I am starting a new course of debate, or blog rather, on the theme ... -"it is always easy to second guess history!".

From my very own, amateurish but personal point of view I attempt to scrutinise, analyse and give judgement to the course of European history through several centuries, its leaders and figureheads. First stop will be the great conflict of ...

The Great Northern War 1700-21 and it's repercussions:
At the end of 1699, cornered by a mighty alliance of Denmark-Saxony/Poland and Russia the Swedes eventually had to confront the enemy from the Western reaches of Denmark to the endless plains of Ukraine, from Finland in the north to Poland in the south. Vast distances were covered by the Swedish soldiers, in hunger and cold, lacking basic equipment and often with their most basic needs neglected by their King.

King Karl XII (Charles or Carolus) became king at the age of 17. Having been thoroughly moulded into the martial arts by his father, Karl XI, it was obvious that Karl would very much warm to the life of a soldier. He was quite austere in his religious and righteous beliefs, he was well accustomed to the ordinary soldiers life and dressed very simply indeed, almost like a private. He was never one to fear the enemy bullets, often making daring reconnaissance trips along the front and sometimes behind it. A reputation that the ordinary soldier warmed to.

Undaunted by the prospect of the triple alliance, he set about to attack them one by one. No question about sitting and waitng for the enemy to come banging on the door of Swedish territory. The Danes preoccupied by their attempts to lay their hands on Holstein-Gottorp, a Swedish ally, suddenly found themselves invaded when the Swedes after a succesful mobilisation landed just north of Copenhagen, forcing the Danish King to surrender and sign the treaty fo Traventhal.

... one down, two to go!

Meanwhile the Russians were laying siege to the fortress town of Narva. The King promptly shipped his army to Livonia and in difficult, wintery conditions marched his army through a ravaged Livonian countryside to relieve the besieged garrison at Narva. After having trod the odd 200 kms due east, the Swedes faced a massive, at least in those days, Russian Army numbering somewhere between 35-38,000 encamped around the Swedish fort. Against these numbers the Swedes could muster somewhere between 10-12,000 men.

Never one to stand on ceremony Karl decided to throw himself at the Russians in a form of early blitzkrieg, by concentrating his troops on two points in the Russian lines. As the Swedes were about to attack a sudden and thick blizzard ensued, blinding the Russians. They couldn't see the Swedish advance until they were upon them. The Russian lines were breached in both points of attack and the roll-up of the lines resulted in chaos and havoc among the Russians who panicked and started to fold up.

In an attempt to flee across the Narova River, the bridge collapsed and many Russians drowned in the icy waters. The swift and fearless attack by the outnumbered Swedes led to a complete rout of the Russians who surrendered in vast numbers. The magnitude of the victory was only later realised when the march by of the defeated Russians took several hours. An epic victory!

... two down, one to go!

Following his plan to defeat the enemies, one by one, it was the turn of the Saxon/Polish forces, who in turn were besieging Riga. The Swedish duly marched on to Riga and pushed the Saxon/Polish army back ... and thence started the rat-race of Poland. A period of chasing an ever evading Saxon/Polish army, always slipping away before the Swedish could get to them. Some notable victories were claimed, notably at Klisczow, Fraustadt, Holowczyn ... but the Swedish just couldn't finish the Poles off ... meanwhile the Russians had resurfaced from the Narva-disaster and were gaining territory in Livonia and also taking Narva in the process.

The prolongued campaign in Poland seemed to lead nowhere allthough Stanislaw was made king instead of August II - so in theory ... three down - all out(?).

But the Swedes were ultimately forced to turn against the Russians again ... and somehow the Army strayed in 1709 deep into the Ukrainian plains.

In those days an army was like a swarm of locusts, eating and ravaging the territory wherever they marched. Poland had been utterly ravaged, sacked and looted during the long campaign and the need for "fresh" territory was imperative, thence the desperate campaign to Ukraine ... where they also hoped to join up with rebelling Zaporozhye-cossacks.

The long march ended at the small town of Poltava where the Swedes once again faced a vastly superior Russian force, well entrenched and with lots of artillery, while the Swedes were still waiting for theirs to catch up. Undaunted by the bad odds Karl trusted in his experience by throwing his men at the Russian lines ... a decision which would lead to a horrible disaster. The Swedish army was almost completely wiped out and what was left of it surrendered at Perevolotnja.

Karl XII fled to the Turkish allies and was stranded there for some considerable time. With the Swedish lion mortally wounded all the defeated enemies, mainly Denmark and Saxony/Poland raised their swords again at this moment of utter peril for the Swedish nation.

Denmark struck first by invading the territory of Scania, in 1710, a former Danish province. Under the brilliant command of Magnus Stenbock, one of the ablest Swedish commanders, the invasion was well and truly beaten off.

Now the triple-alliance were pressing hard into Swedish-held territories in northern Germany, taking many of the towns in the process. With a Danish army coming from the west and a strong Russian and Saxon/Polish army coming from the east, the same Stenbock decided to attack the Danish force before they could meet up with the others and in an epic Carolean victory defeated the Danes yet again at Gadebusch in 1712 ...

... a victory which was to be one of the last Swedish successes in this long and endless conflict.

Disaster struck at Tönning, the following year were the beleagured Swedish army had to surrender ... neglected by their King and also the inept War Council in Stockholm.

Despite horrible losses in men and material, still Karl XII would not give up the fight. After having returned from Turkey he immediately set about planning a new campaign ... to Norway(!). Considering the fact that Swedish Baltic territory was occupied, so too Finland, the King set about with the purpose of gaining Norway in a mindless effort to alter the course of the war.

Here the amateur historian makes his judgements!

Sweden was by population a quite small European nation. The armies built by Karl XI had been trained and disciplined to perfection which led to almost an endless run of victories during the early years of the war. One by one the enemies had been defeated tactically ... but not strategically. The successes on the battlefield may have blinded the stubborn King who refused to give in to the impossible odds stacked against him and he kept on calling for more men and material in the process ruining the country economically.

As the territories fell one by one, new plans emerged, new recruitments were called for, when there were almost none to have ... and above all the coffins had been long before emptied completely.

At this stage a normal politician/leader/king would have realised that it was time call it a day and sue for peace! Instead the King continued his pointless campaigns which would ultimately lead to his death at Fredrikshald (Norway) in 1718.

Still the war continued and a stricken nation had to suffer the indignity of seeing its coast ravaged and plundered by the Russian Navy from 1719 and onwards ... until the signing of the peace in 1721. Sweden as a major Baltic power had for once and for all been removed from the European continent, allthough it retained the eastern half of the kingdom - Finland.

Many are those who have praised the courage and tactical mastery of Karl XII, but as always it is always the strategically minded that win the wars.

The main criticism against Karl can be laid to some odd manouvres on the European continent, marching up and down Poland in vain efforts to catch up and defeat the slippery Saxon/Polish army. Voices have also been raised to why Karl didn't finish off the Russians after Narva? Perhaps this aspect is easily explained by the logistics of that time. Needing to feed an army, off the territory at hand. A winter campaign against the Russians may, quite probably, had led to disaster.

But why invade Norway in 1716 and 1718 when the enemies were in Finland and had occupied Swedish dominions in Germany? This beggars belief and in my simple way of thinking I can find no logical reason apart from the fact the King had been yearning for Norway for some time, but then again Karl was not a politician. He was simply a soldier and in this he managed to bleed his country completely dry, thus throwing away everything his ancestors had painstakingly built up during the previous centuries - and therefore the verdict is simple:

He was a reckless, not too strategically gifted king. Yes, he will for always be remembered for his daring and tactical guile but individual battles seldom decide a war (as predecessors like Napoleon and Hitler were to realise in later centuries). This is something also realised by that legendary military theoretic - Carl von Clausewitz! "War is only the continuation of politics by other means" ...

somewhere along the road Karl lost track of the goals, if there ever were any, and the war spiralled out of control along the way. Allies, trusted commanders, entire armies were all abandoned by the King in the most indifferent manner, and for a nation of Sweden's limited resources these were decisive losses, never to be redeemed!

- "The memory of Karl XII will forever be attached to the victory at Narva ... apart from that he lost the Swedish dominion of the Baltic"