eotSE part 1: Prologue

The end of the Swedish Empire, part 1.
part 2: fav.me/d7rhwd9
part 3: fav.me/d7u8zqr
part 4: fav.me/d7z9xek
part 5: fav.me/d81nxxj
I fealt like making another historically informative hetalia fancomic, in the same vein as my "union between Norway and Sweden" series that I made last year (it can be found here: fav.me/d64k7ya fav.me/d66vnxb fav.me/d66vqnn ). This one turned out a lot longer though, I currently have five parts planned.

The swedish empire rose to power in a bunch of military victories in the first half of the 17th century. It was at its largest in 1658, including Sweden, Finland, the baltics, some German states, and the trøndelag provinces of Norway. The latter two were lost back in 1660, however, and king Charles X died shortly after. In the following years, Sweden was ruled over by an inefficient regency full of internal conflict.

In the early 1670s, sweden was dragged into war due to an alliance with France. Sweden didn't do very well, and Denmark took the opportunity to invade Scania in 1676. In the end, Sweden didn't lose any land, but it was obvious that Sweden did not have the military power necessary to defend an empire its size. In addition to this, the national economy was bad. It was now up to the young king, Charles XI, to fix this.

I also threw in the not very relevant fact about Charles XI marrying princess Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark, just because I find the idea of Sweden and Denmark pretending to be BFFs in this era rather hilarious. Ulrika Eleonora is generally described as a very kind person, giving away lots of money to charity and stuff. Sadly she died in 1693

In what became known as the great reduction, the crown confiscated a lot of land from the nobility. This improved the state economy, but lead to a lot of noble families going bankrupt. 
Sweden was also made into an absolute monarchy.

At the time, it was common in europe to hire mercenary soldiers to fight in your wars. However, they were expensive (one of the reasons the economy was in such a bad state). Conscription was another option , but that met a lot of resistance among the population. Charles XII introduced what is known as the younger allotment system (which buildt upon the older allotment system - no kidding). Farms were grouped together and had to provide for one soldier, and they could also to some degree chose who would become soldiers. In a similar vein the nobility had to provide for the cavalry and people living at the coast had to raise the navy (also a lot of new ships were made). Using land taken in the great reduction, Soldiers were given a small farm where they could live and provide for themselves in peacetime. This way, Sweden had a standing army without too many costs. This system turned out to work very well; The Carolean army might have been the best army in Europe back then. The allotment system remained in use all the way until 1901.  

Charles XI died of stomach cancer in 1797. The three other people in that panel are supposed to be his children. The castle burned down shortly after; if this was fiction I would call that symbolism or foreshadowing. Charles XI seems to be rather well liked; he is depicted on the 500 kr bill. There is also this myth about him travelling anonymously around the country wearing a grey cloak and rewarding nice people, but that's  probably not true.