The institution of monarchy itself is one of the only things left from the long and distant past. I still support the constitutional monarchy of Sweden today precisely because it is such an important part of our history and national identity. I understand that some people see it as an antiquated thing that should be abolished but I think that’s equal to rejecting a huge part of our historical legacy.
I think it’s cool. I try not to go too far one side or the other on these types of things since I’m an outsider and don’t have quite the understanding of what some of these things might mean to the people there..but from my perspective it’s an awesome kind of shout out to the past generations.
@@rayceofhistory Yea, someone who's never lived in a monarchy wouldn't truly understand what it represents. The monarchy does an excellent job in representing our country to the outside world and are advancing many good causes in society by using their status. It doesn't have any real say in the state affairs and they remain above politics, which is something that has served this country well. Even though the political divisions are there the monarchy remains as a stabilizing influence. You could argue back and forth but that's what I think at least.
We still have ha nation wide PTSD from losing Finland and the Baltic after we have been at war for like 500-1000 years, but all of the sudden too be at peace for 200 years. We've forgot our history and our pride! We've forgot every hero and soldier that fought and died for us. But the loss of Finland still hurts for all of Sweden even if we don't admit it....
Sweden was strange seem from a European context because the monarchy slowly accepted the fact that it was not going to be as influential in state affairs as it had once was. By the turn of the 20th century, while the monarchy formally reserved many powers, in reality it has ceded both power and responsibility to the elected Parliament. This transition was gradual and peaceful, in stark contrast to many other European monarchies that were desperately trying to cling onto power, while grudgingly accepting some form of parliamentary rule.
That has to be at least partially credited to the monarchy right? I mean..they could have made it far worse during that transition like other European monarchs couldn’t they?
@@rayceofhistory Agree with this comment. The monarchy has had its crises but the non-confrontational way it lost power is due in a great deal to the wisdom of the monarchs, especially Gustav VI Adolf. The last more major crisis was "borggårdstalet" (the court yard speech) were the king Gustav V critized the governments lack of military spending during the lead up to WWI. It led to a constituional crises and in the long run the transition to constitutional monarchy. The last really powerful monarch was Karl XIV Johan (former Marshal Bernadotte). His grandson Karl XV was good friends with the Danish king and promised him Swedish support in their war with Prussia. This was not government policy and led to a small conflict between king and government which the king lost. Just one other small piece in the transition to constitutional monarchy.
@@rayceofhistory Indeed. The remaining monarchies of Europe are those that have changed with the time. Sweden and especially the United Kingdom are perfect examples of adapting constitutional monarchies that have accepted their ceremonial and representative role in a democratic society. The royal motto of our current king, Carl XVI Gustaf is: "For Sweden - with the Times". Those words symbolize how the monarchy have retained its position.
@@rayceofhistory They got to keep their throne and their heads. They were sensible about it but Livgardet's loyalty wasn't to an individual really it's to "the crown" and the king must prove worthy to wear it.
We did not quite change from before, we made a minor adjustment to how the power is handled. The king ceremonly opens the Riksdag (Reichstag) for example. Länge leve konungen!
19:20 I'm always amazed seeing these old photos of Stockholm. Sometimes it is hard to believe it is the same city as we know it today. :) I remember my service as a royal guard during the somewhat chaotic water festival in 1998 (now I feel old). I had to defend off a guy crossing the barrier put up during the nights on the "Lions Slope" (Lejonbacken) leading up to the northern entrance of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. He had his eyes set om my AK5 and tried to grab it from me. After putting him to the ground, one of his more intelligent friends rushed to his aid telling him to back off and that the AK5 I was carrying was loaded with live rounds and that the situation could turn bad for him. Luckily the situation de-escalated after that.
25:13 What happened? They did a tour in Russia or somewhere controversial because normally a tour in Russia wouldn’t be bad but they did it in a place which made the Swedish army back out because they don’t wanna be connected to that. I don’t remember exactly the specifics on why they backed out exactly but you can do some research. I remember it has to do with Crimea that’s all and some political pressure was put on the Swedish military.
@@rayceofhistory Yeah its sad. But belive me the Swedish army loves Sabaton, the armed forces are however a state actor, it can't risk being draged in to some media scandal because of Crimea and Russia. Its a very very delicate situation to say the least.
@@rayceofhistory My understanding is that they knew what they got into, but were pretty much wilfully blind to the political consequences of touring in an invaded part doing (a?) concerts organized by a pro-Putin Biker gang (again, in an annexed territory).
My grandfather was in the military when he started out as a young working man, and he served in the Livgardet for a while.. and like they said in the vid this opened up a lot of doors for him to become a policeman and later one of the heads of the northern civil defence. He always talked about that time with pride and told us that it had been an honour to defend Sweden like that. He always saw it as defending sweden, and not just the royal family, since he saw the royal family as an important part of sweden's identity. ☺️
I’m sincerely jealous at those who have these types of stories from their grandparents. I wasn’t old enough to really get anything from my grandad before he passed. He served in the pacific during World War Two, but I know almost nothing about his time. I’d give an arm to be able to ask him questions about it. So that is awesome that your grandfather got to do that, and felt such a strong pride in being apart of it. Don’t take those stories for granted! That generation will be completely gone from us soon and we’ll only have books to explain their service, pride, etc.
Actually the King is still the highest ranking person in Sweden, above the speaker of the parlament (Think thats what he is called) and the primeminister is actually just third. But the king is not involved in politics and can only take power if needed during wartimes, so its a litte complicated.
@@rayceofhistory well, the Swedish king Carl Gustaf are the highest commander in the navy, but only in wartimes, and since Sweden havent been imvolved in a war since 200 years its only on the paper, and not in the reality.
@@Northman-from-the-North It is similar to the Queen of England. She is the Commander, officially. Like someone said above. The crown-princess future King of Sweden has had military training
25:10 My understanding is that they did some concerts (or one?) on the Crimean Peninsula after it'd been annexed by Russia (even worse, the concert was organized by the Night wolves (to my understanding a Russian Biker club that's politically very Pro-Putin, and generally seem to be a very unlikeable sort)). In other words: Sabaton made a politically dumb choice, which made them pretty much politically untouchable for the Swedish Armed Forces. Edit: To clarify, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine during their 2014 invasion.
Living in Sweden, there are a lot of stuff that have been around since the 16th century. My teacher had a runestone from the 9th century in his backyard. The church I got married in was built in the 13th century. Regarding using a citizen cavalry; Sweden never adopted feudalism. Most people were free men, and slavery was banned (forced labor did exist for convicts). I was in the cavalry in the royal lifeguards. Their uniforms are white and blue because the lifeguard cavalry came from a regiment made up of poor farmer boys from Finland back when Finland were eastern Sweden.
Sweden has historically had a citizen army and thus a citizenry since viking times. Serfdom never came about and the King had rather limited power compared to the rest of Europe as a consequence. This is in part due to how low and fragmented our population was. We were in a lot of wars with very few people. Thus a disproportionate amount of the population was not only armed but trained. If a king was bad a new king/dynasty would be "elected" to power. Our current royal family traces it's lineage to one of Napoleon's marshals (Bernadotte) who was recruited by a random nobleman with no authority to do so. At first it caused some consternation among the other nobles but eventually he was renamed from Jean-Baptiste to Karl-Johan and war was declared on France. Scandinavia has done monarchy somewhat differently to the more well known European powers. Edit: What happened is likely that neither the Swedish army nor the Swedish monarchy is allowed to be the least bit political. Both get very nervous about the smallest things and err on the side of caution.
The Kings and General series on the Great Northern War is much better than the Extra Credits one in my opinion. You should consider reacting to that one instead.
@@rayceofhistory Extra Credits gives you a decent overview of the war and the series is not bad by any means, but if you want details about the political and military developments during this conflict this is the way to go. I think it would make for more interesting reactions as well.
As someone who has taken an oath of Allegiance Love live King Charles the III I can confidently say that in my Regiment at least that while our supposed loyalty is to the Government our personal loyalties is with the King.
About the transition to a democracy it just had to. The king and probably the military to was against it but after the Russian Revolution there was just no choice. We were already on the brink of revolution anyway due to starvation and what not. They simply had no choice and thank god that the army agreed.
Don't want civilians trained in warfare? In the UK it was required that all men under a certain age (that aged changed between 40-60) should have bows and arrows and practice using them, these laws date back to the 13th century. While not enforced, Males over 14 are technically required to have at least 2 hours of longbow practice every week. (I am in trouble, I have never even touched a long bow) As for your view on age of things... this is a very American perspective, when you live in a city which has walls that are almost 2000 years old (and would have a lot more if it wasn't for a certain Mr Hitler), yes 500 years is a long time, but not quite as big a deal. The problem is that not only is the US a comparatively new country, but you are also obsessed with tearing down and rebuilding things. When I hear people talk about houses built in the 70's a being "old" , I would consider that a comparatively modern build compared to places around where I live.
Issue is that swedish army got woke. I was a soldier in Livgardets Dragoner in the 1970s. At that time swedish army was not woke I can assure you. It's a very sad story how the degenerated. / Micke P
![Livgardet - 500 Years in Service of the King - Sabaton History 102 [Official]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w02pj5xpgAA/mqdefault.jpg)
The institution of monarchy itself is one of the only things left from the long and distant past. I still support the constitutional monarchy of Sweden today precisely because it is such an important part of our history and national identity. I understand that some people see it as an antiquated thing that should be abolished but I think that’s equal to rejecting a huge part of our historical legacy.
I think it’s cool. I try not to go too far one side or the other on these types of things since I’m an outsider and don’t have quite the understanding of what some of these things might mean to the people there..but from my perspective it’s an awesome kind of shout out to the past generations.
@@rayceofhistory Yea, someone who's never lived in a monarchy wouldn't truly understand what it represents. The monarchy does an excellent job in representing our country to the outside world and are advancing many good causes in society by using their status. It doesn't have any real say in the state affairs and they remain above politics, which is something that has served this country well. Even though the political divisions are there the monarchy remains as a stabilizing influence. You could argue back and forth but that's what I think at least.
I completely agree Light I’m also a supporter of our monarchy.
We still have ha nation wide PTSD from losing Finland and the Baltic after we have been at war for like 500-1000 years, but all of the sudden too be at peace for 200 years. We've forgot our history and our pride! We've forgot every hero and soldier that fought and died for us. But the loss of Finland still hurts for all of Sweden even if we don't admit it....
Sweden was strange seem from a European context because the monarchy slowly accepted the fact that it was not going to be as influential in state affairs as it had once was. By the turn of the 20th century, while the monarchy formally reserved many powers, in reality it has ceded both power and responsibility to the elected Parliament. This transition was gradual and peaceful, in stark contrast to many other European monarchies that were desperately trying to cling onto power, while grudgingly accepting some form of parliamentary rule.
That has to be at least partially credited to the monarchy right? I mean..they could have made it far worse during that transition like other European monarchs couldn’t they?
@@rayceofhistory Agree with this comment. The monarchy has had its crises but the non-confrontational way it lost power is due in a great deal to the wisdom of the monarchs, especially Gustav VI Adolf.
The last more major crisis was "borggårdstalet" (the court yard speech) were the king Gustav V critized the governments lack of military spending during the lead up to WWI.
It led to a constituional crises and in the long run the transition to constitutional monarchy.
The last really powerful monarch was Karl XIV Johan (former Marshal Bernadotte). His grandson Karl XV was good friends with the Danish king and promised him Swedish support in their war with Prussia. This was not government policy and led to a small conflict between king and government which the king lost. Just one other small piece in the transition to constitutional monarchy.
@@rayceofhistory Indeed. The remaining monarchies of Europe are those that have changed with the time. Sweden and especially the United Kingdom are perfect examples of adapting constitutional monarchies that have accepted their ceremonial and representative role in a democratic society.
The royal motto of our current king, Carl XVI Gustaf is: "For Sweden - with the Times". Those words symbolize how the monarchy have retained its position.
@@rayceofhistory The way I remember it, they mostly didn't have much choice.
@@rayceofhistory They got to keep their throne and their heads. They were sensible about it but Livgardet's loyalty wasn't to an individual really it's to "the crown" and the king must prove worthy to wear it.
We did not quite change from before, we made a minor adjustment to how the power is handled. The king ceremonly opens the Riksdag (Reichstag) for example.
Länge leve konungen!
A more representive version:
ruclips.net/video/anuCMqJKGKA/видео.html
19:20 I'm always amazed seeing these old photos of Stockholm. Sometimes it is hard to believe it is the same city as we know it today. :)
I remember my service as a royal guard during the somewhat chaotic water festival in 1998 (now I feel old). I had to defend off a guy crossing the barrier put up during the nights on the "Lions Slope" (Lejonbacken) leading up to the northern entrance of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. He had his eyes set om my AK5 and tried to grab it from me. After putting him to the ground, one of his more intelligent friends rushed to his aid telling him to back off and that the AK5 I was carrying was loaded with live rounds and that the situation could turn bad for him. Luckily the situation de-escalated after that.
I served as a Royal Guard in 1991 and my position was also the Lions Slope, hot as hell during the days and freezing cold in the nights.
25:13 What happened? They did a tour in Russia or somewhere controversial because normally a tour in Russia wouldn’t be bad but they did it in a place which made the Swedish army back out because they don’t wanna be connected to that. I don’t remember exactly the specifics on why they backed out exactly but you can do some research.
I remember it has to do with Crimea that’s all and some political pressure was put on the Swedish military.
That’s brutal. It’s almost like you can’t help but be dragged into politics and geopolitics regardless of if you want to or not.
@@rayceofhistory Yeah its sad. But belive me the Swedish army loves Sabaton, the armed forces are however a state actor, it can't risk being draged in to some media scandal because of Crimea and Russia. Its a very very delicate situation to say the least.
@@rayceofhistory My understanding is that they knew what they got into, but were pretty much wilfully blind to the political consequences of touring in an invaded part doing (a?) concerts organized by a pro-Putin Biker gang (again, in an annexed territory).
My grandfather was in the military when he started out as a young working man, and he served in the Livgardet for a while.. and like they said in the vid this opened up a lot of doors for him to become a policeman and later one of the heads of the northern civil defence. He always talked about that time with pride and told us that it had been an honour to defend Sweden like that. He always saw it as defending sweden, and not just the royal family, since he saw the royal family as an important part of sweden's identity. ☺️
I’m sincerely jealous at those who have these types of stories from their grandparents. I wasn’t old enough to really get anything from my grandad before he passed. He served in the pacific during World War Two, but I know almost nothing about his time. I’d give an arm to be able to ask him questions about it. So that is awesome that your grandfather got to do that, and felt such a strong pride in being apart of it. Don’t take those stories for granted! That generation will be completely gone from us soon and we’ll only have books to explain their service, pride, etc.
@@rayceofhistory naa, I never would take them for granted since those stories are all that's left of him now. Take care! (:
Actually the King is still the highest ranking person in Sweden, above the speaker of the parlament (Think thats what he is called) and the primeminister is actually just third.
But the king is not involved in politics and can only take power if needed during wartimes, so its a litte complicated.
yes and many swedes dont know this. There is a reason why our crownprinsess done some miliarytraining
That is interesting. So it's kind of a break glass in case of emergency thing?
@@rayceofhistory well, the Swedish king Carl Gustaf are the highest commander in the navy, but only in wartimes, and since Sweden havent been imvolved in a war since 200 years its only on the paper, and not in the reality.
@@Northman-from-the-North It is similar to the Queen of England. She is the Commander, officially.
Like someone said above. The crown-princess future King of Sweden has had military training
@@Richie8406 Future Queen*
25:10 My understanding is that they did some concerts (or one?) on the Crimean Peninsula after it'd been annexed by Russia (even worse, the concert was organized by the Night wolves (to my understanding a Russian Biker club that's politically very Pro-Putin, and generally seem to be a very unlikeable sort)).
In other words: Sabaton made a politically dumb choice, which made them pretty much politically untouchable for the Swedish Armed Forces.
Edit: To clarify, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine during their 2014 invasion.
Living in Sweden, there are a lot of stuff that have been around since the 16th century. My teacher had a runestone from the 9th century in his backyard. The church I got married in was built in the 13th century.
Regarding using a citizen cavalry; Sweden never adopted feudalism. Most people were free men, and slavery was banned (forced labor did exist for convicts).
I was in the cavalry in the royal lifeguards. Their uniforms are white and blue because the lifeguard cavalry came from a regiment made up of poor farmer boys from Finland back when Finland were eastern Sweden.
Sweden has historically had a citizen army and thus a citizenry since viking times. Serfdom never came about and the King had rather limited power compared to the rest of Europe as a consequence. This is in part due to how low and fragmented our population was. We were in a lot of wars with very few people. Thus a disproportionate amount of the population was not only armed but trained. If a king was bad a new king/dynasty would be "elected" to power. Our current royal family traces it's lineage to one of Napoleon's marshals (Bernadotte) who was recruited by a random nobleman with no authority to do so. At first it caused some consternation among the other nobles but eventually he was renamed from Jean-Baptiste to Karl-Johan and war was declared on France.
Scandinavia has done monarchy somewhat differently to the more well known European powers.
Edit: What happened is likely that neither the Swedish army nor the Swedish monarchy is allowed to be the least bit political. Both get very nervous about the smallest things and err on the side of caution.
The Kings and General series on the Great Northern War is much better than the Extra Credits one in my opinion. You should consider reacting to that one instead.
I had heard it’s much more in depth than the extra credits one.
I second this recommendation it’s much better.
@@rayceofhistory Extra Credits gives you a decent overview of the war and the series is not bad by any means, but if you want details about the political and military developments during this conflict this is the way to go. I think it would make for more interesting reactions as well.
Gud bevara konungen 🇸🇪🍻
Dö för konung och fader landet 🇸🇪
As someone who has taken an oath of Allegiance Love live King Charles the III I can confidently say that in my Regiment at least that while our supposed loyalty is to the Government our personal loyalties is with the King.
I guess he forgot to read the small print. An oath does not only bind the other party.
Lol we have a tower in the middle of my hometown that is over 900 years old
Sabaton got conected with people that the swedish military cant be conected to. So they backed out
just ask questions when you dont know. We do
But Sabaton was banned from the celebration of the Swedish Royal Guard because the played in the, by Russia, occupied Crimea.
About the transition to a democracy it just had to. The king and probably the military to was against it but after the Russian Revolution there was just no choice. We were already on the brink of revolution anyway due to starvation and what not. They simply had no choice and thank god that the army agreed.
Don't want civilians trained in warfare? In the UK it was required that all men under a certain age (that aged changed between 40-60) should have bows and arrows and practice using them, these laws date back to the 13th century. While not enforced, Males over 14 are technically required to have at least 2 hours of longbow practice every week. (I am in trouble, I have never even touched a long bow)
As for your view on age of things... this is a very American perspective, when you live in a city which has walls that are almost 2000 years old (and would have a lot more if it wasn't for a certain Mr Hitler), yes 500 years is a long time, but not quite as big a deal. The problem is that not only is the US a comparatively new country, but you are also obsessed with tearing down and rebuilding things. When I hear people talk about houses built in the 70's a being "old" , I would consider that a comparatively modern build compared to places around where I live.
Why did European countries not just do what Napoleon did and just conscript the masses when he was rampaging through Europe?
@@rayceofhistory Conscripted masses are just cannon fodder. Sweden did not have the population to waste on that so soldiers needed to be trained.
The king Gustav Eriksson , was one of the worst diktaktor in same class Stalin , Hitler etc
When the lefties come...
Issue is that swedish army got woke. I was a soldier in Livgardets Dragoner in the 1970s. At that time swedish army was not woke I can assure you. It's a very sad story how the degenerated. / Micke P
I’m actually pretty interested to see how some of these social/cultural changes impact the military long term.
Unless you count not closing their eyes to the fact that the band played for the Enemy in the East, sure, 'woke'! ;)