In 1706, Charles XII's international authority was undeniable. The papal nuncio, who reproached Joseph I, the Holy Roman Emperor of the German nation, for giving guarantees of religious freedom to the Protestants of Silesia in 1707 at the request of Charles, heard amazing words:
"You must be very happy that the Swedish king did not offer me to accept Lutheranism, for if he wanted to … I do not know what I would do."
It should be said that this emperor, like many other monarchs, was the true "master of his word": he took away his promise of religious freedom immediately after receiving news of the defeat of Charles XII at Poltava.
Karl's self-confidence reached the point that on September 6 he alone drove into Dresden, where he appeared to his mortal enemy August the Strong, forcing him to show him the fortifications. Even the elector's mistress, Countess Kozel, demanded the arrest of the Swedish king, but Augustus did not dare, and Karl returned safely to his waiting retinue.
“I relied on my lucky destiny,” he explained his behavior a few days later.
On September 13 (24), 1706, the Swedish king forced the Saxon Elector Augustus to sign the Altranstedt Peace Treaty, according to which, in addition to surrendering Krakow and some other fortresses and paying a huge indemnity, he agreed to place Swedish garrisons in Saxon cities, and also renounced the Polish crown.
Karl appointed Stanislav Leszczynski as the new king of Poland.
During one of the conversations with his protege, Karl called Peter I "an unjust tsar" and announced the need to remove him from the throne.
In the army of Charles himself at that time there were 44 thousand people, and 25 thousand of them were dragoons, who, if necessary, could fight on foot. The army was in excellent condition, the regiments were fully staffed, the soldiers had time to rest, and nothing seemed to bode well.
In September 1707, the Swedish king set out on a campaign called Russian by historians. It was expected that the Swedish Army of Courland, commanded by General Levengaupt, would join him on the way.
The beginning of the Russian campaign of Charles XII
At the council of war in Zhovkva (near Lvov), the Russians made a decision "not to give battle in Poland", but "to torment the enemy by laying down provisions and fodder."
This tactic almost immediately began to bear fruit: the campaign of the Swedish army was difficult, and the autumn thaw, because of which Karl was forced to stay in war-torn Poland, exacerbated the situation. In addition, the Swedes walked through the north of Poland - wooded and swampy Masuria, where they had to cut forest glades and pave roads, and local peasants did not want to share their already meager supplies. Karl had to send foragers around the neighborhood, who did not stand on ceremony with the Poles: demanding to point out caches with food, they tortured men and women, and tortured children in front of their parents.
On January 27, 1708, the Swedes reached the Neman and Karl, learning that Peter I was in Grodno, without hesitation, with only 800 cavalrymen, burst onto the bridge, which, contrary to the order, was not destroyed by Brigadier Mühlenfeld, who had gone over to the Swedes. On this bridge, Charles XII personally fought the Russians and killed two officers. Following their plan for a "Scythian war", the Russians retreated: the last Russian units left Grodno through the northern gates at the moment when the first detachments of the Swedish army entered the city through the southern ones.
The mercenaries of the Russians, captains Sachs and Fock, who went over to the side of the Swedes, offered to capture Peter I, who was often unguarded, but Karl himself almost died when the Russian cavalrymen, destroying the Swedish posts, broke into the city that night. The king, of course, could not deny himself the pleasure of fighting on the streets of the city, and only a misfire of a musket aimed at him saved him then.
In early February, Karl's army reached Smorgon and stopped there for a month to rest. In mid-March, the Swedes resumed their movement, and reached Radoshkovichi, where they remained for three months, devastating all the surrounding villages and towns. By that time, the Swedes had learned to find peasant hiding places: the method turned out to be simple and effective - they simply dug out places with thawed patches.
On June 6, Karl moved his army east again. “Now we are walking along the road to Moscow, and if we only continue, then, of course, we will get there,” he said.
To his "pocket" king Stanislav to defend Poland, he left 8 thousand recruits, whom he appointed to command General Crassau - because the crown hetman Senyavsky held the side of Russia, only by defeating him, Leshchinsky could leave Poland and come to the aid of Charles XII.
Before parting, the Swedish king asked Stanislav's opinion about Prince Jakub Ludwik Sobieski (the son of the Polish king Jan III, a contender for the Polish throne, who was in captivity by August the Strong from 1704 to 1706), who, in his opinion, could become “excellent tsar of Russia . So Karl XII was very serious about it.
In June 1708, the army of Charles XII crossed the Berezina, and on July 3, at Golovchina, the Swedes won for the last time in a battle against the Russians. At the same time, they had some superiority in forces: 30 thousand Swedes under the command of Karl himself against 28 thousand, which were commanded by Sheremetev and Menshikov.
The Swedes' attack on the left flank of the Russians led to the flight of Repnin's division, which was demoted for this and was forced to reimburse the cost of the guns left behind (after the Battle of Lesnaya, Repnin was reinstated in rank).
The losses of the parties in this battle turned out to be approximately equal, which should have alerted Charles, but the Swedish king stubbornly did not notice the obvious things, continuing to consider the Russian army as weak as in the memorable battle of Narva.
In this battle, Karl almost died again, but not from a Russian saber or a bullet - he almost drowned in a swamp. But fate kept the king for the Poltava shame and "circus performances" in the Ottoman Empire (which are described in the article "Vikings" against the Janissaries. The incredible adventures of Charles XII in the Ottoman Empire).
The next military clash between the Russian and Swedish troops was the battle near the village of Dobroe, which took place on August 29, 1708. Here the vanguard units of General Roos were defeated by the detachment of Prince Golitsyn. The ratio of casualties for the Swedes was simply depressing: they lost about 3,000 people, while the Russians - only 375. Peter I wrote about this battle:
"As long as I began to serve, I have never heard or seen such fire and decent action from our soldiers … And the King of Sweden has never seen such a thing from anyone else in this war."
Finally, on September 10, 1708, the Swedish Ostgotland cavalry regiment entered into battle with a detachment of Russian dragoons near the village of Raevka. This battle is notable for the fact that both Charles XII and Peter I took part in it, who said that he could see the face of the Swedish king.
A horse was killed under Charles, and at the decisive moment there were only 5 drabants next to him, but fresh cavalry units of the Swedes managed to rescue their king.
Meanwhile, the difficulties in supplying the Swedish army only increased. The French Chargé d'Affaires of Poland under Stanislav Leszczynski de Bezanval reported to Versailles, referring to his informant in the army of Charles XII, that the Swedes use saltpeter instead of salt, do not even have wine for communion with the dying, and the wounded say that they have only three medicines: water, garlic and death.
Levengaupt's corps at that time was only 5 transitions from the main army, but famine forced Charles XII to turn his troops south - this decision was another and very big mistake of the king.
On the night of September 15, the first to the south, to the city of Mglin, was the detachment of General Lagerkrona (2,000 infantrymen and 1,000 cavalrymen with four guns), but the Swedes got lost and went to Starodub. But even this city the bureaucrat-general refused to take, stating that he did not have the king's order to do so. And only the cavalry of General Koskul came to Mglin - without cannons and without infantry. And on October 1, Karl received the news of the battle, which, indeed, became fatal for the Swedes, and had a huge impact on the course of their military campaign in Russia.
Battle of Lesnaya
In September 1708, the corps of General Levengaupt was defeated by the Russians near Lesnaya (a village in the modern Mogilev region).
Peter I called this battle the "mother" of the Poltava "Victoria" (from September 28, 1708 to July 27, 1709 - exactly 9 months) and until the end of his life he celebrated the anniversary of this battle. Its importance for the Russian and Swedish armies was so great that Charles XII refused to believe the news about him.
Levengaupt, who was going to join the main army, had to bring with him a wagon train with food and ammunition, the amount of which was calculated for three months. Other commanders of the Swedish corps were Generals Schlippenbach and Stackelberg, who would be captured during the battle at Poltava (Levengaupt himself would surrender at Perevolnaya). At the disposal of Levengaupt was 16 thousand of the best soldiers of Europe - "natural" Swedes, and 16 artillery pieces. Peter I was mistaken, believing that there were half of them, perhaps precisely because the Russians (of whom there were about 18 thousand people, but 12 thousand took part in the battle) acted so boldly and decisively. Initially, the Swedes were attacked by vanguard units, numbering only 4 thousand people. They were repulsed, but the next attack, in which 12 infantry battalions and 12 cavalry squadrons took part, which were later joined by the dragoons of Lieutenant General R. Bour, forced Levengaupt to retreat, abandoning half of the convoy. The next day, the Swedes were overtaken at Propoisk by a detachment of General Hermann Flug and fled, not listening to the orders of the commanders. Levengaupt, having ordered to drown the cannons and set fire to the carts of the convoy, retreated, bringing only 6,700 tired and morally depressed soldiers to his king.
The defeat of the Swedes was unprecedented: about 6,000 people were killed or wounded, 2,673 soldiers and 703 officers were captured. In addition, they managed to extinguish and save most of the carts with food and equipment: in total, 5000 out of 8000 carts became Russian trophies.
Russian losses amounted to 1,100 killed and 2,856 wounded.
In this battle, Lieutenant General of the Russian Army R. Bour was seriously wounded, his right side of his body was paralyzed, but by the summer of 1709 he recovered and took part in the Battle of Poltava.
The captured Swedish generals after Poltava informed Peter about Levengaupt's warning to Karl after the battle at Lesnaya: "Russia has the best army before everyone."
But, according to them, neither they nor the king then believed him, continuing to believe that the Russian army was no better than the one that they knew from the battle at Narva.
Charles XII declared this obvious defeat a victory by sending a bulletin to Stockholm, which said that Levengaupt "successfully repelled the attacks of 40 thousand Muscovites." But the General-Quartermaster of the Swedish army Axel Gillenkrok (Yullenkruk) wrote that the king in vain "tried to hide his sorrow that all his plans were ruined."
The Swedish army was starving, the Seversk land in front of it was devastated, Menshikov's corps was operating in the rear, and Karl was forced to continue moving south, hoping to get food and fodder from Hetman Ivan Mazepa.
Getman Mazepa
Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa-Koldinsky was not at all happy about the visit of the "ally". According to the concepts of that time, he was already a deep old man (born in 1639, he became hetman during the reign of Princess Sophia), and he had about a year to live. And old people are usually not inclined to take risks, putting on the line "bird in hand" against "pie in the sky."
In his youth, Mazepa was in the service of the Polish king Jan II Casimir. About this period of his life, Byron wrote the poem "Mazeppa" in 1818, in which he retold the legend, belonging to Voltaire, about how a young "Cossack", the page of the Polish king Jan II Casimir, was tied to a horse for a shameful relationship with the wife of the Count Palatine Falbovsky. released into a wild field. But the horse turned out to be "Ukrainian", and therefore brought him to his native steppes.
In Ukraine, Mazepa served the hetmans Doroshenko and Samoilovich, and in 1687 he himself received the hetman's mace. In one of his letters, Mazepa says that in the 12 years of his hetmanship, he made 11 summer and 12 winter campaigns in the interests of Russia. In Ukraine, Mazepa was not very popular precisely because of suspicions that he was "doing everything according to the will of Moscow", and therefore, not relying too much on the loyalty of his entourage and the Cossacks, the hetman was forced to keep with him as many as three regiments of Serdyuk (mercenaries, whose salary was paid from the hetman's treasury).
He had an excellent relationship with Peter I, who gave him the city of Yanpol. In 1705, Mazepa rejected Stanislav Leshchinsky's proposals, but later he nevertheless entered into a correspondence, promising not to harm the interests of Stanislav and the Swedish troops in any way. He refused Polish "protection" because of the "natural antipathy" towards the Poles of the entire population of Ukraine.
But in 1706, at a feast, the drunken Menshikov in the presence of the Cossack colonels, pointing to them, started a conversation with Mazepa about the need to eradicate "internal" sedition. Peter I besieged him, but Menshikov's words made the most unfavorable impression on everyone. In addition, there were rumors that Alexander Danilych himself wanted to become hetman - and Mazepa himself did not like this very much.
In addition, the hetman and the Cossack foremen knew that Peter I was negotiating with August and was ready to pay with Ukrainian lands for Poland's participation in the war against Charles. No one in Ukraine wanted to be ruled by Catholic Poles and again become second-class people, and the rich foremen quite reasonably feared the redistribution of the lands they had already received. And there was a dull murmur that the Russian tsar "does not give the Poles what he himself took … they did not take us with a saber."
The Zaporozhians (people who would not feel like strangers and superfluous neither in Port Royal, nor in Tortuga) were also worried: they were unhappy that the Moscow authorities were restricting their freedom to “go for zipuns”, and these “knights” to work on the land, unlike the Cossacks of the Don army, they were considered beneath their dignity.
Mazepa was not at all averse to becoming an "independent" ruler of Ukraine, but he played a double game, hoping that everything would go without his participation. Poland has already been weakened and devastated by the war, Russia, in case of defeat, will also have no time for him, and Sweden is far away and with King Charles it will be possible to bargain for the crown of the vassal king. And in the event of Peter's victory, he, in essence, does not lose anything: he will faithfully congratulate him on his success and join the winner. Therefore, upon learning that Charles XII turned to Ukraine, Mazepa could not hide his fear:
“The devil is carrying him here! He will overturn all my interests, the Great Russian troops will follow him inside Ukraine to its last ruin and to our destruction."
Now Mazepa was faced with a difficult choice: he had to either remain loyal to Russia and Peter, or finally take the path of direct and obvious betrayal, with all the ensuing consequences.
The military authority of the Swedish king was still high, and therefore Mazepa chose treason: he sent a letter to Charles XII, in which he asked "protection for himself, the Zaporizhzhya Army and all the people for liberation from the heavy yoke of Moscow." But he avoided active actions, pretending to be sick (even taking communion) and not doing anything else.
However, on October 23, Colonel Voinarovsky, who had fled from Menshikov, came to him and conveyed to him some rumors (“one German officer told another”) that Alexander Danilych knew about the hetman’s betrayal, and tomorrow he (Mazepa) “would be in shackles ". Here the hetman's nerves could not stand it: he fled to Baturyn, and from there - further, beyond the Desna. On October 29, Mazepa met with Charles XII. He was followed by only 4 thousand Cossacks (out of the promised 20 thousand), the rest were extremely hostile to the Swedes. Which, by the way, was pretty much contributed by the Swedes themselves, with contempt for both the Allied Untermenschs and the local population, whom they usually paid for food in the following way: stopping in a village or town, they bought food, but when they left - took away the money paid, threatening to burn down the house and even kill its inhabitants. The Ukrainians did not like this behavior of the "liberators from the Moscow yoke".
Menshikov was then informed:
"The Cherkasy (that is, the Cossacks) gathered in konpaniyami, walk around and beat the Swedes very much and cut the roads in the woods."
Gustav Adlerfeld, Chamberlain of Charles XII, left the following entries in his diary:
“On December 10, Colonel Funk with 500 cavalrymen was sent to punish and reason with the peasants, who were joining forces in various places. Funk killed more than a thousand people in the small town of Tereya (Tereiskaya Sloboda) and burned this town, he also burned Drygalov (Nedrygailovo). He also incinerated several hostile Cossack villages and ordered to kill everyone who met in order to instill terror in others."
"We were constantly in a fight with the inhabitants, which upset old Mazepa to the highest degree."
On November 2, Menshikov's troops captured Baturin, and, together with its walls, Karl's hopes to seize the warehouses located in this city collapsed. Mazepa, learning about the fall of his capital, said:
"I know now that God did not bless my intention."
And when Colonel Burlyai surrendered the White Church with the hetman's treasury to D. M. Golitsyn without a fight, Mazepa finally fell into despondency, cursing the Swedish king and his decision to join him.
The attitude of the Cossacks who followed him towards Mazepa is characterized by the following fact: in November 1708, Peter I received a letter from the Mirgorod Colonel D. Apostol, who offered to deliver the hetman to the tsar. He never received an answer from Peter, but later left Mazepa and received forgiveness.
Colonel Apostle brought a letter from Mazepa, who, in turn, turned to Peter with a proposal to extradite King Charles and his generals. These are the allies who met the Swedish king in Ukraine - there were no better ones for him.
Mazepa's offer was very tempting, and Peter agreed to forgive him, but the hetman continued to play a double game: he also wrote a letter to Stanislav Leshchinsky, in which he urged him to come to Ukraine, calling it the “fatherland” (hereditary possession) of the Polish kings. He no longer thought about his comrades-in-arms, or about the Cossacks, or about ordinary people of Little Russia, the only thing he asked for was the preservation of property and the post of hetman. Russian dragoons intercepted this letter from Mazepa, and Peter refused further negotiations with him.
The way to Poltava
Now the Russians and Swedes moved south on parallel courses. The Cossacks and Kalmyks who remained loyal to Russia in the steppes of Ukraine felt so confident that by November 16, 1708, Charles XII was left without adjutant generals: five were killed, one was captured. In one of the clashes with the Cossacks, Karl's "brother-in-arms" - "The Little Prince" Maximilian, almost died (Charles XII and his army was told about him in the article).
On November 17, the Swedes occupied the town of Romny, and this unexpectedly caused a gossip in the royal army. The fact is that in the army of Charles XII, the prophecy that "the king and his army will be invincible until they seize Rome" has spread from an unknown source. The consonance of the names of the "Eternal City" and the insignificant Little Russian fortress made an unpleasant impression on the Swedish soldiers.
The winter that year throughout Europe was unusually harsh (the Rhone and the canals of Venice were frozen), but the frosts hit the Russians no less hard than their opponents: the Swedes themselves report that on the way to Lebedin they counted more than 2 thousand corpses of frozen Russians soldier. At the same time, Peter I, as they said, "took care of less people than horses", and Charles XII - "did not take care of either one or the other." It is said that 4 thousand Swedes froze to death in the city of Gadyach on the night of December 28 alone. In total, according to Swedish data, in December, frostbite in their army received from a quarter to a third of the soldiers. Hungry Caroliners demanded "bread or death" from Karl.
In early January 1709, Charles led his army to the small fortress Veprik, fortified only by a rampart, whose garrison numbered about 1,100 people.
The Swedish king, not waiting for the arrival of artillery, threw 4 regiments into the assault, having lost 1200 soldiers. Field Marshal Rönschild was then wounded, from the consequences of which he never fully recovered. After repelling 3 attacks, the garrison of the fortress left it.
To his sister Ulrike Eleanor Karl wrote:
“Here in the army everything is going very well, although the soldiers have to endure difficulties always associated with the proximity of the enemy. Moreover, the winter was very cold; it seemed almost extraordinary, so that many of the enemy and ours froze or lost their legs, arms and noses … But, to our delight, from time to time we had some entertainment, as the Swedish troops had little skirmishes with the enemy and inflicted blows to him."
This "youth" had its price: at the beginning of the campaign, Charles XII had an army of 35,000, which was joined by the remnants of Levengaupt's corps. Only 41 thousand people. In April 1709, he brought only 30 thousand to Poltava.
The siege of Poltava and the great battle near this city will be discussed in the next article.
