Sweden wins at Poltava TL

The northern front: The swedish heir Charles Gustav was sent to Livonia together with 12,000 men to move south into Courland and help Poland. King Charles XII landed with 35,000 men at Stralsund and intended to strike at Berlin. Prussia had mobilised two strong armies and intended to link up with Austria and defeat Poland. The new king Fredrick II would lead the army to face the poles with 55,000 men. General Berlin would face Charles XII with 40,000 men.

Austria moved an army under general Shumascher to link up with the prussians. It counted 30,000 men.

Poland had learnt a thing of two from the previous war and tried to make their soldiers better. They had started an experiment and tried and failed to implement the swedish karolinersystem. They mobilised a army of 70,000 men led by king Stanisław Leszczyński to stop the prussians and Austrians.

Charles XII belived he had the same swedish force he had 40 years ago, he forgott that just as he grew older so did his army and his force lacked the veterans from the Great Nordic war. Many of them was dead in unmarked graves and many more were mustered out as they werent fit for military service anymore. Charles himself was 58 years and showing signs of old age. The swedish army had training but hadnt fought a war for 15 years and nobody knew exactly what to expect from it.

Charles moved from Stralsund in September. His opponent General Berlin stood at Wolgast so Charles moved towards him. Charles tried to manouver past Berlin, but on the 25th of September the first skirmishes began as the cavallery screens bumped into eachother at Torgelow and both armies gathered there.

General Berlin positioned his cavallery on his right flank and had built up fortifications to shield his position. Charles sent 2 regiments of infantry and 2 squadrons of cavallery to manouver south of the prussian army and attack them in the flank. During that time the swedish artillery opened up to shield the advance. Berlin reacted when he saw the threat and weakened his center to meat the new threat because he thought Charles would make the strongest attack to his left. Unfortunally for Berlin Charles had other plans and had the infantry charge the center. On the swedish came in the old karolinerfashion(pikes was now gone from the swedish army, the last pikeformation had left the swedish army in 1722) with attacking the enemy head on and not fire until the last second. It had worked many times before, and it worked now. The swedes advanced throught the prussian bombardment and shot one wolley at point blank range and then threw themselves at the prussian center. Then Charles unleashed the cavallery, most against the prussian cavallery, but some against the center. General Berlin now realised he had been tricked and had the left wing weakened since the attack there had not materialised. Berlin retreated after a few hours, but Charles army was to tired to follow. It had been a costly battle, Sweden lost 2,400 men dead or wounded plust 100 men captured. Berlin lost 9,000 men dead or wounded plus 1/3 of the artillery and 2000 men captured. Most importantly, the swedish army had shown that it was almost as good as the men at Narva.

Fredrick II of Prussia had during that time moved his force into Poland towards Posen to link up with the Austrian army and then move toward the polish capital. King Stanislaw himself led the main polish army of 60,000 men moving to stop such a event taking place. Fredrick II upon hearing about the battle of Torgelow a week after it had happened had to divert 15,000 men to face Charles and stop him from taking the capital. This however left him with 40,000 men to face Poland. The prussian king was a better tactician and strategist than the king of Poland and reached Posen fastest. The austrian army led by general Schumascher was at Breslau when the poles arrived on October the 10th. October 11 saw rain as both sides tried to figure out what do to. October 12 Stanislaw struck. He opened with a bombardment that wasnt to effective since the rain had made the ground muddy. Fredrick was cool and waited for the poles to come to him. Around noon the polish infantry struck at the prussian center.
They had trained in the karolinerfashion and tried to use the same tactic, unfortunally they were less disciplined that the swedish army and were stopped cold by accurate prussian defensive fire. The poles began showing signs of collapsing. Then the polish king rode forward and calmed the troops down and led another charge.

This attack was even more disatrous for the poles as king Stanislaw was hit and thrown of his horse and had to be carried wounded of the field. The polish attacks faltered and then Fredrick counterattacked and the polish army melted away only saved by darkness. Prussia lost 2,000 men, Poland lost 10,000 men dead or wounded and 5,500 men POW. King Stanislaw is revealed not to badly injured. He is saved by a notebook that absorbed most of the impact of the bullet. He suffers a concousion and a broken arm from the fall of his horse but the leadership of the polish army goes even so to Fieldmarschal Walecha.

In Livonia Charles Gustav commanded 12,000 men and moved into Courland seeking to link up with a polish army(8,000 men) commanded by general Pipeka standing near East Pussia. Was like his father in the way that he liked to command a force, but unlike his father he didnt want to be in front of his troops leading an attack but rather stay behind and command the entire battle than just one section. During the same time as the poles and prussians faced eachother at Breslau the swedes and poles joined forces and Charles Gustav took command of the allied army and moved it towards Konigsberg. The movements were slow due to much rain and in late december they stopped arount 50 kms from Konigsberg by the endemi. The prussians had assembled a small army of 8,000 men to defend the province and Charles Gustav wanted to avoid a large battle in december and studied the enemy positions for a while before acting like his father had done during the polish campaign in the great nordic war. Charles Gustav moved his forces so that they surrounded the prussians from 3 directions and started a minisiege wanting to let hunger do its work.

War on the oceans: A week after war was declared the brittish royal navy in a daring operation sailed into the main port of the french atlantic fleet and destroyed a big portion of the fleet. September 11 a big transport fleet assembled to bring french reinforcements to other parts of the world was sunk before leaving port. Brittain now had the upper hand and used it. A brittish army counting 11,000 men was sent to brittish north America to be commanded by general Marshall. Another army(15,000 men) led by general Howe was sent to India.

War in the colonies: As soon as the word about the war spread around the world the forces defending different colonies was drawn up, but until New Year nothing major had happened.

The big joker: Russia was an undknown factor and nobody knew how they would act. Russia knew and they had plans on their own.
 
Russian part of TL is extremely flimsy on number of grounds:
  1. "Sverigefication of Russian lands" thing is NOT gonna happen. It took Poles and Lithuanians centuries to find some sort of religious accomodation with part of Eastern Orthodox Slavs (in form of Eastern Catholic church). I don't believe Svedes will be more successfull.
  2. This whole "civil war in Russia" thing (crucial in initial stage of TL) is not gonna happen. Russians of that time have very live memories of "Time of Troubles" and will NOT start another one, especially until Alexei lives. Alexei will be crowned Tsar and will deal with "reformers" (Menshikov) group as he pleases. If you want to create turmoil in Russia, kill Alexei. He's the last living mail offspring of Romanovs. However, you'll need to get out of Sophia. Hmm, do I sense battlegroup of butterflies, which will need to be dispatched for this TL to become realistic?
  3. Whoever emerges as a victor after troubles would NOT plunge Russia back into "medieval period" outright, as both nobility and bureaucracy had a lot of advantages from modernization. Anna I Ioannovna is the best thing you can hope for.
I'm guessing its just an outgrowth from Sweden's cossack allies.
Mazepa could not win an outright independence, as it would be at expense of Poland, which owned the country just 50 short years ago. Poland is valuable Swedish ally (client) ITTL. So, either Mazepa will be removed and Poles will return to their old ways of governing "Eastern Borderlands" (which resulted in Deluge once, but Poles aren't ones to learn from their own mistakes) or Mazepa will become Polish vice-regent of Ukraine.

Poland and Ukraine had had bordedisputes since the peacesettlement and soon there was war. Sweden didnt interfer and soon Poland had taken Ukraine and annexed it.
So, Poles just got themselves an endless headache which will drain them of any ability to influence European affairs in the future. Strike all parts of your TL which starts with "XXX allied with Poland" down.

Unfortunally all advances Russia had made in the military during Peters time was forgotten and Russia didnt gain much from the war.
ASB. Victor of Russian civil war will have an infinite pool of seasoned officers at his/her disposal and, as war wasn't that long, Russian economy will be able to support war efforts.
 
1742 Spanish theatre: For 5 months no major action took place on the battlefields since the diffent sides took a few months to train their armies. Portugal was the first to strike as general Alfonso avoided striking at Madrid but instead choosed to confront Valderamma that was closing the border. Valderamma had his army getting ready at Seville when he got the news and instead of moving toward the Algarvecoast and up toward Lissbon from the south he had to counter Alfonsos move and move north. The 30th of July both sides had reached the town of Badajoz and the next day Valderamma attacked. For the entire day the sides clashed and neither side gained a headway. In the end of the day both sides had lost 5,000 men each. On August 1st Alfonso attacked with his army and the battle continued for the entire day. At the end of the day Alfonso had lost another 8,000 men, but Valderamma had the less trained force and had lost 13,000 men. Valderamma having lost almost half his army decided to withdraw back to Sveille to try to recruit more people. Alfonsos army was also wery tired and worn so hunting the spanish forces was out of the question. Alfonso stayed were he was for the remainder of the year, to the surprise of the spanish and the anger of his goverment

In northen Spain the french force under Count De Ville had gotten reinforced and now counted 35,000 men and decided to move along the Ebro to Zaragosa and from there attack Madrid. Baron Escobar had lost 4,000 men trying to end the Basque uprising and had some success when he got news about Count De Ville. De Ville knew that Zaragosa would hold enough time to him to get there and began marching his army south. The Basques declared their neutrality in the conflict. When De Ville reached Zaragosa he didnt know that Escobar was coming for him since the behaviour of his troops had made both the catalonians and the basques reluctant to help that army. Zaragosa was defended by 1,500 men who refused the initial demand for surrender and De Ville had to lay siege to the town. The siege began June 2nd and Escobar was 2 weeks marsch away. Escobar had only 20,000 men, compared to 35,000 frenchmen but counted on surprise.

Escobar was lucky, De Ville acted arrogant and didnt have any scouts to the north since he didnt belive any spanish army were nearby. That was his first mistake. Escobar had gotten news about the siege and hurried his troops. On July 9th he was a days march from De Ville and had his troops rest for two days while scouts were sent out to see how De Ville had organised. One scout was captured by french troops, but De Ville didnt listen to reports of a enemy army nearby, he thought it was defectors from the city under siege wanting him to belive an enemy army was underway and that the end of the siege was near.

On the night between july 11 and july 12 Escobar set his troops on the march to be able to attack the french before they knew the spanish force was there. He also had gotten word that a scout had been captured and feared that the french would be waiting for them. The troops marched through the dark night and at sunup they rested behind a small ridge and rested 30 minutes. Escobar went up the ridge and saw something he couldnt belive. The french camp wide open and Zaragosa still holding out. He decided to attack. As the army went up the ridge and became visible alarms went off in the french camp. De Ville stepped out of his tent half dressed and stared in shock.

Escobar ordered his troops to attack at once. As the men stormed forward the french pickets tried to stop them, but soon they were overrun. Next it was the french camps left flank where a battalion of french troops had been getting ready for relieving their comerades in the siegeworks. Their officers screamed them into a square and they were alone against the oncoming spaniards while the rest of the french flank collapsed.

The battalion numbered 450 men at the start of the day. The major name was Jaques Fillion and the events that followed would be written about by famous writers like Voltaire and the likes. The battalion was quickly surrounded by a portion of spanish troops as the rest of the spanish force rushed into the camp. Fillion ordered his troops to stand fast and they would be rescued. The spaniards hadnt got much artillery with them so they had to charge the battalion. Fillion had 2 guns and had build a small barricade so that his men could have some shelter.

The rest of the battlefield was chaos. De Ville had gotten on his horse and tried to form a defense but was swept along with the routing troops. The other french flank werent attacked and when the warning got out that flank started to get ready and De Ville eventually got the rest into a clear fighting force. As the panick let go of the french force they saw the spanish force come against them. Only 40 minutes had gone since Escobar had seen this chance and now the element of surprise was gone, but so was 25 of the french guns. Captured guns were put to use by the spanish force, but the french line took the losses and the shooting continued the rest of the day before ending in the darkness. Escobar had lost 3,000 men killed or wounded and 400 captured, De Ville lost 2,000 men captured, 6,000 men killed or wounded and 4,000 missing(most of them routing past the battlefield). De Ville decided to attack as the sun rose again, but Escobar had other thoughts and began to withdraw his remainding army past the Ebro. When the sun rose only a small portion of the spanish force was still within De Villes grasp, but he let them go not wanting to risk further casulaities.

The same day the remainder of the lost battalion led by major Fillion was found. Fillion had led a good defence but lost most of his men, only 85 men remained of the battalion, but they had inflicted 890 casualities among the spanish. De Ville promoted Fillion on the spot to colonel and gave him command of a regiment were the colonel in charge had died.

Zaragosa surrendered a few days later. De Ville wanted his army to regroup and tried to apply the french goverment for reinforcements but two months of stillness was ended when he got orders from Paris to advance. De Ville had collected the men he counted as missing after the battle of Zaragosa(no penalties were made since the whole battle was chaos) and gotten another 4,000 men in reinforcements. He set his army on the road to Madrid were things were happening that in the end would change the course of the world. In Madrid the goverment changed into a republican one. Noone wanted to be king and Spain changed into a federation. The leader was called El Presidente Morientes and he called a spanish people to aid the country in the time of crisis. As count De Ville marched closer and closer to Madrid in no particular haste he was greated by small men of armed men fighting a small war, gerillas they were called. Small gangs of armed men attacked De Villes army and bled it badly. In one day alone De Ville lost 500 men. Having lost 6,000 men in dead or wounded and 1,400 men missing and not gaining even half the road between Zaragossa and Madrid De Ville retreated back first to Zaragossa and then to Barcelona that he reached in early september.


DISASTER On december 24 a asteroid strikes Earth just like the dinosaurkiller. It hits Berlin in the middle of Europe and the earth shakes for days. Every volcano erupts and earthquakes happens around the world. 50% of the human race dies before december 30, and they are the lucky ones. The sun is covered by clouds and the next harvests will fail. Almost 95% of the human race dies out without having seen the sun again. The ones that manage it best are the uncivilised tribes in the middle of Amazonas etc.

THE END.

ooc: I had writers block after the last battle and couldnt come up with more
 
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