36
THE GATHERING OF FORCES
Early in April, winter was finally coming to an end in the Ukraine. The snow had gone, the mud was drying out, the grass was beginning to grow and wild crocuses, hyacinths and tulips were blooming in the rolling meadowlands and along the riverbanks. In this atmosphere of spring, Charles was optimistic. He was negotiating with the Crimean Tatars and with the Sultan; at the same time, he was awaiting the fresh regiments of Swedes and of the Polish royal army. So confident did he feel that he rejected out of hand a tentative Russian offer of peace. A Swedish officer captured at Lesnaya had arrived with Peter’s proposal that the Tsar “was inclined to make peace, but could not be persuaded to quit Petersburg.” Charles made no reply to Peter’s offer.
While he waited for his negotiations with the Tatars and the Turks to bear fruit, Charles resolved to move farther south to a position nearer the expected reinforcements from Poland and the south. Poltava was a small but important commercial town 200 miles southeast of Kiev on the Kharkov road. Its site was the crest of two high bluffs overlooking a wide, swampy area of the Vorskla River, a major tributary of the Dnieper. Poltava was not in the European sense an effective fortress; its ten-foot earth ramparts topped by a wooden palisade had been built to resist marauding bands of Tatars and Cossacks rather than a modern European army equipped with artillery and professional siege engineers. Had Charles marched on Poltava the previous autumn, the town would have fallen easily, but at that time the King disliked the idea of establishing winter quarters in so large a place. Since then, the Russians had improved the defenses, studding the walls with ninety-one cannon and reinforcing the garrison to 4,182 soldiers, and 2,600 armed residents of the city, all under the command of an energetic Colonel O. S. Kelin.
Nevertheless, Charles now decided to seize the town. The technical arrangements for the siege were entrusted to Gyllenkrook, the Quartermaster General, who was an authority on mining and other aspects of siege warfare. “You are our little Vauban,” the King told Gyllenkrook, urging him to use all the refinements of the French master. Gyllenkrook began, although he warned the King in advance that the army lacked one essential prerequisite of any successful siege: sufficient power to conduct a sustained artillery bombardment. Eventually, he believed, Charles would have to storm the walls with foot soldiers, in which case, he said, “Your Majesty’s infantry will be ruined. Everybody will believe that it was I who advised Your Majesty to make this siege. If it should miscarry, I humbly beg you not to put the blame on me.” “No,” Charles replied cheerfully, “you are not to blame for it. We take the responsibility on ourself.”
The first trenches were dug, and on May 1 the bombardment began. Gradually, the trenches advanced toward the walls, and yet to some of the Swedes, especially Gyllenkrook, it seemed that less was being done than was possible. The cannon fired steadily all day, pouring red-hot shot into Poltava, but at eleven p.m. the King suddenly ordered a halt. Gyllenkrook protested, pleading that if he could only bombard the town for six more hours, Poltava would be at the King’s mercy. But Charles insisted, and the guns were silenced. Thereafter, the bombardment was limited to five shots per day, which was meaningless except as harassment. Swedish powder was short, but not that short.
Gyllenkrook and others did not understand Charles’ strange behavior or, indeed, the purpose of the siege. Why, for the first time on this Russian campaign, had the King who was the master of campaigning in the field undertaken a siege? And why, having undertaken a siege, was he pursuing it in so lackadaisical a fashion? Puzzled and worried, Gyllenkrook asked Rehnskjold. “The King wishes to have a little amusement until the Poles come,” was the Field Marshal’s reply. “It is a costly pastime which demands such a number of human lives,” observed Gyllenkrook. “If His Majesty’s will is so, we must be content with it,” declared Rehnskjold and terminated the interview by riding away.
Many of Charles’ officers, as perplexed as Gyllenkrook, believed that the siege was only an elaborate lure to tempt Peter to commit the main Russian army to battle. If this was Charles’ purpose, the Russian garrison made it easier for him. The town was effectively defended, repelling assaults, sending out sorties, destroying the mines which Gyllenkrook pushed ever nearer the walls. Charles himself was astonished at the vigorous defense. “What! I really believe the Russians are mad and will defend themselves in a regular way.”
For six weeks, the siege dragged on into the summer heat of the Ukraine. Charles was always in the thick of the action. To encourage his men, he took up quarters in a house so close to the fortress that its walls were riddled with bullets. Gradually, the Swedish trenches came closer to the ramparts, although accurate Russian musket fire picked off the Swedish sapper and engineer officers supervising the work. As the heat became more oppressive, the wounded began to die when their wounds putrefied with gangrene. Food grew scarce as the Swedish foraging parties rode again and again through the district, stripping farms and villages which had already been plucked clean a week before. Soon, nothing was left to eat except horseflesh and black bread. Powder was scarce, and what there was had deteriorated because of the dampness of melting snow and rain. The firing of a cannon sounded no louder than a clapping of hands. Bullets fired from Swedish muskets fell to the ground scarcely twenty yards away. And there were so few musket balls that Swedish scavenging parties were sent outside the trenches around the fortress to collect and pick up spent Russian balls and bring them in for re-use.
Meanwhile, across the river on the east bank of the Vorskla, Russian forces were gathering. Menshikov, the most aggressive of Peter’s generals, commanded these troops from his headquarters in the village of Krutoy Bereg, while Sheremetev with the main army was approaching from the northeast. Menshikov’s orders were to observe the Swedes across the river and to do what he could to assist the garrison inside Poltava. The latter mission was not easy. Between the low east bank where the Russians were and the steep west bank which rose more than 200 feet to the walls of the town, the river wandered through a maze of marshes impassable to a large army and difficult even for small parties. Several times the Russians tried to send reinforcements directly across to Poltava, even attempting to build a road with sacks of sand, but these efforts failed. The communication problem was finally solved by putting messages inside hollow cannonballs and firing them back and forth across the river between Menshikov and Colonel Kelin.
The river war continued. Parties of horsemen, Russians and Swedes, rode along the opposite sides of the river, patrolling and watching for any sign of movement on the other bank, trying to snatch prisoners from whom they could gain some intelligence. At the end of May, Sheremetev arrived in the Krutoy Bereg camp with his masses of Russian infantry, but, despite their numerical superiority, the Russian generals were uncertain what to do. They learned from Colonel Kelin that his supply of gunpowder was dangerously low, that Swedish mining under his walls was about complete, that he estimated he could not hold out beyond the end of June. Menshikov and Sheremetev did not want the town to fall, but were not prepared to provoke a general engagement. Certainly, nothing so dramatic and decisive as an attempted mass crossing of the Vorskla in the teeth of determined Swedish opposition had any appeal. Nevertheless, knowing that the decisive moment was approaching, Menshikov sent word to Peter, who was on his way from Azov across the steppe, to hurry. The Tsar replied on May 31 that he was coming as fast as he could, but that rather than lose an advantage which might present itself, the army should if necessary fight without him. As Poltava still held out, the Russian generals decided to wait a little longer.
On June 4, Peter arrived and while his habit had been to appoint one of his generals as commander-in-chief and to take only subordinate rank himself, he now assumed supreme command. Peter brought with him 8,000 new recruits to add to the troops now preparing for battle. His arrival infused new spirit into the soldiers who were skirmishing vigorously at all points along the river. On June 15, a surprise Russian attack on Stary Senzhary inside the Swedish-occupied region freed 1,000 Russian prisoners taken the previous winter at Veprik, and Cossack horsemen loyal to the Tsar broke in and plundered a section of the Swedish baggage train.
Now, the great trial of arms was drawing near. The two armies were in close proximity, each commanded by its monarch. Both realized that the climax was at hand. Charles, confined in an ever narrowing space, would eventually have to try to break out. Peter understood and accepted this. The Tsar, who in the past had been unwilling to risk everything on a single battle, was steeling himself to meet the final test. His strategy had borne fruit. The enemy was isolated. Across Charles’ line of retreat to Poland lay Field Marshal Goltz with a powerful force which could either prevent the advance of any relieving force or cut off the retreat of Charles himself. And Peter’s army on the Vorskla was now twice as strong as Charles’. It was therefore with grim optimism that Peter wrote to Apraxin on June 7, after joining the army, “We have gathered close to our neighbors and, with God’s help, we shall certainly this month have our affair with them.”
Within a few days of his arrival, Peter summoned all his generals to his tent and together they examined the facts. It was only a matter of time before Poltava fell. In Swedish hands, the city would serve as a rallying point for the potential reinforcements which Charles hoped—and Peter feared—might join the Swedish King and even at this late date open the road to Moscow. These stakes were high enough to force Peter and his generals to a climactic decision: To relieve pressure on the Poltava garrison and prevent the city’s fall, the main Russian army would have to be brought into play. A major, and very possibly a decisive battle would have to be fought no later than June 29 in order to save Poltava. By the 29th, Peter expected to have concentrated all his forces; not only Skoropadsky’s Cossacks would be present, but 5,000 Kalmucks riding behind their khan Ayuk. But the army could not be used as long as it remained on the east bank of the Vorskla; it would have to cross to the west bank. Once on the same side of the river as the Swedes, Peter could launch a flank attack on the Swedish lines besieging the city. At the very least, even if a major battle was not joined, the presence of the Russian army would force the Swedes to divert much of their strength from their positions before Poltava and thus relieve the pressure on the city. In addition, a position on the Swedish flank would permit the Tsar to bring to bear the considerable Russian field artillery. His guns, now silent and useless across the river, would be able to fire into the Swedish camp.
Peter next had to determine where and when to cross. There was no thought of attempting to force a passage across the wide, marshy river in the teeth of strong opposition, as Charles had frequently done. Instead, Peter decided to mount diversionary feints all along the river front both north and south of Poltava to distract the Swedes, while the main army would cross at Petrovka, seven miles north of the town where there were places shallow enough for horsemen to ride across. Ronne would cross first with ten regiments of cavalry and dragoons, followed by ten regiments of infantry under Hallart. Once this force had cleared a bridgehead and successfully entrenched itself in a camp at Semenovka a mile below the ford, Peter would bring the main army across. Ronne and Hallart quickly moved their troops into position and, on the night of June 14, they attempted a crossing, which was repulsed. But the Tsar was not to be denied. From Poltava, Colonel Kelin sent word that he could not hold out much longer and Peter decided to try again immediately.
The Swedes were fully aware of the impending crossing at Petrovka. On the nights of June 15 and 16, the Swedish army remained at battle stations. Rehnskjold was in command of the Swedish forces—ten cavalry regiments and sixteen infantry battalions—which would meet the Russians as they crossed the river. His tactics would be to permit a part of the Russian army to cross and then, while the Swedes still enjoyed a numerical advantage, attack and drive the Russian vanguard back into the river. Charles remained in command of the troops before Poltava and along the river south of the city. His intention was to wait there until the battle began and he had determined that no major Russian force was crossing south of the city; then, he would ride north to join Rehnskjold at Petrovka. It was a logical formula for victory. But before this Swedish plan could be executed, disaster struck.
June 17, 1709, was Charles XII’s twenty-seventh birthday. In his nine years of active campaigning, the King had led a charmed life relative to injury in battle. Although he had been hit by a spent bullet at Narva and had broken his leg in Poland, he had never been seriously wounded. Now, at the most critical moment of his military career, his luck suddenly deserted him.
At daybreak that morning, the King rode to the village of Nizhny Mliny south of Poltava to inspect the Swedish and Cossack positions along the Vorskla. He had good reason: The battle portending north of the city when the Russians crossed would draw most of the Swedish army in that direction. Before permitting this maneuver, Charles wanted to make sure that the river defenses to the south were sufficiently strong to repel any crossing in that region. On the opposite bank, as part of Peter’s diversionary tactics, a Russian cavalry force was doing its best to keep the Swedes distracted. One Russian attempt to cross had already been repulsed.
Charles arrived around eight a.m. with a squadron of Drabants and began riding along the bank at the water’s edge to inspect the men and their positions. Some of the Russians from the force which had been driven back remained on one of the numerous islands in midstream, and they began to fire at the party of Swedish officers across the water. The musket range was short and a Drabant was shot dead in his saddle. Charles, without the slightest care for his own safety, continued his slow ride at the water’s edge. Then, his inspection finished, he turned his horse to ride back up the bank. His back was to the enemy, and at that moment he was hit in the left foot by a Russian musket ball.
The ball struck his heel, piercing the boot, plunging forward through the length of the foot, smashing a bone and finally passing out near the big toe. Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, a Polish nobleman accredited to Charles XII by King Stanislaus, who was riding next to the King, noticed that he was hurt, but Charles commanded him to keep quiet. Although the wound must have been excruciatingly painful, the King continued his tour of inspection as if nothing had happened. It was not until eleven a.m., almost three hours after being hit, that he returned to his headquarters and prepared to dismount. By this time, the officers and men near him had noticed his extreme pallor and the blood dripping from his torn left boot. Charles tried to dismount but the movement caused such agony that he fainted.
By then, the foot had swollen so much that the boot had to be cut off. The surgeons examining him found that the ball, which had come out of the foot, was resting in the King’s stocking near his big toe. Several bones had been crushed and there were splinters in the wound. The doctors hesitated to make the deep incision necessary to remove the splinters, but Charles, coming out of his faint, was adamant. “Come! Come! Slash away! Slash away!” he said and, grasping his own leg, held his foot up to the knife. Throughout the operation, he watched, stubbornly suppressing all signs of pain. Indeed, when the surgeon approached the lips of the wound, swollen, inflamed and sensitive, and shrank from cutting them away, Charles took the scissors himself and coolly removed the necessary flesh.
News that Charles was wounded quickly spread through the Swedish camp, a shattering blow to the soldiers; the cornerstone of the Swedish army’s morale was its belief that their King was not only invincible but personally invulnerable. Charles had plunged into the thick of countless battles and never been touched, as if God were protecting him with a special shield, and believing this, the soldiers had been able to follow him anywhere. Charles instantly realized the threat to morale. When Count Piper and the generals galloped up in a state of great agitation, he calmly assured them that the wound was slight, that it would heal quickly and that he would soon be back on horseback.
But the wound began to fester rather than heal. Charles developed a high fever and the inflammation began to spread, eventually reaching the knee. The surgeons thought that amputation might be necessary, but feared to act, knowing what the psychological effect on Charles would be. For two days, between the 19th and the 21st, it seemed almost too late, and Charles hovered between life and death; on the 21st, the surgeons thought that he might die within two hours. During these feverish days, the King had his old personal servant sit by his bed and tell childhood fairy tales, old Northern sagas of hero princes who successfully battle an evil foe and claim beautiful princesses as their brides.
The King’s illness immediately affected the tactical situation of the two armies maneuvering around Poltava. On the 17th, after Charles was wounded but before he was overcome by fever, he placed the decision whether to fight at Petrovka in Rehnskjold’s hands. The Field Marshal’s troops were already poised, waiting for the Russian squadrons and battalions massing across the river. But on hearing of Charles’ wound, Rehnskjold immediately left the northern front and returned to headquarters to learn the gravity of the sovereign’s injury and to discover what changes, if any, the King wished to make in their overall plan of battle. When Charles instructed him to take command, Rehnskjold consulted with his fellow officers and decided not to attack in the north as originally planned. Officers and men were still too badly shaken by the wounding of the King.
By the evening of the 17th, Peter knew that the King had been wounded. His decision to cross the river had been made hesitantly; he had, in effect, intended to put one toe on the western bank to see what would happen. Now, hearing that Charles was injured, Peter immediately ordered the entire army to move. On June 19, Ronne’s cavalry and Hallart’s infantry crossed the Vorskla unmolested and quickly entrenched themselves at Semenovka. That same day, the main army broke camp at Krutoy Bereg and marched north to the Petrovka ford, the Guards Brigade in the van, then Menshikov’s division, the artillery and supply train, and Repnin’s division in the rear. For two days, between the 19th and the 21st—the same days that Charles lay near death—the river was filled with lines of men and horses, cannon and wagons, as Russian infantry and cavalry regiments moved across from the eastern to the western bank. Once they reached the opposite side, a battle became inevitable. Confronting each other at such close quarters, surrounded by river barriers, neither side could easily withdraw. Indeed, to retreat in the presence of so much enemy strength at such proximity would be extremely dangerous. On the western bank, finding themselves unchallenged, the Russians continued entrenching themselves with their backs to the river, preparing for the Swedish attack which they were sure was coming. But it did not come.
By the 22nd, the Swedes had reconstituted themselves. Charles still was gravely ill, but his fever had broken and he was no longer in danger of dying. Rehnskjold drew his army up in line of battle in a field northwest of Poltava, offering a battle to the Russians if Peter wished it. Charles himself appeared, carried in front of the soldiers in a stretcher slung between horses, in order to cheer the troops. But Peter, still busy entrenching, had no intention of coming out to fight. By drawing the Swedish army away from Poltava, he had already achieved his immediate purpose: to relieve the pressure on the town. Seeing that the Russians were not attacking, Charles ordered Rehnskjold to disperse his men. It was at this moment, as the King lay on a stretcher in the field surrounded by his troops, that the long-awaited messengers from Poland and the Crimea arrived with news of the long-awaited reinforcements.
From Poland, Charles learned that Stanislaus and Krassow were not coming. It was the old, familiar Polish story of intrigue, jealousy and hesitation. Stanislaus felt insecure on his shaky throne and was unwilling to march to the east, leaving his new, unstable kingdom behind him. He and Krassow had quarreled, and Krassow had retreated with all his troops to Pomerania to train the new recruits arriving from Sweden before marching to join Charles in the Ukraine. Now, Krassow could not possibly arrive before late summer. The second messenger was from Devlet Gerey. The Khan confirmed that because the Sultan had denied permission for him to join the King against Peter, he could not send troops; he promised friendship. Thus Charles, lying on his stretcher, learned that his policy of waiting at Poltava for reinforcements had failed. His dream of a great allied thrust as Moscow from the south was in vain.
The King passed the news to his advisors, who received it gloomily. The practical Piper urged him to abandon the whole Russian campaign immediately, raising the siege of Poltava and retreating across the Dnieper to Poland, thus saving himself and the army for the future. In addition, he advised more energetic pursuit of diplomatic negotiations with the Tsar. He pointed out that Menshikov had recently written to him proposing a visit to the Swedish camp in person if Charles would grant him safe-conduct. Even if he signed a peace with Russia, Piper counseled, Charles could always renew the war later on more favorable terms. But Charles refused either to retreat or to negotiate.
Meanwhile, his situation was slowly, inexorably deteriorating. The army was being nibbled away; irreplaceable men were being killed and wounded every day in minor skirmishes. Food was low, as the region had been stripped bare; powder was damp and there were not enough musket balls; uniforms were patched and feet were showing through the soldiers’ boots. The conviction that the Russians would not come out and fight had depressed the men, while the whole army was caught in torpor and lassitude caused by the intense heat. Charles himself, lying day after day on his sickbed, was racked by a strange blend of boredom and anxiety. Knowing that something must be done, he suffered the frustration of being unable to do anything physical himself. As one hope after another failed, as the Swedish position before Poltava became increasingly untenable, he longed to strike a sudden blow which would end all his troubles. The only way he knew was battle—a battle would salvage honor, no matter what the outcome. If he won, a victory might revitalize the hopes which had just collapsed. The Turks and Tatars might be happy to join a victorious Swedish army in its final march on Moscow. And if, because of the odds, a total victory was not won, another stand-off such as Golovchin would clear the way for realistic negotiations and permit a return with honor to Poland.
Thus, Charles decided on battle. He would hurl his army upon the enemy with all the strength it still possessed. He would strike, the sooner the better. And if it was possible, the Swedish attack would be a surprise.
For Peter, the arguments in favor of a battle were less persuasive than they were for Charles. Charles’ situation would be saved only if he brought the Russian army to battle and won at least a partial victory. Peter, on the other hand, was already achieving his purpose by relieving the pressure on Poltava and by sealing off the isolated Swedish army from any hope of reinforcement. The Tsar had no need of an actual battle unless it could be contrived that the Russian army’s superiority should be further enhanced by forcing the Swedes to assault a heavily fortified Russian defensive position. This situation Peter now proceeded to arrange.
On the night of June 26, the Russian army moved south from the Semenovka camp and established a new main camp near the village of Yakovtsy, only four miles north of the walls of Poltava. Here, Russian soldiers, working feverishly through the night, threw up a large square earth entrenchment. Peter was still respectful of his Swedish adversary, but by this movement, although not attacking, he was coming closer—inviting, tempting, almost forcing an attack on his own new earth ramparts and entrenched army. The rear of the new Russian camp overlooked the bluff of the Vorskla at a point where the bank was so steep and the river so broad and marshy that it would be impossible for large numbers of men to cross in either direction. Thus, the only retreat for an army in this position would be north, back to the ford at Petrovka.
Nevertheless, the site was well chosen. To the south, the ground between the camp and the town was heavily forested and too slashed by ravines and gullies to be suitable for maneuver by large bodies of men. To the north, thick woods made passage by troops and especially by cavalry impossible. Only from the west, where a broad plain was ringed by patches of woodland, could the camp be approached. The camp was fortified on all four sides, but, naturally, the western rampart was most heavily fortified. Here, a trench six feet deep ran in front of an earth rampart which mounted seventy Russian cannon. Behind these walls, the Russian infantry, fifty-eight battalions, totaling 32,000 men, pitched their tents and waited. Close at hand, in the plain beyond the ramparts, seventeen Russian cavalry and dragoon regiments totaling 10,000 horsemen picketed their horses and waited.
But even this deep entrenchment and numerical superiority were not enough for Peter. Having learned over nine years of the Swedish army’s taste and talent for sudden, surprise attacks, Peter had taken further precautions. Any Swedish attack on the Russian camp would have to come up the road from Poltava. About a mile south of the camp, the plain narrowed and the road passed between an area cut by forest and ravines to the east and a wooded swampy area to the west. Across this gap, Peter threw up a line of six earth redoubts at a distance of a musket shot (about 300 feet) apart. Each redoubt was about 100 feet on each of its four sides and, when the earthworks were garrisoned by two battalions of the Belgorodsky Regiment and part of the Nekludov and Nechaev regiments, each redoubt was defended by several hundred soldiers and one or two cannon. Behind this line of redoubts, Peter positioned seventeen dragoon regiments with thirteen pieces of horse artillery, under the command of Menshikov, Ronne and Bauer. Together, this combination of field fortification and heavy concentration of horsemen would give warning and a first line of opposition to any Swedish advance out onto the broader part of the plain.
On June 26, Peter issued a proclamation to his army: “Soldiers: the hour has struck when the fate of the whole motherland lies in your hands. Either Russia will perish or she will be reborn in a nobler shape. The soldiers must not think of themselves as armed and drawn up to fight for Peter, but for tsardom, entrusted to Peter by his birth and by the people.” He concluded, “Of Peter it should be known that he does not value his own life, but only that Russia should live in piety, glory and prosperity.”