Sweden’s age of conquests

In 1561 the trading city of Reval and the Estonian provinces were placed under Swedish protection. This was the beginning of Swedish expansion in the eastern Baltic, marked by prolonged military conflicts with Poland, Russia and Denmark. A hundred years later Sweden seemed to come out on top in this struggle, claiming an effective Dominium Maris Baltici along the western, eastern and southern shores of the sea.

The reasons for this remarkable development have engaged scholars of early modern history ever since the 19th century. Classical interpretations centred on the fact that the Swedish realm was effectively cut off from western Europe and that territorial expansion was a necessary means of achieving national independence. Others have pointed to economic motives: military expansion was a calculated strategy to control the lucrative trade in Russian products with the merchant cities on the North Sea coast. Jan Glete has demonstrated how the Vasa monarchs became military entrepreneurs, effectively transforming Sweden into a pioneer fiscal-military state. From this perspective, overseas expansion was the result of political and organisational capacity, carefully nurtured by the Swedish rulers.

I want to expand on Glete’s perspective by discussing Sweden’s tradition of military expansionism and its enduring influence on the Vasa rulers. Rather than treating the so-called age of greatness from 1560 onwards as a break with the previous period, I will examine the medieval origins of Swedish imperialism and demonstrate their crucial influence on the rulers of 16th-century Sweden.

By the summer of 1518 Danish imperial power seemed to be reaching its zenith in the Baltic region. Kristian II of Denmark (r. 1513-23) was king of Denmark and Norway, and his fleet was now laying siege to the royal castle in Stockholm. A conquest of Stockholm would secure Kristian’s claim to rule Sweden, and the re-establishment of the Nordic union of crowns. With the combined resources of the three Nordic realms, Kristian would have the means to break the commercial advantage of Lübeck and establish a trading empire connecting the Gulf of Finland with the Atlantic Ocean.

Kristian’s grandiose plans were about to founder, however. In July the Danish troops were attacked by Sten Sture the Younger’s army. At the resulting Battle of Brännkyrka, the Danish troops suffered a heavy defeat and were forced to retreat to their main camp south of the city. There were plans for negotiations, and six Swedish noblemen were held in Kristian’s army camp as temporary hostages. Kristian refused to parley, instead ordering his fleet to return south, taking the hostages with them. Among the noblemen was the young Gustav Vasa, who would soon play a leading role in Kristian’s downfall.

The Nordic kingdoms of the late medieval period may well be understood as loosely connected empires rather than embryonic nation states. As hereditary king of Norway, Kristian II aspired towards an Atlantic empire of the north, uniting his Danish lands with the widespread dominions of the Norwegian crown. Along with his claims to the three Nordic crowns, he nurtured plans for a Nordic trading company that would finally break the dominance of the Hansa trading empire in northern Europe. From a geopolitical perspective, Kristian II’s vision amounted to a radical merging of empires rather than the restoration of the medieval Nordic union.

Sweden, meanwhile, had its own imperial legacy to maintain. The lands of the Swedish crown spanned both shores of the Baltic, and Finland had the peculiar status of being a conquered territory now considered an integral part of the realm. Swedish rulers carefully nurtured the myth of the 12th-century monarch St Erik, who had supposedly conquered Finland in order to convert its people to Christianity. In the late medieval period there were several Swedish expeditions to the east, attempting to mobilise the spirit of the crusades in campaigns for territorial conquest. In 1493 the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Elder (r. 1470-97, 1501-03) mustered his troops to prevent the Muscovite ruler from taking control of the trading route through the Gulf of Finland. Rising to the occasion, Sten Sture sported the banner of St Erik from Uppsala Cathedral to claim a holy war against the Russian infidel.

If Kristian II may be described as the archetypical renaissance prince, what does that make his major Swedish adversary? The young Gustav Vasa, who in 1518 was brought to Denmark as Kristian’s hostage, had been reared in the court of the younger Sture regent and received his political education there. While Gustav would eventually succeed in deposing Kristian II, effectively establishing a national Swedish monarchy, he was no stranger to aggressive foreign expeditions. Kristian’s fall from power, and the subsequent break-up of the Nordic union of crowns, would see Gustav engage in several campaigns to appropriate critical parts of Kristian’s crumbling empire.

Traditional Swedish historiography has pronounced Gustav I Vasa the father of the Swedish nation and the liberator from Danish, as well as Roman and German, tyranny. In contrast, modern research has focused on examining the king as a shrewd power politician, carefully manoeuvring to maximise his own benefit and strengthen his personal rule of Sweden.

Gustav I Vasa’s long reign may be divided into two periods. The first was characterised by political opportunism and active engagement in military endeavours. Following the fall of Kristian II, he led military expeditions towards Scania and the Danish provinces east of Öresund, and also tried to claim the Norwegian crown by sending troops into southern Norway. Further international conflicts in the 1530s saw the Sweidsh monarch projecting his military power far beyond the borders of the Swedish realm. While Gustav I Vasa carefully strengthened his position as king of Sweden, he still cultivated the ambition to add further lands to his dominion.

By contrast, the second period of Gustav I Vasa’s rule was characterised by more cautious foreign policy and a strategic reorientation towards the eastern Baltic. From the 1540s the tax system was reorganised and placed under royal control, as were the naval and military forces. International relations focused on the German princes, while also recognising the growing influence of the Muscovite ruler in the eastern Baltic. The dispute with Ivan IV would result in open war in 1554-57, to be followed by a series of armed conflicts throughout the century.

The legacy of Gustav I Vasa would be the break-up of the great northern empires of the late medieval period: the Nordic union of crowns and the trading empire of the Hanseatic League. The young Gustav had won his throne by military force and he was determined to hold on to it by any means. Naval superiority in the Baltic would remain a major objective. Sweden’s effective intervention in the Count’s War (Swedish: Grevefejden) in the 1530s was largely due to the deployment of naval power. With the defeat of Lübeck and the subsequent pact with Kristian III of Denmark in 1541, the Swedish monarch seemed to have secured his personal dominion out of the shadow of empire.

The 1540s and the 1550s saw Gustav I Vasa engaging in various projects to strengthen military capacity. The incorporation of peasant militias into the royal army organisation, along with the construction of fortified castles in the central Swedish provinces, has been explained by historians as the deployment of a new defensive strategy. The development of a royal galley fleet, however, had offensive as well as defensive implications. The galleys could easily be deployed for operations in the shallow waters of the eastern Baltic. In the 1550s the Swedish monarch started an ambitious shipbuilding programme that would produce the largest sailing battle fleet in northern Europe within a decade. For this project, the ageing monarch had the active support of his two sons, the Dukes Erik and Johan.

The situation in the eastern Baltic had become increasingly unstable by the mid-16th century. The Livonian Order of Knights, controlling most of the lands south of the Gulf of Finland, was severely weakened. The Russian ruler Ivan IV (r. 1533-84, as tsar from 1547) wanted to expand his power over Novgorod and the Livonian territories. There were reports of skirmishes between peasants and marauding troops along the Swedish-Russian border, and the conflict escalated into a full-scale war. Gustav I Vasa managed to deploy a large number of troops to stave off Russian attacks against the city of Viborg. A Swedish operation to conquer the Russian stronghold of Nöteborg (Russian: Oreshek) met with little success, however, and the conflict ended with yet another temporary truce.

In the summer of 1555 the Swedish monarch travelled to Finland to organise the defence. The king came up with a radical solution to sustain a military presence in the destitute border region: confiscating arable land in order to support new royal demesnes, ‘avelsgårdar’. Gustav I Vasa’s grand scheme involved an extensive survey of farmland and pasture, as well as coercive measures to engage local people in support of the military efforts. Although the project never fulfilled its major objective, it provided a blueprint for further deployment of military troops along the border. It also demonstrates Gustav I Vasa’s willingness to allocate extra resources for projecting Swedish power in the east.

By the time of his death in 1560, Gustav I Vasa had succeeded in turning Sweden into a national monarchy, to be ruled by princes of the Vasa dynasty. Erik (XIV, r. 1560-69) would succeed his father by birthright, not by election as had previously been the case. Gustav I Vasa also had the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament) proclaim his younger sons princes of the blood, endowing them with their own duchies to rule. This policy seemed at odds with the monarch’s efforts to concentrate power in order to secure his own personal rule. From a dynastic perspective, however, the strategy made perfect sense. The hereditary duchies would be excellent springboards for new imperialist projects.

Prince Erik was made Duke of Småland in 1558 and installed his court at the important border fortress of Kalmar. His younger brother Johan was already Duke of Finland, having been entrusted the rule of the eastern provinces following the Russian war. Both princes were assigned key positions in the Swedish realm, exercising control over border zones potentially threatened by hostile powers. Erik and Johan were eager to rise to the occasion and to prove their worth in the eyes of their father. This involved organising regional and local administration, as well as looking beyond their borders for new opportunities.

In Erik’s case this meant carefully observing the situation in Denmark and northern Germany. Frederick II of Denmark (r. 1559-88) was pursuing an aggressive foreign policy, annexing the small territory of Ditmarsken by the North Sea and installing his younger brother Magnus as bishop of Ösel (Estonian: Saaremaa) on the Livonian coast. Prince Erik had even grander political plans: a marital alliance with Queen Elizabeth I of England, establishing a new union of crowns spanning the Baltic and the North Seas. In 1559 Erik sent Duke Johan with a large fleet to deliver the proposal, planning a second expedition for the following year to court Elizabeth in person. The ships were ready to sail by the summer of 1560 when news arrived that Gustav I Vasa had died. The fleet remained at anchor while Erik headed for Stockholm to claim his position as king of Sweden. Although the marriage never materialised, the suitor expeditions gave the Swedish prince ample opportunity to display his ability as an organiser and commander of naval power.

While Erik XIV was looking to the west, Duke Johan of Finland acted to strengthen his position in the east. In 1562 he married Katarina Jagellonica, sister of the Polish ruler Sigismund August. The alliance opened the way for a new imperial project: connecting the duchy of Finland with the Swedish provinces in the eastern Baltic and the lands of the Polish commonwealth. Johan’s plans, however, were thwarted by the king, who would not tolerate any competition with his own power ambitions. As Erik XIV prepared for a full-scale military conflict with Denmark and Lübeck, he had his brother arrested and placed in custody. Swedish expansion in the east was put on hold for the duration of the Nordic Seven Years War, 1563-70.

From a Swedish perspective, the Seven Years War may be understood as a national struggle against the attacks from Denmark and Lübeck. Erik XIV, however, was no stranger to aggressive power projection, as demonstrated by his attempt to gain direct access to the North Sea by conquering the Norwegian provinces of Jämtland and Trøndelag. The operations in 1563, led by the mercenary commander Claudius Collart, were initially successful. King Erik claimed that they would restore Swedish national pride after the Danish conquest of the fortress of Älvsborg on the western coast of Sweden. The important port of Trondheim would also provide his subjects with necessary goods such as salt at favourable prices.

The Nordic Seven Years War was essentially a series of disparate military expeditions focusing on ravaging enemy lands to prevent the gathering of hostile troops. The royal propaganda demonstrates the entanglement of geopolitical strategies with the ruler’s personal ambition. For the Swedish monarch, royal authority was intimately connected with military honour. To strengthen his claim as a dynastic ruler, Erik had to prove himself victorious in battle. While he succeeded in controlling the maritime trade routes in the Baltic, the campaigns to conquer new territory on the North Sea coast did not produce any lasting results. In the winter of 1567-68 Danish troops were ravaging the provinces in southern Sweden, threatening to advance on Stockholm. Erik’s relative failure as a military commander helped provoke a widespread insurrection the following summer. By the end of the year he had lost his crown and Johan III (r. 1569-92) was proclaimed king of Sweden in January 1569.

Johan III’s years of rule display similar entanglements of geopolitical motives and princely ambition. The Nordic Seven Years War had ended with a humiliating treaty, compelling the king to pay a huge ransom to recover the fortress of Älvsborg. Johan soon turned his attention back east, where Russian troops were threatening the Swedish dominions in Estonia. The ensuing military conflict would drag on for some 25 years, slowly bleeding Sweden’s resources dry and pushing state finances close to bankruptcy.

In spite of recurring logistical problems, the Swedish troops managed to hold off Russian attacks and launch offensive operations into enemy territory. Commander Henrik Klasson (Horn) ravaged Ingria in 1578 and the following year Swedish troops threatened the fortress of Nöteborg on the Karelian Isthmus. The Swedish aggression was boosted by a new alliance with Poland, and by the fact that Tsar Ivan IV also had to fight the Tatars in the south. The expedition against Narva on the Estonian border, however, had to be abandoned when the troops refused to march and Henrik Klasson was later dismissed from service.

The appointment of Pontus De la Gardie as high commander saw the start of a series of aggressive campaigns. In the autumn of 1580 De la Gardie managed to capture Kexholm (Käkisalmi) on Lake Ladoga. He reported to the king that the Russian stronghold was a beautiful site that would serve the Swedish crown well in the future. Johan III responded by ordering De la Gardie to proceed against Narva and to conquer all Russian strongholds along the way. Narva surrendered in September 1581 and was duly ransacked by the Swedish troops. Johan insisted on further expeditions to the east, but when De la Gardie tried to lay siege to Nöteborg his troops refused to follow. The Swedish monarch agreed to a temporary standstill, but no official peace treaty was signed and the hostilities were resumed at full scale in 1590.

By 1583 Swedish troops occupied most of the lands around the Gulf of Finland, from Karelia to Estonia. Johan III was eager to portray himself as a mighty conqueror, adding ‘Grand Duke of Karelia, Ingria and Solonski Pethin in Russia, and over the Estonians in Livonia’ to his royal title. The conflict with Russia had been characterised as a defensive war, protecting the king’s loyal subjects from the ‘Muscovite tyrant’. Interestingly, the Swedish monarch described the defence of the province of Estonia as fundamental to the welfare of the realm. Since the Russian ruler would jump at every opportunity to attack Sweden, holding the defence line east of the Baltic Sea would guarantee the central provinces full safety from foreign invasion.

As the Swedish army slowly gained the upper hand, the king began to voice his imperialist claims more loudly. When addressing the Riksdag in 1587, he explained that the conquered provinces must remain under the Swedish crown at all cost, so that the tsar would recognise the superiority of Swedish military power:

Therefore, my mind is set that he [the tsar] will not get anything back, for they will remain with Sweden, for as long as the world will stand. There are many honourable Swedish men who have risked their lives for the lands and strongholds that are now placed under the crown of Sweden. And this is why we cannot abandon them, for the eternal shame and embarrassment of all the Swedish…

Johan III was framing the Swedish imperial project as a matter of personal honour. The aggressive masculine ideal permeated official discourse from the monarch himself, via his commanders to the common foot soldier who pledged to risk life and limb for the glory of the realm. To have fought with honour in overseas campaigns might be turned into an advantage, boosting the status of military veterans when they returned home after service. In terms of mental attitude, Sweden was becoming an aggressive military state well before the organisational foundations were fully in place.

In Werner Herzog’s classic movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the audience is invited to follow Spanish conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre from the slopes of the Andes down into the Amazon basin, searching for the fabled kingdom of El Dorado. The small party of Spanish soldiers have been commissioned by Francisco Pizarro, who has just orchestrated the conquest of the Inca Empire. As the company make their way down the river they are plagued by infighting and hostile natural surroundings. At the end of the story, Aguirre is the only one left, still ranting and dreaming of conquering all the Americas and founding his own dynasty to rule them all.

Feminist sociologist RW Connell has made the Spanish conquistador a symbol of hegemonic masculinity. According to Connell, the reckless conquistador was the harbinger of the dominant Western male that would rule the colonies by brute force. Although Sweden never aspired to build an Atlantic empire of its own, the thirst for new territory east of the Baltic has many similarities to the conquistadors’ dramatic bid for dominance. Unlike the major European powers, the Swedes did not have the numbers to populate their overseas provinces, but what they lacked in human resources they made up for with military prowess and ruthless determination.

The spirit of expansionism is most evident in Johan III’s attempts to stretch the Swedish dominions to the utter limit. In 1580 Klas Hermansson (Fleming) was assigned the unenviable task of marching into northern Karelia to destroy the Russian fortress of Rukowara. The original plan was to join forces with troops from Swedish Ostrobothnia and from northern Savolaks, but the strategy proved futile when the Swedish party was unable to find the road leading north. They instead made a detour 20 miles to the east, only to learn that the Russians had abandoned their position and retreated to an island in the White Sea. Klas Hermansson tried to march on the Arctic area, only to halt when he realised there was no food for his horses, let alone any roads to drag his artillery along. Running out of options, he settled for ransacking a number of Russian villages further south and scorching the lands down to Lake Ladoga.

Klas Hermansson’s expedition might be dismissed as a freak failure, but the pattern would be repeated in 1590-91 when Johan III wanted the Swedish to advance their positions in anticipation of the upcoming peace negotiations. Sven Persson was instructed to rally the peasants of northern Ostrobothnia to march on the Russian cities by the White Sea. He would attack the trading city of Kolmograd (Russian: Kholmogory) south of Archangel and seize as many ships as he could, along with all their goods. The Swedish troops would then set fire to the city ‘and put all the surrounding countryside into coal after them’.

Unsurprisingly, Sven Persson had little success. While he did manage to raid some cities on the Arctic coast and capture a couple of barges, he soon had to retreat back towards Ule in Ostrobothnia. The efforts to extend the Swedish dominions to the Arctic coast would continue in the following decades, grinding to a halt when Swedish rulers were facing more pressing military concerns in the south. The army expeditions in the north, however, demonstrate the determination to pursue the imperialist project regardless of human and material losses.

Sweden’s military expansion might be explained by geopolitical as well as economic motives. In this essay I have suggested an alternative: the wars of the 16th century were a continuation of the medieval quest for empire on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. The Vasa monarchs followed the example of their predecessors by exploiting the political crises of the region for their own benefit. These expeditions were no longer proclaimed as crusades, although the struggle for empire in the east was sometimes proclaimed as a war against the Russian infidel. Instead, the early modern wars of aggression were justified by references to national glory and dynastic self-assertion.

There was a spirit of expansionism in 16th-century Sweden, emanating from the Vasa monarchs and eventually permeating the entire political community. The noble officers of the armed forces boasted of their ambition to bestow their king with new countries to rule. The common soldiers played their part in establishing the discourse by first swearing their oath to fight for king and country, then making their military presence felt in their local communities. Well before Sweden became a great power in European politics, the military ethos of aggressive expansion was becoming firmly entrenched. The propaganda of Gustav II Adolf, the lion of the north in the Thirty Years War, was in essence a logical extension of the Vasas’ aggressive self-image, updated to function in the European arena.

This essay was originally published in The Baltic Sea: A Geopolitical History, edited by Peter Haldén and published by Bokförlaget Stolpe.