Military history of Sweden

During the prehistoric times, modern Sweden was divided into provinces and in the Svea and Göta kingdoms. There is said that wars were fought between Svear and Götar and that the former were victors. As the Icelandic sagas tell of many family feuds, one can assume that these were not uncommon in Sweden either, as the structure of the society was similar.

During the early Middle Ages, many Vikings took recruitment in the fleet and participated both in trade and in plundering raids. The system of Leidang was used to organize the armies in the different parts of the country. In an alliance with the Danes, the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung won the war against the Norwegians at the battle of Svolder.

The Russo-Swedish War (1495–97) was a result of an alliance between Ivan III of Russia and Hans of Denmark, who was waging war against the Sture family of Sweden in the hope of regaining the Swedish throne. Ivan III sent Princes Daniil Shchenya and Vasily Shuisky to lay siege to the Swedish castle of Vyborg. The siege lasted for three months and ended when a castellan set his supply of powder on fire, thus "scaring the Muscovites out of their wits", as the Swedish records say. The following year Russian generals Vasily Kosoy and Andrey Chelyadnin severely devastated Swedish Finland as far as Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus). Another detachment sailed along the shore, forcing the Finns into subservience.

Sten Sture the Elder, who was then at Turku (Åbo), was enraged at the news of the Russian expedition and sent Svante Nilsson with 2,000 men to take Ivangorod, a new fortress which Ivan III had built to protect Russian Ingria against Livonian Knights. The fortress was taken but was impossible to defend it for a considerable period of time — Svante Nilsson proposed to hand it over to the Knights, an offer which they declined. Thereupon the Swedes set the fortress ablaze and sailed home. After the Swedish throne fell to Hans of Denmark, hostilities were suspended until 1508, when Sweden and Russia ratified a peace treaty for 60 years. Sweden and Russia would fight many wars in the following centuries (see Russo-Swedish Wars)

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