This specific scene with the soldier tearing his shirt to show a wound to Lieutenant general Georg Carl von Döbeln (played by Edvin Adolphson) is from a part in a poem which the movie is based on with the same name, Fänrik Ståls sägner. In the poem von Döbeln inspects the troops before an attack and demands to know what's happened to the young man as he’s pale and his cheeks very red. The man tears open his shirt, showing his wound and says he was wounded but has gotten new found strength after seeing the Lieutenant general which makes von Döbeln shed a tear, overwhelmed with pride for his soldiers.

The Battle of Jutas was fought on 13 September 1808 between Swedish and Russian troops south of Nykarleby in Ostrobothnia, Finland. Before the battle the Swedish army was in retreat after the campaign of the previous summer. The main Swedish force was retreating from Vaasa to Nykarleby. The Russians sent a force to cut off the Swedish retreat. In response the Swedes sent a force under Georg Carl von Döbeln to intercept them. The battle ended in a Swedish victory, but the main Swedish army was beaten in the Battle of Oravais the very next day.

The battle was part of the The Finnish War and was fought between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809. As a result of the war, Sweden lost Finland after 600 years of it being under the Swedish crown.