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John Dalmas 6011 O'Sweeney Lane Dublin OH 43016-4221 [email protected] www.johndalmas.com ARMFELT: A Drama of the Great Northern War by John Dalmas a novelized documentary 120,000 words copyright 2010 Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT Frontal 1 ARMFELT FRONTAL MATTER Dedicated to The late BENGT OCKLIND, at Ocke, in Jämtland, whose gift of a book inspired me to write this, and whose continuing interest returned me to it again and again. Acknowledgments Above all, I want to acknowledge Bengt's inspiration, patience, and the repeated gifts of source material over three decades. (During most of that period the project lay dormant. The research and writing were done during periods of opportunity during otherwise very busy years.) My thanks also to Siv Ocklind, Bengt's wife and my hostess, for making me feel so welcome in their home, and hosting me during part of my 1992 travels to visit campaign and other story-related sites in Scandinavia. To my SFWA website master, and friend of 35 years, Carl Martin, who encouraged me and posted the first 22 chapters, file by file, through my revisions. And to Ahrvid Engholm, my host in Stockholm, who familiarized me with the city, held a science fiction party that packed his apartment, and to facilitate the next leg of my journey, arranged for me to be met at the ferry dock at Turku, in Finland. In Finland to Ben Roimola, who met me at that dock, fed me breakfast, and got me successfully on the train to Helsinki. In Finland, in 1992, I had some difficulty finding Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT Frontal 2 English speakers when I needed one, so I really appreciated Ben's help and his excellent English. (I understand that finding English speakers in Finland today is no problem.) To Jan-Eric Nyström, in Helsinki, for his guidance. Among other assistance, he tracked down a biography, in Swedish, of General Karl Gustaf Armfelt. It proved to be a "biography" of his army, as well, and the history of Finland's defense and loss, with many insights into other prominent characters. It helped me make Armfelt, his army, their character and times more real. And my thanks to librarians, beginning at the community library in rural Liljendal, in Finland, who pulled and photocopied an extremely helpful book on the campaign for only the cost of the paper. And for encouraging this in-over-his-head American novelist in an unlikely project. It was one of them who first suggested that this novel would find an interested audience in Scandinavia. (It was at Armfelt's farm at Liljendal that the general spent his final, more peaceful years. The farm, the site of a memorial, is just up the road a hundred meters or so from the library. I stood on the foundation of the farmhouse and looked out over a landscape which had not, I suspect, greatly changed over the intervening 260 years—a view he must have looked at innumerable times. What a marvelous and inspiring privilege!) In Norway to an administrator in the Oslo library, whose name and exact professional position I have unforgivably forgotten. We met and talked on the train from Stjørdal to Trondheim, and her interest and encouragement were very welcome. She too suggested —without prompting!— that this book would find a Scandinavian audience, readers interested in what an American author might do with this harrowing piece of Scandinavian history. (And who knows better than librarians what interests readers?) Also in the beautiful Norwegian backcountry, to the Tydalen librarian (located at the middle school). Her English was very good. I asked if she had a Norwegian novel that might expand my sense of the Armfelt campaign. Yes, she said, she did. "May I photocopy it?" Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT Frontal 3 "You could, except our copier isn't working, and won't be fixed till Tuesday. Why don't I sign it out to you? You can get it copied in America and mail it back." Can you imagine? I accepted the offer eagerly, and of course I did mail the book back; I'd have fought to the death to protect it. She also asked me to send a copy of my novel. I hope it doesn't disappoint her. And to the hostess-caretaker at the rustic timberline lodge at Nordaune. An older lady, she spoke no English, and I almost no Norwegian, but she understood my clumsy halting Swedish, and spoke slowly and carefully herself, keeping it simple and repeating as necessary, so that I could follow her Norwegian. She also loaned me her personal copy of the local history, so I could read its chapter on the activities of Armfelt's army in that locale. And finally, I want to acknowledge those who, at different stages, reviewed the manuscript in part or in whole. You know who you are. Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT Frontal 4 INTRODUCTION In the late 1600s, the map of Europe was very different from today's. Germany was a center of political and religious ferment, and consisted of some three hundred (300!) independent states. Foreign relations centered on military power (including how many foreign mercenary regiments you could afford), and on constantly shifting political, military, and trade alliances. Rule was by monarchs. Diplomacy featured connivery, treachery, the trading of other people's territories, and the intermarriage of royal families. Wars were frequent, threats of war continuous, and wrongs clamoring to be redressed innumerable. Treaties often lasted just long enough for new armies to be trained or arranged for, and for new alliances to be secretly forged. In fact, the road to hell was paved not with good intentions, but with broken pledges, which were much more abundant. What an era! In the north, where our story takes place, Denmark had ruled Norway for more than three centuries—since 1397. Finland had become part of Sweden more or less gradually, beginning in the mid-1100s. A landmark date was 1216, when the pope confirmed the claim of the Swedish king at the expense of the Danish king, who had claimed Finland after establishing bases on the south coast. There had never been a Finnish state. Much of what is now Finland was wilderness thinly peopled by Lapp reindeer hunters and Finnish traders, trappers and salmon fishers. What would become known as Finland took shape over the following several centuries, through gradual settlement and by fighting that pitted Finns and Swedes against Russians and territorials. _______________ In 1618, the complex pattern of German dynastic rivalries and religious conflicts erupted into the Thirty Years War. Sweden's military intervention prevented the threatened collapse of Protestantism in central Europe, but in the process, Sweden and Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT Frontal 5 Finland, poor to begin with, were further impoverished. They also suffered a shocking loss of young men. But when the war was over, Sweden held much of the land along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, land taken from Danish, German, and Russian rulers. In 1697, the headstrong 15-year-old Karl XII became King of Sweden and Finland. (The English, of course, called him Charles XII.) To the neighboring royalty, this seemed a good time to strip Sweden of her eastern and southern Baltic possessions, plus that part of (now) southern Sweden that had been Danish until 1658. Thus a "secret" pact was made by neighboring monarchs, who had no reason to imagine that Sweden's teen- aged king would prove to be a military genius. In February 1700, Augustus, ruler of Saxony and Poland, marched an army into Swedish Livonia (mainly present-day Latvia). A month later, Frederick of Denmark attacked his southern neighbor, Holstein- Gottorp, an ally and client state of Sweden defended in part by a Swedish garrison. And that autumn, Russia's Peter the Great, newly freed of war with the Turks, attacked the Swedish-ruled, Finnish-speaking provinces of western Karelia, Ingria, and Estonia. The result was the 21-year Great Northern War. For several years the Swedish- Finnish army prevailed. At one point it occupied the pride of Saxony, its beautiful capital city, Dresden. Eventually the invading Swedish army got bogged down in the vastness of Russia (actually today's Belarus and Ukraine), and was virtually wiped out in the Battle of Poltava. The sorely wounded King Karl escaped with several hundred men into Moldavia, at that time part of the Turkish empire, eventually returning to Sweden, where he at once began to raise a new army. Karl's original enemies had been joined in 1709 by Prussia, and in 1715 by Hanover. Both were more eager to share in the spoils than in the fighting, however, for if Sweden's power had been sorely weakened, her king's military genius was now abundantly well-recognized and feared. (Hanover's German monarch was also the newly crowned George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland, but in Britain he had a parliament to deal with, thus Britain's role in the conflict was small and selective.) _______________________ Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT Frontal 6 Meanwhile, in 1714, a Russian army had overrun Finland. The hard-bitten remains of the Finnish army, commanded by General Karl Gustaf Armfelt, escaped west across the Torne River into northern Sweden. This story is about that Finnish army, its general, and some unblooded units of Swedish conscripts, in the bitter, final land campaign of the Great Northern War. Dec 2010 Dalmas/ARMFELT 1 PROLOG It was a manor house in the Finnish style—of logs neatly squared and fitted; five rooms in a row, well furnished and well swept, each with a fireplace, a fur rug, and overhead a loft.