[4] After the Swedish commander, Wilhelm von Schlippenbach, refused to give up the fort immediately, the Russians began bombarding it.

[6][7] The last party of reinforcements arrived on 18 October under the command of Hans Georg Leijon; it consisted of about 50 grenadiers, only 34 of whom reached the fortress defence due to the shortage of boats.

[1] On Leijon's arrival only 225 remaining soldiers were fit for duty, the rest had been killed or wounded by the artillery bombardment, or suffered disease.

Nöteborg had originally been built by the people of Novgorod four centuries earlier, under the name of Orekhovo or Oreshek, on a small island of the river Neva, just where it flows out from Lake Ladoga.

The difficult job of securing the outwork on the Neva's bank was handed over to the Preobrazhensky Regiment, which, at four o'clock in the morning of 12 October, embarked towards the far coast of the river.

[4] Using a fleet of small boats, which they brought down from the river Svir through Lake Ladoga, the Russians succeeded in completely blockading the fort.

Schlippenbach requested a four-day wait to allow him to consult with General Arvid Horn, his superior, who was in Narva;[4] however Russian forces opened fire on the same day.

In the second and third assaults, men from the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky Regiments landed on the fort island and proceeded to erect escalades to scale the walls.

Major Andrei Karpov was severely injured during the attack; Peter, upon receiving news of this and the other casualties, decided to call off the assault on the fort, but the orders did not reach the front lines.

[5] Golitsyn finally continued the attacks, and ordered the landing ships to depart, putting his troops in the position to choose either death or victory.

[4][11] Following the unrelenting but relatively fruitless assault on the fort by Russian forces, which lasted for 13 hours, the Swedish commandant accepted to capitulate on honorable conditions, realizing he could not defend the fortress for much longer.

[3] According to Swedish sources, 83 soldiers left the Nöteborg fortress in "good condition to fight", taking another 156 wounded or sick.

Menshikof, who had shown great military ability, was appointed governor of the newly named fort, and from this time dates his intimate friendship with Peter and his prominence in public life.