Peter the Great (91 page)
Although Charles himself would be with the army, his role was to be largely symbolic and inspirational. The King would be with the infantry, carried on a litter between two horses. In case the
horses became restless or unmanageable, or if one happened to be shot, a platoon of twenty-four Guardsmen was assigned to accompany the King and, if necessary, carry the litter. Thus, although the King's physical presence on the battlefield was important—the soldiers attacking against great odds would know that the King was with them—Charles would in fact be helpless. Lying on his back he would not be able to see anything except the sky and the nearby treetops. There was no possibility of following or controlling the movements of a field army in a great battle.
With Charles an invalid, physically unable to sit in his saddle, authority had to be delegated. Command of the army went, naturally, to Rehnskjold, the senior military officer of Sweden after the King. He was, in fact, Charles' own instructor as well as his most experienced and trusted subordinate. Indeed, Rehnskjold was a superb commander, the victor of Fraustadt, the brilliant cavalry leader at Klissow and Golovchin. But now he was assuming command of the King's own army—with the King still present. It was a difficult role, and it was made more difficult by the personalities of the leading soldiers in the Swedish camp.
The first of these difficult personalities was Rehnskjold's own. Now fifty-eight years old—more than thirty years older than Charles—he was a powerful, hot-tempered, physically impressive man with a huge capacity for work and intense loyalty and devotion to Charles. Subordinates sometimes complained that the Field Marshal was haughty and rude. Rehnskjold's tongue could lash—but there were reasons. At an age when most soldiers retired, he had been campaigning in the field for nine years without rest. Like the King, he had campaigned through every summer and autumn and remained in camp through every winter with no thought of furlough. He had had little sleep, poor food, had been under constant strain and was understandably irritable and nervous. He lacked the soft words and smile with which Charles administered reproofs so that the delinquent would outdo himself to please the King thereafter.
Rehnskjold's irritability was especially aggravated by two men who stood close to him. He resented Piper, the senior civilian official of the field chancery. Piper's presence in military discussions, his constant raising of diplomatic and other non-military considerations, hugely annoyed Rehnskjold. In addition, the Field Marshal knew that if something happened to the King, Piper would rightfully assume leadership of the government in the field and become Rehnskjold's superior.
But, more particularly, Rehnskjold did not like Lewenhaupt. The commander of the ill-fated baggage train was a moody, intractable man whose touchiness was exacerbated when Rehnskjold impatiently shouted at him. On the battlefield, Lewenhaupt was a steady commander whose courage never deserted him. After Charles himself, he was the King's finest general of infantry, just as Rehnskjold was Sweden's finest general of cavalry. It was natural, therefore, that Charles should appoint these two to command at Poltava. But he mistakenly ignored their clashing personalities. As he worked out plans for the battle with Rehnskjold, he assumed that the Field Marshal would communicate them to Lewenhaupt, who would be both commanding the infantry and acting as deputy commander, and would need to know the overall plan so that he could follow it and adapt it if conditions changed in the heat of battle. But Rehnskjold decided not to tell Lewenhaupt anything, because he disliked even speaking to him. Lewenhaupt had a way of receiving orders with a haughty, disdainful look, as though only loyalty to Charles could force him to listen to this foolish Rehnskjold. This infuriated the Field Marshal, which is why, on the eve of Poltava, he simply did not tell Lewenhaupt what he proposed to do on the following day.
The resulting confusion proved fatal on the battlefield. It stemmed from the absence of the one commanding figure who rose above such jealousies and who was implicitly obeyed. Lewenhaupt himself recognized this after the battle. "Would to God our gracious King had not been wounded," he said, "for then it had never gone as it did."
The Swedish plan worked out by Charles and Rehnskjold was to attack with great speed just before dawn, taking the Russians by surprise, and move rapidly past the redoubts, ignoring any fire that might come from the defenders. Once through the redoubts, the Swedish columns would swing left and break out onto the broad plain in front of the main Russian camp. The infantry would march down the western edge of the plain to a position northwest of Peter's entrenched army while the Swedish cavalry swept the field clear of Peter's horsemen. Having reached the desired position between the Russians and the ford at Petrovka, the entire Swedish army would wheel to the right and form a line of battle. If the maneuver worked, the Russians would find themselves pinned into their camp against the riverbank with the steep bluff behind them and the Swedish army ready for battle standing astride their escape route to Petrovka. If they were unwilling to accept Charles' challenge to fight, they would be welcome to stay inside their entrenchments and eventually starve.
Lewenhaupt's infantry, whose total strength was only 7,000 men, was divided into four columns—two on the left comprising ten battalions, and two on the right comprising eight battalions. The King and his stretcher would be with the first column on the left wing, composed entirely of Guards. The second column on the left would be commanded by Major General Karl Gustav Roos, the two on the right by Generals Berndt Stackelberg and Axel Sparre. The cavalry squadrons were divided into six columns, under the overall command of Kreutz. Of the thirty pieces of Swedish artillery still operable, most were left behind in the siege works or with the baggage. This was partly Rehnskjold's decision. He had a cavalryman's distaste for artillery and believed that to drag cannon past the redoubts would reduce the rapid movement he demanded. Further, there would be no time to position the guns and begin a bombardment; besides, the powder was largely spoiled by the wet weather of the previous winter. Accordingly, the Swedes took only four cannon with them. The final decision, Rehnskjold hoped, would be reached with the steel of sword and bayonet.
At eleven p.m on that short summer night, darkness fell and the Swedish infantry quietly broke camp and began moving forward to assembly points. Charles had his wounded foot freshly bandaged and himself dressed in full uniform with a high, spurred boot on his unharmed right leg. Beside him in his litter he laid his naked sword. The litter was carried forward through the long lines of marching men to the position where the Guards battalions were assembling. Here he found Rehnskjold, Piper, Lewenhaupt and his other generals wrapped in their cloaks, talking quietly and waiting. There was little moon and the brief night was relatively dark for a Ukrainian summer evening.
At midnight, when the short darkness was most intense, the soldiers who had been sitting or lying on the ground began to form ranks. There was some confusion in the darkness as battalions sorted themselves out and formed into columns. Uniforms were old, faded and patched after two years of campaigning, and some were scarcely identifiable. To distinguish himself from his enemies, each Swedish soldier took a wisp of straw and fixed it to his cap. In addition, a password was circulated among the troops: "With God's help" was to be shouted in Swedish in case of confusion. When the four columns were formed, the men were given permission to sit again to rest while waiting for the cavalry to arrive. This delay was longer than expected. Normally, the cavalry squadrons were expertly managed and led by Rhenskjold, but he was not with them, having been given command of the entire army, and the saddling of the horses at Pushkarivka and the forming of six columns of horsemen fell behind schedule.
As they were waiting, the Swedish generals heard a new sound from the Russian lines, a sound of "knocking and hewing," which showed that men were working not far away, much closer to them than the line of the first six Russian redoubts. In was obvious that Russian working parties were up to something in this no-man's-land. But what? To find out, Rehnskjold himself rode out to investigate.
In the dim light, the Field Marshal made an alarming discovery. During the night, the Russians had been furiously throwing up earth to construct a new line of four redoubts on a line at right angles to the previous six. These new redoubts extended straight forward down the Poltava road in the direction of the Swedish camp and would force a split of any Swedish advance into two separate wings, passing by either side of the redoubts and permitting the Russians to pour a flanking fire into the Swedish columns as they swept past. As Rehnskjold stared, he realized that the last two redoubts, the ones nearest to him, were still only partially finished. At the same moment, the men working on them saw him and his party of horsemen. There was a shout, a pistol shot, other shots, and then inside the Russian lines a warning drum began to beat. Rehnskjold hurried back to where Charles lay on his stretcher, and a council of war was held. The light was growing fast. The cavalry had now arrived, but the element of surprise was rapidly vanishing. Time was extremely short. Rehnskjold wanted to seize the moment and order the attack as planned; otherwise, he would have to give up the assault and the entire plan of battle would have to be canceled.
Charles, although unable to reconnoiter personally, was always an advocate of attack. He agreed, and orders were quickly issued. The infantry battalions reformed into five columns with the commanders of four instructed to move quickly past the new redoubts, ignoring their fire, and then form into line of battle on the plain according to the original plan. The fifth column, consisting of four battalions, was to envelop and attack the four new redoubts. Thus, the Swedish advance was to be split by the projecting line of redoubts like a stream divided by a series of large rocks, and flow past them, while the central wave was to dash against and if possible flood over the new obstacles.
As the Swedish generals urgently issued fresh commands, the darkness was turning to gray. The Swedish infantry was still reforming when Russian cannon in the forward redoubts opened fire. Cannonballs plowed into the massed, stationary Swedish ranks, decapitating a captain, two grenadiers and four musketeers. It was essential to move. At four a.m., just as the sun peeked up over the trees to the east, the Swedish redeployment was finished and Rehnskjold gave the order to advance. The Battle of Poltava had begun.
Seven thousand Swedish foot soldiers, massed in oblong blocks of blue, purposefully fixed their bayonets and advanced across the field toward the Russian redoubts. Behind the columns on the left came the files of Swedish cavalry, some in blue coats trimmed in yellow, a few in yellow coats trimmed with blue. The horsemen reined their mounts and slowed the pace so as not to outrun the infantry, but amidst the leading squadrons the early rays of sun already glinted upon unsheathed steel. Most of the army ignored the redoubts, but as the central column of infantry reached the first redoubt, the Swedish grenadiers stormed over the unfinished earthwork,. bayoneting the defenders in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle. It fell quickly. The second redoubt met the same fate as the Swedish infantry climbed into the earth-work, firing and bayoneting. Some of the companies which had captured the two redoubts then fell back into the lines of men flowing past the redoubts to the left while others prepared for assault on the third redoubt, which was already under attack by two battalions under Roos.
It was in the attack on the third and fourth redoubts that a dangerous problem developed. The third redoubt was bravely defended, and the first Swedish assault was rebuffed. More troops were committed, and eventually six battalions of Swedish troops piled up before this obstacle. It was as if, in rushing past the redoubts, the Swedes had snagged a piece of clothing on a nasty bramble and, once entangled, had tried unsuccessfully to free themselves, all the while becoming more and more diverted from their original purpose.
The trouble lay in the secrecy which Rehnskjold had employed to keep his plan of attack from his subordinates. Roos never understood that his primary objective was simply to mask the redoubts while the rest of the army streamed past on both sides. What Roos should have done when repulsed was to withdraw and move past to the assembly point on the far side. Instead, he grimly reformed ranks and tried again. Repulsed a second time, he stubbornly added strength until six battalions—2,600 men—of the precious Swedish infantry were impaled on this unimportant obstacle. Taking the redoubt became Roos' sole ambition; he had not the least idea what was happening to the rest of the army or even where it was. So, in the first stage of the Swedish attack, a fundamental error was committed. Later, assessing what happened, Lewenhaupt said that the entire army, Roos included, should have avoided the central redoubts completely and simply swept past them. Rehnskjold later, as a prisoner of war in Russia, admitted the same mistake, saying, "One mistake can darken all previous gloire." Even Charles, who refused to criticize his generals after the battle, admitted ruefully, "Here the reconnaissance was not well done."
Suddenly, as the battle raged around the redoubts, two crowded lines of Menshikov's Russian dragoons issued from between the redoubts
and charged the Swedish infantry. Seeing them coming, a cry of "Advance cavalry" arose from the Swedish infantry and the Swedish horsemen formed into wedges, knee to knee, and advanced at a trot to meet the oncoming Russian dragoons. Twenty thousand naked swords flashed in the sunlight as the two masses of cavalry clashed in the intervals between the Russian redoubts. Clouds of dust mingled with the roar of cannon, the report of pistols and the clang of steel on steel. For almost an hour, the melee continued with both Russians and Swedes refusing to retreat. Menshikov, exhilarated, sent fourteen captured Swedish standards and banners to Peter in the camp, along with the urgent advice that the Tsar immediately advance with all his forces and fight the battle on the line of the redoubts. Peter, still wary of Swedish prowess and scarcely believing that Menshikov's men could be doing so well, twice ordered his headstrong lieutenant to break off action and withdraw. Reluctantly, the Prince finally complied, wheeling his squadrons to the north, dispatching the larger part of the force under Bauer (Ronne had been severely wounded) to the northern flank of the Russian camp, and retreating himself with a smaller group of the camp's left flank. From the camp itself, Russian cannon along the ramparts laid down a protective curtain of fire, screening the withdrawing Russian horsemen and discouraging the Swedish cavalry from serious pursuit.
