Hunger, snow, and fatigue had narrowed all the possibilities of this war down to one stark inevitability
Peter and Charles would meet on the field of battle to decide the fate of the Baltic world
*Intro music*
Charles had brought his forces into the Ukraine
He hoped his army would be able to live off the land more than that though he hoped for two great
reinforcements, first he hoped to meet with the supply train that he had opted not to meet up with on the retreat from the Moscow Campaign...
...and second he hoped to engage Ukrainian Cossacks to serve as his allies,
but now Peter himself was on the field, as the supply column that had been supposed to provide relief to Charles the 12th turned south to meet with
The main army Peter intercepted it, the initial fighting was fierce, again
the Swedish army was half the size of the Russian force, but despite this, for a moment
it looked as though they might shatter the Russian forces anyway.
This time though, Peter was with his army, and with him the hardened elite Russian Guard who stood firm and anchored the wavering
line the fighting turned into a brutal slog. By nightfall
Neither side had made any conclusive blow, both sides withdrew with the setting sun...
...the Russians to the nearby woods and the Swedes to their defensive position, the Russians settled in to rest...
...but the Swedes stayed in battle formation
fearing another attack. As the night drew on though it became clear that no new attack was coming
So rather than fight against rested and reinforced Russian troops with his exhausted army, the Swedish commander ordered a withdrawal under the cover of dark.
But as they crossed the muddy ground behind them, the wagons and the artillery began to get stuck, slowing them down
abandoning some of their artillery and baggage, they managed to make it to the nearest town.
But the bridge they needed to truly make their escape, had been burnt by a Russian detachment.
Seeing this the men began to panic, but the Swedish commander made the tough choice
they would unload the wagons carry what supplies they could, and burn the rest.
Unfortunately in these wagons was amongst other things the Army's alcohol rations, weeks worth of it, such a waste..
So as the men began to unpack, many of them also took the opportunity to consume the liquor that they would be throwing away.
Soon the army was drunk, men got lost in the woods, others had to be left behind, the orderly Swedish retreat dissolved into a chaotic fight.
What few men were still good for fighting were given mounts and these few thousand troops made their escape.
No supplies from this Caravan would ever find their way to Charles in the Ukraine.
Charles's other hope for succor was a man named Ivan Stepanovich Mazeppa,
Ivan had grown up the bastard son of a minor Polish noble
But as a young page in the Polish Court he had been caught "inflagrante" with a married nobleman's wife
He had been promptly tarred and feathered,
then tied to a horse, with Ivan's face firmly tied to the horse's rear the horse had been sent packing, running off
unguided into the wild, everyone had expected that Ivan would die on the Ukrainian steppe.
But Cossacks had found him, untied him, and gave him a home in their tribe.
Valorous and ambitious, he had risen within their ranks until when he was 48, the tribe had unanimously elected him to lead them.
For years he had ably served Peter the Great,
but secretly he had always hoped to be free of Peter, to create an independent kingdom for his cossacks, when Charles had begun
Rampaging through Poland, Ivan began to negotiate with him, after all this Swedish king might have a real shot at overthrowing the Russians
Charles never took these overtures too seriously though, at least not until desperate
circumstances forced him too. As his campaign to Moscow began to fall apart, he reconsidered the value of this Cossack hetman
he agreed that in exchange for the 30,000 horsemen that Ivan said he had under his command,
the Swedes would offer their protection to the Cossacks, it was with the intent to meet up with this force that...
...Charles turned southward, it was for this Cossack force that he abandoned the inebriated and
Ill-fated resupply train that was originally meant to catch up with him
Charles needed these troops and the sooner he could link up with them, the better, but Ivan Mazepa had severely
overestimated the Cossacks loyalty to him, when he made his rebellion known it was 3,000 Cossacks, not...
...30,000 that decided to follow him, the rest
Maintained their allegiance to Peter. Peter then burnt
Ivan's capital and sent the bodies of Cossacks tied to crosses floating down the Dnieper to discourage further rebellions, by the time
Ivan struggled into Charles's camp he had nearly
1500 men with him and few supplies.
Now cut off in the Ukraine the situation for the Swedish army was desperate,
they were using saltpeter instead of salt to preserve food
they didn't even have enough wine to give the sacrament to dying men, so Charles made a BOLD plan.
He would attack the fortress of Poltava and gain a secure location
For his men to rest and await supplies from the rest of his empire,
but the privations of the Winter had taken an even greater toll on his army, almost all of his artillery had been left behind
they had almost no shot and the powder had gotten so damp and...
...waterlogged that men complained that when they fired they could see the balls drop to the ground 30 feet away.
They had also lost much of their officer corps, and now that it was Summer, Gangrene was spreading through the camp,
but still they put Poltava to siege, each day
they tried to mine underneath the fort and use sappers to drop its walls,
but without artillery, the going was slow, all the while Peter raced toward Poltava with a massive relief army and then
Charles's legendary luck finally ran out.. While
overseeing the siege works, a stray bullet caught him in the heel, passing straight through his foot and embedding itself near his big toe.
That day he rode and worked through the pain until his men noticed that he was ghastly pale,
when they took him to his tent and cut off his boot, they found that his foot was a wreck.
He would have to be carried on a litter for at least the remains of the campaign,
then Peter reached Poltava, his massive army of 80,000 dwarfed the
18,000 ish men of Charles's army that were actually in fighting shape
This giant force arraigned itself in front of the fort and began to dig in,
still Charles and his commanders chose to rely upon the expedient they had always relied upon,
Assault... At first things go well, Swedes overrun the forward batteries and the assault sweeps forward
but then things begin to bog down, inopportune orders are given, the Russian line is given time to firm up
between the men left behind to guard the camp and those ordered to maintain the siege even while the main fight is going on the
Swedish army is down to about 4,000 men, the order is given,
they are to rush the entrenched Russian line, cannon fire rips through the line of charging men,
bullets rained down upon them, by the time they reach the Russian works,
nearly half of them lay bleeding on the field. The king orders his litter raced to the front to encourage his men, one by one,
his litter bearers are shot dead around him, until only three of the original
24 remain the King's litter drops, smashed upon the ground,
what few men are left surged forward trying to prevent the Russians from capturing their King, a Major rides up,
dismounts, and lifts the King onto his own horse only to be torn to pieces by Cossack Sabres moments later
the king is whisked to safety, but at what cost?
The army is routed, stumbling back across the steppe, disorganized,
They need to cross the Dnieper to escape, but the Russians are fast on their heels, the Swedes are forced to make a difficult decision..
The King is sent ahead with 1,500 of the fastest combat ready cavalry
they have left, the remainder of the army is transferred to one of the Kings Generals two days later with the Russians
closing the Army's line of retreat, fourteen thousand of what had once been the world's finest army, surrender on mass..
Can the king escape? Can the Swedes recover? Join us next week to find out!