Next, Karl made a wholly unexpected move. He ordered the combined allied fleet to blockade Copenhagen while he led a landing force of 4,000 men onto the beaches of Zealand at Humleback, seven miles from Copenhagen. He encountered strong earthworks, but they were manned by militia which were easily scattered. The Danish army was in Holstein-Gottorp and Karl had an open path to a poorly defended Copenhagen. An additional 9,000 troops were ferried across from Skåne. Karl marched on the Danish capital at the head of 11,000 men.
Frederick knew when he was beaten. He quickly settled with Holstein-Gottorp in the Treaty of Travendal, giving back all he had taken. Karl had his first victory, a war begun and ended in less than six weeks. The Swedish king controlled Zealand and stood at the gates of a nearly defenseless Copenhagen. Here was an opportunity to crush Frederick and remove the Danish menace once and for all. But the Dutch and English had no desire to see Sweden swallow up Denmark and informed Karl the war was over. The English and Dutch fleets sailed home. Karl’s fleet was still divided and either part would be easy prey for the united Danish fleet. So Karl withdrew his troops and turned his attention to the other end of the Baltic. It is worth noting that the Danish population was favorably impressed with the Swedish troops. Discipline was maintained so well that there was no looting or other offenses usually associated with an occupation force. All food and supplies were paid for by the army and personal items were bought by the soldiers. In fact local merchants catered to the foreigners because they were willing to pay more than Danes.
Augustus II had hoped to take Riga by surprise, sending a Saxon army of three infantry and four dragoon regiments (5,000 men) across the Düna in February to attack the city. Unfortunately for him, his Saxons ran into Count Erik Dahlberg, the tough old (75) Swedish governor-general of the province who had earned the title “The Vauban of Sweden” for his skill in fortifications. It was he who had discovered and marked the path across the Danish islands for Karl X in his first invasion of Zealand. Dahlberg organized a stout defense of the well fortified city and threw the Saxons back though they did manage to take the small fortress of Dünamünde at the mouth of the Düna. Dahlberg then proceeded to defeat the invaders in two battles, at Wenden and at Neumühle. The Saxons had had enough and retreated back across the Düna.
In May Augustus sent his Saxons into Livonia again, but now Finnish and Estonian troops had arrived. Again the Saxons were defeated and driven out. In July Augustus sent his Saxon army into Livonia a third time. By then much of the Swedish army had returned north. Livonia had been suffering from famine and drought for two years. There was no food, forage or money to sustain a large army. The Saxons were able to cross the Düna without serious opposition and move on Riga, laying siege to the city.
By August Peter had settled with the Ottomans and set his army in motion to win his dream of a corridor to the Baltic. Karl spent two months readying his army for the trip to the east while Peter’s army of some 40,000 troops marched on Narva. The Saxon investment of Riga, meanwhile, had not gone well. The heavy siege artillery was supplied with the wrong caliber of ammunition. There was no way for the Saxons to stop the city from being supplied by sea. By the end of September the Saxons had raised the siege and recrossed the Düna to winter quarters. Augustus even sent emissaries to Karl with offers of peace, but the young king was incensed over the Polish king’s treacherous invasion and would not consider the proposals. Peter arrived at Narva, built extensive siege works and began the bombardment at the end of October.
Karl reached Pernau on October 6 while his main army debarked at Reval. He made his headquarters at Wesenburg and spent five weeks collecting and organizing his forces. Karl’s generals and the French ambassador tried to dissuade him from the Narva relief effort. It was a seven day march to the besieged city over roads now turned into muddy bogs. Peter had sent General Sheremetev with 5,000 men to Wesenberg to destroy Swedish stores there. Sheremetev had been turned back short of his goal, but he had laid waste to everything from there back to Narva. Karl had scarcely 11,000 men to throw against a well entrenched army of at least 35,000 troops. Karl’s comment was that he had to stop Peter or the whole Baltic coast would be flooded with Russian troops. He had come too far and Swedes were always fighting much larger Russian armies. On November 13 he began his march to Narva.
The Swedish relief army waded through mud that reached to their knees sapping the strength of man and horse. Food and fodder were scarce and both the troops and the horses were hungry, cold and wet. Karl had to navigate three passes, any one of which could have been easily defended. The first two were unguarded, but at the third, Pyhäjöggi Pass, the Swedes discovered Sheremetev with his 5,000 men in a strong position. Karl personally led a cavalry charge to dislodge the Russians and found only a rear guard covering the departing brigade.
The skirmish at Pyhäjöggi Pass was a real morale booster for the Swedish army. Their king and general had selected the point of attack well, so that the enemy guns had fired harmlessly over their heads. He had led the attack and driven off the Russians. Word spread among the Swedish troops that this was a leader of promise. Guns and supplies left behind were welcome additions to the army. The road to Narva now lay open.
By November 19, 1700, Karl was within a mile and a half of Narva. He fired a series of cannon shots in a prearranged pattern as a signal to Henning Rudolf Horn, the commander of the city. Peter had left the Russian siege army the day before expecting there to be a lengthy buildup of digging earthworks before an attack was attempted. The Swedes claimed he fled in panic as their army approached, even striking a coin later showing the tsar cowering in fear.
In any case Tsar Peter was not there when Karl and his small army marched into a wooded area near the Russian camp. This fortified camp was on the south side of the town and well protected. Peter had constructed earthen walls nine feet high behind six foot wide ditches. One hundred and forty cannon were mounted along the walls manned by 26,000 troops (25 regiments). Another two infantry regiments, two dragoon regiments and some 5,000 cavalry, including Cossacks, were manning the siege trenches and flanking the camp.
Though the Russians expected a slow buildup Karl could not tarry. He did not have the supplies for a drawn out conflict and it wasn’t his style, nor was it the Swedish army’s way of fighting. Though tired and hungry, they were ready for action. The long march had created pent up expectations.
Karl allowed Karl Gustaf Rehnskiöld to lay out the plan of battle. The field marshal set the Swedish guns on a slight incline to cover his troops as they moved out of the woods and formed up on November 20. The Swedes offered the Russians the opportunity to attack them in the open, but the Magyar prince Charles Eugene du Croy, left in command by Peter, held his troops within his earthworks. Karl would have to storm the camp.
By 2:00 p.m. Rehnskiöld had the army ready for the attack. He commanded the left wing himself while Karl took up his station with his Drabants commanded by Count Arvid Horn. The right wing was commanded by Count Otto Vellingk. Just as the Swedes began advancing a snowstorm struck blowing into the faces of the defenders. The Swedish cavalry quickly drove off the Russian horse and in fifteen minutes the Swedish foot was inside the entrenchments. The Russian right broke first and the fleeing soldiers crowded onto a bridge until it collapsed, drowning hundreds. The Swedish well disciplined left wing wheeled and rolled up the line. The rest of the Russian army retreated to an area of the camp where hundreds of wagons were parked. Using these for cover they fought on until dawn. The sunlight revealed the Russians’ complete encirclement and the commander surrendered.
Karl found himself with more prisoners than he had troops. He could do nothing but disarm them and send them home. All the next day a steady stream of men headed eastward from Narva. Karl had lost 2,000 men. Russian losses are estimated to have been between eight and ten thousand. The Swedes took 140 guns and other much needed supplies. Karl, who had been in the thick of the fighting, had won his second quick victory, this time in a maj
or battle.
Historians have often blamed the defeat of a superior, entrenched army by a half starved and freezing Swedish force on the Russians being inexperienced, untrained rabble (a picture Peter even encouraged), but this was not the case. Many of these same Russians had been in the battles against the Turks where Sweden had not fought a war for almost twenty years. True, many of the high ranking Swedish officers had served in various armies during the Nine Years War, and a few units had been hired out to one belligerent country or another, but in general the Swedish soldiers had not been in battle before.
Furthermore, the Russian army had been reorganized and in training for the last fifty years. In 1696 there were 47 foreign cavalry colonels in the army, 77 in the infantry. Altogether, 560 foreign officers were serving in the Russian army at the time, training and drilling Peter’s soldiers. Nor was their equipment inferior. Russia had its own factories supplying flintlocks and cannon, as good as any in Western Europe. Russian artillery manufactures had switched from clay molds to iron about 1690, even before the French had made this modernization step.
The Russian defeat at Narva was not so much the fault of an inadequate Russian military as it was the superior Swedish army it encountered. The aggressive tactics and iron discipline of Karl’s troops made the difference. Mid-level and junior Swedish officers were adequate and professional, but the senior officers were as good as or better than any in Europe at the time. As much as anything the battle was an affirmation of Karl XI’s plan and organization of a reserve army trained and ready for war. This Swedish army was his father’s creation, and Karl XII had demonstrated he could employ it effectively.
24. Karl XII and War in Poland
Karl XII had been able to focus his attention on Peter partly because of Erik Dahlberg’s stout defense of Riga and partly because of French efforts to mediate a peace between Sweden and Augustus. As all sides lined up for the coming struggle over the Spanish throne, Louis XIV felt he could get Sweden’s help and maybe Augustus’s in obtaining some part of a partitioned Spanish Empire.
On November 1, 1700, Charles II of Spain died leaving no heir. In his will he nominated the duke of Anjou, Louis XIV’s grandson, to take the throne. If the French duke would not take the entire domain, it was to pass to the Austrian Hapsburgs. Suddenly, Louis XIV had a shot at obtaining control of the entire Spanish Empire instead of just a piece of it. A united France and Spain, with all their American possessions, would make Louis XIV the most powerful monarch on earth, dwarfing the other western European nations.
The potential for such a superpower immediately turned the Maritime Nations against France and led to the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession. Louis was now afraid that Sweden would join the maritime powers against him and that even Poland-Lithuania might take their side. He was better off letting them fight among themselves.
As pro-French and anti-French sides began to take shape, Sweden’s position became complicated. She had historic and diplomatic ties to France. Yet, Karl needed the Maritime Nations’ guarantee of the Travendal Treaty to keep Denmark from becoming an aggressor at Sweden’s back door. At the same time the nineteen-year-old king was trying to decipher the complicated world of international politics, he had an army to manage.
Following the Battle of Narva, the Swedish army had moved into the comfortable tent city left to them by the evacuating Russians. But pestilence, which had begun to be a problem for Peter’s troops, now broke out with a vengeance among the Swedes. As Karl watched his troops being ravaged by disease, he resolved to never again allow his army to be quartered in a closed camp. He moved the army to Estonia and Livonia for winter quarters where they could exercise and train. His headquarters was in Lais, north of Dorpat. He sent detachments to the east and northeast to test Peter’s strength along the borders. It would be spring before he could get reinforcements to begin another campaign.
With Western European nations lining up for the Succession War, Augustus and Peter arranged a conference at Birsen in February 1701. The subject was a coordinated war on Sweden and a division of the spoils afterward. By the Treaty of Birsen Augustus would get Estonia and Livonia when Sweden was defeated and Russia would take Ingria. In addition the tsar would furnish 14 thousand to 20 thousand men to help Augustus in this conquest. Augustus had been waging his war against Sweden using troops available to him as duke of Saxony, some 26,000 experienced, well trained soldiers. He had been unable to get the Sejm to sanction the war and provide Commonwealth troops. In fact a substantial party in Poland-Lithuania wanted to cooperate with Sweden against Russia in order to recover lands lost to Russia, particularly in the Ukraine including the city of Kiev. Leading this group was the commander of the Commonwealth army, Jablonowski, and his son-in-law Rafal Leszczyüski. The country was divided between the pro-Swedish party and the pro-Russian party. A third group, headed by Prince Radziejowski and larger than either of the first two, was intent on maintaining aristocacy power. This aristocracy party wanted to limit crown authority and eschewed both war and foreign alliances.
Even within Lithuania there was civil unrest. The Sapieha family, which wanted to gain the commonwealth throne, was in a political struggle against the Lithuanian Crown Army supported by an opposition party known as the United Families. In December 1700 this conflict flared into open warfare. The whole commonwealth was teetering on the brink of civil war.
During the winter of 1700-01, Karl had to decide which enemy to attack first. He did not have sufficient forces to engage both Peter and Augustus at the same time; he had to deal with one quickly, freeing himself to attack the other.
Narva had crippled Peter temporarily. Though an efficient system of recruitment was a problem, Peter had no shortage of manpower to draw from. The Russian Empire at that time contained 10 million to 12 million people as compared to 3 million to 4 million in all Sweden and its possessions. Guns, munitions and cannon were Peter’s real problem. He scrambled to replace those lost at Narva to the point of melting down church bells for iron to feed his artillery factories.
Historians and military strategists have often argued that if Karl XII had gone after Peter in 1701 he would have been able to defeat him and force a peace treaty. It must be remembered, however, that Karl had two active enemies to deal with and a third, Denmark, waiting for an excuse to reenter the war. He had dealt Russia a blow and his frontier garrisons along the east side of Ingria, and Livonia were containing Peter’s incursions whereas Augustus’s Saxons continued to raid into Livonia from Kurland during the winter. Also, the political divisions in Poland-Lithuania appeared to provide more opportunity for a quick victory than the huge expanse and comparatively politically monolithic domain of Peter’s Russia. By the end of 1700 Karl had decided to move against Augustus first, hoping for an early decisive victory that would allow him to turn against Peter in the same campaign season.
Karl’s first problem was crossing the Düna. South of the river Field Marshal Steinau, the Saxon commander, had 9,000 crack Saxon troops and another 10,000 less reliable Russians under Prince Anikita Ivanovich Repnin. These had to be spread along the river until he could be certain of the crossing point. Then he could concentrate forces to crush the landing party. Ramparts and artillery were placed along the river at strategic points.
In April 1701 Karl ordered the 76-year-old Count Dahlberg, still governor-general at Riga, to gather boats and build a pontoon bridge that could be floated into place for the crossing. Karl would attack at a point near the city.
In May 10,000 soldiers arrived at Reval. On the king’s nineteenth birthday, June 17, the army was ordered out of quarters for the march south. Karl’s army of 18,000 men marched through Walk and Wolmar, but at Wenden it turned toward Kokenhausen and a cavalry regiment was sent ahead to threaten the fortress. Steinau reacted by moving a substantial force to that point ready to reinforce the garrison.
However, on July 3, just three miles from Kokenhausen, the marching columns turned right and in a series of forced marche
s arrived at Riga in four days where Dahlberg had all in readiness for the crossing. The night before the attack Karl sent a detachment down river to threaten Dünamünde, drawing off additional Saxon troops.
At dawn on July 9 Karl led the attack across the river in the lead boat. Dahlberg, the wily old general and engineer, had done his preparation work well. The larger landing craft had ramps at the bow that would be lowered onto the beach for the soldiers to cross over. During the crossing the ramps were in a vertical position, protecting troops on board from shore fire. Transports were fitted with leather curtains or “sails” to stop shot and shell. The smaller lead boats had bales of straw and grass stacked at the bows providing protection. A smoke screen from fires fed with green foliage drifted across the river and from specially designated boats which obscured the crossing flotilla, enabling them to get close to shore before receiving any effective enemy fire. Guns from the Riga fortress and armed merchantmen in the river pounded the shore with a heavy barrage.
Karl leaped out of his boat as soon as it was near shore, not waiting for it to beach. With him was the Grenadier Battalion of the Life Guards. They dashed through the water on foot to attack the palisades along the shore. They were hit by fire from the few artillery pieces at that point and shots from the defending musketeers. The shoreline defenses were quickly taken out as battalions from the Västermanland, Uppland and Dalarnian Regiments, about 6,000 men, joined them.
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