Carl Magnus Stuart

Carl Magnus Stuart

Carl Magnus Stuart (* around 1650; † December 5, 1705 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish baron and lieutenant general . He was also general quartermaster and fortress builder .

family

Carl Magnus Stuart was the youngest son of David Stuart from Rockelstad , a castle in the Swedish municipality of Flen , in the province of Södermanland County . His mother was the daughter of Nils Chesnecopherus, her name was Brita Nilsdotter Lillieram.

In 1683 Stuart bought a farm in the Swedish municipality of Öknebo (Södermanland Län). As a result, he bought land in the municipalities of Farsta (now part of Stockholm) and Botkyrka . In addition, after the death of his mother, he inherited her family property in Stockholm's Långbro district .

In 1688, Stuart married Margaret Funck, only 15 years old, daughter of Johann Funck, a Swedish mineralogist and miner . The wedding took place in Stockholm's Sankt Nikolai kyrka .

Four children were born in the marriage. The eldest of the two sons became an officer in the Swedish army. The eldest daughter married Magnus Palmquist in 1705, who was appointed Quartermaster General of the Swedish fortresses after Stuart's death. Nothing is known about the two younger children.

Military career

Stuart began his military career in England. In 1669 he joined the Guard of the English King. Two years later he returned to Sweden and was appointed court squire to the Swedish royal court. He began with a degree in mathematics and architecture ( fortress construction ). In 1675 he was appointed lieutenant in fortress construction. Under the instructions of the fortress builder Erik Dahlberg , he carried out the repair of the defenses in the provinces of Södermanland and Östergötland . In 1676 he carried out renovation and reinforcement work on other fortifications. Reinforcing the defenses of the royal Johannisborg Castle was one of these tasks. In the same year he was made captain .

In 1677 he was given the task of improving the defenses of the capital Stockholm . Between 1677 and 1680 Stuart went on a study trip to England and Holland. Here he acquired extensive knowledge in the construction of port facilities and their fortification.

When the fortress and town of Karlskrona were built in 1680, Stuart was entrusted with the planning and construction of the port facilities and a shipyard .

In 1682 he was appointed lieutenant general quartermaster and took part in the Austrian campaign against the Turks in 1685. Following the campaign, Stuart went on another study trip to Italy , Switzerland and the Netherlands .

On his return in 1687 he was given the task of reinforcing the fortifications of the Gothenburg Fortress together with David Lydinghielm , an artillery officer and builder .

In 1689 he was appointed chamberlain to the king and teacher of the young prince and later king Karl XII. He taught him math and fortification science. An important part of the military lessons was also the drawing of fortifications and fortresses in order to better understand their military uses. Between Charles XII. and Stuart developed a friendly relationship. Throughout his life the king took the advice of his former teacher very seriously.

In 1695 he revised the design for the reconstruction of the fortifications in Gothenburg, thereby reducing construction costs enormously. During Dahlberg's absence he was given the task of monitoring the fortresses in Sweden. In 1697 he was appointed Quartermaster General and Colonel .

In 1698 he designed new defenses for the fortresses in Vaxholm and Nyen , the Nyenschantz . In the same year he was from Karl XII. Sent to Schleswig-Holstein to inspect the defenses and fortresses.

He spent the winter of 1699/1700 in Livonia to inspect the fortresses, also on royal orders. With the outbreak of the Northern War he was appointed quartermaster general in the field. He negotiated the attack on Copenhagen with the British and Dutch admirals . Although his plan was approved by the King and Stuart began preparations, his plan was not implemented.

Stuart worked out the plan of attack for the conquest of the Danish island of Zealand . After the landing at Humlebæk was successful, the king appointed Stuart major general . During the landing, Stuart was wounded by a musket ball. In a hospital in Malmö , despite his wound, he planned the siege of the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

In 1701 he worked with Dahlberg to cross the Düna . On July 2, he landed at the head of the royal body regiment on horseback on the Baltic Sea beach of Livonia . Furthermore, the regiment of the Västerbotten County was under his command. He took part in several battles against the Saxon Army with these two regiments .

After the conquest of Courland in 1702 he was appointed governor . He made a map of Courland with the provinces of Pilten and Zemgall. In his still existing position as Quartermaster General in fortress matters, he arranged for the fortifications of Mitau , Bauske , Libau and Selburg to be strengthened .

After Erik Dahlberg's death in 1703, Stuart was solely responsible for all fortifications in the Swedish Empire. He was promoted to lieutenant general and raised to the rank of baron .

For health reasons he withdrew from December 1703 to the spring of 1704 in the spas of the German cities of Aachen and Bad Ems .

In 1705 he designed the defenses around the fortresses of Stralsund and Reval . Stuart also worked out plans to defend the Åland archipelago.

Throughout his life, Stuart was committed to the introduction of a fortress officer career within the Swedish army. In 1699 he published a revised version of the fortress regulations from 1635. The regulations for this officer career were completely revised by Stuart. The requirements for the future fortress officers were: calligraphy , arithmetic, knowledge of civil architecture, basic artillery skills, etc. The training of officers was postponed to winter. In the darker months of the year mainly basic work was done. In the summer practical skills such as B. terrain drawing, fortress drawings u. Ä., practiced. The exact promotion requirements for officers from Stuart had also been revised. Whoever wanted to be promoted from lieutenant to captain had to be able to reproduce the exact terrain and ground conditions on his drawings. He also had to be able to draw a map of a previously unknown city. To be promoted even higher, the officer also had to be able to calculate the building materials and manpower required to build a redoubt or fortress. Stuart set new standards in fortress construction in a set of regulations. As a result of his work, many fortresses were revised and improved.

Stuart started his last trip in the autumn of 1705. Already marked by his illness, he went to Stockholm to tell the Swedish king about the progress of the work on the fortress Reval. At the end of November 1705 his condition deteriorated rapidly and he died at the age of only 55 on December 5, 1705 in Stockholm.

estate

Despite his enormous workload and the many drawings of the individual fortresses and complexes, only a few of these drawings have survived to this day. These are kept in the Swedish National Archives.

literature

• Karl Magnus Stuart . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 27 : Stockholm-Nynäs järnväg – Syrsor . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1918, Sp. 456 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
• Carl Magnus Stuart . In: Svenskt biografiskt lexikon
• Marjory Harper: Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movements of Emigrants 1600-2000 . Manchester University Press, 2005
• Almut Bues: The Duchy of Courland and the north of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic in the 16th and 17th centuries: possibilities of integration and autonomy . University of Michigan, 2008
• Jan Hecker-Stampehl: From the old north to the new Europe: political culture in the Baltic Sea region . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8305-1781-8

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Nordisk familjebok
2. ^ Marjory Harper SS 62
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Svenskt biografiskt lexicon
4. ↑ ^{a b} Jan Hecker-Stampehl p. 191ff
5. ↑ Almut Bues p. 88