Battle of Hollingstedt

The Battle of Hollingstedt was fought on 24 January 1713 between Sweden and Russia, in the German theatre of the Great Northern War. Whilst in Ottoman exile, Charles XII of Sweden commanded Magnus Stenbock to lead an army from Swedish Pomerania east, against Russia. Circumstances forced Stenbock to march west into neutral Holstein-Gottorp, pursued by a large coalition army. The Swedes took position west of the Treene river, only sparing the bridge at Hollingstedt (east of the river) where an outpost was established.

A Russian force under Rudolph Felix Bauer was sent to dislodge them. The Swedes, under Diedrik Johan von Löwenstern and Christer Reinhold von Schlippenbach, quit the village after some fighting to defend the bridge. Several Russian attacks were repulsed until Bauer forded the frozen river elsewhere. The Swedes counter-attacked his bridgehead, forcing him back over the river. Consequently, Stenbock believed a general battle was imminent; he deployed his troops in exposed weather for three days before withdrawing closer to Tönning, which the Gottorpers permitted him to use. He was eventually pushed inside the fortress by the coalition and besieged until his surrender in May 1713.