swivel-armed boats) in an intensely fought battle west of Hango on 27 July (called the battle of Hango Udd), and continued to take control of the Abo and Aland archipelagos. Tliis made it possible for the Russian army to operate in southeastern Finland, and the occupation of the eastern part of the Swedish kingdom was completed. The actions around Hango on 26-27 July (the battle of Gangut in Russian) have remained a great event in Russian naval historiography and have frequently been misinterpreted as a decisive battle for control of the Baltic Sea.'""' It was actually a part of the conquest of Finland, and its importance for future naval operations was that the operational base of the Russian galleys came closer to the Swedish east coast. The strategic lessons of the operations in 1713-14 were that substantial forces of oared vessels were necessary in warfare in Finland and that an army operating there must control the archipelago. These lessons were to determine a century of Swedish strategy. In late 1714, Karl XII suddenly arrived on horseback in Stralsund after five years in the Ottoman Empire. He made the city his headquarters and took personal control of Swedish foreign, military, and naval policy. He made clear that he did not respect the sequester which Hanover had placed on Bremen-Verden and Prussia on Stettin and the Oder estuary since 1712-13. Karl even forced the Prussian troops to leave the island of Usedom. As a result, both German states joined the anti-Swedish alliance. The Elector of Hanover, George I, was since 1714 also the king of Great Britain, so Sweden saw a new major enemy at sea. A conflict between Britain and Sweden had been growing since Russia had occupied the Swedish Baltic provinces. Swedish policy was that trade in occupied Swedish ports was forbidden and that Swedish privateers and warships had the right to capture neutral ships sailing in them. Many English and Dutch merchantmen were captured, although until 1714 the maritime powers were unwilling to break their traditionally friendly relations with Sweden. George I's accession to the British throne changed this, and the British and Dutch governments

For example in Phillips 1995, 124; Richard Harding, "Sea Power: The struggle for dominance, 1650-1815", in Geoff M o r t i m e r (ed.), Early Modern Military History, 1450-1815, Hoimdsmills, 2004, 182-83.

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decided to organise convoys and send fleets to the Baltic. Eighteen British and eight Dutch battleships arrived in the Sound in late May 1715. Hie Dutch only intended to protect their trade, but George I and some of his British ministers hoped that this fleet could be used to support the allies and gain Bremen-Verden for Hanover. That would require provoking Karl XII to attack British warships, however, and for once he was cautious and ordered his navy to avoid clashes with the western sea powers.'"^ In Karlskrona, an early spring squadron of four battleships and two frigates was organised.'"® It left port on 24 March with orders from the Amiralitetskollegium to cruise south of the entrance of the Sound, catch enemy vessels, and guard communications between Sweden and Pomerania. On 30 March, Karl XII sent a strange dispatch to the young Schoutbynacht (Rear-admiral) Count Karl Hans Wachtmeister (the late admiral-general's son), who commanded this squadron. He was ordered into the Femern Belt, where he was to join the Gothenburg squadron, which the king had ordered to sail southwards. Wachtmeister did so and for two weeks made his presence known to the Danish by capturing some merchantmen. Not unexpectedly, a much superior Danish squadron of eight battleships and three frigates was sent from Copenhagen and cut off Wachtmeister's retreat. But Wachtmeister had Karl XII's order to fight the enemy regardless of the relative strength, and he did so on 13 April east of Femern. After a fiercely fought battle lasting five or seven hours (the reports differ), the Swedish squadron was too much damaged to continue the fight or escape. The Danish losses were 65 dead and 224 wounded, while

The British-Dutch naval expeditions to the Baltic in 1715-16 and their background in trade and diplomacy are studied by John J. Murray, "Sjomakternas expedition till Ostersjon 1715", KFA, 44, 1953, 134^96; John J. Murray, "The United Provinces and the Anglo-Dutch Squadron of 1715", Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis der Nedeiianden, 8, 1953/54, 20-45; John J, Murray, George I, the Baltic and the Whig Split of 1717: A study in diplomacy and propaganda, London, 1969. The British expeditions in 1715-21 are studied by David D. Aldridge, Admiral Sir John Norris and the British Naval Expeditions to the Baltic Sea, 1715-1727, Lund, f o r t h c o m i n g (PhD thesis, London, 1971). M u r r a y has mainly used British and D u t c h sources, while Aldridge mainly has used British and Swedish sources. The most recent study of George I's decision to intervene in the Nordic W a r is Lengeler, 273-85. Naval operations in 1715: Bidrag, VII, 9 - 3 4 , 64-240; G u n n a r Unger, Karl XII och ostersjokriget 1715: En sjdhistorisk strategist studie, Stockholm, 1928. The Stockliolm squadron: Sven Grauers, Atten Wachtmeister genom seklerna, 1, Stockholm, 1941, 312-19. The battle of Femern: Sven Grauers, Atten Wachtmeister genom seklerna, 3:1, Stockholm, 1953, 18-23.

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the Swedish squadron had 353 dead and wounded. At least 1,875 men were taken prisoners. All Swedish ships except one battleship, which was destroyed, were captured and most of the ships served for many years in the Danish navy. The rationale behind Karl XII's order is impossible to understand. The squadron was by the Amiralitetskollegium sent to cruise where it at the same time could blockade small Danish forces from Copenhagen, catch Russian warships sailing from Western Europe, protect the communications between Sweden and Pomerania, and easily retreat to Karlskrona if superior forces appeared. The king sent it to a place where it could achieve none of these tasks, only disturb Danish communication lines for a very brief period. It was a useless sacrifice of one sixth of his battle fleet and 2,200 m e n at a time when they were badly needed for the operations which Karl had in m i n d for 1715, a decisive fight for Pomerania and Wismar supported with supplies from Sweden. It is also obvious that Karl XII knew or understood little of rather recent operational history. He placed the squadron in exactly the same unfavourable position as his father had when he had sent the Gothenburg squadron through the Danish straits in May 1677, only to be defeated by the Danish fleet. Karl XI had at least had the rational strategic purpose of trying to unite his fleet for a decisive attack on Denmark; his son deliberately split his fleet as a prelude to a decisive operation. Now the Swedish navy had to counter the activities of both the Russian and the Danish fleet with reduced strength. To guard against the Russian threat to Stockholm, two—later three—small battleships, five frigates, two brigantines, one blockship, and six galleys were based in the capital. This Stockholm squadron became permanent, and after 35 years the capital partially revived as a naval base. Thirteen Swedish battleships paid a brief visit to the Gulf of Finland in late May and early June and made a fruitless attack on a Russian squadron in the port of Reval. This fleet was soon recalled to the southern Baltic and was back in Karlskrona around 15 June. Tlie Russians commissioned 17 battleships and four frigates, which for a while cruised close to Stockholm and Gotland but soon returned to the Gulf of Finland. They made the open sea unsafe for Swedish shipping and privateers, but the invasion of Gotland, which the Council in Stocldiolm feared, did not materialise. The Russians seemed to be interested primarily in training, and the tsar still lacked seamen for all his new warships. The presence of

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the Russians did, however, tie a Swedish squadron to Stocldiohii, just when its shallow-water component would have been of great strategic importance in the Pomeranian campaign. The fight for Pomerania and Riigen was the main campaign this year, and while several allies gathered large army forces, it was the Danish navy that had to fight for control of the sea. The Danes repeated their earlier successful strategy of deploying a powerful shallow-draught flotilla to the inshore Pomeranian waters. These waters gave access to the ports of Stralsund, Greifswald, and Stettin and could be used to transport heavy guns and provisions for the alhed armies. Since 1712, Sweden had built a local flotilla for Pomerania, and in 1715, 12 frigates, two bomb-vessels, and one brigantine fought here. From 8 July until mid-November, a series of naval actions took place when the allied armies occupied the island of Usedom and gradually closed the siege and blockade of Stralsund. The Danes were reinforced, partly with galleys f r o m the Norwegian flotilla. Finally their flotilla could protect the landing of a large army, possibly as large as 17,000 men and 5,000 horses, on the southeastern (inshore) side of Riigen on 5 November. This proved decisive for the Pomeranian campaign. Tlie campaign was over for the Swedish flotilla, which had lost four frigates, and the survivors sailed to Sweden. However, for the first time in this war, the Swedish navy had proved able to fight an important campaign for control of narrow and shallow waters. The Pomeranian flotilla delayed quantitatively superior enemy army forces in their operations on land for several months. The maritime character of the Swedish territories in Pomerania and the decisive importance of the sea were demonstrated in this campaign.'"^ The campaign for control of the open sea was fought between the Danish and Swedish battle fleets. In July, Sweden had gathered 20 battleships of around 26,000 tonnes under c o m m a n d of Admiral Klas Sparre, to protect a convoy to Riigen. The convoy encountered a Danish fleet of 16 battleships under Admiral Peter Raben, This force retreated westward, for a time cutting off the Danish shallow-water flotilla in Pomerania f r o m supply of water and provisions. The Swedes attempted to attack the Danish flotilla f r o m the sea with their smallest

Erik Spens, "Sjomaktens inflytande pa strideii o m V o r p o m m e r n 1715", TiS, 102, 1939, 288-311,

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battleships (Karl XII was on board one of them) and f r o m shore batteries, but the flotilla could take protection in shallow water. Hie flotilla's importance was so great that both Frederick William I of Prussia and Frederik IV of Denmark visited it to encourage the crews, but it clearly needed help. Hie Danish government asked for help f r o m the British Baltic fleet, but the political situation had not developed far enough for its active participation. The Danish government decided, uncharacteristically, to risk a major battle-fleet action with Sweden. They strengthened the fleet with five more battleships and formed a Danish battle line of 21 units of around 33,000 tonnes. Danish superiority in firepower was less marked, around 12 per cent.'"® The Danish fleet sailed to Riigen. The Swedish fleet formed a battle line and met the Danish fleet on an east-north-easterly course on 28 July. The ensuring battle followed strict battle-line tactics. It was the last of the many battles between the two Nordic battle fleets, and it ended in a tactical draw. The losses in men were higher on the Danish side: 127 dead and 485 wounded against 145 dead and 333 wounded on the Swedish ships.'"' Some Swedish ships were severely damaged and had several hits below the waterline, probably because the Swedish line had the leeward position, which in the fresh wind meant that part of the bottoms were exposed to gunfire. The Danish ships must have received most of their hits higher in the hulls, which explains the larger losses in personnel. Both fleets were exhausted and suffered f r o m lack of ammunition, and after a few days, they sailed to Karlskrona and Koge Bay respectively for repair. In the following months neither fleet was much at sea, although the Danish fleet escorted an important convoy with soldiers to Pomerania in late August. In early September, most of the British fleet left the Baltic Sea with homebound merchantmen, but eight battleships remained and joined the Danish fleet. In exchange, Denmark turned over Bremen-Verden to Hanover, but it is doubtful if they got much out of this transaction. It was still highly uncertain whether British warships, unprovoked, would attack Swedish ships in cooperation with the Danes. The Swedish fleet

The a r m a m e n t of the Swedish ships: ship-hst 1/12 1713, R 4878, RA; N N S II, 12b, "Remonstration" 13/7 1728, KrA. Danish ships: yearly lists of a r m a m e n t in Soetaten efter 1655, Sokrigskancelliet, SK 924, Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen. Danish losses f r o m Bidrag, VII, 114-16. Swedish losses f r o m a detailed list of 3/8 1715, M 1860, RA. Anderson 1910/1969, 167, has slightly different figures for both fleets.

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was not repaired up to full strength until early October, when it began a series of attempts to send in reinforcements to Pomerania. Tliey were hindered by severe autumn gales rather than the Danish-British fleet, which usually stayed in Koge Bay, but because only 700 soldiers could be sent, it is doubtful whether these convoys could have changed the increasingly hopeless situation in Stralsund."" Karl XII escaped in a small warship and returned to the Swedish mainland on 13 December 1715 after 15 years of absence. Stralsund had surrendered one day earlier. The convoy with supply from Karlskrona, which finally arrived at the same time, evacuated parts of the garrisons and continued to Wismar, which received these last Swedish reinforcements to its forces on the continent. This town had to capitulate on 9 April 1716, but its resistance kept 10,000 Danish soldiers occupied for several months when they were needed elsewhere. 3.9.5 1716-1721: Great Britain, the Baltic powers, and the end of the war Karl XII immediately started a new campaign."' In late February 1716, he invaded Norway. He soon took Christiania (Oslo), but the lack of siege guns made it impossible for him to take the Akershus fortress in Christiania or the fortress Frederikssten (at Halden) at the SwedishNorwegian border. The Danish sent seven battleships and six frigates with soldiers who landed and forced the Swedish army to a partial retreat in April. The campaign continued, however, and the Swedish west coast archipelago flotilla supplied the army as it controlled the

"" Murray 1969, 187-89, and Hatton 1968, 404-07, argue that the presence of eight British battleships markedly strengthened the Danish fleet and m a d e the Swedish fleet unwilling to escort convoys to Pomerania. Aldridge forthcoming, ch. 2, has f o u n d n o evidence of that in the Swedish sources and concludes that it was inclement weather that delayed the convoys. A log-book of w i n d a n d weather conditions as recorded on the Swedish fleet flagship Gota Lejon f r o m 16/9 to 25/11 1715 is in M 1860, RA. Murray's argument that it m u s t have been possible for Swedish transports to sail to Pomerania when the allied a r m y could invade Rugen in N o v e m b e r does not take into account that the invasion force only sailed a short distance f r o m Greifswald to Rugen, mainly in sheltered waters. Naval operations in 1716; Bidrag, VIII; Grauers 1941, 319-28; Goteborgs eskader, 133-39. Allied policy, operations, and diplomacy: Edvard H o l m , "Studier til den Store Nordiske Krigs historie: I. Frederik IV och Czar Peter i Aaret 1716", (Danish) Historisk Tidsskrift, 5:3, 1881-82, 1-160; Mediger 1967, esp. 303-12, 328-29, 381-82. British naval participation: Murray 1969, 216-84, Aldridge forthcoming, ch. 3.

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route through the Bohuslan archipelago between G o t h e n b u r g

and

N o r w a y . T h e d e p l o y m e n t of several D a n i s h w a r s h i p s t o N o r w a y a n d D a n i s h difficulties w i t h b r i n g i n g a m a j o r fleet t o sea f o r a t i m e gave t h e S w e d i s h fleet c o n t r o l of t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic Sea. This y e a r , S w e d e n h a d r e d u c e d t h e active battle fleet to 14 b a t t l e s h i p s a n d six frigates b u t m a n a g e d t o k e e p t h e fleet m a n n e d f r o m early s p r i n g t o a u t u m n . It w a s u n d e r c o m m a n d of A d m i r a l B a r o n Karl H a n s W a c h t m e i s t e r , a n e p h e w of t h e d e c e a s e d a d m i r a l - g e n e r a l ( n o t t o b e c o n f u s e d w i t h h i s y o u n g e r c o u s i n w i t h t h e s a m e n a m e ) . I n late A p r i l h e c h a s e d an i n f e r i o r D a n i s h s q u a d r o n t o K o g e Bay b u t m a d e n o a t t e m p t t o e x e c u t e t h e a t t a c k o n t h e fleet in C o p e n h a g e n , w h i c h Karl XII h a d o r d e r e d h i m t o try. T h e t e m p o r a r y S w e d i s h s u p e r i o r i t y at sea d e l a y e d t h e D a n i s h shallow-draught

flotilla,

w h i c h w a s to b e t r a n s f e r r e d f r o m

Pomerania

t o B o h u s l a n a n d c u t ofl: S w e d i s h a r m y s u p p l i e s . It also d e l a y e d t h e R u s s i a n Reval s q u a d r o n of s e v e n b a t t l e s h i p s , w h i c h w a s t o j o i n t h e D a n i s h fleet. T h e t w o fleets w e r e t o p r o t e c t t h e t r a n s p o r t of R u s s i a n f o r c e s f r o m t h e c o n t i n e n t to Sjaelland, w h e r e a large a r m y of 20,000 D a n e s a n d 33,000 R u s s i a n s w a s t o b e c o n c e n t r a t e d f o r a decisive invas i o n of S k a n e . W a c h t m e i s t e r r e t u r n e d t o K a r l s k r o n a in late M a y w h e n a British fleet of 17 b a t t l e s h i p s a r r i v e d in t h e S o u n d . Its t a s k w a s to give A n g l o - H a n o v e r i a n d i p l o m a c y m u s c l e s a g a i n s t K a r l XII. F o r t h e rest of this year, t h e S w e d i s h fleet stayed at o r n e a r K a r l s k r o n a a n d p l a y e d t h e role of a

fleet-in-being.

It l i m i t e d t h e e n e m i e s ' f r e e d o m of

o p e r a t i o n b y f o r c i n g t h e m t o c o n c e n t r a t e t h e i r fleets a n d b y t h r e a t e n ing A n g l o - D u t c h shipping f r o m Russian-held ports. Tlie D a n i s h s h a l l o w - w a t e r flotilla sailed n o r t h f r o m P o m e r a n i a a n d , o n 2 7 J u n e 1716, s t r u c k a b l o w t h a t e n d e d Karl X I I ' s N o r w e g i a n c a m p a i g n . It a t t a c k e d a n d t o a c o n s i d e r a b l e e x t e n t d e s t r o y e d o r c a p t u r e d t h e S w e d i s h i n s h o r e flotilla at D y n e k i l e n in t h e B o h u s l a n a r c h i p e l a g o a n d c a p t u r e d t h e siege t r a i n f o r t h e S w e d i s h siege of F r e d e r i k s s t e n . I n J u n e , t h e q u e s t i o n of w h o c o n t r o l l e d t h e o p e n sea in t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic Sea w a s still u n d e c i d e d , b e c a u s e t h e S w e d i s h fleet in K a r l s k r o n a c o u l d strike at t h e R u s s i a n s o r t h e D a n e s b e f o r e t h e y h a d u n i t e d t h e i r forces. C o n s e q u e n t l y , t h e R u s s i a n Reval s q u a d r o n w a s d e l a y e d a n d d i d n o t arrive at C o p e n h a g e n u n t i l 17 July, w h e n it j o i n e d t e n o t h e r R u s s i a n battleships that h a d arrived f r o m Archangelsk and W e s t e r n Europe. By t h e n t h e British a n d t o s o m e e x t e n t also t h e D u t c h w e r e c o m m i t t e d t o s u p p o r t t h e i n v a s i o n , b e c a u s e Karl XII h a d s h o w n n o i n t e r e s t in

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peace n e g o t i a t i o n s . T h e D u t c h h a d f o u r b a t t l e s h i p s in t h e Baltic, a n d t h e D a n i s h fleet w a s g r a d u a l l y able t o c o m m i s s i o n 18 b a t t l e s h i p s , t h r e e fewer t h a n p l a n n e d . T o g e t h e r t h e a n t i - S w e d i s h c o a l i t i o n n o w h a d a m i g h t y fleet of 56 b a t d e s h i p s , a l t h o u g h s o m e of t h e R u s s i a n b a t t l e s h i p s were actually of t h e s a m e size as large D u t c h a n d British f r i g a t e s of 4 0 - 4 4 g u n s . E v e n if t h e t h r e e s m a l l S w e d i s h b a t t l e s h i p s in S t o c k h o l m , the t h r e e s m a l l b a t t l e s h i p s in G o t h e n b u r g , a n d t h e a d d i t i o n a l b a t d e ships t h a t m i g h t h a v e b e e n c o m m i s s i o n e d i n K a r l s k r o n a a r e c o u n t e d , t h e allied s u p e r i o r i t y w a s o v e r w h e l m i n g : 56 a g a i n s t 28 b a t t l e s h i p s . Tlie Russians h a d also s e n t a large galley flotilla t o t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic, t o act as an a m p h i b i o u s f o r c e . The tsar h a d originally p l a n n e d t o d i v i d e t h e o p e r a t i o n i n t o a n allied i n v a s i o n of s o u t h e r n S w e d e n a n d a R u s s i a n i n v a s i o n of c e n t r a l S w e d e n . For t h a t h e d e m a n d e d t h a t D a n i s h b a t t l e s h i p s b e s e n t t o t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic Sea t o p r o t e c t his galleys w h e n t h e y c r o s s e d t h e sea f r o m t h e A l a n d i s l a n d s t o t h e S w e d i s h coast, b e c a u s e h e d i d n o t t h i n k t h a t h i s i n e x p e r i e n c e d battle fleet c o u l d d o t h a t . B u t t h e D a n i s h k i n g w a s n o t i n t e r e s t e d in t h i s o p e r a t i o n . Actually, t h e R u s s i a n a r m y c o n c e n t r a t e d o n A l a n d w a s s t r u c k b y a logistical d i s a s t e r d u r i n g t h e s u m m e r , w h i c h d e m o n s t r a t e d b o t h t h e l i m i t s of F i n l a n d as a b a s e f o r a n a r m y a n d t h e limits of R u s s i a n a d m i n i s t r a t i v e capability. Tliey w e r e o n l y able t o organise o n e o f f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n at t h e s a m e t i m e , a n d t h e p r e s e n c e of the tsar w a s e v i d e n t l y v e r y i m p o r t a n t f o r a d m i n i s t r a t i v e success."^ The large allied b a t t l e fleet d i d n o t leave K o g e Bay u n t i l 7 A u g u s t , t h e D a n i s h a n d R u s s i a n fleets b o t h u n d e r p e r s o n a l c o m m a n d of T s a r Peter. T h e fleet safled t o w a r d s K a r l s k r o n a b u t t o o k n o o f f e n s i v e a c t i o n against t h e S w e d i s h base, a n d t h e 14 S w e d i s h b a t t l e s h i p s i n c o m m i s sion n a t u r a l l y s t a y e d in p o r t . D i s t r u s t b e t w e e n t h e allies w a s g r o w ing, o p e r a t i o n s w e r e d e l a y e d , a n d o n 8 S e p t e m b e r , t h e t s a r s u d d e n l y declared t h a t it w a s t o o late t o s t a r t t h e g r e a t i n v a s i o n . H i s r e a s o n s f o r cancelling t h e o p e r a t i o n h a v e b e e n m u c h d i s c u s s e d . T h e m o s t likely e x p l a n a t i o n is t h a t h e b e l i e v e d t h a t a n o c c u p a t i o n of s o u t h e r n S w e d e n w o u l d n o t b e decisive e n o u g h f o r K a r l XII t o s u e f o r peace, a n d t h e failure of t h e a t t e m p t e d R u s s i a n i n v a s i o n of c e n t r a l S w e d e n m a y h a v e

Paul Bushkovitch, Peter the Great: The struggle for power, 1671-1725, Cambridge, 2001, 352-56; H a n s Bagger, "En begivenhed der ildce f a n d t sted. Den dansk-russiske landgang i Skane 1716", (Danish) Historisk Tidsskrift, 103, 2003, 118-60.

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p l a y e d a n i m p o r t a n t p a r t in h i s d e c i s i o n . H e o v e r e s t i m a t e d t h e size of t h e S w e d i s h a r m y , h e h a d a l o w o p i n i o n of t h e D a n i s h a r m y , a n d h e m a y h a v e felt u n e a s y a b o u t d e p l o y i n g a large R u s s i a n a r m y a c r o s s a sea w h e r e c o n t r o l d e p e n d e d o n fleets c o n t r o l l e d b y h i s allies. In disc u s s i o n s a b o u t w h a t t h e a r m y s h o u l d d o w h e n it h a d l a n d e d in Skane, t h e D a n e s s h o w e d a n u n w i l l i n g n e s s t o t a k e p a r t in a r a p i d offensive a g a i n s t K a r l s k r o n a in o r d e r t o e l i m i n a t e t h e S w e d i s h fleet, a n object t h a t P e t e r s a w as i m p o r t a n t . " ^ T h e d e l a y of t h e o p e r a t i o n c a u s e d b y t h e S w e d i s h n a v a l activities in t h e s p r i n g a n d t h e t h r e a t a g a i n s t D a n i s h R u s s i a n lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n f r o m t h e K a r l s k r o n a fleet u p to July h e l p e d t o p r o v i d e t h e tsar w i t h a n excuse. H i e e v e n t s of 1716 c a u s e d d i s t r u s t b e t w e e n D e n m a r k a n d Russia, a n d all c o - o r d i n a t i o n of t h e i r o p e r a t i o n s ceased. D u r i n g 1 7 1 7 - 1 8 , Karl XII a n d P e t e r I n e g o t i a t e d a b o u t a s e p a r a t e p e a c e , a n d t h e r e w e r e few hostilities b e t w e e n t h e t w o c o u n t r i e s . T h e m a i n fleet in K a r l s k r o n a was p a r t i a l l y c o m m i s s i o n e d , b u t lack of m o n e y a n d p r o v i s i o n s l i m i t e d o p e r a t i o n s t o c r u i s i n g w i t h s m a l l f o r c e s . ' " Tlie British g o v e r n m e n t u p h e l d a trade e m b a r g o against Sweden, but trade continued with neutral shipping and through various middlemen, including the Prussian port of K o n i g s b e r g . " ' T h e British c o n t i n u e d t o s e n d a fleet t o t h e Baltic Sea a n d c o n t r o l l e d t h e sea t o g e t h e r w i t h t h e D a n i s h a n d R u s s i a n fleets, b u t t h e British w e r e n o t i n t e r e s t e d in o f f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n s a g a i n s t S w e d e n . The Danes were too exhausted by the war to undertake such operat i o n s o n t h e i r o w n , a n d t h e D u t c h s e n t a fleet f o r strictly d e f e n s i v e p u r p o s e s o n l y in 1718. I n 1718 r u m o u r s , f e d b y S w e d i s h d i s i n f o r m a t i o n , a b o u t a S w e d i s h - R u s s i a n p e a c e t r e a t y a n d a n o f f e n s i v e alliance a g a i n s t D e n m a r k k e p t t h e British a n d D a n i s h fleets o c c u p i e d in t h e s o u t h e r n Baltic a g a i n s t a n i m a g i n e d t h r e a t f r o m a c o m b i n e d R u s s i a n S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleet. T h e R u s s i a n s , p r o b a b l y u n w i t t i n g l y , p l a y e d t h e i r p a r t in t h e r u s e b y m o b i l i s i n g t h e i r fleet a n d k e e p i n g it at t h e e n t r a n c e t o t h e G u l f of F i n l a n d . T h e i n t e n t i o n w a s p r o b a b l y t o p u t p r e s s u r e o n t h e S w e d i s h p e a c e n e g o t i a t o r s , b u t t o t h e British a n d D a n i s h it l o o k e d like a t h r e a t t o them.'"^

Bagger 2003. Naval o p e r a t i o n s in 1 7 1 7 - 1 8 : Bidrag, Goteborgs eskader, 139-48; AmiralitetskoHegiets Lindeberg 1941, 307-70, 385-94. Aldridge forthcoming, ch 5.

IX, 3 6 - 4 3 , 6 0 - 1 7 9 , 2 2 3 - 3 5 , 2 6 8 - 7 4 ; historia, II, 120-22.

n a v a l o p e r a t i o n s a n d c o n t r o l of t h e b a l t i c sea

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P r o t e c t e d b y e n e m y inactivity, active d i p l o m a c y , a n d s u c c e s s f u l d e c e p t i o n , Karl XII c o u l d c o n c e n t r a t e h i s f o r c e s f o r a c a m p a i g n a g a i n s t N o r w a y w i t h t h e i n t e n t i o n of k n o c k i n g t h e e x h a u s t e d D e n m a r k o u t of t h e w a r . H e i n t e n d e d t o u s e a n e w s t r a t e g y in w h i c h a large a r m y o p e r ating in t h e a g r i c u l t u r a l l y p o o r N o r w a y w o u l d b e s u p p o r t e d w i t h large p r o v i s i o n s c o n t i n u o u s l y d e l i v e r e d f r o m S w e d e n . " ^ This r e q u i r e d c o n trol of t h e s u p p l y lines, a n d t o s e c u r e t h e a r c h i p e l a g o c o a s t in B o h u s l a n he o r d e r e d t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of a c o n s i d e r a b l e flotilla of heavily a r m e d s h a l l o w - d r a u g h t w a r s h i p s . D u r i n g 1 7 1 7 - 1 8 , t h i s flotilla b e c a m e able to p r o t e c t t h e S w e d i s h a r m y ' s s e a b o r n e logistics d u r i n g a N o r w e g i a n c a m p a i g n . H i e S t o c k h o l m s q u a d r o n w a s also s t r e n g t h e n e d w i t h shall o w - d r a u g h t w a r s h i p s , p r i m a r i l y f o r d e f e n c e of t h e n a r r o w e n t r a n c e s to t h e capital. Karl XII n o w s h o w e d a p o s i t i v e i n t e r e s t in s u c h vessels, w h i c h in e n e m y h a n d s h a d t h w a r t e d h i s a m b i t i o n s in several decisive areas of o p e r a t i o n s : t h e N e v a e s t u a r y , t h e F i n n i s h a r c h i p e l a g o , P o m e r a n i a , a n d t h e c o a s t of B o h u s l a n . A s m e n t i o n e d in c h a p t e r 2, his u l t i m a t e a i m w i t h t h e s e p r e p a r a t i o n s m a y h a v e b e e n a n o f f e n s i v e against Russia, o n c e D e n m a r k w a s f o r c e d o u t of t h e w a r . A f t e r Karl XII w a s killed o n N o v e m b e r 30. 1718, d u r i n g t h e siege of F r e d e r i k s s t e n , t h e p o w e r s t r u c t u r e of t h e S w e d i s h a b s o l u t i s t state r a p idly d i s i n t e g r a t e d . T h e r u h n g d y n a s t y was, b y t h e m a r r i a g e s of Karl's two sisters, s p h t in a H e s s i a n a n d a H o l s t e i n i a n f a c t i o n , t h e s u c c e s sion t o t h e t h r o n e w a s u n c e r t a i n , a n d t h a t left t h e political initiative t o p o w e r s o u t s i d e t h e d y n a s t y . T h e Estates a n d t h e C o u n c i l , b o t h d o m i n a t e d b y t h e state b u r e a u c r a c y , t o o k p o w e r . T h e y w e r e u n w i l l i n g t o c o n t i n u e w i t h t h e deficit s p e n d i n g a n d h i g h t a x e s o n elite g r o u p s t h a t h a d f u n d e d Karl X I I ' s last w a r efforts. T h e r e s u l t w a s s e e n i m m e d i a t e l y in 1719, w h e n S w e d e n visibly s h r a n k as a m i l i t a r y a n d n a v a l p o w e r . The a r m y r a p i d l y d e c l i n e d i n s t r e n g t h , a n d t h e n a v a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n h a d a c u t e difficulties i n

finding

provisions for bringing warships to

sea. A t t h e s a m e t i m e , t h e n e w g o v e r n m e n t d i d n o t t a k e t h e c o n s e q u e n c e s of t h i s

financial

p o l i c y b y d e c l a r i n g its w i l l i n g n e s s t o a c c e p t

territorial losses a n d ask f o r a t r u c e , at least w i t h t h e m o s t p o w e r f u l enemy; Russia. T h e c o n s e q u e n c e s of t h i s m i s m a t c h of foreign p o l i c y w e r e serious.

Lindegren

1992, 2 1 0 - 1 6 .

financial

and

228

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three

W a r f a r e in 1719 b e c a m e p r e d o m i n a n t l y n a v a l a n d a m p h i b i o u s . " ® The D a n i s h organised a counterattack against Bohuslan f r o m N o r w a y a n d f r o m t h e sea, w i t h t h e u l t i m a t e i n t e n t i o n of t a k i n g G o t h e n b u r g . H i e m o s t s u c c e s s f u l D a n i s h o p e r a t i o n s w e r e a m p h i b i o u s a n d led b y t h e y o u n g N o r w e g i a n a d m i r a l P e d e r T o r d e n s k j o l d . T h e S w e d i s h westcoast s q u a d r o n of t h r e e s m a l l b a t t l e s h i p s a n d t h r e e frigates, as well as m a n y of t h e galleys a n d b l o c k s h i p s , w e r e u n m a n n e d o r severely u n d e r m a n n e d . M o s t were s u n k by their o w n crews to avoid capture, mainly at t h e f o r t r e s s of M a r s t r a n d . T h e lack of m e n w a s p a r t l y , o r p e r h a p s m a i n l y , d u e t o t h e fact t h a t s e a m e n a v o i d e d t h e service w h e n they s u s p e c t e d t h a t t h e r e w a s little m o n e y a n d f o o d available f o r t h e m . The c a p t u r e of M a r s t r a n d a n d t h e d e s t r u c t i o n of t h e S w e d i s h n a v a l forces o n t h e w e s t e r n c o a s t w e r e t h e m a i n results of t h e D a n i s h offensive. T h e i r n a v a l a t t a c k o n G o t h e n b u r g failed. C o n s i d e r i n g t h a t S w e d i s h r e s i s t a n c e w a s r a t h e r feeble, this s h o w s t h a t D e n m a r k also w a s m u c h e x h a u s t e d b y t h e w a r a n d n o t able t o s t a r t a n i n v a s i o n . I n t h e Baltic Sea, t h e R u s s i a n fleet w a s at sea early. A s q u a d r o n of six b a t t l e s h i p s s u r p r i s e d a n d c a p t u r e d a S w e d i s h f o r c e of o n e s m a l l battleship, o n e frigate, a n d o n e b r i g a n t i n e o n 24 M a y n e a r G o t s k a S a n d o n . T h e S w e d i s h m a i n fleet i n K a r l s k r o n a h a d g r e a t difficulties finding p r o visions, a n d t h e n a v a l l e a d e r s w e r e u n c e r t a i n a b o u t t h e i n t e n t i o n s of t h e British a n d D a n i s h fleets. T h e S w e d i s h fleet in 1 7 1 7 - 1 8 h a d a c t e d as a

fleet-in-being

in o r n e a r K a r l s k r o n a , w i t h l i m i t e d d e m a n d s o n

p r o v i s i o n i n g , a n d it n o w s t a y e d i n p o r t d u r i n g m o s t of t h e s u m m e r of 1719 t o h u s b a n d its r e m a i n i n g s t r e n g t h . It t u r n e d o u t t h a t it h a d b e e n w a i t i n g at t h e w r o n g place. T s a r P e t e r h a d d e c i d e d t o m a k e a m a j o r eff'ort t o f o r c e t h e n e w S w e d i s h r e g i m e t o m a k e p e a c e . H e o r d e r e d 130 galleys a n d 21 b a t t l e s h i p s of 25,000 t o n n e s t o b e c o n c e n t r a t e d at A l a n d islands between Sweden and Finland. The battleships were there to p r o t e c t t h e i s l a n d s as a b a s e a n d t o c o v e r t h e l i n e s b e t w e e n t h e m a n d t h e S w e d i s h coast. T h e o f f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n w a s m a d e w i t h t h e galleys, c a r r y i n g 26,000 soldiers. F r o m 11 July t o 18 A u g u s t t h e galley flotilla s y s t e m a t i c a l l y b u r n t t o w n s a n d smaller places along the Swedish coast f r o m N o r r k o p i n g in t h e s o u t h t o Giivle in t h e n o r t h , a n d it w a s o n l y at Giivle t h a t a r m y

Naval operations in 1719: Wrangel 1906-07, 1-147; AmiralitetskoUegiets historia, II, 122-25; operations on Sweden's west coast: Bidmg, X, 25-28, 87-117, 145-52; Goteborgs eskader, 148-59; Grauers 1953, 25-30.

n a v a l operations a n d c o n t r o l of t h e b a l t i c sea

111

forces w e r e able to d e f e n d t h e t o w n . T h e S t o c k h o h n s q u a d r o n — t h r e e battleships, t e n frigates, five b l o c k s h i p s , 11 galleys, a n d six m i n o r vessels—could o n l y p r o t e c t t h e c a p i t a l city b y b l o c k i n g t h e

nar-

r o w e n t r a n c e s t o it. T h e R u s s i a n galleys w e r e a f l o a t i n g a r m y , w h i c h m o v e d faster t h a n S w e d i s h a r m y f o r c e s o n l a n d . ' " T h e g r e a t R u s s i a n m o b i l i s a t i o n a n d c o n c e n t r a t i o n of n a v a l a n d a r m y f o r c e s close t o t h e Swedish c o a s t d i d n o t pass u n n o t i c e d in S w e d e n , b u t t h e g o v e r n m e n t was slow t o u n d e r s t a n d t h e s e r i o u s n e s s of t h e t h r e a t . M e n t a l l y , R u s s i a was n o t still seen as a n a v a l p o w e r t h a t c o u l d act o n its o w n w i t h o u t allies. T w o y e a r s of R u s s i a n i n a c t i v i t y m a y also h a v e lulled S t o c k h o l m i n t o a false s e n s e of security, a n d t h u s t h e S w e d e s m a d e n o s e r i o u s attempt to organise naval protection a n d send m o n e y and provisions to K a r l s k r o n a u n t i l it w a s t o o late. O n l y a f t e r t h e galley r a i d b e g a n w a s t h e first o r d e r s e n t f r o m S t o c k h o l m t o K a r l s k r o n a , o r d e r i n g t h e b a t t l e fleet n o r t h w a r d .

It

arrived at t h e n a v a l b a s e o n 21 July. It w a s a s s u m e d in S t o c k h o l m t h a t t h e K a r l s k r o n a fleet w o u l d j o i n t h e British fleet b e f o r e it sailed n o r t h w a r d s , b u t t h a t fleet w a s i n t h e S o u n d . B e c a u s e t h e S w e d i s h fleet still w a s s h o r t of p r o v i s i o n s , it w a i t e d u n t i l 2 A u g u s t , w h e n t w o b a t tleships a n d t h r e e f r i g a t e s finally sailed n o r t h w a r d s . C o n t r a r y w i n d s delayed t h e fleet u n t i l 12 A u g u s t , w h e n e i g h t b a t t l e s h i p s f o l l o w e d . T h e Russian s c o u t i n g vessels w a r n e d t h e galley fleet of t h e i r a p p r o a c h a n d t h e R u s s i a n fleet r e t u r n e d t o A l a n d . T h e r e w a s in fact little left f o r it to devastate, e x c e p t Stoclcholm, w h i c h m i g h t h a v e b e e n e x p o s e d t o a large-scale a m p h i b i o u s assault if t h e R u s s i a n s h a d b e e n left in c o n t r o l of t h e sea f o r a l o n g e r p e r i o d . S w e d e n d i d n o t lack w a r s h i p s t o h i n d e r t h e R u s s i a n o p e r a t i o n . I n t h e latter half of A u g u s t t h e S w e d i s h fleet h a d 13 b a t t l e s h i p s , i n c l u d ing t h r e e in t h e S t o c k h o l m s q u a d r o n , of 16,000 t o n n e s at sea. F o u r or five b a t t l e s h i p s of a r o u n d 9,000 t o n n e s w e r e serviceable a n d c o u l d have b e e n c o m m i s s i o n e d in K a r l s k r o n a h a d t h e r e b e e n f u n d s f o r t h e i r p r o v i s i o n i n g . " " T h a t w o u l d h a v e b a l a n c e d t h e R u s s i a n b a t t l e fleet of 21 battleships in c o m m i s s i o n a n d m a d e t h e r a i d i m p o s s i b l e . T h e i m p o r tance of w e l l - t i m e d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e p r e p a r a t i o n s f o r a s u c c e s s f u l n a v a l strategy is o b v i o u s . Lack of i m a g i n a t i o n a b o u t e n e m y i n t e n t i o n s a n d

Erik Jonson, Skdrgdrdskriget 1719: En bok om rysshdrjningarna invid Stockholm, Stockliolm, 196L There are m a n y articles a n d local studies about the events in 1719. The condition of the warships in Karlskrona: Report by Klas Sparre 21/11 1719, M 1689, RA.

230

chapter

three

passive d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g a b o u t h o w available f o r c e s s h o u l d b e used w a s also i m p o r t a n t , h o w e v e r . E v e n a s m a l l e r b a t t l e fleet d e p l o y e d to t h e n o r t h e r n Baltic Sea b y early July, b e f o r e t h e galley r a i d s b e g a n , m i g h t h a v e b e e n a n effective d e t e r r e n t . T h e R u s s i a n s a v o i d e d c o m b a t w i t h S w e d i s h n a v a l f o r c e s of less s t r e n g t h t h a n t h e i r o w n , a n d P e t e r I w o u l d p r o b a b l y n e v e r h a v e r i s k e d s e n d i n g a large p a r t of t h e R u s s i a n a r m y a c r o s s t h e sea w i t h o u t full (if t e m p o r a r y ) c o n t r o l of it. The Swedish g o v e r n m e n t had looked elsewhere t h a n to Karlskrona f o r n a v a l p r o t e c t i o n , h o w e v e r . D u r i n g t h e d r a m a t i c m o n t h of R u s s i a n devastation,

Sweden

had

hastily c o n c l u d e d

peace with

Hanover,

finally c e d i n g B r e m e n - V e r d e n t o t h e E l e c t o r G e o r g e , a n d c o n c l u d e d a t r e a t y w i t h B r i t a i n ( w h e r e G e o r g e w a s k i n g ) a b o u t n a v a l assistance. Tlie British fleet u n d e r Sir J o h n N o r r i s left C o p e n h a g e n o n 15 A u g u s t w i t h i n s t r u c t i o n s t o h e l p S w e d e n , b u t it w a s t o o late t o i n f l u e n c e this y e a r ' s c a m p a i g n . W h e n t h e S w e d i s h a n d British fleet j o i n e d forces, t h e R u s s i a n b a t t l e fleet r e t r e a t e d t o safety in Reval a n d K r o n s t a d t , l o o s i n g two battleships, w h i c h ran a g r o u n d . The catastrophe that struck the S w e d i s h c o a s t in 1719 is o f t e n e x p l a i n e d b y S w e d i s h i n f e r i o r i t y i n galley s t r e n g t h , b u t t h a t is h a r d l y r e l e v a n t . In 1719, t h e r e w e r e n o l o n g e r s u f f i c i e n t a r m y f o r c e s t o m a n a large galley flotilla e v e n h a d S w e d e n p o s s e s s e d o n e . P r o t e c t i o n a g a i n s t galleys c r o s s i n g t h e o p e n sea c o u l d b e a c h i e v e d w i t h a sailing fleet, b u t s u c h a f o r c e h a d t o b e m a n n e d a n d p r o v i s i o n e d in early s p r i n g a n d d e p l o y e d w h e r e it c o u l d n e u t r a l i s e t h e e n e m y b e f o r e it r e a c h e d t h e S w e d i s h coast. T h e large o a r e d flotilla, w h i c h S w e d e n c r e a t e d a f t e r 1721, w a s m a i n l y i n t e n d e d f o r off'ensive a n d d e f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n s t o g e t h e r w i t h t h e a r m y a l o n g F i n l a n d ' s s o u t h e r n coast, n o t f o r d e f e n c e of S w e d e n ' s l o n g e a s t e r n coast. Finally, a n d u s u a l l y f o r g o t t e n , t h e R u s s i a n o p e r a t i o n s in 1 7 1 9 - 2 1 w e r e p o s sible o n l y b e c a u s e S w e d e n w a s politically u n a b l e t o retaliate b y b u r n i n g R u s s i a n coastal t o w n s a n d villages; all of t h e R u s s i a n - h e l d Baltic c o a s t w a s f o r m a l l y still S w e d i s h t e r r i t o r y . I n 1720, S w e d e n c o n c l u d e d p e a c e w i t h D e n m a r k a n d

Prussia,

a n d o n l y R u s s i a r e m a i n e d as a n e n e m y . ' ^ ' T h e w a r e f f o r t s i n 1720 a n d 1721 w e r e a l m o s t e n t i r e l y n a v a l a n d f a i r l y u n i f o r m i n c h a r a c t e r . A B r i t i s h fleet of 20 a n d 22 b a t t l e s h i p s r e s p e c t i v e l y a r r i v e d i n t h e B a l t i c i n M a y a n d j o i n e d w i t h a s m a l l e r S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleet, t o g e t h e r

Naval operations in 1720-21: Wrangel 1906-07, Grauers 1953, 30-38.

151-466; Gmuers 1941, 343-53;

n a v a l operations a n d c o n t r o l of t h e b a l t i c sea

c o n t r o l l i n g t h e o p e n sea a g a i n s t t h e R u s s i a n b a t t l e fleet. H i a t

111

fleet

w a s t o a l a r g e e x t e n t in p o r t , a n d i n 1720 o n l y 13 R u s s i a n b a t t l e ships were c o m m i s s i o n e d . The next year, 27 battleships w e r e c o m m i s s i o n e d , b u t m o s t of t h e m w e r e o n l y u s e d f o r a l a r g e - s c a l e

fleet

exercise c l o s e t o K r o n s t a d t t h e u n d e r T s a r P e t e r ' s c o m m a n d . Tlie S w e d i s h a r c h i p e l a g o flotilla a n d a s q u a d r o n of s a i l i n g w a r s h i p s w e r e b a s e d at S t o c k h o l m a n d p r o t e c t e d t h e c o a s t a g a i n s t n e w R u s s i a n raids, especially b y k e e p i n g u p t h e g u a r d a g a i n s t e n e m y f o r c e s i n t h e A l a n d i s l a n d s . I t c o u l d n o t p r e v e n t R u s s i a n galleys f r o m m a k i n g r a i d s a g a i n s t n o r t h e r n S w e d e n d u r i n g i n s p r i n g of 1720 a n d 1721, h o w e v e r , a n d t h e r a i d i n M a y 1721 w a s p a r t i c u l a r l y devastating.'^^ T h e c o m b i n e d A n g l o - S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleet w a s b o t h m u c h l a r g e r a n d of h i g h e r q u a l i t y t h a n its R u s s i a n c o u n t e r p a r t , b u t w i t h o u t a s t r o n g army and a strong oared

flotilla

it c o u l d n o t t a k e t o t h e o f f e n s i v e

a l o n g t h e F i n n i s h c o a s t o r a g a i n s t St P e t e r s b u r g a n d K r o n s t a d t . T s a r Peter t h u s could d e f e n d w h a t h e h a d c o n q u e r e d , a n d Sweden h a d to c o n c l u d e p e a c e i n 1721 o n c o n d i t i o n s t h a t h e h a d o f f e r e d s i n c e t h e years after Poltava. The o n l y c o n t e s t b e t w e e n w a r s h i p s in t h e s e y e a r s w a s a n u n u s u a l fight b e t w e e n sailing w a r s h i p s a n d galleys o n 2 7 July 1720 at L e d s u n d in t h e A l a n d islands. A S w e d i s h f o r c e of o n e b a t t l e s h i p a n d seven frigates d e t e c t e d 61 R u s s i a n galleys a n d c h a s e d t h e m i n t o t h e a r c h i p e l a g o . D u r i n g t h e chase, f o u r of t h e frigates r a n a g r o u n d a n d w e r e f o r c e d t o s u r r e n d e r b y t h e galleys, w h i c h t o o k t h e f r i g a t e s b y b o a r d i n g a n d s u p e rior i n f a n t r y s t r e n g t h . T h e a c t i o n m u s t h a v e b e e n i n t e n s e . A c c o r d i n g to R u s s i a n s o u r c e s , n o f e w e r t h a n 43 of t h e galleys w e r e d e s t r o y e d o r so d a m a g e d t h a t t h e y h a d t o b e b u r n t . N o r m a l l y t h e battle is r e g a r d e d as a R u s s i a n v i c t o r y ( R u s s i a n : t h e b a t t l e of G r e n g a m n ) , a l t h o u g h t h e i r large m a t e r i a l losses m a k e s it m o r e l o o k like a m u t u a l l y d e s t r u c t i v e battle of a n u n u s u a l c h a r a c t e r in t h e b o r d e r z o n e b e t w e e n t h e o p e n sea a n d t h e a r c h i p e l a g o . T h e b a t f l e d e m o n s t r a t e d b o t h t h a t galleys w e r e e x t r e m e l y v u l n e r a b l e t o sailing w a r s h i p s in t h e o p e n sea a n d t h a t sailing w a r s h i p s w e r e u n a b l e t o m a n o e u v r e u n d e r c o m b a t c o n d i t i o n s i n Baltic a r c h i p e l a g o s . ' ^ '

Nils-Gustav Hildeman, "Ryssarnas h a r j n i n g a r i Gastrildand och Halsingland ar 1721", KFA, 41, 1950, 147-216. Eirik Hornborg, "Karl Sioblad och slaget vid Fliso", Skrifter utgivna av Sjdhistoriska samfundet, 4, 1944, 41-68.

232

3.9.6

chapter

three

Conclusion

F r o m 1709 t o 1721, t h e G r e a t N o r t h e r n W a r w a s c o n c e n t r a t e d i n t h e Baltic a r e a a n d t h e sea Hnes of c o m m u n i c a t i o n b e c a m e decisive. T h e m a i n strategic question was the extent to which Sweden's enemies m i g h t c o o p e r a t e t o t a k e c o n t r o l of t h e s e l i n e s a n d u s e t h e m f o r decisive o p e r a t i o n s , w h i c h m i g h t f o r c e S w e d e n o u t of t h e w a r . T h e l o n g p o s t - P o l t a v a p h a s e of t h e w a r s h o w s t h a t t h i s w a s d i f f i c u l t t o achieve. T a b l e 3:1 s h o w s h o w l a r g e t h e o p e r a t i o n a l b a t t l e fleets w e r e d u r i n g t h e s e y e a r s . It s h o u l d b e n o t e d t h a t t h e S w e d i s h a n d , especially, t h e D a n i s h fleets h a d m o r e s e r v i c e a b l e b a t t l e s h i p s t h a n t h e y c o u l d c o m m i s s i o n , w h i l e t h e R u s s i a n s in t h e e a r l y y e a r s c o m m i s s i o n e d

more

battleships t h a n t h e y could p r o v i d e with effective crews. U p t o 1715, t h e S w e d i s h n a v y c o u l d o p e r a t e in t w o d i f f e r e n t p a r t s of t h e Baltic Sea a g a i n s t t w o e n e m y fleets w i t h o u t b e i n g f o r c e d t o p u r e l y d e f e n s i v e o p e r a t i o n s . T h e t w o a d v e r s a r i e s w e r e i n e f f e c t i v e in c o m b i n i n g t h e i r b a t t l e fleets, a l t h o u g h t h e i r e f f o r t s in t w o d i f f e r e n t t h e a t r e s r e s t r a i n e d S w e d i s h o p e r a t i o n a l f r e e d o m . It w a s o n l y t h e a p p e a r a n c e of a British Baltic fleet as a h o s t i l e f o r c e i n 1716 t h a t t i p p e d t h e b a l a n c e in allied f a v o u r , b u t t h e y still p r o v e d u n a b l e t o u s e t h e i r c o n t r o l of t h e Baltic Sea f o r a n effective o f f e n s i v e a g a i n s t S w e d e n . S w e d i s h battle-fleet p e r f o r m a n c e in t h e s e y e a r s i m p r e s s e d t h e t w o Baltic a d v e r s a r i e s , w h o b o t h typically a v o i d e d fighting S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleets a n d b a t t l e s q u a d r o n s , e v e n w h e n t h e y w e r e s u p e r i o r in s t r e n g t h . T h e R u s s i a n offensive in 1719 w a s effective b u t brief a n d o n l y p o s s i b l e d u e t o political a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e d i s o r d e r in S w e d e n a f t e r t h e d e a t h of K a r l XII. This diso r d e r k e p t m o s t of t h e S w e d i s h b a t t l e fleet in p o r t w i t h u n d e r m a n n e d a n d u n - p r o v i s i o n e d ships. C o n t r o l of s h a l l o w a n d n a r r o w w a t e r s w a s a n o t h e r

question.

T h e R u s s i a n s g a i n e d it e a r l y i n t h e w a r a n d t h e D a n e s s o m e w h a t later; o n l y a f t e r 1 7 1 5 - 1 6 d i d S w e d e n s e r i o u s l y b e g i n t o r e o r g a n ise its a r m e d f o r c e s f o r c o n t r o l of s u c h o p e r a t i o n a l a r e a s . By 1718, S w e d e n h a d gained the initiative in archipelagic w a r f a r e against D e n m a r k b u t t h e n l o s t it t h e n e x t y e a r b e c a u s e of t h e s a m e d i s o r d e r t h a t p a r a l y s e d t h e b a t t l e fleet. T h e s l o w n e s s t o a d a p t t o a n e w s t r a tegic situation seriously h a m p e r e d Swedish w a r efforts t h r o u g h o u t t h e G r e a t N o r t h e r n W a r , while t h e Russian ability to i n n o v a t e in a m p h i b i o u s w a r f a r e was very i m p o r t a n t for their victory in this war. O r g a n i s a t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e s a n d ability to achieve n e w

combination

m a t t e r e d m o r e t h a n q u a n t i t y a n d t h e q u a l i t y of i n d i v i d u a l p a r t s of the organisation.

17,000

19,000

23,000

1719 14

16

1720

1721 17

-

-

16

17

17

21

23

15

23

27

32

37

7

_

D

13

- 27

-

21,000

26,000

25,000

32,000

35,000

23,000

33,000

41,000

45,000

51,000

8,000

N

Denmark

18

12

39,000

-

_

22

20

25,000

26,000

18,000

20,000

23,000

17,000

_

-

-

D

10,000

2,400

1,600

17,000

21

23

17

18

24

3

2

_ -

N

Russia

16

10

25

17

18

-

-

_

30,000

27,000

-

-

-

N

-

-

-

-

-

_ _

_

21,000

13,000

31,000

20,000

21,000

-

-

_ -

D

-

-

-

-

4

30 35

_

_

59

_

_

58,000

61

46,000 53,000

36 39

46,000

D

30

76,000

75,000

74,000

60

47

40,000

11,000 - 37

-

4,000

N

38,000

Against Russia

Total, allied forces Against Sweden

51,000

43,000

43,000

47,000

9,000

- 33

-

D

- 3?

8,000

N

Dutch Rep.

34

11

-

8

7

Great Britain

Battleships in commission in the Baltic, 1709-1721

Sources: Sweden: List of warships commissioned at Karlskrona 1700-1787, copy in Axel Zettersten's samling, vol. 10, KrA; warships commissioned in Gothenburg: Goteborgs eskader, 112-167 (incomplete); warships commissioned in Stockholm: Gunnar Unger's samling, vol. 1, KrA. Denmark: Bidrag, vols 3-8, Anderson 1910/1969. Russia, Great Britain and the Dutch Republic: Anderson 1910/1969; with correction about the Dutch participation in 1717-18 in Aldridge, forthcoming, ch. 5, note 122. N: number of battleships; D: total displacement in tonnes. The table includes all battleships in commission during a year. All ships were not necessarily in commission at the same time. Ships commissioned during one year and decommissioned early next year are only included in thefirstyear. A few Swedish and Danish and several Russian battleships were smaller and weaker than ships rated as suitable for the battie line in Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. Denmark and Russia were allies from 1709 to 1719 while the British and the Dutch are counted as part of this alliance in 1716-18, although the Dutch Republic did not participate in offensive operations against Sweden, only in protection of trade against Swedish attacks. Calculations of displacement are made by the author.

15,000

23,000

1716 19

22,000

34,000

1715 29

1718 16

30,000

1714 24

1717 14

41,000

38,000

1713 26

36,000

1711 28

1712 32

21,000

41,000

D

1710 33

N

Sweden

1709 19

Year

Table 3.1

n a v a l o p e r a t i o n s a n d c o n t r o l o f t h e b a l t i c s e a 111

234

chapter

3.10

Battles, administration

three

and operational

achievements

H i e c o n c l u d i n g s e c t i o n of this c h a p t e r d i s c u s s e s t h e e x t e n t to w h i c h n a v a l o p e r a t i o n s in t h e Baltic w e r e d e c i d e d b y a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , geostrategic p r e c o n d i t i o n s , o r strategic a n d tactical a c h i e v e m e n t s at sea. I n strategic ideals a n d in t h e official r h e t o r i c , b a t t l e s w e r e f o u g h t in o r d e r t o inflict decisive d e f e a t s o n t h e e n e m y . If t h e e n e m y lost a c o n s i d e r a b l e n u m b e r of s h i p s a n d m e n , h i s ability t o c o n t i n u e o p e r a t i o n s w o u l d b e r e d u c e d o r e l i m i n a t e d . M o s t n a v a l b a t t l e s e n d e d as tactical d r a w s , h o w e v e r , w i t h b o t h sides typically c l a i m i n g t h e m as victories, c l a i m s t h a t s u r p r i s i n g l y o f t e n a r e r e p e a t e d b y t h o s e w h o w r i t e naval history.'^"* I n f e r i o r fleets c o u l d t r y t o fight w i t h a c a u t i o u s tactic in o r d e r t o inflict so m u c h d a m a g e o n t h e e n e m y fleet t h a t it m u s t b r e a k off its o p e r a t i o n a n d r e t u r n t o a b a s e f o r r e p a i r . This also explains w h y o n e fleet, o r s o m e t i m e s b o t h , a v o i d e d battle. Fleet c o m m a n d e r s k n e w that a h a r d - f o u g h t battle m i g h t temporarily reduce their opera t i o n a l f r e e d o m , a n d if t h e r e w e r e n o r e s o u r c e s available t o r e s t o r e it quicldy, t h e y m i g h t p r e f e r t o a v o i d battle. W i t h t h e e x c e p t i o n of t h e t h r e e A n g l o - D u t c h W a r s ( 1 6 5 2 - 7 4 ) , Baltic n a v a l w a r f a r e w a s t h e m o s t b a t t l e - i n t e n s e n a v a l w a r s in E u r o p e in t h e 16th a n d 17th c e n t u ries. T a b l e 3:2 s h o w s t h e o u t c o m e of t h e 17 m a j o r n a v a l b a t t l e s w h i c h S w e d e n f o u g h t w i t h o u t n a v a l allies. T h e i r r e s u l t s a r e i n t e r p r e t e d o n l y in t e r m s of losses of s h i p s a n d m e n .

The results of naval battles in the Baltic Sea are interpreted diflferently in the nonScandinavian literature. Anderson 1910/1969 has the same opinion about their results as the present author. Robert I. Frost m e n t i o n s six battles in 1563-65 a n d has found three Swedish victories, two allied victories, and one draw. H e considers the battle of Oland in August 1564 as an allied victory, in spite of the fact that the Danish fleet lost three ships, while he considers the battle on 4 June 1565 as a Swedish victory, although n o side lost any ships a n d the strategic situation was unchanged. The battles in 1644 are considered as one Danish and one Swedish victory, the two battles in 1657-58 as one draw a n d one D u t c h victory, while he reports four battles in 1675-77, all Swedish losses. An additional battle, not f o u n d in other studies (or sources) is said to have taken place in October 1675. Frost also places the Danish capture of Gotland between the first and second battle in 1676, while it actually took place before the Swedish fleet was at sea, Frost 2000, 25, 35, 138, 180, 182, 212. The battle of Kolberger Heide on 1 July 1644 has been especially difficult to evaluate. Oakley 1993, 76, claims that it was a f a m o u s Danish victory; Frost 2000, 138, also describes it as a Danish victory; while Lockhart 2004, 65, regards it as a Swedish victory.

n a v a l o p e r a t i o n s a n d c o n t r o l of t h e b a l t i c sea

Table 3.2

The tactical

outcome

of major

naval

battles

111

in the Baltic

Sea,

1563-1715

Swedish victory

Draw

Enemy victory

Total

1563-66

3

3

1644 1657-59 1675-79

1 -

1 2 1

_ 1 2

1

2 3 3

7

1710-15

-

2

-

2

Total

4

9

4

17

Warfare at sea between 1521 and 1524 was decided by political alliancemaking, strategic decision-making, and (partly private) administrative efforts, not by battles. When Liibeck and the Swedish rebels against Christian II joined their war efforts, superior naval strength could be concentrated in important narrows, such as the Sound and the Stockholm archipelago. Decisive results thus were achieved without much fighting at sea. The war at sea during the Danish civil war (1534-36) saw three battles in 1535, of which the Swedish fleet participated in two. Both were victories for the allies and gave them control of the Danish straits. This made it possible to encircle Copenhagen from land and sea, which decided the war and markedly strengthened both the Oldenburg and Vasa monarchies. The administrative efforts of the early Vasa monarchy to bring a battle fleet to the southern Baltic had a large political pay-off, fully comparable to that of much greater efforts made in later wars. The Nordic War from 1563 to 1570 saw seven battles, all of which were the result of deliberate choices by both sides. This shows that battles between concentrated fleets for control of the sea lines of communication was a central part of their doctrine of naval warfare. The first battle on 30 May 1563 was a victory for the Swedish fleet, but Swedish control of the southern Baltic Sea was brief and eliminated by a large Danish-Liibeckian naval mobilisation. The next battle that followed (11 September) was a draw and did not change the strategic situation. The next year, the first battle of Oland on 30-31 May 1564 was an allied victory but was followed by their loss of control of the sea due to provisioning problems. The next battle in mid-August 1564 ended in Swedish victory. It was soon followed by a decline of Swedish strength at sea and a withdrawal f r o m the southern Baltic in late September, due to disease and provisioning problems. The strategic results of the two battles in 1564 were almost the opposite of their

236

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three

tactical outcomes. Administration was more important for operational achievements than battles. In 1565, the Swedish battle fleet took control of the southern Baltic Sea through administrative efforts to bring large forces to sea and keep them operational. The two batdes in 1565 were the resuh of Danish-Liibeckian attempts to force the Swedish fleet out of the southern Baltic Sea. The first (4 June) ended in a draw, and the Swedish fleet continued to cruise in the southern Baltic Sea, while the second (7 July) was a Swedish victory but resulted in a temporary Swedish withdrawal f r o m the southern Baltic Sea for repair and provisioning. The Swedish fleet soon returned to the southern Baltic, however, and in early summer 1566 it was again deployed there in greater strength than the allied fleet. Administration was decisive for this performance. W h e n the allies had built up their strength, they made another attempt to gain control by battle (26 July) that ended in a draw. Its sequence was a major aUied disaster, as most of their larger warships and thousands of m e n were lost in a gale off Visby. Administration and resource mobilisation were clearly more important than battles in determining the strategic development of the war at sea in these years. Repeated Danish-Lubeckian mistakes also helped to give Sweden control of the sea. The war at sea in 1611 - 1 2 was decided by the sieges of Kalmar and Alvsborg, not by naval batdes. Both sieges were partly amphibious, and Christian IV's ability to lead and administer such operations was important. The war was also decided by the two rulers' ability to take strategic decisions and lead operations and administration. The old Karl IX, w h o had never been an efficient operational leader, was a disaster in this war. He also failed as an administrative coordinator, an activity which he earlier had mastered well. The dynastic state's dependence on its leader was obvious. Karl IX was the only Swedish king w h o led a m a j o r war when he was dying and probably no longer in touch with realities; most Swedish warrior kings died rather young. In the next Swedish-Danish war, 1643-45, Karl's adversary Christian IV had become an old man. He showed moral leadership in a crisis, but his decision-making was partly out of touch with the strategic realities. The war to a large extent was decided at sea, and battles were important. The first contest, on 1 July 1644, was a draw that brought the Swedish offensive to a stalemate. The second battle, on 13 October, was a decisive victory that gave Sweden control of the Danish straits.

n a v a l o p e r a t i o n s a n d c o n t r o l of t h e b a l t i c sea

111

Operations in 1644 and 1645 were, however, to a large extent also shaped by the degree to which Sweden could deploy and provision operational fleets to the southern Baltic, and the new Swedish access to German ports was very important. Tlie next naval war began with a contest between the Swedish and Danish battle fleets on 12-13 September 1657. It ended in a draw that favoured Denmark, because it delayed a Swedish invasion of the Danish isles. The next year, Denmark was surprised by a Swedish attack in August 1658, after peace had been concluded and only a minor part of the navy could be mobilised. Sweden's real naval enemy soon became the Dutch Republic, as it allied itself with the Danes. The battle in the Sound on 29 October 1658 was a Dutch-Danish strategic victory; it possibly saved Denmark f r o m extinction. Tactically, however, the losses and damages were more evenly distributed between the Swedish and Dutch fleets. This was important in early 1659 when the Swedish fleet for a period controlled the Danish straits while the Dutch suffered from the effects of the earlier battle. The only major batde in 1659 (30 April) between a Swedish and a Dutch-Danish fleet was a draw with little strategic importance. The last phase of the war was decided by the fact that the Dutch navy had much greater total strength than the Swedish; once the Dutch sent a sufficient number of ships to the Danish straits, they were in full control of these waters. Political and administrative efforts in the Netherlands decided the war. The war of 1675-79 began with Swedish administrative problems in mobilisation, but the real problem turned out to be inferiority in ship-handling and inexperienced officers and crew compared to the Danes and the Dutch. This war was the only of the eight wars in this study where this was an important cause of Swedish defeats. The first major battle in this war, 26-27 May 1676, was a draw in spite of a major Swedish quantitative superiority, and the next (1 June 1676) was a Swedish defeat that gave the allies control of the southern Baltic. On 1 July of the following year, the Swedish fleet was even more decisively defeated; a defeat that had serious material consequences: Denmark secured control of the southern Baltic for several years. During the Great Northern War, Sweden had a considerable superiority over Denmark in the ability to mobilise the main battle fleet for service year after year. That was essential, as the battle fleet increasingly had to be divided between the southern and northern Baltic Sea in order to contain threats f r o m both Denmark and Russia. The war was intensely fought at sea, but there were only two conventional battles

238

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between concentrated battle fleets: between Sweden and Denmark. In both battles, the Danes had a quantitative superiority, but both ended in draws. The first, on 23 September 1710, had no importance for control of the sea; the second, on 28 July 1715, gave Denmark and its allies a temporary advantage. Already next spring, however, the operational Swedish battle fleet was superior to the Danish fleet, and the summer 1716 saw a combined Danish-Russian-British battle fleet of enormous strength tasked with ensuring that the Swedish fleet did not interfere with an invasion that eventually never took place. By 1716, Sweden's enemies evidently had a high opinion of the Swedish navy's ability to send warships to sea when required, and they shaped their operations with great caution. Hiis opinion was founded on several years of war experience when the Swedish fleet had been able to simultaneously counter the Danes and the Russians in the open sea. It was evidently primarily administrative efforts, including the foundation of an efficient base at Karlskrona, which had created respect for Swedish battle fleet strength. Swedish performance in two battles fought to a draw against a superior enemy may have contributed, as the Danish fleet avoided battle on even terms and the inexperienced Russians avoided battle even when they were superior. The major challenge to Swedish efforts to control the sea in this war was policy-making, primarily inability to reorganise the armed forces for inshore amphibious warfare. Absolutism was evidently no guarantee for rapid decision-making and adaptation of policy and administration to changing circumstances. Of the naval victories in these two centuries, the two gained by the Swedish fleet and its allies in 1535 may have been the most important of all, as they were decisive parts of the war that stabilised the two new Nordic monarchies. Otherwise, only the Swedish victory at Femern in 1644, the Dutch in the Sound in 1658, and the Danish at Koge Bay in 1677 were decisive strategic victories that greatly influenced the outcome of the war. The battles in 1644 and 1677 resulted in one side losing a large number of ships to the other side, and this determined operations to the end of the war. The battle in the Sound was decisive because the Dutch probably saved the Danish capital f r o m surrender and may have saved Denmark as an independent state. The Swedish victory at Bornholm in 1565 and the Danish-Dutch victory at Oland in 1676 were important because they gave the winner a decisive advantage for a period. The three victories in 1563-64 (two Swedish and

n a v a l o p e r a t i o n s a n d c o n t r o l of t h e b a l t i c sea

111

one Danish-Llibeckian) were only of brief strategic importance, and they too were the result of accidents rather than any decisive qualitative or quantitative advantage for one side. The draws of 1644, 1657, and 1715 created short-term advantages for Denmark, while the battles fought without tactical victories in 1563, 1565, 1566, 1659, 1676, and 1710 did not change the strategic situation. Finally, the outcome of minor actions might have important results. The Swedish destruction of enemy squadrons in 1565 and 1659 and the Danish elimination of Swedish squadrons in Femern Belt in 1677 and 1715 markedly changed the balance of power at sea in the short run, while Russian and Danish successes in minor inshore combats in 1712, 1714, 1715, and 1716 had major consequences for warfare on land. The aim of administrative efforts and of commanders making strategic and tactical decisions is the same: to achieve operational goals. Strategy and performance in battle cannot be understood without knowledge of the administration behind the armed forces, but studies of naval administration are pointless if they are not related to its goal: operational efficiency. Studies of naval warfai'e, which intend to describe what actually happened and analyse why it happened, are best centred on the extent to which in time and space a navy could achieve control of the sea in order to fulfil operational goals. Such control is primarily determined by the ability to send combat-ready and properly structured naval forces to sea and the ability to logistically support operations until the operational goals are achieved. Battles and strategic decision-making only occasionally decide wars and campaigns alone. Battles are very important to study, however, because navies were organised with the aim of fighting battles when it was required. Frequently, it was not even necessary to start a war; the very existence of a combat-ready navy provided policy-makers with the instrument they needed to achieve political aims. A major war was, to a considerable extent, a test of the endurance and strength of the administrative, political, and fiscal systems behind the war efforts. Historical studies of naval warfare are usually dominated by strategic decisions about how to deploy fleet and squadrons, tactical decisions before and during battles, and the performance of the contesting fleets in combat. Brief accounts of naval warfare often give the impression that it mainly was a question of fighting battles and that control of the sea was determined by the results of battles. Control of the Baltic Sea is also frequently discussed in terms of

240

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control of the whole sea, despite the fact that even m a j o r victories were seldom sufficient for achieving such control. Battles are usually seen as tests of seamanship and the ability to fight. W h e n administration is mentioned, it is often cited as an explanation for failure. Good administration, adequate finances, and, implicitly, unlimited resources are tacitly taken for granted as the normal precondition for war. Wars are usually not seen as contests between political and administrative systems, and victories in battle are seldom seen as the result of those administrative efforts which m a d e it possible to send the fleet to sea. Strategy, seamanship, and the ability to fight were certainly important. Strategic decisions about cooperation between military and naval forces; the deployment of warships, squadrons, and fleets; and whether, where, and when battles should be fought could sometimes be decisive for the outcome of a campaign or even a war. Seamanship could often influence the extent to which ships and men were exposed to wear and fatigue, and it could sometimes decide whether a ship could survive in heavy weather. Ability to fight and defeat the enemy is always important in offensive operations, although a defensive strategy might achieve its goals without battles if the geostrategic conditions are favourable. But no fleet, however well trained its crews were, could win a war without adequate long-term provisioning, without ships with sufficient firepower and staying power, and without ships which were technically suitable for bringing the men and the weapons in contact with the enemy.

CHAPTER FOUR

SWEDISH NAVAL ADMINISTRATION: SCOPE, COMPLEXITY AND STRUCTURES

4.1 4.1.1

State, society and naval administration

Resource flows, entrepreneurs,

and

in Europe

bureaucracy

Navies are organisations maintained by states as instruments of policy. They control and protect sea lines of communication, project power across the sea, or deny enemies the free use of the sea. Naval administration involves managerial activities and organisational capabilities that channel and transform resources into naval power and operations at sea in order to implement a policy. Like other organisations, a navy must have the ability to transform and integrate external resources with its core competencies in order to create an advantage in competition with other activities—organised as well as improvised. Resources are raised from society, and the core competence for resource handling provided by the naval administration is therefore the critical connection between state, society, and naval organisation. Naval organisations have been large, complex, and centralised in comparison to the society, and resource flows f r o m society to the organisation have often been a serious political and administrative chaUenge. That also makes early modern navies interesting as pioneering examples of how problems were solved by a complex organisation.' The rise of the complex organisations, replacing local society (the manor, the guild, the town, and the village) as the central building blocks of society, is one of the fundamental changes in the modernisation of Europe f r o m the late medieval period to the 20th century.^ In the early modern period (the 16th to 18th centuries), complex organisations were primarily parts of the rising fiscal-military states. Before the 19th century, the large navies were the most complex organisations

' Fiscal-military states as organisation: Glete 2002, esp. 42-66. Naval administration: Glete Naval administration 2007. Definition of organisational capabilities, see section 1.1.1. ^ James S. Coleman, Power and Structure of Society, N e w York, 1974.

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in existence. Warships, naval weapons, operations, and bases required advanced technology, large-scale investments, long-term planning, and an unusual degree of centralisation of many skills and vast resources. Recruitment of naval personnel, acquisitions of naval stores, and financial control required administrative competence and networks of contact in society. A state had to pass a certain threshold of long-term policy-making, centralisation of resources, and administrative sophistication before it could maintain an efficient navy. Complex organisations do not develop spontaneously or merely by centralising resources. They are the result of h u m a n efforts to combine different competencies and resources into a new structure in which several individuals cooperate in order to achieve more, with lower transaction costs.^ Creation of new combinations or innovations is, with the theoretical approach introduced by Joseph Schumpeter, the central role of the entrepreneur. The creation of a naval organisation is an act of entrepreneurship: identification and combination of those scarce technical and administrative capabilities, which are critical to form successful operational fleets. As warfare by its nature is a competitive process, navies also need entrepreneurial efforts for modernisation and expansion. Entrepreneurial efforts are also necessary to create the new political, fiscal, and administrative combinations, which provide the navy with external resources from society."* The word entrepreneur has more than one meaning in the English language. This frequently leads to confusion in historical investigations. In medieval and early modern military history, entrepreneur is the usual word used to describe men who organise military and naval forces as private business undertakings and lease them to states. In Schumpeterian-inspired economic theory, the word is often associated with the practical realisation of technical, commercial, and organisational innovations. In economy, the word entrepreneur has also the more general meaning of an individual who controls a commercial undertaking while acting in a milieu of uncertainty and risk.^ Initiatives supporting growth and diversification are also normally regarded as entrepreneurial activities, often stimulated by ambitions to take advantage

3 Scott and Davis 2007, esp. 124-50, 221-33. Joseph A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle, Cambridge, Mass., 1934. ^ M a r k Casson, The Entrepreneur: An economic theory, 2nd ed., Cheltenham, 2003, esp. 215-32.

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of under-utilised resources, which the organisation controls.® The theoretical Schumpeterian entrepreneur is an individual who introduces change in an otherwise stable and unchanging economic process, normally by creating a new enterprise, which exploits the innovation. In dynamic societies, where change is normal, the distinction between entrepreneurs who create new corporations and those who develop existing corporations is less important. Long-term survival of an enterprise requires the ability to innovate, and entrepreneurial behaviour is primarily the ability to take advantage of changing circumstances, opportunities as well as threats, by introducing innovations and updating organisational capabilities. Schumpeter's view of the entrepreneurial function in society was not limited to the economic sphere. All types of organisations require innovative entrepreneurs.' Rulers of early modern states can be analysed as entrepreneurs. The fiscal-military state, with its fiscal system and military organisation and the resource flows between them, was an innovation. It also had a propensity for growth and diversification and acted under uncertainty and risk, responding to both threats and opportunities. Early modern rulers were exposed to fierce competition, both from other rulers and f r o m earlier, more decentralised systems of protection and violence-control. Several rulers lost territories, tax incomes, or control of the entire state if they failed in political and military efficiency. Navies were based on technical innovations, which required entrepreneurship if they were to be of any practical use for political ambitions. Permanent navies also had an industrial component: shipyards and arsenals for weapons. These characteristics make it fruitful to analyse states and navies as enterprises, although it must be understood that they were created not for financial profit but in order to increase the ruler-entrepreneur's political power. The differences between the dynastic early modern state and the private military entrepreneurs of that age are also rather difl^use. The main task of a prince was to protect society. Early modern states often collected taxes, tolls, and fines as more or less explicit fees for the services they delivered, primarily protection and the maintenance of law and order. Some military entrepreneurs were ruling princes, and some military entrepreneurs had ambitions to become territorial

' Penrose 1959. ' Schumpeter 1934, 74-94.

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rulers. Even permanent armed forces were frequently hired to other states, with the ruling prince acting as military entrepreneur. Hie difference in mentality between an early modern prince and financial and industrial magnates in the 19th and 20th centuries should also not be overemphasised. Modern business entrepreneurs have often acted as if they were creating autonomous spheres of family power rather than strictly profit-making organisations. In historical sociology, bureaucracy is a term for decision-making according to legitimate rules, professionalism, and the ability to handle large resources and a vast amount of information in an orderly fashion. Early modern armed forces have frequently been identified as bureaucracies with administrators and professional officers acting in hierarchies, with a formalised chain of command and a decisionmaking process that involves paperwork and adherence to legal rules.® Innovative entrepreneurs and bureaucrats may look as two widely different species, and there are undoubtedly differences. Entrepreneurial and bureaucratic behaviour are not incompatible, however. One of the major innovative achievements of entrepreneurs—early modern organisers of states as well as modern creators of large private corporations—was actually the formation of hierarchical bureaucracies which can make complex organisations work.' Such organisations require a bureaucratic stafi?', and the fiscal-military state concept with two different chains of control and separate hierarchies handling resources would hardly have worked without bureaucratic decision-making. Organisations with a long life often pass through stages when they are dominated by entrepreneurial or bureaucratic behaviour—dynamic change as well as efficient resource utilisation.'® Mobilisation for war requires coordination of state-controlled resources with other resources in society. This poses timing problems and requires administrative ability to meet sudden demands and channel resources where needed. It can be achieved by either keeping

' Organisations and bureaucracy: Perrow 1993, Mary Jo Hatch, Organization Theory: Modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives, Oxford, 1997, 161-240. ' Alfred D. Chandler Jr, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the history of the industrial revolution. N e w York, 1962; Alfred D. Chandler Jr, The Visible Hand: The managerial revolution in American business, Cambridge, Mass., 1977. Jan Glete, Agande och industriell omvandling: Agargrupper, skogsindustri, verkstadsindustri, 1850-1950, Stocldiolm, 1987, esp. 283-88; Jan Glete, Ndtverk i ndringslivet: Agande och industriell omvandling i det mogna industrisamhdllet, 1920-1990, Stockholm, 1994.

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resources in permanent readiness or by developing organisational and legal institutions for emergency transfer of personnel, ships, and stores from the civilian society to the state. Some civilian resources such as ports, shipping, private shipyards, and seamen are very useful for naval warfare. Warfare at sea is more dependent on centralised administration of resources than warfare on land does, and naval administration has been less easy to improvise than army administration, which often can rely on requisitions or purchase of local resources. This creates a threshold effect, as naval policymakers and administrators must both centralise resources and develop several competencies before they can create an efficient navy. Lack of maritime resources and capabilities in the society may also stimulate ambitious states to create permanent naval organisations as a substitute, however. In the early modern period, this sometimes led to rulers in less developed maritime societies to initiate the development of specialised warships and naval weapons. To channel resources in that direction required entrepreneurial behaviour and the creation of administrative structures controlled by the ruler. Naval administration interacts with operational naval forces, policy makers, and markets. Operational forces are formed by ships, weapons, and men; and for the men, the ships are their homes when they are at sea. Warfare at sea takes place in an element where h u m a n beings must rely on technology and carefully planned logistics to survive. In particular, naval operations far f r o m the centre of power and resources require well-managed logistics. The supply of provisions, munitions, and equipment to operational forces involves purchase, storage, and distribution of many types of products. In the early modern period, the demands of provisions and naval stores for operational fleets often went far beyond what the market was used to supply under normal circumstances. The maintenance of health and the caring of sick and wounded personnel require properly selected and stored food and drink, medical personnel, and measures against contagious diseases. In the early modern period, these were difficult administrative tasks, and failure to keep the crews at good health was probably the most common cause of operational failures in all navies. Ambitious policy makers have a strong interest in the administration of armed forces. Naval administration is partly an extension of political ambitions to direct efforts for war and exercise control over armed forces. Administrative power in a state is a source of political power. The ability to pay, feed, and arm warriors is also an instrument

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for controlling men who have the potential to intimidate or subjugate state and society. Rulers who are able to keep fund-raising institutions and armed forces separate, and who are able to control the resource flow between them with administrative means, may create strong states. The political and administrative ability to mobilise resources f r o m a society for naval efforts may also extend the power of the state and interest groups to distant seas and territories. Political leaders who develop efficient naval administration may thus harness maritime and technological resources to their ambitions or they may develop these resources in non-maritime societies. Naval administrators have usually had close contact with market forces: merchants and private entrepreneurs and the resources they control. Their relationships depend on the parties' relative degrees of sophistication. An unsophisticated naval administration in a developed market or maritime economy must rely on private entrepreneurs. An ambitious naval administration in an undeveloped maritime economy must create essential components of naval power on their own. A sophisticated administration working in a developed economy can buy much of what it requires on the market and concentrate on its core competencies, usually major investments in ships and weapons, key naval pei'sonnel, and planning of logistical support of operations. Consequently, it is not accurate to equate a strong state with the existence of a large administrative bureaucracy and a weak state with the reliance on private entrepreneurs for administrative tasks. Tliis has often been done, especially in studies of early modern European state formation. The strength of a state is best measured by its ability to mobilise resources and efficiently channel them to organisations under its own control. Even a limited naval administration may be powerful if it can select and monitor qualified private entrepreneurs, who sell their products and services to it. 4.1.2

Medieval and early modern naval

administration

From ancient to early modern times, the naval efforts and policies of maritime cities and coastal regions in Europe and around the Mediterranean were more permanent than those of the territorial states. Those who lived close to the sea and those who were involved in maritime trade had an interest in protection of shipping, fishing, and coastal settlements with naval means. In contrast, centralised territorial states and empires in Europe and the Mediterranean region have

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had rather short hves and have only periodically been able to organise power at sea. The Roman-Byzantine Empire is the major exception in Europe before the early modern period, but even its sphere of dominance was limited to the eastern Mediterranean for most of its existence. Powerful maritime interests have been concentrated in port cities, many of which developed ability to control the sea with naval forces for protection of trade and maritime empire building. Even on a more modest level, ancient and medieval regional elites along coasts had to organise some sea power for defence and the enforcement of maritime laws, often without support of a central state." Medieval Western Europe was feudal, decentralised, and non-maritime in character. In the western Mediterranean, Italian, French, and Hispanic rulers and provinces f r o m the 11th to the 11th century began to appoint admirals (the word is derived from the Arabic title emir) for organisation of naval forces and for maritime jurisdiction. The title and the function became common in Western Europe, but its practical implications for naval administration were often limited. Like other powerful men of their time, medieval rulers had naval resources of their own and might keep a nucleus of a state navy with an administrative apparatus of clerks, shipwrights, and shipmasters, but even powerful kings relied primarily on private shipping and manpower for major mobilisations. Rulers in the western Mediterranean frequently maintained a galley arsenal and its administration, but wartime efforts were often organised by private entrepreneurs in galley warfare. The three Scandinavian kingdoms that emerged from the 10th century were, in spite a very low degree of urbanisation, unusually maritime in their character and capable of large-scale maritime enterprises in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The administrative structure behind 12th- and 13th century-Scandinavian sea power was an obligation for local communities to fit out ships and their crews for amphibious expeditions or protection of coasts and trade along the coasts (the ledung system). In the 14th century, it turned into a tax system for support of territorial power, and the administrative skills to organise sea power declined, especially in Sweden. The dominating sea powers in high and late medieval Europe were the large maritime cities, like Liibeck in the north and Genoa and Venice in the Mediterranean. In

" This section is based on Glete 1993, 101-252; Glete 2000, 17-75, and literature about early m o d e r n naval policy and administration m e n t i o n e d in chapter 1.

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the North Sea and Baltic Sea, the German Hanse cities hired soldiers and fitted out their merchantmen for naval wars under the administration of the city officials. From the 13th to the early 16th century, the Hanse, with Liibeck as its informal capital, was the leading sea power in Northern Europe. The main line in the development of European naval administration from the 15th to the 18th century was the rise of centralised organisations. The organisational capabilities to build, man, arm, and provision warships and fleets came under control of states, while regional and private maritime skills served the navies with special skills in business enterprises, shipyards, and trade with naval stores. Rulers who in an entrepreneurial fashion took control of the resource flows and administrated their own navies (and armies) gained power in relation to other groups in the competition for political control over European societies. Early modern navies were centralised, industrial, and technically advanced organisations in societies dominated by decentralised production, agricuhure, and simple technology with few specialised skills. The success of permanent navies can be explained by the superiority of advanced administration in timely mobilisation of resources and long-term investments in technology. Improvised navies, more or less illegal piracy, private protection of trade, and finally even stateauthorised privateering gradually declined and disappeared. This growth of centralised and permanent naval administration had two main sources. One was the development of fiscal systems or organisations to raise resources, which were transformed into military and naval organisations sufficiently autonomous from local power to form power structures under central political control. This was normally achieved when a state was able to finance armed forces strong enough to overawe domestic competitors for power and to enforce a practical monopoly of violence. The other source was the increasing political integration of some maritime cities and regions with other parts of territorial states, especially Spain, France, the Northern Netherlands (the Dutch Republic), and Venice with parts of northern Italy (Terrafirma). Political alliances and combinations of interests could be formed within these states, and the maritime skills and resources controlled by regional groups became useful for more ambitious naval policies developed by rulers and states. However, several important maritime cities were not integrated with territorial states but remained autonomous and increasingly powerless

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at sea. This development was particularly marked in Germany and the regions where the German Hanse had been strong. The German Empire, its coastal principalities, and Poland-Lithuania never developed sea power of any importance, and the maritime skills in cities such as Hamburg, Liibeck, Danzig, Riga, Rostock, Stralsund, or Bremen was not used in any state formation process. Centralised administration for major sailing n&vi&s began to develop in the late 15th and early 16th centuries in Portugal, England, DenmarkNorway, and Sweden. Tliey were closely connected with the ruling dynasties of Aviz, Tudor, Oldenburg, and Vasa, which had several members who were deeply involved in naval administration and maritime enterprises. These navies were royal enterprises, administrated in the capital city and developed in societies with maritime experience but originally without powerful trading interests with many large ships. The Portuguese navy was created as an integrated part of the rulers' entrepreneurial activities as merchants and protection-sellers at sea in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The other three navies were all developed by new and more or less usurping dynasties, which for their survival needed to control the sea lines to their territories and prevent competitors abroad from encroaching. In the English case, with repeated political crisis around the central political power, this remained a motive for a strong navy until the 18nth century. France had a sailing navy in the Atlantic from the late 15th century, but its administration was regional and located in Brittany, Normandy, and Guienne. The connection to regional interests may initially have been an advantage but also an important cause for the total disappearance of French royal power at sea in the long civil wars from the 1560s. When a navy was recreated in the 1620s, it was more centralised and initially a part of the monarchy's program for regaining a monopoly of violence in France. The 15th- and 16th-century empire-building Ottoman sultans were also the entrepreneurs behind the creation of a large galley navy, based in Constantinople but with regionally administrated forces in various parts of the empire. Administratively this followed the earlier pattern of Byzantine sea power. Mediterranean France and Spain (CastileAragon) created galley navies. That of Spain was dynastically combined with the galley forces of Sicily and Naples. The Spanish monarchy also relied on Italian entrepreneurs, mostly from Genoa, for administration and command of their galley forces. The decentralised administration

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of both the Ottoman and Spanish Mediterranean empires reflects that galleys were inherently short-range vessels, best suited for regional warfare. In the Atlantic, the Habsburg rulers relied on the strong maritime interests in the Netherlands and northern Spain for naval efforts. This system proved to be a wealmess in the 1560s and 1570s, when the Dutch revolted and left the ruler with insufficient sea power to control the sea close to Holland, Zeeland, and Flanders. The development of a Spanish sailing navy did not start on a large scale until the 1580s. Its administration developed into a combination of centralised state administration and a system of long-term contracts with private entrepreneurs who owned and administrated warships and leased them to the Spanish king. Organisational capability was a critical but scarce resource for sea power in this early stage of centralised states. The most centrally administrated element of naval forces was normally a new weapon system, the artillery. That weapon favoured the development of specialised gun-carrying warships, which in turn required specialised administrators. The heavy gun and the gun-carrying warship became for a time a high-technology combination over which a limited number of enterprising rulers had a strong grasp. Provisioning of ships was not in itself something for which central rulers had any special competence, but the problems of finding food for large fleets with several thousand m e n at the same time was often beyond what the local markets could handle. It required centralisation and coordination from above, although private merchants were often used as entrepreneurs. One of the least centralised components of naval forces was the recruitment of seamen, which often was dependent on market forces and the ability of commanding officers or local maritime groups to find crews. Private maritime interests soon developed competence to build and arm ships with heavy guns and to organise crews to fight. Gunarmed merchantmen remained useful in fleets armed for war until the 1660s and 1670s, and this made private entrepreneurs in naval warfare important. Beginning in the late 16th century, Dutch and English shipowners became suppliers of gun-armed merchantmen and even entire fleets—ships, guns, officers, and crew—to European rulers with limited naval administration. The Spanish monarchy leased warships on long-term contracts (asientos) from private entrepreneurs in Southern Europe throughout the 1600s. The new Dutch Republic, which was formed in the late 16th century in the most dynamic maritime region

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in Europe, developed a regional administrative system. Five provincial admiralties raised custom duties within the whole Republic and used the funds to maintain a permanent federal navy with specialised warships, shipyards, and arsenals of guns. The Dutch state could thus integrate the competence and networks of contacts in the local maritime communities to marshal resources for a navy that operationally was a centralised force. Contrary to a c o m m o n belief, the Dutch navy did not normally hire its warships from private ship-owners but, instead, relied on the world's leading maritime economy for the supply of shipbuilding competence, naval stores, weapons, and men. Tlie challenge of administrating a major navy f r o m a centre was primarily control and coordination of resources. Naval warfare required, in large numbers and huge quantities, widely different and unevenly localised resources: warships, timber, masts and spars, sails and rigs, cables and anchors, naval stores, guns and munitions, various kinds of provisions, and officers and crew. It also required a degree of political interest aggregation in order to make large resource flows f r o m society to the state accepted. Elite groups who disagreed with central authority were often able to resist resource extraction. Finally, naval warfare required competence and information, and here local elite groups might profit from state formation. Private entrepreneurs, who were familiar with regional conditions and had networks to both international markets and local societies, could often find such resources more quickly and with lower transaction costs. The integration of state power, naval administration, and maritime interests became especially close in states whose capital city was also the centre of maritime trade and the main naval base. The geographic combination of administrative and maritime resources facilitated centralisation, and major ports such as Lisbon, London, Constantinople, Copenhagen, and Stocldiolm became naval bases and central ordnance depots under control of rulers. In the early 18th century, the Russian political centre was even moved from inland Moscow to the new naval and maritime centre of St Petersburg. If the capital also was a centre for trade and shipping, the central political power-holders (kings, ministers, parliaments) and their administrative staffs could gain close contacts with maritime skills. The naval bases supported central political power because a navy could project armed force against foreign powers and domestic opposition and make it difficult for external and internal enemies to cooperate. France and Spain lacked such maritime centres of political and

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administrative power and relied more on private entrepreneurs or provincial maritime interests. During the 17th century, the French state made great efforts to gain centralised control over the navy, which resulted in a double hierarchical system with civilian administrators (intendants) working in parallel with officers. It has frequently been criticised as an overcomplicated control system, but it may have been a result of the fact that the rulers and the central administration lacked direct and personal contacts with the navy. By the late 17th century, a relatively homogeneous European system of naval administration of resources had emerged. Typically, a central administration controlled the design and construction of warships, kept one or more naval yards for maintenance of a permanent fleet, purchased naval stores, guns, and provisions in large quantities, and maintained corps of commissioned and warrant officers as a cadre of naval leaders. Seamen were usually hired only when ships were commissioned for active service, but some states kept registers of seamen in order to call them into naval service when required. Private entrepreneurs could supply various goods to the navies, but administrators became increasingly skilled at using market forces for control of cost and quality through contracts. Increased bureaucratisation of naval architecture made it possible to centralise even warship design and supply shipbuilders with detailed drawings and design specifications. That made it possible for private yards to participate in naval construction without any decentralisation of design. These systems of resource handling enabled European powers to fight long and intense naval wars, project European power to other parts of the world, and protect increasingly global European mercantile activity. Sweden in the 15th and 16th century was a society with few large merchant ships and little private competence in administrating naval efforts. If a Swedish ruler wished to have naval power, he had to hire it from foreign merchants or develop the necessary skills himself The first alternative required the ability to raise large financial resources at short notice. It was also politically dangerous because it meant reliance on foreign resources. Timing and availability are critical in a mobilisation process, and hired ships from abroad might arrive too late. Commanders and administrators of a hired fleet also would be less reliable, because they were not dependent on the ruler for their future careers. The alternative, to organise a permanent state-administrated navy, however, was also challenging, because it required the ruler to continuously find resources for a naval organisation and men with the

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necessary skills to run it. If successful, it gave the ruler greater ability to protect his subjects and also a better ability to control them. The remaining chapters (4 to 8) in this study are surveys of how the Swedish state interacted with society and market when it developed central administration (chapter 4), acquired warships (5), sails, rigging and cables (6), guns (7), and organised manpower and leadership (8) for operational fleets. It is not a comprehensive study of all aspects of naval administration in two centuries. It intends to show that the state acted in an entrepreneurial and innovative fashion when it mobilised limited and largely non-maritime resources for a large-scale naval enterprise. The Swedish naval administration was an outgrowth of state power and dynastic ambitions, not an integration of powerful maritime interests with a territorial state. In a later phase, however, it did develop relationships with private entrepreneurs, who appeared when the Swedish society became more economically sophisticated. Tlie state was successful in mobilising resources for an active naval policy aiming at control of the Baltic Sea, as a part of an increasingly imperial program of expansion. In that process it integrated peasants, burghers, the lower nobility, aristocrats, and the new (often foreign born) industrial entrepreneurs who, under the direction of the state, contributed to the efforts of maintaining a Swedish navy.

4.2 Passing the threshold: The early phase of Vasa naval administration Swedish late medieval sea power had been administrated by aristocrats as an outgrowth of their control of the crown's castles and territories attached to these castles (slottsldn). The rudimentary central administration run by the elected regents (Sten Sture the older, Svante Nilsson, and Sten Sture the younger) from 1470 to 1520 was financially supported by a larger territory in central Sweden and western Finland ifatbursldn), with the castle in Stocldiolm as the centre. Formally, the regents were only the largest holder of Idn f r o m the crown. The possession of a Idn meant that its holder should exercise the authority and responsibility of the crown in the territory, defend it, and maintain law and order in cooperation with the local communities. In exchange, he received all or most of the royal revenues f r o m it. These incomes were often mixed with the aristocrat's incomes f r o m his own land, and they could easily be used for struggles about power in Sweden.

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Tlie Ian-holders' tasks were to maintain the castle in a defensible state and to keep small forces of soldiers for local defence and control of the territory. Hie castle and the armed retainers were usually their most important resource during domestic power struggles. A Idn was not a hereditary or even life-long fief, and the shifting political alliances made life as a holder of the incomes from a Icin uncertain. That probably discouraged aristocrats from developing any long-term policy about sea power.'^ Aristocrats who controlled castles at the coast (Alvsborg, Kalmar, Borgholm, Stegeborg, Kastelholm, Abo, Raseborg, and Viborg) usually had one or a few small vessels (typically jakter) for local patrols and their own voyages at sea. They must have had vessels for transport and fishing and must have employed some seamen and fishers. Medieval Nordic aristocrats were not unfamiliar with the idea to enrich themselves by capturing merchantmen or forcing them to pay for protection, but it was usually only the holder of Visby and Gotland as a Ian who could do that on a larger scale. The regents at Stocldiolm had a few ships, which they used for both trade and warfare, although the only two major ships owned by the regent Sten Sture in 1519-20 were in Liibeck and Danzig, built or administrated by German merchants.'^ Medieval Sweden had seven dioceses with considerable economic resources, and usually a fortified castle. Many bishops were noblemen; they often owned ships and small vessels and participated with them in both wars and domestic power struggles. In the early 1520s, Hans Brask, bishop of Linkoping (a son of a commoner), even had a small squadron, a ship, a bark, and a jakt, which he provided with his own guns and loaned to Gustav Eriksson for the war efforts against Christian II.''' It is probable that most seaside castles—royal as well

Erik Lonnroth, Statsmakt och statsfinans i det medeltida Sverige, 46, 1940, Gothenburg, 1940; Hammarstrom 1956, 39-101. " Hammarstrom 1956, 53, 86, 88, 169, 182-86; Glete 1976, 45-48; Glete 1977, 3 3 41; Hedberg 1975, esp. 76-77, 123-29. " GR 1, 4 3 - 4 4 (10/2 1523); Glete 1977, 36 (Hans Brask's ship); HSH 17, 165-66 (letter f r o m H a n s Brask to Berend von Melen 8/9 1523); Barkman m7, 89-97. Glete 1977, 34 suggested that the "Swedish Bark" which was wrecked at Oland in October 1522 probably was Jasper Bruns Bark, but f r o m Brask's letter to von Melen it is evident that it belonged to Brask and that he also h a d lent a small jakt to van Melen, the c o m m a n d e r of the Swedish fleet in 1522. H a n s Brask's relation to the Swedish state: H e r m a n Schiick, Ecclesia Lincopensis: Studier om Linkopingskyrkan under Medeltiden och Gustav Vasa, Stockholm, 1959, 134-56. 357-73.

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as those belonging to bishops—had facihties to build, maintain, and arm at least small vessels. Little is known about that before the 1540s, when local accounts show that such facilities existed. There were few merchant-owned ships of any military importance. Only two such ships armed with guns are mentioned in the late 1510s.'= In spite of the long Swedish coasts, total resources used in naval warfare before 1520 were small. Tlie largest source of armed force, the local peasant militia, was irrelevant for any kind of naval policy. As outlined in chapters 2 and 3, Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) made a radical break with this system when in 1522 he bought a fleet of armed ships from Liibeck and Stralsund. In 1522-23, and to some extent also during the Gotland expedition in 1524, he was dependent on Liibeck's financial and administrative support for this new venture in naval power. The political control of the men leading these ships was uncertain. In 1525, the new Idng had to take up arms against the German knight Berend von Melen, who held the important castle in Kalmar and who had commanded the fleet in 1522 and 1524."" The Swedish power position at sea would have been only a short episode if naval policy had not been supported by radically increased funding and new administrative structures for a permanent navy. Both questions were on the agenda of the new king. During the 1520s, he used much of the resources raised by taxes and the appropriation of church property to his naval forces. Major warships were maintained at the Stockholm castle in larger number than before 1520, heavy bronze guns were cast with metal from confiscated church bells, seamen and shipwrights were hired, and a shipbuilding program was started. One of the first ships in that program, Store Kfuvelcn, a carvel-hulled warship built c. 1527-30, was one of the great European ship of this age and an indication of the new ruler's ambitions.'^ Gustav I very soon turned to Swedish administrators with experience of ships and seafaring to run the Stockliolm naval yard, shipbuilding, and outfitting of ships for mercantile and military expeditions. Thie

Hedberg 1975, 77. Accounts f r o m the naval expeditions in 1522: Hanserecesse, 3: 1477-1530, 8, Leipzig, 1910, esp. 570-83; Strodda kanierala handlingar, 62, RA; see also Hammarstrom 1956, 410-11, 425-31, Berend von Melen: Emil Hildebrand, "Gustaf Vasa ocli Berend von Melen", HT, 21, 1901, 245-316. " Accounts for the Stockholm shipyard f r o m a u t u m n 1526 to 1/3 1531, Foughternes Rekenskaper 1529-1533, fols 789-859, RA. Payrolls for naval personnel, Rantekammarbocker f r o m 1527 on, RA.

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earliest known administrators were shipmasters {skeppare). Master Olof (Eriksson), who eariier had served the regent Sten Sture (the younger) as shipmaster, held a senior position from at least 1525 until 1531. Another shipmaster, Master Erik, was from the autumn 1526 until February 1531 responsible for shipbuilding material and the ships' equipment. In 1531, Erik also took over Olof's responsibility to pay seamen and shipyard personnel. Master Olof returned to the shipyard as its senior administrator in 1537, when Erik died, and remained there until 1543. Olof Eriksson was also a burgher in Stockholm and one of the representatives of the city at the meeting with the Parliament in 1529. In 1535 he was master of Store Kravelen, and both he and Master Erik served at Landskrona in the winter 153536, when the fleet was laid up there during the war with Liibeck. Erik also had a command at sea in 1534. Both men presumably had experience with ship-handling and the outfitting of ships when they entered royal service. Until the early 17th century, a senior shipmaster was in charge of the daily administration of the Stockholm naval yard.'® The accounts f r o m Master Erik's period as administrator of naval stores and equipment are preserved and provide insights in the early years of Vasa naval administration. Warships could be built with domestic resources, large anchors could be made by the king's blacksmiths, while sails, hemp and yarns for cables at least partly were bought from abroad—in Holland (1528), Reval (1528), and Danzig (1532)." Little is known about the production of guns and gunpowder in these years, but the king evidently acquired a number of modern copper guns, probably with the help of gun-founders f r o m the continent. Gunpowder was produced domestically, although sulphur had to be imported.^" It is possible, however, that Liibeck still supplied essential products for the naval administration through Stockholm merchants, who traditionally had strong connections to the large Hanse city. It is also possible that contacts with that and other German cities

" MA Dan Johansson, Stockholm University has provided information about skeppar Olof and skeppar Erik. Olof and the Parliament of 1529: SRA, 1:1, 148: Hiey are m e n t i o n e d in the king's letters GR 2, 197 (17/8 1525); GR 4, 374-75 (22/11 1527); GR 8, 6 5 - 6 7 (7/4 1532); GR 10, 315 (5/12 1535); GR 12, 6 0 - 6 1 (10/6 1538), 104 (28/9 1538); GR 13, 4 8 - 4 9 (31/5 1540). Skeppar Olof in Sten Sture's service: HSH 2, 57-60. Senior masters: Zettersten 1890, 236-37. " Foughternes Rekenskaper 1529-1533, fols 789-859, RA; GR 8, 6 5 - 6 7 (7/4 1532); Hammarstrom 1956, 440-41. Hedberg 1975, 287-90, 301^08.

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made it easier to find foreign specialists with the necessary skills to produce ships and gunpowder weapon. The Swedish aristocracy had been m u c h decimated by the war and Christian II's mass execution of former enemies, but they were still the traditional Swedish source of administrative competence in military matters. In the early period of Gustav I's rule, aristocrats administered Ian in parts of the country, and after 1527 the territory controlled by Ian-holder markedly increased. In the 1520s and 1530s, at least the Finnish castles still maintained several small armed vessels (jakter), which were used both in the Gulf of Finland and together with the king's naval force. Johan of Hoya, a G e r m a n count and married to the king's sister, held the important castle Viborg in the east and also maintained major ships, a hoik and a kravell?^ The king's naval forces, however, were larger and probably better armed than the forces controlled by aristocrats, and there was litde doubt about who controlled the sea around Sweden. This was not unimportant, as it increased the king's ability to divide potential rebels against his rule. There were repeated rebellions against him in these years, but after the recapture of Kalmar in 1525, these were concentrated in the inland provinces of Dalarna and Vastergotland. The last classical attempt to start a feud and depose the king by a confederation of local aristocrats took place in the latter province in 1529. Swedish naval administration during the 1530s is only fragmentarily known from accounts of payments of seamen and shipyard personnel. No accounts f r o m the Stocldiolm shipyard have been preserved, and the ordnance accounts provide no inventories.^^ Several letters f r o m the king during 1532-35 do, however, show that he was working with the problem of finding more warships, cables, sails and other equipment for ships, shipmasters, pilots, skilled seamen, and experienced naval leaders. He did this without asking his traditional friends in Lubeck for help. It would not have come, for his naval efforts were directed against that city. The sudden flow of letters f r o m the king about naval administration partly reflects that he was looking for alternatives and additions to the network of contacts in Liibeck and Stocl<Jiolm with which he had administrated his navy since the early 1520s. Gustav

Glete 1977, 3 4 - 5 0 with detailed references. ^^ Naval accounts which remains f r o m the 1530s are mainly payrolls for naval personnel, yearly in Rantekammarbocker, RA, a n d 1535-36 in SMHF, 1.1-1-3, RA.

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sent out his men, even aristocrats, to recruit seamen and to buy naval equipment in Danzig, Livonia, Prussia, and Pomerania, and he negotiated about ships, commanders, and seamen from Holland, Scotland, and Denmark. The city of Reval was threatened that it would not be allowed to trade with Finland if it did not send seamen to the Swedish fleet. During the mobilisation against Liibeck in 1534-35, the king's fleet was also ordered to strengthen itself by pressing suitable foreign ships and seamen found at sea into Swedish service.^^ Especially seamen were much in demand, and in July 1534 the king declared that he must have many additional seamen if his largest ship. Store Kravelen should be sent to sea. He even suggested that his allies in Denmark and Holstein should man this ship. A few years earlier, when Liibeck and Holland prepared for a naval war with each other, Gustav had offered to sell this ship to Holland and its ruler. Emperor Charles V, in exchange for smaller vessels. He must have regarded the administrative problems with this giant as difficult, but in 1535-36 he was, perhaps to his own surprise, able to send that ship to sea in a campaign where it proved very useful in combat.^"* The achievement of organising an operational fleet, which in 153536 turned out to be the most powerful in the Baltic Sea, was to a large extent administrative and was proof that Gustav had made a successful break with Liibeck. He was no longer dependent on that or any other city for naval administration. Gustav's letters f r o m 1534-35 show that he was far f r o m certain that the fleet would be successful and he evidently had great respect for the old Hanse city. He had to improvise much of the administrative efforts, and the difficulties of raising resources in a country still only precariously controlled by royal power probably explain why he choose to stay in Stocldiolm and central Sweden during the war rather than departing to the operational theatre in Denmark.

" The king's letter about foreign resources and m e n for his navy: GR 8, 6 5 - 6 7 (7/4 1532), 240 (6/7 1533), 241-42 (6/7 1533), 2 5 0 - 5 1 (14/7 1533), 266 (10/8 1533), 279-80 (11/9 1533), 326 (11/11 1 533); GR 9, 2 4 8 - 5 1 (18/6 1534), 157-59 (6/7 1534), 171-74 (21/7, 22/7 1534), 208-09 (7/8 1534), 2 1 7 - 1 8 (7/8 1534), 2 5 3 - 5 4 (2/8 1534), 269-71 (24/9 1534, threat to forbid Reval's trade with Finland), 275-76 (24/9 1534), 2 8 7 - 8 8 (12/10-34), 3 0 1 - 0 3 (19/10 1534), 331 (19/12 1534); GR 10, 9 6 - 9 7 (24/3-35), 9 8 - 9 9 (29/3 1535), 110-11 (4/4 1535), 145-47 (13/5 1535). GR 8, 171-73 (21/7 1534), Gustav I's asks for Danish ship-masters, pilots and seamen to Store Kravelen. Negotiations about Store Kravelen: Lundkvist 1961, esp. 36-41.

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In these years, the king also tried to develop the traditional form of resource mobilisation for his navy. From 1534, he asked the aristocratic members of the Council of the Realm and the c o m m o n nobility to help raise ships and seamen. The nobility at this time did still organise most of the Swedish cavalry, and they also largely administrated this force themselves. Hiey were, by a long tradition, leaders and administrators of the Swedish armed forces, with knowledge of how to recruit, arm, and provision men. Some of them still had large incomes from Idn, provided by the king. Until 1537, Gustav made serious efforts to make the nobility participate in his increased naval efforts with major ships. He asked not only for resources but also for the administrative capabilities required to build, maintain, arm, and equip warships and to find men and provisions when they should be sent to sea. At a meeting in Arboga in February 1536, the nobility agreed to the king's plan for their participation in naval administration. The nobility was divided in three groups: central Sweden, western and southern Sweden (Vastergotland and SmMand), and Finland, each of which should maintain, arm, and man one major warship and one jakt or bark (small warships). The decision may have been regarded as a temporary war effort, which the nobility was willing to support, but when the war with Liibeck ended, they became suspicious about what looked like a new permanent burden. The nobility in Vastergotland and Smaland protested that the king had sent them too large a ship (Nye Holken) to maintain. Even the Finnish aristocrat Erik Fleming, usually a supporter of the king and sometimes his senior admiral, revolted against his obligation to build and maintain one ship (Flemingen) from his Idn when that was reduced in size. The money for one new ship {Riksens Rdds skepp), which the nobility had promised to supply in 1534-35, was not fully paid even in 1542.^® Gustav's effort to make the nobility participate in his naval administration is interesting because it shows that his creation of a modern centralised navy was not a foregone conclusion. He was, after all, not only raising new taxes on the nobility but also offering them power over administration, which would give them leverage over future policy-making. Hie king tried to modernise the traditional Idn system,

Glete 1976, 52-54, with detailed references to the sources. Tlie importance of that the nobility helped the king to find seamen is underlined in the king's letter to Erik Fleming 24/9 1534, GR 9, 269-71. Erik Fleming, SBL 16, biography by Eric Anthoni.

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and the nobility's duty to serve with armed force and make it useful in a new naval system, but the king met little response once the war was over. This may have contributed to his markedly weakened interest in providing the aristocracy with traditional Idn. They had shown that they were unable or unwilling to provide administrative support to a modern navy, and they were not interested in participating in the administration of a modern army, except as paid royal officers. The large Idn were practically abolished in the 1540s, and the aristocrats lost their traditional right to administrate the resources of the crown on their own. In combination with the equally innovative replacement of the peasant militia with a state-administrated royal militia in the early 1540s, the king rapidly fulfilled the development of a fiscal-military state where the fiscal (resource-raising) organisation was kept separate from the military and naval (resource-consuming) organisations.^®

4.3 4.3.1

The royal entrepreneurs: Tax-raising,

Vasa naval administration,

1540-1618

the double contract, and the power of the dynasty

As a king, Gustav I had a political contract to protect Sweden and its people. This was an obligation which every European ruler had and for which they raised taxes and demanded loyalty. Most late medieval and many 16th-century rulers, however, chose to organise their protective eflrorts through contracts with military and naval entrepreneurs who recruited, administrated, and often commanded army and naval forces. This was the way Gustav had organised the great effort f r o m Liibeck in 1522-23, although it is interesting that he already then bought, rather than leased, the ships. After that, he was determined to become a military and naval entrepreneur himself, rather than maintaining an alliance with Hanse cities or minor German princes to supply him with soldiers, ships, seamen, and administrative services if he had to go to war again. The king, and after him all later Vasa rulers, undertook the task to organise naval and military forces on their own. W h e n they went to war outside Sweden's borders they also hired foreign entrepreneurs to raise Scottish, French, and German mercenary soldiers, but before 1630 these were only a minor part of the army, and they relied

General about Ian-. Nilsson 1947; Hammarstrom of the army: Larsson 1967; Sveriges krig, I, 64-101.

1956, 363-72. The reorganisation

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on the king's administration of provision and transportation. With the single exception of the hired Dutch fleet in 1644, the navy did not use entrepreneurs to administrate operational fleets. In a sense this was a contract of military and naval entrepreneurship that the kings made with themselves in their capacity as rulers of the kingdom. The Vasa dynasty developed a double contractual relationship, one with the society (as protectors) and one with the crown (as military entrepreneurs). This has been little remarked upon, because it has been taken for granted that early modern rulers behaved like that and that the Vasas simply followed a general European trend. Most contemporary rulers, however, did mainly mobilise financial resources for war and used them to pay private, often foreign, entrepreneurs who administrated the armed forces. In the 16th-century Baltic region, only Denmark had a permanent navy and only Russia a permanent, although hardly modern, army. The dynasty's entrepreneurial behaviour was of crucial importance for the formation of the Swedish state and the Vasa monarchy. Gradually the kings and their administrative staff accumulated the core competencies to raise and administrate armed forces under long wars, at long distances, and in combined operations. Consequently, it is important to study their resource mobilisation for warfare not only f r o m the perspective that they were political rulers who raised resources for war but also from the perspective that they administrated the military and naval resources as entrepreneurs. As entrepreneurs, the Vasas searched for cheap and under-utilised resources, tried to achieve new combinations, and looked for political, economic, and military opportunities to exploit. They could use their position as kings to gain information about h u m a n and material resources in the realm, they could use political leverage to mobilise them, and they could coordinate the development of military and naval personnel, hardware, and know-how with their political ambitions. But the dynasty also developed the Swedish political institutions from earlier informal and often decentralised negotiations between the ruler, the elite, and the c o m m o n people to formalised and centralised meetings, the four-estate Parliament (the Riksdag). The most important role of the Parliament was to take decisions about resource extraction in a form that made that process legitimate and rapid. Such decisions could only be taken if the kings were politically skilled. They must be able to take advantage of their position as administrative leaders of the state and their position as arbiters between conflicting interests and

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upholders of a political and social order that at least was better than conceivable alternatives.^^ Hiis kind of political entrepreneurship only developed gradually, and it was only from the 17th century that the Parliament could be used to support considerably increased and practically permanent offensive war efforts. Studies of 17th-century Sweden frequently give the impression (or explicitly state) that parliamentary consent to large war efforts was a mere formality and that the four estates, especially the peasants, were more or less without real power. That was not the experience of 16th-century kings, however. They asked the estates for extra taxes only with hesitation, and they seldom got what they needed for waging effective large-scale and offensive warfare. The power to raise large resources for war was a political skill, developed over generations. Two important parts of that skill were ability to use opportunities and threats as motives for increased taxes and the ability to show that the taxes were used for well-administrated armed forces and warfare which protected the Swedish taxpayers. The 17th-century Parliament's apparent inability to resist royal demands for conscription and taxes was a result of the rulers' ability to determine the political agenda by first pointing to threats and then pointing to the armed forces, administrated by the dynasty, as the salvation f r o m these threats.^® It had not always been so. Gustav I (r. 1523-60) called the first "modern" parliament in 1527 to drastically increase the financial strength of the crown by taking over the Catholic Church's property. He did it with the explicit motivation that the king's armed forces must be strengthened for modern warfare and protection against invasions. A long period of crisis, wars, and uncertainty about the future had made it possible for him to make a radical innovation. IHie asked for resources to create stability, with threats of abdication and probable chaos as the alternative.^' Gustav became almost independent of parliamentary financial grants for his military and naval expansion in the later period of his reign, which largely was peaceful. The increased armed forces were financed by incomes f r o m crown (mainly ex-church) land, the new royal militia with cheap peasant-soldiers, improved tax

"

Schiick 1987; Rystad 1987. Holm 2007; Forssberg 2005. ' ' SiM, 1:1, 56-75, esp. 56, 73-75.

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administration, royal control of silver mines, and a flourishing economy, promoted by the long peace.'" Erik XIV (r. 1560-68) financed much of his war efforts up to 1566 with his father's saved silver, with locally raised taxes in food for soldiers and seamen {kostgard, skeppsgard), and his usually undisputed right to conscript soldiers and seamen for a war that could be described as defensive. W h y taxes in food at least in the 1560s were pohtically easier to raise than taxes in money has not been studied. The transaction costs may have been lower because soldiers and seamen were conscripted and the crown could claim that those who stayed at home had a moral obligation to feed the men who fought the enemy. The traditional peasant militia, which was in living memory of the society, had probably been provisioned in a similar way. In that tradition, the king's administration was careful to keep the provisions raised through extra taxes separate from other tax incomes, in order to show that it was used to feed soldiers and seamen. W h e n Erik in 1567 faced the necessity to demand increased war taxes in money f r o m the estates, his regime began to break down, as did his mental strength. Erik's entrepreneurial talent to organise armed forces, especially a modern navy, was greater than his ability to handle a Parliament.^' Johan III (r. 1568-92) lived with chronic financial problems caused by the long wars. He frequently asked for extra taxes, both in food and money, which he could elicit by arguing that the war with Russia was defensive. Such taxes were granted, more often by local negotiations than through general meetings with all four estates, but the transaction cost of raising extra taxes was considerable. The tax policy during the Russian War of 1570-95 has been more studied in Finland than in Sweden. Finland, close to the war zone and agriculturally poor, was hit by a disproportionate burden of conscription and the feeding and quartering (borgldger) of the armed forces. It was mainly the army that imposed this burden, but the operational part of the navy was also in Finland and consumed resources. The peasant revolt in northern Finland in 1596-97 can at least partly be explained by these burdens.'^

™ Hammarstrom 1956, esp. 274-341; Birgitta Oden, Kronohandel och finanspolitik, 1560-1595, Lund, 1966, 43-44, Oden 1966, 43-45, 61-87. ^^ Taxes and state finances: Oden 1966, 188-222. Peasants and taxes: Eva Osterberg, Grdnsbygd under krig: Ekonomiska, demogmfiska och administrativa forhdllanden i

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Whether this was the result of reluctance to ask for higher taxes throughout the Swedish realm (fear of tax revolts) or the result of an inability to make peasants in the western part of the realm (presentday Sweden) actually pay the extra taxes they granted is not clear from existing studies. Johan could wage a long war against an enemy with a vastly larger population, but he was never able to pay for an operational army and navy of the size Erik maintained in the 1560s or which later Swedish kings could raise with increased taxation and conscription. It is unlikely that he did not understand that higher taxes and larger armed forces could have decided the war earlier. The limit must have been his ability to raise taxes. W h e n Johan died, he was also financially indebted to his younger brother, Duke Karl. Karl used his position as administrator of, and creditor to, the Vasa state to the utmost in order to limit the power of his normally absent nephew, Sigismund (r. 1592-99), who in 1587 had been elected king of Poland." From the late 1590s, the revolutionary regime of Duke Karl (regent from 1599 and king from 1604) repeatedly called the Parliament and asked for extra taxation. By creating a situation of permanent crisis and war against the deposed Sigismund, Karl was able to raise the tax level, a policy that was successfully continued by Gustav II Adolf The conclusion is that the limit on taxes which Erik and Johan had met was political, rather than demographic or economic. The position as usurpers against a king who also was ruler of another, m u c h larger, power gave Karl and Gustav Adolf the possibility to markedly increase the burden of armed forces with parliamentary consent. The threat of the return of a Catholic and possibly vengeful Sigismund worked as leverage against a Parliament which hardly desired offensive warfare but feared a new civil war even more. One result was a considerable increase of the navy in terms of ships; another was an increase in the number of soldiers raised for the army and more intense, although initially unsuccessful offensive warfare in the eastern Baltic.^''

sydvdstra Sverige under och efter nordiska sjudrskriget, Lund, 1971, esp. 46-49, 218-19. The b u r d e n of war in Finland; Heikki Ylikangas, Klubbekriget: Det blodiga bondekriget i Finland 1596-97, Stocldiolm, 1999 (1st Finnish ed. 1977); Rainer Fagerhuid, Bonder, krigsfolk och borgldger: Den militdra tungan i egentliga Finland under dldre Vasatid, Abo, 2003; Eljas O r r m a n , "Militar resursmobilisering u n d e r aldre Vasatid", Historisk Tidskriftfor Finland, 88, 2003, 444-49. " Karl's loans to the crown: Oden 1966, 221. ''' There is no synthesis about taxes and war policy in these years, although Holm 2007 (and earlier articles by the same author) provides a political f r a m e w o r k for it. The

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Before 1523, Swedish kings had for centuries normally been deposed by aristocrats, sometimes in alliance with peasant communities or rival kings. In the 16th century, two Vasa kings were also dethroned, but only by other members of the dynasty. Hie political contract between the dynasty and the Swedish society was not broken by these conflicts, and no serious political alternative—another dynasty or a new aristocratic regency government—ever appeared. A major difference from earlier periods was that the Vasa dynasty firmly controlled the administration of another contract; the king's position as monopolistic military and naval entrepreneur to the Swedish crown. This complex fiscal and military administration was powerful but subordinated to the dynasty, not to the state in a more abstract sense. As long as members of the Vasa dynasty appeared in the centre of this administration and used its vast power of patronage, information, and specialised skills, the dynasty's power was very difficult to challenge. Politically, the Swedish fiscal-military state was a power system of mutual dependency between fiscal and military administrators, the dynasty, and the society, represented by the four estates. The king's administrators depended on his ability to legitimise resource extraction through negotiations with the estates as much as he relied on their ability to raise and use the resources. The society became dependent on the king and his administration of armed forces for both external security and domestic political stability. The traditional alternative—aristocratic administration of Idn, infantry raised by the peasants, cavalry raised by the nobility, and a navy run by nobody—was by long experience known to be politically unstable and unsuited for modern intense wars. The contemporary European alternative of hiring large armed forces through private entrepreneurs was financially prohibitive for long wars. State-administrated armed forces using domestic resources were, once the Vasa dynasty had proved their military efficiency and higher degree of political predictability, the only viable alternative, and that increased the legitimacy of the dynasty's rule. Everybody was dependent on other parts of this system, but as the entrepreneur who could initiate and change policy, negotiate with all interest groups in

parliament and taxes: Ahnlund 1933, 35-104, 530-38. Tlie scale of warfare: Barkman 1938-39, 327-552; Zettersten 1890, 439-68. Taxes: Nilsson 1990, 31-55, 107-17; Sven Lundkvist, "Resurser, skattetryck och fattigdom i 1610-talets Sverige", in Margareta Revera and Rolf Torstendalil (eds), Bdrdor, bonder, bord i 1600-talets Sverige, Motala, 1979, 133-62.

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the society, and control all parts of the administration, the king had much more political leverage in this system than anyone else. 4.3.2

A state administrating

material

resources

In the years after the war of 1534-36, Gustav I intensified his efforts to gain administrative control of the h u m a n and material resources in the Swredish society. Around 1540, a new structure for resource extraction and state administration of resources emerged. Its main features remained stable for around 80 years. One feature was a detailed system of booldceeping of how the resources were handled. Fortunately, most of these accounts are preserved and provide insights in how the state worked. They have been used to study Swedish demography, the agrarian society, land ownership, the tax system, production, trade, and the financial and military activities of the state. If read as the remains of how a family of fiscal, military, and economic entrepreneurs raised and transformed material and h u m a n resources for a great enterprise in protection-selling, they may provide some new insights. Tlie administration and the accounts it left were shaped by the fact that the state handled material resources. The Vasa state built ships with timber and labour raised as taxes, and it fed men in its service with food sent by tax-paying peasants. It raised more resources in kind than in money, and it often used them without caring to set a price on them. Before the 1620s, ft is impossible to express the cost of the navy in money, both because much of the accounts were in non-monetary terms and because there was no booldceeping system to separate naval expenses from other expenses. The Vasa system of raising taxes in kind was earlier regarded as primitive and a sign of economic backwardness. Eli F. Heckscher interpreted it as a conservative systematisation of medieval economic ideas. In 1956, Ingrid Hammarstrom showed that the early 16th-century Swedish state to a considerable extent had used a financial system with money and armed force paid by cash. Taxes in kind were an innovation introduced by Gustav I around 1540, not an unbroken medieval tradition.^' The king must have had strong incentives for this radical change. It was contemporary with other innovations, which intensified the state's contacts with local society and increased its information

Hammarstrom

1956.

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about resources in that society.''^ Taxes in food, iron, forest products, and labour by the taxpayers were inflation-proof in a time of rising prices. The administration of these products and services gave the state the possibihty to make profits on trade and to channel major resourceflows in the interest of state policy.^^ Birgitta Oden has studied how the system worked in the period 1560-95, and in 1967 she presented an important synthesis of her own and other historians' research. Oden showed that Heckscher's dichotomy between a modern financial system based on money and a primitive system based on payments with concrete products and services was of limited value in an analysis of a state involved in war. Ultimately, the early modern Swedish state needed products and services, not money for its imperial policy. The problem was how to get the relevant resources as cheaply as possible. The dynastic state, throughout its history, had in a flexible way experimented with various economic, administrative, and political solutions to the problem of how to mobilise such resources in the most convenient way. The reforms around 1540, as well as the reforms of Gustav II Adolf and Axel Oxenstierna 80 years later, were only two of several transformations to adjust to opportunities and urgent demands. Money had been more used than Heckscher believed, but access to money was of limited importance compared to access to essential resources for war at low cost.'® Oden mentioned Schumpeter's famous article from 1918 about the decline of the domain state and the rise of the tax state as an inspiration, but she cautioned the reader by underlining that Sweden had been rather much of a tax state since the 13th century. Actually, Oden's thinking was shaped by transaction cost analysis, although that concept was largely unknown, even among economists in the 1960s. It also placed the focus on the state as an innovative entrepreneur, which in a flexible way attempts to improve resource utilisation. The 16th-century Vasa kings believed that they could reduce transaction costs by eliminating various middlemen and transactions and, as far

Hallenberg 2001, 133-270. " Gustav Is administration of his inherited property as a part of the state: Ulf Soderberg, Gustav I:s arv och eget i Uppland: En godsmassas framvdxt, organisation och fdrvaltning, Stockholm, 1977. Oden 1966; Birgitta Oden, "Naturaskatter och finanspolitik—ett finansieUt dilemma", Scandia, 33, 1967, 1-19.

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as possible, raising the normally cheap material and h u m a n resources available in the Swedish society to use for warfare. The kings not only organised military and naval forces but also organised the production of warships, weapons, and naval fittings as state enterprises. They also closely connected the conscription of soldiers and seamen to their fiscal administration, which had detailed information about the number of farms in each part of the country.'' 4.3.3

A navy in a functionally

organised state

Before the reforms in the 1620s, the navy (or the army) did not exist as an articulated organisation. Tlie Swedish state was one single organisation, with a central staff and a large number of local organisational units, which were supposed to handle civilian as well as military or naval tasks. Like many other parts of the state, the navy existed because the king wished to have it. Its size, structure, and readiness depended on the rulers' policy and ability to administrate the resources under his control. The fact that the monarchy became hereditary in 1544 strengthened the dynastic character of Swedish policy-making and administration, as information about resources was limited to the ruler and his personal staff. The king was ultimately the only individual who had the power and practical ability to channel resources f r o m the fiscal system to naval purposes. He was responsible for assuring that relevant resources (men, ships, guns, provisions, and competence) were available at the proper time and place for bringing an operational fleet to sea. He was also responsible for appointing men who administrated and commanded the navy. The central functions of the state were run by the Chancellery {Kansliet), which handled in- and out-letters, and the Treasury (Kammaren), which handled accounts and money. They also provided the king with a small staff of diplomatic, political, and financial expertise. The Chancellery and the Treasury were mainly run by educated commoners, who depended on the king as employer and patron. The aristocratic council had no control over them and often disliked the secretaries, who, especially under Erik XIV and Karl IX, in some cases appeared as powerful men close to the ruler. The local administration was run by bailiffs {fogdar) who were commoners or member of the

Glete 2002, 189-91.

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lower nobility. They were normally dependent on the king for their careers, but they were men with sufficient authority to negotiate with the local communities about extra taxes and to use political judgement when they enforced decisions about taxes. Local military and naval administration was run by officers {hovitsmdn, skeppshdvitsmdn), speciahsts such as shipmasters and master gunners and civilian administrators {skrivare), who kept order on money, muster rolls, provisions, weapons, and equipment for ships and rendered account of that to the Treasury." The four main administrative parts of the armed forces were the cavalry (organised in fanor), the infantry (organised in fdnikor), the gunners (bdsseskyttar), and the seamen (batsman). Of these, only the cavalry did not serve at sea. It is seldom possible to determine which men of the infantry served on ships, because soldiers were paid through the administrative unit {fdnika) they served in and not by the naval paymasters.*" The main material assets of the armed forces were warships, guns, and fortified castles. The guns could be used on ships and fortresses, by field armies, and in siege operations. The main part of the royal ordnance (arkliet) was intended for the navy, but no separate accounts were kept for naval artillery, except when the guns actually were mounted on ships.''' Operational naval forces were created by combining warships, guns and gunners, seamen, and infantry into

The classic study of Swedish central administration f r o m 1523 to 1634: Nils Eden, Om centralregeringens organisation under den aldre Vasatiden (1523-1594), Uppsala,' 1899; Nils Eden, "Den svenska riksstyrelsens organisation, 1594-1602", HT, 21, 1901, 191-226; Nils Eden, Den svenska centralregeringens utveckling till kollegial organisation I borjan af sjuttonde arhundradet (1602-1634), Uppsala, 1902. The structure of the 16th-century Swedish administration: Birgitta Oden, Rikets uppbord och utgift: Statsfinanser och finansfdrvaltning under senare 1500-talet, Lund, 1955. The local administration: Hallenberg 2001. The state, the bailiffs and the peasants: Osterberg 1971. The Treasury: Kammarkollegiets historia, Stockholm, 1941 (the period 15391718 by Nils Eden, 1-194). The Chancellery: Ivan Svalenius, Rikskansliet i Sverige, 1560-1592, Stockholm, 1991. The army: Birger Steckzen, Krigskollegii historia, I, 16301697, Stockholm, 1930, 1-18. •" The army until a r o u n d 1618: Sveriges krig, I, 60-111. The m a i n account series for the mfantry a n d the cavalry are Militierakenskaper, KrA, supplemented by Strodda mihtiehandlingar fore 1631, 1. Handlingar angaende armen, RA. The m a i n account series for the artillery is Arklirakningar, KrA, supplemented by Strodda mihtiehandlingar fore 1631, 1. Handlingar angaende armen, series D, RA. Account of wages to seamen, shipwrights and other personnel at the shipyards are in Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA, but also in Rantekammarbocker, Loningsregister a n d Landskapshandlinear RA and Fogderakenskaper, ERA, " Yearly accounts of o r d n a n c e on ships are in Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA.

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combat units. Provisions to the armed forces came f r o m the provision depots {provianthus), where local taxes raised in kind were stored. Food was also fetched by ships directly from the local bailiffs."'^ Ships were built, maintained, and fitted out for operational service at the king's shipyards (skeppsgdrdar), usually connected with a royal castle, which also served as an ordnance depot. Hie commander {slottsfogde or stdthdllare) and administrators of such castles also had responsibility for naval forces. Men in charge of the castle in Stockholm were deeply involved in naval administration because the main naval base was located at this castle, although the Stocldiolm shipyard appears as a separate administrative unit with its own accounts already in the 1520s. Some other shipyards at castles have separate accounts f r o m the 1560s. However, until around 1620, local naval forces were usually administrated from the castle, and accounts of shipbuilding, repair, payment, provisions, and guns are frequently integrated with the accounts of the local administration. From the 1560s, several countryside shipbuilding yards were administrated by a sea officer {skeppshdvitsman), a master (skeppare), or the local bailiff, who reported to the Treasury about how resources were used.''"' For individual ships, the master (skeppare) was the key administrative person. He normally served several years on the same ship, both when it was laid up and when it served at sea, and his name usually appears in accounts connected with ships. Hie preserved accounts are not written by the masters, however, who may have had rather rudimentary Imowledge of accounts or even of how to read and write. Instead, they are kept by skrivare (literally: writers) who delivered ship's gears to the masters of the ships and held them accountable for how it was used."*' Every master had a small caretaker crew for his ship when it was laid up, and he was responsible for its sails, rig, cables, anchors, and other equipment. He must also have been responsible

The navy's provision accounts are divided between Skeppsgardshandlingar and Proviantrakenskaper, RA. Ships also received provisions f r o m castles and local bailiffs, transactions recorded in Landskapshandlingar, RA. Accounts f r o m shipyards with separate administration are in Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA, while accounts f r o m yards integrated with the local administration are in Landskapshandlingar, RA and Fogderakenskaper, FRA. Accounts of wages paid to the shipyard personnel are also sometimes in R a n t e k a m m a r b o c k e r and Loningsregister, RA. This division is not strict however. Tliere are for example m a n y naval accounts f r o m Kalmar in both Landskapshandlingar, Smaland and Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA. The navy's skrivare, Zettersten 1890, 242-43.

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for the daily maintenance of the ship (pumping, for example) and for reporting to the shipyard if the ship was in need of careening or repair, although this has left few traces in the sources. When the ship was commissioned, it was normally placed under the c o m m a n d of an officer who ultimately was responsible for it, but the master served under him at sea and did represent continuity in the administration of the ship. The ship's inventory of guns, ammunition, and equipment connected with the artillery were not part of the master's responsibility. Warships had not permanent inventories of ordnance until the late 17th century. When commissioned, ships were fitted with guns from the Stockholm ordnance depot {Stora Arkliet) or a local castle, and a master gunner {arklimastare) was appointed on each ship as responsible for the ordnance inventory and as leader of the ship's gunners. The king was the leader of the administration, and his letters (preserved in Riksregistraturet) give detailed instructions about naval questions to local administrators, admirals, and captains. Unfortunately, the bulk of the letters he received are lost, which gives a one-sided view of how the administration worked. The king's letters are a mixture of orders, enquiries, admonitions, and formal power of authority for individuals to raise men, collect resources for shipbuilding, or send ships to sea. There is no trace of a minister or secretary of the navy or a naval treasurer, and the king appears as the sole originator of naval policy. The aristocrats in the Council had little influence and apparently little interest in naval policy. Their opinions about various policy matters, not the least about how the state's resources should be administrated, are preserved in numerous written counsels to the king, but naval (or army) policy or administration is seldom mentioned in these, except in passing.''® It is obvious that many administrative questions must have been prepared by secretaries and treasury officials before the king issued orders. In the Treasury, certain officials who audited naval accounts must have developed experience of the administration of shipbuilding, timber, masts and spars, ironworks, hemp, sailcloth, tar, cables, anchors, guns, shots and gunpowder, recruitment and payment of shipwrights and seamen, and provisioning of ships and fleets. Royal letters

The Council's written advices on policy f r o m this period are printed in SRA. The few statements of importance about naval policy have been used in chapter 2. The Council and fiscal administration: Oden 1966, 386-410.

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and treasury papers about where various resources were and how they could be used, however, are not signed by those who may have prepared them, and continuity is difficult to prove. Civilian administrators at the Stockholm shipyard and the central ordnance depot {^tora Arkliet) at Stoclcholm in practice must have fulfilled many duties of central administrators, as most of the ships and their guns were there when they not were at sea. The Treasury and its officials were specialists in control of that the king's resources were used in a proper way and not embezzled or destroyed by carelessness. They were auditors, reporting what had happened, not administrators with authority to take decisions on their own about how resources should be channelled through the Vasa state machinery. The administration of a navy, an operational fleet, or a major warship requires long-term planning, decisions about when, how and where resources should be raised and used, and ability to coordinate different types of resources. The warships, their equipment, guns, munitions, men, and provisions must be available at the same place and at the same time, otherwise even the best administrative efforts of individual components of naval power are wasted. This requires a combination of personal authority to make other m e n obey orders and entrepreneurial ability to find and combine various resources with a proper timing. The king was the ultimate source of this authority, and Gustav I and Erik XIV appear as determined chief administrators of their navy. Naturally they could not do everything themselves. A key function in the naval administration, especially up to the early 1570s, was the men in charge of the Stockholm castle, where most of the ships normally were laid up when not in service.^^ They were usually noblemen and experienced military, naval, and administrative leaders, and because Stockholm and the castle were a nexus for the flow of resources controlled by the state, they could use their authority to direct them to the navy. They were often given orders to lead and coordinate the administrative tasks at the navy's main shipyard and the mobilisation

The structure of central naval administration and biographical information is mainly based on Zettersten 1890, 4 - 3 3 , 234-41; Eden 1899, 251-57; Wendt 1950, 1-17. The main correspondence series for naval administration is Riksregistraturet, RA (for 1521-60 printed in GR). I have m a d e m u c h use of M A Dan Johansson's extracts f r o m Riksregistraturet for the period 1561-1630. The reflections about naval administration and political loyalty are my ovifn.

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of active fleets when the king was absent. Their authority might even include the appointment of officers to warships when they were commissioned."'® In the period 1559-70, when a large fleet was in commission every year, the detailed supervision and coordination to ensure that the ships were properly equipped, refitted, armed, manned, led, and provisioned must have been exercised by its admirals and officers (skeppshdvitsmdn). The almost total absence of correspondence and administrative papers signed by these men make this difficult to prove, but the number of sea officers drastically increased in these years, while the number of civilian clerks (skrivare) was rather constant. At least some new sea officers had experience f r o m the local administration and knew how to handle material resources, men, and accounts. At his accession to the throne in 1568, Johan III appointed Klas Eriksson Fleming as the most senior admiral [oversteamiral or riksamiral),*'^ a position he retained until his death in 1597. Fleming was an aristocrat and a member of the Council but also a firm supporter of Johan and, later, Sigismund in their conflicts with both aristocrats and Duke Karl. He usually lived in Finland, where he was the largest landowner, but because the war efforts in this period were directed against Russia, he was close to the operational fleet and its requirements: food and maintenance. From 1591, Fleming was commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the war against Russia, and he also held the office of riksmarsk (Lord High Constable), the head of the army. As oversteamiral, Fleming commanded the main fleet against Denmark and Liibeck in 1570. He also commanded fleets that participated in the conquest of Narva in 1581, brought Sigismund to his Polish kingdom in 1587, to Sweden in 1593, and back to Poland in 1594. He only sporadically exercised the routine administrative leadership of the navy, mainly in the early 1580s.='' The absence of administrative coordination had been felt soon after the great fleet, which had fought the Nordic Seven Years War, was decommissioned in 1570. Practically all sea officers were assigned to

The role of the c o m m a n d e r in Stockholm is discussed by Ingvar Sjoblom in his unpublished studies of 16th century Swedish sea officers. The exact title of this and others charges in this chapter varied in c o n t e m p o r a r y texts. Titles, which appear to have been the m o s t c o m m o n are used in a modernised Swedish spelling. Riksamiral in 16th and early 17th Swedish was usually written as Riksens amiral. ™ SBL 16, biography of Klas Eriksson Fleming by Berndt Federley.

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Other tasks or to the active fleet in the Gulf of Finland. From 1571, the old admiral Jakob Bagge was intended to fill this vacuum v^hen he served as one of the joint commanders of the Stocldiolm castle, but his health soon declined. In 1573, the king appointed a deputy admiral {underamiral) to Fleming, originally as coordinator of his large shipbuilding program at several shipyards (chapter 5), but from 1575 as general supervisor of the navy; men, ship, and equipment. The first deputy admiral was Henrik Arvedsson, an experienced naval commander who also commanded the operational fleet in the Gulf of Finland during most summer campaigns. It is probably no coincidence that it is from 1573 that the accounts and inventories of rigs, cables, and equipment of all ships in the navy begin to appear in a more systematic way in yearly lists of the ships (Skeppsrullan).^^ These papers, however, were prepared by the Treasury, and the names of the deputy admirals appear nowhere. After Arvedsson's death in 1578, the office was temporarily given to the sea officer (skeppshovitsman) Bengt Soffringsson, but he was soon sent to Finland to command and administrate the operational fleet against Russia. He also supervised shipbuilding in Finland and was a leading naval administrators until he was appointed Master of Ordnance in 1591.'^ From 1580 to 1583 (or early 1584), the oversteamiral Klas Fleming personally administrated the navy. From 1584, the administration was again assigned to a deputy admiral, who also in practice administrated the shipyard in Stockholm. Johan Bagge, son of Admiral Jakob Bagge, served in this office from 1584 to 1594. It is possible that Duke Karl dismissed him because he was too loyal to King Sigismund. Bengt Larsson, who was loyal to the duke, succeeded Bagge in 1595. Johan Bagge's absence may in the following years have given the duke better opportunities to control the warships in Stockholm. After Johan Ill's death in late 1592, naval administration and control of the warships became involved in a political conflict, which continued until the full-scale civil war in 1597-99. The new king, Sigismund, was in Poland; Klas Fleming was in Finland as commander-in-chief in

U p to 1594, this series is preserved in Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA, a n d f o r m s the best c o n t e m p o r a r y yearly survey of the navy's ships for the entire period u n d e r study (1521-1721). The guns, a m m u n i t i o n , and e q u i p m e n t issued by the o r d n a n c e to the warships h a d been systematically surveyed in yearly inventories since the early 1560s. Most of these are in Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA and a few in Arklirakningar, KrA. " See for example SH 39:10, 40:11, 46:3 and 47:6, RA.

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the war against Russia with part of the fleet; and Duke Karl assumed control over the naval forces in the western part of the realm. Karl repeatedly demanded that Fleming should place all warships under the duke's control and send back as many as possible to Stocldiolm. Fleming ignored this and only obeyed orders f r o m Sigismund. Fleming administrated the king's naval forces in Finland without leaving any accounts to the central administration," while Karl tried to induce the admiral's seamen to bring ships f r o m Finland to Stockholm in defiance of his orders. In April 1595, Karl ordered Axel Ryning as commander of the Stocldiolm castle to find out what Fleming wrote to the naval personnel at Stockliolm and to prevent Fleming from gaining control over more ships and bringing them to Finland." Ultimately, the conflict about control of Sweden's warships was not between Karl and Fleming. It was part of the power struggle within the dynasty, where control of the sea between Sweden and Poland was important. Sigismund had no Polish navy, and without ships under his control, the king was dependent on the administrative structures in Sweden if he wanted to travel safely between his two countries. Karl's and Fleming's administrative struggle over ships already in 1593 was actually about Sigismund's practical access to Sweden and his ability to move resources between his two kingdoms. Sigismund could not simply order Swedish warships to sail to him in Poland. He knew from

" This is shown in the yearly prepared Ship Roll (Skeppsrullan), where one warship after another disappear with the note that it is in Finland, controlled by Klas Fleming, SH 48-51, RA. Examples of the power struggle over ships in Duke Karl's out-letters (HKR): in 1593, 19/3, 7/4, 15/6 (Duke Karl orders seamen in Finland to disobey Klas Fleming and bring ships to Sweden), 15/6 (order to Fleming to sail to Stockliolm), 13/8 (instruction to bring shipwrights f r o m Finland to the shipbuildings in Sweden when Fleming has sailed to Poland and cannot block their transfer); 1594, 14/6 (Karl accuses Fleming of misconduct of the navy), 17/8 (Karl suggests to the Council that Fleming should not be allowed to control the navy), 10/9 a n d 21/9 (Karl d e m a n d s that Fleming should send the ship he have in Finland to Stockliolm); 1595, 6/4 (order to Axel Ryning to control communication between the Stockholm shipyard and Fleming), 22/5 (Bengt Larsson appointed underamiraT), 26/5 (order to Klas Fleming to send ships to Stockholm); 1596, 3/1 (ship u n d e r construction in Alvsborg to be taken over by the duke in exchange for his loans to the crown), 12/5 (the duke cancels an order f r o m Fleming that ships in Stocldiolm should be transferred to Finland and order that those who reportedly fiave transmitted it should be arrested), 8/7 (warning f r o m D u k e Karl that the crown's ships should be on guard against Fleming's ships who m a y capture them at sea), 2/8 (a ship built at Alvsborg should not sail to Danzig if ordered there by the king); 1597, 6/7, 16/7 (order to sequester ships in Alvsborg owned by aristocrats loyal to Sigismund and to place the crown's ship under Duke Karl's control), all RA.

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the negotiations in 1587, when a future personal union was discussed, that the Council was apprehensive about transfers of Swedish resources to Polish control. The aristocrats and Karl could easily turn the Estates against him by accusing him of removing warships and guns paid for by Swedish taxpayer to a foreign country. To place ships under the dverstemiral Fleming's control in Finland was constitutional, and in the rules of government (regeringsform) which Sigismund issued in 1594, he explicitly mentioned that the main shipyard might be located in Stockliolm or Finland and that it should be placed under Fleming's control.®' The Council in 1594 was working for a radical reform of the Swedish administration, with permanent officials administrating various parts of the state. The aristocrats were tired of a situation where they were supposed to advise the king but had little influence over how decisions were implemented, especially because they had to rely on the king's administration when they served as military commanders. For the navy, they asked that it should be placed under the effective control of an admiral (a member of the Council), supported by a permanent deputy admiral. Their main motive was to give the aristocrats in the Council direct control of state administration, limiting the power of both the king and the duke and m e n mainly loyal to them. They expressed their deep distrust in Klas Fleming and asked for his dismissal, but they also intended to put limits on the duke's arbitrary administration of resources by creating a firm structure of civil and military administrators. This time the aristocrats' reform ideas were ignored by the Vasas, but they foreshadowed the reform period from 1612 to 1634.5® During Duke Karl's open rebellion against King Sigismund from 1597 to 1599, his naval forces were led by the Pomeranian nobleman Joakim Scheel, who for several years had been a Swedish sea officer. Tlie archival records are incomplete, but it seems evident that it primarily was the duke who led and administrated the great shipbuilding program around Sweden in these years. He worked hard to bring the royal warships under his control, to build new ships with resources under his administrative control, and to find men and provisions to

^^ The negotiations in 1587: Kerstin Stromberg-Back, Kalmare stadgar 1587, Umea, 1989. Sigismund's proposal to rules of government 30/4 1594, SRA, 1:3, 469. Sigismund's rules of government, July 1594, SRA, 1:3, 482. The Council's proposal 1594, SRA, 1:3, 453-62.

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send them to sea. The duke's letters give a strong impression that he did much of the planning and administrative tasks on his own, assisted by Scheel" and members of the administration who chose to be loyal to him. His illegitimate son Karl Karlsson Gyllenhielm (1574-1650) served in the navy and for a brief time as administrator at Stockholm shipyard before he was transferred to the army in Livonia in 1600. This improvised administration showed an impressive result in terms of ships built and sent to sea, and Karl may have felt that the traditional administrative forms worked and that no reforms were necessary. The success was achieved when he was at the zenith of his personal capacity, however: in good health, determined to win a civil war, and with three decades of personal experience as administrator of a dukedom with a considerable fleet of his own. Joakim Scheel in 1601 was given the title Sveriges rikes amiral (Admiral of the Swedish Realm), which reflects his real authority and the duke's confidence in him. Scheel was of foreign origin, however, and could not legally be given the position of riksamiral when the duke reconstituted the aristocratic Council in 1602 and assigned permanent offices to some of its members. That title was given to Axel Ryning (1552-1620), who for decades had been in Duke Karl's service. He had not served in the navy but must have gained experience of naval administration when he was in charge of the castle in Stockholm in the 1590s and kept the ships away f r o m Fleming. Ryning was given other tasks too, and he only intermittently administrated the navy.'® From 1600, an administrating admiral was appointed with the responsibility to supervise the Stocldiolm shipyard, f r o m 1606 called holmamiral. The title meant that he was in c o m m a n d of the naval base Holmen, a short name for Skeppsholmen. A yard captain {gdrdskapten) was permanently assigned to the shipyard to assist the holmamiral. The office of gdrdskapten replaced the senior master {overskeppare), who had been in charge of the daily administration of the Stocldholm yard since the 1520s.

" Especially the survey of the ships of the navy written by Scheel in G e r m a n in spring 1599, undated letter, M 1848, RA. Scheel took control of the ships in Stockliolm in June 1598, but it is uncertain h o w they were m a n n e d , provisioned and sent to sea and the loyalties of the officers and m e n are little k n o w n . SBL 31, biography of Axel Ryning by Bjorn Asker. H i e limited importance of the office riksamiral and the uncertain dating of Ryning's a p p o i n t m e n t , Eden 1901, 207-21.

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In the first decade of the 17th century, the turnover of men employed as administrating admirals was rapid. The experienced but elderly Joakim Scheel (1531-1606) temporarily held the office twice between 1603 and 1605, which shows that Karl desperately lacked a suitable administrating officer. Stocldiolm also was not the dominating centre of naval administration it had been up to the 1590s. Many ships were permanently based at Nykoping, Kalmar, and Alvsborg, and several admirals were appointed to command various fleets and squadrons.^' Continuity in high command was low, and it is difficult to identify any firm administrative coordination of the navy as a whole in this period. The ruler sent streams of letters about details of naval administration to local authorities. Timber for shipbuilding should be cut and transported during winters, ships should be built at several places at the same time, bread and beer should be produced for the navy at various royal manors, a merchant in royal service should be sent to buy various naval stores. It is doubtful if the short-term admirals or any administrator (or the king) had a firm grasp of how all these details should be coordinated or where bottlenecks existed. The administrators involved usually had other tasks as well. It is unlikely that they always gave the navy the highest priority when resources were scarce and the ruler overwhelmed them with the demands of his wars. The individuals appointed as dversteamiral/riksamiral, underamiral, and holmamiral had no administrative staff connected to the office, and they left no written records. They were supposed to supervise naval administrators and officers with the help of the king's Treasury and Chancellery, but as far as it is known, no secretary or Treasury official was ever formally appointed to serve them. They were not given a naval budget, defining which resources they might control and take responsibility for, and there are no traces of formal reports of the results they achieved, except the Treasury's normal auditing of naval accounts. The administrative centralisation to the ruler had a political origin. The dynasty had established the navy as an instrument of their power, and the civil war in the 1590s had been a traumatic clash between many aristocratic families and Karl. Several members of the Council were executed, others fled to Sigismund in Poland, and Karl was deeply suspicious of most aristocrats. His experience convinced him that administrative control of ships meant power over communi-

'' Zettersten

1890, 52-60, 76-79, 446-68.

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cations and transportation of resources, and he was well aware of how handicapped Sigismund had been when he must delegate authority over administration. Hie administrative process was increasingly choked, however, by the ageing ruler's attempt to control hundreds of small administrative and military units with a central staff but with few senior officer and bureaucrats in intermediate positions. The navy was far from ready for a total mobilisation when Denmark attacked in 1611, and the administrative problems were not solved even in 1612. W h o was responsible for this fiasco? After Karl's death in 1611, no individual was charged with that responsibility. The formal head of the navy, the riksamiral Axel Ryning, was given the more prestigious title of riksmarsk (constable), and his deputy admiral since 1610, Goran Gyllenstierna, a cousin to the new chancellor (rikskansler) Axel Oxenstierna, was appointed his successor. The absence of scapegoats is conspicuous and reflects the fact that both Gustav II Adolf and the Council were well aware of that Karl IX had kept too many administrative threads in his own hands. It was his inability to control everything in his last years of growing illness that was the problem. One of Gustav Adolf's earliest decisions as king was to appoint new, young, and hopefully energetic leaders for his crisis-stricken navy. In early 1612, Goran Gyllenstierna became riksamiral, and his brotherin-law Hans Bielkenstierna became his deputy as riksviceamiral. The latter's brother. Nils Bielkenstierna, had been appointed holmamiral in November 1611. All three were experienced sea officers but they were also connected with each other with family ties. This was typical for the new Swedish regime, in which a small number of aristocratic families, usually related to each other, ran the central administration. Ryning and Gyllenstierna belonged, together with Axel Oxenstierna, to a family constellation with a strong position in the Council. In the appointments of offices of 1612 they were given three of the five high offices of the state: constable, chancellor, and admiral. The Bielkenstierna brothers were not aristocrats, but they were nephews to Axel Ryning, and Hans Bielkenstierna's wife was Goran Gyllenstierna's sister.®" Together the three senior admirals formed an embryo of a permanent administrative admiralty, although it was reduced to two members

" SBL 4, Bielkenstierna; SBL 17, Gyllenstierna; Gustaf Elgenstierna, Svenska dttartavlor. Aristocratic family groups: Agren 1976.

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in 1615 when Hans Bielkenstierna took over his brother's office as holmamiral. The administrative tasks connected with that office were reduced in February 1615 when the king began a new pohcy: administration through contracts with private entrepreneurs. Tlie Scottishborn sea officer Rickard Clerck was given a contract to provide the ships with sails, rigs, cables, and flags for a fixed yearly sum of money. It was one of the first contracts of its kind in the Swedish state and represented a new concept: the king refrained from administration of material resources and instead paid a fixed sum for a service defined in a business agreement."^' 4.3.4

Shipbuilding

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extraction

Stocldiolm held an undisputed position as the navy's administrative centre. It was also the centre for the king's artillery, which to a large extent was intended for the navy. These two branches of the king's administration were located together. From a modest origin in the 1520s inside and on the quay outside the medieval castle, the naval and the ordnance establishments had one century later grown over a large area across the water (Strommen) north and east of the castle. This was with a wide margin Sweden's largest industrial complex of this age, with berths for ships, forges, ropewalks (at present-day Stureplan), workshops for sailmakers, carpenters, bloclcmakers {svarvare), painters, sculptors, and makers of gun carriages and loading gears for guns. There was a gun foundry for copper guns (at present-day Gustav Adolfs Torg), a water-powered machine for boring gun barrels, along with a bakery, a brewery, flour mills, and store-houses for provisions and equipment for ships. Personnel employed at the yard, the ordnance, and in the navy often lived around these establishments in the northern suburbs of Stockholm, Norre Forstaden, and Ladugardslandet, the southern parts of present-day Norrmalm and Ostermalm. From the 1540s, the navy began to use the island Kapplingeholmen (present-day Blasieholmen), northeast of the castle. It became known as Skeppsholmen (the ships' island), and it gradually became the naval centre where warships were built, repaired, and laid up. Fortunately for the navy, the waters in

RR 17/2, 23/2 1615. Administration through contracts with private entrepreneurs: Mats Hallenberg, Statsmakt till salu. Arrendesystemet och privatiseringen av skatteuppbdrden i det svenska riket, 1620-1635, Lund, 2008.

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central Stockholm are deep, and it was easy to moor even the largest ships close to land.®^ Stockholm was only one of several places in which the early Vasa state administrated naval activities, however. There were yards {skeppsgardar) at the castles of Alvsborg, Kalmar, Abo, and Viborg, and also at Helsingfors, where there was no castle. These towns were for geostrategic reasons operational bases for the navy, and the personnel on the yards could build ships when they were not employed with repair work. But the king also built ships, even very large ships, at several other places around the coasts and in Lake Malaren. In fact, the Stockholm shipyard practically ceased to operate as a new construction yard after the death of Gustav I in 1560. The yard was the technical centre of naval shipbuilding, which often supplied other yards with expertise and special equipment, but nearly all hulls were built somewhere else, and often sent to Stockholm for completion. Decentralised shipbuilding was characteristic for the period up to the 1610s after which the system was radically changed. Earlier literature has observed this decentralisation but has not explained it.®^ Gustav I built all his major carvel-hulled warships and galleys at Stocldiolm, while minor warships often were built at the smaller shipyards connected with castles. The large royal merchantmen, which normally were built with traditional clinker hull technology, were all built outside Stockholm.®" This indicates that the skills to build large carvel-hulled warships and Mediterranean-style galleys were scarce and concentrated in Stocldiolm, while traditional Baltic

ttere is little published research about the Stockholm naval yard. Carl Olof Cederlund, Stockholms skeppsgdrd, 1605-1640: Personalens struktur och ormnisatwn Stoclcholni, 1966 (mimeo) is a study of the personnel. MA D a n Johansson, Stockholm University, is working with a study of the yard up to a r o u n d 1630 A survey, with emphasis on biographies: Zettersten 1890, 222-66. The earliest use of , ®PP''"g®'^°'™^"/Skeppsholmen for the navy: Nils G. Wollin, Skeppsholmen under iOO anSkeppsholmens, Kastdlholmens och Galdrvarvets bebyggelsehistoria, Stockholm, iy71, 9-12. The o r d n a n c e at Stockholm: Hedberg 1975, 233-38, 308-11. An inventory neui" shipyard 12/1 1621, w h e n the yard was t u r n e d over to entrepre" The first systematic study of these local yards is in Zettersten 1890 266-322 It remains important about the location of the yards, but the information about n u m b e r and names of ships built at the yards are often erroneous, mainly because the n a m e s ot the ships seldom appear in the local sources. Halldin 1963, 5 7 - 6 5 presents a new survey ot the yards with some i m p r o v e m e n t s but the information about ships built at them IS again frequently inaccurate. '' Glete 1977.

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technology was available around the country. From 1556, a series warships was built at Abo {Hoken, Falken, Svanen, Bjornen), where Prince Johan (III) resided as Duke of Finland until 1563. This yard was used to build major warships until 1567. The period of Erik (XIV) in Kalmar as Duke of Smaland (1558-60) coincided with a period during which large warships began to be built in that province, first at Bjorkenas (the two famous fleet flagships St Erik and Mars, 1558-63), then at Vastervik from 1561 to 1567 {St Christopher, Tantheijen and the huge Neptunus/Draken). W h e n the main fleet, and often also Erik XIV, was at Alvsborg, in the early 1560s, two major warships were laid down there. Erik was motivated to do this by the fact that a large number of his seamen were at Alvsborg during the winter 1561-62 and could be usefully employed with shipbuilding and (presumably) timber acquisition.'^' Lack of labour probably made it impossible to build several large ships at Stockholm at the same time, and the great ships built in Smaland may be explained by the fact that this province was unusually rich in oak. Finland was poor in oak but had a good local supply of skilled carpenters, who were much in demand for shipbuilding for the navy. The sequence of events in 1556-62, however, indicates that the spread of administrative resources connected with Johan and Erik and their ducal courts, as well as the main fleet's temporary location on the west coast were decisive for where ships were built. Both dukes were determined to have major ships and shipyards of their own, a behaviour later repeated by their younger brother Karl, as Duke of Sodermanland. The great shipbuilding program of the 1570s represented a new departure, which cannot be explained by the fact that administrative management determined the location of the yards. From 1573 to 1578, six major warships were built at six places, all except one of which (Vastervik) were countryside yards at a distance f r o m towns or royal castles (Kalvo,®'' Haliko, Harbovik, Haringe, and Alvkarleby). From the late 1570s and for the next decade, eight more major ships were built at seven different yards, all except one (at Alvsborg) in the countryside or at very small towns (near the future town of Harnosand

RR 16/11 1561, RA. Kalvo, in the Sjundea parish in Finland, was near Klas Fleming's home, and the oversteamiral was given the task of supervising it, Zettersten 1890, 317-18.

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in Angermanlaiid, Rogstad in Halsingland, Raumo, Bjorneborg, Alvkarleby, Drakenas/Monsteras). Some of these yards and other local yards also built smaller warships. Around 25 galleys were added from 1583 to 1590, built at about 20 different yards which frequently also built small craft (lodjor). In this period, Duke Karl built his own ships in his dukedom. Many were built at Nykoping, his administrative centre, but also at the town Strangnas and at the Gripsholm castle in Lake Malaren. This lake could be used because even large ships built there could be transferred to the open sea at Stoclcholm, and the region had a good supply of oak. The decentralised shipbuilding continued in the 1590s, when several more yards were founded. Some ships were built in Finland where Klas Fleming led the administration, and most of them were under Sigismund's control until 1599-1600, when Duke Karl conquered Finland and Estonia where the ships were. In the western part of the realm, major warships were built at Monsteras (Drakenas) and Vastervik in Smaland, at Alvsborg, at Stockholm, at Haringe in Sodermanland,''^ at Bergshammar and Avkarleby in Uppland, on the Aland islands, at Gavle, Hudiksvall, and Iggesund in northern Sweden, at the duke's yard in Nykoping, and at several yards in Lake Malaren: Kungsor, Skokloster, and Aspo (Strangnas). These ships came under the control of Duke Karl before the civil war was decided in 1598-99, and most or all of them were built at his initiative in regions where he had control of the local administration. In Smaland, where that control was doubtful, shipbuilding in 1595 was brought under control of Joakim Scheel, the duke's future naval commander.'^® The period 1599-1615 saw the culmination of this decentralised shipbuilding system. A large number of warships was built at several yards in Lake Malaren, at Alvsborg in the west, in Smaland, Ostergotland, Sodermanland, Uppland, and Aland, while many minor yards in Norrland and Finland were used for the construction of unarmed transports, pramar and lodjor, which probably normally were built of fir. Shipbuilding was spread around all coastal parts of Sweden. Some

" The ship built at Haringe cannot be identified with a name. It is probably one of the ships which appear in 1598-99 with n o k n o w n place of building, HKR 30/11, 4/12 1597, RA. ® Correspondence about administration of shipbuilding in Sweden 1593-98 (except Finland) is f o u n d in abundance in D u k e Karl's out-letters: HKR, RA; authorisation of loakim Scheel's control of shipbuilding: HKR 4/3 1595, RA.

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ships were built at small towns or at royal manors, others at temporary yards on the countryside. From 1616/17, this system disappeared and naval shipbuilding was concentrated in a few places. The only exception was lodjor, which continued to be built locally, used for transportation of seamen between their homes and Stoclcholm. Decentralised shipbuilding at several local yards re-appeared at times when Sweden urgently required a large number of oared warships (1713-14, 172021, 1748-49, 1789-90, 1808-09), but these were built at private yards as a mobilisation of civilian shipbuilding capacity in emergencies. The decentralised shipbuilding up to 1617 had, with only one known exception (a ship built on contract at Iggesund in the late 1590s) nothing to do with utilisation of private shipbuilding competence or with any emergency mobilisation of resources. It was administrated by the Vasa state, it was continuous, and it required that scarce technical competence (master shipwrights and skilled shipwrights) was spread thin around the country. In an international perspective it was unusual, as decentraUsed building of warship normally indicates that private resources are used.® W h y was it used by a state, administrating its own resources? It seems evident that it must have had something to do with a deliberate policy of resource utilisation, but it is not obvious which resources were critical. Oak is a possible candidate, but several ships were built in northern Sweden and on the west coast of Finland, where no oak was available. Timber is not very difficult to transport once it is brought to the sea, and after 1617 the navy transported large amounts of oak to a few centralised yards. There were, however, two more local resources which could be used: food and labour. Swedish taxes were raised in kind rather than in money, and garder in food to the king's servants were politically easier to raise than monetary taxes. Farming is also a markedly seasonal occupation, and periodically the peasant society had a supply of unused labour, which might be used at low cost if the men were not required to move far f r o m their homes to find employment. Shipbuilding was labour-consuming, and the acquisition of timber required m u c h local labour. Peasants (farm-owners, their sons, or hired farm-hands) could cut local timber and transport it to the shipyards with the help of their draught animals in winters, when snow made such transport

There are however similarities with the royal organisation for shipbuilding in D e n m a r k - N o r w a y ; Bellamy 2006, 99-134.

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easier and when men and animals were not required for agriculture. Numerous letters f r o m the king show that timber normally was cut and transported during winters by local peasants/" They could also work at the yards with sawing and simpler kinds of shipwright works, typically between sowing and harvest. Taxes paid in food could also conveniently be used locally, provided that the crown had men to be fed working around the country. Shipbuilding was such an activity. The crown had already under Gustav f s rule used local labour in this way, normally by agreeing with peasants that they could pay their ordinary taxes by cutting and transporting timber and by working a specified number of days. It was normal in the Vasa state that local bailiffs agreed with peasants about how taxes should be paid, and if there was under-utilised labour in a region, both sides might profit from such tax negotiations. The state also frequently hired peasants as a low-paid temporary work force for various types of local activities, including shipbuilding. Erik XIV continued this policy, but it was during Johan Ill's time, when extra taxation became almost permanent, that it became c o m m o n for some peasants to pay their taxes by transporting timber to shipyards. From around 1600, it became more common to use paid local labour as addition to the work force at the shipyard.^' The decentralised but state-administrated shipbuilding system reflects one of the unusual features of the 16th-century Vasa state. It had concentrated much of its administrative resources on the local level of the society and administrated resource extraction on its own, rather than through local elites or tax-farmers as most European rulers did.'^ By the mid-16th century, local bailiffs with good knowledge of where resources might be found in the peasant society existed in all parts of Sweden, and this made it possible to administrate undertakings which otherwise would have to be done at the central level or contracted out to private groups in local society. As this local administration existed and must exist to uphold a strong state, it was possibly rational to give it additional tasks which might be handled with limited additional

™ The earliest is f r o m 22/11 1527, GR 4, 374, possibly for timber to be cut for the construction of Store Kravelen. It states that the peasant's taxes should be paid by work with timber. " Tliese are preliminary conclusions of M A D a n Johansson, Stockliolni University, who kindly has i n f o r m e d about them. '' Hallenberg 2001; Tilly 1990, 25.

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costs. Erik XIV, Johan III, and Karl IX attempted to systematically use cheap resources by exploiting local labour in regions where the peasants had a surplus of labour to sell, either through tax-paying or as part-time work. The state acted as an entrepreneur looking for cheap resources for production. In the 16th century, there were few private entrepreneurs who could offer peasants alternative employment, for example timber-cutting, charcoal making, or tar burning for export or commercial shipbuilding. Peasants with special skills in carpentry, for example, could temporarily migrate to towns to earn incomes, but towns were few and small. Behind this Vasa shipbuilding policy was also the general policy for resource mobilisation and resource utilisation in the new fiscal-military state. Rulers believed that direct administrative control of material resources and labour meant lower transaction costs than if they first asked for taxes in money and then bought resources from their own taxpayers. The long period when the dynasty did not use private contractors might be a result of the fact that no private entrepreneurs of sufficient strength and imagination yet had appeared in Sweden. Sweden had an advantage in advanced local state administration, but a disadvantage in its lack of private entrepreneurs. Hie Vasa dynasty raised and organised both material resources and men in partially the same way as tax-farmers and mihtary entrepreneurs did for the states in other parts of Europe. It could do that with low transaction costs because the state used regal rights and political means of persuasion and because the fiscal administration accumulated much information about the resource base. The state also acted as a merchant in several products, both in Sweden and in foreign markets, where products raised as taxes were sold in exchange for other products which were useful for the armed forces. It is, of course, not certain that the Vasa rulers always were right in their calculation of transaction cost for different types of resource administration. The radical change after 1617 shows that Gustav II Adolf was convinced that a better alternative existed. The cost of the decentralised shipbuilding system may partly have been hidden in quality problems and lagging technical development. Many local yards did not build ships continuously. This made it difficult to create stable forces of skilled men and take advantage of the economy of series production, which had existed at Stockholm up to the early 1560s. Warships built in the decentralised system had, on average, shorter lives than earlier and later ships, and in Johan Ill's time shipbuilding

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was also slow. In that respect, the small yards worked markedly better from the 1590s, possibly because a larger part of the labour force was paid with wages. From the early 1600s, the bottleneck was rather the Stocldiolm yard, where unfinished and unrigged ships from local yards sometimes lay for several years. The technical stagnation of Swedish naval shipbuilding after 1570 had more than one cause, but the lack of a centre where new construction, policy, and operational experience could meet might have been one of them. 4.4

4.4.1

Royal power, aristocratic administrators, contractors, 1618-1680

and private

Governance through hierarchy, divisions, and budgets

Rising fiscal-military organisations were often regarded as competitors by traditional power-holders, in early modern Europe normally the aristocracy. If aristocrats with power and prestige in the local societies mobilised resistance against them, the innovations might fail or might not even be attempted by the rulers. As a navy is more dependent on centralised resources than an army, it is also more vulnerable to such resistance. If traditional elite groups were offered opportunities to share in the power of the fiscal-military organisation, obstacles to state formation could be reduced. Fiscal-military organisations could be substantially strengthened if such elite groups used their prestige and networks in local society to support them rather than to resist them. The early Vasa state and its navy hardly suffered f r o m active resistance from the aristocracy after 1529. The aristocracy had been weakened by earlier power struggles, and Gustav I could rely on his family relations with some aristocrats w h o m he also favoured. Another reason why the aristocrats allowed the dynastic state to grow was that they would have been isolated if they had tried to resist. The lower, and rather poor, nobility usually saw the new state as valuable because it provided regular incomes and social status to those who served the king. But the aristocrats were passive observers rather than active supporters of the state, and by the late 16th century, several members of the Council were dissatisfied with how policy-making and administration were handled by the rulers and their lowborn servants. They felt especially hurt if they, as senior military commanders, became scapegoats for failures, which might be the result of administrative

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inadequacies. That problem had been acute in the crisis between Johan III and the Council in 1589-92, but Karl IX almost habitually blamed subordinates of all social groups for military and administrative failures/' The aristocrats understood that the key to power was in the administration of resources. They were increasingly eager to participate in it, just as their ancestors had administrated regional Idn in the late medieval period. They did not, however, wish to return to a decentralised state. The Vasas had convinced them of the superiority of centralisation, permanent armed forces, and a monopoly of violence controlled f r o m above. The Swedish aristocrats were not interested in a German, Polish, or even Danish solution in which the aristocrats tried to limit the power of the state. They wished to run a powerful state themselves, and impose constitutional rules on the kings. During the civil war 1597-99, this had led to a catastrophe and a frontal clash with Duke Karl, who executed a number of aristocrats in 1600 and forced others to flee to Sigismund in Poland. Karl's rule was a classic example of management by fear, and it required a ruthless personality to uphold it. The accession to the throne of Karl's son Gustav II Adolf (r. 1611-32) and the rise of a new generation of aristocrats made it possible to make a fresh start. Axel Oxenstierna became the chief architect of a new administrative structure, and the king became a successful developer of new dynamic leadership. He preferred delegation of authority, combined with hierarchical control and positive incentives (promotion, social rise) to subordinates. It began in 1611-12, under the cloud of defeats against Denmark and undecided wars with Russia and Poland, when the crown could not afford a long political crisis. The nobility demanded and got concessions: a monopoly on senior offices in the administration, a commitment that the rule of law should be better observed by the state in its relations to individuals (especially the nobility and its privileges), and a promise f r o m the king not to start offensive wars and raise extra taxes without consulting the Council and the Parliament. It soon became obvious that the constitutional restraints on the king also could be used to legitimise an unusually ambitious royal policy. Gustav Adolf showed that privileges were given in exchange for duties, and he demanded hard work in exchange for rewards. The aristocracy

Oden 1966, 401-10.

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and the Parliament became co-responsible for the wars they authorised and had few excuses for not doing their utmost for supporting the state. Gustav Adolf turned out to be a political master in making offensive wars look like the inevitable outcome of a prudent and defensive policy. He also soon showed great ability as a military reorganiser and innovator, and he made offensive warfare work. The result was that he gained authority to increase the armed forces and give the whole state a new organisation, optimised for offensive warfare. Large territories were conquered, and the aristocrats were rewarded with the spoils of war and with increased international reputation. Tliis eliminated them as potential leaders of an opposition against a strong state. It was a second Vasa success in innovative political and military entrepreneurship, almost a century after the foundation of the fiscal-military state. Organisational reforms, formalised in the constitution of 1634, reshaped the administration and the armed forces. Local administration was brought under control of civilian provincial governors [landshovdingar), who supervised tax-collection, transmitted information of the official policy, and represented the king in negotiations with local society about the practical enforcement of resource extraction. The many company-sized army units (cavalry/anor and i n f a n t r y / a « ikor) were, from the late 1610s to the late 1620s, formed into permanent provincial regiments of a standardised structure. They got fixed regions of recruitment and a firm hierarchy of officers, headed by a colonel who was responsible for the regiment's training and performance.^"' Two permanent hierarchies were created, where the governors and colonels were the link between royal power and the state's activities in local society. The civilian and military administrations were kept strictly separate, and resources were not allowed to pass from the tax-raising part of the administration to the military forces without decisions and rules enforced from the central authorities. It was the classical Vasa policy of ruling a fiscal-military state which now was formalised, and it eliminated any practical possibility that powerful men should use armed force against the state. The hierarchies were also paths of professional careers, and the king and upper ranks in the

Provincial governors: Alexander Jonsson, De norrldndska landshdvdingarna och statsbildningen 1634-1769, Umea, 2005. Tlie regiments: Barkman 1931, and chapters on organisation in Sveriges trig. The army's central administration: Steckzen 1930.

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hierarchies could control men by their power over promotion. The nobility was favoured but the number of positions to fill was far larger than the old nobility could provide for, so many commoners and immigrants got a career path upwards to the social elite. Eventually they were ennobled, and in a few decades they totally changed the composition of the Swedish nobility. Hie central administration was from 1618 to 1634 successively divided into five (later more) departments, each headed by a board {kollegium) led by members of the Council: the Chancellery, the Treasury, the Court of Appeal (Hovratten), the Army, and the Navy. Compared to the earlier functional organisation, the state got a divisional structure, with the aristocracy in a new role as the most senior bureaucrats. Each department was assigned resources for specific purposes according to a yearly budget {stat), it had its own administrative staff, and the members of the board were collectively responsible to see that the resources they received were used with efficiency. The boards took over the detailed administration earlier handled by the king, his secretaries, and treasury official, and they were supposed to take operational and administrative decisions on their own initiative to a higher degree than officials in the earlier functional system. The king retained control over policy-making through his right to decide about budgets, his control over the armed forces as commander-in-chief, and his power to appoint senior bureaucrats and officers. Much of the real power of the king still depended on his personal ability as political and military leader. The difference was that the efficiency of state was less dependent on the age, ability, health, or presence of the king. The new system proved successful in royal minorities and when the ruler was absent on military campaigns on the continent. This was an improvement over the previous system of personal administration, which had been in crisis when Erik XIV suffered a mental breakdown, when Sigismund was in Poland, and when the old Karl IX suffered from illness. Before Gustav Adolf, no ruler had been able to stay abroad for years on military campaigns and rely on the administration to work without his personal direction. This was especially relevant for the navy, the most complex of the state's organisations. The introduction of budgets went hand in hand with reforms in booldieeping and financial control of state activities. The accounts were kept no longer mainly in terms of material resources (food, weapons, equipment for ships, etc.) but in money. In principle, every-

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thing handled by the state administration was given a vahie expressed in money. This made it possible to give every board a yearly sum of money to use to the best of their ability. In practice, the transfer of resources (money, food, etc.) from the financial administration to the resource-consuming parts of the state was still a complicated propess. Every board was assigned a number of specific tax or custom incomes which were administrated by the Treasury, customs officers, or provincial governors. If these were delayed or smaller than expected (as they frequently were), the board ran into debts to its employees and contractors." In the early concept of the new state, Gustav Adolf had intended that the state should get rid of much of the detailed administration of resources by contracting out resource raising to tax-farmers and production to industrial entrepreneurs. The contractual system was introduced in a large scale from 1618 and gave the king and the aristocracy the organisational means to administrate the state without getting enmeshed in a lot of details. At the same time, it made use of the talents of the private entrepreneurs, often foreigners, who appeared in Sweden at this time. After a full-scale experiment which totally reshaped tax administration, the navy, and the war industry, much of the contractual system was abolished from 1628 to the mid-1630s.^® The transaction costs had not been reduced to the extent that it was worth to develop it. The state's role as an industrial entrepreneur, however, had been permanently reduced, in favour of private enterprises in shipbuilding, iron-making, and arms manufacturing. Some private enterprises became large exporters, primarily of guns and weapons. State administration of material resources all over Sweden for the navy through the fiscal organisation was increasingly a thing of the past. The dynamic effect of the new organisational structure may have been important and similar to that in 20th-century private enterprises, which changed from a functional to a divisional system when they grew larger and more diversified. The Swedish state now had systematically structured hierarchies in which every level had the practical possibility to control, coordinate, and support the lower levels, as well as

" Rolf Torstendahl, "Mellan normalstat och fasta anordningar: Den medellanga finansplaneringen villkor i Sverige 1620-1680", in Revera and Torstendahl 1979, 253-85; Fredrik Lagerroth, Statsreglering och finansfdrvaltning i Sverige till och med Frihetstidens ingang, Malmo, 1928. '' Hallenberg 2008.

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the authority to make decisions about how resources should be used. Decision-making could be delegated f r o m the top to a level where a board, an officer, or a civil servant could observe realities closely and take appropriate action. The most dramatic result was visible in the army, where generals and colonels got and used the opportunity to train permanent regiments into elite units. Both the elimination of aristocrats as potential opposition and the new organisational structure of the state substantially reduced the transaction costs for achieving an efficient fiscal-military state. 4.4.2

The navy emerges as an organisation,

1618-1634

Formally, the navy did not get a board {Amiralitetskollegium) until the constitution of 1634.'' Actually, it was a part of the state where experiments with radical change began. Already in 1615, the administration of sails, rigs, cables, and flags was turned over to the Scottish-born admiral Rickard Clerck. After his death in 1625, it was taken over by captain Johan (Hans) Clerck, who possibly was his brother. By 1617, the navy's construction of major warships, earlier spread around at several yards, had been concentrated to two yards: Vastervik in Smaland and Harbovik in Uppland. Harbovik was the last countryside yard building large warships, and it was closed in 1623.'® In 1618, the Vastervik yard was leased to two Dutch-born merchants, Paridon van Horn and Kristian Welshuisen, who at the same time became tax-farmers for the Vastervik region. They were given a contract to build warships, and more such contracts were given to them (later Welshuisen alone) in 1620, 1625, 1630, and 1631." In the late 1610s, the navy also began to build major warships at Stockholm. From 1621, the Stocl-diolm navy yard, new construction of warships, and the maintenance of all ships were turned over to two entrepreneurs of Dutch origin, the deputy Master of Ordnance Anthonie de Monier and the Master shipwright Henrik Hybertsson. Both already served the Swedish state, Monier since 1616®° and Hybertsson since 1603. W h e n the contract was renewed in 1625,

" Naval administration f r o m 1618 to 1634: Zettersten 1890, esp. 16-33, 193-220; Sveriges Sjokrig, 9 - 4 6 ; Wendt 1950, 13-25. ™ RR 7/9 1623, RA. " Kammarkollegiet, Likvidationsakter 92-93, b u n t 9, Paridon van H o r n , RA; Hallenberg 2008. ™ Jonas Hedberg (ed.), Kungl Artilleriet: Yngre Vasatiden, Stockholm, 1985, 21.

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Monier was replaced by Hybertsson's brother, the merchant Arent Hybertsson de Groote, and when Henrik Hybertsson died in 1627, his widow Margareta Nilsdotter replaced him as contractor. In 1623-24, the navy also bought nine warships, built in the Netherlands, through Anthonie de Monier. Eight of them were at Gothenburg in 1624-26 and maintained by a contract with a local entrepreneur. Similar contracts were made with sea officers for the maintenance of small craft in Riga and Prussia.®' TTie effect of this was that naval administration for the state was radically simplified. The main remaining administrative task for sea officers was naval personnel. Copper guns were produced under the direction of the Master of Ordnance, and iron guns by private entrepreneurs.^^ Provisioning was administrated by the Treasury. In practice, there must have been many administrative problems to solve when ships, their equipment, guns, ammunition, and provisions needed to be brought together for a seagoing fleet, but the navy had no responsibility to acquire these resources on its own. There were others who were responsible to see that everything was available at Stockholm when officers and men turned up to make the ships ready for sea. These radical reforms were parts of the early reforms of the whole state administration, led by the king and Axel Oxenstierna. At the same time, naval leadership changed unexpectedly, as the two rather young men appointed in 1612 died prematurely: the riksamiral Goran Gyllenstierna (b. 1575) in 1618, and his deputy, riksviceamiralen Hans Bielkenstierna (b. 1574) in early 1620. In July 1620, Gustav A d o l f s half-brother Karl Karlsson Gyllenhielm (1574-1650) was appointed riksamiral, an office he held until his death. Gyllenhielm had gained naval experience in the 1590s, but his recent experiences were army commands against Russia. In the 1620s and early 1630s, Gyllenhielm often served as commander of the active fleet, usually supporting

The Stockholm naval yard: Cedeiiund 1966. Originally only M o n i e r was entrepreneur, but Hybertsson appears as his partner in a supplementary contract of 25/2 1622. The contracts of 12/9 1620, 25/2 1622, a n d 10/1 1625, RR a n d Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vols 1 - 3 . Papers relating to the contracts in SH; M 1779, M 1793, RA and AR 1621/5, 1624/17, KrA. Accounts relating to the contracts in the yearly General Ledger of the state {Rikshuvudbok) f r o m 1623 and on, Rikshuvudbocker. Contracts for Riga and Elbing: Zettersten 1890, 385-86; for Gothenburg: Zettersten 1890, 358. Hedberg 1985, 121^43 (by Sten Claeson).

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amphibious operations while the king was the real leader of both fleet and army.''^ Gyllenhielm does not appear as an energetic administrator or naval policy-maker, but it is possible that Gustav Adolf did not expect that of him. Admirals and other sea officers were now supposed to be leaders of men and operations rather than being engulfed in administration. Compared to the performance in 1611-12, the navy in the period 1621-31 was highly efficient in terms of ships sent to sea to support offensive warfare. In the 1630s, when the entrepreneurial system had been abolished and the administration fell upon the naval leaders, Gyllenhielm was interested in creating a large Admiralty Board with a considerable civilian staff to administrate the navy. He was less interested in actively leading it or in observing the formalities of administration and control through a kollegium. He frequently appears as a suspicious controller of the board's accounts and judicial activities rather than as its leader. He also was often in conflict with the dominating Oxenstiernas in the Council, while Axel Oxenstierna in his turn was a firm supporter of the navy and its real administrators, especially Admirals Klas Fleming and Erik Ryning.®"* Immediately after Gyllenhielm's appointment on I I July 1620, the king held a general muster of the navy's officers and men at Stockholm on 24 July. The ships and personnel were divided into five "fleets", each under a vice admiral and with one of the navy's five largest ships as flagship. Each fleet had a similar composition of saihng warships of various sizes, galleys, and transport ships, and every officer and seam a n (even those who are listed as absent) was assigned to one of the fleets. On paper (there are unusually many papers from this day) this looks like an attempt to give the navy a permanent organisational and hierarchical structure and give five groups of officers responsibility for around 320 men each. It has a striking resemblance to the early organisation of the army into permanent regiments, which had begun a few years earlier.®^

SBL 17, biography of Karl Karlsson Gyllenhielm by Erik Granstedt. Wendt 1950, esp. 105-26. Papers f r o m the muster of 24 July 1620 and subsequent updatings to the five fleet plan in 1620-21 in SH 69. Fragments of these papers in SS, Z 2891, Z 2952, RA. A muster list of crews divided into five fleets in Westinska samlingen, 318, UUB. The army: Barkman 1931.

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Tlie division into five fleets was an experiment which disappears after 1621, but from this time on there are numerous lists of ships with detailed plans of personnel and armament for each ship. A few years later the seamen were organised into companies with defined recruiting areas, a system that became lasting after several years of political and administrative struggles. There are no papers left which show if the king, Gyllenhielm, or (a possible suspect) Axel Oxenstierna, initiated these changes. They were in line with the general development of the Swedish administration with more pronounced military and administrative hierarchies and administrative planning through the use of stater (budget) which permanently determined normal expenditures {ordinarie stat) and yearly prepared extra stat to meet temporary demands, usually connected with war.**® Only one of the five vice admirals appointed in 1620, Klas Larsson Fleming (1594-1644), served continuously in the navy after that year. Fleming belonged to a junior branch of the same aristocratic family from Finland as his namesake in the 16th century. During the 1620s he rose to a position as the most senior admiral, next to Gyllenhielm. His correspondence with the king shows that he was deeply involved in administration, especially of shipbuilding, from around 1625.®^ When the king became dissatisfied with the entrepreneurial system at Stockholm in 1628, Fleming was charged with the task of winding up the contracts and taking over the administration of the shipyard and the naval base from 1629. In late 1629 he was also appointed to a leading position in the Treasury, and it was in fact f r o m the Treasury rather than from Skeppsholmen that he ran much of the navy's administration in 1629-30. The Treasury's key position in the resource flow was obviously important for supplying the navy, and Fleming's two roles may have been a necessary combination for administrating the large-scale amphibious operations which took place in 1630, viz., the invasion of Germany.®® Fleming was assisted by the former contractor for rigging, sails, and cables, Johan (Hans) Clerck, who in 1631 was appointed holmamiral. The administration of the Stockholm yard became dominated until

Early stater in A n o r d n i n g a r , esp. vol. 3 ( 1 6 2 2 - 2 3 ) ; S H 7 0 - 7 1 ; S M H F 8:1, 8:4; Kammarkollegiet, H a n d l i n g a r a n g a e n d e statsverket, vol. 1; R i k s h u v u d b o c k e r , vol 32 (1629) vol. 34 (1630); SS, Z 2 8 0 4 - 2 8 3 0 ( 1 6 3 3 - 4 0 ) , all RA; AR 1624/7, 1625/9, KrA. Sknvelser till K o n u n g e n , G u s t a v II Adolfs tid, vol. 10, Klas Fleming, RA. Wendt 1950, 18-20.

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1679 by sea officers with this family name and the Christian names Rickard and Johan/Hans, although their exact relationship is uncertain.® The senior subordinates of the holmamiral were the deputy commander [gdrdskapten or holmkapten, from 1638 holmmajor), the Master shipwright {skeppsbyggmdstare, in this period always a foreigner), the Master of equipment {ekipagemdstare), and the Master of ordnance {tygmdstare). The latter three positions remained as the backbone of leadership of Swedish naval yards until the 20th century.'" 4.4.3

Administration,

aristocrats, and Amiralitetskollegium

Tlie beginning of a separate administrative staff for the navy appears in Gyllenhielm's early years in office. During the early 1620s, a secretary and a bookkeeper were appointed to assist him and other admirals handling administrative matters, especially wages to the personnel. The earliest central accounts for the whole navy were made for the year 1624, but no others are known until 1630, although none of these early accounts are preserved. From 1630, copies of letters from the admiralty are preserved. The administrative staff appears as rudimentary, but up to 1634 much of the routine administration was still handled by the Chancellery and the Treasury."

Admiral Rickard Clerck was contractor for rigging and cables f r o m 1615 until his death in 1625. The contract was taken over by (his brother?) Johan (Hans) Clerck (dead 1644), holmamiral 1631-44, Zettersten 1890, 258; SBL 4, Rickard Clerck jr (1604-68), probably (SBL 4) Johan Clerck's son (SBL 4, but see Zettersten 1903, 598), was appointed holmkapten 1630, holmmajor 1638 and holmamiral in 1655. H e died in that office in 1668. His son Johan Clerck was holmmajor 1677-79. H a n s (Vilhelmsson) Clerck (1607-79) was the son of William Clerck, a Scottish infantry officer in Swedish service (according to Zettersten 1903, 598, Rickard jr was also a son to William). He became a naval artillery officer, was in 1650 (or earlier) appointed Master of ordnance (tygmdstare) at the Stockliolm yard a n d served as holmamiral f r o m 1668 to his death in 1679. His son H a n s (Hansson) Clerck jr (1639-1711), was holmmajor in 1671-76, later admiral and provincial governor. The two latter Clerck's relationship to the others is not known, b u t they are believed to be descendants of the same Scottish family (SBL 4). There were practically always two Clercks in the three most senior officer charges at the Stockholm yard f r o m a r o u n d 1630 until 1679, SBL 4; Johan Kleberg, Amiralitetskollegium-Marinfdrvaltningen: Biografiska anteckningar, 1634-1934, Stockholm, 1934. See also Zettersten 1903, 552 and the index of persons to Wendt 1950, 465. Zettersten 1903, 552-53; the continued use of this division of the navy's main yard, Glete 1993b, 155-60. " Tlie early staff of the 1620s: Wendt 1950, 15-17. Most facts about the central administration in this section are f r o m Wendt 1950, 13-300. Biographical information f r o m Kleberg 1934. Amiralitetskollegium's archives are at KrA; the naval accounts f r o m 1634 and on in Orlogsflottans rakenskaper 1634-1800, KrA. Lists of naval accounts

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The establishment of the Amiralitetskollegium (Admiralty Board) as the administrative board of the navy in 1634 was the logical conclusion of the transformation of the Swedish state. Its first members were Gyllenhielm and two admirals who were also members of the Council, Klas Fleming and Erik Ryning. The latter was a nephew of the former riksamiral Axel Ryning and related to the Oxenstierna family. Fleming continued to have other administrative responsibilities; he became Governor of Stocldiolm {dverstathallare) and was given various tasks connected with shipping and trade. More junior members, sea officers, and (normally) one senior civilian administrator gradually joined the Board, but the riksamiral and admirals who also were members of the Council (with the title amiralitetsrdd) were an exclusive elite. As Councillors, they were on a higher political and social level than the career admirals and civilian administrator who at the Board were titled bisittare (assessors). Amiralitetsrdd were, before 1674, always members of aristocratic families, but up to 1660 none were appointed who not had earlier experience as sea officer. The Amiralitetskollegium had wide authority and responsibilities, inherited from the Treasury, the Chancellery, the private entrepreneurs, and the admirals who earlier had administrated the navy as individuals. It administrated shipbuilding, maintenance and repair of warships and their equipment, naval guns,'^ naval shipyards and bases, sea officers, non-commissioned officers and the regional system of part-time seamen (bdtsmanshdllet), naval provisioning, naval jurisdiction, contracts with private entrepreneurs, and the navy's accounting system. It began a program of surveying the Baltic Sea in order to produce navigational manuals and charts, and it took responsibility for pilotage and beacons throughout Sweden.®' The ideal administration outlined in the board's instruction was far from achieved in the early decades, but the board gradually developed an institutional memory of

before the large-scale destruction in the 19th century, K a m m a r a r k i v e t s ambetsarkiv till och m e d 1921, Generalregister, Civila o c h militara, huvudsakligen centrala, r a k e n skaper, vol. 2, RA, w h e r e Amiralitetskollegium's a c c o u n t s begin in 1624. Guns, g u n s h o t s a n d g u n p o w d e r was p r o d u c e d u n d e r the direction by the A r m y (Krigskollegium) but the Amiralitetskollegium t o o k control of all existing naval guns, formally in 1645 a n d the navy had its o w n staff of artillery officers. The navy a n d the p r o d u c t i o n of charts: Per D a h l g r e n a n d H e r m a n Richter, Sveriges sjokarta, Stockholm, 1944, esp. 17-65, 149-210; Bertil A h l u n d , Historia kring vara sjokort, Stockholm, 2002. Pilotage: Ulf B e r g m a n , Fran bondelots till yrkesman: Lotsning i Ostergotland, 1537-1914, Lund, 1995.

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its own by its correspondence files, accounts, and the board minutes, which were kept f r o m 1649. Accounts were prepared but usually long after the actual transactions had taken place, a problem that seems to have been greater than in the earlier functional organisation when the Treasury supervised all accounts directly. Swedish state accounts also became more detailed, although booldceeping had been rationalised by the introduction of the double Italian system in the 1620s. After Gustav II Adolf s death in 1632, it was the board and its senior members in the Council who ensured continuity in naval policy. This was obvious during the regency for Queen Christina, but Christina as ruling queen was dependent on the leading admirals for advice on naval policy. It was the board which ultimately guaranteed that long-term planning made it possible for Sweden to send a strong fleet to sea whenever required. It had to channel resources to all essential parts of naval power—ships, guns, men, and provisions—in a way that ensured that this could be achieved both in the short run and in a longer perspective. Karl X Gustav also left policy-making to the board until the last years (1658-60) of his rule, when the main fleet was in the southern Baltic and its officers and administration were closely tied to operations under his command. At that time, the king began to take independent decisions about naval policy and administration. W h e n Klas Fleming was killed in combat in 1644, Admiral Erik Ryning was hastily recalled from Livonia where he had been appointed governor-general earlier in the year. He was the administrative leader of the navy until 1650, and it was expected that he should become riksamiral after Gyllenhielm's death in that year. In 1648, Admiral Ake Ulfsparre (1597-1657) was appointed member of the Council and amiralitetsrad, and in 1650 Herman Fleming (1619-1673) received the same promotion. Herman Fleming was Klas Fleming's son. He had been carefully trained as a sea officer and naval administrator, partly in the Dutch navy, and he rapidly gained the special confidence of both the old Gyllenhielm and the young Queen during his years as holmamiral in 1645-50. Fleming was obviously energetic and resourceful like his father, and Erik Ryning saw his real influence diminish. He chose to retire in 1650.'"'

Wendt 1950, esp. 123-31. T w o m e m o r a n d a to the Queen by H e r m a n Fleming about the role of the holmamiral f r o m 1647 in M 1789, RA and a detailed plan of the f u t u r e navy f r o m 1649, M 1753, RA, show b o t h his influence in relation to Christina

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In 1652, the Queen appointed the Lord High Treasurer {riksskattmdstare), Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna (1586-1656), to riksamiral, primarily to make space for her favourite Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie to lead the Treasury. Oxenstierna had for many years been a central person in the Council and in Swedish administration, and he had been Master of Ordnance from 1617 to 1634. He was now an old m a n and had no naval experience, but he was superior to Gyllenhielm in his understanding of practical administration. Herman Fleming remained the central person in the board but, like his father, he was soon given other central administrative duties. From 1653 he was acting president of the Treasury. De la Gardie had fallen from the Queen's favour and was, in any case, hardly competent for the position. Christina did not intend to leave the navy without strong leadership when she transferred Fleming to the Treasury in 1653. In that year. Field-marshal Karl Gustav Wrangel (1613-76) was appointed riksvkeamiral, formally Oxenstierna's deputy, but with the intention that he should provide professional leadership. Wrangel was an army officer and the last Swedish commander-in-chief in Germany during the Thirty Years War, but he also had studied shipbuilding and maritime matters in Holland in his youth and had been a successful admiral in the war against Denmark in 1644-45. His leadership of the navy became only intermittent, however, as most of his time and energy was absorbed by warfare on land f r o m 1655. He was Sweden's most able field commander and could not be left to preside at a board in Stockholm when Karl X Gustav fought a war about hegemony in Northern Europe. In 1653, two young aristocratic admiral-lieutenants (vice admirals), Sten Bielke (1624-84) and Gustav Wrangel (1630-88), were appointed amiralitetsrad, without being members of the Council, although Bielke was appointed to it in 1657. Gustav Wrangel was a distant relative to Karl Gustav Wrangel, while Bielke belonged to a leading aristocratic family. In 1655 he also became Herman Fleming's brother-in-law. At Kari X Gustav's accession to the throne in 1654, the king's friend. Admiral Klas Bielkenstierna (1615-62), son of riksvkeamiral Hans Bielkenstierna, was appointed to the Council and to amiralitetsrad. Bielkenstierna had a long naval experience and became the real leader of the navy during the war period 1655-60.

and his ability to outline and explain naval administration a n d technology in a way that probably satisfied this inquisitive a n d intellectual ruler.

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Karl Gustav Wrangel was appointed riksamiral in 1657, as reward for a victory against Denmark on land. He took command of the fleet in the battle against the Dutch in October 1658, but had no time for naval administration. Sten Bielke was soon absorbed in diplomatic missions and was transferred to the Chancellery in 1660. During the regency for Karl XI he became a leading opponent of Magnus Gabriel de la Cardie's foreign policy. He eventually became riksskattmdstare (Lord High Treasurer) in 1672.'= In 1659, Admiral Custav Wrangel was accused by Karl X Gustav of disobeying an operational order and was dismissed from naval service. He later served as a general in the army. Bielkenstierna was seriously wounded in combat in 1659 and died in 1662. The navy was in need of new leadership. Herman Fleming had briefly returned as administrator to the Amiralitetskollegium in 1658-59, when most admirals were absent from Stockholm due to the war. He was, however also the central person in the financial administration and the leader of Karl Gustav's attempt to recover a part of the crown land transferred to the aristocracy {reduktion). Fleming was concerned about the long-term effects on the state if the aristocracy did not give up a part of their profits from participation in state formation and empire building. His experience must have taught him that the navy required large resources under central control. The reduktion, however, made Fleming a hated person among the aristocrats. On his deathbed, Karl X Gustav appointed him Lord High Treasurer and member of the regency government for Karl XL This would ensure that the reduktion policy got a leading spokesman in that regency and that the navy and the Treasury were closely connected. However, after the king's death, the House of Nobles voted against Fleming's appointment and the other estates in the end also accepted that veto. The reduktion was also brought to a halt after the king's death."^ In late 1660, the Council appointed two aristocrats. Nils Brahe (1633-99) and Klas Stiernskold (1617-76), to admirals and amiralitetsrdd. Neither m a n had any naval experience, their experience of warfare was very limited, and only Stiernskold was a proven administrator. Brahe was Karl Gustav Wrangel's son-in-law and the nephew

' ' Biography of Sten Bielke by Georg Wittrock, SBL 4. Stellan Dahlgren, Karl X Gustav och reduktionen, Stocldiolm, 1964; SBL 16, biography of H e r m a n Fleming by Stellan Dahlgren.

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of the riksdrots^'' Per Brahe. In 1664, Wrangel was elected riksmarsk. Herman Fleming put up his candidature as his successor as riksamiral, but Field-marshal Gustav Stenbock (1614-85) was appointed instead. Fleming was probably still distrusted by his fellow aristocrats, but Stenbock had lost the election as riksmarsk to Wrangel and threatened to withdraw from public service if he lost another election. Tliis was a serious threat from a member of the high aristocracy, who might be a centre of opposition. Fleming was appointed governor-general in Finland as compensation, but his health was now deteriorating, and it is doubtful that he could have exercised the strong leadership the navy needed. Stenbock was a proven military leader but had never served in the navy. During the 1660s, all flag officers who had been junior members of the Amiralitetskollegium disappeared from it, with the exception of the holmamiral, f r o m 1668 Hans Clerck. The navy's three most senior admirals and administrators—Stenbock, Brahe, and Stiernskold—lacked practical experience of the sea and of mobilisation of a large fleet. Naval policy and administration in these years were decided in discussions about the yearly budget (stat) between the Councfl and the Amiralitetskollegium. The three admirals, who also were members of the Council, did their best to show that there were problems and that the incomes allocated to the navy often were delayed. Similar problems, however existed in all parts of the state. It is possible, ahhough difficult to prove, that the three aristocratic admirals actually saved the navy from even more financial savings by their social and political position. Counts Stenbock and Brahe belonged to families which were an aristocracy even among the Swedish aristocrats.'® In the regency period, however, conflicts about financial policy were not primarily about how existing incomes should be used. In the House of Nobles, tensions were rising between the aristocracy, which had been able to enrich itself by crown land for loans and various services during the long wars, and the many noblemen who depended on the state for their incomes. The three non-noble estates supported the latter, and most opponents of the regency thought that a few rich

" The Brahe family was one of the richest in Sweden and the position as riksdrots (in charge of judicial question) was formally the highest in the Council. " Naval finance: Wittrock 1914, 182-86, 208, 254-59, 369-72, 396; Wittrock 1917, 160-66, 183, 256, 324, 344, 368; Wendt 1950, 209-31. Tlie aristocracy: Agren 1976; Asker 1983, 163-65.

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families had appropriated more than they deserved and that this now seriously undermined the fiscal stability of the state. A naval leadership primarily interested in securing financial support for a better prepared navy might have used such an opinion to suggest financial reform. An Amiralitetskollegium dominated by the richest families in Sweden was unlikely to fight for higher taxes on the aristocracy or any kind of reduktion?'^ In 1675, the shortcomings of 15 years of naval administration were revealed. The fleet sent to sea was larger than ever before, but its mobilisation was slow and its inexperienced leadership—Stenbock, Brahe, and Stiernskold went to sea as the most senior admirals—appears as shocked by problems that experienced seamen would have expected as normal in an autumn cruise. Stenbock was suspended by Karl XI and had to pay a large indemnity. After that, the king rehabilitated him and gave him the important command of the army operating against Norway. He retained the title riksamiral. Brahe resigned f r o m the navy in 1677, while Stiernskold died in 1676. In early 1676, Karl XI appointed Lorentz Creutz, at that time the leading man at the Treasury, as Stenbock's temporary replacement. He combined this with his Treasury office, a new example of that a Treasury-Navy connection was necessary in times of crisis. In late 1674, the king had also appointed the non-aristocratic but professional Admirals Hans Clerck Sr, Klas Uggla and Johan Bar, and Admirallieutenant Hans Clerck Jr to amiralitetsrdd. Together with Creutz, they were able to send out a large fleet early in 1676. Creutz was appointed its commander-in-chief in spite of his total lack of naval or mihtary experience. Creutz and Uggla were killed in combat, and Bar was (on dubious grounds) accused for bad conduct in combat and had to leave the kollegium. A series of new appointments was made in 1676-77, the most important of which was the new strongman at the Treasury, Goran Gyllenstierna, who was appointed amiralitetsrdd in January 1677. The command of the fleet and the temporary presidency of the Amiralitetskollegium were in 1677 given to Field-marshal Henrik Horn, but it was Gyllenstierna who led the administration. He left the Amiralitetskollegium already in August 1678, but continued to work with naval administration in the Treasury. His brother Johan

Rystad 1955; Nilsson

1964.

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Gyllenstierna was at this time Karl XI's most influential advisor.""' In reality, the king had ceased to use the Amiralitetskollegium as the centre of naval policy-making and administration. He left that to individuals he trusted. From 1678, Admiral Hans Wachtmeister was his man as the operational leader of the navy. Wachtmeister ran his administration from the fleet in Kalmar, f r o m 1679/80 Karlskrona, not from Stockholm.'"' Johan Gyllenstierna suddenly died in 1680, and in his absence Hans Wachtmeister (1641-1714) became the leading spokesman for the king in the Parliament of 1680. He also acted as spokesman for the navy and presented a large bill for its reconstruction. The central political questions were the king's demand of three sources of increased incomes: a radical reduktion, increased taxation on the nobility, and an investigation about how much the state could demand in indemnity for misconduct from the members of the regency government. The king got the decisions he desired, which meant a crushing defeat for the aristocracy, large incomes for the state (and the navy), and regularly paid wages to officers and civil servants. Several rich aristocrats saw large parts of their fortune disappear. The Parliament also took decisions that formalised royal absolutism and the abandonment of aristocratic participation in central administration, which had been a central part of the division of power in the Swedish state since 1612. Wachtmeister's behaviour shows that he was determined to secure a strong financial base for the new naval kingdom of his own. He, and practically all professional sea officers, who rarely had been given land by the crown, belonged to the winners. Absolutism, the elimination of aristocratic power in the state, and the rise of bureaucratic and professional power in service of the king went hand in hand.'® The admiral who in 1678-79 had opposed Wachtmeister's rising dominance in the navy was not a defender of aristocratic pre-eminence in central administration. It was Hans Clerck Jr (1639-1711), at this time a much more experienced sea officer and naval administrator than Wachtmeister and a member of the family that had supplied

Rystad 1955-, SBL 17, biographies of G o r a n and Johan Gyllenstierna by Goran Rystad. Goran and Johan Gyllenstierna were sons of admiral Goran Gyllenstierna (1601-46) and grandsons of G o r a n Gyllenstierna, riksamiral 1612-18. The formal head of the Treasury [riksskattmastare) since 1672 was the former admiral Sten Bielke, but he spent m u c h of his time in the Chancellery. Grauers 1946, esp. 61-77, 84-98. Grauers 1946, 98-126.

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the navy with more professional flag officers than any other family in the 17th century. The most central question was his opposition to the fleet's permanent deployment to southern Sweden, but there was probably more behind it. Clerck had reason to think that a new navy with professionalism, rather than ancestry, as the main merit for promotion would favour him, not the less experienced Wachtmeister. Like the Scottish Clercks, the Livonian Wachtmeister family had risen socially from obscurity by successful service in the Swedish armed forces, and Hans Wachtmeister's father was made a baron and member of the Council. Clerck had made a long naval career, while Wachtmeister had served as a volunteer in the English navy in 1665-66, but otherwise served in the army and at the court until 1675, when he was given a junior flag rank {major) in the navy. Wachtmeister's rapid rise was connected with his friendship with Karl XI, but he had also formulated a new strategy, of which the king approved. Clerck's protests were to no avail, and in January 1680, the king appointed him governor in Vasterbotten, Sweden's northernmost province, as far away from the navy as possible. The period of strong aristocratic power in the Swedish fiscal-military state came to an end in the war f r o m 1675 to 1679. From 1612, this aristocracy had supplied the navy with a number of competent admirals and administrators from the Gyllenstierna, Bielkenstierna, Fleming, Ryning, Ulfsparre, and Wrangel families.'"' Aristocrats serving the state normally followed a strategy where they made themselves useful for the state's expansionistic policy in order to enrich themselves and their descendants. Tliis strategy is still visible around Sweden in the aristocratic palaces that were built in this period. A successful aristocrat in these years had to be an entrepreneur who achieved something important both for the state he served and for the family he belonged to. The aristocrats paid high taxes during wars, but the bulk of resources for the army came as conscripted m e n f r o m the peasant society. For the aristocracy, taxes to warfare were investments; for the peasants, it was a drain of h u m a n blood.

The composition of the aristocracy: Agren 1976. Bielkenstierna was not an aristocratic family, b u t riksviceamiral H a n s Bielkenstierna's m o t h e r was Kerstin Rynmg a n d he was married to Elisabet Gyllenstierna. Their son, admiral Klas Bielkenstierna, was married to Barbro Natt och Dag. The Ryning, Gyllenstierna and Natt och Dag families belonged to the old aristocracy.

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While most aristocrats served the state with the uhimate aim of creating family fortunes, some aristocratic naval administrators, especially Klas and Herman Fleming, were primarily servants of the ruling dynasty. Their administrative talents were used to ensure a timely flow of scarce resources f r o m the fiscal to the naval organisation. The nobility's treatment of Herman Fleming in 1660 shows that this policy was controversial and that many families were unwilling to sacrifice anything of their gains from state formation and empire building for defence of the state and the empire. It is hardly a coincidence that it was the navy's new strongman, Hans Wachtmeister, who held the axe when the aristocracy politically fell f r o m power in the state in 1680. If the organisation he led should be successful and give him prestige and power, then aristocratic power must go. Wachtmeister was an entrepreneur who had to destroy part of the earlier generation's entrepreneurial achievements in order to achieve the new combination of resources he saw as important for the future. The early 17th-century reforms with a division of the state administration into separate departments under the supervision of the king and the Council, and with the local civil and military administration divided into provinces and provincial regiments, had as a whole been successful. Its basic principles remained unchanged for centuries. For the navy, however, there was a tension between the decentralised fiscal organisation in a still rather backward economy and the naval organisation's need of large incomes for investment in material resources in peace and for rapid concentration of resources when the fleet was mobilised for war. The staff with the best knowledge of how to concentrate the state's various resources and how to find temporary financial solutions was in the Treasury. In critical periods—1629-30, 1658-59, and 1676-78—the naval administration and the Treasury were led by the same men: Klas Fleming, H e r m a n Fleming, Lorentz Creutz, and Goran Gyllenstierna. This Treasury-Navy axis would be less easy to improvise when the navy moved to southern Sweden.

Wachtmeister's descendants: Sven Grauers, Atten 3:1-2, Stockliolm, 1953-56.

Wachtmeistergenom

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4.5 Absolutism and professionalism: Naval administration, 1680-1721 Tlie political decisions in 1680 were followed by a reorganisation of both the army and the navy. It was most important for the latter as a drastically increased flow of incomes for centrally administrated purposes became available. A large shipbuilding program was started, a new naval city, Karlskrona, was built in Blekinge in southeastern Sweden, and the number of peasant-seamen in the bdtsmanshdll was increased. The naval organisation became focused on readiness to control the sea between Sweden, Germany, and Denmark at a short notice in order to keep it open for the flow of military resources between the various parts of the Swedish empire. The whole idea of the Karlskrona base was to place the navy in a favourable strategic position for achieving that control.'"' By 1680, the Amiralitetskollegium in Stockholm had ceased to be important. Wachtmeister ruled the navy in an absolute fashion, just as the king ruled Sweden without formally consulting a Council. Karl XI did, however, have strong bureaucratic tendencies, and he was not an enemy of the by-now-traditional principle of administration through a kollegium. By 1683 he had found that his navy required a more formalised leadership. A new Amiralitetskollegium was constituted, with Admiral-general (his title since 1681) Hans Wachtmeister as president and Admirals Hans Clerck Jr and Erik Sioblad as members. Clerck was recalled from northern Sweden and was also appointed governor in the province of Kalmar, while Sioblad was appointed governor in the province of Blekinge, of which Karlskrona was the capital. Wachtmeister had been governor-general in these two provinces since 1680. The coordination of naval and regional administration was close when the navy's three most senior admirals were in charge of both. Until 1689, the fleet was based in both Karlskrona and Kalmar, where most warships also were built with the rich oak resources in Smaland and Blekinge. The organisation of the bdtsmanshdll and the cutting and transportation of oak could be organised without friction between

The central naval administration 1680 to 1695: Wendt 1950, 301-462; the period 1696-1700: Einar W e n d t and Lars O. Berg in Amiralitetskollegiets historia, II, 16961803, 11-50; Grauers 1946, 126-224, esp. 163-87, 213-24. Biographical information: Kleberg 1934. The Karlskrona naval yard until 1700: Ericson 1993, 9 - 4 2 .

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civil and naval authorities, when admirals also were in charge as governors. Tlrere were conflicts, however. Hans Clerck Jr was still skeptical about a concentration of the navy to Karlskrona, and he was a frequent opponent to Wachtmeister in various questions, including shipbuilding, about which both men held strong opinions. By 1688, the base question was settled by the king in favour of Karlskrona, and the warships, shipbuilding, and naval administration were concentrated in that town in a few years. Clerck apparently lost interest and left the navy in 1693. He became governor in the province of Sodermanland, south of Stocldiolm. Like other parts of the Swedish state, the navy rapidly developed strict bureaucratic procedures and became dominated by officers who were professional, full-time employees of the state. The amount of paperwork in the naval administration rapidly increased, and much more information about ships and m e n were put on paper than in earlier decades. In 1691-92, the separate parts of the naval administration were given a more formalised structure, with detailed instructions for several officeholders and increased authority for civilian administrators. The economic administration was, on the initiative of both Hans Wachtmeister and the Treasury, removed f r o m the Amiralitetskollegium's control and placed under the admiral-general and a civilian chief commissioner (dverkommissarie). The motivation was that the navy had become more complex than any other part of the state and that the same board could not be experts on both naval and economic questions. In comparison to the Army Board {Krigskollegium), which in 1680 had seen its power over the army's economic administration transferred to the Treasury {Kammarkollegium), this was a reform within the navy. It shows that Hans Wachtmeister still was one of the most powerful m e n in Karl XI's absolutist regime.""^ There are few indications of that the flag officers desired to supervise the economy in detail or that they saw it as an instrument of power, which they could handle. C o m m a n d of ships and fleets were more important for most of them. Recruitment to the sea officer corps was now formally professionalised, and training as a seaman or naval gunner became a requirement for a commission as sea officer. Political and social connections outside the navy were no longer decisive for reaching senior positions, and admirals were no longer recruited from other

Wendt 1950, 362-99. H i e army: Steckzen

1930, 455-74,

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organisations in the state, as they frequently had been up to 1680. That meant that sea officers Imew less about other parts of the state and of the economic aspects of naval administration. The admiral-general and his continued supervision of the navy as a whole were, in a sense, left over from an earlier period, when an aristocrat was supposed to be able to administrate and command every part of the state. Networks, contacts, and patronage were still important, however, and sea officers now often came f r o m sea-offlicer families, just like army officers usually came f r o m army-officer families. Tiie professional competence was often gained by access to service at sea or through family connections. New naval dynasties with an origin in the nobility—Wachtmeister, Sioblad, and Sparre—produced several flag officers, but so too did the Psilanders (von Psilander, Psilanderhielm, Psilanderskjold), who up to the late 17th century were low and middlerank civil servants. Several important naval families had their origin in the ranks of senior civil servants in the navy in the decades around 1700: Ehrenskold, Lagercrantz, von Otter, and Lagerbielke. They were ennobled and sent their sons to the officer corps. The handling of naval accounts and large-scale acquisitions for the navy had become a road to the social elite. The new naval elite was partly regional in southeastern Sweden, where most sea officers and naval administrators lived f r o m the late 17th century. W h e n a separate naval squadron was established in Gothenburg around 1700, Admiral Erik Sioblad, number two in the Karlskrona hierarchy, was appointed governor-general in the border region to Norway, and the squadron was placed under his command. The Stockholm squadron, which was established against Russia around 1714, developed closer contacts with the central administration in the capital than with Karlskrona. By 1721, the naval administration had in practice become divided into three regional administrations, a development that would continue with several complications until the late 19th century. Eighteenth-century polftical power-holders became increasingly suspicious of the naval establishment in Karlskrona. They believed that naval power was very important for Sweden but often

Hiese reflections are largely m y own. Tlie social composition a n d career paths of Swedish officers in the latter half of the 17th century: Asker 1983 (army officers); Cavallie 1983 (senior a r m y and navy officers). "" Kleberg 1934; H j a l m a r Borjeson, Biogafiska anteckningar om orlogsflottans officerare, 1700-1799 (ed. by Karl Wester), Stocldiolm, 1942; Arteus 1982, 262, 279.

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wondered whether the existing naval administration and leadership were fully competent.'"'^ Hie decades around 1700 actually saw the beginning of a long-term rift between the navy and the political and administrative centre of the fiscal-military state. The transfer of the whole navy and its central administration from Stocldiolm to Karlskrona meant that personal and informal contacts between sea officers and the central state bureaucracy were much reduced. Instead, a tendency to bureaucratic infighting in order to preserve positions and avoid changes with uncertain results prevailed. The change began to be visible after the accession to the throne of Karl XII (r. 1697-1718), the first member of the dynasty who had grown up without daily contact with the navy, its ships, and its men. During the Great Northern War (1700-21), the king, the various army commands, the central administration in Stocldiolm, and the navy in Karlskrona developed in separate directions and began to show signs of sub-optimisation and myopic behaviour. The main problem turned out to be that there was no central authority with the ability and authority to enforce radical changes, reallocate resources, and adapt to a new strategic situation. The absolute king ought to have been that authority, but he was absent f r o m Sweden from 1700 to 1715. The home government which ran the administration often opposed his policy but had too limfted authority to decide about and enforce a radically different political and strategic alternative."" The end of Wachtmeister's rule over the navy came in 1713-14, when the old admiral-general resigned and died shortly thereafter.'" He had not raised any admiral who was able to take over his responsibilities as both commander-in-chief and administrative leader of the navy. In fact, his resignation came at a time when several experienced flag officers resigned or died, so his resignation left a marked gap in

"" The separation of the naval administration into regions and conflicts between Stockholm and Karlskrona after 1721: Jean H a g g m a n , Studier i Frihetstidens forsvarspolitik: ett bidrag till Sveriges inre historia, 1721-1727, Stockholm, 1922, 34-42, 8 7 112, 148-57, 220-45, 269-94. Brief surveys of the problem in Glete 1990-1991-, Jan Glete, "Bridge and Bulwark. The Swedish navy and the Baltic, 1500-1809", in Rystad etal. 1994, 9-59, esp. 51-55. The central naval administration 1700-1721: Lars O. Berg in Amiralitetskollegiets historia, II, 51-157; Grauers 1946, 225-86. Biographical information: Kleberg 1934. The Karlskrona naval yard 1700-1721, Ericson 1993, 42-64. The reflections about policy, strategy and organisation are my own. "' Amiralitetskollegiets historia, II (Lars O. Berg), 72-78, 95-115.

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the naval leadership."^ The economic administration within the navy was rapidly becoming an intractable problem: the accounts were several years in arrears, and the civilian administrators were increasingly involved in business transactions and attempts to buy on credit. The senior officers understood less and less of what was going on and were, in any case, occupied with fighting a war at sea. In 1711, when Wachtmeister suffered a stroke, he had declared that General Magnus Stenbock, son of the last riksamiral, Gustav Stenbock, and leader of the home army, was the only man suitable as his successor. Stenbock, however, was sent to the continent with an army and was taken prisoner in 1713. The most senior admiral in the navy by 1715 was Klas Sparre (16731733), whose position was strengthened when Karl XII appointed him dveramiral (senior admiral) in that year, typically for this king as a reward for Sparre's performance during the battle of Riigen. Sparre had progressive ideas about shipbuilding and was suited to c o m m a n d the fleet, but he was notoriously uninterested in bureaucratic procedures and was increasingly distrusted as an administrator by other admirals.'" In 1714, after Wachtmeister's resignation, the Royal Council appointed one of its members. Lieutenant-general Johan August Meijerfeldt, director of naval administration. Karl XII, who was in the Ottoman Empire, appointed Lieutenant-general Hans Henrik von Liewen to the same position, which was not known in Sweden until after several months. No new admiral-general was appointed. Von Liewen was a very senior officer, and he refrained f r o m interfering with operational questions. He was, on the whole, well received by the admirals, who needed help with administration. Karl XII, however, was dissatisfied with his navy and wished to have an observer who should find out what went on in Karlskrona. He soon found that von Liewen had become too closely allied with the admirals to serve that purpose. In 1716, the king sent the young Colonel Gustaf Friederich von Rosen (born 1688) to the navy, with the task of sending

Of flag officers in the highest rank (admiral), Erik Sioblad in G o t h e n b u r g was discharged for economic crimes in 1712, C o r n e h u s Anckarstierna resigned in 1712 and died in 1714, Verner von Rosenfeldt resigned and died in 1710, and Jacob de Prou died in 1711. Tlieir successors soon resigned: Karl R u u t h in 1712, Gustav W a t t r a n g and Olof Wernfeldt in 1715. Erik Lillie a n d Mikael H e n c k were killed in the battle of Riigen in 1715, a few m o n t h s after they had received their p r o m o t i o n s to admirals: 1934-, Amiralitetskollegiets historia, II. AmiralitetskoUegiets historia, II, 74-75, 161-66.

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confidential reports to the king. The next year, von Rosen was also appointed as von Liewen's deputy director in administrative questions. As von Rosen was much junior to Klas Sparre, Admiral Baron Karl Hans Wachtmeister (the admiral-general's nephew), and other admirals this aroused open opposition. Karl XII even had to send instructions about in which chair every member in the AmiralitetskoUegium should sit."^ Naval administration in the last years of absolutism was run under the influence of Karl XII's extraordinary administrative and financial measures with one goal: to mobilise the remaining resources in a country which had lost a large part of its territory and population through enemy occupation. Much was bought on credit, and the navy had to try to distribute provisions through private entrepreneurs who were reluctant or unable to deliver without payment in cash. Much of the state's financial administration was run by an extraordinary commission, Upphandlingskommissionen. This was led by the Holsteinian minister Georg Heinrich von Gortz, who acted as Karl XII's foreign minister and minister of finance in 1716-18. One of its members was Salomon von Otter, who f r o m 1693 to 1711 had been the navy's senior economic administrator (dverkommissarie). He was assigned to handle acquisitions to the navy and was periodically in Karlskrona in order to supervise the outfitting and provisioning of the fleet. As in previous periods of crisis, a special one-man "Treasury-Navy axis" had been established."' After Karl XII's death in November 1718, von Liewen and von Rosen left Karlskrona, and the admirals took control of administration. This was part of a larger upheaval. The new non-absolutist and softly revolutionary regime that now controlled Sweden was mainly formed by the established bureaucracy. In its own interest, it returned the administration of the state to the structures which had prevailed before Karl XII's last years of far-reaching reforms. The bureaucracy was widely represented in the Parliament and could claim that its power was legftimately based on professionalism and career advancement based on

Not all m e m b e r s of the Wachtmeister family disliked the young colonel, however. In 1718, von Rosen married Sofia Lovisa Wachtmeister, daughter of the late Admiral-general H a n s Wachtmeister. Lindeberg 1941, 97-98, 102-05; AmiralitetskoUegiets historia, II, 110-12, 120-22. Admiral Karl H a n s Wachtmeister (1682-1731) and naval administration in 1716-19: Grauers 1941, 328-42.

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merit. The peasants, who normally supported strong royal power, were partly taken by surprise, partly disillusioned by the policy of Karl XII. How the bureaucratic and partly parliamentary state administrated the navy it inherited from the dynastic state is an interesting question, but not a part of this study.

Lennart Thanner, Revolutionen i Sverige efter Karl XILs dod: Den inrikespolitiska maktkampen under tidigare delen av drottning Ulrika Eleonora d y:s regering, Stockholm, 1953; W e r n e r Buchholz, Staat und Stcindegesellschaft in Schweden zur Zeit des Ubergangs vom Absolutismus zum Stdndeparlamentarismus, 1718-1720, Stockliolm, 1979.

C H A P T E R FIVE

WARSHIPS AND NAVAL STRENGTH

5.1

Warships, naval strength, and state

formation

The Swedish dynastic state was a large shipowner and shipbuilder. Shipbuilding and maintenance of a navy was integrated with the formation and growth of the dynastic state. The state was founded in interaction with sea power, developed a Baltic empire with support of sea power, and lost this empire when it lost the initiative in the exercise of sea power in the special Baltic environment. The number and size of the ships built by this state and the structure of the force of warships it maintained reflect ambitions as well as strategy. The possession of warships as instruments of policy was a part of the Swedish kings' image of themselves as powerful rulers in a maritime part of Europe. They were unusual in this persistent policy of administrating their own sailing warships. In the two centuries from 1521 to 1721, only a minority of power-holders made administration of warships and innovations in warship technology parts of state policy. Apart from Sweden, only in England, Denmark, and Portugal was such a policy followed without interruption. France had no sailing navy from the 1560s to the 1620s, Spain and the Dutch Republic did not begin to create such navies until the 1580s, and permanent sailing navies did not exist in the Mediterranean until far into the 17th century. Many Mediterranean states had galley navies, but galley technology was static, galley hulls were cheap, and provisions and personnel rather than warships dominated administration.' The naval part of the European state formation process can roughly be measured with the size of state-owned naval forces. The quantitative development of three of the earliest state-administrated sailing navies is shown in table 5:1. Most European powers used sailing ships for war long before the 16th century, but these forces were temporary and often administrated by merchants and local maritime elites, sometimes from regions not controlled by the power which organised

Glete 1993, esp. 123-72.

314 Table

c h a p t e r four 5.1

The size of the Swedish,

End of

Sweden

1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580 1590 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720

1,000 4,000 7,000 7,000 9,000 20,000 18,000 15,000 26,000 26,000 16,000 17,000 28,000 29,000 23,000 35,000 22,000 38,000 53,000 58,000 38,000

Danish,

and English

Denmark 7,000 3,000 5,000 7,000 8,000 15,000 15,000 17,000 10,000 15,000 18,000 19,000 18,000 23,000 15,000 30,000 40,000 34,000 45,000 59,000 48,000

navies,

1520-1720

England 14,000 7,000 7,000 17,000 13,000 14,000 15,000 25,000 27,000 25,000 25,000 31,000 38,000 49,000 88,000 84,000 132,000 124,000 196,000 201,000 174,000

Sources: The English a n d Danish navies: Glete 1993, 549-51, 596-97, with additional information f r o m Bellamy 2006, 275-79, Niels Probst's list of Danish warships, 15231660 a n d Appendices 1 and 2. Total displacements in tonnes. The table includes sailing warships and galleys of 100 tonnes and larger, f r o m 1690 onward, 300 tonnes a n d larger. In the Swedish navy, purpose-built warships belonging to m e m b e r s of the royal family other than the Idng are included in the figures for 1560, 1580, and 1590. Fireships a n d other n o n - c o m b a t ants are excluded, as are several Danish and Swedish blockships a n d floating batteries which existed in 1720. For the total size of the Swedish navy, including small and inshore combatants, see Appendix 2.

the naval operations. Large sailing warships with heavy guns or light warships built for speed and good sailing qualities were complex, and their development in the early modern period was a part of a dynamic process which improved h u m a n ability to control the sea and use it for mercantile and military purposes. States which owned and built such ships and initiated their development made advanced technology a part of the state formation process. Naval technology developed more rapidly if states favoured and demanded improvements and if they were willing to initiate and support experiments and innovations. This

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chapter outlines the Swedish state's acquisition of warships during two centuries. It only briefly discusses technological change, a subject that could be a book of its own. Modern naval policy can often be studied with the established or planned strength of the navy and shipbuilding programs to achieve that strength. If the desired number of ships of various types and sizes is settled, it is possible to make plans for shipbuilding, how many officers and men they require, and which armament they could carry. Such plans are intended to create predictability in a complex organisation. Costs can be calculated and rulers can give administrators resources to achieve the goal. Such long-term planning was common already in the Mediterranean galley navies. Since the 15th century, Venice had a formally established peace-time number of galleys in service and in reserve. Other Mediterranean naval organisations maintained galley squadrons on long-term contract with entrepreneurs. These contracts fixed the number of galleys and the cost to operate them for a number of years.^ In contrast, the long-term strength of sailing navies was rarely guided by policy documents, until the latter half of the 17th century. The English navy is a partial exception. Its future size and structure was outlined in a plan prepared by Queen Elizabeth's naval administrators in 1559, after her accession to the throne. It was maintained according to this plan until the mid-1580s, when war with Spain caused an increase. A new higher level was established then, and in 1618 a plan for the established strength of the navy and a five-year program of new construction to achieve it was outhned by a committee. That program was strictly followed. Tlie later growth of the English navy was determined by wars and domestic power struggles, but also by political developments which made the parliament central for raising resources to the navy. Money voted for one war effort tended to result in a higher permanent level of naval strength, as warships once voted by the Parliament were regarded as parts of an established force. The government could, without m u c h further debate, maintain that force with new construction to replace old or lost ships. English state

Glete 1993, 139-46, 501^21.

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formation was partly shaped by political consensus about the importance of a strong navy.^ No similar plans or ideas about an established naval strength are known in Sweden until the early 17th century. Naval policy-making was a royal prerogative, which the king had no compelling reason to put on paper as long as he personally took the decisions about when ships should be built or disposed of, the size of new ships, and the structure of the navy. The Vasa rulers did not issue general guidelines about naval strength and shipbuilding to their administrators because they were not supposed to take initiatives on such questions. Danish kings followed a similar policy, as they saw the administration of navy as a royal prerogative with which the Council should not interfere. Absolutism and an increasingly bureaucratic naval administration were introduced in Denmark in 1660, but naval policy expressed in formal plans had to wait until the 18th century.'' The earliest traces of an established strength of the Swedish navy are from the 1610s and the 1620s, when also the strength of the nationally recruited army was formalised into a fixed number of regiments. Plans of naval strength were also connected with the contracts for maintenance of fittings and warships, which f r o m 1615 were concluded with private entrepreneurs.^ In 1633, at a time when no dynastic ruler was in charge of the Swedish state, Axel Oxenstierna outlined the permanent strength and structure of the navy in a m e m o r a n d u m . The principles of this plan remained in use until the 1650s. New and more ambitious plans were put on paper and discussed from the late 1650s until 1664, but they were far from achieved in practical naval policy. Naval policy after 1679 was guided by a long-term goal to achieve a fleet of 45 ships strong enough for the batde-line. Formal naval plans decided by the highest political authority in the state had to wait until the introduction of parliamentary rule after 1718, when the politi-

' T o m Glasgow, Jr, "Maturing of Naval Administration, 1556-1564", MM, 56, 1970, 3-26; A. P. M c G o w a n (ed.), The Jacobean Commissions of Enquiry, 1608 and 1618, Navy Records Society, 116, London, 1971, esp. 286-90; Brian Lavery, "The Rebuilding of British Warships, 1690-1740", MM, 63, 1977, 335-50. ^ Bellamy 2006; Ole L. Frantzen, Truslen Fra ost: Dansk-norsk flddepolitik, 17691807, Copenhagen, 1980. 5 Contract with Rickard Clerck 17/2 1615, RR; contracts with Rickard Clerck 6/11 1618 a n d 5/12 1622, Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol, 1, fols 152-54, 174-76; two versions of a draft agreements 23/12 1624 with H e n r i k Hybertsson about the maintenance of the navy 1626-29, SH 71:1 and M 1779. See also Sveriges Sjokrig, 24-25.

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cal system required more parliamentary legitimisation of goals than under dynastic rule. The first of several such plans was decided by the Parliament in 1722/' This chapter is an investigation of quantitative, administrative, and technical aspects of the Swedish navy's procurement of warships and their relation to naval policy and operational requirements. It has its focus on when, how, and where warships were built, bought, or captured for sea service; the size and types of warships; and the total size of the navy, expressed in number of warships and their approximate total displacement. Tosses, sales, and deletions of warships f r o m the effective strength of the navy are also discussed, because they usually determined the timing and volume of new construction. Because most Swedish warships were purpose-built for the navy, usually on yards administrated by the state, the state's shipbuilding activities are also a part of this chapter. The supply of material for building and repairing the ships (oak, fir and pine, tar and pitch, and iron for bolts and nails) is not a part of this chapter or of this study. The supply of material resources for the Swedish navy was a part of general problem of mobilising domestic resources through taxes and labour. It was not a problem of actually finding these resources, because they were readily available in Sweden. Several navies were dependent on imported timber, iron, and tar for shipbuilding, and the supply of these strategic products may have been a major problem for them. But the Swedish navy could rely on domestic resources and some products for shipbuilding; tar, high-quality iron for fastenings, and timber for mast and spars became important Swedish export products. Domestic oak existed in sufficient amount for naval construction until the 18th century, although at increasing cost, and partly because several provinces with a good supply of oak were conquered. Equipment and fittings, as well as guns that were interchangeable between ships, are treated in the next two chapters. This chapter depends primarily u p o n sources that provide information about where and when warships were built, their size, and their final fate. Basic information about all known warships of the Swedish navy is presented in a historical ship-list in Appendix 1, while the structure and total size of the navy f r o m 1520 to 1721 are summarised in Appendix 2. This information is not easily available in the

Naval plans after 1721: Svenska Flottans Historia,

II, 183-91; Glete

1993b.

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sources, and it has required a broad investigation of several archival series to find it. Before the 1620s, there was no central naval administration which kept track of its ships. When that administration was established with the Amiralitetskollegium, more centralised records were kept. Unfortunately, the accounts from the 17th-century naval administration have suffered large-scale destruction in later centuries. Consequently, it is necessary to study several sources f r o m many years to find out what actually happened to a particular ship f r o m the time it was laid down until it left the effective strength of the navy. Administrative sources which explicitly provide such information only exist for the period 1568 to the early 1590s in the yearly account of fittings (Skeppsrullan), and for the main fleet at Karlskrona from 1691 to 1721, in a document prepared by the administration of the Karlslcrona navy yard in the early 1720s.^ The historical ship-list used in this study has for the period up to 1610 been prepared by the present author from a detailed study of naval, ordnance, provisioning, and local accounts, the king's out-going letters, and other relevant sources at Riksarkivet and Krigsarkivet in Stocldiolm and Riksarkivet in Helsingfors.® It is not final in all details, but it is unlikely that future research may add much important information. For the years 1611-32, the ship-list published in the Navy Stafl^s study from 1937 (mainly written by Georg Hafstrom) about the navy in the reign of Gustav II Adolf has been useful, but the list for these years is prepared by the author from the sources. They have provided new information, especially about warships in the 1610s and the galleys.' For 1633-60, the list is prepared from original sources, ahhough notes from these sources made by Axel Zettersten in the 1890s and Hjalmar Borjeson from the 1920s until his death in 1945 have been useful for finding relevant information. I have frequently come to other conclusions than these two authors, but their published

' Skeppsrullan in SH, RA. Orlogsflottans till- och avtagande ifran Anno 1691 (until 1721), prepared by naval yard commissioner Fetter Elding, AK, Varvskontoret, Ovriga handlingar, KrA. ® Halldin 1963 provides information about naval shipbuilding f r o m a register of warships prepared by Statens Sjohistoriska M u s e u m d u r i n g the 1940s a n d 1950s. Hie 16th- and early 17th-century parts of this register (not prepared by Gustaf Halldin) are not reliable. The present author is indebted to Gustaf Halldin, w h o opened new methodical perspectives by his use of displacement in analysis of early m o d e r n shipbuilding, ' Sveriges Sjokrig, 31-38, 231-54. The (incomplete) card index, with sources for this ship-list is in Forsvarsstaben, Krigshistoriska avdelningen, Arbetsarkiv, Sjohistoriska detaljen, vols 9 - 1 3 , KrA.

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and unpublished ship-lists for this period remain valuable pioneering efforts. For the period 1660 to 1699, my list relies on Borjeson's historical ship-list from 1936, which for the period up to 1680 is much dependent on Zettersten's list from 1903. I have checked these lists with the relevant sources and made a number of corrections and additions.'" For the years 1700-21, the lists prepared by Lars Otto Berg (the main fleet at Karlskrona and the Peipus flotilla), Ernst Bergman (the Gothenburg squadron), and Gunnar Unger (the Stockliolm squadron) provide the bulk of the information for the list in this book." The calculation of displacements for the historical ship-list has been made by the present author. Displacements are not mentioned in contemporary sources, although the displacement of some ships built 1694-1721 were calculated by naval architects later in the 18th century. A complete study with references to all sources used for Appendix 1 would fill a book of its own. In 1977 I published a detailed list with references for the period 1521-60.1 have treated the period 1561-1610 in working papers, which at present are available on the Internet.'^ The period 1611-60 also requires a more detailed list with sources, which I hope to be able to prepare in the future. In this chapter, only a selection of the sources are mentioned in the notes, mainly if they are important for naval policy-making. Because most of the information about naval shipbuilding and the strength of the navy up to 1610 is based on my own research and because shipbuilding policy up to the 1660s has been little studied, the chapter treats these years at some length. The period 1660 to 1721 is treated briefly, not because it is less important but because the basic facts are known from earlier studies.

Zettersten 1903, 305-21, 563-88; H j a l m a r Borjeson, Lists of Men-of-War, 16501700, Part III: Swedish ships, 1650-1699, London, 1936. A m o r e detailed version of Zettersten's ship-list for 1635 to 1680 is in Axel Ludvig Zetterstens arbetspapper, vol. 7, KrA, while his notes f r o m m i n u t e s of the Council and the Amimlitetskollegium, the king's out-going letters (Riksregistraturet), a n d the Amiralitetskollegium's in- a n d outletters are in vols 2 - 4 . H j a l m a r Borjeson's notes about Swedish warships f r o m the same sources and f r o m naval accounts are in H j a l m a r Borjesons samling, vols 2 (galleys) and 4 2 - 4 8 (saiUng ships), KrA. Zettersten's unpublished ship-list for the period 1522-1634 is in Axel Ludvig Zetterstens arbetspapper, vol. 7, KrA. The information he published f r o m it in Zettersten 1890 is often erroneous and cannot be used. " Berg 1970, 66-85; Lars Otto Berg, "Peipuseskaderns fartyg, 1701-1704": En tabellarisk framstallning", Forum navale, 22, 1965, 129-33; Ernst Bergman, Gamla Varvet vid Goteborg, 1660-1825, Goteborg, 1954, 227-34; G u n n a r l i n g e r s arkiv, vol. 1, KrA. Glete 1977; Ian Glete, Svenska orlogsfartyg, 1561-1570: Svenska orlogsfartyg, 1571-1590: Svenska orlogsfartyg, 1591-1599; Svenska orlogsfartyg, 1599-1610, http:// www2.historia.su.se/personal/jan_glete/.

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5.2 5.2.1

Technology, typology, and rating systems

Swedish warship types

Early modern warships were built in different sizes and to different designs for different tasks. Gradually, various systems of classification or rating of warships according to size and type developed in the European navies. These type names and rating systems cannot be used without knowledge of the historical and technical context. Type names and rating systems may be helpful to organise our understanding of the size and structure of the navies, but they have also been sources of much confusion. They were rarely the same in different navies, and some type names were used for widely different types of ships. Consequently, the correspondence between warship types and type names is often confusing. This phenomenon is well known also in modern navies, but today we have an abundance of sources which provide detailed information about the size, appearance, and capabilities of various ships. In contrast, a type name like galley, bark, or boyer may be the only surviving indication of the size, capability, and technical characteristics of a 16th-century warship. W e must use them, but we must also understand how they were used when the sources were produced.'^ Type names are used because we wish to briefly communicate differences and similarities, which we believe are important under certain circumstances. These circumstances may be technical, administrative, or operational, and the same ship may be given different designations by a shipbuilder, an administrator, or a sea officer. Type names are therefore not absolute categories and cannot be used schematically. They reflect the importance of technical development, the influence of bureaucracy, and the role of naval doctrine and operational requirements, and they must be used with an understanding of their context. Several type names from this period are derived from some special technical feature, usually the hull or the rig. These features were often not related to the naval function of the ship, and the same designation was frequently used for both warships and merchantmen. A technical innovation often stimulates interest to such an extent that it determines the type name, until the innovation has become so widespread

Glete 1993, 60-62.

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that the type name no longer characterises a certain type of ship. In the early 16th century, the word carvel (Nordic and German kravel or kravell) became in Northern Europe a type name for heavily built, gun-armed warships, as the spread of carvel-building technology made it easier to build such ships. W h e n carvel building became normal for all larger warships and merchantmen, the type designation disappeared by the late 16th century. In Southern Europe, where carvelbuilding had been normal since antiquity, the word galleon (galion, galeao, galeon) became c o m m o n in the 16th century for large purposebuilt warships. It was possibly derived from the word galley {galea), the traditional purpose-built warship in the Mediterranean. Type names derived from the administrative process often concentrate on the size of the ship, as size determines the cost of construction, maintenance, and armament as well as the number of men it requires in active service. Classifications according to size are usually expressed in hierarchical rating systems: Great, Medium, Small; or 1st, 2nd, 3rd Rates, etc. Such systems may be useful for historians because they normally separate warships f r o m non-combatant vessels and emphasise the widely different sizes to which ships were built. They are, however, often schematical and potentially misleading if used uncritically. Classification of warships according to a naval doctrine is focused on the strategic and tactical role of different types of ships during operations. The most important of such classifications in this period was the formal separation of warships into major combatants, suitable for the battle-line, and smaller warships, primarily intended for reconnaissance, patrol, and escort duties and the carrying of dispatches. It was in reality nothing new, because large warships had been built for fighting other large ships and smaller units for various cruiser tasks since at least the 15th century. The formal introduction of the lineof-battle as the main tactical formation in the latter half of the 17th century meant, however, that the number of ships large enough to fight in that line became a c o m m o n European measurement of naval strength, often used in contemporary assessments of a state's power at sea. It has survived as such in modern naval historiography, often hiding the fact that there were great differences in size between small and large ships-of-the-line and that the m i n i m u m size radically increased from the 17th to the mid-19th century."

Glete 1993, appendix 2.

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In the Swedish navy, major gun-armed, three-masted (in a few cases four-masted) warships were from the 1520s to the 1720s normally simply called skepp (ship). Until the 1560s and occasionally later, the word kravell was used to specify that the warship was a carvel-built ship, that is, a ship with the strong hull associated with the carvel-hull technology. The word hoik was used until the 1550s to emphasise that the ship was built according to the traditional North European clinker technology or that the hull was short and had full lines, making it more suitable as a cargo carrier than as a warship. In the 1520s, most major Swedish warships were holkar, but after the war experiences of 1534-36, carvels were preferred as warships and no more holkar were built as warships. Several were built for the king from 1548 to 1555, but they were large merchantmen, not purpose-built warships. Hie type name hoik and probably also the type of ship disappear in the Swedish navy after 1560.'^ The word skepp (ship) is problematical as a classification because in the Swedish language it also was used as a general term for vessels of most sizes and types, except boats. This is visible f r o m the 1560s, when Swedish naval sources frequently refer to orlogsskepp (warships) as a general word for combatant vessels in order to distinguish them f r o m non-combatants (transports, storeships, and small craft) owned by the king. Orlogsskepp in this sense included small armed vessels, which otherwise were called bark, pinke, jakt, and bojort and it even included galleys. In the 17th century, orlogsskepp and skepp were practically synonymous. Both words were used for the three-masted warships of the navy, sometimes with exception of the smallest (see below). The word skeppsflotta (ship fleet) was also the normal word for the entire naval force, normally used in headings of list of all vessels belonging to the navy. From the late 17th century it is usually replaced with the word orlogsflotta (literarily "war fleet", but "navy" is a proper English translation). In the early decades of the 18th century, the type name frigate spread in several navies, including the Swedish, as the common designation

The English w o r d hulk has the same origin as Swedish hoik and Low G e r m a n hollick, but since at least the 17th century has meant an old, no longer seagoing ship. Consequently, it cannot be used as a translation. " English ship and G e r m a n Schiff are similarly used. In m o d e r n Swedish, the word fartyg is convenient as a general for all kind of h u m a n - m a d e mobile, floating objects. Tliere is no exact English equivalent.

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for three-masted warships, too small to serve in the battle-line. After a few decades of uncertainty during which warships with two battery-decks but too small for the battle-line were called both ships and frigates, a formalisation took place in Sweden around 1720. Warships strong enough for the battle-line were called rangskepp or skepp, while smaller three-masted ships were called fregatter. Tlie word linjeskepp (ship-of-the-line) became c o m m o n only in the latter half of the 18th century. Smaller Swedish sailing warships (less than around 200 tonnes displacement) were in the 16th century usually called bark (bark), pinke (pink), bojort (boyer), and jakt (yacht). All terms are used in several European languages and have had widely different meanings in different periods of time. A bark (not to be confused with the 19th-century barque, a large sailing merchant ship) was a specialised warship, usually of around 100-150 tonnes displacement and heavily armed in relation to its size. It was built for speed, with a long and low hull, and several Swedish barks were explicitly called "long". Some were also occasionally called galleys, which probably mean that they had auxiliary oars. Galley hulls could be transformed into bark-shaped vessels, probably by being heightened."" Some barks had one gun of markedly larger calibre than the other guns, probably a bow centre-line gun firing forward like a galley. The type name bark was also used in England and France (barque) in the 16th century, as far as it is known for similar warships, although a few English barks were large ships. A pinke was usually smaller than a bark (normally less than 100 tonnes displacement) and had two or three masts. It is not known if they had the same narrow stern which was typical for cargo-carriers called pinks in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many Swedish warships with that type designation were small blockade-runners captured during the blockade of Narva between 1562 and 1581. Rich men frequently owned pinkor to travel with and this, as well as their use for blockaderunning and cruiser tasks show that they were swift and good sailers. Jakt was a traditional Nordic and German name for a small vessel with sharp lines built for speed rather than for carrying capacity. The difference between bark and jakt was fluent, although most jakter were small vessels of 10-50 tonnes displacement. Bojort was a Dutch

" In RR 12/1 1588, RA, l o h a n III stated that he did not wish to have some recently built galleys transformed (forbyggda) to barks.

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two-masted type of ship introduced in the Swedish navy in the 1530s. Its rig, with a large fore and aft sail on the mainmast, made it more suitable for sailing high in the wind than normal square-rigged ships.'® Around 1600, the type designations bark and pinke disappeared from the Swedish navy. Hie type numejakt was still in use, but mainly for small vessels for the court and the custom and postal services. Rich persons, who could afford to own a swift and comfortable vessel for travels, often acquired a ja/ct, which in 17th-century Sweden probably were of the Dutch jacht (yacht) type. In the early years of the 17th century, pinass (pinnace) was introduced as a new small type of warship, replacing barkar, pinkor, and jakter. The type name had existed in at least England in the 16th century and had its origin in a large oared craft. The first pinnaces were built by the foreign master shipwrights who came to Sweden around 1600, and it is likely that the type and the name were introduced by them. Early pinnaces had two or three masts, but the type name later was only used for small three-masted warships of around 100-300 tonnes displacement. It disappeared from the Swedish navy in the mid-17th century. The type name fregatt (frigate) appeared f r o m 1644 for a few small, long-hulled, three-masted ships of the same size as the pinnaces. It did not became a common Swedish type designation before 1700, however. Instead, small threemasted ships built for high speed were from the mid-17th century often called jaktskepp. From the mid-1620 until the late 1640s, a large number of small (usually 50-100 tonnes), shallow-draught craft, called struss(ar) were built for service in Prussia and Pomerania in support of the Swedish army operations. The type name was originally Slavic. Most of these were unarmed and intended for transport duties, although they could be armed with small guns or swivel-guns, when necessary. By the mid-17th century, the Dutch type designation bojort reappeared for a considerable number of minor two-masted warships, usually smaller than 100 tonnes. Another type designation for two-masted warships of that size was galliot, apparently due to differences in the rig. The type names struss, bojort, and galliot were frequently used to describe the same craft, depending on if ft was classified according to the shape of the hull or the rig. By the 1670s, bojort had become a general admin-

The introduction of bojorter in the Swedish navy and the initial difficulties in finding seamen who could handle their unusual rig, Glete 1976, 35.

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325

istrative type-name for larger two-masted vessels. Warships with these type names were not built after 1680, although the word galliot survived into the 18th century navy as a type name for two-masted, lightly armed naval transports. In the late 1690s, a new two-masted warship, brigantin, with square sails on two masts and a large mizzen sail on the after mast, was introduced in Sweden, where it became the common minor sailing warship. A special type of minor warship appeared in Sweden f r o m 1698: the bomb ketch, called bombkits in Swedish. It was armed with two large-calibre mortars intended for bombarding towns and fortresses with shells (French bombe). The Swedish bombkits was similar in size and function to the type of vessel which was designed in France in 1680s. This type rapidly spread to other European navies, although in small numbers. The Swedish navy used numerous vessels more or less specialised for warfare in archipelagos and shallow waters. Skdrbdt (in the 16th century, skarjebdt, "archipelago boat") was a large boat or small jakt, undecked or decked, which was c o m m o n among the population in the Swedish and Finnish archipelagos. It might be armed with light guns. Skarbdtar were used by the 16th-century local administration, and the type name reappeared in the early 18th-century archipelago flotillas, usually for privately owned boats temporarily armed as warships. Lodja (from Russian lodka, boat) was a large boat for rivers, lakes, and inshore waters inspired by Russian river craft. They were built in large numbers from the 1580s and until the late 17th century, but most of them had no names and do not appear as individual vessels in naval accounts and lists of warships. At least from the 1630s, they were built (or supposed to be built) by the local communities to standardised naval design. They were supposed to be kept ready to transport the navy's batsman (seamen) f r o m their local homes (typically 25 men in one lodja) to Stockholm, after which the navy could use them for inshore or amphibious operations. This system ceased to operate after the transfer of the main naval base from Stockholm to Karlskrona, possibly earlier." Galej (galley, Italian galea) was the normal Swedish name for the main type of oared warship, until it was replaced by galdr (French galere) in the 18th century. A real Mediterranean galley was a long.

Zettersten

1903, 78-79.

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narrow, low-hulled, and lightly built vessel, primarily designed to be easy to row. In order to achieve speed with a large number of oarsmen, the deck and the benches for the oarsmen were extended outside of the narrow hull. Galleys always had sails, and if oarsmen were unavailable, small crews of seamen could operate them as sailing vessels. Galleys had their main armament in the bow, typically one heavy centre-line gun flanked by two or four lighter guns. There were numerous swivelguns along the sides of the hull. Because of their manoeuvrability and shallow draught, galleys were superior to sailing warships in narrow and shallow waters, such as Swedish and Finnish archipelagos. Until the mid-16th century, galleys with heavy guns were dangerous opponents to sailing warship in the open sea, but they gradually became vulnerable to sailing warships when these became heavier armed and easier to handle. Galleys in the Baltic were usually manned with soldiers as oarsmen, which made them useful in amphibious warfare until the late 18th century, when they were replaced by gunboats. In the early 18th century, Sweden and Denmark built shallowdraught ships with heavy armament for archipelago warfare and harbour defence, called skottprdm, blockskepp or floating battery. These navies also built a few ships and frigates with shallow draught and heavy guns, which were optimised for coastal warfare. Some type names were exclusively used for transport vessels: krejare (crayer), skuta (a small cargo vessel), pram (pram, barge), katt (cat-ship), flojt (fleut), or the functionally descriptive lastdragare (transport). Many such vessels existed in the navy and in the civilian administration but they are not included in this study. 5.2.2

Swedish rating systems

Before 1611, classifications of Swedish warship according to type were very rare in ship-lists and naval accounts. A separation of warships into sailing ships and galleys exists in a few accounts and ship-lists from the 1550s and 1560s, when the galleys were numerous.^" A separation of warships (orlogsskepp) and non-combatant vessels became normal in the accounts and ship-lists from the 1560s. At the same time, most of the accounts connected with the navy were separated

Inventory 8/11 1552, S M H F 1:10; a plan for m a n n i n g and provisioning of the fleet in 1557, S M H F 1:16; two undated lists f r o m a r o u n d 1560, M 1761; a ship-list f r o m early 1565, S M H F 2:6, all RA.

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327

from accounts for castles and royal manors {Landskapshandlingar) into separate accounts for the shipyards {Skeppsgdrdshandlingar). Hiis separated most small transports and miscellaneous craft, normally unarmed and used by the local administration, f r o m the navy, "the King's warships". Even if there was no rating system to divide warships into size categories, most 16th-century ship-lists and naval accounts (expenditure of material, inventories of equipment and guns on warships, provision accounts, and wage accounts) are arranged in a fairly strict order. They start with the largest ships and continue down to minor craft, usually keeping the galleys together in a group between larger warships and minor craft. Those who prepared the accounts must have good personal knowledge of the size and type of the ships. Before the 1620s, only one ship-list, f r o m early 1565, has been found where the size of the warships is given in Idster, apparently based on a careful if approximate estimate of the size of each individual ship. This list may have resulted from the dramatic expansion of the navy in the first half of the 1560s, which necessitated more systematic information about the size of the ships.^' Ldster is, like tons, actually a measurement of a merchant ship's capacity to carry cargo. Its use to measure warships must be seen as a bureaucratic form of handling a difficuft subject, the size of warships. This rudimentary system of organising lists and accounts did not survive the upheavals in the 1590s, which caused a breakdown of regular naval accounting. When naval accounts from 1599 once more were prepared in a more systematic fashion, much of the earlier order is lost. Sailing warships of various sizes—galleys, small craft, and transport ships—are mixed in the same account without any headings and frequently with little attention to their size. The task of keeping order on the many ships in Karl IX's navy was apparently beyond what the non-naval fiscal administrators who prepared these accounts could achieve. Because at least some accounts were reviewed by the king, we may suspect that he was uninterested in analysing his ships in a hierarchical fashion.^^

Ship-list 1565, draft in M 1272, final version, S M H F 2:6, all RA. ^^ For example SH 55:3, RA, the Stockholm shipyard account of 1604, were according to a note on t h e m reviewed by Karl IX on 27/9 1608. Note the long delay in preparing these accounts, which indicates that the king was served with outdated information f r o m his over-strained administrators.

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This suddenly changed in 1611. In spring that year, a m e m o r a n d u m was prepared with a list of ships available in Stocldiolm and the repair or additional work they required to make them ready for active service. It continued with a calculation of how much manpower, material, provisions, and money the Stoclcholm shipyard required to make them ready for sea. This was obviously a response to the Danish attack on Kalmar at this time. In this paper, ships were divided into orlogsskepp (warships), pinasser (pinnaces), proviantskepp (storeships), gallejor (galleys), and pramar (prams)." In an (undated) list of ships f r o m the autumn of 1613, which has belonged to Axel Oxenstierna's papers (the Tid5 collection), the same division into orlogsskepp, pinasser, and galejor is used, and transports and small craft are placed under various headings according to their type names (jakt, pram, krejare, skuta, lodja). The same system may be found in manning plans for 1614 and 1615, except that the heading "pinnaces" is replaced by "small ships" in the latter.^'' From this time, ships were again normally listed according to their size, as they had been until the 1590s. In a plan of the future permanent army and navy, written around 1615-16 by Axel Oxenstierna, a further separation of the warships into royalskepp, lagom^^ orlogsskepp, and pinasser appeared for the first time.^'^ The three size groups are the same as in the contracts about rigging concluded in 1618 and 1622."' A further division into size groups was made in a detailed naval budget, prepared for 1621, with a list of the entire navy and estimates of how much it would cost to man and provision it. In that, the ships are divided into eight realskepp, ten orlogsskepp, ten mindre (smaller) orlogsskepp, six pinasser, and 23 farkoster (miscellaneous smaller vessels, including galleys, jakter, and prams). The same rating system (but differently applied) was used in

Ett kortfdrslag, SMHF 7:6, RA. The paper is not dated but it can be dated by the ships listed in it. Kort besked, M 1761; Kort fdrslag... 1614, S M H F 7:10; Kortfdrslag. . till 1615, S M H F 7:8, all RA. " It is almost proverbial that the Swedish w o r d lagom cannot be properly translated into English. In this case its nearest m e a n i n g is "normal" or "middle-sized". It was apparently only used in this paper and m a y reflect Axel Oxenstierna's personal thinking. AOSB 1:1,366-69. According to Zeftersten 1890,329 this division exists in accounts f r o m 1617, SH 67, RA. Unfortunately, they are n o w too damaged to be consulted. " RR 23/10 1618, RA, where the six largest ships are called "stora skepp", and Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 1, fols 174-76, 5/12 1622, RA, where the ten largest are called "regalskepp".

warships and naval strength

a revised stat f o r 1622.^'^ Royalskepp

a n d realskepp

329

are n o t p o s s i b l e

to t r a n s l a t e i n t o E n g l i s h o r m o d e r n S w e d i s h , b u t t h e m e a n i n g is t h e largest s h i p s in t h e navy.^' I n t e r e s t i n g l y , t h e t e r m " S h i p s R o y a l " f o r t h e largest s h i p s a p p e a r e d i n t h e E n g l i s h n a v y in t h e r a t i n g s y s t e m u s e d b y t h e C o m m i s s i o n of E n q u i r y , led b y t h e civilian a d m i n i s t r a tor Sir Lionel C r a n f i e l d in 1618 as a p a r t of t h e r e o r g a n i s a t i o n of t h a t navy.^" A f t e r 1622, lists of S w e d i s h w a r s h i p s n o l o n g e r d i v i d e d t h r e e - m a s t e d w a r s h i p s i n t o d i f f e r e n t size categories. O n l y galleys, strussar,

and other

small vessels a r e listed u n d e r s e p a r a t e h e a d i n g s . F r o m t h e 1620s a n d the early 1630s, a f e w lists e s t i m a t e t h e size of t h e sailing w a r s h i p s in leister. T h e o r i g i n a l i n t e n t i o n of t h i s w a s p r o b a b l y t o q u a n t i f y t h e n a v y a n d its costs in t h e p e r i o d w h e n it w a s m a i n t a i n e d b y e n t r e p r e n e u r s . This m a y t o s o m e e x t e n t h a v e m a d e t h e size of t h e s h i p s " n e g o t i a b l e " , a n d t h e size in Idster in t h e s e lists is n o t always c o n s i s t e n t w h e n c o m p a r e d w i t h f i g u r e s a b o u t d i m e n s i o n s , crew, a n d a r m a m e n t . ^ ' The i n t r o d u c t i o n of a s y s t e m a t i c classification of t h e n a v y ' s s h i p s m a y b e a s s o c i a t e d w i t h t h e a p p o i n t m e n t of G o r a n G y l l e n s t i e r n a t o d e p u t y a d m i r a l in 1610 a n d t o riksamiml

in 1612. B u t it c o n t i n u e s

after his d e a t h in 1618 a n d , as s o m e early lists a r e c o n n e c t e d w i t h h i s cousin, t h e C h a n c e l l o r Axel O x e n s t i e r n a , it is p r o b a b l e t h a t it w a s h e w h o asked f o r s o m e o r d e r in t h e ship-lists. H i e r a r c h i c a l o r g a n i s a t i o n s r e q u i r e classification s y s t e m s , a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of a c o m p l e x o r g a n i sation like t h e n a v y r e q u i r e s t o o l s t o a n a l y s e size. O x e n s t i e r n a was, already in t h e 1610s, c o m m i t t e d to a p o l i c y of m a k i n g t h e s t r u c t u r e of the state m o r e a r t i c u l a t e d a n d t r a n s p a r e n t a n d easier t o e v a l u a t e a n d

SH 69:6; S M H F 8:2, RA. ® I h e words real, royal, and regal could, in early m o d e r n Swedish (and n o d o u b t in other languages too), be used as a synonym ior great or large, see Svenska Akademiens Ordbok. Zettersten 1890, 329 listed royalskepp, realskepp, and regalskepp as possible spellings but chose to use the latter. In Sveriges Sjokrig, 24-25, the spelling realskepp is used, but otherwise regalskepp has been n o r m a l in m o d e r n Swedish, often used in connection with the Vasa and Kronan projects. In 17th-century documents, the spelling regalskepp hardly ever appears. Realskepp is the most c o m m o n form. McGowan 1971, 287. O n p. xxii, the editor m e n t i o n s that the term "Ship Royal" for ship of the 1st rank is confusing and believes that it was so already to c o n t e m p o rary Englishmen. " List of warships in contract with Rickard Clerck, RR 12/8 1626; comparative lists of the nav)f in c.1622 and in 1626 prepared in connection with Clerck's contract f r o m August 1626, placed in SH 70:8; undated list (without d o u b t f r o m 1632) of the navy and an undated list of part of the navy f r o m c.1634, both f r o m Tidosamlingen (probably Axel Oxenstierna's working papers), n o w in M 1761, all RA.

330

c h a p t e r four

g o v e r n . S t r u c t u r e d ship-lists, w h i c h w i t h a q u i c k g l a n c e m a d e t h e size a n d s t r u c t u r e of t h e n a v y easy t o g r a s p f o r l a y m e n a n d civilian a d m i n i s t r a t o r s like h i m , a r e u s e f u l in s u c h efforts. It is p o s s i b l e t h a t G u s t a v 11 A d o l f f o u n d classifications less i m p o r t a n t a n d c e a s e d t o ask f o r t h e m . If t h e k i n g h a d f o u n d t h e m i m p o r t a n t , t h e y w o u l d c e r t a i n l y h a v e b e e n u s e d r e g u l a r l y t h r o u g h o u t h i s reign. O n 8 O c t o b e r 1633, Axel O x e n s t i e r n a , n o w t h e l e a d i n g m e m b e r of a r e g e n c y g o v e r n m e n t f o r Q u e e n C h r i s t i n a , s e n t a l o n g letter f r o m F r a n k f u r t a m M a i n a b o u t a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a n d political q u e s t i o n s to t h e C o u n c i l in S t o c k h o l m . It i n c l u d e d a p l a n f o r t h e f u t u r e n a v y in w h i c h h e r e i n t r o d u c e d a d e t a i l e d classification s c h e m e t h a t d e f i n e d t h e size a n d s t r u c t u r e of t h e navy. T h e t h r e e - m a s t e d w a r s h i p s w e r e d i v i d e d i n t o six g r o u p s called realskepp,

stora (large), orlogsskepp,

orlogsskepp,

minsta

mindre

a n d pinasser?^

(small), orlogsskepp,

(smallest),

rdtta

orlogsskepp,

A c o r r e c t t r a n s l a t i o n of t h e S w e d i s h w o r d rdtta in this

s c h e m e is h a r d l y possible; " p r o p e r " o r " n o r m a l " m a y c o m e close. It m a y h a v e b e e n O x e n s t i e r n a ' s p e r s o n a l w a y of e x p r e s s i n g h i m s e l f , a n d it w a s n o t u s e d in p r a c t i c e . A slightly s i m p l i f i e d r a t i n g s y s t e m was, f r o m at least t h e 1640s, u s e d in t h e n a v a l a c c o u n t s , w h e r e m a j o r w a r s h i p s w e r e listed as realskepp,

stora

sized), a n d smd

w h i l e s m a l l e r vessels a n d t r a n s p o r t s

(small) skepp,

(large), medelmdttiga

(middle-

w e r e p l a c e d u n d e r several d i f f e r e n t h e a d i n g s , a c c o r d i n g t o type. I n t h e n a v a l a c c o u n t s , this s y s t e m w a s u s e d i n t o t h e 1670s, a l t h o u g h i n p r a c t i c e it b e c a m e s o m e w h a t i m p r e c i s e b e c a u s e t w o o r t h r e e cate g o r i e s of s h i p s w e r e o f t e n listed u n d e r a c o m m o n h e a d i n g . O t h e r w i s e it is o n l y k n o w n f r o m t h r e e lists f r o m 1640 a n d 1 6 4 2 , " a list f r o m 1647 w i t h a d d i t i o n s f r o m 1648, a list f r o m 7 F e b r u a r y 1649,^'' a n d a n u n d a t e d list f r o m O x e n s t i e r n a ' s collection. It t h e n d i s a p p e a r s a n d is n o t u s e d in n a v a l p l a n s p r e p a r e d i n 1649, c.1660, a n d 1664. It w a s r e v i v e d ( p r o b a b l y f r o m t h e a c c o u n t s ) in t h e r e p o r t a b o u t n a v a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n f r o m 1660 t o 1672, w h i c h t h e Amiralitetskollegium,

domi-

n a t e d b y m e n of n o n - n a v a l b a c k g r o u n d , p r e p a r e d i n late 1672 w h e n it d e s c r i b e d its activities d u r i n g t h e r e g e n c y f o r K a r l X I . F r o m

the

" HSH 26, 23135, also in AOSB 1:1, 462-65. " List 1/1 1640, M 1761; SS Z 2829, Z 2833, all RA. ^^ NNS II, 12a, KrA. Plan of 1649, M 1753, RA; u n d a t e d plan, 1659/60 in M 1761, RA; plan presented to the Parliament in 1664, AK, protokoll 29/7 1664, KiA; Wendt 1950, 215; AK till Kunglig Majestat, vol. 1, 14/12 1672, RA.

warships and naval strength

331

1640s, it b e c a m e c o m m o n t o d e s c r i b e large s h i p s as "capital s h i p s " (kapitalskepp),

a Latin f o r m of t h e o l d N o r d i c t e r m f o r large w a r s h i p s ,

huvudskepp?'' A n o t h e r r a t i n g s y s t e m w a s i n t r o d u c e d in t h e late 17th c e n t u r y , w h e n t h r e e - m a s t e d s h i p s w e r e d i v i d e d i n t o six r a t e s {rang), w i t h t h e first f o u r rates b e i n g s h i p s i n t e n d e d f o r t h e b a t t l e line. A r a t i n g s y s t e m a l r e a d y existed at t h i s t i m e in t h e English, F r e n c h , a n d D u t c h navies, a l t h o u g h they are n o t exactly c o m p a r a b l e . T h e first k n o w n S w e d i s h ship-list w i t h six rates w a s p r e p a r e d in 1697 in K a r l s k r o n a , f o r t h e y o u n g Karl XII, the P a r l i a m e n t , a n d a d m i n i s t r a t o r s i n S t o c k h o l m . It w a s i n c l u d e d in a r e p o r t w h i c h w a s i n t e n d e d t o s h o w t h e g r e a t i m p r o v e m e n t s in t h e n a v y since 1680. I n S w e d e n , t h i s r a t i n g s y s t e m d i d n o t last long.^^ Instead, t h e n a v y g r a d u a l l y b e g a n t o u s e a s y s t e m t h a t d i v i d e d t h r e e m a s t e d w a r s h i p s i n t o s h i p s s u i t a b l e f o r t h e b a t t l e line {skepp, skepp, later linjeskepp)

a n d fregatter.

their type n a m e s : brigantin,

bombkits,

rang-

S m a l l e r u n i t s w e r e classified b y galej, etc. Like in o t h e r navies,

b a t d e s h i p s ( s h i p s - o f - t h e - l i n e ) w e r e , f r o m t h e early 18th c e n t u r y , u s u ally classified b y t h e i r n u m b e r s of g u n s . T h a t s y s t e m w a s o f t e n m i s leading, as t h e calibre of t h e g u n s o f t e n v a r i e d c o n s i d e r a b l y w i t h i n t h e s a m e "rate", b u t it s e e m s t o h a v e s e r v e d t h e p u r p o s e of c o m m u n i c a t ing t h e size a n d s t r u c t u r e of t h e n a v y to n o n - n a v a l p o l i c y - m a k e r s a n d administrators. Swedish rating systems were either used by m e n w h o administrated t h e n a v y w i t h o u t b e i n g sea officers (Axel O x e n s t i e r n a , n a v a l a c c o u n tants) o r b y sea officers w h o a d d r e s s e d n o n - n a v a l p o l i c y - m a k e r s . Sea officers, a p p a r e n t l y also k i n g s , u n d e r s t o o d t h e size of t h e s h i p s w h e n they s a w t h e i r a r m a m e n t , m a n p o w e r r e q u i r e m e n t s , a n d d i m e n s i o n s in a list, o r t h e y s i m p l y k n e w t h e i n d i v i d u a l size of t h e 3 0 - 4 0 m a j o r w a r ships w h i c h t h e n a v y n o r m a l l y h a d . T h e D a n i s h n a v y , w h i c h w a s of t h e s a m e size, h a d n o f o r m a l r a t i n g s y s t e m , b u t b y t h e e a r l y 18th c e n t u r y t h e a r m a m e n t w a s sufficiently s t a n d a r d i s e d t o m a k e n u m b e r of g u n s into a c o n v e n i e n t r a t i n g s y s t e m . T h e d e t a i l e d r a t i n g s y s t e m s w i t h six

Kapitalskepp a n d realskepp were practically s y n o n y m o u s in Swedish; see two ship lists dated 25/11 1645, where the draft has kapitalskepp a n d the final version realskepp for the same ships, N N S II, 12a, KrA, ' ' Several lists in M 1762, RA, N N S II, 12a, KrA, a n d Nordinska samlingen, 893, UUB. The 1697 report, R 4871, RA. In this report there are also lists of the navy in 1675 and 1680, divided into six rates, but this rating m u s t have been m a d e in 1697. N o rating system is used in the next report f r o m Amiralitetskollegium to the Parliament, that of 1713, R 4878, RA.

332

c h a p t e r four

rates in E n g l a n d , seven charters {and fregates

in t h e D u t c h RepubUc, a n d five ranges

legeres as a sixth) in F r a n c e w e r e i n t r o d u c e d d u r i n g t h e

g r o w t h of g r e a t b a t t l e fleets f r o m 1650 t o 1680 a n d r e m a i n e d in u s e f o r l o n g p e r i o d s of t i m e . Tliey w e r e p r o b a b l y u s e f u l t o k e e p o r d e r o n m u c h l a r g e r n u m b e r of ships, b u t t h e y also b e c a m e p a r t of a d m i n i s t r a tive a n d political d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g . Tliat n e v e r h a p p e n e d in Sweden.^®

5.2.3

Master shipwrights and naval

technology

H i e t e c h n i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t of S w e d i s h w a r s h i p d e s i g n u n t i l 1721 c a n b e s t u d i e d f r o m m a n y w r i t t e n s o u r c e s , several m o d e l s , s o m e d r a w i n g s , a n d t h e results of a r c h a e o l o g i c a l e x c a v a t i o n s . C e n t r a l o b j e c t s i n s u c h s t u d i e s a r e t h e r e c r u i t m e n t a n d t r a i n i n g of s h i p b u i l d e r s , t h e d i m e n s i o n s of w a r s h i p s , a r m a m e n t w e i g h t in p r o p o r t i o n t o d i s p l a c e m e n t , a n d t h e i n t e r a c t i o n b e t w e e n t h e d e c i s i o n - m a k e r s (king, a d m i r a l s , a n d a d m i n i s t r a t o r s ) a n d t h e s h i p w r i g h t s w h o b u i l t t h e ships. W i t h m o r e k n o w l e d g e of s u c h facts, w e c a n s t u d y t h e d e s i g n p r o c e s s , t h e develo p m e n t of n e w m e t h o d s f o r b u i l d i n g w a r s h i p s w i t h s t r o n g e r hulls, g r e a t e r s e a w o r t h i n e s s , a n d b e t t e r sailing qualities, a n d t h e i n f l u e n c e of timber supply on shipbuilding. This s e c t i o n is o n l y a b r i e f o v e r v i e w of o n e i m p o r t a n t a s p e c t of naval technology: the master shipwrights w h o were responsible for the c o n s t r u c t i o n of m a j o r w a r s h i p s . T h e i r o r i g i n a n d b a c k g r o u n d a r e of special i m p o r t a n c e as s h i p w r i g h t s f r o m d i f f e r e n t p a r t s of E u r o p e w e r e t r a i n e d i n d i f f e r e n t t r a d i t i o n s of h o w t o d e s i g n s h i p s a n d b u i l d hulls. It is o b v i o u s f r o m t h e s o u r c e s t h a t m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s w e r e t h e k e y p e r s o n s in n a v a l t e c h n o l o g y a n d t h a t t h e y , i n s p i t e of t h e i r n o t v e r y h i g h social p o s i t i o n , o f t e n w e r e i n close c o n t a c t w i t h d e c i s i o n - m a k ers o n t h e h i g h e s t level. B i o g r a p h i c a l i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e i r f a m i lies is i m p o r t a n t , b e c a u s e t h e t r a n s f e r of t e c h n i c a l k n o w - h o w b e t w e e n g e n e r a t i o n s o f t e n w a s a p a r t of f a m i l y strategies f o r p r o v i d i n g c a r e e r opportunities Rather m u c h has been written about a few Dutch- and English-born m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s of t h e 17th c e n t u r y , a b o u t t h e S h e l d o n f a m i l y a n d Fredrik H e n r i k (af) C h a p m a n . M o s t master shipwrights d u r i n g these t w o c e n t u r i e s , h o w e v e r , a r e little k n o w n . Several 1 6 t h - c e n t u r y m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s a r e k n o w n o n l y b y t h e i r first n a m e ( M a s t e r H a n s , M a s t e r

European rating system: Glete 1993, 80-86, 189-91, 208-10, 225, 260-61, 2 6 8 70, 278.

warships and naval strength

333

Jakob, etc.)> a n d it is difficult t o b e c e r t a i n a b o u t t h e i r i d e n t i t y a n d origin. H i e r e is n o lack of s o u r c e s f o r f u r t h e r s t u d i e s , f o r w a g e lists of s h i p w r i g h t s w o r k i n g f o r t h e k i n g a r e p r e s e r v e d s i n c e t h e 1520s. D e t a i l e d s t u d i e s of s u c h lists w o u l d p r o b a b l y reveal t h e c a r e e r p a t h s of m a n y senior and junior master shipwrights. Until detailed biographical i n f o r m a t i o n is available, o n l y s o m e p r e l i m i n a r y c o n c l u s i o n s c a n be m a d e . ' ' K i n g G u s t a v I's first k n o w n m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t w a s M a s t e r H a n s , w h o w o r k e d at t h e Stoclcholm y a r d u n t i l 1532.'*" H e w a s in c h a r g e of t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of Store Kravelen,

o n e of t h e largest w a r s h i p s in

E u r o p e at t h a t t i m e . I n 1533, M a s t e r H a n s w a s s u c c e e d e d b y J a k o b O l s s o n , w h o a r o u n d 1540 w a s r e p l a c e d b y J a k o b H e n r i k s s o n , p r o b a b l y identical w i t h t h e s h i p w r i g h t called J a k o b L a i c h o o r F i n s k e Jakob."" Jakob H e n r i k s s o n h a d b e e n a j u n i o r m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t f o r several years b e f o r e 1540 a n d m a y h a v e b e e n o n e of t h e m a n y s h i p w r i g h t s w h o w e r e r e c r u i t e d t o t h e y a r d f r o m F i n l a n d . H e c o n t i n u e d as t h e leading shipbuilder in S t o c k h o l m until a r o u n d

1557, w i t h

Master

H o l l i n g e r ( H o l g e r ) O l s s o n as his deputy."*^ A r o u n d 1 5 5 7 - 5 8 , c h a n g e s t o o k place. A n e w D u t c h m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t . M a s t e r A d r i a n o r A d r i a n H o l l a n d e r , b e c a m e t h e t e c h n i c a l l e a d e r at t h e S t o c k h o l m s h i p y a r d . M a s t e r H o l l i n g e r w e n t t o t h e n e w y a r d at B j o r k e n a s , n o r t h of K a l m a r , w h e r e h e b e c a m e r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of t w o m a j o r ships, i n c l u d i n g t h e g r e a t Mars,

b u i l t 1 5 6 1 - 6 3 . H e m u s t h a v e b e e n a n old

m a n b y t h e n , a n d h e is n o t m e n t i o n e d a f t e r 1564. A M a s t e r J a k o b a p p e a r e d at t h e s h i p y a r d at A b o in 1558, w h e r e u n t i l at least 1565 he was in c h a r g e of t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of several l a r g e warships."'' It is n o t k n o w n if h e is J a k o b H e n r i k s s o n , w h o h a d w o r k e d at Stoclcholm until 1557, b u t t h e t i m i n g of h i s a p p e a r a n c e a n d his p r o b a b l e f a m i l y

' ' Biographical information about master shipwrights up to 1634: Zettersten 1890, 243-319. It has been used in this section, although s o m e of it is erroneous. Hjalmar Borjesons samling, vol. 25, KrA, has a useful collection of notes about 17th- and 18thcentury master shipwrights. Master shipwrights 1527-1560: Gkte 1977, 105. '' GR 17, 4 6 3 - 6 4 (26/7 1545), where Gustav I donates a house in Stockliolm to the shipbuilder Jakob Laicho for his services. The n a m e Laicho is Finnish and he had a brother Erik Laicho in Abo in Finland. Hollinger or Holger Olsson was paid as one of the senior shipwrights f r o m at least 1533, Rantekammarbocker, RA. In 1540 the king gave h i m a house in Stockholm, GR 13, 50 (31/5-5/6 1540). H e sold it in 1564 SST, 11:3, 264. Accounts f r o m Abo castie, including the shipyard in K 340-41, RA; FRA 710 (1558), FRA 897, foL 64 (1561), FRA 991, fol. 45 (1564), FRA 1016, fols 51, 61 (1565).

334

c h a p t e r four

connections in Abo makes this plausible. A Master Jakob was also in charge of the construction of two large ships at Alvsborg in 1562-63. He is probably the same m a n who normally was at the Abo yard, considering that he is not k n o w n to have been in charge of any major s h i p b u i l d i n g t h e r e b e t w e e n m i d - 1 5 6 2 a n d 1564."''' Tlie c o n s t r u c t i o n of large w a r s h i p s ceased at Stocldiolm after 1562. F r o m 1563 until 1571, H e n r i k M a t s s o n was in c h a r g e of t h e m a i n s h i p y a r d , w h e r e h e led m a i n t e n a n c e a n d r e p a i r of t h e rapidly g r o w i n g force of w a r s h i p s . M a s t e r A d r i a n , w h o p r i m a r i l y was u s e d for i m p o r t a n t n e w c o n s t r u c t i o n w o r k s , m o v e d in 1562"*^ to the n e w y a r d at Vastervik, w h e r e until 1567 h e built t h r e e m a j o r w a r s h i p , c u l m i n a t i n g w i t h t h e great Neptunus ( r e n a m e d Rode Draken), l a u n c h e d in 1566. H e p r o b a b l y d i e d s o o n afterwards."*® A M a s t e r Sigfrid is m e n t i o n e d at t h e H e l s i n g f o r s y a r d in 1564 a n d was p r o b a b l y in c h a r g e of t h e t h r e e w a r s h i p s built t h e r e f r o m 1563 to 1566. M a s t e r Sigfrid, m e n t i o n e d at K a l m a r f r o m 1567 to 1575, is likely to have b e e n t h e s a m e m a n , b e c a u s e n e w c o n s t r u c t i o n at H e l s i n g f o r s ceased after 1566."'^ W i t h t h e e x c e p t i o n of M a s t e r A d r i a n , t h e n a t i o n a l i t y of t h e first gene r a t i o n s of Swedish m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s is n o t k n o w n f o r certain. Their n a m e s m a y be Swedish, N o r d i c , or G e r m a n . A G e r m a n s h i p b u i l d e r d o e s n o t necessarily m e a n a n i m m i g r a n t , b e c a u s e t h e r e h a d b e e n G e r m a n families c o n n e c t e d w i t h t r a d e a n d s h i p p i n g living in S w e d e n for g e n e r a t i o n s . G u s t a v I's policy s e e m s to h a v e b e e n t h a t skilled shipw r i g h t s w e r e t r a i n e d at his Stocldiolm y a r d to b e c o m e m a s t e r shipwrights. B o t h Jakob H e n r i k s s o n a n d H o l l i n g e r O l s s o n h a d served as d e p u t y m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s at S t o c k h o l m b e f o r e t h e y b e c a m e m a s t e r s . The large s h i p b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m s of t h e 1560s m u s t h a v e given several s h i p w r i g h t s o p p o r t u n i t i e s to l e a r n t h e t r a d e of a j u n i o r m a s t e r , a n d it is p r o b a b l e t h a t it was f r o m t h e m t h a t a n e w g e n e r a t i o n of m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s a p p e a r e d in t h e 1570s.

SH 8:8 (1562). Zettersten 1890, 269, suggests that Jakob at Alvsborg was Jakob Richter, but this was a well-kiiown builder of royal castles, who is unlikely to have been involved in shipbuilding. Adrian is listed as the most senior m e m b e r of the staff of the Stockholm yard in 1564, but he did not receive any salary there, SH 11:1, RA. His presence in Vastervik in 1562, Smalands handlingar 1562:2, RA. Adrian is m e n t i o n e d as dead in a list f r o m 1564 of senior office-holders, but that note is added later, Bestallningsregister 1564, RA. FRA 3245, fol. 6 (1564); Loningsregister, vols 14-15 (1567-70), vol. 16 (157475), RA; SH 26:4 (1571), RA.

warships and naval strength

335

W h e n t h e d e c e n t r a h s e d s h i p b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m s t a r t e d in 1572, a lack of m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s w a s r e p o r t e d , b u t b e c a u s e several s h i p s w e r e i n d e e d built, m e n w i t h t h e r e q u i r e d skills m u s t h a v e b e e n found.'*® N o r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m a b r o a d o r o u t s i d e t h e n a v y is visible in J o h a n I l l ' s m a n y letters a b o u t s h i p b u i l d i n g . C o n s e q u e n t l y , it is p r o b a b l e t h a t m o s t n e w m a s t e r s h a d w o r k e d u n d e r t h e o l d m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s in t h e 1550s a n d 1560s a n d l e a r n t t h e i r m e t h o d s of b u i l d i n g large, g u n - a r m e d , carvel-hulled w a r s h i p s . T h e r e is n o t r a c e of t h a t a n y of t h e m h a d b e e n sent a b r o a d t o s t u d y f o r e i g n t e c h n o l o g y . O u r p r e l i m i n a r y c o n c l u s i o n is t h a t t h e y c o n t i n u e d t o b u i l d in t h e t r a d i t i o n t h a t h a d d e v e l o p e d in S w e d e n u n d e r G u s t a v I a n d E r i k X I V a n d t h a t t h e y k n e w r a t h e r little a b o u t t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of w a r s h i p d e s i g n a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n o u t s i d e t h e Baltic r e g i o n . Bertil H e n r i k s s o n ,

Eskil J a k o b s s o n , M a t s

Roland,

and

Markus

M a t s s o n b e c a m e t h e l e a d i n g m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s in t h e 1570s. Bertil H e n r i k s s o n ( s o n of H e n r i k M a t s s o n ? ) b u i l t t h e largest s h i p of t h e 1570s, Smalands

Lejonet,

at V a s t e r v i k i n S m a l a n d . I n 1578 h e m o v e d

with t h e s h i p b u i l d e r s t o t h e n e w y a r d at D r a k e n a s in S m a l a n d , w h e r e he laid d o w n a g r e a t ship, later n a m e d Julius Caesar. H e d i e d in 1581."''' The o t h e r t h r e e s h i p w r i g h t s also led c o n s t r u c t i o n of large ships, a n d they w e r e m a s t e r s at Stoclcholm d u r i n g v a r i o u s years. M a r k u s M a t s s o n is m a i n l y k n o w n f r o m v a r i o u s y a r d s in F i n l a n d f r o m 1576 u n t i l 1604. Eskil J a k o b s s o n , p e r h a p s t h e s o n of o n e of t h e earlier m a s t e r s w i t h t h e n a m e Jakob, in 1 5 8 1 - 8 4 w a s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of t h e great s h i p at D r a k e n a s (Julius

Caesar),

w h i c h f r o m 1585 t o 1589 w a s

c o m p l e t e d b y J a k o b E r i k s s o n . M a t s R o l a n d ' s s e c o n d n a m e is u n u s u a l a n d m a y i n d i c a t e a f o r e i g n o r i g i n , b u t t h i s is u n c e r t a i n . ' " D u k e Karl e m p l o y e d Jens o r J o n s T o m m e s s o n as m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t at S t r a n g n a s f r o m at least 1575 t o 1577, w h e n t w o large w a r s h i p s

RR 10/4 1573, RA. In early 1574, Johan ordered a recruitment drive of both master shipwright and shipwrights in Finland, traditionally a region where the navy had recruited shipbuilders, RR 12/3 1574, RA. Bertil Henriksson's period at Vastervik and the year of his death, Kommenddrkapten L. L. von Horns biografiska anteckningar: 1. Officerare som tjenat vid orlogsflottan fore ar 1721, Orebro, 1927. Zettersten 1890, 243, 252 m e n t i o n s Mats Roland f r o m 1575 to 1585, and he appears as the only master shipwright at Stockholm a r o u n d 1579-80 (SH 37:4). However, he is also m e n t i o n e d as master shipwright at Bergshammarsvik 31/5 1594 in Proviantrakenskaper, Stockholm 1593-95, RA. Mats Roland m a y be identical with Mats Jonsson or perhaps Mats Persson, w h o were paid as master shipwrights in the 1590s,

336

c h a p t e r four

w e r e built. T h e spelling of this n a m e is D a n i s h . ' ' M a t s S i g f r i d s s o n w a s e m p l o y e d as m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t f r o m at least 1580. H e w a s in S t o c k h o l m f r o m 1588 a n d s e r v e d t h e r e u n t i l his d e a t h in 1601, a p p a r e n t l y as t h e s e n i o r m a s t e r in t h e 1590s. A n o t h e r m a s t e r at S t o c l d i o l m a n d S k o l d o s t e r f r o m 1588 t o 1599 w a s M a t s P e r s s o n . " E r i k A n d e r s s o n w a s m a s t e r at A l v k a r l e b y f r o m 1584 u n t i l 1589, f r o m 1 5 9 0 - 9 1 u n t i l 1594 at A l v s b o r g , a n d in 1595 at S t o c k h o l m . ' ^ T o m a s S i g f r i d s s o n w o r k e d m a i n l y in F i n l a n d f r o m 1588 u n t i l at least 1598, a n d h e m a y h a v e b e e n M a s t e r T o m a s , e m p l o y e d b y D u k e Karl at t h e N y k o p i n g y a r d f r o m 1581 t o 1587.^'' T h e n a m e S i g f r i d s s o n m a k e s it p o s s i b l e t h a t h e w a s a b r o t h e r t o M a t s S i g f r i d s s o n a n d t h a t t h e y (or o n e of t h e m ) w e r e s o n s of M a s t e r Sigfrid, k n o w n f r o m 1564 t o 1575. Tlie i n t e n s e s h i p b u i l d i n g , w h i c h s t a r t e d in 1592, r e q u i r e d several n e w m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s , a n d s o m e n e w n a m e s d o a p p e a r . O f these, E r i k M M e n s s o n s e r v e d as m a s t e r f r o m at least 1592 t o 1603.®' E r i k E s k i l s s o n (a s o n t o Eskil J a k o b s s o n ? ) is m e n t i o n e d f r o m 1595 a n d w a s m a s t e r at K a l m a r a n d B j o r k e n a s a r o u n d 1600. T h e s e m a s t e r s w e r e , as f a r as it is Icnown, of S w e d i s h o r i g i n , w i t h o n e i n t e r e s t i n g e x c e p t i o n : J o h a n C l a e s s o n f r o m E d a m in H o l l a n d , w h o w o r k e d at A l v s b o r g in t h e 1590s.'® A l r e a d y i n 1591, D u k e Karl h a d r e c r u i t e d a n E n g l i s h m a s t e r s h i p b u i l d e r , T h o m a s W a l t e r , w h o p r o b a b l y is t h e m a n later called M a s t e r T o m a s W o l l t e r in S w e d i s h s o u r c e s . M a s t e r T h o m a s w o r k e d f o r t h e d u k e , a n d it w a s h e w h o in 1 5 9 5 - 9 9 b u i l t t h e large Vasen

at

A s p o , n e a r Strangniis. H e c o n t i n u e d as m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t u n t i l his d e a t h in 1613 o r 1614, a f t e r 1600 u s u a l l y l e a d i n g s h i p b u i l d i n g n e a r

Sodermanlands handlingar 1575:3:1, fol. 194, 1577:13, RA. " Zettersten 1890, 243, 252, 262. " SH 41:7 (1584); SH 44:5 (1585-87); Loningsregister, vol. 5 (1589), all RA. Zettersten 1890, 270. Zettersten 1890, 252, but the career of Master T o m a s Sigfridsson f r o m 1596 to 1604 in Zettersten's biography is partly that of Master T o m a s Walter (Wollter). T o m a s skeppsbyggare, later Master Tomas, is m e n t i o n e d as D u k e Karl's master shipwright at Nykoping in V a r u h u s och handling, Nykoping, 1581, a n d in accounts for Nykoping Castle in Sodermanlands handlingar 1582, 1585:3, fol. 13, 1587:11.1, all RA. T o m a s Sigfridsson is last m e n t i o n e d as paid in Abo in 1598, SH 52:12, RA. " Zettersten 1890, 292, 288; SH 51:5, 52:2, RA. First m e n t i o n e d 29/9 1595, when he h a d built a ship for the king, Vastergotlands handlingar 1594:16 (kvittensregister 1594-97), RA. Johan Hollender, employed at Alvsborg in 1600-01, Vastergotlands handlingar 1600:1, 1600:3, 1601:3:1, RA, m a y b e the same m a n as Johan Claesson van Edam, because it is m e n t i o n e d that he earlier had buik the ship Svanen at Alvsborg, RR 22/4 1600, RA.

warships and naval strength

337

Vasteras.^^ T h e d u k e also h a d a j u n i o r s h i p w r i g h t w i t h t h e s a m e first n a m e , T o m a s N i l s s o n (also called Y o u n g M a s t e r T o m a s ) , w h o f r o m at l e a s t 1 5 9 9 is c a l l e d m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t . H e l e d s h i p b u i l d i n g o n

Aland,

at S t o c l d i o l m , a n d at V a s t e r v i k u n t i l 1618, b u t h e w a s t h e last S w e d i s h b o r n m a s t e r f o r several decades.'® In

1600, t h e D u t c h m a n

Isbrand

Johansson

and

the

Englishman

Robert Siwers (Robert Engelsman) were a p p o i n t e d master shipwrights, a n d in 1603 t h e D u t c h M a s t e r H e n r i k H y b e r t s s o n a p p e a r e d f o r t h e first t i m e . ' ' A l l t h r e e w e r e c h a r g e d w i t h t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f m a j o r w a r ships. F r o m

1602 until 1627, M a s t e r s I s b r a n d a n d H e n r i k

as s e n i o r m a s t e r a t t h e S t o c k h o l m y a r d , w h i c h

alternated

must have

become

a c c u s t o m e d to D u t c h s h i p b u i l d i n g m e t h o d s in these years. B o t h also s e r v e d at K a l m a r w h e n t h a t p o r t ( u n t i l 1 6 1 1 ) w a s a n i m p o r t a n t

naval

base, a n d I s b r a n d built several m a j o r s h i p s at A r n o a n d H a r b o v i k f r o m 1 6 1 2 u n t i l h i s d e a t h i n 1622.®° R o b e r t S i w e r s s e r v e d u n t i l 1614.®' T w o other m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s w e r e of Scottish origin: W i l l i a m R u t h v e n (in Swedish W e l l a m Rodvin), w h o served at v a r i o u s yards f r o m 1605 to

" Cederlund 1966, 45, 48. Master T o m a s (without a family name) is m e n t i o n e d at the duke's yards in Nykoping and at Aspo f r o m 1591 to 1598 in Sodernianlands h a n dhngar, Nykoping, V a r u h u s och handUng, Nykoping, and HKR, all RA. His later work at Stockholm, Vasteras, and Kungsor is recorded in the accounts for the Stockliolm yard from 1600 to 1608 (occasionally as T o m a s Wollter), SH, RA, in Vastmanlands handling 1605;4, fol. 46, RA, and in several letters in RR, for example RR 31/7 1605, RA. Master T o m a s was 28/11 1609 (RR, RA) ordered to build a ship at Rido, and Master T o m a s Wollter was master shipwright at Rido in 1612, V a s t m a n l a n d s h a n dlingar, 1611:17, RA and. This makes the identification of Master T o m a s and T o m a s Wollter almost certain. M A Hakan Jakobsson has f o u n d the information about Tomas Walter's arrival in Sweden and has m a d e the identification of h i m with T o m a s Wollter. Zettersten 1890, 253-54. Zettersten m e n t i o n s that he died in January 1614. T o m a s Nilsson has made an account for the Rido yard in 1614-15, SH 65:3, RA; in which a "Master T o m a s " is m e n t i o n e d as dead when it was reviewed in 1617. Master T o m a s Nilsson was however master shipwright at Vastervik f r o m 1615 to 1618, SH 64:4, 68:1, RA, and the accounts for Vastervik f r o m 1615 leave n o d o u b t that he was the same man who earlier had worked at Rido. The dead Master T o m a s was Master T o m a s Wollter. A Master T o m a s is m e n t i o n e d at Rido f r o m 1 September to 31 December 1614 in Vastmanlands handlingar, 1614:3, fol. 13, RA, but this m u s t be T o m a s Nilsson. Cf Cederlund 1966, 45-46. ® RR 30/7 and 3/8 1600, RA state that Robert a n d Isbrand were newly appointed master shipwrights. ™ Zettersten 1890, 243, 25354, 263, m u c h about H e n r i k Hybertsson in Cederlund 1966. " Zettersten 1890, 277, 289, 301, 307. Robert Sivers a n d Robert Engelsman is the same person, see SH 54:1, RA, where the master shipwright at Kungsor/Ulvsund, called Robert Siwers by Zettersten, is called Robert Engelsman.

338

c h a p t e r four

1613, a n d J a k o b Clerck, w h o b u i l t t w o s h i p s at S t e g e b o r g a n d K v a r s e b o in 1 6 0 6 - 1 6 0 8 . H e m a y h a v e b e e n r e l a t e d t o t h e C l e r c k f a m i l y , w h i c h later b e c a m e v e r y i m p o r t a n t in S w e d i s h n a v a l administration.*^^ By 1618, o n l y M a s t e r s I s b r a n d J o h a n s s o n a n d H e n r i k H y b e r t s s o n w e r e e m p l o y e d b y t h e n a v y f o r n e w c o n s t r u c t i o n , at H a r b o v i k a n d S t o c k l i o l m , respectively. T h e D u t c h - b o r n p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s w h o f r o m 1618 t o 1634 b u i l t several w a r s h i p s f o r t h e n a v y at V a s t e r v i k and Gothenburg most probably employed Dutch master shipwrights, b u t n o n a m e s a r e k n o w n . I n less t h a n t w o d e c a d e s , t h e d o m i n a n c e of Swedish-born and navy-trained master shipwrights had been changed i n t o a d o m i n a n c e of D u t c h m a s t e r s , w h o u s u a l l y c a m e t o S w e d e n as e x p e r i e n c e d specialists. This D u t c h d o m i n a n c e w a s t o c o n t i n u e f o r several d e c a d e s , a n d several D u t c h s h i p w r i g h t s w e r e also e m p l o y e d as a q u a l i f i e d w o r k f o r c e at S w e d i s h n a v a l y a r d s . This s h i f t c a n n o t be explained by a few foreigners w h o were unusually competent or by a s u d d e n lack of S w e d i s h - t r a i n e d m a s t e r s . T h e d e v e l o p m e n t w a s s i m i l a r in D e n m a r k , w h e r e t h e n a v y h a d b e g u n t o r e c r u i t E n g l i s h a n d Scottish s h i p b u i l d e r s in t h e 1570s. F r o m a r o u n d 1600, t h e y — e s p e c i a l l y t h e Scots—totally d o m i n a t e d naval construction. T h e s e parallel d e v e l o p m e n t s in t h e t w o N o r d i c n a v i e s c a n h a r d l y be a coincidence. The foreigners were recruited because they b r o u g h t in n e w t e c h n o l o g y . W e s t E u r o p e a n (British a n d D u t c h ) s h i p b u i l d i n g h a d d e v e l o p e d r a p i d l y in t h e later d e c a d e s of t h e 16th c e n t u r y a n d h a d left B a l t i c - N o r d i c (as well as S o u t h E u r o p e a n ) t e c h n o l o g y b e h i n d . O n e p a r t of t h a t s u p e r i o r i t y w a s a b e t t e r ability t o c o m b i n e a h e a v y l o a d of g u n s , c a r r i e d h i g h in t h e hull, w i t h g o o d sailing qualities. T h e fact t h a t t h e t w o w e l l - e s t a b l i s h e d N o r d i c n a v i e s w i t h several n a t i v e m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s b e c a m e d o m i n a t e d b y w e s t e r n m a s t e r s is s t r o n g e v i d e n c e t h a t W e s t e r n E u r o p e h a d m u c h t o offer t o a m b i t i o u s r u l e r s w i t h a navy. I n S w e d e n , t h e D u t c h t a k e o v e r of n a v a l s h i p b u i l d i n g w a s p a r t of a n i n f l o w of D u t c h t e c h n o l o g y , e n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p , a n d c a p i t a l t h a t , in c o o p e r a t i o n w i t h t h e S w e d i s h state, t r a n s f o r m e d i m p o r t a n t p a r t of S w e d e n ' s e c o n o m y . S w e d e n ' s n e w r u l e r f r o m 1598, D u k e K a r l / K a r l IX,

® Zettersten 1890, 255-57. William Robertsson Ruthveii was, according to Zettersten, a former cavalry captain, a n d he appears to have served as a shipyard supervisor rather than a master shipwright. In 1610-11, he was "admiral" in Gustav A d o l f s d u k e d o m in Viistmanland. However, he is explicitly called master shipwright in RR 20/10 1609, RA. lakob Clerck is, according to Zettersten, identical with the later admiral Rickard Clerck (dead in 1625), a surprising change of both n a m e and profession.

warships and naval strength

339

h a d m a n y e c o n o m i c c o n t a c t s w i t h W e s t e r n E u r o p e , a n d his p e r s o n a l role in b r i n g i n g in D u t c h a n d British m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s m u s t h a v e been i m p o r t a n t . " At his d e a t h in 1627, H e n r i k H y b e r t s s o n w a s f o r m a l l y n o l o n ger a royal m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t . H e w a s a p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r w h o , together with his half-brother, the m e r c h a n t A r e n t Hybetsson, ran the Stocldiolm s h i p y a r d a n d t h e m a i n t e n a n c e of t h e e n t i r e n a v y u n d e r a c o n t r a c t w i t h t h e king.®"* H i s d e p u t y H e i n ( H e n r i k ) J a k o b s s o n s u c c e e d e d h i m as m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , b u t n o t as a n e n t r e p r e n e u r . T h e late I s b r a n d J o h a n s s o n ' s s o n , J o h a n I s b r a n d s s o n , also s e r v e d as a j u n i o r m a s t e r u n t i l at least 1628. W h e n t h e n a v y f r o m 1629 c a n c e l l e d t h e contract, H e i n Jakobsson c o n t i n u e d to supervise n e w construction a n d m a i n t e n a n c e . H e r e t i r e d in 1638 a n d w a s s u c c e e d e d b y t h e

masterknekt

( m a s t e r k n i g h t o r assistant m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t ) at t h e Stocl-diolm y a r d . Evert (Sivert) H e i n s s o n o r H e n r i k s s o n , w h o m a y h a v e b e e n h i s son.*^' H e n r i k s s o n ' s s u c c e s s o r , J a k o b F l o r i s s o n , w a s r e c r u i t e d in 1643 d i r e c t l y f r o m t h e N e t h e r l a n d s , as w a s t h e n e x t m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t in S t o c k h o l m , Jakob d e V o s s , w h o c a m e in 1647 a n d s e r v e d at S t o c k h o l m u n t i l his d e a t h in 1665.® A n o t h e r D u t c h m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , G e r d t C r o o n , w a s recruited a r o u n d the same time, probably to increase the capacity for n e w c o n s t r u c t i o n of w a r s h i p s . H e first b u i l t s h i p s in W i s m a r a n d f r o m the early 1650s at t h e Stocl . .

462

c h a p t e r sEVEN

original rig for most of them is not recorded. It is known that a large captured ship, the Danish four-master Hercules (800 tonnes), had no topgallant masts when captured in 1563 but two such masts and two mizzen topmasts in 1566. It seems as if the Swedish navy regarded topgallant masts as standard on larger ships and added them to captured ships. Tliis change was an episode, however. From 1570 to the 1610s, no new ships were rigged with topgallant masts, although a few ships in active service had them for brief periods, perhaps on the initiative of their captains. Even the mizzen topmast, which some large ships had already in the mid-16th century, disappeared. The topgallant masts came back with some of the Dutch prizes taken in 1608-09, significantly with the Dutch-inspired names brammast and bramsegel, which since then have been the Swedish words for this part of the rig. In the 1610s and 1620s, a total change took place. All large and mediumsized ships now had topgallant masts on the main- and topmasts. A mizzen topmast with a sail (now called kryssegel) was added on the larger ships in the 1620s and was normal on three-mast ships (except the smallest) by the mid-17th century. A small mast with a small square-sail (the sprit topsail, in Swedish bovenblinda) was added to the bowsprit, apparently starting with large ships in the 1620s. By the 1650s (probably earher), a sprit topsail was standard on three-mast Swedish warships.^^ These changes in the 1610s and 1620s were part of the rising Dutch influence on Swedish naval technology; warships in these years were rigged according to the Dutch naval standard. The episode in the 1560s is different. The first ship with topgallant masts was built by Erik when he was a duke, and he may have tested new ideas on it. The rapid spread of topgallant masts in the 1560s and their sudden disappearance after the end of Erik XIV's reign in 1568 make it probable that they were one of his personal initiatives in naval technology. They can hardly have been failures—they were not removed on the ships which had them—but they apparently did not convince practical seamen and

SH 9:6, 15:2, RA. SH 62: 5, 63:2, 70:6, RA. In an undated m e m o r a n d u m f r o m 1624/5, the largest ships were listed with four or three bramsegel, which m u s t include kryssegel or bovenblinda or both, SH 70:6, RA. Vosen, rigged in 1627/8, had a sprit topsail: Sven Bengtsson in Schoerner 1997, 39. The spritsail in the 17th-century Swedish navy was variously called blinda, storblinda (great blinda), and vattublinda (water blinda).

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cost-conscious administrators that they were necessary. Maybe they were seldom used in practice. Until at least the 1620s, Swedish warships had no spare sails. None are listed in the inventories until 1611; the contracts about rigging from 1615-28 do not mention spare sails; and none were found on Vasen, rigged in 1627/8.^" The first sign of a changed policy is an instruction from February 1647 in which a ship on a long voyage (meaning apparently outside the Baltic) should have two foresails, two main topsails, and two fore topsails, that is, three spare sails.'' In 1649, "double sails" are mentioned on some ships, and in a tabulated inventory of sails from 1656, it is obvious that the ships are intended to have two main and fore sails, two main and fore topsails, and two mizzen sails; that is, one spare sail for each of the five largest and most important sails. In a summary of inventories for cables and sails from 1664, this is an established practice. No spares were required for topgallant sails, the mizzen topsail, the spritsail, and the sprit topsail. Sometime in the 1670s, the ambition to have a spare mainsail was abandoned, but it reappeared in 1687 and became standard. After 1700, even more spare sails were introduced. The ambition was now to have spares for every sail, although that was not fully achieved before 1721. From the 1680s, the rig plan underwent further changes. At least from the 167Gs, stay-sails (sails fitted on the stays between the masts) began to appear in the inventories, first on small cruising warships. They were gradually also fitted on larger ships, and in the early 18th century, all ships had several stay-sails fitted on the stays between bowsprit and foremast and on the stays forward of the mainmast. Swedish sail plans also underwent a somewhat surprising change in the late 17th century, when the main and fore topgallant masts and their sails disappeared from practically all ships, only to be reintroduced as standard early in the 18th century. By 1720, all three-mast ships, except the largest (three-deckers) and the smallest cruisers, had them. W h y they were deleted f r o m the inventories in a period when the navy could afford to spend lavishly on its rigging is not known. It shows that topgallant

Vasen had six sails u n d e r deck when it sank. It has been f o u n d that they were the sails which was not in use when the ship sank: Sven Bengtsson in Schoerner 1997, 39. " AK registratur 9/3 1647, KrA, for the captain of Jdgaren, a ship about to be sold to France. The detailed inventory is listed in Zettersten 1903, 309, although erroneously dated to 9/2 1647.

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sails had not proven important in practice, while stay-sails were seen as useful. In the early 18th century, the sprit topsail and its little mast disappeared. The new stay-sails probably made them unnecessary for manoeuvrability, which had been the main purpose of setting a square sail as far forward as possible. Already in the early 16th century, most major warships had four anchors and four anchor cables.'^ Smaller ships had three anchors and the smallest ships had two. Galleys normally had two anchors, and small craft often had only one anchor. This remained unchanged until at least the 1620s. In 1647, a ship of a size which earher would have had three anchors and three anchor cables was provided with four anchors and five cables." In 1664, a markedly increased outfit of anchor cables is listed in a summary of what the ships had and what they ought to have. The largest ships (over 1,000 tonnes) should have six cables; other major warships five or four; and the smallest ships and minor vessels three cables. Four heavy anchors were regarded as sufficient for large ships in the latter half of the 17th century, but they should now have five or six heavy anchor cables. The simultaneous increase in the number of anchor cables and the introduction of spare sails must be part of the same policy. Its aim must have been to keep ships operational during longer periods at a distance from their base. Spares for the three, four, or five largest sails gave increased safety and mobility. A lost or damaged sail could be replaced at sea, and sails could continuously be taken down to deck and repaired if there were spares. Similarly, more anchors and cables increased safety and made the fleet less dependent on its base. The new policy seems to be the result of experience of extended operations in the southern Baltic, far from the Stocldrolm yard. These experiences were gained in the 1620s and 1630s, when naval squadrons were deployed to the German coast f r o m spring to autumn. If that was not enough, the war with Denmark in 1643-45, especially battle damages in 1644 and damage to rigs during the intense summer gales in 1645, must have provided lessons. Spare parts were now regarded

An exception is the great ship Store Kravelen (1528/30, 1,800 tonnes), which had seven anchors in 1531, Fogdarnas rakenskaper 1529-1533, f o l 799, RA; six in 1544, SH 1:5, RA; but only four in 1552, SMHF 1:10, RA. AK registratur 9/3 1647, KrA. ^^ M 1762, RA.

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to be worth their cost. It was an expensive policy, however, and it colHded with other urgent requirements. Hie sources for this chapter's survey of Swedish sail, cordage, and cable policy are primarily inventories of ships and accounts from naval yards. Accounts must have been prepared every year, but far from all are preserved. For the Stocldiolm yards, accounts are preserved for 1526-31, 1541, 1543-47, and for most years from 1555 to the 1610s.'® In the following century, increasingly detailed and voluminous accounts have survived, but only from 18 years.'® The many 16th-century accounts are less detailed, but they show how much raw material, semi-finished products, and fittings the yard had in store at the beginning and end of the year, how much material the yard received during the year, how it was used to produce cables, sails, etc., and which fittings were distributed to each ship. It is possible, especially for the 16th century, that reserves of h e m p and sailcloth also existed at minor shipyards and within the king's trading organisation. The Stocldiolm shipyard accounts only show a m i n i m u m level of what was available. It is not likely that detailed inventories of every ship were prepared every year. More or less complete inventories exist from 1526, 1531, 1544 and 1552, 1556 to 1558, 1566 (updated in 1567), and 1568. The naval accounts are well preserved f r o m 1526-31, the 1540s, and after 1554, so it is unlikely that many inventories have been lost. Staring in 1573, an inventory of the entire navy was prepared every year (Skeppsrullan), which probably reflects a more ambitious administration connected with the new office of deputy admiral {underamiral). In the early 1590s, these centrally prepared inventories become thinner, as several warships were in Finland, under the control of the overamiral Klas Fleming but beyond the central administration controlled by Duke Karl. The inventories (and their absence) are visible evidence of

Shipyard accounts for 1526^31, Fogdarnas rakenskaper 1529-1533, fols 789-858, RA; later accounts until 1640 in Skeppsgardshandlingar, RA, supplemented by Strodda Militiehandlingar fore 1631, Flottan, RA. Tackelrakningar in OR 1634:2, 1650:4, 1651:4, 1656:4, 1657:4, 1658:4, 1659:5, 1663:4, 1670:4, 1679:6, 1693:11, 1707:17, 1708:19, 1709:19, 1710:24, 1716:14, 1719:23, 1720:20-21. They gradually grow f r o m a few h u n d r e d to thousands of pages. Surviving draft accounts for several years f r o m 1655 to 1673 are in AK, Varvskontoret, GVIa, vols 1 - 2 , KrA, although some are incomplete.

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how central administration weakened under the pressure of the rising internal conflict in the state." Duke Karl, from 1604 King Karl IX, did not re-introduce yearly inventories, and only a few, normally incomplete inventories of ships are preserved from his reign (1598-1600, 1603, 1610-11). Inventories were probably not made by the navy in the period 1615 to 1628, when the outfitting of warships was contracted to members of the Clerck family. The contracts did not state that such inventories should be kept, and none are preserved, although the contracts themselves provide new information about rigging. For later years, most of the central naval accounts were destroyed in the 19th century. Fortunately, very detailed inventories of ships from 1677 and later years have survived in the archives of the Karlskrona naval yard, although with gaps for several years."* For several years in the 17th century (1647-50, 1654-56, 1664, 1666, 1670, 1671, 1674, 1678, 1683-87), sources exist which were prepared to estimate lack of fittings rather than the total inventories, often in connection with preparation of stater (budgets) for the navy. They are useful both because they have information about the condition of the navy's fittings, and also because they are vestiges of a decision-making process wherein lack of sails, cables, and cordage were sufficiently important to be discussed at the highest political level.^'

" Inventories f r o m a u t u m n 1526 and 1/3 1531, Fogdarnas rakenskaper 1529-1533, fols 850-858, 797-804; inventory 1544, SH 1:5, with a reference to an earlier, n o w lost, inventory, gatnla rullan; inventory 8/11 1552, SMHF 1:10; inventory 1556, SH 4:4; inventory 1557, SH 4:8; inventory 1558, S M H F 1:17; inventory for ships at Kalmar a n d Bjorkeniis in 1560, SH 6:3; inventory of Duke Johan's ships at Abo in 1561, K 341; inventory of captured Danish ships 1563, SH 9:8; inventory 1566 Stockholm (updated to 1567), SH 15:2; accounts for Kalmar 1566, SH 15:5; for 1568, SH 22:3; accounts of inventories for 1568 to 18/5 1573, SH 28:1; inventories f r o m 1573 to 1593 in SH, almost every year, most of the 1578 inventory is lost and that for 1588 is severely damaged, all RA. There are separate inventories for ships at Kalmar/Bjorkeniis in the accounts for that yard f r o m 1579 until 1594 in SH, RA. AK, Varvskontoret, Inventarieforteckningar for fartyg, DVIa, 1677-1767, KrA. ' ' Summaries of yearly surveys of ships in AK, Varvskontoret, F VI, vol. 1 (1647, 1648, 1650, 1654-56); inventory book of sails and cables for 1670, with dimensions of most sails, AK, Varvskontoret, D VIb; list of deficiencies, NNS, II, 12a ( s u m m a r y of yearly survey of ships 1/12 1649), 157 (21/12 1671), 160 (23/11 1674), 168:1 (16/10 1678), all KrA; sail inventory, December 1654; Extrakt over tag, kablar, segel ochflaggor... 1664; list of deficiencies 1666, all in M 1761, RA. Inventories f r o m 1683-87, AK, Varvskontoret, JIV, vol. 7, KrA and M 1762, RA.

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6.4

Growing royal administration,

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1521-1590

Tlie earliest sails, cables, rigs, and equipment for the new royal navy were bought with the ships f r o m Lubeck, Stralsund, and Danzig. From 1523, the new ruler, Gustav I, began to develop an infrastructure to support his ships. He did not start entirely from scratch. Earlier regents and /«n-holders had owned some ships and had maintained them at the castles. There were a few ship-owners in Stocldiolm, and the city was a major Baltic port where visiting cargo carriers must have developed at least a small market for repair and supply of sails, anchors, cordage, and other equipment essential for shipping. Gustav's much-increased naval ambitions, however, were a challenge to his early shipyard administrators, who had little experience of rigging and equipping the large ships which the new king began to build. The earliest yard accounts from 1526-31 show that the king's blacksmiths could produce anchors but that h e m p was imported for the ships' running and standing rigging and cables. Ropes and cables could be made at the Stockholm yard, although at least one anchor cable was imported from Lubeck and yarn {kabelgarn) was imported from Reval. Sailcloth {Idrft) was available from domestic resources, but sailcloth of higher quality was imported from Holland. The king's own ships transported many of these imported goods, and at least once (Bjornen's voyage to Lubeck in 1530), a visit to a major foreign port was also used to buy a new sail and other fittings to the ship. Part of the rigging to the great Store Kravelen, built at Stockholm in the late 1520s, was ready at the yard by March 1531, but this ambitious project could not be completed with domestic resources.''" In 1531-32, a major crisis arose, when Christian II returned with a fleet and an army to Norway and an intervention f r o m Habsburg Netherlands looked possible. In spring 1532, Frederik I of Denmark asked Gustav to send his fleet with his new great ship to the Sound to fulfil his alliance obligations. Gustav had to admit that the great ship could not come because it lacked sails and cables."*' In April 1532, the king sent the Stockholm burgher Olof Eriksson and the German-born Clement Renszel, two of his earliest naval administrators, to Danzig

40

Fogdarnas rakenskaper 1529-1533, fols 793-819, 834-840, 850-858, RA; marstrom 1956, 440-41. GR 8, 71-72 (1/5 1532).

Ham-

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with a list of what should be bought for Store Kravelen: sails, cables, parts of the rig, and 50 or 60 skeppund (8,5 to 10,2 tonnes) of yarn. It should be paid for with exported Swedish butter, silver sent with Eriksson and Renszel, and, if necessary, a loan from the Danzig burghers. The king's navy was evidently not yet self-sufficient in essential products."*^ There are no accounts preserved for the Stockholm shipyard from 1532 to 1540. It is evident, however, that the king's ability to produce sails, cables, and cordage for his increasing navy must have improved rapidly, as these products do not appear as bottlenecks during the war with Liibeck in 1534-36. It is possible that captures of naval store on enemy merchant ships made the supply easier, but cables, cordage, and sails must have been made by the king's administration.''^ In the accounts from the Stoclcholm yard from 1541 and 1543-47, a more mature administration is obvious. Russian hemp was still imported, mainly through Viborg and Reval, but semi-finished yarn as well cables and ropes were made by the navy's ropewalk. Sails were made at the yard from domestic and imported semi-finished products, sailcloth, and pack-thread (segelgarn). Domestic production of sailcloth was concentrated in the northern flax-producing province of Halsingland {hdlsingeldrft), but sailcloth of higher quality was imported from Holland and Baltic cities."" This basic structure changed little for many decades. The 1530s appear as the decisive period during which the king made his naval policy sufficiently independent of foreign competencies. He was now able to support a major navy during a major war, and he had turned Stockholm into a new centre of naval power and power projection in the Baltic. The only preserved inventory from the 1540s, that of 1544, shows a navy with few deficiencies, and the yard accounts from the 1540s show a fairly good reserve of sailcloth and hemp. The next inventory, of 8 November 1552, shows that the navy's largest ship. Store Kravelen (1,800 tonnes), lacked all sails and most of its cables. It

GR 8, 6 4 - 6 7 (6/4, 7/4 1532). Hammarstrom 1956, 450-64, The evidence that sails, cables, and rigging was no bottle-neck is that all Swedish warships were at sea in 1535-36 and that the king's letters in the years 1534-36 have m u c h to say about lack of m e n but not of naval stores. R a n t e k a m m a r b o c k e r f r o m the 1530s may provide m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n about the development of the infrastructure at the Stockholm yard in the 1530s. These questions are studied by MA Dan Johansson, Stockholm University. « SH 1:1 (1541), 1:4 (1543), 1:5 (1544), 2:2 (1545), 2:4 (1546), 2:6-7 (1547), RA.

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was now near the end of its life and was probably broken up by 1554. Otherwise, most ships had more or less complete inventories, except the old Falken (300 tonnes) of 1531. In the inventories from 1556-58, it is striking that the navy's largest ship, the new Store Kravelen (1,200 tonnes, launched 1555) is not even mentioned, while the second largest ship, Lejonet (c. 1,000 tonnes), had serious deficiencies, even though it had inherited a large cable from the old Store Kravelen. Otherwise, the ships and the many galleys had more or less complete inventories, and Falken had been refitted. The war with Russia (1555-57) had resulted in a low priority for large ships but the smaller were required for operational service and kept in good order."*^ There are no further complete inventories until 1566 but the yearly shipyard accounts show that major efforts were made from 1559 to bring the largest ships into operational condition. Lejonet and Angeln sailed to England in 1559, the new Elefanten (ex Store Kravelen 11) went to sea in 1560, as did Duke Erik's St Erik f r o m Kalmar and Duke Johan's Finske Svanen from Abo. From 1559, an intense production of cables started at the Stockholm yard, and many ships received new cables.'*'^ The production of sails, cables, rigging, anchors, and other equipment dimensioned for large ships was evidently no bottleneck for a rapid expansion of the number of such ships or for intense war efforts. From 1560, most ships of the navy were in active service, and from 1563, all warships and many transports and storeships were commissioned for war service. All ships that could float were at sea, and it was provisions and the health of the crew that limited operations. In a few years, Europe's largest sailing navy was created with Stocldiolm as its centre for outfitting.''^ The source of all this material is far f r o m obvious. Domestic resources of production of sailcloth, perhaps especially in Finland, was mobilised; much hemp and some sailcloth was bought from Russia; and

« SH 1:5 (1544), S M H F 1:10 (1552), SH 4:4 (1556), 4:8 (1557), 1:17 (1558), RA, Cable p r o d u c t i o n and rigging at Stockholm in 1559, SH 5:6; at Kalmar in 1560, SH 6:3; at Abo in 1560-62, K 341, RA. The shipyard clerk {skeppsgardsskrivare) T o m a s Ravalsson's accounts of material and equipment at the Stockholm yard and its distribution to ships maintained at the yard, SH 6:1-2 (1560), 7:1-2 (1561), 8:1-4 (1562), SH 9:1 (fragment, 1563), 9:2 (damaged, 1563), S M H F 1:21-22 (1563), S M H F 2:2 (fragment, 1564), SH 12:2 (1565), SH 15:1 (1566), SH 18:2 (1567), SH 20:1 (1568), SH 23:2 (1569), SH 24:1 and 24:11 (1570), SH 28:1-3 (1569-73). Similar accounts for Kalmar, SH 6:3 (1560), SH 8:7 (1562), 15:7 (1566), SH 23:5 (1569), all RA. Tliere are m o r e in local accounts for Finland up to a r o u n d 1565 in K 341, RA, and in Aldre riikenskapsserien, FRA,

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many naval stores were captured from enemy merchantmen that tried to break the Swedish blockade in the Gulf of Finland. The importance of German and West European sailcloth for the Swedish navy in this war has not been investigated, but in any case it is clear that its operational performance, at least after 1564, was not limited by lack of such products due to enemy blockade."*^ This picture is confirmed by the inventories made in 1566 (updated during 1567) and October 1568 (updated until 1573). The muchincreased navy had a fairly complete inventory of anchor, cables, sails, and rigging. Fittings that were lost, damaged, and worn out must have been replaced quicWy. After 1566, the increasing financial difficulties began to create problems, but they were solved."'' In 1570, nearly all ships served at sea, and until the end of the war with Denmark and Liibeck, even old warships retained their cables, rigs, sails, and anchors until the hulls were no longer sea-going. A navy of around 20,000 tonnes of warships and a few thousand tonnes of storeships was kept operational until the end of the war. The capacity to produce anchors, cables, sails, and various parts of the rigging must have been much expanded, because the navy been much smaller before 1560. The end of the great naval war in late 1570 abruptly ended the flow of resources to the navy.'° The major warships were laid up, and several ships were sold, given away, or discarded. Much of the rigging of the larger ships was worn out and had to be discarded in the 1570s. The inventory prepared in May 1573 shows a mixed picture. Some

Accounts of capUired goods 1562-70, Kaperirakenskaper, RA, vols 1 - 6 . Examples of Erik XIV's efforts to raise resources in his letters in RR, RA: 2/2 1564, buy as m u c h larft (sailcloth) in Finland a possible to replace buldan and kanfas (imported high-quality sailcloth); 4/11 1564 (2 letters), the local administration in Finland is ordered to buy 8,000 alnar vadmal and 12,000 alnar larft; c.20/11 1564, order to Jakob Henriksson to buy all h e m p there are at Narva; 29/3 1565, 200 skeppund h e m p bought by Jakob Henriksson; c.28/4 1565, buy sailcloth f r o m Russian merchants; 18/7 1565, buy high-quality sailcloth on an English m e r c h a n t m a n at Stockholm; 19/8 1566, tax in h e m p to be raised in Finland. Inventories, SH 15:2 (Stockliolm 1566), 15:5 (Kalmar 1566), 22:3 (Kalmar 1568), 24:9 (Viborg 1570), 28:1 (Stockholm 1568 to 18/5 1573), all RA. A m e m o r a n d u m f r o m 1569 shows that the three large ships Neptunus (later Rode Draken), Valen, and Tantheijen, completed in 1566-67, still required 250 skeppund h e m p for new cables. Kampen, completed in 1569, required m u c h h e m p , tar, and sailcloth, but the requirem e n t listed for that ship is too large and m u s t refer to requirements for several ships, SH 28:2, RA. Uiese ships were at sea in 1570. The yearly inventories (Skeppsrullan) f r o m 1568-73 to 1593 in SH, RA, provide information about rigging, cables, sails, etc. for individual ships.

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large ships (Rode Draken, Hector, St Christoffer) had a fairly complete inventory in good condition while others [Valen, St Erik, Kdmpen, Tantheijen) had serious deficiencies or much old and worn out rigging.^' Medium-sized and small warships were generally better fitted, and most of them were in service. In 1574, when the international situation was threatening, the cost to commission five of the largest ships (except the two largest, Rode Draken and Valen) was investigated. The Stockliolm shipyard could report numerous deficiencies in rigging, sails, and cables for the five ships. A total refit would require 362 skeppund hemp (including 11 new anchor cables) and 10,700 alnar sailcloth.^^ Eventually only the smallest, St Christoffer was refitted and commissioned for active service. The decline in effective naval strength over just a few years after 1570 was dramatic, obviously a result of several years of intense operations during the war. Because the major ships were laid up at Skeppsholmen, probably with most of their rigs dismantled, deficiencies were not visible to observers, and the navy's nominal strength was demonstrated in the number of large hulls. From 1570, Sweden fought a long war with Russia where only ships of 300 tonnes and less were used to blockade Narva and support the army. They required constant refits and re-equipment, and in this situation, sails and cordage to major warships did not receive much priority. From 1573 to 1577, the deterioration of the existing large ships continued, but the navy in these years also was increased by a large new construction program. From 1575 to 1579, nine newly built or purchased major warships, seven of them of 700 to 1,100 tonnes, arrived at Stocldiolm with provisional lower mast rigs and a few (often old) cables. The yard was to provide them with a complete outfit of cables, sails, and rigging. Efforts were also made to refit a few of the five surviving older large warships (600 to 2,000 tonnes). Much h e m p was captured during the Narva blockade until 1581 and was used both to maintain the blockading fleet and to fit out new ships." It was far f r o m sufficient, however. The king had already built the new ships by taxing

S H 2 8 : 1 and 29:3, RA. ^^ AR 1574/13, KrA. The total cost of anchors, cables, rigging, and sails of one ship, Kampen (900 tonnes), was calculated to 3,781 daler or a r o u n d 4 daler/toimes. ^^ Kaperirakenskaper, vols 6 - 7 , RA; accounts of h o w c.295 skeppund h e m p captured in 1579 was used by the navy in SH 36:11, RA; the king orders that 100 skeppund captured h e m p should be used by the navy, RR 15/1 1575, RA.

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the peasants, who supplied timber, provisions, and unskilled labour, and he now asked them to supply stores for outfitting the ships. In 1576 and 1577, extra taxes of hemp and sailcloth {liirft and vadmal) were raised, with the explicit purpose of outfitting the king's warships. The 1577 tax was large and was intended to bring in 76 skeppund hemp from the towns and 353 skeppund of hemp, 16,970 ulnar vadmal, and 9,040 alnar Idrft from the countryside.^"' Hiis tax was probably intended to be paid throughout more than one year, and it was not fully paid by September 1578. The inventory at the Stocldiolm yard at the beginning of 1578 was nevertheless large: 222 skeppund hemp and yarn and more than 26,000 alnar sailcloth, all domestic Idrji and vadmal. One year later there were 173 skeppund hemp and more than 30,000 alnar sailcloth, and at the end of 1579 there were 698 skeppund of h e m p and 7,450 alnar sailcloth.®' This inflow of material was sufficient to provide several large ships with their rigs, sails and cables, and the output from the rope-makers and sail-makers in these years was impressive. By 1580, the new large ships Smdlands Lejonet, Angeln, Algen,^^ and Hjorten and the two new medium-sized ships Renen and Angermannen were outfitted with more or less complete inventories, as had the old large ships Hector and (probably) Kdmpen. The medium-sized Duvan, Svanen, and Bjdrnen and most of the smaller warships were in good condition, many of them in active war service. In contrast. Rode Draken, the navy's largest ship, had serious deficiencies, as had St Kristoffer. The navy's oldest ship, St Erik (1559), now lacked most of its fittings, except the sails. The new large ship Upplands Lejonet and the two purchased large ships Stjdrnan and Viborgs Morianen had only their lower mast riggings and were still not serviceable. The two former were never made ready for service at sea, and the latter only when it was sold in 1583. Duke Karl's two large warships Elefanten and Lejonet, built at Strangniis in 1574-77, had by 1579 not received their rigging or cables.®^ Johan Ill's effort to fit out warships in the late 1570s was impressive and compares well with what was achieved in the first half of

RR 30/1 and 8/2 1576, 3/2, 13/2 and 29/3 1577, 23/9 1578, RA. " SH 34:3, 35:3, 37:6, 38:8, 40:6, RA, show large inflow and c o n s u m p t i o n of hemp, larft and vadmal 1577-83. Algen was loaned to m e r c h a n t s in 1579 for a voyage to Western Europe. It suffered damage d u r i n g that voyage a n d in 1580 had an incomplete rig, SH 37:8, RA. " HKR 29/5, 29/9 1579, RA.

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the 1560s under more favourable financial conditions. From 1580, detente with Denmark made further increases in the effective force of large ships less urgent. The large inventory of hemp was used up in the production of cables and rigging and was kept at a low level after 1582. The new Alvsborg Skeppet was made ready for sea in the early 1580s, to a large extent by stripping Kampen and Algen of their rigging and cables. The new Raumo Kravelen and Bjdrneborgs Kravelen had received more or less complete fittings by 1582, but already from the mid-1580s they were gradually stripped of parts of their rigging and all their cables. The fittings of several large ships were again gradually aging, and serviceable cordage, cables, and sails were often transferred to other ships. Several major ships were also sold or broken up in the 1580s. The reduction of the inventory of cables, sails, and rigging for large ships was a part of a general reduction and restructuring of the navy. By 1590, the navy's force of major warships ready for sea service was down to Smdlands Lejonet (1,100 tonnes) and Angeln (700 tonnes), which were sold to merchants in 1591 and 1590 respectively, and Svanen (300 tonnes). Rode Draken, Upplands Lejonet, and Renen were being stripped of their remaining rigs preliminary to their being broken up, while Alvsborgs Skeppet, Raumo Kravelen, and Bjdrneborgs Kravelen had great deficiencies in their inventories, especially cables. Two new ships, the giant Drakends (or Monsterds) Skeppet and the large Alvkarlehy Skeppet, arrived at Stockholm in 1589 with provisional lower rigs and cables inherited f r o m old ships but far f r o m fully fitted for service. A few ships could have been made serviceable quickly by stripping the others of their fittings, but the navy's readiness to fight a battle fleet war had declined dramatically. In 1588, an extra tax for hemp and sailcloth was raised for the reason that the king's daughter Anna was to make a voyage to her brother Sigismund in Poland, which required that the ships be fitted out with rigging and sails. This reason was in accord with traditional conventions between the ruler and his subjects, who were supposed to provide gifts to the royal family on special occasions.^'

Instructions to local bailiffs in Sweden (not including Finland) to raise an extra tax for the purchase of h e m p and sailcloth for the navy motivated by the requirements for a voyage by the king's sister to Poland, RR 5/3 1588, RA; the extra tax had provided m o n e y for the purchase of 80 skeppund h e m p , RR 11/3 1589, RA, The tax

474

c h a p t e r sEVEN

The other side of this picture is that the force of m i n o r warships was m u c h increased in the 1580s and that a generally satisfactory inventory of sails, cables, and rigging was maintained. The n u m b e r of m i n o r warships (less than 300 tonnes) was kept at a r o u n d 20 units in this decade, and a r o u n d 25 galleys and a large n u m b e r of small craft {lodjor) were built. These vessels were fitted out when completed, partly by extra taxes which also were used to build them. Nearly all were ready when the war with Russia started again in 1590.^' The reduction of the force of serviceable m a j o r warships and the increase of the n u m b e r of m i n o r vessels reflected Johan Ill's political priorities: friendly relations with D e n m a r k and offensive operations in the Gulf of Finland and the great lakes and rivers on the borders to Russia. The centrally kept naval inventories do not give the whole picture, however. They did not include warships owned by m e m b e r s of the royal family other than the king, and as a consequence they underestimated the n u m b e r of large Swedish warships in serviceable condition. From the mid-1580s, an increasing n u m b e r of the largest Swedish warships were fitted out as armed m e r c h a n t m e n for trade with Western Europe. W h e n the Halsinge Lejonet was completed in 1585, it was taken over by Duke Sigismund for mercantile ventures, and in 1586-88, Duke Karl finally fitted out his two "great ships" Elefanten and Lejonet and sent t h e m out to trade.*^" Queen Gunilla Bielke took over Alvsborgs Skeppet in 1591 and refitted it for mercantile purposes. In 1590, the dveramiral Klas Fleming and the D u t c h m e r c h a n t Marten Simonsson received the new Alvkarleby Skeppet. It is probable that this was one of the three m a j o r ships, Finske Lejonet, Hjorten, and Hinden, which were owned by Fleming and served in the fleet that brought Sigismund f r o m Poland to Sweden in 1593. These warships, with fittings probably suited for long-distance voyages, would have been available if a mobihsation for a battle fleet war had been necessary.

was probably not raised in Finland because that part of the k i n g d o m paid extra taxes to build galleys and lodjor. Taxes for the construction of galleys and lodjor in Finland and their sails and rigging has not been studied here, but there are sources in SMHF 5:12, SH 40:11, 46:1, 46:3, 47:2, 47:6 a n d 48:6, RA, and probably in Aldre Rakenskapsserien, FRA. ® Cordage and sailcloth for Elefanten and Lejonet ordered in 1586, S M H F 5:8, RA.

cordage and canvas: f i t t i n g o u t t h e navy

6.5

Expansion and crisis,

475

1591-1614

From around 1590, Duke Karl began to take control of the administration of the navy as well as other parts of the Swedish state. Johan Ill's health was declining, and the heir to the throne, Sigismund, was king of Poland. A plan for material to fit out the navy in 1591—and the regions in which they should be raised, possibly by extra taxes—was approved by Duke Karl on 17 December, 1590. It included 300 skeppund hemp and 50,000 alnar sailcloth of unspecified quality.®' nhe large new construction program initiated in 1591-92 was also the start of an intense program of producing cables; sails, rigging, and anchors. The sources are incomplete, but they leave no doubt that the new ships built in the 1590s were equipped for service at sea soon after they were completed.® Part of their rigging was imported.®^ The mobilisations of the navy for the civil war in 1598 and 1599 were, by a wide margin, the largest since 1570. The inventories of most of the navy prepared in late 1599 show a new reality in the Baltic Sea, where a much-increased Swedish navy had a fairly satisfactory inventory of anchors, cables, rigs, and sails. Some sails were damaged by weather, the number of thick cables was at the m i n i m u m level, and four of the seven ships taken in Finland in 1599 by Duke Karl's forces were incompletely fitted. That may reflect difficulties that Sigismund's adherents had experienced when they had to maintain ships without support from Stockholm. The navy's largest ship, Julius Caesar (ex Drakends/Monster as Skeppet), had been extensively repaired in 1599 but had still not received a complete rig, sails or cables.'^'* The total force of warships fit for sea service, however, was at least as large as in the peak years in the 1560s. The 1590s had obviously been a period of intense work for navy's rope-makers, sail-makers, and rig-makers, even if that is only fragmentarily reflected in the accounts.

" SMHF 5:18, RA, Shipyard accounts f r o m Stockholm a n d Kahnar 1593-1614 and f r o m several other yards in SH, RA, accounts f r o m the shipyard at Nykoping in Sodermanlands handlingar, accounts f r o m the shipyard in Vastergotlands handlingar, Alvsborg, RA. An undated (c.l594) list of e q u i p m e n t required for six new ships, including 400 skeppund h e m p , S M H F 6:7, RA, is one of the few surviving d o c u m e n t s of planning f r o m the years 1594-98. HKR 4/2 1595, RA. " SH 53:6, RA.

476

c h a p t e r sEVEN

After 1593, the system for control of the every ship's cables, sails, rig, anchors, and cooking utensils, which had been introduced in the early 1570s, broke down u n d e r the pressure of conflicts between Duke Karl and the dveramiral Klas Fleming. Fleming did not send accounts of ships u n d e r his control to a Treasury controlled by Karl, and the central accounting lost track of them. Karl's naval administrators often were probably too busy bringing resources to sea to keep detailed accounts of what they did. The legality of their actions would, in any case, depend on the political outcome of the civil war, not on wellprepared accounts with full documentation about h o w they raised and spent resources. N o m o r e inventories are k n o w n until November 1598 (for ships in Nykoping), November and December 1599 (for ships in Stockholm and at Alvsnabben), and November 1600 (for ships at Alvsborg). They were m a d e briefly after Duke Karl took control of the entire navy, probably as the result of the administration's attempts to bring order in the naval accounts after the civil war.'"' Only one m o r e inventory is preserved f r o m the following decade: for ships at Stockholm, dated 31 January (with all probability 1603), but it omits m a n y ships which were at that time at Nykoping and Alvsborg. The last preserved inventories in the style developed since the 1520s are of ships in Stocldiolm in 1610 and 1611, w h e n the lack of sails, cables, and rigs was critical, due to the war with D e n m a r k . The several ships at Kalmar, Nykoping, and Gothenburg/Alvsborg are not included, and the well-preserved accounts f r o m these yards only occasionally provide some information o n inventories.® It is striking that there is n o single inventory for the entire navy of the type that had been prepared f r o m 1573 to the early 1590s, when the central administration m a d e considerable effort to get information about ships in service outside Stockholm. The naval accounts f r o m 1600-11 are well preserved, and it is not likely that several inventories have been lost.

® Inventory for ships at Nykoping 23/11 1598, SH 52:8; inventory for ships at S t o d d i o h n in N o v e m b e r 1599 and at Alvsnabben 10-11/12 1599, SH 53:6; inventory for ships at Alvsborg 24/11 1600, SH 53:4, all RA. Two letters f r o m Duke Karl about lack of rigging and cables when the fleet was fitted out in spring 1598 gives the impression that these problems were small a n d affected only a few ships, H K R 14/5, 2/6 1598, RA. Inventory for ships at Stockholm 31/1 (no year but evidently 1603), SH 54:5; inventory for ships at Stockholm in 1610, SH 62:5; inventory for ships at Stockliolm in 1611, SH 63:2, RA. The inventory of 1611 is a compilation f r o m various dates, as it includes Danske Stjarnan, captured in s u m m e r 1611, as well as Rode Lejonet and Mjolkpigan, lost at about the same time.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

477

Tliese accounts show in detail how much was spent on every ship, but they do not give any information about what the ships or the entire navy lacked. The inventory made in 1610 may have been the result of Karl IX's order on 6 December 1609 that the administration must find out how many ships in Stockliolm were ready to serve and what they lacked.*^^ It is possible that no individual, not even the king, had systematic information about the navy's sails, cables, and rigs in the years before 1610-11, when it was revealed that the inventory was far below what was needed to bring the whole navy to sea. New construction of major and minor warships continued in a large scale after 1599, and many ships were commissioned as troop transports to Livonia and blockade of ports f r o m spring to autumn. Wear and tear was unavoidable, and already in 1601 this began to cause operational problems. On 29 November 1601, Karl ordered three admirals to make a survey of rigs, sails, and cables for the whole navy. He also asked for a special survey of the great ship Julius Caesar (2,400 tonnes) in order to find out how much it required to be completed. Karl stated that large cables for the navy should be produced in Stockholm, although he intended to import much other material for the ship's refit.'"'* An unsigned report, dated 13 January 1602, about all warships at Stockholm, including six newly built hulls (500 to 800 tonnes), has survived, but no reports for ships at other ports exist. The 13 January report shows that existing ships lacked 40 cables, of which 16 were from 12 to 24 turn. To complete the six unfinished ships, 600 skeppund hemp and 900 pieces (40,000 to 50,000 ulnar) of sailcloth from Holland were required. The giant Julius Caesar would require 80 more pieces of sailcloth, not less than 200 skeppund hemp for its rig and lighter cables and four 120 fathoms anchors cables of 24, 20, 18, and 14 turn, which would require another 90 skeppund of hemp. The Stockholm yard had, at the beginning of 1602, only 80 skeppund of hemp.'^®

" RR 6/12 1609, RA. ® Zettersten 1890, 448; RR 29/11 1601, RA, e m p o w e r s Admirals H a n s Claesson Bielkenstierna, Lorentz Cleiton, and Johan Martensson de Finne to investigate rigs and cables. ® S M H F 6:15, RA. The six new but incomplete ships were Samson and the yet u n n a m e d hulls of Smdlands Lejonet, Applet, Scepter, Rode Lejonet, a n d Gule Lejonet. The estimate of the weight of the four cables is m y own, based on comparisons with a d o c u m e n t f r o m the 1620, SH 70:6, RA.

478

c h a p t e r sEVEN

Hiis may finally have killed the idea of ever fitting out Julius Caesar, probably the world's largest warship at this time. It was obvious that smaller ships would be m o r e useful in the near future, when blockade of Polish ports was the navy's most urgent task. H i e extremely heavy fittings required for this ship would not even be useful as spare parts for the smaller ships in the operational fleet. The ship, launched a r o u n d 1587/88, was n o w also growing old. The hull's remaining life was too short to justify investments in heavy cables, large sails, and rigging that would have little alternative use when the ship was discarded. The great hull was used by the Stockholm yard f r o m a r o u n d 1603, apparently to lodge m e n working at the yard, possibly also as a magazine, and it was finally stripped of its e q u i p m e n t in 1609/10. An inventory of 20 warships and ten transports at Stockholm m a d e on 31 January 1603 shows that some ships had received the heavy cables which they lacked a year earlier, but four warships were far f r o m ready for sea. Only one of the seven incomplete ships at Stockholm in the report of January 1602, Applet, was listed as r e a d y . T h e naval accounts for the following years show that large efforts were m a d e to keep a growing n u m b e r of transports and small craft {prdmar, bojorter, lodjor) as well as medium-sized and small warships with rigging, cables, and sails. Several new warships u p to 400 tonnes, including m a n y small pinnaces, were built and fitted out for operations in Livonian waters, while larger ships for battle fleet operations were less necessary. The seven large ships of 500 to 800 tonnes, launched a r o u n d 1600-02, were slowly completed by 1604-05, but Svdrdet (900 tonnes) and Alands Hjorten (500 tonnes), launched a r o u n d 1604 were left incomplete for several years. The older Pelikanen and Angeln (both of 700 tonnes) were stripped of their rigs and cables before 1610, as were the newer Vasen (900 tonnes) and Smdlands Lejonet (800 tonnes). The direction of the supply of cables, rigging, and sails had by 1611 reorientated the navy f r o m a battle fleet to p r e d o m i n a n t l y a cruiser and transport fleet with shallow-water capability. A considerable n u m b e r of large hulls suitable for a battle fleet existed, but they lacked the fittings necessary to make t h e m mobile. The inventories of hemp, yarn and sailcloth at the Stocldiolm yard in the period 1604-12 show that the resources were strained. Normally

™ SH 54:5, RA. The year has disappeared f r o m the heading of this inventory but it can be dated f r o m the ships listed in it.

cordage and canvas: f i t t i n g o u t t h e navy

479

there were only a few tonnes of h e m p and yarn at the end of every year, except in 1608 when there were 60 skeppund (10 tonnes) h e m p and 29 skeppund of cables. The inventories of sailcloth were insignificant: a few h u n d r e d or a few thousand ulnar. There was n o strategic reserve to quicldy fit out even one m a j o r warship or refit several ships after a severe gale or a m a j o r battle. At the beginning of 1611, the year D e n m a r k attacked Sweden, the Stoclcholm yard had an inventory of 1 skeppund, 17 lispund, and 10 skalpund (297.5 kilogram) of h e m p . The shipyard at Nykoping, where several ships were based, had only a very small inventory of h e m p and n o sailcloth. The navy's magazines were empty at the start of a m a j o r naval war. To p u t these figures in perspective, the expenditure at the Stockholm yard in 1611 was 109 skeppund (18.5 tonnes) of h e m p and yarn and 13,0315/2 ulnar of sailcloth, mainly cheap Swedish IdrftJ^ Even that expenditure was insufficient to increase the n u m b e r of ships available for sea service, and m u c h of it was probably not available in early spring when the navy was mobilised. It was barely sufficient to maintain existing ships that suffered wear and tear during one year of war. Only the n u m b e r of anchors appears as fairly sufficient.'^ It is evident that the acquisition of h e m p and sailcloth and the production of cables, rigging, and sails after 1599 had been insufficient for long-term maintenance of the great navy which Karl IX had built. H e m p and sailcloth were acquired in large quantities, probably m o r e than in earlier decades, except possibly the 1560s. Not only warships but also a large n u m b e r of naval transports had been supplied with cordage, cables, and sails. But an increasing gap developed between the n u m b e r of hulls to fit out and the inventory of cables, sails, and rigging. Nevertheless, Karl did not cease his shipbuilding. Instead, his shipbuilding efforts appear to have been directed by a balanced naval policy, aiming at both maintaining m i n o r units for wars with Poland and Russia and m a j o r units to deter D e n m a r k , while the policy of acquiring fittings was directed by immediate operational requirement. It was not a new p h e n o m e n o n ; it had also appeared in the 1550s, 1570s, and 1580s, when war in the east gave priority to cruising warships and galleys. Gustav I had held large financial reserves to fit out his navy

" SH 62:3, 63:1; Sodermanlands handlingar 1610:10 and 1610:14, RA. A comparison of the inventories of 1610 and 1611 shows h o w various deficiencies had developed, probably d u r i n g the campaign of 1611, SH 62:5, 63:2, RA.

480

c h a p t e r sEVEN

quickly, however, and Johan III had shown an impressive abihty to increase his inventory of h e m p and sailcloth when his foreign policy required it, even when he was in deep financial troubles. Karl was not indifferent to the acquisition of h e m p and sailcloth. He probably wrote m o r e letters about naval stores in one decade than his father and two brothers had done in 70 years. This m a y show that his naval administration suffered f r o m over-centralisation to his own person. Karl had a long experience as a mercantile importer, exporter, and ship-owner f r o m his years as duke, and his letters sometimes give the impression that he regarded himself as Sweden's leading authority in international business. He undoubtedly had a wide network of contacts in G e r m a n y and Western Europe, and his position as ruler gave him m a n y direct contacts with Swedish society and its resources. These experiences and contacts may partially explain why he was successful in rapidly expanding and fitting out the navy f r o m 1592 to 1599. But as a king he had m u c h wider responsibilities, and his unwillingness to delegate power and administrative control over resources was a rising problem. The d e m a n d for timely resources grew, while his health and capacity for planning declined. Karl frequently issued orders for importing large quantities of h e m p . " O n 9 February 1602, as a response to the report of 13 January about the navy's requirement for at least 800 skeppund hemp, he issued orders according to which 500 skeppund was to be bought f r o m a Russian m e r c h a n t at Narva while 510 skeppund should be bought f r o m G e r m a n y through Swedish merchants in seven towns. Karl specified h o w m u c h each town should buy. Even m o r e h e m p (no quantity was stated) should be bought directly by the crown f r o m Liibeck, Danzig, and other ports, and sailcloth should be ordered f r o m Holland.^"* The idea behind this plan was probably that division of purchases to several ports and through different channels would make the d e m a n d less visible and prevent a rise in prices. This strategy m a y have been fairly successful: the inventory of h e m p and yarn at the Stockholm yard rose f r o m 25 to 201 skeppund during 1602, p r o d u c t i o n of cables and cordage at the yard c o n s u m e d 1451/2 skeppund h e m p in 1602 and almost

" Early examples f r o m his first years as ruler: purchase 30 skeppund yarn to be bought f r o m burghers in Flensborg, RR 26/5 1599; 200 skeppund h e m p for new ships to be bought at Reval, RR 22/5 1600; m o r e h e m p to be bought at Reval, RR 1/11 1600, RA. RR 9/2 1602, two letters, RA.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

481

179 skeppund in 1603, and most of the recently built ships were fitted out by 1604. By the end of 1603, the h e m p inventory was as low as 25 skeppund, however, and in early 1604 the shortage of h e m p was critical." In June, Karl ordered the purchase of 300 skeppund h e m p f r o m Narva, too late to prevent delay in bringing the fleet to sea in 1604. Hiis was a year of crisis with Denmark, when a war was possible. A gap between Karl's u n c o m p r o m i s i n g foreign policy and his policy of acquiring naval stores was apparent.'® In early 1605, Karl was upset when he received a report f r o m Kalmar about deficiencies in 13 warships laid u p there during the winter. They required 16 anchors, 10,730 alnar of sailcloth, and 144 skeppund of hemp. He declared that it m e a n t almost new rigs for the ships and d e m a n d e d a new report.'^ This response probably did not encourage administrators and officers to send timely reports about what their ships actually required to be serviceable. It is possible that Karl did not understand that his new policy of keeping ships at sea f r o m spring to a u t u m n for troop transports, army logistics, and blockade duties during the war in Livonia caused m o r e wear and tear on rigging and cables than earlier naval operations in the Gulf of Finland. By 1607/08, a critical situation had developed, reflected in the navy's increasing inability to provide its large ships with cables, sails, and rigging. Karl issued repeated instructions for large-scale buying of h e m p at Narva, starting with an order for 1,000 skeppund in January 1607. Several m o r e letters about the same subject were sent in 1607-09, while increasingly desperate measures were taken to get control of h e m p and products m a d e of h e m p for the navy.'® In spring 1608, it was f o u n d that the fleet to be sent to Livonia lacked n o fewer than 25 cables. Karl ordered that

" SH 53:2, 54:1, 54:4-5, 55:3, RA. ' ' Lack of h e m p and sailcloth, RR 15/1 1604; some ships should be stripped of their fittings to bring others to sea, RR 27/3 1604; buy 300 skeppund hemp, RR 15/6 1604, RA. The crisis with D e n m a r k : Palme 1942, 468-98; naval operations: Zettersten 1890, 453-55, " SH 59:1, R R c . 1 2 / 2 1605, RA, ™ Buy 1,000 skeppund h e m p in Narva, RR 21/1 1607 (supplement); buy 200 skeppund h e m p , RR 6/5 1607; buy 300 skeppund h e m p in Narva, RR 10/5 1607; buy 400 to 500 skeppund h e m p at Narva, RR 21/3 1608; buy 300 skeppund h e m p at Narva, buy 200 skeppund later, RR 25/6 1608; bring all h e m p there are in Narva to Stockholm, RR 23/7 1608; buy 100 to 200 skeppund h e m p in Reval to the Stocldiolni shipyard, RR 21/11-08; buy all available h e m p f r o m the burghers and Russian m e r c h a n t s in Viborg, and bring 300 to 400 skeppund to the Stockholm shipyard as soon as possible, RR 3/10 1609, all RA.

482

c h a p t e r sEVEN

foreign m e r c h a n t m e n in Stockholm should be ransacked and forced to sell their cables. In December the same year, the king heard that a m e r c h a n t in Nykoping had h e m p in store and ordered an investigation if there were other merchants who had hemp. In June 1609, Karl ordered ships to be sent to Abo, Viborg, and Nyen (present-day St Petersburg) to search for hemp.^' There are n o sign of that there was a general lack of h e m p in the Baltic in these years, and it may seem strange that Karl's stream of orders to b u y thousands of tonnes of h e m p had so litde effect. His administrators in Narva, Reval, and Viborg had easy access to the m a j o r export region for h e m p in Europe: western Russia.®" It is obvious that they cannot have acquired the very large quantities they were ordered to buy, because that would either have created a large stock of h e m p in the navy or several m o r e ships would have been provided with cables and rigs. The total size of the navy at the end of 1610 was a r o u n d 26,000 tonnes of warships, for which (in r o u n d figures) 2,500 skeppund of h e m p would have provided a sufficient outfit of cables and cordage. There were also several transports and m a n y small craft to provide for, but their requirements were counted in hundreds, not thousands, of skeppund h e m p . In the absence of investigations into h o w Karl IX's system for royal trade actually worked, the most probable explanation is that he was unable to pay for the large quantities he asked for. His local administrators in Finland and Estonia were probably overwhelmed with other urgent d e m a n d s sent by the king for supporting the wars in Livonia and (from 1609) also in Russia. In September 1610, he asked for an extra tax (gdrd) f r o m the peasants for the navy to be paid in hemp, a traditional measure during a crisis. It seems to have been a failure in that the h e m p it p r o d u c e d was of inferior quality. In December 1611 (two m o n t h s after Karl's death), another tax for h e m p was levied, but this time in money, because the last tax had brought in h e m p unsuitable for use in rigging." Karl i m p o r t e d sailcloth f r o m Western Europe, and it seems to be f r o m this period that such cloth was used in large a m o u n t s in the navy. The naval administrators at Alvsborg and Kalmar were frequently

™ RR 2/6, 19/12 1608, 21/6 1609, RA. "" Production regions and prices for hemp: Attman R R 3 0 / 9 1610, 13/12 1611, RA.

1944, appendices 2 a n d 15.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

483

instructed to find sailcloth and e q u i p m e n t for ships in the Netherlands and G e r m a n y respectively, and ships were sent out to bring in such products.''^ Karl also ofl:en ordered that domestically p r o d u c e d sailcloth should be bought, usually on the local markets a r o u n d Lake Malaren. These purchases were d o m i n a t e d by sailcloth of low and cheap quality, vadmal and IdrftP An order to weave 12,000 ulnar buldan in Sweden may be one of Karl's m a n y attempts to introduce foreign technology, attempts which were m o r e successful in metallurgy and shipbuilding than in textile production.®"* W h e n war with D e n m a r k began in 1611, the Swedish navy had far too m a n y hulls in proportion to the inventory of sails, rigging, and cables, and the stores of sailcloth and h e m p were practically nonexistent. Karl's most serious mistake was strategic. He left a large force of warships at Kalmar without the m e a n s to make it operational. The m a n y i n s u f h d e n t l y fitted ships at Stocldiolm and Nykoping and the non-existing reserve of h e m p and sailcloth m a d e it impossible to send out a fleet strong enough to maintain c o m m u n i c a t i o n s with Kalmar or regain the initiative at sea after the loss of that port. The size of the operational fleet in 1611 and 1612 was determined n o t by the n u m ber of hulls (it was large), hardly by the n u m b e r of men, and not by provisions, which was n o great problem for a state used to send large a m o u n t of food to the army every year. It was h e m p and sailcloth that mattered. The navy could n o t bring sufficient firepower and m a n power to sea because it lacked the m e a n s of propulsion. The problems were far f r o m solved when the war with D e n m a r k was over in 1613. A plan for 1614 showed that refits of existing ships and outfitting of new ships would require 574 skeppund h e m p and 18,000 ulnar sailcloth. Two plans for 1615 show that 440 or 504 skeppund h e m p and 11,300 or 9,900 ulnar sailcloth were required.®^ It was a heavy administrative task to keep track of what all ships required, buy large a m o u n t of naval stores on the market, manage rope-making and sail-making in an economic way, and make rational use of existing fittings on m a n y ships of various sizes. These tasks required

For example RR 31/5, 29/10 1603, RR 21/12 1604, RR 28/9 1606, RR 16/11 1608, RA. For example RR 21/12 1604, 1/2, 25/2 1605, 12/3 1606, 1/3 1609, RA. RR 29/11 1607, RA. Kort besked (undated but evidently f r o m 1613), Vill behdvas... till anno 1615, M 1761, RA; Kortforslag... 1614, S M H F 7:10, RA.

484

c h a p t e r sEVEN

dose and timely coordination, and the experience of the last decade of centralised royal administration was disappointing. Gustav II Adolf also lacked personal interest in acting as a merchant, as his father and grand-father had done with enthusiasm. It was no coincidence that one of the first parts of the whole Swedish administration that underwent a profound change in the early years of Gustav II Adolf's regime was the procurement of sails, cordage, and cables, those gears that made ships mobile.

6.6

Tackel and tag on contract,

1615-1628

In February 1615, the king concluded a four-year contract with the Scottish-born sea officer Rickard Clerck. During 1615-18, Clerck was to maintain cables, sails, and rigging (tackel and tag) for 12 major warships and 11 minor warships, galleys, and transports. For this he would receive 7,500 daler for 1615, 7,000 for 1616, 6,000 for 1617, and 4,000 for 1618. If the contract was extended, he would receive 4,000 yearly. The money was to be paid from the custom office in Stockholm. That was a safe source of income, easily accessible for Clerck when he paid importing merchants who supplied him with naval stores. This was important, because inexpensive and timely supply of naval stores must have been dependent on regular payment to the merchants. The four-year plan of payment shows that the navy required extraordinary refits in 1615-17, after which it was supposed that a normal level of refits could be maintained for 4,000 daler yearly. The king would continue to pay wages to rope-makers and sail-makers in Stocldiolm, and the ships' crews would still fit them with rigs and sails. Clerck's responsibility was primarily to buy the right type and quality of raw material and semi-finished products at the right time in order to keep all ships operational f r o m spring to autumn. It required a combination of business and seaman competencies. In practice, Clerck took over a function that the arch-centralizer Karl IX had taken upon himself for several years, with mediocre results. The ships in the contract (all named) did not include the several major ships under construction or repair in 1615, including the five largest ships in the navy. The king would pay for the complete outfitting of new ships, while Clerck would receive one additional daler per year for every additional last of shipping he had to maintain. The contract specified how many cables each ship of three different size

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

485

groups should have (four, three, and two), but it otherwise had no details about the quality and quantity of the products and services with which Clerck was to provide to the navy. Tlie yard captain Sotfring Hansson was given the task of checking that the contract was fulfilled, but m u c h was left to tradition and trust.®*® In June 1615, the king ordered the Treasury to buy rigging, sails and cables for 15,000 dalerior new and un-rigged ships. Three m o n t h s later, the Treasury had to report that it was impossible to buy on credit f r o m the merchants because these already had provided large loans. The king and his naval administrators began to negotiate with Rickard Clerck to handle the question, but he (or his m e r c h a n t relations) did not have any credits to supply. It was only gradually that he got the contract to fit out the navy's four largest ships: Svdrdet (1604/05), Vasen (1598), Scepter (1615), and Nyckeln (1616), with a total displacement of 3,400 tonnes. The cost for two of t h e m {Vasen and Scepter) was 9,400 daler, while the cost for the other two is uncertain but possibly the same. Payment was partly in copper, a p r o d u c t that the crown increasingly used as payment at this time. Clerck could probably easily sell copper to international merchants in Stockholm, w h o in t u r n could sell him h e m p and sailcloth, but he also became d e p e n d e n t on the copper prices. The contracts to fit out the four large ships were m o r e specific about the sails than the earlier contract to m a i n t a i n the navy. They state that the lower sails should be m a d e of French canvas (canifas), the topsails of Danzig cloth and the topgallant sails of w u r m s cloth {wurmsduk)}'' Several other new shi^s—Orpheus, Hannibal, Ostgota Lejonet, Jupiter, and Kronan—vfere apparently fitted out by the navy f r o m 1615 to 1619 without Clerk's direct involvement. The new system must have worked to the king's and Rickard Clerck's satisfaction. W h e n the four-year contract ended, another for the years 1619-22 was signed with Clerck o n 23 October 1618. This time it covered 25 m a j o r warships and 18 small warships and transports and was m o r e detailed than the contract of 1615. It stated that the m a j o r warships should have "Dutch" (hoUdndsk) rigging, that the

The text of the contract in RR 17/2, 23/2 1615; power of attorney to Soffring Hansson: RR 11/7 1615, RA. " RR 27/6, 20/9, 26/10, 1615, 6/4, 29/9, 30/9, 5/11, 1616, 8/4 and 31/5 1617, RA. According to Zettersten 1890, 354, wurmsduk is the same as vadmal. Tliis is unlikely. Hcilsingelarft was c o m m o n for topgallant sails later in the 17th century. O n Vasen, rigged in 1627/28 a topgallant foresail, probably m a d e of h e m p and flax (not wool) has been found: Sven Bengtsson in Schoerner 1997, 35.

486

c h a p t e r sEVEN

lower sails should be of good French sailcloth (buldan), the topsails of best Danzig cloth and the topgallant sails of wurms cloth. Hie smaller vessels should have sails of Liibeck cloth. Cables for the major ships should be made in Holland, Vi^hile the smaller should have cables made of hemp exported from Konigsberg. Riga hemp, which otherwise was common, may have been shunned due to the conflict with Poland. Clerck was given 8,500 daler per year for this contract, and increases and decreases in the force of ships to be maintained should be evaluated with 2 daler per last. Tliat was twice as much as in the first contract, perhaps because the actual costs had been found to be higher, but probably also because the cost increased with higher quality demands. Hie contract also stated that Clerck always should have in store 1/3 of what was necessary to fit out the ships. This cannot have meant that he should be ready to provide one third of the entire fleet with new rigs, sails, and cables, because that would have meant an enormous inventory, never achieved earlier or later. Instead, it probably meant that he always should be ready to replace one third of what normally was lost or worn out during one operational season. It is unlikely that the contract meant that production of large anchor cables at Stockholm should cease and that the navy in the future should rely on imported cables from Holland. The competence to make cables was a strategic asset, and without it Stockholm would have been less useful as a base for the navy. This text does not reappear in later contracts, and cable-making increased at Stockholm in the 1620s. It seems, however, as if the king and the entrepreneur had agreed that some import was necessary, for capacity and quality reasons or both.®' In a separate contract f r o m the same day (23 October 1618), Clerck undertook to import 11 cables from Holland, 6 of 12 turn and 5 of 11 turn, for a total weight of 120 skeppund for around 5,000 daler?° These contracts were a part of the "Dutchification" of Swedish naval technology, which took place in 1618-20 when Dutch master shipwrights and Dutch entrepreneurs took over the production of warships for the navy.

RR 23/10, 5/11 1618, RA, also in Kammarlcollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 1, fols 94-96, 154-56, RA. The contract of 16/2 1621 for outfitting several new ships is m o r e vague: it states that "Holland yarn" should be used in the cables, but the contract of 8/3 1622 for fitting out Stockholm again m e n t i o n s that cables should be m a d e ("slagen") in Holland, Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 1, fols 50-51, 125, RA. RR 23/10 1618, RA.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

487

It is doubtful that Rickard Clerck also served formally as holmamiral (commander of the Stoclcholm naval yard), but from around 1618/19 he was usually the senior sea officer present at the yard." He had evidently made himself trusted and indispensable; he was superior in rank to the shipyard captain {gdrdskapten) who was to assure that the contract was fulfilled. From 1621, Clerck received an additional contract to pay and feed the rope-makers and sail-makers, who were placed under his command.'^ During 1621-22, he was also given three contracts to handle the outfitting of all new units added to the navy in 1621-23: ten major warships, one transport, 26 galleys, and 60 lodjor, for a total cost of 46,400 dcdev?^ Rickard Clerck had now become one of the most important entrepreneurs in the new system of administration through contract, which the Swedish state had introduced f r o m around 1618. His own contracts of 1615 must have been regarded as a success and possibly a model for other parts of the navy and the Swedish state. In December 1622, Clerck got a new long-term contract which called for him to maintain 37 warships and 30 galleys and other minor craft for 12,000 daler per year. This contact dropped the detailed quality specifications seen in the earlier contract and instead stated that the ships should be fitted out in the best known Dutch manner for warships.''' W h e n Rickard Clerck died in 1625, the contract was taken over by Captain Johan (Hans) Clerck, who had been in Swedish naval service since at least 1617. The name and the fact that he inherited the contract make it obvious that the two Clercks had a family relationship, but its exact nature is not known.'^ The contract was renewed in August 1626. It was once more stated that all ships should be fitted

" See RR 29/7 1619, RA, which Zettersten 1890, 239, regarded as Clerck's appointm e n t to holmamiral. It is actually an instruction in which Clerck is charged with a temporary c o m m a n d of the StoclAolm yard. ' ' Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 1, fol. 50, 7/2 1621, RA. ' ' Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 1, fols 50-51, 16/2 1621, RA: 16,400 daler for fitting Applet, Andromeda, Harboviks Lejon, Vasterviks Pinass (Vdstervik), Vasterviks Bojort, and six galleys; fol. 125, 8/3 1622: 10,000 daler for fitting out Stockholm, 12 galleys, 60 lodjor, fol. 176, 6/12 1622: 20,000 daler for fitting Apollo, Maria, Hector, Caesar, Achilles, a n d eight galleys. Contract with Rickard Clerck 5/12 1622, Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 1, fols 174-76, RA; two undated papers connected with this contract are a calculation of the costs of fitting out the new ship Gustavus (c.l623) a n d the cost of outfitting of 18 warships (undated, but the ships existed in 1624-25), SH 70:6, RA. Contract with Johan Clerck 6/12 1625, Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 2, fols 160-61, RA.

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out as the best warships in Holland. Tlie lower sails should be made of broad French cloth; the topsails of good French canvas (canifas) (not Danzig cloth as in earlier contracts), and all cables and taclde should be made with the best hemp from Konigsberg and Riga, the latter now a Swedish port. The navy's strength was in this contract estimated to be 7,090 Idster. At a cost of 2 daler per last, it should be maintained for 14,180 daler, and in addition Clerck should receive 1,035 daler to pay the personnel.'® The Clercks also continued to fit out new ships. The yearly sums paid to Riclcard and Johan Clerck increased from 13,035 daler in 1623 to 30,061 daler in 1627 and 23,761 daler in 1628. From 1623 to 1628, they received 128,293 daler.'' In 1626, the admirals or the Treasury made a review of the earlier contract and found that the Idstetal of the number of ships to maintain had been smaller than contracted. Johan Clerck was in 1626 charged 14,450 daler for that, and he became a debtor to the state. It is possible that this made him less interested in running the enterprise. Business conditions had also probably become unfavourable, due to increased prices for naval stores and the decline of the copper price when the Swedish state sold as much copper as possible to finance its war. In September 1627, Gustav II Adolf told riksamiral Gyllenhielm that Johan Clerck must make up his mind if he wished to continue as entrepreneur. One year later, the king was deeply dissatisfied with both the shipyard entrepreneur Arent de Groot (this was the m o n t h after the catastrophe with Vasen) and with Clerck. They must be replaced with better entrepreneurs.'® In reality, naval shipbuilding and the acquisition of naval stores were taken over by Admiral Klas Fleming from 1629, who at this time worked both for the navy and the

Contract with captain Clerck 1/8 1626, Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 3, fol. 106, RA; contract with H a n s Clerck. RR 12/8 1626, RA. " Contract with Johan Clerck 21/1 1626 for outfitting of two new ships {Svardet and Tre Kronor), Kammarkollegiet, Kontraktsbocker, vol. 3, fol. 6, RA. H i e yearly Rikshuvudbocker show that Rickard and Johan Clerck were paid 13,035 daler in 1623 (vol. 3, fol. 425), 13,035 daler and 4,126 daler for outfitting Gustavus in 1624 (vol. 6, fol. 473), 17,761 daler in 1625, probably including outfitting of Mercurius (vol. 8, fol. 203), 13,035 daler and 13,479 daler for outfitting of new ships {Tre Kronor, Svardet and other new ships) in 1626 (vol. 13, fol. 491), 30,061 daler in 1627, probably including outfitting of Vastervik (vol. 20, fol. 461), 23,761 daler in 1628, probably including outfitting of Applet (vol. 26, fol. 396), all RA. H a n s (Johan) Clerck's current account 1626-27, M 1779; SH 70:8; RR 17/9 1627, 8/9 1628, all RA. From 1626 to 1628 the value of silver rose 35.7 per cent in relation to the daler kopparmynt, calculation by Rodney Edvinsson, Sveriges Riksbank, http:// www.historia.se/indexprisjamforelse.html,

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

489

Treasury. Johan Clerck remained in charge of work at the Stockhohn yard, however, and in 1631 he was appointed as its commander {hoimamiral). Young Rickard Clerck (Jr), probably his son, was holmkapten (yard captain) from 1630, and in the following decade he was active as an international buyer of naval stores for the navy. He could probably rely on networks and experiences gained during the years when the Clercks had been entrepreneurs. Hie Clerck family was to remain dominant at the navy's main yard until the late 1670s.'' The contract system for supplying the navy with rigging, sails, and cables was in force during only 14 years. In a 200-year period, it may look like an episode that ended with a dissatisfied royal customer. These years saw a major transformation in naval administration, however, with lasting results. From the 1520s to the 1610s, the kings, aided by their naval and treasury administrators and the royal merchants, had handled the acquisition of hemp, sailcloth, cables, cordage, and sails. They organised it as part of their tax organisation, the royal organisation for international and domestic trade, and the naval system for control of the Baltic Sea. Naval stores were acquired through largescale purchases of hemp in Eastern Europe and of sailcloth, yarn, and cables in Germany and Western Europe, through extra taxes in kind igdrder), purchase of domestically produced sailcloth on local markets in Sweden, and captures at sea of naval stores, primarily hemp exported from Russia. The quality of the various products the navy acquired is largely unknown. There are no studies of other 16th-century navies that can be used to compare, very few artefacts to study, and the durability of naval fittings has not been studied. East European h e m p was the dominating raw material for cables and cordage, and it was generally regarded as the best in Europe. The quality of rope-making in Sweden in relation to other naval powers is not possible to study, but it is obvious that it was carried out on a large scale and that, as shown by the reduced size of the cables, the quality probably improved during the 16th century. Certain types of foreign sailcloth were regarded as superior to Swedish sailcloth {Idrft and vadmal) already in the 16th century. This difference was not important enough, however, to make

' Rickard Clerck Jr bouglit sail cloth in Holland in 1633, Rikshuvudbocker, vol. 42, Item 4721, RA; he sailed to Riga to buy h e m p in 1638 and 1639, AK registratur 12/5 1638 and 9/4 1639, KrA; and he led a naval s q u a d r o n on a mercantile expedition to A m s t e r d a m in 1640, Zettersten 1903, 353.

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c h a p t e r sEVEN

it worthwhile to specify in the inventories which type of sailcloth was used. Karl IX was interested in buying sailcloth and other semi-finished products for the navy from Holland and Germany, but during his reign this policy was not pursued systematically. The detailed specifications of qualities of sailcloth, hemp, and rigging in the contract from 1618 must have been the result of a recent policy review of how the navy should be fitted. That review resulted in an imitation of what Swedish naval policymakers, most likely Gustav II Adolf and his senior admirals Goran Gyllenstierna and Hans Bielkenstierna, saw as the best model: the Dutch navy. Both admirals had spent several years at sea commanding fleets and squadrons. They had, as Karl IX's answers to their letters show, personal experience of the difficulties of bringing ships to sea in spring if cables, cordage, and sails were lacking. They had also experienced how deteriorating fittings hampered operations at sea. It is possible that the several Dutch armed merchantmen, which had been captured until 1610 and had since then served in the navy, had shown that Dutch rigging and sailcloth were better than Swedish. The young Gustav II Adolf, more quality-minded than his father, was willing to increase funding if he was convinced that it would result in improvements. Once the change was decided, he was unwilling to make compromises. In 1623, Rickard Clerck suggested that Danzig cloth might replace French sailcloth (canifas) for some ships, as he had little of the latter in store, but Gustav II Adolf said no.'°" Improved quality was not the motivation for the contracts, however, and it might be argued that it would be easier to control quality under direct administration than under contract. Gustav II Adolf and his naval leadership must have had other aims when they gave Rickard Clerck his first contract in 1615. The contract arranged a continuous flow of money to keep essential parts of the navy in good condition, and it gave one individual responsibility to see that these funds were used for their intended purpose. It was not only the contractor who was bound to the contract but also the king and the Treasury. They gave up the possibility to re-allocate funds to other urgent purposes, a policy which had proved disastrous in the war with Denmark. Finally, although the contract in itself did not bring in any new skills to the navy, it did have the potential to stimulate entrepreneurial behaviour

RR 26/8 1623, RA.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

491

and give some scope for long-term planning. Rickard Clerck gained the opportunity to profit by planning the refits of the ships and the acquisition of necessary stores over a four-year cycle. These changes were early examples of the type of reforms introduced and implemented by Gustav II Adolf: formally appointed office-holders with defined responsibilities, predictable resource-allocation to give scope for longterm improvements, and armed forces always ready for operations. Rickard and Johan Clerck's work as entrepreneurs is little known from the sources. It is noticeable that two Scottish-born officers were given the task of introducing Dutch naval standards on cables, sails, and rigging in the Swedish navy. At least Rickard Clerck must have been regarded as a man with good knowledge of Dutch naval practice of rigging and cable-making and with useful contacts with international merchants. His career before he came to Sweden is not known, but considering that from his first appearance in 1610 he was given important senior commands at sea, he must have been an experienced sea officer."" It is possible that he had gained this experience in Dutch service, and his Scottish origin may have provided him with contacts to the several Scottish merchants who were active in Baltic ports. It is also probable that he had, or that he soon developed, good connections with Dutch merchants in Stocldiolm and elsewhere, who must have regarded this large-scale buyer of stores for one of Europe's largest navies as an interesting business partner. The tackel and tag contracts are, together with the contemporary entrepreneurial contracts for shipbuilding, examples of how the Swedish state was searching for the best available technology on the international market and how it was interested in using entrepreneurs and market forces for gaining access to it. The main result of the contracts and the king's increased spending on hemp and sailcloth was that the navy was in a much better condition during the several expeditions f r o m 1621 to 1628 than in the war years 1611 and 1612. The navy was totally mobilised in 1621, 1624,

"" Zettersten 1890, 257-58, identifies Rickard Clerck with a master shipwright Jakob Clerck, k n o w n f r o m 1606. There are indeed two letters, RR 7/10 1610 and 5/3 1611, RA (where the officer is addressed as well-born, i.e. as a n o b l e m a n ) where the m a n otherwise k n o w n as Rickard Clerck is called Jakob Clerck. In RR 3/4, 19/4, 24/4 and 31/7 1611, RA, the n a m e Rickard is used. A total change of the Christian n a m e of one individual is most unusual, and because master shipwright a n d sea officer are two different professions, I a m inclined to believe that this is a clerical error. It is not known, however, what happened to the master shipwright Jakob Clerck after 1608.

492

c h a p t e r sEVEN

and 1626-28; and in 1622-23 and 1625, most ships were in service.'"^ Cables, sails, and rigging were no longer a bottle-neck for naval mobilisation, and sustained operations during several years was possible. The navy's fittings had not been in a better condition since the 1560s.

6.7

A more ambitious policy: Aims and reality,

1629-1679

In 1629, the state took over the responsibility for acquiring and processing naval stores to fit out its warships. In the following decades, for which the sources unfortunately are scarce, the navy's policy to keep its warships with sails and cables became more ambitious. Spare sails and more anchor cables became a normal part of the ideal inventory of a Swedish warship. This policy, which markedly increased naval spending, must have been approved on the highest political level, the monarch or the regency governments. It made sense, because the navy was operating no longer primarily in the eastern Baltic but in the southern Baltic, while its stores and production facilities were concentrated in Stockholm. Kalmar, until 1658 close to the Danish border, was little used as a forward base after the experiences of 1611. The distance between the main base and the main operational area markedly increased. At the same time, the state finances were constantly strained by war efforts and war debts, and everything that was not absolutely necessary for immediate efforts might receive a low priority in the yearly allocations of funds. This created a tension between what was regarded as a desirable poHcy for cordage, cables, and sails and what was possible to achieve with scarce resources. During the period 1629-1645, the navy was totally mobilised for war service in 1629-31 and 1644-45. Because practically all ships in the navy were at sea in these years, it is obvious that their fittings were in serviceable condition and that the readiness of the navy was satisfactory. The situation between these years is not possible to study from inventories and reports of deficiencies, because such sources do not exist. Many ships were commissioned as transports and for service in squadrons that should demonstrate Swedish readiness to control the Baltic Sea. However, because anchors, cables, and sails could be

Sveriges sjokrig, 137-202.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

493

transferred between ships, this is not proof that the whole navy was in good condition. Tliere is, however, evidence of that the navy's fittings were kept in fairly good condition between 1631 and 1644. For those years for which accounts are available, it is striking that large amounts were spent on hemp and s a i l c l o t h . T h e r e were also more or less yearly shipments of hemp (together with timber) from Riga with the navy's own ships.'"" Hie navy, primarily Admiral Klas Fleming, who was also governor {overstathdllare) of Stoclcholm, arranged that the new orphan house (Barnhuset) should start weaving sailcloth (1637). This was not a long-term success, but in some years it provided the navy with rather much sailcloth. Nearly all ships built f r o m 1629 to 1634 are known to have been at sea at least once by 1635-36, proof of that they had been fitted out soon after they were launched, in spite of the much-reduced demand for operational ships after 1631.'"=^ Consequently, the navy in the period 1632-43 was in the unusually favourable situation of having a large number of ships with fairly new rigs, while wear and tear was much smaller than in the period 162131. Because few new ships had to be rigged, the continuous inflow of hemp and sailcloth recorded in accounts and letters until 1643 must have been used mainly to replace worn out fittings. Hie large volume of this inflow makes it probable that it was sufficient for that purpose. The conclusion is that Sweden, in a period during which it was deeply

"" The naval budget (sjdstat) for 1629 included 30,000 daler for outfitting of three new ships a n d refits of the other ships, Arkiv, III, 380-81; contract with Johan and Rickard (Jr) Clerck for fitting out Gota Ark and two Viistervik-built ships (Smdlands Lejonet and Svarta Hunden), AK registratur 17/2 1634, KrA; 29,670 alnar sailcloth and a r o u n d 683 skeppund h e m p purchased in 1634, O R 1634:2, KrA; expenses m e n t i o n e d m Rikshuvudbocker, vol. 42 (1633), item 4720, 32,900 daler to fit out the navy, item 4721, h e m p bought for 12,142 daler a n d sail and flag cloth for 3,918 daler, vol 53 (1637), Item 3672, h e m p bought for 8,491 daler and sail and flag d o t h for 1,668 daler, vol. 59 (1639), item 3423, h e m p bought for 6,932 daler, sail a n d flag cloth for 6,659 daler ( m d u d i n g for 1,155 daler f r o m Barnhuset); vol. 64 (1641), item 3539, h e m p bought for 13,636 daler and sail and flag d o t h for c. 12,200 daler, of which 4,242 daler f r o m Barnhuset, all RA. There is only one account of rigging between 1634 and 1650that of 1636, SH 72:3, RA. Zettersten 1903, 349-57. Shipping of h e m p f r o m Riga in AK registratur, 30/8 1636, 200 skeppund; same a m o u n t s in 12/5 1638 and 9/4 1639; 27/8 1639, 260 skeppund; 22/5 1640, 200 skeppund; same a m o u n t in 14/4 1641; 5/7 1641, 500 skeppund; 16/5 1642, 200 skeppund; same a m o u n t s in 23/7 a n d 10/10 1642, KrA. Ships commissioned for service at sea can be traced in Axel Zettersten's notes f r o m the Amiralitetskollegium's correspondence files. Axel Zetterstens arbetspapper vol. 4, KrA. ^ ^^

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committed to a major continental war, could maintain the expensive fittings of the largest navy it had ever had until then. The regency government must have seen control of the Baltic Sea as central in its strategy and policy. It was important for contact with Germany, for deterrence of Denmark, Poland, and potential Habsburg naval forces, and for a possible assault on Denmark at a suitable moment. This naval aspect of the Thirty Years War is normally not even mentioned, but it is visible in hemp and sailcloth accounts. After the war with Denmark in 1643-45, the navy was large, but it no longer consisted of rather new ships. Most ships were built between 1621 and 1634, and some of the Danish prizes were even older. The war years had also caused considerable wear and tear on the fittings. It is perhaps not a coincidence that yearly reports of the condition of ships and fittings exist from 1647-50. These reports and the remarks about measures to be taken against the deficiencies are probably working papers left by Herman Fleming, holmamiral from 1645 to 1650. They show a navy with increasing block obsolescence problems: aging hulls, rigs, cables, and sails. New ships were provided with rigs and sails soon after they were launched, but sometimes they had to inherit fittings from old ships. Several ships were growing too old to be worth refitting, but they usually retained a m i n i m u m level of cables and sails until they were discarded.""" From 1650 to 1660, an incomplete series of accounts and reports of the navy's condition makes it possible to follow the main lines of the Amiralitetskollegium's struggle to keep the aging ships in serviceable condition.'"^ The most urgent problem was that the hulls of several ships required major repairs or became irreparable. There was no crippling lack of fittings, and the aging hulls did provide an additional source of fittings; several discarded ships had sails, cables, and cordage which could be re-used.'"® The navy was also increasing its ambitions

Reports of the condition of the warships f r o m 1647, 1648 and 1650, AK, Varvskontoret, FVI, vol. 1; f r o m 1649, NNS, II, 12a, KrA, The inventory of 1650 is unusual as it consists of the signed original reports f r o m the ship's masters. "" Accounts in O R 1650:4, 1651:4, 1656:4, 1657:4, 1658:4 a n d 1659:5, KrA; draft accounts for 1655 (three quarters of the year) a n d 1657 in AK, Varvskontoret, GVIa, vol. 1, KrA; surveys of the conditions of the ships and their fittings in 1655 a n d 1656 in AK, Varvskontoret, FVI, vol. 1, KrA. From 1650 to 1660, 16 m a j o r warships of a r o u n d 13,000 tonnes were discarded, and a few were wrecked under circumstances that m a d e it possible to retrieve their fittings. Surviving yearly accounts show that serviceable fittings were retrieved and reused in a considerable scale.

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

495

to keep the ship at sea for longer periods, however, and tried to supply its ships with more cables and spare sails for the five largest and most important sails. Hiis was a challenge in a decade when state finances were strained and all expenditures that were not absolutely necessary had to wait. From the accounts it is known that the navy spent a net amount of around 60,000 daler on naval fittings (excluding wages) in the intense war years 1657-59, including refits of several hired merchantmen. Hiese figures include outfitting of two new ships {Victoria and Andromeda), so the average yearly cost for refits was around 16,000 daler. In proportion to the size of the navy, this is about the same level of expenditure as in the 1620s, when the Clercks had kept the ships in serviceable conditions for 2 daler per last and year.'® Was this level of expenditure enough to keep the navy at sea during the major Baltic war which was fought f r o m 1655 to 1660? As shown in chapter 3, 32 major warships (300 tonnes and larger) were mobilised in 1655, 24 in 1656 and 1657, 27 in 1658 (excluding two prizes), and 26 (excluding prizes) in 1659-60. From 1657 to 1660, the navy also hired a total of 28 merchantmen as warships: 16 in 1657, 24 in 1658, and 18 in 1659. Hiey were hired with their outfits of rig, cables, and sails, but the navy had to maintain them and replace what was lost or worn out. Three main fleet actions were fought in 1657, 1658, and 1659. At least the first two actions caused severe damage to the Swedish rigs because the Danish and Dutch fleets tended to fire high. From 1658 to 1660, the navy used Landskrona as a forward base, far from the production facilities at Stockholm. From 1657 to 1660 the navy also for the first time sent several ships to sea during the winter months. The logistical efforts to keep all these ships seaworthy must have been more demanding than in the 1620s. As for fittings, the level of expenditure seems to be too low to keep the whole navy in good condition, and it is probable that it partly lived on its accumulated capital of fittings. But the bottleneck to bring more ships to sea was serviceable hulls, not a crippling lack of cables or sails. We have some sources about the navy's sails in the 1650s. In January 1654, an inventory of the sails showed that some new ships had a set of new sails and were well supplied with spare sails, but most

O R 1657:4, 1658:4, and 1659:5. The gross figures show that a r o u n d 71,000 daler were spent on warships and that fittings of a r o u n d 10,600 daler were retrieved f r o m them. Wages for sail-makers and rope-makers are not inckided, and spending on small vessels is not included every year. The calculations are approximate.

496

c h a p t e r sEVEN

had a few old sails and only one or a few spare sails. Hie inventory listed only the most urgent requirements, but it nevertheless showed that 39 ships required an additional 30,570 ulnar of sailcloth. Of this, 6,979 ulnar were available from discarded ships. A revised estimate from December 1654 showed a total requirement of 35,161 ulnur for 41 ships, apparently because the ambition to supply them with spare sails had increased."" In 1656, an inventory of the sails of 32 ships (some old ships had been discarded since 1654), prepared as a part of a report which also surveyed hulls, masts and spars, and anchors, showed that the established inventory for all ships now included five spare sails (main, fore, mizzen, main, and fore topsail). If that level had been achieved, the 32 ships should have had 467 sails. They actually had 389, of which 126 were classified as "new", 229 as half-used {halvslitne), and 34 as "old". "Old" did not mean unserviceable but may be seen as a warning that the sail was not to be relied on under severe weather. The navy had 76 per cent of its full requirement of sails in good condition. All ships had sufficient sails to serve at sea, with the exception of the old Applet, which had been stripped of the 11 sails it had in 1654 to keep other ships serviceable. This report showed that the condition of the several old ships was a more serious problem than the sails. Two large ships with serviceable sails {Nyckeln and Tre Lejon) were not commissioned after 1655 due to the bad condition of their hulls.'" The regency government of Karl XI (1660-72) continued with great determination Karl X Gustav's policy to build large warships, and in the 1660s the navy was both increased and restructured. This was done in a decade when naval spending was restricted by the finance policy, and it is interesting to see if savings were made on something less visible for foreign diplomats than the number of hulls at Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. There are several accounts f r o m these years which may be used for detailed investigations, but there are only a few sources which provide surveys of the navy's readiness for service at sea. They

Sail inventory of January 1654 in the collection of Karl Gustav Wrangel (then riksviceamiral), E 8561, RA; two drafts of this inventory dated 25/1 a n d 30/1 1654, AK, Varvskontoret, FVI, vol. 1, KrA; list of lacking sails on several ships, December 1654, M 1761, RA. AK, Varvskontoret, FVI, vol. 1, KrA. In this inventory Omen's two topgallant sails are listed as "eaten by rats".

cordage and canvas: fitting o u t t h e navy

497

are analysed here in order to shed hght on what actually happened under the regency years. A summary of the navy's inventory of cables, sails, and flags was prepared in 1664, probably in order to apprise officials at the highest political level of the situation. It listed 34 warships (excluding two which were unserviceable), 4 transports, and 12 small vessels (boyers). Nearly all ships should ideally have five spare sails, the largest should have six or five heavy cables, and the medium-sized and small ships should have four. The 38 warships and transports should, according to this ideal, have 162 anchor cables, 368 large sails (main, fore, mizzen and two topsails plus one spare for each sail), and 181 small sails (topgallants, mizzen topsail, spritsail, and sprit topsails). They actually had 64 new, IGVi half-used, and nV2 old cables, a total of 108. Not less than 69 new cables were required, a lack of 43 per cent compared to the desired number of 162. There were 109 new, 62 half-used, and 114 old large sails, a total of 285. Again, 146 new large sails or 40 per cent of the desired inventory were required. There were 110 small sails, 43 new, 36 half-used and 31 old and no fewer than 102 new sails were required, 56 per cent of the desired inventory. The numbers show that most but not all cables and sails listed as "old" required immediate replacement. The navy of 1664 was evidently not ready for a long war, but practically all ships had at least sufficient fittings to sail on a brief campaign. The high percentage of old sails and cables make it probable that many of them were inherited f r o m ships which had been discarded in the 1650s and that the wear and tear f r o m the war years had not been remedied. Only the two new large ships Svdrdet (1662) and Applet (1661) were non-seagoing, mainly because they had no anchor cables.'" The next detailed inventory is f r o m 1670. It contains no ideal inventory, but if the same norms as in 1664 is used, the 43 ships (including four transports) had 62 per cent of their cables, 80 per cent of their large sails, and 76 per cent of their small sails. Tliis is rather similar in proportion to the situation in 1664, but because there is no information

A c c o u n t s of fittings {tackeltrdkning), O R 1663:4 a n d 1670:4, KrA; draft accounts for 1663-65, 1667-68, 1667-68, 1670, 1672-73, AK VarvsI'

1643 D

Harbovik

1050

J a g a r e n (ex Jaegermesteren)

ship (Wrecked

Gamla Kronan

684

A P P E N D I X ONE

{cont.) Name

Date

End

B u i h at/

Displacement

(origin) Applet Vasen (modern form: Vasa)

1621*

1625 S

1627'^

1628 W r raised 1961

Scepter

1 6 3 4 (?)

Patientia Draken

1644 P

Victoria

1658 1661

1686 D

Stocldiolm

1150 1500

1676 W r § 1707 S u n k

Gothenburg

1400

Bodekull

1150

Stoc k h o l m Bodekull

1250 1450

1655

Applet N y c k e l n , 1663 Saturnus, rebuilt

1662

Vastervik/C Stockholm/C

1300

1 6 7 1 (?) D

Stockholm

1350

1652/3 D 1677 P D a n

(Denmark) Stockholm

1100

1250

1 6 8 7 as B o h u s W r a n g e l , rebuilt 1689 Nyckeln

1664 1664

1713 D

Mars J u p i t e r , r e b u i l t 1 6 8 9 as

1665

1677 P D a n 1710 S u n k

Liibeck/C

1250

1665

Liibeck/C

1250

V e n u s , r e b u i l t 1 6 8 5 as Finland

1667

1706 S u n k

Karlshamn

1250

Solen

1667 1671

1694 S u n k

Liibeck/C Karlshamn

1200

Slite ( S w e d . M )

1100

Built at

Displacement

1679 LA §

Uppland

Mercurius St H i e r o n y m u s ( l a u n c h e d 1 6 7 4 (?))

1675 B

1677 P D a n 1677 P D a n

1400

Larger than 500 tonnes up to 1000 tonnes

Name Lybske Svanen Bryntan/Holken,

Date 1522 B 1534 1527/8

End

?

1543 D

(Liibeck) Alvsborg

600

1534 R e q

1536'^ R e t

(Kampen)

7/800

1535 P

1546/7 W r

(Liibeck)

6/700

Lejonet (Leonen)

1537/9

1562 D

Stockholm

1000

Angeln

1545'^

1572 S

Stockholm

600

Finske Svanen, Duke

1559/60

1571/3 D

Abo

750

1561/2

1563 lost?

Abo

?

Gamle Holken Kamperman

1524 W r

(Kampkravelen) Petter Hollender, 1536/8 Svanen

Johan's ship until 1561 Finske Bjornen, Duke Johan's ship

LIST OF SWEDISH W A R S H I P S ,

685

I52I-I72I

(cont.) Name

Date

End

Built at

Displacement

(Svenske/Store) H e c t o r

1561/2

900

1562/3

1589 B U 1588 S

Stockholm

St C h r i s t o f f e r

Vastervik

J u n g f r u n ? , lost while building

1563-^

1563 P D a n

Alvsborg

600 1000

Krabaten?, lost while building

1563=^

1563 P D a n

Alvsborg

900

Hercules

1563 P 1564 P

1571 Ret 1571 Ret

(Denmark)

Bose Lejonet

(Denmark)

800 600

(ex B y e n s Love) Wendekapan Tantheijen

1564 P

1571 Ret

1565* 1568/9

1574 S

(Liibeck? M ) Vastervik

600 700

Alvkarleby

900

Finland?

800 700

K a m p e n (ex D r a k e n ) Fortuna/Greken

1586 B U 1569 loan 1572 Ret 1583 B U 1574*

Kalvo (Swedish M)

Algen Gyllenstjernan/Stjarnan 1575 B 1576* Hjorten

1586 B U 1583 S

Alvkarleby

800 700

Lejonet, D u k e Karl's

1575/7

1591 L M

Strangnas

?

ship Angeln (Haringe

1577/8

1590 S

Haringe

700

Upplands Lejonet (Harbo Skeppet)

1578*

1590 B U

Harbovik

900

Viborgs Skeppet/ Morianen

1578 B

1583 S or

Raunio Kravelen/

1581*

1593 B U

Raumo

600?

1594 B U

Bjorneborg

600?

1598 S

Alvsborg

600

1589 L M

Rogstad

900

1590 G

Alvlcarleby

1000?

Skeppet)

G (Swedish? M )

800

Skeppet B j o r n e b o r g s K r a v e l e n / 1581* Skeppet 1581/2 Alvsborgs Skeppet, Q u e e n Gunilla's s h i p f r o m 1591 Halsinge Lejonet, D u k e 1584* Sigismund's ship f r o m 1585, see 1594 Alvkarleby Skeppet 1587/8 (possibly larger), perhaps Finske Lejonet 1594 Kunghg Majestats Skepp/Lejonet, probably Finske Lejonet (Klas Fleming's ship 1593-94) or perhaps Halsinge Lejonet, 1584

1594 F M

1594 L M

686

A P P E N D I X ONE

(cont.) Name Alvsborgs Lejonet,

Date

End

Built at

1594 F M

1594 L M

?

1593/4 1593/4

1597 S

Stockholm?

7 0 0 (?)

1609/10 D

Bergshammar

1594/5

1612 D 1605 W r

Vastervik

700 700

Monsteras Alvsborg

700 700?

Vastervik or Kungsor?

600 600

Displacement ?

possibly Hiilsinge Lejonet, 1584 Troilus (Svenske) Angeln Pelikanen Draken

1594/5

Scipio Svarte Ryttaren

1595/7 1596/7

1602 W r

Elefanten

1596/7

1608 LA

Kungsor or

1607 B U

Rutenkrans

1597/9

1611 L A D

Vastervik? Skokloster

Vasen, built for D u k e Karl

1598"^

1623 B u r n t

Aspo

700 900

T r e K r o n o r (ex W e i s s e Adler)

1598 P

1624 D

(Sigismund)

700

Bla F a l k e n ( f r o m

1596/7

1610/1 BU

Nykoping?

600

D u k e Karl 1598) Fiiiske S v a n e n (cargo

1599 P

1610/1 B U

(Sigism./Finl.)

800

1601 W r

(Sigism./Finl.) (Sigism./Finl.)

carrier) (Viborgs) Rosen 1599 P V i b o r g s / F i n s k e H e c t o r 1599 P S a m s o n (cargo carrier) 1599/1600 Smalands Lejonet 160r Forgyllda Applet 1601 Scepter 1601/2 Rode Lejonet

1601/2

1609/10 D 1607 L M 1622 D 1611 L A D 1611 L A D

E n a n g e r / C (?)

600 600 700

Bjorkenas

800

Aland Stegeborg

800 700

1611 P D a n Vasteras or Kungsor

600

S a m s o n (cargo carrier) 1602/3 Svardet, 1626 G a m l a 1604/5 Svardet

1 6 0 8 S?

Alvsborg

?

1630 D

Vasteras

900

Lejoninnan

1608 P 1609 P

1611 L A D

(Dutch, M)

600

1627 D

(Dutch, M)

600

1609/10

1612 P D a n A l v s b o r g

700

Scepter (ex A r n o Byggning)

1 6 1 5 ^ (?)

1639 D

Arno

800

Nyckeln

1616*

1628 W r §

V a s t e r v i k (?)

800

Andromeda 1620* S t o c k h o l m (ex H e c t o r ) 1621* Maria 1622*

1648 S u n k

Stockholm Stockliolm

600

Hollands Forgyllda Rosen, 1610 Blomman Alvsborgs Hector (ex H j o r t e n )

1652/3 D 1625 W r

Stockholm/C

800 600

687

LIST OF SWEDISH W A R S H I P S , I 5 2 I - I 7 2 I

(cont.) Name

Date

End

Built at

Displacement

Apollo

1622-^

1648 S u n k

Harbovik

Gustavus

1623/4 1623/4

1625 W r

Stockholm/C

600 800

1627 W r

Vastervilc/C

600

1624 B 1624/5

1628 W r 1649/50 D

(Dutch) Stockholm/C

700

1624/5 1625

1647 S 1 6 5 0 D (?)

Vastervik/C Stockholm/C

600

1625=^

1658 W r

Vastervik/C

1626/7

1645 W r 1646 S

Vastervik/C Gothenburg/C

1659 D

Stockholm

700 900

Viistervik/C Vastervik/C

900 900

Caesar (ex A l e x a n d e r Magnus) Kristina M e r c u r i u s (ex Svarta

700

Hunden) Achilles Tre Kroner S v a r d e t (ex S a m s o n ? ) Vastervik Vastgota Lejonet

800 800 700

Nyckeln Samson

1629 1630* 1631/2

Mars

1632"-

1659 W r 1660 D

Hans von Wismar

1632 P

1635 W r

(Imperial)

7 0 0 (?)

R e c o m p e n s (ex M a r i a Reconipens)

1632 P

1 6 5 8 FS

(Imperial)

600

Draken Jupiter

1632*

1652/3 D 1647 S France

Riga Gothenburg/C

900

1632*

Hannibal G o t e b o r g (built

1632/3

1636 W r 1652/3 D

Gothenburg/C (Albrekt van

5 5 0 (?)

1633 B

900

900

Velden, M)

at G o t h e n b u r g 1631/2) 1633/4

1647 S

Vastervik/C

800

Raphael (launched

1640 B

France 1660 S

Vastervik (M)

600

1639/40) Leoparden (launched

1641 B

1658 LA

V a s t e r v i k (C?)

600

R e g i n a (ex C h r i s t i n a )

1643/4

1647 S France

Stocldiolm

700

N y e St J a k o b

1644 P

1645 Ret

(Hamburg, M)

6 0 0 (?)

Nya Goteborg (ex S o p h i a )

1644 P

1645 S

(Denmark, M)

600

Oldenborg

1644 P

1667/8 D

(Denmark)

900

T r e L e j o n (ex T r e

1644 P

1659 D

(Denmark)

900

Stormaren

1644 P

6 0 0 (?)

1644 P

1645 W r 1680 D

(Denmark)

O r n e n (ex-Danish,

Neustadt

650

1648 G

Stockholm

700

Smalands Lejonet

1640/1)

Lover)

taken o n stocks) Julius

1646/7

France

688

A P P E N D I X ONE

(cont.) Name V a s t e r v i k (ex S m a l a n d , B 1647) Wismar C a e s a r (ex H e l i g a Tre Konungar?) Maria C a e s a r , 1 6 4 8 St A n n a Apollo Andromeda Hercules, rebuilt 1689-90

Date

End

Built at

Displacement

1646/7

1676 B u r n t

Viistervik/C

600

1646/7 1647/8

1692 G

Wismar/C Wismar/C

650

650 850

1648 1648"^ 1648"^ 1649/50 1650

1677 P D a n 1675/6 D

Stockholm

1650 G

Stockholm

France 1675/6 D

Wismar/C

850

1655 W r 1710 S u n k

Stockholm

550 6 0 0 (?)

Wismar/C

850

Carolus, 1678/9

1650

1684 D

Stockholm

850

C a r o l u s I X (X) Mercurius, rebuilt

1651

1675 P D a n

Stocldiolm

650

1653 1653/4

1677 P D a n 1696/7 D

Stockholm

650

Viistervik/C

650

1666 S

Stocldiolm

550

Gothenburg (Denmark)

650

1670/1, Falken Amarant M a n e n (B 1 6 5 4 ) , r e built 1 6 7 5 - 7 6 later often Halvmanen Falken

1654=^

Portugal Goteborg

1656 1658 P

1681 D 1658 P D u

Delmenhorst

1658 P

Andromeda Danska Phoenix

1659

1658 P D u 1692 D

1659 P 1659 P

1675/6 D 1668 D

1659 P 1662 B

1666 S

(Courland)

1677 P D a n

(Vastervik's Ship Co.)

750

Pelikanen

Gra Ulven Leoparden Svenska Lejonet (built 1656)

(Denmark) Gothenburg (Denmark) (Denmark)

700 600 600 650 650 550

Spes, rebuilt 1689

1666

1697 W r

Stockholm

650

Nordstjarnan (armed

1670

1683 FS

Medelpad

600 550 650

transport) Neptunus

1673

1676 P D a n

Karlshamn

Sundsvall Laxen

1674

1676 W r

Medelpad

1675 Riga, b o u g h t o n stocks 1675 B

1679 P D a n 1683 G

Medelpad Riga (M)

U n n a m e d ship 1676=^ K a l m a r (ex Endriikten, 1677 B l a u n c h e d 1676?)

1676 P D a n 1677 L A D

Karlshamn Kalmar (M)

650

1678 Ret

(Swedish M)

600

700 700 550

C r o n s t i e r n a (ex Stjarnan)

1678 B

Stenbock

1679

1 7 1 3 BS

Stockliolm

550

Wachtmeister

1680/81

1719 P Rus

Riga (orig. C)

700

LIST OF SWEDISH W A R S H I P S ,

I52I-I72I

300 tonnes to 500 tonnes

Name

Date

End

Built at

Displacement

1519^

1529 S

Danzig

?

1519 F M / B 1521 B 1522 B

1523 Sunk? 1521 P D a n

(Liibeck, M ) (Liibeck, M )

3/400?

1522 L M

(Liibeck, M )

3/400?

Henrik Kroens skepp Peter Heysens skepp

1522 B 1522 B

1522 L M

(Liibeck, M )

1523 L M

(Liibeck, M )

3/400? 3/400?

Hans Burmester

1522 B

1522 L M

(Liibeck, M )

3/400?

skepp Ugglan (Johan

1522 B

1530=^ D

(Stralsund,

300?

Danziger Svanen/ Prysske Svanen, 1525/6 Store Svanen Carsten Todes hoik Bartuneren Wolter Kramers

?

skepp

M)

Trittelfitzes hoik) 1525 F M

1534 L M

-

?

before 1526

1 5 2 6 S (?)

-

?

L u m p e r ( s a m e as

before

1 5 2 6 S?

(Swedish M)

?

ship F M 1519?) B j o r n e n (B 1 5 2 2

1526 1532/4 D

?

?

Johan av H o y a s kravell (private, perhaps two different ships) J o h a n av H o y a s h o i k (private, p e r h a p s a ship b o u g h t 1522 and t u r n e d over to Count Johan)

and renamed?)

before 1526 1531=^

300

1532/3?

1560 D 1546 S

Stockholm

N y e H o l k e n , 1540/ 41 Kilen?

Stockholm?

500

Riksens Rads skepp

1534/5

1536 L M

Finland

4/600

1535 P 1553/

1546 L M

(Lubeck)

4/600

D r a k e n (ex large galley 1541)

4 ship

Lille K r a v e l e n / F a l k e n

(private) Galeonen

1563 L M

-

400

Troilus

1559/60

1571 G

Stocldiolm

300

H a m b u r g s Kravelen

1561 B

1563 LM, lost?

(Hamburg?)

?

Forgyllde (Gyllene) Lejonet

1562 B

1565 LA

(foreign)

450

Svenske/Store/Stock-

1563 B

1571/3 D

(Swedish M )

450

(Morianen), Duke Johan's ship

holms Hjorten

A P P E N D I X ONE

690 {cont.) Date

Name (Gavle) Bjornen

Built at

End

1563 B (G?) 1 5 7 1 / 3 S

(Swedish M )

Displacement 450

(Brune Bjornen) ( 1 5 6 3 - 6 4 also Gavle Hjorten) Pelikanen/Baggen

450

1563 B

1566 L M

1563 P

1570 D 1571 Ret

(Denmark)

1563 P

1569 G 1571/2 G

(Liibeck, M ) (Liibeck, M )

Rode Lejonet (Brokige Lejonet)

1563 P

1571 W r

(Liibeck, M )

St G o r a n Brommaren

1563 P

1565 P D a n

(Liibeck? M )

1564* 1564/5

1571/2 D 1574 S u n k

Helsingfors

300 300

Abo

300

1564 P

1570 S 1570 G

(Liibeck. M ) (Liibeck, M )

350 300

1576 G

(Liibeck, M )

300

1571 Ret 1571 Ret

(Denmark) (Denmark)

450 300

1571 G

Helsingfors

400

1570 D 1571/3 Ret

(Swedish M ) (Swedish M )

500 300

(Konigsberg

450

Danske Hector Danske Hjorten Brune Lejonet Rode Gripen

(Finske) M e m n o n Forgyllda D u v a n Lybske Christoffer Lybske H j o r t e n Danske David Danske Morianen Renen Algen

1563 P 1563 P

1564 P 1564 P 1564 P 1564 P 1565^^ 1565 B 1565 B 1565 P

Samson Pryssen

1573 D

-

(Denmark)

300 300 300 300 300

iVi J 1570 G 1569 Ret

(Lubeck? M ) (Holland, M)

1568 Ret

(Holland, M)

500?

1571 Ret 1594 L M

(Denmark)

400

Stockholm

300

1574 P

1582 S

(Liibeck, M )

450

1574 P

1576 W r

(Liibeck, M )

300

1574/5 Ret 1576/7

1575 W r

(Swedish M )

400

1591 B U

H a l i k o (?)

300

Halvmanen/Manen

1565 P

Jonas van E m d e n Hollands Morianen

1567 R e q 1567 R e q

Danske Bjornen

1570 P 1572

Lybska (Forgyllda) Duvan Lybska O r n e n H a l v m a n e n (= 1565)

Svanen (Nya Barken)

Renen (1577-79

400 500?

Finske Svanen?) 1577 P

1582 S

(France, M )

300

Franske Hjorten

1579 P

1581 G

(France, M )

300

Gamle Frantsen (Franske) N e p t u n u s A n g e r m a n n e Skeppet

1579 P

(France, M )

?

1579 P

1582 D 1582 G

?

1579''

1582 S

(France, M ) Angerman-

1581 G

land (England, M)

(Franske)

Ormen

Engelske/Lille A n g e l n 1581 P (possibly larger)

300 ?

LIST OF SWEDISH W A R S H I P S ,

I52I-I72I

691

(cont.) Name

Date

End

Lybske Delfin

1581 P

Stjarnan Gripen

1581/2 P/B? 1584 S

1582 G

1581/2 P/B? 1584 S

Built at

Displacement

(Liibeck)

?

(Viborg?, M?) (Greifswald,

300? 300?

M) Angermanne Kravelen

1583/4

R a u m o Skeppet,

1591/3

1597 L M

Raumo

?

1592/4

1594 L M

Alvsborg

?

(Halsinge) Lejonet (Gavle) Svanen

1593/4 1593/4

1601/2 T p

Iggesund

1593/4

Gavle Alvkarleby

400 400

(Gavle/Svenske) Bjornen

1 5 9 8 Sig. 1608 D

1586/7 S

Angerman-

300

land

1597 r e n a m e d ? (size u n c e r t a i n ) Nya Alvsborgs Slceppet, t o F i n l a n d w i t h Klas F l e m i n g 1594, r e n a m e d ? (possibly larger)

400

Ulven

1593/4

1 5 9 8 Sig.

Kungsor?

?

Naktergalen

1596 F M

Aland

?

Finske Angeln Hjorten

1597 F M

1 5 9 8 Sig. 1 6 0 6 D (?) 1 5 9 8 Sig.

F i n l a n d (?) ?

500

1598 F M 1 5 9 7 / 8 (?)

1606 T p

Viborg

300?

1598 F M

1606 L M

?

1595/6

1609 L M

?

300 500

Gripen (from Duke Karl 1598)

1590/1

1602 W r

Gripsholm

400

Vite Falken (from

1598 F M

1602 G

?

300

(Viborgs) Finske

?

Morianen (from S i g i s m u n d to D u k e Karl 1600) Enhorningen St E r i k ( f r o m D u k e Karl 1598)

D u k e Karl 1598) Achilles

1598 R e q

1601 L M

(Swedish M )

400?

Alvsborgs Hector Alvsborgs Svanen

1598 B

1608 W r 1611 W r

(Swedish M)

400

Alvsborg

?

1602 W r 1604 W r

Hudiksvall

400

Gavle

300

1598/9?

Halsinge Morianen Gavle Ulven

1598/9

Nykopings Morianen D u v a n , 1604 Finska

1599 F M 1599 F M

1604 Gift

Nykoping?

400

1606 W r

Finland?

400

1599 F M 1599 F M

1603 W r

?

400

1 6 0 9 W r (?)

Vastervik?

300

1598/9

Duvan Loparden Unge Ryttaren

692

A P P E N D I X ONE

{cont.) Name

Date

Built at

End

Displacement

Hannibal

1599=^

1611 LA

Nyk5ping

500

V i b o r g s Liljan

1599 P

(Sigism./Finl.)

Lybske (Forgyllda) Hjorten

1599 P

1 6 0 4 D (?) 1606 Tp?

(Liibeck, M )

300 500?

Lybske Forgyllde

1599 P

1 6 0 5 L M (?) ( L i i b e c k , M )

500?

1599 P

Lejonet, 1604/5 B l a L e j o n e t (?) Lybske Svanen

300?

1599 P

1600 Ret 1604 L M

(Liibeck, M )

Lybske Bjornen (never armed)

(Liibeck, M )

300

Lybska H a v f r u n ,

1599 P

1609 L M

(Liibeck, M )

300

1601 H a v f r u n Lybske Falken

1599 P

1609 L M

(Liibeck, M )

S a l v a t o r ( r e b u i l t at Kalmar 1604-06)

1 5 9 9 P (B)

1611 L A D

(Danzig, M)

300 400

Strutsen (Duke

1599/1600

1607 L M

Nykoping

300

Hercules Finske Bjornen

1599/1600?

1602 W r

Alvsborg

?

1600 P

1606 L M

(Sigism./Finl.)

Finske Morianen

1600 P

1606 T p

(Sigism./Finl.)

500? 300?

(Sigismund?)

300?

Karl's s h i p of 1590 rebuilt?)

(see 1597/8 a b o v e ) (Stockholms) 1600 F M / P ? 1604 W r Stjarnan

Nykoping? 1611 L A D 1612 P D a n K u n g s o r or Vasteras

Rode Hanen

1601/2?

Gule Lejonet

1601/2

Kalmar Valen

1601/2?

1611/2 D

K a l m a r (?)

300

Mercurius

1601/2

1622 W r

400

Obekant

1602 F M 1602 P

1611 LA

Gamla Lodose Stockliolm?

1607 L M

(Emden, M)

400 500

(Stralsund?,

300

Emder Fortuna/ Emderman Sundska Maria

1602 P o r B 1 6 0 9 L M

400 500

M) Jupiter Lybska/Lilla D u v a n

1603'^ 1 6 0 3 B (?)

1609 L M

Alvsborg (Lubeck)

300?

1609 L M

Bla O r m e n Alands Hjorten, 1612 Elefanten

1603 F M 1603/04

1612 P D a n

?

1625 W r

Aland

400 500

Nykopings Ulven

1603/4

1610 G

Nykoping

300

M a r s (ex S t e g e b o r g s Pramen)

1 6 0 3 / 4 (?)

1625 W r

S t e g e b o r g (?)

300

300?

693

LIST OF SWEDISH W A R S H I P S , I 5 2 I - I 7 2 I

(cont.) Name

Date

End

Built at

Displacement

Rabocken (ex-Wendekapan?)

1604 P or B 1607 W r

(German? M)

300

K o p e n h a m n s Juten

1604 P o r B 1609 L M

(Denmark, M)

500?

Apelbom

1604 B 1 6 0 4 B (?)

(Dutch, M)

500? 400

1608 S 1608 L M 1604 P o r B 1624 W r

(Bmden, M) (Dutch, M)

Hollands

Angela, 1616 Angeln

1604 P o r B 1 6 2 1 W r

(Dutch, M)

300

Hollands Hagern

1604 P or B 1608 W r 1604 P or B 1606 L M

(Dutch, M)

300

(M) Kalmar

?

Emder Morianen Hollands Falken,

400

1611 F a l k e n or Vita/Hollands Falken

Jonas (van Eckelfyr) Josua

1604 F M

1616 W r

300

region or Vastervik Orpheus

1605/6

(Hollands) Krabban

1605 P? 1607? P

Justitia N y c k e l n , 1 6 1 7 Lilla

1611 L A D 1612 P D a n

Kungsor

500 400 300

1612 W r

(Dutch M) (Privateer?)

1607/8

1630 W r

Kalmar

400

1607/8

1611 P D a n

Stegeborg

400

Nyckeln Jonas

(Stockholm?) R i d d a r St G o r a n Kolmards Bjornen Obekant Fortuna

Stocldiolm

1608"^

1611 L A D

(Stegeborg?) Kvarsebo

300

1608? P?

1612 D 1624 D

(Dutch? M)

400

(Dutch? M)

1608 LA?

(Dutch, M)

500 400?

1608 L M 1612 W r

(Dutch, M)

400?

(Dutch, M)

300

1608 L M

(Dutch, M)

?

1613 S 1 6 2 2 Tp

M(?) (Dutch, M) (Dutch, M)

300

(Dutch, M)

500

1621 W r

(Dutch, M)

500

1613 D 1623 D

(Dutch, M)

500

(Dutch, M)

300

1609 P

1609 L M

(Dutch, M)

?

1609 P

1609 L M

(Dutch, M)

?

1608 P H o l l a n d s R o d e Lejon 1608 P 1608 P Hollands Josua 1608? P Hollands Svanen Svarta H u n d e n

Meerman

1608? P 1609 P?

(Hollands) Spegeln

1609 P

Hollands Hjorten

400

1611 L A D

1608"^

(Hollands) O r a n i b o m 1609 P 1609 P (Hollands)

1 6 3 6 s (?) 1611 P D a n

500 500

Mjolkpigan (Hollands) Samson

1609 P

(Hollands) C o n c o r d i a 1609 P 1609 P (Hollands) Draken Hollands Unge Tobias Hollands Lejon

694

A P P E N D I X ONE

(cont.) Name

Date

(Nykopings) Stjarnan 1610^ Ostgota Lejonet, f r o m 1610/1 D u k e J o h a n 1611

End

Built at

Displacement

1 6 2 6 D (?) 1 6 2 6 D (?)

Nykoping Stegeborg

4 0 0 (?)

161P

1625 W r

Kungsor

500

161P

1625 W r

Rido

400

1611 P

1612 L M

(Denmark)

400

1614/5

1630 W r

R i d o (?)

400

H a r b o Lejonet

1616

Perseus V a s t e r v i k (ex

1619/20 1620/21

1625 W r 1625 W r

Vasterviks Pinass) A n g e l n (ex Harboviks Pinass) Hector Jungfrun

500

( 1 6 1 1 - 1 7 Stageborgs Byggning) Orpheus (1611-1613/ 4 Kungsors RvCJCrn i n cj 1 Hannibal (1611-16 Store Vasteras Byggning) Jute/Danske Stjarnan Jupiter (1615-17 R i d o B y g g n i n g (?)) Harbovik

500

1625 W r

Vastervik/C Viistervik/C

500 300

162r

1625 W r

Harbovik

300

1622/3 1623 B

1625 W r 1647 S

Vastervik/C (Dutch)

500

Tigern

1624 B

1627 P

(Dutch)

450

Solen

1624 B

(Dutch)

450

Manen

1624 B 1624 B

(Dutch) (Dutch)

450 400

300

Poland

Regnbagen

1627 L A D 1 6 5 1 D (?) 1632 L M

Enhorningen Pelikanen

1624 B

1646 S 1635 W r

(Dutch)

350

1624 B

(Dutch)

(Forgyllda) B o n a n

1626 P

1639 T p

(Prussia)

300 400

(Danziger) Delfin (Danziger) M e e r m a n

1626 P 1626 P

1639 T p

(Prussia)

400

1639 T p

(Prussia)

400

Svarta H u n d e n St J a k o b

1626 P 1627/8 P

1 6 3 2 / 3 S? 1644 FS

(Prussia) (Privateer)

400

Jagaren

1629/30

1635 W r

Stocldiolm

450

Fortuna (contract-

1629/30

1645 W r

Horningsholm

500

Havfrun

1 6 3 0 / 1 B?

1657 FS

(Dutch?)

400

Falken

1631^ 1631 P

1651 W r

Stockholm

1 6 5 1 (?) D

(Imperial)

500 450

(Watterman)

built or bought)

T i g e r n ( s a m e as T i g e r n , 1624)

400

LIST OF SWEDISH W A R S H I P S ,

695

I52I-I72I

{cont.} B u i h at

Displacement

Date

End

1632 P

1667/8 D

(Imperial)

500

(Wismarske) Meerman

1632 P

1644 FS

(Imperial)

400

(Wismarske)

1632 P

1 6 3 5 / 6 S?

(Imperial)

300

1632 P

1 6 3 2 S (?)

1632 P

1 6 4 4 FS

(Imperial) (Imperial)

300 300

1632 P

1638 L M 1634 Gift

(Imperial) (Imperial)

300

1632 P 1633/4

1635 W r 1645 S

Viistervik/C S t o c l d i o l m (?)

500? 300

1651 S 1641 L M

Stockholm Norrkoping

450?

Name Salvator (ex K o n i g Caspar)

Meerweib, Maarwif St J a k o b (Wismarske/Lille) Delfin Noe Ark P h o e n i x , fluyt (Nye) Svarta H u n d e n Lammet Oxen

1633/4

Norrkopings Kompaniskeppet

1 6 4 0 B?

1 6 3 8 (?)

300

300

(The Ship Co.)

( l a u n c h e d 1639, probably not purc h a s e d u n t i l 1642) (Nya) Kattan Jagaren

1641/2 1641/2

Svanen (probably Norrkopings

1642 B

Stocldiolm 1647 S F r a n S t o c k h o l m 1659 P D a n (Vastervik's 1649 W r

350 500 450

Ship Co.)

Kompaniskeppet, 1639) Fama

1642/3 B

1657 FS

(Hie Ship PN 1

350

(Vasterviks) F o r t u n a

1643 B

1678 S t m k

Vastervik

500

(C?) (Swedish M ) (Denmark)

400

(launched 1642/3) Konung David

1643/4 B

1645 S

Tva Lejon

1644 P

1658 FS

Fides Nellebladet

1644 P 1644 P

1667 D

Neptunus Kronfisken

1644 P

1656 S u n k 1657 FS

1644 P

Havhasten Kalmar Nyckel

400

(ex T u Lover) (Denmark) (Denmark)

450 450

(Denmark)

350

1655 W r

(Denmark)

400

1644 P

1648 S u n k

(Denmark)

400

1644/5 B

1651 S

(The Ship Co.)

300

St P e d e r

1645 P

400?

1645

1645 S 1680 D

(Denmark M)

H j o r t e n (ex O r n e n )

Stocldiolm

450

Phoenix, r e b u i h 1675 Monikendam

1651

1698 D

Stocldiolm

400

1659 P

1671/2 D

(Dutch)

500

696

A P P E N D I X ONE

(cont.) Name Hollandske Prinsen (ex P r i n s W i l l e m ) Kuriska Angeln Neptunus Recompens (St J o h a n n e s , s e e

Date

End

Built at

Displacement

1659 P

1660 Ret

(Dutch)

450?

1659 P

1667/8 D 1659 Sunk? 1662 W r

(Courland)

1659 P 1659 P

/Courland) (Courland)

500? 450?

(1659 P)

-

(Denmark)

(500)

1674* 1675 B

1694 S u n k

Stockholm Slite ( S w e d .

300

350

merchantmen hired 1657-60) Fredrika Amalia A b r a h a m (ex A b r a h a m s OfFrande) ( l a u n c h e d 1674) Delfin

1680 S

300

M) 1677

1700 FS

Stockholm

300

100 tonnes to less than 300 tonnes

Name

Date

End

Built/Origin

H a n s Brasks skepp

1 5 1 6 (?)

1523 L M

K a l m a r (?)

(bishop's ship) Jasper Bruns bark Arvid Kurcks skepp

1520 F M 1521 B

1522 L M

(Lubeck?) (Liibeck, M )

1522 W r

Displacement 200/250 ?

(bishop's ship) H a n s Brasks bark (bishop's ship) Simon Schultens skepp H e n r i k Berges skepp Henrik Gronenbergs

1522 F M

1522 W r

1522 B 1522 B 1522 B

1523 L M (Lubeck, M ) 1522 L M (Lubeck, M ) 1523/4 W r ? (Lubeck, M )

skepp (hoik) Greger Barckes skepp Samson (Kort Verfers

1522 B

1522 L M

(Lubeck, M )

1522 B

1523/4 W r

(Stralsund, M )

hoik) K o r t Konigs kravel,

1523/4 B

1523/4 L M

(Lubeck, M )

1525 F M

1525 W r §

250

1526 F M 1526 F M

1540 L M 1539 L M

1526/30 FM

1543 D

Stockliolm?

100? 1/200 ?

1526/30

1539 L M

Kalmar?

2/300? 2/300?

200? 200? 200?

s a m e as b e l o w ? Kravelen, possibly s a m e as a b o v e Lille S v a n ( S v a n e n ) Lange Barken Blockhuset (floating battery?) Algen/Kalmar Barken, t w o ships?

FM

2/300

LIST OF SWEDISH WARSHIPS, I 5 2 I - I 7 2 I

697

(cont.) Name Bojorten, Gamle Bojorten Lybska B o j o r t e n , Severin Kijls b o j o r t (see b e l o w ) Segelskeppet V i b o r g s B a r k e n , 1540 Gamle/Store Viborgs Barken Nye Bojorten Store Marsebojorten, 1544 G a m l e B o j o r t e n (= Lybska B, above?) Segelskeppet S e g e l s k e p p e t , 1542 S t a l n a b b e n (or s a m e as b o u g h t in 1534) Kalmar/Stora Segelskeppet Finske Barken/Ugglan Flemingen Nya Viborgs Barken B r e m e r Bojorten/Lille Bojorten Gripen/Store Gripen Lange Barken (ex Segelskeppet (?)) N y e B o j o r t e n , 1560 Store Rabojorten Lose G a l e o n e n / Alvsborgs Galeonen Vasterviks Barken N y e B a r k e n , 1560 Kalmar Barken Finske Falken, D u k e Johan's ship until 1561 Finske H o k e n , D u k e Johan's ship until 1561 Alvsborgs Barken (FM 1560 b u t p r o b a b l y s a m e as galley b u i l t at A l v s b o r g 1 5 5 6 - 5 7 )

Date

End

Built/Origin

Displacement

1 5 3 3 / 4 B? 1536 L M

(Dutch?)

1534 P

1536 L M

(Liibeck)

1534 B? 1535="

1535 L M (?) ( D a n i s h ? ) 1546 S Viborg

200

1535 F M 1535? P?

1535 L M 1565 G

perhaps Dutch (Liibeck?)

100? 125

1535 P 1535 L M 1535 P (?) 1544 D

(Liibeck?) (Liibeck?)

100? 100?

1536*

1547 L M

Kalmar

100?

1536 F M 1537/8 1540* 1543 B

1552 1546 1547 1547

F i n l a n d (?) Finland Viborg (Bremen)

150? 2/300 150 100?

1544* 1548 (?)

1565 LA

Stockliolm Stoclcholm (?)

175 125

Stockholm

125

Alvsborg

100? 150 150

LM LM Wr S

1565 W r 1549* 1566 W r 1553*

1557 G

1553/4 1556*

1573 G 1578/9 D

Vastervik Stocldaolm

1556/7

1564 L A D

Abo

1556/7

1566 L M

Abo

1571/3 D

Alvsborg

1556/7

100?

100?

150 (?)

175

150

A P P E N D I X ONE

698 (cont.) Name

Date

End

Nykopings Barken Hollands Barken

1557^

1574 G

1559'^

Viborgs Barken Vite Falken Harmastaren (Store) R o d e H u n d e n Lybske N a c k e n Lybska H a v f r u n Rosen

1560'1,500

E n d o f N D

Year

2 2 750 750 - 6 - 6 _ 4 _ 4 600 600 600 600 600 600 1,350 2,000

-

N

N

N

D

100-299 N

D

1,500

Year

(cont.)

1 1 1 1

-

-

2 2 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

D

D

1,250 3 1,250 3 1.250 3 2,250 3 2,250 3 2,250 3 2,250 3 1,650 3 1,650 3 2,250 3 1,600 1 1,600 1 1,600 1 1,600 1 1,600 1 1,600 1 1,600 1 1,600 2 1,600 2 1,600 2 1,600 2 1,600 2 1,600 2

N

501-1,000 D

1,300 8 1,300 8 1,300 9 1,300 7 1,300 7 1,300 7 1,300 7 1,300 8 1,300 8 1,300 8 300 6 300 3 300 4 300 5 300 5 300 5 300 4 700 4 700 6 700 6 700 7 700 10 700 10

N

300-500 D

N

D

1,500

1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605

1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 4,400 4,400 4,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400

E n d o f N D

Year

{cont.)

3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 -

3,450 2,350 2,350 2,350 2,350 2,350 2,350 2,350 -

N 10 11 11 9 9 9 8 5 4 4 3 3 5 5 7 10 13 14 16 16 17 17 17

D

1,001-1,500 D

N

D

300-500 N

D

100-299 N

D

1,500

Year

{cont.)

1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

1,050 1,050 1,050 1,050 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 2,400 1,350 2,450 2,450 2,450 2,450 2,450 2,450 2,450 2,450 1,350

N 11 11 17 19 20 19 18 18 18 17 18 19 19 19 26 22 21 20 21 20 21 22 19

D

1,001-1,500

8,000 8,000 12,900 14,350 15,150 14,450 13,900 13,900 13,900 13,100 13,700 14,300 14,300 14,300 19,250 16,750 16,050 15,000 16,000 15,300 15,950 16,600 14,000

N

D

501-1,000

13 16 20 20 21 17 16 16 16 13 14 13 16 18 22 21 20 18 17 16 16 12 12

D

5,250 6,600 7,900 7,900 8,400 6,850 6,350 6,350 6,350 5,150 5,550 5,150 6,450 7,300 9,050 8,600 8,250 7,450 7,050 6,700 6,700 5,100 5,100

N

300-500

7 8 10 10 10 10 8 9 8 7 7 7 7 6 6 10 9 6 7 7 6 7 7

D

N

1,500

Year

D

N

D

501-1,000 N

D

300-500 N

D

100-299 N

D

700 7 9,250 10 6,900 5 1,750 11 1,500 10 500 2 200 46 21 800 1,700 6 7,800 11 7,450 5 1,750 11 1,500 5 250 2 200 41 20 650 1,700 8 10,600 10 6,800 3 1,000 7 1,100 1 75 2 200 32 21,475

D

Battleships

Year

[cont.)

742 A P P E N D I X ONE

1680 1681 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686 1687 1688 1689 1690 1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700

Year ^

N

18 19 23 25 27 27 28 28 29 29 29 29 29 30 31 33 35 36 38 39 39

of

N

D

N

D

Major cruisers N

D

Minor seagoing N

D

Total, N

D

Blockships inshore N

D

Galleys strength N

D

Total,

Total naval

18,550 6 2,050 6 675 30 21,275 - 2 200 19,450 5 1,800 6 675 30 21,925 - 2 200 2 200 32 22'] 25 24.050 5 1,800 6 675 34 26,525 - 2 200 2 200 36 26725 27,400 4 1,550 6 675 35 29,625 - 2 200 2 200 37 29 825 31,350 6 2,400 6 675 39 34,325 - 2 200 2 700 41 34525 31,350 6 2,400 6 675 39 34,425 - 2 200 2 200 41 34625 32,650 6 2,400 5 625 39 35,675 - 2 200 2 200 41 S875 32,650 7 2,900 6 775 41 36,325 - 2 200 2 200 43 35 525 34,050 7 2,900 7 925 43 37,875 - 2 200 2 200 45 SioS 34,050 7 2,900 6 800 42 37,750 _ _ 49 37 7S 34,750 7 2,900 6 800 42 38,450 _ _ . 4 9 3«'4sn 34,750 7 2,900 6 800 42 38,450 _ _ . 4 2 ^s^sn 36,200 7 2,900 6 800 42 39,900 _ _ _ 49 ^o'onn 37,250 7 2,900 6 800 43 40,950 _ _ _ 43 400^0 39,125 6 2,600 5 700 42 42,425 _ _ _ 42 4249s 40,550 6 2600 6 825 45 43,975 - _ _ _ _ 45 A^'g'jl 44.100 6 2,600 6 825 47 47,525 _ _ . 4 7 An^jl 45,350 6 2,600 6 825 48 48,775 _ _ . 4 0 40V7S 47,250 6 2,750 7 1,000 51 51,000 _ _ _ si s/nnn 48,000 8 3,600 7 1,000 54 52,600 _ _ _ s4 57 ^ 48,000 10 4,550 8 1,070 57 53,620 _ _ 57 53590

D

Battleships cruisers

Part 2. Battleships, cruisers and inshore warships 1680-1721

SWEDISH N A V A L STRENGTH, 1 5 2 0 - 1 7 2 1 743

38 40 41 42 43 43 43 43 43 39 38 35 33 33 29 29 28 27 24 24 23

N

47,375 50,475 52,075 53,700 55,200 55,600 55,400 56,000 56,000 50,400 49,650 44,950 42,300 41,700 36,650 36,650 35,600 34,700 33,900 33,900 32,200

D

14 15 15 16 15 16 17 20 18 18 17 18 15 16 14 15 16 17 12 10 10

N

Battleships

N

5,625 19 5,975 28 5,975 31 6,475 24 6,050 24 6,675 24 7,425 25 8,775 25 8,050 24 8,050 22 7,800 19 8,275 16 6,625 17 6,875 15 5,775 15 6,875 19 6,725 19 7,025 19 4,975 16 4,650 16 4,650 16

2,190 2.915 3,235 2,855 2,855 2,865 2,895 2,935 2,835 2,625 2,175 1,850 1,975 1,795 1,850 2,200 2,135 2,135 1,960 1,960 1,960

D

N 71 83 87 82 82 83 85 88 85 79 74 69 65 64 58 63 63 63 52 50 49

cruisers

cruisers

D

Minor

Major

55,140 59,365 61,285 63,030 64,105 65,140 65,720 67,710 66,885 61,075 59,625 55,075 50,900 50,370 44,275 45,725 44,460 43,860 40,835 40,510 38,810

D

seagoing

Total,

D

N

D

inshore

Galleys

N

D

strength

Total,

N

D

Total naval

- - 71 55,190 - 1 100 1 100 84 59,465 1 150 2 140 3 290 90 61,575 - 2 200 2 200 84 63,230 - 3 300 3 300 85 64,405 - 4 600 4 600 87 65,740 - 5 675 5 675 90 66,395 - 5 675 5 675 93 68,385 - 5 675 5 675 90 67,560 - 5 675 5 675 84 61,750 - 5 675 5 675 79 60,300 - 5 675 5 675 74 55,750 2 900 16 1,675 18 2,575 83 53,475 2 900 16 1,410 18 2,310 82 52,680 2 900 18 1,580 20 2,480 78 46,775 1 400 12 1,185 13 1,585 76 47,310 5 1,700 25 3,750 30 5,450 93 49,910 10 3,900 25 3,750 35 7,650 98 51,510 9 2,800 16 1,190 25 3,390 77 44,225 10 3,800 16 1,190 26 4,390 76 44,900 10 3,800 28 2,710 38 6,510 87 45,320

N

Blockships

N: number of ships. D: total displacement in tonnes. The appendix is based on the ship-list in Appendix 1. Bomb-vessels are included in minor cruisers. All displacementfiguresare additions of estimates and not as exact as the table may indicate. If quoted, they ought to be rounded. Displacementfiguresfor block-ships and galleys are, in several cases, only known with uncertainty, and thefiguresin this appendix are only indicative.

1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 1717 1718 1719 1720 1721

End of

Year

{cont.) 744 A P P E N D I X ONE

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769

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GENERAL INDEX

Abo, 216, 334, 372 n, 122, 645 castle at, 254, 281 Duke Karl's expedition to (1597), 378 shipbuilding at, 282, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 380, 381 n. 139, 382, 399 shipyard at, 333, 334 Abo archipelago, 218 Abo provincial, regional c o m p a n y of seamen, 598, 599 Absolutism, 303, 316, 424 and naval administration, 306-312 and naval fittings, 501-504 Accounts, 7, 142 n. 5, 146, 266, 268, 273, 274, 275, 276, 290, 294, 296, 298, 327, 358 n. 100, 379, 450, 452, 453, 455, 460, 465, 467, 468, 475, 476, 477, 493, 494, 495, 496, 508, 525, 539 n. 57, 594 arklirdkningar (ordnance accounts), 8, 508, 522 a r m a m e n t accounts, 146, 536, 538, 539, 542, 543, 545 n. 68 artillerihuvudbdcker (ordnance ledgers), 8, 508, 539 fitting accounts, 318 gun f o u n d r y accounts, 529 landskapshandlingar (local accounts), 327, 578 loningsregister (wage accounts), 578 naval, 8, 47, 64 n. 16, 141 n. 4, 142, 146, 176 n. 40, 185 n. 48, 257 n. 22, 270, 271, 298, 308, 309, 310, 318, 319 n. 10, 325, 326, 330, 372, 388, 389, 438, 453, 476, 477, 478, 579 o r d n a n c e accounts, 8, 146 n. 8, 148 n. 11, 149 n. 12, 257, 269, 519, 522, 530, 533, 534, 538, 545, 547, 549; see also accounts, arklirdkningar, artillerihuvudbdcker orlogs-flottans rdkenskaper, 8, 508 proviantrdkenskaper, 146 n. 8, 164 n. 28, 270 n. 43, 335 n. 50, 579 provisioning acounts, 146, 270 n. 43, 327, 380 n. 138, 577, 578, 589, 590, 593, 609 rdntekammarbocker (Treasury's central accounts), 578, 589 rikshuvudbocker (Treasury ledgers), 578

sailcloth accounts, 494 skeppsgdrdshandlingar (shipyard accounts), xi, 7, 47, 146 n. 8, 255 n. 17, 257, 270, 274 n. 51, 327, 337 n. 57, 350 n. 85, 368 n. 113, 378, 380 n. 138, 381 n. 139, 388 n. 151, 391 n. 155, 421 n. 205, 465, 467, 468, 469, 475 n. 62, 476, 522, 578, 579 skeppsruUan, central naval accounts, 372, 466 wage accounts, 577, 578, 581, 589, 590, 592, 593, 620, 621, 622 Adeler, Cort, naval c o m m a n d e r , 187 Administration, naval, 19-22, 100, 101, 135-312, 318, 397, 663, 664, 665 and absolutism, 3 0 6 - 3 1 2 and Amiralitetskollegium, 296-305 and aristocrats, 2 9 6 - 3 0 5 and battles at sea, 234-240 and castles, 270, 272, 273 centralised, 248-253, 290 civilian, 269, 307, 289 development of, 248 division of, 290 and fittings, 449-504 French, 248, 249, 252 and hierarchy, 289 a n d m a n n i n g , 575-635, 642-644 medieval, 2 4 6 - 2 5 3 modem, 246-253 a n d nobility, 259, 260 a n d operations at sea, 135-240 a n d ordnance, 5 0 5 - 5 7 3 over-reach in, 385-394 a n d professionalism, 306-312 and provisioning, 635-641 regionalisation of, 308, 309 royal administration, 467-474 and society, 2 4 1 - 2 5 3 and the state, 241-253, 266-280 Vasa, 2 5 3 - 2 8 7 of warships, 250, 252, 272, 273 Administrators, naval, 272, 296-305, 310, 331, 564, 565 Admirals, xxii, 46, 49, 64, 83, 91, 115, 116, 119, 120, 126, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 156, 167, 168, 169, 173, 177, 180, 182, 185 n. 48, 186, 187, 189,

Ill

GENERAL INDEX

190, 191, 192, 193, 196, 197, 202, 210, 213, 217, 219, 221, 224, 228, 247, 251, 259, 271, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 292, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 310, 311, 329, 332, 339 n. 62, 340, 342, 345, 360, 366, 391, 401, 405, 409, 412, 414, 415, 420, 425, 426, 428, 431, 438, 442, 447, 465, 477, 488, 490, 493, 504, 524, 597, 601, 614, 616, 621, 625, 627, 628, 632, 633, 634 a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 273, 277, 278, 279, 280 a d m i r a l - l i e u t e n a n t s , 633 amiralitetsrad, a d m i r a l with C o u n c i l m e m b e r s h i p , 297, 298, 299, 300, 302 e x e c u t i o n of, 170, 171 holmamiral, c o m m a n d e r of H o l m e n naval base, xxi, 277, 278, 279, 280, 295, 296, 298, 301, 418, 487, 489, 494, 632 Lord H i g h A d m i r a l , 623, 624, 625 dversteamiral (senior a d m i r a l ) , xvi, xxii, 91, 273, 274, 276, 278, 282 n. 66, 372, 374, 377, 380, 623, 624, 625 rear a d m i r a l , 632 r e c r u i t m e n t of, 307, 308 riksamiral (senior a d m i r a l ) , xxi, xxii, xxiii, 179, 186, 273, 277, 278, 279, 280, 293, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 310, 329, 393, 397, 401, 488, 627, 632, 633 riksviceamiral, xxi, 279 280, 293, 299, 304, 496 n. 110, 560 underamiral ( d e p u t y a d m i r a l ) , xxi, 274, 275 n. 54, 278, 465, 622 n. 69, 623, 624 vice a d m i r a l , 294, 597, 627, 632, 633, 634 A d r i a n , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 333, 334 Aebeltoft, naval battle at (23rd July 1659), xvi, 182, 183, Akers, 563 n. 107 A k e r s h u s , fortress at, 223 A l a n d islands, 218, 225, 228, 229, 231 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 337, 378, 382, 385, 386, 387, 388 n. 152 A l a n d regional c o m p a n y of s e a m e n , 598, 599, 603 Aln, Swedish u n i t of length, xxii, 452 Alvkarleby, 372

s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 283, 336, 359, 361, 366, 376, 377, 378 Alvsborg, 83, 87, 92, 95, 96, 162, 163, 275 n. 54, 278, 360, 381, 382, 384, 393, 394, 476 castle at, 254, 281, 350, 386, 529 galleys f r o m , 354 g u n s at, 541 naval a d m i n i s t r a t o r s at, 482 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 283, 334, 336, 350, 356, 359, 360, 371, 372, 374, 376, 378, 380, 384, 387, 388, 391 s h i p y a r d at, 359, 360 siege of, 236 A l v s n a b b e n , island of, 476 a n c h o r a g e at, 139 A m a g e r , island of, 202 A m e r i c a n W a r of I n d e p e n d e n c e , 46 n. 38 Amiralitetskollegium ( A d m i r a l t y Board), 7, 8, 48, 115, 116, 117, 219, 220, 292, 294, 2 9 6 - 3 0 3 , 306, 307, 311, 318, 330, 340, 412, 417, 424, 425, 426, 429 n. 213, 431, 438, 442, 494, 499, 500, 525, 560, 561, 564, 568 n, 118, 589, 601, 634 Amiralskap, fleets of t h e Swedish navy, 598 n. 23 A m m u n i t i o n , 271, 293, 611; see also shots A m s t e r d a m , 111 A n c h o r s , 271, 368 n. 114, 377, 449, 450, 452, 460, 464, 470, 475, 476, 492, 496 cost of, 471 n. 52 p r o d u c t i o n of, 469 weight of, 455 see also, cables, a n c h o r cables A n c k a r s t i e r n a , C o r n e l i u s , a d m i r a l , 310

n. 112 A n d e r s s o n , Erik, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 A n g e r m a n l a n d , 283 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 371 A n g l o - D u t c h W a r s ( 1 6 5 2 - 7 4 ) , 192 n. 63, 234 First A n g l o - D u t c h W a r ( 1 6 5 2 - 5 4 ) , 106, 179, 182, 420 Second A n g l o - D u t c h W a r ( 1 6 6 4 - 6 7 ) , 421 A n k a r h j e l m , A d r i a n , a d m i r a l , 633 A n k a r h j e l m , M a r t e n Thijssen, a d m i r a l , 633 A n n a , d o w a g e r q u e e n , ruler of France, 414

GENERAL INDEX

Antergastar, auxilliary infantry, 608 Apostles, t h e (10 turn s t o n e guns), 528 A r b o g a , 259 Archaeology, u n d e r w a t e r , 154 Archangelsk, 215, 224 Arctic, 90 Swedish claims on, 95 Arctic O c e a n , 89 Aristocracy, 5, 76, 253, 254, 257, 259, 260, 265, 268, 271, 273, 276, 278, 279, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 295, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 340, 351, 366, 435, 613, 614, 617, 622, 623, 624, 627, 631, 633, 634, 635, 649, 653, 657, 670 a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 2 9 6 - 3 0 5 Aristocrats, 647, 666 A r m a m e n t plans, 519 n. 23, 521, 525, 526, 539, 540, 545 n. 69, 546, 548 n, 75, 551, 552, 554, 557 n. 96, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564 n. 110, 567, 568, 571, 572 A r m a m e n t / d i s p l a c e m e n t ratio, 399 A r m i e s , 6, 14, 26, 42, 77 Armies, B r a n d e n b u r g , 183, 194 A r m i e s , Catholic, 403 Armies, D a n i s h , 20, 36, 55, 61, 84, 94, 99, 122, 147, 162, 163, 172, 187, 188, 190, 194, 202, 203, 208, 214, 217, 221, 223, 224, 226 at battle of G a d e b u s c h (1712), 214 at battle of L u n d (1676), 190 m e r c e n a r i e s in, 146 in p e a c e t i m e , 146 Armies, D u t c h republic, 25 n. 24 Armies, F r e n c h , 75 Armies, G e r m a n Imperial, 166, 168, 169, 174, 403 Armies, H a b s b u r g , 99 Armies, N o r w e g i a n , 167 Armies, Polish, 93, 203, 212, 214 Armies, Prussian, 218 Armies, Russian, 124, 133, 203, 209, 210, 212, 214, 216, 217, 218, 224, 226, 229 A r m i e s , Saxonian, 212, 213, 214 at battle of G a d e b u s c h (1712), 214 A r m i e s , Spanish, 25 n. 24 A r m i e s , Swedish, 25, 26, 34, 75, 83, 84, 85, 88, 92, 93, 94, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 108, 110, 111, 113, 114, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 137, 141, 147, 161, 162, 166, 167, 168, 169, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 183, 184, 185, 187, 190, 192

773

n. 61, 194, 201, 202, 204, 206, 207, 208, 213, 214, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 355, 384, 398, 410, 618, 655 a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of, 290, 307 at battle of G a d e b u s c h (1712), 214 at battle of L u n d (1676), 190 at battle of T o n n i n g (1713), 214, 215 cavalry of, 621 c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n s , 98 c o m m a n d s t r u c t u r e of, 621 c o n s c r i p t i o n in, 592, 600, 601 Erik XIV's, 591 f o r e i g n e r s serving in, 630 G u s t a v I's, 68 i n f a n t r y , 621 Karl XII's, 125, 206, 207 M e r c e n a r i e s in, 596 m o b i l i s a t i o n of, 202 m u s e u m of, 525 officer c o r p s of, 629, 630 in p e a c e t i m e , 146 p e r m a n e n t r e g i m e n t s of, 294, 395, 595 p r o v i s i o n i n g of, 636 r e c r u i t m e n t , 97, 595, 602 social m o b i l i t y in, 630 s t r e n g t h of, 206 wages of, 575 A r n o , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 337, 393, 394, 401, 410 A r r o w s , b u r n i n g , as naval w e a p o n , 533, 540, 541 Arsenals, 242 A r s o n , 645 Arteus, G u n n a r , s t u d y of sea officers, 579 Artillerihuvudhdcker, o r d n a n c e ledgers, 508 Artillerists, 630 Artillery, 208, 213, 250, 281 Artillery officers, 297 n. 92 Arvidsson, Henrik (ennobled G y l l e n a n k a r ) , a d m i r a l , 274, 366, 625 A s p o , island of, 196 n. 69, 379 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 336, 337 n. 57, 384 s h i p y a r d at, 283 Atlantic f r a m e w o r k , in studies of c o n t r o l of t h e sea, 16, 17 Atlantic O c e a n , 2, 29, 37, 249 naval o p e r a t i o n s in, 250 Austria, 107 H a b s b u r g , 112 Aviz, d y n a s t y of, 249

Ill GENERAL INDEX Ayscue, George, flag officer, 633 n. 89 Azov, Sea of, 124 B a c k s t r o m , Per Olof, naval a d m i n i s t r a t o r , 47 Bagge, A n d e r s , 624 Bagge, Bengt, 624 execution of, 624 Bagge, B r o m s , 624 Bagge, Jakob, Swedish A d m i r a l , 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 274, 360, 617, 619, 624 Bagge, J o h a n , son of A d m i r a l Jakob Bagge, 274, 625 Bagge, Peder, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 624 Bagge, T o r d , military leader, 617 Bahia, S p a n i s h - P o r t u g u e s e r e c o n q u e s t of, 101 Bailiffs, 268, 285, 622 n. 69, 646 tax raising by, 473 n. 58 Baking, 636 Baltic Sea, 2, 3, 5, 25, 28, 33, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 53, 88, 90, 96, 99, 100, i l l , 112, 124, 125, 126, 127, 131, 313, 394, 407, 412, 430, 446 c o n t r o l of, 30, 74, 76, 7 8 - 8 0 , 118, 135-240, 253, 404 D a n i s h c o n t r o l of, 29, 35, 118, 170, 176, 193 dominium over, 53, 69, 70, 94 g e o g r a p h y of, 41, 42, 45, 139 geostrategy of, 3 9 - 4 6 , 135 m a r i t i m e e n t e r p r i s e s in, 247 naval p o w e r in, 79, 80, 81, 1 0 5 - 1 1 2 surveys of, 297 Swedish c o n t r o l of, 103, 112, 116, 125, 135-240, 366, 417, 494, 600, 646, 647, 656, 660 Swedish e m p i r e in, 2, 5, 6, 33, 9 6 - 1 0 5 , 114-131, 313 t r a d e in, 35, 91, 81, 105, 247 Baner, Gustav, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Baner, Peder, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Baner, Sten Axelsson, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Bar, J o h a n , amiralitetsrad, 302, 633 Barges, 326 Barkar, small a r m e d vessels, 322, 323, 324, 347, 351, 355, 356, 374 B a r k m a n , Bertil, 49 B a r o s u n d , 162

Barque, large sailing m e r c h a n t ship, 323 Bdtsmiin, see s e a m e n Bdtsmanshdll, 306 Batteries, land, 202, 204, 209 Battle line, see line-of-battle Battles: naval, 139, 2 3 4 - 2 4 0 a n d strategic goals, 136 Battleships, 126, 139, 199, 201, 202, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 367, 428, 429, 430, 433, 445, 502, 503, 571, 587 Beacons, 297 Beer, 278 Bell rebellion, 527, 650 Bells, c h u r c h , as s o u r c e of g u n metal, 527 Berg, J o h a n ( e n n o b l e d Bergenstierna), a d m i r a l , 634 Berg, Lars O t t o , 49 ship list of, 319 Berg, Olof, m a j o r , 634 B e r g m a n , Ernst, ships list of, 319 B e r g s h a m m a r , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 377, 378, 384 B e r g s h a m r a , Sweden, 377 Bielke, H e n r i k , A d m i r a l , 177 Bielke, H o g e n s k i l d , skeppshdvitsman, 623 n. 70 Bielke, Sten, amiralitetsrad, 299, 300 Bielkenstierna family, 304, 393 Bielkenstierna, H a n s , riksviceamiral and holmamiral, 279, 280, 293, 299, 300, 304 n. 103, 477 n. 68, 490 Bielkenstierna, Klas, A d m i r a l , 117, 199, 623 n. 70, 627, 632 Bielkenstierna, Klas Jnr, s o n of H a n s Bielkenstierna, 304 n. 103 Bielkenstierna, Nils, 279, 632 Bishops, 76, 347 castles of, 255 ships of, 254 Bisittare (assessors), 297 Bjorkenas, 336 Elefanten's w r e c k at, 355 n. 96, 361 naval y a r d at, 153, 333, 357 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 357, 358, 359, 385 Bjorko, 212, 216

GENERAL I N D E X

Bjorneborg, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 371, 376, 381 n. 139 Black Sea, 90, 124, 127 Black, Jeremy, o n t h e state a n d w a r f a r e , 651 Blacksmiths, 467 g u n p r o d u c t i o n by, 510 Blasieholmen, 280 Blast f u r n a c e s , 560 Blekinge, 152, 154, 190, 196, 306 g o v e r n o r of, 306 o a k resources in, 306 r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m , 602 s e a m e n f r o m , 604, 605 Swedish c o n t r o l o f 103, 110 Blekinge archipelago, 122, 194, 195 Blekinge och Skane, s e a m a n c o m p a n y o f 603 Blinda, see sails, spritsail Blockades, naval, 88, 90, 93, 94, 95, 108, 110, 113, 114, 126, 137, 155, 158, 147, 161, 162, 167, 201, 211, 213, 384, 389, 435, 446, 470, 478, 588, 591 b l o c k a d e r u n n e r s , 88, 323, 363 Blockmakers, 280 Blocks, 449 Blockships, 200, 427, 432, 433 Blockskepp, floating battery, 326 Blume, Peter, a d m i r a l , 633 Boards, administrative, 2 9 0 - 2 9 2 see also Amiralitetskollegium, KommerskoUegiuin Boatswains, 577, 610 Bodekull, 340 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 419, 420 Bodensee, Lake, Swedish naval forces on, 46 n. 37 B o h e m i a , 174 Bohuslan, 44, 127, 432 cession to Sweden, 110 r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m , 602 s e a m a n c o m p a n y o f 603, 606 Bohuslan archipelago, 206, 224, 227, 228 batsman o r g a n i z a t i o n at, 606 Bojorter, small a r m e d vessels, two m a s t e d , 322, 323, 324, 325, 351, 352, 355, 356, 389, 397, 406 n. 175, 423, 478 Bolts, 317 B o m b ketch, 325, 331 B o m b vessels, 200, 204, 206, 217, 221, 427, 430, 431, 433 Bombkits, see b o m b ketch

775

B o n d e , Karl K n u t s s o n , King of Sweden, 31, 32, 59 n. 8 exile o f 59 B o o k - k e e p i n g , 266, 298 d o u b l e Italian system of, 298 Borga, 216 B o r g h o l m , 163 castle at, 60, 254 Borglager, see q u a r t e r i n g Borjeson, H j a l m a r , naval historian, 7, 48, 318 ship list o f 319 s t u d y of sea officers, 579, 615 B o r n h o l m , island o f 43, 112, 151, 152, 154, 155, 173, 174 cession to Sweden, 110 naval battle at (9th June 1535), xvii, 44, 143, 144, 238, 350 n. 87, 351, 527 naval battle at (30th M a y 1563), xvii, 44, 148, 235, 360, 362 naval battle at (7th July 1565), xvii, 44, 236, 238, 362, 363, 623 Bosskyttar, see g u n n e r s Bovenblinda, see sails, sprit topsails, 462 Bowsprit, 461, 462, 463 Boyer, small a r m e d vessel, 322, 323 rigging o f 461 Boys, in naval service, 606, 610 Braed, 278 B r a h e family, 301 n. 97 Brahe, Nils, amiralitetsrdd, 300, 301, 302 Brahe, Per, riksdrots, 301 Brammast, see masts, topgallant m a s t s Bramsegel, see masts, topgallant m a s t s B r a n d e n b u r g , 106, 107, 112, 118, 121, 184-197 Brask, H a n s , b i s h o p of Linkoping, 254, 347, 348 Braviken s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 372 Breitenfeld, battle of (1631), 101, 406, 411, 600 B r e m e n , 249 D u c h y o f 105 B r e n i e n - V e r d e n , 121, 187, 191, 219, 222, 230 Brewing, 636 Brigantin, t w o m a s t e d w a r s h i p , 325 Brigantines, 200, 204, 205, 206, 209, 211, 212, 217, 220, 427, 430, 431, 432

Ill GENERAL INDEX

Britain, 215, 2 2 3 - 2 3 1 g o v e r n m e n t of, 218, 226 Brittany, F r e n c h n a v y in, 249 B r o c k e n h u s , Jakob, D a n i s h A d m i r a l , 148 B r o m s e b r o , Peace of B r o m s e b r o , 174 Bronze, 510, 511 sale of, 560 B r u n k e b e r g , C h r i s t i a n f s defeat at (1471), 58 Budgets, 290, 291, 295 Bukovi', naval battle at (4th June 1565), xvii, 155, 235 Bureaucracy, 2 4 1 - 2 4 6 , 611, 663, 666, 668 Bureaucrats, 611, 613 Burghers, 28, 62, 66, 142, 253, 256, 373, 437, 468, 480 n. 73, 481 n. 78, 601, 630, 647, 649, 650, 665, 669, 670, 671 Burghley, Lord, 369 Byggmastare, T o m a s , 386 n, 145 Bysseskyttar, see g u n n e r s Byzantine E m p i r e , 249 naval p o w e r of, 247 Cahel (cable), 449 n. 1 Cables, 253, 271, 280, 292, 295, 368 n. 114, 370 n. 118, 377, 386 n. 145, 438 n. 221, 449, 450, 451, 452, 456, 460, 465, 467, 468, 470, 471, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 484, 485, 486, 489, 492, 494, 495, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 610, 664 a n c h o r cables, 449 n. 1, 452, 455, 456, 464, 467, 486, 492, 497, 498, 499, 501, 502 cost of, 459, 471 n. 52 D u t c h naval s t a n d a r d s for, 491 obsolescence of, 494 p r o d u c t i o n of, 469, 477, 486 p u r c h a s e of, 256 s u p p l y of, 459 C a d i z Bay, s e q u e s t r a t i o n of Swedish ships at (1632), 437 Canifas see C a n v a s Canvas, 454, 485, 487, 490 Capital ships, 331 C a p t a i n s , 614, 616, 619, 620, 622, 626, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632, 633 amiralitetskapten, 629 kommendor, 629 skeppskapten, 629

C a r g o carriers, 435 C a r p e n t e r s , 280, 282, 286 Carvel, g u n - a r m e d w a r s h i p , 321, 322, 348, 349 carvel technology, 354, 356 Castles, 253, 254, 257, 269, 270, 272, 655 a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 270, 272, 273 g u n s at, 529, 541 s e a m e n serving at, 589 n. 9 C a t h o l i c League, G e r m a n , 646 Catholics, 66, 90, 103, see also C h u r c h , Catholic Cavallie, James, s t u d y of sea officers, 579 Cavalry, 269, 655 Chaplains, in naval service, 585 C h a p m a n , Fredrik Henrik, master shipwright, 332, 345, 346 C h a r l e s V, E m p e r o r , ruler of t h e N e t h e r l a n d s , 64, 258, 259 n. 25, 352 Charles, King of Sweden, see B o n d e , Karl K n u t s s o n Charters, in D u t c h rating system, 332 C h r i s t i a n I, King of Sweden ( 1 5 4 7 - 6 4 ) , also King of D e n m a r k ( 1 4 4 8 - 8 1 ) a n d King of N o r w a y ( 1 4 5 0 - 8 1 ) , 31, 32, 54, 58 C h r i s t i a n II, King of Sweden ( 1 5 2 0 - 2 1 ) , also King of D e n m a r k a n d N o r w a y ( 1 5 1 3 - 2 3 ) , xxii, 31, 54, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 140, 141, 235, 254, 257, 347, 467, 526, 616, 617, 659 C h r i s t i a n III, King of D e n m a r k ( 1 5 3 4 - 5 9 ) , also K i n g of N o r w a y ( 1 5 3 7 - 5 9 ) , 66, 67, 69, 70, 142, 143, 144, 352, 617, 618, 619 d e a t h of, 81 C h r i s t i a n IV, K i n g of D e n m a r k ( b o r n . 1588, a t t a i n e d m a j o r i t y 1596, died 1648), 89, 94, 96, 98, 103, 104, 125 n, 95, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 236, 375, 398, 403 naval policy of, 94, 103, 416, 439, 512, 515 C h r i s t i a n V, King of D e n m a r k ( 1 6 7 0 - 9 9 ) , 125 n. 95 Christina, Q u e e n of Sweden ( 1 6 3 2 - 5 4 ) , also regency g o v e r n m e n t ( 1 6 3 2 - 4 4 ) , xxii, 102, 103, 107, 298, 299, 330, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 561 a b d i c a t i o n of, 107

GENERAL INDEX

ChristofFer, C o u n t of O l d e n b u r g , g o v e r n o r of D e n m a r k - N o r w a y , 66 C h u r c h , 57, 65, 66, 69, 76, 255, 282, 347, 527, 646 C a t h o h c , 5, 33, 48, 60, 62, 70, 531, 648, 656 C h u r c h bell rebellion, 527, 650 C h u r c h bells, as s o u r c e of g u n metal, 646 Cipolla, Carlo, naval g u n s cost study, 556 Claesson, Johan, m a s t e r shipwright, 336 Cleiton, Lorentz, A d m i r a l , 477 n. 68 Clerck family, 304, 338, 466, 488, 489, 495, 633 Clerck, H a n s H a n s s o n Jnr ( 1 6 3 9 - 1 7 1 1 ) , a d m i r a l , 296 n. 89, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 425, 426, 428 Clerck, H a n s V i l h e l m s s o n ( 1 6 0 7 - 7 9 ) , 296 n. 89 Clerck, Jakob, 338, 391, 491 n. 101 Clerck, J o h a n ( H a n s , died 1644), 292, 295, 296 n. 89, 302, 459, 487, 488, 489, 491 Clerck, Rickard (died 1625), 280, 292, 296 n. 89, 329 n. 31, 338 n. 62, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 490, 491, 632 Clerck, Rickard Jnr ( 1 6 0 4 - 6 8 ) , 296 n. 89, 418, 459, 489 Clerck, William, 296 n, 89 Clinker technology, 354 Cloth, for flags, 452 Colonels, 632 C o m m o d o r e s , 629 C o m m o n e r s , in naval service, 268, 269, 622, 630 C o m p a n y system, a n d naval m a n n i n g , 601 C o m p a s s e s , 449 C o m p e t i t i o n , a n d p r o t e c t i o n selling, 12 C o m p l e x organisations, 12-14, 241, 242 C o n s c r i p t i o n , 262, 263, 264, 576, 582, 583, 590, 592, 598, 599, 600, 601, 646 C o n s c r i p t s , 101, 304 C o n s t a n t i n o p l e , 251 C o o k i n g utensils, 476 C o o k s , in naval service, 585, 597 C o p e n h a g e n , 42, 43, 64, 66, 69, 76, 83, 85, 98, 122, 123, 141, 143, 144, 147, 163, 164, 167, 168, 172, 173, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 191, 197, 202, 209, 210, 219, 220, 224, 230, 235, 251, 384, 551

777

arsenal at, 68 b l o c k a d e of, 64, 110, 179, 349 naval y a r d at, 342 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 417 s h i p y a r d at, 55, 342 siege of, 180 Swedish m i n i s t e r in, 415 n. 191 C o p p e r , 510, 511, 513, 529 n. 38, 553, 556, 650 cost of, 515, 557 as p a y m e n t , 485 Swedish e x p o r t s of, 556 C o p p e r m i n e s , 523, 537, 549 C o r d a g e , 451, 465, 468, 471, 473, 480, 484, 489, 492, 494, 501, 649 cost of, 459 C o r n e l i u s s o n , C o r n e l i u s , shipbuilder, 391 Corneliusson, Tideman, Dutch m e r c h a n t , 373 Corsia, g a n g w a y o n galley, 353 C o u r l a n d ( n o w w e s t e r n Latvia), 43, 81, 97, 112, 402 d u k e of, 183 Coxe, O w e n , Swedish r e a r - a d m i r a l , 182, 633 n. 89 Cranfield, Lionel, Sir, civilian a d m i n i s t r a t o r , 329 Crayer, t r a n s p o r t vessel, 326 Credit, a n d w a r s h i p s , 347, 348 Creutz, Lorentz, naval a d m i n i s t r a t o r a n d c o m m a n d e r in chief, 188, 190, 302, 305 C r o m w e l l , Oliver, 108 C r o o n , G e r d t , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 339, 341 C r o o n , Pieter G e r d t s s o n , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 341 Cruisers, 12, 60, 122, 198, 213, 321, 323, 363, 371, 386, 411, 420, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431, 433, 445, 446, 447, 454, 463, 503 a r m a m e n t of, 569 sailcloth for, 454 C u r r e n c y , Swedish, xxii C u s t o m s , 116, 147, 420, 440, 442, 670 Dacke, Nils, leader of p e a s a n t (Dacke) rebellion, 646 D a c k e rebellion ( 1 5 4 2 - 4 3 ) , 659 D a l a r n a , 257, 549 D a l a r o , as naval p o r t , 139 Daler, Swedish c o p p e r coinage, 405

Ill GENERAL INDEX D a n i s h Straits, 40, 43, 167, 237 D a n z i g , 61, 91, 96, 99, 108, 140, 146, 164, 176, 209, 210, 249, 254, 256, 275 n. 54, 348, 381, 383, 434, 467 b u r g h e r s of, 468 h e m p f r o m , 480 naval supplies f r o m , 258 sailcloth f r o m , 485, 486, 487, 490 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 349 toll at, 176 D a r t m o u t h , Elefanten's s h i p w r e c k at, 369 D a u g a v a , see Diina, river Day, Richard, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 418, 419 Day, T h o m a s , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 340 de Besche, H u b e r t , 560 de Besche, W i l l e m , architect a n d g u n m a s t e r , 523, 524, 548 de F i n n e , J o h a n M a r t e n s s o n , A d m i r a l , 477 n. 68 de F r e n n d e , Johan, 370 n. 118 de Geer, Louis, D u t c h - S w e d i s h m e r c h a n t , 104, 166, 398, 399, 436, 523, 524, 548, 558, 560, 561 m e r c h a n t m e n of, 439, 440 de G r o o t , A r e n t H y b e r t s s o n , m e r c h a n t , 293, 401, 458 n. 20, 488 de la Gardie, Jakob, riksmarsk, 559 d e la Gardie, M a g n u s Gabriel, Lord H i g h T r e a s u r e r , 299, 300 de M o n i e r , A n t h o n i e , d e p u t y M a s t e r of O r d n a n c e , 292, 293, 397, 398, 399, 400, 436 de P r o u , Jacob, a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112 de Ruyter, Michiel, D u t c h naval c o m m a n d e r , 183 de Voss, Jakob, m a s t e r shipwright, 339, 341, 419 de W i t h , W i t t e , D u t c h A d m i r a l , 180 Defensjonsskip (armed merchantmen), 439, 440 Delaware, 167 n. 33 Swedish c o l o n y in, 102, 413, 438 D e n m a r k , 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44, 56, 66, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 78, 81, 83, 85, 89, 98, 103, 107, 110, 112, 122, 127, 130, 143, 146, 148, 152, 159, 161, 164, 165-233, 237, 258, 273, 280, 410, 411, 436, 494, 660, 668 aristocracy in, 32, 38, 54, 55, 57, 66, 69 b o r d e r s of, 34, 36, 37, 78

civil w a r in ( 1 5 3 4 - 3 6 ) , 32, 66, 76, 235 C o u n c i l of, 54, 66, 94, 95, 109, 144, 384 n, 143, 404 a n d D u t c h Republic, 394 East Indies e x p e d i t i o n ( 1 6 1 8 - 2 2 ) , 390 elites in, 62, 109, 115 foreign policy, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36 general staff, 199 n. 72 a n d K a l m a r U n i o n , 52, 53, 54 kings of, 54, 55, 58, 69, 109 m o n a r c h y of, 32, 77 naval policy, 43, 55, 56, 87, 94, 211, 313, 316 naval supplies f r o m , 258 a n d Philip II of Spain, 88 political d e v e l o p m e n t of, 3, 64 p r o t e c t o r a t e s of, 81 r e g e n c y g o v e r n m e n t of, 89 state f o r m a t i o n in, 77 trade of, 34, 35, 37, 40 a n d H a b s b u r g s , 71 D e n m a r k - N o r w a y , 142, 145, 179, 206, 208, 423, 430 d e f e n c e policy, 433 k i n g of, 64 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 249 s h i p b u i l d i n g in, 284 n. 69 D e p t h , m e a s u r e m e n t of, 449 Derfelt, Johan, a d m i r a l , 626 D e t e r r e n c e , 145 Devil, the, (18 turn s t o n e g u n ) , 528 Devil's m o t h e r , t h e (18 turn s t o n e g u n ) , 528 Diaries, naval, 166 n. 30 Discipline, 177 Disease, 159, 163, 169, 177, 187, 211, 245, 367, 591, 641 a n d provisioning, 576 see also m a l n u t r i t i o n , plague, v i t a m i n shortages Disguise, in naval o p e r a t i o n s , 191 D i s p l a c e m e n t , 177 n. 41, 200 a n d fleet s t r e n g t h , 138 D i t m a r s k e n ( G e r m a n y ) , rebellion at, 60 Diving, 566 Docks, for ship repair, 429 D o m e s n a s , n o r t h e r n cape of C o u r l a n d , 402 D o n river, 127 Donationer, t r a n s f e r of s t a t e - c o n t r o l l e d l a n d to individuals, 613 Double contract, 260-266

GENERAL INDEX

Drakenas; s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 370, 378 s h i p y a r d at, 335 D r a w i n g s , in shipbuilding, 341, 342, 343, 345 D r o g d e n , 167, 174, 177, 202, 213, 214 D r o g d e n passage, 45 d u Rees, A r n o l d , m a s t e r shipwright, 344, 345 Diina line, a n d c o n q u e s t of Livonia, 100 Diina river, 45, 93 estuary of, 209 Swedish c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n s at, 98 D i i n a m i i n d e , Swedish c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n s at, 97 Duquesne, Abraham, French admiral, 633 n. 89 D u t c h rebels, 87; alliance against Philip II of Spain, 88 D u t c h Republic, 3, 101, 105, 110, 111, 173, 176, 179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 194, 201, 203, 208, 215, 237, 367, 368, 668 a n d D e n m a r k , 394 a n d England, 109, 111 a n d France, 13, 111, 118 g o v e r n m e n t of, 218 a n d Louis XIV, 118 m e r c a n t i l e m a r i n e of, 218, 580 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 248, 250, 251 naval policy of, 313 Swedish officers f r o m , 630, 631 t r a d e of, 109, 186 a n d Spain, 13, 407 a n d Sweden, 103, 107, 118, 121 Dvina, see Diina, river Dynasties: a n d state authority, 10 Dynekilen, naval battle at (26th June 1716), xvi, 224 East Indies, D a n i s h e x p e d i t i o n to ( 1 6 1 8 - 2 2 ) , 390 E d a m , H o l l a n d , 336 E h r e n s k o l d , family of, 308 E i n a r s s o n , Lars, s t u d y of sea officers, 579 Ekenas, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 361 Ekipagemdstare ( M a s t e r of e q u i p m e n t ) , 296 E k m a n , Carl, s t u d y of sea officers, 579 E k o l s u n d , royal m a n o r of, n e a r Stockliolm, 354

779

Elbing, Prussia: strussar p r o d u c t i o n in, 405 treaty of, 109 Elizabeth I, Q u e e n of E n g l a n d , 82, 315, 358, 369 E n a n g e r , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 379, 384, 388 Engelsnian, R o b e r t see Siwers, R o b e r t Engineering, m e c h a n i c a l , a n d g u n technology, 511 Engineers, 630 E n g l a n d , 59 n. 8, 88, 101, 107, 111, 182, 203, 358, 369 C o m m i s s i o n of E n q u i r y r a t i n g system of, 329 a n d D u t c h Republic, 111 k i n g of, 59 n. 8, 77 m e r c h a n t fleet of, 218 m e r c h a n t s in, i l l naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 249 naval policy of, 313 n a v i g a t i o n laws of (1651), 106 p a r l i a m e n t of, 315 a n d Philip II of Spain, 88 Swedish naval p e r s o n n e l f r o m , 630, 631 E n r o l m e n t , 606, 607, 608 E n t r e p r e n e u r s , 20, 34, 36, 38, 55, 87, 2 4 1 - 2 4 7 , 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 260, 265, 280, 286, 291, 293, 311, 314, 338, 339, 401, 434, 435, 439, 451, 454, 458, 487, 488, 489, 491, 532, 596, 656, 657, 660, 663, 666, 668 d e f i n i t i o n of, 242, 243 a n d g u n p r o d u c t i o n , 523, 524 a n d p r o v i s i o n i n g , 577, 635 royal e n t r e p r e n e u r s , 2 6 0 - 2 6 6 S c h u m p e t e r ' s t h e o r y of, 242, 243 a n d s h i p b u i l d i n g , 396, 397, 398, 401, 402, 414, 420 E n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p , 19-22, 28 a n d naval p o w e r , 658 a n d resources, 663 Ericson, Lars, s t u d y of K a r l s k r o n a s h i p y a r d , 49 Erik of P o m e r a n i a , 31 Erik XIV, King of Sweden ( 1 5 6 0 - 6 8 ) , xxii, 82, 83, 84, 146, 148, 149, 152, 154, 160, 263, 264, 268, 272, 282, 285, 286, 290, 335, 357, 358, 360, 363, 462, 517, 532, 594, 624 naval policy of, 86, 153, 160, 365, 366, 446, 553, 621, 622 Erik, St, n a t i o n a l saint of Sweden, 357

Ill GENERAL INDEX Erik, S h i p m a s t e r , 256 Eril<sson, G u s t a v (Vasa), see G u s t a v I, King of Sweden Eriksson, Jakob, 335 Eriksson, Olof, naval a d m i n i s t r a t o r , 256, 467, 619 E r t m a n , Tliomas, o n state f o r m a t i o n , 651 Eskilsson, Erik, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 Estonia, 74, 78, 79, 81, 85. 88, 89, 90, 93, 100, 117 n. 86, 127, 129, 147, 160, 203, 206, 208, 283, 383, 660 Europe: c o m p l e x o r g a n i s a t i o n s in, 1 2 - 1 4 state formation in, 24, 25 E x e c u t i o n , of naval staff, 170, 171 Falck family, 345 Ealck, Carl Johan, (son of J o h a n Falck) s h i p w r i g h t , 343, 344, 345 Falck, J o h a n , shipwright, 343, 345 Falster, island of, 181 Falun: c o p p e r m i n e at, 523 g u n f o u n d i n g at, 523 Famm, Swedish u n i t of length, xxii Fanikor, ( a r m y a d m i n i s t r a t i v e units), 269, 289, 586, 591 Fanor, (cavalry a d m i n i s t r a t i v e unit), 269, 289 Farkoster, m i s c e l l a n e o u s small vessels, 328 F a r m i n g , 284, 285 Fatbursldn, c r o w n territory, 253 F e m e r n , 43, 44, 169, 171 naval battle at (Kolberger Heide, 1st July 1644), xvii, 168, 169, 172, 177, 234 n. 124, 236 naval battle at (13th O c t o b e r 1644), xvii, 172, 174, 238, 413, 416, 439, 558, 559 naval battle at (13th April 1715), xvii, 219, 220, 239 F e m e r n a n d Lollund, naval battle at (battle of R o d s u n d , 30th April 1659), xvi, 181 F e m e r n Belt, 213, 214, 219 naval battle at (31st M a y - l s t June 1677), xvii, 191, 239 Fetalieskepp (small p r o v i s i o n i n g ships), 638 F i n l a n d , 35, 45, 62, 74, 78, 88, 90, 92, 126, 127, 129, 140, 141, 142, 147, 149, 160, 204, 206, 208, 212, 216, 217, 218,

225, 228, 230, 231, 259, 273, 275, 276, 354, 385, 645 d u k e of, 282, 365 g o v e r n o r general of, 67, 301 a n d Kalniar U n i o n , 53 Lfl«-holders in, 349 p e a s a n t revolt in ( 1 5 9 6 - 9 7 ) , 263 Russian c o n q u e s t of, 128 sailcloth p r o d u c t i o n in, 453 s e a m e n f r o m , 598 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 351, 372, 387 shipyards in, 283 F i n l a n d archipelago, 212, 216, 217, 218, 227, 347 Finland, Gulf of, 40, 45, 68, 74, 76, 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 90, 95, 125, 126, 142, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 160, 162, 198, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 211, 215, 220, 226, 257, 263, 274, 366, 371, 431, 470, 481, 482, 607, 659 F i n s p o n g , 560, 561 i r o n w o r k s at, 524 Fir, 317, 356, 365, 374, 379, 385, 388, 421, 422, 423, 425, 426, 430 Firepower, 507, 520, 535, 540, 543, 544, 545, 550, 551, 552, 553, 555, 567, 568, 571, 572 c o m p o s i t i o n of, 535 definition of, 508 firepower-displacement ratio, 535, 536, 544, 549 n. 77, 553, 554, 559, 560, 571, 572, 573, 588 Fireships, 167 n. 33, 168, 170, 172, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 418, 424, 501, 502 Fiscal military state, Swedish, 2 5 - 2 8 Fittings, naval, 451 a n d absolutism, 5 0 1 - 5 0 4 c o n t r a c t u a l m a n a g e m e n t of, 450 Flags, 280, 292, 449, 497 cloth for, 452, 493 n. 103 s u p p l y of, 459 Flagships, 190 Flanders, 250 Flax, 451, 453, 485 n. 87, 656 p r o d u c t i o n of, 468 Fleet in being, 194, 228, 501 Fleet s t r e n g t h , 199, 200 a n d ship size, 138 m e a s u r e m e n t of, 137 Fleming, A n d e r s , Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Fleming, Erik, a d m i r a l , 17, 259, 618

GENERAL INDEX

Fleming, H e n r i k P e d e r s s o n , Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Fleming, H e r m a n , amimlitetsrad, 298, 299, 300, 301, 305, 340, 415, 494 Fleming, Ivar, a d m i r a l , 617, 618 Fleming, Klas Eriksson, dversteamiral (died 1597), xxii, 91, 151, 152, 273, 274, 275, 276, 282 n. 66, 283, 372, 373, 374, 375, 377, 380, 385, 465, 474, 476, 623, 624, 625 Fleming, Klas Larsson, amiralitetsrad ( 1 5 9 2 - 1 6 4 4 ) , 167, 168, 169, 294, 295, 297, 305, 401, 405, 406, 407, 408, 438, 447, 488, 493, 600, 632 d e a t h of, 169, 298 letters of, 405 n. 173, 407 Fleming, Lars, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Flensborg, y a r n f r o m , 480 n. 73 Fleut, t r a n s p o r t vessel, 326, 411, 438 n. 221 F l i n t r a n n a n , eastern passage to t h e S o u n d , 45, 174, 202 Floating batteries, 200, 503 Flojt, t r a n s p o r t vessel, 326 Florisson, Jakob, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 339 Pockmcirssegel, see sails, fore topsail Fockskdnval, see sails, foresail Fogdar, see Bailiffs Fogderdkenskaper, 270 n. 44 Food, 159, 575, 577, 579, 600, 609, 637, 648, 650 c o n t a m i n a t i o n of, 641 d i s t r i b u t i o n of, 635, 636 p r e p a r a t i o n of, 449 processing of, 638, 636 p r o d u c t i o n of, 635 r a t i o n i n g of, 639, 640 as resource, 284 s u p p l y of, 6 3 5 - 6 4 0 a n d violence control, 637 Fdrdubbling, r e i n f o r c e m e n t system for naval m a n n i n g , 602, 603, 606 Forests, 656 exploitation for shipbuilding, 101, 102 Karl IX's policy on, 523 Forges, 280 FoHaningar, e n f e o f f m e n t of state l a n d , 613 F o r s m a r k , 560 Fortifications, g u n s at, 567, 568 Fot, Swedish u n i t of length, xxii

781

F o u n d r i e s , 280 France, 70, 182, 184, 185, 194, 215 a m b a s s a d o r of, 414 a n d D u t c h Republic, 13, 111 elites in, 115 a n d E n g l a n d , 73 a n d H a b s b u r g s , 71 a n d H o l l a n d , 106 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 248, 249, 252 naval policy of, 313 a n d Swedish i m p e r i a l policy, 108 F r a n k f u r t a m M a i n , 411 F r a n s k a S t e n a r n a , carvel w r e c k at, 348 Frederik I, King of D e n m a r k a n d N o r w a y ( 1 5 2 3 - 3 3 ) , also D u k e of H o l s t e i n , xxiii, 64, 65, 66, 141, 467 F r e d r i k I, King of Sweden ( 1 7 2 0 - 5 1 ) , also C o u n t of H e s s e n - C a s s e l ( 1 7 3 0 - 5 1 ) , xxii, 130 Frederik II, King of D e n m a r k ( 1 5 5 9 - 8 8 ) , 82, 83, 85, 87, 146, 148, 149, 153, 375 d e a t h of, 89 a n d D u t c h rebels, 88 f o r e i g n policy, 87, 88 a n d Liibeck, 82 naval policy of, 82 a n d P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a , 82 F r e d e r i k IV, K i n g of D e n m a r k ( 1 6 9 9 - 1 7 3 0 ) , 201, 203, 222 Fredrik, C o u n t of Hessen-Cassel, see F r e d e r i k I, K i n g of Sweden Frederik, D u k e of Holstein, see Frederik I, King of D e n m a r k a n d N o r w a y F r e d e r i c k W i l l i a m I, King of Prussia ( 1 7 1 3 - 4 0 ) , 222 F r e d e r i k s o d d e , D a n i s h fortress, 178 Frederikssten, 223, 227 siege of, 130 Fregatter, see frigates Fries, Daniel, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 344, 345 Frigates, 126, 139, 200, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 217, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 228, 229, 231, 322, 323, 324, 326, 331, 341, 342, 343, 385, 415, 427, 430, 431, 432, 433, 442, 445 b u i l d i n g of, 342, 343, 344 Fust, small galley, 353, 354 Fusta, see Fust Fyn, island of, 143, 166, 178, 183, 191 D u t c h invasion of. 111

Ill GENERAL INDEX

G a d e b u s c h , battle at (1712), 214 Galcir, o a r e d w a r s h i p , 325 Galea grossa, h y b r i d sailing a n d o a r e d w a r s h i p , 353 Galea see Galley Galea, M e d i t e r r a n e a n galley, 353, 354 Galeae see Galleon Galejer, 331, 353, 354 Galejor, o a r e d w a r s h i p , 325, 328 Galeon see Galleon Galeota, M e d i t e r r a n e a n galley, 353 Gallon see Galleon Galleasses, 353, 355 Galleon, large p u r p o s e built warship, 321 Galleys, 200, 204, 281, 323, 325, 326, 329, 344, 3 5 3 - 3 5 7 , 372, 374, 385, 399, 400, 410, 411, 427, 431, 432, 433, 434, 459 n. 24, 469, 503, 551 n. 85, 582, 590 a n c h o r s of, 464 a n d archipelago warfare, 355 a r m a m e n t of, 353, 527, 528, 547 b u i l d i n g of, 344 crew t o d i s p l a c e m e n t ratio, 354 n. 93 F r e n c h , 355 galea grossa, h y b r i d sailing a n d o a r e d w a r s h i p , 353 h y b r i d , 355 m a n n i n g of, 588 M e d i t e r r a n e a n , 200, 321, 325, 326, 344, 353 o a r e d , 17, 73, 74, 80, 89 o a r s m e n of, 353, 354, 355 rigging of, 461 sizes of, 353 soldiers on, 354 n. 93 Galliot, t w o m a s t e d warship, 324, 325 Gait, Peder, A d m i r a l , 170, 171 G a m l a Lodose, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 386 G a n g u t , battle of, see H a n g o U d d , naval battle at Gcird fgiirder) taxes in kind, 482, 489 Gdrdskapten (yard captain), 277, 296 Giivle, 228, 360 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 377, 378, 382, 388 n, 152 Generals, 632 G e n o a , as sea p o w e r , 247 G e o r g e I, King of E n g l a n d ( 1 7 1 4 - 2 7 ) , 218, 219, 230 Geostrategy, 34, 37

of naval bases, 281 Swedish, 29 n. 27 G e r m a n y , 46 n. 37, 54, 55, 56, 70, 71, 99, 147, 151, 154, 157, 165, 166, 168, 172, 174, 175, 178, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 195, 198, 202, 208, 212, 494 C a t h o l i c League in, 646 D a n i s h p r o v i n c e s in, 208 elites in, 97 e m p e r o r of, 61, 646 e m p i r e o f 249 H a b s b u r g s in, 102 h e m p f r o m , 480 a n d Philip II of Spain, 88 sailcloth p r o d u c t i o n in, 453, 454 s e a m e n f r o m , 607 n. 38 a n d Sweden, 103 n. 72, 121, 405 Swedish p r o v i n c e s in, 109, 118, 122 t r a d i n g cities in, 112 Giseler, Tile, D a n i s h sea officer, 619 G o t a Alv, river, 44, 45, 350 s h i p b u i l d i n g on, 386 Svanen's w r e c k at, 355 G o t h e n b u r g , 45, 83, 95, 122, 129, 167, 172, 173, 174 n. 39, 185, 186, 191, 196, 201, 206, 224, 225, 228, 293, 349, 367, 398, 418, 476 s e a m e n f r o m , 606 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 338, 340, 341, 406, 408, 409, 410, 416 n. 195, 419, 422 s h i p y a r d at, 344, 416, 499 St Sophia's w r e c k at, 566 G o t l a n d , island of, 64, 141, 143, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 158, 162, 189, 220, 234 n. 124 cession to Sweden, 104 G o v e r n o r of, 157 Lcin of, 254 r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m , 602 N o r t h of G o t l a n d , naval battle (11th S e p t e m b e r 1563), xvii, 149, 235 G o t l a n d s e a m a n c o m p a n y , 603 G o t t b e r g , Jakob, a d m i r a l , 626, 627 Governance, 287-292 G o v e r n o r s , provincial, 289, 291 G r e a t Belt, 202, 213 G r e a t Britain, 3, 127, 201, 208 G r e a t Lakes, N o r t h A m e r i c a , 46 Greifswald, 194, 221, 223 n. 110 Grek, Jakob, m e r c h a n t , 361 G r e n g a m n battle of, see L e d s u n d , naval batrie

GENERAL I N D E X

Grip, Bo, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 G r i p s h o l m , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 387, 388 n. 149 G u i e n n e , F r e n c h navy in, 249 G u i l m a r t i n , J o h n F., studies of M e d i t e r r a n e a n galley w e a p o n s , 507 Gulf of Finland, see Finland, Gulf of G u n f o u n d e r s , 517, 523, 542, 560, 567 G u n f o u n d i n g , 517, 523 G u n i n d u s t r y , 554 Gunilla, Q u e e n a n d wife of J o h a n III, 374 G u n n e r s , 269, 271, 524, 525, 581, 5 8 3 - 5 0 9 , 610, 611, 621, 634 a r m y , 524 c o m p a n i e s of, 603, 608 g u n - c r e w s , 521, 575, 576, 596, 611 m a s t e r g u n n e r s , 271, 610, 611, 616 G u n n e r y , 159, 420, 505, 506, 514, 614 b r o a d s i d e fire, 192 l o n g range, 514 G u n p o r t s , 545 n. 69, 551 n, 83, 552 b r o a d s i d e ports, 521 spacing of, 521 G u n p o w d e r , 76, 271, 507, 510, 511, 514, 515, 516, 518 n. 19 a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of, 297 n. 92 p r o d u c t i o n of, 256, 257 G u n s , 138, 200, 253, 269, 271, 272, 5 0 5 - 5 7 3 , 611, 660, 664 a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of, 297 n. 92, 298 a n t i - p e r s o n n e l , 138, 531, 535, 538, 540, 543, 569 anti-ship, l a n d based, 541 Apostles, t h e (10 turn s t o n e g u n s ) , 528 of barks, 323 b o r e of, 518 n. 18, 519, 520, 546 b o w chasers, 515, 516 brass, 510 n. 11 b r e e c h loaders, 510, 511, 528, 535 b r o n z e , 427, 446, 507, 510, 512, 513, 517, 518, 519, 522, 523, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 632, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 548, 550, 551, 552, 553, 5 5 4 - 5 6 6 , 567, 568, 569, 570, 571, 573, 575 calibre of, 514, 516, 517, 518, 519, 520, 527, 530, 532, 533, 536, 541, 546, 550, 553, 554, 555, 559, 567, 569

783

calibre systems, 518, 519, 546, 554 c a n n o n s , 513, 515 c a p t u r e of, 533, 561 cast i r o n , 159, 293, 507, 511, 512, 513, 518, 519, 523, 524, 527, 532, 536, 538, 542, 543, 547, 548, 553, 5 5 4 - 5 6 6 , 567, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 573, 665 c h a m b e r guns, 542 charges, 518 n. 19, 537, 545 classification of, 516, 518, 519, 520, 546 c o p p e r g u n s , 159, 280, 293, 510 c o r r o s i o n of, 558, 559 cost of, 556, 557, 558, 564, 568, 573, 575 n. 1 coulebrine, 513 culverin, 513, 515 curtow, 513 n. 15 Devil, the, (18 turn s t o n e gun), 528 Devil's m o t h e r , t h e (18 turn s t o n e g u n ) , 528 draaken, 515 drake, 515 English, 511, 544 e x p o r t of, 547, 549, 552, 553, 561, 563 falconer, 514, 517, 532, 540 falconetter, 513, 514, 517, 530, 532, 534 n. 49, 538, 546 faltslangor, 517, 522, 527, 528, 530, 532, 540, 546, 547 n. 73 fdltstat, ( a r m y g u n s ) , 525 field g u n s , 522 fortress g u n s , 522 fyrpihtycken, (for b u r n i n g arrows), 517, 533, 540, 541 hailshots, see G u n s , stormstycken hakar, 514, 517, 540 historical studies of, 5 0 5 - 9 kartaun, 513 1/2 kartoger, 389 n. 153, 517, 522, 527, 528, 530, 531, 537, 546 kartoger, 517, 522, 528, 534 n. 49, 537 kartoger, 513, 514, 515, 517, 522, 527, 528, 529, 532, 535, 534 n. 49, 536, 537, 540, 546 kartoger, (double), 522 kopparberg guns, 549, 552 of l a n d i n g craft, 400 l o a d i n g gears for, 280 longevity of, 525 loss of, 542, 543, 548, 566

Ill GENERAL INDEX mdrsstycken, (top m a s t guns), 517, 533 mickhakar, 517, 530, 532 m o u n t i n g of, 521, 542 m u s k e t s , 514, 543 m u z z l e loaders, 510, 511, 535 m u z z l e velocity, 514 nickhakar, s h o r t swivel guns, 569 notslangor, 517, 528, 529, 534 n. 49, 535, 537 obsolescence of, 538 potthund, 517 p r o d u c t i o n of, 159, 256, 257, 507, 523, 524, 532, 533, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 554, 558, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 567, 568, 569, 626, 665 'A p o u n d e r s , 532 '/2 p o u n d e r s , 532, 534 n. 49 1 p o u n d e r s , 400, 532, 546, 549 n. 77, 567 n. 114, 567 n. 115, 568, 570 2 p o u n d e r s , 400, 532, 533, 534 n. 49, 546 3 p o u n d e r s , 200, 205, 400, 427, 518, 519, 522, 532, 534, 535, 537, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 552, 559, 567 n. 115, 569 4 p o u n d e r s , 200, 427, 428, 429, 526, 562, 567 n. 114, 569 5 p o u n d e r s , 561 6 p o u n d e r s , 200, 406 n. 175, 425, 427, 428, 442, 518, 519 n. 23, 526, 546, 547 7 p o u n d e r s , 522, 532, 534 n. 49, 535, 540, 541, 542, 543 8 p o u n d e r s . 200, 425, 427, 428, 429, 442, 519, 526, 561, 562, 567 n. 114, 569 9 p o u n d e r s , 519 10 p o u n d e r s , 522, 532, 534, 535, 537, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 561, 564 12 p o u n d e r s , 200, 425, 426, 428, 431, 441, 518, 519, 521, 526, 546, 547, 549, 550, 551, 552, 555, 559, 560, 561, 564, 567, 569, 570 14 p o u n d e r s , 519, 561, 562 n. 105 16 p o u n d e r s , 551 18 p o u n d e r s , 200, 425, 427, 428, 429, 431, 442, 519, 526, 555, 556, 559, 560, 561, 563, 564, 565, 567, 568, 569 20 p o u n d e r s , 519, 522, 532, 534, 535, 540, 541, 542, 543

24 p o u n d e r s , 200, 409, 425, 427, 428, 431, 442, 518, 518, 520, 521, 526, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 555, 556, 560, 562 n. 105, 563, 564, 565, 567, 568, 569, 572 n. 123 30 p o u n d e r s , 535, 561, 562, 563, 564 36 p o u n d e r s , 546, 551, 555, 563, 567, 568, 569, 570, 568, 572 n. 123 40 p o u n d e r s , 534 n. 49, 535, 539, 543 42 p o u n d e r s , 561 48 p o u n d e r s , 546, 547, 551, 552 r a n g e of, 514, 515 r e b o r i n g , 546 recasting, 559 regementsstycken (light field artillery), 522, 547 salvage of, 566 as scap metal, 570 schlange, 513 siege guns, 41, 212, 522, 528, 537, 539, 548 Siegroth guns, 547 skeppskvarterstycken (wrought-iron breech loader), 528 skeppsstycken, 552 skeppstat, 525 sketbreckor (stone g u n s ) , 536 skerpentiner (wrought-iron breech loader), 528 'A slangor, 537 slangor, 517, 522, 527, 530, 532, 534 n. 49, 536, 537, 546 slangor 517, 522, 530, 523, 532, 538, 534 n. 49, 536, 546, 547 n. 73 slangor, 513, 514, 515, 532, 535, 537, 541, 542 sling, 513 n. 15 s m o o t h bore, 346, 507, 514 s t a n d a r d i s a t i o n of, 517, 550, 553 stern chasers, 515, 516 s t o n e guns, 513, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 536 stormstycken, 400, 517, 533, 540, 541, 547, 549 n. 77, 550 swivel guns, 138, 324, 326, 569 t r o p h y guns, 569 types of, 5 1 3 - 5 2 1 w i n d a g e , 516, 518, 519, 520, 569 w r o u g h t iron, 159, 510, 511, 513, 526, 528, 530, 531, 533, 534, 535, 537, 538, 639, 640, 541 see also firepower, m o r t a r s

GENERAL INDEX G u n s h o t s , a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of, 297 n. 92

Giistafsson, H a r a l d , historian, 31 G u s t a v I, King of Sweden ( 1 5 2 3 - 6 0 ) , also regent ( 1 5 2 1 - 2 3 ) , xxii, 32, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 80, 97, 124, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 257, 258, 259, 260, 262, 266, 285, 287, 335, 348, 349, 352, 354, 355, 467, 526, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 645, 646, 647, 657, 659, 661, 664 d e a t h of, 81, 281, 358 as e n t r e p r e n e u r , 74, 75 letters of, 142 n. 5, 258 a n d Liibeck, 68 a n d m a n n i n g 590 naval policy of, 86, 334, 350, 435, 444, 479 G u s t a v II Adolf, King of Sweden ( 1 6 1 1 - 3 2 ) , xxii, 25, 29 n. 27, 50, 75, 86, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 103, 124, 125, 129, 163, 264, 267, 279, 286, 288, 289, 291, 294, 298, 318, 330, 394, 404, 406, 407, 410, 412, 414, 484, 488, 515, 523, 543, 573, 627, 646, 647, 658, 665 a n d a r m y r e f o r m , 96 calibre system of, 519 d e a t h of, 102, 408, 551 n. 86 foreign policy, 437 and gunnery, 545-554 naval policy, 101, 102, 407, 408, 416, 436, 437, 444, 445, 446, 450, 490, 491, 596, 597, 598, 600 o r d n a n c e r e f o r m s of, 545 V a s t m a n l a n d d u k e d o m of, 391 Gyldenlove, U l r i k Christian, D a n i s h A d m i r a l - g e n e r a l , 210, 213 Gyllengranat, Carl A u g u s t , a d m i r a l a n d naval minister, 46 Gyllenhielm, Karl Karlsson, riksamiral, xxiii, i n , 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 299, 397, 401, 488, 600, 632 Gyllenstierna, Elisabet, wife of H a n s Bielkenstierna, 304 n. 103 Gyllenstierna, family of, 304 Gyllenstierna, G o r a n Nilsson, riksamiral (died 1618), xxii, 279, 293, 303 n. 100, 329, 366, 393, 490, 627, 632 Gyllenstierna, G o r a n G o r a n s s o n , a d m i r a l ( 1 6 0 1 - 4 6 ) , 303 n. 100 Gyllenstierna, G o r a n G o r a n s s o n , amimlitetsrdd ( 1 6 3 2 - 1 6 8 6 ) , 302, 303 n. 100, 305

785

Gyllenstierna, J o h a n , advisor to Karl XI, 303 Gyllenstierna, Nils Carlsson, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623, 632 H a b s b u r g E m p i r e , 13, 108 H a b s b u r g s , 30, 33, 90, 102, 250, 367, 368, 403, 407, 408, 434, 494, 646 H a f s t r o m , Georg, 318 s t u d y of sea officers, 579, 615 H a l d e n , fortress at, 223 Haliko, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 366, 381 n. 139 H a l l a n d , 37, 44, 68, 103, 104 cession to Sweden, 104 r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m , 602 s e a m a n c o m p a n y of, 603 s e a m e n f r o m , 604, 605, 606 Halldin, Gustaf, o n d i s p l a c e m e n t in s h i p b u i l d i n g analysis, 318 n. 8 Hdlsingeduk, sailcloth, 454 Halsingelarft, (sailcloth), 453, 485 n. 87 H a l s i n g l a n d , 283, 379, 453 flax p r o d u c t i o n in, 468 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 371, 377 H a m b u r g , 215, 249, 403 H a m m a r , M a g n u s , C o m m o d o r e , naval artillery s t u d y of, 509 H a m n i a r s t r o m , Ingrid: o n Swedish financial system, 266, 267 o n taxation, 636 H a m n s t r o m , Carl, naval m a n n i n g s t u d y of, 579 H a n g o p e n i n s u l a , 216, 217, 218 H a n g o U d d , naval battle at ( 2 6 t h - 2 7 t h July 1714), xvi, 218, 432 H a n o v e r , 127, 130, 208, 218, 219, 222, 230 elector of, 127 H a n s , King, 31, 54, 58, 59, 60, 616 H a n s , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 333 H a n s e , 56, 61, 64, 105, 111, 160, 249, 434 H a n s e cities, 59, 143, 248 t r a d e n e t w o r k s of, 648 H a n s s o n , Soffring, a d m i r a l , 485, 633 Haradsting (local c o u r t ) , 57 Harbovik: s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 292, 337, 338, 366, 376, 388 n. 149, 389 n. 153, 393, 394, 399, 401, 410 s h i p y a r d at, 397

Ill

GENERAL INDEX

H a r i n g e , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 283, 366, 376, 388 n, 149 H a r j e d a l e n , cession to Sweden, 104 H a r n o s a n d , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282 Hasslo, island of, 196 n, 69 liauptman (captain), 616 H e a l t h , 21, 245 a n d provisioning, 6 3 5 - 6 4 1 see also disease, infections, plague, v i t a m i n shortages H e c k s c h e r , Eli F., o n Vasa taxation system, 266 H e d b e r g , Jonas, C o l o n e l - l i e u t e n a n t , Swedish artillery studies of, 509, 541 H e i n s s o n , Evert (Sivert), assistant m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 339 Hellweg, J o h a n Pieter, e n t r e p r e n e u r , 454 H e l s i n g b o r g , 45 Helsingfors, 74, 281 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 359, 361, 381 s h i p y a r d at, 334 H e l s i n g o r , 45, 202 Helsinki, 74 H e m p , 271, 370 n. 118, 449, 450, 451, 4 5 2 - 4 6 0 , 465, 467, 469, 470 n. 48, 471, 472, 475, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 485 n. 87, 486, 488, 489, 490, 491, 493, 494, 499, 501, 540, 541, 648, 650, 656, 660 for a n c h o r cables, 455, 456 cost of, 458 i m p o r t s of, 480, 481 p u r c h a s e of, 256 r e q u i r e m e n t s for, 499, 500 reserves of, 460 for rigging, 456, 457 Russian, 468 s h o r t a g e s of, 483, 499, 500 a n d taxation, 472, 473, 482 t r a d e of, 452 H e n c k , Mikael, a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112, 628 H e n n e l , L e n n a r t , naval m a n n i n g s t u d y of, 579 H e n r i k s s o n , Bertil, m a s t e r shipwright, 335 H e n r i k s s o n , Evert, see H e i n s s o n , Evert H e n r i k s s o n , Jakob, m a s t e r shipwright, 333, 334, 470 n. 48 H e n r y VIII, k i n g of E n g l a n d ( 1 5 0 9 - 4 7 ) , 531 Hess, M a r k u s , C o p e n h a g e n m e r c h a n t , 369

Hierarchies, 289, 290, 291, 292, 613 a n d b u r e a u c r a c y , 244 and governance, 287-292 a n d shipbuilding, 344 H j a l m a r e n lake, 45 Hogbdtsman, see b o a t s w a i n s Holkar, clinker t e c h n o l o g y built ships, 142, 247, 322, 352, 356 H o l l a n d , see N e t h e r l a n d s Hollander, Adrian, master shipwright, 333 H o l l e n d e r , Johan, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 n. 56 H o l m , 379 H o l m e n , naval base, 277 Holmkapten ( D e p u t y c o m m a n d e r ) , 296 Holmmajor ( D e p u t y c o m m a n d e r ) , 296 Holstein, 32, 54, 104, 141, 143, 168, 175, 202, 215, 258, 426 d u k e of, 64 a n d K a l m a r U n i o n , 53 H o l s t e i n - G o t t o r p , D u c h y of, 121, 122, 123, 131, 201, 203 H o r n , Gustav, Swedish Field-marshal, 166 H o r n , H e n r i k , a d m i r a l general, 191, 192, 302, 623 n. 70 H o r n , Klas Kristersson, a d m i r a l , 152, 153, 155, 156, 405, 623 n. 70, 624 Hovitsmcin (captain), 616, 620, 621, 622 Hovrcitten ( C o u r t of Appeal), 290 Hudiksvall, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283 H u l k , ship n o longer seagoing, 322 n, 15 Hulls, 164 n. 29, 323, 346, 430, 450, 478, 479, 483, 495, 496, 500, 503, 504, 544 c o n s t r u c t i o n of, 477 obsolescence of, 494 H u m l e b a e k , 202 Huvudskepp, large w a r s h i p , 331, 441 Hybertsson, Henrik, Master shipwright, 292, 293, 337, 338, 339, 388 n. 151, 389 n. 153, 390, 398, 401, 405, 458 n. 20, 459 n. 22 H y b e t s s o n , A r e n t , m e r c h a n t , 339 Ice bridges, a n d military o p e r a t i o n s , 178 Iceland, a n d K a l m a r U n i o n , 53 Iggesund, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 284, 378 I n d i a n O c e a n , 249 E u r o p e a n p e n e t r a t i o n of, 658 I n d r e t , France, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 339 n. 66

GENERAL INDEX I n f a n t r y , 269, 586; see also soldiers Infections, bacterial, 641 Ingria, Swedish province, 95, 125, 204, 206, 207 I n l a n d t o w n s ' g t u i n e r c o m p a n y , 603 I n n o v a t i o n , 266 I n t e n d a n t s , civilian a d m i n i s t r a t o r s , 252 Inventories, naval, 449, 450, 452, 453, 455, 4 6 0 - 4 6 6 , 468, 469, 470, 472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 492, 494 n. 106, 496, 497, 500, 502, 503, 504, 526 g u n inventories, 508, 509, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 539, 540, 545, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552 n. 87, 561, 562, 563 n. 107, 568 o r d n a n c e inventories, 516, 540, 541 Iron, 317, 350, 377, 378, 511, 513, 648, 650 for a n c h o r s , 452 bar iron, 556 cast iron technology, 554, 558 p r o d u c t i o n of, 454 I r o n ore, 512 I r o n w o r k s , 271, 452, 512, 560, 568 leasing of, 523, 524 I s b r a n d s s o n , Johan, j u n i o r m a s t e r shipwright, 339 Italy: H a b s b u r g territories in, 186 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 248 Ivan IV, t h e Terrible, T s a r of Russia ( 1 5 3 3 - 8 4 ) , 74, 81 Jagellonica, Katarina, wife of J o h a n III, 358 Jagiello dynasty, 90 Jakob, m a s t e r shipwright, 334 Jakob, Finske, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 333 Jakobsson, Eskil, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 335, 336 Jakobsson, H e i n ( H e n r i k ) , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 339 Jakobsson, T h e o d o r , C o l o n e l - l i e u t e n a n t , Swedish artillery studies of, 509 Jakter, small a r m e d vessels, 142, 254, 257, 259, 322, 323, 324, 325, 328, 347, 349, 352, 356, 374, 399 Jaktskepp, small t h r e e - m a s t e d ship, 324, 341, 423 J a m t l a n d , cession to Sweden, 104 Jankow, battie at, 174

787

Jensen, F r e d e P., historian, 31 J o h a n III, King of Sweden ( 1 5 6 8 - 9 2 ) , xxii, 84, 85, 124, 263, 264, 273, 274, 282, 283, 286, 357, 358, 360, 363, 365, 368, 373, 376, 475, 588, 592, 624, 625 Baltic policy of, 88 foreign policy, 474 letters of, 335 a n d m a n n i n g regulations, 594 m a r r i a g e of, 90 naval policy of, 86, 87, 369, 370, 374, 375, 435, 444, 446, 472, 480, 539, 540 a n d Philip II of Spain, 87, 88 s h i p b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m m e s of, 3 6 4 - 3 7 6 a n d Swedish Council, 288 wife of, 87 J o h a n , C o u n t of H o y a , 67, 68, 257, 349, 618 d e a t h of 68 Johan, D u k e of F i n l a n d , see J o h a n III, King of Sweden J o h a n , D u k e of O s t e r g o t l a n d , 391 Johansson, Isbrand, master shipwright, 337, 338, 339, 385 n. 144, 388 n. 151, 389, 391, 393, 394, 397 J o h a n s s o n , Lorentz, M a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 391 n. 155 J o n s s o n , Mats, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 335 n. 50 J o n s s o n , Sigfrid, 622 n. 69 Jonsson, Soffring, a d m i r a l , 626, 627 Juel, Niels, A d m i r a l , 192 J u t l a n d , 99, 104, 109, 110, 141, 143, 166, 167, 168, 169, 175, 176, 178, 183 Juusten, Bengt S o f f r i n g s s o n ( e n n o b l e d G y l l e n a n k a r ) , a d m i r a l , 625 Kajutfolk, 609 K a l m a r , 60, 68, 94, 91, 96, 122, 140, 142, 143, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 162, 170, 175, 196, 236, 278, 282, 303, 306, 336, 392, 476, 482, 483, 492, 543 castle at, 163, 254, 255, 281, 529 g u n s at, 541 a c c o u n t s f r o m , 270 n. 44 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 337, 341, 356, 357, 366, 385, 388 n. 152, 389 n. 153, 390, 425, 426 s h i p y a r d at, 423, 475 n. 62 K a l m a r lans m u s e u m , 563 n. 107 K a l m a r U n i o n , 29, 31, 35, 52, 53, 54, 61, 69, 82

Ill GENERAL INDEX K a l m a r s u n d , 43, 152, 162, 163, 193, 194 Elefanten's w r e c k at, 153 Kalvo, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282 Kammamrkivet ( T r e a s u r y archive), 579 Kammaren, see Sweden, T r e a s u r y Kamrnarkollegiet, 450 KammarkoUegium, 307 Kansliet, see Sweden, Chancellery K a p p l i n g e h o l m e n , island, 280 Karl IX, King of Sweden (1604-11), also regent ( 1 5 9 9 - 1 6 0 4 ) , xxii, 84, 87, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 161, 162, 165, 187, 188, 236, 264, 268, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 283, 286, 288, 290, 338, 339, 365, 367, 368, 369, 373, 375, 3 7 6 - 3 8 4 , 385, 387, 388, 391, 435, 465, 466, 476, 379, 523, 573, 592, 593, 626, 627, 664, 665 d e a t h of, 163 naval policy, 91, 188, 385, 393, 447, 450, 475, 476, 477, 480, 481, 482, 490, 541, 542, 543, 547 royal t r a d e system, 482 Karl X Gustav, King of Sweden ( 1 6 5 4 - 6 0 ) , xxii, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 117, 125 n. 95, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 298, 299, 300, 417, 418, 658 d e a t h of, 112, 114 naval policy of, 108, 340, 417, 418, 419, 496 s h i p b u i l d i n g p r o g r a m , 563 Karl XI, King of Sweden ( 1 6 6 0 - 9 7 ) , also r e g e n c y g o v e r n m e n t ( 1 6 6 0 - 7 2 ) , xxii, 114, 117, 119, 120, 125, 129, 130, 189, 190, 191, 193, 195, 196, 197, 300, 302, 304, 306, 309, 310, 311, 312, 330, 420, 496, 502, 569, 658 naval policy, 424, 425, 426, 428 Karl XII, King of Sweden ( 1 6 9 7 - 1 7 1 8 ) , also r e g e n c y g o v e r n m e n t (1697), xxii, 123, 124, 126, 127, 131, 198, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 212, 218, 219, 220, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 331, 608, 609, 658, 661 d e a t h of, 130, 227, 232 foreign policy, 127 naval policy of, .129, 205, 218, 428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 606 in O t t o m a n E m p i r e , 207, 218, 310 Karl, D u k e of S o d e r m a n l a n d , see Karl IX, K i n g of Sweden

K a r l s h a m n , 190, 196, 340 D a n i s h c a p t u r e of, 423 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 341, 421, 422, 423 s h i p y a r d at, 499 Karlskrona, 126, 127, 128, 129, 195, 197, 201, 208, 209, 210, 213, 217, 219, 220,' 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 306, 308, 309, 318, 426, 428, 608, 610 as a d m i n i s t r a t i v e centre, 303 blockade of, 201 fortifications at, 567 g u n s at, 567 naval base at, 7, 40, 44, 49, 122, 238, 325, 341, 466, 567, 604, 606 plague at, 211 p r o v i s i o n i n g , 639 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 342, 343, 425, 426, 427, 430 Kasimir, John, King of P o l a n d , 112 Kastelholm: casrie at, 254 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 356 Katarina, wife of J o h a n III, 90 Katt, t r a n s p o r t vessel, 326 Kattegatt, 44, 186, 191, 209, 211, 213, 214, 217, 606 Keels, 377, 386 n. 145 Kettles, 449, 529 n. 38 K e x h o l m , 95, 370 fortress at, 95 Kiel: Bay of Kiel, 169 Kijl, K n u t , a d m i r a l , 627 Klockupproret, see Bell rebellion Koch, Carl, naval m a n n i n g s t u d y of, 579 Koge Bay, 43, 44, 210, 222, 223, 224, 225 naval batrie at (1st July 1677), xvi, 192, 193, 238 naval battle at ( 2 3 r d - 2 6 t h S e p t e m b e r 1710), xvi, 210, 238, 429 Kolberger Heide, naval battle at (1st July 1644), xvii, 168, 169, 172, 177, 234 n. 124, 236 KoUegium ( a d m i n i s t r a t i v e d e p a r t m e n t a l o r g a n i s a t i o n ) , 291, 294, 306 Kommendor, see c o m m o d o r e s Kommerskollegium, B o a r d of C o m m e r c e , 106, 438, 442 Konig, Kort, Liibeckian m e r c h a n t , 348 Konigsberg, 226 h e m p f r o m , 486, 487 Konstaplar, see G u n n e r s , m a s t e r gunners

GENERAL I N D E X K o p p a r b e r g e t , 558 g u n p r o d u c t i o n at, 549, 560 Kotlin, see Retusaari, island of Kravel, see Carvel Kraveller, naval vessel, 142, 257, 322, 352 Krejare, t r a n s p o r t vessel, 326, 328 Krigsarkivet, S t o c k h o l m , 7, 318, 508 naval p a p e r s collection, 8 KrigskoUegium, A r m y b o a r d , 297 n. 92, 307, 508 K r o n b o r g , 181 siege of (1535), 529 K r o n o b y , naval yard at, 422, 423 K r o n s t a d t , 129, 212, 216, 230, 231 Russian naval base at, 125, 204 Kungsor: s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 337 n. 61, 377, 378, 382, 384, 385, 386, 391 s h i p y a r d at, 283 Kurck, Arvid, b i s h o p of A b o , 347 Kvarsebo, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 338, 390 L a b o u r , as resource, 284, 285, 286, 287 Ladoga, lake, 45, 89, 125, 203, 370, 374, 430 L a d u g a r d s l a n d e t , Stockliolm, 280 Lagerbielke, family of, 308 Lagercrantz, family of, 308 Lagom, " m i d d l e - s i z e d " w a r s h i p , 328 Laicho, Erik, 333 n. 41 Laicho, Jakob, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 333 Lakes, a n d a r m y logistics, 45, 46 Ldn system, 253, 254, 257, 259, 260, 265, 288, 347 Lcin holders, 253, 254, 257, 349, 467 L a n d i n g craft, 400 Landshovdingar (civilian provincial governors), 289, 291 L a n d s k r o n a , 69, 181, 183, 184, 256, 495 Svdrdet s i n k i n g at, 418 Swedish naval base at, 44, 111, 118, 144 L a n d s t i n g (provincial c o u r t ) , 57 Lane, Frederic C., historian, 11 o n state f o r m a t i o n , 652, 667 Langeland, 181 Ldntagare (aristocratic govenors), 31 Ldrft, (flax cloth), 453, 479, 483, 489 Larsson, Bengt, d e p u t y a d m i r a l , 274, 275 n. 54 Lastdragare, t r a n s p o r t vessel, 326

789

Leister, m e a s u r e of cargo c a r r y i n g capacity, 326, 329 Latvia, 43 G e r m a n rule of, 81 Lauridsen, H a n s , D a n i s h A d m i r a l , 157 Lead lines, 449 Leaders, 6 0 9 - 6 3 5 p e r m a n e n t c o r p s of, 627, 628 t h r e e - t i e r e d system of, 609 Leadership, 253, 576, 577, 580, 609, 611, 612, 615, 616, 632, 650, 656, 665 organisational, 14 political, 245, 246 L e d s u n d , naval battle at (1720), 231 Ledung system, 247 Leijonfelt, J o h a n Vilhelm, M a s t e r of O r d n a n c e , 568 n. 118 Length, u n i t s of, Swedish, xxii L e n m a n , H a n s , m e r c h a n t , 442 Lepanto, battie of (1571), 353 L e p a s o o n , Urve, 49 L e w e n h a u p t , Axel, c o m m a n d e r of G o t h e n b u r g s q u a d r o n , 344 Lieutenants, 622, 628, 629, 631, 633 kaptenldjtnant, 629 dverldjtnant, 628 underldjtnant, 628 Lights, 449 Lillebaelt, 178 Lillie, Erik, a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112 L i n e - o f - b a t d e , tactical f o r m a t i o n , 192 n. 63, 199, 222, 316, 321, 331 Lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n , 122 Linjeskepp, see ships of t h e line Linkoping, b i s h o p of, 347 Lisbon, 251, 374 Lispund, Swedish u n i t of weight, xxii 452 Listerdyb, 167 naval b a t d e at (1644), 167, 171, 172 Lithuania: G r a n d D u k e of, 90 see also P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a Livonia, 79, 81, 93, 97, 99, 112, 113, 117, 127, 162, 203, 206, 208, 298, 400, 405, 477, 481, 660 forests in, 102 naval supplies f r o m , 258 Lode lines, 449 Lodja, large i n l a n d w a t e r boat, 325, 328 Lodjor, (small u n a r m e d t r a n s p o r t vessels), 283, 284, 372, 376, 389, 393, 395, 399, 412, 474, 478, 552

Ill GENERAL INDEX Lodose, 349, 350, 367 Lolland, island of, 181 Louis XIV, K i n g of F r a n c e ( 1 6 4 3 - 1 7 1 5 ) , 118, 195, 414 Liibeck, 33, 34, 35, 36, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 78, 81, 82, 85, 111, 112, 114, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145, 148, 151, 155, 159, 160, 235, 247, 248, 249, 258, 273, 347, 348, 349, 403, 434, 467, 617, 659, 660 h e m p f r o m , 480 m e r c h a n t fleet of, 146 naval suppHes f r o m , 256, 257, 258, 260 sailcloth f r o m , 454, 485, 486 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 360, 420, 422, 499 s h i p y a r d at, 499 Sten Sture's ships at, 254 Swedish privileges of, 67 t r a d e of, 67, 146, 160 L u n d , battle of (1676), 190, 195 Lundkvist, Sven, historian, 31 L u t h e r a n i s m , 65, 69 L u t h e r a n s , 66, 97 Liitzen, 408 G u s t a v II A d o l f ' s d e a t h at, 102 Machtstaat, see State, p o w e r state M a g n u s , Olaus, C a t h o h c c h u r c h m a n , 353 M a h a n , Alfred, naval historian, 15, 16 M a h a n i a n f r a m e w o r k , in studies of c o n t r o l of t h e sea, 16, 17 M a i n t e n a n c e , c o n t r a c t s for, 4 8 4 - 4 9 2 Major, j u n i o r flag r a n k , 304, 632, 633 M a l a r e n lake, 37, 45, 147, 167, 173, 174, 281, 283, 377, 379, 385, 388 n. 149, 393, 394, 402, 483 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283 M a l m o , 66, 551 M a l n u t r i t i o n , 641 M a n n a i n e n , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 381 n. 139 M a n n i n g , 5 7 5 - 6 4 4 , 650, 660, 664 a n d a r m a m e n t , 588 d e m o g r a p h i c s , 605 indelta, c o m p a n i e s , 605 m e r c h a n t m e n , 580 studies of, 578, 579 M a n n i n g lists, 584, 585 M a n n i n g plans, 526, 539, 545 n. 69, 579, 581, 586, 587, 588, 589, 591, 597 for Gulf of F i n l a n d c a m p a i g n (1557), 588

M a n n i n g systems, 581, 582, 584, 593, 594, 595, 598, 600, 606, 607, 608, 609, 643, 644, 650 G u s t a v I's, 589 objectives of, 580, 581 M a n p o w e r , 136, 253, 656 naval r e q u i r e m e n t s for, 499 M a p s , 610, 611 M a r g a r e t a , wife of J o h a n of Hoya, 350 n. 85 M a r i n e r s , 585, 586, 587, 588, 593, 594, 597, 598, 607, 618, 619, 620, 621, 622, 630 M a r i n e s , 586 M a r i t i m e skills, a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 251 Markets, a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 246, 666 M a r s t r a n d , fortress of, 228 M a r s t r a n d , naval battle at (1719), 430 M a r t e n s s o n , Erik, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 M a r y Stuart, 358 M a s t e r of e q u i p m e n t , 296 M a s t e r of o r d n a n c e , 293, 296, 299, 532, 568 n. 118 Masterknekt, assistant m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 339 Masters, 576, 577, 610, 614, 616, 619, 622 Masters, levels of, 610 Masts, 271, 449, 450, 452, 461, 471, 496 f o r e m a s t s , 461 f o r e t o p g a l l a n t masts, 463 m a i n masts, 461, 462, 463 Mdrsmast, see masts, t o p m a s t m i z z e n masts, 461 m i z z e n t o p m a s t s , 461, 462 t o p masts, 352, 461, 462 topgallant masts, 461, 462 t o p - m a s t s , 352 Matsson, Markus, master shipwright, 334, 335 M a t t s o n , Lars ( e n n o b l e d S t r u s s h j e l m ) , vice a d m i r a l , 406, 634 M a z a r i n , C a r d i n a l , ruler of France, 414 M e c k l e n b u r g , 44, 71, 105, 131, 155, 400, 411 M e c k l e n b u r g - G i i s t r o w , D u c h y of, 121 M e d e l p a d , naval y a r d at, 341, 421 M e d i t e r r a n e a n Sea, 101, 186, 313, 315 Meijerfeldt, J o h a n A u g u s t , d i r e c t o r of naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 310

GENERAL INDEX M e r c a n t i l e m a r i n e , 40, 361, 385, 435, 436, 441, 442, 577, 580, 581, 608, 614, 626, 628, 630, 631 M e r c e n a r i e s , 33, 36, 55, 61, 63, 65, 83, 95, 101, 140, 146, 166, 655, 666 M e r c h a n t m e n , 17, 77, 83, 106, 135, 153, 166, 167, 250, 321, 322, 347, 356, 361, 362, 374, 375, 413, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 447, 590, 592, 608, 628 a r m a m e n t of, 390, 441, 442, 548, 554, 567, 575 n. 1 hire of, 21, 436 m a n n i n g of, 580 Metallurgy: a n d g u n s , 505, 506, 507, 511 a n d w a r s h i p technology, 572, 573 Militdra dmnessamlingar (naval a d m i n i s t r a t i v e papers), 8, 578 Militias, 5, 52, 61, 78, 83 peasant, 57, 61, 62, 72, 75 royal, 75, 260, 262 Minerals, 656 Karl IX's policy on, 523 M o n , naval battle at ( 1 2 t h - 1 3 t h S e p t e m b e r 1657), xvii, 177 M o n a r c h i e s , rise of, 77 M o n i e r , A n t h o n i e , 459 n. 22 M o n o p o l i e s , 666 m o n o p o l y c o m p a n i e s , 658 a n d violence, 18, 76, 288, 613, 670, 658 M o n s t e r a s , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 371, 376, 377, 384 M o r r i s , M a r t h a , sailcloth studies, 451 M o r t a r s , 200, 325 M o r t a r floats, 432 M o s c o w , 126, 206, 207 a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 251 M u n d , Pros, D a n i s h A d m i r a l , 171 M u s k e t e e r s , 514, 585 M u s k e t s , 138, 585 M u s k o , naval base at, 139 M u s t e r rolls, 578, 589 N a f w e q v a r n , i r o n w o r k s at, 560 Nails, 317 Naples, galley n a v y of, 249 N a p o l e o n i c W a r s , 42 N a r k e , 367 N a r o v a , river, 45 N a r v a , 81, 89, 124, 125, 133, 151, 201, 204, 273, 482

791

b l o c k a d e of, 84, 88, 362, 364, 365, 371, 435, 446, 471, 538, 660 g u n s at, 541 h e m p f r o m , 480, 481 N a t t och Dag, Barbro, wife of H a n s Bielkenstierna j n r , 304 n. 103 N a t t och Dag, family of, 304 n. 103 Naval bases, a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 20 Naval p o w e r , 35, 51, 84, 246, 247, 659, 661 A m e r i c a n , 16 British, 16 a n d c o m p l e x o r g a n i s a t i o n , 19 a n d e n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p , 658 a n d fiscal military state, 2 5 - 2 8 a n d geostrategy, 39 a n d political p o w e r , 5 1 - 5 2 a n d state f o r m a t i o n , 6 6 6 - 6 6 8 Vasa dynasty, 7 4 - 7 8 Swedish, 79, 85, 663, 664, 665, 668-671 Western, 105-112 Navies, 2, 3, 14, 15, 18, 20, 23, 24, 39, 80, 96, 241, 242, 245, 668 early m o d e r n , 1 4 - 1 9 E u r o p e a n , 16 financing of, 22 f u n c t i o n , of, 241 galley navies, 249, 250, 313 historical studies of, 15, 16, 17 i n d u s t r i a l c o m p o n e n t s of, 242 n a t i o n a l p a r a d i g m s of, 19 p e r m a n e n t , 51, 52, 77, 245, 248, 261, 647, 668 Navies, B r a n d e n b u r g , 193, 194 Navies, British, 128, 219, 222, 223, 224, 226, 228, 230, 232, 249, 431 battle fleet of, 130, 231 battleships of, 219, 222, 224, 230, 233 frigates of, 225 m e r c h a n t m e n of, 435, 436 Navies, D a n i s h , 27, 29, 33, 42, 44, 60, 71, 84, 85, 94, 104, 109, 110, 128, 261, 352, 357, 363, 371, 375, 384, 392, 394, 395, 416, 420, 431 a r m a m e n t of, 94, 171, 512, 530, 536, 537, 538, 542, 555, 559, 570 Baltic naval o p e r a t i o n s , 1 3 5 - 2 4 0 battle fleet of, 43, 114, 128, 131, 132, 213, 214, 221, 232, 237, 238, 433, 660

Ill GENERAL INDEX battleships of, 201, 209, 210, 211, 213, 215, 217, 219, 222, 223, 225, 232, 233, 433 b l o c k s h i p s of, 432, 433 b r i g a n t i n e s of, 432 Christian IV's, 404 cruiser force of, 433 e n r o h i i e n t system of, 606 firepower, 553, 556, 559 fleet s t r e n g t h , 164, 170, 171, 172, 176, 177, 186, 189, 192, 193 n65, 201 n. 74, 210, 212, 314, 364, 365, 400, 404, 413, 414, 415, 417, 418, 423, 424, 427, 429, 433 frigates of, 209, 213, 214, 219, 223, 432, 433 galleys of, 200, 346, 354, 410, 433 g i m n e r y of, 177, 192, 495 Liibeckian c o n t r o l of, 144 m a n n i n g system of, 607 m e r c h a n t m e n of, 193 n. 65, 219, 356, 434 s e a m e n of, 580 shallow d r a u g h t flotilla, 128, 129, 224, 433 s h i p b u i l d i n g , 340, 341 s n o w s of, 432 tactics, 537 t r a n s p o r t s , 210 w a r s h i p technology, 570, 571 w a r s h i p s of, 66, 68, 69, 148, 193 n. 65, 346, 352, 356, 362, 365, 424 yachts of, 410, 433 Navies, D u t c h Republic, 25 n. 24, 104, 110, 111, 173, 176, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 201, 202, 219, 225, 237, 298, 395, 420 a r m a m e n t of, 512, 555 battle fleet of, 114, 107, 109, 183 battleships of, 219, 225, 233 firepower, 553, 554, 555 fitting of, 490 fleet s t r e n g t h , 179, 185 n. 49, 186, 189, 417, 423 frigates of, 225 g u n n e r y of, 495 m e r c h a n t m e n , 435, 436 s h i p b u i l d i n g , 561 Swedish officers in, 631 w a r s h i p technology, 570, 571 w a r s h i p s . 111 Navies, English, 111, 304, 315, 329, 369, 395, 420

a r m a m e n t , 512, 531, 536, 543, 544, 554, 555, 570 b a t d e fleet of, 107 c o r d a g e of, 451 firepower, 531, 553 fleet s t r e n g t h , 423 g u n n e r y of, 543 r a n k s of, 633 n, 88 sailcloth, 451 size of, 314 Swedish officers in, 631 w a r s h i p technology, 570, 571 warships, 445 Navies, F r e n c h , 46 n. 38, 75, 185, 194, 249, 395, 414, 420 battle fleet of, 107 firepower, 553, 554 fleet s t r e n g t h , 185 n. 49, 423 galley fleet, 73, 75, 249 size of, 669 Swedish officers in, 631 Navies, H a b s b u r g , 96, 99, 403, 404 Swedish c a p t u r e of, 101 Navies, Lubeckian, 60, 68, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 235, 236, 360, 363, 527 m e r c h a n t m e n , 362, 434 Navies, Naples: galley ffeet of, 249, 250 Navies, O t t o m a n E m p i r e : galley fleet of, 89, 249, 250 Navies, Polish, 99, 402, 403, 404 H a b s b u r g c o n t r o l of, 99 Navies, P o r t u g u e s e , 249 Navies, P r u s s i a n , 618 Navies, Russian, 107, 124, 128, 198, 200, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 261, 395 a m p h i b i o u s capability of, 98 battle fleet of, 124, 215, 217, 230, 231, 238, 433 battleships of, 211, 215, 216, 217, 220, 224, 225, 228, 230, 231, 232, 433 Black Sea fleet of, 127 b o m b vessels of, 433 c o m b i n e d o p e r a t i o n s of, 133 fleet s t r e n g t h , 216, 217, 433 frigates of, 203, 213, 217, 220, 433 galley fleet of, 124, 225, 344, 432, 433, 434 galleys of, 200, 204, 217, 229, 231

GENERAL INDEX m e r c h a n t m e n of, 215 o a r e d fleet of, 128, 204, 207, 211, 212, 216 Reval s q u a d r o n , 224 shallow w a t e r operations, 206 warships, 220 Navies, Sicilian: galley fleet of, 249, 250 Navies, Spanish, 25 n. 24, 96, 102, 250 fleet s t r e n g t h , 185 n. 49 galley fleet, 89, 249 N e t h e r l a n d s s q u a d r o n , 404 size of, 669 warships, 445 Navies, Swedish, 2, 3, 12, 49 n. 3, 52, 59, 60, 61, 68, 69, 71, 75, 80, 83, 85, 89, 94, 95, 99, 101, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 130, 302, 352, 368, 371, 384, 392, 395, 398, 420, 575, 630, 650, 662 Alvsborg s q u a d r o n , 542 a m p h i b i o t t s o p e r a t i o n s of, 97, 98, 99, 100, 113, 123, 125 aristocratic, 1 1 4 - 1 1 9 a r m a m e n t of, 171, 425, 427, 428, 430, 445, 446, 5 0 5 - 5 7 3 Baltic naval o p e r a t i o n s , 1 3 5 - 2 4 0 battle fleet of, 43, 44, 6 1 - 7 0 , 8 0 - 8 5 , 87, 113, 114, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 195, 197, 201, 213, 214, 217, 2 2 1 , 2 2 6 , 230, 2 3 1 , 2 3 2 , 236, 237, 238, 375, 376, 409, 427, 428, 429, 430, 446, 447, 498, 502, 503, 541, 543, 544, 591, 625, 659, 660, 661 battleships of, 126, 201, 202, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 215, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225, 228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 367, 428, 429, 430, 445, 502, 503, 571, 587 blockships of, 217, 218, 220, 228, 229, 427, 432, 443, 444 bojorter of, 355, 356, 389, 397, 406 n. 175, 423, 478 b o m b vessels of, 204, 206, 208, 209, 2 1 1 , 2 1 7 , 2 2 1 , 4 2 7 , 430, 431 boyers of, 187 n. 54, 424, 497, 500 b r i g a n t i n e s of, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 2 1 1 , 2 1 7 , 220, 2 2 1 , 2 2 8 , 427, 430, 431, 587 b u d g e t of, 493 n. 103 c a p t u r e d ships in, 362, 363, 371, 383 c o m m a n d s t r u c t u r e s of, 621, 622

793

c o m m o n e r s serving in, 630, 633 C o r p s of C o n s t r u c t o r s , 343 C r u i s e r s of, 12, 429, 430, 431, 445, 446, 503 d e t e r i o r a t i o n , 429 d e v e l o p m e n t of, 52, 112-114, 2 9 2 - 2 9 6 , 664, 670 division i n t o five fleets, 294, 295 Erik XIV's, 83, 84, 86, 152-160, 264, 272, 282, 285, 286, 3 5 7 - 3 6 5 , 446, 462, 517, 553, 594 financial cost o f 188 n. 58, 575 firepower, 531, 532, 540, 543, 550, 551, 552, 553, 558, 559, 560, 562, 565, 567, 568, 571, 572 fireships, 167 n. 33, 168, 170, 172, 187, 189, 191, 192, 418, 424, 501, 502 fleet s t r e n g t h of, 160, 164, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 176, 177, 182, 183, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 193, 201, 206, 210, 212, 217, 229, 364, 365, 400, 404, 409, 413, 415, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 482, 541 411, 438 n. 221 floating batteries of, 503 f o r e i g n e r s serving in, 626, 627, 630, 631, 632, 633 a n d f o r e i g n policy, 8 5 - 9 0 , 121, 122 frigates, 200, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 217, 219, 220, 221, 224, 228, 229, 231, 427, 430, 431, 439, 442, 445, 587 galley fleet o f 7 0 - 7 4 , 89, 113, 124, 230, 344, 3 5 3 - 3 5 7 , 372, 385, 402, 444, 530, 541, 569, 629 galleys o f 200, 204, 206, 209, 217, 218, 220, 228, 229, 346, 363, 364, 365, 374, 376, 399, 4 0 0 , 4 1 1 , 4 2 7 , 431, 432, 469, 503, 530, 545 n. 69, 547, 551 n. 85, 586, 608 G o t h e n b u r g s q u a d r o n , 143, 144, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 198, 209, 211, 212, 213, 219, 308, 319, 344, 399, 430, 431, 440, 441, 567, 599, 606, 607 Gulf of F i n l a n d s q u a d r o n , 209, 216 g u n n e r y , 148, 155, 177, 180, 181, 184, 189 G u s t a v I's, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 80, 86, 124, 139-145, 254, 255, 256, 260, 281,

Ill GENERAL INDEX

334, 3 4 8 - 3 5 8 , 457, 467, 479, 517, 530, 531, 616, 617, 619, 620 G u s t a v II A d o l f ' s , 86, 9 6 - 1 0 2 , 124, 279, 286, 288, 318, 330, 3 9 5 - 4 1 4 , 445, 446, 447, 450, 484, 490, 491, 515, 543, 5 4 5 - 5 5 4 , 573, 589, 590, 5 9 6 - 5 9 8 , 600, 627, 628, 632 h i r e d fleet of, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 261, 439 h i s t o r i o g r a p h y of, 4 6 - 5 0 huvudskepp (capital ships) of, 411 jakter of, 356, 374, 399 jaktskepp of, 423 J o h a n Ill's, 86, 87, 88, 89, 124, 273, 285, 286, 323 n. 17, 3 6 4 - 3 7 6 , 385, 409, 444, 446, 472, 539, 540, 588, 592, 594, 624, 625 Kalniar s q u a d r o n , 163, 165 Karl IX's, 91, 92, 93, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 283, 335, 336, 338, 339, 363, 365, 367, 368, 3 7 3 - 3 9 3 , 445, 447, 466, 4 7 4 - 4 8 4 , 490, 523, 541, 542, 543, 547, 573, 5 9 3 - 5 9 5 , 626, 664, 665 Karl X Gustav's, 111, 125, 175-184, 298, 340, 417, 418, 419, 563 Karl XI's, 117, 187, 188, 189, 193, 197, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 342, 4 2 0 - 4 2 7 , 496, 499, 502, 565, 569, 605 Karl XII's, 120, 126, 129, 205, 206, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 309, 310, 311, 331, 4 2 7 - 4 3 4 , 444, 606, 608, 609, 638 K a r l s k r o n a s q u a d r o n , 319 Ladoga flotilla, 370 Lodjor of, 376, 389, 395, 399, 412, 478 L t i b e c k - a d m i n i s t r a t e d fleet, 140, 141 manning, 575-644 m a n p o w e r , 184, 396, 500 m e r c h a n t m e n of, 69, 170, 171, 172, 177 n. 41, 179, 182, 184, 186, 189, 191, 347, 360, 361, 363, 374, 375, 403, 426, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 447, 495, 501, 548, 561, 562, 608, 628 m o b i l i s a t i o n of, 122, 123, 197, 201, 202, 237, 243, 244, 252, 259, 280, 284, 301, 302, 491, 492, 495, 499, 538, 575, 576, 577, 582, 583, 589, 592, 593, 594, 598, 606, 607, 621, 637, 644 m o r t a r floats of, 432

m u t i n y in, 167 N y e n s q u a d r o n , 204 o a r e d fleet of, 129, 133, 205, 208, 444 obsolescence in, 494, 503 offensive capability of, 654, 655, 667 Peipus flotilla, 319 pintor of, 356, 374 p i n n a c e s of, 388, 395, 399, 400, 411, 412 P o m e r a n i a n flotilla, 221 pmmar of, 376, 387, 388, 395, 478 privateers in, 211, 215, 216, 218 professional, 1 1 9 - 1 2 2 r a n k s of, 628, 629 r e d u c t i o n of, 373, 374, 375, 376 sailcloth r e q u i r e m e n t s of, 457, 458 s e a m a n s h i p of, 189, 190, 196 Skeppsratt (code of naval rules), 62 social m o b i l i t y in, 630 S t o c k h o l m s q u a d r o n , 220, 227, 229, 308, 319, 440, 441 s t r u c t u r e of, 4 4 3 - 4 4 8 strussar of, 406, 409, 412, 419 tactics of, 153, 537 t r a n s p o r t s of, 183, 187, 206, 214, 223 n. 110, 387, 395, 396, 397, 411, 415, 422, 424, 425, 444, 497, 500 Vasa, 6 1 - 7 4 , 9 0 - 9 6 , 575, 578, 589, 592, 658 w a r s h i p s of, 74, 83, 117, 137, 148, 159, 167, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177 n. 41, 179, 182, 186, 189, 191, 253, 256, 275, 3 1 3 - 4 4 8 , 495, 496, 497, 500, 501, 530, 534, 544, 545 n. 69, 550, 570, 571, 572, 590, 632 yachts of, 424 N a v i g a t i o n , 449, 576, 610, 614, 615, 616 n a v i g a t i o n i n s t r u m e n t s , 610, 611 N e t h e r l a n d s , 61, 64, 70, 71, 106, 166, 168, 170, 171, 215, 250, 256, 258, 293, 351, 367 cables f r o m , 486 Charles V ' s p r o v i n c e s in, 70 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 248 naval supplies f r o m , 258 sailcloth f r o m , 453, 454, 467, 477, 480 s h i p b u i l d i n g in, 351 Neva river, 45, 74, 95, 125, 204, 372 e s t u a r y of, 45, 74, 90 N e w D e e p , e n t r a n c e to Stralsund, 213 N e w Sweden, colonial project, Delaware, 438

GENERAL INDEX N e w Sweden C o m p a n y , 413, 438 Nilsdotter, M a r g a r e t a , c o n t r a c t o r , 293 Nilsson, Svante, regent, 32, 60, 253 Nilsson, T o m a s , m a s t e r shipwright, 337, 385 n, 144, 393, 394 Nobility, 26. 55, 57, 64, 81, 99, 100, 119, 120, 143, 253, 259, 260, 265, 269, 287, 288, 290, 303, 308, 351, 424, 582, 613, 614, 617, 618, 622, 624, 625, 626, 628, 629, 630, 633, 634, 647, 649, 655, 664, 670 N o r b y , Soren, a d m i r a l , 64, 141, 349, 616, 617 N o r d i c U n i o n , 61, 70, 648 conflicts in, 5, 31, 32 m o n a r c h y of, 76 N o r m a n d y , F r e n c h navy in, 249 N o r r e F o r s t a d e n , S t o c k h o l m , 280 Norrfinland, gunners company from, 603 N o r r i s , John, Sir, 230 N o r r k o p i n g , 228 sailcloth p r o d u c t i o n at, 454 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 388 n. 149 Norrkopingdsuk, sailcloth, 454 N o r r l a n d , s h i p y a r d s in, 283 N o r r l a n d s e a m a n c o m p a n y , 603 N o r r m a l m , S t o c k h o l m , 280 N o r r t a l j e , 377 N o r t h A m e r i c a , 46 N o r t h Sea, 40, 85, 131, 167, 168, 211, 213, 215, 247 N o r w a y , 29, 31, 44, 58, 60, 64, 66, 76, 78, 83, 94, 112, 122, 129, 173, 198, 211, 223, 224, 227, 228, 432 b o r d e r s of, 34, 36, 37 civil war in, 32 C o u n c i l of, 66 a n d K a l m a r U n i o n , 52, 53 see also D e n m a r k - N o r w a y N o t e b o r g , Russian fortress at, 74 N o v g o r o d , 95, 161 N i i r n b e r g calibre system, 518, 519 Nya nummerserien (naval papers), 8, 509 N y k o p i n g , 92, 94, 162, 164, 278, 384, 476, 483, 593 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 367, 384, 386, 387, 388, 391, s h i p y a r d at, 91, 336, 337 n. 57, 368 n. 114, 378, 475 n. 62, 479

795

Nyland: regional c o m p a n y of s e a m e n f r o m , 598, 599, 603 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 372, 381 n, 139 N y n a s h a m n , 189 Nyslott, F i n l a n d castles of, 67 Oak, 205, 282, 283, 306, 317, 365, 387, 397, 421, 430, as resource, 284 t r a n s p o r t of, 306 Oars, 346 O a r s m e n , 73, 205, 326, 353, 354, 588, 590 c h a i n e d , 582 O d e n , Birgitta: o n Swedish financial system, 267 t a x a t i o n studies, 636 O d e r , river, 45 e s t u a r y of, 99, 218 Officer c o r p s , 612, 613, 614, 615, 627, 630, 635, 643 aristocrats in, 614 Officers, 577, 579, 581, 582, 592, 597, 598, 608, 609, 615, 628, 629, 631 artillery officers, 610 b i o g r a p h i c a l studies of, 611 c o n s t r u c t i o n officers, 342 e d u c a t i o n of, 609, 610 fartygschef ( c o m m a n d i n g officer), 620 flag officers, 310 n. 112, 630, 632, 633, 634 f o r e i g n e r s as, 631, 633 hierarchical r a n k i n g of, 628, 629 n a v i g a t i o n officers, 609, 610, 612, 616 n o n - c o m m i s s i o n e d , 577, 585, 592, 597, 598, 608, 609, 610, 611, 614, 634, 666 in p e a c e t i m e , 628, 629, 631, 633 p e t t y officers, 577, 580, 583, 585, 596, 597, 608, 609, 610 p r o f e s s i o n a l i s a t i o n of, 611, 612, 627 r e c r u i t m e n t of, 610, 612 sea officers, 270, 273, 274, 276, 279, 280, 294, 298, 303, 308, 309, 331, 341, 579, 582, 583, 615, 616, 619, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 627, 629, 630, 631, 632, 643 skeppshdvitsman, see officers, sea officers t r a i n i n g of, 345, 611, 612, 631

Ill GENERAL INDEX w a r r a n t officers, 252 in w a r t i m e , 628, 633 O l a n d , island of, 43, 44, 60, 152, 154, 155, 162, 163, 193, 349, 425 N o r t h e r n O l a n d , naval battle at ( 3 0 t h - 3 1 s t M a y 1564), xvii, 150, 151, 235, 360 N o r t h e r n O l a n d , naval battle at (26th July 1566), xvii, 157, 236 O l a n d , naval battle of ( l l t h - 1 5 t h A u g u s t 1564), xvii, 152, 153, 234 n. 124, 235 S o u t h e r n O l a n d , naval battle at (1st June 1676), xvii, 189, 190, 237, 238, 566 s e a m e n f r o m , 598, 604 O l a n d s e a m a n c o m p a n y , 603 O l d e n b u r g dynasty, 32, 33, 35, 36, 41, 53, 55, 56, 60, 62, 63, 66, 67, 57, 58, 60, 70, 76, 105, 164, 235, 249 Baltic c a m p a i g n s of, 5 2 - 6 1 Oliva, battle of (1627), 407 n. 179 Olof, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 350 Olofsson, H e n n i n g ( e n n o b l e d A n k a r g r i p ) , 628 Olsson, Hollinger, shipwright, 333, 334 Olsson, Jakob, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 333 Olsson, Kjell, naval m a n n i n g s t u d y of, 579 O r d e r of Knights, G e r m a n , 74 Ordnance, 505-573 O r d n a n c e depots, 271, 272 O r d n a n c e organisations, 517, 518, 522, 529 a r m y b r a n c h , 524 n a v y b r a n c h , 524 Organisations: c o m p l e x , 2, 3, 12-14, 28, 6 5 1 - 6 5 4 hierarchical, 13, 14 Osel, island of, 81, 94, 114, 158, 161 cession to Sweden, 104 Oslo, 45, 223 O s l o f j o r d , 45 O s t e r b o t t e n , F i n l a n d , 422, 423 naval r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m , 602 s e a m e n f r o m , 603 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 372, 381 n. 139, 425 O s t e r g o t l a n d , 92, 283, 350 O s t e r g o t l a n d archipelago, 162 O s t e r m a l m , S t o c k h o l m , 280 Ostgota, s e a m e n c o m p a n y f r o m , 603 O s t k i n d , 372

O t t o m a n E m p i r e , 127, 207, 211, 212 Karl XII in, 2 0 7 , 2 1 8 , 3 1 0 m o n a r c h y in, 77 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 249 Overkommissarie, civilian chief c o m m i s s i o n e r , 307, 311 Overskeppare (senior m a s t e r ) , 277 Overstdthdllare ( G o v e r n o r ) , 297 Oversteamiral, see A d m i r a l s , Lord H i g h Admiral O x e n s t i e r n a , Axel, C h a n c e l l o r of Sweden, 25, 102, 103, 104, 167, 267, 279, 288, 293, 294, 295, 329, 316, 330, 331, 395, 396, 400 n. 164, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415 n, 191, 416, 440, 447, 559, 596, 600, 640, 660 p a p e r s of, 328 O x e n s t i e r n a , C h r i s t i e r n Gabrielsson, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 O x e n s t i e r n a family, 297 O x e n s t i e r n a , Gabriel Bengtsson, riksamiml, xxiii, 299, 416, 624 Packet, Gilius, g u n - f o u n d e r a n d military engineer, 532 P a c k - t h r e a d , 468 Painters, 280 Parker, Geoffrey, o n t h e state a n d w a r f a r e , 651 P a t r o n a g e , a n d organisations, 14 Peasants, 32, 38, 52, 57, 58, 66, 140, 253, 262, 264, 265, 266, 284, 285, 286, 304, 306, 312, 354, 369, 472, 582, 642, 647, 648, 649, 650, 651, 653, 655, 656, 670 c o n s c r i p t i o n of, 646 a n d G u s t a v I, 71, 645, 646 militia, 5, 57, 61, 62, 255, 260, 263, 655 a n d naval m a n n i n g , 306, 597, 598, 599, 601, 602 a n d naval policy, 647, 650 a n d provisioning, 642 rebellion by, 71, 527, 646, 648 in s h i p b u i l d i n g , 642 a n d taxation, 482, 636, 599, 642, 646, 670 see also rotar P e d e r s s o n , A n d e r s , private s h i p b u i l d e r , 379 Peipus lake, 45, 89, 125, 204, 430 lodjor o n , 389 n. 153 Penrose, E d i t h T., o n o r g a n i s a t i o n a l g r o w t h , 652, 667

GENERAL INDEX

797

P e r e v o l o c h n a , 127 delegation o f 14 P e r n a u , 81, 97 d o m e s t i c , 19 Perssoii, Mats, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 335 a n d fiscal military state, 25 n. 50, 336 i n t e r n a t i o n a l , 19 Peter I, T s a r of Russia ( 1 6 8 2 - 1 7 2 5 ) , 106, naval p o w e r , 2 - 8 , 15, 16, 19, 25, 28, 107, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 133, 198, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 52, 58, 59, 201, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 213, 215, 61, 63, 7 4 - 8 5 , 105, 106, 108, 111, 216, 217, 220, 225, 226, 230, 231, 433, 112, 116, 127, 129, 130, 142, 143, 661 145, 182, 185, 227, 229, 241, 246, PhiUp II, King of Spain (1554^98), 87, 252, 255, 272, 298, 308, 346, 394, 88, 367, 368, 369, 435 404, 411, 433, 440, 450, 468, 505, Pilots, 576, 577 532, 577, 616, 642, 646. 647, 648, Pine, 317 650, 6 5 8 - 6 7 0 Pinkor, small a r m e d vessel, 322, 323, a n d o r g a n i s a t i o n s , 15 324, 356, 374 p r o j e c t i o n o f 76, 137, 252 Pinnaces, small a r m e d vessels, 324, 328, Prdmar, t r a n s p o r t vessels, 283, 326, 328, 330, 388, 395, 399, 411, 412 376, 387, 388, 393. 395. 478 Pitch, 317, 656 P r a m s , 200 Plague, 211, 607 Privateering, 59, 341, 437, 438, 437, 438, P l u n d e r , 17, 645, 646 608, 658, 665 P o l a n d , 19, 33, 81, 84, 90. 91, 92, 93, Privateers, 60, 211, 347, 363, 430, 98, 99, 100, 112, 115, 126, 127, 131, 608 146, 147, 176, 206, 273, 275, 279, 288, P r o t e c t i o n , 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 290, 381, 382, 384, 405, 411, 494, 646, a n d society, 5 660 P r o t e c t i o n selling, 5, 35, 66, 76, 78, 80, k i n g o f 84, 90 81, 111, 613, 652, 657, 658 naval policy, 95 a n d g u n s , 505 P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a , 13, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37, a n d t h e state, 8 - 1 2 38. 78, 82, 90, 99, 107, 108, 112, 145, Vasa dynasty, 27 175, 210, 203, 249 P r o t e s t a n t s , 90, 617, 618 Jagiello d y n a s t y o f 90 alliance against Philip II of Spain, 88 k i n g of, 201 Provianthus, see Provision d e p o t s P a r l i a m e n t o f 93 Proviantrdkenskaper, p r o v i s i o n accounts, p r o t e c t o r a t e s o f 81 146 n. 8, 164 n. 28, 270 n. 43, 335 P o l a n d - S a x o n y , 123 n. 50, 579 Poltava, battle of (1709), 127, 128, 198, Proviantskepp, storeships, 328 199, 207, 208, 215, 231 P r o v i s i o n i n g , 159, 177, 178, 240, 245, P o m e r a n i a , 45, 105, 121, 127, 129, 155, 252, 271, 272, 293, 5 7 5 - 6 4 4 , 664 174 n. 39, 184, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192 a d m i n i s t r a t i o n o f , 250 n. 61, 194, 212, 213, 215, 219, 220, failures in, 576 221, 223, 224, 324, 400, 405, 411, 431, a n d health, 576, 6 3 5 - 6 4 1 660 P r o v i s i o n i n g plans, 591 naval supplies f r o m , 258 P r u n c k , Jakob Jakobsson, m a s t e r s h i p b u i l d i n g in, 431 s h i p w r i g h t , 339 strussar p r o d u c t i o n in, 405 Prussia, 45, 97, 98, 99, 102, 112, 130, Swedish bases in, 103 n. 72 208, 226, 230, 293, 403, 405, 411, P o r t cities, 246, 247, 248, 249 660 Portugal, 77, 87, 668 d u k e o f 69, 143 C r o w n o f 658 g o v e r n o r o f 410 a n d m e r c h a n t m a n hiring, 436 naval supplies f r o m , 258 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 249 sailcloth p r o d u c t i o n in, 453 naval policy o f 313 sequester o n Stettin, 218 t r a d e o f 378 use of strussar in, 324 P o w e r , political, 1 , 1 9 P r u s s i a - B r a n d e n b u r g , 127

Ill GENERAL INDEX

Psilander, d y n a s t y of, 308 Psilaiiderhielm, 308 P s i l a n d e r s k j o l d , 308 Putzig, Prussia, 402 Q u a r t e r i n g , 263 Q u a r t e r m a s t e r s , 577 R a b e n , Peter, D a n i s h A d m i r a l , 221 Rang, rate (ship classification), 331 Ranges, in F r e n c h r a t i n g system, 332 Rangskepp, battleship, 199 n. 72, 323, 331 Raseborg, castle at, 254 Rates, 331, 332 R a t i n g systems, 3 2 6 - 3 3 2 English, 329, 331, 332 D u t c h , 331, 332 F r e n c h , 331, 332 Rats, d a m a g e caused by, 496 n. I l l R a u m o , 645 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 371, 374, 376, 381 n. 139 Realskepp (warship), 328, 329 R e c r u i t i n g agents, 606 R e c r u i t m e n t , 271, 575, 594, 642 v o l u n t a r y e n l i s t m e n t , 583 see also c o n s c r i p t i o n Reduktion ( r e t u r n of d o n a t e d l a n d to t h e Swedish c r o w n ) , 116, 117, 120, 300, 302, 303, 424 Regeringsform (rules of g o v e r n m e n t ) , 276 Renzel, C l e m e n t , naval a d m i n i s t r a t o r , 467 Resources, 12, 241, 243, 251, 266, 290, 292, 651, 663, 664, 665, 667, 667, 669, 670 centralisation of, 669 extraction of, 11, 652, 654, 656, 670 financial, 12 foreign, 653 flow of, 2 4 1 - 2 4 6 , 654, 655 m o b i l i s a t i o n of, 267, 268, 317 t r a n s f e r of, 291, 651 utilisation of, 1, 12, 13, 14, 28 Retusaari, island of, 125 n. 96, 204, 205, 212, 216 Reval (Tallinn), Estonia, 68, 71, 74, 142, 158, 217, 220, 230, 256, 347, 482, 659 h e m p f r o m , 468, 480 n. 73, 481 n. 78 naval action at (1534), 67, 527 p r o t e c t o r of, 81

Richter, Jakob, b u i l d e r of royal castles, 334 n. 44 Rido (Ridon), s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 337 n. 57, 391, 393, 394 Riga, 68, 81, 93, 98, 100, 101, 124, 201, 209, 249, 293 b l o c k a d e of, 93, 114, 161, 389, 660 Gulf of, 659 h e m p f r o m , 486, 487, 489, 493 naval yard at, 341, 342, 415, 426 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 406, 407, 409, 410, 425 s h i p y a r d at, 415 siege of (1700), 201 Rigging, 253, 293, 295, 449, 450, 451, 452, 460, 461, 466, 470, 471, 473, 474, 475, 478, 479, 482, 483, 4 8 4 - 5 0 1 cost of, 471 n. 52 D u t c h , 485, 490, 491 of galleys, 461 p r o d u c t i o n of, 469 of Store Kravelen, 467 s u p p l y of, 459 of warships, 461 Rigs, 280, 292, 438 n. 221, 449, 456, 467, 468, 475, 476, 477, 481, 484, 495, 500, 501, 503, 610 battle d a m a g e to, 495 obsolescence of, 494 rig m a k e r s , 475 rig plans, 463 Riksarkivet ( N a t i o n a l Archives), xi, xvi, 318, 508 Militaria series at, 509 Riksdag, f o u r estate P a r l i a m e n t , 261, 262 Riksfdrestdndare (Swedish regent), 32 Rikshuvudbocker (state's m a i n ledgers), 8 Rikskansler (Chancellor), 279 Riksmarsk (Lord H i g h Constable), 274, 279, 301 Riksradet, (Swedish C o u n c i l of t h e Realm), 57, 59 Riksregistraturet, 7, 271 Riksskattmdstare, (Lord H i g h T r e a s u r e r ) , 299, 300 Roberges, h y b r i d galleys, 355 Robert, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 388 n, 151 Roberts, Michael, o n t h e state a n d warfare, 651 Rochet, Peter, 560 R o d s u n d , naval battle (30th April, 1659), xvii, 181, 237

GENERAL I N D E X Rodvin, W e l l a m , see R u t h v e n , W i l l i a m Rogstad, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 371, 376 R o l a n d , Mats, m a s t e r shipwright, 335 R o p e m a k e r s , 475, 484, 487, 495 n. 109 R o p e m a k i n g , 483, 489 Ropes, 449, 452, 467, 468 Ropewalks, 280, 468 at Karlskrona, 453 at S t o c k h o l m , 453 Roslags, s e a m e n c o m p a n y f r o m , 603 Rostock, 83, 151, 249 Rotar, p e a s a n t g r o u p s of equal tax paying ability, 601, 604 Roth, G u n n a r Olofsson, m a s t e r shipwright, 341, 342, 344 Roth, Rollof, s h i p w r i g h t , 343, 344 Royalskepp, warship, 328, 329, 330 R u b b , Lars ( e n n o b l e d R o d e r s k j o l d ) , vice a d m i r a l , 634 Rud, O t t o , A d m i r a l , 155, 156 R u d d e r s , 370 n. 118 Riigen, island of, 105, 177, 194, 212, 213, 215, 221, 222, 223 n. 110, 238, 431 naval b a t d e at (28th July 1715), xvi, 222, 310 n. 112 naval battle b e t w e e n Riigen, Bornholm and the Sound ( 2 5 t h - 2 6 t h M a y 1676), xvi, 44, 189, 237 Rulers, 13, 14 a n d a r m e d forces, 19, 20 a n d c o n t r o l of t h e sea, 41 a n d society, 12 Rullar, sailcloth m e a s u r e , 458 Russia, 13, 19, 29, 30, 34, 37, 39, 45, 74, 78, 79, 81, 84, 85, 88, 89, 91, 95, 94, 96, 107, 108, 112, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 145, 161, 197-233, 273, 275, 308, 660, 661 civil war in, 94 foreign policy, 33, 35 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 251 naval policy of, 96 t r a d e of, 37, 81, 89, 90, 154, 216 Ruthven, William Robertsson, master s h i p w r i g h t , 337, 338 n. 62, 391 R u u t h , Karl, a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112 Ryning, Axel, riksamiral, xxii, 275, 277, 279, 294, 297, 298 Ryning, Erik, a d m i r a l , 416, 600, 623 n. 70, 627 Ryning, family of, 304

799

Ryning, Kerstin, m o t h e r of H a n s Bielkenstierna, 304 n. 103 Ryning, Nils, 623 n. 70 Sail cloth, 468 Sail m a k e r s , 280, 450, 453, 475, 484, 487, 495 n. 109, 497 n. 112 Sail plans, 463 Sailcloth, 271, 449, 450, 451, 4 5 2 - 4 6 0 , 465, 467, 469, 470, 471, 472, 475, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 483, 489, 490, 491, 494, 496, 501, 540, 541, 648, 650, 660, 665 buldan, 454, 486 cost of, 453 n. 5, 458, 459 D u t c h , 454, 490 f r o m D a n z i g , 485, 486, 487 i m p o r t s of, 453, 454, 468, 480, 482, 483 m e a s u r e m e n t of, 457, 458 p r o d u c t i o n of, 453, 468, 487 n. 112, 493 r e q u i r e m e n t for, 457, 458, 499, 501 reserves o f 460 s h o r t a g e s of, 483 t a x a t i o n for, 472, 473 vadmal (woollen sailcloth), 453, 454, 472, 483, 489 Sails, 253, 280, 292, 295, 346, 377, 438 n. 221, 4 4 9 - 5 0 4 , 610, 649, 664 cost of, 471 n, 52 d o u b l e sails, 463 D u t c h naval s t a n d a r d s for, 491 f o r e topsails, 461, 463, 496 foresails, 454, 461, 461, 463, 496, 497 kryssegel, type of sail, 462 lateen, 353 m a i n topsails, 461, 463 mainsails, 454, 461, 463, 496, 497 m a n u f a c t u r e o f 468 mdrssegel, see sails, topsails m i z z e n sails, 454, 461, 463, 496, 497 m i z z e n topsails, 463, 497 obsolescence of, 494 p r o d u c t i o n of, 469 p u r c h a s e of, 256 repair of, 596 spare, 463, 464, 492, 495, 496, 497, 500, 502, 503, 504 sprit topsails, 462, 463, 464, 497 spritsails, 461, 463, 497 square, 353, 461 stay-sails, 463, 464 s u p p l y of, 459

Ill GENERAL INDEX t o p gallant sails, 454, 461, 463, 464, 485, 497 topsails, 461, 485, 486, 488 triangular, 461 Saimen, lake, 45 St P e t e r s b u r g , 90, 127, 128, 129, 204, 205, 206, 207, 212, 215, 231 a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 251 f o u n d i n g of, 125 Salt, trade in, 157 salt ships, 361 Saltholm, island of, 174, 202 Salvage, of guns, 566 San Lucar, s e q u e s t r a t i o n of Swedish ships at (1632), 437 Sasse, Staffan, Swedish a d m i r a l , 347, 617, 619 S a t a k u n t a , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 372 Sawmills, 377 n. 132 Saxony, 126, 206 elector of, 201 S a x o n y - P o l a n d , 127, 203, 207 Scandinavia, 247 Scheel, Joakim, a d m i r a l , xxii, 276, 277, 278, 283, 626, 627 Schoutbynacht, naval r a n k , 633 S c h u m p e t e r , Joseph: o n e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l f u n c t i o n , 242, 243, 267 o n state f o r m a t i o n , 667 S c o r c h e d e a r t h strategy, 207 Scotland, 358 naval supplies f r o m , 258 Sculptors, 280 Sea, c o n t r o l of, 39, 40, 41 Sea of Azov, 203, 211 Sea lines of c o m m u n i c a t i o n , 12, 36, 39, 43, 51, 56, 59, 66, 75, 76, 78, 79, 84, 86, 95, 96, 107, 111, 127, 128, 131, 135, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 226, 232, 235, 241, 249, 371, 422, 433, 655, 659, 667, 670 S e a m a n s h i p , 240, 614 S e a m e n , 258, 259, 263, 269, 271, 295, 325, 326, 370 n. 118, 450, 577, 578, 579, 5 8 3 - 6 0 9 , 612, 614, 619, 628, 634 a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of, 252 arstjdnare ( p e r m a n e n t l y e m p l o y e d s e a m e n ) , 590, 592 batallions of, 608 b a t s m a n s h a l l e t see S e a m e n , p a r t t i m e c o m p a n i e s of, 603, 608, 610 c o n s c r i p t i o n of, 582, 584, 590, 592, 594, 598, 599, 601

d e a t h of, 641 desertion of, 599 enrolled, 606, 607, 608, 644 h i r e of, 582, 589, 593, 599, 604, 607, 616, 644 hyrbdtsmdn (temporarily employed s e a m e n ) , 590 p a r t time, 297, 584, 594 peasant, 648 p e r m a n e n t l y enlisted, 604 provincial c o m p a n i e s of, 601 r a n k s of, 581 r e c r u i t m e n t of, 102, 581, 583, 584, 594, 595, 601, 606, 642 r e g i m e n t s of, 608 semi-skilled, 580, 582 skilled, 582, 590, 592, 599, 604, 643, 644, 664, 667 skills of, 575, 576, 579, 580 t r a i n i n g of, 579, 580, 584, 604, 606, 610, 664 unskilled, 580, 582, 604 vdrvade (enlisted), 604, 605, 610 volunteers, 584, 599 Secretaries, in naval service, 585 Segelgarn, see p a c k t h r e a d Seidenskepp, low hulled sailing ship, 351 Sforza, Bona, 87 Sheldon, Charles, m a s t e r Shipwright, 342, 343, 345, 427, 429 n. 213, 431 S h e l d o n family, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t s , 332, 345 Sheldon, Francis, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 340, 341, 342, 344, 418, 426 Sheldon, Francis j n r , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 342, 343, 427 Sheldon, Gilbert, s h i p w r i g h t , 343 Sheldon, Jakob, (son of C h a r l e s S h e l d o n ) shipwright, 343, 344, 345 Ship h a n d l i n g , 580, 615, 616 Ship lists, 318, 319, 327, 328, 330, 331, 415 n. 191 Ship rolls, 275 n. 53, 318, 465 Shipbuilders, 365, 366, 377, 592, 600, 616, 642 D u t c h , 389 English, 340 Shipbuilding, 86, 87, 89, 91, 101, 102, 115, 117, 119, 255, 271, 281, 282, 283, 287, 307, 313, 314, 3 3 2 - 4 4 8 , 568 a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of, 2 8 0 - 2 8 7 , 297 Baltic-Nordic, 338 British, 338 b u r e a u c r a t i s a t i o n of, 345, 346

GENERAL INDEX carvel-building, 321 centralised, 284, 292, 396 contract, 406, 407, 408, 414, 419, 458, 665 decentralised, 282, 283, 284, 285, 335, 343, 369, 370, 372, 377, 396 D u t c h , 338, 340 J o h a n Ill's p r o g r a m m e s , 3 6 4 - 3 7 6 Karl IX's policies on, 3 8 5 - 3 9 4 m a s s p r o d u c t i o n , 205 prdmar, 387, 388 p r o d u c t i o n lines, 396, 425 a n d r e s o u r c e extraction, 2 8 0 - 2 8 7 t e c h n o l o g y of, 341, 383, 385, 573, 570-573 t h e o r y of, 340 S h i p m a s t e r s as naval a d m i n i s t r a t o r s , 256 Ships, classification of, 321 Ships of t h e line, 139, 199, 201, 321, 323, 331, 342, 343, 344 Ships Royal, 329 Shipwrights, 271, 284, 666 British, 390 D u t c h , 390 m a s t e r shipwrights, 296, 3 3 2 - 3 4 6 , 386 n. 145, 388, 573, 666 t r a i n i n g of, 345 Shipyards, 242, 270, 276, 277, 281, 283, 284, 286, 377, 378, 667 leasing of, 523 Shots, 271, 514, 515, 516, 519, 569 hail shots, 533, 534, 540, 541, 547 iron, 510, 511, 531, 535 r o u n d shots, 517 s t o n e shots, 510, 511, 531, 534, 535 weight of, 518, 520 Sigfrid, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 334, 336 Sigfridsson, Mats, m a s t e r shipwright, 336 Sigfridsson, T o m a s , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 S i g i s m u n d , King of Sweden ( 1 5 9 2 - 9 9 ) , also King of P o l a n d ( 1 5 8 7 - 1 6 3 2 ) , xxii, 90, 92, 99, 100, 264, 273, 274, 275, 276, 279, 280, 288, 290, 374, 379, 380, 381, 382, 384, 473, 474, 475, 593, 625, 627, 646 d e t h r o n i n g of, 93 S i g i s m u n d August, ruler of t h e Jagiello dynasty, 90, 358 Signals, 449 Silver, 405 n. 171, 488 n. 97 Simonsson, Marten, Dutch merchant, 374

801

Sioblad, d y n a s t y of, 308 Si5blad, Erik, A d m i r a l , 306, 308, 431 discharge of, 310 n. 112 Sivers, Robert, see Siwers, R o b e r t Siwers, R o b e r t , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 337, 393 Sjaelland, island of, 68, 110, 124, 132, 166, 167, 178, 179, 188, 191, 201, 202, 203, 224 Sjdartilleribdcker, naval o r d n a n c e ledgers, 508 Sjdblom, Ingvar, s t u d y of sea officers, 579, 589 Sjdfolk, see m a r i n e r s Sjohjelm, H e n r i k G e r d t s s o n , a d m i r a l , 630, 633 Skagerack, 44, 217, 606 Skdlpund, Swedish u n i t of weight, xxii, 518, 520 Skane, 37, 43, 68, 103, 104, 118, 147, 167, 171, 172, 173, 174, 188, 190, 192 n, 61, 193, 202, 203, 209, 224, 226, 605 cession to Sweden, 110 naval r e c r u i t m e n t f r o m , 602 s e a m e n f r o m , 606 Skiirbdtar, archipelago boat, 325 Skdrjebdtar, see Skdrbdtar Skedenas, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 388 n, 152 Skenback, U r b a n , Swedish naval studies of, 579 Skepp, battle line warship, 322, 323, 331 Skeppare, see m a s t e r s Skeppsbyggmdstare see M a s t e r shipwright Skeppsgdrdar, see s h i p y a r d s Skeppsgossar, see boys Skeppshjdlpen, tax for ship c o n s t r u c t i o n , 420 S k e p p s h o l m e n , 277, 280, 295, 471, 496, 525 Skeppshovitsman, see officers, sea officers Skeppskompaniet, Ship C o m p a n y , 406, 413, 437, 438, 548 Skeppsrullan (Ship Roll), 275 n. 53, 318, 465 Skeppund, Swedish u n i t of weight, xxii, 452 Skokloster: s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 336, 377, 378, 384 s h i p y a r d at, 283 Skottprdm, floating battery, 326 S k r a m , Peder, D a n i s h a d m i r a l , 148, 149, 618, 619 Skrivare, (civilian clerks), 270, 273

Ill GENERAL INDEX Skuta, small cargo vessel, 326, 328 Slang, Erik Bertilsson, a d m i r a l , 625 Slottsfogde, c o m m a n d e r at royal castle, 270 Slottslan, see Castles S m a l a n d , 152, 259, 283, 292, 357 d u k e of, 282 o a k resources in, 306 p e a s a n t rebellion in, 71, 72, 646 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 335, 377, 389 n. 153 S m a l a n d g u n n e r s c o m p a n y , 603 Smith, W i l l i a m , m a s t e r shipwright, 343, 344, 345, 431 S n o w s (naval vessels), 200, 432, 433 Social status, a n d c o m m a n d , 613, 614 Society, a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 241-253 Soderfinland, seamen company from, 603 S o d e r l i n d , Ulrica, naval p r o v i s i o n i n g studies, 49, 579, 639 S o d e r m a n l a n d , 283, 367 g o v e r n o r of, 307 s e a m e n f r o m , 598 Sodermanland seaman company from, 603 Sodra M o r e , s e a m e n f r o m , 604, 605 Soldiers, 582, 583, 585, 586, 587, 588, 589, 591, 592, 593, 594, 608, 616, 619, 621 p a r t time, 590 p e a s a n t , 648 r e c r u i t m e n t of, 581, 602 Some, M a n s , Swedish a d m i r a l , 618, 620 S o n n e n b u r g castle, Swedish c o n q u e s t of, 158 Soop, H a n s , 49 S o u n d , t h e (strait s e p a r a t i n g D a n i s h Z e a l a n d f r o m Swedish p r o v i n c e of Scania), 34, 43, 44, 45, 55, 66, 69, 71, 74, 76, 98, 111, 112, 123, 140, 147, 155, 158, 167, 168, 170, 173, 179, 180, 182, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 196, 202, 203, 208, 219, 235, 425 naval battle at (29th O c t o b e r 1658), xvii, 180, 181, 184, 237, 238, 418, 420, 421, 562, 566, 630, 631, 632 S o u n d Toll, 35, 55, 61, 69, 80, 103, 104, 105, 106, 155, 173, 439, 524 S o u t h C o m p a n y , see N e w Sweden Company Spain, 13, 87, 102, 103, 185, 194, 250, 251, 369

H a b s b u r g , 408 king of, 61 m o n a r c h y of, 77, 250 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 248 naval policy o f 313 s e q u e s t r a t i o n of Swedish ships (1632), 437 t r a d e of, 378 Spanish W a r of Succession ( 1 7 0 1 - 1 4 ) , 215, 216 Sparre, d y n a s t y of, 308 Sparre, Erik, 373 Sparre, Klas, dveramiral a n d p r e s i d e n t of t h e Amiralitetskollegium, xxiii, 221, 310, 311, 633, 634 Spars, 271, 449, 450, 452, 496 Speck, T o n n e s , a d m i r a l , 633 Stalarm, Arvid Eriksson, a d m i r a l , 625 Stangebro, battle o f 92, 381 State, the, 8, 9, 10, 16, 19, 25, 246, 651, 653 absolute state, 9 e c o n o m i c analysis o f 11, 12, 13 as e n t r e p r e n e u r , 246, 260, 267, 286, 291 fiscal military, 9, 10, 12, 17, 25, 38, 53, 64, 72, 76, 98, 115, 160, 241, 242, 243, 613, 652, 653, 654, 667 a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 2 4 1 - 2 5 3 , 266-280 o r g a n i z a t i o n a l capabilities o f 651, 652 t h e tax state, 9 a n d violence, 11 a n d warfare, 651 State f o r m a t i o n , 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 24, 25, 53, 77, 111, 114, 115, 613, 620, 651, 652, 653, 663, 668, 669, 670 a n d i n t e r n a t i o n a l relations, 2 8 - 3 9 a n d naval p o w e r , 6, 23, 24, 6 6 6 - 6 6 8 a n d p r o t e c t i o n selling, 8 - 1 2 in Sweden, 27, 28 a n d warships, 3 1 3 - 3 1 9 Statens Sjohistoriska M u s e u m , 318 n. 8 Stater (budget), 295 Stdthallare, c o m m a n d e r at royal castle, 270 Statskontoret, 450 Stegeborg, O s t e r g o t l a n d , 92 casrie at, 254 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 338, 385, 386, 388 n. 149, 388 n. 152, 390, 399 s h i p y a r d at, 391

GENERAL INDEX

Stegeholm, 350 Stenbock, Arvid G u s t a v s s o n , Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 382, 623 Stenbock, Gustav, riksamiral, xxiii, 186, 310 Stenbock, Katarina, G u s t a v I's dov^ager q u e e n , 373 Stenbock, M a g n u s , Sv^edish General, 213, 214, 310 Stenbdssa, see G u n s , s t o n e g u n s Stettin, 85, 105, 194, 218, 221 peace treaty of (1570), 364 Stewart, S i m o n , admiral, 633 Stiernskold, Klas, amiralitetsrdd, 300, 301, 302 Stocldiolni, 7, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 76, 80, 91, 92, 94, 104, 105, 126, 127, 129, 139, 140, 141, 142, 156, 157, 158, 162, 164, 170, 173, 174, 178, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 196, 209, 220, 221, 225, 229, 256, 275, 276, 278, 281, 284, 294, 308, 309, 370, 381, 384, 387, 411, 432, 458, 467, 476, 477, 483, 491, 492, 496, 499, 502, 528, 593, 596, 597 castle at, 253, 270, 272, 274, 275, 525 b u r g h e r s of, 62 a n d geostrategy, 40 g o v e r n o r of, 297, 493 g u n p r o d u c t i o n at, 517, 523, 549 a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 251, 280, 281 naval base at, 40, 44, 139, 604 a n d provisioning, 638, 639 o r d n a n c e d e p o t at, 272, 508, 517, 522, 545 n. 68 o r p h a n h o u s e in, 493 sailcloth p r o d u c t i o n at, 454, 493 s e a m e n f r o m , 598 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 283, 286, 292, 334, 336, 337, 338, 340, 350, 351, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 376, 377, 382, 385, 386, 387, 390, 397, 399, 400 n. 164, 401, 406, 408, 409, 410, 413, 414, 415, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 425, 439 n. 222, 467 s h i p y a r d at, 142, 277, 281, 295, 339, 340, 343, 405, 413, 421, 468, 471, 472, 481 n. 79, 475 592, 632

255, 256, 257, 270, 325, 327, 333, 337, 354, 396, 397, 401, 425, 438, 464, 467, 477, 478, 479, 480, n. 62, 487, 489, 522,

803

S t o c k h o l m archipelago, 139, 141, 151, 164, 167, 169, 176, 177, 189, 190, 191, 194, 235, 347, 348, 349 Stora Arkliet ( o r d n a n c e d e p o t ) , 271, 272 Stora K o p p a r b e r g e t , see K o p p a r b e r g e t Storblinda, see spritsail Stores, naval, 451, 492 S t o r m b o m , Jarl, naval m a n n i n g s t u d y of, 579 Stralsund, 100, 140, 149, 155, 194, 212, 213, 215, 217, 218, 221, 223, 249, 255, 349, 434, 467 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 425, 426 siege of, 99 Swedish c o n t r o l of, 105 Strangnas, 336, 379 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 283, 335, 367, 376, 388 n. 149, 388 n. 152, 389 n, 153, 472 s h i p y a r d at, 283 S t r o m m e n , 280 Strossi, H i e r o n y m u s , shipbuilder, 399 Strussar, shallow d r a u g h t vessel, 324, 329, 405, 409, 412, 419 a r m a m e n t of, 406 n. 175 Sture, Sten, (the older), 32, 60, 140, 253, 254, 347, 348 Sture, Sten, (the y o u n g e r ) , 60, 61, 253, 256 Sture, Sten Svantesson, Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 623 Sturko, island of, 196 n. 69 Styrmdn, see Officers, n a v i g a t i o n officers S u l p h u r , in g u n p o w d e r m a n u f a c t u r e , 256 Sundsvall, R u s s i a n raid o n (1721), 432 Surgeons, in naval service, 585 Svarvare ( b l o c k m a k e r s ) , 280 S v e n d b o r g s u n d , naval battle at (16th June 1535), xvii, 143, 238 Svenska Flottans Historia, survey of naval history, 48 S w a h n , Erik, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 343 Sweden, 12, 13, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 50, 55, 57, 57, 58, 59, 60, 67, 71, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 93, 94, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 106, 108, 110, 112, 118, 124, 131, 135-240, 254, 259, 299, 411, 437, 564 aristocracy in, 32, 38, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 102, 106, 114, 115, 116, 119, 139, 188, 195, 253, 254, 257,

Ill GENERAL INDEX 260, 265, 268, 271, 273, 276, 278, 279, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 340, 351, 613, 614, 617, 622, 623, 624, 627, 631, 632, 633, 634, 635, 647, 649, 653, 657, 666, 670 Baltic e m p i r e of, 2, 5, 6, 33, 9 6 - 1 0 5 , 114-131, 313 Baltic naval o p e r a t i o n s of, 1 3 5 - 2 4 0 b l o c k a d e of, 140, 149, 155 b o r d e r s of, 34, 36, 37, 223 Chancellery, 268, 278, 290, 296, 300 C h a n c e l l o r , 279, 410 civil war in, 41, 84, 93, 158, 475 coast of, 44, 56, 73, 87, 112, 149, 150, 228 c o n s t i t u t i o n of (1634), 289, 292 C o u n c i l of, 102, 119, 161, 163, 273, 276, 279, 280, 287, 288, 290, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304, 305, 306, 351, 375, 379, 408, 409, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 419, 437, 438, 440, 500, 551 n. 86, 558, 564, 600, 617, 618, 623, 624, 627, 632, 633 C o u r t of Appeal, 290 C r o w n of, 347, 599 as dynastic e n t e r p r i s e at sea, 658, 659, 660, 661 eastern policy of, 8 5 - 9 0 e c o n o m y of, 25, 38, 116, 580 elites in, 62, 66, 75, 92, 115, 614, 648, 650, 654, 655, 656, 668, 670 e m p i r e of, 2, 3, 4, 13, 27, 29 n. 27, 42, 44, 78, 79, 98, 112, 131, 195, 656 e n c i r c l e m e n t of, 29, 34, 35 e x p a n s i o n i s m , 2, 3, 4, 24, 25, 26, 34, 35, 36, 37, 46, 74, 78, 107, 114, 670 as fiscal military state, 5, 10, 11, 27, 265, 647 foreign policy of, 29, 31, 32, 35, 36, 74, 107, 112, 117, 121, 127, 146, 411, 437, 450, 648, 645 geostrategy, 29 n. 27, 36 G e r m a n p r o v i n c e s of, 122 g u n i n d u s t r y in, 554 H o u s e of Nobles, 300, 301 a n d K a l m a r U n i o n , 52, 53, 54 kings of, 54, 58, 81, 111, 265, 268, 290 military policy, 39, 42 m o n a r c h y of, 32, 33, 40, 77, 80 naval policy of, 28, 43, 44, 52, 80, 82, 8 5 - 9 0 , 102, 103, 105, 107, 108, 117,

119, 120, 121, 124, 129, 131, 132, 137, 195, 196, 197, 218, 227, 229, 230, 238, 247, 252, 255, 316, 317, 394, 407, 411, 415, 418, 419, 420, 422, 423, 424, 425, 428, 431, 433, 434, 436, 437, 440, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 450, 468, 499, 522, 532, 581, 642, 646, 647, 648, 660 nobility of, 120, 259, 303, 305, 351, 617, 618, 613, 614, 622, 624, 625, 626, 630, 633, 634, 647, 649, 655, 664, 670 O l d e n b u r g c o n t r o l of, 56, 62, 63 p a r l i a m e n t of, 38, 71, 91, 92, 93, 114, 115, 119, 120, 188, 256, 261, 262, 263, 264, 288, 289, 303, 311, 317, 331, 420, 424, 425, 438, 595, 634, 646, 650 political d e v e l o p m e n t of, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64 p o p u l a t i o n of, 25 a n d p o w e r p r o j e c t i o n , 79, 80, 97, 98, 129 rebellion in, 31, 32, 71, 72, 76, 257 regency g o v e r n m e n t of, 89, 102, 114, 116, 117, 118, 120, 195, 265, 298, 300, 301, 422, 423, 424, 494, 497, 499, 553, 564, 565 regent of, 57, 60, 61, 62, 253, 254, 347, 618 state, 2, 6, 7, 20, 21, 27, 30, 115, 116, 2 6 6 - 2 8 0 , 648, 649, 655, 663, 669 a n d state f o r m a t i o n , 78, 114, 115, 651, 652, 653, 670 t r a d e of, 35, 37, 40, 44, 82, 91, 102, 122, 154, 157, 159, 165, 218, 226, 378 T r e a s u r y of, 7, 8, 268, 269, 271, 278, 290, 291, 293, 295, 296, 297, 298, 300, 302, 305, 307, 311, 476, 488, 489, 500, 503, 485, 533, 552, 578, 579, 601 Sweden, w a r s of: Civil W a r ( 1 5 9 7 - 9 9 ) , xxiii, 93, 114, 278, 283, 288, 3 7 6 - 3 8 5 , 475, 538, 624, 626, 627, 649 C o u n t s ' W a r ( 1 5 3 4 - 3 6 ) , xxiii, 68, 69, 142-145, 259, 266, 468, 617, 618, 620, 637, 659 G r e a t N o r t h e r n W a r ( 1 7 0 0 - 2 1 ) , xxiv, 46, 123-127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 139, 197-233, 237, 309, 427, 428, 430, 431, 432, 442, 445, 502, 569, 570, 602

GENERAL INDEX

Kalniar W a r ( 1 6 1 1 - 1 3 ) , 94, 95, 161-165 N o r d i c Seven Years W a r ( 1 5 6 3 - 7 0 ) , xxiii, 83, 84, 85, 114, 139, 145-161, 235, 236, 273, 360, 361, 362, 363, 373, 434, 446, 470, 532, 538, 591, 638, 659 N o r t h e r n W a r ( 1 6 5 5 - 6 0 ) , xxiii, 108-111, 114, 175-184, 237, 432, 441, 561, 630, 631, 660 Scanian W a r ( 1 6 7 4 - 7 9 ) , xxiv, 118, 119, 121, 131, 132, 1 8 4 - 1 9 7 , 237, 423, 441, 567, 603 H i i r t y Years W a r (Sweden involved 1628, a n d 1630-48), xxiii, 96, 106, 121, 174, 206, 299, 394, 405, 494, 600 W a r against C h r i s t i a n II ( 1 5 2 1 - 2 4 ) , xxiii, 63, 64, 65, 139-142, 347, 348, 349 W a r against C h r i s t i a n II ( 1 5 3 1 - 3 2 ) , xxiii, 66, 67, 467, 468 W a r against the City of B r e m e n (1654), xxiii W a r against t h e City of B r e m e n (1666), xxiii W a r against D e n m a r k ( 1 6 4 3 - 4 5 ) , 104, 114, 165-175, 236, 237, 413, 416, 419, 439, 464, 494, 558, 559, 660 W a r against P o l a n d - L i t h u a n i a ( 1 6 0 0 - 1 6 6 0 ) , xxiii, 93, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 637, 660, 661 W a r against Russia ( 1 5 5 4 - 5 7 ) , xxiii, 74, 78, 79, 372, 469, 474, 530, 621, 638 W a r against Russia ( 1 5 7 0 - 9 5 ) , xxiii, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91, 263, 275, 3 6 4 - 3 7 6 , 379, 471, 538, 593, 637, 660 W a r against Russia ( 1 6 0 9 - 1 7 ) , xxiii, 95, 393, 394, 660 Svi'itzerland, b o r d e r with G e r m a n y , 46 n. 37 Tackling, 449 n, 1 Tallin, Estonia, 74 Tar, 271, 378, 470 n. 49, 656 T a u b e , Evert, p r e s i d e n t of Amimlitetskollegium, 634 T a x a t i o n , 11, 19, 22, 26, 27, 28, 31, 39, 66, 71, 112, 114, 116, 117, 119, 120, 130, 141, 242, 255, 2 6 0 - 2 6 6 , 267, 270, 285, 289, 291, 303, 304, 387, 396, 420,

805

424, 437, 451, 453, 471, 472, 475, 482, 489, 524, 592, 599, 600, 604, 609, 636, 637, 642, 646, 650, 651, 652, 669, 670 bell tax, 527 tax f a r m e r s , 291, 292, 396, 663 for galley p r o d u c t i o n , 474 n. 59 for h e m p , 473, 474 in k i n d , 266, 267 for lodjor p r o d u c t i o n , 474 n. 59 in food, 636 indelning, local tax i n c o m e , 604, 606 kostgarder, (provision tax), 636 a n d revolts, 264, 648 for sailcloth, 474 s k e p p s g a r d e r , (provision tax), 636 skeppshjdlpen, special tax for ship c o n s t r u c t i o n , 420 systems o f 636, 637 as tributes, 12 v a c a n c y tax, 605 Taxpayers, 51, 52, 668 Technology, 22-25 D u t c h i n f l u e n c e on, 462 a n d military tactics, 24 a n d political history, 22, 23 a n d p o w e r , 23 a n d s h i p b u i l d i n g , 344, 345 a n d society, 23 a n d state f o r m a t i o n , 24 w e s t e r n i s a t i o n o f 390 T e u t o n i c O r d e r , 81 Textile p r o d u c t i o n , 483 T h o m a s , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 Tlireshold effect, a n d naval o p e r a t i o n , 245 T i d e m a n , H a n s , 348 T i d o collection, 328 Tilly, Charles, o n state f o r m a t i o n , 651 T i m b e r , 271, 278, 282, 285, 317, 350, 472, 648, 650 for m a s t s a n d spars, 452 for pramar, 387 t r a n s p o r t o f 284, 285, 424 see also fir, oak, p i n e T i n , 510, 529 n. 38, 549, 650 T j u r k o , island of, 196 n. 69 T o m m e s s o n , Jens, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 335 T o n n i n g , battle at (1713), 214, 215 T o p m e n , 581, 596 T o r d e n s k j o l d , Peder, 228 T o r n b o m , Olle, studies of naval m a n n i n g , 579

Ill GENERAL INDEX T o r n q u i s t , Karl Gustav, sea officer, 46 Torshalla, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 388 n. 149, 389 n. 153 T o r s t e n s s o n , L e n n a r t , Swedish Field-marshal, 166, 168, 169 T o t t family, 32 T o w n s , a n d naval m a n n i n g , 601, 602, 605 T r a d e , 15, 17, 28, 34, 81, 267, 658, 659 b l o c k a d e of, 40 e m b a r g o of, 226 T r a n s a c t i o n cost analysis, 267, 268 T r a v e m i i n d e , o u t p o r t of Liibeck, 155, 348 Trolle family, 618 Trolle, Arvid T u r e s s o n , Swedish naval c o m m a n d e r , 617, 618, 623 f a t h e r of, 617, 618 Trolle, Gustav, A r c h b i s h o p , 60, 617, 618 Trolle, Herluf, D a n i s h a d m i r a l , 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 618, 623 T r o m p , Cornells, D a n i s h a d m i r a l general, 189 T r o n d h e i m province, N o r w a y , 112 cession to Sweden, 110 T u d o r , d y n a s t y of, 249 Tugh, see Cables, a n c h o r cables Turn, Swedish u n i t of length, xxii, 452 T u r n e r , Robert, m a s t e r shipwright, 340, 341, 342, 343, 419, 426 Tygindstare, see M a s t e r of O r d n a n c e Tygofficerare, naval o r d n a n c e officers, 525 T y n n e l s o , s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 388 n. 149 Uggla, Klas, amiralitetsrdd, 190, 302 U k r a i n e , 108, 127, 207 Ulfsparre, Ake, amiralitetsrdd, 298, 414 Ulfsparre, Erik, Colonel, 414 Ulfsparre, family of, 304 Ulrika E l e o n o r a , Q u e e n of Sweden ( 1 7 1 9 - 2 0 ) , xxii, 130 U l v e s u n d , 378 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 337 n. 61, 389 n. 153, 391 s h i p y a r d at, 391 Ulvsby, 645 Underbefdl, see Officers, p e t t y officers Underofficerare, see Officers, non-commissioned U n g e r , G u n n a r , r e a r - a d m i r a l , 49 ships list of, 319

Upphandlingskommissioiien ( c o m m i s s i o n c o n c e r n e d with financial regulation), 311 U p p l a n d , 263, 283, 292, 351, 397 U p p l a n d regional c o m p a n y of s e a m e n , 598, 599 U s e d o m , island of, 218, 221 V a d s t e n a , fortress at, 354 van der Burgh, Tliijs M a t h i a s H e r m a n s s o n , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 341 van E d a m , J o h a n Claesson, m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336 n. 56 van Horn, Paridon, Dutch entrepreneur, 292, 396, 397, 398, 400 n. 164, 402, 413, 459 n, 24 van Velden, Albrekt, D u t c h m e r c h a n t , 405, 406, 408, 409, 416 van W a s s e n a e r - O b d a m , Jacob, D u t c h l i e u t e n a n t a d m i r a l , 179 V a n e r n lake, 45, 354 Vasa, see Eriksson, Gustav, K i n g of Sweden Vasa dynasty, 5, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39, 53, 62, 67, 69, 70, 71, 80, 9 0 - 1 1 2 , 115, 139, 193, 235, 249, 276, 288, 316, 375, 382, 434, 613, 617, 618, 649, 653, 657, 658, 659, 662, 666, 670 a n d naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 2 5 3 - 2 8 7 a n d naval p o w e r , 7 4 - 7 8 V a s a - O l d e n b u r g - H o h e n z o l l e r n alliance, 69 Vasteras, s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 337, 385, 386, 387, 388 n. 149, 388 n. 152, 389 n, 153, 391, 401 V a s t e r b o t t e n , g o v e r n o r of, 304 Viistergotland, 257, 259 s h i p y a r d at, 475 n. 62 Vdsterhavet ( W e s t e r n Sea), 44 Vastervik: s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 282, 283, 292, 337, 338, 359, 360, 366, 376, 377, 378, 380, 384, 388 n. 149, 388 n. 152, 393, 394, 399, 400 n. 164, 401, 402, 406, 410, 415, 417, 458 s h i p y a r d at, 334, 335, 359, 360 tax f a r m i n g in, 292 Vastervik Ship C o m p a n y , 414, 415, 420 Vastgota, s e a m a n c o m p a n y f r o m , 603 Viistmanland, G u s t a v A d o l f ' s d u k e d o m in, 338 s e a m e n f r o m , 598 V a t t e r n lake, 45, 354

GENERAL INDEX Vattublinda, see sails, spritsail Vaxholm: fortress at, 141, 164 g u n s at, 541 Veil, island of, 180 Venice, 668 galley fleet of, 315, 89 as sea p o w e r , 247 a n d m e r c h a n t m a n hiring, 436 naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in, 248 V e r d e n , D u c h y , Swedish c o n t r o l of, 105 Viborg, 74, 89, 208, 209, 216, 482 b u r g h e r s of, 366 castle at, 67, 254, 257, 281, 529 g a r r i s o n of, 68 g u n s at, 541 h e m p f r o m , 44, 68, 481 n. 79 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 356, 380, 381 n. 139, 399 Villstrand, Nils Erik, studies of naval m a n n i n g , 579, 597, 599 V i n d , Jorgen, D a n i s h Lord H i g h A d m i r a l , 168, 169 Violence, 1, 2, 5, 11, 12, 666, 667 c o n t r o l of, 10, 11, 12, 53, 647, 648, 650, 652, 657, 663 m o n o p o l y of, 18, 76, 288, 613, 658, 670 Visby, 141, 236, 527 D a n i s h naval base at, 64 D a n i s h - L u b e c k i a n fleet disaster at, 157 Liin of, 254 naval battle at, 349 Vistula, river, 45 estuary of, 98, 100 V i t a m i n shortages, 641 v o n Gortz, G e o r g H e i n r i c h , h e a d of Upphandlingskommissionen, 311 v o n Liewen, H a n s H e n r i k , d i r e c t o r of naval a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 310, 311 v o n M e l e n , Berend, G e r m a n k n i g h t , 254 n. 14, 255, 617 v o n Otter, family of, 308 v o n O t t e r , S a l o m o n , m e m b e r of Upphandlingskommissionen, 311 v o n Pilsander, Gustav, p r e s i d e n t of AmiralitetskoUegium, 308, 634 v o n Rosen, Gustaf Friederich, colonel, 310, 311 v o n Rosenfeldt, V e r n e r , a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112 v o n Siegroth, H a n s H e n r i k , 547

807

v o n Treileben, H a n s Albrekt, Swedish e n t r e p r e n e u r , 566 V o r o n e z h , 127 Voss, Jakob, 340 Voss, Klas Jakobsson, m a s t e r shipwright, 341 W a c h t m e i s t e r family, 304, 311 n. 114 W a c h t m e i s t e r , H a n s , p r e s i d e n t of t h e AmiralitetskoUegium (1641 -1714), xxiii, 119, 120, 122, 126, 193, 194, 195, 197, 202, 205, 210, 213, 214, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311 n. 114, 342, 343, 424, 425, 427, 442, 501, 604, 605, 633, 634 W a c h t m e i s t e r , Karl H a n s , r e a r - a d m i r a l , 219, 224, 311, 634 W a c h t m e i s t e r , Sofia Lovisa, 111 n. 114 W a g e s , 577, 609, 664 w a g e a c c o u n t s , 581 wage lists, 386 n. 145, 579 W a l l e n s t e i n , a r m y of, 403 W a l t e r , T h o m a s , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336, 337 n. 57 W a l t e r s , Frans, s h i p w r i g h t , 344, 345 Warfare: a m p h i b i o u s , 2, 96, 73, 97, 98, 100, 101, 112, 113, 123, 125 n. 95, 129, 130, 133, 158, 181, 198, 201, 326, 406 archipelagic, 133, 232, 326, 371 battle analysis of, 136 guerilla, 140 a n d political o r g a n i s a t i o n , 4 a n d resources, 251 riverine, 100 a n d sea p o w e r , 17 strategy of, 41, 42 W a r s h i p s , 17, 21, 148, 153, 155, 242, 136, 167, 200, 269, 314, 326, 331, 427, 435, 455, 464, 530, 544, 649 a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , 20 a r m a m e n t of, 200, 425, 427, 428, 505-573 c a p t u r e of, 361, 362, 371, 389, 390 carvel built, 281, 355, 361 classification of, 3 2 6 - 3 3 2 c o m m a n d of, 621, 622, 628 c o n t r o l of, 275, 276 cost of, 348, 349 a n d d e t e r r e n c e , 411 d e v e l o p m e n t of, 507 d i s p l a c e m e n t of, 138, 319, 322, 348 d r a u g h t of, 425, 426, 428

Ill GENERAL INDEX fitting of, 4 4 9 - 5 2 4 as gifts, 414 h i r e of, 87, 250, 251, 252, 403 m a i n t e n a n c e of, 458, 459, 487, 665 p u r c h a s e o f 389, 398 as prizes, 360 r a t i n g systems of, 3 2 6 - 3 3 2 , 427 refitting of, 471, 483, 491, 502 repair of, 421 n. 205, 429, 430, 484, 475 sale of. 89, 373, 378, 379, 387 size of, 138, 139 a n d state f o r m a t i o n , 3 1 3 - 3 1 9 types of, 320 W a t c h keeping, 610 W a t e r p o w e r , 280, 656 Karl IX's policy on, 523 w a t e r - p o w e r e d saw-mills, 377 n. 132 W a t t r a n g , Gustav, a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112 W e a t h e r , adverse, a n d naval o p e r a t i o n s , 140, 149, 157, 158, 159, 173, 174, 177, 178, 184, 187, 190, 210, 212, 223 n. 110, 236, 391, 402, 404, 418, 446, 464, 581 W e b e r , M a x , o n b u r e a u c r a c y , 611, 612, 613, 627 Weichsel, see, Vistula W e i g h t , u n i t s of, Swedish, xxii W e l s h u i s e n , Christian, D u t c h e n t r e p r e n e u r , 292, 396, 397, 402, 406, 407, 408, 413, 459 n. 24 W e n d t , Einar, naval historian, 7, 49 W e r n f e l d t , Olof, a d m i r a l , 310 n. 112 W e s t e r n Sea, 44, 173 g e o g r a p h y of, 45 w a r f a r e in, 45 Westphalia: Peace of W e s t p h a l i a (1648), 105 Wheels, 529 n. 38

W h i t e Sea, 215 W i l h e l m , Friederich, c o m m a n d e r of B r a n d e n b u r g a r m y , 183 Wilshuisen, Christian, see W e l s h u i s e n , Christian W i s m a r , 99, 101, 105, 169, 170, 172, 173, 175, 178, 187, 212, 220, 223, 403, 404, 437, 549 cession to Sweden, 175 naval base at, 44, 118 s h i p b u i l d i n g at, 339, 404, 414, 417 Wollter, T o m a s , m a s t e r s h i p w r i g h t , 336, 337 n. 57, 391, 393 W o o l , 453, 485 n. 87 W r a n g e l family, 301 W r a n g e l , G u s t a v ( 1 6 3 0 - 8 8 ) , 299, 300, 301 W r a n g e l , H e r m a n , 608 W r a n g e l , Karl Gustav, riksamiral ( 1 6 1 3 - 7 6 ) , xxiii, 169, 170, 171, 172, 179, 180, 299, 300, 340, 440, 509 p a p e r s of, 166 n. 30, 560 W u r m s , cloth f r o m , 485 Wurmsduk, cloth f r o m W u r m s , 485 Yacht, small a r m e d vessel, 322, 323, 324, 410, 433 Yarn, 453, 468, 478, 479 i m p o r t s of, 467 p u r c h a s e of, 256 Young Master Tomas, master shipwright, 337 Zeeland, 250 Zettersten, Axel, 7, 47, 48, 318 m a n n i n g studies of ( 1 8 9 0 - 1 9 0 3 ) , 578, 579, 590, 591, 592 ship's list of, 319 Zinc, 510 n. 11

INDEX OF SHIPS

Danish Argo (1601), 410 Bjdrnen (captured by Sweden 1570), 362, 538 Base Lejonet (captured by Sweden 1564), 362, 364 Byens Love, 153 Danske Hector (captured by Sweden 1563), 362, 364 Danske Stjcirnan (captured by Sweden 1611), 476 n. 66 David (captured by Sweden 1564), 153, 362 Elefanten (originally Swedish Mjolkpigan, captured 1611), 390 Fides (captured by Sweden 1644), 413 Fortuna, 356, 361, 384, 537 Gabriel, 537 n. 53 Hamborger Galleon, 537 n. 53 Hercules (captured 1563), 148, 362, 364, 461 n. 26, 462, 563 Jaegermesteren, (flagship, captured by Sweden 1565, r e n a m e d Jagaren), 156, 362, 364, 536, 537 Dutch

warships Justitia (1609), 410 Kronfisken (captured by Sweden 1644), 413 Lange Grib, 537 n, 53 Lybske Admiral, 537 n. 53 Michel, 143 Morian, 153 Oldenborg (launched 1628, captured by Sweden 1644), 410, 413, 417, 418 Patientia (launched 1616, captured by Sweden 1644), 410, 413, 416, 417 St Anna (1608), 410 St O/K/(completed 1573), 361, 375 St Sophia, 168, 173, 174 n. 39, 554 n. 91, 566 Samson, (in service 1599), 384 Spes (1612), 410 Stora Sophia (1627), 410 Struds, 537 n. 53 Trefoldighed, 168 Wol Her (completed 1570), 361, 375

warships

Apelbom (bought by Sweden 1604), 389 Brederode, flagship, 180, 420, 566 English Antelope, 536 n. 52 Elizabeth Bonaventure, 536 n. 52 Elizabeth Jonas, 536 n. 52 Hope, 536 n. 52 Lion, 536 n. 52 Mary Rose, 531, 536 n. 52 Nonpareil, 536 n. 52

warships Rainbow, 544 n. 65 St George, 544 n. 65 Swiftsure, 544 n, 65 Triumph, 536 n. 52, 544 n. 65 Victory, 536 n. 52, 544 n. 65 White Bear, 536 n. 52

French Le Soleil (completed 1642), 339 n. 66

warships

810

INDEX OF SHIPS

Lubeckian Gwsse Adler

warships

(1566), 358 n. 101, 361 Swedish

Abraham ( b o u g h t 1675-76), m e r c h a n t m a n , 422, 423, 442 Achilles (sequestered 1598), 382 Achilles (delivered 1624^25), 397, 401, ^ 413, 459 n. 24, 487 n. 93 Alands Hjorten ( r e n a m e d , Elefanten, ^ l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 387, 478 Alands Ndktergalen (first m e n t i o n e d 1596), 378, 382 Algen ( l a m i c h e d 1526-31), 351, Algen ( b o u g h t 1565), 361 Algen ( l a u n c h e d 1574), 366, 373, 472, 473 Alvkarleby Skeppet ( l a u n c h e d 1587-88), 371, 374, 376, 380, 473, 474 Alvsborgs Barken, galley, 354 n. 93 Alvsborgs Hector ( l a u n c h e d 1609-10), 382, 391, 392 Alvsborgs Lejonet, see Hdlsinge Lejonet Alvsborgs Skeppet ( l a u n c h e d 1581-82), 371, 374, 376, 473, 474 Alvsborgs Svanen ( l a u n c h e d 1598-99), 379 Amarant ( l a u n c h e d 1653-54), 415, 421 n. 205, 567 n. 114 Andromeda ( l a u n c h e d 1620), 397, 398, 401, 416, 459 n. 24, 487 n. 93 Andromeda ( l a u n c h e d 1659), 414, 416, 421 n, 205, 495, 567 n. 114, 572 n. 125 Angeln ( l a u n c h e d 1545), 353 n. 92, 355, 357, 364, 469 Angeln ( l a u n c h e d 1577-78), 366, 367 n. 112, 373, 376, 461 n. 26, 472, 473, . 478 Angermanne Kravelen ( l a u n c h e d ^ 1583-84), 371, 373 Angermanne Skeppet ( l a u n c h e d 1579), ^ 371, 373 Angermannen, 472 Apollo (L 1622), 397, 401, 414, 416, 421 n. 205, 459 n. 24, 551 n. 84 Applet, ( l a u n c h e d 1601), see Forgyllda Applet Applet II ( l a u n c h e d 1621), 397, 401, 402, 403, 459 n. 24, 487, n. 93, 547, 551 Applet (III) ( l a u n c h e d 1628), 167 n. 33, 401, 403, 407, 410, 412 n. 186, 416, 417, 418, 488 n. 97, 496, 549

warships Applet ( l a u n c h e d 1661), 190, 419, 422, 423, 497, 498, 566 Atturia Angeln ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 382 Beau Parterre ( c a p t u r e d 1714), 442 Bjdrneborgs Kravelen ( l a u n c h e d 1581), 371, 374, 376, 473 Bjdrnen ( b o u g h t 1522), 349, 351, 467 Bjdrnen (gift f r o m t h e t o w n of Gavle 1563), Swedish m e r c h a n t m a n , 360 Bjdrnen ( l a u n c h e d 1572), Swedish, warship, 365, 374, 472 Bjornon, 385, 387 Bla Falken ( l a u n c h e d 1596-97), 379, 384 Bid Ormen ( l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 388 Blekinge ( l a u n c h e d 1682), 503 n. 122 Blomman (originally Forgyllda Rosen, c a p t u r e d 1609), 390, 392, 401, 403 Bolingbroke ( c a p t u r e d b y Sweden 1713), 442 Bremen ( l a u n c h e d 1705), 428, 429 n. 212, 503 n. 122, 572 n. 123 Brommaren ( l a u n c h e d 1564), 359, 360 Brune Lejonet (Lubeckian warship, c a p t u r e d by Sweden 1563), 362, 367 n,

112

Bryntan 352

( l a u n c h e d 1527-28), 350, 351,

Caesar ( l a u n c h e d 1623-24), 397, 401, 402, 459 n, 24, 487 n. 93 Caesar ( l a u n c h e d 1647-48), 192, 414, 417, 421 n. 205 Caritas, fleut, 438 n. 221 Carolus ( l a u n c h e d 1650), 414, 417, 421 n, 205, 572 n. 125 Carolus ( l a u n c h e d 1678), 423, 425 Carsten Todes hoik, 347, 348, 349 Concordia ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390 Danska Phoenix, 421 n. 205 Danziger ( l a u n c h e d 1519), 348 Delfin ( l a u n c h e d 1655), 416 Delfin G a u n c h e d 1677), 423 Draken ( l a u n c h e d 1541), 353, 357, 528 Draken ( l a u n c h e d 1594-95), 378, 384, 461 n. 26 Draken ( l a u n c h e d 1632), 409, 410, 416, 552

INDEX OF SHIPS

Draken ( l a u n c h e d 1655), 192, 339, 417, 420, 421 n. 205, 422, 423, 498 Drakends (Monsteras) Skeppet ( l a u n c h e d 1587-88), 370, 371, 374, 473 Dwttning Hedvig Eleonora (1683), 503 n. 122 Dwttning Uhika Eleonora (1684), 503 n. 122 Dwttning Ulrika Eleonora ( l a u n c h e d 1719), 430, 572 n. 123 Duvan, 380, 472 Elefanten ( l a u n c h e d 1555, originally Store Kravelen 11), 153, 154, 355, 357, 358 n, 101, 361, 363, 469 Elefanten ( l a u n c h e d 1575), 367 n. 112, 368, 369, 376, 472, 474 Elefanten ( l a u n c h e d 1596-97), 378, 384 Elefanten (originally Alands Hjorten, l a u n c h e d 1603-04), 387, 478 Emder Morianen ( b o u g h t 1604), 389 Engelske Angeln ( c a p t u r e d 1579-81), 373 Enhorningen ( l a u n c h e d 1564), 360 Enhorningen (first m e n t i o n e d 1598), 379 Enhorningen ( b o u g h t 1624), 398, 399, 413, 551 n. 86 Enigheten ( l a u n c h e d 1696), 427 Ealken (or Lille Kravelen, l a u n c h e d 1531), 351, 352, 353 n. 92, 357, 358, 469 Ealken ( l a u n c h e d 1631), 405 Palken G a u n c h e d 1654), 415 Ealken ( l a u n c h e d 1651, originally Mercurius, r e n a m e d Ealken 1 6 7 0 - 7 1 ) , 187, 421 n. 205 Eama ( b o u g h t 1 6 4 3 - 4 4 ) 167 n, 33, 413, 438 n. 221 Fides (1615), 418 Einska Ugglan ( c a p t u r e d 1564), 362 Einske Angeln (first m e n t i o n e d 1597), 378 Einske Bjdrnen ( l a u n c h e d 1561-62), 282, 358, 359, 360 Einske Bjdrnen ( b o u g h t 1600), 382 Finske Lejonet (first m e n t i o n e d 1594), 374, 380, 474 Finske Morianen ( c a p t u r e d 1600), 382 Einske Svanen ( l a u n c h e d 1 5 5 9 - 6 0 ) , 357, 359, 360, 364, 365, 469 Finske Svanen ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 382, 384 Flemingen ( l a u n c h e d 1537-38), 259 Flygande Vargen (hired 1575), Swedish m e r c h a n t m a n , 193

811

Fdrgyllda Applet ( l a u n c h e d 1601), 386, 392, 461, 477 n. 69, 478 Fdrgyllda Duvan, c a p t u r e d f r o m Liibeck, 362 Fdrgyllda Lejonet ( b o u g h t 1562), 360, 362 Fdrgyllda Rosen ( c a p t u r e d b y Sweden 1609), w a r s h i p , 390 Fortuna (loaned 1569, Jakob Grek's ship, also called G r e k e n ) , Swedish m e r c h a n t m a n , 361, 364 Fortuna ( b u i l t / b o u g h t 1629-30), 405, 421 n. 205 Franske Ormen ( c a p t u r e d 1577), 373 Fredrika Amalia ( l a u n c h e d 1674), 420 Fredrika Amalia ( l a u n c h e d 1698), 572 n. 123 Galeonen ( c a p t u r e d 1535), 351, 352, 355 Gamla Kronan ( l a u n c h e d 1618), 410 Gamla Scepter ( l a u n c h e d 1615), 410 Gamla Svdrdet ( l a u n c h e d 1604-05), 405 Gamle Gripen ( l a u n c h e d 1544), 362 Gcivle Angeln (Mikael Angel) ( l a u n c h e d 1 5 9 8 - 9 9 ) , 379 Gavle Bjdrnen ( l a u n c h e d 1593-94), 378 Gdvle Svanen ( l a u n c h e d 1593-94), 378 Gdta Ark ( l a u n c h e d 1634), 168, 409, 410, 416, 493 n. 103, 552 n. 89 Gdta Lejon ( l a u n c h e d 1702), 223 n. 110, 428, 503 n. 122 Gdta Lejon (built 1745-46), 342 Gdteborg ( b o u g h t 1633), 409, 410, 416, 552 n. 89 Gdteborg ( l a u n c h e d 1656), 416, 421 n. 205 Greken (loaned 1569, Jakob Grek's ship, also called F o r t u n a ) , Swedish m e r c h a n t m a n , 361, 364 Gripen ( l a u n c h e d 1 5 9 0 - 9 1 ) , 379, 442 n. 231 Gule Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1601-2), 164 n. 28, 386, 477 n. 69 Gusatvus ( l a u n c h e d 1623-24), 398, 401, 402, 459 n. 24, 487 n. 94, 488 n. 97 Gyllenstjernan ( b o u g h t 1575), Swedish, w a r s h i p , 366, 373 Hdlsinge Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1584), 371, 374, 376, 474 Hdlsinge Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1593-94), 378 Hdlsinge Lejonet, ( l a u n c h e d 1 6 0 3 - 4 ) , 388

812

INDEX OF SHIPS

Hahinge Morianen ( l a u n c h e d 1598-99), 379 Halvmanen (1566), 157 n. 25 Hamburg Kmvelen / Morianen (bought 1561), 360 Hannibal ( l a u n c h e d 1599), 380 Hannibal ( l a u n c h e d 1611), 391, 402, 485, 545 n. 69 Hannibal ( l a u n c h e d 1632-34), 409 Hans von Wismar ( c a p t u r e d 1632), 407 Harbo Lejonet, ( l a u n c h e d 1616), 394, 402 Harboviks Lejon, 459 n. 24, 487 n. 93 Harboviks Lejonet, 550 n. 81 Havfrim (first m e n t i o n e d 1631), 411 n. 183, 551 n. 86 Havhdsten ( c a p t u r e d 1644), 413 Hector ( l a u n c h e d 1562), 148 n. 11, 156 n. 22, 357, 359, 361, 364, 373, 376, 397, 471, 472, 535 Hector ( l a u n c h e d 1622-23), 402, 459 n. 24, 487 n. 93 Hercules ( l a u n c h e d 1599-1600), 380 Hercules O a u n c h e d 1650), 414, 417, 503 n, 122, 572 n. 125 Himmelsfart, 382 n. 140 Hinden (first m e n t i o n e d 1598), 380, 382, 474 Hjorten ( b o u g h t 1563) Swedish m e r c h a n t m a n , 360 H j o r t e n ( l a u n c h e d 1576), 366, 373, 380, 472, 474 Hjorten (first m e n t i o n e d 1598), 382 Hjorten ( l a u n c h e d 1644-45), 414, 421 n. 205 Hoken ( l a u n c h e d 1556-57), 282, 421 n. 205 Hollands Draken ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390 Hollands Josua ( c a p t u r e d 1608), 390 Hollands Morianen, m e r c h a n t m e n , 361 Hollands Rode Lejon, ( c a p t u r e d 1608), 390 Hollands Svanen, ( c a p t u r e d 1608), 390 Igeln ( l a u n c h e d 1541), galley, 353 Illerim ( l a u n c h e d 1716), frigate, 431 Innamma Skepp (first m e n t i o n e d 1593), 380 Jdgaren (originally D a n i s h flagship Jaegermesteren, c a p t u r e d 1565), 156, 362, 364, 537 Jdgaren ( l a u n c h e d 1601-02), 402 Jdgaren ( l a u n c h e d 1629-30X 405, 407 Jdgaren ( l a u n c h e d 1642-43), 413, 414

Jdgaren ( l a u n c h e d 1651), 415, 421 n. 205 Jarramas ( l a u n c h e d 1716), frigate, 431 Jasper Bruns bark (first m e n t i o n e d 1520), 254 n, 14, 347, 348 Jonas ( l a u n c h e d 1607-08), 390 Jonas ( b o u g h t 1623), 398, 552 n. 87 Jonas von Emden (requisitioned 1567), m e r c h a n t m a n , 361 Josef (first m e n t i o n e d 1593), 380 Julius Caesar ( l a u n c h e d 1587-88, also called Makalds a n d Stora Skeppet), 335, 384, 386, 406, 409, 473, 475, 477, 478 Julius ( l a u n c h e d 1646-47), 414 Jungfrun ( l a u n c h e d 1563), 359 Jungfrun ( b o u g h t 1623), 398, 413, 167 n. 33 Jupiter, Swedish cargo carrier, 439 n. 222 Jupiter ( l a u n c h e d 1603), 388 Jupiter ( l a u n c h e d 1614-15), 394, 405, 485 Jupiter ( l a u n c h e d 1632), 409, 410, 414, 552 n. 89 Jupiter ( l a u n c h e d 1665), 420, 422, 423, 498, 572 n. 125 Justitia (first m e n t i o n e d 1624), p i n n a c e , 400 Kalmar ( b o u g h t 1675-76), m e r c h a n t m a n , 193, 423 Kalmar Angeln ( l a u n c h e d 1603), 388 Kalmar Barken (first m e n t i o n e d 1526-30), 351 Kalmar Nyckel ( b o u g h t 1643^44) 413, 416, 438 n. 221 Kalmar Pinassen, p i n n a c e , 388 n. 151 Kalmar Valen ( l a u n c h e d 1601-2), 386 Kdmpen ( l a u n c h e d 1 5 6 8 - 6 9 ) , 359, 361, 363, 364, 373, 456, 457 n, 18, 470 n. 49, 471, 472, 473, 536 Kamperman (requisitioned 1534), 143 Kilen ( l a u n c h e d 1532-33, ex Nye H o l k e n ) , 352, 355 Kolmards Bjdrnen ( l a u n c h e d 1608), 390 KoningKarl ( l a u n c h e d 1694), 427, 503, 572 n, 123 Konung David ( b o u g h t 1643-44), 167 n, 33, 413 Konung Fredrik ( l a u n c h e d 1696, ex Enigheten), 572 n. 123 Krabaten ( l a u n c h e d 1562), 359 Kristina ( b o u g h t 1624), 399, 401, 402, 403

INDEX OF SHIPS

Kronari ( l a u n c h e d 1618), 397, 401, 410, 485, 551 n. 84 Kronan ( l a u n c h e d 1632), 168, 406, 410, 412 n. 186, 416, 417, 418, 422, 552 n. 89 Kronan ( l a u n c h e d 1668), 189, 190, 406, 421, 422, 423, 498, 521, 563, 564, 566, 567 n. 114 Krdnte Svan ( l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 388 Lammet ( l a u n c h e d 1633-34), 413 Lange Barken (first m e n t i o n e d 1526), 349 Larkan (first m e n t i o n e d 1575), 367 n. 112 Laxen ( l a u n c h e d 1675), 194, 421 Le Beau Parterre ( c a p t u r e d 1714, r e n a m e d Kronskeppet), Swedish privateer, 442 Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1537-39), 351, 352, 357, 358, 413, 469 Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1575-77), 367 n. 112, 368, 369, 374, 376, 392, 472, 474 Lejoninnan ( c a p t u r e d 1608), 390, 392 Leoparden (first m e n t i o n e d 1599), 380 Leoparden ( l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 388 Lilla Jupiter, Swedish ship, 439 n. 222 Lilla Nyckeln ( l a u n c h e d 1607-08), 390, 405 Lille Barken ( l a u n c h e d 1588-89), 382 Lille Kravelen (or Falken, l a u n c h e d 1530-31), 351, 352 Lille Svan (first m e n t i o n e d 1526), 349 Lindormen (originally Ulven, first m e n t i o n e d 1540), galley, 353 Lose Klinkan ( l a u n c h e d 1553), galley, 354 Lumper, 349 Lybska Duvan ( c a p t u r e d 1574), 373 Lybske Christoffer ( b o u g h t 1564), c a p t u r e d f r o m Liibeck, 362, 367

n. 112 Lybske Fdrgyllde Lejonet ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 383 Lybske Hjorten ( c a p t u r e d 1564), 362, 383 Lybske Svanen ( b o u g h t 1522), 140, 348, 349, 527 Lybske Svanen ( c a p t u r e d 1564), c a p t u r e d f r o m Liibeck, 362 Makalds, see Julius Caesar Manen ( c a p t u r e d 1565), 362 Manen ( b o u g h t 1624), 399

813

Mdnen ( l a u n c h e d 1 6 5 3 - 5 4 ) , 415, 416, 421 n. 205, 572 n. 125 Maria ( l a u n c h e d 1622), 398, 401, 414, 421 n. 205, 459 n, 24, 487 n. 93 Mars ( l a u n c h e d 1563), 150, 282, 333, 358, 359, 360, 361, 363, 534, 535, 536, 549 Mars ( l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 388, 402 Mars ( l a u n c h e d 1632), 406, 410, 417, 418, 552 n. 89 Mars ( l a u n c h e d 1665), 192, 420, 422, 423, 498 Meerman ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390, 407 Memnon ( l a u n c h e d 1564), 359, 360 Mercurius ( l a u n c h e d 1601-2), 386 Mercurius G a u n c h e d 1624-25), 398, 401, 488 n. 97 Mercurius ( l a u n c h e d 1651), 415, 416 Mercurius G a u n c h e d 1671), 193, 421, 422 Mjolkpigan ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390, 476 n. 66 Monsterds Skeppet/Drakends Skeppet ( l a u n c h e d 1587-88), 370, 371, 376 Morianen ( b o u g h t 1561), 360 Morianen {Danske, c a p t u r e d 1564), 362 Morianen ( b o u g h t 1578), 366 Morianen ( b u l k 1596-98), 380 Muskijil, 551 n. 86 Nellebladet ( c a p t u r e d 1644), 413 Neptunus/Rode Draken ( l a u n c h e d 1566), 192, 282, 334, 359, 361, 363, 364, 374, 376, 455 n. 10, 470 n. 49, 471, 472, 473, 535, 536 Neptunus ( c a p t u r e d 1644), 413 Neptunus ( l a u n c h e d 1673), 421 Noe Ark ( c a p t u r e d 1632), 407 Nordstjdrnan (1670), a r m e d t r a n s p o r t , 421 Nordstjdrnan ( l a u n c h e d 1703), 428, 503 n. 122 Nya Goteborg (ex Sophia, c a p t u r e d 1644), m e r c h a n t m a n , 413 Nya Scepter ( l a u n c h e d 1634), 410 Nyckeln ( l a u n c h e d 1 6 0 7 - 8 ) , see Lilla Nyckeln Nyckeln ( l a u n c h e d 1616), 394, 401, 402, 485, 543, 551 n. 84 Nyckeln ( l a u n c h e d 1630), 405, 407, 409, 410, 417, 418, 496, 552 n. 89 Nyckeln ( l a u n c h e d 1662, later Saturnus), 419

T h i s b o o k is a l o n g - t e r m c a p a b i l i t i e s as parts of

e ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H

S w e d e n was a l a r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H which

nevertheles^^^^^^^^^^H

navy as p a r t of t h e a r m e d f w r e ^ v h l ^ ^ r ^ a t ^ a Baltic e m p i r e . M a n y of t h e resources c a m e from the peasant society which was exploited in an e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l f a s h i o n by a h i g h l y a m b i tious d y n a s t y . For a l o n g time S w e d e n was o r g a n i s a t i o n a l l y m o r e a d v a n c e d t h a n its n e i g h b o u r s b u t t h e e m p i r e c e a s e d to g r o w a n d finall) c o l l a p s e d w h e n o t h e r N o r t h e r n p o w e r s develo p e d s t r o n g states. T h e b o o k p r o v i d e s d e t a i l e d i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e s t r e n g t h of t h e navy in Jan G l e t e ( 1 9 4 7 - 2 0 0 9 ) , p r o f e s s o r of

t e r m s of w a r s h i p s , e q u i p m e n t , g u n s a n d m e n

H i s t o r y at S t o c k h o l m University,

a n d it relates c h a n g e s in size a n d s t r u c t u r e t o

p u b l i s h e d m a n y i m p o r t a n t w o r k s on e c o -

c h a n g e s in policy.

n o m i c history, i n t e r n a t i o n a l naval h i s t o r y a n d early m o d e r n E u r o p e a n state f o r m a t i o n . Swedish Naval Ailministrcttion 1521-1724 is his last m a j o r w o r k .

814

INDEX OF SHIPS

Nyckeln ( l a u n c h e d 1664), 194, 420, 422, 423, 498 Nye Holken ( l a u n c h e d 1532-33), 259, 351, 352, 355 Nykopings Morianen (first m e n t i o n e d 1599), 380 Nykopings Rosen ( l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 388 Obekant (first m e n t i o n e d 1601-2), 386 Obekant Fortuna ( c a p t u r e d 1608), 390 Oland ( l a u n c h e d 1705), 429, 502 Oranibom ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390, 402 n. 167, 551 n. 86 Ormen ( c a p t u r e d 1577), 373 Ormen (first m e n t i o n e d 1591), 382 Omen ( c a p t u r e d 1644), 413, 421 n. 205, 496 n. 111 Orpheus ( l a u n c h e d 1605-6), 387, 391, 402, 485 Ostgota Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1610-11), 391, 402 n. 167, 403, 485 Oxen l a u n c h e d 1638), 416 Papegojan ( b o u g h t 1624), 399, 551 n. 86 Pelikanen / Baggen ( l a u n c h e d 1563), m e r c h a n t m a n , 360 Pelikanen ( l a u n c h e d 1594-95), 378, 384, 392, 461 n. 26, 478 Pelikanen ( b o u g h t 1624), 399 Perseus ( l a u n c h e d 1619-20), 397, 398, 402 Peter HoUender ( c a p t u r e d 1635), 351 Phoenix ( l a u n c h e d 1651), 415, 421 n. 205, 572 n. 125 Pommern ( l a u n c h e d 1692), 572 n. 123 Postiljon ( l a u n c h e d 1662), 421 n. 205 Prins Fredrik Wilhelm ( c a p t u r e d 1702), m e r c h a n t m a n , 442 Prins Karl ( l a u n c h e d 1684), 430 Prins Karl Fredrik, ( l a u n c h e d 1704), 428, 429 n. 212, 503 n. 122, 572 n. 123 Prydsen, 157 n. 25 Pryske Svanen (built 1519), 348 Pryssen ( c a p t u r e d 1655), m e r c h a n t m a n , 362 Rdbocken ( l a u n c h e d 1563-64), 360 Raumo Kravelen ( l a u n c h e d 1581), 371, 374, 376, 473 Recompens ( l a u n c h e d 1612, c a p t u r e d 1632), 407, 410 Regina ( l a u n c h e d 1643-44, originally Christina), 413, 414 Regnbdgen ( b o u g h t 1624), 399

Renen ( l a u n c h e d 1565), 359, 361 Renen ( l a u n c h e d 1576-77), 366, 374, 472, 473 Riddar St G o r a n ( l a u n c h e d 1607-08), 390 Riga ( b o u g h t 1675), m e r c h a n t m a n , 423, 442 Riga ( l a u n c h e d 1707), 429, 503 n. 122 Riksens Rdds skepp ( l a u n c h e d 1534-35), 259 Riksnyckeln, 550 n. 81 Rode Draken/Neptunus ( l a u n c h e d 1566), 192, 282, 334, 359, 361, 363, 364, 374, 376, 455 n. 10, 470 n. 49, 471, 472, 473, 535, 536 Rode Gripen ( c a p t u r e d 1563), 362 Rode Hanen ( l a u n c h e d 1601-2), 386, 392 Rode Lejonet ( c a p t u r e d 1563), 362, 367 n. 112 Rode Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1601-02), 386, 392, 476 n. 66, 477 n. 69 Rutenkrans ( l a u n c h e d 1597-99), 378, 384, 392 St Anna ( l a u n c h e d 1648), 414 St Christopher ( l a u n c h e d 1562-63), 148 n. 11, 282, 359, 360, 364, 373, 471, 472, 536 St Erik ( l a u n c h e d 1559), 282, 357, 359, 364, 373, 379, 461, 469, 471, 472, 535 St Goran ( c a p t u r e d 1563), 362; St Hieronymus ( b o u g h t 1675), 193, 433, 423, 441 St Jakob ( c a p t u r e d 1627-28), privateer, 167 n. 33, 403 St Mikael ( c a p t u r e d 1632), 407 St Peder ( c a p t u r e d 1645), m e r c h a n t m a n , 413 Salvator ( c a p t u r e d 1599, rebuilt 1604-06), 383, 402 n. 167, 403 Salvator ( c a p t u r e d 1632), 407, 418 Samson ( b o u g h t 1522), 348 Samson ( c a p t u r e d 1534), 143 Samson ( b o u g h t 1565), 361 Samson G a u n c h e d 1 5 9 9 - 1 6 0 0 ) , 379, 384 Samson ( l a u n c h e d 1602-3), 387, 477 n. 69 Samson ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390, 550 n. 81 Samson ( l a u n c h e d 1631-32), 406, 410, 417, 418, 552 n. 89 Saturnus ( l a u n c h e d 1662, originally Nyckeln), 419, 422, 498, 572 n. 125

I N D E X OF SHIPS

Scepter ( l a u n c h e d 1601-2), 386, 392, 477 n. 69 Scepter ( l a u n c h e d 1614-15), 394, 401, 410, 485, 422, 459 n. 24, 485, 543, 550 n. 81, 551 n. 84 Scepter ( l a u n c h e d 1634), 168, 409, 410, 417, 418, 552 n. 89 Scipio ( l a u n c h e d 1595-97), 378, 384 Skane (1697), 572 n. 123 S m a l a n d s Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1577), 335, 366, 373, 375 n. 129, 376, 472, 473 Smalands Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1601), 386, 392, 477 n. 69, 478 Smalands Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1633-34), 409, 410, 414, 493 n. 103, 552 n. 89 Solen ( b o u g h t 1624), 399, 402 Solen ( l a u n c h e d 1667), 420, 422, 442 n. 231, 498, 500 n. 118, 572 n. 125 Spegeln ( c a p t u r e d 1609), 390 Spes ( l a u n c h e d 1666), 420, 572 n. 125 Stjdrnan (hired 1598), 382, 472 Stjdrnan ( l a u n c h e d 1610), 391, 402 n. 167, 403 Stjdrnan (delivered 1623), p i n n a c e , 400 Stenbock ( l a u n c h e d 1679), 423 Stockholm ( l a u n c h e d 1621, originally Hector), 398, 401, 410, 416, 551 n. 84 Stockholm ( l a u n c h e d 1708), 428, 429 n. 212, 503 n. 122, 572 n, 123 Stora Galdren (first m e n t i o n e d 1598), 382 Stora Krafwelen (1532), 350 n. 85 Store Barken ( l a u n c h e d 1580), 382 Store Kravelen ( l a u n c h e d 1528-30) 143, 255, 256, 258, 285 n. 70, 333, 350, 351, 352, 355, 464 n. 32, 467, 468, 469, 527, 528, 619 Store Kravelen ( l a u n c h e d 1555, r e n a m e d Elefanten), 355, 357, 469, 529 Store Svanen (built 1519), 349, 351 Storken ( b o u g h t 1624), 399 Stormaren ( c a p t u r e d 1644), 413 Strutsen (built 1599-1600), 380 Sundsvall ( l a u n c h e d 1674), a r m e d t r a n s p o r t , 421 Svanen (built 1519), 347 Svanen ( l a u n c h e d 1559-60), see Finske Svanen, l a u n c h e d 1 5 5 9 - 6 0 Svanen (built 1598-99), 336 n. 56 Svanen ( c a p t u r e d 1535, originally Peter Hollender), 351, 352, 355 Svanen (built 1571-74), 365, 472 Svardet ( l a u n c h e d 1604-05), 387, 392, 394, 401, 405, 478, 485, 543

815

Svardet ( l a u n c h e d 1625), 402, 403, 410, 417, 418, 488 n. 97 Svardet ( l a u n c h e d 1662), 190, 419, 422, 423, 497, 498, 563, 564, 566 Svarta Hunden ( c a p t u r e d 1608), 390, 402 n. 167 Svarta Hunden ( l a u n c h e d 1633-34), 409, 493 n. 103, 551 n. 86 Svarta Orn (1717), frigate, 431 Svarte Ryttaren ( l a u n c h e d 1596-97), 378, 384 Svenska Lejonet ( b o u g h t 1662), m e r c h a n t m a n , 193, 420, 421 n. 205 Svenska Phoenix, 421 n. 205 Svenske Angeln ( l a u n c h e d 1593-94), 378, 384 Svenske Hector ( l a u n c h e d 1 5 6 1 - 6 2 ) , 364 Tantheijen ( l a u n c h e d 1565), 157 n, 25, 282, 359, 360, 364, 365, 470 n. 49, 471, 536 Tigern (first m e n t i o n e d 1603), 388 Tigern ( b o u g h t 1624), 399, 402, 407 n. 179, 416 Tre Kroner ( c a p t u r e d 1598, originally Weisse Adler), 381, 382 n. 140, 384, 392, 402 n. 167, 403 Tre Kronor ( l a u n c h e d 1625), 398, 403, 410, 416, 488 n. 97, 545 n. 69, 551 n. 85 Tre Kronor ( l a u n c h e d 1706), 210, 428, 503 n. 122 Tre Lejon ( l a u n c h e d 1642, c a p t u r e d 1644) 413, 417, 418, 496 Troilus ( l a u n c h e d 1559-60), 357, 359 Troilus (built 1593-94), 378 Tvd Lejon ( c a p t u r e d 1644), 413 Ugglan ( b o u g h t 1522), 348, 349, 351 Ulven (first m e n t i o n e d 1540), galley, 353 Ulven ( l a u n c h e d 1593-94), 378, 382 Ulven ( l a u n c h e d 1603-4), 388 Uppland (1665), 503 n. 122 U p p l a n d Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1578), 366, 374, 376, 472, 473 Uttern ( l a u n c h e d 1672), 421 Valen ( l a u n c h e d 1566), 359, 361, 363, 364, 373, 470 n. 49, 471, 536 Vasen ( l a u n c h e d 1598), 336, 379, 384, 392, 394, 401, 461 n, 26, 478, 485, 543 Vasen (1627), 401, 403, 405, 444, 451 n. 3, 455 n. 10, 457 n, 17, 459 n. 23,

816

INDEX OF SHIPS

459 n. 24, 462 n. 29, 463, 485 n. 87, 488, 521, 549, 566, 573 n. 126, 640 Vastervik ( 1 6 2 0 - 2 1 ) , 397, 402, 488 n. 97 Vdstervik ( 1 6 2 6 - 2 7 ) , 402, 403 Vastervik ( 1 6 4 5 - 5 0 ) , 414, 421 n. 205 Viisterviks Bojort, 459 n. 24, 487 n. 93 Vdsterviks Draken (first m e n t i o n e d 1624), p i n n a c e , 400 Viisterviks Makrilkn, p i n n a c e , 400 Viisterviks Pinass, 459 n, 24, 487 n. 93 VHstgota Lejonet ( l a u n c h e d 1629-30), 405, 413 Viistmanland (1696), 572 n. 123 Venus ( l a u n c h e d 1667), 421, 422, 498, 572 n. 125 Verden ( l a u n c h e d 1706), 429, 503 n. 122, 572 n, 123 Viborgs Hektor ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 382, 384 Viborgs Holken ( l a u n c h e d 1554-55), 357 Viborgs Liljan ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 382

Viborgs Morianen, 472 Viborgs Rosen ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 382, 384 Viborgs Skeppet ( b o u g h t 1578), 373 Victoria ( l a u n c h e d 1658), 417, 418, 421 n. 205, 422, 495, 498, 503 n. 122, 572 n. 125 Vildmannen ( c a p t u r e d 1599), 382 Vita Falken ( 1 5 9 7 - 9 8 ) , 379 Vita Orn ( l a u n c h e d 1711), cruiser, 431 Weiers Falken (first m e n t i o n e d 1604), p i n n a c e , 388 n. 152 Weisse Adler, see Tre Kronor ( c a p t u r e d 1598) Wendekapan ( c a p t u r e d 1564), 362, 364 Wismar ( 1 6 4 6 - 4 7 ) , 414, 421 n. 205, 572 n. 125 Wismarske Delfin, 167 n. 33 Wismarske Meerman, 167 n. 33 Wrangel (1664), 420, 422, 498, 503 n. 122, 572 n. 125