Weprik Fortress
The fortress Weprik was a fortification of the Cossacks in today Wepryk in the Ukraine . The fortress was located on a hill, 16 kilometers east of Hajach , in what is now Poltava Oblast . It was built entirely of wood, had a palisade fence, earth walls and a moat .
The fortress in the Great Northern War
The fortress served the Russian army as a base against the Swedish army in the Great Northern War around 1700 .
The fortress was laid out in the manner of a redoubt , square in shape with very large dimensions, which made defense difficult. The fortress artillery was few in number. In 1708 there were only three operational field guns left in the redoubt. The defensive walls were in very poor condition in 1708 and there were no bastions . Part of the defensive wall consisted only of a raised mound on which the garrison built smaller parapets from bulwarks in 1708 . In the wider area, where the terrain flattened, there was a continuous wooden barricade. The moat around the fortification was very shallow and completely filled with snow in December 1708.
The fortress was built by the Swedish army under Charles XII. attacked on their Russian campaign in the winter of 1709 and finally conquered with heavy losses . Then the Swedes burned the fortress and the village down.
literature
- Andreas Fryxell: History of Karl the Twelfth, Verlag von Senf, Leipzig 1865
Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 28 ″ N , 34 ° 11 ′ 2 ″ E