Established and young scholars working on military history of northern Europe explored cultural transfer and warfare due to being highly mobile with well connected military systems in the north (often studied in isolation).
Northern Europe saw the development of a particular kind of warfare, determined by the peculiar climatic, economic, and social structures of the region.
Sweden dramatically emerged as a major military power in the seventeenth centure. Sustaining its effort from its involvement in the Thirty Years War (1648–1648) through the Great Northern War (1700–1721), when it was eclipsed by Peter the Great of Russia, who based many military reforms on the Swedish model.
International recruiting saw of tens of thousands of soldiers and officers from the British Isles (particularly from Scotland) join the armies of Denmark, Russia and above all Sweden. In Russia and Sweden, substantial colonies of Scottish soldiers were formed with Scots officers integrating into high political and social circles especially in Sweden.
This Symposium was sponsored by The North Theme, Centre for Early Modern Studies, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen Centre for Russian and East European History and Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies.
Friday 1st March 8:00: Dinner and Saturday 2nd March
Session One: 9:00-10.45 - The Military Revolution - Chair: Robert Frost
Robert Frost | Aberdeen | Introduction |
Chester Dunning | Texas A & M | The Fiscal State in seventeenth-century Russia |
Olli Bäckström | Aberdeen | Asymmetrical warfare, Sweden and the Thirty Years War |
Coffee: 10.45-11.15
Session Two: 11.15-12.45 - The Great Northern War - Chair: Chester Dunning
Lars Ericsson Wolke | Åbo | Naval warfare, 1700-1721 – a Swedish perspective. |
Magnus Perlestam | Mid Sweden University | Logistics operations in wartime: the Swedish Army, 1701–1709 |
Lunch: 12:45-2:00
Session Three: 2:00-4:00 - The Thirty Years War - Chair: Dr David Worthington (UHI)
Lewis Rattray | Aberdeen | “Between Mars and the Muses”: Training manuals and military change in Scotland 1600-1642 |
Adam Marks | St Andrews | Beyond the Anglo-Dutch Brigades: English military service in Sweden during the 1620s |
Kathrin Zickermann | UHI | German officers in the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War. |
Coffee: 4:00-4:15
Session Four: 4:15-5:30 - Roundtable
Robert Frost | Aberdeen |
Steve Murdoch | St Andrews |
Organised by Professor Robert I Frost, Burnett Fletcher Chair in History, Department of History, University of Aberdeen.