Merged Great Mysteries of our Time: How Charles XII really died solved

[Vixen]

King Charles XII of Sweden (17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718) having lost the disastrous Battle of Poltava to Peter the Great (8 July 1709) signalling the beginning of the end of Sweden as the superpower of Europe, was now called to the borders of Norway to attack the old foe Denmark. These battles were all part of the Great Northern War from 1700 - 1721.

It was at the siege of Fredrikshald (present day Halden) in November 1718 that Charles XII, still a young man at just 36 years old, met his end, by a projectile to his head.

Popular folklore and speculation has arisen ever since as to who fired the fatal shot. Some claim it was one of his own men from a musket, tired and fed up of the endless wars and trepidations. At Poltava men were poorly equipped or prepared, as compared to Peter the Great and the death toll was high. One myth is that he was shot by a button from his own lapel.

Researchers at the University of Oulu, under the leadership of Docent Juho-Antti Junno, now say they know the real cause of the death of Charles XII.

Research into the cause of death of King Charles has continued for centuries, involving three autopsies (1746, 1859 and 1917). In the last autopsy, the mummified remains of Charles, buried in the church of Riddarholmen, were also X-rayed.

<snip>

Musket balls with a diameter of 29.5 millimetres were fired into model skulls at different speeds, and the path of the wound was investigated using computer-assisted tomography. The test firing was conducted using a 10-calibre shotgun and a 28 millimetre black powder cannon. According to Juho-Antti Junno, the study indicated that the projectile that killed the king was probably not a lead musket ball, as the damage to the model skulls were of different sizes than with King Charles, and a lead ball would have left traces of lead that would have been visible in an X-ray picture.

Oulu University researchers found that the projectile must have been much bigger than that of a musket and was likely fired from afar from a fortress 200m away and by the hand of the enemy.

The study concludes that it is most likely that Charles XII was killed by iron grapeshot with a diameter of well over 20 millimetres. The damage to the skull suggests that the projectile's speed on impact was probably about 200 m/s, which would correspond well to the speed of ammunition fired from a fortress about 200 metres away. This means that Charles XII met his fate not at the hands of assassins among his own men, but most likely from a shot fired from the enemy side.

Oulu University

Mystery solved.


Charles XII was an extremely able military leader but alas, was lacking in logistics skills as to ensuring adequate supplies and warmth to his troops in his longer campaigns. He was so used to winning, he became complacent.

 

[Myriad]

 

[Lennart Hyland]

Charles XII was an extremely able military leader but alas, was lacking in logistics skills as to ensuring adequate supplies and warmth to his troops in his longer campaigns. He was so used to winning, he became complacent.

Interesting. I'm reading about the Battle of Poltava by Swedish historian and Swedish Academy member Peter Englund and atleast for that battle its seems to be the extreme winter and the scorched earth tactics by the Russians that led to the horrendous situation of the Swedish army in the spring and summer of 1709.

He also ordered Adam Ludvig Lewenhaupt to march from Riga, Latvia with his 12000 troops and supplies and meet Karl XII in in the spring of 1709. Though Lewenhaupts army was defeated in september 1708 at the Battle of Lesna resulting in only 6000 hungry broken soldiers with no supplies connected with Karl XII army only to create more problem.

But I'm only about half way through the book so I'm still to read about Englunds conclusions.

 

[Vixen]

Interesting. I'm reading about the Battle of Poltava by Swedish historian and Swedish Academy member Peter Englund and atleast for that battle its seems to be the extreme winter and the scorched earth tactics by the Russians that led to the horrendous situation of the Swedish army in the spring and summer of 1709.

He also ordered Adam Ludvig Lewenhaupt to march from Riga, Latvia with his 12000 troops and supplies and meet Karl XII in in the spring of 1709. Though Lewenhaupts army was defeated in september 1708 at the Battle of Lesna resulting in only 6000 hungry broken soldiers with no supplies connected with Karl XII army only to create more problem.

But I'm only about half way through the book so I'm still to read about Englunds conclusions.

What is the title of the book, as I have an interest in Lewenhaupt? My sixth great-grandfather served under him. (Premiärkornett vid Åbo ord. kav.-reg. xx.10.1709. [cornet]) Was a major by 1721 probably owing to quite a few vacancies having opened up!

According to a local history book, quite a large number of young men (200 iirc) from the same village as him were at the Norwegian battle and died there, although I don't know whether he would have been there as well or if he led them.

 

[Lennart Hyland]

What is the title of the book, as I have an interest in Lewenhaupt? My sixth great-grandfather served under him. (Premiärkornett vid Åbo ord. kav.-reg. xx.10.1709. [cornet]) Was a major by 1721 probably owing to quite a few vacancies having opened up!

According to a local history book, quite a large number of young men (200 iirc) from the same village as him were at the Norwegian battle and died there, although I don't know whether he would have been there as well or if he led them.

In swedish the book title is simply "Poltava - Berättelsen om en armés undergång"

For the english version I think its this:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1087245.The_Battle_that_Shook_Europe

 

[Vixen]

In swedish the book title is simply "Poltava - Berättelsen om en armés undergång"

For the english version I think its this:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1087245.The_Battle_that_Shook_Europe

Many thanks! I'll order that.

 

[steenkh]

Last year I read Dan H. Andersens massive book (in Danish) “Store Nordiske Krig” (2021) about the Great Northern War. The book is written before the Outlook study, but he mentions other reconstructions, and the X-ray studies, and also reaches the conclusion that Karl XII was likely killed by a Norwegian bullet, or grapeshot. He concludes that “It is not unlikely that a person who sticks his head up and rests it on the arms on the parapet while under heavy fire, gets killed.”

The suspicions of murder are mostly supported by the speedy reaction of the Frederick of Hesse to get himself proclaimed regent together with his wife, the sister of Karl. However, she is proclaimed queen without her husband as co-regent. He has to wait a couple of years before achieving kingship.

But Dan H. Andersen does not portray Karl as a great general. His battles are described as straightforward assaults where he relies on the fierceness of the Swedish soldiers to carry the days. Poltava is one such example that didn’t work out well. His sense of strategy is also doubtful, as witnessed by the many years that he tramples around in Poland to support his own pretender to the Polish throne, while letting czar Peter build up his forces unmolested.

 

[Vixen]

Last year I read Dan H. Andersens massive book (in Danish) “Store Nordiske Krig” (2021) about the Great Northern War. The book is written before the Outlook study, but he mentions other reconstructions, and the X-ray studies, and also reaches the conclusion that Karl XII was likely killed by a Norwegian bullet, or grapeshot. He concludes that “It is not unlikely that a person who sticks his head up and rests it on the arms on the parapet while under heavy fire, gets killed.”

The suspicions of murder are mostly supported by the speedy reaction of the Frederick of Hesse to get himself proclaimed regent together with his wife, the sister of Karl. However, she is proclaimed queen without her husband as co-regent. He has to wait a couple of years before achieving kingship.

But Dan H. Andersen does not portray Karl as a great general. His battles are described as straightforward assaults where he relies on the fierceness of the Swedish soldiers to carry the days. Poltava is one such example that didn’t work out well. His sense of strategy is also doubtful, as witnessed by the many years that he tramples around in Poland to support his own pretender to the Polish throne, while letting czar Peter build up his forces unmolested.

A lot depends on whose perspective one is looking at it from. Andersen is seeing it from the Danish view, the Danes being Sweden's main foe ever since it seized independence from King Christian II (Catholic; Gustav Vasa I being a newly minted Protestant). Bearing in mind Charles XII was in the shadow of his Grandfather Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XI, both considered the greatest Swedish Kings, together with Oxenstierna who took over office of state in Gustavus Adolphus' many absences away at war or in Livonia, his relatively young age and the fact of his being at the end of the era of the Swedish Empire, notwithstanding his pact with the Ottomans against Peter the Great, Charles XII does seem to have a rough deal, especially dying as he did, with people speculating it was by his own men.


To compound matters, the Great Reduction came to a head under Charles XII, started by Charles X, this meant 'free estates' which had been tax free and held by 'knights' , nobles and clergymen, reverted to the crown and they were now taxable, albeit the nobles paying less than the peasants. All this done to help pay for all the kings' wars, did cause a lot of resentment in the formerly free estates. One reason a person would be knighted by the king could be for valiant effort in war and pertinently, because that noble had been able to provide funds and loans to the king for his wars. (Not much different from today's money in exchange for honours for UK politicians.)

The reductions had major consequences in the Swedish foreign dominions. They affected both Swedes who had received fiefdoms and represented in the Swedish riksdag and native landowners in the dominions. The Swedish Crown demanded fiefdoms in the Baltic provinces that had been given before Swedish suzerainty. Some local nobles claimed that the Swedish Crown thereby ignored the local laws in the dominions.

Especially in Livonia, an old feudal state in which all land since the establishment of the Teutonic Order had been in the hands of the nobility, the demands had profound consequences. Serfs on the reduced fiefdoms were now transferred to the Swedish Crown, which caused dissatisfaction among members of the Baltic German nobility and led, in particular, to Livonian nobleman, Johann Patkul (1660–1707) conspiring with Peter the Great (1672-1725) of Russia and Augustus the Strong of Saxony (1670–1733), to start the Great Northern War against Sweden.

wiki

 

[sackett]

He was in the trenches about 200 English yards from the enemy's walls. They loosed grape and one shot hit him. What a surprise. What? A surprise?

You'll pardon a non-Continental for not being fascinated by the beginning, middle, or end of one more great victor.

 

[steenkh]

He was in the trenches about 200 English yards from the enemy's walls. They loosed grape and one shot hit him. What a surprise. What? A surprise?

I think it is more a question of a natural tendency to ascribe unusual deaths to great people, and Karl XII was undoubtedly great.

 

[sackett]

Call me Bob, but

I think it is more a question of a natural tendency to ascribe unusual deaths to great people, and Karl XII was undoubtedly great.

what is greatness in a man? In Karl's day and, alas, long after, a great king was one who expanded his kingdom, nothing more.

Let's recall what Byron exclaimed after talking to the Duke of Wellington: "What a small parcel of brains it takes to be great!"

 

[zooterkin]

what is greatness in a man? In Karl's day and, alas, long after, a great king was one who expanded his kingdom, nothing more.

Let's recall what Byron exclaimed after talking to the Duke of Wellington: "What a small parcel of brains it takes to be great!"

Do you have a source for that quote? It's not one I've heard; I'm by no means an expert on Wellington, but I have read a few books about him and not come across that opinion.

(Wellington's initial opinion about Nelson was along those lines, but was reversed when Nelson, apparently, realised who he was.

“The Secretary of State kept us long waiting, and certainly for the last half or three quarters of an hour I don’t know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more. Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had, but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw.”

)

 

[sackett]

Byron may have exclaimed that in a letter, but I don't have any idea beyond that.

We've all read biographies of Wellington. My impression of him is chiefly of an overbearing nobleman who respected literally nobody, and showed it by shouting unstoppably. If he'd lived a hundred years earlier, he'd have behaved exactly the same way. A hundred years later, he'd have been a field marshal in WW1, with predictable results.

Karl XII might have been a better fit.

 

[Steve]

Great Mysteries of our Time: How Charles XII really died solved

As interesting as this story may be, I have some difficulty including the year 1718 in the general category of "our time".

 

[HansMustermann]

Apparently Charles XII wasn't murdered after all

https://sciencenorway.no/forensics-...o-killed-the-swedish-king-charles-xii/2142747

Short version: after much testing with artificial skulls used for ballistic tests, and doing CT scans of the results, the wound on the king's head is actually consistent with iron grapeshot fired from an artillery piece at least 200m away. It's not consistent with anything a musket would shoot at the time.

 

[Mojo]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=363882