Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,832
Murder or heroic death?
Who killed the Swedish king ...?
On the evening of December 11, 1718, during the Swedish-Norwegian War, Swedish soldiers found in one of the foremost siege trenches in front of the Norwegian fortress Fredrikshald near the Swedish-Norwegian border...
... a dead man ...:
The dead man lies with his head on the slope of the parapet on the ground. A bullet had entered one side of the skull and exited the other ...:
The dead man is none other than the Swedish so-called "Soldier King" Karl XII. !
Here is an exact reconstruction of the discovery situation in the Swedish Ryksmuseum ...:
Because this is the famous monarch, the question of where the fatal bullet was fired now becomes crucial!
If it came from the left, it must have come from the besieged fortress due to the orientation of the trench. Charles XII. would have died a hero's death!
If the projectile came from the right, however, the king would have been killed by a shot from his own ranks. So murder!
The wound on the right temple is smaller ...
... than the one of the left side...
... and should therefore actually be the entry wound. Accordingly, the king would have been killed from behind by his own people!
However, the official autopsy result says that the bullet came from the left, i.e. that it was fired by the enemy.
Karl XII's hat only shows an entry hole on the left - at the bottom of the brim) ...
Like all the clothes that the king wore at his mysterious death, the hat has been preserved ...:
However, there are also different statements: The Swedish military doctor Melchior Neumann...
... who embalmed the corpse, recorded Karl XII. was certainly shot from within their own ranks!
The true circumstances of the king's death will be debated for centuries - the controversy continues today!
A new autopsy will be carried out in 1917, the results of which will not be clear either.
After evaluating forensic medical examinations, reconstructing maps of the course of the trenches and other things, the Swiss forensic expert Peter From...
... comes to the conclusion that the king was probably killed by a Norwegian musket ball.
Other experts - such as Carl O. Nordling...
... see evidence of a murder from their own ranks based on the same evidence.
The matter will probably remain unresolved forever.
But one thing is certain:
With Karl XII. ended the Swedish position as a great power and the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea, which had been going on since 1611, for the so-called Dominium maris Baltici. Russia replaced Sweden as a great power after the Northern War.
Less than a hundred years after Karl's death...
... Sweden had lost all of its holdings outside the motherland in the Baltic Sea region (including Finland).
Who killed the Swedish king ...?
On the evening of December 11, 1718, during the Swedish-Norwegian War, Swedish soldiers found in one of the foremost siege trenches in front of the Norwegian fortress Fredrikshald near the Swedish-Norwegian border...
... a dead man ...:
The dead man lies with his head on the slope of the parapet on the ground. A bullet had entered one side of the skull and exited the other ...:
The dead man is none other than the Swedish so-called "Soldier King" Karl XII. !
Here is an exact reconstruction of the discovery situation in the Swedish Ryksmuseum ...:
Because this is the famous monarch, the question of where the fatal bullet was fired now becomes crucial!
If it came from the left, it must have come from the besieged fortress due to the orientation of the trench. Charles XII. would have died a hero's death!
If the projectile came from the right, however, the king would have been killed by a shot from his own ranks. So murder!
The wound on the right temple is smaller ...
... than the one of the left side...
... and should therefore actually be the entry wound. Accordingly, the king would have been killed from behind by his own people!
However, the official autopsy result says that the bullet came from the left, i.e. that it was fired by the enemy.
Karl XII's hat only shows an entry hole on the left - at the bottom of the brim) ...
Like all the clothes that the king wore at his mysterious death, the hat has been preserved ...:
However, there are also different statements: The Swedish military doctor Melchior Neumann...
... who embalmed the corpse, recorded Karl XII. was certainly shot from within their own ranks!
The true circumstances of the king's death will be debated for centuries - the controversy continues today!
A new autopsy will be carried out in 1917, the results of which will not be clear either.
After evaluating forensic medical examinations, reconstructing maps of the course of the trenches and other things, the Swiss forensic expert Peter From...
... comes to the conclusion that the king was probably killed by a Norwegian musket ball.
Other experts - such as Carl O. Nordling...
... see evidence of a murder from their own ranks based on the same evidence.
The matter will probably remain unresolved forever.
But one thing is certain:
With Karl XII. ended the Swedish position as a great power and the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea, which had been going on since 1611, for the so-called Dominium maris Baltici. Russia replaced Sweden as a great power after the Northern War.
Less than a hundred years after Karl's death...
... Sweden had lost all of its holdings outside the motherland in the Baltic Sea region (including Finland).
