Gustavus Adolphus

The madness of Charles XII made it easy for Peter to extend his waterfront here from the Neva to the Duna; but although his armies had occupied and administered Finland for several years, he does not seem to have felt himself strong enough at the peace of Nystad to secure the northern shore of the Gulf as well as the southern.

Although shorn of half its might by the folly of his successors, the kingdom which Gustavus Adolphus had built up was still a comparatively powerful State; and the determined resistance which had been offered on more than one occasion by the scanty and ill-organized population of Finland, even when deserted by Sweden, was sufficient to show that the forcible retention of the Grand Duchy would render it a source of weakness rather than of strength to the Empire.

Consequently only a small strip of territory was annexed; and it is a curious fact that from this time forward successive rulers of Russia, although never relaxing their determination to detach Finland from Swedish influence, were profuse in their assurances that, so far from desiring to annex or incorporate that country, its independence would be forever guaranteed under the protection of Russia.

This fact is of vital importance in view of the attempt that has been made of late years by Russian writers to represent Alexander's conquest of Finland as simply the addition of a province to the Russian Empire.

It was possible to hamper the House of Habsburg at home, and this Richelieu did in two ways.

By negotiating a peace between Sweden and Poland, he opened the way into the Thirty Years' War for Gustavus Adolphus; and at the Diet of Ratisbon Father Joseph played an important part in securing Wallenstein's dismissal, and in frustrating the election of the Archduke Ferdinand as King of the Romans.

By the Treaty of Ratisbon the Emperor promised to invest the new French Duke of Mantua, after which event all foreign powers were to clear out of territories recently occupied by them.

Richelieu was bent on keeping Pinerolo, and actually disavowed the treaty to which Father Joseph had been a party.

He now proposed to raise an imperial force to be supported by compulsory contributions.

It soon numbered 50,000 men.

This regularly paid and disciplined army, where Catholic and Protestant were alike welcome and promotion was decided by merit alone, was a strange contrast to the rabble that had hitherto done duty as such without uniform without pay and cruel beyond belief in its license to plunder in strategical and tactical ability wallenstein ranks next to gustavus adolphus in the war while his courage justice and consideration for his men gathered recruits from every quarter but it was a dangerous precedent for the emperor to depend upon troops enrolled by an independent leader and paid by a system unknown to the law serious hostilities began at the bridge of dessau by wallenstein's utter defeat of mansfeld who had hoped first to join hands with betlin gabor instead he was obliged to disband his forces and while struggling through bosnia to venice he died christian of brunswick had already passed away but christian the fourth preparing to join his allies in bohemia was outnumbered by combined forces of tilly and wallenstein who defeated him with overwhelming loss of officers men and guns at luder north germany was left at the mercy of the catholic league brandenburg was prevailed upon to declare for ferdinand and wallenstein and tilly invaded schleswig holstein driving christian before them to the islands of denmark there wallenstein realized the crowning importance of control of the sea and though he could not persuade the hansa towns to lend him their ships he overran the twin duchies of mecklenburg and demanded that certain baltic ports should admit imperial garrisons among these stralsund stoutly refused as wallenstein though general of the oceanic and baltic sea was without a fleet stralsund was accessible to help from sweden and denmark and its burghers preferred to accept foreign aid rather than to submit to persecution and military despotism at the end of five months wallenstein to his intense mortification was obliged to turn his back on stralsund peace was at last in sight christian's weariness of the war wallenstein's suspicions of sweden the german princes suspicions of wallenstein prepared the way for the peace of lubeck sixteen twenty nine by which the king of denmark recovered jutland schleswig and his holstein possessions on undertaking to renounce all claims to the german bishoprics held by his family the catholic league was determined however jealous it might feel of wallenstein's victories to turn them to account in the service of religion they prevailed on ferdinand to issue the edict of restitution restoring to the church all property that had been secularized since fifteen fifty two two archbishoprics twelve bishoprics and more than a hundred monasteries were about to be torn from the protestants whose opposition in the face of the huge armies of tilly and wallenstein was unavailing the edict was however entirely contrary to the principle of religious equality on which wallenstein's army was based and to his patriotic ideal of regenerating germany by maintaining an armed neutrality between the creeds he looked to establish a strong emperor upon the ruins of the princely power that he despised to lead a crusade against the turks to ask in return it might even be a crown for himself but ferdinand was undecided and the princes rather than lose their independence were ready like the stralsund burghers to call in foreign aid this divergence of aims between the league and the emperor's general gave richelieu his opportunity of dealing a blow at the hapsburgs and gustavus adolphus an opening for his entry into german politics of which both took advantage at the diet of radesbon father joseph one of the best informed most penetrating and supple diplomatists of his time succeeded in turning the scales against ferdinand's general strange to say wallenstein the master of legions accepted his dismissal and retired into private life on his bohemian estates while tilly succeeded to his command the next problem for the princes was to discover the intentions of the king of sweden and here the history of the house of vasa must be briefly sketched end of section twenty six section twenty seven of europe and renaissance and reformation by mary a hollings this librivox recording is in the public domain read by pamela nagami chapter twelve the thirty years war part two between thirteen ninety seven and fifteen twenty three the three kingdoms of denmark norway and sweden were united under one crown by the union of kalmar no real national feeling existed however and the work of the house of vasa was to win for sweden her independence of the predominant partner denmark in avenging the fate of many of his fellow nobles in the stockholm bloodbath gustavus eriksson accomplished this task and was crowned king of sweden in fifteen twenty three his family took the name vasa from the sheaf in their coat of arms it was the aim of gustavus to build up a strong monarchy under which the power of the church and of the nobles should be leveled the disorders of the country suppressed, and its internal wealth and foreign influence developed.

As in England, the king made use of the Reformation to strengthen the crown.

It was a convent before the Thirty Years' War, and the vaulted chapel, with its brick floor worn by pious peasant needs, is now used as a hall.

Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedes pass through more than once, as is duly recorded in archives still preserved, for we are on what was then the high road between Sweden and Brandenburg the Unfortunate.

the lion of the north was no doubt an estimable person and acted wholly up to his convictions but he must have sadly upset the peaceful nuns who were not without convictions of their own sending them out on to the wide empty plain to piteously seek some life to replace the life of silence here from nearly all the windows of the house i can look out across the plain with no obstacle in the shape of a hill, right away to a blue line of distant forest, and on the west side uninterruptedly to the setting sun, nothing but a green rolling plain with a sharp edge against the sunset.

I love those west windows better than any others, and have chosen my bedroom on that side of the house, so that even times of hair-brushing may not be entirely lost, and the young woman who attends to such matters has been taught to fulfil her duties about a mistress recumbent in an easy chair before an open window, and not to profane with chatter that sweet and solemn time.

"'What do you think? She writes books.' "'What, the bicycling girl?' yes minora imagine it we stood and looked at each other with awestruck faces how dreadful murmured irais i never met a young girl who did that

before

she says this place is full of copy full of what that's what you make books with oh my dear this is worse than i expected a strange girl is always a bore among good friends but one can generally manage her but a girl who writes books why it isn't respectable and you can't snub that sort of people they're unsnubbable oh but we'll try i cried with such heartiness that we both laughed the hall in the library struck minora most indeed she lingered so long after dinner in the hall which is cold that the man of wrath put on his fur coat by way of a gentle hint his hints are always gentle she wanted to hear the whole story about the chapel and the nuns and gustavus adolphus and pulling out a fat notebook began to take down what i said i at once relapsed into silence well she said that's all oh but you've only just begun It doesn't go any further.

Won't you come into the library? In the library she again took up her stand before the fire and warmed herself, and we sat in a row and were cold.

It is remarkable how often outbreaks of this hallucination occur in Sweden, owing probably to the isolated position of the country and to the fact that a sparse population is scattered over enormous distances.

Megalomania is apparent in the imperial projects of Gustavus Adolphus, in Charles X's ambition of becoming a great European power, in Charles XII's Attila-like schemes, in Rudbeck's Atlantic mania, and in Swedenborg's and Thorild's dreams of storming heaven and of world conflagrations.

John thought them mad and threw them aside.

Was that the sort of stuff he was expected to read? He began to reflect over his situation.

"If the queen refrained from taking the tempting knight..." "Oh, do stop your silly chess problem," said Madge.

"Bite him, Fungus." Fungus, so-called because he is the son of Humor and Gustavus Adolphus, rose from his place on the hearth rug and, with a hoarse laugh, nuzzled against my leg, which is his way of biting those he loves.

Then the most amiable of bulldogs, who has a passion for the human race, lay down on my foot and sighed heavily.

But Madge evidently wanted to talk, and I pushed the chessboard away.