The Swedes continue to the area around Smorgon and ...

...Minsk, where the army goes into winter quarters.

Eight thousand dragoons under Major General von Krassow are left in western Poland.

The Swedish army corps commanded by the Swedish Pomeranian Ernst Detlev von Krassow enters Pomerania in October 1709, aggravating the situation.

Krassow's corps, together with units of the Polish king Stanislaw I, have failed to reinforce the army of king Charles XII of Sweden in Poltava as their eastward advance had been blocked by Russian and Polish-Lithuanian forces near Lemberg (Lviv, Lwow).

When Charles was defeated at Poltava, many Polish-Lithuanian magnates switched from supporting Stanislaw I to supporting Augustus the Strong, and under pursuit by Russian and Saxon forces, Krassow's corps had retreated westward through plague-stricken Poland, taking with them the abandoned Polish king as well as his court and wife.

Against the will of the Prussian king, whose troops are occupied in the War of the Spanish Succession, they cross through the Prussian New March and Prussian Pomerania to reach Damm in Swedish Pomerania with the main army and the Swedish border near Wollin, Gollnow and Greiffenhagen with smaller units on October 21.

Krassow, who on his march is followed and monitored by Prussian officials, denies having infected soldiers in his corps when confronted with suspicions.

In a meeting with Prussian official Scheden, he justifies his choice to march through infected Damm and probably infected Gollnow by responding that Gollnow is not infected at all, and that the situation in Damm will be dealt with by setting up a military corridor through the town separating the army from the inhabitants; Horn from Krassow's corps adds reports that in Damm, after the death of five hundred people, none of the remaining four hundred inhabitants had died for three weeks.

Part of Krassow's corps is indeed infected with the plague, contrary to his assurances, and the retreat from the infected Polish territories had been carried out in disorder.

According to Zapnik (2006), "hordes of unrestrained soldateska, without adequate supplies and driven by fear of pursuit by their adversaries, behaved in a way more resembling their treatment of enemy territory when they had entered Swedish Pomerania."