Swedish allotment system The allotment system ( ; ) 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 tenement s or crofts allotted to them . Originally , the allotment system was a name for a system used to pay servants of the state , like officers and clergy . It was introduced because of an often felt shortage of money , and the allotment system tried to solve this by localizing taxes ; meaning that payment consisted of an individual ' s right to collect certain taxes . Later on it referred to an organization created to provide soldiers to the armed forces , properly known as " det ständiga knektehållet " ( literally " the permanent soldier household " ) . The reason for this development of the term is that a large part of the allotment system was used to support " det ständiga knektehållet " . 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 through impressment 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 . The impressment 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 knight hood 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 desertion s . 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 . The soldier ' s duty was to attend military drills , and in time of war was to report for duty , wherever that might be . Royal manors , farms owned by the nobility , and farms used as salary to government officials were exempted and did not need to provide soldiers to the 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 guard s 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 dead 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 . 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 muster s , 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 his 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 origin of many present - day 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 ( for example " nummer 15 Stolt " , number 15 Stolt ) . Officers . Officers were provided with a large farm or a small manor house 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 reduction s 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 . Because of 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 sword s 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 hussar s — 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 . 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 raised 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 1901 . 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 1961 . 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 . References . Print Online