page_title: Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War
section_title: Swedish Background and Context
hierarchical_section_title: Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War / Swedish Background and Context
caption_attribution_description: English: Swedish progress continues (1631) During the Thirty Years War, some broadsheets were closely linked to the changing daily news. Here we see Gustavus Adolphus forcing the pope, as a symbol of the Catholic cause, to disgorge cities and fortresses captured from the Protestants during the 1630s. The sequence, almost resembling a strip-cartoon, includes the places taken or relieved by the Swedes on their march from Stralsund on the Baltic to Kreuznach in the Rhineland. Space has been left for the insertion of further victories in later editions of the print! From British Library, Call no. 1750.b. 29/67*
context_page_description: The Swedish invasion of the Holy Roman Empire or the Swedish Intervention in the Thirty Years' War is a historically accepted division of the Thirty Years' War. It was a military conflict that took place between 1630 and 1635, during the course of the Thirty Years' War. It was a major turning point of the war: the Protestant cause, previously on the verge of defeat, won several major victories and changed the direction of the War. The Habsburg-Catholic coalition, previously in the ascendant, was significantly weakened as a result of the gains the Protestant cause made. It is often considered to be an independent conflict by most historians.
  After several attempts by the Holy Roman Empire to prevent and contain the spread of Protestantism in Europe, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden led an invasion of the Holy Roman Empire. Although he was killed in battle at Lützen, southwest of Leipzig, the Swedish armies managed to successfully defeat their Catholic enemies and established Sweden as one of the great powers of Europe for the next 100 years.
context_section_description: Gustavus Adolphus had been well informed of the war for some time, but his hands were tied because of the constant enmity of Poland. The Polish royal family, the House of Vasa asserted its right of primogeniture to the Swedish throne – which indeed it had once held . However, when Sigismund III Vasa was elected by the nobles of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, he was elected on the condition that he be a Roman Catholic. Which he was, as he had a mother who was Roman Catholic and had abandoned the religion of his predecessors, however Lutheranism was the primary religion of Sweden, and had by then established a firm grip on the country. It was not solely the result of religious sentiment that Sweden converted. Notably, one of the reasons that Sweden had so readily embraced it was because converting to Lutheranism allowed the crown to seize all the lands in Sweden that was possessed by the Roman Catholic Church. As a result of this seizure and the money that the crown gained, the crown was greatly empowered. In spite of this, he retained his mother's Roman Catholicism as his religion. Although he guaranteed the rights of this religion to the people in his Swedish domains, this was a subject of great contention for the kingdom. Sigismund's right to the throne became a further subject of contention due to his support for the counter reformation. After Sigismund's defeat in the Battle of Stångebro, the Swedish nobility demanded that he rule Sweden from Sweden. Despite their demands, Sigismund returned to his Polish capital, Warsaw, and was deposed from the Swedish throne in 1599.
   Gustavus Adolphus' father, Charles IX of Sweden – the uncle of Sigisimund – also a Vasa, was awarded the throne, in part because he was an ardent Lutheran. Soon after, Sweden became engaged in wars with the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway and the Tsardom of Russia. Also, Sigismund III never renounced his claim to the Swedish throne, and for many years the primary direction of Polands' foreign policy was directed at reacquiring it. As a result, Sweden was hard pressed on almost all of its borders.
  Charles IX died in 1611, without achieving any conclusive result in Sweden's wars during the six years of his reign. At the age of just 17, Gustavus was granted a special dispensation to assume the Swedish crown – and thereby inherited his father's conflicts.
    The surrounding powers smelled blood, assuming that such a youth could not maintain the gains that the father had won for Sweden. However, Gustavus had first entered the army at the age of 11, and had first-hand knowledge how to govern a kingdom. His training at statecraft had begun at the same age, when later that year his father permitted him to sit in on meetings of the council of state. The neighbouring powers had not assessed the new king accurately.
  The new king was able to bring about conclusive results to the conflicts he had inherited.  By 1613 Gustavus had compelled the Danes out of the war after landing on Swedish territory only 6 miles from the capital. By 1617  he had forced Russia out of the wars and compelled her to cede territory to Sweden.
  Gustavus also settled a number of truces with Sigismund – who agreed to them only because of internal strife within Poland. This respite, which lasted 5 years gave Gustavus a free hand to act against the two other powers which had designs on Swedish land. In 1617, he sought to establish a permanent peace with Poland. However, all advances by Sweden for a permanent peace were rejected by Sigismund.
caption: Broadsheets depicting Sweden's taking or relieving many cities
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