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cahnAnd in this post:
-luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!
-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, andselenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!
-mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War
(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)
-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D
-
luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, and
selenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!-
mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)
-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 07:23 am (UTC)Bits and pieces to add: while Charles himself was sorely underestimated as a teen at the start, Swedish reputation for warrior awesomeness was actually still high in Europe from the preceding century due to Gustav "Lion of the North" Adolf having won battle after battle in the 30 Years War until he got himself killed at Lützen. Certainly in the German principalities Swedes were seen as the ultimate tough guys (and champions of Protestantism), while the Russians were Those Guys In The Back of Beyond. Until Peter "I WILL make my country into a modern European superpower!" I.
Isn't there some speculation about Charles' death? (I.e. whether the bullet killing him might not have come from the enemy but his own lot, really really REALLY tired of the warrior king by then?
Augustus: "I only abdicated because I was made to! It doesn't count! I'm still king!"
[Future MT to
LOL. I also can see why you want me to read a proper biography of the man. (That's not Pölnitz' "Sex life of August the Strong", err, I mean, "Galant Saxony", which has been on my to read list for a while.)
More seriously, in terms of whether abdications count or not, it's interesting to compare this with Philip in Spain, no? Granted, Philip's abdication in favor of his son had been his own idea, he couldn't have blamed this on anyone else. But still, in both cases, you have a monarch abdicating and later reassuming the same throne.
Maybe a reminder to
Peter the Great: "Ha! I am the real winner of this war."
Ghost of Charles XII: "Mildred still thinks I'm cooler, though."
Mildred and a lot of YouTube vidders, whose commenters are really annoyed Charles didn't win. BTW, I think the last is why Charles' impact on the public consciousness faded after his life time, and today he's not present in pop culture the way Fritz is. (Leaving aside the lack of a tragic decapitated boyfriend.) Now obviously you can lose in the end and still be very present on everyone's minds - say hello, Napoleon -, but there are certain storytelling patterns. The Fritz legend very much depended on him not just nabbing Silesia - this would have faded - but on surviving the 7 Years War against four other powers in a way that allowed him to declare victory. This fits with the "plucky underdog vs the big guys - and wins!" tale. (Never mind that plundered Saxony gets a coughing fit at "plucky underdog".) Napoleon's eventual loss didn't change his impact; in a negative way, he still made for a good moral good warning tale ("what happens to powermad dictators in the end!"), while for his admirers, the eventual loss only came to be because of so many opponents and didn't change the fact that he'd consolidated most of the changes of the Revolution and altered France for good in a way the restored Bourbons couldn't compete with. (See also: the Code Civil, not nicknamed Code Napoleon for nothing, being the basis not just for French but most European continental law from this point on.) For storytellers with a positive spin on Napoleon, he thus became the tragic hero brought down by a combination of circumstance and his own hubristic flaw. And the time between Napoleon overreaching himself with Russia and his defeat is short enough to fit storytelling demands.
With Charles, you have the problem that the "plucky underdog vs everyone else - and he wins!" phase is right at the start, and then the victory doesn't stay, thus confounding storytelling expectations. He doesn't really make a good tragic hero brought down by circumstance and his own flaws, either, because his downfall goes on forever, and his eventual death isn't even connected to his most prominent opponent. And he certainly doesn't make a satisfying "this is what happens to evil warmongers!" moral tale, because, again, there are so many years between Poltava and his death, and "hanging out five years with the Turks in style" certainly hasn't the same ring as "in exile on Elba and St. Helena".
Lastly, and to get back to Peter: I think one key difference between them, coolness or lack of same aside, was that Peter had ideas for Russia that went beyond war, though of course some of them needed war as means to an end. (And these ideas were more radically different from any previous Russian ruler and from most contemporary European rulers, with the notable exception of FW and his complete changeover of Prussia.) Whereas I haven't heard of Charles being interested in (and good at) any other aspect of being a King than military glory.
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 09:28 am (UTC)But also, I found a cool thing happening in Sweden in 1743!
Swedish government: *declares war on Russia and loses*
Swedish people: For fuck's sake, we just recovered from the last war! Also you're stopping us from trading with Norway and we have opinions on who should be the next king. *takes weapons from the army, marches on Stockholm with 5,000 men and invade the city*
Swedish government, to Russia: Uh, I know we were just at war with you, but maybe you could lend us some troops so we can defend ourselves against our own people?
Russia: Sure, no hard feelings! Have 12,000 soldiers!
Me: *boggles*
I just got that from Swedish Wikipedia, though, so do tell me if I got anything wrong.
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 01:04 pm (UTC)If they're dreaming of Sweden as a great military power, then why not choose some king who enlarged and held on to the territory?
You know, I was going to point to our Nazis marching at Rudolf Hess' birthday or death day or whatnot, at any rate at a Hess anniversary, and say you can never tell, because of all the Nazis to weave a cult around, Hess?!? But then I reconsidered. And now I have a new theory, based on something a great many people other than me have pointed out about the New Right. In particular, I remember a Brexit analyzing article about the mentality behind it, but you can just as well apply it to the (even more) extremists, and it's this: the appeal of picking Charles, and not, say, Gustav Adolf, or Rudolf Hess of all the people is that "we're the true persecuted victims, you're the evil oppressives!" has been a trademark along with the revelling in the military might. So the appeal lies in what one could call the "martyr" card or the "aggrieved lost cause" card. (Hess gets sold as a "martyr" by the current crop of Nazis because of his life long imprisonment in Spandau.) Karl can be a "martyr" and a military hero precisely because he got defeated and killed, and so your Nazis can feel they have something to avenge. Despite Gustav Adolf dying in battle, this is hardly something you can do with him, what with him being victorious all the time.
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 08:45 pm (UTC)Okay, more detail from Wikipedia. It seems that Sweden declared war in 1741 in league with French diplomats, partly to get back territory that they lost, but more to precipitate that coup you're talking about. Ah, okay, so that makes more sense out of the asking for troops--the regime they declared war on wasn't the same one as the one that lent the troops. But she still didn't give the territory back, which she had apparently promised to do.
Oh hey, and the guy the rebellious Swedish farmers wanted on the throne was the future Peter III.
So the appeal lies in what one could call the "martyr" card or the "aggrieved lost cause" card.
Ah! Yeah, that makes sense (and is of course part of the romanticizing of BPC, as well).
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 09:00 pm (UTC)the regime they declared war on wasn't the same one as the one that lent the troops.
The regime they declared war on would have been Anna Leopoldovna acting as regent for her son Ivan VI, on whom see more here and here. (Warning for tragedy.)
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 09:36 pm (UTC)Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-05 04:52 am (UTC)Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-01 09:56 pm (UTC)Only possible because we have over two years of context! I wouldn't have wanted to try this even a year ago.
while Charles himself was sorely underestimated as a teen at the start, Swedish reputation for warrior awesomeness was actually still high in Europe from the preceding century
This is very true! When the alliance was being formed, the idea among the other allies was that Russian soldiers would make good cannon fodder. No one took them seriously yet (and with good reason, although Peter the Great's tremendous personal energy turned things around faster than anyone realized).
Stanislas Leczyinski, in addition to being Charles' luckless puppet king, was also Louis XV.' father-in-law, so the French should, in theory, have had a vested interest in keeping him in power, and should have sent military aid once Charles had left the country.
Well, this is conflating Stanislas' two reigns. Charles left the country in 1708, when Louis XV hadn't even been born yet (1710). When Stanislas was Louis' father-in-law (starting in 1725) and they should have sent (more) military aid was during the War of the Polish Succession (starting in 1733). But Poland was far away, France was more interested in the Rhineland and northern Italy, and as far as intervention in Poland was concerned, France concentrated on the diplomatic side, trying to get the much closer principalities of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to intervene against Austria, but in vain. And so Stanislas lost the same throne for the second time.
Émilie died in Lorraine. *sob*
Sob. :(
And thank you for drawing the connections for
LOL. I also can see why you want me to read a proper biography of the man.
I do, I do! But don't use one of your precious Stabi slots; I've ordered a physical copy, which will arrive at some point.
(That's not Pölnitz' "Sex life of August the Strong", err, I mean, "Galant Saxony", which has been on my to read list for a while.)
Read this one too!
Lastly, and to get back to Peter: I think one key difference between them, coolness or lack of same aside, was that Peter had ideas for Russia that went beyond war, though of course some of them needed war as means to an end.
Yes, agreed. Charles was extremely focused on winning his war without losing any territory. Had he pulled an MT and conceded some territory and tried to get it back later, maybe things would have turned out differently. But trying to fight all your enemies for two decades without a breather is hard, both to pull off a victory and to get anything else done.
Whereas I haven't heard of Charles being interested in (and good at) any other aspect of being a King than military glory.
Charles XII would like to point out that unlike Peter the Great, he had less incentive to worry about domestic affairs, since he actually inherited a modern country in good shape. His father (Charles XI) was like a kinder, gentler FW: interested in peace so he could build up a well-administered kingdom with an efficient army and well-stocked treasury to leave his son. But minus all the crazy and the abuse.
Fritz: Fame for wars or for domestic affairs? Por qué no los dos? :P
The Great Northern War and the Spanish Succession: 1708-1709
Date: 2021-11-03 09:43 pm (UTC)In 1708, when Charles leaves Poland, Louis XIV is in the middle of the War of the Spanish Succession, and it's not going well. Had he wanted to get militarily involved in the Great Northern War, he would not have been in a position to do so, for:
1704: Loses the battle of Blenheim to Marlborough.
1706: Loses the battle of Ramillies to Marlborough.
1708: Loses the battle of Oudenarde to Marlborough.
1708: Loses the siege of Lille to Marlborough, opening the way to Paris for the Allies.
1709: Has to withdraw his troops from Spain, leaving Philip V to fend for himself.
1709: Loses the battle of Malplaquet to Marlborough, but through the strategic victory, at least manages to keep Paris from being sacked and to eventually demand better peace terms.
1709 is when the Allies start getting so punch drunk that they start demanding Louis make war on his grandson Philip V in Spain so that MT's dad future Charles VI can be Charles III of Spain. Louis' refusal to do that is what brings on the battle of Malplaquet. Which is fought just two months after Peter the Great ends Charles' invasion of Russia at Poltava.
Remember, the Great Frost of 1708-1709 plays a role in why Louis, in early 1709, decides to explain himself to his starving subjects for once and justify the decision to continue fighting, and, at the same time, the Great Frost plays a role in why Charles' army is so decimated over in Russia. There's a whole lot of important stuff happening at the same time.
In another post, I'll talk in more detail about how several of Charles' decisions were affected by the War of the Spanish Succession.
Re: The Great Northern War and the Spanish Succession: 1708-1709
Date: 2021-11-05 05:05 am (UTC)The King's Death: Murder or an "Honest Enemy Bullet"?
Date: 2021-11-01 11:15 pm (UTC)Yes! Hatton devotes an entire chapter to it. I repurposed its title as the subject of this post. Fortunately, we have his body, and his body was exhumed and pictures taken of his skull in 1917 to try to solve this very mystery.
Here's his death mask (not actually cast on his face, though) and his skull.
After discussing the layout of the fortifications and the documentary evidence for the politics and personalities of the usual suspects, she concludes that it was an enemy shot. But there's one more sticking point: the whole question hinges on whether his wounds were entering by a bullet from the left (enemy) or right (friendly fire). As you can see in the picture, the big wound is on the left, and the small wound on the right.
According to Hatton, a *lot* of experiments were performed on living animals and human corpses to try to reproduce these wounds. And the big problem was that no one, with any calibre of shot, was able to get a larger entrance wound and a smaller exit wound. So people kept going, "Assassination!" because it was so much more exciting than "If you're at a siege, in a trench, under fire, and you stick your head out and keep it there for several minutes, you might get shot."
Until one scholar realized that Charles XII might very well have been wearing the felt cap that was part of the Swedish uniform. And only by putting a felt cap and buttoning down the brim in Swedish military style was he able to get this exact pattern of large entrance wound and small exit wound.
Hatton argues that Charles, after spending eighteen years in uniform (unlike Fritz, he was on campaign his whole life, and really does seem to have lived in uniform), he would automatically have buttoned it according to regulations (and unlike Fritz, he was a very neat and tidy person) without even thinking about it. So assuming he had a hat on that night, and it was December in Norway, the wounds are consistent with enemy shot.
Re: The King's Death: Murder or an "Honest Enemy Bullet"?
Date: 2021-11-02 06:07 am (UTC)Re: The King's Death: Murder or an "Honest Enemy Bullet"?
Date: 2021-11-02 06:58 pm (UTC)Re: The King's Death: Murder or an "Honest Enemy Bullet"?
Date: 2021-11-05 05:26 am (UTC)According to Hatton, a *lot* of experiments were performed on living animals and human corpses to try to reproduce these wounds.
OMG. Clearly this was a different time :P
Abdications
Date: 2021-11-03 08:35 pm (UTC)Yep! We also have Victor Amadeus II, in 1730, whose biography I now own a copy of and need to digitize. And I recently discovered Ivan the Terrible abdicated twice voluntarily and reassumed the throne. But I think perhaps he was not Philip V's role model. :P
FW: not the worst royal dad!
Famous 19th century painting of Ivan realizing he's killed his son.
Carolean reforms
Date: 2021-11-03 08:56 pm (UTC)He missed his chance to do something really good! Because he was in Turkey a few years before Lady Mary (he left in 1714, she arrived in 1717), and he also noticed the lack of smallpox deaths and scars, and he paid a lot of money for a copy of a manuscript on the inoculation method. But Hatton doesn't mention anything coming of it, so I assume that he was too busy killing people to make saving lives a priority. You go, Lady Mary!
Other than that, he was responsible for various
boringpragmatic reforms, like canals and trade and mining and whatnot, but his father had done most of the work already, and he isn't famous for really big reforms.As
Hilariously, there was another narrow miss that might have been even worse. He was super into math and was apparently extremely good at it (another way in which he's Fritz's opposite), and he liked to visit universities and chat with the math professors. At one point, he was trying to convince them that base 8 or base 16 notation was superior to base 10, because you can divide further without ending up in decimals so quickly.
Now, I, who work with computers, am the first to admit that base 10 arithmetic has its disadvantages. But so does having your calendar and your arithmetic notation out of sync with all your neighbors! 18th century Europe had enough problems with everyone using different units and different calendars without adding base 8 arithmetic into the mix!
So perhaps fortunately for early 18th century Sweden, this did not get turned into a reform. But it would have been interesting to see. :P
The Sumerians, btw, used base 60 precisely because so many numbers go evenly into it. He's not wrong. It's just...there are communication aspects to your mathematical choices.
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-05 04:47 am (UTC)Stanislas getting Lorraine was why Émilie, Voltaire and Lambert spent time at his court and Émilie died in Lorraine. *sob*
Oh, riiiiight! It is nice to know that sometimes the two people named Stanislas actually ARE the same person, I have started assuming that when two people have the same name they probably aren't :P
but there are certain storytelling patterns.
Oh, this was a fascinating analysis, thank you!
Lastly, and to get back to Peter: I think one key difference between them, coolness or lack of same aside, was that Peter had ideas for Russia that went beyond war, though of course some of them needed war as means to an end. (And these ideas were more radically different from any previous Russian ruler and from most contemporary European rulers, with the notable exception of FW and his complete changeover of Prussia.) Whereas I haven't heard of Charles being interested in (and good at) any other aspect of being a King than military glory.
Not gonna lie, the story about St. Petersburg made me more interested in Peter rather than less, and Charles not being interested in much else besides the military, well, okay, there is a lot of coolness factor in there, but IDK if he has staying power as a problematic fave for me :) (We'll see, though! He's definitely fascinating to read about!)
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-05 10:23 am (UTC)Well, that's good, because I have a Pulitzer-winning prize biography for you for Christmas! Just let me know when you have time to read a new book, and I'll gift it to you. (And Zweig!)
I find Peter very interesting to learn about, never a dull moment, but he doesn't push my feels buttons. Whereas I have a *thing* for career generals, have several faves there. I admit Peter is more interesting and three-dimensional for the average person who doesn't have a thing for career generals. :P
Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-05 11:08 am (UTC)Re: The Great Northern War: Overview
Date: 2021-11-05 02:18 pm (UTC)(I admit my love for Hannibal is based on 19th century scholarship that I later found out may have been outdated, but I don't care. I still love Hannibal, which I justify by remembering that all my generals are just fictional representations in my head anyway. :P)