Hakkapeliitta ( Finnish pl. hakkapeliitat ) is a historiographical term used for a Finnish light cavalryman in the service of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden during the Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648). Hakkapeliitta is a 19th-century Finnish modification of a contemporary name given by foreigners in the Holy Roman Empire and variously spelled as Hackapelit, Hackapelite, Hackapell, Haccapelit, or Haccapelite. These terms were based on a Finnish battle cry hakkaa päälle ( lit. ' strike upon [them] ' ; Swedish : hacka på ), commonly translated as ' Cut them down! '
6-778: The hakkapeliitta -style cavalry was first used during the Polish-Swedish Wars of the late 16th century. In the early 17th century the cavalry led by the Field Marshal Jacob De la Gardie participated in campaigns against Poland and Russia . The Hakkapeliitta cavalry men led by Field Marshal Gustaf Horn were vital to the Swedish victories in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. The Finnish military march Hakkapeliittain Marssi
12-455: A buff coat and a pot helmet . A steel breastplate was often worn as well. They would attack at a full gallop , the troopers on the front rank firing their pistols at near-contact distance and the whole formation crashing through the enemy at sword point. The horses themselves were another weapon, as they were used to trample enemy infantrymen . The horses used by the Hakkapeliitta were
18-446: Is named after hakkapeliittas. The Hakkapeliitta were well-trained Finnish light cavalrymen who excelled in skirmishing , raiding and reconnaissance , as well as in pitched battles. The greatest advantage these lightly armored horsemen had were the speed and ferocity of their charge . They were equipped like the typical harquebusier light cavalry of their era; armed with a broadsword and two wheellock pistols and protected by
24-529: The ancestors of the modern Finnhorse ; they were strong and durable. The Swedish army then had three cavalry regiments from Finland: Their most famous commander was Torsten Stålhandske (surname meaning ' steelglove ' ), who was commissioned as a lieutenant-colonel with the Nyland and Tavastehus Cavalry Regiment in 1629 and led it for the first time in the Thirty Years' War. The original provincial regiments ( landskapsregementen ) had been raised by splitting
30-702: The frozen Danish straits in the winter of 1658, which enabled him to conquer Skåneland from Denmark in the Treaty of Roskilde . Many Finnish soldiers served under the Swedish Empire. During the era of the Swedish Empire of the 17th century, the Finnish cavalry was constantly used in Germany , Bohemia , Poland , and Denmark . Parts of the cavalry were stationed in Estonia and Livonia . Polish-Swedish Wars This
36-435: The old Grand regiments ( Storregementen ); also "Land regiments" ( landsregementen ), organized by Gustavus Adolphus at the end of the 1610s, forming 21 infantry and eight cavalry regiments as written in the Swedish constitution of 1634 . The main battles in which the Hakkapeliitta took part during the Thirty Years' War were: 200 Hakkapeliitta were also part of the army which King Karl X Gustav of Sweden led across
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