Battle of Poltava 1709
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 8 July 1709 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1709 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Ukraine | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Great Northern War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Cossack Hetmanate, Kalmyk Khanate, Swedish Empire, Tsardom of Russia, Zaporozhian Host of the Lowlands | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 49.6314, 34.5528 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Poltava fought on 8 July 1709, was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. A Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeated a Swedish army commanded by Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld. The battle would lead to the Swedish Empire losing its status as a European great power and also marked the beginning of Russian supremacy in eastern Europe.
During the course of six years in the initial stages of the war, King Charles XII and the Swedish Empire had defeated almost all participants in the anti-Swedish coalition, which initially consisted of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Denmark-Norway and the Tsardom of Russia. The latter, under Tsar Peter I, was the only one still fighting. Charles therefore chose to invade Russia in the autumn of 1707 and march towards Moscow with a large Swedish army. However, the campaign was complicated by harsh weather conditions and by Russian scorched earth tactics and surprise attacks, which forced Charles to interrupt his march on Moscow and instead march south to establish winter quarters with the help of Ivan Mazepa, hetman of the Cossack Hetmanate Zaporizhian Host.
After the extremely harsh Great Frost of 1708–1709, which was the coldest recorded winter in Europe, the weakened Swedish army resumed operations in the spring of 1709 and besieged the fortress of…
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Poltava (revision 1377945403), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Great Northern War
- Battle of Koporye 1708
- Battle of Lesnaya 1708
- Battle of Malatitze 1708
- Sack of Baturyn 1708
- Siege of Vepryk 1708
- Siege of Riga (1709–1710) 1709
- Battle of Helsingborg 1710
- Siege of Viborg (1710) 1710
- Siege of Stralsund (1711–1715) 1711
- Battle of Gadebusch 1712
All 52 battles of the Great Northern War →
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