Gustavus II Adolphus, King of Sweden (GUSTAVO II ADOLFO, RE DI SVEZIA)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GUSTAVO II ADOLFO, King of SWEDEN. - Born December 19, 1594 in Stockholm, died November 16, 1632 in Lützen, fighting against Wallenstein's troops in

Article illustration — GURK, DIOCESE of - Painted wood relief by L. Pambstel (after 1503) depicting the sick gathered around the altar of St. Emma to implore healing - Cathedral.
(courtesy of Fr. G. Löw)

retreat. Succeeding his father Charles IX in 1611 while Sweden was at war with Denmark and Russia, the young sovereign concluded the Peace of Knäred (1613) with the Danes and that of Stolbova (1617) with the Russians. The peace with Christian IV was burdensome, but it enabled the king, now free from the Danish threat, to turn all his attention to the Baltic.

The Peace of Stolbova, which stripped Russia of any outlet to the sea, actually laid the foundations of the King's future foreign policy, securing for Sweden dominance over the Baltic after the victorious war with Poland which, at intervals, lasted for a full nine years, until the Altmark Armistice (1629). The Baltic had by then become a Swedish lake: Poland had in fact recognized G. A.'s possession of Livonia and certain Prussian territories, as well as the right to collect customs duties at the mouth of the Vistula. The course of the Thirty Years' War, which had meanwhile witnessed the defeat of Christian IV and the imperial invasion of the Jutland peninsula, prompted G. A. to intervene in Germany. As early as February 1629, at the meeting of Ulfsbäck (southern Sweden), the King of Sweden had proposed an alliance to Christian IV. Having rejected the offer, G. A. landed in Germany, near Peenemünde, in the summer of 1630. France, which considered it in its interest to weaken the House of Habsburg, granted subsidies to Sweden (Treaty of Bärwölde, January 1631). Crossing the Elbe, G. A. pushed as far as southern Germany, defeating the imperial forces in repeated battles and occupying Mainz, Frankfurt, Augsburg, and Munich.

With G. A., Sweden became a great European power, remaining such until the death of Charles XII. The King's intervention in the Thirty Years' War saved Protestantism from dissolution as a political power, but it is doubtful whether the King was moved to intervene in Germany for the purely ideal motive of defending the Lutheran faith, or rather whether he intended to create a vast Swedish empire on the shores of the Baltic Sea extending to Norway, part of Denmark, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and the lands on the shores of the Baltic ceded by Russia and Poland, and to assume the title of Emperor of Scandinavia.

BIBL.: For sources and works on G. A. cf. S. E. Bring, Sveriges historia till våra dagar. XV: Källor och litteraturförteckning, Stockholm 1934, p. 371 ff. Furthermore V. G. Droysen, Gustaf Adolf, 2 vols., Leipzig 1869-70; S. Ehser, Papst Urban VIII. und Gustav Adolf, in Historisches Jahrbuch, 16 (1895), pp. 336-341; D. Schäfer, Die Zusammenkunft Gustav Adolphs mit Christian IV. von Dänemark zu Ulfsbäck 1629, in Preussische Jahrbücher, 105 (1901), pp. 39-62; A. Leman, Urbain VIII et la rivalité de la France et de la maison d'Autriche de 1631 à 1635, Paris 1920, passim; J. Paul, Gustaf Adolf, 3 vols., Leipzig 1927-1932; N. Ahnlund, Gustav Adolf den store, 2nd ed., Stockholm 1932; id., «Kejsardömet Skandinavien», in Historisch Tidskrift, 54 (1934), pp. 266-71; id., Axel Oxenstierns intill Gustav Adolfs död, Stockholm 1940; E. Marquardt, Das Bild Gustav Adolfs in den Augen der Zeitgenossen und der Nachwelt, in Die Welt als Geschichte, 7 (1941), pp. 155-59. Silvio Furlani