Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  Russian losses were relatively light—not surprisingly, as the Russians had fought most of the battle from defensive positions inside the redoubts and their entrenched camp while their cannon worked havoc on the advancing Swedes. Of 42,000 engaged, Peter lost 1,345 killed and 3,290 wounded. In its casualty figures as well as its outcome, it was a reversal of every previous battle between Peter and Charles.

  As the Swedes retreated toward Pushkarivka, the Russians did not pursue. The climax of the battle had been hand-to-hand combat, and by the end, Peter's infantry was as disorganized as Charles'. Not completely convinced by its success, it advanced with caution. More important, however, was Peter's overwhelming desire to celebrate. After a thanksgiving service, he went to his tent inside the camp, where he and his generals sat down to dinner. The Russians were tired, hungry and exultant. After many toasts, the captured Swedish generals and colonels were brought in and seated around him. It was a supreme moment in Peter's life. A nine-year burden of anxiety had fallen away, and the despair with which the Tsar had watched the irresistible advance of his great antagonist had vanished. Yet, in his excitement, Peter was not overbearing. He was considerate, even kindly, to his prisoners, especially Rehnskjold. When, during the long afternoon, Count Piper was brought in from Poltava, he, too, was seated next to the Tsar. Peter kept looking around, fully expecting that at any moment the King also would be brought in. "Where is my brother Charles?" he asked repeatedly. When, with great respect, he asked Rehnskjold how he dared invade a huge empire with a handful of men, Rehnskjold replied that the King had commanded it and it was his first duty as a loyal subject to obey his sovereign. "You are an honest fellow," said Peter, "and for your loyalty I return you your sword." Then, as the cannon on the ramparts roared another salute, Peter stood holding a glass and proposing a toast to his teachers in the art of war. "Who are your teachers?" asked Rehnskjold. "You are, gentlemen," said Peter. "Then, well have the pupils returned thanks to their teachers," said the Field Marshal wryly. Peter remained excitedly talking to his prisoners and celebrating through most of the afternoon, and it was five p.m. before anyone thought of pursuing the beaten Swedish army. Then, the Tsar commanded Prince Michael Golitsyn with the Guards and General Bauer with dragoons to follow Charles south. On the following morning, Menshikov led more Russian cavalry to join the pursuit.

  That night, when the celebrations were over, Peter took time in his tent to record the day's events. To Catherine, he wrote:

  Matushka [Little Mother], good day. I declare to you that the all-merciful God has this day granted us an unprecedented victory over the enemy. In a word, the whole of the enemy's army is knocked on the head, about which you will hear from us.

  Peter

  P.S. Come here and congratulate us.

  Longer letters, fourteen in all, "from the camp at Poltava," were sent to Romodanovsky (now elevated for the occasion from Mock-Tsar to Mock-Emperor), Buturlin, Boris, Peter, and Dmitry Golitsyn, Apraxin, Peter Tolstoy, Alexander Kikin, the head of the

  Church Stephen Yavorsky, his sister Princess Natalya, the Tsarevich Alexis and others. The text in all cases was practically the same:

  This is to inform you that, by God's blessing and the bravery of my troops, I have just gained a complete and unexpected victory without much effusion of blood. These are the particulars of the action.

  This morning the enemy's cavalry and infantry attacked my cavalry, which gave way with considerable loss, after a brave resistance.

  The enemy formed themselves in line of battle exactly opposite our camp. I drew immediately our infantry out of the entrenchments to oppose the Swedes, and placed our cavalry on the two wings.

  The enemy, on seeing this, made a movement to attack us. Our troops advanced to meet them, and received them in such a manner that the enemy deserted the field of battle after little or no resistance, leaving us in possession of a number of cannon, colors and standards. Field Marshal General Rehnskjold, Generals Schlippenbach, Stackelberg, Hamilton and Roos are among the prisoners, as are also Count Piper, prime minister, secretaries Imerlin and Cederheilm and several thousand officers and soldiers.

  I will send you in a little time a more circumstantial account; at present I am too busy to satisfy your curiosity entirely. In a few words, the enemy's army has met with the fate of Phaeton. I can give you no account of the King, not knowing whether he be in the number of the living or gone to sleep with his fathers. I have sent Prince Golitsyn and Bauer with part of the cavalry in pursuit of the runaways. I congratulate you on this good news and beg all the magistrates and officers of my empire to consider it a happy omen.

  Peter

  It was in a final footnote to this letter to Apraxin that Peter expressed most succinctly his great joy and the ultimate significance of Poltava: "Now, with God's help, the final stone in the foundation of St. Petersburg has been laid."

  Thus, in a single morning, the Battle of Poltava terminated the Swedish invasion of Russia and permanently shifted the political axis of Europe. Until that day, statesmen in every country had waited expectantly for the news that Charles had triumphed once again, that his famous army had entered Moscow, that the Tsar had been replaced and perhaps killed in the general turmoil and insurrection that must arise among the leaderless Russian masses. A new tsar would be proclaimed and become a puppet like Stanislaus. Sweden, already Mistress of the North, would become

  Empress of the East, arbiter of everything that happened between the Elbe and the Amur. Servile Russia would shrink as Swedes, Poles, Cossacks and perhaps Turks, Tatars and Chinese carved out generous portions. St. Petersburg would vanish from the Russian landscape, the Baltic coast would be sealed off and Peter's awakening people would be halted in their tracks, turned around and marched like prisoners back into the shadowy world of old Muscovy. These dream castles fell with a crash. Between dawn and dinner, the conqueror had become a fugitive.

  Poltava was the first thunderous announcement to the world that a new Russia was being born. In the years that followed, European statesmen who theretofore had paid scarcely more attention to the affairs of the Tsar than to those of the Shah of Persia or the Mogul of India learned to reckon carefully the weight and direction of Russia's interests. The new balance of power established that morning by Sheremetev's infantry, Menshikov's cavalry and Bruce's artillery, under the eyes of their six-foot-seven-inch lord, continued and developed through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  The Swedish army was defeated, but it had not surrendered. In early afternoon, while Peter was sitting at dinner with his Swedish guests, the surviving remnants of the Swedish army dribbled back into the camp at Pushkarivka. Added to the troops in the siege trenches before Poltava and the detachments guarding the baggage train and the crossings on the lower Vorskla, the total came to more than 15,000 Swedes plus 6,000 Cossacks still under arms, awaiting the command of the King and his generals. Some of these were freshly wounded, others were still invalided from battles or frostbite the previous winter. Only a few of those remaining were foot soldiers; most of the survivors were cavalrymen.

  Charles was among the last to reach Pushkarivka. While his foot was again rebandaged and he ate a piece of cold meat, he asked for Rehnskjold and Piper and it was then that he learned they were missing. Lewenhaupt was now the senior general of this Swedish army, and it was on the "little Latin colonel" that the wounded King would not have to rely.

  There was no question what must be done. The Swedes must get away before the Russians fully realized the extent of their success and began to pursue. Nor was there any question about which way to go. North, east and west lay divisions of Peter's victorious army. Only the road to the south lay open. This was the best and most direct path to the Tatar lands where they might find sanctuary under the protection of Devlet Gerey. Charles was realistic enough to understand that his arrival would be received far differently now that his army was only a shattered fragment, but he hoped that the Khan would offer sanctuary long enou
gh for the beaten troops to rest and gather strength before beginning the long march through the Tatar and Turkish borderlands back to Poland.

  Thus, the immediate decision was to march south down the west bank of the Vorskla toward Perevoluchna eighty miles away, the point at which the Vorskla flows into the Dnieper. Along the way, there were several fords known to the Cossacks, and if the army crossed the river to the east bank, it could then join the road which ran from Kharkov to the Crimea. This road was clear, and led through several Cossack towns along the way which could help feed and succor the army.

  The order was given to march that same afternoon. The retreat from Pushkarivka was orderly, with the artillery and baggage wagons going ahead. Kreutz, in command of the rearguard, abandoned and set fire to the heavier wagons, taking the wagon horses and giving them to the infantry to make for greater mobility. As the hastily reorganized columns began to move, they were not in headlong flight; this was a disciplined army defeated in battle but still conducting a properly structured retreat. There were still many thousands of veteran soldiers who, if called upon to fight, could wage a formidable battle.

  Yet the Swedes, both officers and men, were in a state of fatigue. They had not slept the night before—only eighteen hours earlier, the army had been assembling for the dawn assault on the redoubts. Toward evening, the soldiers were stumbling, blindly following their officers, spurred mainly by the desire to get away. Charles' own condition had deteriorated. Exhausted by lack of sleep, weakened by the reopening of his wound, stricken by the shock of the disaster, the somber uncertainties of the future and the stifling heat, he had lain in a wagon until he fell asleep. When he awoke, the army in motion, his mind was clouded and he had no clear idea as to what was happening. He asked again for Piper and Rehnskjold; when told that they were not there, he lay back and said, "Yes, yes, do what you will."

  The following day, June 29, the march south continued through the oppressive heat. Propelled by the fear that the Russians were pursuing, the army marched past first one, then a second and then a third of the Vorskla fords without giving a serious thought to crossing. It was easier to keep going south on land than to stop and ford a river. Behind loomed the specter of the Russians, a specter made real at four a.m. on the 30th when Kreutz caught up with the main body and reported that the Russian pursuit had started; not just Cossacks, but regular Russian troops were following.

  For two days, the Swedish columns straggled into the tip of land at the junction of the Vorskla and Dnieper. On the evening of the 29th, the artillery, the remaining wagons and the mass of men began to pour into Perevoluchna at the point where the two rivers joined. Here there were no fords, and as the soldiers looked out over the broad Dnieper, a feeling of panic gripped them. The town itself and the hundreds of boats assembled there by the Zaporozh-sky Cossacks had been burned by Peter's lightning raid in April. Obviously, the army was far too numerous to cross in the remaining boats; only a few would make it before the Russians caught up. Conceivably, the whole force could march back cross north to cross the Vorskla, but the Russians there must be drawing closer. To the south, east and west lay the two rivers. The Swedish army was trapped.

  It was a moment of decision: A few could cross the Dnieper. Who should go? Lewenhaupt and Kreutz dropped to their knees and begged the King to grasp this chance to escape. At first, Charles refused, insisting on staying with the army and sharing its fate. Then, as pain and fatigue overwhelmed him, he agreed to go. Subsequently, there were those who said that Charles abandoned his army to save himself, knowing that his flight would mean death or captivity for the men who had followed him so bravely. But Charles' decision was based on legitimate reasoning. He was wounded. The army faced a long march south, probably under close pursuit from a strong, victorious enemy. Most of the men were mounted now and could ride fast, but Charles, lying in a wagon, would be no more than a worry and a hindrance to the officers who exercised command. And Charles was King of Sweden. If he was captured the Tsar might humiliate him by parading him through the streets. More certainly, in Russian hands, he would be a huge liability in any peace negotiations with Russia. To obtain freedom for its monarch, Sweden would have to pay dearly in Swedish territory.

  There were other reasons for Charles to escape. If he went with the army to the Crimea, then, even if the march was successful, he would be cut off from his homeland at the opposite end of Europe, totally unable to influence events. Further, he knew that the continent would soon be ringing with news of Peter's triumph. He wanted to reach a place from which he could rebut Peter's boasts and promote Sweden's side of the story. Then, too, if he reached the Ottoman dominions, he might persuade the Turks to make an alliance, provide him with a new army and enable him to continue the war. Finally, there were the Cossack followers of Mazeppa and

  Gordeenko to be considered. They were now Charles' responsibility. If Charles or his Swedes were captured, the Cossacks would be treated as traitors and tortured and hung. It would be a stain on Swedish honor to permit these allies to fall into Russian hands.

  For all these reasons, it was decided that the King, with as many wounded Swedes as possible, plus an escort of fighting soldiers, would go with the Cossacks straight across the steppe to the Bug River, the boundary of the Ottoman Empire. There they would ask for sanctuary and wait for their wounds to heal and for the rest of the army to join them. The army itself would go north to the Vorskla fords, cross the river and march south along the Dnieper to the Khan's dominions, to rejoin the King at Ochakov on the Black Sea. Reunited, the entire force would return to Poland.

  That very night, Charles was ferried across the Dnieper on a stretcher. His coach was brought after him, its weight distributed between two boats lashed together. Through the night, small fishing boats were rowed back and forth, carrying wounded officers and men. With him, the King took the survivors of the Drabant Corps, now only eighty strong, about 700 cavalrymen and some 200 infantrymen, plus members of his household and chancery staffs. Many of Mazeppa's Cossacks who were expert swimmers swam the river holding on to the tails of their horses. The boats also brought over part of the Swedish army treasury and two barrels of gold ducats which Mazeppa had carried with him from Baturin. In all, about 900 Swedes and 2,000 Cossacks crossed the river. At dawn, before departing, Charles looked back and felt uneasy at seeing no sign of movement from the army still camped along the water's edge. Some Swedes saw clouds on the horizon which they thought might be dust from a mass, of approaching horesmen.

  Lewenhaupt took command of the army. This was as he wished; the moody General had specifically volunteered to stay behind and share the fate of the troops. He and Kreutz discussed with Charles the route the army would take and the projected rendezvous point at Ochakov. Lewenhaupt promised the King that if the Russians pursued him, he would fight. Here, as subsequent events were to prove, there was a grave misunderstanding. Charles assumed that Lewenhaupt had promised unconditionally, but Lewenhaupt understood that he had bound himself to fight only after he got the army away from Perevoluchna. "If, with the grace of God, we are spared onslaught of a strong enemy fource with infantry for this night and the morrow, I believe there may yet be some hope of saving the troops." In any case, only the two of them were able to interpret the discussion of Charles' orders and Lewenhaupt's promises; no one else was present. As Charles later admitted when accepting partial responsibility for what happened, "I was guilty ... I forgot to give the other generals and colonels who were there the orders of which Lewenhaupt and Kreutz alone had knowledge." Once again, it was the story of Roos and the redoubts at Poltava. Ignorance of the overall plan left the other officers and the army helpless.

  Lewenhaupt's first objective was to get away from Perevoluchna. This meant retracing his steps by marching north to one of the fords across the Vorskla. But as the troops were exhausted and many of the officers who had spent the night getting the King and his party across the Dnieper even more so, Lewenhaupt gave the order for the men to rest and
be prepared to start at dawn.

  During the night, preparations were made to travel fast and light. The money remaining in the regimental chests was distributed among the troops, each man to be responsible for his own share thereafter. Ammunition and provisions were similarly distributed, with each man taking only the amount he could carry on horseback; the rest was to be abandoned. Any remaining baggage and supply wagons which could impede the march were to be left behind. An attempt would be made to take the artillery, but if it became a hindrance, it, too, would be abandoned.

  The passage of the night worked further damage on the Swedish army. Discipline frayed. It was obvious to the soldiers that safety lay across the broad Dnieper. The word that in the morning they were to march north again was sullenly received. Lewenhaupt himself was exhausted, a condition made worse by a bad case of diarrhea. Overcome by fatigue, he lay down for a few hours' rest.

  At dawn the next morning, July 1, the two Generals arose, the army stirred, the men began saddling their horses and preparing to march. Then, at eight a.m., just as the columns were forming and about to march, figures appeared on the heights above the river. There were more and more every minute; soon the heights were swarming with horsemen. It was Menshikov, with 6,000 dragoons and 2,000 loyal Cossacks. The Prince sent a trumpeter and an aide-de-camp to the Swedish camp to parley. Lewenhaupt ordered Kreutz to ride back to discover what terms Menshikov offered. Menshikov offered normal surrender terms, and Kreutz reported them to Lewenhaupt. The weary commander decided to consult his colonels. The colonels asked what the King's last orders had been. Suppressing details of the proposed march to Tatary and the Ochakov rendezvous, Lewenhaupt said that Charles had asked only that the army "defend itself as long as it could." The colonels went back to the soldiers to ask whether they would fight.

  The soldiers, also unwilling to take responsibility, replied, "We will fight if the others do."