Saturday 12 July 2014
In September of 1707, Swedish king Karl XII left occupied Saxony, accompanied by an army of 43,000. Besides this army, count Lewenhaupt, one of his best generals, waited for him in Poland with another 20,000 men, with another 15,000 awaiting back in Sweden and Finland. How all these men, along with Swedens position as a superpower, came crashing down at the fields of Poltava, will be revealed here.
At this time, the Russian czar Peter the Great, was in Lithuania trying to revive the party of former Polish king, August the Strong, who was also the elector of Saxony, who had been replaced with Stanisław I Leszczyński under the pressure of Karl XII and his armies.
The czar had ordered his troops to retreat at the first sign of Karl XII following them, and the Russians were not late to oblige his command.
The Russian forces had entered and left Poland over 20 times, and this was not a daunting task.
The nobles in Poland were one of the strongest aristocracies in the world, and the nobles were extremely wary against any attempts of the monarch to solidify his hold, and because of this Poland was a very open country, with no fortifications protecting the borders.
During the time Karl was in Saxony, the Russians had advanced all the way to Lemberg, in southern Poland, and now Peter the Great was in Grodno in Lithuania.
Karl left Poland in Stanislaus' hands, who was given 10,000 Swedish and Polish forces to secure his throne.
In January 1708, Karl marched on Grodno through the ice and snow. He had already crossed the river Nemen, situated close to Grodno, before the czar was informed of Karl closing in.
After capturing Grodno from the fleeing Russians, all Russian troops in Lithuania withdrew to the voivodeship Minski, close to the Russian border.
The Swedish followed them, and both the fleeing Russians and the pursuing Swedish marched day and night, through the winter hardships.
From Grodno all the way to Dniepr, the area is filled with marshes and wilderness, and there were little supplies to be found anywhere.
On the 25 June 1708, Karl and his forces found themselves in front of the river Berezina, right across from Boryslav, in modern Ukraine. In this area, the czar had gathered a large amount of forces, with strong fortifications to protect them.
Karl deployed a few of his regiments by the beach of Berezina, as if he would cross there, right in front of his enemies eyes, and then he took the rest of his forces south where the Swedish built a bridge, and fought back 3,000 Russians attempting to stop them.
The Russians did not sit around and wait for what would come however, and they broke up and fell back towards Dniepr, while destroying the roads and everything else they came across.
On his way to Dniepr, Karl encountered a force of 20,000 Russians who had entrenched themselves at a place called Holofsin, situated behind a swamp.
The only way to get there was to cross a river.
Karl took his Life Guard on foot and got into the waters, passing the swamp and the river, and while he moved forward, he gave orders to his cavalry to move around the swamp and attack the Russian flank. The Russians were suprised to find that apperently, there were no places safe enough to protect them from the Swedish, who attacked them from two sides at the same time.
This battle was commemorated by the Swedish with a medal, that said: "Silvae, paludes, aggeres, hostes victi" (Fortifications, marshes, and enemies overcome).
The Russians were driven back from Poland and into their own land from every direction, and the czar were seriously thinking about peace with Sweden.
Karl, however answered the peace requests by saying that the czar could have his negotiations with Karl in Moscow, a bold statement telling the czar that peace was out of the question until Russia was completely subdued.
Czar Peter answered this with a famous statement: "My brother Karl thinks himself an Alexander (the Great). But I flatter myself with, that in me, he shall find no Darius (III)".
Following the Dniepr north of Mohilev, you find the province of Smolensk, and through Smolensk goes the road between Moscow and Poland, and this is where the Russians and their czar fled, with the Swedish right behind them.
Over and over again, the Swedish engaged their enemies in combat, and even though the Swedish were often the victorious ones in these small skirmishes, they drained them of troops and energy.
2 September 1708, Karl XII attacked an enemy army of 10,000 cavalry and around 6,000 Kalmyks near Smolensk.
The Kalmyks are tartars, and lived between the Kingdom of Astrakhan, which belonged to Russia, and in Samarkand, home to the Uzbeki tartars.
The Russian czar claimed to be the ruler of the Kalmyks, but because of their nomadic life-style, it did prove difficult to rule them, and Peter the Great was content with ruling them like the Ottoman Sultan ruled the Arabs, one day the czar looked the other way when the Kalmyks pillaged and plundered their surroundings, and the next day he punished them.
Karl XII had under his command 6 cavalry regiments and 4,000 infantry and when they first attacked, the Russians withdrew, but as they did so, Karl did not notice the Kalmyks who had been hiding along the roads and now they sprung forward and they managed to surround one of the infantry regiment with the help of the rest of the Russian army.
The Swedish did eventually win the battle, but it cost them.
The way towards Moscow was now open to Karl XII, but instead of continuing towards it, and instead of awaiting the arrival of count Lewenhaupt with 15,000 reinforcements, Karl took his army and turned east into the Ukraine.
In the Ukraine, Karl met with a man named Mazepa, who originally was a Polish noble, but who had been appointed the ruler of Ukraine by the czar.
When the czar proposed to Mazepa that he would implement harsh discipline in Ukraine, and especially with the Cossacks living there, Mazepa said that their way of life made any form of military discipline almost impossible, and the czar then threatened to impale Mazepa for this "treachery".
And so, Mazepa sought to make a deal with Karl XII, to speed up the fall of Peter the Great.
Mazepa promised Karl 30,000 Cossack soldiers along with supplies, and so the Swedish decided to spend the winter in Ukraine, and then march into Russia.
When they finally arrived at the shores of the river Desna, they did not find Mazepa there, but instead a Russian army awaited them. Karl decided to cross the river and attack them, and the Russians consisted of 8,000 men, which proved to be not enough to stop the Swedish.
When they finally met Mazepa, he came to them, not as a powerful ally, but more as a person in exile.
He had only managed to get away with around 6,000 men and some gold and silver.
Count Lewenhaupt, along with his 15,000 reinforcements, were stopped at the village of Ljesna, where he found himself against a Russian army of 40,000 men, commanded by czar Peter the Great himself.
After 5 attacks, the Swedish had been beaten, and only 4,000 men remained, while the Russians had lost 6,000 but they had routed the Swedish, showing everyone that Sweden was not invincible.
Lewenhaupt arrived with his men, but without supplies that were so badly needed, so during the winter in the beginning of 1709, Karl XII decided to take his army and march into Russia, despite this winter being one of the coldest in memory.
During these marsches, they were constantly attacked by small groups of Russians, and in April, the Swedish had only 18,000 men left, and they were in bad shape.
Karl managed to recruit some mercenaries on the way, and when he arrived at Poltava, which was a city converted to a supply magazine by Peter, he commanded 30,000 men, but the czar was fast approaching, with a huge army.
During a reconnaissance mission on 17 June, Karl was shot in the foot, and they medics had to cut extremely deep into the foot, to avoid amputation.
They did not manage to take Poltava by force, so on 28 June, the Russians and Swedes stood ready for the Battle of Poltava.
The Swedish infantry advanced towards the Russian camp.
Its attack was met by the Russian cavalry which forced them to retreat.
As the infantry withdrew, the Swedish cavalry counterattacked, driving back the Russians.
Their advance was halted by heavy fire and they fell back.
Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld again sent the infantry forward and they succeeded in taking two Russian redoubts.
Despite this foothold, the Swedes were not able to hold them.
As they attempted to bypass the Russian defenses, Prince Aleksandr Menshikov's forces nearly encircled them and inflicted massive casualties.
Fleeing back, the Swedes took refuge in the Budyshcha Forest where Karl rallied them. Around 9:00 in the morning, both sides advanced into the open.
Charging forward, the Swedish ranks were pounded by the Russian guns.
Striking the Russian lines, they nearly broke through.
As the Swedes battled, the Russian right swung around to flank them.
Under extreme pressure, the Swedish infantry broke and began fleeing the field.
The cavalry advanced to cover their withdrawal, but was met with heavy fire.
From his stretcher at the rear, Karl ordered the army to begin retreating.
The Battle of Poltava was a disaster for Sweden and a turning point in the Great Northern War.
Swedish casualties numbered 6,900 dead and wounded, as well as 2,800 taken prisoner.
Among those captured was Field Marshal Rehnskiöld.
Russian losses were 1,350 killed and 3,300 wounded.
Retreating from the field, the Swedes moved along the Vorskla towards its confluence with the Dniepr.
Lacking enought boats to cross the river, Karl and Mazepa crossed with a bodyguard of 1,000-3,000 men.
Riding west, Karl found sanctuary with the Ottomans in Bendery, Moldavia.
Pictured is a painting of the Battle of Poltava by Denis Martens the Younger, and a painting showing Karl XII and Ivan Mazepa at the river Dniepr after the battle.
- Tobbe
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