I will never be tired of searching for information, which tells me about Swedish connections to the Great War. I try to look through all kind of digital sources and books. Now and then I find, for me, really interesting facts, that increase my knowledge in the subject.
This is a small story about three Swedish born individuals who ended up to serve within the Austria-Hungarian Army during the Great War. The sources in this case has been the Swedish church books and the digitized newspapers in the Swedish Royal Library.
Gösta Bruzelius
Gösta was born as Nils Otto Gösta Bruzelius in Rogslösa parish in the landscape of Östergötland, November 19th, 1880. He was raised by his mother, Evelina Charlotta Lallerstedt, and his father, the Army Lieutenant Kornelius Jakob Bruzelius.
Shortly after his Swedish military service he left Sweden for Austria-Hungary in 1914. He was already a sub-lieutenant in the Swedish Army before he left, and started to serve in the Austria-Hungarian Regiment “Erzherzog Josef” No 15.
The Swedish Newspaper made an interview with him during September 1916, when he was home on a two weeks leave from his, so far, 22 month long service in the war. Below you will find the transcribed text from the interview.
“For the past few days, a young man has been staying in Stockholm—a man who, by his own account, is already beginning to long for the place he came from, even though Stockholm ought to be a comparatively peaceful haven by comparison. Lieutenant Gösta Bruzelius has served on the Austrian Eastern Front since the very beginning of the war, save for two months spent in the hospital with rheumatism contracted in the trenches. During his twenty-two months at the front, he has saved up enough time for a proper one-month leave; of this period, he will spend fourteen days in his home country.
How does it feel to have returned to civilization? “Oh, it’s eerie,” he says; “there are so many automobiles and so much noise in the streets, plus dinner parties and all that sort of thing.” It is far more peaceful back in one’s own dugout, Lieutenant Bruzelius feels—a sentiment that hardly speaks well for our traffic system, implying as it does that a trench in the Carpathians is quieter than Vasagatan. (Vasa Street in Stockholm) Yet the nerves of a man who has spent nearly two years fighting Russians and Serbs can likely withstand little more than the familiar sounds of whistling shrapnel.
Although a cavalryman and a member of the 15th Austrian Dragoon Regiment, Lieutenant Bruzelius has mostly lain in the trenches armed with a shovel and bayonet except in real battles, when the cavalry’s greater mobility is used. But then he has shown what he and his horse are good for.
After Ravarudschka and Gorlice, his regiment and the Bavarians were the first to enter Przemysl, and his patrol was the first to ride through the streets of Lemberg after the reconquest. The city itself had not been damaged in the slightest, only the entrenchments built by the Russians outside the city, where one could study the effects of the Austrian heavy artillery perfectly. Of a Russian battery, which had been fired upon with 30.5 cm. howitzers, nothing more remained, a horse’s head here and a hand there.
In general, Lieutenant Bruzelius, who is otherwise not a man of many words, cannot praise enough the Austrians’ extraordinary artillery, as well as the entire Austrian army in general. The soldiers’ equipment is excellent, and food is never lacking, which, moreover, is something that cannot and must not exist under such hardships as must be endured. The cooking carts are the soldiers’ dearest friends, and they never fail. In the Carpathians it sometimes happened that they were too heavy to carry high up into the mountains; in such cases, they simply slung the kettles onto horses, and the food stayed warm in them for half a day.
Lieutenant Bruzelius also had experience with the hay-box cookers being experimented with back home, but they were not proven as practical, as the food turned out worse when cooked in them. The medical care—with which the lieutenant had also, unfortunately, become acquainted—was excellent.
Especially at the convalescent home for officers, the *Kaiserhaus* in Baden bei Wien, which is maintained by the emperor himself, everything imaginable is done for the well-being of the convalescents.
At least two other Swedes are currently at the Austrian front, according to Lieutenant Bruzelius’s certain knowledge: Major Hagelin, recently awarded the Order of the Iron Crown, and Lieutenant Dickson, who had been wounded before Christmas but was now back “out there.”
Yes, as mentioned, the soldier is already longing to return to that strange underground city where one sleeps by day and eats and shoots by night.
“Everything here is so terribly expensive, by the way,” he complains, “much more so than in Vienna, regarding both clothing and food.”
Do the Austrians believe they will be victorious? Why on earth wouldn’t they?
The interviewer almost fears having said something inappropriate, so astonished does Lieutenant Bruzelius look.
“There is no one who doesn’t believe that, and it is perfectly obvious, too,” he explains.
It is always interesting to read the text above when you now know how the war went. At least they believed in their cause.
Henning Hagelin
Henning Hagelin was born in Vallsjö parish, in the county of Jönköping, in the landscape of Småland. He was born as Viktor Henning Hagelin on September 6th, 1866, and was raised by his mother, Johanna Sofia Johannisdotter, and his father, Carl Vilhelm Hagelin.
Henning also served in the Swedish Army, but it is assumed that he left Sweden already in the beginning of the 1900, and established a career within the Austria-Hungarian Army.
He served a period within the Erzherzog Otto Uhlan Regiment. It was his fondest wish to become a cavalry officer. Since childhood, he had taken a keen interest in everything related to horses, and he particularly admired the officers of the Småland Hussars.
However, this wish could not be fulfilled because he was too old to be accepted as an officer cadet. Through the good offices of Major General Wrangel (A Swedish General, born in Hungary), he was nevertheless enrolled in an Austrian cavalry school; with very little capital saved up—and otherwise relying on Divine Providence—he set off for Austria.
He faced many difficulties but completed the course with distinction, graduating second in his class. With the help of his regimental commander, he subsequently became a lieutenant. He always distinguished himself as a capable officer—proof of which is seen in his promotion to major.
He was regarded as an outstanding horseman. This recognition came from the great expert in the field, Clarence von Rosen, who met him during a visit to Austria.
Below I found the following text from the Swedish Newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet from September 1914.
Swedish officer distinguishes himself in the war.
STOCKHOLM, the 8th. (From our Stockholm editorial office.) Major Henning Hagelin of the 1st Austro-Hungarian Uhlan Regiment—who, as previously reported, was awarded both the Military Merit Cross and the German Iron Cross—has now also received the Imperial Order of the Iron Crown, Third Class. The first and second classes of this order—ranking second only to the Order of Maria Theresa in Austria—are awarded only to the highest-ranking generals; it is extremely rare for a cavalry officer of major’s rank to have the opportunity, as Major Hagelin did, to earn the third class of this decoration.
The immediate reason for this distinction was that Major Hagelin succeeded in establishing a new front that proved particularly troublesome for the Russians, forcing them to shift their entire line of attack. Major Hagelin had at his disposal one and a half regiments of Austrian troops and a rifle division, ready for a counter-attack. Amidst a fierce hail of bullets, he galloped along the front—a distance of approximately 1,000 meters—to a forest; there, a severed telephone wire was repaired, and a message was sent to the nearest command post reporting that a new front had been established and indicating its location.
The medals Major Hagelin received, in above mentioned order:
Henning later became a colonel in Austria before he died in 1956. I have found data about his burial, and it says that he is buried or commemorated in Austria, but other facts says that he went back to Sweden before he died.
Patrik Dickson
Patrik was born as Charles Patrik Dickson in Trästena parish in the county of Skaraborg, in the landscape of Västergötland. He was born on January 10, 1884, and he was raised by his mother Hedvig Louise Christine Hamilton and his father, William Dickson. Both parents were born in Sweden.
Patrik made his military service in Sweden and left Sweden for Austria in 1907. Below a snippet from his conscript card. I have marked the text about his service in the Austria-Hungarian Army in yellow, as it was mentioned in his card.
Patrik came back to Sweden after the war, in 1919.
From the Swedish Newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, from March 1915, I found the following text.
As reported a few days ago, a Swedish-born officer, Lieutenant Patrik Dickson, is serving in the Austrian army in the Galician theater of war.
Lieutenant Dickson, the son of Dr. W. Dickson of Stockholm, (Author note: It says Gothenburg in the Swedish church books) was born in 1884. He began his military career as a reserve officer with the Småland Artillery Regiment. However, in 1906, he travelled to Vienna, where he attended an officer training school. In 1908, he was commissioned as an officer in the 3rd Austrian Dragoon Regiment, though he was transferred to the 1st Regiment last year.
At the outbreak of the war, Lieutenant Dickson was stationed in the town of Pardubitz in Bohemia; from there, he marched with his regiment toward the theater of war. In his first letter to his family in Stockholm, he reported that his unit had advanced as far as Rzeszów in Galicia, though his regiment was subsequently forced back by superior Russian forces to a position east of Lublin.
In addition to his regular duties, Lieutenant Dickson has served as a telegraph officer, a role in which he was attached to the army headquarters. So far, he has escaped injury entirely, and judging by his letters—which *Svenska Dagbladet* has had the opportunity to read—he appears to be in excellent spirits despite the hardships. The troops are quartered in earthen dugouts, though these are heated by stoves. The food is excellent, and they do their best to make themselves comfortable and forget that they are only 1,500 meters from the Russian battle line. The spirit within the Austrian army is described by Lieutenant Dickson as most promising. Everyone looks to the future with confidence, and no one doubts victory.
I can see also in the text about Dickson, that he thought everything would go well, but we all know how the war ended.
I found these small texts very informative, and I also like to look up the actual places mentioned in the texts above, to see where the Swedish officers served. They all survived the war, however, I hope you have enjoyed this small article, and if you want to support my work you can always do that through the link below.
Source of top image: https://ww1.habsburger.net/