Talk:Battle of Lesnaya

Nada Sources

No Sources at all, Who wrote this? Seems to be almost copypaste from the Karl XII (Charles XII) article80.197.1.72 22:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Draw?

This was a Swedish defeat, at least a strategic one. --88.114.242.180 17:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Recent edit-wars

Notice the recent edit-wars this artcle has suffered. I have several sorces that claims it was a draw, and even a Swedish victory, alltough Voyevoda stills claims it was a Russian victory. Maybe strategical and morale, but tacticly, no.

Coments, please. /Snillet 09:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

My comment: you failed to provide a NEUTRAL (non-Swedish) source for your questionable claim. All web sources describe Lesnaya as Swedish defeat, here are some of them: [1], [2]. I suggest, we lock the article with the more traditional interpretation until Snillet delivers neutral proofs for his sensational history revisionism. Voyevoda 22:43, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Browsing through Google, I agree that most English-language sites assert that the battle was a Russian victory, particularly because Sweden's supply lines were heavily damaged. If Swedish sources claim it was a draw or victory, though, that fact should be included - e.g. "Swedish historians *name*, *name* and *name* challenge the general consensus that this battle was a Russian victory, suggesting instead that.... blah blah blah" --Hyperbole 10:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

This is crazy in the extreme: the German, French and Italian articles all claim a Russian victory. Looking at the September 28 articles I can add Greek and Dutch wikipedia. All of these authors have no historic axe to grind. Calling something a tactical draw because half of the Swedish losses were due to drunkenness is plain silly, of course. Shall we call Pearl Harbor a draw because the US Navy was caught with their pants down? Calling it a draw because the Swedes "managed" (or were forced) to engage a numerically superior opponent and could even disengage from the fight (in "some" fashion, I would add) is even worse: by that token, even Waterloo is a draw. The undisputed fact that the Russians lost fewer men than their opponents is already telling, it is quite atypical for battles involving any Russian army.--Paul Pieniezny 10:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing atypical about it, look at Russo-Turkish wars or the Seven Years' War, the Russo-Persian wars or many battles of the Great Northern War. In the most battles, the Russians had more moderate losses. Voyevoda 12:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Internet source that claims a draw (http://www.birthday.se/kalender/2007/09/29/):

"Slaget hade ingen given segrare men Peter den store, som förde befälet över de ryska trupperna lär senare ha kallat slaget "Poltavasegerns moder".

"The battle had no direct winner, but Peter the Great, who commanded the Russian force, later said the the battle was the "mother to the Battle of Poltava". /Snillet 15:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Have you overseen that your main fault is the inability to bring any NEUTRAL (non-Swedish) sources? Voyevoda 11:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

So the heart of this edit war is what we're going to put in the "result=" field, more than the editorial content of the body of the article, right? What about something like "result=Generally considered a Russian victory"? It does appear (as best I can tell, since I don't read Swedish) that while the general international consensus is that the Russians won this battle, the Swedes do not consider this a military defeat, largely because a great portion of their losses came during a mutiny after the battle was over. It definitely needs to be mentioned in the article that many Swedes do not now, and perhaps never did, consider this battle a defeat. (By analogy, see Vietnam War, where there has been controversy over the "result" field and a paragraph discusses the fact that many Americans do not consider the war a military defeat, but rather, a political one). --Hyperbole 15:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hyperbole: I like your idea! /Snillet 20:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, one can mention it in the article, but in the "result" field there must be definitely the more common interpretation. After all, in the Battle of Borodino article there is written "French victory", though Russians do not to consider the battle as Russian defeat. Voyevoda 11:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, our account of Borodino says both sides retreated for the night, while there is a contemporaneous Polish source claiming cossacks ruled the battle field and had even taken over the notorious fleches. Control of the battlefield is often a parameter used to decide who won when there is an unclear issue to a battle. But so is the direction of the troops the day after and the casualty count, and those are generally taken to favour the option that the French won. In any case, the fact that most Western historians favour the French victory vision, is probably due to the Russophobic atmosphere in Britain from 1815 to 1905. --Paul Pieniezny 21:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

We could add a reference-mark and then write that Swedish historians thik it was a draw or Swedish victory. /Snillet 14:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

In any case, there must be a mention of which Swedish historians claim it is a draw or even a victory. Something like that in a note needs to be sourced specifically (just write the name of the historian). By the way you can sometimes force Google books to show a snippet of text from the book, by searching for a text string like the Swedish for " victory at Lesnaya". That is better than useless edit warring. --Paul Pieniezny 21:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Russian nationalists please stop acting like little children putting fantasy casualty figures of 6300 dead and wounded Swedes and deleting correct facts.

I Edited the text to a more historical correct version but did not discredit any of the sides, stop deleting correct texts just because they don't fit your fantasies on how the battles were fought.

If you have any objections against my edit then im willing to discuss the sources, until then try to behave like grownups. 00:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

..

Out of the 6000 men lost, 1000 were killed on the swedish side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.44.122 (talk) 14:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Swedish casualties

The article says that Sweden lost 6,307 soldiers, wich must be incorrect because 1,500 managed to get back to Riga, so they should not be included in the "casualties"-box. /Snillet (talk) 20:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Some annoying narking has been editing lately. The Swede forces present were around 14,000 (of which 8,300 defended the supply wagons). 5000 captured, 1000 killed, rest went missing, and 6000 Swedes returned to poltava exhausted. --Nikitn (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Any neutral observer looking at the numbers given by Nikitn sees that they are perfectly compatible with the Swedish contention that 1,500 made it back to Riga (there are two thousand "uncertains" in his figure). A few history lessons:

1) until the advent of modern medicine to the battle field, armies counted their own and the enemy's "casulaties" to include the wounded and the missing in action. Anyone who did not remain in the ranks was a casualty. That is why the numbers must be interpreted with care.

2) although armies in the eigteenth century were no longer the pillaging, murdering and raping bands of the religious wars in Germany, they were still followed by a train of half-military people whose job it was to:

a) take care of victuals and non-military materiel. They continued to re-supply with the local populace, where possible applying as little pressure as possible - large-scale pillaging was found to be less productive and would of course hamper re-supply when withdrawing (that by the way is what did Napoleon in in 1812 - his "win" at Borodino and subsequent decision to takle Moscow forced him to return the same way he had come, through land his troops already had had to pillage)

b) after victory, finish off the enemy wounded and take care of own wounded (since this usually involved stealing all valuables off enemy, and sometimes even own, soldiers, this was the main attraction for people to join the retinue train and also explains why the train often included women and children - soldiers' family even)

Retinue would usually be lightly armed, with pikes and knives. They had to guard the waggons against marauders and needed something to perform their battle field duties. They would very often disappear "into nature" after a defeat. Some of them were even local, and simply switched to the winning side. This battle did not take place in Sweden or Russia proper, so there is a good chance that retinue on both sides included Belarusians/ White Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians ...

All this explains why the figures must be handled with care (even the Rusian estimate of Russian dead is probably too high) and why we are having an edit war over this article, while the general picture of what happened is not in dispute. The Russian side is obviously ignoring those 1,500 escaping to Riga, because those were probably not part of the Swedish force that actually fought at Lesnaya. the Swedish viewpoint is that because the main Russian objective (to wipe out the Swedish force and to prevent them from joining up with the main Swedish army) was obviously not attained, it counts as a Swedish victory. Some compromise must be found. The texts which are being added and deleted must be sourced. Put them here, for everyone to see. Then start looking at texts in the other side's references which contradict them, source that and find a compromise. The neutral West European version would probably consider this as a skirmish and add it to the battle of Poltava as an introductory battle (and I guess, probably count it as a Russian victory). I am sure you guys would not particularly like a merge, because this battle has a special meaning in the history of Russia and Sweden, but if the edit war continues ... --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 09:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Date and Location

I do not really know what is more disruptive - taking out the Gregorian calendar date for this event (so we have only a Russian OS and a Swedish calendar date for something that happened in a place using the Gregorian calendar at the time) or putting up the Polish name of a place in Lithuania (in an obvious attempt to draw the support of Polish Wikipedia editors) and/or deleting the Belarusian name of the place, but this is obviously the part that must and can be be fixed the fastest. It is known as the "Battle of Lesnaya", it took place at present-day Lyasnaya, near a place which is mostly known (and at the time was almost exclusively known) in the English language as Mogilev and they used the Gregorian calendar there at the time. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 09:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

1 st set of figures sourced

Taken from User talk:Voyevoda:

I've added the more exact source information in the article. You can download the text of the book from here: http://files.zipsites.ru/slovari/100velikih/100_velikih_bitv.rar. However, it is a text file which does not keep the original layout and is thus not easy to read. You should open it with your browser and switch the encoding to Cyrillic. Here is a little excerpt from page 222:

Обнаружив утром покинутый вагенбург, Петр I бросил в погоню драгун генерал-лейтенанта Пфлуга. Корволант же стоял на месте битвы три дня. 29 сентября Пфлуг настиг и порубил в Пропойске до полутысячи отставших и взял остатки обоза, правда, без военного снаряжения — порох и заряды Левенгаупт успел утопить в Соже. Потери шведов убитыми и ранеными составляли 6397 человек, из них 45 офицеров, около 700 солдат попали в плен. Русские потеряли 1111 человек убитыми и 2856 ранеными. Победа под Лесной не была полной — были упущены часть трофеев и половина корпуса Левенгаупта. Voyevoda (talk) 15:09, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I haven't had time yet to translate this all, but based on translation2.paralink.com this translates as: "Having found out in the morning that the wagon train had left, Peter I sent into [hot] pursuit the dragoon general-lieutenant Pflug. The Korvolant stood on war footing for three days. On September 29th, Pflug had overtaken and had chopped in Propoysk up to half a thousand [men] lagged behind and had taken the rests of the transport, but in truth, without military equipment — the gunpowder and charges Lewenhaupt had been able to drown in the Sozhe [river]. Losses of Swedes killed and wounded men were 6397 persons, of them 45 officers, nearby 700 soldiers were taken prisoner. The Russians lost 1111 persons killed and 2856 wounded men. The victory at Lesnaya Wood was not complete — part of trophies and half of the corps of Lewenhaupt had been missed."

Korvolant = corps volant of course. Hot pursuit cavalry. Propoysk - a little town in the neighbourhood.

The problem I see here is that the 500 Swedes overtaken by Pflug may not be the 500 missing earlier, but may be included among the other Swedish losses.

Still, looks like a good source. I like the way they describe the victory as "не была полной". doe not sound like propaganda at all and leaves room for compromise.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 17:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Answer to different accusations

Next time you start to revert in an article please study the subject first.

1) Your claim that I added the Polish name Lesna in the article only because I wanted to attract Polish editors is just plain ridiculous and offensive. If you had studied the subject you would have noticed that the battle is often known as the Battle of Lesna, so including it in the article certainly has nothing to do with claimed nationalism. And the battle took place in what was then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth so in fact by calling it Battle of Lesnaya is a Russian POV. But I have never had any intention to change that of course. And please explain what you find nationalistic on my userpage? And if you think I'm a member of a nationalistic tag team you are clearly wrong. The only tag team I know about in the articles related to the Great Northern War is the Russian one that like to use abusive edit summaries such as [3] or vandalizing userpages [4].

2) You claim that I deleted the Gregorian calendar date is plain untrue if you care to check the edit history. What I have done is to add the Swedish calendar. Before it was just the Julian calendar which at the time was in use in Russia. Now you have deleted both the Swedish and Russian dates. That's what I call disruptive edit. For someone studying the subject it's more than needed to know both the Swedish and Russian dates. The person would be very confused with the date you have added now. Of course all dates should be there, not just a modern one.

3) You claim I deleted the Belarusian name when it was I who inserted it! In fact it was the Russian tag team that has been trying to add "Lisna" instead, which to me sounds more like a Ukrainian version of the name. So again check the edit history before you accuse someone!

And I have not changed Mogilev to Mahilyow which is the name of the article here in the English Wikipedia. I have nothing to do with that.

4) And now about the casualties. Do you know where the figure 6397 killed and wounded Swedes come from? If you had studied the sources you would have known it's from a Swedish source, not a Russian one! It's taken from the second lieutenant Robert Petre´s diary. He was a member of the Swedish army that fought at Lesnaya. On the 30th (Swedish calendar) he has a rather detailed table on how many were missing and how many who could be counted at the time. 4549 from the infantry, 697 from the cavalry and 1151 from the dragoons or altogether 6397 men were missing. What he didn't know at the time is that many of the missing men made their way north to Riga instead and some even managed to join the army later. What is wrong to tell that? And the same Robert Petre also gives an exact figure on how many men followed general Lewenhaupt from Courland: infantry 8.000, dragoons 2.900, cavalry 2.000 and 50 Polish dragoons. Altogether 12.950 men. Not 16,000 as the article now states.

By the way Robert Petre calls the village Jesna, which probably was how the name was pronounced at the time. Interestingly he often writes placenames the way it was locally pronounced like Hadjatz and not the Russian way Gadyach.

5) I also think that this battle was more of a major skirmish leading up to the battle of Poltava, but I don't think it should be merged to that one since lots of things had happened inbetween and the battle of Poltava took place almost a year later. What was important with the battle of Lesnaya was that the Swedish army lost all supply wagons which was more than needed for king Karl XII´s army. This probably explains the Swedish defeat at Poltava, and that's probably why the battle of Lesnaya in Russian history is called the Mother of the Poltava victory. Närking (talk) 19:11, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

About the tag teams: I stand by my story. Let us hope that the other Russian user, Nikitn, (with different numbers) will still come here after your accusation. And that he will remain polite.

The names: that Grengam thing definitely seems misnamed, I agree but what counts is the way it is usually remembered in English. All these forms in this article just mean the same thing in various Slavic languages. Coming back to Napoleon, the "loo" in Waterloo also means wood or bush, but it is a substantive, while this one here is an adjective. I checked "Battle of Lesna" with google and found six texts, one of which calls Poltava Pultawa. Of course, Wikipedia has spoilt the googles for "Battle of Lesnaya", far too many, but you can level the ground by looking for " "Pierre-Denis Martin" Lesnaya -wikipedia" and comparing that to the same search with Lesna. 50-0. Those West European art galeries are really full of Russian POV, aren't they? I agree that Lisna was silly, except if it is the Lithuanian name (that is the main problem here, everyone is introducing controversial material without sourcing it or disuccing it on the talk page, where this sort of thing should be discussed). Yes perhaps if this was never mentioned before in English, we should call it the battle of Lyasnaya - but that is not the case. Funnily, this is how Mogilev Region invited English-speaking tourists to come to the place: [5] (no, I am not going to direct you to the casualty figures they quote, too embarassing) However, I think Lesnaya and Lyasnaya are enough. No need for Lesna, Lisna, Lesnay or whatever, though one of them would get some leniency on my part if were proven to be the Lithuanian name. As for the pronunciation "Jesna", that either suggests the German town of Jena, or a complete misunderstanding of "Wesna', which would be the Polish form "Łesna", completely different from "Leśna", I assure you. No, he just misunderstood this "ly" thingie at the beginning of the word.

As for the Russian numbers being based on a Swedish diary, that is the first time it is mentioned on this talk page. Frankly, if it is true, I am not impressed by the argument. Source A says X numbers, but source B says Y got somewhere else. And then you say: "so we must deduct Y from B because A could not have known about B". Er, sorry no go : that is typical WP:SYNTH, especially as there are perfectly other categories to put Y in, as I explained in my bit of history. Is there a Swedish source explaining the difference? Or is the source just saying 4800 or 4900 casualties? Because as I explained: you've got to be very careful with the numbers of "casualties" because those given at the time were usually exaggerated, yes, even own casualties were on occasion exaggerated. And you must compare like with like. You cannot compare a reduced Swedish figure ("this cannot really have been correct, let's deduct 30%") with the Russian figure given at the time. Note that Nikitn's version mentions 14,000 Swedes (not 16,000) and is perfectly compatible with 1,500 Swedes (probably not part of the main fighting force) making it back to Riga as there are 2,000 missing "in nature" in his figures. But Nikitn's version is not sourced. Please note that the other 16,000 number, for Russian combatants this time, seems to be based on an entry in Lewenhaupt's diary. The Russian wiki suggests that he got that information off a highly-ranked Russian prisoner of war taken at the beginning of the battle (who may have exaggerated in order to impress). Basing ourselves on two diaries written by participants (and both fighting on the same side!) can lead to problems: I hope these things cannot be interpreted as primary sources...

Your point about the calendar: I never said you deleted the Gregorian date, if you read my remark carefully you will notice that I am suggesting that the use of OS rather than NS for an event happening in Lithuania was done by the other side than the one who put up the Polish name. And that it is important that the place where this happened did use the Gregorian calendar at the time (they switched back to Julian later in the century). Contrary to what you claim, the OS date and the Swedish calendar date are NOT missing from the article, they are in a special note. If you want both in the text (the argument conceivably being that all Northern War battles have this peculiar double dating) after the NS date, no problem, even three dates can be given, but the note will have to go then. But perhaps the note is the place to do this. I just noticed that there is more than one date mentioned, so we could perhaps say "subtract 10 days for all dates to get the Swedish date and for the OS calendar date, subtract eleven days".

--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 23:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

After reading your answer it's obvious that you still haven't studied the subject. Instead you are trying to talk around and away from your previous accusations.

Here are just some short comments. The village where the battle took place was situated in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth where Polish was the official language so it's not strange you will find it called Lesna on maps and official documents at the time. That's also why the battle is known as "Slaget vid Lesna".

It's also interesting to see that your Russian book apparently doesn't give any source for its claim of 6397 killed and wounded Swedes. It's obvious it comes from the diary of the Swedish officer Robert Petre. This also tells something about how the Russian author is using its sources. And if the Russian book also claims to source something from "Lewenhaupt's diary" it must be a new discovery since there is no known diary left from the time. He did write down his memories later during his captivity, but that's something completely different.

And about the date. Even the Russian Wikipedia states the old style date first, which also is the most understandable way to write it. Anyone who truly wants to study this subject will find the old dates in all the sources and books. Or you also want to change the October Revolution to the November Revolution? Närking (talk) 10:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong about the language: [[6]]. Lyasnaya was a small village, the reason why it was Lesna according to the Swedes was that they copied it from Polish or German maps, rather than Russian or Lithuanian maps.

You have looked at Russian wiki, but claim that the assertion about Lewenhaupt's diary comes from the Russian book. No, Russian wiki (which is of course not a good RS, but can be used as argument on talk pages) says that the figure came from a Russian adjudant general taken prisoner before the battle. Your claim that Lewenhaupt wrote his diary after being taken prisoner, would of course stop it from being a primary source (a diary may conceivably used by commanders to help during the rest of the campaign, may be important military intelligence in the hands of the enemy, and so on), but you give no evidence of that (actually, hitherto I haven't seen any of your evidence). When was the other diary written? Because on that one you use the fact that it was written immediately after the battle to allow you to deduct the people who reached Riga.

Obviously, Russian wiki would put OS first, because the Russian Empire used the Julian Calendar such a long time and later, after the battle, imposed it on the people living in this area. You seem to think that I am here to impose the Russian view, which I am not. Comment on my edits, and not on me please. I am sure you haven't even noticed I took the word "victory" out of the account of the battle (side remark to Russian editors: "there is no reason to use controversial words like "victory", "liberation" if you can describe what happened without them). --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 10:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I have not read Russian Wiki, I have read your answer where you write "Please note that the other 16,000 number, for Russian combatants this time, seems to be based on an entry in Lewenhaupt's diary." Once again he might have written a diary, but there is no such available today. He did write down memories later, but that is not a diary. The officer Robert Petre did write a diary. It ends some days before the Battle of Poltava.

I have no idea what kind of view you might have, Russian, German, Greek or Finnish, it doesn't matter, just try to use reliable sources and study the subject first. But for no reason you have accused me of being a Swedish nationalist and also accused me of trying to get help from a Polish tag team. Närking (talk) 11:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Style date in article

Battle article in German wikipedia [7] tries to solve the problem as follows: 28. September jul./ 9. Oktober greg./ 29. September 1708 schwed. I found it more elegant and useful than here. Elysander (talk) 11:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC) Apropos: Different views by different reliable historians are always helpful. ;) Elysander (talk) 11:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem, my point was that the local date was not even there. However, we have more than one date here - do we repeat that thing all the time? --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 16:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm ... excluding battle day date itself i find only 1 or 2 additional dates in article text. Elysander (talk) 22:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)