Battle of Kalisz
| Battle of Kalisz | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Great Northern War | |||||||||
 Battle of Kalisz | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Swedish Empire  Warsaw Confederation |
 Saxony  Tsardom of Russia Sandomierz Confederation | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Arvid Axel Mardefelt  Józef Potocki Kazimierz Jan Sapieha |
Augustus II the Strong  Alexander Danilovich Menshikov Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
16,358 10 artillery pieces |
30,000 17 artillery pieces | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
4,900[2]–5,740[1] See casualities |
670–3,000 See casualities | ||||||||
  Location within Greater Poland Voivodeship  Battle of Kalisz (Poland) | |||||||||
The Battle of Kalisz[a] took place on 29 October 1706 in Kalisz, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Great Northern War. The battle was fought by Russian cavalry along with allied Saxon and Polish forces, led by commander Aleksandr Menshikov; against a smaller Swedish force headed by colonel Arvid Axel Mardefelt and resulted in an allied victory. The battle was Sweden's first and only major defeat in Poland, the victory was ensured by the actions of Russian troops and their training.[3]
Prelude
[edit]Charles XII of Sweden's victory in the Battle of Fraustadt had forced August the Strong of the Electorate of Saxony to drop out of the Great Northern War and abdicate his claims to the Polish crown in the Treaty of Altranstädt, marking an end to the Civil war in Poland.[4]
August himself, however, was with the Russian commander Menshikov and the third Russian army, which numbered 18,000 Russians. These were sent by Tsar Peter after the previous two had been defeated and dispersed after the battles of Fraustadt and Grodno. August had not informed Menshikov of the peace treaty because of the large contributions from Russia, and tried to avoid a battle, as he knew that his deceit would anger the swedes.
August secretly sent a letter to the Swedish major general Arvid Axel Marderfelt who was in command of the small Swedish army stationed in western Poland. August declared that the peace was almost concluded, and that he hoped to be informed of this by the Swedish king, Charles XII, and that a battle would thus be avoided. Marderfelt had, however, not been informed of this (the couriers had most likely been killed by kossacks). Marderfelt thus concluded that the letter was yet another of Augusts' deceits and replied that he had not received any information of the peace and would stand his ground in the case of a battle. In reality, he was more concerned than he wished to admit.
Background
[edit]The Swedes had about 4,358 men present in the vicinity of which one regiment and two battalions consisted of foreign troops captured in the Battle of Fraustadt, while their Polish and Lithuanian allies could field around 12,000 men according to Mardefelt himself.[5] The anti-Swedish coalition army was twice as large and included 5,000 Saxons under Augustus II the Strong, 7,000 Poles and Lithuanians under Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski and around 20,000 total russian troops under Alexander Danilovich Menshikov.[6] In total 30,000 men according to their own stories.[7]
Battle
[edit]Before the battle
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To the number, the Swedish army was vastly outnumbered with only 4 000 infantry troops, if it had not been for the allied Polish and Lithuanian cavalry. Mardefelt did not wish to engage the much larger Russian army, but the commander of the Polish crown army, Józef Potocki, insisted on chasing the Russians out of the country. Mardefelt pointed out carefully that the Poles had not been keen on fighting Russians or anyone at all during the war, but Potocki convinced him that this time they would fight to the last drop of blood.
August did not want to fight on the part of the coalition, he was afraid that the defeat of the secondary corps would not give results and therefore tried to give the Swedes the opportunity to retreat, because of his actions, the battle began when it got dark.[8]
Climax
[edit]The battle began with a mutual offensive by Potocki Polish infantry and coalition forces, the Polish forces were immediately overturned and the Swedes joined the battle, their actions were much more effective, but they lost the backbone of their troops.[9] The Swedes captured the first line of defense of the Russians, but they quietly retreated with almost no losses, but this success was overestimated, the Swedish commander had already written a letter to Karl that he had defeated the coalition.[9]
In fact, the battle was in full swing, the Swedish cavalry, pursuing the Saxons, broke away from the infantry and Russian forces entered this breakthrough, encircling most of the Swedish cavalry, this presaged the outcome of the battle.[9] At this time, Augustus' forces pursued Potocki, but as soon as they caught up with them, they were released without a fight.[9] When the Swedish dragoons died, all the Russian forces attacked the Swedish infantry, they lined up in a square and refused to surrender, but they began to throw grenades and fire from artillery, the Bavarian units surrendered first, the Swedish units resisted the longest, but there was no hope and Rene forced Mardefelt to capitulated.[10]
Aftermath
[edit]The battle ended in complete defeat, after which the whole of Poland was occupied by coalition forces, but they did not take advantage of this and August hastened to go to Saxony to ask forgiveness from Charles.[11] The losses of the Swedish forces range from 2,000 killed and 2,900 captured[2] to 3,000 killed and 2,740 captured[1] The Russians inflicted the greatest losses on the Swedes, and took 1,769 prisoners.[12] The losses of the Swedish troops are estimated at 800 killed and 1,800 captured[13] to 1,260 killed and 2,598 captured.[14] The Russian–Polish–Saxon counterpart lost up to 3,000 men[2] in the battle of which, according to their own stories of two letters written after the battle, 806 killed and equally many wounded belonged to the Saxons and other Germans[15] while the Russians (possibly with the irregular Cossacks and Kalmyks) had sustained 500 killed and 800 wounded.[16] Another source mentions only 84 killed with another 324 wounded for the Russians.[17] There is also an estimate of losses of 450 for Russians, 150 for Saxons and 70 for Poles.[18]
The Swedish defeat was rendered moot when Charles XII exposed Augustus' ratification of the Altranstädt treaty, whereupon the latter gave in to obey by its terms and withdrew to Saxony by November.[19]
Also, although he had planned to originally renounce the Treaty of Altranstädt, Augustus went along with its terms. Finally all Swedish prisoners were returned.
References and Notes
[edit]Reference
[edit]- ^ a b c Shkvarov 2012, p. 245.
- ^ a b c Gordon A. The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia: To which is Prefixed a Short General History of the Country from the Rise of that Monarchy: and an Account of the Author's Life, Volume 1. Aberdeen. 1755. p. 228
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 44.
- ^ Frost 200, p. 230.
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 28.
- ^ Egorshina & Petrova 2023, p. 52.
- ^ An Impartial History of the Life and Actions of Peter Alexowitz, the present Czar of Muscovy. Daniel Defoe. W. Chetwood, J. Stagg, J. Brotherton, and T. Edlin, 1723. pp. 172–174
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 30.
- ^ a b c d Artamonov 2008, p. 32.
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 33.
- ^ Egorshina & Petrova 2023, p. 54.
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 34.
- ^ Kuvaja, Christer (2008). Karolinska krigare 1660–1721 (in Swedish). Helsingfors: Schildts Förlags AB. p. 171. ISBN 978-951-50-1823-6.
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 35.
- ^ An Impartial History of the Life and Actions of Peter Alexowitz, the present Czar of Muscovy. Daniel Defoe. W. Chetwood, J. Stagg, J. Brotherton, and T. Edlin, 1723. pp. 172–174
- ^ The Present State of Europe, Volume 17. H. Rhodes., 1706. p. 436
- ^ Beyträge zur Geschichte Peters des Großen. Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, Erster Band, 1774, p. 183
- ^ Artamonov 2008, p. 36.
- ^ Frost 2000, p. 230.
Notes
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Frost, Robert I (2000). The Northern Wars. War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe 1558-1721. Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-06429-4.
- Shkvarov, Alexei (2012). Россия и Швеция. История военных конфликтов 1142-1809 [Russia and Sweden. The history of military conflicts 1142-1809] (in Russian). Saint-Petersburg: RME Group Oy:Алетейя. ISBN 978-5-91419-754-1.
- Artamonov, Vladimir (2008). Калишская баталия 18 октября 1706 года [The Battle of Kalisz on October 18, 1706] (in Russian). Цейхгауз. ISBN 978-5-9771-0079-3.
- Egorshina, O.; Petrova, A. (2023). История русской армии [The history of the Russian Army] (in Russian). Moscow: Edition of the Russian Imperial Library. ISBN 978-5-699-42397-2.
- Jan Wimmer: The Battle of Kalisz
- Robert K. Massie: Peter the Great