Anjalabund
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As Anjalabund ( Swedish Anjalaförbundet , Finnish Anjalan liitto ) is a group of Swedish officers who in 1788 in Finland against the war policy of the Swedish King Gustav III. opposed.
background
In 1771 Gustav III ascended after the death of his father Adolf Friedrich the Swedish throne. Just one year later, on August 19, 1772, he managed to largely exclude the Reichstag and the nobility from political participation in a coup-like action . He abolished parliamentarism and has since governed enlightened absolutist .
The year 1788 marked a turning point towards a more offensive foreign policy of Gustav III. The king, who had acted rather cautiously until then, decided - mainly for domestic political reasons - for a war of aggression against Russia , which had been weakened by a war against the Ottoman Empire since 1787 . The Russo-Swedish War began on June 28, 1788 due to a staged military incident in Puumala , Finland .
Liikala memorandum
The new war was unpopular among large parts of the Swedish elite. In Finland in particular, which had to bear most of the burden of a war in the east, there was discontent among the military. Six weeks after the start of the war, seven high-ranking Swedish officers, Gustav III's. Refused to proceed.
On the night of August 9, 1788, they signed a political memorandum in Liikala, Finland . In it they declared the war against Russia to be illegal under Swedish constitutional law. They advocated negotiations with the Russian Tsarina Catherine II . The conspirators offered Russia a peace treaty within the limits of before 1743 ( Peace of Åbo ), i.e. with land gains for Sweden in old Finland .
The initiator of the memorandum is Major General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt the Elder. J. (a grandson of the famous Swedish general Carl Gustaf Armfeldt the Elder ), who was the commander in chief of the Swedish army in Finland. Major Johan Anders Jägerhorn (1757-1825) volunteered to bring Tsarina Katharina's message to Saint Petersburg .
Anjalabund
A few days later, the Liikala memorandum found further support. A declaration of solidarity for the seven officers was drawn up on August 12 at the Anjala manor on the Kymijoki River . 113 Swedish military personnel supported the Liikala memorandum. According to the place of the meeting, the participants are grouped under the term Anjalabund.
The influential signatories sent a copy of the solidarity address to the Swedish king, who had his army camp not far away . They described the armed conflict against Russia as a Swedish war of aggression that could not be won, but unreservedly vowed the defense of the fatherland if Tsarina Katharina should reject the proposed peace offer. In the critical situation for Sweden, they too demanded that the Reichstag be convened.
The strong personalities behind the letter of support for the men from Liikala are said to have been Johan Anders Jägerhorn and Karl Henrik Klick. The influential Göran Magnus Sprengtporten (1740-1819) was one of the supporters.
The Anjalabund was promoted by important officials of the empire, especially in Finland. Even Duke Karl , the king's brother, was said to be sympathetic. In several letters to Gustav III. he asked for understanding for the demands made.
Above all, the Anjalabund was dissatisfied that Gustav's plan of attack against the city of Saint Petersburg had failed in the first days of the war and that the important Finnish cities of Savonlinna and Hamina had not been conquered . In addition, parts of the Anjalabund showed signs of separatist tendencies in the Finnish part of the empire compared to the Swedish heartland. In general, the unease about the increasingly absolutist style of rule of the king and the abolition of the constitution of 1772 played a major role.
Avertissement
On August 25, another document, the so-called Avertissement , was published, which is also attributed to members of the Anjalabund. This is the demands of 12./13. August emphasized that the Swedish troops in Finland would join the Anjalabund and called for the Reichstag to be convened.
Jägerhorn's mission to Saint Petersburg
Major Johan Anders Jägerhorn, as a representative of the Anjalabund, brought his message to Tsarina Katharina at the court in Saint Petersburg on August 23, 1788 as a secret peace feeler. However, Jägerhorn far exceeded his mandate and spoke of the officers' desire to convene a Finnish state parliament that would be neutral in the conflict between Sweden and Russia.
Tsarina Katharina showed an interest in the Anjalabund as a split in the Swedish elite would be useful to her, but declined public support for the authors of the memorandum. On diplomatic intervention by Prussia and Great Britain , which were interested in a war to weaken Russia, the Anjalabund was ultimately without consequences in terms of foreign policy as a peace initiative. Jägerhorn himself fled to Russia in November 1788 and entered the service of the Tsarina.
Gustav III reaction
Gustav III found out immediately about Jägerhorn's trip to Saint Petersburg, which seemed to him as a possible harbinger of an attempted military coup in Sweden. Already in mid-August 1788, when he became aware of the Liikala memorandum, Gustav III, who was in Finland, saw. a danger to themselves among the officers of the Anjalabund who might be prepared for a coup . On August 26th he handed over the command of the Swedish troops in the east to Duke Karl. The king went to western Sweden, where a new front had been opened when Denmark entered the war on August 21, 1788.
King Gustav III saw high treason in the actions of the Anjalabund . He was favored by the fact that the public mood in Sweden changed in favor of the king, especially when the end of the war with Denmark was looming. At the turn of the year 1788/89 he had the leaders of the conspiracy arrested. In the spring of 1789 they were brought to Stockholm . The trials dragged on until April 1790. Two conspirators fled to Russia, nine more were sentenced to death. However, the death sentence was only carried out on Colonel Johan Henrik Hästesko from Mikkeli on September 8, 1790. The others were sentenced to imprisonment or deportation to the Swedish Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy , some of which were later pardoned.
Gustav III skilfully used the Anjalabund as propaganda on their own behalf and thus achieved that popular opinion again turned more towards the king. With the Unification and Security Act (Swedish: Förenings- och säkerhetsakten ) of 1789, he even deprived the Reichstag of the right to legislate, effectively abolished the Reichsrat and consolidated absolutism .
literature
- Carl Magnus Creutz: Anjala-förbundet. Bidrag till dess historia. Efter enskilta och offentliga handlingar. Norstedt, Stockholm 1848.
- Ilkka Mäntylä: Kustavilainen aika. Teoksesta Suomen historian pikkujättiläinen. Weilin + Göös, Espoo 1986, WSOY, Helsinki 1987, ISBN 951-35-2493-0
- Anjalabund . In: Bernhard Meijer (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-Armati . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1904, Sp. 1042 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
Web links
- Liikkalan nootti 8/9/1788 (Finnish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The signatories were: Carl Gustaf Armfeldt, Sebastian von Otter, Johan Henrik Hästesko, Per af Enehjelm, Otto Klingspor, Karl Henrik Klick and Gustaf von Kothen.
- ↑ Occasionally spelling Liikkala
- ↑ Anjalabund . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 1, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 595.
- ↑ Facsimile ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The original document handed over, which has not been signed, is now in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
