Naval battle at the mouth of the Neva

Naval battle at the mouth of the Neva

Part of: Great Northern War

Adrian Shhonebek : Conquest of Astrild and Gedan on the Neva coast on the night of May 18, 1703

date	May 18, 1703
place	Neva Bay , near Saint Petersburg
output	russian victory

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Russia
Commander
Gideon from Numers	Peter I. Menshikov
Troop strength
2 ships, 77 men crew	2 infantry companies in 8–30 rowing boats
losses
58 dead, 19 prisoners	20 dead, 55 injured

The naval battle at the mouth of the Neva on May 18, 1703 was a sea battle between Russian rowing boats manned by soldiers of the Preobrazhensk Body Guard Regiment under the command of Peter I and Alexander Menshikov and two small Swedish ships of the Swedish Navy in the Great Northern War in the mouth the Neva .

During the short battle, the Swedish ships were boarded. Traditionally, the battle is considered to be the first sea battle of the Russian fleet . May 18th is considered the birth date of the Baltic Fleet and is celebrated annually.

prehistory

In 1699, Russian tsarism joined Denmark and Saxony-Poland in an anti-Sweden coalition. In Sweden, the young King Charles XII, who was considered inexperienced, was shortly before . his late father Karl XI . followed on the throne. Russia saw in the power vacuum that had occurred a good opportunity to regain access to the Baltic Sea , which it had lost to Sweden in the Ingrian War at the beginning of the 17th century . At the beginning of the war, the Russian army suffered a heavy defeat against the Swedes in the Battle of Narva , which meant that the dream of a Russian “window to the west” postulated by Peter I was vanished.

A short time later, however, the Russian forces went on the offensive again, as the main Swedish power was now directed against Saxony in Poland and had dangerously exposed its flank in the far north. Russian troops had previously stormed the Swedish fortress of Nöteborg successfully in October 1702 and now had access to the Neva and thus directly to the Baltic Sea. The fortress was renamed to Schluesselburg a little later by Tsar Peter I.

As early as January 1702, Peter had given the instruction to build a small war fleet on Lake Ladoga consisting of six two-masted ships with 18 cannons each. This basically began the construction of the Baltic fleet, even if the Russian armed forces had not yet gained access to the sea at that time. The growing Russian forces purposefully set out to establish themselves on the banks of the Neva. The first Swedish victim of this strategy of conquest was the small Swedish town of Nyen , located on the right bank of the Neva at the confluence of the Okhta and the Neva. Swedish trade across the Neva was concentrated there. Opposite it on the eastern bank of the Okhta was the Nyenschantz bastion, which consisted of earth fortifications . On May 12, 1703, after several hours of artillery bombardment, the Nyenschantz fortress surrendered to the Russian forces.

course

Peter Picard : Ship Astrild

Peter Picard : Ship Gedan

The Swedish Naval Command in Stockholm dispatched a squadron consisting of nine ships to the Neva estuary as relief for Nyenschantz . On May 18, the Swedish Vice Admiral Gideon von Numers , commander of the Swedish squadron, reached the Neva estuary. He did not know that Nyenschantz was already in Russian hands at this point and that the relief of the fortress was no longer possible. So instead of abandoning the mission, he continued the company. Due to the low water level, only two smaller warships, the 10-cannon galley HMS Gädaa and the eight-cannon brig HMS Astrild, were able to enter the Neva estuary, where they anchored the night before sailing to Nyen. The Russians, under the command of Tsar Peter personally, were already waiting for them. Under cover of darkness and hazy weather, two companies under the command of Peter and Menshikov approached the two Swedish ships in several row boats.

The Russians deceived the Swedish occupation, who believed the fortress was still in Swedish hands. They returned the flares and lured the ships into an ambush. The surprised Swedes set sail to reach their squadron. The Swedes did not manage to escape boarding despite the start of the bombing of the Russian boats. The Russians boarded the Swedish ships early in the morning. Capturing the ships was a very bloody endeavor. Out of 77 Swedish crew members, only 19 survived.

consequences

Militarily, this victory was of little importance. Propagandistically, however, this small naval battle was the first Russian success in a naval battle in the Baltic Sea region that was fought exclusively by Russian ships. The Tsar celebrated this success effusively as an unprecedented victory. He had himself and the Menshikov, who also took part in the battle, awarded the Order of Andrew . The officers involved in this battle received gold medals, the soldiers silver. The two captured Swedish ships, together with the small ships built on Lake Ladoga, formed the basis for the emerging Russian Baltic fleet.

In the next few years, too, Swedish naval forces made unsuccessful attempts to advance into the Neva estuary and to disrupt the growing Russian naval forces there. All of these ventures failed and were finally given up entirely by the Swedish side.

literature

• Peter Hoffmann: Peter the Great as a military reformer and general. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60114-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Russian Baltic Sea Fleet turns 311: Military parade in Baltijsk ( Memento of the original from November 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Voice of Russia , May 18, 2014. 
2. ↑ Max Fram: The Motherland of Elephants, 2015, p. 329