as they approached the enemy, even if coming under a hail of bullets themselves. One way of inculcating such extreme self-control was by encouraging a sort of fatalism among the troops: soldiers were told not to be afraid of battle, since if God wanted them to survive then nothing could harm them, and conversely if He had decreed that they were to die then death would come even if they tried to flee. On a more practical level, the army enforced draconian codes of discipline in order to encourage immediate and unthinking obedience among the men. Deliberate efforts were also made to boost the soldiers' morale in various ways. New recruits were sorted into regiments based on particular provinces and districts, in order to encourage a sense of local pride and esprit de corps. Similarly, Charles XII is known to have tried to foster a sense of fraternity within the army by granting commissions and promotions on the basis of merit rather than social status or wealth, as was common in other European armies at the time. A famous example of this policy concerns the young Count Oxenstierna, grandson of the famous statesman Axel Oxenstierna, who began his military career as a simple cavalryman, later promoted to corporal. Carl Piper urged Charles to promote the count to cornet, but the king refused, declaring that, "Old nobility and new nobility mean nothing as to the quality of a man. We have many regimental officers in the army who are not nobles and yet good folk. When a cavalryman is good, it is just the same, whether he is a nobleman or nothing. " The army's efforts were generally successful; the Swedish army was renowned for the high levels of battlefield discipline among its troops, and the ability of the Caroleans to advance steadily through barrages of punishing enemy fire often served to impress and unsettle their opponents, giving them a moral edge when the melee fighting began. On the other hand, the Caroleans' discipline was not always flawless away from the battlefield. Even though looting was strictly forbidden in the Swedish army, Swedish soldiers were known to engage in the practice from time to time, most notoriously in the aftermath of the Battle of Narva (1700) and Battle of Lemberg (1704). Abuses against civilians were also not unheard-of, although Charles XII issued strict ordinances against such excesses during his Polish and