I cut and paste the thread to a .txt file at the time. Hopefully, Daniel does not mind me re posting it. If there is an issue with this, I will ask the mods to remove it….
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The description of the Finns in both Osprey books are the same, the Croat look alikes in the Lutzen book are indeed Croats with a Finn firing a pistol as blurry figures behind them. Said Finn is dressed in a long blue coat and wears a floppy hat.
Bascily the Osprey description of the Finnish cavalry are based on incomplete or outdated information as well as containing some claims which are pure fantasy. There was indeed a shortage of pistols and armour but this was during the Livonian campaign of 1621-1622. When the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth resumed in 1625 the Finns were far better equipped. Vast stock of arms&armour was imported by the Crown and was issued at cost to any man who was missing part of the regulation equipment. Before the entry of the main Swedish army into Germany all native cavalry regiments were rested and refited and the Finnish cavalry went into Germany was fully equipped with armour and pistols.
The cherished image of the TYW Finns as unarmored cavalrymen armed only with swords is a myth created by poor research.
There is no evidence that the native Swedish cavalry wore any kind of regimental uniforms. They did recive annual issues of cloth and the cost of supplying the such cloth is part of expenses recorded for the Swedish Crown in 1630-1631. However no detailed documents connected to this supply of cloth survive today.
Nor do eyewitnesses describe the Swedish cavalry as dressed in uniform colours. The single exception is a description of a Swedish company of cavalry all dressed in blue. (A description which is wrongly connected to the mounted Jaegers in the Osprey)
So essentialy you can paint them as you want but if you want to be as historical as possible you should avoid painting entire regiments in the same colour.
Gustavus' Finnish horsemen were battle cavalry with the same equipment, training and tactics as their Swedish and German counterparts. As such they followed Western fashions. "Eastern" style dress would not become fashionable among western troops until the mid 18th century with the widespread introduction of hussars.
Prof. Korhonen's seminal work "The History of the Hackapells" does not contain a a single shred of evidence which supports the notion that the Finns were light cavalry or "Swedish Cossacks". Nor can such evidence be found in the work other Swedish or Finnish historians. Infact this notion can only be found in poorly researched English sources.
The Finns were not specialized unit in any way, they were organized and equiped in the same way as the other units of native Swedish cavalry. The only diffrences was that many of them spoke Finnish instead of Swedish and that the Finns managed to get a reputation for being ferocious.
As with the other native units the quality of the Finnish cavalry varied. The largest unit of Finnish cavalry serving in Germany with Gustavus was led by Torsten Stålhandske who was one of Gustavus' best regimental commanders. His well trained unit contained a significant number of veteran troopers from the long war with Poland and preformed at a level that might be considered "elite".
But not all Finnish units were of that quality, if you look at the war with Poland-Lithuania were the entire Finnish cavalry force served the performance of the Finnish units was mixed. Nor were the Finns automaticly better than their Swedish speaking counterparts. Some naitve Swedish units such as the Vastgota regiment led by Erik Soop was just as good as Stålhandske's unit.
Unfortunately the description of Finnish cavalry in the Osprey is filled with errors and unsupported conclusions.
Fro exampel the yeomen who were the majority of the troopers in the Finnish companies would have taken great insult at being called "lawless cattle-rustlers"
What experience in Russia?
Only a few of the men serving with Gustavus in Germany had ever fought in Russia. It had been almost 14 years since the last war with Russia when Gustavus landed in Germany in 1630. The Finnish cavalry serving in the 1611-1617 war with Russia were mostly "old" troopers which Gustavus had inherited from his father. After the prace of Stolbova a large part of the Finnish cavalry were disbanded in order to save money
It was then rebuilt with mostly younger men during the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Of the 24 companies of Finnish cavalry only 4 predated 1618.
Now if the Finns were "skilled at "Tartar" style operations " why did Gustavus repeatedly hire Polish mercenaries for such duties during the Ingrian war with Russia? He did this despite an acute shortage of money which seriously impeded his operations against the Russians. Why spend hard earned cash on mercenaries if you have cheap, effective and reliable native light cavalry available?
Furtheremore how do you explain the poor performance of the Finns in countering the tartar style raids of the Poles & Lithuanians? The Finnish cavalry had no more success at this than the Swedes or Germans.
If the Finns were intended for use as light cavalry why were they not equiped for the task?
All of the Finnish cavalry companies were raised as "Lätta ryttare"/Light horsemen equiped with helmet, breast and back plates, sword and a pair of pistols. Hardly the equipment of true light cavalry operating in the "cossack style". Indeed Gustavus abolished all use of the carbine at a time when the Croats carried carbines and the Commonwealth cossack-style cavalry were armed with carbine or bow.
Actually the records of the Swedish army of the period is anything but sketchy. The collection of documents in the Swedish archives is both vast and comprehensive. I could even tell how many and which types of nails the Swedish army brought with it to Germany in 1630. Or the names of the 1000 horsemen in the Vastgota regiment.
Ogier is indeed an interesting source but he was traveling in 1634-1635 i.e post-Gustavus and he was not a professional soldier. If he actually did encounter Finnish cavalry he did so in Prussia in 1635 were Printz' squadron was a part of the Swedish army. It was a raw and poorly equipped unit which had been hastily sent to Prussia. Hence it was not typical of the Finnish units in Swedish serive in the time of Gustavus Adolphus. (And before you leap to any conclusions,Printz unit were battle cavalry albeit poorly equipped battle cavalry)
If you are refering to the order quoted in the Swedish Intelligencer it should probably be interpreted as an order from Gustavus to Stålhandkse the wing commander rather than an order from Gustvus to Stålhandske the regimental commander.
All Swedish cavalry was supposed to be equipped with helmet pistol proof breastplate and a backplate. The "F2" figure in the Osprey on gustavus cavalry is a a good reconstruciton of what a trooper wearing Swedish made armour would have looked like. The odd helmet design was based on the "Kapalin" helmet used by Poles&Lithuanians.
"C2" shows the kind of armour that was imported from the Netherlands or Germany.
Samples of TYW armour kept in the Swedish army museum
The native Swedish & Finnish troopers were expected to provide and pay for their own horse, arms & armour and other basic equipment. These private pruchases were not recorded and thus we have to rely of fewer and less complete sources than those that exist for the infantry.
The best source if it has been preserved is the detailed muster roll. In it was recorded not only the number of men and their names but whether they were "old" or "new" troopers, the size of their horses and any deficiencies in their equipment.
On the 10/20th of April 1627 the newly raised cavalry company commanded by Lars Larsson was mustered. It had 123 troops, of these 72 were "old" and 51 "new". The "old" troopers were almost all veterans who had served with Larssson in Livonia in 1625-1626. Muster reveal a serious shortage of equipment particularly among the "new" troopers. 17 men had no horses, 76 lacked armour and 20 had no pistols. The men were told to aquire the missign equipment before the company was shipped to Prussia.
When the company arrived in Prussia it recived 60 sets of armour and 10 pairs of pistols from the armoury in Elbing.
The end result was a company were all but a small minority had both armour and pistols.
In 1628 Erik Soop raised a new 4-company squadron for the Vastgota regiment. It mustered some 427 troopers when it arrived in Prussia were the following shortages were recorded.
10 Pairs of pistols
87 Breast and backplates
135 Helmets
So 68% of the men had both body armour and helmet.
Another 12% had body armour but not helmets
And 20% had no armour at all.
Other units show similar numbers in the late 1620's, roughly one can say that between 10 and 30% of the troopers in a native squadron or regiment had no body armour during that period. (In 1621-1622 the situation was very diffrent, some Finnish units are recorded as having no armour at all)
Several high level documents records that all native troopers sent to Germany in 1630 were fully armoured. However I not yet verified this by checking the muster rolls for the indivdual companies.
The unknown factor in all of this are the troopers themselves. Did they actually wear the armour in action?
After all there are examples of TYW cavalry discardign most of their armour. A letter exists which describes how all the troopers in a Cuirassier regiment from Cologne simply threw away their body armour and only kept the gauntlets and helmets which so for all his expense the Elector ended up with a regiment that was almost unarmoured.
Considering that the high level of discipline mantained by Gustavus and the fact that the native troopers owned their gear (and would have to pay for any replacements out of their own pocket), I'd say that it is almost certain that armour was worn by those that had it. This would change in the post-Gustavus period, particulary after Nordlingen but in 1630-1632 armour was still in extensive use.
Huevans,
When you ask about the post-Nordlingen "Swedish horse" are you asking about all cavalry in Swedish service? Or just about the native units? Even in Gustavus day the mercenary units are much less well documented than the native regiments.
The post-Nordlingen is not as well documented as the previous decade. The surviving records are not as detailed as those of Gustavus day and fewer of them have survived. On top of that the most research tend to be focused on Gustavus' army rather than those of this successors so we know less about the content of the preserved documents as well.
The question is if the cavalry in Swedish service did largely abandon the use of armour after 1634?
There is a tendency to overinterpret the existing evidence. For example Oxenstierna certainly describes how armour fell out of use and was thrown away during the 1635 campaign. The letter probably gives a fairly accurate depiction of much of the Swedish cavalry in 1636 as well. But using it to describe the Swedish cavalry in 1645 woudl be plain wrong.
In 1643 Montecuccoli describe breast and backharness as well as helmet as the typical equipment of the 'Swedish cuirassier' which suggests that there had been a revival in the use of armour. But how many of the Swedish cavalrymen were equipped this way? He doesn't say.
These and other sources such as Turner suggest that far from being static the use the use of armour varied during the last 14 years of the TYW.
To bad for the Swedes that their armour was wrought iron rather than steel ;-) The iron munitons armour used in the 17th Century wore out faster than the steel armour used in the 15th or 16th centuries. Rust was an ever present problem and over time the armours would have become "old and decayed" to quote a different muster roll.
In the 1620's, particularly in the early years a set of armour could easily have been 5-15 years old. Gustavus complained that the trooper's lack of uniform arms&armour caused the enemy to scorn them and hold them in low regard.
Hence he issued orders that all company commanders were to ensure that the men had arms& armour which presented an uniform apperance.
By damage I meant batte damage. Armour took a beasting in battle, particlarly from firearms. Even it it saved the trooper's life it might be damaged beyond use in the process. Tests carried out by the staff of the Graz Armoury show that it was possible for armour to be penetrated without the wearer beign injured. At 8,5 meters a pistol shot penetrated a breastplate but did not even damage the linen cloth behind, the ball had spent all of it's energy getting through the plate.
It depends on how you define "retiring"?
The number of cuirassiers would depend on the year and army. For example in late 1630 Gustavus moved agaisnt Gartz with an army that had a cavalry force that was 25% cuirassiers with at least four units being cuirassiers or part-cuirassiers. But on the whole one should avoid having more than few units of full cuirassiers.
Of course there is the fact that Gustavus recruited a number of additional cuirassiers regiments (Tott, Efferen-Halle and so on) which probably never got the full suits. But this an area which is quite murky.
Hans Wrangel leading the Kurlanders would have been an impressive feat as he had been dead for over 3 years. (KIA at Honigfelde 1629) Brzezinski was relying on the Swedis General Staff history of Lützen which managed to get it's Wrangels mixed…
(The Wrangels were a large family and supplied a number of officers to Swedish units.)
With regards to colours there isn't many hard facts available. The single eyewitness accoutn in existence describe a company dressed all in blue. The account books offer little help as they do not record the cloth issued to the cavalry.
The most popular soldierly colours were shades of red and blue. Greys were issued but not as well regarded. Green was not seen as proper colour for a soldier in some areas but the Swedes made use of it at least for the infantry. The Swedes used yellow as well.
Huevans,
The first is Count Joahn Filip von Ortenburg's regiment aka "The King's German Life Regiment" aka "The King's Life Regiment" It was formed by joining Ortenburgs perosnal company of cuirassiers with the Pfalzgraf's squadron of cuirassiers (3 companies of veterans of the war with Poland) and the so called "Stralsund Horse" (4 companies of unknown type.) Later on another two companies of uncertain origin became part of the regiment.
Ortenburg was a veteran Protestant commander who had led Mansfeld's Life Regiment of Horse in 1620-1622. He entered Swedish service in 1629 but fell ill and died in June 1631. His regiment was then led by Lt-col Georg von Uslar who took over the regiment as colonel after Breitenfeld. Uslar's much reduced regiment was present at Lützen (2nd Line of the Right Wing)
The second unit was Åke Henriksson Tott's regiment which was formed by joining Tott's and possibly Pauli's cuirassier companies with 10 (or 11) new companies recruited in Northern Germany.
Tott was born in Finland and did not only belong to an old and illustrious noble family but was also the cousin of Gustavus Adolphus as his mother was the daughter of King Erik XIV. He began his military service during the Ingrian war with Russia in 1613, commanded a squadron of finnish cavalry in the war with Poland-Lithuania and by 1630 he was Gustavus General of Cavalry. In late 1631 he was promoted once more to the rank of Field Marshal followign his conquest of vital provinces in Northern Germany. Such high rank was probably beyond his abilites and plagued by ill health and the energetic Pappenheim he had little further success as an independent commander. In 1632 he resigned his commision and returned to Sweden to recover his health. His regiment was taken over by Karl Joakim Karberg. Another veteran of the Polish war. Karberg's regiment served at Lützen were it fought in the front line of Duke Bernhard's wing.
Daniel S 27 Jul 2008 1:51 p.m. PST
Terry,
Blue and red would work well for the Finns as would grey.
One thing that is hard to paint is the difference the quality of the cloth makes on grey shades. The fine grey broadcloth issued to Gustavus' lifeguards be diffrent in apperance from the homespun grey wool used by peasants.
Black dye was expensive and would only be worn by wealthy men i.e officers. Military men tended to favour bolder colours though there are examples of officers wearing black.
Grey-ish browns were considered a peasant colour, brighter browns or reddish browns were fit for soldier.
This is from a late 16thC source but it gives a interesting insight into how colours were viwed by soldiers.
"In Warre, be dressede the goode soldier with bright cloth & collorede, like crimsone, white, blue, yellowe, browne, purple, ochre [1], & at times mexing these collors, one withe another, as best as he sees fit, & better lustrous become him, solely black, & greene, have I seene always be despizede by the practicals and veterans"
Huevans,
"….the Swedes had to hire Polish light cavalry to deal with the Muscovite skirmishing horse in the Ingrian War"
I never wrote that the Swedes_had_to hire the Polish mercernaries. I wrote that they did hire them, no more no less. The war was primarily fought with infantry in sieges of towns and outposts and the Swedish horse could deal with the Russian cavalry on their own if they had to. Hiring the Poles was seen as more effcient way to deal with the actual Lt Cav threat (see below) and it prevented the Russians from hiring said Polish bands and using them against the Swedes.
The greatest light cavalry threat such as it was came not from the Russians but from the various bands of "Cossacks" (Polish and otherwise) which roamed the countryside and was employed by all sides as mercenaries.
The Croats were never more than a nusiance when you look at the big picture. Sure they could be a deadly nusiance if you encounted them on patrol or were part of an ambushed convoy but there were never numerous enough nor was their margin of superiority in the "small war" so great that they were a serious problem for the Swedes. On the battlefield they were generealy unable to stand up to any sort of westwern style abttle cavalry. The most effcient use of the Croats in a battles seems to hav ebeen keeping them in reserve for the pursuit. They could do significant damage if unleased on a routed enemy.
All in all the Croats could be sufficiently contained with the existing troops hence no need to create a Swedish Lt. Cav force during the TYW
Huevans,
I've gone through my sources and no where can I find data which suggests that mounted archery was a problem for the Swedes. During the 25-years war with Russia in the 16th Century Swedish cavalry actually stopped using armour. Not something you do if you face effective archery.
The Poles began to rearm their cossack-style cavalry with firearms no later than the first decades 17th Century.
In 1629 Prince Jerzy Zabarskiwrote that cossack style cavalry were inadequate agains the Swedes due to beign unarmoured and armed with bows. And even before this some banners had firearms. Starowolski describes cossack-style cavalry armed with firearms in a 1628 document.
When Gustvus skirmished with the Poles during a reconaissance in force outside Dirschau in the summer of 1627 the cossack-style cavalry avoided engaging the Swedish cavalry. That chore they left two a couple of hussar companies who rode up, almost killed Gustavus, and then were promptly beaten and routed by vengefull Finns
The Tartars cause the Swedes no recorded problems with archery at Warsaw 1656 were they completly failed to halt Swedish charges despite a supposed higher rate of fire and better range.
The main advantage of Croats, Polish cossack-style cavalry and Tartars were their speed. Particularly on the operational level this allowed them to strike and be on their way before a Swedish reaction force was able to counter-attack. The raids of the cossack-style cavalry was a real problem for the Swedes in certain periods. The two main countermeasures were attacking the 'cossacks' in their quarters and setting ambushes at the locations of likely targets.
The Polish cossack-style cavalry was diffrent from the Croats in that they were far more numerous and that parts of the cossack-style cavalry was much better equipped, trained and motivated to stand in the line of battle.
