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empire. Following the Christless Cross of Protestantism and
leading a professional army well-versed in the use of the latest
military technology, the 31-year-old king felt invincible invading
little Livonia, knowing his incursion would pour gasoline on the fires
of war raging across the continent. The king had nothing to lose but his
life: gloriously for his country and creed. |
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In the Catholic south the
Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian dynasty of the Hapsburgs arose before
the Reformation and consolidated its power from Hungary to Spain in
opposition to the new Protestant threat from the north sweeping across
Germany, Holland, Poland, Britain, and Scandinavia. Hapsburg princes in
Spain, Austria, Hungary, Portugal, and in parts of France and Holland
and the modern day Czech Republic led an aggressive Counter Reformation,
allied with Catholic nobility from some German states including Hesse,
Bavaria, Saxony, and the Palatinate. The pressures of the Reformation
vs. the Counter Reformation led to the Thirty Years War which consumed
much of Europe from 1618-48. |
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Already a
seasoned warrior in wars his father fought with Poland and Denmark,
Gustavus Adolphus showed great aptitude for military leadership. He saw
in the troubled times of Europe an opportunity for Sweden to gain
influence, power, and commercial wealth. In 1625, at the age of 31, he
seized the opportunity by leading his well-trained Swedish army on an
expedition into north Germany, Poland, and the Baltic States. Gustavus
Adolphus had evolved from brash teenager into Gustav Adolph the Great,
founder of the Swedish Empire. He became a great general, credited as
the developer of modern warfare, and served as a model for future
military greats from Napoleon Bonaparte to George Patton. He also
centralized Sweden’s government, coordinating internal and external
affairs from Stockholm. As a near dictatorial king, Gustavus Adolphus
held the final word on Sweden’s policies domestic and international. |
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Gustav Adolph the Great’s
military campaigns built Sweden’s power and influence, and enlarged its
treasury, too. Stockholm became the center of northern Europe, and the
Baltic Sea became a Swedish lake. Sweden’s far-reaching empire was built
on military power and on commercial enterprise, and both its power and
enterprise were dependent upon Sweden’s historical prowess as
shipbuilders and sailors. At a time when empires depended upon strong
navies, Sweden joined Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands as a
major naval power. And, like Spain, France, Britain, and the
Netherlands, Sweden established a large, modern merchant fleet to
connect and supply its far flung empire. |
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Sweden’s ambitious king wanted to outfit his navy with battleships featuring the latest technology in double-decked heavy cannon platforms that could dominate the Baltic with fierce, constant broadside firepower. He called for the construction of five new flagships of the realm, to be built in Stockholm’s shipyards under the direction of master shipbuilders imported from Holland. The first of these super ships would be the Vasa, to be gloriously decorated and armed to the teeth with two decks of the heaviest cannon available. Named after the king’s royal family, Vasa would be the pride of the nation like Henry VIII’s great warship Mary Rose had become the pride of Tudor England a century earlier. One of the largest wooden ships ever built, the Vasa was ¾ the length of a football field, and weighed 1,300 tons, and carried 64 guns, including 48 heavyweight 24lb cannons. (The Vasa was virtually identical in length, width, and tonnage of the last great wooden ship, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western, launched in Britain 210 years after the Vasa’s maiden voyage.) |
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sunk in water about 100 feet deep, shallow enough for the flags atop its
masts to wave above the waves. Although the catastrophe took place less
than 500 feet offshore, between 30-50 crew and passengers were trapped
and drowned inside the ship. |
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have to rely on its few, weak, outdated warships for months longer
during the height of Gustavus Adolphus’s Baltic campaign. |
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The king caught a break. He had wanted the great cannons and munitions raised from the sunken Vasa. But the technology did not then exist to salvage heavy weights from the murky harbor bottom. His fleet, decimated by the tiny Polish-Lithuanian combined navy (nine ships) off Danzig in 1627, would be of little help to him until it could be rebuilt. But in 1628 and 1629 the war turned inland, and the navies played only minor roles. And Gustavus Adolphus, developer of mixing infantry, cavalry, and artillery in fast, coordinated movements, proved to be the master of modern warfare on land, personally led his Swedish forces to victory over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led by his Catholic cousin Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland. By 1630 Sweden controlled |
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most of the Baltic, and began growing wealthy from its taxation on
foreign commerce. The Swedish Empire was a new reality. Soon, bolstered
by the consolidation of the small Polish-Lithuanian navy and the
addition of the four new (and slightly altered) Vasa-class super ships, the Baltic had become a
Swedish lake policed by the Swedish Navy. |
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The Thirty Years War
raged across Europe, with the Roman Catholic forces apparently winning
most of the battle against its Protestant foes. With newfound power,
wealth, and confidence Sweden’s Gustav Adolph the Great, the upstart
king from the north, now determined to take on the powerful Holy Roman
Empire—Europe’s largest “nation”. Sweden’s army introduced the forces of
the Protestant states of Germany (including Prussia) to the new tactics
of modern warfare it had used to win in the Baltic. The tide turned. By
the end of the Thirty Years War—in 1648—the Holy Roman Empire had been
reduced to irrelevancy, a third of its population dead, and Sweden
emerged as a great European power and the protector of Protestantism.
But for Sweden victory, riches, and empire came at a cost: King Gustav
Adolph the Great, “Lion of the North”, the ambitious king who created
the Swedish Empire was killed leading his celebrated cavalry in the
Battle of Lützen in eastern Germany. |
 But Sweden largely forgot the wreck of the Vasa. For about 325 years, that is. In the 1950s the old wreck was located and a recovery planned. In 1961 the Vasa’s skeletal remains plus many artifacts of the great ship emerged from Stockholm harbor. Since that time a sustained effort to stabilize and preserve the Vasa has challenged archeologists and conservators as have few projects anywhere. Now housed in a modern, purpose-built museum on the island of Djurgården, the massive hulk of the Vasa rests only a few hundred yards north where she had foundered almost 400 years ago. The tomb of King Gustav Adolph the Great lies a few hundred yards to the west. |
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Opened in 1990, Stockholm’s Vasa Museum has become the most popular museum in Scandinavia, averaging more than a million visitors annually for its first 19 years of operation. (The population of Stockholm is about 815,000.) Visitors come to see the remarkably complete Vasa, the world’s only preserved 17th century warship. Beyond the vast, hulking ship that dominates the open space of four floors of the museum in its constant 65°F, 55% humidity and dim, blue-black lighting, visitors discover a number of ancillary exhibitions: some detailing the problems of salvaging and preserving the Vasa, others telling the story of the |
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ship’s construction and maiden voyage, and others devoted to contemporary life in 17th century Sweden—a nation on the verge of its golden age. What is really preserved at the Vasa Museum is a key historic moment frozen in time: Western Civilization captured just as it was emerging from the cocoon of the Middle Ages and entering a modern age of nationalism, technology, and empire. To visit the Vasa Museum is to ride the world’s largest wooden sailing time machine back to 1628. The ride is thrilling, precarious, even dangerous. But the ride is an enlightening adventure, just like the remarkable reign of King Gustavus II Adolphus Vasa. |
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