Battle of Lesnaya - Battle

Battle

The battle itself was closely contested and both forces suffered heavy casualties. Late in the day a snow storm, rare for September even in Russia, set in. This disorganized the Swedish troops and Lewenhaupt ordered a tactical retreat to follow his main orders not to risk the supplies. He was forced though to leave many much-needed supply wagons behind due to the muddy terrain. The Swedes used the abandoned supply wagons to make a wagon fort in order to cover the retreat across the bridge over Lesnjanka.

The Swedish forces fought off heavy Russian attacks against the wagon fort and the attackers received heavy losses before withdrawing for the day.

During the rest of the day the remaining Swedish supply wagons were moved across the bridge and most of them were over by the evening together with the main bulk of the army.

Several thousand Swedish soldiers had been scattered during the battle or the retreat and many of them were either killed or captured by Russian cossack cavalry.

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