Peter I called her “the Mother of the Poltava Battle”. Battle of Lesnaya: mother of the Poltava victory What battle did Peter call the mother of the Battle of Poltava

Mother of the Poltava battle

Peter, as always, celebrated the New Year in Moscow. “I pray to God that this year he will grant a successful outcome to our business,” the Tsar wrote to Menshikov in his New Year’s greeting. He believed that it was in this year, 1708, that the decisive events of the war would take place and the denouement would come. What did she promise him?

Peter assessed the power of the formidable enemy without any illusions, and he was also aware of the vicissitudes of the war. This is evidenced by two of his orders on the eve of his departure for the army. One thing is to continue strengthening the Moscow fortification and replenish the ranks of its defenders with recruits. The other was of a purely private nature - in the event of his death, he ordered that Ekaterina Vasilevskaya, that is, his future wife, be given 3,000 rubles.

Easy-going, having a habit of leaving the capital completely unexpectedly for those around him, setting off on a long journey not from his home, but while visiting someone, Peter did not betray himself this time either. He left Moscow on the night of January 6, without waiting for the end of the New Year's festivities. Without stopping either in Smolensk or Minsk, the tsar stayed for a week only in Dzentsioli, where the main forces of the Russian army, commanded by Menshikov, were located in winter quarters. Here, on January 19, news was received that the Swedish king with part of the army had moved towards Grodno; the other part of the army moved towards Zenziola. On the same day, Peter goes to Grodno “to position our troops to destroy the enemy’s intentions,” as he himself defined the purpose of his trip.

The total number of the Russian army by this time exceeded 100 thousand people, while the Swedish king had 63 thousand at his disposal. But the strengths of the parties were determined not only by arithmetic.

The Swedish army, unlike the Russian one, had gone through a long battle path and had well-trained rank and file and officers who believed in the constant successes of their commander. Charles XII had one more advantage: the initiative was in his hands, he was advancing, not Peter, and the latter had to coordinate his actions with the actions of the king, parrying his attacks with retaliatory measures.

Where and in what direction will Charles XII move his army from Grodno? To the north - towards Riga, Pskov and St. Petersburg, or to the west - to Smolensk, Mozhaisk and Moscow? Neither Peter nor his generals knew about this in January. However, Charles XII himself did not know about this when approaching Grodno from Saxony - the final decision to undertake a march to Moscow came to him a month and a half later. The lack of information about the strategic plan of the Swedish king posed a number of additional difficulties for Peter: he had to be prepared for the Swedes to move in either of two directions.

Peter also did not have accurate data on the daily movements of the enemy army, although he attached paramount importance to this type of information. With his characteristic ability to put thoughts into well-executed phrases, Peter said that knowledge of the enemy’s intentions “is the most important thing in war.” It was this “most important thing” that he now lacked.

Peter arrived in Grodno on January 22, 1708. On this day, he sent seven orders written by himself. Sheremetev: “This hour we received 4 Swean languages, which agree that yesterday the Swedes crossed the river twelve miles from here and tomorrow we are taking them to the local bridge.” On the same day, but a few hours later, Peter informs another correspondent: “the enemy is already just five miles away from here.” In anticipation of the approach of the Swedish army, the tsar ordered Sheremetev to move from Minsk to Borisov, and Repnin to Vilna and Polotsk. The troops were ordered to set everything on fire along the retreat route, so that the enemy would not give up hope of receiving food and fodder.

On January 23, the enemy did not approach Grodno. The next day, Peter became aware of new information about the enemy: he “turned back at night, but we don’t know where.” Either this was Karl’s deceptive maneuver, or he decided to return to winter quarters.

In accordance with the changed situation, on January 24, couriers rush to the generals with new instructions. Repnin: “Where this letter finds you, stop and do not burn or destroy anything until the decree.” To General Chambers: “When you receive this letter, then immediately stop in a convenient place and do not go anywhere until the decree.” Sheremetev: the troops “were immediately ordered to stop before the decree in those places where the decree would find them.”

On January 25, Peter receives information that the Swedes have resumed their movement towards Grodno and are four miles from it. Orders follow that cancel the previous ones. Repnin: “If you please, retreat to the indicated places and do as per the decree regarding provisions and fodder.” Sheremetev: “And according to this, do, do, do. I won’t write anymore, but you’ll pay with your head.”

On January 26, Peter left Grodno under completely unforeseen circumstances: Brigadier Mühlenfels was ordered to guard the bridge across the Neman and destroy it if the enemy approached. Mühlenfels did not comply with the order. Seeing the approaching Swedes, he retreated and allowed the enemy to freely enter the fortress abandoned by Peter and the Russian troops two hours earlier. It is possible that the tsar would not have left Grodno if he had known that Karl had brought not half of his army to the city, but only a detachment of 800 people.

Mühlenfels' behavior was an elementary violation of military discipline, and Peter brings him to justice. Foreign generals and officers who were in Russian service stood up for the brigadier. The tsar explained to the intercessors: “If the above-mentioned foreman had been guilty of a particular case, then any leniency could be granted, but this guilt is, especially in this cruel case, of state interest. For this reason, it cannot be otherwise, but according to the court.” Mühlenfels managed to bribe the guards and flee to the Swedes, but he did not escape retribution - near Poltava he was captured and shot as a traitor.

From Grodno Peter goes to Vilna and arrives there on January 28. Why in Vilna? Because he thought that the Swedes from Grodno would most likely go north - to Riga, Pskov and Novgorod, keeping St. Petersburg in their sights.

The busy week is over, sleepless nights and rapid travel have taken their toll on Peter’s well-being. Previously, we have repeatedly emphasized the tsar’s lack of demands for comfort and his ability to endure the hardships of camp life. He could not get off his horse for days. But tirelessness also has limits. In Vilna, for the first time he expresses a complaint about his unsettled life.

Meanwhile, Karl decided not to stay in Grodno - there was nothing to feed either people or horses there. However, he did not go to the north, as Peter expected, but to the east. He moved there slowly, and for reasons completely independent of him: the Russian army began to implement the Zholkvievsky defense plan - on the way of its retreat it destroyed provisions and fodder, took away livestock, and set up abatis. Peter caught the results quite quickly. On February 6, he wrote: “The enemy was collapsing from Grodno and our cavalry, marching in front of him, three tracts, ruined all the provisions and fodder and bothered him with the entrances, from which he was brought into such a state that, according to the tale of the prisoners, there was a great loss in horses and people and in three weeks, not more than ten miles from Grodno.

The Swedes occupied Smorgon only in February, stood there until March 17, then made a one-day march, entered Radoshkovichi to stay there for another three months.

Even during Karl’s stay in Smorgon, Peter correctly judged that the winter campaign for the king ended in vain and that in the next two or three months his active actions would be paralyzed by the spring flood. The Tsar decided to leave for St. Petersburg. In "Paradise" he calls all the members of the royal family: the widow of his brother Ivan and her three daughters, as well as his three sisters. He summoned there the “most drunken cathedral” in full force, as well as Menshikov, the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne Stefan Yavorsky, the rich merchants Filatiev and Pankratiev. The king needed them to discuss business issues.

Arriving in St. Petersburg at the end of March, Peter immediately fell ill. He believed that he had caught a fever in Poland, although, as he wrote, “he also looked around a lot in his sleigh” - looking for lice.

The tsar arranged a solemn meeting for his relatives: he drove nine boats to Shlisselburg, seated the widow of Tsar Ivan - Tsarina Praskovya - and his princess daughters in them; about four versts in front of St. Petersburg, the flotilla was met by the yacht of Admiral Apraksin, from which they saluted with cannon fire. The Tsar reasoned: “I am accustoming my family to the water, so that they will not be afraid of the sea in the future, and so that they will like the position of St. Petersburg, which is surrounded by waters. Anyone who wants to live with me must go to the sea often.” Peter ordered the queen and princesses to be dressed in short boots, skirts and hats, following the Dutch model, and forced them to lead the life of sea travelers: guests were often taken to the sea, they visited Kronstadt and Peterhof.

The indigenous population of the Don did not know serfdom. The Cossacks enjoyed autonomy, had self-government headed by an elected ataman, the Cossacks were given the right not to extradite fugitives - “there is no extradition from the Don.” The freedom of Cossack life has long attracted masses of peasants to the Don. Especially many fugitives arrived there at the end of the 17th and at the very beginning of the 18th century, that is, in the years when the growing burden of taxes and duties forced the working population of the central regions of Russia to leave their homes and seek salvation in flight.

After the capture of Azov, the land of the Don Army turned into the internal territory of the state. The government intensified its attack on the autonomy of the Don. Going towards the landowners, it began to demand the extradition of the fugitives. This caused discontent both among the rich Cossacks who lived in the lower reaches of the Don, and especially among the newcomer peasants who had only recently arrived and inhabited the upper reaches of the river. The extradition of fugitives deprived the rich Cossacks of cheap labor employed in fisheries and in the steppes where herds of horses grazed. For those who had recently arrived, fulfilling the decree meant a return to serfdom and fulfilling state duties.

The reason for the uprising was the royal decree of July 6, 1707 to Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky. The tsar sent the prince to the Don with instructions to enumerate all the fugitive peasants and “to send them with their escorts and their wives and children as before to the same cities and places from which they came.” The brutal actions of the punisher aroused the anger of the newcomers, and they, united under the leadership of Ataman Kondraty Afanasyevich Bulavin, attacked Dolgoruky’s detachment and completely massacred it. Rich Cossacks, led by ataman Lukyan Maksimov, equipped a detachment against the rebels and defeated them. The Tsar informed Menshikov in November 1707: “So, this matter was all over by the grace of God.” The king, however, was mistaken in his assessments.

Bulavin, having spent the winter near the Zaporozhye Sich, reappeared on the Don in the spring of 1708. The uprising acquired great proportions. Peter sends the brother of Dolgoruky, killed by the Bulavinites, to the Don, Prince Vasily Vladimirovich, with instructions “how to put out this fire as quickly as possible.” The instruction to Dolgoruky, drawn up on April 12 by the tsar himself, authorized the prince to commit cruelties comparable only to Peter’s bloody reprisal against the rebel archers: the towns whose population was involved in the uprising were ordered to “burn without a trace, and chop down people, and slaughter the prisoners on wheels and stakes, so that in this way it is more convenient to discourage the desire to steal from people, for this saryn (that is, bastard), except for cruelty, cannot be appeased.”

How to explain the monstrously cruel forms of struggle against the uprising sanctioned by the tsar?

It is unlikely that only the prevailing idea at that time was that all those who opposed the authorities were “thieves” and “villains.” Peter's style of orders and orders was distinguished by a clearly expressed intimidating character. The Tsar threatened with a fine, hard labor, exile, cruel torture, and finally, deprivation of life. Peter was cruel in his fight against the rebellious archers; he used the same methods to deal with the rebellious Cossacks on the Don.

The uprising on the Don resumed at a time when the enemy stood at the borders of Russia, ready to invade its borders. The tsar reasoned: the rebels must be “exterminated and ourselves free from such glances in this war.”

Peter used intimidation as a means of pacifying the uprising twice more: on May 7, he ordered Dolgoruky to spread the rumor among the population that he, Dolgoruky, was going to the area of ​​the uprising with a huge army. “Let us hear that I will be there too,” the king concludes his instructions. A week later, Peter writes to Apraksin in Voronezh: “Order the Bulavin thieves who are now in Voronezh to be executed and hanged along the roads closer to the towns where they lived and stole.”

Meanwhile, the uprising developed successfully. Not only the poorest strata of the Don Cossacks, but also the Cossacks of Zaporozhye, barge haulers, working people and peasants of the districts neighboring the Don land stood under his banner. All of them were united by social protest against feudal exploitation. In one of the appeals addressed to the working population, Bulavin wrote: “And to those bad people, princes and boyars and profit-makers and Germans, you should not remain silent for their evil deeds...” The class orientation of the movement is even more clearly expressed by Ataman Nikita Goly: “And we don't care about the blacks. We care about the boyars and those who do lies.”

On May 1, the rebels captured the capital of the Don Army, Cherkasy, and elected Bulavin as ataman instead of the executed Lukyan Maksimov.

The Bulavinians won major victories over the tsarist troops near Tsaritsyn and Valuyki. The ataman himself, at the head of one of the detachments, headed towards Azov in order to secure his rear by capturing the fortress.

The fate of the fortress caused the king the greatest concern. He tells Dolgoruky: “Keep an eye on Azov, so that they don’t do anything there.” “Watch vigilantly so that this thief does not do anything over Azov and Taganrog before your arrival.”

The hopes that “this saryn, except for cruelty, cannot be appeased” were not justified, and the tsar was forced to abandon the full implementation of the previously planned forms of struggle against the uprising. Intimidation met fearlessness, and the king had to make concessions. “Don’t do anything more to the Cossacks and their homes,” he orders Dolgoruky on May 28.

The tsar also lost faith in the ability of the punisher Dolgoruky to suppress the movement. If at the beginning of May he ordered deliberately false rumors to be spread about his arrival on the Don, because in reality he had no intention of coming there, then at the end of this month, after receiving news of the capture of Cherkassk, he decides to lead the fight against the rebels not from St. Petersburg, but on the spot events. On May 27 he writes to Menshikov: “I need to go there for three months.”

In early July, government troops inflicted two major defeats on the rebels: near Tor and Azov. Bulavin himself was treacherously killed by conspirators from among the elders. The death of the leader of the movement caused great joy in government circles. Peter celebrated this news with a prayer service and fireworks. They wanted to celebrate the victory of government troops in Moscow in the same way, but refrained from doing so, fearing popular uprisings in the capital.

The joy was premature. Individual pockets of the uprising resisted government forces for another two years. Like all uprisings of the feudal era, it was tsarist, spontaneous, poorly organized and therefore doomed to failure.

For unknown reasons, the Tsar's trip to the Don did not take place. Peter ordered regiments of the regular army, including two battalions of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, to be sent to help Dolgoruky.

Some circumstances detained the Tsar in St. Petersburg for almost a whole month. From there, Peter went to the army on June 25, having notified Sheremetev about this the day before: “I’ll be with you soon.” In the same letter, the tsar, aware that Karl, after a long stay in Radoshkovichi, had finally moved to the east, warned Sheremetev: “And I ask, if possible, not to give the main battle to me.”

On his way to the army, Peter stopped in Narva, dragging his relatives there to show them the conquered city. Here, on June 29, he celebrated his name day with a fiery party on the Narova River, and the next day he set off for Smolensk.

On July 5, Peter, who had left Velikie Luki, was met by a courier and handed Sheremetev’s report about the battle of Golovchin. At first, the report put the king in a joyful mood. He answers Sheremetev that he is in a hurry to get to “this feast of yours.” Relying on the contents of the report, Peter believed that the Russian troops in the battle of July 3, 1708, although they did not win, “the enemy could not fulfill his intentions.” The Tsar viewed the battle of Golovchin as a rehearsal for a general battle and was pleased with its outcome. “I greatly thank God that ours had a good encounter with the enemy before the general battle, and that of his entire army, one third of us withstood this and withdrew.”

Peter spent the night in Gorki, where the generals, led by Sheremetev, were almost in full force, with the sole purpose of finding out details about the Golovchinsky battle, in order to “do the worthy with the worthy.” The moments of joy were followed by annoying disappointment as soon as the details became known. It turned out that many regiments of General Repnin’s division “came into embarrassment”, retreated in disorder, leaving guns to the enemy, and those that resisted fought “in Cossack, not soldier’s combat.” Instead of issuing awards, Peter ordered the two generals, Repnin and Chambers, responsible for the defeat of the Russian troops at Golovchin, to be tried by military court. Both were military generals respected by Peter, and yet he turned deaf to Repnin’s pleas for mercy. Peter knew how to separate private relations from “state interest.”

Repnin was saved from death by his personal courage shown in the Battle of Golovchinsky. Peter approved the decision of the military court, which demoted the general to the rank and file and ordered him to compensate for material losses in money. The punishment for the elderly Chambers was milder: he paid with removal from office, but retained the rank of general. However, Repnin's service as a private did not last long - in the battle of Lesnaya he showed courage and was reinstated in his position and rank.

In the Battle of Golovchinsky, Charles XII was successful for the last time. It was a partial, tactical success, costing the Swedes huge losses and not causing any significant damage to the Russian army. The lesson was not in vain not only for Rennin, but for the entire army. Having thoroughly studied the experience of the Golovchinsky case, Peter, hot on his heels, draws up the famous “Rules of Battle”, in which, with his characteristic meticulousness, he develops the interaction in battle of various types of troops. Repnin's division suffered an "embarrassment" due to the lack of fortitude of soldiers and officers. Peter ends the “Rules of Battle” with discussions about the meaning of discipline: “Whoever leaves his place, or betrays each other and commits a dishonorable run, will be deprived of his life and honor.”

After the Battle of Golovchin, Charles XII again showed passivity unusual for his gambling nature. He spent almost a month in Mogilev. Due to the impossibility of organizing the defense of this city in a short time, the tsar decided to cede it to the Swedes without a fight, concentrating a 25,000-strong army to the northeast of it, in Gorki.

What forced the king to mark time for so long? Peter, aware through spies of what was happening in the Swedish camp, wrote to Apraksin on July 23: “We have nothing else to write, only that the enemy is still standing quietly in Mogilev,” and further pointed out the reason for the long-term inaction of the enemy - the defectors unanimously declared, that the Swedes “have a great hunger.” Karl, sitting in Mogilev, was waiting for Levengaupt's convoy, but without waiting for it, he set off, not to the north to meet with Levenhaupt, but in the opposite direction from him - first to Propoisk, and then to the northeast in the direction of Smolensk.

What were the intentions of the Swedish king, what did this maneuver mean? The Russian command did not know about this. The Swedish headquarters also did not have information on this matter - the king did not always share his plans even with those close to him.

Peter coordinated the movement of his troops with the advance of the enemy troops, that is, he acted in accordance with the decision of the military council held on July 6: “look at the enemy’s movements, and where he turns - to Smolensk or to Ukraine - work to forestall him.” On August 14, the Tsar writes to Apraksin: “The enemy has moved away from Mogilev about five miles, against which we also advanced, and our vanguard is three miles away from the enemy, and God knows where their future intentions are, but they are guessing more about Ukraine.”

Peter made sure that the enemy troops, wherever Charles led them, moved across the devastated land. On August 9, he issues another decree to move ahead of the enemy, “and everywhere provisions and fodder, as well as grain standing in the field and in threshing floors or granaries in the villages... burn, not sparing buildings,” destroy bridges, mills, and resettle residents with livestock to forests. The execution of this decree, repeated many times by the tsar, put the Swedish army in an extremely difficult situation. They reported to Peter: “ordinary soldiers approached the king, asking him to provide them with bread, because they could no longer live from hunger”; “People are so swollen from hunger and illness that they can barely march.” The soldiers scoured peasant households, and if they managed to find rye, they immediately boiled it, because there was nothing to grind it with. The number of deserters from the Swedish army grew. In this regard, Peter made a strict reprimand to the military general Bour: “Now a Swedish deserter has been sent from you, from whom all the guns and clothes and so on were taken, and you took the horse yourself, which is a much worse thing to do; and no matter how you look at this, others should move on. Why did they tell me to send this and don’t dare do this in the future. And whoever dares after this will be dishonorably punished.”

Dragoon regiments and irregular cavalry circled around the moving Swedish army day and night, carrying out Peter’s order: “to tire the main army with burning and ruin.”

The ensuing calm, when skirmishes took place, but not battles, was broken by artillery cannonade that rang out near the village of Dobry on August 30. Russian troops won a brilliant victory here in a two-hour battle. Peter's jubilation on this occasion flows over the edge in every line of letters sent to friends. The tsar really had reason to admire the military actions of his troops: the victory was won over five regiments, staffed, as the tsar wrote, with “natural Swedes.” The battle took place in the presence of Charles XII. Under the pen of Peter, this fact looked like this: “this dance was pretty well danced in the eyes of the hot Carlos.” Peter was also pleased with the high combat training of the Russian troops: “Just as I began to serve, I have never heard or seen such fire and decent action from our soldiers... And the king of Sweden himself has never seen anything like this from anyone in this war.”

The enemy left about 3,000 killed on the battlefield, while the losses of Russian troops amounted to 375 people. The victory could have been complete, the swamps saved the Swedes from a crushing defeat: the cavalry could have completed what the infantry and artillery began, and then the Swedes, as Peter said, “not a single one could have escaped.” The defeat infuriated Charles. He tore out his hair and beat himself on the cheeks with his fists. Zholkviev’s strategy of “tormenting” the enemy was bearing fruit.

Peter’s joyful feelings in connection with the victory near the village of Dobry had not yet subsided when he had the opportunity to inform his friends about his new success. Near the village of Raevki on September 10, a cavalry regiment under the command of Karl attacked Russian dragoons and suffered severe losses. A horse was killed under the king. The Russian troops almost fell into the hands of a rare prize - a captive king. Peter, who took part in this battle, was at such a distance from Charles that he could see the features of his face.

After the battle at Raevka, Karl makes an extremely risky decision. He did not wait for a convoy with food and reinforcements moving from Riga, and he also abandoned his intention to go to Moscow. It was not in the king's rules to move backwards - to return, say, to Mogilev, which he left behind, to wait there for Levengaupt. The king turned sharply south. Levenhaupt himself had to catch up with the main forces of the Swedish troops. With this rash decision, Karl left Levenhaupt's convoy to the mercy of fate and provided the opportunity to destroy his army piece by piece.

Peter first learned of Levenhaupt's intention to deliver huge supplies of food, gunpowder, and artillery to the Swedish troops in distress on July 15th. Since then, the name of Levengaupt often appeared on the pages of the royal letters and decrees.

The Tsar received reliable information about the intentions of the Swedes on September 10. On the same day, he was informed of two important news: firstly, the enemy with the main army “has begun its march towards Ukraine,” and secondly, “General Levenhaupt from Riga is coming with a noble corps in honor of his king.” At the military council, it was decided to divide the army into two unequal parts: its main forces under the command of Sheremetev were sent after Karl to Ukraine, and a smaller part, consisting of two guards and some other regiments under the command of Peter, was to go to meet Levenhaupt.

This detachment, called the corvolant (flying detachment), moved without a convoy, with packs.

Levengaupt almost managed to disorient the king. A spy sent to the Russian troops, who acted as a guide, reported that Levenhaupt had not yet crossed the Dnieper. Corvolantus began crossing to the right bank, but then it turned out that the convoy had crossed the river three days before. If the deception had been successful, Levenhaupt could have escaped.

Corvolant overtook the enemy near the village of Lesnoy on September 28. His appearance turned out to be completely unexpected for the Swedes: they approached them “through a dense forest, where there were swamps and cruel crossings that it was so difficult to come to him.” “The History of the Northern War,” in the compilation of which the tsar took an active part in his declining years, reports an interesting detail of the course of the battle: after several hours of fighting, “the soldiers on both sides were so tired that it was no longer possible to fight, and then the enemy was at his convoy, and ours sat down at the battle site and rested for a considerable time, the distance of the lines from one another being half a cannon shot of a regimental cannon, or closer.”

After resting for two hours, the opponents resumed the battle, which continued until dark.

The outcome of the battle was decided by the cavalry of General Bour who arrived in time. The enemy wavered, the Swedes were saved from destruction by night and an early blizzard for those places. The next morning, the Russians did not find the Swedes' camp - Levenhaupt fled under the cover of darkness, leaving a convoy of two thousand carts and eight thousand unburied corpses on the battlefield. The pursuit of the enemy began.

So, in the words of Peter, the organizer of this victory and a direct participant in the battle, near Lesnaya, “Levenhaupt disappeared with his entire corps.” The Tsar made sure that the news became known to the population of the capital: two messengers rode through the streets of Moscow and, preceded by trumpeters, announced victory. All foreign ambassadors in Moscow and Russian ambassadors at foreign courts were notified about Victoria. The description of the battle was printed in Russian and Dutch, sheets with the report were sold in Russia and abroad.

Charles XII received news of the outcome of the battle at Lesnaya on October 1 - a soldier who arrived at the king’s headquarters spoke about the battle, which lasted from morning until late evening, and that Levenhaupt had left the battlefield. The king, who never allowed the thought that his army, especially led by such an experienced commander as Levenhaupt, could be defeated, did not believe what was told. But still, the news deprived the king of sleep; at night he went to one or another close person and sat in sad silence. And soon, on October 12, Levenhaupt arrived at the king’s headquarters, but not at the head of the 16,000-strong corps with which he left Riga, but with 6,700 ragged, hungry and demoralized soldiers, more reminiscent of vagabonds than warriors. Levenhaupt spoke about the disaster, about the loss of the convoy and almost all the artillery.

If the king had been one of the sober and prudent people, then, finding himself without the long-awaited convoy, which was extremely necessary for his army, and experiencing an acute shortage of gunpowder and artillery, he would have retreated. But Karl sent a victorious report to Stockholm and continued on his way to Ukraine.

Years later, when many battles were relegated to the background amid major victories, Peter continued to consider the victory at Lesnaya the most important milestone in the history of the Northern War. He attached great strategic importance to it. “This victory can be called the first for us, since such a thing has never happened over a regular army, besides, being in much smaller numbers before the enemy, and truly it is the fault of all the successful successes of Russia, since here the first soldier’s test was, and of course it encouraged the people, and the mother of the Poltava battle, both by the encouragement of the people and by time, for after nine months this baby brought happiness, always done for the sake of curiosity who wants to calculate from September 28, 1708 to June 27, 1709.”

The victory at Lesnaya ensured the completion of the strategic encirclement of the Swedish army. Now the enemy was cut off from their rear and deprived of the opportunity to be replenished with people, weapons and equipment.

On October 2, Peter, at the head of the guards regiments, went to Smolensk, where he was met with cannon and rifle fire. In the battle of Lesnaya, Peter flashed his talents as an outstanding commander three times. An innovation was the organization of a corvolant - a light mobile detachment of infantrymen mounted on horses. Another innovation was the choice of location for the battle.

Military tactics of those times did not allow combat in closed and rough terrain. Leaving troops consisting of hired soldiers without the supervision of officers, even for a minute, was considered risky. Peter skillfully used the advantages of the Russian army, staffed by soldiers who defended their native land and therefore differed from mercenaries in high morale.

Finally, Peter improved the combat formation of his troops, placing them not in one, as was done in Western European armies, but in two lines, which ensured the depth of defense and the ability to maneuver during the offensive.

In October 1708, another operation of Russian troops was successfully completed. In the summer, Lübecker's thirteen-thousand-strong Swedish corps tried to attack St. Petersburg from Finland. Admiral Apraksin, who was guarding the city, not only repelled several attempts by the Swedes to cross to the left bank of the Neva, but also forced them to hastily evacuate to ships. Before loading onto the ships, Lübecker ordered the destruction of six thousand horses. The Swedes suffered significant losses in people - the corps was reduced by one third. This was the last attempt by the Swedes to attack St. Petersburg.

Peter highly appreciated Apraksin’s military actions and ordered a medal to be knocked out in his honor. On the front side was a chest portrait of Apraksin with the inscription: “The Tsar’s Majesty Admiral F. M. Apraksin.” The inscription on the other side of the coin is more meaningful. The form of expression of the thought indicates that the author of the text was Peter. In the center of the medal are ships lined up and words around the circumference: “Keeping this does not sleep; Better death than infidelity. 1708".

From Smolensk, Peter went to Sheremetev’s army, where he received news of the betrayal of the Ukrainian Hetman Mazepa.

In the story of Mazepa, the king himself bears a significant share of the blame. The hetman's betrayal could have been stopped long before it was committed, had Peter and his entourage not shown too much trust in him.

Back in September 1707, the Judge General of Ukraine Kochubey sent a monk to Moscow with an oral denunciation. He told exactly in the Preobrazhensky order what he ordered Kochubey to do. “Hetman Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa wants to betray the great sovereign, to defect to the Poles and the Moscow State, to commit a great dirty trick, to captivate Ukraine and the sovereign’s cities.”

In Moscow they managed to get used to denunciations against Mazepa and did not pay any attention to the next report. The head of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, “Prince Caesar” Romodanovsky, was not alarmed by the monk’s message because the story about the hetman’s treasonous intentions was preceded by a story about how Mazepa asked for the hand of Kochubey’s daughter, how, having received a refusal, he kidnapped her and dishonored her. The Preobrazhensky Prikaz decided that the motive behind the report was a family drama, a feeling of revenge from a dejected father who decided to get even with the offender.

Izvet remained without consequences, they managed to forget about it, but in February 1708, the Moscow commandant, Prince Matvey Gagarin, received a similar denunciation, this time coming from a retired Poltava colonel Ivan Iskra. “This information,” Gagarin informed the Tsar, “was revealed to a small number of gentlemen ministers” and immediately outlined the attitude of these ministers to the denunciation: “they believe that they are harassing him out of hatred, and they showed me that there were such slander about him before.” . In fact, during the 20 years of Mazepa’s hetmanship, there was not a single year when Moscow did not receive denunciations against him, but each time he deftly deflected them, earning a reputation as a devoted and punctual executor of the tsar’s commands. And this time, the accusers Kochubey and Iskra quickly became the accused.

Golovkin, whom the tsar instructed to conduct the investigation, invites Iskra and Kochubey to the area of ​​Smolensk, where the tsar was, supposedly for confidential conversations. The real purpose of calling informers, however, was not to find out the truth with their help, but to capture them far from Ukraine and deal with them. The tsar hastened to notify Mazepa, “like a faithful man,” about this insidious plan: Kochubey and Iskra, who had been summoned, would be “quietly” taken into custody. “Until they get caught, please keep this matter quiet, as if you don’t know.”

There was no need to carry out the cunning plan - Kochubey and Iskra themselves surrendered into the hands of the government. During the investigation, the elderly Kochubey and the sick Iskra, unable to withstand the torture, renounced their accusations against Mazepa of treason. Golovkin believed that everything had fallen into place: the hetman had once again been slandered, and the slanderers should be severely punished.

In this story, Peter was not interested in the content of the denunciations against the hetman - he did not doubt his loyalty at all, but in the goals pursued by the informers: was this denunciation inspired by the headquarters of Charles XII, were the Swedes trying to deprive the hetman of the tsar’s trust at the very moment when the alarming situation required the combined efforts of Russians and Ukrainians. The additional investigation did not find any data on this matter. When asked what kind of execution to subject the informers to, Peter replied: “No other, whatever it is, only death, even beheading or hanging - it doesn’t matter.”

Following this, Kochubey and Iskra were sent to Mazepa, and the triumphant hetman witnessed how, on July 14, 1708, two heads rolled off the platform under blows of an ax. Only after this Mazepa sighed with relief - his exposure did not take place. From the place of execution, he sent the king a letter of gratitude for the trust placed in him and the “fair” trial of the slanderers. Peter responded with a message that further assured Mazepa that his credit had not been shaken at all: “As before, so now, for your unshakable loyalty, we will never leave our faithful subject to us, the great sovereign, in our mercy.”

Mazepa's treasonous intentions had a long history. He embarked on the path of betrayal back in the late 1680s.

In 1690, in a letter to the Polish King John III, he expressed his intention to return Ukraine to the rule of lordly Poland. Then it was not possible to implement this, but secret connections continued. They intensified after the Swedish king placed Stanislaw Leszczynski on the Polish throne. In 1707, that is, during Charles XII’s preparation for the invasion of Russia, Mazepa entered into an agreement with Stanislav Leshchinsky and the Swedish king. He promised Leshchinsky Left Bank Ukraine. Mazepa did not skimp on promises to the Swedish king: if the Swedes came to Ukraine, he would supply them with food and fodder, and also provide them with winter apartments in Starodub, Novgorod-Seversky, Baturin and other cities. Mazepa, of course, kept the contents of the agreements in the strictest confidence. He knew how to deftly pretend, hide his true intentions for years, and weave intrigues.

Peter had an amazing ability to understand people, discern talents, skillfully direct them and use them in the interests of the business. The “chicks of Petrov’s nest”, even after the death of the Tsar, will make their presence felt in a wide variety of fields for a long time. One can only be amazed, but it is impossible to explain how the tsar did not have enough insight to discern the hetman’s true face behind the sugary smiles, obsequious speech, equipped with compliments, and the expression of external humility.

Mazepa played a difficult game, and he was quite successful in it until he switched to the side of the Swedes. He sends loyal reports to the Tsar and at the same time informs Charles XII that he is looking forward to his arrival “as the only one in this intentional matter of happiness; if King Stanislav does not hesitate with his help, then Victoria is already in our hands.”

The closer Charles XII came to Ukraine, the more difficult it was for Mazepa to maneuver. He, for example, did not want to withdraw the Ukrainian regiments outside of Ukraine, and he, waiting for the arrival of the Swedes, did not comply with Peter’s orders to move these regiments up the Dnieper under the pretext that he, Mazepa, was so sick that he could not ride a horse. Realizing that illness alone could not justify his refusal, Mazepa came up with another argument, which in the eyes of the tsar turned out to be quite convincing: it was all the more necessary for him, Mazepa, to stay in Ukraine because he did not have a person who would “with his heart and soul be faithful and caring to your I served the Tsar’s Majesty on this occasion.” In the following days, in each of his reports to the Tsar, Menshikov and Golovkin, Mazepa persistently repeated that Ukraine was restless, that the Swedes could receive support from peasants and townspeople, that a “rebellious fire” could break out and that it would be impossible to do without his presence here. Peter, this time too, believed Mazepa and ordered him to leave him in Ukraine, “since his greater benefit is in holding his own than in war.”

Meanwhile, Menshikov requested Mazena to join his headquarters to discuss some urgent matters. The hetman sensed evil and feverishly thought about what excuse he could use to refuse to meet with the prince. What if the challenge was a trap for Menshikov, perhaps already aware of his, the hetman’s, treacherous intentions?

Mazepa decided not to go and sent his nephew Voinarovsky to Menshikov. He went to the prince with a message that the hetman was seriously ill and that he was being prepared for unction. On October 20, Menshikov sends a letter to the Tsar: “And this news about him greatly saddened me, firstly, because I did not get to see him, who really needed him here; another, such is the goodness of a person, if God does not alleviate his illness.”

The “good man” at these hours was tossing around not in the heat, but in doubt: to go or to go to Karl? In principle, the issue was resolved a long time ago, but is this moment the most favorable for a responsible step? The old intriguer understood that if he cheated, he was putting everything at stake: the countless acquisitions accumulated over two decades of his hetmanship, his mace and even his life. He called his accomplices and asked: “Should I send to the king or not?” They replied: “Why not send it - it’s high time, there’s no need to put it off!”

While these conversations were taking place and a letter was hastily drawn up for the Swedish king, Voinarovsky galloped up to Mazepa with the message that Menshikov would arrive here the next day to say goodbye to the dying hetman. Mazepa, who had only recently complained that he could not stand riding, mounted his horse and “rushed like a whirlwind,” first to Baturin, then, the next day, having crossed the Seimas, he arrived in Korop, where he spent the night. On October 24, Mazepa met with the Swedish regiment, sent messengers to the king and, now slowly, for he was under the protection of the Swedes, moved towards his camp.

The commotion in Mazepa's camp turned out to be premature. Menshikov actually went to the hetman, but not at all in order to take him into custody, but to say goodbye to him. On the way to Borzna, where the unction was planned, Menshikov was informed that the hetman was “tyrannized in Baturin”

MOTHER OF POLTAVA VICTORIA The year 1708 was the most difficult for Russia in the entire history of the grueling war. While the army of Charles XII was gaining strength in Saxony, robbing its population and withdrawing colossal indemnities, the Russian troops considered themselves more or less safe.

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In the section on the question “Mother of the Battle of Poltava” who or what asked by the author demand the best answer is In September 1708, A. Levengaupt reached Propoisk (now the city of Slavgorod, Mogilev region). Peter I decided not to allow him to reunite with the main army and recapture supplies and weapons. The battle took place on September 28 near the village of Lesnaya and lasted throughout the day - from 8 o’clock in the morning until 19-20 o’clock in the evening. The Russians struck so powerfully that the enemy did not have time to form up for a retaliatory attack and was forced to retreat, abandoning the convoy, losing people and weapons. During the battle, the 12,000-strong flying detachment of Peter I defeated the 16,000-strong Swedish corps of A. Levengaupt. A huge convoy was captured with a three-month supply of food, artillery and ammunition for the army of Charles XII.
“No more than 6 thousand joined the main forces of Charles XII. The Swedes lost only 9 thousand soldiers, all the artillery, and convoys. Russian losses amounted to 1 thousand people. The deprivation of the Swedish army of provisions and reinforcements deprived it of the opportunity to implement plans for a campaign against Moscow. This operation was called by Peter I “the mother of the Poltava battle.” (A. A. Danilov. History of Russia 9th - 19th centuries. Reference materials.) Interestingly, the battle of Lesnaya and the Battle of Poltava are separated by exactly 9 months (accurate to one day).

J.M. Nattier. Battle of Lesnaya. 1717

1708 On October 9 (September 28, old style), one of the most brilliant battles of the Northern War took place - the Battle of Lesnaya. The Russian detachment defeated Levenhaupt's Swedish corps, inflicting enormous damage on the enemy. Peter I called this victory “the mother of the Poltava battle.”

Scheme of the Battle of Lesnaya

“September 4 (25), when Charles XII set out from Starishi for Ukraine, Levenhaupt’s corps, which had reached Cherei by this time, moved to join the main forces of the Swedish army. It included 16 thousand people, 17 guns, 7 thousand carts with ammunition and food. On September 19-22 (September 30 - October 3) Levengaupt crossed the Dnieper at Shilov and went in the direction of Propoisk. There he expected to cross the river. Sozh and unite in the Chernigov region with the army of Charles XII.

When information was received about the movement of Levenhaupt's corps, Peter I decided to defeat it. For this purpose he formed a flying corps (corvolant). It consisted of 6.8 thousand dragoons and 4.9 thousand infantry mounted on horses, 30 regimental guns. The command of the corvolant was carried out personally by Peter I. Following on the heels of Levenhaupt, the Russians overtook him near the village of Dolgiy Mokh. The Swedes managed to cross to the right bank of the river flowing there. Rest and destroy bridges. They installed batteries on the coastal heights, gaining the opportunity to bombard all approaches to the river with strong artillery fire from a long distance. This did not give the Russians the opportunity to cross the river, and they were forced to limit themselves to return fire on the Swedish batteries. By the evening of September 27 (October 8), Levengaupt managed to transport most of the convoy (4 thousand carts) and the advance detachment (3 thousand people) to Propoisk. After this, the Swedes stopped artillery fire and retreated to the village of Lesnaya, where they set up camp. Levengaupt had 13 thousand people, 17 guns and 3 thousand carts at his disposal.

On the morning of September 28 (October 9), the troops of Peter I crossed the bridges built overnight across the river. Rest and moved in the direction of Lesnaya. A detachment of P. H. Bour, numbering 4 thousand people (8 dragoon regiments), advanced to this area. The Swedish troops were located in a linear battle formation in a clearing north and northwest of Lesnaya. In the rear of this position, the enemy built a temporary field fortification from coupled wagons - a Wagenburg. Ahead of the position near the copse was the vanguard (6 battalions).

Russian troops moved in two columns. In the first column, which was headed by Peter I, there were two guards regiments (Semenovsky and Preobrazhensky), three dragoons and a battalion of the Astrakhan infantry regiment; the left column under the command of A.D. Menshikov consisted of seven dragoon regiments and one infantry (Ingermanland) regiment. At about 12 o'clock both columns approached the copse and entered into battle with the enemy vanguard. The Swedes were driven back by a swift blow from the Russian troops.

After this, the Russian troops formed in two lines. In the center of the first line there were 8 infantry battalions, and on the flanks there were 2 dragoon regiments. In the second line there were 6 dragoon regiments, between which 2 infantry battalions were placed. Grenadier companies were placed between the lines to strengthen the flanks. In this battle formation, Russian troops began an attack on the main forces of Levengaupt’s detachment, which were defending their main position near the village of Lesnoy. The enemy could not withstand the bayonet strike of the Russian troops and took refuge in a fortified camp.

Meanwhile, Bour's detachment arrived on the battlefield. Russian troops directed the main attack on the enemy’s left flank, trying to cut off the escape route to Propoisk. After fierce attacks, the Russians captured the bridge over the river. Lesnyanka, depriving the enemy of the opportunity to retreat in a south-eastern direction. However, by the end of the day, with the help of troops arriving from Propoisk, the Swedes managed to recapture this bridge. At night, the remnants of Levengaupt’s detachment, abandoning their convoy and artillery, hastily retreated. Two weeks later they linked up in Ukraine with the main forces of the Swedish army.

The Battle of Lesnaya ended in a brilliant victory for the Russian troops. The enemy lost 8.5 thousand people killed and wounded, 45 officers and 700 privates were captured. The Russians captured all the artillery and almost the entire supply. Their own losses were 1,111 killed and 2,856 wounded.

In the battle near the village of Lesnoy, Russian troops won their first major victory over the numerically superior regular enemy army. This victory testified to the increased fighting strength of the Russian army and contributed to the strengthening of its morale. The battle is a striking example of the skillful actions of a large flying corps (corvolant). Russian troops showed the ability to conduct combat operations in a linear battle formation on rugged wooded terrain, which was inaccessible to the troops of Western Europe. Subsequently, Peter I recommended that his generals learn from the experience of the battle at Lesnaya and choose closed terrain for battle.

The victory at Lesnaya had a great influence on the course of the war. It prepared the conditions for a new, even more majestic victory of the Russian regular army near Poltava.”

Quoted from: Rostunov I.I. et al. History of the Northern War of 1700-1721. M.: Nauka, 1987. pp. 73-75

History in faces

Peter I:
This victory can be called our first, since such a thing has never happened over a regular army, besides, being in much smaller numbers before the enemy, and truly it is the fault of all the successful successes of Russia, since here the first soldier’s test was, and of course it encouraged the people, and the mother of the Poltava battle both with the encouragement of the people and with time, for at nine months she brought happiness to the baby.

Quoted from: Journal or Daily Note, blessed and eternally worthy of the memory of the sovereign Emperor Peter the Great from 1698 even until the conclusion of the Neustatt Peace. St. Petersburg, 1770.

The world at this time

In 1708, Austria defeated the Kuruc troops in the Battle of Trencin. Over the next few years, Hungary suffered several more major defeats. The Rakoczi government turns to Peter I for help, but, despite the terms of the Warsaw Pact concluded in 1707, Russia was unable to come to the aid of the Kurucians due to the outbreak of war with Turkey.



Hungary at the end of the XVII-XVIII centuries.

“After the victory over the Austrians in May 1704, the Kurucians threatened even Vienna itself, but did not receive the expected help from the French and were forced to retreat. During this period, the national liberation struggle of the Hungarians proceeded in close connection with events of international significance - the War of the Spanish Succession and the Northern War. France, interested in weakening the Austrian Habsburgs, openly supported the rebels. When the successes of Swedish weapons in Poland and the expulsion of King Augustus II worsened the position of Russia, Peter I entered into negotiations with France and offered Rakoczi the Polish throne. In September 1707, an agreement was signed in Warsaw, according to which Peter I undertook to provide Rakoczi with assistance for the liberation of Hungary and Transylvania if Rakoczi ascended the Polish throne and France signed an alliance treaty with Russia. In the summer of 1708, the Russian embassy came to Rakoczi. However, the occupation of Poland by the Swedes and the failure of negotiations with France prevented the implementation of the Warsaw Pact.

The successes of the Kuruts led to the fact that a significant part of the nobility took part in the liberation movement. Soon the nobles took a leading position in it. But they sought to use the movement to restore their social and political rights infringed by the Habsburgs. Another part of the nobility, mainly magnates, openly opposed the uprising, hoping with their support for the Habsburgs to bargain for themselves new land holdings and political privileges. One of the largest Hungarian feudal lords, Pal Esterhazy, concluded an agreement with the Habsburgs, according to which he was to receive a quarter of all lands that would be confiscated after the defeat of the national liberation movement. The highest Catholic clergy also provided open support for the Habsburgs, threatening with excommunication all church ministers who took part in the war of liberation.



A. Manyoki. Ferenc II Rakoczi. 1724

For about seven years, most of the territory of the former Kingdom of Hungary was under the rule of the Kurucs. In the liberated lands, Rakoczi and his comrades began vigorous activity. The main attention was paid to organizing a combat-ready army. Regular salaries were established for the soldiers, a special military school was founded for the training of officers, and military hospitals were created in military units. The families of ordinary soldiers were partially exempt from taxes, and the families of those killed in the war of liberation were given state benefits. In 1704, weapons factories were built to produce cannons and artillery shells. Many textile enterprises supplied the army with uniforms. The center of the military industry was the city of Debrecen. Some of the uniforms, as well as weapons, were imported from abroad. On the initiative of Rakoczi, many roads were built in the country, regular postal service was established; Soon after the start of the Kuruc War, Rakoczi began publishing a weekly newspaper.

Despite numerous progressive measures carried out on the initiative of Rakoczi, the noble leadership of the uprising was unable to resolve the main issue that worried the bulk of the peasant rebels - the abolition of serfdom. Moreover, peasants who refused to bear feudal duties were severely punished. The influence of the peasant leaders of the uprising weakened every year; many of them, including Tomas Ese, were removed from the leadership of the army and replaced by aristocratic generals who treated the Kurucians with undisguised hostility. All this led to a narrowing of the social base of the uprising and adversely affected the combat effectiveness of Rakoczi's army. Even the deprivation of the Habsburg throne at the Onod Diet in 1707 and the announcement of Rakoczi as the head of the independent Hungarian state could not inspire the peasants and motivate them to continue the war, all the burdens of which ultimately fell on their shoulders.

In an effort to prevent the disintegration of his army, Rakoczi in 1709 issued a decree according to which all peasants who took part in the war of liberation were declared free and received a number of benefits. The decree, however, was already a belated step; it failed to attract the disappointed peasantry into the army and give new strength to the liberation movement. Rakoczy’s hopes for foreign policy support, which he regarded as the main condition for the successful completion of the war with the Habsburgs, also did not materialize. Louis XIV, to whom Rakoczi offered a protectorate over Hungary at the beginning of the war, refused to enter into an agreement with the Hungarian government and did not provide the expected assistance. Equally unsuccessful was Rakoczi's appeal to Poland, Sweden, Turkey and Prussia.

The narrowing of the social base of the uprising led to a series of major defeats for Rakoczy's army at Trencin (1708), Rochmany, Szolnok and Eger (1710). After this, Rakoczi's army retreated to Munkács. At this most critical moment, Rakoczy turned to Russia for help. After the Battle of Poltava, relations between Russia and Hungary took on an exclusively friendly character. Rakoczi refused to let the remnants of the Swedish army pass through the territory under his control. Rakoczi's representative at the French court initiated the resumption of negotiations on an alliance between France and Russia. However, the Russian-Turkish war that began in 1711 prevented Peter I from providing armed assistance to Rakoczi. Meanwhile, in Hungary, the reactionary nobility, who occupied leading positions in the government and army, took advantage of Rakoczi's military failures and foreign policy difficulties to conspire with the Habsburgs. On May 1, 1711, Count Sándor Károly, one of Rákóczi’s generals, signed the Satmar Peace Treaty with the Austrians, recognizing Habsburg power over Hungary. Rakoczi, who had previously left Hungary, lived for some time in Poland and France, and then moved to Turkey, trying in vain with the support of the Sultan to regain Transylvania.

After the Habsburgs, with the help of the Hungarian feudal lords, managed to suppress the national liberation movement, the Kurucs were disarmed, the estates of the nobles who participated in the uprising were confiscated and distributed to Austrian officers and Catholic prelates, or sold to Viennese burghers. The Hungarian tycoons also received their share. The Hungarian nobility retained its class rights."


Quoted in: World History. Encyclopedia. Volume 5. M.: Publishing house of socio-economic literature, 1958

How Peter I managed to deprive the Swedish army of its main convoy going to Moscow and dispel the myth of its invincibility

The Northern War, which Russia, which was turning from a kingdom into an empire, waged for access to the Baltic and Western Europe, is famous primarily for the Battle of Poltava. But until the end of his life, Peter I himself believed that the success of the Battle of Poltava was unthinkable without another, much less well-known battle won today.

We are talking about the Battle of Lesnaya, which unfolded on September 28 (October 9, new style) 1708 on the banks of Lesnyanka southeast of Mogilev. In that battle, the flying corps - the corvolant - under the command and with the personal participation of Peter managed to defeat the Swedish corps of General Adam Ludwig Levenhaupt. Moreover, the initial balance of forces was not in favor of the Russians: the corvolant numbered only 11,600 people and 30 guns, while the enemy had 16,000 soldiers and officers with 17 guns.

Peter rightly called the victory at Lesnaya “the first soldier’s test” and “the mother of the Poltava victory.” Despite the fact that several years earlier Russian troops had taken control of the entire course of the Neva, besieged and captured the fortresses of Noteburg, Dorpat and Narva, the failure of the Polish campaign and the offensive against Russia launched by the Swedish king Charles XII required new victories. They were needed like air...

“As soon as the new sovereign is established...”

The Russian campaign of Charles XII, whom contemporaries and later researchers unanimously call an excellent tactician, but a bad politician, was launched with the sole purpose of completely destroying the nascent Russian Empire. The king did not hide his intentions: to achieve the overthrow of Peter and the dismemberment of the country into appanage principalities. He wanted to take away from the Russians all the conquests of the first stage of the Northern War - Ingermanland and the former Swedish fortresses, push them away from the Neva and prevent them from building St. Petersburg. At the same time, Karl believed that it was necessary to sign a peace treaty in Moscow, “dictating its terms with the tip of his sword.”

Karl fully trusted his new advisers from among foreigners who had previously served the Moscow throne, but had defected to Sweden. They guaranteed the inevitability of mass riots in Russia, exhausted by Peter's reforms. The riot was seen as an additional guarantee of the success of the campaign, and in order to excite the population, leaflets were even printed in Russian in Amsterdam. They openly stated that the Swedish army would liberate the people from the yoke of the Moscow government, from foreign oppression and torment for the sake of the free election of a legitimate and righteous sovereign instead of Peter. “As soon as the new sovereign is established, the Swedish king will resign, but will help everyone who is on his side,” the Swedes admonished what they thought were potential allies.

However, even without them the Swedes had good reasons not to doubt their success. The Russian army was lucky in the first half of the 1700s, and in the second half Stockholm managed to turn the situation in its favor. Having miraculously avoided defeat at Grodno in 1706, Russia was forced to curtail most military operations and begin to literally rebuild and rearm the army on the fly. And if it weren’t for the king’s confidence that the Russians would not be able to cope with this task in such a short time, Moscow would not have received the respite it so needed in 1707–1708, when the Swedes leisurely crossed Eastern Poland and Western Belarus, coming ever closer to our borders.

Scorched earth tactics

But there was a respite, and Peter took advantage of it. It was impossible not to notice the advance of the Swedish army to the east, and it remained to decide where to fight: on Polish soil or within its own borders. Peter and his advisers decided to move east and fight on their own land. Moreover, they managed to prepare it by order of the tsar. Along the Russian border, the “Peter I Line” appeared, which was a strip of fences that blocked almost all the main and secondary roads leading to the east, and the ramparts that crossed the fields.

To deny the enemy the ability to supply the army through requisitions, peasants were ordered to prepare shelters in advance for fodder, livestock and men. The Swedish army, which fought in the Baltic states, could operate successfully only in conditions of uninterrupted supply from the sea, but in Poland the Swedes, without an established supply, were forced to stay in place for a long time in order to confiscate supplies from the population.

It was precisely on the war with the enemy, deprived of normal supplies, that Peter I made his bet. It was for this that the “Peter’s Line” was erected. That is why the peasants were ordered to hide supplies and livestock. It was precisely in order to force the Swedes to stretch out their rear communications and operate in conditions of shortage that the Russian army retreated deeper into the country. And the most severe blow, from which Charles’s army could not recover until Poltava, was yet to come...

“Poltava Victory”, painting by artist Alexander Kotzebue

Convoy for Charles XII

Back in February 1709, General Levenhaupt began to carry out the order received from Karl to begin preparing provisions, fodder, gunpowder reserves and ammunition and be ready to join the main forces at the start of the campaign. Moscow learned almost immediately that Levenhaupt had taken up the task of carrying out the monarch’s will. There was no way to hide the large-scale confiscation of supplies and supplies from the spies of the Russian general Rodion Bour, the commander of the cavalry corps stationed near Riga. But Russian intelligence was unable to establish the exact route along which all this stuff would set off. It was assumed that Levengaupt's corps would march to Narva or Poland. The fact that he would go to Belarus to join with Karl became clear only at the beginning of June.

By this time, Karl had managed to once again convince himself of the weakness of the Russian army, having won an easy victory over the division of General Anikita Repnin near Golovchin. Having forced the Russians to retreat, Karl decided to wait for Levengaupt’s corps: there was not enough food and forage on the devastated land.

Ironically, both sides - Levenhaupt and Peter I - were mistaken about the strength of the enemy. The Swede, having learned about the persecution of the Russians, decided that it was not the corvolant who moved against him, but the vanguard of the entire army. That is why Levenhaupt decided to give battle, hoping to win an easy victory and at the same time reduce the number of Russians opposing the main forces of the Swedes. The Russian side was deceived about the number of the enemy in the other direction. As follows from documents related to Peter’s personal archive, on July 7, 1708, a deserter appeared at the location of the Russian army in Dorpat - an Estonian dragoon, forcibly mobilized into the cavalry regiment of Major General Wolmar Anton Schlippenbach, which was part of Levenhaupt’s corps. He said that the entire corps was supposed to move to join Karl at the end of June, adding that Lewenhaupt had six infantry regiments and the same number of cavalry. This forced us to estimate the enemy forces at less than 8,000 people.

“The importance of the goal did not allow refusal to fight”

In reality, Levenhaupt's corps numbered just over 16,000 people. This whole mass, forced to equalize the speed of movement with the speed of a convoy of 7,000 carts, moved slowly. Only on September 19, the corps reached the Dnieper and only two days later managed to cross. However, the Russian army was not in too much of a hurry, having no idea where and what route the enemy was moving. In addition, when the corvolant was ready to set out, the spy sent by Levenhaupt managed to confuse his commanders by declaring that he knew for sure: the Swedes were planning to cross the Dnieper to Orsha.

That this was disinformation became clear only the next day, when the Swedes were already ahead of the Russians on the way to the main forces of their army. Now the Russians had to not prepare for an oncoming battle, but quickly march after the enemy. “This circumstance, however, did not bother Peter; “he continues to get closer to the enemy, remaining with the firm intention to attack the Swedes,” Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Pavel Andrianov wrote in 1911 in his work “The Age of Peter the Great.” - Having sent Bour, who was with Cherikov, an order to hurry to join the light corps, Peter, having occupied the village of Dolgiy Mokh, decided to wait for Bour for only two days, and if he did not arrive within this period, then attack the Swedes, despite the inequality of forces. Peter's calculation was completely consistent with the situation. The importance of the goal did not allow refusal of the battle. If the attack was successful, results of enormous significance were achieved; in case of failure, Peter risked little, since Levenhaupt, having repelled the Russian attack, but being tied up by a huge transport, could not harm the light detachment.”

“Charles XII in Ystad”, painting by Johann Heinrich Wedekind

Andrianov continues: “Having learned about the proximity of the Russians, Levenhaupt, first of all, takes measures to save... the transport vital to Charles XII. Under the cover of a 3,000-strong vanguard, the transport is sent to Propoisk in order to quickly cross the Sozha River along the existing... bridge and quickly put a barrier between the transport and the Russian detachment pursuing it. With other forces, wanting to gain as much time as possible, Levengaupt stops at a position near the village of Dolgiy Mokh, trying to delay the Russians at the crossing of the swampy Resta River. Peter moved five guns to the crossing point, and under the cover of artillery fire, our troops crossed the stream. Then the Swedes retreated several miles and began to prepare for battle near the village of Lesnoy.”

“This victory can be called our first”

Russian troops, marching in two columns, one of which was commanded by Prince Alexander Menshikov, and the other by Peter himself, were forced to enter the battle directly from the march. The vanguard of the Menshikov column collided with the Swedes on the approach to the battle site on the morning of September 28. Six Swedish battalions were eventually forced to retreat, but gave the main forces the opportunity to prepare to repel the first Russian attack - one of a dozen.

In total, the battle lasted for half a day. Only at seven in the evening, “the soldiers on both sides were so tired that it was no longer possible to fight, and then the enemy was at his convoy, and ours sat down at the battle site and rested for a considerable time.”

Only the gunners continued the military work: the artillery duel between the Russians standing in the field and the Swedes who had retreated to Wagenburg (a fortified camp, the basis of which were carts gathered in a circle and covered with plank shields) lasted until ten in the evening. And under the cover of darkness, having set fire to some of the carts and leaving all the sick and wounded in Wagenburg, Levenhaupt withdrew the main part of the corps as secretly as possible and quickly retreated. In the Russian camp this was discovered the next morning. Our troops stood in positions all night, preparing for a new battle, but instead they had to give chase again. It was possible to catch up with the enemy in Propoisk, where Levengaupt’s corps was hastily crossing the Sozh. The crossing was costly for the Swedes: from the 16,000-strong corps, only 6,300 people survived, reaching Karl, but without a convoy, without gunpowder and ammunition, which they managed to take out from Wagenburg, but had to be drowned in Sozha so as not to leave it to the Russians.

Swedes' losses at Lesnaya amounted to 6,397 killed and wounded, of which 45 officers and about 700 soldiers were captured. The Russians, according to official figures, lost 1,111 people killed and 2,856 wounded. “This victory can be called our first, since such a victory has never happened over a regular army, moreover, with a much smaller number, being in front of the enemy, and ... it is the fault of all the successful successes of Russia,” Peter wrote later, “before this is the first test of a soldier was... and the mother of the Poltava battle..."

The victory of Peter I at Lesnaya was always in the shadow of the Poltava Victoria. The battle of October 9, 1708 can be classified as one of the “draft” battles that prepare the way for triumph. Although it was precisely this that had a fundamental influence on the entire course of the Northern War (1700-1721), putting the troops of Charles XII in Ukraine in a critical situation. After Lesnaya, the Swedish army was actually sentenced to the Poltava defeat.

EXHAUSTION STRATEGY

Charles XII's campaign in Russia was the culmination of the Northern War. After waiting for the rivers and swamps to freeze, the 45,000-strong Swedish army, led by the invincible king, at the beginning of 1708 moved across the territory of Belarus to Moscow. A third of the Swedish armed forces took part in this operation (and in fact, with the Livonian and Finnish corps of Levengaupt and Lübecker - half).

In this situation, Peter I could only defend himself. According to the plan drawn up by the tsar, the Russian army in Belarus was supposed to avoid decisive battles. She was instructed to retreat and wear down the Swedes in defensive battles, thereby creating the conditions for the subsequent transition to a counteroffensive. The Russian regiments retreated, destroying roads and bridges, destroying all supplies. Remaining an elusive shadow, Russian troops intercepted lagging enemy soldiers and officers, destroyed foraging detachments, and attacked isolated enemy units.

The Swedes were not ready for such a turn of events. Their king, trying to increase the mobility of his army, usually did not care about organizing the rear and preferred to supply the army from local resources. Under the Russian “strategy of attrition,” this flaw in Charles XII’s tactics made itself felt fully. The famous historian Sergei Solovyov wrote about all this like this: “The campaign was difficult for a hungry army in a devastated country; the soldiers themselves had to remove the ears of corn from the field and grind them between stones, and here it was still raining continuously and there was nowhere to dry. This was a necessary consequence of the dampness and bad food - illness; the soldiers said that they had three doctors: Doctor Vodka, Doctor Garlic and Doctor Death."

Finding himself in a two-hundred-kilometer zone of “man-made desert,” Charles XII suspended the offensive and gave the order to the Livonian corps of General Adam Ludwig Levenhaupt (16 thousand people) to urgently go to Belarus to join the main army to replenish supplies of food and ammunition. Leventhaupt gathered a huge convoy of more than 7 thousand carts and moved to the aid of his king.

BATTLE OF EQUALS

Slowly but steadily, Levengaupt's corps covered hundreds of miles that separated it from the main Swedish forces. The convoy train with him provided the royal army for three months. If united, the Swedes eliminated the shortage of material supplies and became invulnerable. Therefore, Peter decided under no circumstances to allow Levengaupt’s fatal meeting with the king. Having instructed Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev to go with the troops after the regiments of Charles XII, the Tsar with a “flying detachment” mounted on horses - a corvolant (12 thousand people) hastily moved across Levengaupt (about 16 thousand people). One part of the corvolant was commanded by the king himself. The other is Alexander Menshikov. At the same time, Peter sent an order to rush to the aid of the “flying detachment” of the cavalry of General Rodion Bour (4 thousand horsemen).

The Tsar overtook Levengaupt's corps on October 9, 1708 near the village of Lesnoy (southeast of Mogilev). The Swedes have already begun to cross the Lesnyanka River. More than half of the convoy with the 3,000-strong vanguard managed to cross the bridge and moved south to Propoisk. Levenhaupt, having discovered the Russians, left most of his corps on the left bank for battle. He ordered to occupy the heights near Lesnaya, hoping to fight off the suddenly appearing enemy here. The experienced general was able to quickly choose a strong position. The area in front of the Swedish fortifications of carts coupled together was a large clearing with an area of ​​about a square kilometer, well covered by fire. Behind the Swedes there was a river, and on the flanks there was a coastal swampy forest. Thus, the Russians were forced to attack the enemy head-on.

In addition, due to intelligence errors, Peter at first did not know the true size of the Swedish corps. At first, the king was sure that Levengaupt had approximately 8 thousand soldiers to guard the transport. Only two days before the decisive clash, it became clear from the testimony of prisoners that there were twice as many Swedes and they were capable of conducting independent combat operations. However, the enemy also “missed” in his assessment, mistaking Peter’s corvolant for the vanguard of the entire Russian army. In a certain sense, this predetermined the further development of events.

Despite the numerical superiority of the Swedes, Peter did not wait for the approach of Bour's detachment and at 8 o'clock in the morning he threw what he had at hand at Levengaupt. Fierce Russian attacks were interspersed with desperate Swedish counterattacks. By 11 o'clock Levengaupt managed to push Peter's right flank to the forest. “If it weren’t for the forests,” the tsar later wrote, “then they would have won, since there were 6 thousand of them more than us.” Hiding in the thickets, the Russian infantry broke away from the Swedes and freely retreated to a safe place, where they formed up again and put themselves in order. By this time, part of Corvolant Menshikov, who had not arrived in time for the start of the battle, had arrived at the battle site.

In the afternoon the battle resumed. It was accompanied by an unprecedented intensity of fire - according to the recollection of General Mikhail Golitsyn, the ground was no longer visible from the falling bullets. The soldiers filled their bags and pockets with cartridges four times, and the barrels of the fuses became so hot that they burned their hands. Peter and Menshikov rushed from regiment to regiment, inspiring the soldiers with personal courage.

Finally, the Russians began to press the Swedes and by 3 o'clock in the afternoon they were pressed against the carts. Behind Levengaupt there was a village and a river. It seemed that any more pressure and the Swedish defense would collapse. But at this climax, the unexpected happened. The intensity of the battle turned out to be so high that the opponents, without saying a word, suddenly fell to the ground from fatigue and rested for a couple of hours right on the battlefield...

The unexpected respite turned out to be beneficial for both sides. By 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Bour's detachment arrived in time for the Russians. The Swedish vanguard was also on the march to Lesnaya, first sent to Propoisk, and now rushing back to help their comrades. With the approach of Bour's cavalry, Peter immediately resumed the battle. The Tsar placed the arriving reinforcements on his right flank in order to break through to the river with a powerful blow from here, capture the bridge across Lesnyanka and cut off the Swedes’ path to retreat.

In a “great fierce battle”, which after the first volleys turned into a merciless hand-to-hand fight, the Russians managed to capture the bridge over Lesnyanka. The path to Propoisk was closed for Levengaupt. But then the 3,000-strong Swedish detachment, which had returned to its own, intervened in the matter. He immediately entered the fray and managed to recapture the crossing.

After this success, the Swedes took refuge behind the carts. It was dusk. It began to rain with wind and snow. The Russian attackers ran out of ammunition. By 7 pm the darkness deepened, the snowfall intensified and the battle died down. But the gun duel continued until 10 pm. The Russians spent the night in position, preparing for a new attack. Peter I was also there with his troops, despite the bad weather.

The Swedes defended the village and the crossing, but the position of their corps was extremely difficult. Not hoping for a successful outcome of the battle, Levenhaupt decided to retreat. Considering that the general had not lost a single battle before Lesnoy, one can imagine what such a step cost him.

By morning, Levengaupt reached Propoisk, where most of his convoy was located. But the bridge over the Sozh was destroyed the day before as a result of a Russian raid. Then, leaving the rearguard and convoy in the city, the Swedish commander with the remnants of the corps moved along the river in search of an acceptable ford. Meanwhile, Peter, having discovered the empty Swedish camp the next morning, sent a detachment of General Pflug in pursuit of the retreating ones. He reached Propoisk, defeated the Swedish rearguard located there and captured the convoy.

The total losses of the Swedes amounted to 8 thousand killed and about 1 thousand captured. Instead of food and ammunition, Levenhaupt brought only 6 thousand hungry mouths to the king. The Russian losses in the Battle of Lesnaya amounted to 4 thousand people.

Now the army of Charles XII lost significant material resources and was cut off from its bases in the Baltic states. The success at Lesnaya raised the morale of the Russian troops. Peter I called her “the mother of the Poltava battle,” and ordered the participants in the battle to be awarded a specially embossed medal with the inscription “To the worthy, worthy.”

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