mass, of approaching horesmen.
Lewenhaupt took command of the army. This was as he wished; the moody General had specifically volunteered to stay behind and share the fate of the troops. He and Kreutz discussed with Charles the route the army would take and the projected rendezvous point at Ochakov. Lewenhaupt promised the King that if the Russians pursued him, he would fight. Here, as subsequent events were to prove, there was a grave misunderstanding. Charles assumed that Lewenhaupt had promised unconditionally, but Lewenhaupt understood that he had bound himself to fight only after he got the army away from Perevoluchna. 'If, with the grace of God, we are spared onslaught of a strong enemy fource with infantry for this night and the morrow, I believe there may yet be some hope of saving the troops.' In any case, only the two of them were able to interpret the discussion of Charles' orders and Lewenhaupt's promises; no one else was present. As Charles later admitted when accepting partial responsibility for what happened, 'I was guilty ... I forgot to give the other generals and colonels who were there the orders of which Lewenhaupt and Kreutz alone had knowledge.' Once again, it was the story of Roos and the redoubts at Poltava. Ignorance of the overall plan left the other officers and the army helpless.
Lewenhaupt's first objective was to get away from Perevoluchna. This meant retracing his steps by marching north to one of the fords across the Vorskla. But as the troops were exhausted and many of the officers who had spent the night getting the King and his party across the Dnieper even more so, Lewenhaupt gave the order for the men to rest and be prepared to start at dawn.
During the night, preparations were made to travel fast and light. The money remaining in the regimental chests was distributed among the troops, each man to be responsible for his own share thereafter. Ammunition and provisions were similarly distributed, with each man taking only the amount he could carry on horseback; the rest was to be abandoned. Any remaining baggage and supply wagons which could impede the march were to be left behind. An attempt would be made to take the artillery, but if it became a hindrance, it, too, would be abandoned.
The passage of the night worked further damage on the Swedish army. Discipline frayed. It was obvious to the soldiers that safety lay across the broad Dnieper. The word that in the morning they were to march north again was sullenly received. Lewenhaupt himself was exhausted, a condition made worse by a bad case of diarrhea. Overcome by fatigue, he lay down for a few hours' rest.
At dawn the next morning, July 1, the two Generals arose, the army stirred, the men began saddling their horses and preparing to march. Then, at eight a.m., just as the columns were forming and about to march, figures appeared on the heights above the river. There were more and more every minute; soon the heights were swarming with horsemen. It was Menshikov, with 6,000 dragoons and 2,000 loyal Cossacks. The Prince sent a trumpeter and an aide-de-camp to the Swedish camp to parley. Lewenhaupt ordered Kreutz to ride back to discover what terms Menshikov offered. Menshikov offered normal surrender terms, and Kreutz reported them to Lewenhaupt. The weary commander decided to consult his colonels. The colonels asked what the King's last orders had been. Suppressing details of the proposed march to Tatary and the Ochakov rendezvous, Lewenhaupt said that Charles had asked only that the army 'defend itself as long as it could.' The colonels went back to the soldiers to ask whether they would fight.
The soldiers, also unwilling to take responsibility, replied, 'We will fight if the others do.'
Once these parleys and discussions were begun, the temptation to surrender became irresistable. Although the Swedes and Cossacks outnumbered the Russians on the scene by almost three to one, the Swedes were beaten men. Their King had fled, and they were isolated, facing a long march into unknown regions. To some, the prospect of an end to fighting after nine long years seemed welcome. Among the officers, there was the hope of speedy repatriation to Sweden in exchange for captured Russian officers. Defeatism was in the air, perhaps helped psychologically by the fact that the Russians were above them, looking down from the heights above the river. Finally, there was the effect of Poltava. The legend of invincibility had been shattered. The Swedish army had become a collection of lost, weary and frightened men.
At eleven a.m. on the morning of July 1, Lewenhaupt capitulated without a fight. The army he surrendered included 14,299 men, thirty-four cannon and 264 battle flags. Together with the 2,871 Swedes captured on the field at Poltava, Peter now held over 17,000 Swedish prisoners.
The Swedes became prisoners of war, but the 5,000 Cossacks who had remained with Lewenhaupt were not so fortunate. Menshikov offered them no terms. Many simply mounted their horses, rode off and escaped, but some were ridden down and captured. Their mutilated bodies were hung from the gallows to proclaim the fate of traitors.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the Dnieper, Mazeppa took charge of the escape. Before dawn on July I, he had sent Charles ahead in a coach escorted by 700 Swedes led by Cossack guides. Mazeppa, himself confined to a carriage by illness, divided the remainder of the Swedes and Cossacks into separate parties and sent them to the southwest by different trails, hoping to confuse the Russians if they tried to follow. By evening, all who had crossed the river had departed the western bank and moved into the tall grass of the steppe. That same night, Mazeppa caught up with Charles and urged the King and his escort fo move faster.
The steppe through which the escapees were hurrying was a no-man's-land of tall grass between the Dnieper and Bug rivers, deliberately left unpopulated to serve as a buffer between the empires of the Tsar and the Sultan. There were no trees, no houses, no cultivation—nothing but the grass growing higher than .a man on foot. There was little food and water came only from small, muddy streams running through the grass. The heat was so intense that the party was forced to halt for several hours at midday.
By July 7, the Swedes had reached the eastern bank of the Bug and could stare across the river at the place of sanctuary. Here, another obstacle arose. For two days, the Swedes were forced to wait on the wrong side of the river while they negotiated the price of boats and asylum with the Sultan's representative in this territory, the Pasha of Ochakov. This haggling continued until the potentate had been sufficiently bribed and boats were provided. The Swedes began to cross, but there were not enough boats, and at the end of the third day, when the Russians finally caught up, 300 Swedes and 300 Cossacks were still stranded on the wrong side of the river.
As soon as Lewenhaupt's surrender at Perevoluchna was signed, Menshikov dispatched Volkonsky with 6,000 horsemen to cross the Dnieper and pursue and capture the King and Mazeppa. The Cossack feints threw them off, but when they did find the trail, they rode swiftly, racing the fugitives to the Bug. They arrived to find their principal quarry escaped, but 600 men still remaining on the east bank. The Russians attacked, and the 300 Swedes quickly surrendered. The Cossacks knew that no quarter would be given them and they fought to the last man. Helplessly, from across the river, Charles watched the hopeless struggle.
This massacre was the final battle in the Swedish invasion of Russia. In the twenty-three months since Charles had left Saxony, a great army had been destroyed. Now, the King of Sweden stood with 600 survivors inside the Black Sea borders of the Ottoman Empire, on the outer rim of the European world.
THE FRUITS OF POLTAVA
For Peter, the triumph of Poltava was so immense that, long after his victory dinner, he remained in a mood of intense excitement and festivity. It scarcely seemed possible that the perils which so long had threatened Russia had suddenly vanished as if the Ukrainian earth had simply opened up and swallowed them. Two days after the battle, the Tsar entered Poltava with his generals. He found the town in a grim condition after its two-month siege, its walls shattered and its 4,000 defenders exhausted and hungry. With the gallant Colonel Kelin, commander of the garrison, at his side, Peter gave thanks and celebrated his Name Day at the Spasskaya Church.
When Menshikov returned in triumph from the Swedish mass surrender at Perevoluchna, Peter began a distribution of rewards and decorations to the victorious army. Menshikov was promoted to the rank of field marshal; Sheremetev, already a field marshal, was given larger estates. All the generals of the Russian army received promotions or new estates, and each was subsequently presented with a portrait of Peter set in diamonds. The Tsar himself, who up to that time had held the rank of colonel in the army and captain in the navy, also allowed himself to be promoted: He now became a lieutenant general in the army and a rear admiral in the navy.
In granting these rewards and promotions, the charade with Romodanovsky was continued. Peter thanked the new Mock-Tsar for his promotion:
Sir:
The gracious letter of Your Majesty and the decree to His Excellency the Field Marshal and Cavalier [Knight of St. Andrew] Sheremetev by which I have been given in your name the rank of Admiral in the fleet and of Lieutenant General on land, have been anounced to me. I have not deserved so much, but it has been given to me solely by
