The Redoubt Battle


The images above show the Swedish infantry's movements during the redoubt battle. The battalions led by Roos which got separated from the main force are depicted with red colour while the others are in blue. The green squares with red edges are redoubts defended by the Russians while the white ones are redoubts taken by the Swedes. In the upper right corner the Russian fortified camp can be seen.

The Swedish main force which was intended to fight the battle of Poltava consisted of 18 infantry battalions and 109 squadrons of cavalry and dragoons. It was forced to pass a system of ten redoubts during its march north. The redoubts were manned by between 3 000 and 4 700 Russian infantry soldiers and they were also defended by a cavalry force of about 8 000 men. The Swedish infantry marched in four columns when they attempted to pass the redoubts. A third of the infantry became however so involved in attacking redoubts and the Russian cavalry that they did not notice when the rest of the army left the area. Ignorant of the whereabouts of the main force these six lost battalions led by major general Roos regrouped at the edge of a forest east of the redoubts (read more about these battalions on this page).

					Fourth Column Axel Sparre (2 600 men)
Jönköping Regiment	Närke-Värmland Regiment		Västmanland Regiment		Fourth Column Axel Sparre (2 600 men)
					Third Column Berndt Otto Stackelberg (1 900 men)
Uppland Regiment		Östergötland Regiment	Västerbotten Regiment		Third Column Berndt Otto Stackelberg (1 900 men)
					Second Column Carl Gustaf Roos (2 300 men)
	Livgardet's 2nd battalion	Livgardet's 3rd battalion	Dal-regiment		Second Column Carl Gustaf Roos (2 300 men)
					First Column Carl Magnus Posse (2 100 men)
	Skaraborg Regiment	Kalmar Regiment	Livgardet's grenadier bat	Livgardet's 1st battalion	First Column Carl Magnus Posse (2 100 men)

Swedish Cavalry Columns
(Rode behind the infantry and became divided into two groups of three columns each during the redoubt battle, passing the redoubts on separate sides)

There are several different suggestions about how many and which regiments were manning the redoubts. Depending on who you put most faith in the force consisted of either 3 000 men (Valery Moltusov), 4 000 men (Peter Englund and Angus Konstam) or 4 730 men (Pavel Krutov and Nicholas Dorrell). Furthermore Angus Konstam contradicts himself by also stating in a table that redoubts were only manned by the Belgorodski Regiment (with one battalion in the third redoubt and the second distributed between the other nine redoubts). The latter is however based on an older and incorrect view. Moltusov and Krutov are actually not in a disagreement regarding the number of soldiers in the redoubts. Moltusov has however allocated 1 700 men of this force south of the Russian fortified camp because he believes that there were two additional and larger redoubts in that location, which means that only 3 000 men remain in the ten redoubts blocking the Swedish army's advance. Bertil Wennerholm does not state how many men were in the redoubts but that the number of battalions was 7 or 8.

A presentation of all the details follows below (the information from Krutov has been passed on to me by Bengt Nilsson). Regiments in green are the ones who are included in the redoubt garrison by each historian and regiments in red are left out by the same. Regiments in yellow are the ones Dorrell has guessed to be part of the redoubt garrison.

	Wennerholm	Krutov	Moltusov	Dorrell
Belgorodski	3 battalions	1 067	1 067 (3 battalions)	674 (2 battalions)
von Delden's		893
Ivangorodski				707 (3 battalions)
Yamburgski (Vestov's)		682	682 (2 battalions)	800 (2 battalions)
Nelidov's		749	749 (2 battalions)
K. Nekludov'	2 battalions	705	705 (2 battalions)	650 (2 battalions)
Nechaev's Streltsy Reg.	2 or 3 battalions	634	634 (2 battalions)	250 (1 battalion)
Pereslavski				700 (2 battalions)
Verden's			893 (2 battalions)
Sum	7-8 battalions	4 730 men	4 730 or which 3 000 manned the ten redoubts	2 031 known 1 750 speculative 949 completely unknown

The uniforms for all the possible regiments are shown below. Von Delden's Regiment is missing because there were three regiment with that name and I do not know which one of these Krutov referred to.

At the redoubts there was also Russian cavalry commanded by Menshikov fighting the advancing Swedish army. Its composition is not less uncertain than the redoubt garrison. According to the poorly preserved Plan boevye porjadki the cavalry was deployed in two lines in the following manner:

First Line: (from right to left): Unknown horse grenadier regiment, Life Regiment, Bauer's regiment (?), Ingermanlandski, Vyatski, Sibirski, Archangelgorodski, unknown regiment, Moscowski, unknown regiment, unknown horse grenadier regiment.
Second Line: Nizhegorodski, Nevski or Kievski, Novotroitski, Vladimirski.

Another source from the Swedish War Archive (Krigsarkivet) has the following order of battle. The number of regiments is consistent with the 17 unnamed units in Peter the Great's Plan (which I have used for the Russian order of battle of the Main battle).

Third Line (behind the rear redoubt line)	Second Line (behind the rear redoubt line)		First Line (in front of the rear redoubt line)		Parallel with the Forward Redoubt Line
Four unnamed regiments	Ingermanlandski Vologodski	Vladimirski Novgorodski	Moskovski Byalostokski (Belozerski?)	Yaroslavski Sibirski	Life Regiment Menshikov's Life Squadron
	Kievski		Arkhangelgorodski		von der Roop's Horse Grenadiers

During the redoubt battle at least two of these regiments captured colours from the Swedish battalions. Novgorodski Dragoon Regiment captured the colonel's colour and a company colour from Hälsinge Regiment (which fought as a part of the Dal-regiment during the battle of Poltava). Von der Roop's horse grenadier were however even more successful and captured no less than 11 colours. These were taken from Dal-regiment (3), Jönköping (3), Västerbotten (1) and Närke-Värmland (4). However, of the colours taken from Närke-Värmland Regiment only one was actually their own colour. One of them came from Nyland regiment and two from Åbo & Björneborg's 3-männings, all of which fought as part of Närke-Värmland Regiment during the battle.