In the 300 years since Charles XII died from a gunshot to the head, there have been various theories about how he died. Was it the enemy who shot him or Swedes who had tired of his warlike spirit? Despite the fact that three different autopsies have been carried out on the king’s body, they have not come any closer to whose bullet killed him.
But now researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland have solved the riddle. Among other things, they have used ballistic models with the same characteristics as a human skull, and shot musket balls with a diameter of 19.5 millimeters through the skull imitations at different speeds. These investigations showed that the king was most likely not killed by a lead musket ball in the Norwegian Fredrikshald on November 30, 1718.
Blowing holes in the “ball button” theory
Charles XII’s felt hat that he wore when he was shot was also studied. It still has a clear roughly 19.5 millimeter round hole in it, but the researchers have proven that it takes a much larger bullet than one with a diameter of 19.5 millimeters to create such a hole, and a musket can hardly shoot a such a big ball.
The legend that Karl XII was assassinated with a button from his own military uniform, which was called the “bullet button”, could therefore be disproved.
The researchers concluded that most points point to Charles XII being killed by iron map ammunition, with a diameter of well over 20 millimeters. They also estimated that the likely speed of the bullet would be roughly equivalent to the speed of a bullet fired from a fortress 200 meters away.
It is thus established by the researchers that Karl XII died from an enemy bullet, and was not assassinated by his own.