Original rendering of a snow brig by @kris_tinsart.
Conscription of Peasants in the Danish-Norwegian Army
C.A. Sapherson, in The Danish Army 1699-1715, gives a total of 12,848 total soldiers in Norway in 1699, with 1838 of those hvervede infantry, or professional soldiers, and 8668 national, or conscripted infantry. The rest of the soldiers, primarily artillery and garrison soldiers, appear to be professional soldiers. (Sapherson, p. 28).
The infantry regiment at Bergenhus Fortress, rather large at 1495 soldiers, is listed by Sapherson as a national, or conscripted regiment. The fortress is rather small, so the soldiers would have lived at their home farms or shops and reported for duty as needed. There is no indication that these conscripted soldiers were paid by the government and would have been supported by their home farms. Infantry uniforms coats were mainly light grey with various colored linings or red with a blue lining. In 1711. the Danish king ordered all the Danish army uniform coats changed to red, but it is unclear whether that order impacted the regiments in Norway.
The artillery regiment, composed of 261 men, was divided into seven companies that served the seven fortresses in Norway with cannon defense: Bergenhus, Askerhus, Kongsvinger, Frederiksstad, Trondhjeim, Frederiksshald, and Christianssund. Artillery uniform coats may have been violet with a green lining.
According to Esposito, Danish farms were grouped by fours, supplying one soldier per group. Norway apparently had groups of two, with one full-time soldier for every two farms, and one reserve soldier for every four farms. I can imagine the drama over deciding who would serve, and the resentment over those left behind having to shoulder the work of the missing man without compensation.
In Norway, many were fishermen rather than farmers. I am still looking for a source for how the allotment of soldiers went for fisheries.
Swedish Soldiers
Details about the inner-workings of the Swedish army under Karl XII can be found in the work of Magnus Perlestam, who consulted journals of soldiers who served in the Swedish army during the Great Northern War.
Swedish soldiers attended church services and evening prayers while on campaign and carried their muskets to church. The Swedes left the King’s horses grazing without a guard in the summer of 1708 to attend church, and Kalmyks loyal to Czar Peter stole twelve of Karl’s carriage horses and most of the other royal horses (Perlestam 53). Although horse-stealing was common, according to Perlestam, “In the Swedes’ eyes, it was cowardly and unbefitting for a soldier to steal from a sleeping enemy or to stage hit-and-run attacks” (Perlestam 53).
Regulations for infantry in 1701 indicated that each regiment maintained a round-the-clock small force of one captain, three lieutenants, four NCO’s, a drummer, and one-twelfth of the regiment in soldiers that was battle-ready, although they were allowed to remain inside their tents (Perlestam, 57). Regulations in 1709 indicate that the cavalry had a similar readiness force. Outside sentries were also posted, and sentries were forbidden from being so drunk they couldn’t perform their duties.
Conscription After the War
King Christian VI is known for the Stvansbåndet, or Adscription, in 1733, a law that required all peasants to stay on their home farms in Denmark and Norway. The Adscription also required each farm to provide a soldier for the military. The owners of the land were allowed to select the soldiers for conscription (Madsen, p. 4).
The country needed more food from farms, and presumably more soldiers with the losses from the Great Northern War, so the adscription addressed both needs for Denmark. Wealthy people could buy a release from the Adscription, but peasants were prevented from moving to the cities to find work.
For the next post in the series, click here — Battle of Narva
Source: C.A. Sapherson, The Danish Army 1699-1715, Partizan Press, 1997.
Source: Magnus Perlestam, “Enemy Actions on Swedish Encampments,” in The Great Northern War: New Perspectives (2018, Authors and University Press of Southern Denmark, edited by Michael Hesselholt Clemmesen, Niels Bo Poulsen and Anna Sofie Schøning).
Source: Gabriele Esposito, Armies of the Great Northern War 1700-1720, Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2019.
Source: Madsen, Mogens. “Feudaløkonomiens Opløsning Og Landboreformer i Danmark,” 2005. [read via paid subscription to academia.edu]