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Hall of Military Commanders
Gustavus Adolphus
King of Sweden; 'father of modern warfare'; Breitenfeld
- 1594 – 1632
- Military Commanders · 9 of 10
Hall of Military Commanders
King of Sweden; 'father of modern warfare'; Breitenfeld
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Gustavus Adolphus (9 December [N.S. 19 December] 1594 – 6 November [N.S. 16 November] 1632), also known as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. He is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power (Swedish: Stormaktstiden). During his reign, Sweden became one of the primary military forces in Europe during the Thirty Years' War, helping to determine the political and religious balance of power in Europe. He was formally and posthumously given the name Gustavus Adolphus the Great (Swedish: Gustav Adolf den store; Latin: Gustavus Adolphus Magnus) by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1634.
He is often regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in modern history, with use of an early form of combined arms. His most notable military victory was the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631. With his resources, logistics, and support, Gustavus Adolphus was positioned to become a major European leader, but he was killed a year later at the Battle of Lützen. He was assisted in his efforts by Count Axel Oxenstierna, the Lord High Chancellor of Sweden, who also acted as regent after his death.
Coming to the throne at the age of 16, Gustavus Adolphus inherited three wars from his father Charles IX of Sweden: conflicts with Russia and Denmark–Norway, and a dynastic struggle with his first cousin, King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland. Of these, the Danish war was the most serious. During his reign, Sweden rose from the status of a Baltic Sea basin regional power to one of the great powers of Europe and a model of early modern era government. Gustavus Adolphus is known as the "father of modern warfare", or the first modern general. Gustavus Adolphus was the main figure responsible for the success of Swedish arms during the Thirty Years' War and led his nation to great prestige. As a general, Gustavus Adolphus employed mobile artillery on the battlefield, as well as very aggressive tactics, where attack was stressed over defense, and mobility and cavalry initiative were emphasized. He taught a number of other military commanders, such as Lennart Torstensson, who would go on to expand the boundaries and power of the Swedish Empire after Gustavus Adolphus's death. Spoils meant he became a successful bookraider in Europe, targeting Jesuit library collections.
His contributions to Sweden's rise in power included reformation of the administrative structure. For example, he began parish registration of the population, so that the central government could more efficiently tax and conscript the people. He is also widely commemorated by Protestants in Europe as the main defender of their cause during the Thirty Years' War, with multiple churches, foundations and other undertakings named after him, including the Gustav-Adolf-Werk. His involvement in the Thirty Years' War gave rise to the nickname "the Lion from the North".
Gustavus Adolphus was born in Stockholm on 9 December 1594, eldest son of Duke Charles of the House of Vasa and his second wife, Christina of Holstein-Gottorp. At the time, his cousin Sigismund was both King of Sweden and Poland. Charles engaged a prominent Swedish intellectual Johan Skytte as Gustavus's tutor. His studies included history, politics, law, military training and languages. These included the Swedish and German languages, as well as some Latin, French, Dutch and Italian. In 1599, his father, the Protestant Duke Charles fought a war against the Catholic King Sigismund III Vasa (King of Poland-Lithuania and Sweden) to abandon the throne of Sweden. This war was part of the preliminary religious strife before the Thirty Years' War, and reigned as regent before taking the throne as Charles IX of Sweden in 1604. Crown Prince Gustav Adolph had Gagnef-Floda in Dalecarlia as a duchy from 1610.
Upon his father's death in October 1611, a sixteen-year-old Gustavus inherited the throne although the Swedish Riksdag declared he could not formally be crowned King until he reached the age of 24. The Swedish Statesman Axel Oxenstierna acted as regent briefly until Gustavus was declared of age and able to reign himself at age seventeen in January 1612. He also inherited an ongoing succession of occasionally belligerent dynastic disputes with his Polish cousin, Sigismund III, who persisted in his effort to regain the Swedish throne. He also briefly assumed the title of tsar of Russia in the beginning of his reign.
Gustavus Adolphus inherited three wars from his father when he ascended the throne: against Denmark–Norway, which had attacked Sweden earlier in 1611; against Russia, due to Sweden having tried to take advantage of the Russian Time of Troubles; and against Poland-Lithuania, due to King Charles's having deposed King Sigismund III, his nephew, as King of Sweden.
The war against Denmark–Norway (Kalmar War), during which Gustavus Adolphus fought in minor military actions, — the victorious for Sweden Storming of Kristianopel and the unsuccessful Battle of Vittsjö, — was concluded in 1613 with a peace that did not cost Sweden any territory except for Älvsborg Castle, which Sweden had to pay to get back, but it was forced to pay a heavy indemnity to Denmark–Norway (Treaty of Knäred). During this war, Gustavus Adolphus let his soldiers plunder towns and villages, and as he met little resistance from Danish forces in Scania, they pillaged and devastated twenty-four Scanian parishes. His reputation in Scania has been negative because of these actions. The largest destroyed settlement was the town Væ.
The war against Russia (Ingrian War) marked Gustavus Adolphus's involvement in the successful Siege of Gdov and the failed Siege of Pskov and ended in 1617 with the Treaty of Stolbovo, which excluded Russia from the Baltic Sea.
The final inherited war, the war against Poland, ended in 1629 with the Truce of Altmark, which transferred the large province of Livonia to Sweden and freed the Swedish forces for the subsequent intervention in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, where Swedish forces had already established a bridgehead in 1628. In a round of this dynastic dispute, Gustavus Adolphus invaded Livonia when he was 31, beginning the Polish-Swedish War. In the course of it he won a victory at Wallhof, fought at Gniew, Dirschau, and suffered a defeat at Trzciana. In April 1627, he was made a knight of the Order of the Garter by King Charles I of England.
The electorate of Brandenburg was especially torn apart by a quarrel between the Protestant and Catholic parties. The Brandenburg minister and diplomat baron Samuel von Winterfeld influenced Gustavus Adolphus to support and protect the Protestant side in Germany. As a result of these negotiations, Gustavus Adolphus launched an invasion of northern Germany and Pomerania in June 1630, marking the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War. He had just 4,000 troops. He was soon able to consolidate the Protestant position in the north, however, using reinforcements from Sweden and money supplied by France at the Treaty of Bärwalde. Gustavus Adolphus intervened on the anti-Imperial side, which at the time was losing to the Holy Roman Empire and its Catholic allies; the Swedish forces would quickly reverse that situation. His occupation of Pomerania was carried out according to the Treaty of Stettin (1630). On 25 December 1630, he led an assault on Greifenhagen, resulting in the capture of the city.
After Swedish plundering in Brandenburg (1631) endangered the system of retrieving war contributions from occupied territories, "marauding and plundering" by Swedish soldiers was prohibited. Meanwhile, a Catholic army under Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly was laying waste to Saxony. Gustavus Adolphus met Tilly's army and won a decisive victory at the First Battle of Breitenfeld on 17 September 1631. At Breitenfield, Gustavus Adolphus led a larger force against the Imperialist army and made use of a combined attack of cavalry, well-disciplined infantry and the effect of the more numerous and more mobile Swedish artillery to break the Imperial lines. The battle established Gustavus Adolphus as the leading general of the Thirty Years' war and helped shape the narrative for a new period of definitive warfare, involving coordinated artillery attack. He then marched across Germany, establishing his winter quarters near the Rhine, making plans for the invasion of the rest of the Holy Roman Empire.
In March 1632, Gustavus Adolphus invaded Bavaria, an ally of the Emperor. He forced the withdrawal of his Catholic opponents at the Battle of Rain, marking the high point of the campaign. At Rain, Gustavus Adolphus led an army of 37,500 soldiers against a smaller army commanded by Count Tilly at a site near the Lech River. Tilly's forces were entrenched on the eastern bank of the river. Gustavus Adolphus ordered a sustained artillery bombardment and smoke as cover for his forces to cross the river, along with the use of a prefabricated temporary bridge. At the same time, the Swedish cavalry arrived on the eastern side, having crossed further to the south. Tilly was severely wounded while his army was attacked on both flanks and as a result, the imperial forces were devastated and subsequently retreated, giving Gustavus Adolphus a clear victory and enabling his army to invade Bavaria. Munich fell to his forces on 17 May 1632.
In the summer of that year, he sought a political solution that would preserve the existing structure of states in Germany, while guaranteeing the security of its Protestants. But achieving these objectives depended on his continued success on the battlefield. Some other military actions in the Thirty Years' War with Gustavus Adolphus at the head were: the victorious battles of Frankfurt an der Oder and Werben, the botched Siege of Nuremberg, the Battle of Fürth, and the unfavourable Battle of the Alte Veste. At Alte Veste, Gustavus Adolphus led some 56,000 troops to battle against some 70,000 Imperial and Bavarian troops but was defeated and forced to withdraw northwards.
Gustavus Adolphus is reported to have entered battle without wearing any armor, proclaiming, "The Lord God is my protector!" However, it is more likely that he simply wore a padded cuirass rather than going into battle wearing no battle protection whatsoever. In 1627, near Dirschau in Prussia, a Polish soldier shot him in the right side of the neck almost in his throat. The bullet made its way into the muscles above and behind his right shoulder blade. Though he was initially convinced the wound was fatal he survived, but the doctors could not remove the bullet, so from that point on, he could not wear iron armor and two fingers of his right hand were paralyzed. Gustavus Adolphus would suffer the effects of the wounds for the rest of his life. Among the minor effects were on his handwriting. Due to the bullet wound, the plate cuirass (normally worn by important officers at that time) was replaced by a buff coat made of moose hide, which would have serious consequences later. Among his innovations as a military commander during this time, he installed an early form of combined arms in his formations, where the cavalry could attack from the safety of an infantry line reinforced by cannon, and retire again within to regroup after their foray. Inspired by the reform of Maurice of Nassau, he adopted much shallower infantry formations than were common in the pike and shot armies of the era, with formations typically fighting in 5 or 6 ranks, occasionally supported at some distance by another such formation—the gaps being the provinces of the artillery and cavalry as noted above. His artillery were themselves different—in addition to the usual complements of heavy cannon, he introduced light mobile guns for the first time into the Renaissance battlefield. These were grouped in batteries supporting his more linearly deployed formations, replacing the cumbersome and unmaneuverable traditional deep squares (such as the Spanish tercios that were up to 50 ranks deep) used in other pike and shot armies of the day. In consequence, his forces could redeploy and reconfigure very rapidly, confounding his enemies. He created the modern Swedish Navy, which transported troops and supplies to the Continental battlefront. Pikemen could shoot—if not as accurately as those designated musketeers—so a valuable firearm could be kept in the firing line. His infantrymen and gunners were taught to ride, if needed. Napoleon thought highly of the achievement and copied the tactics. However, recent historians have challenged his reputation. B. H. Liddell Hart says it is an exaggeration to credit him with a uniquely disciplined conscript army, or call his the first military state to fight a protracted war on the continent. He argues that he improved existing techniques and used them brilliantly. Richard Brzezinski says his legendary status was based on inaccurate myths created by later historians. Many of his innovations were developed by his senior staff.
Gustavus Adolphus's politics also show progressive tendencies: for example, in 1631, in the conquered territory of Estonia he forced the local nobility into granting more individual rights to the commoners. He also encouraged education, opening a school in Tallinn in 1631, today known as Gustav Adolf Grammar School (Estonian: Gustav Adolfi Gümnaasium). On 30 June 1632, Gustavus Adolphus signed the decree for the foundation of Academia Dorpatensis in Estonia, today known as the University of Tartu.
Despite significant hardships for the common people, the period of Swedish rule over Estonia has been idealized in local folklore as the "good old Swedish times", which has been attributed to comparisons with the harder times that followed under the Russian rule.
On 27 August 1617, his speech before his coronation included the following statement:
I had carefully learned to understand, about that experience which I could have upon things of rule, how fortune is failing or great, subject to such rule in common, so that otherwise I would have had scant reason to desire such a rule, had I not found myself obliged to it through God's bidding and nature. Now it was of my acquaintance, that inasmuch as God had let me be born a prince, such as I then am born, then my good and my destruction were knotted into one with the common good; for every reason then, it was now my promise that I should take great pains about their well-being and good governance and management, and thereabout bear close concern.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Gustavus Adolphus”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.