Тезисы докладов
B. Wennerholm

B. Wennerholm
Sweden
Swedish standards, guidons and colours as Russian trophies from the Russian campaign of 1708–1709

Can the data on colour trophies lost and taken by the two parties during Charles XII’s Russian Campaign of 1708–1709 that appear in letters, diaries and relations add any information on the campaign and its battles if analysed properly? Are the different sources as contradictory as they are regarding troop strengths, casualties etc? Is there any apparent tendency? Can the trophy losses of the campaign be reconstructed and would that add any information relevant to the history of the campaign? Due to the availability of sources the study had to be restricted to the Swedish trophy losses to the Russian army.

The number of standards, guidons and colours of the Swedish army can be calculated in detail. Every company except the His Majesty’s Body Guard (Kungl Maj:ts Drabanter) and the grenadier companies of the Life Guards of Foot carried its own standard etc. This means 86 standards, 120 guidons and 177 colours or a total number of 383 for the units taking part in the campaign.

The total losses amount to 330–340 trophies. This figure must be regarded as plausible in respect to the number carried. The data essentially emanate from Russian sources. For several of the actions when a small number of standards etc were lost, the Russian figures are confirmed by Swedish sources. For the greater losses no data exist in Swedish sources or the data in Swedish diaries are mere quotations from Russian sources.

Russian trophy lists are available from Starye Senzhary, Poltava and Perevolochna and from the final delivery of the trophies to the Kremlin armoury after the Triumph in Moscow in December 1709.

The lists are very detailed. The Russian divisions of Generals Repnin, Hallart and Rentzel and of Prince Menshikov delivered their trophies. There is, however, no list from the Guards division and there appears to be lacunae from the Russian cavalry units. From the mentioned lists a total list from Poltava was compiled in the war chancery with the trophies grouped after Swedish regiments. The figures of the list of trophies taken in the battle itself, except for the unknown number from the Guards division, are:

The figures of the official relations of the battle, both in the first one distributed in handwriting in July 1709 and in the printed version from September, are:

Then there is a list from the Preobrazhensky Life Guards containing 100 trophies (24 standards, 51 guidons and 25 colours), most probably from the surrender at Perevolochna. Finally there is a list summarising all the trophies taken at Poltava and Perevolochna.

The Russian figures of the total number of trophies taken, 263 or 264 (according to the summarizing trophy list 60 standards, 80 guidons and 124 colours), is consistent between the sources and appears to be basically correct. However, it is somewhat surprising to find that there are discrepancies between the different sources as to the number of trophies taken at Poltava and those handed over at Perevolochna.

In General Hallart’s relation the total number of colour trophies from Poltava was 114. The number handed over at Perevolochna was 142 according to the first relation and Vedomosti No. 12 but 127 according to the printed relation from September. There is room for a certain manipulation of the figures, but this is restricted to a maximum of 15–20 trophies.

The information in the trophy lists from the summer of 1709 is confirmed by the list from the Kremlin Armoury in December 1709. That list has two parts. The first part is said to contain 49 trophies from Lesnaya and the latter 246 from Poltava, corresponding to the order of the triumphal procession, or a total of 295 trophies. In fact the first lot also contains trophies also from Dobroye and Rayovka and the latter also trophies from other actions in the campaign of 1709. The two lots of trophies were kept at Mozhaysk and Serpukhov till the beginning of December. They were obviously kept well separated but some losses occurred between the summer and December of 1709.

The information in the lists in most cases permits us to confirm that the colours of the last known presentation to the different regiments before the campaign were actually those lost. For a number of Baltic and German units the information in the Russian trophy lists is the only available on the emblems of these colours etc.

The detailed information in the trophy lists allows us to correlate information from other sources and sheds further light on details of the battle.