The Swedish Army of the Great Northern War, 1700-1721: Organisation, Equipment, Campaigns and Uniforms: 26 (Century of the Soldier)

As another reviewer has mentioned, this is a subject that O*pr*y surely should have covered more expansively than their Poltava Campaign title (which is excellent). But they haven't.This is a wonderful book, giving sufficient detail to prompt further research into the campaigns, battles, soldiers, equipment, fortifications etc.Included within the 100 pages are:13 b/w maps (lovely hand drawn period-style by Derek Stone)5 colour pages of flags and emblems3 colour pages covering 36 basic uniforms8 colour pages with 24 larger depictions of uniforms (with commentaries)loads of b/w photos2+ pages of bibliographyMy path to the GNW was via the Sabaton album Carolus Rex (the Swedish-lyric version with the art book), which gave a glimpse into the Swedish Empire. Which then took me to some nicely detailed 54mm and 1/72 scale figurines, for which this book is a decent painting reference.I am glad I waited for this title.

A great little book, uniform information is especially good, it seems the Swedes were wearing a uniform in the first half of the war that apart from the addition of collars was unchanged since 1687 , in 1706 a new uniform came into being only buttoned half way down and more voluminous at the bottom so it could be turned back and give us the classic Swedish soldier look in his baggy blue coat usually with yellow facings but there was no chance to refit with this new coat until after Poltava, so it's highly possible that the image we have been fed of the Swedish soldier in the Great Northern War is accurate but only for perhaps the second half of the war, maybe we all have to rethink our miniatures. Great title worth getting.

Very good! Covers the Swedish military history of the great northern war to the 1720s starting with the military and political background in the 1600s, all in a succinct but still detailed manner. For an even more detailed account of the northern war I recommend the fantastic book Peter The Great by Massie.

A smaller companion of the Megorsky volume on the Russians, this book has less to cover as the Swedes were not in a period of such change as their opponents. All of Charles XII's campaigns are covered in summary with the usual notes on army structure and uniforms.

Excellent book about the Great Northern War. The Century of the Soldier series is proving superb!

Lars Ericson Wolke is well known in Sweden from his research into 17th and 18th century Swedish warfare. This book is, as far I know, his first venture into this topic published in English. It is published as part of ‘falconet’ paperbacks in ‘Century of the Soldier 1618-1721’ series.After brief introduction into period author is describing rather unique system of raising and organizing Swedish army during the reigns of Karl XI and Karl XII. We have chapters about equipment and uniforms of troops, with quite a lot of space about standards/flags. There are also information about army tactics and quite detailed chapter regarding fortification.Two next chapters shows as main events of the Great Northern War, seen from Swedish perspective. Another chapter gives us description of ‘battlefield performance’ of Swedes in few chosen battles: Narva in 1700, Fraustadt in 1706, Poltava in 1709, Helsingborg in 1710, Gadebusch in 1712 Norwegian campaign of 1718-19 and finally Stäket in 1719. Final chapter draws parallels between GNW and War of Spanish Succession.Appending gives us list of all regiments and independent smaller units raised between 1700 and 1721, showing rather unique structure of Swedish army.Great part of this book are colour platers. Sergey Shamenkov is an author of 8 beautiful plates, describing in total 24 Swedish soldiers – from generals to artillery. Lesley Prince reconstructed 13 standards, David Wright drawn outline of uniform colours of 36 units of Swedish army. All those materials will be very useful both for researchers and wargamers alike.Another interesting part of the book is detailed bibliography, where all Swedish titles are translated into English. While some may find it little thing but I believe it’s very useful approach, helping non-Swedish speakers in their own research.It’s nice to see that Great Northern War gather more and more love from Helion & Company, with Wolke’s book being very useful and interesting addition to whole series.