I've heard it suggested that had Charles XII not been wounded, Sweden might have won the Battle of Poltava due to him being able to take operational command. How true is this?
Charles not wounded = Swedish victory at Poltava?
- Thread starter Night Gaul
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I suppose it's possible but the odds are really really stacked against Sweden at this point. They're outnumbered, low on supplies, and far from anywhere friendly. The Russians have learned a lot of lessons since Narva, won some victories, and are a much tougher opponent. A lots more things would have to go wrong for Peter than for Charles for this to work, on average. Then again, battles really can be fickle.
And even more things have to go wrong to the swedish army continue its path in f*cking Ukraine
Even before Poltava, Charles' biggest mistake was rerouting the long-planned campaign on St. Petersburg in order to instead march on Moscow, where his armies faced the same problems that French and German armies faced in the subsequent centuries. When he was forced to retreat, he also decided to turn south into Ukraine, where he expected aid from the Zaporhrizian Cossacks in much greater numbers than he actually got. Charles' campaign had already been defeated by the time he made battle at Poltava.
I'm not very familiar with the details of Swedish history around that time, so I have some basic questions:
Would a Swedish victory have a great impact on history, with Sweden becoming an important European power till today or things would follow similar to OTL?
Did Sweden have great territorial ambitions? Did they proceed to conquest northern Russia heading to Siberia like Russians did or would that be ASB? I guess Sweden could at least keep Finland, Estonia, Latvia, West Pomerania till today, right?
Would a Swedish victory have a great impact on history, with Sweden becoming an important European power till today or things would follow similar to OTL?
Did Sweden have great territorial ambitions? Did they proceed to conquest northern Russia heading to Siberia like Russians did or would that be ASB? I guess Sweden could at least keep Finland, Estonia, Latvia, West Pomerania till today, right?
A Swedish victory is possible - hard, but possible. Karl leading the troops and breaking through to the Russian camp, causing a panic and a general rout of the Russian army pursued and nearly destroyed by the Swedish cavalry.
But even a major Swedish victory does not change the overall situation strategically - Peter has good enough control of the Russian state that he can continue to let the Swedes rampage around while he avoids them and rebuilds his army. Sweden simply lack the ability to force Peter to anything.
For Sweden to actually win the war would require Peter to be killed or perhaps captured and the rest of the Russian leadership to lose heart. Also hard. Peter was pretty good at realising when things went pearshaped and get out - like he did at Narva.
Perhaps @alexmilman have something constructive to add? He's good on the internal affairs of the Russian state at the time.
But even a major Swedish victory does not change the overall situation strategically - Peter has good enough control of the Russian state that he can continue to let the Swedes rampage around while he avoids them and rebuilds his army. Sweden simply lack the ability to force Peter to anything.
For Sweden to actually win the war would require Peter to be killed or perhaps captured and the rest of the Russian leadership to lose heart. Also hard. Peter was pretty good at realising when things went pearshaped and get out - like he did at Narva.
Perhaps @alexmilman have something constructive to add? He's good on the internal affairs of the Russian state at the time.
Of course, nobody can tell for sure but personally I found this unlikely. Some of the Swedish problems in that battle had little to do with a leadership, like the columns losing their way after passing the Russian redoubts. Charles did not have any super natural abilities to see what’s happening and no communication means that would guarantee a perfect control. The final attack was in a “classic” Charles’ style: marching ahead in a complete disregard of the enemy’s strength and fire in expectation that all problems are going to be solved by the Swedish bravery. Actually, this approach already failed at Lesnaya but the Swedish generals and Charles perefered to ignore the unpleasant realities.
Then, the battlefield was chosen and prepared in such a way that a victory by a concentrated attack was practically impossible. Look at the map below: besides the “T” line of the redoubts with the cavalry behind them there was a fortified camp and then one more fortification protecting the river crossing. Area itself was wooded, which made timely coordination of the advancing columns very difficult if not impossible taking into an account smoke from the firing and general unfamiliarity with the landscape (it does not look like during the siege the Swedes did not seriously bother to do so).
Then, there is an issue of the numbers. The Swedes were at a serious numeric disadvantage both in troops and in artillery. Earlier, this was compensated by the quality and, as the initial success of a final attack on a narrow sector of their right flank (against a battalion of Novgorod regiment) demonstrated, some quality advantage still existed but the Russian front did not broke, reinforcements had been brought to the endangered sector and everywhere else the Swedes had been failing: their left flank infantry fled, cavalry failed to break the Russian infantry squares and was attacked at the rear by the Russian cavalry. After all, on a battlefield the Russians almost 3:1 numeric advantage in the regular troops (42K vs. 16.5K plus reserve of approximately 10K infantry, 4K dragoons, at least 8K Cossacks a d 3K Kalmuks) and while formally the Swedes had 34 cannons against 102, in a reality they could use only 4 cannons in the battle due to the shortage of charges while the Russians deployed 86.
Rehnskiold was an experienced general with an impressive record of his own and while we can speculate that Charles would handle the things better why should we expect any miracle in the terms of coordination? BTW, after all Charles was present on a battlefield even if on a stretcher so it is not quite clear why couldn’t he coordinate his troops. IIRC, Maurice de Saxe also was on a stretcher (or whatever) due to the gout attack during the Fontenoy (and Zizka managed to win victories while being completely blind, just kidding
).Answer to most of your questions is “no”. Realistically, the victory at Poltava (extremely unrealistic) would save Swedish army from the immediate annihilation but it would be in a desperate strategic situation anyway without gunpowder, cannonballs and food. It could probably retreat to the PLC in a reasonably good order but, based on Charles personality, it is also reasonable to assume that he would not stop until he is thoroughly defeated. If and when this happened, his chances to escape would be much lower than in OTL.
As for the rest, thanks to GA Sweden was stepping on too many feet to survive in its 1700 borders. It would be just a matter of time and details. Swedish conquest of Siberia is ASB taking into an account the numbers and distances.
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The main problem was that Charles was a idiot with no plan for a real end game. Charles with some idea of what he wanted and how he would get it, that was what Sweden needed. Sweden could still win, but it would demand a lot of luck, like Peter the Great dying and for some reason a civil war broke out in Russia.
There are a lot of people who think Charlie King should've quit while he was ahead and accept Pete's 1707 peace offer. Honestly, I'm inclined to agree with them.
Without Charles XII, the situation would have been actually worse. First, let's set the scene, due to attrition, terrible planning, marching out of winter quarters in the worst winter in living memory nine months before the battle, and Russian scorched Earth policy, the Swedish army is halved from what it was when entered the Russian Empire. They lack supplies, including food. The supply column which was supposed to reach them had been ambushed, and escaped by leaving all the supplies behind and brought with them more mouths to feed led by a man suffering from dysentery and an already wandering mind (Count Lewenhaupt). The army's most senior non-royal commander is Field Marshal Rehnsköld, a brilliant but mercurial leader, who is about as warm, friendly and approachable as Monty after El Alamein. The army is going into battle outnumbered anywhere between four to five to one, starving and ill equipped. Their days are spent in skirmishes against the marauding Cossacks and other irregular light cavalry who steal their horses, kill stragglers and also make them stay awake at nights by regularly raiding their camp. On the eve of battle, they cannot even complete their Church service, without it being interrupted by a raid. And that is an important factor, because this army of starving, outnumbered Swedes far from home is held together by extreme military discipline, an iron and unshakeable Protestant faith and the belief in the invincibility of their King.
Removing the King would shatter the army. It would devolve military command to Rehnsköld, who was not the King in many respects and was even worse at communicating than his sovereign, and who engaged in petty feuds with his fellow commanders, especially Lewenhaupt, who at this point was sick as a dog as well. The myth of the invincibility of the King of Sweden was a powerful one. He knew no defeat, and no sword could cut him and no bullet could touch him until he would conquer papist Rome and bring about the supremacy of the True Faith across the whole of Christendom. The very fact that he was wounded shortly before the Battle of Poltava was enough to hurt morale. Kill the King and you are in much bigger trouble.
Rehnsköld was a brilliant commander, but he could not overcome the odds stacked against him. It would be too much for anyone. Napoleon, Stonewall Jackson and Rommel combined could not have brought about the Swedish victory at Poltava. The game was up.
Removing the King would shatter the army. It would devolve military command to Rehnsköld, who was not the King in many respects and was even worse at communicating than his sovereign, and who engaged in petty feuds with his fellow commanders, especially Lewenhaupt, who at this point was sick as a dog as well. The myth of the invincibility of the King of Sweden was a powerful one. He knew no defeat, and no sword could cut him and no bullet could touch him until he would conquer papist Rome and bring about the supremacy of the True Faith across the whole of Christendom. The very fact that he was wounded shortly before the Battle of Poltava was enough to hurt morale. Kill the King and you are in much bigger trouble.
Rehnsköld was a brilliant commander, but he could not overcome the odds stacked against him. It would be too much for anyone. Napoleon, Stonewall Jackson and Rommel combined could not have brought about the Swedish victory at Poltava. The game was up.
Pretty much nothing barring the untimely death of Peter was going to save Karl and his army, and even trying to assassinate him was going to be a stretch. The giant looked like he could hammer any assassin to death if necessary.
And even if Peter is offed, and Russia collapses into civil war, what next? At best, Sweden postpones its decline a few years down the road until another Russian Tsar takes a swing at it... or the Danes... or the Poles...
Actually, Charles did have a clear idea of what he wanted, which was good. Unfortunately, the goal was idiotic, which was bad.
The goal, as formulated at the start of the Russian campaign was return to the pre-war borders and monetary compensation for the military expenses. The second part, if formulated differently, was not unrealistic: by the peace of Nystadt Russia paid Sweden 2 millions thalers as a compensation for the lost territories. The 1st part, however, was an obvious non-starter.
As for the plan for achieving his goal, I quite agree with your assessment. It does not look like he had a coherent strategic plan of the campaign and his moves were to a great degree dictated by the search of supplies (in that game he was clearly outmatched by the opponents who were always couple moves ahead of him). March to Ukraine was dictated by the hope to get supplies (Menshikov got to them first) but as a way to defeat Russia the move was strategically meaningless because Swedes were marching in a wrong direction leaving the enemy with a complete freedom of action. Unless, of course, there would be friendly Ottomans and Crimeans ready to invade and march with the Swedes all the way to Moscow (the friendly ASBs were not yet discovered.
), which was one more fundamental delusion.Then, there was obviously a hope to force enemy’s capitulation by a decisive battle but he clearly was not fast enough to force such an engagement and the whole idea seems to be too optimistic because it ignored enemy’s resources and readiness to fight.
It seems to me (of course, I can be wrong) that by the time he arrived to Ukraine his contact with a reality was already going down the tubes and some of his actions are rather hard to explain. Wasting time and scarce resources on a siege of absolutely unimportant small fortification like Poltava (earthworks and a wooden palisade with 28 guns) was absurd. Having between 6,000 and 10,000 Cossacks and using them just for digging the trenches (which the Cossacks of Zaporozie considered a humiliation) while the enemy was effectively using his Cossacks for the raiding was a tactical imbecility. Leaving a considerable part of his already diminished force to guard the siege works around Poltava thus making Russian numeric advantage at the battlefield even greater was either idiocy or sheer arrogance.
Actually, Charles did have a clear idea of what he wanted, which was good. Unfortunately, the goal was idiotic, which was bad.
The goal, as formulated at the start of the Russian campaign was return to the pre-war borders and monetary compensation for the military expenses. The second part, if formulated differently, was not unrealistic: by the peace of Nystadt Russia paid Sweden 2 millions thalers as a compensation for the lost territories. The 1st part, however, was an obvious non-starter.
As for the plan for achieving his goal, I quite agree with your assessment. It does not look like he had a coherent strategic plan of the campaign and his moves were to a great degree dictated by the search of supplies (in that game he was clearly outmatched by the opponents who were always couple moves ahead of him). March to Ukraine was dictated by the hope to get supplies (Menshikov got to them first) but as a way to defeat Russia the move was strategically meaningless because Swedes were marching in a wrong direction leaving the enemy with a complete freedom of action. Unless, of course, there would be friendly Ottomans and Crimeans ready to invade and march with the Swedes all the way to Moscow (the friendly ASBs were not yet discovered.
Then, there was obviously a hope to force enemy’s capitulation by a decisive battle but he clearly was not fast enough to force such an engagement and the whole idea seems to be too optimistic because it ignored enemy’s resources and readiness to fight.
It seems to me (of course, I can be wrong) that by the time he arrived to Ukraine his contact with a reality was already going down the tubes and some of his actions are rather hard to explain. Wasting time and scarce resources on a siege of absolutely unimportant small fortification like Poltava (earthworks and a wooden palisade with 28 guns) was absurd. Having between 6,000 and 10,000 Cossacks and using them just for digging the trenches (which the Cossacks of Zaporozie considered a humiliation) while the enemy was effectively using his Cossacks for the raiding was a tactical imbecility. Leaving a considerable part of his already diminished force to guard the siege works around Poltava thus making Russian numeric advantage at the battlefield even greater was either idiocy or sheer arrogance.
I don't think Karl's plannig or intentions were quite that bad - the options were to either go to Livonia, Estonia and Ingria - both the path there (through Lithuania and Polish-Lithuanian Ruthenia) and the provinces themselves lacked the food supplies for the main Swedish army, and Russia and Peter had already taken quite some losses staying in the war - some more and losing recent conquests and being thrown out of Ingria would not compel Peter to seek peace. Going into Russia was the only way to actually decide the war - the decision was in that way actually strategically sound. The Swedish army and state was built around the decisive battle and seeking out the enemy and force him to battle.
Yes, invading Russia is a bad idea in general, because Russia and Peter has the option to trade land for time and bleed an enemy to the death by a thousand small cuts, but at that point Karl and Sweden had no real other options except ceding Ingria to Russia, which would be unrealistic considering Sweden had won nearly every engagement with Russia for the last 8 years.
This lead to a considerable amount of arrogance on the Swedish side, which was further reinforced by Grodno and Holowczyn 1708, both of which seemed to confirm that Swedish forces varying from 1/4 to 1/3 of the enemy army could decisively defeat the Russians reliably.
In hindsight, the Swedish invasion of Russia was idiotic, as Sweden lacked the strategiv ability to force anything on Russia, but at the time and to the Swedish command, including Karl, it seemed like the only option to actually force Peter to commit things he could not afford to lose (which we in hindsight know was not the case) and thus the only real option to win the war for Sweden.
By Poltava, the Russian army had become good enough to stand against the best of the Swedish army, at least when it had been depleted by nearly a decade of war, disease and bad supply. But I don't think Karl's grip on reality was slipping - the decision was a logical one without the benefit of hindsight and even when Russia won and all other enemies piled back into the fight, Sweden proper (without Finland), the main source of Swedish income and manpower, was mostly safe from enemy action beyond some coastal raids by the Russian archipelago navy.
Well, what you are saying is not illogical but as a way of winning the war Charles actions were unrealistic. Even Grodno was a somewhat weird success because entrapment of the Russian army (or rather Russian infantry) did not happen and most of it marched to the safety. If anything, Grodno revealed a major weakness of Charles’s system: absence of the well-organized supply system was forcing him to live off the land and in the case of Grodno this forced him to keep moving further and further from the city until blockade failed. Similar problem forced him to march to Ukraine without waiting for Lewenhaupt. IIRC, even by the time of the 1st Narva his troops were out of supplies and if there was no fast success they would be in a difficult situation.
Now, as far as the Baltic provinces are involved you brought an interesting point. You said that they could not be defended/retaken because the area was exhausted. But by the time of Poltava Russians had been mostly operating in their Northern part and even in 1708 Swedes tried to take back Ingria (typically, run out of supplies even if the distance from Finland was not too great). Latvia and Estonia were not invaded by the Russians until 1710 so it is not quite clear why they could not supply 30 - 40,000 Swedish troops especially when supplies could be brought from Sweden by the sea. But quite clearly just defending the area and reconquering a swamp called Ingria was not glorious so why would Charles bother?
As for the unacceptable peace conditions, in 1707 Peter was ready to return all conquests except for the line of Neva with St. Petersburg. Taking into an account that Ingria had been held by Sweden by the right of a relatively recent conquest and that this specific area was of no noticeable importance to Sweden (tiny town of Nyen and few small villages), the real loss would be minuscule and Russians would not be even able to turn St. Petersburg into a major port, meaning that most of their Baltic trade would still be going through the Swedish ports.
Forcing Peter to commit things he could not afford to lose would be a solid plan if anybody could indicate what these things are. I don’t think that Charles or Pieper could name any of these things and I doubt that anybody could. Comparing to Charles, Peter had almost unlimited pool of the resources for keeping his army at war (both people and weapons), plenty of operational space and no concern whatsoever for the well-being of his subjects or for any specific point on the map. Plus, practically no serious internal challenge to his rule. Charles could reconquer the lost fortresses and prevent Russians from invading Estonia and Latvia. He could cause considerable problems by attacking, capturing and holding Archangelsk but this would require serious readjustment of his strategy and reallocation of the available resources (resources-wise the OTL attack was incapable of such a task). His operations in the “main theater” would led nowhere, especially taking into an account that his army was ill-suited for the siege war. Of course, in 1709 it was in the bad shape but taking of a minor fortress protected only by earthwork and a wooden palisade and having couple dozen mostly light guns should not be a noticeable problem even for a weakened army. However, his “Little Vauban” Gyllenkrok was quite skeptical about success (“God help us with Vauban like me”). So what Charles could do? To hope that Peter would oblige him with an opportunity to destroy his whole army and to capture him? If anything, Holowszyn demonstrated that Peter would rather see a defeat of an army corps than commit the whole army without a guarantee of a victory. Capture some important place? Besides the fact that Peter ordered strengthening of the fortifications in Pskov, Novgorod, Smolensk and Moscow and the fact that at Grodno Charles did not risk to attack a city with a lot of troops in it, Peter really did not give a s—t about any of these places, especially Moscow (which was regularly burning anyway, at least once as a result of Peter’s celebration of some victory). In a meantime, Kalisz and other minor battles demonstrated what could happen to the isolated Swedish forces facing numerically superior Russians. Could he always march his troops (to nowhere) in a single column?
I don’t agree that decision to go to battle at Poltava was the best for Charles even under the circumstances (and the fact that he found himself in this situation does not speak well about his leadership (*) ) and, anyway, even before he started the siege quite a few people including Pieper and Gyllenkrok has been advocating withdrawal from Malorossia to Poland. Gyllenkrok openly stated that “short of some miracle none of us will get out of there...”
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(*) As a side thought, did you notice that in certain types of the fantasy movies (GoT, etc.) the heroes are typically starting with willingly putting themselves and their armies in the worst possible situation out of which they get out victorious by their personal proficiency with the weapons (and some completely unexpected help arriving at the critical moment)? Somehow, a person responsible for this mess is treated as a charismatic hero after whom the occasional survivors of his “generalship” are enthusiastically marching to the next disastrous victory.
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I am talking about Grodno 1708, not Grodno 1706. On the 7th of February (Gregorian calendar, Russian Julian calendar has it as 27th of January) 1708 a force of some 800 Swedish cavalry lded by Karl XII charged some 2 000 (with another 7 000 closeby) Russians led by Peter himself defending the bridge at Grodno and broke through. Peter ordered his force to retreat to Berezina, but returned during the night when he learned both the size of the Swedish force and thatKarl XII himself was present, seing a chance at decaptiating the Swedish leadership. However, the Swedes held the previous Russian fortifications at Grodno and Peter retreated again. Defeating forces more than 10 times his size together wit Holowczyn, where the Russians were 2,5-3 times the strength of the Swedish force probably reinforced Karl and Rhenskiöld's idea that their troops were suprior to the Russians, which makes the attack at Poltava make a bit more sense.
By the way, Grodno 1708 adds argument to my idea that Peter was pretty good at sensing when something was about to go wrong and extract himself from the situation - as he himself is probably the greatest asset for Russia at this time - making it even more unlikely that he would be captured or killed at Poltava even if the battle somehow was a Swedish victory.
While Russia had not taken the main forts, especially not Reval (Tallinn) or Riga in 1709, they had repeatedly raided and ravaged the countryside, making the provinces unable to sustain the main Swedish army, at least not for any kind of sustained campaign. The ports themselves could recieve food, but it could rarely be transported through the provinces. The Swedish state learned this during the 1697 famine, when the government tried to relieve Finland and Norrland by buying Polish grain, which got stuck in the ports as there was no real way to bring it out to the provines - the infrastructure is simply not there.
Sweden during this era recieved taxes in perishable goods (mainly grain and fur) and the tolls of the river mouths Sweden controlled was the main source of real coin that could be saved or spent for urgent issues without much effort. The tolls on the Düna paid for the garrison and fortificaiton needs of Swedish Livonia and Estonia, while Weser paid for the fortifications and 8 000 men permanent garrison of Sweden's German provinces. The tolls on Oder and Neva was not as plentiful, but still important to the Swedish state, which is why Karl XII did not want to part with it in a peace, especially when he felt that he was actually winning the war.
In hindsight, going north was probably a better idea, but would probably still not force Peter out of the war
Yeah, I have written some critizism of GoTs handling of military strategy (and quite some of it is in my fanfiction in my signature). Then again, history rewards stubborn, inflexible men hailing them as great visionaries and heroes when they win and ridicule them when they lose.