No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
AFAIK, even in the XVIII stroke did not necessarily mean immediate death but he is definitely out of circulation as a ruler.
Edit: It would be close to impossible for Charles to make peace with Frederick after he started two wars and now is being labeled as the main driving force behind the Big Foolish War. Dealing with a regency seems much more secure.
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Especially as the members of regency are mediocrities and reasonable people. They're not going to continue the war.
BTW just tell or PM me, for changes to the map.
Diplomacy
62. Diplomacy
By the reason of its own a malicious Supreme Artificial Intellect (or just a byproduct of a sloppy software development) which is hiding somewhere inside of my i-pad arbitrarily changing what I wrote and deleting the pieces of sentences or even the whole paragraphs decided that it will be much more intriguing to cut off the end of the last sentence in a previous chapter making it into enigmatic “Fall of Fredericia was the last straw for Frederick IV”. Of course, with a benefit of a hindsight, I must to admit that this leaves me with a wider than intended range of the options:
“… and he ordered a mass execution of <the military commanders/his ministers/all newspaper publishers, etc>.”
“… and he decided to take a nap.”
“… he lost his mind and decided that he is Napoleon.” [1]
“… and he abolished the Sound Dues.” [2]
But prior to the artificial improvement the text was just “Fall of Fredericia was the last straw for Frederick IV and he got a stroke”
]
Dealing with Frederick
If Frederick IV could be congratulated for doing something right as a ruler, it was an extremely fortunate timing of his stroke. Probably there were some other good deeds but in the terms of benefitting both Denmark and its neighbors, this was a master stroke [3], which made happy almost everybody with the exception of the members of the von Reventlow family to which his current mistress belonged [4]. Of course, having a stroke did not necessary mean an instantaneous death even in the 1700s. But Frederick’s right side was paralyzed, he lost his memory (could not recognize even his current mistress) and almost completely lost his ability to talk beyond the unclear mumbling. Taking into an account that the contemporary prevailing medical treatments were bloodletting and enemas, his chances to survive for any protracted period of time were not too good and the doctors proved that they are up to their reputation by killing him in less than a week. He got a very expensive sarcophagus.
His first (legal) widow, Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow was definitely happy but had no clue what to do because while her husband was healthy Louise figured in her role as queen at official ceremonies, but was otherwise ignored at court. Her main interest was reading religious books of which she collected a sizable library.
Taking into an account that her elder son, Christian, was only 13 years old, she, while assuming position of a Regent, had to rely upon the Grand Chancellor, Christian Christophersen Sehested leaving for herself purely official functions of her position.
Now, back to the diplomacy
A long list of the happy people included, among others:
Emperor Charles VI with his usual “wisdom” decided to use this occasion to press his pet issue of the Pragmatic Sanction with the individual members of the congress. Probably, the idea was not too good because, while providing certain convenience for the Austrian side, it also allowed some of the addressees to develop a join “platform”. Russia and Prussia came with a package deal: recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction in exchange for:
August of Saxony refused to sign because he had his own claim.
The main subject of discussion was, understandably, “the Schleswig Issue”, which for a while looked as irreconcilable mess. Mostly because the sides directly involved, Sweden and Gottorp (both represented by Piper) on one side and Denmark represented by Just Juel on another, had been too concentrated on the existing problems rather than looking for an innovative solution, which can suit both of them. An aggravating factor was behavior pf Just Juel: true to himself he was raising countless objections regarding a protocol, precedence, proper addressing and other formalities.
Eventually, Prince Golitsyn (who also was on a receiving side of Juel’s freely expressed opinions regarding the Russian princely houses and, as a little revenge, insisted on being addressed according to his official rank, aka “Vashe vysokoprevoskhoditel’stvo”) offered to consider a swap of the territories which will provide a reasonably clear separation both of the land and of a formal dependency [5]. This proposal put the process on a right track and soon enough the sides came to a reasonable exchange which produced:
Color schema:
Light orange show Kingdom of Denmark
Dark Orange show the Danish possesions in Germany (County of Oldenburg and Duchy of Altona)
Purple is the Grand Duchy of Schleswig
Light purple is the Duchy of Holstein
Light yellow is the Duchy of Plön (Oldenburg sideline)
Green is the County of Rantzau (sovereign county under a Holsteinian knightly house)
The island of Fehmarn have been traded for the "Danish" enclaves in Schleswig and on the Holsteinian coast.
Time when the region looked as a fruit salad was over and if territory of Gottorp included numerous estates of the Reichsritter’s and other small imperial entities, this was not considered to be a major problem: after experience of Mecklenburg, most of the members of nobility leaned a valuable lesson regarding value of their rights and usefulness of the appeals to emperor.
With this main problem being settled, there were small issues like contribution (unpleasant but expected), making the Russian merchant ships free from the Sound dues (a really minor issue taking into an account a very limited size of the Russian merchant fleet) and, as a bonus, acceptance of Denmark-Norway into the Baltic Mafia also known as Baltic Neutrality League which allowed to restore the policy established in 1679 by Peace of Lund including (then secret and now openly published) articles regarding the mutual assistance negotiated at Lund by Gyllenstierna.
and then reversed by Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna.
So now the history made a full circle or rather a spiral because the new alliance was much more powerful than one of 1679.
_____________
[1] Who said that a crazy person can imagine himself only to be a person which already existed? IMO, imagining himself to be somebody who is not even born is real insanity. 😜
[2] Probably this would be too much even if he got funny on his head.
[3] No pun was intended.
[4] In his own fashion, FIV was a highly moral person because he used to marry to his mistresses. Well, without bothering to divorce his wife but nobody is perfect.
[5] Duchy of Holstein was a part of the HRE but Schleswig was a Danish vassal. In case somebody missed it, credit for the whole implementation goes to @Jürgen. His plan and explanations are copied without any changes.
[6] At that point the Brits could agree even on something much more exotic, even Mahārāja, as long as it did not cost them a penny and was paving a way to re-opening Baltic trade.
“Diplomacy is a continuation of a war by different means”
not exactly what Clausewitz wrote
“DIPLOMACY: the longest way from one point to another”
Adrien Decourcelle
“A diplomat is a person who is paid a lot to think for a long time before saying nothing.”
Eisenhower
“Diplomacy without weapons is like music without instruments.”
Frederick the Great
[Before we proceed: not exactly what Clausewitz wrote
“DIPLOMACY: the longest way from one point to another”
Adrien Decourcelle
“A diplomat is a person who is paid a lot to think for a long time before saying nothing.”
Eisenhower
“Diplomacy without weapons is like music without instruments.”
Frederick the Great
“… and he got himself a brand new mistress”“… and he ordered a mass execution of <the military commanders/his ministers/all newspaper publishers, etc>.”
“… and he decided to take a nap.”
“… he lost his mind and decided that he is Napoleon.” [1]
“… and he abolished the Sound Dues.” [2]
But prior to the artificial improvement the text was just “Fall of Fredericia was the last straw for Frederick IV and he got a stroke”
]
Dealing with Frederick
“Are we going to treat him, or let him live?”
Overheard medical conversation
Overheard medical conversation
If Frederick IV could be congratulated for doing something right as a ruler, it was an extremely fortunate timing of his stroke. Probably there were some other good deeds but in the terms of benefitting both Denmark and its neighbors, this was a master stroke [3], which made happy almost everybody with the exception of the members of the von Reventlow family to which his current mistress belonged [4]. Of course, having a stroke did not necessary mean an instantaneous death even in the 1700s. But Frederick’s right side was paralyzed, he lost his memory (could not recognize even his current mistress) and almost completely lost his ability to talk beyond the unclear mumbling. Taking into an account that the contemporary prevailing medical treatments were bloodletting and enemas, his chances to survive for any protracted period of time were not too good and the doctors proved that they are up to their reputation by killing him in less than a week. He got a very expensive sarcophagus.
His first (legal) widow, Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow was definitely happy but had no clue what to do because while her husband was healthy Louise figured in her role as queen at official ceremonies, but was otherwise ignored at court. Her main interest was reading religious books of which she collected a sizable library.
Taking into an account that her elder son, Christian, was only 13 years old, she, while assuming position of a Regent, had to rely upon the Grand Chancellor, Christian Christophersen Sehested leaving for herself purely official functions of her position.
Now, back to the diplomacy
A long list of the happy people included, among others:
- Charles XII who finally could expect a long-time peaceful settlement with Denmark
- Peter I for whom the open-ending military commitment started being a burden
- Frederick William of Prussia and George of Hanover who now could safely keep blaming their past “mistakes” on Frederick
- Charles Frederick, the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, who was waiting in Sweden for opportunity to regain his possessions even if he was too young to rule.
- The British cabinet because now there was a hope for a speedy peace, which would re-open the Baltic markets without a need to spend money on sending a squadron into the Baltic Sea.
- And of course population of Jutland, Schleswig and Holstein which hoped that their land will cease to be a theater of the military operations. Not that anybody was seriously interested in their opinions and wishes, they are added to make list more complete.
Emperor Charles VI with his usual “wisdom” decided to use this occasion to press his pet issue of the Pragmatic Sanction with the individual members of the congress. Probably, the idea was not too good because, while providing certain convenience for the Austrian side, it also allowed some of the addressees to develop a join “platform”. Russia and Prussia came with a package deal: recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction in exchange for:
- Recognition of Saxe-Lauenburg possession by Prussia.
- Recognition of the Prussian right to inherit the East Frisia.
- Recognition of the imperial title for Peter and his successors.
- Revocation of the imperial execution from Mecklenburg-Schverin.
- Promise of no interference in the issue of the Polish succession.
August of Saxony refused to sign because he had his own claim.
The main subject of discussion was, understandably, “the Schleswig Issue”, which for a while looked as irreconcilable mess. Mostly because the sides directly involved, Sweden and Gottorp (both represented by Piper) on one side and Denmark represented by Just Juel on another, had been too concentrated on the existing problems rather than looking for an innovative solution, which can suit both of them. An aggravating factor was behavior pf Just Juel: true to himself he was raising countless objections regarding a protocol, precedence, proper addressing and other formalities.
Eventually, Prince Golitsyn (who also was on a receiving side of Juel’s freely expressed opinions regarding the Russian princely houses and, as a little revenge, insisted on being addressed according to his official rank, aka “Vashe vysokoprevoskhoditel’stvo”) offered to consider a swap of the territories which will provide a reasonably clear separation both of the land and of a formal dependency [5]. This proposal put the process on a right track and soon enough the sides came to a reasonable exchange which produced:
- Principality of Gottorp which included Grand Duchy of Schleswig, fully independent from Denmark, in personal union with the Duchy of Holstein. A new title was immediately recognized by Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Mecklenburg, Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, Britain [6] and the Netherlands and, after some resistance, had been pushed down the throat of Charles VI.
- Duchy of Altona (“oops, we probably got carried away when burned the city” from Piper), which included the Danish possessions in Germany except for Oldenburg and was in a personal union with Denmark
Color schema:
Light orange show Kingdom of Denmark
Dark Orange show the Danish possesions in Germany (County of Oldenburg and Duchy of Altona)
Purple is the Grand Duchy of Schleswig
Light purple is the Duchy of Holstein
Light yellow is the Duchy of Plön (Oldenburg sideline)
Green is the County of Rantzau (sovereign county under a Holsteinian knightly house)
The island of Fehmarn have been traded for the "Danish" enclaves in Schleswig and on the Holsteinian coast.
Time when the region looked as a fruit salad was over and if territory of Gottorp included numerous estates of the Reichsritter’s and other small imperial entities, this was not considered to be a major problem: after experience of Mecklenburg, most of the members of nobility leaned a valuable lesson regarding value of their rights and usefulness of the appeals to emperor.
With this main problem being settled, there were small issues like contribution (unpleasant but expected), making the Russian merchant ships free from the Sound dues (a really minor issue taking into an account a very limited size of the Russian merchant fleet) and, as a bonus, acceptance of Denmark-Norway into the Baltic Mafia also known as Baltic Neutrality League which allowed to restore the policy established in 1679 by Peace of Lund including (then secret and now openly published) articles regarding the mutual assistance negotiated at Lund by Gyllenstierna.
and then reversed by Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna.
So now the history made a full circle or rather a spiral because the new alliance was much more powerful than one of 1679.
_____________
[1] Who said that a crazy person can imagine himself only to be a person which already existed? IMO, imagining himself to be somebody who is not even born is real insanity. 😜
[2] Probably this would be too much even if he got funny on his head.
[3] No pun was intended.
[4] In his own fashion, FIV was a highly moral person because he used to marry to his mistresses. Well, without bothering to divorce his wife but nobody is perfect.
[5] Duchy of Holstein was a part of the HRE but Schleswig was a Danish vassal. In case somebody missed it, credit for the whole implementation goes to @Jürgen. His plan and explanations are copied without any changes.
[6] At that point the Brits could agree even on something much more exotic, even Mahārāja, as long as it did not cost them a penny and was paving a way to re-opening Baltic trade.
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Which is why I had to get rid of a major obstacle. 😉
Thanks, I’m completely happy with the map which you made and already used it.
The Prussians should feel really happy about the turnout. They started as a belligerent that attacked Sweden without provocation and ended up with more than Sweden itself. As mentioned, Memel did not have the value that it gained in the later 18th century. So, Prussia lost Memel and gained Saxe-Lauenburg that was considerably more valuable, a strategic asset. The toll station at Esslingen will tax all the traffic going through the canal from the Elbe to Lubeck. For the next decades the income will be 100-400,000 marks (source:https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004371781/BP000015.xml).
Honestly there’s a far easier canal to make, which even existed in OTL.
en.wikipedia.org
Eider Canal - Wikipedia
Oh yes! I think Gottorp will have every incentive to build it. However, I think it would pass through danish territory. But would the Danes agree to a canal that reduces the Sound Dues and the strategic value of Oresund?
Thanks, great map and you got everything right: Saxony gets no territories because it remained neutral too long. I intentionally did not get into the area of contributions: have no idea who would be able to pay what realistically. It is assumed that August got some money.
The gain is not always in the territories and money. Sweden gained a lot by removing a never-ending and expensive pain in the butt, Danish-Gottorp “issue”. It also does not have to worry about security of the Swedish Pomerania.
As for Memel, it is at that time something of a “token”, except for its geographic value and its OTL future is not necessarily going to happen: Prussia retained the Kuronian Split, the main source of timber in OTL. But Sweden has other sources of income and much lesser expenses due to the absence of wars.
Prussia, so far, is a new but valuable addition to the BNL and should get some reason for staying within it and generosity which costs you nothing is still a generosity. Why the victors should be stingy when the bonus (with the related political problems) comes at somebody else’s expense? Prussian alliance, for all practical purposes, pretty much eliminates Hapsburg influence in the region except for the right to issue the imperial decrees not backed up by any ability to enforce them. It also, together with Mecklenburg and now friendly Denmark-Norway, provides a complete control of all Baltic coast, and Norwegian timber. Which means that the League is controlling most of the strategic materials needed by the Brits and Dutch and can dictate the prices (within the reasonable limits so that the products from American colonies are still not competitive).
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Well beside Memel they also lost parts of Pomerania, plus that strip of land near Lithuania, but yea they did get a more than valuable recompense for the loss, one that will certainly diminish any revanchist thoughts.
As for Sweden, well while not gaining lot directly Charles's nephew did gain Duchy of Schleswig and Holenstein, plus it remains unsaid but Mecklenburg will probably be in Swedish sphere of influence given that new Duke is a fan .
I mean he did gain a small strip of land for Lithuania for his efforts, that alone should be a popularity boon for him in Lithuanian part of PLC.
Mecklenburg will end up a lot different here, while it’s not spelled out; Sweden and Russia have de facto remade Mecklenburg into a absolute monarchy. The local Duke can more or less ignore the estates, raise taxes at will, raise a army, remove internal tariff etc. This will mean that Mecklenburg will make similar reforms to Denmark and Prussia just on smaller scale. OTL Mecklenburg always suffered under the nobility being the de facto rulers of the duchy, now the Duke can built infrastructure, adopt mercantilist policies, make land reforms (Mecklenburg serfs was barely better off than Russian serfs). Mecklenburg with its long coastline have significant potential as a light manufacturer (textiles, glassware pottery, meat and dairy processing etc.), especially with its close relationship with Scandinavia.
Thus being in Swedish sphere of influence. Beside economic factors Sweden being neighboring great power that doesn't have territorial pretensions on Mecklenburg while being strong enough to keep other powers at bay (like Prussia) is a natural ally. So i would say that Sweden did indirectly gain a lot from this war.
Exactly. Plus, by getting Prussia on board and establishing the “Lund Treaty on steroids”, everybody involved has a military secure Baltic with pretty much monopolistic position in the area of the local exports.
I was not clear: he did not get any land for Saxony. Lithuania is getting a bonus for its loyalty and active cooperation.
If at all. IIRC, their de facto situation was closer to the Russian serfdom at the time of CII (aka, at its peak).
That’s pretty much sums it up. In its OTL state Mecklenburg remained a backward state both politically and economically because the estates owners had been ordering the music and status quo was fitting them just fine. The empowered dukes are not necessarily going to be the most progressive or talented people but self-interest is going to move them in a right direction.
In OTL the imperial execution had been triggered by the duke’s plan to raise the taxes for creating a military force capable to prevent the foreign occupation. The estates won and what did they get? Mecklenburg was occupied by 40,000 Russian troops and then couple Russian regiments (which would be approximately a size of the planned duchy’s army) remained in the duchy for as long as Peter wanted. So, was the foreign occupation better?
I’d say that it ends up in a joined Swedish-Russian sphere of influence which, with a passage of time, may evolve into the Swedish-Russian-Prussian sphere of influence. But, as long as the interests of the big partners are in synch (absence of the territorial conflicts and common economic interests), this is not an issue.
Settling a never-ending conflict (I counted 10 wars between 1534 and 1720) in a mutually-satisfactory way is a good gain on its own and if you add a good trade treaty, the gain is even greater.
This Baltic Mafia is a rather interesting development. A bunch of states, large and small, with overlapping territorial ambitions and involvement in the lucrative Baltic trade actually working together to enhance the latter instead of focusing on the former. Rather rare. Doubt the Dutch or English will be happy about it, but still a lot of potential. Especially as it means they're all likely to start looking elsewhere.
I mean for now , but nothing lasts forever really and at some point with Russia likely to look elsewhere ( Alexei for example will probably be less engaged in the Baltics than his father and is likely to cut Russian fleet there in favor of Black sea as he will always have diplomatic alliance with Sweden and Prussia there which basically means that Russia won't project it's power directly) it's either Sweden , or Prussia. From those two Prussia is likely to still go after Silesia and busy itself with German affairs leaving alliance with Sweden as most reliable option for Mecklenburg, Prussia being second place.
Though that is probably far beyond current TL. What certain is that for time of Peter's reign Mecklenburg is probably in Russo - Swedish sphere and Prussia doesn't plan to go anywhere under current King.
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Russian interest in the Baltic trade and “security” is not going to change and Alexei is not going to be naive to a degree which leaves everything to the good graces of his allies thus diminishing Russian importance and ability to protect its own interests,
However, part about the size of Baltic fleet is valid as you are, again, running ahead of the story: I was planning transfer of the part of Baltic fleet to the Black Sea and to the North. In OTL Peter was doing things in the opposite directions: the ships built in Archangelsk had been moved to the Baltics (ditto for his successors) and after the Pruth campaign he planned to move part of the Azov fleet to the Baltics as well (the Ottomans did not let him and the ships had been either sold to them or destroyed). So the move is not being something unrealistic and a smaller Russian holding in the Baltics do not require the huge fleet, just one strong enough to be an independent player, if need arises.
Third: Russia is not going to give up its positions in the region.
Yes. In OTL FWI was too busy with the internal affairs of his state and this will be his general line. OTOH, Mecklenburg did preserve its “sovereinty” even within the German Empire so why would Prussia go for it IITL?