No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)

[alexmilman]

The goal of both Karl XI and Karl XII in foreign policy was to avoid entangling alliances that could start wars for Sweden that Sweden neither needed nor could gain anything from. The loose association and friendly relationship with the Naval Powers (Dutch and English) and understanding with the Emperor had served Sweden well up to this point. Denmark, which wanted to start wars in 1683 and 1688 was forced to back down by Dutch and English support for Sweden, so from the Swedish perspective, the strategy laid down by Karl XI worked just fine.

Karl XI had been furious that France made peace at Fountainebleau 1679 for Sweden without consulting Karl XI, treating Sweden as a vassal state and France had occupied the Duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken, which was the personal domain of Karl XI and XII 1671-1697, which also caused resentment. Sweden also supported and rented troops to the anti-French League of Augsburg (primarily the Dutch) during the Nine Years War

Sweden during this era had angered all her neighbours. Lübeck/Hannover wanted Swedish Bremen, Brandenburg-Prussia wanted Swedish Pommerania, Denmark-Norway wanted Scania back (and if possible also other lost territory), Poland-Lithuania wanted Livonia and OTL Russa wanted access to the sea back. Sweden was surrounded by enemies waiting for a chance to pounce, and Karl XI, Karl XII and Piper, who both used as their de facto chancellor also knew it and all supported the OTL policy of friendly relations with the Naval Powers and the Emperor, but no entangling alliances and no involvement with France. Being friendly with the Emperor mostly kept the antagonistic German princes in line - so a pro-Imperial policy also worked out for Sweden during this era.

Karl XI, Piper and XII had no desire for more territory or foreign adventures, and knew that it might trigger a pile-up on Sweden.

When it comes to the meeting between Karl XII and Marlborough in April 1707 in Altranstädt in Saxony, the mutual impoliteness is not mentioned by contemporary sources - the first source is from a French travellerer (de la Motraye) and his criticism of Voltaire's biography of Karl XII, from 1732. He was not present during the meeting. In fact, the meeting can be described as as success for both Karl XII and Marlborough. Marlborough got guarantees that Sweden did not intend to join the French in the War of the Spanish Succession (which was a real fear in the Allied camp at the time, as Karl was recruiting heavily in Germany at the time to reinforce his army). He also got guarantees that Sweden had no intentions to mess around in the Empire at that time. In return, Karl gained the continued British facilitation of good relations with the Emperor, which meant that Sweden's southern flank was secure and that Denmark, Prussia and Hannover would be kept in line and that Karl could continue to recruit in Germany for his army and then invade Russia.

Sweden had a pro-Naval Powers and anti-French policy since 1680, which combined with friendly relations with the Emperor had served Sweden very well, and that Karl XI, Karl XII and Piper, who were the most influential persons regarding Swedish foreign policy, all supported this. As Sweden at this time was more concerned about warding off everyone they had pissed off and keeping the territory it had gained, it had no desire to conquer more territory or go on any foreign adventures.

My bottom line is that Sweden will not join the French side in the War of Spanish Succession, and unless directly attacked, will try to avoid war entirely, especially far away and for little gain in what is the chief goal of Swedish foreign policy at this time - keep what they have gained, keep out of war. Good relations with the Emperor also worked in direct Swedish favour at this time.

I’m not sure that everything was that rosy in the Swedish relations with the Empire and the Brits. Of course, there was absolutely no reason for spoiling relations with them and Charles was too busy fighting the GNW to join WOSS on any side so Marlborough’s “success” simply means that Charles agreed not to do what he was not going to do anyway and for this squeezed some concessions for the fellow Protestants in Silesia. 😂

But an idea of him joining the anti-French alliance seemingly was discussed seriously and if Marlborough’s statement that he would like to fight a campaign under Charles’ command can be considered as a routine politeness, it is on the record that Peter was offering Marlborough a very serious bribe if he manages to convince Charles to go to the ‘Western’ theater. The Emperor seemingly was afraid that from Silesia Charles may march on Vienna.

Anyway, what would be the reason for Charles, if he decided to join WoSS, to join the Allies? Trade relations with the Brits and Dutch were important but they were mutually important so even in the worst case scenario he would not expect an excessive hostility from them. In OTL he kept the Baltic pretty much closed for years and Swedish privateers had been actively harassing the Dutch on the North Sea. But this was ‘just business’ and both maritime powers had been happy to restore relations at the first opportunity (more or less the same goes for their “hostile-friendly” jigsaw with Russia during the GNW: hostile stages never resulted in some dramatic actions which would be hard to repair later).

Yes, Sweden did participate in the anti-French coalitions before but it fought on the French side either and, if it makes sense, can do this again. Strategic problem for CXII, if he decides to join WoSS at all (which is not granted in this TL) is that for fighting on the Allied side he has to march across the whole Germany leaving extremely unreliable …er… “allies” who hate Sweden and have plenty of uncommitted resources to attack his territories while he is doing all these heroics in the Netherlands or on the Rhine. Would the Brits and Austrians march with him to punish Saxony and Prussia? Unlikely.

What you are seemingly missing is that in this TL he actually does not have to join any side within framework of the WoSS. With Russia being friendly he can proceed with settling the scores with Saxony, Denmark, Poland and Prussia without having France, Britain or Hapsburgs involved and without him joining any side. It is just a separate Little Northern War with its own goals and a realistic possibility to get some territories valuable for Sweden. For example, “return” the whole Pomerania, getting Danzig, annex Courland. Not sure if he may want something from Denmark but you got a picture. The Big Guys are busy fighting each other and it is just fine by him because he can get what he wants with impunity. As a trade block, Sweden-Russia are too important to the maritime powers to make too much of a post factum fuss and Austria can’t actively interfere either when Charles and Peter are going to make their little “pre partition” of the PLC.

But, as you yourself noticed, we are going a little bit ahead of the schedule. 😂

Edit: Just checked two different biographies of Marlborough on the meeting and both are rather on a negative side about the mutual impressions. Charles found Marlborough too overdressed and Marlborough considered him too plain and rough. The juicy details I was referenced to were (IIRC) mentioned in Massie’s biography of Peter (don’t know where he got them) but it looks like the Allies had been fearing two things:
(a) That Charles is planning to create anti-Hapsburg coalition of the German Protestant states (I was under impression that at this time Sweden was not exactly popular with most of them and that geopolitical situation in Germany was a little bit different from one of the GA time but who am I to argue….)
(b) That Charles may join LXIV (what for if so far he was doing just fine on his own without a need to care about somebody else’s interests).

So, in terms of preventing Charles from pursuing these goals, Marlborough’s mission can be considered a smashing success leaving us with an obvious question: was Charles planning to do anything of the kind to start with? 😂

 

[alexmilman]

5. LNW starts

Danish-Saxonian alliance is formed as in OTL and initial moves are the same as in OTL.

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1. In February 1700 August without declaration of war ordered the Saxon troops to besiege Riga and the troops from Courland are joining.

They took parts of the external defenses, Kobronskansts

and Dünamünde

but without a siege artillery just kept positions outside Riga and, after receiving news about coming Swedish reinforcements, retreated in May leaving the garrisons in both fortifications.

2. Denmark entered the war in March and in August was forced to sign peace with Charles.

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By the early 1700 Peter had an army which (on paper) looks as following: 2600 - Guards [1] , 41,560 cavalry [2] , 75,000 infantry , 14,000 garrisons and, in theory, up to 100,000 irregulars (Ukrainian Cossacks, Cossacks of Don, Kalmuks, Tatars, etc.). Total number of the available pieces of the field artillery was enormous: more than 400 3- and 3.5-pounders made in Sweden, not counting the Russian production and those bought in Germany. Even with a big part of the domestic production so far going to the Azov flotilla, there was neither need nor a possibility to deploy all of them simultaneously [3] so his active field artillery had 60 3-pounders 18 6-pounders, 12 8-pounders, 3 12-pounders, 4 1-pud и 3 1/2-pud howitzers. For much more he simply did not well-trained crews. Plus, each regiment had its own 2 3 pounders. The field artillery administratively was forming an Artillery Regiment but creation of the standard battery units did not happen, yet. 3.5 pound guns had been found inefficient and either used in the fortifications or melted to provide material for the new ones fitting Bruce’s system.

On paper the army looked impressive but most of the regiments were on the early stages of training and this applies both to the infantry and cavalry.

With the cavalry situation was especially difficult because most of it had been cadres from the old regiments and irregular noble militia used to the …er… “barbaric” tactics. At the sight of an enemy (unless they were scared enough to just flee) they’d broke the ranks and gallop in a disorderly fashion, sword in hand, shouting at the top of their lungs making any control impossible because officers’ commands simply would not be heard [4]. Both in the case of success and a failure it was close to impossible to rally them. The first task, as Peter saw it, was to break the bad habit and, being himself, he approached the issue in a typically draconic fashion [5]. Shouting during attack had been forbidden under fear of the execution of the commanders and decimation of the guilty units. Attack sword in hand was explicitly forbidden: the dragoons had to use their firearms standing or advancing in a slow trot and use swords exclusively for sekf-defense. Firing, except for the close encounters, had to be done only in the salvos.

Approach to the infantry was similar. It had to rely exclusively upon the “orderly” firepower. “Orderly” meant firing salvos by the platoons or tge whole line as fast as possible and without aiming. Some of the Peter’s commanders who had experience of the European wars had been pointing to the inefficiency of this practice but Peter was unmovable: unless his experience shows otherwise, Russian troops must follow the common European practices and that’s it. This opinion had been formalized by the first military regulations written, on Peter’s order by Weide (who actually was a very competent officer: his regulations provided a comprehensive structure for the Russian army and had been based upon analysis of the existing European practices observed during his travel abroad): the main task is training of the army because only a trained army can be victorious. Army’s strength is in its organization and training must consist in learning to act in formations and firing in orderly fashion.

The soldiers had the bayonets, mostly plug but some regiments, starting from the Guards, already had the muskets with the socket bayonets and their number kept growing. But they were not taught a bayonet fight, it had to be used exclusively as a weapon for a passive self defense. Soldiers had to be taught:
1. To recognize a right foot from the left.
2. To learn musket exercises with a stress upon the fast loading (each step on command) and unaimed firing.
3. To learn marching in formation and automatically perform the formation changing commands.
4. They also had to be taught that staying under the enemy’s fire is much less dangerous than disobeying their commanders.
5. Almost forgot, last but not least, they had to learn how to put on and wear a costume which was absolutely alien to them, how to march in the shoes (which none of them had been wearing before) without turning their feet into the bloody mess. Well, they also had to grow the shoulder-length hair and keep them presentable.

In the process of teaching the new soldiers all these exciting things it was discovered that getting a conscripted peasant all the way from his village to the regiment is not as simple as it looked on paper:
1. On a first stage of the process these peasants under the armed guard had been marched to the assembly points in the local administrative centers where, due to the absence of the special accommodations, they had been put in chains and held in the local prisons.
2. While immediately after the conscription they were supposed to start receiving the soldiers’ rations, the assigned money had been routinely stolen by the officers in charge and the same goes for the quality time spent in prison waiting for the next step by which time a considerable percentage of the recruits had been dying from starvation and anti-sanitary conditions or, if they were lucky enough, managing to escape never to be seen by the authorities afterwards (unless caught at highway robbery, theft or some other crime).
3. When officer from a regiment finally arrived and made a final pick (rejecting those in a bad shape) the process continued: they had been transported (in chains or not) under a string guard with the same food issues and, if the waiting continued for a long time, dressed unsuitably for a season. Only in the regiment they were getting a descent food, bathing and clothes.

As a result, optimistically, at least 30% of the recruited peasants had not been making it to the army (by some estimates only 1 in 3 made it) and the rest had been either dying or “disappearing”. So the owners had been suffering losses while the state was not getting soldiers. Attempts to remedy the problem had been typical for the time (from severe flogging and all the way to execution of the officials caught on misbehaving) but, as was much later told to Peter by his Procurator General, “if you want to execute all criminals, you’ll fund yourself without the subjects”. So there were some improvements but the system remained wasteful.

Following the prevailing standard of the time, the tactics was linear so the initiative of the subordinate commanders has to be limited not to disrupt integrity of a line. Why did Peter bothered to create the grenadier units is one of the historic mysteries. Of course, they looked kind of cute with their high hats but how one was supposed to throw grenades (see picture below) while in a formation (and without a risk to hurt his fellow soldiers) is a question to which I have no answer. Well, without the little mysteries like that history would be no fun.

It is often considered to be a boring issue but when you have an army and the fleet, you have to feed their members during the peace and war. Skipping the part related to the peace time [6], at a war time the army was expected to use combination of the magazines and supply trains carrying few weeks worth of supplies. One one hand, this was expected to lessen reliance upon the magazine system with a resulted greater freedom of the long-distance marches [7] but OTOH was forcing army to have a baggage train with the tens of thousands wagons. It was expected than in (an unlikely) case when the army would have to operate in the densely populated “civilized” areas size of such a train cut be cut due to the possibility to obtain (by purchase or confiscations) provision in the area of operations and, if needed, to create movable field magazines (like the Western armies were doing). In general, system of the purchases was considered preferential because, besides giving the Commissariat officers an opportunity to enrich themselves [8] 😂, it did not unnecessary alienate the local population thus simplifying a process. [9]
System of living entirely off the land, as was demonstrated by the previous wars, allowed a greater maneuvering opportunities but also could cause severe problems when the area of operations was exhausted.

With all these resources and problems known, Peter had to decide upon his course of actions generally defined by the Russian-Swedish treaty of a mutual help. To interfere on his own initiative? To wait until being asked? How many forces to commit and where? Their composition, who will be in charge, etc. As the first step, he let Charles know that he is ready to fulfill his obligations and, without too much of a fanfare, started creating magazine in Pskov and marching some of his best prepared troops in this direction…,

Garrisons in Kolsky Ostrog and Archangelsk had been strengthened by the streltsy regiments and artillery in the case of a possible Danish naval attack with the order to strengthen the existing fortifications and to build additional earthwork forts at the mouths of the Kola and Northern Dvina rivers.






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[1] Formally, Preobrazensky and Semenivsky regiments are not, yet, called this way but they are already elite troops by their composition (even a big part of the rank soldiers are nobles), equipment (the best available of everything) and training and performance during the Azov campaigns.
[2] So far, exclusively dragoons. The cuirassiers are only in the plans due to the unavailability of the horses (only few of those bough abroad already arrived).
[3] Of course, Peter is thinking before doing but some processes are really hard to stop after they started (and this applies not just to “scratching the itchy places and eating a tasty food” 😜) and stopping the manufactures which just started picking up the steam may have worse consequences than having reserve of the artillery barrels.
[4] Ironically or not, exactly this style of a cavalry attack survived in the Russian cavalry through WWI and RCW while the orderly charges by the knee-to-knee formations had been long gone.
[5] Making him to think does not imply that he become Mother Theresa.
[6] It started with a demagoguery position that “population must feed its defenders” (meaning direct supply of the natural products) to a more rational system of the purchases at a fixed price and creation of the magazines at the places of troops’ dislocation.
[7] Keep in mind that Peter was preparing his army primarily for the future war with the Ottomans/Crimea, which means operations in the areas where creation of the magazines was difficult or almost impossible (like in a middle of an open steppe).
[8] As was commented in OTL by Suvorov (who served in the commissariat on the early stages of his career) “if someone served in the intendancy for two years, this person can be executed without a trial”.
[9] A special case was the intentional devastation of the area as was done in OTL in Livonia by Sheremetev’s army. The purpose was both to scare the locals and to deprive the Swedes from a supply sources if they are going to launch a counter offensive: the Russian troops always coukd retreat to their own territory.

 

[alexmilman]

6. Choosing a general….

“How nice is to be a general,
It is very nice to be a general,
I can not name you a better job!
I will definitely become a general,
I will surely become a general,
If I manage to outlive my corporal!”
An old song

With the war being almost a certainty (Charles not being an easily forgiving type) and the best Russian troops quietly moving to the border, Peter had to make a decision regarding their leader. Unlike Charles, he did not imagine himself as a head of an army [1] and his choice of the generals had been quite limited:
Generalissimo Shein died in February 1700 being disgraced for not torturing the captured rebellious Streltsy effectively enough.
General Patrick Gordon, veteran of the Russian regular army (not the brightest apple on a tree but a lot of experience, even if seriously outdated one), died in 1699.
Lefort, a complete nincompoop but Peter’s #1 drinking buddy, which qualified him for the rank of a full general and admiral of the Russian navy, also died in 1699.

Another Peter’s favorite, Feodor Golovin (“brilliant” diplomat: consequences of the Nerchinsk Treaty he signed with China had been remedied only in the second half of the XIX), fieldmarshal who did not lead the troops in any war, admiral-general who never commanded a fleet, head of Peter’s diplomatic service, the 1st Count in Russia (the title had been granted by the Hapsburg Emperor on Peter’s request) , the first recipient of the Order of St. Andrew… even OTL Peter was not naive enough to give him an active command.

Hiring a foreign general was, of course, possible but would involve high risks in the terms of a loyalty and even ability to communicate with the troops.

The trustworthy foreign officers already on the Russian service (like Weide) were of the relatively low ranks and would have authority problems.

Which left Peter with one practical option, which actually was the best one, Boris Sheremetev:
1. Member of the very top level Russian aristocracy so nobody in Russia (Peter including) would look at him condescendingly.
2. Unquestionably loyal to the dynasty. During the troublesome times of Sophia regency stood away from all factions. No chances that he is going to start playing silly political games. Also, due to the fact that he kept staying away from the domestic political intrigues and was on the good terms with pretty much everybody who was somebody, there was a good chance that nobody is going to try to screw him. Especially if Peter is going to stay in Russia but close enough to the theater taking care of the necessities.
3. Both during the Crimean campaigns of Vasily Golitsyn and Peter’s Azov campaigns commanded the independent armies with a noticeable success (significant enough to be noticed and recognized abroad).
4. Diplomat with a good international experience.
5. After Azov campaigns asked Peter’s permission for traveling abroad as a private person (the 1st and by that time the only one Russian aristocrat who expressed such a wish). During the travel was received with the great honors by the Emperor, the Pope, the Duke of Tuscany, Senate of Venice and Maltese Order (had some unpleasant “issues” while traveling across the PLC which may contribute to him having the right attitudes in a coming war). Was the first Orthodox person awarded a rank of Commander of the Order and had been proudly wearing the order’s cross (shown on all his portraits). Upon the return visited Peter in the German dress and shaved, which made Peter ecstatic.
6. As a commander was highly respected by the Russian officers both for his military abilities and for a descent treatment of the subordinates which was anything but typical.
7. What was rare, the foreigners had been commenting on his good manners (“the best mannered person in Russia”). Dignified behavior and self-respect were extremely rare in a country where standard behavior was extreme rudiness to those below and extreme subservience with those above you.
8. Not a military genius but rather a level-headed commander who would try to keep risk to his troops to a minimum while trying to gain as much as possible.

Taking into an account that most probably he would have to cooperate with the Swedes who considered Russians ‘Asiatic’, the Maltese Cross (even if it was a Catholic award) should produce some cooling down effect and so should his general style of behavior including moderation in drinking[2].


When the choice being made, Peter discussed with the newly appointed army commander the goals of the coming campaign.

The official goal had been quite clear and straightforward as defined : to help Charles in his campaign aimed to kicking the Saxons out of his territory, at the moment this meant relief of Riga (Saxon troops still had been holding forts outside the city and it looked like their army is going to march to the city again. Quite obviously that, unless asked otherwise, the Russian troops would do better operating as a separate force on the Swedish flank: with their supply train based system they simply would not be able to march with the same speed as the Swedes (and living off the Swedish land could cause both the discipline issues and unhappiness of Charles). This way they would be able to apply pressure on the Saxons’ right flank forcing them to retreat even if the Swedes have problems with the frontal attack on their positions (it was expected that the Saxon troops are going more or less to repeat the same thing they did earlier).

The unofficial goal was trickier and achieving it would greatly depend upon Sheremetev’s both military and diplomatic skills. Of course, the treaty assumed exclusively unselfish brotherly help but, even if the principle “free cheese available only in the mouse traps” was not yet formulated, Peter always was fond of its substance. 😜 The trick was to figure out what is wanted (🧀) and it (a) should be of a tangible value to Peter while (b) not raising serious objections from Charles (who may harbor some illusions regarding Peter’s unselfishness and should not be completely disillusioned on this account for the sake of the future joined ventures). The next step would be to get physical possession of (🧀) but not in a way which would look like this is the main goal (which is, of course to help Brother Charles) and finally to convince Charles that agreeing to leave (🧀) in Peter’s possession is actually a way to punish the Perfidious One [3] and also serves Charles’ own interests. Not an easy task taking into an account that Charles may look somewhat idealistic but definitely is not an idiot.

After thorough investigation of a map (🧀) was found and now it was Sheremetev’s task to get it….

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[1] During the Azov campaigns he modestly opted for the position of a pain in everybody’s butt, which was much more fun leaving plenty of time for his favorite occupations of playing an artillerman, drinking parties and giving the valuable advices to everybody while not carrying any responsibility. In the 1st campaign there were 3 independent commanders (two of whom had no generalship experience whatsoever but had been Peter’s close confidants), which contributed to its spectacular failure, and for the second he choose an supreme commander, voyevoda Shein, gave him a rank of generalissimo and proceeded with his favorite occupations.
[2] In OTL, as a show of a personal respect, Peter exempted him from a mandatory drinking on his “assemblies”.
[3] Strange as it may sound, in this specific case this is NOT Britain.

 

[alexmilman]

7. A short interlude: 🧀 and its whereabouts

Actually, finding a desirable 🧀 was not a computer science [1] because it was just there for everybody to see and, in the present situation, a very low hanging fruit [2]. The map below is for a little bit earlier period so some of the Polish territories are already Russian but look at the bright red spot on the top right part (and ignore smaller spots on the left because they mean trouble).

This is Województwo inflanckie in Polish or Ducatus Livoniae in Latvian or Inflanty Voivodeship or Livonian Voivodeship, also known as Polish Livonia (so many names for such a small territory), a part of the PLC jointly owned by the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania populated mostly by the Latvians and, since the early XVII, a very popular theater of the wars between Sweden, PLC and Russia. The rest of tge Voiovodship are small towns and old crumbling castles.

Its “center” (located at its bottom) is Dyneburg, now Daugavpils but also known as Dünaburg, Даўґаўпілс (Daŭgaŭpils), Дзвінск (Dzvinsk), Düünaburg, Väinalinn, Väinänlinna, Daugpilis, Daugpiļs, Даугавпилс, historically: Невгин (Nevgin), Динабург (Dinaburg), Борисоглебск (Borisoglebsk 1656–67), Двинск (Dvinsk) and even דענענבורג, דינאַבורג and דווינסק. Pick whatever name you prefer.

If you have absolutely nothing else to do, you can make a search for Dynaburg fortress and find it absolutely unimpressive

Don’t search for Dvinsk fortress because you’ll get a map of a powerful Russian fortress built in the XIX century

So, now (in 1700) this is an obsolete fortification manned by the Saxon garrison, which provides the Russians with a perfect excuse to make it a target of their initial attack. The city is strategically important because it is located on the Daugava River (also Daugova, Dzwina, Western Dvina, Западная Двина, Заходняя Дзвіна) in the mouth of which Riga is located (in the region in question number of the names is in a reverse proportion to the size and importance of the geographic object so Riga is just “Riga” or “Rīga”). Potentially, it may improve the trade route between Pskov (where a major fair is being held) and Riga especially if Sweden grabs Courland thus securing both banks of the river and guaranteeing a safe navigation. So, no conflict of the interests (at least so far) and potential profit for both sides. Of course, if situation permits, Peter may want to get a tiny little bit greater piece of land …. which is going to to provide him with a nice secure border all the way up to the Dvina flow with Witebsk as a tete-de-pont. But he may not so there is no need to overburden Charles with the excessive knowledge [3].

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[1] First, because the CS (and the computers) did not exist in 1700 and second, IMO (backed by more than 4 decades in the area) the CS is hardly a “science”. Well, never mind. 😉
[2] Or, to be consistent in my terminology, a piece of a 🧀 which somebody hanged on a lowest branch of some local tree and left unattended. Question to all specialists in the Latvian flora: maybe there is some local variety of a cheese which is growing on the trees? It seems that the unwarranted attempt to be metaphoric got me totally confused. 😢 OK, to make it simple enough for me to understand, finally, what I’m trying to say, there was a piece of the territory which Peter could grab with a minimal military and political trouble.
[3] Of course, South remains the main long-term direction but if there is going to be a war why not use the opportunities?

 

[alexmilman]

8. Winter in Estonia and campaign starts


“King thinks only about the war. He is not paying attention to the advices of other people and it looks like he is acting upon the direct instructions from the God.” M. Stenbock


After being forced to agree to the peace with Denmark, which made him furious because the main goal of kicking Denmark so hard that it could no represent a danger in a near future, Charles sailed to Pernau and then set his headquarters near destroyed Lais castle to soend winter there waiting for arrival of the new troops needed for the campaign against August: after one victory had been “stolen” from him by the diplomats, he could not let them to steal another one and refused to listen to the peace initiatives proposed by the ambassadors of the Emperor Leopold I and Louis XIV. Actually, at least the French attempts ended soon enough because WoSS was going to start and Louis, out of fear that Sweden is going to join the emperor and his allies, would prepare him to remain in the North. OTOH, Britain and the Netherlands still wanted Charles to join them but their behavior during war with Denmark (refusal to engage, together with the Swedes, the Danish fleet and destroy it and then their role in conclusion of a peace which Charles did not want), gave Charles a pause.

Geopolitical situation after the Peace of Travendal really was not too rosy. Charles still had undestroyed Danish fleet at his rear which made him dependent upon a good will of the Brits and the Dutch who already got Denmark involved on their side in coming WoSS. It had been argued that by making peace with August Charles would relieve himself from dependency upon unreliable guarantees of the maritime powers and had a complete freedom in his foreign policy [1]. But it is possible that the French ambassador was right when he wrote: “I seriously think that King of Sweden is afraid to run out of the enemies if he’ll make peace with August.” And, of course, especially with a friendly Russia (and secure “Easter flank”), he could expect to get much more from defeating August then from maintaining a status quo.

Life in Lais proved to be quite entertaining for Charles with hunting and other winter entertainings. Not so much for his troops most of which had been placed in the nearby, rather poor, villages suffering from all types of shortages and the illnesses caused by the congested dwellings (it does not look like Charles cared too much). Situation was aggravated by a complete inability of an elderly governor Axel De La Gardie to solve any organizational problems.

As far as the preparations to war had been involved, things were not too good either due to the shortage of money. Ambassador of Leopold on his way back to Vienna was encouraging August to conduct war more eagerly. French ambassador was reporting to Louis:
“Nobility of the provinces Livonia, Estonia and Ingria are unhappy with the Swedish government, which, after taking away most if their privileges and properties, still mistrust them and suspects them being the secret enemies. For more then a half a year everything needed for supply of the troops is thank from them without a pay or even a promise to pay so they are just waiting for an appropriate moment for starting a rebellion and openly express the regret that last year King August could not penetrate deeper into the country… The military located there did not receive their salaries for more than a year… there are no hospitals, there are shortages of food … Sometimes the soldiers are getting a lot of a bad bread and salted meat and somethimes they are getting nothing… illnesses are getting stronger and the death spares nobody including King’s inner circle: his cousin Adolph died two days ago …. in most regiments no more than a third of the people are ready for action. During the last three months the King can’t raise more than 6,000 soldiers.”[2]

However, by May of 1701 Charles got approximately 10,000 reinforcements from Sweden and was ready to “visit” King August. “Thank God, it starts smelling like the summer there and, with God's help, we hope to start marching soon and attend to our business.” [3] Charles met the newly arrived troops at Derpt and from here on June 27, 1701 he marched South wearing the costume which was going to become his trademark.

And, no wig! Which was a true innovation.

Upon receiving the news, Sheremetev ordered his army quietly allocated along the border to start marching as well. The forward magazines prepared in Opochka and Ostrov allowed to cut size of the train and speed up the march.

The Saxons still had been staying near Riga doing little but holding two nearby fortresses.

_________
[1] “Freedom” as in doing what? British-Dutch position made a new war with Denmark close to impossible leaving as the options either entering WoSS as somebody’s puppet or to stay home abandoning any active foreign politics (time of Bernadotte did not come, yet).
[2] Of course, this was reported during the winter of 1700-1701 when Charles was staying in Livonia near Lais castle. In this TL the area is not being destroyed by the Russian raids so situation with food should be somewhat better but not with the money. Anyway, a little bit of an extra drama should not hurt the story (without the problems the victories are less impressive). 😂
[3] From Charles’ letter to his younger sister.

 

[alexmilman]

9. The first victories

With a war, which nobody bothered to declare properly [1], getting into its active phase, the theater looked as following (late June of 1701):

1. Saxon army of approximately 12 - 13,000 with 36 pieces of the field artillery was staying across the river from Riga to no obvious purpose because it is too small (and lacking the siege artillery) for an effective siege [2]. Some if these troops had been garrisoning two captured fortifications near Riga and the rest had been guarding the left bank of the Daugava River between Riga and Kokenhausen (Koknese, Kukenois, Kokenhuza, Tsarevich-Dmitriev - the place was/is really small, hence so many names, see previous post for the explanation) not knowing where exactly the Swedes are going to try to cross the river. There was also a small Saxon garrison in Dynaburg, upriver, not that any unpleasantries had been expected there. August was having a quality time in Warsaw not unduly bothering himself with raising more troops and sending them to the theater of war.

2. Charles started his march from Derpt with approximately 20, 000 [3]. His army had to march 250 km to Riga in a very hot summer so he did not rush it and also had to move in a way which would prevent the Saxon commander from figuring out where exactly between Riga and Kokenhausen he is planning to cross the river.

3. Sheremetev of 20,000 [4] regulars, 10 infantry and 10 dragoon regiments with 60 artillery pieces (20 regimental 3-pounders, 30 3-pounders, and 10 6-pounders) and 2,000 irregulars (Cossacks and Kalmuks) had been marching from its positions between Ostrov and Opochka to Dynaburg with the rendezvous point at Rezekne (city small enough to have 6 names), which meant march of 120 - 150 km. Few day marches behind Sheremetev’s army followed a siege train [5] of the 18- and 24-pound cannons and 6-pound mortars accompanied [6] by a modest convoy of 6 infantry regiments (including the Guards and Russian oldest Butyrsky Regiment), a cuirassier regiment, and 3 dragoon regiments. With all these people marching anyway, there was also a big wagon train carrying couple weeks worth of the supplies (for all troops including Sheremetev’ army). In charge of this …er… <whatever> was Prince Anikita Repnin, one of the top Russian aristocrats, person of a great prudence [7] . Swedish liaison officer wrote about him “General Repnin is a man in his forties; he does not understand much in the military matters but likes to learn and very respectful….” [8].

What else can be said about this siege train? Not too much except that that the bombardier company of the Preobrazensky Regiment included two lieutenants called Peter Mikhailov [9] and Alexander Menshikov (which means that the baggage train had been carrying a lot of the booze for celebration of the future victories).

As it should be clear from all of the above, logically, the Saxon idea of staying near Riga under these circumstances should be considered a pure lunacy because with the available forces Steinau simply could not prevent both Charles and Sheremetev from crossing Daugava and was going to have 20,000 enemies (chose which ones) at his rear and the same number at his front. But this is not as the things looked like both for the Saxons and Swedes because the Russians “did not count”. From Steinau’s point of view, even few hundred Saxon troops behind the pathetic fortifications of the Dynaburg were more than enough to keep these barbarians forever. And, Charles was not going to let himself to be robbed of a victory by the trifles like “strategic considerations”, especially in a view of the obvious fact that even few hundred Saxon troops… etc.

So while the sides that did matter (Swedes and Saxons) had been happily engaged in the maneuvering on both sides of the Daugava (Charles trying to deceive Steinau regarding the point of crossing and Steinau trying not to be deceived), Sheremetev reached Dynaburg. After a short bombardment, the Russian troops, during a half an hour night assault, entered the fortress. Unlike 1656 when all defenders had been killed , this time they were simply taken prisoners (a clear sign that in the past five decades Russia became much more civilized). Now Steinau could finally get an idea but he did not, with a resulting Crossing of the Düna which firmly established Charles’ reputation as a military genius.

The Saxons had been retreating to the neutral Prussia. Charles with the Swedish cavalry had been pursuing them, joined by the Russian cavalry regiments, but without a noticeable success.

Courland was an obvious and easy pick: there were not troops and the Duke, whom August made a generalissimo, fled to Berlin. Occupation of the rich duchy had been solving two tasks: supply problem for the Swedish troops and annoying August. So, in July Swedish army occupied the duchy, population was forced to pay contribution and soon afterwards Charles started turing it into the Swedish territory: population was ordered to swear loyalty to the King of Sweden, the clergy had to pray for his health, newly-appointed tax collectors started collecting taxes for Charles.

It goes without saying that on the 🧀 territory the same things happened for the benefit of the Tsar of Russia [10] (agreement of the Poles was neither asked and nor really required: Saxon garrisons in the area were enough of an excuse and if somebody was unhappy, this was not Peter’s problem). Sheremetev was made fieldmarshal. Siege train (and most of the “convoy”) had been left in the area because Peter had certain creative ideas for implementation of which it would be very convenient (if not really necessary) if Charles committed an act of a fundamental geopolitical foolishness, which Peter fully expected him to make. Within less than a month, on August 9, 1701, Peter was not disappointed. Actually, he was quite ecstatic and send Charles his renewed assurances of the continued brotherly love and complete support of his new and absolutely brilliant idea. With a much lesser fanfare he started moving some of his so far uncommitted regiments toward Ukraine….


__________________
[1] Even if just because it was not quite clear to whom this war should be declared. After the peace with Denmark the German princes asked Charles not to march to Saxony because August attacked Riga as King of Poland but now the Poles declared that the PLC has nothing to do with the activities of the Elector of Saxony and that the PLC is true to the Peace of Oliva. The Russian participation was, for a while, overlooked so there were no protests sent Peter’s way. Not that this would do any good, anyway.
[2] And perhaps because some time earlier August, who was always short of money, allegedly got 10,000 thalers from the merchants of Riga for not causing damage to the city by bombardment. Quite possible that this was just a nasty rumor incompatible with August’s royal dignity: unless at that time he was in a really desperate financial situation, the alleged sum looks offensively small.
[3] In OTL he left in Ingria and Karelia 6,000 plus troops under command of colonel Schlippenbach to guard the Southern Livonia against the Russians, which left him marching with 18,000. Not all of these troops would be assembled at Derpt in this TL and even would be necessary for the actions against numerically (and not only) inferior Saxons so Charles’ army is just slightly bigger.
[4] In OTL 20,000 Russian troops under command of A. Repnin had been sent to help the Saxons while Sheremetev was operating in Livonia so the number is the same but commander is better and the goals are different.
[5] Just in case Dynaburg’s garrison consisted of the suicidal maniacs and perhaps for a pure fun as well.
[6] So that nobody would steal them and, perhaps, to be sure that along the road they would not be bartered or forgotten or something…
[7] In OTL in 1700 he was marching to Narva when the s—t happened and safely retreated to Novgorod. In 1701 he was sent to help Saxons at Riga and, after watching from a safe distance them being beaten, safely returned to Russia (leaving few hundreds of his soldiers to defend some redoubt, all of them had been killed by the Swedes). After that mostly was operating as a second in command with a reasonable degree of success.
[8] In OTL, this was written by Steinau before Battle of Daugava.
[9] He loved sieges and a loud noice in general.
[10] Of course, there was certain disappointment due to the absence of the sieges and ability to make a loud “boom!” but upon the return to Moscow a huge celebration was arranged with a massive guns salute and extensive fireworks, so it was OK.

 

[alexmilman]

10. Polish morass

On August 9, 1702 Charles, who was staying in Courland, issued to official letters one of which had been addressed to “all Poles” [1] and another to Cardinal Primate of Poland, Augustyn Michał Stefan Radziejowski, the second (after August) most important person in the PLC and definitely the first one as far as understanding and control of the situation goes [2].

g
In both letters Charles was talking about a need to dethrone August who caused an immense damage to the Polish liberties by flooding country with the Saxon troops and starting a war with his Swedish cousin. Sweden is ready to provide all help that may be needed. It seems that this was Charles’ own idea and all attempts to dissuade him just made him more firmly set on its implementation. Just as century later Napoleon got “Spanish disease”, Charles got the “Polish” one. The task did not look excessively complicated to Charles due to his a blissful ignorance of the realities of the Polish politics and the PLC reputation as “a cemetery of the armies”. Of course, the PLC was practically an ideal ground for the relaxed military strolls of pretty much any army and for living off the land but achieving some definite results was a completely different story due to the never-ending political turmoil. Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna [3] sent to Charles a ling memorandum in which he strongly recommended to abstain from invading the PLC and especially from the idea of installing a new king. He was especially afraid of the consequences of August’s dethroning based upon mentality of the Polish nobility and an abyss existing between their promises and concrete actions. But Charles finally got a political idea of his own and stuck to it because his proposals were logical. To his surprise, the letters produced no enthusiasm from the recipients [4]. Everybody agreed that August was a lousy king but there was no precedent for a king to be overthrown and if such a thing is going to happen, it should happen without a foreign interference. Even those who sympathized to the Swedes did not agree to the Charles’ proposals.

Peter, who had a somewhat better understanding of what the PLC looked like (after all Russian diplomacy had a long record of dealing with it) and already got some knowledge of Charles’ modus operandi, fully expected that sooner rather than later Charles is going to push his idea down the Polish collective throat by invading the country. For the Poles’ own good, of course.

This would give Peter a free hand in his own actions which could be two-fold (Peter was quite opportunistic in picking one if the options or both):

1. By the obvious geographic reasons, it was tempting to expand annexation from Dynaburg all the way up the Dvina flow to Witebsk thus ending with a nice “natural border” by the river and securing the new territory from the PLC attempts to get them back [5]. But this had to wait until Charles is going into “the morass” so that Peter’s activities will fit into “brotherly help” category.

2. For the second option he needed Charles’ agreement much less if not at all. It was the Right Bank Ukraine owned by the PLC and in a meantime in a quite fragile peaceful status due to the conflicting interests of the Cosssacks (generally loyal to the throne) and the Polish nobility that considered the Cossacks as an abomination and was pressing the crown for cutting their privileges. The intelligent monarchs usually managed to navigate these treacherous waters with a certain degree of success but not August. Even before Charles sent his letters, August came with his own “touch of a genius” by issuing in the January of 1702 “universal” by which all Cossack lands of the Braclaw, Kiev and Fastow “regiments” (Polish-held Right Bank Ukraine) had to be returned to the Polish nobility and the Cossack troops disbanded. Temporary Hetman, colonel Samus, had to deliver his attributes of power to the royal representatives. Comparison with an exploded bomb is inadequate [6] so how about effect of the yeast being thrown into a latrine? In March the Cossack Rada had been assembled on which Colonel Palij publicly rejected protection of the Polish King, declared the Right Bank Ukraine “free Cossack area” and swore loyalty to Peter and Hetman Mazepa [7] in which he was fully supported by Samus. In September the Cossack army besieged Polish-held fortress White Church, Polish relief force had been defeated and the things proceeded as usual [8]. In November White Church had been taken by storm and all its defenders killed. This opportunity can’t be missed and situation must be exploited before the Poles raise an army and crush the rebels. The helpful part was that formally Peter could keep pretending that this is strictly a Cossack business in which Russia is not directly involved [9]. Well, maybe a little bit, just to keep the excesses down. Mazepa’s army, 40,000 strong (accompanied by 10,000 Russian troops) crossed the border to help the rebels, Samus formally passed his insignia to Mazepa returning to his old status of a colonel. And the Polish army of 15,000 had suffered a crushing defeat losing everybody who could not run fast enough and all its artillery (44 pieces). Peter’s troops occupied White Church and few other more or less fortified places. The first step of the “go South” plan: control of the territory between the Dnieper and Bug rivers with a stronghold of White Church in between, was made while Charles was still amusing himself playing diplomacy with the Poles.


In a meantime Charles spent the whole year in Courland trying his hand as a diplomat but gradually running out of patience….
_______________
[1] Or rather to “200,000 sovereigns”. Who would care about the peasants and burghers?
[2] Is it just me or cardinal’s hat on a portrait does look like a bow? Anyway, he was plotting against Jan Sobiessky, then supported candidacy of his then until switched his support to Prince Conti and became leader of the pro-French party and even led a rokosz in his support against King August until getting from August a considerable bribe and guarantee of an important role in the government. Which did not prevent him from a being in a permanent conflict with August. In OTL, after trying for a while to play intermediary between August and Charles, went to the Swedish side but after Charles refused to put on the PLC throne either Prince Conti or Ferenc Rakoczi, broke with Charles, fled to Danzig and tried to get back to terms with August in a process of doing which he died in 1705 at the age of 60. Probably due to the distress caused by running of the new sides to switch to (siding twice with the same king should be boring).
[3] During the Deluge he was governor of the Great Poland, then governor of Livonia and between 1680 and accession of Charles XII a de facto head of the Swedish foreign politics.
[4] In OTL he was promising to the Polish nobility as a reward return of the Ukrainian lands lost to Russia but in this TL he has no bonus to offer so enthusiasm is even smaller.
[5] Taking into an account the general situation within the PLC, this excuse was not labeled as “invasion of the hostile ASBs” only because these creatures were not known, yet.
[6] The contemporary bombs simply were not powerful enough.
[7] Mazepa was Hetman of the Russian-held Left Bank Ukraine and did not mind at all to became Hetman of All Ukraine. However, not to get on Peter’s wrong side, he refused to help the rebels and even forbade them to flee on the Left Bank.
[8] Which means a wholesale massacres of the Poles, Jews, and the Uniates. In OTL this uprising is referenced as “Second Khmelnitchina”. In OTL , in 1703 the Polish army managed to reconquer part of the rebellious territory, impaled known supporters of the rebellion and cut the right ears to 70,000 suspected ones, population of some places was totally massacred. Peter ordered the leaders of uprising to make peace with August and in 1704 they joined Mazepa’s army but soon enough (probably just to be on the safe side) he arrested the leaders. They were released only after Mazepa’s treason became known. In this TL Peter’s alliance with August does not exist, with the obvious “adjustments”.
[9] As Don Cesar de Bazan from “Ruy Blas” who did not directly participate in a robbery but just “helped with an advise”.
[10] Of course, Peter trusted Mazepa but only within a paradigm that he formulated as: “Every Ukrainian Hetman is a traitor”. Anyway, for all intended purposes, creation of a functioning unified Hetmanate was not exactly Peter’s favorite idea.

 

[alexmilman]

11. Everybody is having fun

A little bit of a background:

While all these things had been happening and even few years prior to them staring happening the Lithuanian nobility was having their own civil war. On one side there were the Republicans and on another …., I’m sure that you guessed correctly, Sapieha family - the magnates who had been controlling both Lithuanian military force (Jan Kazimierz Sapieha was Lithuanian Great Hetman)

and Treasury (another Sapeha was a Treasurer). The republicans were not as much for pro-something as they were against Sapehas having too much power. The fighting started after the death of Jan Sobiesky and happily continued into the reign of August. Formally, the republicans were pro-August while the Sapehas not too much so but also recognized August who tried to stop an ongoing war by a royal universal and, of course, got the opposite results. In 1698 August reached an agreement with the republicans led by Grzegorz Antoni Ogiński (and others).

By this agreement size of the Lithuanian army (one which Sapeha controlled ) was cut in half (which, of course was ignored by Sapeha) and the fighting kept going on. Everything was nice and peachy until 1700 when August got to war with Sweden. From this point things started getting complicated because August needed Hetman Sapeha to raise as many troops as he can to fight against the Swedes [1]. So August gave him such a permission without bothering to get permission from the Sejm [2]. The Republicans, understandably, protested [3] and had been pissed even more when August started placing the Saxon troops on the winter quarters in Lithuania. A pospolite ruszenie of the Lithuanian nobility was declared by the leaders of the Republicans. They claimed they were doing it in accordance with the King's universal, which ordered the nobility to prepare the country's defence against Swedish invasion. August II maneuvered in between the two sides, because he needed Sapieha's support, but still wanted to keep the power of Sapieha's in check. Moreover, the king illegally maintained the Saxon Army in Lithuania, pretending to do it for the protection of the nobles, while actually assembling his forces for the campaign of Livonia, as the Little Northern War had already started in 1700. August II asked the Polish and Lithuanian senators to declare war on Sweden. The Polish refused, but Sapieha agreed, even if he protested against the stationing of the Saxon army. So, Sapieha was forced to recruit an army, and lead it. He also appealed to the Republicans, inviting them to contribute but the Field Hetman of Lithuania Michał Serwacy Wiśniowiecki, instead of defending his country from the Swedes, attacked Sapieha at the Battle of Valkininkai [4]. Confederates declared that Sapeha is deprived of Hetman position, his estates had been looted, he was forced to flee to Warsaw. Augustus II appointed a commission to investigate the quarrel and, now with Sapieha's consent, stationed the Saxon army in Lithuania [5]. But Sapeha still did not like August.

Back to Charles:

While entertainments available in Courland during the winter (mostly throwing snowballs) had been exhausted, Charles decided that he is supporting Sapeha. He started with sending two small detachments against Oginski who activated his partisan war. Charles decided that the time came for his personal interference. He loaded 400 of his Guards on the sledges and disappeared in a general direction of Samogitia. He was absent for the whole December and only close to the New Year reappeared happy as a clam because his little adventure proved to be quite satisfactory. At some point Oginski managed to launch a sudden attack on a village in which Charles and his detachment had been sleeping and put it on fire. This was a real fun because the Swedes (Charles including) had to run out of the houses in underwear, repel the attack, put down the fire and go back to sleep. The next time Charles almost caught Oginski but he managed to escape.

August, when his attempts to get Sejm’s support for his war with Sweden failed, decided to try diplomacy and proceeded in his usual way. At that time Maria Aurora, countess von Königsmark [6], former August’s mistress, now a secular abbess of Quedlinburg [7], and as such a princess if the Empire,

and mother of August’s bastard son, Hermann Moritz von Sachsen (who was at that tine much younger than on his portrait below),

was going to Courland to meet with count Piper on the matter of a family business (most of “who was who” in Sweden was her relative). So August asked her to met Charles and used her well-known charms (to which many could attest) to convince Charles to make a peace. The fact that she was twice older than Charles did not look as a big deal. When she arrived to the royal headquarters Piper met her with all respect due to her official status and she was quite busy being entertained by her relatives (Wrangels, Levenhaups, etc.) but Charles refused to met her. Finally, she almost caught him when he was enjoying a horse ride but on her sight, Charles turned his horse and galloped away giving Aurora a reason to claim that she is the only person from who Charles ever fled.

The next August’s messenger was arrested at put in prison in Riga at the pretext that his papers were not in order. Charles had enough: if August wants to see him so much, he will have a chance. Charles ordered Swedish army to start march on Warsaw.

Well before this happened Peter got information which forced him to rethink some of his earlier actions… [8]

_________
[1] This was PLC. so Sapeha still remained the top military authority in Lithuania.Augustus II appointed a commission to investigate the quarrel and, now with Sapieha's consent, stationed the Saxon army in Lithuania
[2] To make situation clear, we are talking about 3,660 soldiers, a rather pathetic number.
[3] Who cares about Sweden when there are the Sapehas to fight.
[4] Which clearly indicates that Wisniowiecki was a true Lithuanian patriot with all priorities properly set. As for the battle, Sapeha had higher quality troops and even 8 artillery pieces but the opponents had numeric advantage of at least 4:1 and when the things started getting sour, all leaders of the Sapeha’s army fled from the field, except for Sapeha’s son who was taken prisoner and the next day was killed together with all other prisoners.
[5] Probably formally he was still the Great Hetman.
[6] Lady “pleasant in all aspects”, to put it politely.
[7] My first reaction that this establishment actually was some kind of a bordello for the German aristocrats proved to be wrong: this was a highly prestigious religious institution. Well, this makes her position as an abbess even more piquant. 🥵
[8] Remember the officers he sent to Charles? And Sheremetev as well? The ATL Peter has a habit of thinking and acting upon the results….

 

[alexmilman]

12. A little bit more fun….
[I found it extremely difficult to switch from Charles to the main hero because at that time Charles, August and the PLC definitely provide a much greater entertainment but any fun is going to end and it will be sooner rather than later]

It is early 1702. Charles just ordered his army to start marching to the South, in other words, to Warsaw. 6,000 troops under command of sick Stewart are left to garrison Courland.

By his interference into the Lithuanian civil war Charles managed to turn it into the anti-Swedish war. Not very efficient, of course, but two Swedish detachments sent into Lithuania were almost completely exterminated and Charles himself on his march had been repeatedky engaged into small-scale encounters with the troops of Oginski and Wiśniowiecki. Finally, he got pissed off an issued an order to start killing all captured enemies (and, of course, burning the places implicated in supporting his enemies). All Swedish forces finally got assembled at Kovno (Kaunas) and on April 8 the army renewed its march along the Nieman.

Just at this moment arrived the Polish delegation which was including few senators, voyevods, starosts and Count Tarlo [1]. Their mission was to prevent Charles from entering Poland [2]. Understandably, Charles was in no rush to receive them but eventually the formal reception was scheduled for the May 2nd, after Charles crossed the Nieman.

The circus started. First, the members of delegation demanded that, as per standard protocol, they should be driven to the reception in the royal carriages. Oops, Charles had none but offered, as an alternative, that they will have a honorary escort of the Swedish life-guards to which the ambassadors conceded but demanded that they must be addressed as “serenissima” to which the Swedes disagreed because by an international protocol this title could be used only if the ambassadors represented a state in an absence of the king. After some bargaining both sides agreed upon “inclit” (“renowned”). The ambassadors had been trying to convince Charles (a) not to enter Poland and (b) to return the cannons, which the Saxons took from them and which Charles captured. For a while Charles stoically listened to their speeches but then tried to explain that if the Poles are going to get rid of August they may get back not only the guns but perhaps some benefits as well [3]. By the end of the audience the ambassadors started quarreling with each other all the way to a vulgar brawl and saber rattling [4].

For the first time Charles got a glimps of with whom he would have to deal on the state issues in the PLC and the first doubts started forming in his mind.

August left Warsaw before s—t hit the fan but even before this he managed to convince the Senate, at the face of the Swedish invasion, to authorize mobilization of the crown army but without declaring a war on Sweden. The grand strategy, as formulated by his favorite, Flemming, was not to confront Charles but maneuver, attract to his side Denmark, Prussia, Austria and maritime powers in expectation that sooner or later the Poles are going to figure out that the Swedish occupation is worse than Saxon one and start fighting the Swedes.

On May 24th the Swedish army entered Praga, a suburb of Warsaw and, while the bridge across Vistula was being built, Charles crossed the river in a boat with his retinue and amazed his generals by pointing the precise position of every Swedish regiment during the Battle of Warsaw, 1656.
The 1st place Charles visited in Warsaw was the palace in which a French painter was still working on a portrait of August. As Charles’ historiographer, Gustaf Adlerfelt, present at the episode remarked, “Charles looked at the portrait of his opponent with great interest”. The Duke of Holstein, also accompanied by the same historiographer, found another place of interest to visit, a French restaurant [6]. The next month was spent at the balls and receptions given by the Polish magnates [7] . Charles issued a strict order not to provoke the population in a rather optimistic hope that the Poles eventually “will come to their senses” and understand that deposing August is a reasonable and necessary thing to do.

Arrival of Cardinal Radziewski, who was attending all balls accompanied by his mistress, cheered everybody up: after all, he was the most knowledgeable person in the PLC politics. Count Piper was reciprocating by staging receptions for everybody who mattered trying to smooth Charles’ soldier manners. Piper managed to sign a treaty of neutrality with Prussia. Frederick I of Prussia was ready to consider a military alliance but Charles refused to cede him the Polish town of Elblag (which would provide him with a full control of the Vistula Lagoon). The defensive treaty with the maritime powers secured Sweden against potential surprises from Denmark.

Charles was the only one being busy with a real business, dealing with the needs of his army and waiting for arrival of the reinforcements from Pomerania and the troops of Stenbock and Moerner which were still putting Lithuania “in order” [8] accompanied by the Russian troops.

In the late June 1702 the Swedish army, 8,000 strong (troops from Pomerania did not arrive, yet), started marching to Krakow. Everywhere along the route he had to live the garrisons so the army kept shrinking. Even a mediocre strategist would start worrying but not Charles who believed in his troops [9].

By the early July Charles’ army, his troops marching from Lithuania, Saxon army and the Polish crown army led by Hetman Lubomirsky

had been closing on Krakow.




___________
[1] More than one member of that family was still alive at that time and it looks like all of them were not admirers of King August so I don’t know which one was present. They were one of the most powerful magnate families in the PLC so presence of a member of this family should add a lot of weight to the delegation. The best known, Jan Tarlo (below) was only 16 years old so it could be his father or uncle (bishop of Poznan)

[2] This is the PLC and its components generally don’t give a damn about each other so in this case the operational slogan was “Screw Lithuania!”
[3] In OTL he was hinting to the lands lost to the Tsardom in mid-XVII but here he has to be more vague: openly screwing a close ally woukd be against his principles. Perhaps promise of some cookies being regularly sent to them on Christmas.
[4] Probably about amounts of cookies each if them is going to get.
[5] Just as a guess, in an unlikely case that any of them knew disposition better and found that Charles was wrong, it is even less likely that this person would start flapping his mouth contradicting the King when he is demonstrating what a smart guy he is.
[6] Gustaf Adlerfelt seemingly had a gift to be present everywhere. In OTL he finally managed to be present in a wring place in a wrong time: at Poltava he was following Charles’ stretcher and had been hit by a cannonball.
[7] Who were, seemingly, against the Swedish invasion of Poland but this is the PLC so the logic does not apply, especially when there is a chance to drink and dance.
[8] And “collecting” values both for the King and for themselves.
[9] The difference between mediocracy and genius is usually defined post factum based upon the end result.

 

[alexmilman]

13. Forgotten player

While Charles, August, the Lithuanians and the Poles had been quite busy with fighting, diplomacy, dances and drinking, Sheremetev’s army, after leaving few regiments to garrison Inflanty Polskie, was slowly moving South keeping close to the Russian border. Polotck and Witebsk had been taken without noticeable problems, the garrisons left securin and march to the South continued with the reinforcements from Smolensk joining the army. Fotmally, the goal was to secure the Right Bank Ukraine (on which the anti-Polish Cossack rebellion was going on) for Russia [2]. So by the time Charles reached Warsaw Sheremetev was in the Polish Kiew Woiewodship with his headquarters established in Zhytomyr.

March to the South involved quite a few encounters with the Lithuanian and Saxon forces and while they had been reasonably small [3], they produced a food for the very serious thoughts, which were putting some doubts upon the adopted military system:

1. Stress on the 3-pounders as the main caliber was dictated mostly by the cannon’s weight and easiness of transportation. By all practical means, unless present in really large numbers (which created its own problems with transportation), effect of their fire was quite low. The heavier 6- and 8-pounders produced a much greater effect and, with the improved “Bruce System”, their weight dropped to a quite manageable.

2. The enforced line tactics was just fine as long as the main goal was to train soldiers to march in formation and shoot by command. But after these two goals had been achieved, its practical application, especially against the Polish/Lithuanian cavalry proved to be quite inefficient, especially in combination with a cavalry ordered to do pretty much the same: to stay (and even dismount) and shoot. Of course, the enemy's attacks had been repelled with a reasonable ease (which was good) but also with the minimal losses caused to the enemy (which was not good at all) and with an enormous amount of a gunpowder and lead being wasted (Peter liked to count money). Not to mention that forming a line when the enemy’s cavalry suddenly charges from a nearby forest was not always possible. With the Saxons both sides had been forming the lines so any element of a surprise had been lost. Both sides had been firing into the whole wide world starting from the maximum distance and slowly marching toward each other stopping for recharging the muskets. The Saxon cavalry was attacking in caracole style, shooting the pistols and wheeling around (causing minimal losses) so the Russian dragoons standing and firing their muskets were producing a slightly greater damage. Most often , this circus had been won by the Russians due to the greater numbers of infantry, cavalry and artillery pieces. The outgunned Saxon commander would order a retreat and victorious Russians would hold the battlefield because the existing regulations explicitly forbade any energetic activities out of fear that the order would be lost giving the enemy an opportunity to counter-attack.


3. Bayonet was to be used exclusively as a defensive weapon even if the experience of storming the fortified positions demonstrated its high effectiveness as an offensive weapon both physically and psychologically [4].

4. On few occasions commanders of the separately marching units started making a virtue out of the necessity. Instead of spending a lot of time forming a proper line with the cavalry on the flanks and artillery at the front, they were hastily forming a battalion column out of the infantry marching by the platoons. With a very moderate training rearrangement was taking few minutes and the enemy was facing a column of 12 in-depth, 50 at the front with the guns on the flanks and between the columns and cavalry in reserve. This was more than enough for repelling charges of the Lithuanian irregulars and commanders had an excuse of being forced to act in an emergency situation.

Sheremetev was not some kind of a military genius or a visionary but he was an intelligent and experienced general with a serious advantage over his Western colleagues: he was not raised within a framework saying that the things must be done only in a certain way and that everything else is wrong. He adopted Peter’s system because his duty was to obey the royal orders, because it looked logical and because it was backed by the authority of “Western experience”. But now he found himself in a reality in which system seemingly did not work well and required adjustments. His conclusions had been strengthened by the ongoing Swedish experience and, to his surprise, he found a major supporter in colonel Weide, author of the existing regulations. Actually, this should not be a surprise at all. Weide was a honest and competent officer. Peter assigned to him a task of reviewing the Western military practices and based upon them to produce regulations for making Russian army “Western”, which he did. Now he served as a brigade commander in Sheremetev’s army and in this capacity getting a new experience, which he was analyzing with the same results as his commander. Together they composed a set of proposals which was sent to Peter for the consideration.

In doing so, both of them had been facing a complicated task of presenting their ideas to Peter in such a way that:
(a) They will not result in an immediate fit of wrath with their immediate dismissal and, quite probably execution for treason or some other crime involving a torture with the following slow and very painful death (like breaking on a wheel followed by a slow quartering).
(b) Make them convincing enough to be adopted.
(c) Get the necessary materiel (as far as artillery was invokved).

On a positive side they had the following factors:

(a) Sheremetev’s high prestige won for “the return of ancestral lands” and mutually-satisfactory cooperation with Charles.
(b) Weide’s own prestige as an expert in the existing methods of war: if he found some problem with his own regulations and offers improvements (even at risk of Peter’s displeasure) than it makes sense to look at these proposals.
(c) Peter’s love of the artillery and a big “boom”: hidden in the proposals was a compliment to the artillery reform that he ordered and to the Peter’s close personal friend, Jacob Bruce, whom he put in charge of it. So, at least Bruce’s cooperation could be expected.
(d) Unbeknown to them, they had a major backer in person of Alexander Menshikov who was itching fir a military glory (and had been reoeatedky asking Peter for some kind of a field command) and by his nature was inclined to the aggressive actions.
(e) What they also did not know, was that Peter had been regularly receiving detailed reports from Michael Golitsyn, whom he assigned to Charles and who was extremely enthusiastic about the Swedish practices, while on the other side if an equation the Swedish officers, borrowed from Charles to train Russian troops, had been openly critical about the prevailing “European” practices and never missed an occasion to rub noses of their German colleagues into the Swedish victories over the Saxons, who were highly regarded for their skills in these practices.
(f) As a “moral justification” Peter’s own sentence in the Regulations had been used: “a commander should not hold to the Regulations as a blind man holds to a wall”.

So “Sheremetev-Weide program” was presented as an expansion of the existing Regulations.
1. The line 3-in depth, firing by the platoons remained the main battle formation. Firing should start when enemy is within 50 steps or even closer.
2. At the discretion of the commanders, it was allowed (when appropriately) to use battalion “column from the center” [5] as a battle formation with the platoon columns being a standard marching formation.
3. When attacking, a column is marching toward the enemy in a fast step, making the first salvo (2 first ranks) at 10-20 steps and then charging with the bayonets .
4. Field artillery should be massed in the batteries concentrating their fire on the intended breakthrough points rather then being spread along the whole front. The main caliber of the field artillery must be 6- and 8-pounders with the increased number of the half-pud howitzers as soon as they become available. Both guns carriages and ammunition carts must have the iron axels and the carriages must be made out of a good quality oak. In the case of the enemy’s attack the field cannons should hold their fire until enemy is within 50 steps after which fire, preferably, grapeshot.
5. Cavalry must use every opportunity to attack sword in hand in the close squadron-based formations and to chase enemy on a full gallop within battlefield. The commanders must maintain cohesion of their units and be able to turn them back of and when needed.
6. In a battle army is firming two lines, either in the lines or in the columns, as appropriate, with the cavalry on the flanks. As much as it is possible, a reserve of infantry and cavalry must be held behind these two lines.
7. For the future, it was recommended to strengthen a regiment by adding the 3rd battalion (either by rearranging the existing regiments or by adding the new soldiers).

To a great surprise of both Sheremetev and Weide, the proposals got a speedy confirmation with them even getting a pat on the back for caring about the state interests [6]. What was of at least equal importance, it got the brand new 6-pound guns and half-pud howitzers. As an extra “bonus” (of so far unknown value) it got a newly-promoted (for the merits still unknown) lieutenant-general Alexander Menshikov in charge of 3 dragoon regiments which he, presumably, personally trained. Being a wise man, Sheremetev sincerely greeted a new subordinate, congratulated him on the excellent condition of his troops and prepared himself to be using his influence for getting whatever is going to be necessary for his army which, after receiving reinforcements included 17 infantry regiments (approximately 20,000), 12 cavalry regiments (10,000) and 60 pieces of the filed artillery (not counting the regimental guns): 40 6-pounders and 20 howitzers.

With that force, accompanied by 10,000 Cossacks [7], after receiving the news of Charles’ march to Warsaw, Sheremetev marched forward to Lutsk on the Styr River. Charles did not bother to inform the ally about his future plans but, to be fair, he did not disclose these plans to his own generals either. Anyway, this move, together with the Cossack activities on the South, was limiting August’s freedom of a maneuver and shortening distance between the allied armies.

________
[1] Unlike Inflanty Polskie, conquest of which was a purely opportunistic move and which (demagoguery aside) could be easily used as a bargaining chip if need arises, Polotsk-Witebsk area was politically important because, as far as the Russians were concerned, it belonged to the category of the “lost ancestry territories”.
[2] Officially, as an expanded Hetmanate but Peter had no intention of making the Hetmanate powerful enough to becoming too independent for Peter’s taste. However, there was no need to put a cart ahead of the horse and he did not openly disapprove a formal unification of both banks. Of course, the fortresses taken by the rebels received the Russian garrisons and the prominent Cossack personages had been quietly getting all kinds of the carrots from the Tsar but this was neither here nor there because without the Russian regular army rebellion would be defeated and distribution of the awards was a sing of Tsar’s approval.
[3] Which, of course, did not prevent Peter from declaring some of them to be the significant victories with the major celebrations in Moscow (as soon as at least few standards had been captured, the celebration followed).
[4] Physically, because there is no need for the extensive fencing lessons (needed for the sword) to teach a soldier to stuck bayonet into the opponent’s belly (in the Napoleonic army there was no special training for bayonet fighting and the same goes for the Russian army of that period even the bayonet charges were something like its fetish) and psychologically because an opponent is usually scared of a possibility of getting a bayonet in his belly. 😉
[5] A battalion had 8 platoons so if you number them 1 - 8 from left to right, the line is converted into a column as following: 4 and 5 remain where they are, 3,2,1 are getting behind 4 (in that order) and 6,7,8 behind 5. Conversion from column to line is done in a reverse order, forming if a square is also a relatively simple exercise ending with 2 platoons on each side.
[6] Based upon information that he was getting, Peter already planned the changes and Weide’s known ability to formulate things saved him a lot of a boring paperwork.

 

[alexmilman]

14. Kliszow

After Steinbock and Moerner, who marched all the way from Wilno, finally joined him at Kielce, Charles had approximately 16,000 on paper, out of which approximately 12,000 (8,000 infantry and 4 cavalry) had been fit for battle, which he considered quite enough for beating his opponent.

August assembled his Saxon troops and Polish crown army, total up to 34, 000 on paper but in a reality between 21 and 24,000 [1] in a camp located on the heights near Kliszow. The camp was well-secured by the River Nida and a swamp on the left and swamp and a forest at the front. Part of the artillery had been set on the height in front of the camp [2].

The Swedish camp was on other side of the forest and the Saxon commanders, quite reasonably, [3] did not expect any unpleasant surprises and of course had been rightfully irritated when at noon of July 8th they saw Swedes emerging from the forest [4].

The available descriptions (which are seemingly using the same source) are saying (if they are bothering to say anything on the subject) that:
(a) only after the Swedes got out of the forest the Saxon army started “hastily” form a battle line; surely the superbly trained troops because they managed to have all their troops lined between two streams, to put artillery in front of their center and to have it covered by chevaux de frise; not to mention that the Poles had time to put their troops in a position as well. One can only imagine what they would be able to do if not in a “haste”. 😂
and
(b) only after he got out the forest, Charles “discovered” that he can attack only enemy’s right flank; is this supposed to mean that he did not have a clue where he is going?

Well, let’s putting these mysteries aside because they are nor really relevant.

*****************************************************************************
Short interlude before the mutual licking starts

From the fact that Charles did not excessively bother to keep the allied army informed about his whereabouts and plans, this does not mean that information was not exchanged at all. From time to time both sides had been sending each other dispatches and, anyway, Charles’ orders to Steinbock and Moerner became known to the Russian troops operating in coordination with them in Lithuania. Michael Golitsyn also sent a dispatch as soon as he learned about Charles’ plan to march from Warsaw on Krakow and eventually even Charles himself sent a message informing Sheremetev about his decision to finish August once and forever. Taking into an account that Peter always was taking a good care of having well “compensated” informers in the PLC, it was not a problem at all to find out where the crown army is going to be assembled and to deduce everything else. So by the time Charles and his Swedes had been emerging out of the forest, the vanguard of Shetemetev’s army was few kilometers from Lipnik.

*****************************************************************************

After getting out of the woods and figuring out that he led his army into a lousy situation [5] Charles started marching it to the left under artillery fire and at 2PM ( 2 more hours spent on what?) launched two attacks on the Poles during which Frederick IV, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp was killed and the advance halted. The Polish hussars counterattacked, broke the Swedish cavalry but had been stopped by the infantry. Charles took personal charge and was ready to launch the 3rd attack when he saw the Poles suddenly panicking and fleeing from a battlefield smashing the Saxon right flank in the process. Cannonade in the enemy’s rear and right flank made it obvious that vanguard of the Russian army (led by Alexander Menshikov) [6] arrived at Wymyslow and Kije, putting the Poles between two fires and cutting one of two enemy’s retreat routes.

Charles immediately took advantage of the situation attacking already shaken Fleming’s troops with his own cavalry and infantry and the Russian cavalry of general Bouer while the cavalry of general Ronne (under Menshikov’s personal leadership, of course 😉 ) rode further trying to capture the Saxon guns on the heights.

Rehnskiold on the Swedish right was still having a hard time fighting off a much greater force of Steinau but the better quality of the Swedish troops was gradually winning over the numeric odds.

Schulenburg’s infantry in the center retreated but still was holding the high ground in front of the camp and holding open a retreat route through Kliszow but after arriving Russian infantry of the Sheremetev’s main force reached the Saxon camp, he sent a messenger to Steinau informing him that a battle was lost. Most of Steinau’s cavalry managed to get across the Nida River but a considerable part of Schulenburg’s infantry was cut off when the Russians reached Klissov and, being attacked on all sides by the Swedes and Russians, surrendered. Schulenburg was lucky to get across Nida and so was August.

The battle was over. The Saxons lost up to 5,000 prisoners and almost 3,000 dead, 85 standards and banners, all artillery and the camp with August’s personal baggage and a war chest. August with tgecleftovers of his army retreated to Sandomierz but Hetman Lubomirsky with the crown army did not follow, presumably due to the influence of Cardinal Radziewsky who was actively intriguing against August.

While Charles (and perhaps the Swedish officers as well) firmly held an opinion that he would win this battle without a help, he could not deny that the help did arrive in a timely fashion and that, unlike crossing Dvina, it was direct and quite substantial. The ally was there, quality of his troops was good and benefit undeniable. He wrote a personal letter to Peter expressing the due gratitude and personally thanked Sheremetev. Sheremetev, in his report, explicitly underscored the brilliant performance of lieutenant-general Aleksander Menshikov to which Peter responded by promoting his favorite to the general of cavalry and awarding Sheremetev with the order of St. Andrew and 50,000 rubles. The lesser personages were not forgotten as well.

Everybody was happy, at least for a while. Except for those who had been defeated, of course. 😂

__________
[1] “The Saxon army in the battle had an official paperstrength of 22,230 men with 46 artillery pieces, but in reality only between 15,000 and 18,000 men (more than half being cavalry) were fit for combat, due to famine, disease and exhaustion. The Polish–Lithuanian force had an official paperstrength of about 12,000 men[1] with 4 or 5 artillery pieces. However, at least a third of these were civilians and not combat personnel, making the total number between 6,000 and 8,000 men, mainly cavalry.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kliszów#

[2] Absence of a scale on the plans of that battle (or actually a single plans which all sites are reproducing) does not allow to figure out the distance between the camp and Saxon front and to make any guess about wisdom of this placement. Probably we can make an assumption that the Saxon commanders were competent enough not to place artillery in such a way that it could hit only their own soldiers if the battle happens. 😉

[3] No sane general knowledgeable of the “rules of war” would dare to attack such a good position because if you are doing so you are not sane and if you are not sane then who would appoint you to command of an army? The obvious fault in this logic was that of you are a king, nobody appoints you (Hans Delbruck formulated this better but I’m too lazy to search for a precise quote) . 😉

[4] Again, an absence of a scale is really annoying. The Swedes started their march at 9AM and if the forest is as small as it looks on a plan, why did it take them 3 hours to march through it? Did they stop for a picnic under the trees? If you look at the map of a battle, the distance between Kije and Kokot is approximately 1km and a distance betwee Kokot and Kliszow is few hundred meters more. Which makes Saxon-Polish front approximately 3km and a distance from the Swedish camp (through the forest) to their initial position less than 2km only a small part of which was forest. Distance between the Saxon artillery position at the rear and their front is approximately 500 meters. Which excludes a grapeshot and, AFAIK, by the end of the XVIII the range of 3-, 6-pounders was 600-700 meters and a practical range of the 12-pounders 800-1,000 meters. If the ranges of the early XVIII were approximately the same, then the approaching enemy could be hit only when he cones very close to the Saxon positions.

[5] Without starting with getting into as deep s—t as possible you can’t attain a real glory afterwards. Some allowances are usually made for Nappy but as for everybody else the rule holds down to the individual level: look at a typical Hollywood fist-, sword-, <whatever> fight: the hero starts with being beaten into the pulp after which the bad guy, instead of finishing the business, starts making speeches, takes a nap, goes to take a haircut thus giving the hero a time to recuperate and to win the encounter. So, what is the glory if Charles just got put of the woods at the right place p.n. enemy’s flank, kicked the Poles with everything he had and then just proceeded with kicking the Saxons one piece at a time advancing at 90 degrees to their front and using an overwhelming force at each moment: they are squeezed between two streams and can’t built a meaningful front to oppose him. Where is the drama? 😢

[6] The whole reason for him volunteering for this campaign was a wish to make a name not just as Peter’s favorite but as a military commander. Actually, in OTL he proved to be a good cavalry general. Getting a visible role in the important battle was an important step toward this goal and Sheremetev did not see any reason to get on the bad terms with Peter’s favorite. So the request for vanguard command was granted and, just in case, Menshikov was provided with two experienced and very good subordinate cavalry commanders, generals Bauer and Ronne, both of which had been fighting under Sheremetev since the start of the LNW.

 

[alexmilman]

15. Peace or not?
“Sir, and what will become of Poland?”
marysia and napoleon


After Kliszow the victors marched to Krakow for a little bit of R&R and for figuring out what they are actually trying to achieve [1]. The first move had been made (not a big surprise) by August who released the only Swedish officer his troops managed to capture at Kliszow [2]. Released captain appeared in the Swedish camp carrying one more peace proposal from August who did not care too much for the proposal but was favorably impressed by a polite gesture and reciprocated by releasing few captured Saxon officers [3]. After which August issued an order to release some of the Swedish officers which could be captured in the future.

On September 8 Piper issued the memorandum in which he formulated the arguments against continued “Polish experiment”. He started with the obvious question: if August is dismissed, who is going to put on now pretty much worthless crown? Sweden will have to support the new king with a military force all the time and this consideration alone is a reason strong enough for abandoning this course of actions. Then, what woukd be Sweden’s gain? Its great army and country's resources are already being wasted without any profit for the country and it is inconceivable to sacrifice the brave and industrial Swedish nation for the Polish interests. The whole world is going to consider the Swedes to be fools if they keep fighting a war fir the benefit of other country [4]. Does not the King love his country enough to consider a peace? And, if the King is relying upon the God in his just war, is unwillingness to forgive the enemy befits a true Christian? Doesn’t the God command to forgive a defeated and repentant enemy? Then Piper addressed Charles’ favorite argument about a need to punish August for all damage caused to Poland by asking if this is not responsibility of the Poles to do so? After this Piper pointed out to the real advantages of the peace: acquisition of Courland, neutralization of Prussia and Denmark, stability of Sweden and an unchallenged role of the European arbiter for her king. Piper ended with “I’m not alone in this opinion. All loyal subjects and friends of Your Majesty think the same way. Army is full of the rumors about King’s of Poland willingness to make a peace and desires it.”

Charles, which was not typical for him, answered with a document of his own in which he deferred dethronization issue to the Poles claiming that he is ready to support both “yes” and “no” and pointing out that his loyal Russian ally also has say on war or peace issue. Cynically, Charles was pushing the buck but this was a certain progress from his initial position.

While everybody is waiting for Peter’s planned arrival:

1. The Pomeranian corps of 5 Swedish infantry and one cavalry regiments and 3 German dragoon regiments arrived to Krakow.

2. Charles solved supply issue by the requisitions (following the logic that if an army is staying in Poland for the Polish own good than Poland should support it [5]. Stenbock had been put in charge and demonstrated a real talent in procuring the money, food, forage and other necessities.

3. August, after escaping from Kliszow, reappeared in Sieradz [6] and called “small sejm” (or “big confederation”) with a purpose to guarantee support of the Polish nobility against the invaders [6]. He got some support even if the meetings were on the unruly side, lacking an order and involving the sharp objects as an argument, resulting in a violent death of the Voyevoda of Kalisz (who in the spring headed the Senate mission to Charles so obviously he had to go). Encouraged by this success August made an attempt to instill some fighting spirit into Hetman Lubomirsky, which was a big mistake. The Hetman took it as a personal offense and promised to went to the Swedish side: confederation or no confederation but nobody has a right to tell Pan Hetman what to do.

4. In the February of 1703 Magnus Stenbock returned from his “assignment” proudly reporting fulfillment if the King’s orders: he brought with himself 200,000 riksdalers, plenty of food, wine, leather and other supplies. After meeting with the King, he went to his tent to write to his wife: “I did not take anything for myself from the King’s share … did my angel received 8,000 riksdalers, silver table service, and some other things thatbI sent to you?”. Less prominent personages of the Swedish army also were not forgetting themselves with Charles’ indulgence but drunkedness and sexual misconduct had been punished severely.

5. The Swedish and Russian troops started a leisure march back to Warsaw where Cardinal Radziewsky assembled the Senate to discuss the dethronement issue and where Charles was planning to have his meeting with Peter who was still on his way from Moscow to Kiev accompanied by his Guards. The Russian troops had been sent to secure the road and guarantee the warm reception by the Polish authorities [7]. His meeting with the Cardinal Charles started with “We still insist upon dethronement “ to which a shocked Cardinal asked to abandon this “impossible idea” because it is lacking support from the army and voyevodships. A long discussion followed with a zero result. The following meetings with various Polish delegations went along the same lines: the Poles simply could not understand what is good fir them.

6. In a meantime it was discovered that August arrived to Torun (Thorn), half way from Warsaw to the mouth of Wustula, and that Steinau concentrated the Saxon forces there. August obviously needed to get a new beating and Charles was ready to deliver it. With 3,000 cavalry Charles rode toward Torun defeating on his way at Pultusk the Saxon vanguard of approximately the same size and capturing Schulenburg. All Saxon infantry, 6,000 strong, was in Torun, a powerful fortress with a strong garrison and well supplied with food and ammunition. Population was strongly anti-Swedish and willing to participate in defense of the city. The Swedes did not have a siege artillery, which had to be brought all the way from Riga. The Saxon and Polish cavalry remained active outside the city attacking the small Swedish detachments and disrupting supplies.

_______________
[1] In the case of Sheremetev this was rather simple: get comfortable, keep training his army and wait until Peter arrives to Krakow “to do politics” because this was not fieldmarshal’s business both by his position and by his personal inclinations. Ah yes, he was going to procure the new horses for his carriages: being a coonosier in this area he suffered greatly from losing quite a few of them on the lousy PLC roads. With Menshikov it was also quite clear: enjoy the social life and prepare everything possible for his master’s arrival. Of course, he tested the political waters a little bit and sent reports to Peter but nobody authorized him to conduct diplomatic talks and he knew better than to disobey Peter on this account. He and Sheremetev were going along just fine so there was no reason for him to start getting nasty and try to rock the boat: his place of honor after Kliszow was assured and so was Sheremetev’s so the more each of them had been hailing another the better off both of them had been. The same goes for some light shining upon other subordinate commanders, especially, Bauer, Ronne and Weide: all of them already had been held in a high regard by Peter and praises in their address meant that an army is being run smoothly …. and that they’ll have no reason to criticize the superiors behind their backs. Peter may not act immediately upon such a criticism but he had a good memory and not the most forgiving character so everybody was one failure away from him summarizing the old sins and expressing his displeasure in one form or another.
Making the long story short, at the moment “figuring out” was mostly the Swedish problem.

[2] A stray bullet broke the reins of his horse and unfortunate captain was carried by a scared beast right into the midst of the Saxon troops.

[3] Taking into an account the general performance of Saxon troops in this war, it is anybody’s guess if getting these officers back was such a big bonus for August but at least the ice was broken.

[4] In OTL there was an addition “… while at the same time allowing enemy to destroy their own country” but now this is not the case.

[5] Needless to say that this logic found a full understanding and cooperation from his allies who already had been using their irregulars for its implementation.

[6] In OTL it was called at Sandomierz but, this city being on a route of Sheremetev’s march to Kliszow and garrisoned by the Russian troops, it is unlikely.

[7] In the couple places the local leadership demonstrated inadequate understanding of their duties and a honor related to an opportunity of meeting the Tsar of Russia but after the error of their ways had been properly explained, the rest proved to be the fast learners. Of course, the route had to be slightly adjusted to bypass the ruins.

 

[alexmilman]

16. Siege of Thorn (The Last Siege)


In the May 1703 Charles formally started the siege of Thorn and, after an idea to take it by a cavalry charge [1] did not work and its garrison rejected demand to capitulate, Charles found himself sitting outside the city walls waiting for the reinforcements and siege artillery. While the siege train from Riga was still on the way, Charles sent Stenbock to bully city of Danzig into letting the Swedish garrison in, allowing to take its artillery to be used fir the siege of Thorn and paying a huge contribution. The city fathers bought the bluff and submitted.
In a meantime Charles was trying to play a military engineer, while also showing everybody what a brave guy he is.

The reinforcements kept arriving, including few Russian regiments, but even with the guns from Danzig things had been moving rather slowly.

In September almost simultaneously Charles received two messages: one that the siege train already reached Plock and second that Peter is even closer, in Brześć Kujawsk, and will be in his camp within couple days.

Of course, it was expected by both sides that Peter is going to arrive to Warsaw in November or December to met Charles in a proper stately environment fitting for such an important occasion but the planners on both sides (including Menshikov who surely should knew better) missed two important factors: (a) that Peter did not like the official ceremonies too much and (b) that he did like the sieges and the big “boom!” [2]. So at the news of the siege of Thorn he abandoned his stately process toward Warsaw (and most of his Guards), and with the detachment of his Life Dragoons rode full speed to Warsaw where he picked up Sheremetev, Menshikov and few others and kept pushing ahead.

Charles was surprised but not unpleasantly surprised because he also did not fancy a solemn occasion with the elaborate protocol, a lot of time being wasted upon the pointless ceremonies and empty compliments and Piper whispering into his ear what he should or he should not say. Weide, who was in charge of the Russian troops at Thorn hastily arranged for the tents for the expected visitors and and both Swedish and Russian foragers had been ordered to procure enough of food, which was not a trivial task in the already devastated area.

Finally, the visitors are arriving within the vicinity of the siege camp and Charles with his officers riding out of the camp to met them. Everybody dismounts and the two great men are facing each other. An elaborate rehearsal could not produce the better results. This is a meeting of two “true soldiers”: Charles in his blue and yellow uniform, huge botforts and without a wig and Peter in his well worn green and red uniform, huge botforts and a very modest wig, with their much better dressed retinues on a background emphasizing modesty of those who really matter. No elaborate bows, just a nod and a handshake followed by the loud cheer of everybody present. In other words, a truly historic moment duly recorded and a later depicted by the artists, described by the historians, writers and other personages not being present at the event [3]. Minimal time spent on expressing delight about the meeting and getting familiar with each other’s health condition, followed by “So, let’s pluck one more feather from peacock August’s tail. Hopefully, this is the last one!” Smile of appreciation from Charles and a loud but respectful laugh from the lesser personages and, breach of all protocols, and expressed desire to see the siege works right now. When in the trenches, cherry on the top of the cake: a request to make a shot from one of the Swedish guns. The Russians present at the scene politely trying to hide the smiles looking at the shock of the Swedes present. Peter in his shirt, assisted by Menshikov who had to divest of his parade garb and a huge wig, loads the cannon, aims it and “boom!”, the cannonball hits the wall. The uniform is back on (Menshikov is still fixing his wig), congratulation on a good quality of a cannon and gunpowder and the group finally walks to Charles’ tent where a modest table is prepared [4] . The next couple days Peter and Charles are busy choosing the places for the arriving siege artillery, then with overseeing its placement and then Peter is getting extremely busy putting himself in charge of one of the siege batteries. No talk about the state business, just soldiers’ chat about the ongoing siege and recollections of the past experiences. Peter’s story about unsuccessful mining attempt during the first Azov campaign is a hit [5] and everybody is seemingly enjoying the situation while the defenses kept crumbling.

In October the garrison surrenders, leaving August pretty much without an army. During the celebration banquet Peter finally brings up the Important Question…


___________
[1] Actually, in OTL more than once the fortified cities held by the reasonably strong Polish or Saxon garrison had been taken either directly by cavalry charge (like Pultusk) or by the dismounted dragoons (like Lemberg).
[2] He also figured out that, besides presenting an opportunity to enjoy the big “boom!”, environment of a siege camp would put both him and Charles at ease allowing to discuss things without caring about the protocol and to get more out of his dear ally. Charles’ principles were fine but Peter could not continue this war forever without a negative impact on his Big Plan. So, hopefully, if his mission is successful, this will be the Last Siege of the War.
[3] On a more cynical level the scene can be described as meeting of two poseurs but both of them seemingly liked their “historic” costumes and simple manners. Anyway, this little show is nothing comparing to what century+ later Nappy arranged in Erfurt. One by one the minor German princes, in their best garb are appearing in the reception hall with the full titles being loudly announced. Then the marshals and the imoerial dignitaries are following in the clownish ceremonial uniforms Nappy invented for them, with all decorations proudly displayed and their titles announced. Then enter the kings with their spouses. Then, with her full title announced, enters Josephine proudly displaying all glittering baubles that she can physically put on. Then follows “a loud pause” after which the Master of Ceremonies announcing, short and simple, “His Majesty, the Emperor!” and here comes Nappy in his simple uniform …. Well, you can’t blame people for not being up to the same level as an ultimate showman. 😂
[4] This was the only way in which I figured out how to bypass a menu of the royal table described by @von Adler 😜😜😜😜😜
[5] The fact that few hundred Russians had been killed when the Ottomans blew a counter mine is conveniently omitted.

 

[alexmilman]

17. The Important Question

Capitulation of the Thorn had been followed by the banquets, the first given by Charles and the second by Peter.

***********************************
Interlude. Peter’s menu

Peter did not ate fish. Probably had an allergy.

A dinner had been preceded by a glass of anise vodka “for appetite” (even without it Peter never suffered from an absence of the appetite).

Typical dinner menu included: Rye bread, pickles, sauerkraut, black raddish, meat jelly with garlic, sour cabbage soup, boiled beef, ham, corned beef, porridge, Limburg cheese, grapes, watermelon, kvas.

For the important occasions a typical addition was a piglet in a sour cream, which Peter was cutting personally.
For the international occasions some “European” dishes could be added.

Wines: Tokaj (eventually, Peter purchased his own winery there) and rhine wines.

So for this specific occasion you can chose whatever your imagination tells you but a piglet is mandatory. 😂

*************************************
During the banquet he hosted Peter finally spelled out what everybody wanted but nobody risked to ask: “What are you planning next?” Of course, he got a standard answer about dethroning August and liberating Poland but his position allowed to press the issue.
“Liberating the Poles? But they obviously don’t want to get rid if August: look at all these confederations and crazy sejms that they are assembling. Why should we bother to care about their well-being to start with? They are not showing you any gratitude or appreciation for what you already did for them [1] and as soon as you turning your back to them, they are concocting a new plot against you. “

Charles countered with his usual gambit, “August must be punished”, with which Peter wholeheartedly agreed: “Of course, he must formally apologize for his dastardly attack on you, this part is not even worthy of a discussion. But my diplomats just received a letter from August in which he expressed a readiness to do so formally and, in general, to make peace on the conditions you find fitting. I ordered to keep his messenger under close watch in Kiev and he can be brought here if you wish. And as for the punishment, can you imagine a worse punishment than being saddled with the subjects like these and not even being able to punish them? This is definitely a marriage made in Hell so how about leaving them to enjoy it?”

From this point Charles started listening: what Peter was saying had been very close to what Piper wrote in his memorandum so probably there was something to it. And it also looked like his faithful ally may start considering his mission accomplished. Of course, Charles could do without him and chasing August all over the Commonwealth certainly was a great entertainment but there was seemingly no end to it and, after all, Peter was his only ally and such a nice person …..

Then Peter brought the next obvious question: “and what are we going to about Poland? Should we cut it to pieces as this piglet? <demonstration followed>?”

Which provided Charles with a perfect opening to jump back on his high horse and declare that he does not want anything from Poland, which, of course, resulted in a compliment regarding his unselfishness [2] and insistence that he absolutely must compensate if not himself then Sweden for all hardships it suffered: after all, it was the Polish fault that the Saxon troops were permitted on their territory and allowed to launch a dastardly attack on the Swedish possessions. Doesn’t he think that Courland is a prudent compensation fir all his troubles?

At this point Piper, who was sitting near Charles in a state close to a stupor [3], decided that it is a good time to interfere and, after expressing all due admiration of the depth and breadth of the Peter’s ideas, offered to continue conversation in a more suitable environment allowing getting to the specifics. Peter wholeheartedly agreed but Charles, before giving his agreement, insisted on making sure that August is willing to acknowledge his sins. [4]

The meeting followed with Charles being accompanied by Piper and Peter by a person about whom everybody already forgot [5]. August part was simple. He offended Charles so all conditions related to him personally are up to Charles to formulate. However, as of right now, he is (still) a duly anointed King of the PLC (of course, not by the God’s Grace and as a result inherently inferior to Charles and Peter but nonetheless a legitimate monarch) and all questions related to the compensations which Charles and Peter are entitled to at the Polish expense must be agreed upon by the delegates authorized by him and the Senate [6].

The first outline looked as following: Sweden - Courland and, possibly, Elblag (if Charles wants); Russia - territories on the right bank of the Dvina, including Dyneburg, Polotsk ans Vitebsk, and the voyevodships of Kiev and Braclaw (right bank Ukraine). A contention point initially was Polish Livonia but Peter’s assistant, whom he was addressing as “Prince Vasily”, offered a compromise: exchange of the Russian-occupied Polish Livonia (after it will be formally ceded by the PLC) to the marginally inhabited Ingria stretching from Noteburg on Ladoga Lake to Nien in the Gulf of Finland going North to the Lake Royka level and on the West ending in the front of Narva. The offer included 100,000 rigsdalers as approximately 10 years worth of a compensation for the lost custom dues. After a little bit of a haggling, the general outline was accepted by both sides with an agreement to discuss the favorable custom dues for the trade across region’ borders. Peter expressed willingness to build a navy of 10-15 ships of the line which, in the case of a need, are going to act together with the Swedish navy against the third party offenders.

In a due time August’s representative was transported from Kiev, revealing that he is authorized by Elector of Saxony to sign any conditions Charles sees fit [7] so the “personal” part was easily dealt with. Now, August had to be brought into the picture in his capacity of the PLC king. None of the monarchs was excessively eager to see “The Peacock” personally unless absolutely necessary so he was informed about a need to assemble and send the Senate delegation [8] ASAP before the allies change their collective mind regarding his royal status. Of course, task was simplified by a fact that most of the Senate including Cardinal Radziewski had been sitting in the allied-held Warsaw and the care was taken that they keep enjoying a social life and not go anywhere.

Charles already had an experience of dealing with the Senate delegations and did not want its repetition so two messengers had been sent:
1st, to August with a letter explaining that the delegation has to sign the proposed conditions fast and with a minimal speech making. No explicit description of a stick was necessary but there was a big fat carrot: if everything will be done expediently and to the allied satisfaction, then August in both his capacities may be included as a partner into the Russian-Swedish pact and if he keeps behaving as a good boy, his son’s succession to the PLC throne is going to be actively supported by Russia and Sweden.
2nd, privately to Cardinal Radziewsky with a request to chose the candidates fast and and instruct them regarding importance of signing peace fast and without causing undue annoyance to the Swedish and Russian Majesties. There was a promise not to forget him and his family (including mistress and bastard son) both at the positive and negative outcome.

After some consideration, the 3rd letter had been sent to Hetman Lubomirsky, informing him that the war may soon be over but that both monarchs fully appreciate his outstanding qualities and keep him in a high esteem. It would be unfortunate if some irresponsible individuals are going to disrupt a peace process and surely Pan Hetman is not going to allow something of the kind to happen in his army. Hugs and kisses
________________
[1] Of course, this is a pure demagoguery because so far pretty much the only thing Charles did for them was looting and killing. But, of course, Charles was seriously convinced that he is pursuing a noble goal (with whichever means that are necessary).
[2] Expressed, of course, in a straightforward soldierish manner leaving no doubts that Peter really meant it: after all, he was a simple honest soldier spelling out what he thought, wasn’t he? 😉 All this was refreshingly different from the flowery style of the Polish magnates who would talk for hours while saying absolutely nothing.
[3] As many Swedes and the Westerners in general, he tended underestimate Peter based upon his excessively simple manners and tendency to use language most of which he picked up in the Dutch drinking establishments and the rest from the similar establishments of the German Settlement near Moscow. As a result, Peter was looked upon as some kind of a rare curiosity, like a talking bear or just a well-trained parrot. Usually, the intended targets of Peter’s “eloquence” were getting back their grasp of a reality when it was too late but Piper was fast upon the uptake: Peter obviously got hold of his memorandum and was in a process of peddling his own ideas. It was time to play along and try to get the best possible deal for Sweden.
[4] This does not mean that Charles was a fool, especially an easily manipulated one. But he did have a fixation on a subject of August’s “confession”. His second idea fixe, dethronement, was no less important but an attack from the least expected direction seriously weakened it.
[5] This person deserves a separate chapter (and I just changed my mind regarding leaving him where he was). So explanations are to follow. 😜
[6] Honestly, I could not find anything meaningful regarding a due diplomatic process in the PLC so this is just my guess.
[7] As in OTL.
[8] See above. Taking into account rather unclear relations between August and his Senate, it is probably safe to assume that there is going to be some coordination process in the terms of choosing the delegates and defining an acceptable framework.

 

[alexmilman]

18. Peace of Warsaw

With the framework for the peace conference [1] being set and both monarchs are traveling to Warsaw where it should happen, here is a short interlude explaining who is assigned as the top Russian “negotiator” [2].

***************************************************
Return of Vasily Golitsyn
In the summer of 1702 a small village of Kevrola (near Archangelsk) saw the unusual visitor, lieutenant of the Preobrazensky Regiment, Paul Yaguzhinsky, arrived with a personal mission from Tsar Peter [3]. On a painting he is shown at the top of his career.

Besides the usual escort, he brought with him a decently looking carriage, something that none of the locals ever saw in their lives. Yaguzhinsky stopped at the modest house in which exiled Prince Vasily Golitsyn lived with his family.

Before choosing a wrong side in Miloslavsky vs. Naryshkin confrontation, Prince Golytsin was, among many other things, the top Russian diplomat and during the regency of Sophia practically the PM (Keeper of the Great Seal). His foreign policy was distinguished by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), which set the Russo-Chinese border north of the Amur River, and by the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686 with Poland, whereby Russia at last definitively recovered Kiev. His foreign policy also included strengthening of the Russian-Swedish relations (a temporary moratorium on the Russian claims fir the Baltic coast) and general expansion of the diplomatic links to the European courts.
He was the best educated (aristocrat) in Russia, built quite “European” (by the Russian standards of the time) palace in Moscow (below photo of 1926)

and had extensive plans regarding general modernization and reorganization of the Tsardom. During the reign of Feodor III he was a driving force behind abolishment of the “mestnichestvo”. He was advocating education of the young Russian nobles abroad, abolishment of the serfdom [4], establishment of the permanent Russian embassies at the European courts and freedom of religion [5].
Unfortunately, he was not a very good general and a failure of his campaigns against Crimea seriously undermined credibility of Sophia’s regime. In 1689 he was deprived of his boyar position (but not of his princely title), his property confiscated and he, with his family was sent into exile in Archangelsk area.

Golitsyn did not expect anything good from Peter’s representative but was pleasantly surprised when he politely presented a letter in which Peter was inviting him to Moscow. His family will follow (part of the arriving convoy will see that the travel arrangements are going to be done fast and with an appropriate comfort).

Immediately after arrival to Moscow, he was ushered in Tsar’s presence and Peter got straight to the point. He needs services of an experienced diplomat of Golitsyn’s caliber [6] so, if Prince Vasily is ready to assume the responsibility, Peter is willing to forget the past. His estates are going to be returned or compensated by the new grants. His Moscow palace will be given back to him with most of its furnishings [7] and he is going to be provided with the necessary funds to establish himself as befitting to the head of the Russian diplomatic service. There are going to be some additional assignments related to the education of the Russian nobles but the first things first.

There was no need in “or else…”, one would be insane not to take the offer.


*******************************

Back to Warsaw

By the time Peter and Charles arrived to Warsaw, the Polish delegation was ready. It was headed by Stanisław Leszczyński, voyevida of Poznan, a young man of blameless antecedents, respectable talents, but certainly without sufficient force of character or political influence. And with no money. An additional item in his favor was that he sided with the Sapiehas when they sided with Charles against August. The only bad thing was his tendency to make the long speeches (in Latin, to be sure) [8]. In other words, Cardinal Radziewsky made the choice as perfect as it goes. 😉

Separate Swedish-Saxon talks did not take long: representative of Azgust produced a letter with the formal apologies and, after it was fiund satisfactory, presented carte blanche with August’s signature on it, Piper ordered to fill it with the Swedish conditions. Done.

The Polish part took longer time just because of a longer list.
Sweden is getting:
- Courland free of the vassal obligations. The Duke transfers his title to the King of Sweden for the one time compensation of 1,000,000 rigsdalers (paid by the PLC).
- City of Elblag.

Russia is getting:
- Polish Livonia
- Part of the Voyevodship of Polock with the border by Dvina and town of Witebsk (but not Voyevodship).
- Voyevodships of Kiev and Braclaw with an obligation to stop slaughter. Surviving Polish nobility gets an option of either to become subjects of Russia (in which case their personal security and preservation of the estates will be guaranteed by the Russian administration [9] or to formally cede their property (which may or may not be by that time seized and/or destroyed by the rebels) to the Russian government and emigrate, receiving a monetary compensation for which Russia allocates a fund of 500,000 rubles. Special Polish-Russian commission is to be promptly created and established in Zhitomir (garrisoned by the Russian troops) to process the claims, make the assessments and to see for a safe evacuation of those willing to emigrate [10]. The assigned money are going to be kept in Zhitomir for immediate distribution [11]. A complete freedom of religion is promised for those who choses to stay, as well as security of the not-noble targets of the rebels’ activities (Uniates, Catholics and Jews), all of which also can be guaranteed a safe departure, if they want, but without any compensation.

Special provisions:
In a separate treaty Sweden and Russia are agreeing to the swap of the Polish Livonia for Ingria with the special provisions regarding a favorable trade regimes in both areas (especially for the peasants selling and buying the locally produced goods across the border) . Russia is paying Sweden 100,000 rigsdalers as one-time compensation for the revenues lost in Ingria. Swedish citizens of Nien and Noteburg may remain there as the Swedish subjects with the consular representation and the same rights as population of the German Settlement near Moscow or they can become the Russian subjects. In both cases their property and religious freedom arecguaranteed. The Russian merchants and tradesmen will be permitted to settle and conduct their business outside Riga on similar conditions [12].

Secret Items:
1. August, both as the King of the PLC and as the Elector of Saxony, makes an obligation of not acting against Sweden and Russia and they are making an obligation not to allow any European state to infringe upon PLC’s territorial integrity [13].
2. Russia and Sweden are going to support the Saxon succession to the PLC throne by all means necessary. [14]

All treaties related to the “Peace of Warsaw” are being signed in the January of 1704.

_______________
[1] Of course, it was clearly understood by everybody involved that on this “conference” one side is going to do most of the talking and another is not expected to say much besides “zgadzam się” (agree), “Dziękuję” (thank you) and “Gdzie podpisać?” (where should I sign?) but, well, they are not supposed to be completely silent so “conference” was an appropriate term and much more suitable diplomatically than straightforward “ultimatum”. Nobody would be able to discredit its results in a future by claiming that the Polish side was not allowed to have its say.
[2] The monarchs are going to sign a final document but it would be inappropriate for them to participate in the routine discussions of the minutiae details related to what, where, how much, etc.
[3] To give an idea what this meant, a sergeant of this regiment sent personally by Peter would have a right to put a governor of the province to prison, make fieldmarshal’s life miserable and to do pretty much whatever he wanted. Even Menshikov with all his influence would refuse to interfere. So lieutenant on such a mission would be considered by everybody along the route as super-puper-VIP on the steroids.
[4], [5] You can figure out how many friends did he get by these two items.
[6] By that time his ambassadors proved to be of a rather mediocre value (and kept intriguing against each other) and Posolsky Prikaz clearly suffered from an absence of the competent leadership.
[7] Process of confiscation was accompanied by a thorough bureaucratic work: each item was duly recorded and most of them stored somewhere.
[8] Which was not such a big problem because (a) he would not be allowed to talk to Charles and Peter directly, (b) he would not be allowed to talk much and (c) don’t known about Piper but Vasily Golitsyn spoke fluent Latin so, in case Stanislaw would be allowed to get long-winded, the other side is going to know what he is blabbing about (not that this would really matter, but just out of a pure curiosity).
[9] But not Hetmanate, which is critically important for Peter’s planned policy in the region.
[10] For which more Russian troops are going to be placed in the area thus cutting potential ambitions of the Hetmanate leadership.
[11] Both to speed up the process and not to let the PLC “government” and especially August to get anywhere close to the cash.
[12] Only the guild members had been permitted to conduct business in Riga and even the Russian Emperors could do nothing about it all the way to the early XIX.
[13] Big 🖕to Prussia. 😉
[14] Equally big 🖕to France, Austria and everybody else who may have doubts regarding identity of the regional bosses. 😉

 

[alexmilman]

18. Peace of Warsaw (continuation)

“If by whatever reason you decided that Al Bundy is going to commit this noble action, you definitely did not watch closely the previous five seasons” Married with Children​

If by reviewing the conditions of peace you got an impression that in this TL Peter is some kind of a gentle, fairly-minded person with the progressive ideas regarding social justice, personal freedom or any other modern notions you are thoroughly mistaken. The same goes for his ideas regarding a fair compensation and pretty much everything else. He is the same cruel bastard as in OTL with all attitudes of his time. It is just that he contemplates his actions and their results better than he did in a reality.

“Fair compensation” for the property lost in Ukraine means that he is going to get a legal possession of a big part of the land on Right Bank Ukraine [1] at a dumping price. As a result, he will have an ample resources to distribute among the loyal Russian nobility (and the loyal Cossack leadership) thus preventing evolution of the Hetmanate into a super-mini-state capable of conducting an independent policy in the region. Allocating a seemingly big sum of 500,000 rubles (by the Treaty of Andrusovo Russia paid 200,000 to compensate szlachta of Smolensk region) did not mean that he was paying out of his own pocket [2]. Most of that sum had been produced by the “confiscations” from the PLC territories and, at least on the Russian side, there was an understanding that not all these money had to be spent.

Commission had been headed:

On the Polish side by Stanisław Leszczyńsky who acquitted himself well at Warsaw and deserved some monetary compensation (providing that it is not be at Peter’s expense). It was expected that he is not going to be a major impediment to the schema due to a complete absence of the guts and, seemingly, a good understanding of his own interests.

On the Russian side by Alexander Menshikov who already developed a well-deserved reputation of the biggest thief in the Tsardom (taking into an account the prevailing practices and attitudes, this was quite a fit). OTOH, he was absolutely loyal to Peter, energetic, ruthless and generally quite capable person. Appointment of a co-chair of the Commission was accompanied by making him Governor-General of the Right Bank Ukraine (and, as such, a commander of all Russian troops placed there and a person responsible for installing the Russian adminjstration in the region). At the farewell interview Peter gave him a number of instructions:

(a) Stop the uprising ASAP by all means necessary. Which meant: use the troops where and when needed and, because now the rebels are going against Tsar’s interests, don’t be shy of the mass executions.
(b) Start attracting subordinate Cossack leaders to the Russian side.
(c) Keep Hetman under control. Which meant: minimize spreading of the Hetmanate to the Right Bank.
(d) When it comes to the compensation, don’t be too generous with the funds.
(e) Don’t steal

The last item may be slightly confusing but not to the Russian contemporaries. It meant “don’t act against Tsar’s interests”. The bribes are OK and, in the cases of the “big fish” which later may be useful to the Russian “interests” within the PLC, the applicants can be awarded by a compensation with only a slight “discount”. It also means that Menshikov and his subordinates must not appropriate the “compensated” estates to themselves: they belong to the Tsar and when everything is done everybody is going to be awarded according to the merits but those who are not willing to wait may end up wishing for a nice, fast beheading.

Of course, it was expected that the Polish commissioner is also going to take bribes for putting his benefactors on the top of the list and advocating their interests.

Taking into an account a potential number of the claimants, it was not expected that all of them are going to get a thorough review of their claims or even a guarantee that these claims are going to be reviewed. The magnates with the estates elsewhere will definitely top the list both because they have funds for the “gratitudes” and are important politically, then go the lesser personages and a minor szlachta ends on a bottom, probably with some small uniform amount per capita, because there are no resources (or wish) to review all their tiny estates. They can stay or they can receive some money, pack their belongings (if they have any) and ride to Poland in a caravan guarded by the Russian troops: their lives are worthy of something.

The Russian members of the Commission had been incentivized to save money in expectation that at least part of the saved account would be used by Peter as their bonuses (additionally to the land grants).






________________
[1] In OTL by the Treaty of Nystad he paid a huge sum of money to defeated Sweden as a compensation for the lost Baltic territories. Generosity? Yeah, sure, and I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge really cheap. Actually, he was screwing his ally, August to whom by the initial agreement this region should go. For the money paid he got in Nystad Treaty a text saying that Sweden is ceding these territories explicitly to Russia, which excluded a possibility of any future legal claims. All other aspects aside, in the areas of bureaucracy and legalize the Tsardom was quite advanced state even prior to Peter.
[2] Prior to Paul I there was no special funds allocation for the imperial family in a budget: all money were monarch’s to spend at his/her discretion.

 

[alexmilman]

19. Putting house in order

19.1. Farewell, Warsaw!

Peace of Warsaw had been signed and properly celebrated by the allied monarchs and the happy Poles [1] in the Polish capital. To increase tzeir happiness all the way to a pure ecstasy, August was permitted to return to his capital and, after a solemn ceremony of, metaphorically speaking, kissing a collective allied ring [2], was generously allowed to organize more celebrations. In which area (and remembering the promised carrots) he greatly exceeded the expectations by hastily creating Order of the White Eagle (Order Orła Białego) [3] and immediately awarded with it Peter, Charles, Hetman Lubomirsky, Rehnskiöld, Sheremetev, Menshikov, Piper and Golitsyn.

Not to be outdone, Peter awarded Charles and August with Order of St. Andrew,

which for a short while put Charles in a somewhat awkward position: screw August, but Peter should be reciprocated with the equally high Swedish order and Sweden had none. After overnight brainstorming, Charles and Piper designed Order of the Sword [4], which was immediately ordered to the Warsaw jewelers.

On the Russian side Peter got Commander Grand Cross, Sheremetev - Commander 1st Class, Menshikov - commander [5], and the lesser figures - Knight 1st Class and Knight.

Peter immediately fall n love with an idea of a multi-grade military order and, upon return, designed his own Military Order of St. George with the extensions allowing to create prestigious award for the soldiers and non-coms (details later).

The last thing that Charles and Peter discussed before parting their ways was about not too remote future: Alexey Petrovich was 14 and Ulrika Eleonora 16 so perhaps in a couple years there can be a mutually beneficial marriage? Of course, she will be permitted to keep her religion, if she wishes, so no problem there, and our alliance will be etched in stone for the generations to follow….

19.2. Hello, Moscow!
To be honest, Peter did not like Moscow too much because, if anything, it was decisively not European. On a very idealized map of 1689 it looked like that.

In a reality, things were much more …er…. “complicated”:
(a) The map was not showing countless minor lanes bent in the most bizarre ways [6]
(b) The streets were unpaved
(c) Most of the houses, including the old residencies of aristocracy, had been built in a village-like style with the high fences and buildings inside the yards instead of being lined with their facades along the streets.
(d) Most of the houses had been wooden.
(e) In Kremlin there was no suitably modern residence and Peter often had to conduct the formal ceremonies in the old Lefort’s palace on the Yausa River (aka, outside Moscow)

Of course, nobody especially cared about the areas populated by the lower classes (especially those across the Moscow River from Kremlin) but more prestigious areas have to be made presentable and there must be a modern palace in Kremlin.

Old Golytsin’s palace at the beginning of Tverskaya Street [7] was a step in the right direction and now Prince Gagarin had been building his modern palace along the same street.

The trend must be continued with Tverskaya turning “Western” and the central part of Moscow filled with the “civilized” aristocratic residences and official buildings. The (important) rest of the city will follow. Prince Vasily Golitsyn will have to use his (recently renewed) contacts abroad to invite the Italian (the best) or French (second the best) architects to discuss the major reconstruction project and the aristocrats will be persuaded [8] to start rebuilding their Moscow residencies in an appropriate fashion and encouraged to start building the summer residencies on the Yausa River alongside the Lefort’s and Golovin’s palaces

Of course, those who prefer to stick to the old ways will be happy to receive Peter with his All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters and end up being a butt for their not harmless jokes (and paint a big fat cross on their careers and perhaps those of their children, if Peter gets seriously pissed off and send the whole family to some cold place).

Besides upgrading the private residencies, he should start planning creation of the military and naval schools for the noble children: an army and navy need competent officers and as of now the country has to rely exclusively upon the foreign technical specialists who are getting 3 times higher salaries than their Russian counterparts and quite often proved to be not very good. Of course, this is a long term plan but work on it should start right now.

Some of the invited architects should be engaged on planning expansion of the just acquired Nyen: port facilities, official buildings, new construction, etc. Peter is going to visit the place, to see what he actually got and then will formulate more definite plans. Go, dear Prince and Arbeiten!

Now, invite feldzheichmeister-general Jacob Bruce!

______________________
[1] Well, the Poles had to be happy because:
(a) Their “liberators” from August’s tyranny are finally going to be out while at least some valuables still remained in the PLC.
(b) Besides what they already “liberated” during the war and what was promised to the former Duke of Courland (sure, he is going to get his million sooner or later but the date is not being set and the Big Guys don’t really care so “bona fortuna”, “powodzenia”, “viel Glück”, “veiksmi”), the “liberators” did not demand any money and actually some of the “liberated” money may find their way to the pockets of the magnates with the estates in Ukraine.
(c) They are permitted to keep an evil tyrant August on behalf of whom they had been fighting so hard. Now, he is all yours so “smacznego”!
(d) There is going to be a big celebration (see above (a) - (c)) and “everybody” (of course, those who matter) loves the banquets and balls. And if the peasants are under impression that a devastating foreign occupation is a justification for not paying taxes to their masters, they are fundamentally wrong and here he goes, The Lion of Polonia and Hero of the Lost Battles, Great Hetman Lubomirsky with his crown army which he wisely preserved just for this occasion, a true Pater Patriae!
[2] For those who may find parallels with Mafia inappropriate, change “ring” to “posteriors”. 😃
[3] Actually, it was created only in 1705
[4] Another blatant anachronism: it was established only in 1748. But Charles needs a prestigious bauble to avoid looking as a poor relative. Actually, with introducing a multi-grade order he outplays Peter and August (and probably most of the contemporary European monarchs): typically, the awards had only one degree and lacked “flexibility”.
[5] Unlike August, Charles had no need to kiss this specific ass or any other posteriors and here goes flexibility of the new award: to each what he deserves.
[6] Actually, this made sense for a predominantly wooden city: the straight streets would allow the strong winds turning the routine fires into major disasters.
[7] On the map you can see it: it is a long straight street going from Kremlin in West-East (horizontal) direction. The main street of Moscow.
[8] At the risk of Tsar’s displeasure. Perhaps even a severe displeasure.

 

[alexmilman]

19. Putting House in order (cont. 1)

19.3. Meet the unicorns!

One of the lessons learned during the LNW was that the Russian artillery tends to be too heavy (aka, requires too many horses and creates too many problems when being transported by the lousy roads and has to use the unreliable bridges) and, while being able to produce a loud “boom!”, its kicking power is not too impressive even for the modified pieces. The howitzers capable of firing explosives were seemingly an answer but they had a fundamental problem: due to the cylindrical camera with a diameter smaller than one of a barrel, the gunpowder has to be pushed into it by hand. Which means that a length of a barrel had been defined by a length of a human arm and that the loading process was slow and a range (defined by a short barrel) was low. Finding solution for this problem became one of the top priorities for feldzheichmeister-general Jacob Bruce [1] and he (or his subordinates) came with a brand new type of a cannon which was somewhere between the long- and short-barrel artillery. the unicorn [2].

So far, the cannons had a barrel 18-25 calibers long and howitzers - 6-8 calibers. The unicorns had a barrel of 7.5-12.5 calibers with a conic camera. It could be loaded faster than a standard howitzer and had a better ballistics (range almost two times greater than for a howitzer) while being noticeable lighter than a long-barreled cannon and being able to fire the explosives. For example, barrel of 12-pounder cannon weighted 112 poods and the gun required 15 horses for transportation while a half-pood unicorn could fire 24-pound solid shot or 20-pound grenades and its barrel weighted 4 times less so the gun required only 5 horses. Unlike the conventional cannons, it could shoot at a high elevation (which allowed firing from behind the infantry formations).

Bruce proposed to add 1/2 pood (20 pounds) and 1/4 pood (10 pounds) unicorns to the 6- and 12-pounder guns as a base of the Russian field artillery [2]. Other calibers had to be used in the siege artillery, to use in the fortifications or simply being melted and used for a new production.

19.4. Commission at work and Ukrainian business

The Polish-Russian Compensation Commission, quite predictably, started its work by dealing with the VIP cases out of which VIP’s VIP was Józef Potocki, voyevoda of województwo kijowskie, the richest man in the PLC and owner, among many other estates, of Nemirov which ended up being on the Russian side of a border [4]. During the LNW he sided with August [5], which secured an appeal from the “Formerly ‘the Bad Doggie’ but now ‘The Favorite Pet’”, also known as King August. Mostly preserved wealth guaranteed an ability (and willingness) to “back words with the deeds”. Of course, even Menshikov would not risk to make a decision on his own so he brought the case to Peter’s attention. Besides the purely theoretical assumption that Peter may go out of his way just to please August, there were some practical considerations:
(a) with the estates on both sides of the border, Potocki would be inclined to follow a pro-Russian course (a big part of his Polish estates had been close enough to the border to make them an easy object for the “friendly visits” from the other side).
(b) In 1703 he did Peter a huge favor by almost completely crushing the Ukrainian uprising before Mazepa crossed the Dnieper with his army. Most of the leaders had been captured and executed and the surviving peasants learned in a practical way that rebellion against their masters is wrong. Taking into an account that by this time the Catholic Polish nobility in both voyevodships acquired by Russia was also mostly gone (either to the safer areas or forever), Peter’s ongoing task of establishing proper order on the Right Bank was greatly simplified and Peter was (almost) always willing to award the good services, especially when this cost him nothing [6].
As a result, Menshikov was permitted to receive “gratitude” and Pototcki had been allowed to keep his estate in Nemirov without becoming Peter’s subject. The details of his rights as the Russian estate owner (pretty much the same except that he lost a right to impale his “subjects” but gained a right to send them to Siberia, address the “ultimate” cases to the Russian authorities for the due process [7]) and related obligations (his serfs became subjects to the Russian taxation system) had been duly discussed leaving both sides quite happy.

Prince Wiśniowiecki and few other got the same treatment (guaranteeing a strong pro-Russian party in the Sejm) while the lesser fish was handled according to the rules.

The second part of the task assigned to Menshikov, as Governor-General of the Right Bank Ukraine) was to establish a strong Russian administration and local support base while not, yet, openly offending Hetman Mazepa who officially became Hetman on both sides of the Dnieper.

A little bit of a background:

During the LNW Peter found the Ukrainian Cossacks being pretty much useless in anything but looting.

On a battlefield they could not stand up not only to the regular Saxon troops but to the Polish cavalry well ( hussars, armored cavalry, dragoons, reitars and all the way down to the irregular militia) unless there were overwhelming numeric odds. Even worse, by their “attack fast and run even faster” behavior they, more than once endangered the Russian troops to which they had been assigned, leaving infantry alone (fortunately, the battalion columns took care of these situations).

They could leave at will and disobey orders of the Russian commanders because formally they were subordinated to the Hetman. Orders not to loot some specific estate (see above regarding the “special cases”) were simply ignored.

In a time of peace they were organized into “regiments” (usually, few hundreds each) named after the places around which they lived. For all practical purposes, these Cossacks were just privileged ill-regulated mounted military settlers of a questionable experience.

The Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Sich were a different story in the terms of their fighting qualities and, especially, as far as the coastal raiding was involved: they had the boats, knowledge of the coastal line and experience of raiding it. However, there was a big, fat “but”: they were absolutely uncontrollable, considering themselves to be pretty much an independent stratocratic state policy of which was at each specific moment decided, formally, by the universal vote and, more realistically, by the military leaders elected by such a vote with a possibility of being replaced by the same procedure at any moment. While the women were not permitted in a capital called “Sich”, there were plenty of them around and in the land-based campaigns they’d follow the host [8] with the obvious impact upon size of a baggage train. Painting below depicts their host on a march and their camp. There was an additional political problem: the serfs had been routinely escaping to the Sich.

However, time of the getting rid of both did not come, yet.

The first Russian administrative step on the Right Bank were along the following lines:
1. The estates of the nobility which accepted the Russian rule were preserved (with the serfs).
2. Freed territories which Peter decided to distribute among the Russian nobility became typical Russian estates with the serfs.
3. The Cossack officer class was incorporated into the Russian nobility and given estates with the serfs. As the Russian nobles they were not subordinated to the Hetmanate.
4. The rank and file Cossacks had been socially converted into “odnodvortsy”: personally free military settlers who had been receiving unalienable land grant for their service, could not be turned into the serfs and could have the serfs and eventually made it into the Russian nobility. In the terms of organization they were arranged into the regiments of a mounted Landsmilitia (based upon the existing “regiments”) subordinated to the Russian military administration. Potentially, this was not excluding conscription into the regular army but they would be getting the privileged terms in the areas of promotion into the non-coms and a limited term of service.
5. The serfs who lived in the areas which were not given to anybody got status of the “state peasants” a category which were not exactly the serfs but could be turned into them if the state land on which they lived is given to a private person.
6. The Hetman got a big personal estate on the Right Bank, even bigger estate near Baturin, the Kleinodes of the Right Bank Hetmanship, blue ribbon of St. Andrew (as shown on his portrait), estate near Moscow, newly constructed palace on renovated Tverskaya Street and a very insistent invitation to spend more of his time there so that the Tsar can benefit from his wise advices.

When Mazepa attempted to utter an unhappy noise, it was hinted that, of course, he can spend all of his time in
the Solovetsky Monastery

or some other religious institution of his choice located in the same area. Surely, this will be very good for his soul. Being of the pragmatic persuasion Mazepa did not waste too much time on thinking and took the first option. Peter duly appreciated his mental abilities and upped the bonus by making him a fieldmarshal and a member of the newly-created Senate.

With this issue being settled, similar reform had been conducted on the Left Bank thus leaving only the Sich unattended for the time being.

Formally, Baturin (with the fortifications removed) remained Hetmanate’s capital and Mazepa was allowed to have a small “court” there and couple hundreds of the Hetman’s Guards in really nice uniforms. Taking into an account that Mazepa did not have children, probably tge issue of the Hetmanate was going to be completely resolved in not too remote furure.

____________________
[1] To quote from wiki, “Bruce was one of the best educated people in Russia at the time, a naturalist and astronomer. In 1701 he founded the first Russian observatory; it was located in Moscow in the upper story of the Sukharev Tower. Bruce's scientific library of more than 1,500 volumes became a substantial part of the Russian Academy of Sciences library.Among Muscovites, Bruce gained fame as an alchemist and magician, due in part to the innovative design of the Sukharev Tower, which was very unusual in 18th century Moscow.” He is also credited with the creation of “Bruce’s calendar” which, besides huge volume of the data related to the Russian geography, contained predictions regarding climate, economy, politics and astrology-based recommendations on the …er… “private matters”. Calendar was republished numerous times over the XVIII -XIX centuries with the proper corrections in the “predictions” part. It was enormously popular.
[2] Actually, invented during the reign of Elizabeth I but technologically there was nothing preventing its earlier apoearance.
[3] In OTL Arakcheev in 1805.
[4] The most important (IMO) thing related to him is that he is credited with starting production of the flavored “Nemiroff” vodkas (even if officially this brand appeared in mid-XVIII). Personally, I did not like “honey-pepper” variety but it is just my personal taste and I’m not going to change history fundamentally, based strictly on this criteria.

[5] In OTL until 1705 so in this TL he is deprived of the opportunity to change sides.
[6] “а вам, мой господин, то обойдётся лишь в стоимость чернил” - “you’ll have to pay only for the ink” from “Inquisitor” by Konofalsky. Why the witty things always had been written by somebody else? 😢
[7] I was told that by this time Tsardom had something like 50 types of a death penalty, don’t ask me for the details: I never wanted to find them out.
[8] In OTL they made such a repulsive impression on Charles that he refused to use them for anything except digging the trenches during siege of Poltava.

 

[alexmilman]

19. Putting house in order (cont. 2)

19.5. Ingria

“Sweden get something that will provide immediate profit. Russia get something that requires a lot of work and investment (in security, infrastructure and probably also moving people in there) before it can give profit.” @von Adler [1]


So Moscow was in a process of being “westernized”, including construction of a modern Tsar’s palace in Kremlin, framework for taking care of the Ukrainian affairs defined and put into the implementation [3], the armories had been busy producing new artillery pieces and the muskets…. Finally, Peter got time to find out what exactly did he got on the Baltic coast. Travel was uneventful and the findings not too encouraging. Look at. the map below really carefully. Do you see the tiny numbers along the Neva’s banks? These are houses. Go further upstream and just after the river bend here it is, a great town of Nyen and opposite to it a mighty fortress of Nyenskans (I think that it is #17). 😜

Somebody with a lesser imagination (and access to a free work force) than Peter would be depressed and perhaps even start asking himself stupid questions like “why did I bother with getting that? But a trademark of the great rulers is that they have a “vision” and understandings that specifics of its implementation belong to the category “boring details” and can be delegated to those charged with execution of the task. Surely, Peter was a great ruler and that fundamental fact was not changed by a recently acquired habit of using head not just for eating and making historic pronouncements but for the thinking as well. Thinking part was just conveniently placed between getting an idea and putting it into implementation, filling some gaps in the “boring details”.

City has to be built so it must be built properly and for this you need a plan. Architect Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond had been summoned and came with a plan of the “ideal Renaissance city few centuries late” (below) after which he was assigned a number of the lesser projects in which he was quite successful. Planning stage had been attended to and after this the architect’s fantasies can be safely ignored as absolutely impractical.

Peter’s “vision” had stress on a port so the new city, called St-Petersburg, started around mouth of the Neva River with just few additions to Nyen. Of course, this meant dealing with a rather swampy ground but if Louis XIV built Versailles on a swamp, why could not Peter build a port on another swamp? It was just a matter of bringing enough workers and supplying them with the needed instruments and food in the quantities big enough for them not dying from starvation and accommodations good enough to prevent them from dying out from the diseases. This was a pure pragmatism: it was cheaper to keep the mobilized [4] workers in a reasonably good shape rather then having a permanent need of bringing the new ones from all over the Tsardom just because Menshikov & Co keep stealing most of the money allocated for the construction. “Most” was a keyword because stealing and embezzlement were “unofficially legitimized” parts of the system allowing the state to keep salaries of its officials reasonably (or even unreasonably) low. But it was one thing when they had been extorting money from the private persons, another when they felt at least some restraint when dealing with the state money and a totally different issue when they were completely forgetting any shame and indulged themselves in a “hungry stealing” (something similar to the shark’s feeding frenzy). Menshikov could expect to get off relatively easy, beating with a stick personally by Peter and a heavy fine had been rather routine punishments for him, but the lesser fish may not be so lucky. For this sin Prince Gagarin, governor of Siberia, was executed, Andrew Vinius was “pardoned” by Peter and got away with being beaten by the knut and a heavy fine and both of them belonged to Peter’s inner circle.


With “Alexashka” being safely busy with the Polish-Ukrainian affairs and the lesser personages being assured that a sight of them being first broken on the wheel and then slowly quartered (with an option of being impaled) may provide a good entertainment for the workers from whom they had been stealing, a level of the “misappropriations” went down to a generally-accepted level and ROI proved to be reasonably high. It is not that the workers were not dying in the big numbers, they were not dying at the excessively high rates and it actually did not take too much: an adequate supply of a flour, few big bakeries providing a reasonably good bread (not mixed with a straw and whatever else), adequate supply of meat and cabbages (the Livonians on the “left” and Finns on the “right” greeted a new market) and, while the barracks should not be too expensive, they should not be absolutely lousy either and heating really did not cost too much while seriously cutting the death rate from cold). Scurvy was, of course, a mass killer but this was a common problem all over Europe. As a result, by 1907 St. Petersburg grew up considerably [5].

Of course, it was not like everybody immediately jumped to the opportunity provided by a new port but it immediately became the second biggest port in Russia [6] and traffic through it kept growing, especially due to the low custom dues (1% had been retained from the Nyen times and this was much lower than 6% in Riga) . It was definitely better suited than the Livonian ports for the growing Russian-Swedish trade and eventually some of the traditional Dutch and British trade via Archangelsk had been transferred to it. Many things should be done before this adventure starts getting profitable but a potential was there even with the (unsaid but implied) obligations not to shut the existing imports/exports via Riga and Revel. Narva felt hit soon enough but it never was a big potato and its losses had been compensated by the revenues from the growing trade on the routes Stockholm-St. Petersburg and Abo-St.Petersburg.


Kotlyn Island, guarding a naval access to the new port, had been fortified and designated as a base for the future Baltic fleet, which so far amounted to few galleys, galeases, and double-sloops but later was strengthened by the bigger ships arriving from Archangelsk.

These ships had been built on the new wharf in Olonetsk area on the Svyr River not too far from St. Petersburg. This was something similar to the wharf in Voronez: she ships built there had to sail down the river to the Ladoga Lake, cross it and then sail down the Neva to get to the Gulf of Finland. This was OK for the relatively small ships but transporting the big ones to the point of destination could be problematic. Of course, it was seemingly reasonable to establish a wharf directly in St. Petersburg but getting all needed timber there was problematic and the same applied to bringing a skilled labor into the city in a process of construction with a shoestring supply system. For a while Peter opted for expansion of the Solombalskaya wharf near Archangelsk: there was a lot of a good quality timber and experienced local shipbuilders. Well, there was to a certain degree an “ideological conflict” between the local shipbuilding tradition of constructing the merchant & fishing ships well-suited for sailing in the regional icy waters and a need to build the Western-style warships (and, hopefully, the merchant ships as well) for operations outside the Northern area. The first 6 big fluyt-style merchant ships had been built in 1700-02 followed by 3 12- and 26-guns frigates, which Peter ordered to port to the Onego Lake and then by the Svir River and Ladoga Lake to the Neva [7]. Later, the wharf began construction of the bigger warships, starting from the 52-guns ships of the line [8]. Most of the new warships had been sailing to St-Petersburg leaving some for the coastal defenses of Archangelsk and Kola Ostrog, which Pater was turning into a naval base [9].


A byproduct of Peter’s visit to the region was his decision to build up a summer residence in a pleasant coastal area to the South of new city: summer climate there was much better than the often unbearable heat of the Moscow summers.





________________________
[1] Could not put it better myself (I already remarked that somebody is always coming with the good statements ahead of me 🤣). My sincere gratitude.
[2] Within the “reasonable limits”: in OTL even by the end of the XIX “off the center” areas looked like that:

[3] Of course, implementation of the framework described in the previous chapter did not happen overnight and was not smooth and bloodless: some serfs still had certain “illusions” (which required deployment of a military force and various methods of “persuasion”), there was a problem with defining who is and who is not a “Cossack”, few Cossack leaders had been too idealistic (or simply did not consider a received “compensation” adequate) to accept the change (but, fortunately, the monasteries of Archangelsk governorship had been quite accommodating), and there was even certain issues on the Russian side with the received estates. Sheremetev, after viewing a proposed gift, wrote to Peter “This estate makes economic sense only with the addition of a nearby unused land. If you can’t add it, please don’t burden me with this gift.” Of course, the necessary addition had been granted and of course only very few people would dare to write something of the kind or at least in the same style but a lot of paper and ink (and money for the bribes) had been spent in a process.
[4] Hopefully, nobody is confused enough to seriously entertain an idea of using the hired workers. First, a needed number of the idiots hardly could be found and second, this is Russia of the XVIII century and Tsar’s name is still “Peter”.
[5] “1725” on a map is, obviously, a misprint. 😂
[6] Out of two.
[7] Thus pretty much preempting a route of the future Belomor Canal. No further comments on that.
[8] Conditions of the Baltic Sea were giving certain advantages to the relatively small ships if the line capable of operating in the shallow waters.
[9] A warm water port and one with an access to the open ocean, which did not depend upon the Danish good graces. Of course, with the main fixation (for a while) being on South and limited resources, Peter could not be excessively ambitious but allowing his sailors to get an ocean-going experience would not hurt.

 

[alexmilman]

19. Putting house in order (cont. 3)

19.6. Reorganization as a full time occupation

[A side notice serving to dispel certain illusions expressed in the earlier posts. 😉

Important thing to keep in mind is that Peter is doing the things his id doing in this TL not because he turned overnight into some kind of the XXI century “progressive” with the notions about human (and, specifically, women) rights, democratic institutions, universal literacy, animals rights, climate change and a long list of other things that were simply unknown in Russia of that period. In OTL quite a few of the terrible things he did (like strengthening serfdom) had been a toxic combination of the ideology (“westernization” at all costs) and extreme inefficiency. For example, extremely inefficiently conducted GNW required the “numbers”. So Peter made a life long military service starting from the ranks mandatory for all male nobles. Obviously, this was negatively impacting their abilities to manage the estates effectively (and hit their incomes) so as a bonus serfdom was turned almost to the slavery, so that they could squeeze the peasants harder, which, together with other Peter’s activities, resulted in a loss of the state income (the peasants had been fleeing and dying or simply incapable to pay the taxes), etc.

In this TL he does not have to do things in a rush, suffer the same huge losses and face the same problems. He also has a time to think and come to the conclusion that a slightly lower number of the better prepared military cadres is going to produce a better results than a mob of the raw recruits hastily brought to the front and the officers without any proper education. The nobles attending to their estates may manage them better even without their serfs being turned into the slaves and the greater output means that the state is getting the greater income on the custom dues and various indirect taxes. The same goes for the expenses related to the military schools and even a care about the retiring soldiers (besides filling the gaps with some employment areas, the government is getting a loyal military cast). ]

Besides the tactical and hardware level issues, the LNW produced a food for the thoughts on the “operational” level:
1. It became clear that the two-battalion infantry regiment of approximately 1,200 is too weak to operate as a reasonably independent unit.
2. It became clear that the “tactics of columns and shooting lines” would benefit from creation of the special troops with the greater training in the aimed fire and perhaps even creation of the special grenadier units out of the especially strong soldiers with the additional training in bayonet charges. The grenades should be gone.
3. It became clear that even with the better treatment of the recruits in the “recruitment depots”, their preparedness by the time of joining the fighting units is inadequate, especially in the areas requiring specific skills.
4. Cavalry, with its new aggressive tactics, was reasonably OK for the tasks it faced during the LNW but against the Tatars and Ottomans there would be a need not only in a heavy (cuirassiers and dragoons) cavalry but also in the light regular cavalry with a possibility of strengthening it with the irregulars: Cossacks of the Don, Kalmuks and “Russian” Tatars (from the Volga area).
5. There is a need for the “regular” organization of the field artillery into the standard batteries and higher level units with the addition of field engineers troops.
6. There is a need for having a standard organization above the regimental level: ad hoc divisions proved to be either too big or too small and their components lacked necessary coordination.
7. Related to the previous item, there was an obvious need for a division level staff filled with the officers competent in the logistics, capable of making the maps, etc.
8. To say that organization of the supplies could be improved would be a gross understatement. 😢
9. At least some consideration should be given to the fate of the old soldiers, invalids, etc.
10. As a mid-/long-term benefit, the military/naval schools of various types and levels must be created.

19.7 Simple part: the carrots

As a carrot of his own, Peter (inspired by the Order of the Sword) came with an idea of the whole system of the military and civic state awards of various levels applicable to everybody down to a rank soldier.

So far, Russia had only one award, Order of St. Andrew (with or without the diamonds).

Now, Peter added:
1. Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky “for those who had served their country with honor, mostly through political or military service”. In a hierarchy it was immediately below St. Andrew. [1]

2. The Order of Saint Vladimir. The order had four degrees and was awarded for continuous civil and military service. For the military service it had the swords.

The 4th, lowest, degree (cross with a ribbon ) could be awarded only for the military bravery and was always coming with the swords. In a hierarchy it was below St. Alexander.

3. Last but not least at all, was the ultimate military carrot, Order of St. George [2], the highest military decoration of Russia. It had 4 classes and could be awarded exclusively for the wartime performance. The 1st class was reserved exclusively for the army commanders winning a battle or the whole campaign and the lower levels for the outstanding bravery and achievements. The lowest class, the greater stress on the personal bravery so a person carrying the 4th class cross practically had “here comes a hero” stamped on his forehead. Unlike, St. Vladimir, those who were getting the higher degrees had to wear the lower class(es) awards.

An extra carrot was for the ranks. While the award itself was only for the officers, the soldiers and non-coms got their own 4 classes of the “sign of the military order” awarded exclusively for the outstanding bravery (and excluding its bearer from a physical punishment). [3]

To make this carrot even more tempting, the first awards had been postponed until the next war [4].

19.8. The hard part

Quite a few things had been done within the next few years.

Military issues:

1. The infantry regiments got the 3rd field battalion with the 4th (reserve battalion) staying in a site of the regiment’s permanent placement, handling all types of property and being used for training the new soldiers for this specific regiment.
2. The field artillery was organized in the batteries, 8 guns each (4 cannons and 4 unicorns) with the light batteries having 6 ponders and 1/4 poud and heavy 12 pounders and 1/2 poud, correspondingly. 2 batteries formed an artillery company and 2 of those (light and heavy) plus engineering company - an artillery brigade with 32 guns.
3. A standard infantry division division included 6 regiments, 2 jagers and 4 line [5], organized in 3 brigades, and and artillery brigade.
4. Cavalry division, light or heavy, had 4 - 6 regiments. There were still some problems with the light ones. The “uhlan” regiments had been formed out of the “extra” Ukrainian Cossacks from land militia (lance was a traditional Cossack weapon) and various types of the volunteers, the mounted jagers out of the best dragoon regiments and a couple of the hussar [6] regiments was formed out of the Wallachians, Serbs, Arnauts and Hungarians fleeing to Russia.
5. An issue of the competent staff officers still was more or less hanging in the air simply because there were not enough of those.
6. Commissariat service for the acting army was established with the expectation that it was going to follow the army (at a respectable distance) communicating with the authorities in the rear and with the (un)lucky population on the theater of war. In the worst case scenario this was providing the clearly defined scapegoats.
7. The arrangements had been made with the Cossacks of Don (whom Peter trusted more than the Ukrainian ones) to provide, in the case of war, few “hundreds” to be assigned to the infantry divisions for the scouting and for a separate corps to act with the main Russian army.
8. It was expected that in the case of war the Kalmuks are going to attack the Nogai Horde.
9. The first navigation school was created in Moscow [7] and so was the first Cadet Corps.

Nobility:
1. Distinction between the hereditary land (“votchina”) and the land granted for service (“pomestie”) was eliminated: all land owned by a noble was his unconditionally. This was a big bonus, at least theoretically.
2. The nobles did not have to attend a life long mandatory military service and were given an option of retirement after the 10 years of service.
3. The nobles could not be sentenced to the bodily punishment (beating by a knout, whipping). Of course, this did not apply to the flogging during the education process, this was a necessary part of the education. When in the service, a noble could not be beaten by his superior (which did not apply to Peter’s “personal rights” to punish his entourage 😜).
4. They may not serve at all but a family, in which not a single man served (in the military or civic administration) within two generations, was deprived of its noble status (but not of its property including the serfs), including the right to attend military schools for nobility and entering military service as an officer; at least in theory, they could be conscripted into the army as the rank soldiers and, in practice, they would not be exempt from paying the individual taxes and freedom from a physical punishment would be revoked. They could enter the civic service at the lowest level or a military one as a soldier and return the family status by raising to the lieutenant rank or its civic equivalent by the Table of the Ranks (options: being wounded in the action, receiving soldier’s St. George of the 1st class, which mans all lower classes as well, etc.).
5. Their rights toward the serfs were slightly regulated. They could not execute them, they could not sell them without the families, they could not demand more than 4 days per week of work for the estate owner.


Soldiers:
1. Had to serve 25 years unless completely incapacitated. In both cases he becomes a free man with status of a peasant (but can’t be turned into a serf).
2. After 10 years of service were allowed to have family and live in their own homes within military settlement.
3. After 15 years they could be moved into the reserve battalions to train the recruits.
4. After 25 years they may be left in a service with the options of being moved from the active service to some other duties, being sent to the garrison units, joining police force, being employed for performing the menial duties in the military and civic institutions, military schools, warehouses, etc.
5. The first shelter for the invalids was created in Izmailovo after the old wooden palace of Tsar Alexey started falling apart and its inhabitant, Tsaritsa Praskovia, had to be relocated to a better place: two wings had been added to the Pokrov Cathedral (below) and the invalids could keep maintaining the existing orchards and hot houses, which had been providing Peter with his favorite fruits [9].
6. The soldiers’ children had right to get education in the state-sponsored military schools (not those for the nobles) providing cadres for the future non-com professionals, from the scribes to the artillerymen.
7. A rank soldier could be promoted for bravery (soldier’s cross of St. George was a must) into the low officer rank and from this point to be treated as any other officer with a chance of getting a personal nobility (rank of a captain or St. George 4th class or St. Vladimir 4th class) or even a hereditary nobility (colonel or St.G/St.V of 4th and 3rd classes).

Basically, Peter was creating a loyal military caste completely separated from the serfs while somewhat diminishing dependance of the central power from the landowners class.
___________
[1] In OTL Peter was planning its creation but died and it was officially created by CI.
[2] Actually, introduced by CII.
[3] In OTL introduced only in 1807 but would it take a genius to figure out things like that even without Nappy with his Legion of Honor? 😉
[4] Don’t underestimate importance of this “carrot”: the main reason why Potemkin was given an army command in the second Ottoman war of CII was because he wanted St. George 1st class and this was the only way for him to get it. I don’t think that CII was dumb enough that he is patently unqualified for the army command and he did not …er… “disappoint” her in managing almost to screw the siege of Ochakov and then proceeding with almost screwing the war (even he was not capable of wrestling the defeat out of the jaws of victory). 😉
[5] Terminology may be confusing taking into an account that the “line” infantry should be fighting mostly in the columns but this is nothing comparing to the terminological confusion of the Napoleonic army. Jomini argued that a huge column at Waterloo was a byproduct of a misunderstanding: Napoleon ordered a standard divisional column (“division” being two platoons) and the recipients decided that he wanted the whole (real) division in a single column.
[6] Not the heavy Polish hussars who fought their last serious battle in Kliszow, but the Hungarian style light cavalry.
[7] As in OTL
[8] But, if convinced of a crime, their status could be revoked so…
[9] Of course, this was done much later.