The Scots apparently sent over 10,000 people to go and fight with for Swedes. It is interesting to me but not only did we send more than 10,000 people to the consonant to fight for the Swedes but we also got Swedish leaders coming to Scotland to train our troops.

We're not talking about one or two soldiers one or two leaders this was an all encompassing balls deep integration and as someone who is deeply fascinated with the Scandinavia finding this out was amazing I'm still surprised by the level of integration.

This was at the castle in Edinburgh and I'm curious the Royal Scots in the national War Memorial have the three crowns at the memorial for the people who died over the years.
I am curious about the water trough outside whether the three crowns is something to do with Sweden as well?

by nserious_sloth

8 comments

  1. for a few centuries, Scottish soldiers could be found as parts of the army of a great many countries, and sometimes fought on both sides of a conflict.

  4. Just to add that this book is an absolute gem. Pretty much the best primary source in any language for the daily life of a soldier in the 30 Years War. James Monro was quite a character.

    The man in your picture I believe is Alexander Leslie who was a military genius in the Swedish service. He came back to Scotland during the Bishops Wars of 1638-40 and overhauled Scotlands military and civil administration on the same basis as Sweden’s. I wrote most of my dissertation on the guy.

    Fun fact, around 10% of the adult male population of Scotland between 1620-40 fought on the European continent. Higher than the proportion in WW1. Scottish links with Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Denmark and even as far as Ukraine and Russia are really interesting in this period.

  5. Scots are weird with this shit. In almost any war you can find a rogue Scotsman just casually fighting for one side. Even during the siege of Constantinapolis there was a group of Scotsman who helped Byzantium to find Ottoman dug tunnels under the city.

  6. This is why England did not want Scotland to have a foreign policy that diverged from its own and took nonviolent steps to completely control it through the treaties of the acts of union

  7. I stayed in the old Swedish house of a Scottish Captain. I believe he formed a Swedish company for the 30 years war. There were quite a few artefacts, and the home owner was an ex soldier who was keen to share eeh history of Scottish and Swedish joint miltary history. Made for two very interesting dinners.

  8. It’s actually pretty fascinating. It’s also why the Covenanter movement enjoyed early successes – lots of Scots mercenaries came back to the fold with plenty of combat experience.

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