THE SWEDISH SUCCESSION CRISES OF 1809 AND 1810, AND THE QUESTION OF SCANDINAVIAN UNION

Abstract

/~^' USTAV IV Adolf's involvement of Sweden in the War of the Third '^f Coalition in 1805 ultimately proved his undoing. In Pomerania during the summer of 1807, as his fitful campaigning against Napoleon neared its ignominious end, there already appeared first beginnings of a plot to depose him within the angry and disillusioned Swedish officer corps.1 This fact did not remain unknown outside the beleaguered walls of Stralsund. As early as June 22, Duke Frederik Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg brother-inlaw to the Crown Prince-Regent of Denmark who the following year became King Frederik VI wrote to Count Joachim Bernstorff concerning Napoleon's latest successes. Thereupon he continued: