"Uniform of SYW Swedish Jägers?" Topic

Hi all.

One more question to "my" Swedes: I know that not so much is known about the uniforms of the Swedish light infantry, but I will give it a try:

According to Pengel, the Swedish Jägers had a green coat, yellow facings, no lapels.

According to kronoskaf, e.g. the Jägers of Köhler's or Schwartzer's companies had green coats with yellow collar, cuffs, turnbacks AND lapels.

Who can help me out?

Thanks and cheers,
Peter

Good question and actually hard to sort out

The Hästjägare (mounted rifles) – no one seems sure but a plain green coat is most likely

For Kohler and Schwartzer's companies Digby Smith says Russian green coats, yellow cuffs, collars and buttons

Given the parsimonious state of the Swedish War Ministry durin the Seven Years War I think lapels were unlikely – the Swedes were so cheap even the Kungl Livgardt (Royal Life Guards) did not have lapels

That sure makes sense…

On the other hand, the Jäger companies were established only in 1961, and the situation may have been better then.

They also had the funds for expensive hussar uniforms.

I wonder where kronoskaf had the info from…?

Being Swedish, I made some contributions to Kronoskaf but I am not guilty of this one :)

Let me check my sources and come back to you

The sources Kronoskaf mentions are:

Leach, Jeff, Swedish Jägar Units of the Seven Years War – Part 1: Köhler's and Schwarter's Companies, Seven Years War Association Journal Vol. X No. 1

This together with the articles of Dan Schorr and Pengel are probably the best sources in English although Schorr seems to disagree with Pengel and states yellow buttonholes instead of white and Schorr does not believe in any lapels used. Having read these english articles as well as the works of Bellander and Säwe in Swedish, my conclusions are the following (I find Kronoskaf a bit unclear…please niote that there are at least three different von Scwartzer involved on the Swedish side):

1757 Johan Kristoffe von Schwartzer sets up a 100 man squadron of Horse Jägers. These were strengthened with another 100 men in 1758. Uniform unknown.

1758 Fredrik Ulrik Putbus sets up a Foot Hussar unit of 50+50 men. Uniform most likely the same as the Blue Hussars since it was attached to this unit

1758 Johan von Böhnen sets up a 600 men strong Free Corps. Uniform unknown. This consisted of a lot of foreign deseters recruited in the Danzig area. When I eventually will build ny 28mm forces I will use a ragtag mix of civilian, Prussian and Swedish uniforms

In 1761 there were additional units formed:

Hans Fredrick von Köhler and Carl Wilhelm von Schwartzer each sets up a foot jäger company of 100 men. These units had green coats and probably(?) no lapels but yellow buttonholes, cuffs and collar.

In the summer another free company was formed commanded by captain Lillie and later on this year three more companies were formed under Harald Ehrenhjelm, Lundeberg and (Göran Magnus) Sprengtporten. Each of these companies were equipped with two small artillery guns pulled by one horse each.

Hope this helps :)

Many thanks for these clarifications, Travellera!
Is it correct that the free companies (Ehrenhjelm, Lundeberg and Sprengtporten) recruited their soldiers from "regular" Swedish units? So these soldiers probably kept their original uniforms?
Cheers, Peter

That is correct. These companies were recruited from volunteers from the infantry regiments. Same goes for Lillies company. I guess you have also noted that two grenadier batallions were recruited in the same fashion. It is interesting to see how these units together with regular army units were organised into ad-hoc strike forces to fight their constant adversary Belling (incl the Swedish traitor Hård who commanded a Prussian freicorps)