The Battle of Poltava (or Pultowa) was a battle between the armies of Peter I of Russia and Charles XII of Sweden on 28 June (new style 8 July) 1709, the most famous of the battles of the Great Northern War. The decisive victory of the Russians is said to have ended Sweden's role as a Great Power in Europe.
| Battle of Poltava | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Great Northern War | |||||||
 The Battle of Poltava by Denis Martens the Younger, painted 1726 | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Sweden | Russia | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld | Tsar Peter the Great | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 17,000 troops attacking, 8,000 sieging Poltava |
42,000–45,000 troops 72 cannons | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
6,900 killed or wounded 2,800 prisoners |
1,345 killed 3,200 wounded | ||||||
Prelude
After early victories in 1700 knocked both Denmark and Russia out of the war, Charles was unable to bring the war to a conclusion, and it would be eight years before he dealt with the remaining combatant, Saxony-Poland. During this time Peter rebuilt his army in modern form, basing it primarily on infantry trained to properly use their firearms. He then achieved a stunning victory in Livonia, where he established the city of Saint Petersburg. Incensed, Charles ordered a fatal attack on the Russian heartland with an assault on Moscow.
Charles marched into Russia in 1708 at the head of a large army, but the Russian forces refused to participate in direct combat, and instead, they adopted their standard form of warfare against invasion: the scorched earth strategy. The summer was cold and wet, and with supplies difficult to encounter on the ground, Charles relied on a relief column that transported enough food to maintain the army for lengthy periods. The relief column, under General Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt, consisted of 11,000 men, 16 cannon, a herd of cattle and thousands of wagons, normally slow-moving in the best of conditions and now slowed to a crawl by the condition of the roads.
With no direct communications between the two forces, Charles waited as long as he could for Lewenhaupt to arrive. At one point they were only 130 kilometres apart, but this being unknown to him, Charles gave up, struck camp, and turned south to Ukraine in search of grain and better weather. Ukraine, under the command of Mazepa, had been in discussions with Charles for some time, and at this point officially allied herself to the Swedes in order to gain independence from Russia.
Lewenhaupt followed south and was attacked while crossing a river near a small village that gave name to the Battle of Lesnaya. His forces met the Russian attack, but they were amazed to find that the new Russian army gave them a serious fight. Lewenhaupt decided to rejoin Charles with all speed, so he abandoned the cannon, the cattle and most of the food, driving the soldiers to mutiny. Stealing all of the alcohol, the soldiers became drunk, and Lewenhaupt was forced to leave about 1,000 men drunk in the woods. By the time they finally reached Charles and the main force in the winter, no supplies and only 6,000 men remained.
In the spring Charles resumed his advance, but his army had been reduced by about one-third due to starvation, frostbite and other effects of the weather. The wet weather had also seriously depleted the army's supplies of gunpowder; the cannon were essentially out of action, due to a lack of usable ammunition. Charles's first action was to lay siege to the fort of Poltava on the Vorskla River in Ukraine. Peter had already organized a huge force to protect it, and he quickly arrived and set up a counter-siege line, trapping the Swedish forces between the fort and the Russian lines.
Battle
When the battle opened, Charles had about 20,000 men, while Peter commanded about 45,000. To make matters worse for the Swedish, Charles was wounded during the siege on June 17 when he was hit in the foot by a musketball during an inspection of the Swedish outposts by a Russian sniper on the banks of the Vorskla, and had to turn over command to Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld. Nevertheless he planned to break the Russian lines and escape to the north.
The battle began before dawn at 3:45 a.m. on June 28, with the Swedes advancing against the Russian fortified lines. At first, the battle started off in a traditional fashion, with the better trained Swedes pressing in on the Russians' left flank and center, overrunning a few Russian defensive redoubts. The Swedish seemed to possess an advantage, but this was quickly nullified. By dawn, the weather was already very hot and humid with the rising sun obscured by smoke from cannon and musket fire. Peter had a considerably greater number of infantry, and while holding off the Swedish forces with cannon fire, he was able to organize a huge group of about 25,000 reinforcements in the center, which he deployed outside of his fortified camp at around 9:00 a.m., supported by 73 heavy cannons. The Swedish infantry, commanded by General Lewenhaupt, attempted to attack the Russian infantry in front of their camp. But the Swedish advance soon faltered, and poor communications between the lines led to further disorientation between the Swedish units. To make matters worse, one Swedish detachment, commanded by General Roos, became isolated in the Russian defensive redoubts when a column of about 4,000 Russian reinforcements re-occupied the fortified positions, trapping Roos and his 2,600-man force. With over 1,000 casualties and ammunition running low, Roos was forced to surrender his command.
Further north, the Swedish attack took a turn for the worse when a Russian counter-attack began at 10:10 by a cavalry force commanded by General Menshikov on the Swedish right flank which led to the Swedish infantry being isolated in the open by the Russian infantry in the center, personally being led by Peter himself. Then another Russian cavalry attack at 10:30, commanded by General Bauer, attacked the Swedish left flank and rear, breaking the Swedish lines within 15 minutes. Seeing the defeat of his army from a stretcher in the rear, Charles ordered the army to retreat at 11:00 a.m. By noon, the battle was over as Russian cavalry had mopped up the stragglers on the battlefield and returned to their own lines. Charles then gathered the remainder of his troops and baggage train, and retreated to the south later that same day, abandoning the siege of Poltava. The Swedes made for the Dnieper River, but were doggedly pursued by the Russians and forced to surrender three days later at Perevolochna, on July 1.
Aftermath
Several thousand prisoners were taken, many of whom were put to work building the new city of St. Petersburg. Charles managed to escape with about 1,500 men to Bendery, Moldavia, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire, and spent five years in exile there before he was able to return to Sweden.
Why Charles chose to continue with the hopeless offensive after the disastrous winter is a mystery. Nevertheless the battle was not the end of the Great Northern War, which continued for another twelve years. In the end it was the buildup of naval power at St. Petersburg that finally knocked Sweden out of the war.
Bibliography
- G. Adlerfelt, The Military History of Charles XII, King of Sweden, Written by the Express Order of His Majesty. London, 3 vols, 1740.
- Peter Englund, The Battle of Poltava: The Birth of the Russian Empire. London, 1992.
- Angus Konstam, Poltava 1709, Russia Comes of Age. Osprey Campaign #34. Osprey Publishing, 1994.
External links
- Battle of Poltava
- The Decline of the Great Power: The Battle of Poltava (also used as a reference)
- Sequel to Poltava