Siege of Narva (1704)

Siege of Narva

Part of: Great Northern War

Engraving of the siege of the Narva fortress by Russian troops

date	June 27 to August 9, 1704
place	Narva , Estonia
output	Victory of the Russian Army

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Russia
Commander
Henning Rudolf Horn	George of Ogilvy Peter I.
Troop strength
4,500 soldiers	45,000 soldiers
losses
Total: 4,500 of which: 2,700 dead, 1,800 prisoners	Total: 3,000 dead and wounded

The siege of Narva in 1704 was a military operation during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). It ended with the occupation of the Swedish fortress by Russian troops .

prehistory

The Swedish possessions in the Baltic States

After the Russian troops suffered a heavy defeat by the Swedes in the first siege of Narva at the end of 1700, they went on the offensive again from 1702, destroyed the small Livonian army under Wolmar Schlippenbach in several field battles ( Battle of Erastfer , battle near Hummelshof ) and won access to the Baltic coast, which had been occupied by Sweden until then .

The opportunity to re-siege Narva seemed favorable, as the main Swedish army under King Charles XII. (1682–1718) operated in Poland at this time . In the summer of 1704 a Russian army under the command of Field Marshal Georg Benedikt von Ogilvys (1651–1710) was deployed from Ingermanland to conquer Narva. At the same time, another Russian army advanced against Dorpat . The aim of these operations was to take these important border fortresses in order to protect the Ingrian land conquered in the previous year with the new St. Petersburg and to gain the opportunity to conquer Livonia .

course

Narva and the surrounding area

Tsar Peter I stops his marauding troops after the fall of Narva (painting by Nikolai Sauerweid , 1859)

The Narva fortress had a crew of around 4,500 men under General Peter Arvid Horn (also known as Henning Rudolf Horn ) who had already witnessed the siege of Narva in 1700. Since the main Swedish army was far away, Horn could not hope for relief again, as in the siege in 1700 . The first Russian troops reached Narva fortress in May 1704 and began to blockade it soon after . The Russian units suffered heavy losses from shelling and crew failures .

Narva lay on the Narva River and was several kilometers from Narva Bay in the Baltic Sea . The city was reached by boat across the river of the same name. Russian batteries had been holed up along the river there since May and were supposed to block the city from the sea. A Swedish naval association with 35 ships tried twice to land relief troops near Narva, but were prevented from doing so by Russian troops, also because the large warships could not get close enough to the shore to be able to use the artillery. Therefore, the ships sailed to Reval where they unloaded the 1,200 men they were carrying. When two Swedish ships with provisions and 70 Swedish soldiers were thrown ashore by a storm in early June and captured by Russian troops from there, the Swedish ships left their berths off Narva. Relief was then only possible from Reval, where the headquarters of the Livonian army under Wolmar Schlippenbach was.

At the beginning of June 1704 the actual siege of Narva began after additional Russian reinforcements and Field Marshal Georg Benedikt von Ogilvy had reached the Russian troops in front of Narva. Ogilvy was entrusted with the management of the Russian troops on site. The Russians began digging trenches and other digging work. The blockade as well as the siege continued until the storming of Narva by sabotages by the Swedes and skirmishes that were costly for both sides .

Tsar Peter I turned to Dorpat on July 13 to visit the siege there under Boris Sheremetev . The siege troops there (approx. 23,000 men) were also led to Narva after the city was conquered at the end of July, so that 45,000 men with 150 guns were finally gathered there. From July 30, a total of 4,600 grenades were fired at the city, during which several breaches could be made in the outer fortifications of this city and the commander then requested to surrender. Horn refused to do so. This was followed by the Russian general attack on August 9th. After only an hour, parts of the Preobrazhensk guards regiment had overcome the city walls. What followed was the so-called Narva massacre in the city, which lasted more than two hours and killed thousands of civilians (including the wife of the Swedish commander) and most of the Swedish occupation (only around 1,800 Swedish soldiers were captured). Tsar Peter had to intervene personally to end this situation (see the painting by the painter Nikolai Sauerweid ).

consequences

Ogilvy captured the Ivangorod fortress in August and thus temporarily concluded the campaign. This ended the campaign for the Russian army extremely successfully, because a Swedish advance on Ingrianland from the west was now impossible. Ogilvy received the Order of the White Eagle from King August II of Poland for his achievements .

According to Russian sources, 359 Russians are said to have been killed and 1,340 wounded during the storm. The total losses on the Russian side during the entire siege are said to have been 3,000 dead and wounded. 1,800 Swedes including the commanding officer were taken prisoner. The remaining 2,700 Swedish soldiers were killed.

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Robert K. Massie: Peter the Great - His life and his time. Frankfurt / Main 1987, pp. 352f.
2. ↑ Военный энциклопедический лексикон. Часть 9-я. СПб, 1845, с. 376
3. ^ Johann Friedrich Hartknoch: Contributions to the history of Peter the Great, first volume, 1774, p. 118f

literature

• DA von Drygalski: Northern War. In: Bernhard von Poten (Ed.): Concise dictionary of the entire military sciences. Volume 7. Bielefeld / Leipzig 1879.
• Robert K. Massie : Peter the Great - His Life and Time. Frankfurt / Main 1987, ISBN 3-596-25632-1
• Hermann Poorten's records of the siege and capture of the city of Narva by the Russians in 1704. In: Archives for the history of Liv, Estonia and Courland. Volume II, XIII, 1861, pp. 191-198.