DEATH THAT SHOCKS THE WORLD, HOW KING CHARLES XII WAS KILLED IN NORWAY, THE YOUNG WARRIOR.

 

A projectile then entered his head below the temple killing him instantly, The circumstances of Charles’s death have been disputed and led to multiple exhumations of his body 

300 years ago today in 1718, the young warrior king of Sweden, Charles XII is killed in Norway while inspecting his trenches in the siege of Fredriksten.

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Charles was born in Stockholm in 1682 in an often unknown portion of European history, the Swedish Empire.

 Sweden’s military prowess propelled it to being an empire following the Thirty Years War, which devastated Europe and left millions of dead. 

The Swedish Empire controlled most of the Baltic region for decades.

 The backbone to this great power was the Caroleans, soldiers who helped modernize warfare with a reliance on flintlock muskets, pikes, rapiers, and aggressive tactics. 

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Charles assumed power of the Empire at the age of 15 after a short period of a caretaker government preparing him to rule.

 Charles was a deeply religious man and took the divine right of kings seriously and governed as an autocrat.

Peter Alexeyevich, the ruler of the Tsardom of Russia had goals to westernize and direct Russia into becoming a European empire.

 He desired to have a strong port on the Baltic Sea, territory which belonged to Sweden. 

Peter estimated that Charles was too young and inexperienced to rule the empire he inherited. 

In 1700, a pack of wolves would pounce Charles’s inheritance when he turned 18 years old.

 Russia, Denmark, Saxony, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth simultaneously invaded different parts of the Swedish Empire. 

When he learned of the news, the teenage king they thought was too young to rule the land calmly accepted his duty and personally took command of Sweden’s army, beginning The Great Northern War.

Charles wasted no time and secured a temporary maritime alliance with Britain and the Netherlands and took 8,000 men with a powerful fleet to Copenhagen, Denmark.

 In the first offensive of this conflict and what would become a common trend throughout the next 18 years of war, Charles would personally command his men from the front as they were landing on the shore under fire from the Danes.

 The monarch of Denmark, Frederick IV, also Charles’s cousin, was shocked at the size of the fleet and speed in which Charles placed 8,000 men around his capital. 

Denmark quickly capitulated and Charles then sailed his small army across the Baltic to deal with the Russian invasion in Estonia.

The city of Narva was besieged by nearly 40,000 Russian soldiers and Charles arrived on scene with barely 10,000 men in awful winter conditions.

 Charles’s generals begged the young king to not attack the Russians and settle for a winter camp but he turned them down.

 In the middle of the night on November 30th, Charles unsheathed his sword and charged through a brutal blizzard and swept over the freezing Russian positions with his Caroleans, causing a route of the entire besieging army and inflicting over 18,000 casualties.  

The siege of Narva was an utter disaster for the Russians and set back their ambitions allowing Charles to then bring his attention on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Saxony.

8 months later Charles then took a small fleet and 14,000 men to cross the Düna river and invade the Commonwealth. 

An army made up of 29,000 Poles, Russians, and Saxons waited for the Swedes across the river in entrenchments. Keeping his tradition, Charles was in the first ship to land ashore with his best soldiers. 

The Swedes employed floating artillery batteries and the gunners fired frantically to support the landing infantry and king.

 Charles and his men made it 200 steps inshore and held off attacks for several hours until reinforcements came from more ships and constructed bridges. 

After futile attempts to push the Swedes back into the river, the defenders decided to withdraw opening the door to Poland.

 Charles would install a puppet king and for the next 5 years destabilize Poland in civil war until they capitulated. 

The Swedes were always outnumbered and dealing with multiple armies during this campaign.

 After 6 years of continuous warfare, the young king remained undefeated in a battle. 

While busy in Poland, Peter of Russia implemented drastic reforms on his military and assailed the Baltic States again.

 Achieving his initial plans, Peter would capture and tear down the Swedish fortress Nyenschantz and build a fortified port that would eventually become Saint Petersburg to help westernize Russia. 

Swedish forces in the area were unable to take back the port and when Peter learned that Charles was on his way he offered generous peace terms giving up all of Russia’s gains besides Saint Petersburg.

 Bringing one of the strongest empires to the negotiation table, Charles would refuse Peter’s terms and muster his army to take back the city.

 However Charles’s generals eventually noticed they weren’t enroute to the port and that the young audacious king was invading Russia during the winter!

As he normally did, Charles disregarded all concerns from his generals and would blitz his army through Russia and encounter a Russian force double his size entrenched across rivers near Holowczyn (in modern day Belarus).

 In what Charles would consider his favorite victory, he personally led his men in some instances through shoulder deep water of a bog the Russians thought was impassable and split their lines. 

The victory gave him a firm foothold in Russian territory but exhausted the Swedish army which was not able to recover and move for over a month. 

During this time period the Russian’s stripped the land and laid waste to everything in scorched earth tactics.

 Charles’s plan was to be reinforced with a 2nd army and a massive supply column, however the Russians intercepted this army and destroyed all of the supplies. 

While he still received reinforcements, supplies remained drastically low and another setback occurred as the coldest winter in the last 500 years of Europe known as the Great Frost of 1709 killed thousands of his troops.

Charles’s next course of action was to take his army into Ukraine and receive the support of a massive Cossack uprising against the Russians. 

But the Russians would quickly put down this rebellion and severely limit any support the Cossacks could give the Swedes. 

Charles then wanted to seize the city of Poltava for supplies and a camp for the upcoming winter. 

Charles placed the city under siege with less than 30,000 men and the Russians sent a force of 75,000 to relieve it and built entrenchments a few miles north of the city.

 While scouting the Russian position, Charles was shot in the foot making him unable to stand.

 This would prevent Charles from personally leading his men in the upcoming decisive battle in which his outnumbered men hopelessly attacked Russian positions and were routed.  

Having 1/3 of his army killed in the battle, the Russians swiftly moved to trap the rest of it against the Dnieper River where over 12,000 men surrendered.

 Charles managed to barely escape with 1500 men into Moldavia, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

 The Battle of Poltava was a complete disaster for Charles and considered by historians the start of the decline of the Swedish Empire. 

The defeat also prompted Denmark, Poland, Great Britain, and some German states to join the war against Sweden.

The Ottoman Empire initially welcomed Charles into their territory and defeated the Russian army pursuing him.

 Charles was trapped there for over 5 years while Sweden was assailed up north.

 Tensions eventually reached a breaking point with the local population and the Janissaries lost hundreds of men arresting Charles after an intense skirmish.

 While imprisoned in Constantinople, Charles was eventually let free and made his way across Europe in 15 days on horseback and returned to Sweden in 1714. 

He would invade Norway in 1716 and capture the capital but was forced to withdraw. He would invade again in 1718 and place the fortress of Fredriksten under siege.

While surveying the construction of trenches, he exposed his head and shoulders above the breastworks and slumped forward to view the fortress. 

A projectile then entered his head below the temple killing him instantly.

 The circumstances of Charles’s death have been disputed and led to multiple exhumations of his body in 1746, 1859, and 1917.

 Some believe the shot that killed him was fired by a nearby assassin for many political reasons. 

Although it’s entirely possible that a musket or cannon grapeshot from the fortress delivered the death Charles toyed with for 18 years.

Further adding to his legend, Charles was only 36 years old at the time of his death and never married or fathered any children.

 He was known for his abstention of alcohol and sex, and expressed no interest in marrying for dynastic pressures but instead for love.

Inspired by this titan of history, the famous French writer Voltaire wrote a biography of him in 1731.

 Napoleon was fascinated with Charles and studied him throughout the Napoleonic wars.

 Charles's death marked the end of decades of costly warfare and autocratic rule in Sweden prompting an event known as the “Age of Liberty” causing a generation of prosperity and a shift of power from the monarch to parliament.

Voltaire’s biography of Charles XII:

Phenomenal Youtube Series on The Great Northern War by Extra Credits:

[Audiobook Reference]

A Warrior Dynasty:

The Rise and Fall of Sweden as a Military Superpower 1611-1721

By: Henrik O. Lunde

Artwork: Bringing Home the Body of Charles XII. A romanticized painting by Gustaf Cederström, 1884

Authored by R.E. Foy.

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