Poltova and the fall of Sweden

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

Russia and Germany, 1815, strategical analysis.

While examining the distances from Constantinople to Vienna earlier, I was suddenly struck with the uncomfortable proximity of the Russians to the two German capitals after 1815. The Russian forward garrisons in western Poland were only about one-hundred and eighty miles from Berlin, while their forward garrisons in southern Poland were only about two-hundred and twenty miles from Vienna, and one-hundred and sixty miles from Budapest.

Granted Austria was in the better position since the Riesengebirge and the Carpathians throw themselves between Poland and the two Habsburg capitals. Poor Prussia had no defences at all. It was a straight shot across flat ground to the capital on the Spree.

Opposed to that, it’s over four-hundred miles from East Prussia to St. Petersburg, and six-hundred miles to Moscow. From Galicia it’s about seven-hundred and fifty miles to St. Petersburg and close to six-hundred miles to Moscow. Attacking St. Petersburg would be pointless, since without a navy that city would never fall to siege, neither Austria or Prussia had a navy of any value, while even if the Austrian Navy could make it to the Baltic the Russian Navy was better still and would sink it.

With Lake Ladoga to the east and Neva Bay to the west the city could be supplied indefinitely, while any attack on Neva Bay would have to overcome the obstacle of the Kronstadt which could easily hit any ship in the narrow channels on either side of it.

With the Russian Navy and the guns of Kronstadt in combination, nothing was entering Neva Bay. I doubt even the Royal Navy could have forced its way in. This why I have concluded that St. Petersburg is in one of the most beautiful strategic positions imaginable.

Why do you think Napoleon attacked Moscow even though Moscow was no longer the capital of Russia? Because attacking St. Petersburg was a pointless waste of time. Why do you think that St. Petersburg survived nearly four years of siege by the Germans in WWII and never fell? Because its geographic location is the best I ever saw, with the exception of Constantinople, of course.

So in many respects Russia seemed like the new Ottoman Empire for the German Powers. Their imminent danger forced them together in resistance, especially Prussia’s danger. Austria had a solid chance of repulsing the Russians from the line of the Riesengebirge and the Carpathians, albeit at the sacrifice of Galicia.

Prussia was completely exposed. By itself Prussia was doomed, so Prussia needed Austria. St. Petersburg wasn’t going to fall without a navy that neither of them possessed, and attacking Moscow would have yielded basically the same results as Napoleon’s invasion. So Russia’s strategic position against either of them alone was invincible.

That said, Russia’s strategic position was altered to its detriment when facing them both in combination. She'd almost certainly lose Poland to a massive pincer attack like she did in WWI. But even so, that would hardly be fatal to Russia. Its loss would be a sharp blow though, and would allow Berlin and Vienna (and Budapest) to breathe again.

For this reason Metternich cleverly tied Prussia to Austria, since Prussia was completely defenceless without Austria in the east. The interesting thing is, Bismarck’s system was a Revised Second Edition of Metternich’s, as now Austria became tied to Germany, since Austria would be vulnerable without the Germans. It’s interesting that Bismarck’s system is practically identical to Metternich’s except that the roles were reversed.

So at first glance it would seem that Russia was putting herself at risk by moving her capital two-hundred miles west and placing it on the sea, but in actuality that’s virtually the best move she could have done. Moscow is just an “ordinary” city on a tributary of the Volga. Defensible enough, but still vulnerable to siege as any other city.

St. Petersburg was practically invulnerable. It could be reinforced and resupplied by sea from either the east or west forever, and cutting these lifelines was extraordinarily difficult. Unless one successfully navigated the channels between Kronstadt and the mainland on either side, or took Kronstadt (which is itself easily reinforced by way of Neva Bay), then the lifeline could never be severed.

But even supposing that Neva Bay could be closed, canals linking the city to Lake Ladoga allow supplies and reinforcements to arrive from the east. Rivers and canals connect Lake Ladoga to Lake Onega, which is connected to Lake Vyg and thence to the White Sea. While waterways also connect Lake Ladoga to Lake Beloye and Lake Rybinsk and thence to the Volga and the endless steppes to the South-East.

Cutting off these links would take a lot of walking along a broad front that would expose one to very dangerous overextension. Peter the Great was a genius for recognising the value of this position.

To demonstrate, the first map depicts the series of waterways connects St. Petersburg by way of the Neva-Ladoga-Svir-Onega-Vyg-White Sea and thence to the rest of the world. A backdoor route for logistical sustenance of the city to the northeast.

While the map shows how canals connect St. Petersburg by way of Neva-Ladoga-Svir-Onega-Beloye-Rybinsk-Volga-Don and thence to Moscow and ultimately the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea by way of the Volga-Don Canal. This offers another route of supply and another means of keeping communications open and offering another backdoor to sustain the city with supplies from the southeast.

This latter system was not constructed until several years after Peter’s death, not until the reign of Paul, but the addition to St. Petersburg’s strategic strength is considerable. The city would have too be severed from all directions in order to force its capitulation.

And the map is the city of St. Petersburg itself. Supplies can easily be brought in from the west, through the Baltic which connects the city with the rest of the world, or even if the Baltic is closed by a power holding the islands of Denmark, at least with Scandinavia and possibly the Baltic States/Poland/Germany. Some place with supplies anyway.

Any attempt to close the western window of St. Petersburg would be frustrated by the island of Kotlin and the fortress of Kronstadt whose guns easily control the narrow channels on either side. Forcing Kronstadt Bay by sea would consequently be extraordinarily difficult, yet failure to do so would allow the city to sustain itself with seaborne shipments of necessary revictualling.

So. in short, the city is virtually impossible to take by siege. Another advantage is that even should St. Petersburg fall, an enemy could make no use of it because Kronstadt would prevent any ships leaving or entering the harbour to supply the new occupants, while the water networks to the southeast and northeast could simply stop sending supplies.

Thus if the city were taken and the Russians forced to lay siege to retake it, the enemy could not use the advantages to sustain their garrison that the Russians enjoyed, so long as the latter retained possession of Kronstadt and the waterways to the east.

It should also be noted that the way to take the city would be to close the Baltic and the Svir. The Svir is protected by the size of Lake Ladoga which forces an opponent to go around either north or south, assuming they didn't possess a fleet on the lake, which they wouldn't. The approaches to the Svir from the north are empty of infrastructure, full of dense forests, devoid of people, and bitterly cold.

So an invasion from Finland would be difficult. It would likely be easier to cut the Baltic-White Sea water network farther north, but the results of that would yet allow supplies from the Caspian-Baltic-Black Sea waterway to reach the city. So one would have to attempt to cut the Svir from the southern approaches.

This is what the Germans attempted in the Second World War, and found it extremely tenuous because the area, besides being freezing cold in winter, is a massive marshland in summer. The region of the notorious Volkhov Swamps.

Mechanised warfare is out of the question as the ground is all morass, with large portions of it completely submerged. This entirely favours the defenders. Thus the Svir is well protected no matter how you approach it. And as long as the Svir remains open, St. Petersburg cannot fall.

The final photograph depicts German troops in the Volkhov Swamps. This is what lay between an enemy and the Svir. Forget about Blitzkrieg. Tanks would just sink. The only think getting through is men, plodding through with boots.