Why Sweden fail to build a strong empire

 

Why are the Swedes so critical? Only because Carl XII finally lost the war? It's not him who started this war after all.

 

it was difficoult for Sweden to build a colonial empire, also because the threath of Russia. Anyway with skandinavia and most of the Balti, Sweden had one of the largest empire in Europe.

 

 

Well it did. Allies have limited usefulness though.

For starters it should be a powerful Protestant state. That leaves the Netherlands and England. Denmark is The Arch Enemy.

 

The English were hardly very useful in a continental war of the 17th c. Charles X did offer Cromwell to divvy up Denmark-Norway at one point in the 1650's, but Cromwell felt iffy about one Protestant ruler trying to liquidate another. He would have preferred Charles X to march on Rome, depose the Pope and trigger the Second Coming of Christ, or so. Besides he died before he could reply properly, and England got more urgent matters to attend to. The English simply were a bit to preoccupied sorting themselves out.

 

The Netherlands, again, wouldn't send land armies in support. They were however major providers of financing, know-how etc. to get Swedish manufacture etc. going. The Dutch interest was however to make sure the balance of power in the Baltic wasn't too badly upset. As soon as Sweden looked like overtaking Denmark, about mid 17th c., the Dutch regularily declared for Denmark. Whichever of these rivals got the Dutch navy on their side got the upper hand in the naval control of the Baltic.

 

Sweden's most reliable allies did turn out to be Catholic France and Muslim Ottomans. But both had their limitatons as allies. The alliances were based on having mutual enemies anyway. Sweden, Ottomans and French all had beef with the Habsburgs. The Swedes and the Ottomans had a common problem with Russia. France on the other hand had no real interest in some Russian adventure. And having France as it's most important ally, meant England wasn't going to be overly friendly. Scotland would be, but the Scots weren't quite of the same order of magnitude.

 

I'd say Sweden made the alliances it could, and got the use possible out of them. It just wasn't enough to overcome the structural liabilities in the imperial project.

 

Joinville, in 1656 Sweden was allied with Prussia (both armies participated in the battle of Warsaw 1656), Transylvania and Cossacks. But it wasn't strong enough coalition. I think that Sweden had bad politic of alliances. For example in 1655 Sweden could ally either with Poland against Russia or with Russia against Poland. Both coalitions could be profitable for Sweden. But Karl X Gustav didn't ally neither with Poland nor with Russia. So Poland and Russia signed temporary truce and in next years they fought against Sweden.