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Swedish allotment system

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Military History and War

   Drawing of Swedish soldiers belonging to the "new" allotment system and
   wearing uniforms of the 1830s.
   Enlarge
   Drawing of Swedish soldiers belonging to the "new" allotment system and
   wearing uniforms of the 1830s.

   The allotment system ( Swedish: indelningsverket; Finnish:
   ruotujakolaitos) was a system used in Sweden for keeping a trained army
   at all times. This system came into use in around 1640, and was
   replaced in the early 1900s by the Swedish Armed Forces conscription
   system. Two different allotment systems have been in use in Sweden;
   they are the old allotment system (äldre indelningsverket) and the new
   allotment system (yngre indelningsverket), the latter often referred to
   as just "the allotment system". The soldiers who were part of these
   systems were known as "tenement soldiers" (indelta soldater, the
   Swedish term, does not have the same meaning) due to the small
   tenements or crofts allotted to them.

   Originally, the allotment system was only a name for the system used to
   pay officers, but later it referred to the whole organization created
   to provide soldiers to the army, known as det ständiga knekthållet
   (literally "the permanent soldier household").

Background

   After the Swedish secession from the Kalmar Union in 1523, the infantry
   of the Swedish Army consisted of conscripted soldiers and enlisted
   mercenaries, both of whom would be called up in wartime only. The units
   were disbanded in peacetime to reduce costs, and only a few garrison
   units were present in towns and fortresses. This made it impossible to
   quickly mobilize a trained army. At the same time, land tax exemption (
   frälse) was given to those who equipped horsemen for cavalry service,
   according to the Decree of Alsnö. Coastal defence was provided by
   several skeppslag (literally "ship teams"), a number of farms located
   in a coastal district that had to furnish both ships and shipmen for
   service. After the birth of the Swedish Navy in 1522, the system for
   recruiting shipmen was changed to rely on forced conscription.

Old system

   In the 16th century, the system was changed with regard to both cavalry
   (1536) and infantry (1544), to provide an army that could be quickly
   mobilized. This was still done by forced conscription for the infantry,
   and tax exemptions for those who financed horsemen. The new system gave
   the conscripted soldiers a means of subsistence between campaigns, by
   making a whole group of farmers responsible for the keep of each
   soldier. While the soldiers would be hired and salaried full-time if at
   war, they lived at home and off duty in peacetime. This meant that it
   would always be possible to raise a trained army in case of war.
   Gustav Vasa, founder of the old allotment system
   Enlarge
   Gustav Vasa, founder of the old allotment system

   The forced conscription of the foot soldiers was called utskrivning
   (literally "writing out"), and was based on a grouping, called a rote
   (similar to an English "file" or "ward"; in the eastern parts of the
   Swedish realm, this became the Finnish ruotu), of ten men from an
   estate or a few farms, fit for military service and between the ages of
   15 and 40. One randomly chosen man from each rote was forced to serve
   in the province's or county's regiment in case of war.

   The organization of the cavalry was based on a slightly different
   grouping. This grouping was known as a rusthåll (literally "arm
   household"), a bigger farm or estate (practically a peasant manor) that
   could support a horseman with his horse and equipment in exchange for
   tax exemption. The horseman who volunteered for service was often the
   estate master himself or a close relative. This option resembled the
   medieval origin of frälse, knight class, but no longer carried the
   Swedish noble status with it, as the cavalryman was not permanently
   stationed in war, but was allowed to remain home at peacetime. In
   particular cases, the estate owner received some taxes from neighbors,
   to augment his own tax exemption: as the burden of a cavalryman with
   horse and equipment was deemed considerable, compensation needed to be
   commensurate.

   The infantry was organized in units of 525 (later 300) men called a
   landsfänika and the cavalry in units of 300 horsemen called a
   landsfana. Later on, this was changed to a company— battalion— regiment
   organization. The system, used and refined by Gustav Vasa and Gustavus
   Adolphus, was later to be known as the old allotment system. Many
   people disliked forced conscription, though, and the peasantry in some
   provinces soon wrote contracts with the state to provide a certain
   number of soldiers in exchange for being spared from conscription.

   There were a number of reasons for the dislike of the system. First,
   any of the ten men in each rote could be picked to serve in case of
   war, which made it hard for the generals to estimate the knowledge and
   level of practice their soldiers would have. Secondly, the richest of
   the men in the rote could buy their way out, which in turn sometimes
   led to the "10th man" being the poorest or weakest in the rote, which
   of course was not good for the army. The system of forced conscription
   also often led to desertions.

New system

   A complete reorganization of the military system was made at the end of
   the 17th century. In 1682 Charles XI decided to reorganize the army,
   and introduced the new allotment system, often referred to as just "the
   allotment system". The system was to remain in effect for over 200
   years. One of the main reasons for the reorganization was the bad
   condition the army had been in during the Scanian War (1674–1679). In
   this system, the overall structure of the old system was retained, but
   contracts such as those described above were used instead of forced
   conscription. Contracts were written with counties and provinces,
   stating that they would have to raise and supply a regiment of 1,000 or
   1,200 men in both wartime and peacetime. Usually, four farms (there
   were exceptions) were to join forces and equip a soldier. Those farms
   were the rote, and they also provided a croft (soldattorp), farmland,
   and equipment for one volunteer soldier who could then make a military
   career, while the rest of the men in the rote escaped conscription.
   Nobles and the farmland they owned, royal manors, most estates that
   were salaries of officials, and some guesthouses were exempted and did
   not need to provide soldiers to the system. The soldier's duty was to
   attend military drills, and in time of war was to report for duty,
   wherever that might be.
   Charles XI introduced the new allotment system.
   Enlarge
   Charles XI introduced the new allotment system.

   The cavalry was conscripted in the same way as in the old system, with
   each rusthåll providing a horse and horseman. In later years, contrary
   to the early times when the rider was often the farmer himself, the
   horseman was a volunteer in the same way as in the infantry, and he was
   also supplied with a croft (ryttartorp) and pay from the farmer, who in
   turn gained a large tax reduction and also did not need to serve in the
   army. This was mainly done because it was easier to replace a fallen
   horseman than replace the master of the estate. Usually, the rusthåll
   was made up of only one estate, and possibly another supporting farmer.
   In exceptional cases, one rusthåll could support as many as seven
   horsemen.

   While most regiments were allotted in the late 17th century—
   Dalregementet and a few others allotted earlier—some remained outside
   the system, including some of the guards regiments and all the
   artillery regiments with enlisted soldiers. Many new regiments of
   enlisted mercenaries were also raised in wartime; for example, only
   one-fifth of soldiers in the Swedish army at the Battle of Breitenfeld
   in 1631 were of Swedish or Finnish origin. The rest of the army was
   made up of German, Scottish and other European mercenaries. This would
   however change during the Great Northern War, in which a majority of
   the regiment's soldiers were from Sweden or its dominions.

   Allotment for the army was only applied to the countryside and not to
   the towns, where people were exclusively recruited to the navy. Each
   province had its own regiment consisting of 1,200 soldiers (and thus
   also 1,200 rotar, not counting officers) for an infantry regiment, or
   1,000 horsemen (and 1,000 rusthåll) for a cavalry regiment. Thus, a
   rote did not necessarily consist of ten men fit for military service as
   in the old system; it could instead consist of a single wealthy estate
   or several small farms, all depending on the tax amount and the number
   of soldiers the farms or estates would be able to provide.

Navy system

   The Swedish Navy recruited their seamen using the same system as the
   army, but from coastal provinces and towns (including non-coastal
   towns). As with the infantry, the farms in coastal areas were organized
   into rotar, which would each provide a croft (båtmanstorp) for a navy
   volunteer. Recruits only had duties on board the ships, for example as
   artillerymen or sailors, and were not used for other combat duties,
   such as boardings and landings, which were executed by army units
   transported on the ships. The seamen often served in the navy six
   months over the summer of every third year. Later, from the middle of
   the 18th century, some of the rotar in the cities would pay a fee equal
   to the approximate cost of providing a boatsman, instead of providing
   one from among themselves.

   There were several problems with this system, relating to the fact that
   a large proportion of the seamen did not live anywhere near the largest
   naval ports of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Karlskrona. Many seamen had
   their crofts along the coast of Norrland and Finland, and thus had
   several hundred kilometres to travel when called into service.
   Originally, the seamen had to walk the long way to the nearest port;
   later, they were transported by horse and carriage. Even the latter
   method of transport, however, took a long time, and soon the state
   began to provide tools and materials, excepting the actual timber, to
   the rote so that the farmers could build a large rowing/sailing boat
   called a lodja. These boats could transport up to 25 men, and could
   ease the transport to the naval ports.

Crofts and soldiers

   Each rote in the new allotment system had the responsibility to recruit
   a soldier for the army, provide his croft with a patch of land, a cow,
   a few chickens and few pigs or sheep so he could support a family, pay
   him his salary, and supply him with necessities such as hay and seed.
   The rote also had to provide the soldier with the uniform. The croft
   and land, located on the land of the rote, only belonged to the soldier
   as long as he was fit for service. If he died or had to retire, the
   croft would have to be returned to the rote, even if it made his family
   homeless; the rote in turn had to find a new recruit. It sometimes
   happened that a widow of a fallen soldier married the rote's new
   recruit, as the rote was regarded as responsible to take care also of
   the remaining family of its fallen serviceman. The soldier lived at his
   croft for large parts of his life, mostly working at the farms that
   supported his household, and went away to a few training camps a year,
   honing his tactics and skills with his regiment. When at war, the
   soldier could be away for years at a time, leaving all of the chores to
   his wife and children, if he had any. Otherwise, the rote farmers would
   take over the work themselves.
   Swedish tenement soldiers at a general muster, drawing by Gustaf
   Cederström, 1887.
   Enlarge
   Swedish tenement soldiers at a general muster, drawing by Gustaf
   Cederström, 1887.

   Recruits in the early 18th century had to be physically and mentally
   fit, between 18 and 36 years old (18–30 years from 1819, 18–25 years
   from 1871) and at least 172 centimeters tall (175 cm from 1775, lowered
   to 167 cm from 1788 as the army was in dire need of soldiers during
   Gustav III's Russian War). Many soldiers served in the army for more
   than 30 years, as there was no service time stated in the contract;
   instead, being discharged required a reason, such as old age, injury,
   sickness, or the commission of a crime. Discharges were generally only
   given at general musters, held once a year, or even more sparsely, even
   though an interim discharge could be given by the regimental commander
   if the discharge was supported by the soldier. The interim discharge
   had to be confirmed at the next general muster.

   From the 1680s (army) and early 18th century (navy), all soldiers in a
   given company were required to have a unique name, to make it easier to
   give specific orders. This could be problematic when several soldiers
   had the same name (being usually from rural background, they generally
   had just a patronymic, and such were often very common, e.g Andersson,
   Eriksson, Olsson or Persson), giving rise to the Swedish soldier names.
   When a soldier appeared before the military scribe, he was given a
   soldier's name (often, a rote's new soldier received predecessor's
   name), which he kept during his service. Those surnames also tended to
   become hereditary, as the soldier often retained it when he was
   pensioned or left the service, and his children were also registered
   under it in census lists and church books—this is the root of plenty of
   today Swedish surnames. The name was usually short, consisting of only
   one syllable—to make it easy and rapid to say. The names could be taken
   from a trait, such as the surname Stolt ("Proud") or from military
   terms, such as Svärd ("Sword"), but were often related to the rote. A
   soldier from a rote located in the village of Sundby, for example,
   could be given the surname Sundin. This meant that surnames often
   stayed with the croft, rather than with the soldier. Common practice
   amongst discharged soldiers in the 18th century was to reassume their
   original name. This changed in the 19th century and many soldiers kept
   their old soldier names, passing it on to their children. Each soldier
   in the regiment also had a unique number, between 1 and 1,200, the
   number of the rote and croft he belonged to. Before entering the army,
   the surname was in many cases simply the fathers name suffixed by the
   word "son", as in Svensson, Larson, etc.

Officers

   Officers were provided with a large farm or homestead directly from the
   Crown, not from a rote. They did not, however, receive a salary from
   the state, but were instead paid by the rotar around the province, as
   part of the rote members' tax payments, and by farmers who worked the
   land belonging to the officer's farm. The officers' homes were loans,
   rather than outright gifts, and their size and quality was
   proportionate to the occupants' military rank. It was this system that
   was originally called the "allotment system". A condition for the
   system to work was the reductions carried through by the state,
   expropriating land and farms from the nobles, which were then provided
   to the officers. The officers' homesteads would be located in the same
   part of the province as the soldiers whom the officer would command in
   battle, often close to the rote. The officer thus knew the men he would
   lead, contrary to the practice in many other countries where the army
   officers would live on estates that were separated from the soldiers by
   both distance and lifestyle.

Military impact

   The Swedish military had a unique position in Northern Europe at the
   time of the new system, being the only army that did not rely only on
   enlisted soldiers, mercenaries or conscripted soldiers. In relation to
   population size, the Swedish army was also the largest in Europe.
   Thanks to the allotment system, mobilization was quick. It took time,
   weeks and months, to enlist, equip, train and organize a unit of
   mercenaries, while the Swedish tenement soldiers gathered at the
   company meeting place in a couple of days, and then at the regimental
   meeting place in around a week. The soldiers were already trained and
   equipped, and knew their precise spot in the formation. Marching routes
   to the borders or to harbours had already been prepared, and supplies
   had been gathered at important places.

   Swedish battle tactics relied on a high level of organization and the
   large-scale use of swords and pikes. Other armies had stopped using
   pikemen in the late 17th century, solely relying on the bayonet of the
   musketeer to protect against cavalry attacks. Reasons for the Swedish
   obstinacy in keeping the pikes and making large use of swords in battle
   include the Swedish loss in the Battle of Kircholm in 1605, where a
   modernized Swedish army was severely beaten by Polish hussars—partly
   due to being equipped with the latest muskets which were hard to
   handle—and the fact that pikemen were very expensive to hire to armies
   that were formed by mercenaries; however, as Sweden had the allotment
   system and thus did not pay a higher salary to pikemen, they were kept.

   The high level of organization and morale made it possible to base the
   combat tactics on close combat, rather than long-range shooting. A
   regular attack would look like the following: When the enemy musketeers
   started firing, at ranges up to 100 metres, the Swedish infantry would
   not answer but keep a swift marching pace, not stopping until the range
   was as little as 40 metres, where the musketeers in the back of the
   formation would fire their only salvo. At an even closer range, the
   musketeers in the front would fire their only salvo, and immediately
   after that, break into the enemy lines—musketeers using their swords,
   and pikemen using their pikes. This tactic would often result in a
   fleeing enemy force, which probably stood terrified when their
   opponent's companies were not stopped by continuous musket fire, but
   kept marching on towards them in sinister silence.

Civil impact

   The Battle of Poltava in 1709, drawing by Denis Martens, 1726.
   Enlarge
   The Battle of Poltava in 1709, drawing by Denis Martens, 1726.

   During the time of the old allotment system, Sweden's involvement in
   the Thirty Years' War and the Northern Wars did not have a very large
   impact on the population in general. The armies of Sweden under
   Gustavus Adolphus and later Charles X had relatively large success due
   to the superior tactics used, and foreign mercenaries comprised large
   parts of the armies. Gustavus Adolphus had, when he entered the Thirty
   Years' War, an army of 14,500 Swedish and Finnish conscripts and more
   than 20,000 enlisted foreigners, and deaths in the latter group did not
   affect the Swedish population. Charles XI's new allotment system did
   not have to see use in the first 20 years of its existence, which was
   also the longest time of peace Sweden had seen since its independence.
   Thus, the population continued to grow at a steady rate between 1620
   and 1700.

   The new system was put to the test for the first time in 1700, when
   Sweden, under the reign of Charles XII, was attacked by a coalition of
   its neighbours Russia, Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland in the Great
   Northern War. The mobilization of the soldiers worked well thanks to
   the new system, with Sweden mobilizing 43,000 men in allotted
   regiments, and another 33,000 men from various enlisted regiments. The
   army was one of the largest in Europe at the time, having modern
   equipment and being very well-trained and organized. However, three
   enemies were too much, even though Charles XII forced Denmark to leave
   the war the same year it started, and forced Saxony to leave the war in
   1706. After these successful blows to the coalition, Charles XII had
   the opportunity to sign a peace with the remaining opponent, Russia. He
   did not, and this decision would have immense effects on the
   population. Russia's vast plains did not give Charles XII the
   possibility to beat his enemy with his superior army; instead, he was
   forced into a war of attrition, a war he could not win.

   As the war finally ended in 1721, Sweden had lost an estimated 200,000
   men, 150,000 of those from present-day Sweden and 50,000 from the
   Finnish part of Sweden. This made a huge impact on a population that
   before the war had barely reached 2 million. The total population did
   not grow during the 21 years of the war; it was even reduced, according
   to some sources, as the massive losses outnumbered overall births. For
   example, the province of Östergötland was supposed to support 2,200
   tenement soldiers, making up one infantry and one cavalry regiment.
   Losses had to be replaced, and during the first years of the war,
   another 2,400 men were conscripted. After the Battle of Poltava in
   1709, both regiments had to be completely reraised. At the end of the
   war, a total of 10,400 soldiers had been conscripted from the province
   that was meant to support only a fifth, or 2,200. Another regiment,
   Hälsinge regemente, had to be completely reraised three times during
   the war. The lack of soldiers became so critical that in the period
   1714–1715, the army had to return to the old method of conscripting men
   by force.

Conscription

   In 1812, a new system was introduced, requiring all males between age
   20 and 25 to serve in the armed forces twelve days a year, changing in
   1858 to four weeks per two years. At the same time, the new allotment
   system remained in use up until 1901, when mandatory conscription, with
   8–9 months of military service, was introduced. The allotment system
   was finally abolished in 1904. From that time, regiments began to be
   garrisoned in towns instead of being spread all over the province with
   a training ground as the only common meeting place. As tenemented
   soldiers were contracted by the government for as long as they were fit
   for service, and as they could not be dismissed, some soldiers lived
   under the allotment system long after 1901, the last one retiring as
   late as 1964. Through the reform, the regiments' local connections were
   partially lost, as conscripts were not necessarily from the regiments'
   respective provinces. Before the reform, soldiers of the same company
   generally stemmed from the same village and region.

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