Snapphane

A snapphane was a member of a 17th-century pro-Danish guerrilla organization, auxiliaries or paramilitary troops that fought against the Swedes in the Second Northern and Scanian Wars, primarily in the former eastern Danish provinces which in the course of these wars became southern Sweden. The term 'snapphane' was a derogatory term for what the Swedish authorities considered illegal combatants. It comprised five general categories:

Snapphane
Snapphanevägen statue at Loshult Road in Lönsboda. Designed by Anders Jönsson
Leaders	Svend Poulsen
Dates of operation	17th-century
Ideology	pro-Danish
Opponents	Sweden

1) Regular special forces from the Danish army who were sent out to work behind enemy lines to disrupt communications and supply lines, obtain intelligence, prevent Swedish tax collection, catch traitors and help Danes in enemy territory out of there. For example Captain Pieter Sten, who was considered the fiercest of snapphanar by the Swedes, spent part of his time in the regular army, part of his time running a spy central at the Ringsøe lake (now Ringsjön) and Nicolai Hermansen had a similar position.

2) The King's Friskytter who were lightly armed cavalry units who fought in the rear and who did the same tasks as the first category but on a more day-to-day basis. Specialists like Pieter Sten would organise the friskytter into companies or assign volunteers to companies and constitute a link between the friskytter and the Danish authorities. Their role verged between that of paramilitary and auxiliaries in that they were paid by the state, worked on the orders of the Danish military headquarters and when the campaign season was over, they were sent over to lodgings in Denmark proper, like regular soldiers. Friskytte units were often set up on a local basis so that all volunteers from one hundred (herred) would sign up for the same company, but as the war continued the companies shifted shape many times. There were at least two student companies with recruits from the universities of Copenhagen and Lund. Some units were mainly for soldiers and veterans from both the Danish and Swedish army. The vast majority of friskytter were Scanians but there were quite a few Danes, some Germans and Poles and even a couple of Swedes. They were organised in units of 40–100 cavalry who operated over large areas and whose main task was to mainly attack the Swedish army's supply lines although all of the tasks listed for category 1 were valid for them, too. They also worked with highly-specialised units of Croat cavalry that had been hired by the Danish king. Major General Meerheim in the regular Danish army was ultimately responsible for the operations.

3) Ordinary peasants and yeomen farmers who continued their day-to-day lives but took up arms against approaching Swedish forces when necessary; this category was most common in the initial stages but continued throughout the war. These combatants were similar to modern partisans or guerrillas.

4) Another group of snapphanar were the Danish bailiffs (fogder) who supervised Danish tax collection and foraging and who often clashed with Swedish troops with the same intentions. Often enough, these four groups collaborated and contributed crews to various Danish war operations and most often they were controlled from Copenhagen.

5) A final category of snapphanar were bandits, looters and carpet baggers who roamed the land and who had little to do with either warring party. Their looting was directed not only at the Swedish army but also (and to a greater extent) at the civilian population. The sources show that there were criminals on both sides who exploited the local population in a shameful way.

These five categories were all considered 'snapphanar' by the Swedes, and if caught, they were all punished as such. However, the term was not used by these combatants themselves, the word 'friskytter' was highly preferred by both category 2 and 3.

Strategic Background: A large part of Scania was no-man's land during the Scanian war: the Danes had taken refuge in the two enclaves of Landscrone/Landskrona and Helsingborg and the Swedes in Malmö and later also in Kristianstad, but the rest of the territory was stateless and small parties of cavalry would be sent out from the fortified enclaves to stock up, forage and seek out skirmishes with the enemy.This kind of war was called "party warfare" or "petty war" and was typical of early modern Europe when firearms began to make a serious impact and warfare became increasingly expensive and difficult to carry out in the traditional sense. Large field battles usually did not give a definite result but cost huge sums of money. Instead, there was usually a war of attrition between different garrisons that sat in fortified cities such as Kristianstad in Skåne or Kristiansand in Norway. A gloomy consequence of this kind of warfare was that the land around the fortresses was completely destroyed because it often happened that they took the tactics of the burnt earth and burned everything, so that the enemy did not get it. The easiest way in such situations was to use agile small troops, usually cavalry, but also infantry. On the continent, for example, the Habsburg Croats were among the most skilful troops in that kind of war and small contingents of Croats were hired by the Danes to co-operate with the Danish specialist in petty war - the friskytter. During the Scanian War, many Scanians who lived in the western part of Scania could quite easily join the regular Danish army, after the 1676 Danish re-conquest of the province. But in the North (closer to Sweden), this was more difficult. However, Scanians who joined the army or were drafted were often sent to the friskytte units, like the Copenhagen student Jörgen Wesseltoft who was partly friskytte, partly one of the king's guards. In any case, the partisan movement was the most common way to support the Danish side. The movement did also return during the 1711 Danish attempt to regain Scania.[1]

'Origin of the word:' The term snapphane, which was used as a pejorative term by the Swedes to describe the pro-Danish rebels, was originally a word for gangs of bandits that lived in the woods. When Scanian exiled peasants were organized by the Danish king into bands that fought the Swedes with guerrilla methods, they were called Snapphane too.

Due to the movement's support of the Danish invasion during the Scanian War, Swedish authorities fought the snapphanes brutally, and if one was captured, he was usually executed and the corpse was impaled and shown where the locals could see it and be intimidated to obedience. Another common method was execution by having them broken on the wheel. The Snapphane insurgency was initially successful, but as the tide of the war turned against Denmark, the strength of the Snapphane movement became more depleted. The Snapphane movement was eventually defeated by a ruthless campaign waged by the Swedish Army, compelling all Scanian peasants to swear allegiance to the King of Sweden, this effectively created a wedge between the Snapphane movement and most of the population. Instructed by their Danish paymasters to kill Scanian peasants loyal to the Swedish crown, the Snapphane bands soon turned on the local population and thus undermined all popular support for the Danish king. A determined Swedification policy was reportedly so effective that when a Danish invasion army landed in 1709, in the wake of the Battle of Poltava, the local population was raised in a militia to fight against them though participation was limited. The last suspected snapphane, Nils Tuasen‚ was executed in 1700 for slaying a Swedish soldier in 1677. He had allegedly spent 22 years in exile in Denmark but ultimately returned, upon which he was arrested and put to death.[2]

Snapphanen from 1934 by artist Axel Ebbe portraits the snapphane Lille Mads, a member of the pro-Danish guerrilla active in southern Sweden in the 17th century. The statue is placed in the Hembygdsparken park in Hässleholm

Snapphanes made an impact on Swedish popular culture. In modern times, the Swedish Navy patrol boat P161 is named HMS Snapphanen. It is part of a class of vessels several of which are named after paramilitary professions, like Kaparen (privateer), Spejaren (scout), etc.