Before going into the details of this set we must briefly review the political situation of that period. Sweden (which included Finland at the time) ruled two thirds of the Baltic region, including modern Latvia and Estonia. During the Thirty Years War it also took control over the north German provinces and river mouths. This situation, whereby they couldn’t even wash their hands in the sea without Sweden’s permission, greatly irritated Prussia and Hanover. Denmark, who for centuries had fought with Sweden for dominance in Scandinavia and at sea, was just waiting for a chance to bring its luckier eternal rival to account. Poland, which was also a historic and religious rival of the protestant monarchy, made a dynastic alliance with Saxony in order to take over those Baltic provinces that had once belonged to the religious-knight orders with which it used to fight for centuries, and considered these lands its lawful trophy stolen from it by the Swedes. For Russia, which was cut off from direct links with Europe, access to the sea was a vital issue as well. To cut a long story short, Sweden irritated all of its neighbours. It didn’t have allies and had no hope of gaining any. Mighty France, which had always supported the “Goths and Vandals” with money because they were foes of its foes – the monarchy of the Habsburgs – was involved in a war for the Spanish succession. Internal affairs in the Swedish kingdom were also far from perfect. The King’s power was traditionally based on the peasantry and bourgeoisie, and from 1680 he conducted a policy of limitation of noblemen’s arbitrariness. As a result, in the provinces populated by native Swedes, noblemen lost part of any unlawfully acquired lands (so-called “reductions”), and understandably considered themselves offended. That’s why a number of Swedish subjects like Bour came to serve Russia. In the Baltic provinces, where barons lost thousands of serfs as well as their lands, nobility came to commit high treason by inviting into their country either August of Saxony or tsar Peter I. The head of the baron’s clique, Johan Reinhold Patkul, was also nominally a general in Russian service. As far as the people of the Baltic provinces were concerned, it should be mentioned that they remained loyal to the Swedish crown until the end. However neither progressive politics, the high level of industrialisation nor the model army couldn’t save the state when it came to clash with the young rising colossus.
Among the well-known recorded phrases of Peter I there’s one: “I am in the ranks of the taught, and those teaching me are necessary”. It should be mentioned that the tsar’s teachers were very rigorous and exigent, but both the tsar and his people had patience enough to go through the hard beatings of all stages of the learning process and master the most difficult of the sciences – the science to win! “Ah, your majesty, you’ve treated your teachers very untender!” – said one of the Swedish generals taken prisoner after the battle of Poltava. It’s here that we have to praise the war genius of the Swedes.
True, there was a lot to be learnt from them. The “kings of the Goths and Vandals” (the official title of the Swedish kings) had soldiers second to none. They were recruited on the basis of “Indelt” – a land-based recruitment system – from peasants who never knew serfdom and therefore were proud, honest and brave. Hardened by the severe northern climate, inspired by a high religious conscience characteristic of the protestant faith, these descendants of the Vikings were the best representatives of the Scandinavian character. The principle of Indelt was first introduced in the XVI century by the great Gustav Vasa, and it finally took shape in the second half of the XVII century (“Young Indelt”), creating of regular national army. None of the armies of the European monarchies, consisting as they did mainly of mercenaries, were a match for this army. A small and rocky country with limited resources and a small population (out of 3 million of the crown’s subjects, only 1 million were Swedes) managed to maintain with this system 27 infantry, 9 cavalry and 1 artillery regiments in full battle readiness. Every peasant community had to provide a soldier with a house and piece of land, firewood and food since, in contrast to their Russian counterparts, Swedish war settlers never worked in the fields, being fully engaged in their allotted task – training for war. When the soldier departed for war, the community had to present his “deputy” and that could be repeated 3 times! Soldiers of the third and forth draft were in modern terms reservists. By this method the army of the Swedish kingdom could be increased by up to 100,000 men.
In addition to the superb human material, the Swedish army had advanced battle tactics based on massed volley musketry fire. The extent to which this tactic, introduced by the undefeatable Gustav-Adolph, was effective may be demonstrated by the fact that during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) it overwhelmed in just a few years the old tactics of the Spanish terciums (square columns of pike men surrounded by musketeers), and dominated on the battlefields until the French revolution - the British even used it during the Crimean war in 1854.
20 Swedish and 7 Finnish regiments made up the kingdom’s regular infantry, and were clothed in blue coats of European cut with yellow cuffs and collars made out of coarse cloth with the exception of 3 regiments, which had red cuffs and collars. Beneath the coat, infantrymen wore jackets, mainly without sleeves, made of cloth or, more often of more practical and cheaper leather. Trousers were made of cloth for the Lifeguard only - ordinary infantry had to content themselves with leather trousers. Shoulder belts and belts were unbleached, unlike later decades. Instead of tricorns, grenadiers wore high hats which had copper plates, and gloves that extended to the elbow. Reserve regiments, along with the units drafted from the Baltic provinces and in Swedish Pomerania, were clothed in a greyish cloth similar to that of the artillerymen. Stockings were either pushed beneath the trousers or fixed under the knees by a bow. Due to the fact that since 1703 the Russians wore in ever-increasing quantity the European fashion uniform, it’s worth mentioning here the main distinctions of the Swedish uniform such as the seven buttons on the coat pockets but no buttons on the cuffs and broad turndown collars. In contrast, Russians started wearing broad turndown collars only at the end of the war, before that they wore a narrow standing collar and had only three buttons on the pockets. Buttons on the Russian coat were all along the lapels, whereas their Swedish counterparts had them up to the waist only. Soldiers of Charles XII tied their long hair with a band, and had tails on their coats fixed in the manner of later dress coats - something that their Russian counterparts never did. The average height of Sweden's soldiers exceeded that of Russia's by 10 centimetres. We have tried to represent all these differences in our sets as much as it’s possible in 1/72 scale.
You will see in our set a legendary youngster-king and a pastor blessing soldiers going into battle. The king-warrior stands firmly, leaning upon his sword with his breast open to the enemies’ bullets. The pastor with his height and hands more suitable for breaking horseshoes than for blessings, and with a healthy face as if filled with beer, is a definite representative for the people reminding them of Luther with his might. You can also find here a figure of an officer with a deep scar crossing his cheek, who took off his wig in the heat of battle. As you may know, wigs in that period were worn by officers only - soldiers didn’t powder and curl their hair – that fashion was adopted around 1740. Some visitors may notice a figure of an advancing veteran grenadier with a bandage over his eye, which had been lost in battle. Those of our readers who are really into XVIII century history cannot but notice that the formidable Scandinavians are armed with new bayonets (the Russians in the first decade of XVIII century still used bayonets inserted in the musket muzzles). The full tactical potential of this invention was yet to be realised, but meantime the Swedish fighting regulations required a king’s infantrymen to advance with a musket and bayonet in the left hand and a sword in a right. In our collection of figures you will see several grenadiers in such poses. On the heads of some soldiers can be found forage caps (“cartoozes”) instead of tricorns. This convenient and practical headgear was worn so extensively that, in some regiments, it became an element of ordinary uniform. Some readers may be surprised that no pike men were included in the set. Indeed regulations required every third infantryman to be armed with a long pike of up to 5 meters in length. However the turn of the XVIII century was the time when pikes were at last phased out of military service. The reason for that was the bayonet as mentioned above, which in a moment turned a musketeer into a pike man. There was an order of Charles XII to arm pike men who broke their pikes in battle with muskets. An even better known fact is that the list of the trophy arms taken from the Swedes at Poltava (which was written in great detail to the extent that it enumerated taken shovels and pickaxes), though including thousands of muskets, spontons, swords and other arms, has not a single pike in it! Following our now traditional practice, we have included a figure of a surrendering strelets in our set. Streltsi were heavily involved in the initial battles of the war, but generally performed well below expectations, especially at Narva, where a large number of them were taken as prisoners of war. Initially we planned two first Great Northern War sets for the battle of Narva, and thus a set of early Russian army was started. At a later stage we had doubts that an early Russian army, which had a very distinctive national uniform, would sell well, and so stopped that set and instead started a dragoons set that can be used for any other army of the period, shifting the emphasis to the battle of Poltava. But as a reminder of our original intention, this surrendering strelets stayed in the Swedish set because the mould had already been manufactured by that time.
The set will contain 44 figures, and will be made in brick red plastic.
Should the subject prove to be popular, we will release a further Swedish infantry set specifically for the battle of Poltava with the figure of Charles XII on an open stretcher (he was wounded before the battle). The exact composition of the set has yet to be decided - we are considering either a mixed infantry/cavalry set with some lifeguard drabands and generals/supreme officers, or two separate sets – one full infantry and one cavalry set of drabands. As a further extension of the line, we may release a set of cuirassiers. As you may be aware, Swedish cuirassiers wore cuirasses up to 1702 with the officers and corporals having double cuirasses while the rank and file had only breast armour. Another problem that we will have to tackle in future is the artillery sets – we are going to experiment with the technology necessary for their production. Should these trials be a success we will also make artillery sets for the opposing sides. We also have some other ideas for the XVIII-XIX centuries and we would appreciate your ideas and contributions as well.
For further information about the Great Northern War please read our introductory articles for the sets of Dragoons of Peter I and Early Russian Infantry.