It's cold outside: A tale of Sweden

Five years had passed since the arrival of herr Magnus, and neither death nor taxes were avoided. (old miner Sten, at nearly sixty years of age passed away during the winter) From the south came tales of duke Heinrich of Hannove,r how in his war with the king of Denmark he had taken the cities of Lübeck and Bremen for his own, almost breaking the power of the Hansa and causing king Hans no end of toruble, before the Emperor Himself interevened. Emperor Reneé called upon all the mighty lords of his realm to punish duke Heinrich, pommeranians and saxons, hessians and austrians, they all quickly humbled the hannoverians. Bets were made if duke Heinrich, now being called "The Rash" would even outlast the year, only the fact that the saxons and the danish allies in pommerania did not see eye-to-eye seemed to have preserved him this far.


In the end, Olav the Norwegian made a handsome sum of the betting, for duke Heinrich's lands were divided among the Pommeranians, the Hessians and the people of Münster.

More troublesome than these faraway wars were the squabbles between king Hans and herr Sten. Although there was little fighting to be mentioned herr Magnus always seemed to have a list of new taxes for that purpose or other, at some meeting at Kalmar herr Sten had been forced to acknowledge Hans' rule and the succession of his sons, almost immediately he went back on his word. (Which was it agreed, was no way for a knight to act) This caused some confusion among the miners and apparently even more in other parts of the country, no less becuase taxes were levied for war, not against King Hans but against the schismatic Muscowites. The miners agreed that the plan must be for Herr Sten to make amends for his oathbreaking by making an of God sanctioned crusade against the schismatics.

Constant delays and confusion plagued the build-up for the war, and it would not be until the year 1501 that it finally started. The miners noticed this, becuase a big man in rich clothes came to the mines to ask for soldiers.

"This." The man in the fancy clothes said: "Is the will of God! I am a Bishop, I know these things, thosw who fight against the schismatics will earn salvation! I know that many of you here are poor souls, sinners tarnished by crimes against God and Man. For crimes against Man you are protected by the peace of the Mountain, but what of your sin against God? Only by joining in this fight can you hope to cleanse yourself!"

Many miners agreed that this seemed reasonable, and at any rate many were bored with the dreary works in the mines. Among those who signed up with bishop Hemming was Måns Persson, who would soon be thirty years old.

The war would last for ten long years. Although Måns would not live to see the end of it.

To call the conditions of the border between Finland and Muscowy "peaceful" would be wrong no matter the year or period, the area was a huge desolate wilderness, populated by all sorts of existences who preferred a life beyond the reach of law, be it that of the King of Sweden or the Grand Duke of Muscowy. Conditions had been especially bad since the Muscowites liquidated the City-State of Novgorod, as despite their impressive army they seemd to fail to police their borders....

It was a raiding band from russian Karelia that started the war, only later, after the crusade had been declared, papal approval secured and the army begun it's march on the russian forts near the border did the swedes realize the band was in fact composed of simple brigands and not, as was believed, the prelude to an invasion. Once the sordid business of war was started however, it proved remarkably hard to stop. Along with Sweden stood the stalwart Knights of the Teutonic order. Arrayed against them the armies of Muscowy.

The first three years consisted of raiding, mostly, as both the muscowites and allied forces tried to take as much territory as possible and then retrating before the snows. Most of this became merely writing in water, as soon as the swedes retreated the russians would arrive to "retake" their territories.

In 1503 however, this changed, bishop Hemming Gadh and his army managed to catch the russian stronghold of Kexholm by surprise, slaughtering the garrison and raising the blue-and-yellow above the castle. This alarmed the muscowites, and as their pressure to the south had been relieved by a danish declaration of war against the Teutonic Order they could set their entire army into motion towards Finland.

Led by their brilliant commander Mikhail Glinsky the forces of Muscowy, some 50,000 man strong, first drove the swedes from Kexholm and then surrounded and slaughtered Hemming's six-thousand men at the battle of Savolax. The finnish winter proved no more hospitable to russians than the russian was to swedes however, and although the fortress at Viborg fell the russian army froze to death in the winter snows.

Måns was one of the few who survived the disaster at Savolax. A friendly fisherman offered to take him to Stockholm, where he promptly signed up again: The Pope, disturbed by the success of the Muscowites had declared a special fund to be set aside to support the "crusaders". Herr Sten put the Holy Father's money to good use, raising four thousand knights and eight thousand infantry for the next spring offensive, it was among these men that Måns could be found, as they once more marched through the thawing snows towards the russian fortresses.

By surprise assaults Kexholm and Ivangorod fell, through brilliant manuevering the swedes were even capable of taking Novgorod by surprise. It was during this battle that Måns Persson, born in Småland and for most of his life a miner, died. As the troops stormed the walls of wintery Novgorod, Måns slipped broke through the ice-covered moat and drowned.

The war would end well for Herr Sten however, with Novgorod in swedish hands the russians felt no eagerness to fight on: The fortress of Kexholm was ceded to the Riksföreståndare.

This however, did not aid poor Måns in his cold, watery grave.

CatKnight said:

I wonder if that bishop who dragged Mans into the war was so eager to die for good.

So...this papal fund. Loan?

Click to expand...

Gift to the state

"It has been a long time since we last met." Said Erik Svensson to his brother.
"But I swear! I did not expect to run into you here of all places!"

"Here" was a small tavern in Berlin, a place for travellers to rest, its' unassuming interior was a place for modest merchants or other travellers of small means to rest and refresh themselves.

"Nor I you brother." answered Henrik Svensson. Truth to be told the two brothers would probably not be taken as such: Erik, the elder, was a rotund man in his 50's, dressed conspiciously in this modest place in the decadent fashions of the south: All silks and satins and upon his head a turban, he had been the object of much gawking and staring ever since he entered the city.

His brother on the other hand would draw little attention, just one of many battle-scarred soldiers loitering at the edges of things awaiting the next war. More scared than most but less than many, Henrik had in his service lost an eye, three fingers on his right hand and one of his left, his face was marked by the pox and he lacked several teeth, all in all an unremarkable soldier.

"As you remember," continued Erik "I was working with a few fellow traders plying the route between Genoa and Paris when fancy struck me that I should make an attempt to "deliever" some goods to the besieged Venetians (they would pay premium for foodstuffs naturally) as you might remember the Venetians had lost most of their Empire, their "Quarter of a quarter of the Roman Empire" to the Welsch, the English and the Knights of St. John not too long ago. Now they had somehow come into dispute with his majesty the Emperor in his capacity as King of Spain...."
"Really?" Henrik answered "Must have been some good fighting, Venice is a good place for loot or so I have heard."
"Well, yes, yes. That may be the case. At any rate I had barely arrived before I was reached by the news of the fall of the City, you see, while the Spaniards were besieging Venice the ottoman sultan, bold as brass, sailed his fleet into the lagoon and stormed the city, with the spaniards outside watching as the Lion of St. Mark was repalced by the Crescent...."
"The Heathen took Venice?"
"Yes, but as you might recall "The Heathen" was now surrounding by angry spaniards, the arrival of a spanish fleet further complicated things, until you see, my shipment of Grain from Paris arrived...."
"You fed the Grand Turk!?"
"At a handsome profit too my brother! Well, more than that in fact, I stayed for quite a while to organize the supply of the city, the Sultan showevered me with riches and as you can see I am well off for it! Now I am heading back towards Stockholm to finalize some trade-deals.... But let's not dwell on that, what happened to you?"


After the sultan's venetian coup the Turks now directly threatened mainland Italy.

"Well, you heard about Gustav Eriksson?"
"No."
"Well, he's the king now. Back home I mean."
"Interesting. So how did he become king of Denmark?"
"Oh, he's not king of Denmark. Just Sweden."
"Really? How in God's name did that happen?"

"Well, you see, some danes cut off the head of his fathers and then he rallied the miners and made an alliance with the Hansa and he kind of took over, not too interested in politics."
"Oh, but you should be, you should be. This is absolutely fascinating, do go on."

"Well, you know Luther?"
"The german preacher that has caused such a stir, yes."
"Well, there is this little git of a priestling, Olaus Petri, one of Luther's students or so, well, he came back after listening and was all convinced, so he somehow convinced the king that it'd be a good idea to follow this Luther bloke, well, I reckon' the king doesen't give a fig's leaf about religion, but you see he can smell a business opportunity ten miles away, ans so he used this new religion o' Petri's to confiscate all o' the Church's lands...."
"A sound proposition. I assume the peasants didn't take this very well?"
"God no! There were a bunch o' Revolts, but the king 'e sent missionaries and now they're all praying in swedish and all..."
"Praying in swedish?"
"One o' this Luther's new-fangled ideas."
"What a quaint idea! Well, that didn't tell me anything about what you've been up to..."
"I'll be coming to that brother, you see, Just after dis' happened the King o' Denmark figured G. waz gettin' uppity, so he declared war on us.... You see, when he did that I figured that Denmark's a good place for lootin', so I joined the army..."
"Well, that I could almost guess."
"We managed to run the danes outta' Skåne & take Gotland, bloody big island Gotland, then we crossed the Sund under t' protection o' the Navy.... Gustav's gone built himself one you see. Or bought one. Cannae' remember. Well, we stormed Copenhagen an' I managed to loot some mighty fine tapestries from the castle, I gave them to mum so if you see here you'll have to ask her to show them to you..."

The Assault on Copenhagen
"She still lives then?"
"Yes, eighty years old and healthy as an apple, well, anyway them danes weren't too good fighters: I reckon that bein' 'cuz they gone an' drafted poor farmboys who dinnae' wanna' fight while we were gettin' free men who wanted to loot things.... Well, anyway we marched around a bit and fought a few battles, got a rapier through my tigh but it healed allright, then we went to Norway and fought for a while.

The siege of Kristiania
The fighting there was pretty good, but I lost two of my fingers over the winter from the cold, and the last missing one was bitten right off by this crazy norwegian buggerer. I had to stab him in the eye before he'd stop chewin'...."
"The ways of war are savage indeed."

Gustav Vasa's centralization reforms greatly improved the fortunes of the swedish state.
"Dat's right. Well, just as the fightin' was gettin' good king Gustav decided to act all friendly with them german blokes, so lots of new taxes n' stuff was done. But then we were too busy fightin' to notice. In the end I stepped on a ship an' sailed to Iceland...."
"Iceland!? That must have been Cold!"
"Naw, Greenland was worse.... Well, at any rate we attacked Iceland

And after that the danes were kinda spent, so them bigwigs got down to talking and they decided that Jämtland & Gotland & Skåne & this little shithole on Greenland would belong to Sweden from now on, (which means that if we ever feel like invadin' Denmark again we just have to nip across the Sound to sack Copenhagen)

Sweden after the first danish-swedish war.
"Well, after that I kind of started going south in search of a new job. Denmark was kind of ruined by us and the King wasn't looking for any new wars at the time, so that's how I ended up here."
"Well, good that you did." Erik smiled. "It has been good to see you again brother! Those bits of you still attached that is!"