page_title: Campaign of Grodno
section_title: Main confrontation
hierarchical_section_title: Campaign of Grodno / The campaign / Main confrontation
caption_attribution_description: English: The battle of Fraustadt 1706 Svenska: Slaget vid Fraustadt 1706
context_page_description: The Campaign of Grodno was a plan developed by Johann Patkul and Otto Arnold von Paykull during the Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a part of the Great Northern War. Its purpose was to crush Charles XII's army with overwhelming force in a combined offensive of Russian and Saxon troops. The campaign, executed by Peter I of Russia and Augustus II of Saxony, began in July 1705 and lasted almost a year. In divided areas the allies would jointly strike the Swedish troops occupied in Poland, in order to neutralize the influence the Swedes had in the Polish politics. However, the Swedish forces under Charles XII successfully outmaneuvered the allies, installed a Polish king in favor of their own and finally won two decisive victories at Grodno and Fraustadt in 1706. This resulted in the Treaty of Altranstädt in which Augustus renounced his claims to the Polish throne, broke off his alliance with Russia, and established peace between Sweden and Saxony.
context_section_description: After having scouted the Russian fortifications at Grodno, Charles realized a frontal assault would be impossible. At the same time, the Russians would not let themselves be provoked out into the field. Charles instead decided to try and starve them out by crossing the Neman river on January 15, encircling the city from the east, forcing 15,000 Russian cavalry to withdraw. In doing this he blocked the Russian communication lines, and also cut off their resources and supplies. Smaller Swedish parties were sent towards Vilnius in order to prevent General Christian Felix Bauer from supplying the trapped Russians. One of these, commanded by Jan Kazimierz Sapieha and Józef Potocki managed to beat 3,000 Russians at the Battle of Olita on February 9. Meanwhile, on February 7 Schulenburg had received word of Charles' crossing of the Vistula, and begun his march with the Saxon army in order to beat Rehnskiöld's smaller force near Poznań. Rehnskiöld, however, did not wait to be defeated and instead strove to engage Schulenburg before the arrival of Augustus 8,000 men. By using a daring feint Rehnskiöld managed to lure Schulenburg into a more disadvantageous position near Wschowa (Fraustadt), where the two armies clashed on February 13. Here, the Swedish general won a decisive victory killing or capturing up to 75% of Schulenburg's force. Crippled by this setback, the main Saxon army had no choice but to retreat. The whole allied plan collapsed, as the opportunity for the allies to destroy Charles' army in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with a sweeping movement from behind, vanished.
  Shortly after, on February 22, Carl Gustaf Dücker with 1,000 dragoons fought off 7,000 Poles and Russians under Christian Felix Bauer at Olkieniki near Vilnius, capturing and killing hundreds of allied troops. He also seized the Lithuanian capital and secured the Swedish connection to Livonia. The situation in Grodno soon became unsustainable for the Russians as the soldiers began to die of starvation and disease. In order to save his army, Peter I ordered his ally Ivan Mazepa and his Cossacks to carry out continuous harassing attacks on the back of the Swedes. Mazepa dispatched 14,000 men for this purpose. However, the Swedes countered the move, sending large contingents of troops from Grodno to assault Mazepa's nearby outposts. Mazepa sustained large casualties at both Nesvizh on March 23, where Johan Reinhold Trautvetter and his 500 Swedish dragoons killed and captured around 700 out of 1,200 Cossacks, and at Lyakhavichy in late March, where Carl Gustaf Creutz held 1,400 men trapped inside the fortress.
  On March 27, the Russians received word about the earlier disastrous defeat at Wschowa. Peter I realized that the chances of a combined attack on Charles were now minimal. He ordered Ogilvy to attempt an escape from the encirclement at Grodno and a retreat towards Brest-Litovsk. Ogilvy carried out the order on April 4 and managed to break out unseen with his reduced army, leaving 8,000 men behind at Grodno who had died of starvation and sickness. Another 9,000 men were lost during the retreat as the Swedes pursued the Russians as far as Polesia, where they finally gave up the chase. Mazepa met a similar defeat, as he sent 4,700 men in an attempt to save the Cossacks trapped inside Lyakhavichy. Instead these were annihilated in the battle of Kletsk on April 30, after which the garrison in Lyakhavichy surrendered to the Swedes on May 12 and the fortress was destroyed. In total, almost 10,000 Cossacks were killed, out of the initial 14,000 who actively participated in the campaign.
caption: Plan of the Battle of Fraustadt, 1706.
exif: {}