Battle of Narva (1700): Charles XII Routs the Russian Army

The Battle of Narva was fought on 30 November 1700 (Gregorian calendar) outside the town of Narva in Swedish Estonia, at the start of the Great Northern War. The 18-year-old King Charles XII of Sweden attacked a Russian army besieging the town that was three to four times larger than his own, broke its lines in a snowstorm and forced most of it to surrender. The victory made Charles famous across Europe and exposed the weakness of Peter the Great’s army.

Background

In 1699–1700 Russia, Denmark-Norway and Augustus II of Saxony-Poland formed an alliance to seize territory from Sweden, whose empire then ringed the Baltic. They expected little resistance from a young, untested king. Instead, Charles XII landed near Copenhagen in August 1700 and forced Denmark out of the war with the Peace of Travendal.

Peter I declared war on Sweden only after making peace with the Ottoman Empire in the summer of 1700. In the autumn he marched an army to Narva, a fortress on the Narva River near the Gulf of Finland, and began a siege. The Russian force, perhaps 35,000–40,000 men, included the new guards regiments but also many poorly trained recruits. The Swedish garrison under Rudolf Horn held out.

The battle

Charles shipped about 10,000–11,000 soldiers to Pernau (Pärnu) in Estonia and marched them to Narva through autumn rain and sleet. On 29 November, as they approached, Peter left the camp, telling his officers he needed to bring up reinforcements. He handed command to Charles Eugène de Croÿ, a Habsburg field marshal who had just entered Russian service and barely knew the army.

The Russians were spread along entrenchments about 6–7 kilometres long, curving around the town with the river at their back. On the afternoon of 30 November, Charles and his senior general, Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld, sent two assault columns against the centre of the line. A snowstorm blew into the Russians’ faces, hiding the Swedish advance until the attackers reached the ramparts.

The Swedes broke through in several places and the thin Russian line was cut into pieces. Panic spread. Many troops turned on their foreign officers, and de Croÿ and other foreigners surrendered to the Swedes for their own safety. Thousands of Russians fled towards the bridge over the Narva River, which collapsed under them, and many drowned.

On the Russian right, the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky Guards held out behind a barricade of wagons, and other units resisted on the left. During the night negotiations began. The Russians agreed to give up their artillery and in return were allowed to cross the river, but the Swedes disarmed many soldiers and kept the generals and senior officers as prisoners.

Casualties and results

The Swedes lost roughly 650–700 men killed and about 1,200 wounded. Russian losses cannot be stated precisely. Most estimates put Russian dead, including the drowned, at several thousand, commonly 6,000–10,000, and the Swedes captured some 145–180 guns as well as around ten generals and many other officers.

Charles had numbers too small to hold all his prisoners, so most ordinary soldiers were released. The Russian army as an organised force had nevertheless been destroyed, and Europe concluded that Russia was not a serious military power.

Consequences

Instead of invading Russia, Charles turned in 1701 against Augustus II, whom he regarded as the most dangerous enemy, and spent the next six years in Poland and Saxony. This choice gave Peter time. He conscripted new soldiers, had church bells melted down to cast new cannon, built up native officer training and copied Swedish methods.

The Russians soon began to win smaller engagements in the Baltic provinces. In May 1703 Peter founded Saint Petersburg on land taken from Sweden, and in August 1704 Russian troops stormed Narva itself.

Legacy

Narva became the classic example of a small, well-drilled army defeating a larger, poorly led one, and it established Charles XII’s reputation as a daring commander. It also fed his overconfidence about Russian troops, which proved fatal nine years later at the Battle of Poltava. Peter is reported to have said that the Swedes would teach the Russians how to beat them, a remark that may be later tradition but reflects his actual policy.

Timeline

• 1700, August: Charles XII lands near Copenhagen; Denmark makes peace at Travendal.
• 1700, August: Russia declares war on Sweden after making peace with the Ottomans.
• 1700, October–November: The Russian army besieges Narva.
• 1700, 29 November: Peter leaves the siege camp; de Croÿ takes command.
• 1700, 30 November: The Swedes storm the Russian lines in a snowstorm and win the battle.
• 1704, August: Russian forces capture Narva.

Why it matters

Narva was the first major battle of the Great Northern War. Its humiliation pushed Peter into the military reforms, many of them begun after the Streltsy uprising, that turned Russia’s army into a modern force and eventually brought Swedish dominance of the Baltic to an end.