Battle of Grengam

After the Battle of Gangut, England, preoccupied with the growing power of the Russian army, formed a military alliance with Sweden . However, the demonstrative approach of the united Anglo-Swedish squadron to Revel did not force Peter I to seek peace, and the squadron retreated to the shores of Sweden. Upon learning of this, Peter I ordered the Russian fleet to be moved from the Aland Islands to Helsingfors , and several boats should be left to patrol near the squadron. Soon one of these boats, stranded, was captured by the Swedes, as a result of which Peter ordered the fleet to be returned back to the Aland Islands.

On July 26 (August 6), the Russian fleet under the command of Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn , consisting of 61 galleys and 29 boats, approached the Aland Islands ^[1] . Russian reconnaissance boats spotted a Swedish squadron between the islands of Lemland and Fritsberg. Because of the strong wind, it was impossible to attack her, and Golitsyn decided to go to the island of Grengam in order to prepare a good position among the skerries.

When the Russian ships approached Grengam on July 27 (August 7) , the Swedish fleet under the command of KG Schöblad, who had 156 guns, unexpectedly withdrew from the anchor and went towards rapprochement, subjecting the Russians to massive shelling. The Russian fleet hastily began to retreat to the shallows, where the Swedish ships pursuing it fell. In shallow water, more maneuverable Russian galleys and boats went on the attack and managed to board 4 frigates (34-gun " Stor-Phoenix ", 30-gun "Wenker", 22-gun "Kiskin" and 18-gun "Dansk-Ern" ), after which the rest of the Swedish fleet retreated.

The result of the battle at Grengam was the end of the undivided Swedish influence on the Baltic Sea and the assertion of Russia on it. The battle brought closer the conclusion of the Nystadt peace ^[2] .

• In memory of the victories at Gangut and at Grengam (won in different years on the same day - the day of memory of St. Panteleimon ) the St. Panteleimon Church was built in St. Petersburg . In 1914, on the initiative of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society on the facade of the Panteleimon Church, marble plaques with a list of regiments who fought at Gangut and Grengam were fortified.
• The medal "For the Battle of Grengam" was instituted.
• An exposition was opened in the building of the Panteleimon Church, telling about the battles of Peter’s galley and sailing fleet in the Baltic, about the courage of Russian soldiers in the Northern War and the heroism of sailors in defending the Hanko peninsula at the beginning of World War II.
• In St. Petersburg, on March 7, 2015, a bronze monument was opened on Voskresenskaya Embankment to the first sailing battleship of the Russian fleet “ Poltava ” - a participant in the Northern War. He was lowered from the stocks of the Admiralty in June 1712 and was part of the Baltic Fleet until the end of the Northern War. The inscription "The Battle of Grengame" is carved on the wall of the monument's pedestal with an illustration of the battlefield ^[3]

At the same time, a copy of a life-size historic ship is being made at Gazprom stocks.

• Grengam Sea Battle // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 tons (82 tons and 4 extra). - SPb. , 1893. - T. IXa. - p. 619.
• Fight off Grengam Island (inaccessible link) .