580 The Gottorp question.·

War with Sweden [1697-1700

by an ambitious young soldier who threatened to cross the plans of Christian by forestalling the Crown Prince Frederick in the competition for a Swedish bride.

It was the Gottorp question which, as a matter of fact, determined the policy of Denmark. Christian desired nothing better than a double marriage between his children and those of Charles XI, provided that his designs on Gottorp were thereby furthered. In default of an understanding with Sweden, however, he was ready to incite Tsar Peter against her Baltic provinces, and to intrigue with her famine-stricken peasants and with the victims of the Reduction. In 1697, when a Regency came into power at Stockholm, he sent into the territory of the Duke an army which demolished his new fortifications. The attitude of Sweden and of the numerous enemies of France compelled him to recall the troops, and next year Duke Frederick married Hedwig Sophia, the favourite sister of Charles XII. The issue of this marriage, male or female, would stand dangerously near the Swedish throne. Frederick, moreover, became Swedish generalissimo in Germany, and proceeded to restore his fortifications with Swedish aid. Christian accordingly continued his negotiations with the Tsar and lent an ear to the adventurous proposals of his nephew, Augustus II of Poland. Patkul thus found abundant material for a conflagration of the North.

The intimacy between Charles XII and Duke Frederick constituted a standing menace to Denmark. In August, 1699, another active young autocrat, Frederick IV, succeeded his father at Copenhagen. A defensive treaty with the Tsar had been signed on the previous day, and, early in November, Augustus, Peter, and Frederick agreed to make a combined attack upon the Swedish empire. In the spring of 1700 this design ripened into the great Northern War, the course of which is related elsewhere. The part played in it by Denmark may therefore be traced here very briefly; while an account of the peaceful activities of Frederick IV is reserved for a future chapter.

While Denmark and Sweden were deliberately preparing to fight, neither could calculate exactly the extraneous support which the other would receive when hostilities began. Frederick, trusting in his strong fleet to command the Sound and in his eastern allies to distract Sweden, dispatched his main army against the Duke of Gottorp in April, 1700. His allies proved less active, and his own success less rapid, than he had hoped; and he was soon brought to a standstill by the walls of Tönning and the troops of Brunswick-Lüneburg under the Elector George Lewis of Hanover, the future King of England. The campaign, thus checked, swiftly ended in failure. Frederick had left his navy under the command of Ulrik Christian Gyldenlöve, a royal bastard aged twenty-two years, and a timid Board of War. They permitted the English and Dutch, impatient of a northern distraction which might favour Louis XIV, to send ships to the Sound, where they were joined, after a daring piece of

1700-10]

Peace of Traventhal

581

navigation, by Charles XII and his fleet. Thus master of the sea, the young King swooped down upon defenceless Zealand. To his disgust, however, the Danish War was extinguished, and Copenhagen saved, by the Peace of Traventhal (August, 1700).

The Peace of Traventhal marked another failure on the part of Denmark to curb Gottorp and Sweden, but failed to cut the roots of their hostility. With the House of Gottorp the King of Denmark remained in a state of perpetual friction, and the alliance of that House with Sweden and Brunswick-Lüneburg survived the death of Duke Frederick on the field of Klissow (July 19, 1702). By forming a militia, by hiring out his mercenaries to fight against Louis XIV, by diplomatic efforts and by care for the finances, the King prepared for a struggle which seemed inevitable, while the prospect of it was rendered doubly formidable by the triumphs of Charles XII.

In 1708, however, the Swedish army was entangled in Russia. Frederick, a self-indulgent prince, who was more than once guilty of bigamy, ventured to seek his pleasure in Italy for the winter. At this time Peter was clamouring for Danish help and the coalition of 1700 seemed likely to be revived. On his way homeward Frederick visited Saxony and came to an agreement with Augustus II (June, 1709). The two Kings bound themselves, conditionally upon the co-operation of the Tsar, to take up arms for the full restitution of their Polish and Scandinavian dominions. According to the published articles, Germany was to remain undisturbed; but a secret agreement provided for the annexation of part at least of Schleswig-Holstein and of Poland.

The confederates, however, failed to secure either an offensive alliance with Frederick I of Prussia or money from the Tsar. It was, moreover, hardly to be expected that the Maritime Powers would be more ready than in the days of Frederick III to tolerate a Danish empire on both shores of the Sound. Frederick's treasury was by no means full, nor was his army strong enough to assure a victorious invasion of Sweden. It might well happen, as so often in the history of the north, that the Swedes would gain compensation from their neighbours for disasters further afield. These arguments for peace were urged upon Frederick both in the Council Chamber and from the pulpit. A war party however existed, an autocrat was in power, and after Poltawa the verdict was for war. In October, 1709, Frederick and the Tsar entered into an alliance to confine Sweden within her rightful boundaries. Next month 15,000 men under Count Reventlow crossed the Sound, bearing upon their ammunition waggons the motto "Aut nunc aut nunquam." improvised expedition met with well-deserved failure. The men were ill-found and ill-paid; no simultaneous invasion from Norway came to pass; Reventlow fell ill; and, in March, 1710, Magnus Stenbock and his Swedes crushed the whole enterprise at Helsingborg.

This

Never since 1710 have the Danes crossed the Sound as foes of Sweden.

582

Continuance of War with Sweden

[1711-5

Frederick, indeed, trusting in the traditional Danish superiority at sea, planned to bring a Russian corps to Zealand and to renew the attack in the autumn. In a series of naval movements, however, Hans Wachtmeister proved that his own work and that of Charles XI had made the Swedish fleet strong enough to frustrate the enterprise. Next year (1711) the Plague, which carried off more than one-third of the inhabitants of Copenhagen, paralysed the Northern War.

At this time, however, thanks to the imprudence of Charles XII, the Danes received encouragement on all hands to attack the Swedish possessions on their own side of the sea. The War therefore assumed a new form. While Norway co-operated by descents upon southern Sweden, and the Danish fleet strove to regain the command of the sea, the Danes, Saxons, and Russians invaded the scattered Swedish provinces in northern Germany.

In September, 1712, the Danes, with the help of the Saxon artillery, captured Stade and seized the whole of Bremen and Verden. Meanwhile Stralsund was attacked by all three allies, until in September Stenbock arrived there with more than 16,000 men at his disposal. To destroy this army must be the condition of further progress by the allies. It fell to Frederick, assisted by the Saxon cavalry, to make the first attempt; but Stenbock gained a great victory at Gadebusch (December, 1712). Frederick thereupon threatened to make peace, if Peter would not join him in Holstein, where the victor of Gadebusch threatened to repeat the exploits of Charles X. The Tsar obeyed the summons; and Stenbock, who had found shelter in the Gottorp fortress of Tönning, was im prisoned there by the forces of the three allies. In May, 1713, he capitulated to Frederick with some 11,000 men at Oldensworth. The Danes did not fully carry out the terms of the capitulation, which, owing to the anxiety of their allies to depart, were favourable to Sweden. Stenbock and many of his troops were imprisoned until death or peace set them free.

Despite the craft of Görtz, the movements of Stenbock had enabled Frederick to fasten a quarrel upon Gottorp. After the capitulation, therefore, the hope of making conquests where they were most desired by his dynasty spurred him on to great military preparations and diplomatic efforts. Favoured by the impracticable attitude of Charles XII, he captured Tönning early in 1714, and began to negotiate with Frederick William I and George I for the partition of the Swedish dominions in Germany. In April, 1715, while Charles XII defended Stralsund, the Danish fleet secured the command of the sea; and in the following month the compacts were made which, as Frederick hoped, would enable him to acquire the Gottorp portion of Schleswig and a sum of money for Bremen and Verden. For these prizes the Danish fleet contended at Stralsund. After the fall of the fortress at the close of 1715, Rügen and western Pomerania as far as the Peene were placed in Frederick's hands.

1715-20]

Treaty of Frederiksborg

583

So long as Charles XII lived, however, a hard frost in the Sound might expose Copenhagen to the vengeance which it now became his fixed idea to wreak on his hereditary foes. Failing Denmark, he, in the winter of 1715-6, turned against Norway, and occupied the town of Christiania, but was driven from the fortress by the arrival of help from Denmark. At Frederikshald, on the border, he again met with a stout resistance; and in July a brilliant feat of the Norwegian naval hero Tordenskiold, who captured or destroyed 44 Swedish ships, compelled him to retreat.

Again, in the summer of 1716, Frederick contemplated invading Scania with Russian help, and a combined army more than 50,000 strong prepared to cross the Sound. In the autumn, however, the Tsar, perhaps fearing both the might of Charles and the treachery of Frederick, abandoned the enterprise; nor could he be induced to resume it. His defection alienated George I; and, while Charles was preparing a mighty army, Frederick could no longer reckon upon his allies for aggrandisement or even for defence.

In 1717 he dispatched Tordenskiold against Swedish harbours, but without success; and next year the storm broke upon the outnumbered and ill-found Norwegians. The death of Charles in December, 1718, rescued Norway from peril and made it possible once more to negotiate with Sweden for peace.

The Swedes, however, were far from willing to purchase peace from Denmark. In 1719, Frederick made yet another campaign, in which he led a Norwegian invasion in person, while Tordenskiold with mingled audacity and good fortune captured the port of Marstrand and its strong fortress of Karlsten. Frederick, however, did not follow up this success. The defection of George and Frederick William, and his own strained relations with Peter the Great threatened to leave Frederick alone face to face with Sweden. Thus his only hope of profit lay in a speedy peace. To gain Schleswig, he therefore accepted the mediation of England and France. In July, 1720, by the Treaty of Frederiksborg, his old boundaries were confirmed, while Sweden recognised his possession of Schleswig, which was guaranteed to him by Great Britain and France. He further received from Sweden 600,000 dollars and a renunciation of her exemption from the Sound Dues. Two great wars had thus established in Scandinavia an even balance of power.

CHAPTER XIX

CHARLES XII AND THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR

CHARLES XI had carefully provided against the contingency of his successor's minority; and the five Regents appointed by him entered upon their functions immediately after his death (April 15, 1697). The Regents, if not great statesmen, were, at least, practical politicians, who had not in vain been trained in the austere school of Charles XI; during the seven months in which they held sway no blunder was made, and no national interest was neglected. At home the Reduction was cautiously pursued, while abroad the successful conclusion of the great peace congress at Ryswyk was justly regarded as a signal triumph of Sweden's pacific diplomacy. The young King, a lad of fifteen, was daily present in the Council; and his frequent utterances on every subject, except foreign affairs, showed, we are told, a maturity of judgment far beyond his years. He had been carefully educated by excellent tutors under the watchful eyes of both his parents. His extraordinary courage and strength of character had, from the first, profoundly impressed those around him, though his dogged obstinacy occasionally tried them to the uttermost. His wise and loving mother had been at great pains to develop his better nature by encouraging those noble qualities - veracity, courtesy, piety, and a strong sense of honour and fair play—which were to distinguish him throughout life, while his precocious manliness was not a little stimulated by the rude but bracing moral atmosphere to which he was accustomed from infancy. Intellectually he was very highly endowed. His natural parts were excellent, and a strong bias in the direction of abstract thought, and of mathematics in particular, was noticeable at an early date. His memory was astonishing. He could translate Latin into Swedish or German, or Swedish or German into Latin at sight, and on his campaigns not infrequently dispensed with a key while inditing or interpreting dispatches in cipher.

Almost from infancy the lad had been initiated into all the minutiae of the administration. When, in his later years, Charles XI went his rounds, reviewing troops, inspecting studs, foundries, dockyards and granaries, it was always "with my son Carl." For the science of war