31.3 Europe: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 22/30)

The Reformation was manipulated by Denmark to the great detriment of Norway in that Protestantism was forced on her as a means of subjugation. (Ref. 34 ) Danish language Bibles and hymnals were also forced, doing much to establish a common Dano-Norwegian language. This is still one of the languages of Norway, called "Riksmal", in contrast to the now revived native language "Landsmal". Before Christian IV, the Hansa merchants had established themselves in Bergen and were a parasitic growth on the whole economy. One of the most famous Danish Navy heroes, elevated to nobility under the name of Tordenskjold, was born Peder Wessel, in Trondheim, Norway.

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Sweden (beginning sweden's age of power; the struggle for the baltic)

Sweden, proper, goes 1,000 miles north from its southern tip and has 96,000 lakes, but in this 17th century it had only 1,500,000 people. Iron was its chief export, making more that 1/2 the total, with silver and copper being next. (Ref. 131 ) In about 1625 Flemish techniques of blast furnace construction and metal casting were imported, allowing the casting of excellent iron guns, so that soon Sweden dominated the international cannon market. This boom had been initiated in 1620 when Louis de Geer, a native of Liege, had sent Walloon ironworkers to this Scandinavian country. (Ref. 270 ) The blast furnaces were financed with money from both Holland and England. (Ref. 260 )

The century opened with the youngest son of Gustavus I as first regent and then King Karl (Charles) IX of Sweden. He established Lutheranism as the state church and then because of claims of the Polish Sigismund to the Swedish throne, he invaded Livonia, beginning the long Polish-Swedish Wars. King Gustavus Adolphus (1611-1632), "Lion of the North", made Sweden briefly the greatest military power in Europe. Axel Oxenstierna, his chancellor, helped the nation grow in industry, trade and scholarship. Sweden entered the Thirty Years War in 1630 "to save the Protestant cause" in Germany, but in so doing, virtually conquered most of that country. Adolphus went as far as the Danube but then was killed at age 38, while leading a cavalry charge. His daughter Christina at 6 years of age became queen, but she became an eccentric woman and poor ruler, who at 28 years of age pleaded illness and abdicated to go to Rome, where she announced her Catholicism and became a patroness of the arts and the lover of Cardinal Azzolini. Christina was followed on the throne by her cousin Karl (Charles X, Gustavus), son of John Casimir, count palatine of Zweibrucken, who had had military experience in the Thirty Years War under Torstensson and Chancellor Oxenstierna. He had frank expansionist aims and reopened war with Poland, took Riga and transplanted its iron and steel industry to Sweden, laying the foundations of an even stronger industrial basis for his martial policies. (Ref. 131 )

After the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 Sweden, at the peak of its imperial power and "Mistress of the North", completely encircled the Gulf of Bosnia and the Gulf of Finland, controlled Finland, Karelia, Ingria, Estonia and Livonia, most of the Baltic Islands and had two large beach-heads on the north German shore. The first of these was at the mouth of the Oder River, with Stettin, Stralsund and Wismar and reaching to within about 30 miles of Berlin and secondly the Duchy of Holstei-n-Gottorp on the west side of the base of the Danish peninsula. Needing money during the Thirty Years War, the Swedes had cut down vast forest areas in Pomerania, with the result that subsequently many of these areas were invaded by sand dunes. (Ref. 260 )