Addendum re: Sweden - one big reason for it's military superpower status at the start of the 18th century lies in the Thirty-Years-War, which ended mid 17th century and which changed so much for European history. Incidentally, Mildred, I know it's not your medium, but there is a pretty good docudrama miniseries Das Eiserne Zeitalter which I've watched in recent weeks on Amazon Prime, a French-German coproduction which introduced me among other things to the fact we have the diaries of a mercenary from the Thirty Years War, Peter Altendorf. He was one of the few who could read and write, and he survived the entire war. He himself as a Lutheran but mostly served in Catholic armies. The diary won't be able to explain to you the big picture, but if you want to read something about the day to day life, then, going by the excerpts, it's ideal.
Anyway: the first Northern European country to intervene in the 30 Years War on the Protestant side was Denmark, which was soundly beaten, but then the Swedes showed up, and their King Gustav Adolf was one of those hardcore military talents who came this close to conquering his way all the way to Vienna. (Wallenstein could then distract him not by defending Vienna but by scouring Saxony (allied to Gustav Adolf), which also threatened to cut him off from his supply lines, so the Swedes had to turn back. Gustav Adolf later died in battle, undefeated unlike Charles XII later, but he died. This didn't mean the Swedes left the war, though. By the time the war had ended Sweden had gone from also ran to top European power, definitely one of the most feared military powers, with a large say so in trade. Bear in mind that Sweden itself, the territory, had seen no battle, since most of the war took place in the HRE, i.e. mostly, though not exclusively, the German speaking principalities. And it had been so brutal and devastating that a third of the population was gone, most cities were at least partly damaged and had to be rebuild. You may or may not recall the Great Elector of Brandenburg (FW's grandfather) spent years as a child in Küstrin because it was one of the few fortresses his parents deemed safe. One reason why both FW and Fritz actively advertised for settlers was that the population was still recovering, even in the next century, from the long term effects of the 30 Years War devastation. Trying to get territory from Sweden, which had immensely profitted in terms of finances, power and economy from the same war, also falls into that larger context.
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Re: The Great Northern War
Date: 2021-06-20 12:27 pm (UTC)Anyway: the first Northern European country to intervene in the 30 Years War on the Protestant side was Denmark, which was soundly beaten, but then the Swedes showed up, and their King Gustav Adolf was one of those hardcore military talents who came this close to conquering his way all the way to Vienna. (Wallenstein could then distract him not by defending Vienna but by scouring Saxony (allied to Gustav Adolf), which also threatened to cut him off from his supply lines, so the Swedes had to turn back. Gustav Adolf later died in battle, undefeated unlike Charles XII later, but he died. This didn't mean the Swedes left the war, though. By the time the war had ended Sweden had gone from also ran to top European power, definitely one of the most feared military powers, with a large say so in trade. Bear in mind that Sweden itself, the territory, had seen no battle, since most of the war took place in the HRE, i.e. mostly, though not exclusively, the German speaking principalities. And it had been so brutal and devastating that a third of the population was gone, most cities were at least partly damaged and had to be rebuild. You may or may not recall the Great Elector of Brandenburg (FW's grandfather) spent years as a child in Küstrin because it was one of the few fortresses his parents deemed safe. One reason why both FW and Fritz actively advertised for settlers was that the population was still recovering, even in the next century, from the long term effects of the 30 Years War devastation. Trying to get territory from Sweden, which had immensely profitted in terms of finances, power and economy from the same war, also falls into that larger context.