34

MAZEPPA

Mazeppa’s defection is better understood in the light of Charles’ decision in mid-September to turn south. General Anders Lagercrona’s vanguard of 3,000 men and six cannon had been sent ahead to seize the crossings on the Sozh and Iput rivers and to march on the fortified town of Mglin and the pass at Pochep. These two positions were vital to Charles: If his army was to seize Severia and its capital, Starodub, intact before the Russians could arrive, it was essential to occupy these two sites—in effect, the gates to the province—and close them in Peter’s face.

Lagercrona’s mobile force set out with maps prepared by the Swedish quartermaster staff. Before reaching the Iput, however, it encountered other, unmarked roads which seemed better and more direct than those indicated on their Swedish maps, and Lagercrona took them. But instead of heading southeast toward Mglin and Pochep, he was heading directly south for Starodub itself. He would miss the two gateway points he was supposed to seize, and the gates themselves would be left open.

Meanwhile, Charles followed with the main army. He reached Krivchev on the Sozh on September 19, and his troops crossed on bridges built by Lagercrona’s advance party and moved southward into a tract of primeval forest between the Sozh and the Iput. Men and horses, enfeebled by weeks of hunger, stumbled, fell and died. Dysentery was raging in the Swedish ranks and the toll was high. “Tis thought we have lost more in this ramble than if we had given the enemy a battle,” wrote Jefferyes. On emerging from the woods, the army was heading in the direction of Mglin when Charles learned that Lagercrona had proceeded directly south, and that Mglin and Pochep therefore were presumably unoccupied. Seeing the danger, Charles hastily picked a second advance guard, the fittest of the exhausted men who stumbled from the woods behind him, and, with himself at their head, set off to seize the two positions. After enormous exertions he arrived at Kotenistchi, a village about six miles short of the town of Mglin, where he discovered that Mglin was filled with Russian troops. Peter, in establishing a defensive position on the Smolensk road, had left a detachment under General Nicholas Ifland to guard Severia, and this force had already occupied both Mglin and Pochep. Charles’ small detachment might have attacked Mglin, but to dislodge an enemy from a fortified town he needed cannon, and his cannon were far away. Lagercrona’s force had six cannon, but Lagercrona was nowhere to be seen. Thus, having lost the race to bar the gates, Charles halted his men, who were too fatigued to move farther anyway. Charles now realized that Lagercrona’s mistake might provide a new opportunity to seize Severia, for, having turned south, Lagercrona was heading directly for Starodub, the capital and main road junction of the province. If Lagercrona occupied Starodub, the failure to take Mglin and Pochep would be more than compensated for. Messengers were sent racing after Lagercrona to instruct him to occupy the town.

In fact, Lagercrona had already reached Starodub, but had not captured it. He was embarrassed and irritated to find that he had taken the wrong road and was beneath the walls of the wrong town, but he refused to accept his colonels’ urgent pleas that he occupy Starodub. He had been given orders first to seize Mglin and Pochep and then to occupy Starodub, and he meant to do things in exactly that sequence. Although he was camped beneath the walls of Starodub, he denied his men permission to enter the town even to find food and shelter, and the next day Ifland’s Russian troops secured the town. When Charles heard what had happened, he burst out, “Lagercrona must be mad!”

Charles realized that he was now in serious difficulty. Starodub as well as Mglin and Pochep were in enemy hands. As the last detachments of the army emerged from the forest and joined the troops before Mglin, Charles, moving among them, saw that they were in no shape to attack Ifland. The men were hungry, eating roots and berries to supplement their rations. There, on October 7, the King learned of Lewenhaupt’s defeat. The news reached the Russians in Mglin first, and the Swedes camped nearby heard the firing of Russian guns in celebration of the Tsar’s victory. On October 11, the remnants of Lewenhaupt’s force began to arrive in camp. The wagons, of course, were gone, and instead of 12,500 fresh Swedish faces, Lewenhaupt brought half that number, gray with fatigue, hunger and defeat.

Severia was lost; Sheremetev’s army was pouring into the province through the open Pochep pass; the Kalmucks were ranging across the province, ravaging and burning. Charles had no choice; he must continue south. On October 11, the King broke camp and marched south toward the River Desna, which forms the boundary between the Russian province of Severia and the Ukraine.

The fertile Ukraine, rich in cattle and grain, offered Charles what the Swedish army needed: refuge, rest and potential reinforcement. Here, if Charles could persuade the Cossack Hetman Mazeppa to join his cause, the Swedish army could winter in security. Here he might obtain thousands of Cossack horsemen who would make up the losses of the year’s campaign. And Baturin, Mazeppa’s capital, was stocked with gunpowder. For all these reasons, on the day after news of Lewenhaupt’s defeat had been received, Charles sent an express courier to Mazeppa to ask for winter quarters. It was taken for granted that Mazeppa would reply positively: For many months, Mazeppa had been actively and secretly negotiating a Swedish alliance.

To speed his crossing of the Desna into the Ukraine, Charles dispatched an advance guard under Kreutz to secure the town of Novgorod-Seversky and its bridge across the river. Kreutz marched day and night, arriving on October 22, but he was too late: The Russians had been there first and the bridge was destroyed. Now, for the first time, the Russians were gaining the upper hand. They had excellent reconnaisance; they seemed to know which way the Swedes would move, and themselves got there first. It was worrying, even ominous. But still the Swedes marched hopefully and confidently toward, in Jefferyes’ words, “a country flowing with milk and honey,” the homeland of General Ivan Mazeppa, Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

Through the spring and summer of 1708, the Cossack Hetman had struggled with a desperate dilemma. A subject of Tsar Peter, caught geographically between forces stronger than his own—the Russians to the north, the Poles to the west, the Tatars to the south—Mazeppa still dreamed the old Cossack dream of independence. He was anxious to insure against all risks and, at the same time, to prepare for all opportunities. And now the advance of the Swedish army and the almost certain defeat of Tsar Peter made the opportunities seem greater than the risks. For the famous Cossack chief, renowned for his exploits in love and war, who had survived for twenty-one years as leader of his tumultuous people, it was the supreme moment of decision. Now sixty-three and stricken with gout, Mazeppa was shrewd, calculating and captivatingly charming. His life had spanned an era of Cossack history.

Ivan Stepanovich Mazeppa was born in 1645, the son of a petty nobleman in Podolia, a part of the vast Ukrainian borderland west of the Dnieper then held by the Poles. Podolia’s Polish masters were Catholic, and Mazeppa’s family were Orthodox; one defiant relative had been roasted alive by the Poles half a century before Mazeppa’s birth. But the path of advancement in those years lay through Catholic schools and the Polish court, and Mazeppa was enrolled at a Jesuit academy and learned to speak fluent Latin, although he never gave up his Orthodox religion. A handsome and intelligent boy, he was accepted as a page at the court of King Jan Casimir of Poland, where he was subjected to frequent jibes and taunts by his Catholic comrades because of his religion and place of birth. One day, stung to fury, Mazeppa drew his sword. This act inside the palace was a capital offense, but the King moderated the punishment because of the circumstances. Mazeppa was exiled to his mother’s estate in Volynia, where, one story goes, he attracted the eye of a local nobleman’s wife and subsequently was caught in flagrante by the outraged husband. Stripped naked, tarred and feathered, the intruder was bound to his horse, which was then sent galloping through woods and thickets with its helpless burden on its back. When the animal finally brought its master home, the young man was so cut and torn that he was scarcely recognizable. Unable to return to Polish society after this humiliation, Mazeppa took refuge among the Cossacks of his homeland, the classical haven for society’s outcasts.

The Cossacks’ hetman was quick to recognize the young man’s talents—he was clever and brave, fluent in Polish, Latin, Russian and German—and he became an assistant to the hetman and rose to the position of secretary general of the Cossacks. While still young, he served as emissary from the Cossacks who lived on the Polish side of the Dnieper to those on the Russian side, and also made a diplomatic mission to Constantinople. On the way home, he was captured by the Zaporozhsky Cossacks, who were loyal to Tsar Alexis, and sent to Moscow for questioning. His interrogator was none other than Artemon Matveev, the chief minister and friend of Alexis, who was impressed by Mazeppa, especially when the young man declared himself favorable to Russian interests. Released and honored by an audience with the Tsar, Mazeppa was sent back to the Ukraine. During the rule of Sophia, Mazeppa ingratiated himself with Prince Vasily Golitsyn, who was as captivated by Mazeppa’s charm and education as Matveev had been. In 1687, when the Cossack hetman Samoyovich was deposed as one of the scapegoats for Golitsyn’s unsuccessful march to the Crimea, Golitsyn chose Mazeppa as his successor.

In the main, his years of leadership had been successful. He understood and followed faithfully the single most important precept necessary to maintain his position: always to be on the side of the ruling party in Moscow. Two years after his own appointment, during the final trial of strength between Sophia and Peter, he managed to tread the line with superb timing and luck. He had set out for Moscow in June 1689 to declare his support for the Princess and Golitsyn, but, arriving at exactly the moment when it became clear that Peter was going to win, Mazeppa hurried to the Troitsky Monastery to declare his fealty to the youthful Tsar. Although the Cossack chief was one of the last important figures in the realm to side with Peter, he quickly ingratiated himself. The charm of Mazeppa’s manner soon inspired Peter with an affection for, and confidence in, the lively and amusing Hetman which remained unshaken despite rumors and accusations against him. In Moscow, Mazeppa ranked with the highest in Peter’s court. He was one of the first to receive the coveted Order of St. Andrew, and Peter had arranged for Augustus to award him the Polish Order of the White Eagle.

Despite the confidence shown in him by Peter, the official position of hetman was far from easy. Torn between resentment against and dependence on Moscow, the Cossacks were also split between a new class of landowners, which had scrambled into the positions left behind by the departing Poles, and the simple rank and file, who disliked the newly successful upper class. They dreamed of the free-loving Cossack bands such as the Zaporozhe, who lived the old, true Cossack life below the Dnieper rapids and whose example was a constant stimulant to restlessness. The landowners and townspeople of the Ukraine, however, were uneasy with this lingering frontier spirit and wanted more stable conditions so that they could trade and prosper in peace. Just as the simpler Cossacks grumbled that the Hetman now was only Moscow’s puppet and yielded too much to the Tsar, so the Cossack townspeople and upper classes now looked to him and the Tsar to control this restlessness and provide order and stability.

With his Polish education and manners, Mazeppa was inclined to favor the landowning class of which he himself was a member, and over the years he had successfully balanced and blended its interests with Moscow’s and his own. As hetman, he had amassed great wealth and authority—he even dreamed of making the office of hetman hereditary rather than elective—but in his heart Mazeppa was ambivalent. Allegiance to the Tsar and maintenance of Moscow’s confidence and support was the cornerstone of his policy, but his secret desire was that of his people: Ukrainian independence. The union with Russia had laid heavy burdens on the Ukraine, especially during the long years of war. Taxes had increased, new fortifications had been built and large Russian garrisons had been stationed on Cossack territory. Food and wagons were arbitrarily requisitioned and moved in constant convoys across the steppe to Russian strongholds. The Tsar’s officers took recruits, willing or not, from the villages. There were constant protests that the Russians were pillaging Cossack homes, stealing provisions, raping wives and daughters. Mazeppa was blamed by his people for such outrages and for all of Moscow’s increasing demands and encroachments. He hated his puppet role, was bitter and jealous of the men around Peter and especially feared Menshikov, who had humiliated him on more than one occasion and who, it was rumored, wanted to become hetman himself. Moreover, Mazeppa, who in cultural and religious matters was an arch-conservative and strictly Orthodox, was frightened and dismayed by Peter’s Westernizing policies.

But, caught in many currents, surrounded by enemies actual, potential and imagined, Mazeppa had clung to power by supporting Peter. In the long run, if he supported the Tsar, the Tsar would support him, and that was what would make or break a Cossack hetman. During his long years inoffice, Mazeppa had given many demonstrations of loyalty, most recently by keeping the Zaporozhsky Cossacks quiet during the Bulavin revolt. In the light of such fresh proofs of service, Peter’s faith in him was firm and stubbornly held. Although from time to time he heard that Mazeppa was plotting treason and was in correspondence with Stanislaus or even with Charles himself, Peter steadfastly refused to listen, dismissing the accusations as the work of Mazeppa’s enemies trying to make trouble by undermining his faith in the loyal hetman.

In fact, the accusations were true. Mazeppa’s sole motivation was to be on the winning side. If Charles marched to Moscow and dethroned the Tsar, what would be the future of the Cossacks and their Hetman if he had maintained his loyalty to Peter too long? When Charles placed a new tsar on the Russian throne as he had placed a new king on the Polish throne, might he also place a new hetman over the Ukrainian Cossacks? On the other hand, if Mazeppa declared for Charles at the right moment and Charles was victorious, what new possibilities might open up for an independent Cossack state? And for an hereditary hetman?

Exploring these possibilities, Mazeppa had been in secret contact with Peter’s enemies for almost three years. At first, when Stanislaus made approaches, Mazeppa rejected them. In 1705, when a Polish envoy came to the Cossack leader, Mazeppa sent the envoy in chains to Peter, writing flamboyantly:

For I, the Hetman and faithful subject of Your Tsarish Majesty, by my duty and my oath of loyalty confirmed on the Holy Gospels, as I served your father and your brother, so now I serve you truly, and as up to this time I have remained before all temptations like a column immovable and like a diamond indestructible, so now I humbly lay my unworthy service at your sovereign feet.

As long as Charles was far away, Mazeppa’s loyalty to Peter remained hard as a diamond. But as Charles’ seemingly invincible army came closer, Mazeppa grew excited and uneasy. Along with most of Europe, he took it for granted that the Swedish King could defeat the Tsar if he decided to do so. Yet if he declared for Charles too soon, a Russian army might descend on the Ukraine and annihilate him.

During the spring of 1708, an episode occurred which, springing from the Hetman’s colorful character, almost upset his political intrigues. Mazeppa was as charming among women as men and had, in fact, a lifelong reputation as a seducer. Fiery and amorous all his life, at sixty-three he had fallen in love with his godchild, a beautiful Cossack girl, Matrena Kochubey, who returned his love with wild abandon. Mazeppa proposed marriage, which scandalized her parents, and the desperate girl ran away from home and sought refuge with the Hetman. Mazeppa sent her back, telling her that “although I love no one on earth as much as you, and it would have been for me a happiness and joy to have you come and live with me,” the opposition of the church and the enmity of her parents made the situation impossible. Matrena’s father, Judge-General of the Cossacks, was horrified and enraged. Believing that his daughter had been ravished and disgraced, he set his heart on destroying the Hetman. He had heard that Mazeppa was plotting with the Poles and Swedes against Peter and he made public these rumors, which, early in March 1708, reached Peter’s ears. Still trusting his Hetman, the Tsar was angry at Kochubey’s denunciations, considering them a mischievous and dangerous attempt to stir up unrest in the Ukraine at a time of external peril. He wrote to Mazeppa assuring him that he did not believe the accusations and was resolved to end them. Kochubey was arrested, interrogated and, being unable to substantiate his charges with specific proof, he was handed over to Mazeppa. With great relief—although to the horror of Matrena—Mazeppa beheaded her father on July 14, 1708.

At that very moment, Mazeppa was reaching his final decision to throw in his lot with the Swedes. Charles had promised to stay out of the Ukraine if possible and not to make a battleground out of Cossack territory, but he did not promise, as Mazeppa hoped he ultimately would, independence for the Ukraine. Charles wanted to keep a middle position between the Cossacks and Poles. Poland still had claims on the western region of the Ukraine, and Charles did not want to alienate one ally by prematurely satisfying another.

Despite the execution of Kochubey, rumors of these contacts continued to leak, and Peter commanded the Hetman to come before him and explain. Mazeppa was not afraid to go—he still believed in his ability to charm the Tsar—but he wanted to delay until he could better estimate the outcome of the war. If the Tsar seemed the likely victor, the agreement with Sweden could be quietly scuttled. To gain time, he made excuses, feigned serious illness and, to allay the suspicions of Peter’s messengers who had been sent to fetch him, even took to what he called his “deathbed” and ordered a priest to give him the Last Sacrament. Meanwhile, he was sending two sets of letters: pledges of allegiance to Peter with appeals for help against the Swedish invader, and pledges of faith to Charles with appeals for help against the Tsar.

Charles’ sudden decision in September to enter the Ukraine was a monumental blow to Mazeppa. The Hetman had assumed—and Charles had promised—that the Tsar would be unseated by a direct march on Moscow. When he realized that the King was on the road to the Ukraine, that finally he was faced with the need to commit himself irrevocably to one side or the other and that, whatever happened, war would roll over his people and his lands, Mazeppa was filled with consternation. Two powerful monarchs, both with large armies, were moving in his direction. He was pledged to both. If, in this final moment of choice, he chose the wrong side, he was lost.

Earlier in the summer, Peter had ordered Mazeppa to prepare his Cossacks for battle and lead them across the Dnieper to attack the Swedish army in the rear. Mazeppa had replied that he was too ill to lead his troops himself and that he dared not leave the Ukraine—he must remain behind to hold the region firmly for Peter. The Tsar accepted these excuses; he, too, was worried about the unsettling effect of the Swedish advance on the restless Cossacks.

On October 13, Peter again summoned Mazeppa to appear before him, this time at Starodub. Once again, the Hetman made excuses, and Peter agreed that he should remain at Baturin, the Cossack capital, for, as the Tsar wrote to Menshikov, “his great value is in keeping his own people in check, rather than in the war.”

But now thousands of soldiers in torn, mud-stained uniforms—the Russians in green and red, the Swedes in blue and yellow—with muskets on their shoulders or slumped in their saddles, moved in columns along the roads to the south. Sheremetev and the main Russian army were moving parallel to Charles, prepared to block any Swedish move to the east, and farther west an independent cavalry force under Menshikov was moving in the same direction. As this cavalry would pass close by Baturin, Peter, believing Mazeppa’s lies about being on his “deathbed,” asked Menshikov to see the Hetman and consult with the Cossack elders about the election of a loyal successor. Accordingly, Menshikov sent a message to Mazeppa that he was on his way to pay a visit. When the Hetman learned that Menshikov, whom he hated and feared, was coming to see him, he grew convinced that the Tsar knew his plans and that the Prince intended to arrest or kill him. Mazeppa was seized by panic.

In retrospect, perhaps the wisest thing he could have done, having made up his mind to join Charles, would have been to remain at Baturin until Charles’ army could arrive. Even when Menshikov appeared, there was little he and his unsupported cavalry could have done against a fortress protected by cannon. But Mazeppa did not know how many Russians were approaching. He did know and fear Menshikov, and he feared even more Peter’s reaction to the news of his betrayal. Deciding that the game was up, he mounted his horse, gathered 2,000 men around him, posted another 3,000 to guard Baturin, commanding them not to admit Menshikov to the town, and galloped north to throw in his lot with the King of Sweden. For Peter, the situation was saved by Menshikov’s swift and decisive movements. The Prince arrived at Baturin on October 26 to find that Mazeppa had vanished and that those Cossacks still inside the town refused to permit his men to enter. Surprised and suspicious, he questioned people in the countryside and learned that Mazeppa had ridden by with a large number of horsemen on his way to cross the Desna. The ominous implications of this news were confirmed when a party of Cossack officers asked Menshikov for protection against their Hetman, who, they said, had gone to join the Swedes and betray the Tsar.

Realizing that Peter must immediately learn what had happened, Menshikov left Prince Golitsyn with a force of cavalry outside Baturin to screen the town while he himself galloped to the Tsar, who was accompanying Sheremetev’s army. When Peter heard of Mazeppa’s betrayal, he was stunned, but he did not lose his head. The greater danger—to be prevented at all costs—was the spreading of Mazeppa’s treason.

The Tsar reacted vigorously to prevent this chain reaction. The night he heard of Mazeppa’s betrayal, he ordered Menshikov to dispatch dragoon regiments to block any movement by the nearest bands of Ukrainian and Zaporozhsky Cossacks to join Mazeppa in the Swedish camp. The following day, October 28, Peter issued a formal proclamation to the people of the Ukraine. Declaring Mazeppa’s treachery, he appealed to their Orthodox faith: Mazeppa had deserted to the Swedes, he said, “in order to put the land of Little Russia [the Ukraine] as before under the dominion of Poland and to turn the churches and monasteries over to the Catholics.” Circulating the proclamation in all the towns and villages of the Ukraine and the lower Volga, he called on the Cossacks to support a new hetman in their fight against the Swedish invader who was the ally of their traditional enemy, the Poles. On a less exalted level, he appealed to the well-known cupidity of the freebooter Cossacks, offering rewards for Swedish prisoners: 2,000 roubles would be paid for a captured Swedish general, 1,000 for a colonel and five for an ordinary soldier. A dead Swede was worth three roubles.

Peter quickly turned to the immediate military situation. It seemed clear that Charles would head for Mazeppa’s fortified capital, Baturin, where, it was common knowledge, there were large stores of powder and food. A hastily convened war council decided that Menshikov must return to Baturin with a strong force, including artillery, and assault the town before the Swedes and Mazeppa could reach it. Peter, knowing that the Swedes were about to cross the Desna, was nervous. Repeatedly, as Menshikov was making ready, the Tsar urged him to hurry and to be firm and merciless.

The race for Baturin was on.

During these last days of October, as Charles’ army approached the Desna, the Swedish soldiers were cheered by the arrival of Mazeppa and his strange-looking Cossacks. They had hoped that there would be more Cossacks, but these were promised once the army reached Baturin. And for both officers and men, the imminent prospect of reaching a friendly, fortified town where permanent quarters, good food and plenty of powder were waiting was sufficient to lift their spirits. Thus, despite the fact that the Russians had seized the crossing at Novgorod-Seversky and that the Swedes would be forced to cross the river in open country against a Russian force under Hallart, Charles’ men were cheerful. The crossing was not easy; the Desna was a broad, fast-flowing stream with high banks, and the first freezing days of winter had already filled the river with drifting ice. On November 3, with Mazeppa at his side, Charles employed his favorite tactic. He feinted a crossing upstream to confuse the Russians, then launched a powerful assault directly across the river at the enemy’s center. Late in the afternoon, having overcome the determined opposition of a smaller Russian force, the King of Sweden stepped onto the soil of the Ukraine. His objective now was clear. Baturin was to the south and the road to the Cossack capital lay open. But, unknown to Charles, on the very day the King crossed the river and set foot in the Ukraine, Baturin had ceased to exist.

Menshikov had won the race. With a force of cavalry and mounted infantry, he arrived back at Baturin on November 2 to find the Cossacks inside caught between loyalties to their Hetman and to the Tsar. Their first response to Menshikov’s demands was that the Russians could not enter until a new hetman had been elected and given them orders. Menshikov, knowing that the enemy was pressing forward, renewed his demand for immediate entry. Again the garrison refused, insisting, however, that it was faithful to the Tsar and would permit his troops to enter after a three-day wait to allow it to withdraw freely. Menshikov rejected the delay, countering that if the garrison came out at once, no harm would be done to it. Forced to a decision, the Cossacks hardened and sent the messenger back with a defiant cry: “We will all die here, but we will not allow the Tsar’s troops to come in.”

At dawn the following morning, November 3, Menshikov’s troops stormed Baturin, and after a two-hour battle the fortress capitulated (some say a gate was opened to the Russians by a disaffected Cossack). Peter had left to Menshikov’s discretion what to do with the town. As Menshikov saw it, he had no choice. The main Swedish army and Mazeppa were approaching rapidly; he had no time and too few men to prepare the town’s defenses for a siege; he could not allow Baturin and its supplies of food and ammunition to be captured by Charles. Accordingly, he ordered the city demolished. His troops slaughtered all the 7,000 inhabitants, soldiers and civilians alike, except for a thousand who fought their way free. Everything movable was distributed among Menshikov’s soldiers, the supplies so desperately needed by the Swedes were destroyed and the whole town razed to the ground by fire. Baturin, the ancient stronghold of the Cossacks, disappeared.

The fate of Baturin, Peter believed, would serve as an example to others contemplating treason. And indeed, from his viewpoint, the town’s cruel destruction had a salutary effect. It was a brutal stroke, a summary punishment which Cossacks understood, demonstrating to them where the greatest power to punish lay. To further circumscribe the effect of Mazeppa’s betrayal, Peter immediately summoned the Cossack elders and officers. His candidate—the Cossack colonel of Starodub, Skoropadsky—was elected hetman to succeed Mazeppa. The following day, the Metropolitan of Kiev and two archbishops arrived. With full church ceremonial, they publicly excommunicated Mazeppa and pronounced the curse of anathema on him. To make the impression even more vivid, Mazeppa’s portrait was dragged through the streets, then swung from a rope on a gallows next to the dangling bodies of the leaders of the Baturin garrison. A similar ceremony of anathema was repeated in Moscow and in all the churches of Russia and the Ukraine, and a proclamation promised a similar fate to all other traitors to the Tsar.

Thus, Peter successfully snuffed out the flame of Mazeppa’s revolt before it could spread. Thereafter, instead of Mazeppa’s leading the whole Ukrainian people into the Swedish camp, a split developed between the minority who followed him and the majority who remained loyal to Peter. Charles’ promise to take the Cossacks under his protection had little effect. The Ukrainian people stood by the Tsar and their new Hetman, hiding their horses and provisions from the Swedes and turning over captured Swedish stragglers for the reward. Delightedly, Peter wrote to Apraxin, “The people of Little Russia stand with God’s help more firmly than was possible to expect. The King sends enticing proclamations, but the people remain faithful and bring in the King’s letters.”

The loss of Baturin’s storehouses and magazines—and of Lewenhaupt’s wagons—left Swedish reserves of food and gunpowder dangerously low. Deep inside Russia, Charles now had no way to replenish his meager, dwindling stock of powder. Worse was the loss of the hope of a mass Ukrainian revolt. Far from finding refuge in a secure region, the invading army was once again surrounded by bands of ravaging and burning enemy cavalry. And there was also a growing shortage of manpower.

The effect of these events on Mazeppa was catastrophic. Instead of brilliantly casting his lot with the victors, he had chosen destruction. He had seen his capital razed, his title taken, his followers desert. At first he told Charles that Menshikov’s brutality would only enrage the Cossacks, but this proved illusory, and overnight the proud Cossack Hetman was reduced to being a defeated old man, little more than a fugitive protected by the Swedish army. Charles now became Mazeppa’s sole hope—only if the Swedish King won a conclusive victory and overthrew the Tsar could Mazeppa’s fortunes be restored. Until the end of his life, Mazeppa remained in Charles’ camp. He was no longer a potent ally, but Charles was loyal to him for what he had risked. Charles also enjoyed the wit and vivacity of the wiry little man, who, despite his age, was still full of fire and life and spoke Latin as fluently as the King himself. Through the remainder of the Russian campaign, Mazeppa’s sagacity and his intimate knowledge of the country made him a valuable counselor and guide. And he and his several thousand horsemen remained loyal to Charles, inspired in their devotion by the knowledge of what would happen to them if they fell into Russian hands. But there is evidence that Mazeppa never completely gave up his scheming ways. A Cossack officer who had gone over with Mazeppa to the Swedes came back to Peter bearing an oral message supposedly from the old Hetman, offering to deliver Charles into Peter’s hands if the Tsar agreed to pardon him and restore him to his rank and office of hetman. Peter sent the messenger back with a favorable reply, but nothing more was ever heard.