After the end of the Thirty Years War, in which the Swedish army, led by King Gustavus Adolphus and the commanders Baner, Hurn and Tosterson, scored a series of victories over the imperial armies, Sweden’s role in continental affairs was restricted to the Baltic area. In 1675, Charles XI ascended the throne of Sweden, and instituted a series of significant military reforms.

At the end of the seventeenth century Sweden had 2.5 million inhabitants, barely 5 per cent of whom lived in the cities. Its most important rival, Russia, had ten times as many people, and therefore much vaster resources for recruiting its army. Keeping a large number of men constantly under arms would disrupt the Swedish economy, so Charles introduced an administrative organization, the indelningsverkt, under which soldiers and officers of the regular army had the right to work the royal land on which farms were allocated to them. There were type projects for the construction of the farms, depending on the rank of the owner. The men from one county belonged to the same unit, so they knew each other, and morale was higher; however, if a unit suffered severe losses, a county could be devastated.

The basic organization of a regiment was four squadrons of 125 men. In peacetime, the troopers worked the land and took part in occasional exercises. In wartime, the regiment’s full force would converge at the gathering point and march off to the main army camp, where they underwent continuous training.

At the time of Charles XI, uniforms modelled on French ones of the period of Louis XIV were introduced. Cavalry was divided into national horse and dragoon regiments, with one squadron of Trabant Garde (Royal Yeomanry Guards) and a corps of nobles (adelsfanan). In 1685, a royal decree specified a special test for the blades of cavalry swords: they were bent in both directions, and the flat was struck hard against a pinewood plank. The blade was stamped only if it passed this test.

In 1697, Charles XII became king of Sweden. He continued the military reforms, and turned the cavalry into a powerful fighting force, which proved itself in many battles against the Danes, Saxons, Poles and Russians during the Great Northern War (1700-21). How dangerous these battles were is illustrated by the Royal Yeomanry Guards; of 147 troopers who went to war in 1700, only 14 returned in 1716.