Lars Tingsten

General Lars Herman Tingsten (13 July 1857 – 10 September 1937) was a Swedish Army officer. He was Minister for War from 1905 to 1907 and Chief of the General Staff from 1919 to 1922.

Early life Tingsten was born on 13 July 1857 in Ingatorp, Sweden, the son of sergeant Lars Magnus Tingsten and his wife Maria Charlotta (née Durling). He was the uncle of Herbert Tingsten. Tingsten passed studentexamen in Uppsala in 1875 and decided soon to pursue a military career, but at a time with petty military prejudices, it was only with great difficulty that the son of a noncommissioned officer son managed to be accepted as a volunteer officer.

Career Tingsten was commissioned as an officer in Hälsinge Regiment (I 14) in 1878 with then rank second lieutenant. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1884 and he became lieutenant of the General Staff in 1886 and captain of the General Staff in 1891. Tingsten became major of the General Staff in 1897 and lieutenant colonel in 1901 after he served 1898-99 as major in Svea Life Guards (I 1).

Tingsten had advanced within the General Staff where he belonged to the core group, which in the last decades of 1800s, seemed for the army's raise from decay and particularly for the implementation of conscription. Important was his work as a teacher of tactics at the Royal Military Academy in 1884, and well into the 1900s the cadets studied his seminal textbook on the subject. Tingsten was chief of staff of the 5th Army Division in 1895 and captain of Södermanland Regiment (I 10) in 1896.

Later life When Tingsten retired from active duty in 1922, he could, with an energy that wasn't hindered by old age ailments, pursue his extensive war scientific and military history writing. He became an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Uppsala University in 1927. Tingsten died in 1937 and was buried at Solna cemetery in Solna Municipality near Stockholm.

Foreign

50x50px Commander 2nd Class of the Order of St. Olav (before 1905)