Charles XIV John was King of Sweden and Norway from 1818 until his death in 1844 and the first monarch of the Bernadotte dynasty. In Norway, he is known as Charles III John and before he became royalty in Sweden, his name was Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte. During the Napoleonic Wars, he participated in several battles as a Marshal of France.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802), and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres; the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.
Swedish Pomerania was a dominion under the Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815 on what is now the Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. Following the Polish War and the Thirty Years' War, Sweden held extensive control over the lands on the southern Baltic coast, including Pomerania and parts of Livonia and Prussia.
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, overthrowing the Directory, establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and reversed the most radical religious policies of the Convention. In 1804 Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example, by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.
In the War of the Sixth Coalition, sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, and a number of German States defeated France and drove Napoleon into exile on Elba. After the disastrous French invasion of Russia of 1812 in which they had been forced to support France, Prussia and Austria joined Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Portugal, and the rebels in Spain who were already at war with France.
The Treaty of Kiel or Peace of Kiel was concluded between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Kingdom of Sweden on one side and the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway on the other side on 14 January 1814 in Kiel. It ended the hostilities between the parties in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, where the United Kingdom and Sweden were part of the anti-French camp while Denmark–Norway was allied to France.
During the Napoleonic Wars until 1810, Sweden and Great Britain were allies in the war against Napoleon. As a result of Sweden's defeat in the Finnish War and the Pomeranian War, and the following Treaty of Fredrikshamn and Treaty of Paris, Sweden declared war on Great Britain. The bloodless war, however, existed only on paper, and Britain was still not hindered in stationing ships at the Swedish island of Hanö and trade with the Baltic states.
The War of the Fourth Coalition was a war spanning 1806–1807 that saw a multinational coalition fight against Napoleon's French Empire, subsequently being defeated. The main coalition partners were Prussia and Russia with Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain also contributing. Excluding Prussia, some members of the coalition had previously been fighting France as part of the Third Coalition, and there was no intervening period of general peace. On 9 October 1806, Prussia declared war on France and joined a renewed coalition, fearing the rise in French power after the defeat of Austria and establishment of the French-sponsored Confederation of the Rhine in addition to having learned of French plans to cede Prussian-desired Hanover to Britain in exchange for peace. Prussia and Russia mobilized for a fresh campaign with France, massing troops in Saxony.
The Swedish–Norwegian War, also known as the Campaign against Norway, War with Sweden 1814, or the Norwegian War of Independence, was a war fought between Sweden and Norway in the summer of 1814. According to the Treaty of Kiel, Norway would enter a union with Sweden under Charles XIII of Sweden. The war resulted in Norway being forced into the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, but with its own constitution and parliament. The war marked the last time Sweden participated in an armed conflict with another nation, and its conclusion signalled the beginning of the country's long period of military neutrality.
The siege of Stralsund was a battle during the Great Northern War. The Swedish Empire defended her Swedish Pomeranian port of Stralsund against a coalition of Denmark-Norway, the Electorate of Saxony and the Tsardom of Russia, which was joined by the Kingdom of Prussia during the siege.
British–Danish relations are foreign relations between the United Kingdom and Denmark. The United Kingdom has an embassy in Copenhagen and Denmark has an embassy in London. Both countries are full members of Council of Europe and NATO.
The Province of Pomerania was a province of Brandenburg-Prussia, the later Kingdom of Prussia. After the Thirty Years' War, the province consisted of Farther Pomerania. Subsequently, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land, Draheim, and Swedish Pomerania south of the Peene river were joined into the province. The province was succeeded by the Province of Pomerania set up in 1815.
The English Wars were a series of conflicts pitting the United Kingdom and Sweden against Denmark-Norway as part of the Napoleonic Wars. It is named after England, the common name in Scandinavia for the United Kingdom, which declared war on Denmark-Norway due to disagreements over the neutrality of Danish trade and to prevent the Danish fleet falling into the hands of the First French Empire. It began with the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) and its latter stage from 1807 onwards was followed by the Gunboat War, the Dano-Swedish War of 1808–09 and the Swedish invasion of Holstein in 1814.
The Battle of Stralsund took place on 31 May 1809 during the Dano-Swedish War of 1808–1809 and the Franco-Swedish War, part of the Napoleonic Wars, between Ferdinand von Schill's freikorps and Napoleonic forces in Stralsund. In a "vicious street battle", the freikorps was defeated and Schill was killed in action.
The siege of Stralsund lasted from 24 July to 24 August, 1807, and saw troops from the First French Empire twice attempt to capture the port city from Lieutenant General Hans Henric von Essen's 15,000-man Swedish garrison. Early that year, Marshal Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier blockaded the city for two months before he was called elsewhere. In his absence, the Swedes drove back the inferior blockading force. After Mortier returned and pushed Essen's troops back in turn, the two sides quickly concluded an armistice. The truce was later repudiated by King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, and Marshal Guillaume Marie Anne Brune then led 40,000 French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch soldiers against the fortress. Fearfully outnumbered, the Swedes abandoned the Baltic Sea port of Stralsund to the Franco-Allies in the action during the War of the Fourth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. As a consequence, Sweden also lost the nearby island of Rügen.
The Blockade of Stralsund occurred during the Seven Years' War when a Prussian force invested the Swedish garrison of Stralsund, the capital of Swedish Pomerania. Rather than lay formal siege to the port, the Prussians cut it off by land and blockaded it. They were unable to cut it off by sea, owing to a lack of a Prussian fleet, and eventually the blockade was abandoned when the bulk of Prussian forces were withdrawn to fight in other theatres.
The Dano–Swedish War of 1808–1809 was a war between Denmark–Norway and Sweden due to Denmark–Norway's alliance with France and Sweden's alliance with the United Kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. Neither Sweden nor Denmark-Norway had wanted war to begin with but once pushed into it through their respective alliances, Sweden made a bid to acquire Norway by way of invasion while Denmark-Norway made ill-fated attempts to reconquer territories lost to Sweden in the 17th century. Peace was concluded on grounds of status quo ante bellum on 10 December 1809.
The Great Sortie of Stralsund was fought in the Franco-Swedish War on 1–3 April 1807, in Swedish Pomerania. A French army under Édouard Mortier invaded Swedish Pomerania in early 1807 and initiated a blockade of the Swedish town of Stralsund, to secure the French rear from enemy attacks. After several smaller sorties and skirmishes around Stralsund, Mortier marched part of his army to support the ongoing Siege of Kolberg, leaving only a smaller force under Charles Louis Dieudonné Grandjean to keep the Swedes at check. The Swedish commander Hans Henric von Essen then commenced a great sortie to push the remaining French forces out of Swedish Pomerania. The French fought bravely on 1 April at Lüssow, Lüdershagen and Voigdehagen, but were eventually forced to withdraw; the Swedes captured Greifswald the next day, after a brief confrontation. The last day of fighting occurred at Demmin and Anklam, where the Swedes took many French prisoners of war, resulting in the complete French withdrawal out of Swedish Pomerania—while the Swedes continued their offensive into Prussia. After two weeks Mortier returned and pushed the Swedish forces back into Swedish Pomerania. After an armistice the French forces once again invaded, on 13 July, and laid siege to Stralsund, which they captured on 20 August; all of Swedish Pomerania was captured by 7 September, but the war between Sweden and France continued until January 6, 1810, when the Swedes were finally forced to sign the Treaty of Paris.
