Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  The second Swedish group, meanwhile, had reached Repnin’s works and quickly drove out the last Russian troops. Goltz, finally aroused enough to take action, sent two dragoon regiments to support Repnin. They arrived in time to attack the Swedes who were busy cleaning out the camp. Before they moved in, Rehnskiöld arrived with the first of his cavalry, two squadrons of Household Dragoons followed by the Drabants. They fought resolutely against the two Russian regiments until the rest of the Household Regiment and some of the Småland Regiment of Horse arrived. The Russian dragoons broke and fled. Goltz fed the rest of his three brigades into the fight. One by one they were routed. 2,500 Swedish cavalry had bested Goltz’s 10,000 horse and driven them from the field.

  With the fury of the battle raging to the south, Scheremetyev in his northern camp decided to raid the Swedish baggage train. He advanced on the bridge the Swedes had constructed for their last foot and horse to across the river. Arriving at the bridge, Scheremetyev found the Västebotten Regiment on station after a forced march. Scheremetyev retreated and prepared to evacuate his camp. He might have been routed by Karl, who was forming up his army to attack the north camp, but a false message indicating Rehnskiöld’s cavalry was in trouble diverted the king and Scheremetryev escaped.

  The Battle of Holovzin was not the decisive conflict Karl needed. Once more the Russian Army had slipped away. Karl lost 267 dead and 1,000 wounded. Official Russian records show 977 killed or missing and 675 wounded, but their losses were certainly much higher. The fight did, however, clear the way to the Dnieper.

  The Swedes had prevailed, but there had been a noticeable improvement in the Russian soldier. For almost 60 years the Russians had been employing foreign officers, as low as captain, to modernize and train their armies. Gradually, these were replaced by trained, experienced Russian officers until Peter’s army was now a Russian Army. The private soldier had also developed, along with training methods and a corps of NCOs. Repnin’s soldiers had mostly retired in order, exhibiting courage and discipline. The outcome might have been different had he not decided to bolt at the beginning of the battle.

  The king encamped at Mohilev on the Dnieper on July 9. The rains continued and illness spread in the army. Ostensibly Karl stopped to rest his troops, but perhaps more importantly he was waiting for Lewenhaupt with his supply train and 12,500 troops. The Livonian commander had left Riga the end of June, but the rain and mud had slowed the progress of his heavy wagons to a crawl. Karl needed the supplies. In the distance stretched fire and smoke as far as the eye could see. How maddingly close, 35 miles to Smoleüsk, 150 to Moscow, but he would require Lewenhaupt’s supplies to get there.

  The lack of food for the troops and fodder for the horses was becoming critical. Karl made the decision to turn south into Severia, an area neither decimated by war nor burned by Peter. And so a race began for the strategic points in the province or so Karl thought. Actually, Peter had left contingents there from an earlier campaign against the Ukrainian Cossacks and the important fortresses were taken over by these troops. Peter needed only to rush reinforcements to them to hold the province. Still the Swedes did find provisions in the province. But the move south also widened the distance between Karl and Lewenhaupt. Peter watched the movement of the two Swedish elements and recognized the opportunity presented to the Russians.

  He detached a force of 6,795 dragoons and 4,830 infantry, which he mounted, to intercept the reinforcements and supplies. Peter tried to catch Lewenhaupt before he crossed the Dnieper, but he was too late. Peter’s column met the train at Lesnaja and attacked. The battle raged all day. The Swedes did their best to protect the wagons, but many were destroyed. At nightfall both sides broke off the engagement. Lewenhaupt made a night march to Propoisk which proved to be a disaster. Between the battle and the march he found his forces halved. Of his original 12,000 men only 6,000 remained. Some had been killed in the battle, some were captured and some deserted. About 1,000 eventually found their way back to Riga. The Swedes had fought well, but so had the Russians. Peter considered this his first real victory over a regular Swedish force.

  Lewenhaupt burned what was left of the supply train, convinced he could not protect it with so few men. Then he left to rendezvous with Karl. Unencumbered with the wagons, Lewenhaupt traveled fast, catching up with Karl in Severia. The king showed no sign of displeasure. He maintained the general had acquitted himself well, both in the movement of the train and in the battle. Karl praised him for his stand.

  The loss of supplies at Lesnaja decided Karl’s next move. On October 11, 1708, he sent his vanguard into the Ukraine. The king followed, joined by Mazepa (who conversed with Karl in Latin) and 2,000 Cossacks at the border. On November 2 Karl forced a crossing of the Desna River into the Ukraine at Mezin against considerable Russian resistance. However, that same night Menshikov besieged Baturin, Mazepa’s capital. The next day Baturin fell to the Russians, who burned the town and destroyed the arms and ammunition the Swedes needed. Food and forage, on the other hand, were not a problem. There was grain, fruit, tobacco and livestock in abundance. It is for good reason the Ukraine is called the breadbasket of Eastern Europe. Karl beat the tsar to the fortified towns of Romhy on the Sula River and Hadyach on the Psiol thanks to Mazepa’s knowledge of the country and the people.

  It was easy living for the Swedes that summer, but the winter of 1708–09 was one of the most severe in Europe in a century. The Sound froze so deep that heavy wagons could cross on the ice, fruit trees were killed in Germany, and the canals of Venice were covered with ice. In the Ukraine snow covered the ground from the 1st of October to the 5th of April. Disease and malnutrition stalked the army and many died. There were also skirmishes with Russian troops that further reduced Swedish numbers. Peter sent garrisons to towns between the Swedes and roads leading to Moscow. One of these was Poltava, and another Veprik. Karl’s plan was to move north toward Moscow when the 1709 campaign season opened. To prepare he began attacking these outposts that stood between his army and the Russian capital. He took Veprik at the cost of 400 men, mostly from the fire of Cossack riflemen who could far outrange the Swedish smoothbore muskets.

  In March the hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Konstantin Hordienko, joined Karl bringing 1,500 men. More importantly he had munitions at the strongholds of Koleberda and Perevolotjna, and a fleet capable of carrying 3,000 men that would be invaluable when the campaign season began. But again Russian troops and allied Cossacks raided the two strongholds upon learning of Hordienko’s move to the Swedish camp and they burned the fleet.

  In April Karl moved against Poltava. By early May he had begun building the siege trench works. By the end of May he had his main army around Poltava. The Swedish army had been reduced from the original 33,000 men to about 25,000. Peter had suffered even worse, but he was in a position to refill his ranks. Karl cast about for reinforcements.

  He asked King Stanislaus and General Krassaw for help. However, the commonwealth’s king had all he could handle with Sieneawski gaining the upper hand thanks to the support of Russian forces under Goltz. Krassaw had moved toward Pomerania to protect new recruits expected from Sweden. Karl turned to Devlet-Grei, khan of the Crimean Tartars, through negotiations sponsored by Mazepa and Hordienko. All seemed to go well. The khan even had troops at the Ukrainian border, but they would get no further. On May 14 Peter’s troops struck the Zaporozhian capital of Sich and destroyed it. This was a not very subtle suggestion of how the tsar dealt with anyone supporting the Swedes. He next made a display of increased activity at his naval base at Azov, an open threat against the Ottoman porte. The Turkish ruler passed the order down to the khan to stay clear of the Swedes. Karl was not going to get help from the south.

  By the end of May 1709 Poltava on the west bank of the Vorskla River was fully invested. Peter moved the main Russian army to the opposite side of the river in an attempt to lift the siege. In mid–June the Russians tried to cross the river at Poltava and relieve the siege, but were thrown ba
ck. If Peter was to save the town and its garrison he would have to cross far enough away to evade the Swedes. Then he could build a fortified camp and force Karl to attack him in this strong position or, if the Swedish king did not, Peter could raid and harry the already weakened Swedish army until it lifted the siege. Either way the road to Kharkov, and Moscow, would be blocked.

  Peter would have to hurry for he received word from the Poltava garrison commander that he could not hold out much longer. The crossing was scheduled for the night of June 16–17 and would be made at Petrovka north of Poltava. Diversionary assaults at Poltava and further downstream would hold the Swedes in place long enough for the advanced corps to dig in.

  The Swedes were well aware of the Russian plans from deserters, spies and reconnaissance by the Vallochi. Karl had his own plan. The Swedes would let a large part of the army cross then attack and annihilate the first section, sealing off the landing site. In this way they could wipe out a sizable part of Peter’s army and discourage further attempts to relieve Poltava.

  Rehnskiöld moved to Petrovka with ten cavalry and eight infantry regiments. Karl remained at Poltava to drive back the other assaults. The night of June 16–17 crossings were made at three points. Rönne crossed north of Poltava at Petrovka, an assault was launched from directly opposite Poltava and a third to the south where General Hallart was crossing. Troops at Poltava threw back the attack. The king, on the morning of his twenty-seventh birthday, took a battalion of Dalesmen south and drove back the vanguard of Hallart’s troops. Having cleared the river bank, the Dalesmen came under rifle fire from Hallart’s Cossacks occupying an island in the river. Karl called in some of his own Zaporozhian Cossack riflemen and watched from the shore as the two sides popped away at each other. It was a brisk exchange with casualties on both sides. A Drabant aid beside Karl was shot dead during this exchange. As Karl turned and rode up the bank a rifle bullet hit the king in the foot. The projectile entered Karl’s heel and passed diagonally through the foot, breaking a number of bones and exiting near the big toe. It was the shot that, quite literally, brought down an empire.

  The wound occurred at 8:00 in the morning as the king was leaving the river to review the defenses around Poltava. He did not let the injury deter him. At 11:00 he finally reigned in at his headquarters. By then his foot was soaked with blood. Blood oozed from his boot leaving a crimson trail along his route and a pool of blood wherever he stopped. As he dismounted, he fainted from pain or loss of blood and was carried to his cot. His surgeon picked out the pieces of bone fragments and dressed the wound. By the next day infection had set in. From the 19th to the 20th, the king was feverish and his life hung in the balance. At one point his doctors gave him but two hours to live.

  Meanwhile, command passed to Rehnskiöld who counseled with the other senior officers on whether to carry out the plan to attack the Russians at Petrovka. The decision was made not to risk battle partly because the enemy was found to be strongly entrenched, but the primary reason was the uncertainty of the king’s condition. The Swedish command structure was paralyzed at a moment in history when only decisive action could save the nation.

  Peter did not delay in taking advantage of the situation, of which he was fully informed. Between June 19 and 21, while Karl’s fever was at its height, he moved nearly all of his army across the Vorskla and built a strong fortified camp. On the 26th the Russians moved closer to Poltava, within cannon range, and built an even more extensive works. It was clear Peter was not going to meet the Swedes in open battle, but would force them to attack him in his fortified stronghold. This was the exactly the situation Karl had been waiting for: the Russian army was cornered, in a position where he could not only force a battle, but one from which there was no escape route. Except Karl would not be there to lead the army.

  Operational command passed to Field Marshal Rehnskiöld, who did not get along with Lewenhaupt. This disrupted the communications flow within the command structure, problems that did not exist when Karl was in charge.

  The Russian position was strong. The camp was well fortified with earthworks mounting seventy cannon. Inside were 30,000 infantry. Having learned the lesson of Narva, the walls were built with gaps so troops could be moved to the outside rapidly. Surrounding the camp was a series of impenetrable woods and marshes except to the southwest where a gap existed. Across this space Peter had constructed six redoubts to break up any coordinated attack. Being built at a right angle to these structures was another series of four redoubts forming a T. Passing enemy troops could be raked with musket fire if they tried to pass without taking this first line of defense. Between the redoubts and the camp were 10,000 Russian cavalry. It was a solid defense, but deemed not impregnable by the Swedes.

  By June 26 Karl had recovered sufficiently to participate in the planning of the attack. The army would form up in the night and slip past the redoubts before sunrise. The cavalry would be brought in to drive off the Russian horse, then the infantry would charge the works where the Russians were crowded into a small space, forfeiting much of their numerical advantage. The plan was daring, but no more so than other attacks Karl had led successfully. Lewenhaupt was in charge of the 9,000 infantrymen. Creutz took Rehnskiöld’s position as commander of the 13,000 cavalrymen. Karl would accompany the infantry borne in a litter carried by two horses. The fever had lifted, but he was still too weak to raise himself.

  In the early morning hours of June 28, 1709, the infantry rolled out and began to form up. But Creutz’s cavalry did not arrive until after 3:00 a.m., delaying the assault. In the meantime the extent of the redoubts projecting forward was discovered and the original infantry line formation changed to columns to get past the redoubts. Lewenhaupt, who should have been coordinating all this with Rehnskiöld, was on the far right, totally left out of the chain of command. The infantry reformed into five columns with Major General Stackelberg, commanding the middle column, given orders to attack the first two partially constructed redoubts.

  By the time all was made ready, it was dawn and the element of surprise was lost. The infantry started forward with the cavalry to the rear. Stackelberg easily took the first two redoubts, but then Major General Roo with six battalions attacked the third and fourth redoubts and got so caught up in the assault the rest of the army passed him by without his noticing.

  As the infantry passed the last redoubt, they were attacked by the Russian cavalry. The Swedish horse charged in and a vicious cavalry fight ensued. Finally, the Russian cavalry was swept from the field and the infantry began to form up in front of the camp for the assault. This organization took place in a low area where the troops were not vulnerable to the camp’s heavy guns. Lewenhaupt, who had wandered off to the right with his column after passing the redoubts, had finally rejoined the main force, but Rehnskiöld discovered they were still short a third of the infantry. Rehnskiöld waited for two hours for Roo’s regiments, all in vain.

  Roo had finally given up on his attack on the redoubts, but by then he had completely lost contract with the rest of the army. Because of the poor communication, he wasn’t even sure where he should be or where the other regiments had gone. His force of 2,600 men was down to 1,500 and he pulled back, retreating to the south instead of following the rest of the infantry through the redoubts to the interior of the fort. He tried to make the lines around Poltava, but the Russians got word of his predicament and dispatched Menshikov with an infantry and cavalry detachment that surrounded him, cutting his units to pieces and eventually forcing him to surrender.

  The loss of Roo’s infantry was decisive. The news boosted the morale of the Russians and they now began to leave their fortifications and form up in the open. They were arranged in two lines, 22,000 Russians backed by 70 cannon, opposite Rehnskiöld’s 4,000 Swedes. Even so the Swedes charged. Lewenhaupt’s right wing drove the Russians back enough so his men captured a few field guns which they turned on the enemy. But a gap opened between the right and left flanks, and the Russians poured t
hrough it.

  Within half an hour the battle was lost and the Swedes began to fall back. The king’s litter was shot to pieces. He was put on a horse and it was killed. A second mount finally carried him from the field along with his fleeing soldiers. The Swedish baggage train at Pushkarivka was guarded by a cavalry regiment. The remnants of the Swedish army collected there. Mazepan and Hordienko set up defensive positions at that point and the Swedish artillery was brought up. The two regiments left at Poltava cut their way to Pushkarivka. Russian pursuit was halted in its tracks.

  Rehnskiöld, Piper and Prince Maximilian (a colonel of dragoons) were prisoners. The Swedes lost 6,901 dead and 2,760 taken prisoner. Russian losses were 1,345 killed and 3,290 wounded. Karl gathered his remaining 16,000 men for an orderly retreat.

  By the afternoon of the 28th the baggage train was on its way toward the Dnieper, followed by the infantry and cavalry. They marched well into the night, quite a feat for an army that had just fought an exhausting battle. While the troops rested Creutz brought horses to the remaining infantry so that all were mounted for greater speed.

  The army reached the Dnieper by June 30 at Perevolotjna, but news arrived that the Russians were in pursuit. Not everyone would be able to across the river as there were only small fishing boats available to carry the troops. It was agreed that as many of the Cossacks as possible should be transferred as the Russians would treat them badly if captured.