Abstract
It is a historical truism that Sweden has always depended upon her capabilities at sea, military as well as commercial, and in terms of fishing. But what does that really mean? And how have different aspects of Sweden’s maritime history developed during the past 500 years? Such broad and complex questions are discussed in a new book, whose title translates as The Sea Route to Sweden, by some of the country’s most skilled maritime historians.
First of all, one has to understand that Sweden up to 1809 included Finland, and thus was a truly naval empire. A line drawn from Lake Mälaren via Stockholm, the Åland archipelago, and further on through the archipelagos of Åboland and the northern shores of the Gulf of Finland all the way to Viborg demarcated the central area of Sweden. It consisted to a large extent of water ways, to which parts of land (like today’s southern Sweden, Estonia or the region of Pomerania) during different periods of time were connected. Sweden was, just like Denmark, kept together by communications on water. Today’s Sweden, although still a maritime country, is kept together by railways and roads and is a totally different country. It is of fundamental importance to understand these circumstances if you want to understand Swedish maritime history. This is also mentioned very early in the book, but perhaps could have been stressed more frequently in subsequent chapters in order to make these fundamental facts clear for the general reader.
The book contains a dozen essays, each describing a particular aspect of Sweden’s maritime history. The first half gives basic information about the development of naval warfare, trade at sea, shipyards, fishing and passenger routes at sea. The second half of the book includes chapters about more specific aspects, such as the seamen’s wives, the use of tattoos, and the lobster-fishing industry. All in all, the book gives a broad perspective, as well as analyses in depth of the maritime history of Sweden, based on effective use of the most up-to-date research.
Most aspects of Sweden’s maritime history can, of course, only be understood as processes over a longer period of time, and as the result of interaction with other actors. If we look at the naval aspects of the history, nothing can be understood if we do not study the development of the naval policies of other local powers such as the Hansa, Denmark (with the establishment of Scandinavia’s first modern navy around 1500), Russia and Germany, as well of frequent ‘guests’ in the Baltic such as the British Royal Navy. And still, the foundation of a Royal Swedish navy can be very exactly dated to June 1522, when a handful of ships bought from Lübeck arrived in Swedish waters, and thus gave the country a maritime weapon with which to fight its arch enemy, Denmark. Very soon the navy was expanded with ships built, and crews recruited, in Sweden.
In a book like this the reader gets a large number of answers, but also focus on several fields of interest. If we stick to the naval matters it is obvious that Sweden, also during her Era of Greatness (ca 1560–1721), had her weaknesses. In 1680, the main naval base was moved from Stockholm to the newly founded city of Karlskrona in the south. The purpose was to get the navy closer (but not too close) to the Danish naval base in Copenhagen. But when the Great Northern War (1700–1721) broke out, a new enemy rose in the east: the Russian Baltic Fleet began to operate in the open sea in 1714–1715. Now parts of the Swedish navy, mainly the smaller units made for operations in shallow waters in the archipelagos, were moved to new bases in Stockholm and later also to the fortress Sveaborg, outside Helsinki. Thus Sweden’s naval resources had been split into three (or five if one counts Gothenburg in the west and the region of Pomerania in the south) areas of operations. Such a situation could not last forever, which was demonstrated in the collapse during the war 1808–1809 when Finland was lost to Russia.
With this background, it is easy to understand Sweden’s use of privateers as a way to reinforce the regular navy. The use of privateers in the Baltic and well as in the North Sea was frequent, especially during the 1560s, 1710s and the Napoleonic wars. Privateers are mentioned frequently in the book, but the broader pattern of their importance could very well have been stressed more clearly. With such a perspective, the close connection between traditional naval and commercial warfare becomes clear.
There are of course numerous ways to study the links between the naval and commercial sectors. For instance, during the Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-French wars during the second half of the seventeenth century, the number of Swedish commercial ships grew dramatically. The explanation for that is that numerous English ships tried to avoid the war by sailing under Swedish flag. In 1665, the number of ships under Swedish flag that passed through Öresund was 164, a number that increased to 591 in 1669. The commercial fleet of the small Swedish city of Stade – now in Germany – between 1666 and 1667 expanded so that the city became Sweden’s second largest port after Stockholm, whilst a large number of Dutch ships became ‘Swedish’.
From the seventeenth century to the twentieth, squadrons from the British Royal Navy were sent into the Baltic Sea to project London’s interest of power in the region. Sometimes it resulted in support to Denmark, sometimes to Sweden. The reasons were of course strategic, but not purely military or political: the value of the Baltic Sea region as a supplier of naval stores cannot be overestimated in the era of wooden sailing ships.
But is there a maritime activity which is definitively Swedish? The answer will be pleasure boats, a sector that has grown very rapidly during the twentieth century. Together with the small holiday cottage on the countryside, the pleasure-boat is a way for many Swedes not only to spend their holidays, but also more or less conscious a way to connect to a pre-urbanized Sweden. This is a large phenomenon; no fewer than 696,000 Swedish households are estimated to own around one million pleasure-boats.
To conclude: this book and most of its chapters gives a lot of valuable information, clear broader perspectives and also raises important questions. It does have weaknesses, but surprisingly few and of little significance. There are some minor errors of proofing both in the text and in the references, and as noted above some aspects of Swedish maritime history could have been given more attention. However, these are minor faults in an otherwise impressive book which would merit translation into English to allow it to access a wider audience, whether academic or the general reader.