Battle of the Walled Courtyard
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| date | July 16, 1705 |
|---|---|
| place | Walled courtyard , Duchy of Courland and Semigallia |
| output | Victory of the Swedes |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 7,000 men | 10-12,000 men |
| losses | |
|
900 dead |
approx. 2,000 dead |
1st phase: Swedish dominance (1700–1709)
Riga I • Jungfernhof • Varja • Pühhajoggi • Narva • Pechora • Düna • Rauge • Erastfer • Hummelshof • Embach • Tartu • Narva II • Wesenberg I • Wesenberg II
Arkhangelsk • Lake Ladoga • Nöteborg • Nyenschanz • Neva • Systerbäck • Petersburg • Vyborg I • Porvoo • Neva II • Koporje II • Kolkanpää
Vilnius • Salads • Jacobstadt • Walled Courtyard • Mitau • Grodno I • Olkieniki • Nyaswisch • Klezk • Ljachavichy
Klissow • Pułtusk • Thorn • Lemberg • Warsaw • Posen • Punitz • Tillendorf • Rakowitz • Praga • Fraustadt • Kalisch
Grodno II • Golovchin • Moljatitschi • Rajowka • Lesnaja • Desna • Baturyn • Koniecpol • Weprik • Opischnja • Krasnokutsk • Sokolki • Poltava I • Poltava II
2nd phase: Sweden on the defensive (1710–1721)
Riga II • Vyborg II • Pernau • Kexholm • Reval • Hogland • Pälkäne • Storkyro • Nyslott • Hanko
Helsingborg • Køge Bay • Gulf of Bothnia • Frederikshald I • Dynekilen Fjord • Gothenburg I • Strömstad • Trondheim • Frederikshald II • Marstrand • Ösel • Gothenburg II • Södra Stäket • Grönham • Sundsvall
Elbing • Wismar I • Lübow • Stralsund I • Greifswalder Bodden I • Stade • Rügen • Gadebusch • Altona • Tönning II • Stettin • Fehmarn • Wismar II • Stralsund II • Jasmund • Peenemünde • Greifswalder Bodden II • Stresow
The Battle of Gemauerthof was a battle of the Great Northern War . It took place on July 16, 1705 between the army of the Swedish King Charles XII. and the army of Tsar of Russia Peter the Great instead. The place Gemauerthof ( Mūrmuiža ) lies in Courland , in today's Latvia .
The parties
The Russian army was led by Field Marshal Sheremetev . Major General Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt commanded the Swedish army .
The Swedish possessions in the Baltic States
Field Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetev
General Adam Ludvig Lewenhaupt
Battle memorial near Vilce
In the run-up to the battle
 
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At the beginning of July Lewenhaupt gathered his troops in Zagarin. On July 12th the Swedish army marched to Brickyard. On July 13th, news was received that the Russian army had taken the city of Mitau .
A detachment of Swedish riders came near Mitau on July 14th and found out that the Russians had withdrawn. A massacre had also taken place in the city and the rest of the residents had been abducted.
Major General Lewenhaupt estimated the Russian army to be about 10 to 12,000 men. In a council of war with his commanders, he decided to take part in a battle against the Russians near Brickyard in order to stop their advance. The commander in chief of the Russian army saw this as an opportunity to bring the Swedes a devastating defeat. On July 16, the Russian troops began to march towards the brick courtyard.
The battle
The Swedish outposts noticed the advance of Russian troops around 10 a.m. The Russian army came from the north, not the east, as Lewenhaupt had suspected. He immediately dispatched a cavalry unit to find out details about the strength and deployment order of the Russians.
The Swedes were divided into two meetings. Lewenhaupt had sent his cavalry to the sides and placed the artillery in the middle. The right wing was leaned against a moor and the left wing was bounded by the Schwete ( Svēte ) river . Due to the narrowly chosen battlefield, the Russians found it difficult to exploit their numerical superiority.
When the Russians marched up on a broad front, Lewenhaupt decided to attack immediately, so as not to let the enemy develop fully.
A heated battle developed within a very short time.
On the left wing, the Russian infantry and cavalry managed to attack the Swedish cavalry positioned outside so surprisingly that they were dispersed. As a result, even the grenadier company of the Lewenhaupt body regiment got into disarray. The Russian forces were very close to a victory here, it was only thanks to the arrival of the cavalry at the second meeting that the Russian cavalry could be pushed back. The Russian infantry were left without cover and were crushed.
On the right wing, victory was never to be taken from the Swedes. The Colonel Gabriel Horn led his regiments to a brilliant success. The fight was fought with extreme doggedness. The infantry and cavalry units vied to kill the Russian soldiers. Almost all of the infantry in the Russian army was killed. The colonel had ordered a bayonet , so many Russians were stabbed. The Russian infantry fought extremely bravely and their cavalry even succeeded several times in disrupting the Swedes.
The artillery also tore deep holes in the ranks of the Russians from the start.
The second meeting of the Swedish army filled in the gaps in the fallen and withstood the Russian onslaught. In the end, the Swedish infantry ran out of ammunition and the soldiers were instructed to empty the ammunition bags of their fallen comrades.
Lewenhaupt personally led the right wing after the death of Colonel Horn. When he rearranged his infantry and led a new bayonet attack on the Russian lines, they left the battlefield in the face of Swedish determination. In anger and frenzy, the Russians looted their own baggage and shot all of the Swedes captured in Mitau.
The remnants of the tsarist army withdrew towards Vilna .
spoils of war
13 cannons, the baggage train and 8 flags were the spoils of the Swedes. There were few prisoners.
The consequences
Field Marshal Sheremetev had received a shot in the abdomen and General Baur was wounded in the thigh. Over 6,000 Russians were killed or wounded.
When the defeated army reached Vilna, the Tsar surveyed his newly formed 60,000 men. The Tsar, Peter I, was far from reprimanding the Field Marshal for this defeat. He realized that it was possible to lose a battle against the Swedes despite being three times superior. And since he could set up a new army at any time, some of which were compulsorily recruited farmers and Livonian expellees, he knew that the campaign against the Swedes could be won.
Peter the Great called this defeat a minor misfortune of no great significance, even in his diaries he only mentions the battle in passing. He hid the real losses from his own troops and marched with his newly formed army towards Livonia to finally defeat the Swedes.
The losses of the Swedes were given as 900 dead and over 1,000 injured. In addition, several high-ranking officers were killed or seriously wounded in action. Therefore it was not possible for the Swedes to pursue the Russian army.
literature
- Not so Fryxell: Life story of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden. Volume 1, Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1861.
- Andreas Fryxell, Anton von Etzel: History of Karl the Twelfth. G. Senf's Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1865.
- A. von Richter: History of the German Baltic provinces incorporated into the Russian Empire up to their unification in the same volume 2, published by Nicolai Kymmel's Buchhandlung, Riga 1858
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anders Fryxell: Life story of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden. Volume 1, Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1861, second section, eleventh chapter
- ↑ Anders Fryxell: Life story of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden. Volume 1, Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1861, second section, eleventh chapter, p. 60