Peter the Great (89 page)

Nevertheless, Charles now decided to seize the town. The technical arrangements for the siege were entrusted to Gyllenkrook, the Quatermaster General, who was an authority on mining and other aspects of siege warfare. "You are our little Vauban," the King told Gyllenbrook, urging him to use all the refinements of the French master. Gyllenkrook began, although he warned the King in advance that the army lacked one essential prerequisite of any successful siege: sufficient power to conduct a sustained artillery bombardment. Eventually, he believed, Charles would have to storm the walls with foot soldiers, in which case, he said, "Your Majesty's infantry will be ruined. Everybody will believe that it was I who advised Your Majesty to make this siege. If it should miscarry, I humbly beg you not to put the blame on me." "No," Charles replied cheerfully, "you are not to blame for it. We take the responsibility on ourself."

The first trenches were dug, and on May 1, the bombardment began. Gradually, the trenches advanced toward the walls, and yet to some of the Swedes, especially Gyllenkrook, it seemed that less was being done than was possible. The cannon fired steadily all day, pouring red-hot shot into Poltava, but at eleven p.m. the King suddenly ordered a halt. Gyllenkrook protested, pleading that if he could only bombard the town for six more hours, Poltava would be at the King's mercy. But Charles insisted, and the guns were silenced. Thereafter, the bombardment was limited to five shots per day, which was meaningless except as harassment. Swedish powder was short, but not that short.

Gyllenkrook and others did not understand Charles' strange behavior or, indeed, the purpose of the siege. Why, for the first time on this Russian campaign, had the King who was the master of campaigning in the field undertaken a siege? And why, having undertaken a siege, was he pursuing it in so lackadaisical a fashion? Puzzled and worried, Gyllenkrook asked Rehnskjold. "The King wishes to have a little amusement until the Poles come," was the Field Marshal's reply. "It is a costly pastime which demands a number of human lives," observed Gyllenkrook. "If His Majesty's will is so, we must be content with it," declared Rehnskjold and terminated the interview by riding away.

Many of Charles' officers, as perplexed as Gyllenkrook, believed that the siege was only an elaborate lure to tempt Peter to commit the main Russian army to battle. If this was Charles' purpose, the Russian garrison made it easier for him. The town was effectively defended, repelling assaults, sending out sorties, destroying the mines which Gyllenkrook pushed ever nearer the walls. Charles himself was.astonished at the vigorous defense. "What! I really believe the Russians are mad and will defend themselves in a regular way."

For six weeks, the siege dragged on into the summer heat of the Ukraine. Charles was always in the thick of the action. To encourage his men, he took up quarters in a house so close to the fortress that its walls were riddled with bullets. Gradually, the Swedish trenches came closer to the ramparts, although accurate Russian musket fire picked off the Swedish sapper and engineer officers supervising the work. As the heat became more oppressive, the wounded began to die when their wounds putrefied with gangrene. Food grew scarce as the Swedish foraging parties rode again and again through the district, stripping farms and villages which had already been plucked clean a week before. Soon, nothing was left to eat except horseflesh and black bread. Powder was scarce, and what there was had deteriorated because of the dampness of melting snow and rain. The firing of a cannon sounded no louder than a clapping of hands. Bullets fired from Swedish muskets fell to the ground scarcely twenty yards away. And there were so few musket balls that Swedish scavenging parties were sent outside the trenches around the fortress to collect and pick up spent Russian balls and bring them in for re-use.

Meanwhile, across the river on the east bank of the Vorskla, Russian forces were gathering. Menshikov, the most aggressive of Peter's generals, commanded these troops from his headquarters in the village of Krutoy Bereg, while Sheremetev with the main army was approaching from the northeast. Menshikov's orders were to observe^ the Swedes across the river and to do what he could to assist the garrison inside Poltava. The latter mission was not easy. Between the low east bank where the Russians were and the steep west bank which rose more than 200 feet to the walls of the town, the river wandered through a maze of marshes impassable to a large army and difficult even for small parties. Several times the Russians tried to send reinforcements directly across to Poltava, even attempting to build a road with sacks of sand, but these efforts failed. The communication problem was finally solved by putting messages inside hollow cannonballs and firing them back and forth across the river between Menshikov and Colonel Kelin.

The river war continued. Parties of horsemen, Russians and Swedes, rode along the opposite sides of the river, patrolling and watching for any sign of movement on the other bank, trying to snatch prisoners from whom they could gain some intelligence. At the end of May, Sheremetev arrived in the Krutoy Bereg camp with his masses of Russian infantry, but, despite their numerical superiority, the Russian generals were uncertain what to do. They learned from Colonel Kelin that his supply of gunpowder was dangerously low, that Swedish mining under his walls was about complete, mat he estimated he could not hold out beyond the end of June. Menshikov and Sheremetev did not want the town to fall, but were not prepared to provoke a general engagement. Certainly, nothing so dramatic and decisive as an attempted mass crossing of the Vorskla in the teeth of determined Swedish opposition had any appeal. Nevertheless, knowing that the decisive moment was approaching, Menshikov sent word to Peter, who was on his way from Azov across the steppe, to hurry. The Tsar replied on May 31 that he was coming as fast as he could, but that rather than lose an advantage which might present itself, the army should if necessary fight without him. As Poltava still held out, the Russian generals decided to wait a little longer.

On June 4, Peter arrived and while his habit had been to appoint one of his generals as commander-in-chief and to take only subordinate rank himself, he now assumed supreme command. Peter brought with him 8,000 new recruits to add to the troops now preparing for battle. His arrival infused new spirit into the soldiers who were skirmishing vigorously at all points along the river. On June 15, a surprise Russian attack on Stary Senzhary inside the Swedish-occupied region freed 1,000 Russian prisoners taken the previous winter at Veprik, and Cossack horsemen loyal to the Tsar broke in and plundered a section of the Swedish baggage train.

Now, the great trial of arms was drawing near. The two armies were in close proximity, each commanded by its monarch. Both realized that the climax was at hand. Charles, confined in an ever narrowing space, would eventually have to try to break out. Peter understood and accepted this. The Tsar, who in the past had been unwilling to risk everything on a single battle, was steeling himself to meet the final test. His strategy had borne fruit. The enemy was isolated. Across Charles' line of retreat to Poland lay Field Marshal Goltz with a powerful force which could either prevent the advance of any relieving force or cut off the retreat of Charles himself. And Peter's army on the Vorskla was now twice as strong as Charles'. It was therefore with grim optimism that Peter wrote to Apraxin on June 7, after joining the army, "We have gathered close to our neighbors and, with God's help, we shall certainly this month have our affair with them."

Within a few days of his arrival, Peter summoned all his generals to his tent and together they examined the facts. It was only a matter of time before Poltava fell. In Swedish hands, the city would serve as a rallying point for the potential reinforcements which Charles hoped—and Peter feared—might join the Swedish King and even at this late date open the road to Moscow. These stakes were high enough to force Peter and his generals to a climactic decision: To relieve pressure on the Poltava garrison and prevent the city's fall, the main Russian army would have to be brought into play. A major, and very possibly a decisive battle would have to be fought no later than June 29 in order to save Poltava. By the 29th, Peter expected to have concentrated all his forces; not only Skoropadsky's Cossacks would be present, but 5,000 Kalmucks riding behind their khan Ayuk. But the army could not be used as long as it remained on the east bank of the Vorskla: it would have to cross to the west bank. Once on the same side of the river as the Swedes, Peter could launch a flank attack on the Swedish lines besieging the city. At the very least, even if a major battle was not joined, the presence of the Russian army would force to Swedes to divert much of their strength from their positions before Poltava and thus relieve the pressure on the city. In addition, a position on the Swedish flank would permit the Tsar to bring to bear the considerable Russian field artillery. His guns, now silent and useless across the river, would be able to fire into the Swedish camp.

Peter next had to determine where and when to cross. There was no thought of attempting to force a passage across the wide, marshy river in the teeth of strong opposition, as Charles had frequently done. Instead, Peter decided to mount diversionary feints all along the river front both north and south of Poltava to distract the Swedes, while the main army would cross at Petrovka, seven miles north of the town where there were places shallow enough for horsemen to ride across. Ronne would cross first with ten regiments of cavalry and dragoons, followed by ten regiments of infantry under Hallart. Once this force had cleared a bridgehead and successfully entrenched itself in a camp at Semenovka a mile below the ford, Peter would bring the main army across. Ronne and Hallart quickly moved their troops into position and, on the night of June 14, they attempted a crossing, which was repulsed. But the Tsar was not to be denied. From Poltava, Colonel Kelin sent word that he could not hold out much longer and Peter decided to try again immediately.

The Swedes were fully aware of the impending crossing at Petrovka. On the nights of June 15 and 16, the Swedish army remained at battle stations. Rehnskjold was in command of the Swedish forces—ten cavalry regiments and sixteen infantry battalions—which would meet the Russians as they crossed the river. His tactics would be to permit a part of the Russian army to cross and then, while the Swedes still enjoyed a numerical advantage, attack and drive the Russian vanguard back into the river. Charles remained in command of the troops before Poltava and along the river south of the city. His intention was to wait there until the battle began and he had determined that no major Russian force was crossing south of the city; then, he would ride north to join Rehnskjold at Petrovka. It was a logical formula for victory. But before this Swedish plan could be executed, disaster struck.

June 17, 1709, was Charles X
II's twenty-seventh
birthday. In his nine years of active campaigning, the King had led a charmed life relative to injury in battle. Although he had been hit by a spent bullet at Narva and had broken his leg in Poland, he had never been seriously wounded. Now, at the most critical moment of his military career, his luck suddenly deserted him.

At daybreak that morning, the King rode to the village of Nizhny Mliny south of Poltava to inspect the Swedish and Cossack positions along the Vorskla. He had good reason: The battle portending north of the city when the Russians crossed would draw most of the Swedish army in that direction. Before permitting this maneuver, Charles wanted to make sure that the river defenses to the south were sufficiently strong to repel any crossing in that region. On the opposite bank, as part of Peter's diversionary tactics, a Russian cavalry force was doing its best to keep the Swedes distracted. One Russian attempt to cross had already been repulsed.

Charles arrived around eight a.m. with a squadron of Drabants and began riding along the bank at the water's edge to inspect the men and their positions. Some of the Russians from the force
which had been driven back remained on one of the numerous islands in midstream, and they began to fire at the party of Swedish officers across the water. The musket range was short and a Drabant was shot dead in his saddle. Charles, without the slightest care for his own safety, continued his slow ride at the water's edge. Then, his inspection finished, he turned his horse to ride back up the bank. His back was to the enemy, and at that moment he was hit in the left foot by a Russian musket ball.

The ball struck his heel, piercing the boot, plunging forward through the length of the foot, smashing a bone and finally passing out near the big toe. Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, a Polish nobleman accredited to Charles XII by King Stanislaus, who was riding next to the King, noticed that he was hurt, but Charles commanded him to keep quiet. Although the wound must have been excruciatingly painful, the King continued his tour of inspection as if nothing had happened. It was not until eleven a.m., almost three hours after being hit, that he returned to his headquarters and prepared to dismount. By this time, the officers and men near him had noticed his extreme pallor and the blood dripping from his torn left boot. Charles tried to dismount but the movement caused such agony that he fainted.

By then, the foot had swollen so much that the boot had to be cut off. The surgeons examining him found that the ball, which had come out of the foot, was resting in the King's stocking near his big toe. Several bones had been crushed and there were splinters in the wound. The doctors hesitated to make the deep incision necessary to remove the splinters, but Charles, coming out of his faint, was adamant. "Come! Come! Slash away! Slash away!" he said and, grasping his own leg, held the foot up to the knife. Throughout the operation, he watched, stubbornly suppressing all signs of pain. Indeed, when the surgeon approached the lips of the wound, swollen, inflamed and sensitive, and shrank from cutting them away, Charles took the scissors himself and coolly removed the necessary flesh.