The Story Of The Baltic

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30763, 29 May 1965, Page 4

The Story Of The Baltic

The Sea and the Sword. The Baltic 1630-1945. By Oliver Warner. Jonathan Cape. 308 pp. and index.

The Baltic, second only to the Mediterrean as a European “inland sea" has for centuries been the scene of trading, expansion and conflict. Denmark, Sweden. Finland, Russia, Poland and East Germany use Baltic waters as their maritime outlet, and its shores and waters have been the prize in protracted struggles for power. The author covers three centuries of Baltic history beginning with the intervention of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the Thirty Years' War and ending with Stalin's annihilation of the Baltic States and East Prussia at the end of the Second World War. The book is divided into two parts. "An Older World.” covering the period 1630-1917 and “The Baltic Re-ordered” (19171945).

The early importance of the Baltic area lay in its possession of the richest available source or naval stores. “Timber, tar, hemp, iron, copper, every product of forest and mine which pertained to the equipment of a sailing fleet could be had from the northern countries, and sometimes for nowhere else.” A lack in the north or other, equally valuable, commodities provided a constantlyexpanding market for the direct and the carrying trade of the Netherlands, Britain, France, Italy and Spain. According to the author, three cardinal events in the 14th and 15th centuries set the trend of Baltic history prior to the advent of Gustavus Adolphus. The Union of Kalmar in 1937 drew the three Scandinavian countries together under the Danish crown. The bond was precarious and broke after just over a century. Had it held, the Baltic might have become a Scandinavian lake. Racially and linguistically akin the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians suffered the disunity of petty and dynastic disputes. By the 18th and 19th centuries it was clear, despite an attempt by Bernadotte to reunite Norway and Sweden, that the future of the Baltic would not lie with the Scandinavian countries, either singly or together. Much of the first part of the book is concerned with the gradual decline of Scandinavian power from the heights achieved by Gustavus. The second event of great future importance was the

dissolution of the Golden Horde, the seizure of power by the rulers of Moscow and the consequent beginnings of the unification of all the Russians into what is now the USSR The third event cited by the author was the acquisition of Brandenburg by the Margrave of Nurnberg. foreshadowing the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia end eventually, in our own century, the two greatest wars the world has ever seen. Fluctuations in the affairs of Poland affected the rest to a major degree. At one time having a major stake in the Baltic. Poland was destined to suffer partition on more than one occasion, followed by complete extinction only to rise again in the present century.

The struggle for power in the Baltic has been long and unceasing. It is a story of broken alliances, war, new alliances and yet more war, both on land and by sea. Mastery of the region has passed from Scandinavian, through German to Russian hands. This then is the back-

ground to this book which is I packed with the histories of I the battles, wars and intrigues 1 of the Baltic nations as well Jas personal glimpses of the many arresting characters that have played leading roles. Men such as Gustavus, Christian IV of Denmark Charles X of Sweden, Peter the Great. Napoleon. Bernadotte. Bismarck. Lenin. Mannerheim, Pilsudski, Hitler and Stalin, to mention only a few. are all there and all have had their hours of glory even if the achievements of many of them have now faded. This is a formidable subject for a single book and naturally demands considerable compression but the author has omitted none of the essentials and has avoided, in compression of the subject matter, a succession of dates and names that such a history could easily become. The next is well illustrated with a series of maps showing the balance of power at various crucial stages in the period under discussion.