The Battle of Lesnaya was one of the decisive battles of the Great Northern War. It took place on September 28, 1708 between a Russian army of 12,000 men commanded by Princes Repnin and Menshikov and a Swedish force of 16,000 men, under the command of General Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt, at the village of Lesnaya, located on the border between Poland and Russia.
Lewenhaupt, one of Sweden’s foremost generals, was the commander of one of his country’s best armies, based at the Baltic Sea port of Riga. In the summer of 1708, King Charles XII of Sweden ordered him to march southward with most of his force and link up with Charles’ main army of 25,000 men based in Poland. The Russians observed these movements and decided the time was ripe to attack Lewenhaupt’s smaller force. Lewenhaupt was not fazed; no Swedish army had yet been defeated by Russians in eight years of war.
The battle itself was closely contested and both forces suffered heavy casualties. Late in the day, a snowstorm kicked up and the Swedes became disorganized. Lewenhaupt ordered his men to retreat. Menshikov ordered his cavalry to attack one more time and routed the Swedes. The Swedes lost 1,000 men and 4,000 missing in battle. Russian casualties totaled 1,111 killed and 2,856 wounded. The Russian victory at Lesnaya convinced their soldiers that they could defeat even Sweden’s best soldiers.
