In Chisinau in February I averred that Englishmen, perhaps not women, prefer not to talk at breakfast. Rules are made to be broken. On Friday morning over scrambled eggs, ham and black coffee I found myself discussing the Battle of Poltava with a Spanish observer.
With a broader education than me, he revealed that the battle had always fascinated him; it was a decisive moment in the history of Ukraine and its relationship with Russia. Like a good general I shifted my ground in this intellectual brekker-battle and segued to the Battle of the Boyne and its place in the subsequent history of Ireland but I thought I’d better read up on Poltava.
It was a remarkably cold winter in 1708/09, the coldest for 500 years. Accordingly, Charles XII lost almost half his troops and ran out of food and so on. He lay siege to Poltava but before he was able to capture the town Peter I, better known as Peter the Great, arrived to relieve it. He built a series of ten forts and waited for the Swedish army to attack which they did before dawn in June 1709.
Before the battle Charles rode to observe the Russian positions and was hit in the foot by a stray bullet. Curiously, in 1690, prior to the Battle of the Boyne, William III rode up to a ridge above the river to take a look at the disposition of James II’s troops. He was hit on the arm by a cannon ball. So both leaders went into battle injured.
In Poltava the battle, as battles so often are, was a scene of muddle and confusion. However, numerical superiority and the the Russian protective positions led to victory before luncheon. Charles escaped to Moldova with Cossack leader, Mazeppa. Peter the Great put up two marquees on the battlefield and held a banquet. Chivalrously he toasted the vanquished Swedish Generals. Less gallantly he sent his prisoners to cool their heels in chilly Siberia.
James II fled the battlefield at the Boyne, demoralising his troops. Had he stayed it is possible he might have been the victor. As it was, his campaign continued until 1691 when William had a resounding victory at the Battle of Aughrim.
Peter the Great looks rather like the way King William is portrayed at the Boyne. Happy Easter.
It is fascinating to consider how large the Swedish (or, for that matter, the Lithuanian) dominions were at one point in history. Sounds as though you are having another fine adventure. (And a fully staged Mazeppa seems a rare treat.)
Happy Easter, though I suppose they don’t celebrate it there for another week.
It is Willow Sunday here today in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and I was presented with a frond of willow in a polling station. It has, again, been a most rewarding trip to Ukraine.
Your mention of the Battle of Aughrim today made me have a look at your post of March last year on “Family History”. I do not think that anybody thought that the Jacobites were cowardly but the tide of battle turned when the French General St. Ruth literally lost his head after suffering a direct hit from a cannon ball.
Family folklore has it that the aim of the cannon was altered by the Rev John Trench, later Dean of Raphoe, cutting off the heel of his boot and using it to alter the angle of shot and voila the next shot decapitated the unfortunate St. Ruth. Rev. John Trench and his brother, Frederick, lived at Garbally in Ballinasloe and assisted the Dutch General van Ginkel with maps of the area prior to the battle.