USAHawk785
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It is a map of the peak extension of Sweden, not neccessarily all at the same time.
Gustavus Adolphus and Charles X create the "Greater Power of Sweden" (Stormakten), but Charles XII lost it.
Charles XI is much less known, but he created the formidable army, used by Charles XII.
Swedish Army manual only contained chapters on attack, so when phased with 3-4 x size Russian Army,
and wet gunpowder at Poltava (according to some memoirs, they tried to ambush some Russians
the day before, but the lead balls dropped to the ground after about 20 meters, when they fired their muskets).
they went for the attack.
First they split up the army into two wings, and tried to sneak past some Russian redoubts early in the morning.
Didnt bring any artillery to be more quiet.
Unfortunatly, the commander of the left wing, misunderstood the order, and
tried to take the first redoubt. Due to surprise, this was not a big issue.
He then tried to take the second redoubt, and this caused significant losses,
but eventually, this also succeeded, so he went for the third (there were five).
Everything would have been OK, except for a minor problem, he ran out of soldiers.
The right wing, with the King managed to slip past the redoubts and formed on the west end of
a field, while waiting for the right wing of the Army. This of course never appeared,
so it was decided the infantry would do a bayonet charge vs the Russian lines bristling with artillery.
Even though the Russians was outnumbering them greatly, and the field was ~1km wide,
the charge went home, and the Russians were reeling back,
but then the right wind also ran out of soldiers, and the rest of the day
is not counted as a fairy tale in Sweden.
See:
* "Pickets Charge at Gettysburg"
* "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
* "The Advance of the Imperial Guard at Waterloo"
A truly glorious military history. Personally, I have a lot of respect and interest in Swedish military history. Sometimes I wonder how history would have faired had the Kalmar Union remained united. A unified northern power in the Baltic could have influenced the Holy Roman Empire to the south, perhaps even consolidated some northern German States and even territories beyond Riga.
Who knows, perhaps Poland would have been consolidated.
Addendum: Had King Gustav Adolphus lived, the history of Sweden would have been different. IMHO, he was taken too young...
One of the interesting novelties introduced was the cavalry charge.
some people claim that the Kiev kingdom of Rus was created by Swedish Vikings.
Indeed they were.
The First King of Kievan Rus was , indeed, a Viking. His name was Yaroslav the Wise (Norse name was: Jarizleifr).
His baptism marked the conversion of the entire Kievan Rus into Orthodox Christianity.
The first King of the proto-Russian Kingdom was not a slav, but a Norseman, a son of a Varangian Lord.
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