Battle of Lesnaya - History of the Russian Army. Volume one
On September 28 (old style), 1708, the Swedish general Levengaupt, who commanded the corps, was preparing to cross the Lesnyanka River when the Russians overtook him. Peter I led 12 thousand dragoons with artillery (30 guns) to Lesnaya. Levengaupt, according to Russian data, had up to 16 thousand people - also with artillery (17 guns), and with a large baggage train. Having learned about the approach of the Russians, the Swedes took up positions on the heights near the village. Levenhaupt planned to repel Russian attacks until the convoy was transported. The Russians tried to carry out their first attacks at 9 am, on horseback.
However, the Swedish infantry, setting up slingshot barriers, repelled the attack. Then Peter I brought artillery into action and ordered the dragoons to dismount and continue the battle on foot. The Russians attacked several times, moving from shooting to hand-to-hand combat. In the middle of the day, the opponents were so tired that the soldiers fell to the ground and rested for a couple of hours right on the battlefield. Then the battle resumed.
Battle of Lesnaya. Engraving by N. Larmessen from a painting by artist P.D. Martin the Younger, 1722-1724
By 5 o'clock in the afternoon, reinforcements approached Peter I - 4 thousand dragoons under the command of General Bour. Having received help, the Russians attacked again and drove the Swedes to the village and the convoy. At the same time, the cavalry from Bour's detachment outflanked the Swedes and captured the bridge across Lesnyanka, cutting off Levengaupt's path to retreat. The Swedes defended themselves using the village and the wagons as a fortified camp. A detachment of Swedish grenadiers with a desperate counterattack managed to recapture the bridge across the river from the Russians.
The battle of the Russians with the Swedes at the village of Lesnoy on October 28, 1708. A. Kotzebue, 1870
At 7 pm it began to get dark. The weather turned bad - it began to rain and snow. The Russian attacks stopped, but Peter I brought his artillery to direct fire, which began to fire at the Swedish camp. The Swedes responded. The artillery duel continued in the dark until 10 pm. Levenhaupt realized that he would not be able to save the entire convoy - with heavily loaded carts, his troops would not be able to break away from the pursuit. Therefore, at night the Swedes retreated, abandoning half of the convoy (3 thousand carts), artillery and all their seriously wounded. To deceive the enemy, they lit bivouac fires in the camp, and they themselves left, crossing Lesnyanka. Many Swedes deserted.
In the morning, having discovered the flight of the Swedes, Peter I sent a detachment under the command of General Pflug to pursue them. Pflug caught up with Levengaupt in Propoisk and defeated him, forcing him to abandon the second half of the convoy (almost 4 thousand carts). The remnants of Levengaupt's corps fled in an accelerated march to the main forces of Charles XII, taking with them only personal weapons.
Battle of Lesnaya. Jean-Marc Nattier, 1717
According to Russian data, Swedish losses at Lesnaya amounted to 8 thousand killed and wounded and about 1 thousand prisoners. The exact number of deserters is unknown. Levenhaupt was able to bring only about 6 thousand people to his king. The total damage to the Russians is 4 thousand.
According to the “journal of Peter the Great,” the Swedes lost more than 9 thousand people killed and wounded in this battle. A huge convoy was captured with a three-month supply of food, artillery and ammunition for the army of Charles XII. Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn especially distinguished himself. Peter I called this victory “the mother of the Poltava victory,” since Charles’ army was left without reserves or ammunition, which significantly weakened his forces, and also because the Battle of Lesnaya and the Battle of Poltava were separated by 9 months.
FROM PRINCE KURAKIN'S NOTES
And upon the departure of Field Marshal Sheremetev to Ukraine, His Majesty, taking his guard and that division, cavalry infantry and cavalry of the 16th regiment under the command of Prince Menshikov, went to Lithuania, near Lesnoye, to meet the enemy general Levengopt, who went at 16,000 and had quite a lot with him ammunition, provisions, and artillery; which at that place near Lesno was defeated, and 16 artillery cannons, and all the armor was taken, and all the equipment was lost, only the cavalry of 5 or six regiments was withdrawn at a run and united with the King of Sweden.
PROGRESS OF MILITARY OPERATION
Levenhaupt sought to pass through these forest thickets and swampy coppices, dangerous for his colossal, cumbersome convoy, and get out to Propoisk, from where he could go straight to the king.
On the night of September 27-28, the vanguard of Peter the Great's "corvolant" attacked the Swedes, located in a clearing near the village of Lesnoy. The combatants were surrounded on all sides by forests. The Russian attack on the 27th was repulsed.
The initial hours of the battle on September 28 were not successful for the Russians, because due to terrain conditions they brought only one part of their vanguard into battle. Another unit arrived in time and drove the Swedes back. But this was only the beginning of the matter and took the morning hours. The clashes proceeded with intermittent success. In the afternoon the battle unfolded in full force. The Russian army, with eight infantry battalions and four dragoon cavalry regiments in front, moved towards the enemy. Behind this first line came a strong cavalry—six in the second line, and behind it two more regiments of dragoons. But this second line was also supported by infantry, although almost half in number than that which was supposed to withstand the first clash.
Levengaupt was subsequently reproached for having weakened his forces even before the battle by sending a large group of infantry and cavalry to accompany and guard the convoy he was transporting to the king. But Levenhaupt could not do otherwise: after all, for him the very existence of such a large Peter the Great’s “corvolant”, specifically directed against him, which he could consider the vanguard of the entire Russian army, was a complete surprise. The presence of the king himself was also significant. Levenhaupt learned about all this only on the way […] and with most of his army decided to detain the Russians at Lesnaya. Until about noon on September 28, he succeeded. But the Russians eventually drove the Swedes out of the forest and did not allow Levenhaupt to complete the attempt he had begun to envelop the Russian left flank. Seeing that the situation was more dangerous than it seemed, Levengaupt ordered that group of his troops that was escorting the convoy to Propoisk to return hastily and immediately take part in the battle. But if the Swedes waited and waited for the return (halfway) of this vanguard of theirs, then the Russians also waited and also waited for the Swedes to receive absolutely unexpected and much more significant support: like other great commanders, as, for example, Napoleon subsequently did on all important occasions, Peter, preparing for the decisive battle, pulled literally all the military formations that he could pull to the main point and at the critical moment to the battlefield. Before the attack on Levengaupt, a few days before, he ordered that troops rush to him to help his “corvolant” […]. Bour approached Lesnaya at the most decisive moment: the Russian attack after Bour's arrival overthrew the Swedes, who were trying to save the bridge on the road to Propoisk, which was of enormous importance for them. The Russians took the bridge, the Swedes, after a desperate new battle, returned it, but Levenhaupt clearly saw the absolute impossibility of holding the bridge and saving his convoy, which never reached Propoisk. When the dark and stormy snowy night (although it was September 28) stopped the battle, the situation for the Swedes turned out to be hopeless: the Russians occupied two positions - one taken from the Swedes in the morning, near the village of Lesnoy, and the second - near the bridge and not far from the Swedish convoy If the battle resumed on the morning of September 29, it was necessary to either lose the entire convoy and subject to complete defeat the part of the Swedish army that had survived the bloody battle on the 28th, or save the rest of the army and leave, leaving the convoy to the mercy of fate. Levenhaupt preferred, of course, the second. .. Under the cover of the pre-dawn darkness, he left. His defeated army did not even have time to destroy any significant part of its convoy, no matter how offensive it was for Levenhaupt to realize that almost all of this wealth, ammunition, food, which with such difficulty, at such colossal costs, Sweden sent to the king and which Levenhaupt himself spent months collected in Courland - that all this got safely (for the Russians, but not for the Swedes) to the Russians. Only artillery and gunpowder were not left in significant quantities to the Russians, but were drowned in swamps and in the rivers Lesnyanka and Sozhe. The Swedes, however, could not waste much time on these regrettable reflections; they had to hurry up. Having abandoned the convoy, leaving half of his army dead or captured in the fatal forest, Levenhaupt headed with hasty marches to the south, pursued along the way by raids of Russian cavalry.
Levengaupt's corps, which had suffered a severe defeat, having lost its entire huge baggage train, marched towards the king, subjected to constant small and not so small attacks from units of the Russian army marching in parallel or retreating in front of it. The Swedes walked through scorched villages abandoned by residents, and the closer they got to Starodub, the more difficult it was for them.
"THE BEGINNING DAY OF OUR GOOD"
Thanks to Charles’s strategic mistakes, part of his army was defeated at the Good Prince’s station. M. M. Golitsyn, and Levengaupt’s entire corps was completely defeated by Peter at the village of Lesnaya on September 28, 1708. All supplies fell into the hands of the Russians. Now Charles’s entire hope was in Little Russia, where he expected to find supplies and an ally in Hetman Mazepa. The victory at Lesnaya was Peter’s great success: he called September 28 “the beginning day of our good,” and it was true; the preponderance of military happiness began to lean noticeably on Peter's side from this year 1708.
Platonov S.F. A complete course of lectures on Russian history. St. Petersburg, 2000
MOTHER OF THE POLTAVA BATTLE
But the king, who was heading to Smolensk, turned sharply south into abundant Little Russia, where the useless traitor to Peter, Hetman Mazepa, was waiting for him, and with his head he betrayed Levengaupt to Peter, who on September 28 was defeated at the village of Lesnoy on the Sozh by 14 thousand Russians and lost two-thirds of his 16,000-strong division with everything he brought to the king, including the Swedish invincible self-confidence. The Poltava victory at Vorskla was won at Lesnaya on Sozh: afterward, Peter himself recognized Lesnaya as the mother of the Poltava battle, which happened exactly nine months later. It was a shame to lose to Poltava after Lesnaya.
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Battle of Lesnaya
At the end of the 17th century and the first quarter of the 18th century, contradictions between the countries of the Baltic basin intensified. Sweden, having pushed Russia away from the Baltic Sea and captured the Baltic states and significant territories of Northern Germany in a series of wars with Poland, Denmark, and the German states, turned the Baltic Sea into a “Swedish lake.” The dissatisfaction of the Baltic states with the dominance of Sweden and the fear of its further aggression created objective preconditions for the formation of an anti-Swedish coalition. In November - December 1699, treaties between Russia and Denmark and Saxony on the war against Sweden (“Northern Alliance”) were concluded in Moscow. Under this treaty, Russia undertook to open hostilities and actually began them after the conclusion of the Treaty of Constantinople with Turkey in 1700.
In this war, Russia sought access to the Baltic Sea and advocated the return of Russian lands, which objectively contributed to the economic development and strengthening of the country’s security.
The Russian state entered the war with an army that was significantly inferior to the Swedish one in numbers and weapons, since the military reforms of Peter I, begun at the end of the 17th century, were completed only in the first decade of the 18th century.
Military weakness and lack of coordination at the beginning of the war doomed the Allies to major failures. This led to the invasion of Russia in 1707–1709 by the army of Charles XII. The Swedes had high hopes for internal political complications in Russia (Astrakhan uprising, Bulavin uprising, dissatisfaction of part of the population with Peter's reforms).
The basis of the secret negotiations with Hetman I. S. Mazepa, who planned to go over to the side of Sweden, was the declaration of independence of Ukraine. At the beginning of 1708, the Swedish army crossed the river. Berezina and approached the Russian border. Having suffered a defeat northwest of Mogilev, the Russian army retreated across the Dnieper and concentrated in a fortified camp near the town of Gorki. Without waiting for the arrival of the corps of General A. Levenhaupt, who set out in June from Riga with a large transport of food and ammunition to join the main army, Charles XII in August moved from Mogilev to Smolensk, but was stopped by the Russian army and turned to Ukraine. At the end of September, the Swedes reached Kostenichy (on the road to Starodub) and stopped in anticipation of Levenhaupt's corps.
On September 28, 1708, near the village of Lesnaya (southeast of Mogilev), a battle took place between Russian troops under the command of Peter I (about 16 thousand people and 30 guns) and the Swedish corps of General A. Levengaupt (about 16 thousand people and 17 guns), according to some information (See: Soviet Military Encyclopedia: V 8-i t M, 1977. TA P. 624) or 12,950 people and 16 guns, according to others (See: Pavlenko N.I., Artamonov V.A. June 27, 1709. M., 1989. P. 172.)
Levenhaupt's corps with a large convoy of food and ammunition (7 thousand carts) moved from Riga to Ukraine to join the main forces of the army of the Swedish king Charles XII in the Starodub area. Having crossed the Dnieper near Shklov on September 19–21, Levengaupt set out for Propoisk (now Slavgorod). Peter I decided to defeat Levengaupt's corps, for which he sent after him the corvolant (flying corps) of A.D. Menshikov, consisting of 10 dragoon and 3 infantry regiments mounted on horses (11.6 thousand people in total). At the same time, Peter I ordered the cavalry corps of General R. H. Bour, located in the Krichev area, leaving part of the troops to monitor the army of Charles XII, the main forces (about 4 thousand people) to join the corvolant, and a detachment of up to 1 thousand people to send to Propoisk in order to prevent the Swedes from crossing the river. Sozh. On September 27, Levengaupt's corps reached Lesnaya. Levengaupt sent part of the carts under the cover of a 3,000-strong detachment to Propoisk. At the same time, the main forces, taking advantage of favorable terrain conditions, occupied a position on the heights north of the village of Lesnoy, based in the rear on the river. Lesnyanka and Wagenburg. To make it difficult for Russian troops to approach Lesnaya and deploy them into battle formation, 6 Swedish battalions were moved ahead of the main forces. Having assessed the situation, Peter I decided to start the battle without waiting for the approach of General Bour's detachment.
It should be noted that both sides, due to poor intelligence, had insufficient understanding of each other. The Russian army learned that Levenhaupt had a very large detachment, and not just guarding a “moving store,” only two days before the clash of troops. The Swedes considered the corvolant to be the vanguard of the large Russian army (Tarle E.V. Selected work in 4 volumes. T.Z. Rostov n/D., 1994. P. 225–226.)
The battle near the village of Lesnoy continued throughout the day - from 8 a.m. to 7-8 p.m.
Peter I struck so hard that he managed to inflict losses on the enemy before he lined up. With strong cannon fire from the forest, the Russians forced the regiments of Delegardi, Stahl, then Gensius and Levengaupt to retreat.
At about 11 o'clock the tsar began to line up the guards brigade along the edge of the forest. Levenhaupt decided to prevent all Russian forces from leaving the forest. Four battalions with ten cannons and four cavalry regiments on the flanks attacked the Russian guards: five battalions of the 1st reserve were ready to support this attack. It is interesting that against the six battalions of the Preobrazhentsy and Semyonovtsy was their old “familiar” from the battles in Livonia, V. A. Schlippenbach.
The Swedish infantry of the right wing shot down the Ingermanland and Nevsky regiments, captured four cannons and threatened to envelop them from the flank, but were unable to build on their success: the Preobrazhentsy and Semyonovtsy came to the rescue. The front Russian ranks that had suffered losses were withdrawn behind the rear ones, and, if necessary, into the forest as a shelter. “If it weren’t for the forests, then they would have won, since there were 6 thousand of them more than us,” Peter I later wrote to Admiral F. M. Apraksin. When the Swedish offensive ran out of steam, the king again ordered the construction of a battle line for the attack. In response, Levenhaupt rolled out heavy guns, and the Russians retreated again.
But by this time the entire corvolant had arrived. In the afternoon the battle resumed. The Russians launched another attack, with eight infantry battalions and four dragoon regiments in the first line. Behind them there is a strong cavalry, in the second line - six, and behind it two more dragoon regiments. And this line was supported by infantry, although in half the number of infantry support of the first line. Two lindas, together with the cavalry, came out of the forest and began to push the enemy towards the Wagenburg with fire - carts placed back to back. Cossacks rushed from the rear to guard the convoy. Volleys of plutongs (platoons) and battalions thundered one after another. M. M. Golitsyn (“son of the Fatherland” - that’s what Peter proudly called him) figuratively said that the falling bullets made $7
By three o'clock in the afternoon the enemy was pressed right up to the carts, having repulsed eight guns, among which were four of our own, captured earlier. Then they received news that Bour's dragoons were approaching, and the king ordered a ceasefire.
The first period of the battle did not tip victory to either side. Levenhaupt also sent for help and returned the three thousandth vanguard. By five o'clock in the afternoon, with the arrival of Bour, the Russians gained superiority in strength and advanced, using the fire of the regimental guns.
Swedish General Stackelberg, with counterattacks of the left wing, barely held back the onslaught of the Guards brigade. At one time the volleys merged into continuous thunder. The battle turned to hand-to-hand combat.
The rain, mixed with snow pellets and smoky smoke, was now lashing the Swedes in the face; the second line barely saw the first. According to the Swedes, the Russians pressed so hard that soldiers in battles died from a pike or baguette before they could see the enemy. Until dusk, the Swedes withstood 10 attacks and emerged from a difficult situation with honor: they defended for two hours and responded with counterattacks. Increasing snowfall with gusty winds and hail and darkness interrupted the battle at about 19:00.
All night Peter I kept the army under arms, at a distance of up to 150 steps from the Swedish Wagenburg, intending to repeat the attack in the morning. The gun duel died down around 10 p.m.
Levenhaupt decided to save at least part of the hull and quietly break away from the enemy. Under the guise of camp fires, he set fire to part of his wagons and, abandoning the sick, wounded, and a thousand head of cattle, mounted the infantry on baggage horses and ordered them to secretly and hastily leave through the forest to Propoisk, taking away only gunpowder and artillery shells. The night retreat was a nightmare. The guns got stuck in a rut broken by thousands of wheels, and they were thrown into the quagmire. The units, wandering in pitch darkness and swamp slurry, lost their remaining strength. The groans of the wounded, the calls of the dying and the lost were heard from everywhere. Many privates and officers deserted back to Livonia.
Having discovered the abandoned Wagenburg in the morning, Peter I sent the dragoons of Lieutenant General Pflug in pursuit. Corvolant stood at the site of the battle for three days. On September 29, Pflug overtook and cut down up to five thousand stragglers in Propoisk and took the remains of the convoy, however, without military equipment - Levenhaupt managed to drown the gunpowder and charges in Sozh. Swedish losses in killed and wounded amounted to 6,397 people, of which 45 officers, about 700 soldiers were captured. The Russians lost 1,111 killed and 2,856 wounded.
The victory at Lesnaya was not complete - part of the trophies and half of Levengaupt's corps were lost.
Peter I called the victory at Lesnaya “the first soldier’s test” and the mother of the Poltava battle. This victory played a big role in strengthening the morale of the Russian army and showed the outstanding leadership qualities of Peter I. Russian troops acted in the battle on the basis of linear tactics, but used them creatively, based on the situation: they entered the battle as forces approached, without waiting for their full strength deployments, combined fire with bayonet strikes, skillfully maneuvered on the battlefield, and ensured close cooperation between infantry and cavalry. The Battle of Lesnaya had a serious impact on the further course of the war. The defeat of Levengaupt's corps deprived Charles XII of the reinforcements, food and ammunition he needed, and thwarted his plan to march on Moscow.
The battle near the village of Lesnoy is one of the most important stages of the Northern War. In this battle, the small army of Peter I defeated the Swedish corps under the command of L. Lawenhaupt.
Prerequisites
Military operations between Sweden and Russia took place not only on the northern fronts. One of the largest battles took place on the territory of modern Ukraine, and ended with a confident victory for the Russian troops. This battle was included in all school textbooks under the name “Battle of Poltava”. The battle near the village of Lesnoy took place the day before. The convincing triumph of Peter's army in this conflict brought Russia's victory near Poltava closer.
According to the order of Charles XII, the Swedish garrisons of Courland and Livonia were ordered to join the king's army to organize military operations on Russian territory. In the fall of 1708, a detachment of the Swedish general Adam Ludwig Levenhaupt crossed the Dnieper and headed to the city of Propoisk to get closer to the royal troops.
There were several reasons for this decision:
The defeat suffered by Charles XII in a cavalry battle near Raevka, forcing the Swedes to abandon the conquest of Smolensk.
The absence of strong military garrisons on the territory of Ukraine that could provide serious resistance.
Lack of fodder and food, which Charles XII hoped to replenish in Ukraine.
An agreement with Hetman Mazepa to provide the Swedish army with an additional Cossack support corps, numbering about 20 thousand people.
Possible support for the Crimean Khan and the Polish gentry.
Maneuvers
Charles XII's turn to the south increased the already considerable distance between the main Swedish troops and the Levenhaupt garrison. Peter I decided to take advantage of this circumstance and sent Menshikov’s light corps (corvolant) against Levengaupt, leading it personally.
The conductor's false information about the direction of movement of the Swedes slightly confused the plans of the Russian detachment. But soon Russian intelligence reported information about the place where the Swedes were crossing, and the Russian cavalry gave chase. Thus began the battle near the village of Lesnoy. The date of this event is September 28, 1708 according to the old style.
Skirmish near the river Resta
Menshikov's cavalry overtook the Swedes' rearguard at the Resta River. After a short battle, Levengaupt successfully repulsed the Russian attacks and crossed to the other bank, where he gained a foothold near the village of Lesnoy.
Such reconnaissance in force was necessary in order to find out the combat effectiveness and strength of the Swedish corps. According to preliminary data, the detachment of Peter I numbered about 8 thousand soldiers and officers, but in fact they turned out to be almost twice as many.
On September 26, a military council was convened to discuss the current situation. It was decided to send for help to the city of Krichev, where at that time the four-thousandth corps of Lieutenant General Bauer was located. They had to wait two days for help. Regardless of whether the corps arrived on time or not, after this period it was necessary to attack the Swedes. For this, Menshikov mobilized personnel. And to destroy the crossings across the Sozh River, the dragoons of Brigadier Freeman were sent. Major General Verdun, who was stationed with his battalions south of Smolensk, also received the order to join the Russian strike force. But he did not have time, and the battle near the village of Lesnoy took place without his participation.
The Swedes, having learned about the Russian corps located nearby, strengthened their positions on the heights - the battle near the village of Lesnoy took place according to the classic tactics of European wars. Several Swedish battalions took up a position on the front line, while the rest stood in front of the village of Lesnoy, with their rear to the Lesnyanka River, which flowed next to the village. Levenhaupt planned to hold the line until the convoy with equipment crossed the Sozh.
At this time, the Russians moved along forest paths in order to detect their presence as late as possible. The columns were headed by Menshikov and Peter I himself. To give the Russian troops the opportunity to switch to combat formation, the Neva Dragoon Regiment took the blow of the enemy’s first line upon itself, losing about 300 people killed and wounded. During the skirmish, the corvolant managed to enter the field and line up at a distance of 1 kilometer from the enemy’s front flank.
Battle of Lesnaya
The battle began in the middle of the day. The number of Russians was about 10 thousand people. They were opposed by a well-trained Swedish corps of 9 thousand soldiers and officers. Golitsyn's guards brigade fought in the center, the flanks were covered by cavalry. The Russians attacked several times, moving from volleys of weapons to bayonet charges and hand-to-hand fighting. In the middle of the battle, the opponents were so tired that they fell to the ground 200 steps away from each other. Reinforcements were expected from both sides
General Bauer's Dragoons
In the evening, reinforcements arrived for the Russians. Together with help, Peter's troops again went on the offensive and drove the Swedes into the village. Levenhaupt was able to clear his way across the river, but he was no longer able to transport the convoy and the seriously wounded. The Swedes had to abandon part of the carts, their seriously wounded, guns and equipment. At night the Swedes crossed the river. Some of them deserted.
A. D. Menshikov
R. H. Baur
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