A little something about Swedish foot guards ca 1808-1809

[Pancratist]

Hi,

I just wrote a small post on the Swedish foot guards, especially their uniforms and flags in the war of 1808–1809. I know there are some very knowledgeable people on this forum, and all comments or criticisms are most welcome. The blog is easily edited if anyone were to find any errors or omissions.

https://pancratist.com/2025/07/11/swedish-guards-in-the-finnish-war-1808-1809/

Cheers
/P

[Calvin59]

Thank you very much for this superb study.   

[glenning]

Great post - very interesting as well as inspiring!

Best regards from a Swede 

[traveller]

I think you done a good job of explaining these confusing re-organizations and name changes to a broader audience. Maybe it is worth to add that the Finnish Guards became the Second Life Guard in 1809(and Göta Livgarde in 1894), keeping the red facings on their uniforms. Thereafter it is easier to understand the Guard Regiments from a uniform perspective, Svea Livgarde - yellow, Second/Andra Livgardet - red. In this picture I think Knötel got the uniforms right but the year of 1807 is incorrect since the Second/Andra was not formed until 1809.



Stokirch has an interesting image of the uniforms of the Finska and Svenska guard units:



Another detail is that these battalions had Jäger detachments just like the line regiments

[Pancratist]

Thank you Traveller, I will certainly add something about the jägers and those images will work perfectly. I suppose the jägers might be possible to model using the Perry Värmland jäger figures. It should be sufficient to cut off some parts of the hat and add the plume on the front. The plastron will probably only be partly visible so that one might just adjust the figures with a knife there, if that is even necessary at all.

I got a comment elsewhere about figures in other scales and from other makers, which I should also add a short comment about as well.

/P

[traveller]

Eagle actually has these figures. They scale quite well with Perry and have good detail even if the poses are less dynamic:

https://eaglefigures.co.uk/28mm-napoleonic-swedes/infantry/

[Pancratist]

Thank you guys for the feedback! I have now updated the post with a lot of new information, images and more on the available figures. The post is now very long...
https://pancratist.com/2025/07/11/swedish-guards-in-the-finnish-war-1808-1809/
/P