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This study seeks to illuminate the Swedish propaganda effort during the first years of Swedish participation in the Napoleonic wars, known as the Pomeranian War (1805-1807) in Swedish historiography. This is accomplished by analysing the reporting off the Swedish war effort in the official newspapers Stockholm Post-tidningar and Inrikes tidningar with a model of wartime propaganda previously put forward by Anna Maria Forssberg. The sources used, classified as “official Swedish war reporting”, are the published materials written either explicitly by official Swedish sources or other texts from an entirely Swedish perspective. A classification motivated by the heavy press regulations and state censorship of the late Gustavian era.

The study covers the entirety of the period of Franco-Swedish warfare in northern Germany up to and including the evacuation of Swedish forces from Rügen in September 1807 but ends before the formal conclusion of peace in 1810. During this period several other important themes besides the fighting are covered in the official propaganda. These include a conflict with Prussia in 1806 and the Swedish alliances with Russia, Britain and, later, Prussia. The role of the image of the king in the authoritarian Gustavian political system and the way that the propaganda tries to paint a positive picture of Swedish military endeavours, mostly setbacks, with great emphasis on the preservation of military honour is also discussed.