Gustav II Adolf
King of Sweden

Military Achievements

Gustavus's excellent education, personal endowments, and early experience in affairs of state prepared him for his crucial role in Sweden and Europe. With the help of his great chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna, he insured internal stability by granting concessions to the turbulent nobility, and he terminated (1613) the Kalmar War with Denmark by buying off the Danes. This enabled him to undertake a successful campaign against Russia, which was forced to cede (1617) Ingermanland.

Gustavus at first stayed out of the Thirty Years War, which had begun in 1618. However, his resumption (1621) of the intermittent warfare between the Swedish and Polish branches of the house of Vasa led to his entry into that vast conflict. His primary objects in invading Poland were to consolidate Swedish hegemony over the Baltic by acquiring Polish Livonia and to reduce the threat posed by the Catholic Sigismund III of Poland to Swedish Protestantism.

The victories of the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II in the Thirty Years War soon caused the king to draw closer to the German Protestant princes. In 1628 he promised his aid to Christian IV of Denmark in the defense of Stralsund. In 1629, through the mediation of Cardinal Richelieu of France, he obtained the truce of Altmark with Poland, gaining a large part of Livonia and several good Baltic ports; a secret treaty with France promised a French subsidy if Gustavus entered Germany.

For the Protestant cause and also to gain control of the S Baltic coast, the king landed in Pomerania with 13,000 troops in 1630; these were soon augmented until 40,000 were at his disposal. Gustavus's invasion of Mecklenburg failed when the Mecklenburgers refused to heed his appeal to rise against the chief imperial general, Wallenstein, who was their new ruler. Early in 1631 the Franco-Swedish treaty was openly ratified at Bärwalde, and after the fall of Magdeburg, Saxony and Brandenburg accepted the king's conditions for an alliance with Sweden.

The spectacular sweep of the Swedish army through Germany then began. In Sept., 1631, Gustavus defeated the new imperial commander, Tilly, at Breitenfeld near Leipzig in the first Protestant victory of the war. He then marched west, reaching Mainz by Christmas, while the Saxon army moved into Bohemia. Resuming his campaign early in 1632, Gustavus returned east, defeated (April) the imperial troops at the crossing of the Lech (where Tilly was mortally wounded), and entered Bavaria. Wallenstein, reinstated as commander by the emperor, speedily put a large army into the field and forced the king to fall back to Nuremberg.

Wallenstein set up his camp at nearby, and the two armies remained facing each other for more than two months (July–Sept.) without doing battle. Finally Gustavus attacked Wallenstein's camp, but he failed and retired toward Würzburg, leaving a strong garrison at Nuremberg. Wallenstein then invaded unprotected Saxony, causing Gustavus to hasten north. At Lützen the two armies met on Nov. 16. The Swedes won the battle, but Gustavus was killed. Oxenstierna continued to direct Swedish policy under Gustavus's daughter, Queen Christina, while eventually Baner, and later Torstensson, took the king's place in the field.

Character and Influence

In military organization and strategy, Gustavus was ahead of his time. While most powers relied on mercenary troops, he organized a national standing army that distinguished itself by its discipline and relatively high moral standards. Deeply religious, the king desired his soldiers to behave like a truly Christian army; his stern measures against the common practices of looting, raping, and torture were effective until his death. His successes were due to this discipline, his use of small, mobile units, the superiority of his firearms, and his personal charisma. Although he was deeply interested in the internal progress of his kingdom, much of the credit for the development of Swedish industry and the fiscal and administrative reforms of his reign belongs to Oxenstierna.



Gustav II Adolf (also known as Gustaf Adolf den store or Gustavus II Adolphus) (December 9, 1594 – November 6, 1632 O.S.), widely known by the Latinized name Gustavus Adolphus and referred to by Protestants as the Lion of the North, was King of Sweden from 1611 until his death. He is the only Swedish king to be styled "the Great". He was born in Stockholm, the son of Charles IX of the Vasa dynasty and Christina of Holstein-Gottorp.

He was King of Sweden from 1611, and as such one of the major players in the Thirty Years' War. Gustav Adolf was married to the daughter of the elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, Maria Eleonora and chose Prussia's city of Elbing as base for his operations in Germany. He died in battle on November 6, 1632 at Lützen in Germany.

During his reign, Gustav founded the city of Gothenburg as well as a number of smaller cities. He is also the founder of the University of Tartu in Tartu, Estonia, which then belonged to the kingdom of Sweden. In this time, the three largest cities in the kingdom were Riga (currently the capital of Latvia), Stockholm and Tallinn (capital of Estonia).

Military commander

The Lion of the North—Gustavus Adolphus at the famous turning point Battle of Breitenfield (1631) against the forces of the redoubtable Count Tilly.As a general, Gustav is famous for employing mobile artillery on the battlefield, as well as a very active tactic where attack was stressed over defense and mobility more important than in the usual linear tactic. The musketeers (soldiers armed with a predecessor to the rifle known as a musket ) under his command were widely known for their shooting accuracy and reload speed, the best in the world at the time, trained to a rate-of-fire 3 times the amount of shots in a minute than that produced by any other comparable musketeer force in the world of the day. This is known as better Fire power in modern war college terminology.

This was only part of the reason why Carl von Clausewitz and Napoleon Bonaparte idolized him as one of the greatest generals of all time. His character both in consistancy of purpose and of amity with all his troops from commanding officers right down to the rank and file with whom he mixed easily as if another commoner, earned him unassailably documented fame which most commanders in chief would gladly accept as mere joking anecdotes.

The king was an active participant in the battles being prone to lead charges himself at crucial battle moments, and was wounded several times, including gunshot wounds to the neck, throat and the abdomen. His war wounds led the king to adopt a flexible armour of hide instead of the customary two part metal shell cuirass, and this is what he wore in the Battle of Lützen, because a musketball from years before was lodged in his neck near the spine and would be irritated causing extreme pain induced by a metal cuirass. Gustav's leather armour is currently on display in the Livrustkammaren at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

Gustav occasionally used the name Captain Gars, especially early in his reign, to travel Europe incognito, the only known king to actually indulge in this highly fictionalized act of self-denigration with the alleged purpose of studying and scouting the lands of friends and potential foe. Gars is derived from the initials of "Gustavus Adolphus Rex Sueciae", Latin for "Gustav Adolf King of Sweden". He was a highly enlightened ruler, and held the Swedish nobility on a firm leash supporting both the merchant and worker class against the nobility.

Gustav was killed at the Battle of Lützen where, at a crucial point in the battle, he was separated from his troops while leading a cavalry charge into a dense smog of mist and gunpowder smoke. After his death, his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg initially kept his body, and later his heart, in her castle for over a year. His remains (including his heart) now rest in Riddarholmskyrkan in Stockholm.


AutographIn February 1633, following the death of the great king, the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates decided that his name would be accompanied by an accolade and that his name was to be styled Gustav Adolf the Great (or Gustav Adolf den Store in Swedish). No such honor has been bestowed on any other Swedish monarch since.

The crown of Sweden was inherited in the family of Vasa, and from Charles IX's time excluded those Vasa princes who had been traitors or descended from deposed monarchs. Gustav Adolph's younger brother had died years ago, and therefore there were only females left. Maria Eleonora and the king's ministers took over the government on behalf of Gustav Adolph's underage daughter Christina of Sweden upon her father's death. He left two children of which we are aware: his illegitimate son Gustav, Count of Vasaborg, and his legitimate daughter and successor, queen Christina of Sweden.

Alternative View
The German Socialist Franz Mehring (1846 - 1919) wrote a biography of Gustavus Adolphus with a Marxist analysis of the actions of the Swedish King during the Thirty Years' War, claiming it had little to do with religion, (the official explanation), and everything to do with economics, (the Marxist explanation).

Timeline
July 1626 Gustav and his army were disembarked in Pillau Prussia during Polish-Sweden War of 1625-1629.
On 18 August 1627 the King was seriously wounded by a Polish soldier in the battle of Tczew.
May1630. Gustav lands with his army in Pomerania. On July 6 he lands in Germany.
September 1631. At the Battle of Breitenfeld, Gustav decisively defeats the Catholic forces led by Tilly, even after the allied Protestant Saxon army was routed and fled with the baggage train.
March 1632. At the Battle of Lech, Gustav defeats Tilly once more, and in the battle Tilly sustains a fatal wound.
April 1632. Battle of Rain.
May 1632. Munich yields to the Swedish army.
September 1632. Gustav attacks the stronghold of Alte Feste, which is under the command of Wallenstein, but is repulsed. This leads to defection of some mercenary elements in the Protestant army.
November 1632. The Battle of Lützen, Gustav is killed but the Swedes win the day and defeat Wallenstein. The Swedish war effort was kept up by generals Horn, Banér, Torstensson and chancellor Oxenstierna until the Peace of Westphalia.