Abstract
Sweden’s catastrophic defeat in the Great Northern War (1700–21) cured her of any wish to see monarchical autocracy restored. Unfortunately it did not cure the ambition of Sweden’s parliamentary rulers, the Hats, to meddle in continental affairs. The Hats decided to intervene in the Seven Years War on the side of France against Prussia and her intervention led to defeat and domestic turmoil that eventually led to the undoing of the parliamentary regime.1 Taking full advantage of his enemy’s predicaments the young king, Gustavus III, ended parliamentary rule through a bloodless coup in August 1772. Denmark and Russia, which had benefited from the chaos of the previous regime, threatened to attack Sweden to reverse the coup but France, Sweden’s long-term ally, stepped in to protect the fledgling ruler. Gustavus III, a warm admirer of France, became that country’s loyal ally and gave indirect support to France during the American War. In fact Gustavus III gave his support to the American rebels with the greatest reluctance since he feared that the American republican ‘contagion’ could spread to Europe via France.2
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Notes
Russell F. Weigley. The Age of Battles. The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo (Bloomington, 1991). 3–6, 8, 107–16, 120, 176–7, 305, 389, 536–7, 539–40
see Michael Roberts, The Swedish Imperial Experience 1560–1718 (London, 1979). Roberts’ study is probably the best short history in English on the subject.
See also Jeremy Black, European Warfare 1660–1815 (London, 1994). 3, 8–10, 69, 77, 93, 101–2, 114–17; DSH. Vol. VIII. 20–43, 303–5; DSH. Vol. IX. 174–5; Hatton. NCMH. VII. 339–47, 357; SUPH. II. 51–2, 58–9, 62, 66, 140–60, 163–4, 201.
Lydia Wahlström, Gustaf III och Norrmännen. Nordisk tidsskrift, XX (1907). 56–9
see Stewart Oakley’s ‘Gustavus Ill’s Plans for War against Denmark in 1783–84’, in Ragnhild Hatton and M.S. Andersson (eds), Studies in Diplomatic History (London, 1970). 268–86; SRE. 155–7, 165–70; SUPH. II 307–8, 311, 314, 317–18; Sandström. 129–67
Isabel Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (London, 1981). 401; GRK. 13.
SRE. 196–7, 201–2; Lolo Krusius-Ahrenberg, Tyrannmördaren C.F. Ehrensvärd (Stockholm, 1947). 108, 110–11, 113–15, 117–78.
James Chance, George I and the Northern War. A Study of British Hanoverian Policy in the North of Europe in the years 1709 to 1721 (London, 1909). 25–49, 58–73, 82–97, 116–30, 147–56, 185–276, 294–397.
Birger Steckzén, Svenskt och brittiskt (Uppsala, 1959). 213–15, 217–18, 224–7.
Sven Rydberg, Svenska studieresor till England under frihetstiden (Uppsala, 1951). 100–37, 139–343.
Staffan Högberg, Utrikeshandel och sjöfart på 1700-talet (Lund, 1969). 66–8, 72, 74, 78, 101–12, 108, 110–12, 123–6, 140–3, 145–6.
Michael Metcalf, Russia, England and Swedish Party Politics, 1762–1766. The Interplay between Great Power Diplomacy and Domestic Politics during Sweden’s Age of Liberty (Stockholm, 1977). 40–62. Metcalf gives an excellent account of the Great Powers’ play for influence in Sweden during this period.
Teofron Säve, Sveriges deltagande i Sjuåriga kriget, åren 1757–1762 (Stockholm, 1916). 5, 11, 110, 323, 358, 360, 442, 536–7, 559–60, 570.
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1991). 105, 118, 131
D. Ogg, Europe of the Ancien Regime (London, 1965). 92–3.
Franco Venturi, The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1768–1776. Vol. I (Princeton, 1979). 287–8; SRE. 54, 63, 250–2
Michael Roberts, Essays in Swedish History (London, 1976). Chapter 10. ‘Great Britain and the Swedish Revolution, 1772–3’. 299–300, 308–10; Black. 182, 270, 406–71; Blanning. 42.
Ehrman. 394; Holden Furber, Henry Dundas. First Viscount Melville, 1742–1811 (Oxford, 1931). 123
R. Coupland, The War Speeches of William Pitt the Younger (Oxford, 1940). 295–6.
PRO. FO 73/28. Talbot to Grenville 2, 9, 13, 16, 27 Jan. 1801; ibid. James to Grenville, 17 Jan. 1801; William Hunter, A Short View of the Northern Powers (London, 1801). 35–42, 45, 47, 55–67. Hunter, a skilled polemicist with some knowledge of the region, was especially contemptuous of the League but in terms of political aims as well as naval clout.
Duffy. 321; Ove Hornsby, Koloniene i Vest Indien (Copenhagen, 1980). 205–8
C. Northcote Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 1793–1815 (London, 1954). 44–5
Ole Feldbaek and Ove Justesen, Koloniene i Afrika og Asien (Copenhagen, 1980). 195. Sweden had acquired St Barthelemy in 1784 from France in return for a French depot in Gothenburg and despite initial disappointments with this small, barren desert island St Barthelemy was to prove a most valuable possession during the Napoleonic era.
Glyndwr Williams, The Expansion of Europe in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1966). 245–51; Fregosi. 217–25. These works make it quite clear that the Napoleonic War was not merely a European conflict but a world war
Desmond Gregory, Malta, Britain and the European Powers, 1793–1815 (London, 1996). 117–40. The ostensible reason for the outbreak of war was that Britain refused to hand back Malta to France as agreed at Amiens; Rose. II. 473–84 (11 Nov. 1802); RA. ESKB. IV Lagerbjelke to Engeström, 25 May 1803; Adlerbeth. II. 320; Jackson. 141–7 (June 1803); Simms. 81–111. Simms makes clear how Anglophobic Prussia’s policies were and how Berlin coveted Hanover primarily for the sake of the Electorate’s North Sea ports.
Olle Holmberg, Leopold under Gustaf IV Adolfs tid 1796–1809 (Stockholm, 1962). 10–19; Jackson. 129–30 (4 Mar. 1803); Carlsson. 47–9.
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© 2004 Christer Jorgensen
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Jorgensen, C. (2004). The Legacy: Anglo-Swedish Relations during the Eighteenth Century. In: The Anglo-Swedish Alliance Against Napoleonic France. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287747_1
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