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Rare separately issued battle plan of the Siege of Narva, engraved by Fritzsch, based upon original drawings by Zacharias Wolf, a Swedish Engineer and Officer who was present at the battle and would go on to have a distinguished career as a military officer.
The map shows the fortifications, troop placements, batteries and movements of the Siege of Narva, in November 1700, which took place during the Great Northern War. The various troop positions are shown, including the names of commanding officers. The plan is one of the most detailed surviving battle accounts and is apparently very rare, as we could find only a single reference to the map's existence in a biographical sketch about the life of Zacharias Wolf.
Narva is located at the eastern tip of Estonia, on the Russian border. Navra was taken by the Russians during the Livonian War in 1558 and a later by the Swedes in 1581, under the command of Pontus De la Gardie. A fire nearly completely destroyed the town in 1659, after which time the town was rebuilt. The new buildings included the defensive walls and structures seen in De Fer's plan, which included a system of bastions, planned by Swedish military engineer Erik Dahlbergh, making it one of the most heavily fortified towns in Northern Europe.
Narva was the location of the first major battle between the forces of King Charles XII of Sweden and Tsar Peter I of Russia, during the Great Northern War, where legend tells that the Swedes defeated the Russians, despite being out numbered 4 to 1.
