Swedish-British War

The Swedish-British War was a conflict between Sweden and Great Britain from 1810 to 1812 . It belonged to the coalition wars . This war ended with the Peace of Örebro .

After the Peace of Paris in 1810, Sweden was forced into continental lockdown by France , a trade embargo against Great Britain . Since Britain was Sweden's largest trading partner, this posed a problem. In fact, the trade then continued unabated as smuggling .

Tired of Sweden's inability to enforce the blockade , France gave the Swedish government an ultimatum on November 13, 1810: Sweden should declare war on Great Britain within five days, confiscate all British ships in Swedish ports and all British products and groceries in Sweden to confiscate. Should Sweden fail to meet the French conditions, France and its allies would declare war on him. On November 17th, the Swedish government gave in and declared war on Britain. Nevertheless, there were no acts of war. British ships were even allowed to call at the Swedish port of Hanö .

The only bloodshed during the war occurred on June 15, 1811, when Major General Hampus Mörner and 140 men were supposed to put down the uprising of a group of peasants from Klågerup in Skåne who protested against the soldiers being evicted . In the incident , which went down in history as the Klågerup riots , 30 farmers were killed by Mörner's troops.

With the election of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who later became King Charles XIV John , as Swedish Crown Prince, relations with France deteriorated. When France reoccupied Swedish Pomerania and Rügen in 1812 , Sweden sent negotiators to Great Britain to end the war. After lengthy negotiations, the peace treaty was signed in Örebro on July 18, 1812.

literature

• Ulf Sundberg: Svenska Krig 1521–1814. Hjalmarson & Högberg, Stockholm 1998, ISBN 91-89080-14-9 .