Narva Massacre 1704
The 1704 Narva massacre followed the siege of Narva by Russian army units on August 20, 1704 in the Great Northern War . Thousands of prisoners of war and residents of the city were murdered within a few hours .
occasion
The city of Narva has been besieged by superior Russian units since June 27, 1704. At the beginning of August there was no longer any hope of a renewed relief by the Swedish army as in 1700.
The Swedish fortress commander Henning Rudolf Horn rejected several calls for surrender by the Russians. In doing so, he violated the basic rules of early modern warfare , which made an honorable surrender of the garrison possible if further resistance appeared to be militarily hopeless. At the same time he enraged Peter I, who in turn wanted to retaliate for the defeat in the battle of Narva four years earlier. It is not known to what extent there was a personal dispute between Horn and Peter I. As a result, the civilian population became the target of Russian reprisals.
Course of the massacre
The storm on the city on August 20, 1704 killed several hundred Russian soldiers. As a satisfaction, Russian soldiers looted the city and massacred all non-Russian people they encountered in the first hours after conquering the city. Many people, soldiers and civilians, tried to flee to the nearby Ivangorod fortress . Due to the crowd, not all of them could get into the fortress at the same time.
Over 1,500 soldiers and officers are said to have been killed by the Russian troops after their surrender . The number of civilians killed is also in the thousands.
Russian negotiators then indicated to the commander of the besieged fortress Ivangorod on the other side of the river that they would do the same with this fortress as they did with the city, if the defenders did not surrender. The dead were loaded onto wagons and thrown from the bridge to Ivangorod fortress into the waters of the Narva . The commander of Narva was captured, personally ill-treated by Peter I, and thrown into a dungeon. His wife was killed in the massacre.
literature
- Friedrich Konrad Gadebusch: Livonian year books: second section from 1661 to 1710. Appendix from 1698 to 1710. Third part, volume 3, 1782
- 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.
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Konrad Gadebusch: Livländische Jahrbücher: Second section from 1661 to 1710. Appendix from 1698 to 1710. Third part, Volume 3, 1782, p. 351