The Campaign of Grodno was a plan developed by Johann Patkul and Otto Arnold von Paykull during the Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a part of the Great Northern War.

In divided areas the allies would jointly strike the Swedish troops occupied in Poland, in order to neutralize the influence the Swedes had in the Polish politics.

However, the Swedish forces under Charles XII successfully outmaneuvered the allies, installed a Polish king in favor of their own and finally won two decisive victories at Grodno and Fraustadt in 1706.

This resulted in the Treaty of Altranstädt (1706) in which Augustus renounced his claims to the Polish throne, broke off his alliance with Russia, and established peace between Sweden and Saxony.

Meanwhile, Frederick IV of Denmark attacked the Swedish allied duchies of Holstein and Gottorp in order to secure his rear, before commencing with the planned invasion of Scania, which had been previously annexed by Sweden in the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658.

After this development, the Swedish army under Charles XII was free to sail east across the Baltic Sea to tackle the remaining opponents, Russia and Saxony.

[4] In response to this threat, Augustus lifted the siege of Riga and marched back across the Düna river in order to observe the Swedish movements.

[10] After engagements at Pultusk and Toruń in 1703[11] Augustus was finally forced to abdicate the Polish throne in 1704, in favor of a monarch installed by the Swedes, Stanisław I Leszczyński.

[1] In early March 1705 the Russian field marshal Boris Sheremetyev set up a meeting with the Saxon general Otto Arnold von Paykull in order to agree to a common course of action in the ensuing campaign.

von Paykull, inspired by Patkul's blueprint, advocated it as a way to lure Charles and the main Swedish army out of Greater Poland eastward towards Brest-Litovsk.

[17] A compromise was made between the two strategies and it was decided that Sheremetyev should engage Lewenhaupt at the same time as Ogilvy marched towards the strongly fortified city of Grodno.

Despite the outcome Lewenhaupt chose to withdraw back to Riga having suffered notable losses himself, leaving Courland open for Peter I to occupy with freshly arrived reinforcements.

[19] It now seems, as if the war will begin for real and have every Swede at once, by the great number of nations surrounding him, engrossed....After having received this information while at Rawicz, Charles struck camp on August 8 and marched closer to Warsaw in order to fully protect the city until the coronation of Leszczyński was completed.

[18] He left General Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld with 10,000 men at Poznań to guard against the main Saxon army under Schulenburg which threatened to enter Poland.

[23] Later the same month, on October 25, the allies made a quick push to destroy the bridge going over the Vistula, from Warsaw to Praga, in order to slow down the Swedish troop movements.

[25] Being somewhat delayed, Charles broke up his winter quarters at Blonie on January 9, 1706, and approached Grodno with the main Swedish army of 20,000 men[26] and the 10,000 Poles and Lithuanians.

[26] However, Charles commenced with a rapid winter march; this was typical for the Swedes, dating back to the time of Gustavus Adolphus, but quite unusual for continental armies.

While they disagreed among themselves about their course of action Charles' army appeared before the fortifications of Grodno on January 24, after a quick march, forcing the allies to stay in the city.

Charles instead decided to try and starve them out by crossing the Neman river on January 15, encircling the city from the east, forcing 15,000 Russian cavalry to withdraw.

[36] Meanwhile, on February 7 Schulenburg had received word of Charles' crossing of the Vistula, and begun his march with the Saxon army in order to beat Rehnskiöld's smaller force near Poznań.

[40] Shortly after, on February 22, Carl Gustaf Dücker with 1,000 dragoons fought off 7,000 Poles and Russians under Christian Felix Bauer at Olkieniki near Vilnius, capturing and killing hundreds of allied troops.

[43] Ogilvy carried out the order on April 4 and managed to break out unseen with his reduced army, leaving 8,000 men behind at Grodno who had died of starvation and sickness.

[47] After his pursuit of the Russian army, having chased them out of Lithuania, Charles saw his opportunity to march back to Poland in order to meet up with Rehnskiöld, in preparation for the invasion of Saxony.

[48] Meanwhile, Schulenburg did what he could in an attempt to increase the Saxon army to withstand the expected invasion from the Swedes; something which was proven close to impossible after the battle of Fraustadt.

[49] In a last attempt to stop the invasion, Augustus II of Saxony offered Courland to Sweden and Lithuania to the newly crowned king Stanisław I of Poland.