Peter the Great
Page 48
As commander-in-chief of the rebuilding army, Peter appointed Boyar Boris Sheremetev, who represented an unusual mixture of old and new in Peter's Russia. Twenty years older than the Tsar and a descendant of one of the nation's oldest families, Sheremetev had nevertheless been a youthful rebel against traditional Muscovite ways; once, as a young man, he was denied his father's blessing because he appeared before him with a shaven chin. Unlike most Russian noblemen, Sheremetev had traveled abroad and enjoyed the experience. In 1686, Sophia sent him on missions to King Jan Sobieski of Poland and to the Emperor Leopold in Vienna. In 1697, at forty-five, he went abroad again, this time as a private traveler on a kind of twenty-month sabbatical from his army duties. He traveled to Vienna, Rome, Venice and Malta, and called on the Emperor, the Pope, the Doge and the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, who made him a Knight and awarded him a Maltese Cross. Returning to Russia, Sheremetev wore his Cross so proudly that other, envious Russians took to asking snidely whether the boyar had become "the envoy of Malta." Sheremetev bore such comments serenely; Whitworth, the new English ambassador, called him "the politest man in the country."
Peter was pleased by Sheremetev's interest in Europe, but it was as a soldier rather than a diplomat that he used the boyar. Sheremetev's uncle had been commander-in-chief of the Russian army under Tsar Alexis until he was captured by the Tatars and forced to spend thirty years in captivity in the Crimea. Sheremetev himself had fought against both Poles and Tatars. In 1695 and 1696, when Peter attacked Azov, he conducted diversionary campaigns farther west that resulted in the capture of Tatar fortresses along the lower Dnieper. As a commander, Sheremetev was competent but cautious. He could be trusted to obey Peter's standing orders never to risk the army unless the odds were heavily in his favor.
While Sheremetev's new army was being assembled and re-equipped, Peter ordered the immediate construction of fortifications at Novgorod, Pskov and the Pechersk Monastery near Pskov. Women and children were harnessed along with men. Church services were halted so that the priests and monks could join the common people in moving earth. Houses and churches were pulled down to make way for the new ramparts. To set an example, Peter himself labored on the first entrenchments at Novgorod. When he left, he entrusted the effort to Lieutenant Colonel Shenshin, but Shenshin, thinking the Tsar had gone for good, quickly stopped his own manual labor. Peter returned and, discovering this, had him whipped in front of the rampart and sent him to Smolensk as a common soldier.
But Peter realized that, over the longer run, his army needed to be completely reformed as a permanent, professional body, based on a standard conscription term of twenty-five years. Even so, the first appearance of the new army in the field brought faint praise from a Russian observer in 1701:
A great number are called to serve and if they are examined closely the only result is a feeling of shame. The infantry are armed with bad muskets and do not know how to use them. They fight with their sidearms, with lances, and halberds and even these are blunt. For every foreigner killed there are three, four and even more Russians killed. As for the cavalry, we are ashamed to look at them ourselves, let alone show them to the foreigner. [They consist of] sickly, ancient horses, blunt sabers, puny, badly dressed men who do not know how to wield their weapons. There are some noblemen who do not know how to charge an arquebus, let alone hit their target. They care nothing about killing the enemy, but think only how to return to their homes. They pray that God will send them a light wound so as not to suffer much, for which they will receive a reward from the sovereign. In battle they hide in thickets; whole companies take cover in a forest or a valley and I have even heard noblemen say, "Pray God we may serve our sovereign without drawing our swords from their scabbards."
To remedy these conditions, Peter ordered a complete overhaul in army training, with new standards of discipline and new tactics based on European models. The effort had to start from the very beginning with the creation of new training manuals, the only infantry manuals previously available in Russia being dated 1647—and these had been copied from a German manual of 1615! Peter wanted emphasis placed on training for battle; he had no use for splendidly precise parade-ground formations with soldiers who "play fencing master with their muskets and march as if they were dancing." Neither did he care for the elaborate uniforms of Western soldiers, who looked like "dressed-up dolls." His new army would be dressed in simple green cloth as fast as Russian mills could turn it out. Where possible, his soldiers would wear boots and belts and three-cornered hats. Most important, however, was that they be equipped with modern weapons. Fortunately, while in England, Peter had bought between 30,000 and 40,000 modem flintlocks with new ring bayonets, which were distributed and were used as models for a homemade version. Production at first was low—6,000 in 1701—but by 1706 Russia was producing 30,000 flintlocks a year, and by 1711, 40,000.
Modem tactics were emphasized. The men were taught to fire on command by platoons and how to use the new bayonets. The cavalry was trained to move only on command, to wheel by squadron, to attack with swords and withdraw in an orderly fashion rather than abandon the field like a fleeing herd. Finally, Peter labored to infuse a new spirit into the army: It was to fight not in "the interests of His Tsarish Majesty" but—as Peter wrote the order in his own hand—in "the interests of the Russian state."
Slowly, despite innumerable difficulties, frequent desertions, much jealousy and quarreling among officers, the new army was forged. The most serious problem in terms of equipment lay with the artillery. Almost all the cannon of the Russian army, both heavy siege mortars and field artillery, had been lost at Narva and it was necessary to start from zero. Vinius, the director of the Post Office, was placed in charge, with the title Inspector of Artillery, and given sweeping powers. All Peter cared about was action. "For God's sake," he wrote to Vinius, "speed the artillery." The old man found that there was no time to mine and refine new metals; the new cannon would have to be cast from some more readily available materials. Peter gave the command: "From the whole of Tsardom, in leading towns, from churches and monasteries, a proportion of the bells are to be collected for guns and mortars." It was near-sacrilege, for the bells were almost as holy as the churches themselves and each played a familiar, timeworn part in people's lives. Nevertheless, by June 1701 one quarter of all the church bells in Russia were lowered from their towers, melted down and recast as cannon. Vinius had trouble with the iron founders who cast the guns, glowing red hot in the fires. They drank too much and even the knout could not force them to hurry. But behind Vinius loomed the wrath of the Tsar. "Tell the burgomasters and show them this letter," Peter wrote to Vinius, "that if through their delays the gun carriages are not ready, they will pay not only with money but with their heads."
In spite of the difficulty in finding workmen and suitable alloys for his iron, Vinius performed miracles. In May 1701, he sent twenty new cannon to the army at Novgorod, seventy-six following soon after. By the end of the year, he had produced more than 300 new guns as well as founding a school where 250 boys were learning to become cannon makers and artillerymen. Peter was pleased. "It is good work," he wrote, "and necessary, for time is like death." In 1702, despite the old man's age, Peter sent Vinius to Siberia to seek out new sources of iron and copper. Between 1701 and 1704, seven new ironworks were developed beyond the Urals, producing an ore which the English ambassador reported to be "admirably good, better than that of Sweden." The Russian artillery continued to grow, and cannon cast in the Urals began to fire at the Swedes. By 1705, the English ambassador
declared that the Russian artillery was "at present extremely well served."
Peter's attempt to protect Russia included discreet requests in two capitals, The Hague and Vienna, for help in mediating between Sweden and Russia. Both came to nothing. Andrei Matveev, the son of the statesman Matveev, had been sent to Holland as Peter's representative. There, he found William III and the States General wholly consumed by another issue. In the
same month as the Battle of Narva, the event which all Europe dreaded had finally happened: Carlos II of Spain had died, leaving his throne to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. The Sun King had accepted on behalf of his grandson, and Europe was girding for war. In addition, Holland had no wish to take sides between Sweden, to which the Dutch were bound by treaty, and Russia, which provided them with the lucrative Archangel trade. Matveev could manage only to buy 15,000 muskets through Witsen and send them along to Russia.
In Vienna, Prince Peter Golitsyn appeared incognito and appealed for an audience with the Emperor. He was kept waiting for seven weeks, meanwhile negotiating through the Russian-speaking Jesuit priest Father Woolf with anyone who would speak to him. Few were willing. "They all avoid me and do not want to talk to me," he reported helplessly to Golovin in Russia. So low was Russian prestige as a result of Narva that Count Kaunitz, the imperial Vice Chancellor, laughed in Golitsyn's face, and the French and Swedish ambassadors made fun of him in public. When Golitsyn finally saw the Emperor, Leopold was polite, but as he too was preparing for the great War of the Spanish Succession, he offered nothing concrete. "It is necessary to try every possible way to get a victory over the enemy," Golitsyn wrote pleadingly to Golovin. "God forbid that the present summer should pass away with nothing. ... It is absolutely necessary for our sovereign to get even a small victory by which his name may become famous in Europe as before. Then we can conclude a peace, while now people only laugh at our troops and at our conduct of the war."
Rebuffed in his tentative diplomatic approaches, Peter made .
sure of the constancy of his one ally. He arranged to meet with
Augustus, whom he had not seen since their first meeting in Rawa
two and a half years earlier when the King-Elector first proposed
this war against Sweden. Now, Augustus was nervous. Although
he had not been defeated, he had seen both his allies, Denmark
and Russia, swiftly and ruthlessly struck down by the young Swedish King. He had to consider whether to continue the war or come to terms with Sweden.
Peter met the King-Elector in February 1701 at Birze in an area of Livonia controlled by Saxon troops. In ten days of meetings, punctuated with banquets and celebrations, the two monarchs reconfirmed their alliance. Peter informed Augustus that, despite the defeat at Narva, Russia meant to continue the war. Augustus, as the one undefeated member of the coalition, was able to impose stiff terms on Peter. The Tsar agreed that when the spoils were divided, Livonia and Estonia should go to Poland; Ingria alone was reserved for Russia. Peter also promised 15,000 to 20,000 Russian infantrymen—to be paid, equipped and supplied by Russia—to operate under Saxon command in Livonia. Further, he agreed to pay Augustus a war subsidy of 100,000 roubles a year for three years. It was a heavy price, and once again the monasteries and merchants of Muscovy were painfully squeezed. But it was essential to Peter that Russia have an ally against the Swedes.
There were light moments during this diplomatic summit. One day the Tsar and the King-Elector held a personal artillery competition, each firing cannonballs at a mark in an open field. To Peter's chagrin, Augustus, who had no experience with artillery, hit the mark twice, while Peter himself never hit it at all. The next day, there was a banquet which lasted all night. In the morning, Augustus was fast asleep, but Peter arose alone to go to Catholic mass. His interest in the service prompted his Catholic hosts to propose a union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches, but Peter replied, "Sovereigns have rights only over the bodies of their people. Christ is the sovereign of their souls. For such a union, a general consent of the people is necessary and that is in the power of God alone."
In the exhilarating weeks immediately following the Battle of Narva, Charles was preparing to do just what Peter feared: follow up his victory by invading Russia. Some of the King's counselors advised that he could easily occupy the Kremlin, unthrone Peter, proclaim Sophia and sign a new peace treaty which would add new territories to Sweden's Baltic empire. The prospect glittered before Charles' eyes. "The King thinks now about nothing except war," wrote Magnus Stenbock a few weeks after the battle. "He no longer troubles himself about the advice of other people and he seems to believe that God communicated directly to him what he ought to do. Count Piper [the King's chief minister] is much troubled about it because the weightiest things are resolved without any preparation and in general things go on in a way that I do not dare commit to paper." And in December, Karl Magnus Posse, an officer of the Guards, wrote back to Sweden, "In spite of the cold and scarcity and although water is standing in huts, the King will not let us go into winter quarters. I believe that if he had only eight hundred men left, he would invade Russia with them, without the slightest thought as to what they would live on. And if one of our men is shot, he cares no more about it than he would for a louse and never troubles himself about such a loss."
Despite Charles' impatience, large-scale pursuit into Russia at this time proved impossible. The Swedish army, victorious over its human enemies, was soon beset by more dangerous foes: hunger and disease. Livonia had been devastated by the Russians; what food there was had been eaten by Peter's soldiers. No replenishments could come from Sweden before spring, and the Swedish cavalry horses soon were gnawing bark from trees. Weakened by hunger, Charles' regiments were also ravaged by disease. Fever and dysentery ("the bloody flux") spread through the camp, and the men began to die: 400 from the Vestmanland Regiment, 270 from the Delcarlian Regiment. By spring, less than half the army was still fit for action. Reluctantly, Charles bowed to necessity and sent his regiments into winter quarters. The King himself occupied the ancient castle of Lais, near Dorpat. There, he remained for five months, passing the time with amateur theatricals, masquerades, suppers and violent snowball fights. Magnus Stenbock organized an orchestra and played for the King music which he had composed himself.
As spring arrived in 1701, Charles still was considering the idea of invading Russia, but with less enthusiasm. His contempt for the Russians as soldiers had grown and he thought them scarcely worth fighting against. Another victory over Peter would only make Europe laugh, he felt, whereas a victory over Augustus' disciplined Saxon troops would set the continent to nodding appreciatively. More practically, Charles decided that he could not march on Russia while an undefeated Saxon army was operating in his rear.
By June, 10,000 fresh recruits had arrived from Sweden, swelling Charles' army to 24,000. Leaving a detachment to face the Russians, Charles and the main army of 18,000 marched south, intending to cross the Dvina River near Riga and destroy the army of 9,000 Saxons and 4,000 Russians commanded by the Saxon General Steinau. The river was 650 yards wide, and the Swedish crossing was practically an amphibious landing. With the help of a smokescreen created by burning damp hay and manure to protect the boatloads of Swedish soldiers, and with the support of heavy guns mounted on Swedish ships anchored in the river, the assault was successful. Charles himself led the first wave of infantry, brushing aside the fears of his worried officers with the declaration that he would die only at the moment chosen by God, not before. Unfortunately for Charles, the Swedish cavalry could not cross, and the Saxon army, although badly battered, got away. The behavior of the troops which Peter had sent to aid Augustus was not auspicious. Four Russian regiments, held in Steinau's reserve, panicked and fled before even entering the battle. Charles' regard for Peter's army sank lower.
Soon after this inconclusive victory in July 1701, Charles, then nineteen years old, made a strategic decision which was to profoundly affect his own life, and Peter's: He decided to concentrate on the total defeat of Augustus before invading Russia. At the time, this decision seemed reasonable. To attack both his enemies simultaneously was impossible, and of the two, Saxony was active while Russia was inert. In addition, Saxony and even Poland were finite entities; the Elector and his armies could be pinned down and destroyed, whereas Russia was so vast that the Swedish spear might penetrate deeply and stil
l not find the heart of the huge organism.
And there was Charles' outraged morality. Augustus, his cousin, a cultured European ruler, was a treacherous scoundrel, far worse than the Tsar. Peter at least had declared war before attacking, but Augustus had simply marched into Livonia without warning. How could Charles know that even if he made peace with Augustus, the King-Elector would not break his word and attack him again the moment the Swedes invaded Russia? In sum, Charles told a friend that he considered it "derogatory to myself and my honor to have the slightest dealings with a man who had acted in such a dishonorable and shameful way."
Finally, Charles was baffled and worried about Augustus' relationship with the vast commonwealth of Poland, over which the Elector exercised an uneasy kingship. So far, Augustus had conducted his war against Sweden only in his capacity as Elector of Saxony. Now, the Saxon army had retreated into what was in effect the sanctuary of Poland, and Charles' army could not follow. Cardinal Radiejowski, the Primate of Poland, had insisted that the Polish commonwealth had nothing to do with the war against Sweden which King Augustus had made without its consent, and that therefore Charles must not set foot on Polish soil. In a letter to the Cardinal on July 30, 1701, Charles replied that Augustus had forfeited the Polish crown by making war without the consent of the Polish nobility and commonwealth, and the only way for Poland to ensure peace was to summon a Diet, dethrone Augustus and elect a new king. He promised that until he received the Cardinal's answer, the Swedish army would not violate the Polish frontier by pursuing Augustus onto Polish soil.