On 13 February 1706, by the Gregorian calendar, a Swedish army under General Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld attacked a Saxon and Russian army about twice its size near Fraustadt, today the Polish town of Wschowa. The allied line broke quickly, and the army was almost wiped out, with thousands killed and thousands more captured, at a cost of a few hundred Swedish dead. It was one of Sweden's greatest victories of the Great Northern War. It is also remembered for the execution of Russian prisoners after the battle, an episode historians still argue over.
One battle, three dates
The battle has three dates. The Saxons used the Gregorian calendar, in which it was fought on 13 February 1706. The Russians used the Julian calendar, in which it fell on 2 February. Sweden was then using its own calendar, one day ahead of the Julian, so Swedish sources date it 3 February.1
Early in 1706 the Swedish war in Poland seemed close to collapse, writes Örjan Martinsson, because Charles XII and the main Swedish army were tied down far to the east around Grodno. Rehnskiöld's separate corps in western Poland faced a Saxon and Russian army under Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg. It served Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, whom his opponents in Poland, backed by Swedish troops, had declared deposed as king in 1704.2
The battle
Schulenburg took a strong position between two villages, with chevaux de frise, rows of spiked wooden barriers, in front of his infantry. Estimates of the armies vary: HistoryOfWar.org gives 9,000 Swedes against 18,000 allies, and Martinsson about 10,000 against an army twice as large. About 6,000 of the allied soldiers belonged to a Russian auxiliary corps. Schulenburg had them turn their coats inside out so that they would look like Saxons; to the Swedes they seemed to be wearing red coats.3
The Swedish cavalry drove off the allied horse on both wings and then fell on the allied center, while the Swedish infantry charged the front, so that the allied army was in effect surrounded. HistoryOfWar.org says the allied line broke after about fifteen minutes of combat. The battle has often been compared to Hannibal's double envelopment at Cannae; according to the historian Sverker Oredsson, the comparison was made in the Swedish general staff's 1918 work Karl XII på slagfältet and in later literature. Martinsson argues that Rehnskiöld in fact planned a frontal attack and that the envelopment grew out of the course of the fighting, and Oskar Sjöström firmly rejects the comparison, arguing that one arm of the envelopment acted against orders.4
Losses and the Russian prisoners
Martinsson gives over 7,000 Saxons and Russians killed and as many captured, against about 400 Swedish dead. The Russian corps suffered most: Martinsson puts its dead at over 4,000, while about 1,800 Russians escaped.5
The fate of the Russians who surrendered is the darkest and most disputed part of the story. Many threw down their weapons and begged for mercy, writes Oredsson, but the Swedish cavalry cut down about two thirds of the 6,300 Russians; Saxon prisoners were given the chance to join the Swedish army, while 500 Russian prisoners were executed. HistoryOfWar.org says many of the dead were killed after surrendering. Sjöström, in his book on the battle, argues that the Swedes treated the Russians no worse than was usual: because they had turned their coats to look like Saxons, they could be executed by the custom of the time. Oredsson rejects that view, noting that Swedish soldiers were deeply shocked by the killings, as were Voltaire and later historians.6
After Fraustadt
The defeat forced Peter the Great to pull his army out of Grodno, and Charles XII was free to invade Saxony. Before the year was out Augustus made peace and accepted Stanisław Leszczyński as king of Poland. Rehnskiöld, one of Charles XII's leading generals, had fought beside the king at Narva in 1700. Three years after Fraustadt he was taken prisoner by the Russians after the defeat at Poltava.7
Also on this day
- 1942: Channel Dash. The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen slipped out of Brest and raced up the English Channel to German ports.
