Battle of Narva

This article covers the battle between Swedish and Russian forces in 1700. For further meanings, see Disambiguation of the Battle of Narva

Battle of Narva

Part of: Charles XII's Narva campaign , Russian Narva campaign in 1700

Fortifications, troop movements, batteries of the Battle of Narva drawn by Zacharias Wolf

date	November 30, 1700
place	Narva , Estonia
output	Victory of the Swedes

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Russia
Commander
Charles XII. Carl Rehnskiöld Otto Vellingk Georg Johann Maydell	Charles de Croÿ # Awtomon Golowin Iwan Trubezkoi # Adam Weide # Boris Sheremetew Alexander Imeretinski #
Troop strength
10,537 soldiers : 5,889 infantrymen 4,314 cavalrymen 334 guns	30,000–35,000 soldiers 180 guns
losses
700–900 dead 1,200 wounded	6,000–10,000 dead and wounded 20,000 prisoners 180 guns 230 war flags

The Battle of Narva in the Great Northern War took place on July 19th ^. / 20th ^Swedish / 30th November 1700 ^greg. between the troops of the Swedish King Karl XII. and the Russian army under the command of Charles de Croÿ and ended with a victory for the Swedes, which lifted the siege of Narva .

prehistory

Narwa campaign of Charles XII.

Peter the Great wanted Russia to be economically and technologically equal to the Western European powers. He realized that the lack of access to the Baltic Sea since the 1617 Treaty of Stolbowo with Sweden restricted Russian trade, which is why he joined forces with Saxony-Poland and Denmark-Norway to form the Nordic League in 1699 through the Treaty of Preobrazhenskoe .

The Great Northern War began with the invasion of Livonia by Saxon- Polish troops in February 1700 . Karl XII., A talented general, immediately went on the offensive. He forced Denmark with the support of Britain and the Netherlands on August 18, the peace of travendal and then turned east.

Tsar Peter had gathered an army of 60,000 men in the area around Novgorod and Pskov in the last months before the declaration of war . Immediately after the declaration of war on August 19, 1700, the assembled army and other troops moved into Estonia and Ingermanland . On September 19, the vanguard reached the heavily fortified Narva . On October 4th, the bulk of the Russian army began to build a wall and began the siege. The strength of the Russian troops was between 30,000 and 35,000 soldiers. Other sources speak of 40,000 men. From November 4th to 14th, the Russians unsuccessfully shelled the fortress with their artillery under the command of Alexander Imeretinsky . Then they ran out of ammunition, the cannons fell silent and they had to wait for supplies.

In the meantime, two pieces of news arrived in Narva which were worrying for the Russians:
August the Strong had left Livonia and had moved with his army to winter quarters in Courland , and a Swedish army that had landed in Pernau was already there on the way to Narva.

course

→ Main article : Russian Narva campaign in 1700

The parties

Battle of Narva

Charles XII. commanded an army with a total strength of 10,537 men. On November 13th the march from the fortified Reval to Narva began. The Swedes had to cross the Wierland, which was devastated by Russian troops. The cold November rain soaked the soldiers to the skin and they suffered from hunger. At night the rain turned to snow, the ground began to freeze, and the soldiers, like the king, had to sleep on the muddy ground. Three mountain passes could be overcome without resistance, but 30 km before Narva there was a small skirmish at the Pyhäjöggi Gorge between the Swedish advance detachments under Charles XII, together with Major General Georg Johann Maydell , made up of only 800 men and 5,000 Russian soldiers under General Sheremetev . On November 19, the soaked and mud-covered Swedes reached Narva.

Before the Swedes arrived, on the night of November 17-18, after Sheremetev had received news of the battle at the Pyhäjöggi Gorge, Peter left the battlefield in a rush, if not to say fled. Presumably, however, he also did this because there had been unrest in Russia, which the Tsar was planning to curb. He hastily handed over command of the Russian troops to Duke Charles Eugène de Croÿ , a nobleman from the Netherlands in the Russian service. This decision turned out to be momentous: Croÿ did not speak Russian , did not know the Russian officers under his command and therefore had difficulties giving orders. In addition, he did not agree to the formation of Russian troops.

Battle painting of Narva

General Avtomon Golowin commanded the northern wing on the Narva River , which was also crossed by a bridge north of the city of the same name. His brother-in-law Ivan Yuryevich Trubezkoi , governor of Novgorod since 1699 , commanded the centrally located troops, while the infantry general Adam Adamowitsch Wejde and general Boris Petrovich Sheremetev secured the south with his Cossacks. In addition, the Russian soldiers had worked for weeks to build a kilometer-long double wall. These fortifications were equipped with trenches and pointed wooden posts to the east against the besieged garrison in Narva and to the west against a possible relief army. In between stood the tents of the Russian troops across the wall. As an experienced soldier and troop leader, Croÿ realized that the Russian defense lines were stretched too far apart over a length of 7 km. The forces were therefore too fragmented and the trenches too thin. He realized that a concentrated Swedish attack on a single point of the Russian entrenchment would lead to the breakthrough through the lines. He also had to defend the ring of siege to the east, towards Narva, in order to prevent the garrison from attempting to break out.

But it was now too late to restructure the Russian armed forces; for the Swedes had already reached the battlefield.

The battle

Alexander von Kotzebue : Battle of Narva

At dawn the Swedish troops broke up their camp and reached the battlefield around 10 a.m. Charles XII. and General Rehnskiöld immediately recognized the insufficient number of crews in the Russian line-up. They decided that Major General Georg Johan Maidel should launch a concentrated attack on the overstretched defensive lines in order to break them at one point. Then the Swedish army was to be divided to the north under General Rehnskiöld and to the south under Major General Otto Vellingk , thus rolling up the Russian lines from within. The Swedish assault began around two in the afternoon: Around 10,500 Swedes began attacking at least 35,000 well-entrenched but widely spaced Russians and 180 mostly inoperative guns with 334 guns.

A snowstorm had raged on the morning of the day, making an early attack impossible for both sides. At noon, however, the weather changed and the blizzard blew the Russians in the face, giving the Swedes a tailwind and making an attack possible. The Swedish volleys inflicted heavy losses on the Russian troops, while the latter fell short because of the headwind and lack of ammunition. After a quarter of an hour there was already great disorder in the Russian position. The orderly proceeding Swedes drove the inexperienced Russian soldiers in front of them and finally in two directions to the north and south. The Russian infantrymen panicked and tried to escape to the east across the Narva Bridge to the north. However, too many soldiers crossed the bridge at once, which caused it to collapse under its enormous weight. Many soldiers drowned as a result, even when trying to cross the icy river. Sheremetev's Cossacks turned their horses south to flee and also tried to retreat across the river. Around 1000 men drowned with their horses in the wintry cold river water. In the evening the last Russian positions surrendered.

The end of the battle

Gustaf Cederström (1912): The Victory of Narva

In the battle, 31 officers and 700 to 900 soldiers fell on the Swedish side, and 1,200 more were wounded.

10 Russian generals fell into Swedish captivity, including the Commander-in-Chief Charles Eugène de Croÿ , the Novgorod Governor Ivan Jurjewitsch Trubezkoi , the infantry general Adam Adamowitsch Weide, the artillery general from the Kingdom of Imeretia and at the same time a childhood friend of the Tsar Alexander Imeretinsky, and also 10 130 other high officers. The Tsar's personal physician and a favorite were also included. The Swedes also captured 230 standards of the Russian army, the entire Russian artillery with 180 cannons and large quantities of ammunition, over 20,000 muskets and the tsar's war chest with 32,000 gold rubles .

Russian flag captured in the battle of Narva.

The Russian losses can only be estimated. According to the latest research, they amount to 6,000 to 10,000 dead and wounded and 20,000 prisoners. The remaining soldiers withdrew undisciplined and without a leader to Novgorod, where only a part arrived, because the others deserted, froze to death or starved on the way there. At the end of 1700 the entire Russian army consisted of only 34,000 soldiers and, moreover, without artillery, without ammunition, partly without rifles and on top of that without any discipline or morality.

After the remaining Russian forces withdrew, the Swedish relief army and their king had to move into their winter quarters immediately due to lack of strength.

Conclusion

Medal with the portrait of Charles XII. of Sweden and view of the Battle of Narva in 1700;
Artist signature AK for Arvid Karlsteen

The heavy tactical defeat of the Russians at Narva also contained the seeds of later success. Peter I learned from his failure. He pushed heavy industry to manufacture what was then the most modern military equipment. In order to be able to quickly replace the artillery lost at Narva, Peter I had church bells melted down and new cannons made from the bronze. As a result, in the spring of 1701, the Russian army again had 243 cannons, 13 howitzers and 12 mortars. Additional help has also provided the family Demidov from Tula to the Urals , which since 1690 iron ore in Siberia smelted . In 1702 Peter offered the industrialist Nikita Demidow the ironworks in Nevyansk . The location of the factories was favorable, as the boats loaded with iron and weapons reached European Russia via the Chusovaya . With the help of foreign experts , the Tsar reformed and enlarged the outdated Russian army to 200,000 soldiers by 1705, making it equal to the modern armies of Europe.

The time needed for this was given by the idiosyncratic strategy of Charles XII, who from 1701, instead of continuing to fight against Russia, chased all over Poland after August the Strong in order to depose him as king. Peter took advantage of the time, reformed both the army and the navy, and conquered the Swedish provinces of Swedish Livonia , Swedish Estonia , Swedish Ingrianland and Kexholms län, including local fortresses, including Narva, in 1704 . Charles XII. on the other hand, after the battle of Narva and after further victories over the Russian troops and their allies, he believed he was superior to his opponents and could easily defeat them again. After the occupation of the Electorate of Saxony at the end of August 1706 and its provisional exit from the war, the king again took to the field against Russia in September 1707.

When the two opponents and their armies met again in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, the Russians impressively demonstrated their progress.

literature

• Frans G. Bengtsson : Karl XII. 1682–1707 (until he left Saxony) . Sperber-Verlag, Zurich 1938, pp. 134–169.

Web links

Commons : Battle of Narva (1700)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Jeremy Black: Warfare. Renaissance to revolution, 1492–1792. Cambridge Illustrated Atlases. 2. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-47033-1 , p. 111.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Christer Kuvaja: Karolinska krigare 1660–1721. Schildts Förlags AB, 2008, ISBN 978-951-50-1823-6 , p. 139.
3. ^ ^{A b} Robert I Frost: The Northern Wars. War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe 1558-1721. Longman, 2000, ISBN 978-0-582-06429-4 , pp. 230, 232.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Christer Kuvaja: Karolinska krigare 1660–1721. Schildts Förlags AB, 2008, ISBN 978-951-50-1823-6 , p. 147.
5. ↑ ^{a b} A. B. Беспалов: Северная война. Карл XII и шведская армия. P. 43.
6. ^ Tony Sharp: Pleasure and ambition: the life, loves and wars of Augustus the Strong. London 2001, p. 180.
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Duffy: Russia's Military Way to the West , p. 17
8. ↑ In detail to the Narva campaign: Robert K. Massie : Peter the Great - His life and his time. Frankfurt / Main 1987, pp. 290-301.
9. ↑ Gudrun Ziegler: Arms and gold from Siberia. From: The Gold of the Tsars, Chapter 2: Treasures and intrigues. 2001, ISBN 3-453-17988-9 , p. 128.