Carl Piper (politician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carl Piper

Carl Piper (born July 29, 1647 in Stockholm , † May 29, 1716 in Schluesselburg ) was a Swedish statesman.

Life

Carl Piper's parents were the Swedish chamberlain Carl Piper and his wife Ingrid Charlotta Ekenbom.

After six years of academic studies in Uppsala , he worked as a teacher of C. F. Graf von Schlippenbach , the later Prussian general of the cavalry, and entered the royal chancellery in 1668, where he was soon appreciated for his diligence and diligence. During the Skåne war he also served in the royal Swedish field chancellery, at times under the eyes of the king. In 1677 he was made registrar in the Grand Chancellery and in 1679 he was ennobled and appointed secretary of the Chamber College. At this time, preparations began for the reductions, which had the goal of returning noble estates to crown estates. In 1689 he became a chancellery and state secretary, responsible for domestic policy; the position of the Councilors of State increased in importance when Charles XII. became King in 1697 and the Royal Council was marginalized on foreign policy matters. His late father, Charles XI. , made his son aware of Piper. Piper also had a hand in the enthronement of Karl and, together with Count Axel Sparre, “managed it so that the estates recognized him as capable of governing on November 9, 1697; on December 24th Carl was crowned, and Piper Graf ”. Charles XI. had wanted a guardianship government for his son until he came of age. 1702 Piper succeeded Bengt Oxenstierna Chancellor of Uppsala University and 1705 Colonel Marshal at the Royal Court while retaining his appointment as State Councilor and Head of the Field Chancellery.

Piper's relationship with Charles XII.

Piper was a favorite of King Charles XII, but he too was constantly in competition with other favorites. Carlsson wrote of Bengt Sapieha, the Grand Treasurer in Lithuania , that he "knew how to gain such influence on the king that his advice was often as effective or more effective than that of the cautious Piper". Sapieha died in Berlin in 1707. In his letters to his sister Ulrike Eleonore, Karl regularly sent greetings from Piper, combined with the request that she remain steadfast in her graciousness to Countess Piper. Piper did not think much of the warlike demeanor of the king and did not do without a wig or forage on the campaigns and never lay in the mud with the crew.

Piper's activity as a State Councilor

Piper was in the first reign of Charles XII. until 1709 his closest advisor. Whoever wanted to become king, could not pass Piper, and so Piper kept his king's back free from everyday intrusions. He took part in the deliberations on the peace offers made by Augustus the Strong after the Danes were defeated. On September 29, 1700, he presented the French ambassador, Count de Guiscard, with a special letter from King Charles XII. to Louis XIV , with whom Karl rejected all peace negotiations, because "He, the King in Sweden, has too many and strong evidence in his hands", one could not rely on August's promises of peace "without seeing oneself ultimately betrayed". After the battle of Narva , which had ended victorious for Karl, Piper advised his king in February 1701 to accept an advantageous peace offer, especially since France beckoned with subsidies . In the autumn of 1701 it became even clearer in a memorandum to his king, in which he rejected Karl's irreconcilable hatred of August the Strong and asked him: “Is it really a Christian duty to cultivate an incomprehensible hatred against an enemy who admits his mistake and is willing is not only to make reparation for the past, but also to give security for the future ... Your cause can no longer be just in the eyes of a just and good God ”. However, Piper also thought King August was a usurper and advised Karl to separate the cause of the Polish Republic from the king and thus to drive a gap between the two.

When the ambassador of the King of Poland, Aurora von Königsmarck , brought August's offer of peace at the beginning of 1702, Field Marshal Rehnskiöld and Piper accepted this benevolently, but let them seek an audience with Karl themselves, as they knew the king's attitude well enough. to know that Aurora would " flash off " the king .

On July 7, 1702, Piper advised his king to wait with the attack on the Saxons at Klissow until the reinforcement by Mörner's troops. July 1701 had gone out in favor of the Swedes. After the heavy defeat of the Saxons at Klissow, August requested a personal meeting with Karl XII through an imperial ambassador. - However, this insisted on the deposition of the Polish king. Therefore, on December 5, 1702, the Polish Diet in Toruń - a minority assembly - decided that it wanted to "jump to their King August, as their chief, against all his enemies ... even if it should cost their lives and even their lives".

In a letter to Major General Stenbock in January 1703, Charles XII wrote that the Congress of Poles in Wisnia had turned to Piper with the request that an embassy be sent to Charles XII. to be allowed to send “and to make your compliment; he [Count Piper] now writes the answer and allows them ”. Piper's peacebuilding policy was also well known to the Poles, which is why they turned to him preferentially, especially since the Swedish contribution trains through Poland were becoming more and more a burden. However, the Polish war of the Swedes meant that the Russians were able to spread into Livonia . In July 1704 Narva was lost to the Russians. Tsar Peter I founded his new capital St. Petersburg as early as 1703 . Also in July 1704, at the instigation of King Charles, the new Polish King Stanislaus Leszcynski was elected and crowned on September 24, 1705 in Warsaw. On November 18, 1705, peace was finally made with Poland and Karl had his hand free to invade Saxony directly, which happened in August 1706. Count Piper and Hermelin succeeded as early as September 14, 1706 in the Peace of Altranstädt to persuade August to renounce the Polish crown. In August 1707 there was another personal meeting between Karl and August to say goodbye - one of those dangerous solo rides typical of Karl, as Piper later reproached the king with.

When Karl decided to go to war against Russia , he brought Rehnskiöld back into his inner circle of advisers, "since he, in contrast to the older generals and his minister Piper, was allowed to assume an unconditional response to his boldest plans". Piper wrote his resignation because he saw the coming calamity approaching the Swedes. Sweden was completely ruined, almost all sources of money pledged. To Karl XII. Other advisors now gathered who tried to outdo each other in flattery towards Karl, such as Major General Baron Anders Lagercrona and Major General Count Axel Sparre , who, in the presence of Charles, proclaimed an old prophecy according to which a Sparre would one day become governor of Moscow. When he marched into Russia, Karl thought of making this a reality. Allegedly, the battle of Poltava ended in 1709 in a crushing defeat for the Swedes because Piper had turned the king, who was wounded, against Rehnskiöld's approach.

Captivity

The entire Swedish field chancellery fell into the hands of the Russians and Piper was captured. During his imprisonment in Moscow he organized a Swedish community system with its own administration, which also dealt with church matters. The number of Swedes prisoners of war in Russia after 1709 was about 30,000 men, of which 2,300 were officers. Only the most distinguished prisoners of war were allowed to stay in Moscow.

In 1710, Count Carl Piper and his wife Christina Törnflycht bought Engsö Castle from Johann Sigismund Sparre for 48,050 thalers in silver coins. However, he never saw his property, as he died in Russian captivity in the Schluesselburg fortress in 1716 . He lies with his wife in marble sarcophagi in the church of his Engsö castle. In the dining room there are paintings with portraits of the Piper family. His son Carl Fredric took over the property in 1730 after his mother died.

literature

  • Piper, Carl . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 2 : L – Z, including supplement . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 286-287 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
  • Jörg Peter Findeisen: Karl XII. of Sweden. Berlin 1992.
  • Ernst Carlson (editor): The handwritten letters of King Charles XII. Berlin 1894.
  • R. Nisbet Bain: Charles XII and the collapse of the swedish empire 1682-1719. New York / London 1895.
  • Göran Nordberg: Life of Carl the Twelfth King in Sweden. (German translation by Heubel) Volume I, 1745.
  • M. Brecht, K. Deppermann (editor): History of Pietism. Goettingen 1995.
  • Heiko Droste: In the service of the crown. Swedish diplomats in the 17th century. ( Nordic history , 2). Lit, Münster 2006.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard von Poten :  Schlippenbach, Karl Friedrich Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 521 f.
  2. ^ Piper, Carl . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 2 : L – Z, including supplement . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 286-287 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
  3. ^ Droste, p. 72
  4. ↑ IF Damberger : Fürstenbuch to the Princely Table of the European Stattengeschichte . Regensburg 1831, § 864, p. 956
  5. ↑ Findeisen, p. 37
  6. ^ Carlsson, p. 88
  7. ↑ see e.g. B. Carlsson, p. 78
  8. ↑ Findeisen, p. 70
  9. ↑ "Under förra halves af Carl XII: s styrelse var Piper själen i alla radslag" Svenskt biogr handl.
  10. ↑ Nordberg, Vol. I, p. 155 and Findeisen, p. 49
  11. ↑ Findeisen, p. 58
  12. ↑ Findeisen, p. 65 and Bain, p. 109
  13. ^ General German real encyclopedia for the educated classes [Conversations-Lexikon]. 1827, volume 1, p. 540
  14. ↑ Findeisen, p. 68
  15. ↑ Piper's son Karl Friedrich married Mörner's daughter Ulrike Christina in 1731. Mörner, Carl Gustaf . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 2 : L – Z, including supplement . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 165 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
  16. ↑ Findeisen, p. 73
  17. ↑ Nordberg, I, p. 381
  18. ^ Carlsson, p. 292
  19. ↑ Nordberg, Volume II, p. 29
  20. ↑ Findeisen, p. 91
  21. ↑ Findeisen, p. 97
  22. ↑ Theodor Pyl :  Rehn shield, Gerd Anton Graf . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 602-604.
  23. ↑ Brecht, Volume 2, p. 495
  24. ↑ Continued New Genealogical-Historical News… The 133rd Part. Leipzig 1773, p. 279
  25. ↑ Link: www.werbeka.com/vasteras/bo/engsool.htm
personal data
SURNAME Piper, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish statesman
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1647
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1716
Place of death Moscow