"Swedish Horse GNW" Topic

Was wondering do the Horses used by the Swedish forces in this time period were smaller than European stock?

It was recorded that horse flesh of both the Russians and Swedes was particularly poor. Other nations like the Danes had very good horse. During an engagement with the Danes it was reported that Swedish horse went between the legs of Danish horses. How true that is though I can't say.

Most of the Swedish horses for the regiments that fought in Poland and the 1708-09 campaign were purchased in Northern Germany, so they would be pretty much the size of the Saxons. The incident that Footsore refers to occurred at the battle of Helsingborg in Sweden in 1710. The Danish regiment was the Horse Guards, so one can expect they were well mounted. Some of the Swedish cavalry regiments there had been recently raised again after the original regiments were captured after Poltava. Good horses would have been scarce in Sweden at that time, so some, but not all, cavalry were mounted on small horses.

Might depend on whether it was a dragoon unit or horse unit, too. Dragoons usually got smaller , cheaper horses.

The actual quote from the Swedish regimental commander (major Odelström) states that his troopers had…

"such small horses, that when they engaged the drabants [Horse Guards], they could almost crawl under the belly of their large horses"

The key word here is "almost". He is clearly exaggerating to make a point. The Swedish cavalry was succesful against the Danes in that battle so the size difference cannot have been that much of a handicap.

Odelström's regiment was the Västgöta-Småland's 3- and 5-männing Regiment on horse. It was officially a proper cavalry regiment but during the battle the Danes referred to them as a dragoon regiment. This was most likely because they had been issued dragoon sized horses already when the regiment was created 1700. The reason to this was that proper cavalry horses were in short supply and this regiment was intended to remain in the homeland and not join the main army overseas.

Concering the original question of this thread. Swedish cavalry horses were of normal size at the outbreak of the war although it was difficult to find enough proper cavalry horses for the newly raised regiments. The main army was however given priority and just like dbf1676 wrote very few replacement horses were shipped over the Baltic sea, instead horses were purchased on location. So for the period 1700-1709 the horse quality was quite good and not at all comparable to the Russian army, where they only raised dragoon regiments due to lack of good horses (and these dragoons fought very often on foot). This is supported by the account of english envoy Jeffreys who noted during the Russian campaign that the Russian horses were of considerable lesser quality than the Swedes.

After Poltava the Swedish army had to restore the lost regiments and as a temporary emergency measure the standards were lowered for new horses. The men who were responsible of supplying the army with horses took however advantage of this and continued for several years to supply sub-standard (but cheaper) horses even though good horses could have been aquired. This did not change until Charles XII returned to Sweden in 1715, then though methods were taken to force the suppliers to restore the old standards.

Ah the old illustrative embellishment taken as fact chestnut :-)

It's a struggle to imagine someone on an Icelandic pony riding under a modern Danish warm blood, nevermind an original Frederiksborger!