In the previous article ("Karl XII and his army") we talked about the events that preceded the Battle of Poltava: the movement of Swedish troops to Poltava, the betrayal of Hetman Mazepa and the state of the Swedish army on the eve of the battle. Now it's time to tell about the siege of Poltava and the battle itself, which forever changed the history of Sweden and our country.
Siege of Poltava by the Swedes
We remember that the losses of the Swedish army by that time were already so great that the king sent letters to Poland with orders to General Crassau and Stanislav Leshchinsky to lead their troops to the Ukraine. Karl XII had about 30 thousand people at his disposal at Poltava. The Swedes were located as follows: the king, his headquarters, drabants and guards occupied the Yakovetsky monastery (east of Poltava). Infantry was stationed to the west of the city. The cavalry units that did not take part in the siege and assault were located even further west - about 4 versts. And to the south of Poltava there was a wagon train, which was guarded by two dragoon regiments.
In the garrison of Poltava, headed by A. S. Kelin, there were 4182 soldiers, artillerymen with 28 guns and 2600 militia from the townspeople.
There was no particular point in sieging this town, but Karl said that "when the Russians see that we seriously want to attack, they will surrender at the first shot at the city."
Even Karl's generals did not believe that the Russians would be so kind. Rönskjold said then: "The King wants to have fun until the Poles come."
The further course of events was determined by the famous stubbornness of Karl, who did not want to leave Poltava until he took it.
The Russians also insulted the Swedish king when a dead cat thrown by one of the townspeople fell into his shoulder. Now Karl was tightly "tied" to such an irreverent city.
"Even if the Lord God sent his angel from heaven with the command to retreat from Poltava, I would still stay here", - said the king to the chief of his field office, Karl Piper.
The defenders of Poltava, in turn, killed the man who proposed to surrender the city.
The bitterness of the Swedes reached the point that they burned two captured Russian soldiers alive in front of the defenders of the city.
The defeat of the Chertomlytskaya Sich and the further fate of the Cossacks
Meanwhile, in May 1709, a detachment of Colonel Yakovlev, in order to take revenge on the Cossacks for treason, captured and destroyed the Chertomlytskaya Sich (at the confluence of its right tributary Chertomlyk into the Dnieper).
This "pirate republic" rose like a phoenix from the ashes at the mouth of the Kamenka river (Kherson region), and was defeated again in 1711. However, the Cossacks held out until June 1775, when the last, eighth, Pidpilnyanskaya Sich was liquidated by order of Catherine II.
The Cossacks were divided into two parts. The marginal people who were incapable of peaceful labor and "thugs" left for the territory of the Ottoman Empire, founding the Transdanubian Sich. According to the agreement with the Sultan, they sent 5 thousand Cossacks to his army, who calmly and without the slightest remorse of conscience fought against the Orthodox - Russians, Ukrainians and Greeks. After 53 years, some of the Trans-Danube Cossacks returned to Russia, received forgiveness and settled in the historical region of Novorossiya near Mariupol, forming the Azov Cossack army. From the rest, the "Slavic Legion" was organized, which the sultans did not use in the wars against Russia, fearing that these Cossacks would go over to the side of the Russians.
And the most adequate Cossacks in 1787 entered the sovereign's service as part of the Black Sea Cossack army.
On June 30, 1792, they were granted “in eternal possession … in the Tauride region, the island of Phanagoria with all the land lying on the right side of the Kuban River from its mouth to the Ust-Labinskiy redoubt - so that on one side the Kuban River, on the other the Sea of Azov to the Yeisk town they served as the border of the military land."
In addition to the "real" Zaporozhian Secheviks, the Kuban was also accompanied by immigrants from Little Russia, "zholnery who left the Polish service", "the state department of the villagers", people of "muzhik rank" from different Russian provinces and people of "unknown rank" (apparently fugitives and deserters). There were also a number of Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Greeks, Lithuanians, Tatars and even Germans. The adopted son of one of the Kuban Cossacks, the Pole P. Burnos, wrote:
"Vasil Korneevich Burnos is a Pole, I am a Circassian, Starovelichkovsky Burnos is a Jew."
And all of them were now Kuban Cossacks. And in Ukraine since then, the Cossacks have remained only in songs and fairy tales.
Charles XII is wounded
For the Swedes, the situation in 1709 worsened every day.
At that moment, Gabriel Golovkin appeared to Karl as ambassador from Peter I, who brought an offer of peace in exchange for recognition of the Russian conquests in the Baltic States and refusal to interfere in Polish affairs. The king refused. And on the night of June 16-17, he received his famous wound in the heel.
According to one version, the king went to inspect the Russian camp, and, seeing two Cossacks sitting by the fire, shot one of them, having received a bullet from the second.
“To dump like a Cossack today / And exchange a wound for a wound,” says Mazepa about this incident in Alexander Pushkin’s poem “Poltava”.
According to another version, when he saw a Russian detachment crossing the river, he gathered the first soldiers he came across and entered the battle, forcing the enemy to retreat, but was wounded when he was about to go back.
It is not clear why, he did not allow the doctor to immediately remove the bullet - at first he drove around the Swedish guards with a check. As a result, the wound became inflamed and the leg was swollen so that they could not remove the boots from it - they had to cut it.
Peter I at Poltava
What was Peter doing at this time?
At the beginning of the campaign, Peter I had an army of more than 100 thousand people at his disposal. Its main part, consisting of 83 thousand people, was under the command of Field Marshal Sheremetev. In Ingermanlandia there was a corps of General Bour - 24 thousand people. In addition, in Poland, the crown hetman Senyavsky acted as an ally of the Russians, in whose army there were about 15 thousand cavalrymen.
The Tsar arrived at Poltava on April 26 and, having settled on the opposite bank of the Vorskla (north of the Yakovetsky Monastery), until June 20, assembled regiments that gradually approached the site of the future great battle. As a result, the Swedish army was surrounded: in the south was the heroic Poltava, in the north - the camp of Peter I, in which 42 thousand combat soldiers and officers were before the battle, Russian cavalrymen of Generals Bour and Genskin acted in the east and west.
War Council of Charles XII
But why did Karl stand at Poltava without engaging in battle with the Russians? He, in turn, was expecting Crassau's corps, which was in Poland, the army of Leshchinsky and the Crimean Tatars, negotiations with which were carried out through the mediation of Mazepa. Hurrying to deal with the rebellious city, on the eve of the general battle, he again sent his troops to storm: twice the Swedes tried to take Poltava on June 21, and on the 22nd they managed to climb the walls, but this time they were thrown from them.
On June 26, Charles met with a council of war, at which the commander of the Dalecarlian regiment, Sigroth, announced that his soldiers were in a state of despondency. They have not received bread for two days, and the horses are fed with leaves from the trees. Due to the lack of ammunition, bullets have to be poured from melted officer services or Russian cannonballs used for these purposes. And the Cossacks are ready to rebel at any minute. Field Marshal Rönschild supported him, saying that the army was decaying before our eyes, and that the cannonballs, bullets and gunpowder would only last for one big battle.
Karl, who for some unknown reason delayed the battle with the Russians, although time was clearly not on his side, finally gave the order "to attack the Russians tomorrow," reassuring his generals with the words: "We will find everything we need in the reserves of the Muscovites."
Let's add, perhaps, that Charles XII was still unable to walk due to a wound in the heel, and inflammation due to untimely treatment of the wound caused a fever. Field Marshal Karl Gustav Rönschild, who was to be the commander-in-chief in the upcoming battle, could not heal the wound received during the assault on the town of Veprek. And General Levengaupt, appointed to command the infantry, suffered from diarrhea. After the meeting, this "invalid team" began to prepare their army for the general battle.
Swedish army on the eve of the battle
At that time, there were about 24 thousand soldiers ready for battle in the Swedish army - not counting the Zaporozhian Cossacks, whom the Swedes did not trust, and on whom they did not rely too much.
Subsequent events showed that they assessed the Cossacks and their desire to fight correctly. The Swedish lieutenant Veie described their participation in the Battle of Poltava as follows:
"As for the Cossacks of Hetman Mazepa, I do not think that more than three of them were killed during the entire battle, because while we were fighting, they were in the rear, and when we managed to escape, they were far ahead."
There were 2,250 wounded and sick in the Swedish army. In addition, the army consisted of about 1,100 officials of the chancellery, about 4,000 grooms, orderlies and workers, as well as 1,700 strangers in general - the wives and children of soldiers and officers.
And the number of combatant Russian troops at this time reached 42 thousand people.
Nevertheless, it was the Swedes who should have attacked in the upcoming battle, since, as shown in the previous article, their army was rapidly weakening and degrading, and it was already impossible to delay the battle.
They had to advance across the field between the Budishchensky and Yakovetsky forests (two to three versts wide), on which, by order of Peter I, 10 redoubts were built: these were quadrangular defensive fortifications with ramparts and ditches, surrounded by slingshots, the length of one face of the redoubt was from 50 to 70 meters.
Thus, the battle inevitably fell into two parts: the breakthrough through the redoubts, and the battle in front of the redoubts (or the storming of the Russian camp, if the Russians did not accept an open battle and took refuge in it).
On the morning of June 26, a non-commissioned officer of the Semyonovsky regiment Schultz fled to the Swedes, so it was decided to dress the soldiers of the exemplary Novgorod regiment in the uniforms of recruits.
At 1 am on June 27, 8,200 Swedish infantry, gathered in 4 columns, began to take up their positions. They were given only 4 guns, while 28 guns with a sufficient number of charges remained in the train. 109 cavalry squadrons and drabants (totaling 7,800 people) advanced even earlier. They were supposed to be supported by 3 thousand Cossacks. Other Cossacks, along with Mazepa, remained with the train. And on the side of the Russians in the battle of Poltava, 8 thousand Cossacks fought.
Karl, lying on a stretcher made for him, was on the right flank of his troops.
It was brought by the drabants and guards allocated for protection, here the stretcher was fixed between two horses, the officers of the suite stood nearby.
Battle of Poltava
With sunrise, the Swedish infantry moved forward - and came under an artillery strike from the guns of the Russian redoubts (a total of 102 guns were installed on them). The power of Russian artillery fire was such that the cannonballs reached the place where the Swedish king was, one of them killed three drabants and several guards of Charles XII, as well as a horse carrying the king's stretcher, and the second broke the drawbar of these stretchers.
The Swedish commanders did not understand the carelessly drawn up disposition. Some battalions marched in order of battle and stormed the redoubts, others moved in marching order, and, bypassing them, moved on. The commanders of the columns could not find the companies that had gone ahead, and did not understand where they were disappearing.
The cavalry units followed the infantry.
The first redoubt was captured by the Swedes almost immediately, the second with difficulty and with heavy losses, and then confusion began.
The soldiers of the Dalecarlian regiment, who had delayed, storming the second Russian redoubt, lost sight of the other Swedish units. The commander of the column, Major General Karl Gustav Roos, and the colonel of this regiment Sigroth led him forward at random and stumbled upon a third redoubt, where they met with unsuccessfully attacked battalions from Nerke, Jonkoping and two battalions of the Västerbotten regiment. Having united, the Swedes again went to the assault, but since they did not have ladders and other necessary equipment, they suffered terrible losses (1100 people died, including 17 captains out of 21, Colonel Sigrot was wounded), and was forced to retreat to the outskirts of Yakovetsky forests, finally losing contact with the rest of the Swedish army.
Roos sent scouts in all directions to find the "missing" Swedish army, and far ahead, Field Marshal Rönschild was unsuccessfully looking for these formations.
And the Swedes who had gone ahead were met by Menshikov's cavalrymen.
Swedish dragoons and drabants rushed to the aid of their infantry, but due to the tightness they could not line up in a battle line and were repulsed. Inspired by the success, Menshikov ignored two orders of Peter I, urging him to retreat behind the line of redoubts, and when he nevertheless began to retreat, the rebuilt Swedish cavalrymen drove his detachment north - past the Russian camp, under whose protection he did not have time to bring his subordinates. And they drove the Russian cavalry straight into the ravine, in which all of it should have perished - if Rönschild had not ordered his cavalrymen to turn back. Firstly, he simply did not know about this very terrible ravine for the Russians, and secondly, he was afraid of the encirclement of his infantry units, which were now located between the redoubts and the Russian camp. Moreover, Rönschild forbade Levengaupt to immediately attack the Russian camp, ordering him to move to the Budischensky forest - to join the cavalry units.
Levengaupt later argued that the battalions of the Uppland and Estergetland regiments each took a redoubt in the transverse line, the Russians were already beginning to retreat and direct pontoons across the Vorskla, and Rönschild, by his order, deprived the Swedes of their only chance of victory. But Russian sources deny the capture of these redoubts by the Swedes. Peter not only did not want to retreat, but, on the contrary, was very afraid of the retreat of the Swedes, and therefore, in order not to frighten the enemy with the large number of his army, he decided to leave 6 regiments, Skoropadsky Cossacks and Kalmyks of Ayuki Khan in the camp, three more battalions were sent to him to Poltava.
Either way, the battle subsided for about three hours. Hiding from the Russian artillery in a hollow near the Budishchensky forest, Rönschild waited for his cavalry to return to the infantry units, and tried to find out the fate of the "lost" battalions of the Roos column, Peter put his cavalry in order and prepared his regiments for a general battle.
Karl XII was also brought to the parts of Rönschild. Accepting congratulations on the successful completion of the first stage of the battle, the king asked the field marshal if the Russians were going out of their camp to fight, to which the field marshal replied:
"Russians can't be so cocky."
At that moment, the commander of the Cossack regiment fighting on the side of the Russians, having decided that the battle was lost, turned to the "Little Prince" Maximilian with a proposal to switch to the Swedish side. The Duke of Württemberg replied that he could not make a decision on his own, and he had no opportunity to contact the king - and thereby saved this fool and coward, and his subordinates.
And Rönschild finally found the missing Dalecarlian regiment and sent General Sparre to help him. But that was ahead of the Russian regiments led by Renzel, who on the way stumbled upon Schlippenbach's stray detachment and captured this general. Then they defeated the battalions of Roos, who with a part of the soldiers broke through to the so-called "guards trench" on the banks of the Vorskla, but when he saw the Russian cannons in front of him, he was forced to surrender.
Sparre reported to Rönschild that "there is no need to think about Roos anymore," because if he "cannot defend himself from the Russians with his six battalions, then let him go to hell and do what he wants."
And at the same time, Rönschild received a message that the "insolence" of the Russians exceeded all his expectations - they were leaving their camp. It was 9 o'clock in the morning, and the battle, as it turned out, was just beginning. The Russian troops were commanded by Field Marshal Sheremetev, Peter I took over one of the divisions of the second line.
The Russian infantry was built in two lines, in the first of which there were 24 battalions, in the second - 18, in total - 22 thousand people.
55 cannons were placed between the infantry units.
The Swedes could now oppose the Russians with only 10 battalions (4 thousand people) and 4 guns. Two more battalions sent to help Roos did not have time to return.
On the right flank of the Russian army stood Bour's cavalrymen (45 squadrons), on the left - at the head of 12 squadrons, the returned Menshikov was stationed.
But the Swedish cavalry did not have enough space in order to stand on the flanks: it was located behind the infantry battalions.
Levengaupt recalled that the picture he saw "cut his heart, as if from a stabbing":
“These, if I may say so, going to slaughter stupid and unfortunate rams, I was forced to lead against all enemy infantry … It was beyond human mind to imagine that at least one soul from all our unprotected infantry would come out alive,” he wrote later.
And even civilian Pieper said then:
"The Lord must work a miracle so that we can get out this time too."
Sometimes we hear: the Russians were very lucky that Charles XII, because of his injury, could not command his army in the Battle of Poltava. I hope you now understand that if anyone was lucky that day, it was Charles XII. If healthy, the king would certainly climb forward with his Drabants, be surrounded and either perished or be captured by some brave Semyonov or transfiguration man - like Rönschild, “The Little Prince” Maximilian of Württemberg, Karl Piper and others. And the Northern War would have ended much earlier.
Let's go back to the battlefield. Having already suffered heavy losses, the weak and small Swedish battalions, practically without artillery support, moved to the strong positions of the Russians. The soldiers, accustomed to obeying their commanders, did what they were taught. And many of their commanders no longer believed in success, two people, Rönschild and Karl, kept their composure and incomprehensible calmness, who this time completely relied on his field marshal. Even in this most difficult situation, they did not invent anything new, the tactics were usual: it was decided to crush the Russians with a bayonet blow.
Bayonets at that time were a relatively new weapon: they replaced baguinets (bayonets), which first appeared in service with the French army in 1647 (and in the Russian - only in 1694). Bayonets differed from baguettes in that they were attached to the barrel (and not inserted into the muzzle of a musket), without interfering with shooting, and the French were also the first to use them - in 1689. The Swedish guards received bayonets (about 50 cm long) in 1696. - even before the accession to the throne of Charles XII. They appeared among the soldiers of the rest of the army in 1700. And Russian troops began to switch from baguettes to bayonets in 1702.
So, according to the recollections of the participants in the battle, the Swedes moved on the superior forces of the Russians and attacked with an "unprecedented fury". The Russians responded with volleys of cannon, firing 1471 shots (one third - with buckshot).
The losses of the attackers were huge, but following their traditional tactics, they went forward. Only when they came close to the Russian ranks, the Swedes fired a volley of muskets, but the powder became damp, and Levengaupt compared the sound of these shots to a faint clap on the palm of a pair of gloves.
The bayonet attack of the Caroliners on the right flank almost overturned the Novgorod regiment, which lost 15 guns. The first battalion of this regiment was almost completely destroyed, in order to restore the broken line, Peter I had to personally lead the second battalion into the attack, it was at this time that a Swedish bullet pierced his hat, and the other hit the saddle of his beloved horse Lisette.
The battalions of the Moscow, Kazan, Pskov, Siberian and Butyrsky regiments also retreated. For the Swedes, this was the only, albeit small, chance of victory, and the moment could be decisive in the entire battle, but the Russian battalions of the second line held out and did not run.
Now, according to the combat regulations of the Swedes, the cavalry was supposed to strike a massive blow at the retreating enemy units, overturning them and putting them to flight, but they were late. When the squadrons of Kreutz nevertheless approached, the Russians, lining up in a square, repulsed their attack, and then they were pushed back by Menshikov's dragoons. And on the left flank, the Swedes at that time did not even have time to engage in battle, and a gap was now formed between the flanks, into which, at any moment, the Russian units could wedge in. Here were the regiments of the guards brigade: Semenovsky, Preobrazhensky, Ingermanlandsky and Astrakhan. It was their blow that became decisive in this battle: they overturned the battalions of the left flank and cavalrymen of General Hamilton (who was captured). Soon the right-flank Swedish battalions wavered and rolled back. The retreating Swedes were caught between the Russian units attacking them from the north and east, the Budishchensky forest in the west, and their own cavalry units, which were in the south. The official Russian report says that the Swedes were beaten "like cattle." The losses of the Swedish army were terrifying: 14 out of 700 people survived in the Upland regiment, 40 out of 500 in the Skaraborg battalion.
Charles XII was not captured only by a miracle: the Russians did not know that the king himself was in one of the detachments, and therefore, having received a rebuff, they lost interest in him - they retreated, choosing easier prey, which was abundant around. But a cannonball smashed the king's stretcher, killing the front horse and several of his retinue. Karl was put on a horse by one of the guards - and almost immediately another cannonball tore off the stallion's leg. They found a new horse for the king, and the bullets continued to literally mow down the people who stood around him. In these minutes, 20 drabants perished, about 80 guardsmen of the North-Skonsky regiment, one of the doctors and several courtiers of Karl, including his chamberlain and historiographer Gustaf Adlerfelt.
In the second hour in the afternoon, Karl and his retinue reached the convoy of his army, which was defended by three cavalry and four dragoon regiments, here was almost all the artillery (in the Battle of Poltava, the Swedes used only 4 guns!) And a large number of Cossacks. These Cossacks "took part" in the battle, firing two volleys from muskets at the detachment of Charles XII, which they mistook for the advancing Russian troops.
Chaplain Agrell later argued that if the Russians had hit the wagon train then no Swede "would have been able to get away." But Peter had already begun to celebrate the victory, and did not give orders to pursue the enemy. The captives Rönschild, Schlippenbach, Stackelberg, Roos, Hamilton and Maximilian of Württemberg handed him their swords at this time. Peter I said cheerfully:
“Yesterday, my brother, King Charles, asked you to come to my tents for dinner, and you arrived at my tents on a promise, but my brother Karl did not come to my tent with you, in which he did not keep his password. I was expecting him very much and sincerely wished that he would dine in my tents, but when His Majesty did not deign to come to me for dinner, I ask you to dine in my tents."
Then he returned the weapon to them.
And on the battlefield, shots still sounded, and the Swedes continued to fight at Poltava, which they besieged. Not affected by the general panic, they held out until they received an order from Charles XII, who ordered them, joining with 200 guards, located three miles to the south, to go to the baggage train.
This mistake of Peter, apparently, was explained by the euphoria that seized him. The result, indeed, exceeded all expectations, the victory was decisive and unprecedented, all the Swedish guns participating in the battle (in the amount of 4 pieces), 137 banners, the royal archive and 2 million gold Saxon thalers were captured.
The Swedes lost 6,900 killed (including 300 officers), 2,800 soldiers and officers, one field marshal and 4 generals were taken prisoner. Various researchers estimate the number of injured people from 1,500 to 2,800. The total losses of the Swedish army (killed and captured) reached 57%.
In addition, several hundred Cossacks were taken prisoner, who were executed for treason. Two defectors were also captured - Mühlenfeld and Schultz: they were impaled.
The Swedish prisoners were held between the Cossacks and Kalmyks from those who did not take part in the battle. It was the Kalmyks who made a special impression on the Swedes, who demonstrated their ferocity in every possible way: they gnashed their teeth and gnawed their fingers. There were even rumors that the Russians had brought with them some kind of Asian tribe of cannibals, and many then, probably, regretted that they were in Russia at all, but were glad that they had not met the "cannibals" on the battlefield.
And in Moscow, captured Swedes were escorted through the streets for three days.
The Russians lost 1,345 people killed (almost 5 times less than the Swedes) and 3,920 wounded.
The following articles will tell about the surrender of the Swedish army at Perevolnaya, the fate of the captured Swedes and the further course of the Northern War.
