Battle of Napue

Battle of Storkyro
Part of Great Northern War
File:20057.jpg
Date February 19, 1714 Location Napue, Isokyrö Finland Result Decisive Russian victory
Belligerents
Sweden	Russia
Commanders and leaders
Carl Gustaf Armfeldt	Mikhail Golitsyn
Strength
4,500	approx. 9,000 9 guns
Casualties and losses
1,600 dead 900 wounded	1,800-2,000 dead or wounded

The battle of Storkyro (Napue) was fought on February 19, 1714 near the village of Napue in Isokyrö, Finland between a Swedish and a Russian army, as part of the Great Northern War. The Swedish army, consisting almost entirely of Finnish troops, was destroyed by the numerically superior Russians. As a result, for the remainder of the war Finland was completely helpless against a Russian occupation, a period of hardship remembered in Finland as the Greater Wrath.

Prelude

By 1703 Russian forces had invaded the inner parts of the Gulf of Finland, and founded the city of Saint Petersburg. Since the Swedish main army was engaged in Poland and later in Russia, Sweden was hard press to defend its Baltic territories. After the battle of Poltava, Russia took all of Livonia, Estonia and Ingria, as well as the counties of Viborg, Savonlinna and Kexholm.

When Charles XII of Sweden refused to enter peace negotiations, Denmark and Russia drew up plans with the purpose to threaten Stockholm. Two attack routes were considered: one through southern Sweden and the other through Finland and the Åland islands. The southern attack was deemed the more important, but the attack on Finland was to be carried out in order to tie down as much of the remaining Swedish army as possible there. However, the southern attack was fended off successfully by Magnus Stenbock's victory at Helsingborg in 1710.

The Russian attack on Finland never developed as planned. Since Peter the Great was engaged in a war against Turkey, the resulting lack of soldiers forced him to postpone the conquest of Åbo. The initial Russian actions in Finland consisted of raids and reconnaissance operations, with the purpose of occupying southeastern Finland and devastating it in order to deny Swedish forces a base of operations against the Russian-controlled areas around Saint Petersburg.

Serious Russian action in Finland started in 1713, after logistical problems caused the failure of an initial foray the previous year. Already in May, Peter and his galley fleet were seen off Helsingfors, and during the summer all of southern Finland was occupied by Russian troops. The Swedish forces under general Lybecker retreated inland. Before returning to Russia, Peter commanded Fyodor Apraksin, the commander of the Imperial Navy to attack the Swedish army during the winter.

General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt was given command over the troops in Finland in August of 1713. He faced a hopeless task; Lybecker had left him with a neglected, starving, destitute army. Reconnaissance was't possible because the cavalry was too worn out to carry out its duties. When in the beginning of February 1714 Russian general Mikhail Golitsyn marched into Ostrobothnia, Armfeldt placed his forces in a defensive position by the village of Napue, east of Vasa. A council of war was held on 16 february, where Armfeldt was determined to commit to stay and give battle. A fatalist air hung over the Swedish army; weakened from the ravages of winter, a superior army was approaching, and all hopes of reinforcements were gone.

The Battle

The Russians approached Napue from the east, initially along the frozen Kyro River. When they were in sight of but out of gun's reach from the Swedish forces, the right wing of the cavalry and the infantry veered north. Instread of forming up parallel to the Swedish forces, Golitsyn intended to attack the Swedish left flank. Either through promise of payment or force, Goltisyn had a farmer lead the Russian army through the frozen marshy forest north of the river. In this way, the Russian army obtained a very advantageous initial position to attack the Swedish left.

The Russian movements were observed by Armfeldt and his officers. Cossacks and dragoons arrived in the morning, while the main force deployed in the afternoon. As the battle would break out in any moment, Armfeldt rode along the Swedish line and exhorted his soldiers to fight for king and country. How this was received by the doomed troops is unknown, but Armfeldt's own account states that they soldiers "showed an incredible bravery, and loyalty unto death, and on their knees and with streaming eyes asked God for help."

Armfelt realized something was amiss when only a small cavalry force continued approaching along the frozen river, while the rest of the enemy force disappeared to the north. Realizing too late the implications of this, he commanded the Swedish line to twist northwards to better respond to the threat. He then ordered a preemptive attack. The Swedish right wing had initially great successes, mauling the Russian left with grapeshot while the infantry fired their single volley and then threw themselves at the enemy in a bayonet charge. The Russian left flank hadn't fully arrayed itself and was disordered at the time of the Swedish attack, but despite the initial Swedish successes the Russian position was stabilized thanks in great part to its numerary superiority.

The Russian right flank was better organized and repelled the Swedish attack. The Swedish cavalry was immobilized, circumvented, and cut down by Russian dragoons and cossacks, and the left flank collapsed slowly in desperate fighting. Armfeldt tried to relieve his encircled left flank but Golitsyn now committed his forces against the Swedish center and right flank, and while the left flank was ground down, the Swedish infantry dissolved in panic.

Aftermath

The battle ended with the destruction of the Swedish army in Finland, with almost 2,500 casualties. Many of them bled or froze to death in the night following the battle; bodies were left lying in the battlefield for weeks. The Russian casualties were also severe: as many as 2,000 wounded or killed. The majority of the Russian dead were buried in the Storkyro church graveyard.

Strategically, the victory at Storkyro allowed the Russians to control all of Finland the following years; Sweden was too weak to prevent this. The parallel successes of the Russian galley fleet in the Åbo archipelago allowed the it fleet to support and supply the army's land operations. This was important, as the looting the property of the impoverished Finnish peasantry during the Greater Wrath was insufficient to sustain the Russian army.