COUNT JOHAN KRISTOFFER

See also:

• TOLL (etymologically, that which is numbered or counted; from a common Teutonic form, cf. " tale," " tell ")
• COUNT JOHAN KRISTOFFER TOLL (1743-1817)

TOLL (1743-1817)  , Swedish statesman and soldier, was born at Mollerod in Scania . Toll came of a very ancient family, of Dutch origin, which can be traced back to the 13th, but migrated to the Baltic provinces in the 16th century . Toll's father was one of Charles XII.'s warriors, his mother a descendant of the aristocratic Gyellenstjernas . In his youth Johan Kristoffer served in the Seven Years' War, and then, exchanging the military for the civil service, became head ranger of the county of Kristianstad . During the riksdag of 1771-1772 the dominant "Caps" deprived him of his post, and Toll, shrewdly guessing that the king was preparing a revolution, almost forced his services on the conspirators, Goran Magnus Sprengtporten (q.v.) declaring that a man who knew so much of their most secret plans must either" be killed or squared." To Toll was assigned by far the most difficult part of the enterprise . It was his business to secure the important southern fortress of Kristianstad . Two days after the coronation, on the 31st of May 1772, he set forth from Stockholm with twenty-two pounds wherewith to corrupt a garrison and revolt a province . He had no sort of credentials, and the little that was known about him locally from the official point of view was not to his credit . Finally, in the fortress itself there was but one man known to be a safe royalist, namely, Captain Abraham Hellichius . On the 21st of June Toll reached Kristianstad . By sheer bluff Toll first won over Hellichius, and, six weeks later (August 12), the whole garrison of Kristianstad, arresting the few officers who proved recalcitrant; taking possession of the records and military chest, and closing the gates in the face of the " Cap " high commissioner who had been warned by the English minister, John Gooderich, that some-thing was afoot in the south . Seven days later Gustavus III.'s coup d'etat at Stockholm completed the revolution .

Toll was liberally rewarded and more and more frequently employed as his

genius as an administrator and his blameless integrity came to light . His reforms in the commissariat department were epoch-making, and the superior mobility of the Swedish forces under Gustavus III. was due entirely to his initiative . But it was upon Toll's boundless audacity that Gustavus chiefly relied . Thus as Gustavus, under the pressure of circumstances, inclined more and more towards absolutism, it was upon Toll that he principally leant . In 1783 Toll was placed at the head of the secret " Commission of National Defence " which ruled Sweden during the king's absence abroad without the privity of the senate . It was he who persuaded the king to summon the riksdag of 1786, which, however, he failed to control, and in all Gustavus's plans for forcing on a war with Russia Toll was initiated from the first . In 1786 he had already risen to the rank of major-general and was Gustavus's principal adjutant . It was against Toll's advice, however, that Gustavus, in 1788, began the war with Russia . Toil had always insisted that, in such a contingency, Sweden should be militarily as well as diplomatically prepared, but this was far from being the case . Nevertheless, when the inevitable first disasters happened, Toll was, most unjustly, made a scapegoat, but the later successes of the war were largely due to his care and diligence as commissary-general . After the death of Gustavus III . Toll was for a short time war minister and commander-in-chief in Scania and, subsequently, was sent as ambassador to Warsaw .

Unjustly involved in the so-called "

Armfelt conspiracy," he was condemned to two years' imprisonment; but was fully reinstated when in 1796 Gustavus IV. attained his majority . At the riksdag of Norrkoping, 1800, he was elected marshal of the Diet, and led the royalist party with consummate ability . On this occasion he forced the mutinous riddarhus to accept the detested " Act of Union and Security" by threatening to reveal the names of all the persons suspected of complicity in the murder of the late king . Subsequently he displayed great diplomatic adroitness in his negotiations with the powers concerning Sweden's participation in the war against Napoleon . In the Pomeranian campaign of 1807 Toll assisted in the defence of Stralsund . The fortress was compelled to surrender on the 20th of August by Marshal Brune, whereupon the Swedish army of 13,000 men, which had retired to Rifgen, seemed irretrievably lost . It was saved by Toll, who cajoled the French marshal into a convention whereby the Swedish army, with all its munitions of war, was permitted to return unmolested to Sweden (September 7) . For this exploit Toll received his marshal's baton . It was in the camp of Toll, then acting commander-in-chief in Scania, that Gustavus IV. was about to take refuge when the western army rebelled against him, but he was arrested in the capital before he could do so . Toll retained his high position under Bernadotte, who, in 1814, created him a count . He died unmarried . See R .

Nisbet

Bain, Gustavus III. and his Contemporaries (London, 1895) ; K . N . Liliekrona, Fdltmarskalken Grefve J . K . Toll (Stockholm, 1849-1850) . (R . N .