Historisk tidskrift 126:3 • 2007
Innehåll (Contents) 2007:1
Uppsatser (Articles)
Bröd och brännvin. Örlogsflottans försörjning och tidigmodern
produktion
Karl Bergman
Fulltext (pdf)
Summary
Bread and booze. Naval supply and early modern production
This
article discusses the connection between naval supply needs,
primarily bread and alcohol, and the transformation from small-scale
to large-scale production during the early modern period. Three
questions are addressed: the significance of the relationship
between burghers and military representatives to this transformation;
the significance of military experience, including military techniques,
to this transformation; and, finally, whether or not early modern
production can be linked to modern industrialization. Together,
these questions can begin to answer the question about the connection
between Sweden’s military past and the shape of the nation’s
modern industrial and political landscape.
The establishment
of the naval base Karlskrona in 1683 together with an incorporated
city and a shipyard is the centre of the study. The region
had been conquered from Denmark in 1658 and the burghers needed
for the base were recruited from the nearby city of Ronneby.
The burghers provided the state with access to the Baltic Sea
trade network. Such dependence on the burghers implies that
military and state administrators were willing to adapt to
the burghers’ world. This included the acceptance of a kind
of early modern public sphere common in Baltic cities.
The
period after the founding of Karskrona was marked by repeated
negotiations, disputes and severe production problems. The
burghers could not always meet the growing demands of the Navy.
This situation may have served as the incentive for the Navy
to begin production of foodstuffs. In 1752, a Crown bakery
was built, which produced 100,000 pieces of so-called “succarie”
bread a day. The creation of a Crown distillery is another
example of a state-operated manufacture. There are also examples
of less successful ventures, such as the construction of a
Crown water mill in the middle of the eighteenth century. Together
these examples demonstrate the importance of military organization
and the technical skills developed at the naval base, as well
as the importance of an “institution” that could mobilize labour
forces and economic resources, to early Swedish industrial
production.
These examples can be seen as the Navy’s answer
to supply problems and also as a way of minimizing dependence
on the burghers. They had a long-term impact on the Swedish
economy. During the late nineteenth and the early twentieth
century the region became the leading industrial producer of
alcohol in Sweden and the leading grower of the potatoes needed
for this industry.
Keywords
Sweden, military production, military
supply, bread, alcohol, trade networks, Baltic trade, public
sphere, burghers
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