BOOK IV

Charles leaves Saxony—Pursues the Czar—Advances into Ukrania—His losses and wounds, and the battle of Pultowa—The consequences of the battle—Charles forced to escape into Turkey—His reception in Bessarabia.

 

AT last Charles left Saxony in September 1707, with an army of 43,000 men, formerly steel-clad, but now shining resplendent in gold and silver, and enriched with the spoils of Poland and Saxony. Every soldier had with him fifty crowns ready money; not only, too, were all the regiments complete, but there were several supernumeraries to each company. Besides this army Count Levenhaupt, one of his best generals, was waiting for him in Poland with 20,000 men; he had, too, another army of 15,000 in Finland, and recruits were on their way from Sweden. With all these forces it was not doubted that he would dethrone the Czar.

The Emperor was then in Russia, trying to keep up the spirits of a party which King Augustus seemed to have deserted. His troops, divided into several corps, fled in all directions on the first report of the approach of the King of Sweden. He had advised his generals never to wait for the arrival of the conqueror with a superior force, and he [Pg 144]was well obeyed.

The King of Sweden, in the midst of his march, received an embassy from the Turks. The ambassador was received in Piper’s quarters; he kept up his master’s dignity by a certain display of magnificence, and the King, who was worse lodged, worse served, and more plainly clad than the humblest officer in his army, would often say that Count Piper’s quarters were his palace. The Turkish ambassador presented Charles with 100 Swedish soldiers, who had been taken by the Calmouks and sold in Turkey, redeemed by the Grand Master, and sent by him to the King as the most agreeable present he could make him. Not that the proud Ottoman meant to pay homage to the glory of Charles, but because the Sultan, the natural enemy of the Emperors of Russia and Germany, wished to strengthen himself against them by the friendship of the King of Sweden and alliance with Poland.

The ambassador complimented Stanislas on his accession; so that he had been owned as King, in a short time, by Germany, France, England, Spain and Turkey. But the Pope deferred acknowledging him till time had confirmed him in a kingship of which a sudden fall might deprive him.

Scarcely had Charles interviewed the ambassador of the Ottoman Porte than he went in search of the Russians. The Czar’s troops had left and returned to Poland more than twenty times during the war; as the country lay open on all sides, without strongholds to cut the retreat of an enemy, the Russians were often able to return to the very spot where they had suffered defeat, and could even penetrate as far into the country as the conqueror. During Charles’s stay in Saxony, the Czar had advanced to Leopold, on the southern frontier of Poland. He was at that time in the north, at Grodno, in Lithuania, about 100 leagues from Leopold.

Charles left Stanislas in Poland with about 1,000 Swedes and his new subjects to help him preserve his kingdom against his enemies at home and abroad; he himself, at the head of his horse, marched through ice and snow to Grodno, in January 1708. He had already passed the Niemen, within two leagues of the town, before the Czar knew anything of his march. Directly the news came that the Swedes were upon them, the Czar left the town by the north gate, while Charles entered by the south. The King had only six hundred of his guards with him, the rest being unable to follow him. The Czar, imagining that a whole army was entering Crodno, fled with 2,000 men; but he heard that very day from a Polish deserter that he had abandoned the place to not more than six hundred men, the body of the enemy’s army being still more than five leagues away. He did not lose time, but sent a detachment of 15,000 cavalry in the evening to surprise the King of Sweden in the town. The 15,000 Russians, helped by the darkness of the night, advanced as far as the first Swedish guard without recognition. This guard consisted of thirty men, and they alone supported the charge of the 15,000 for seven minutes. The King, who was at the other end of the town, came up presently with his six hundred guards, and the Russians fled in haste. In a short time his army joined him, and he pursued the enemy. All the Russians dispersed throughout Lithuania, retiring hastily into the Palatinate of Minski, where they had a rendezvous. The Swedes, whom the King also divided into several corps, continued to pursue them for about thirty leagues of their way. The fleers and the pursuers made forced marches almost every day, though it was mid-winter.

The soldiers of Charles and the Czar had long become indifferent to the seasons: it was only the terror inspired by the name of Charles which made the difference between the Russians and the Swedes.

From Grodno eastward to the Borysthenes there is nothing but marshes, deserts, mountains and immense forests. Even where the ground is cultivated no provision was to be found; the country folk hid all their grain and other dry goods underground. In order to find these subterranean magazines, they had to sound the earth with long poles tipped with iron. The Russians and the Swedes used these provisions by turns, but they were not always discovered, nor were they always sufficient when they were.

The King of Sweden, who had foreseen these difficulties, had provided biscuit for his army, so that nothing hindered his march. After he had crossed the forest of Minski, where his men were obliged every moment to cut down trees to make way for the troops and baggage, he found himself, on the 25th of June, 1708, near Borislou, in front of the river Berezine.

The Czar had assembled the best part of his troops in this spot and had entrenched himself to advantage; his aim was to hinder the Swedes from crossing the river. Charles placed some of his regiment on the banks of the Berezine, close to Borislou, as though he intended to attempt the crossing in face of the enemy. At the same time he led his army about three leagues up the river, threw a bridge across it, cut his way through a body of 3,000 men who defended that post, and marched straight against the enemy without a halt. The Russians did not wait for his arrival, but immediately decamped and withdrew towards Borysthenes, spoiling all the roads, and destroying all on their line of march, so that they might at least delay the Swedes’ advance.

Charles surmounted all difficulties, continually advancing towards Borysthenes. On his way he met 20,000 Russians, entrenched at a spot called Hollosin, behind a marsh, which could not be reached without crossing a river. Charles did not wait till the rest of his infantry had arrived to make the attack, but threw himself into the water at the head of his foot-guards, and crossed the river and the morass, though the water was sometimes above his shoulders. While he thus attacked the enemy, he ordered his cavalry to pass round the morass and take them in the flank.

The Russians, amazed that no barrier could defend them, were simultaneously routed by the King on foot, and by the Swedish horse. The horse, having made their way through the enemy, joined the King in the midst of the fray. He then mounted, but some time after, finding a young Swedish noble named Gyllenstein, for whom he had great affection, wounded in the fray and unable to walk, he insisted on his taking his horse, and continued to command on foot at the head of his infantry. Of all the battles he had ever fought, this was in all probability the most glorious—that in which he was exposed to the greatest risks, and in which he showed the greatest ability. The memory of it is kept by a medal with the inscription, “Silvæ, paludes, aggeres, hostes, victi” on one side and “Victrices copias alium laturus in orbem” on the other.

The Russians, driven out everywhere, recrossed the Borysthenes, which separates Poland from their own country. Charles lost no time in following them; he crossed the great river after them at Mohilou, the last town in Poland, which is sometimes in the hands of the Poles, sometimes in those of the Czar, after the usual fate of frontier places.

The Czar, seeing his empire, into which he was introducing arts and commerce, becoming a prey to a war which might in a short time ruin his plans, and perhaps lose him his throne, was thinking of peace, and even made proposals by a Polish nobleman whom he sent to the Swedish army. Charles, who had been unaccustomed to granting peace to his enemy except in their capitals, only replied, “I will treat with the Czar at Moscow.”

When the Czar heard this haughty answer, “My brother Charles,” he said, “would still pose as Alexander, but I flatter myself he will find me no Darius.”

From Mohilou, where the King crossed the Borysthenes, turning north along the river, upon the frontiers of Poland and Russia, is situated the country of Smolensko, through which lies the main road from Poland to Moscow. The Czar fled by this road, and the King followed by forced marches. Part of the Russian rearguard was more than once engaged with the dragoons of the Swedish vanguard. Generally the latter got the advantage, but they weakened themselves by these skirmishes, which were never decisive, and always meant the loss of some of their men.

On the 22nd of September this year, 1708, the King attacked a body of ten thousand horse and six thousand Calmouks near Smolensko.

These Calmouks are Tartars, living between Astrakan, which is part of the Czar’s dominions, and Samarcande, the country of the Usbeck Tartars. The Calmouks’ country stretches from the east to the mountains which separate the Mogul from the western part of Asia. Those who dwell near Astrakan are tributary to the Czar. He pretends to absolute dominion over them, but their wandering life hinders him from subduing them, and forces him to treat them as the Grand-Seignior treats the Arabs, sometimes bearing with their robberies, and at others punishing them.

There are always some of the Calmouks in the Russian army, and the Czar had even succeeded in reducing them to discipline like the rest of his soldiers.

The King fell on this army with only six regiments of horse and four thousand infantry; he broke the Russian ranks at the head of his Ostrogothic regiment and forced the enemy to retreat. The King advanced upon them by rough and hollow ways where the Calmouks lay hid; they then appeared and threw themselves between the regiment where the King was fighting and the rest of the Swedish army. In an instant both Russians and Calmouks had surrounded this regiment and made their way close up to his Majesty. They killed two aides-de-camp who were fighting near him. The King’s horse was killed under him, and as one of the equerries was offering him another, both equerry and horse were struck dead on the spot. Charles fought on foot, surrounded by some of his officers who immediately hastened to rally round him.

Several were taken, wounded or slain, or swept off to a distance from the King by the crowd which attacked them; so that there were only five men left near him. By that extraordinary good luck which till then had never deserted him, and on which he always relied, he had killed more than a dozen of the enemy with his own hand without one wound. At last Colonel Dardoff forced his way, with only one company of his regiment, through the Calmouks, and came up just in time to save the King. The rest of the Swedes put the Tartars to the sword. The army reformed, Charles mounted, and, fatigued as he was, pursued the Russians two leagues.

The conqueror was still on the main road to the capital of Russia. The distance from Smolensko, where this battle was fought, to Moscow, is about 100 French leagues; the army had scarcely any provisions. The King was pressed to wait till General Levenhaupt, who was to bring up reinforcements of 15,000 men, came to join him. Charles, who rarely listened to advice, not only refused to listen to this wise counsel, but, to the great amazement of the whole army, left the Moscow road, and marched south towards Ukrania into the country of the Cossacks, between lesser Tartary, Poland and Russia.

This country is about 100 French leagues from north to south, and about the same from east to west. It is divided into two nearly equal parts by the Borysthenes, which crosses from north-west to south-west; the chief town is Baturin, on the little river Sem. The northernmost part of Ukrania is under cultivation, and rich; the southernmost part, in the forty-eighth degree, is one of the most fertile and at the same time the most deserted districts in the world; bad management quite counteracts its natural advantages.

The inhabitants of those parts, which border on lesser Tartary, neither plant nor sow lest the Tartars of Budziac, Precop and Moldavia, who are all brigands, should carry off their harvests.

Ukrania has always aspired to freedom; but being hedged in by Russia, the dominions of the Grand-Seignior, and Poland, it has been obliged to seek for a protector (who is, of course, a master) in one of those States. First it put itself under the protection of Poland, who treated it too much as a subject-state; then they appealed to the Russians, who did their best to reduce them to serfdom. At first the Ukranians had the privilege of choosing a prince, called general, but soon they were deprived of this privilege, and their general was nominated by the Russian Court.

The office was then filled by a Pole called Mazeppa; he had been brought up as page to King John Casimir, and had got a little learning at his Court. On the discovery of an intrigue with the wife of a Polish nobleman, the latter had him tied, stark naked, to a wild horse, and set him free in that state. The horse, which had been brought from Ukrania, returned to its own country, carrying Mazeppa with him half dead from hunger and fatigue. Some of the peasants gave him relief, and he stayed a long time among them, and distinguished himself in several attempts against the Tartars. The superiority of his intelligence made him a person of consideration in the eyes of the Cossacks, and as his reputation daily increased the Czar was forced to make him Prince of Ukrania.

One day, as he was sitting at table with the Czar at Moscow, the Emperor proposed to him to drill the Cossacks and make them more independent. Mazeppa pointed out the situation of Ukrania and the nature of the people as insurmountable obstacles. The Czar, who was over-heated with wine, and had not always sufficient self-control, called him a traitor, and threatened to have him impaled. On his return into Ukrania Mazeppa planned a revolt. The Swedish army appearing shortly after on the frontier facilitated matters for him, and he resolved to gain independence, and to form for himself a powerful kingdom from Ukrania and the ruins of the Russian Empire. He was a man of great courage, of considerable enterprise, and most painstaking, though he was advanced in years.

He made a secret league with the King of Sweden, to hasten the Czar’s downfall and gain something himself out of it. He gave him a rendezvous near the river Desna; Mazeppa promised to meet him there with 30,000 men, ammunition and provisions, and all his treasure, which was immense. The Swedish army was therefore ordered to march towards that part of the country, to the great regret of the officers, who knew nothing of the King’s treaty with the Cossacks.

Charles sent orders to Levenhaupt to bring his troops and provisions with all haste to Ukrania, where he intended passing the winter, that, having subdued that country, he might conquer Russia the following spring; meanwhile he advanced towards the river Desna, which flows into the Borysthenes at Kiouw.

The obstacles they had hitherto encountered on their march were trifles to those they met on this new route; they had to cross a forest fifty leagues broad, which was full of marshes. General Lagercron, who led the van with 5,000 men and pioneers, led the army thirty leagues too far to the east. They had marched four days before the King discovered their mistake. They regained the right road with some difficulty, but almost all the artillery and wagons were stuck fast or sunk in the mud.

They then marched for twelve days in this painful and laborious fashion till they had eaten the little biscuit they had left, and so they arrived, spent with hunger and fatigue, on the banks of the Desna, where Mazeppa was to meet them. Instead of the Prince, however, they found a body of Russians advancing towards them on the other side of the river. The King was much astonished, and decided to cross the Desna and attack the enemy. The banks of this river were so steep that they were obliged to let the soldiers down by cords; then they crossed in their usual manner, some by swimming, some on hastily constructed rafts.

The band of Russians, which arrived at the same time, were only 8,000, so that their resistance was feeble, and this obstacle was also overcome.

Charles advanced further into this desolate country, uncertain of his route and of Mazeppa’s fidelity; at last the latter appeared, but rather as a fugitive than as a strong ally. The Russians had discovered and prevented his plan: they had fallen upon the Cossacks and cut them in pieces; his chief friends were taken red-handed, and thirty of them had been broken on the wheel. His towns were reduced to ashes, his treasures plundered, and the provisions he was preparing for the King of Sweden seized. He himself escaped with difficulty, accompanied by 6,000 men, and some horses laden with gold and silver. But he held out to the King the hope that he would be of some service from his knowledge of this unknown country, and by the affection of the natives, who, enraged with the Russians, came in troops to the camp, and brought provisions.

Charles hoped that at least General Levenhaupt would come to repair this ill fortune; he was to bring about 15,000 Swedes (of more use than 100,000 Cossacks), with stores and ammunition. He arrived at last, but almost in the same condition as Mazeppa. He had already passed the Borysthenes above Mohilou, and advanced about twenty leagues further on the road to Ukrania. He brought the King a convoy of 8,000 wagons, with the money he had raised in Lithuania and on march. On reaching Lesno, near the spot where the rivers Pronia and Sossa unite to flow into the Borysthenes far below, the Czar appeared at the head of 50,000 men.

The Swedish general, who had not quite 16,000, decided not to entrench. Their many victories had given the Swedes so much confidence that they never inquired as to the enemy’s numbers, but only their position. Levenhaupt marched against them on the 7th of October, 1708, in the afternoon. At the first attack they killed 15,000 Russians; the Czar’s army took panic and fled in all directions, and the Emperor of Russia thought he would be entirely defeated. He saw that the safety of his dominions depended upon the action of the day, and that he could be ruined if Levenhaupt joined the King of Sweden with a victorious army.

As soon as he saw his troops fall back he ran to the rear, where the Cossacks and Calmouks were posted, and said, “I order you to fire on every man who runs away, and even to shoot me, should I be so cowardly as to turn my back.” Then he returned to the van and rallied the troops in person, assisted by the Prince Menzikoff and Prince Gallitsin. Levenhaupt, who had pressing orders to join his master, chose to continue his march rather than to renew the battle, thinking that he had done enough to discourage the enemy from pursuit.

No later than eleven the next morning the Czar attacked him on the entrance to a morass, and spread his lines to surround him. The Swedes faced about, and the fight lasted two hours with equal resolution on both sides. The Russians lost three times as many men, but still held their position, and the victory was undecided. At four General Bayer brought the Czar reinforcements. The battle was then renewed for the third time with greater fury than before, and lasted till nightfall. Then the force of numbers carried the day; the Swedes were broken, routed, and driven back on their baggage. Levenhaupt rallied his men behind his chariots, and though they were conquered they did not flee.

Not one from an army of about 9,000 men took to flight. The general formed them up as easily as if they had not been beaten. The Czar, on the other hand, passed the night under arms, and ordered his soldiers on pain of death, and his officers on pain of dismissal, to abstain from plunder.

Next morning at daybreak he ordered a fresh attack. Levenhaupt had retired to a strong position some miles distant, after having spiked some of his cannon and fired some of his wagons. The Russians came up just in time to hinder the whole convoy from being burned, and seized six thousand wagons which they saved. The Czar, who wished to utterly crush the Swedes, sent one of his generals, called Phulg, to attack them for the fifth time, and he offered them honourable terms if they would capitulate. Levenhaupt refused, and the fifth battle was as bloody as any of the former ones. Of the 9,000 soldiers he had left he lost half, the other half not breaking line. At last night came on, and Levenhaupt, after having fought five battles against 50,000 men, crossed the Sossa by swimming, followed by the 5,000 men remaining to him. The wounded were carried over on rafts. The Czar lost about 20,000 Russians in these engagements, in which he had the glory of conquering the Swedes, and Levenhaupt the credit of disputing the victory for three days, and of retreating without being forced from his last position. So that he came to his master’s camp with the honour of having made so good a defence, but without ammunition or forces. The King of Sweden, therefore, without provisions, and cut off from communication with Poland, was surrounded by enemies in the midst of a country where he had scarcely any resource but his own courage.

In this extremity the memorable winter of 1709, which was still more severe in those frontiers of Europe than it was in France, destroyed a part of his army. Charles resolved to defy the season as he had his enemies; he ventured on long marches with his troops during the bitter cold. It was on one of these marches that 2,000 of his men died of cold before his very eyes. The cavalry had no boots, and the foot no shoes, and hardly any clothes. They were forced to make footgear of the skins of beasts as best they could, and they often went hungry. They had even been obliged to throw the best part of their cannon into quagmires and rivers for want of horses to draw them; so that this once flourishing army was reduced to 24,000 men at the point of starvation. They neither got news from Sweden, nor were they able to send there. In this state of affairs one officer only complained. “What,” said the King to him, “are you miserable at being so far from your wife? If you are really a soldier I will lead you to such a distance that you will not hear from Sweden once in three years.”

The Marquis of Brancas, now Swedish ambassador, told me that a soldier ventured to present the King, before the whole army, with a piece of bread that was black and mouldy. It was made from barley and oats, and was the only food they then had, and that in scanty quantities. The King received the piece of bread unmoved, ate it all, and then said coolly to the soldier, “It is not good, but one can eat it.” This characteristic touch, insignificant as it is (if, indeed, that should be called insignificant which increases respect and confidence), did more than all the rest to help the Swedish army to bear hardships which would have been insupportable under any other general.

In these circumstances he at last received news from Stockholm, but only that his sister the Duchess of Holstein, aged 27, had been carried off by small-pox. She was as gentle and pitiful as her brother was imperious and implacable in revenge. He had always been very fond of her; he felt her loss the more as, now that the tide of his fortune had turned, he was more susceptible. He learned also that they had carried out his orders and raised troops and money, but could not send them to his camp; for there lay between him and Stockholm nearly five hundred leagues and an enemy with a superior force to encounter.

The Czar, who was as energetic as the King, after having sent fresh forces into Poland to assist the confederates, united under General Siniawski against Stanislas, and soon advanced into Ukrania, in the middle of this severe winter, to oppose the King of Sweden. He stayed there with the object of weakening the enemy by small engagements, for by this means he thought the Swedish army must be quite wrecked at last, as he was able to draw fresh forces every moment from his dominions, while they could not get recruits. The cold there must have been excessive, since it forced the two enemies to suspend hostilities. But on the first of February, amid ice and snow, they began to fight again.

After several small skirmishes and some reverses, the King’s army was reduced in April to 18,000 men. Mazeppa alone, the Prince of the Cossacks, supplied them with the necessaries of life; without his assistance the army must have perished from hunger and destitution.

At this moment, the Czar, to attract Mazeppa to his service again, offered him terms; but the Cossack stood by his new ally, either from fear of the terrible punishment of the wheel, by which his friends had perished, or because he sought revenge.

Charles, with his 18,000 Swedes and as many Cossacks, had not abandoned his plan of reaching Russia. Towards the end of May he went to siege Pultawa, on the river Vorskla, on the extreme eastern frontier of Ukrania, about thirteen full leagues from the Borysthenes, where the Czar had a magazine. This country is that of the Zaporavians, the strangest people in the world. They are a collection of former Russians, Poles, Tartars, and all make profession of a kind of Christianity, and of a kind of freebooting brigandage. They elect a chief, whom they depose or assassinate; they allow no women to live among them, but they kidnap all the children for twenty or thirty leagues round, and train them in their ways. During summer they are always in the field, during winter they sleep in vast barns, containing 400 or 500 men. They fear nothing, and live at liberty; they risk death for the smallest booty, with the same boldness with which Charles XII faced it to bestow crowns. The Czar sent them 60,000 florins in the hope that they would side with him; they took the money and then, through the exertions of Mazeppa, declared for Charles: but they proved of very little use, for they think it ridiculous to fight for anything but booty. It was a great point gained that they did no harm: there were about 2,000 of them at most who did regular duty. Ten of their chiefs were one day presented to Charles, but they had great difficulty in finding those who were not intoxicated, for they always began the day in that condition. They were taken into the trenches, and showed their skill in shooting with long rifles, for they could pick off the enemies they singled out at 600 paces away. Charles added to these bandits some 1,000 Valaques; then he laid siege to Pultawa, with an army of about 30,000 men, in a wretched condition and wanting all necessaries. The Czar had made Pultawa a magazine: if the King took it it would open the road to Moscow for him, and he could await, well supplied, the recruits he expected from Sweden, Livonia, Pomerania and Poland. As, then, his sole resource lay in the taking of Pultawa, he carried on the siege with vigour. Mazeppa, who had informants in the town, assured him that he would soon master it, and hope began to reanimate the army. His soldiers regarded the taking of Pultawa as the end of all their miseries.

From the beginning of the siege the King realized that he had given his enemies some useful lessons in the art of war. Prince Menzikoff, in spite of all his precautions, threw reinforcements into the town, and the garrison then amounted to almost 10,000 men. They made sorties, sometimes successfully; but what made the town impregnable was the approach of the Czar, who was advancing with 10,000 combatants. Charles XII went to meet him on the 27th of May, his birthday, and beat one of their corps; but as he was returning from his camp he got a musket-shot, which pierced his boot and shattered his heel-bone. There was not the least sign on his face that he had been shot; he continued calmly to give his orders, and remained mounted nearly six hours after the accident. One of his servants at last noticing that the sole of his boot was covered with blood, ran for the doctor; then the King’s pain was so acute that they had to take him off his horse and carry him to his tent. The surgeons examined the wound and saw that it had already begun to mortify, and thought that the leg must be cut off. The consternation in the army was great. But one of the surgeons, called Newman, better skilled and braver than the rest, was certain that he could save the leg by means of a deep incision.

“Begin at once, then,” said the King; “cut boldly, fear nothing.” He held his leg with his own hands, looking at the incisions made as if they were in the leg of another.

As they were putting on the dressing he gave orders for an assault next morning, but scarcely had he given the order than they brought him word that the whole army of the enemy was upon him. He was therefore obliged to alter his plan. Wounded and incapable of action, he found himself shut in between the river Borysthenes and the river which runs to Pultawa, in a desert district, with no forts or ammunition, and opposed to an army which cut him off from retreat or provisions. In this terrible position he did not, as might have been expected, assemble a council of war, but on the night of 7th July he sent for Marshal Renschild, and ordered him, without deliberation, but without uneasiness, to prepare to attack the Czar next morning. Renschild did not argue, but went to carry out his orders.

At the door of the King’s tent he met Count Piper, with whom, as often happens between the minister and the general, he had long been on bad terms. Piper asked him if there were anything new. “No,” said the General coldly, and passed on to give his orders. As soon as Piper entered the royal tent the King asked if Renschild had told him anything. “Nothing,” answered Piper. “Well, then,” answered the King, “I tell you that to-morrow we shall give battle.” Count Piper was astonished at so desperate a resolve, but he knew that his master could never be made to change his opinion; he only expressed his astonishment by his silence, and left the King to sleep till dawn.

The battle of Pultawa was fought on the 8th of July, 1709, between the two most famous monarchs in the world: Charles XII, distinguished by a course of nine years’ victories, and Peter Alexiowitz by nine years of painstaking training of his troops to an equality with the Swedes; the one famed for having given away the dominions of others, the other for having civilized his own; Charles loving danger and fighting only for the sake of glory, Alexiowitz not running away from difficulties, and making war from interested motives only; the Swedish King liberal from a generous temperament, the Russian never generous but with some object in view; the former sober and temperate in an extraordinary degree, naturally brave and only once showing cruelty, the latter not having thrown off the roughness of his education or his race, as terrible to his subjects as he was wonderful to strangers, and addicted to excess which, as a matter of fact, shortened his days. Charles bore the title “Invincible,” which he might lose at any moment; the nations had already given Peter the title “Great,” which he could not lose by any defeat, as he did not owe it to his victories.

To get a clear idea of this battle and the place where it was fought, one must imagine Pultawa to the north, the King of Sweden’s camp to the south, slightly to the east; his baggage about a mile behind him, and the river Pultawa on the north side of the town, running from east to west. The Czar had passed the river about a league from Pultawa, towards the west, and was beginning to form his camp. At daybreak the Swedes appeared above their trenches with four cannon for their artillery; the rest were left in the camp with about 3,000 men, and 4,000 remained with the baggage. So that the Swedish army marching against the enemy consisted of about 25,000 men, of whom not more than 12,000 were regulars. Generals Renschild, Roos, Levenhaupt, Slipenbak, Hoorn, Sparre, Hamilton, the Prince of Wirtemburg, a relation of the King, and some others, most of whom had been at the battle of Narva, reminded the subalterns of that day, when 8,000 Swedes had destroyed an army of 100,000 Russians in entrenchments. The officers remarked it to the soldiers, and all encouraged one another on the march.

The King conducted the march, carried in a litter at the head of his infantry. By his order a party of horse advanced to attack that of the enemy; the battle began with this engagement. At half-past four in the morning the enemy’s cavalry lay to the west, on the right of the Russian camp: Prince Menzikoff and Count Golowin had placed them at intervals between redoubts fortified with cannon. General Slipenbak, at the head of the Swedes, fell upon them. All who have served with the Swedes know that it is almost impossible to resist their first onset. The Russian squadrons were broken and put to flight. The Czar himself ran to rally them, and his hat was pierced by a musket shot. Menzikoff had three horses killed under him, and the Swedes shouted victory.

Charles was sure that the battle was gained; he had sent General Creuts about midnight with five thousand horse to attack the enemy’s rear while he attacked their front, but, as ill-luck would have it, Creuts lost his way and did not appear.

The Czar, who had thought that all was lost, had time to rally his cavalry, and fell on the King’s horse in his turn; unsupported by Creuts’ detachment it was broken, and Slipenbak taken prisoner. At the same time seventy-two cannon from the camp played on the Swedish horse, and the Russian foot, issuing from their lines, advanced to attack Charles.

The Czar then detached Menzikoff and sent him to take up a position between Pultawa and the Swedes. He carried out his master’s orders dexterously and promptly: not only did he cut the communication between the Swedish army and the troops remaining in the camp at Pultawa, but meeting a body of 3,000 reserves he cut them to pieces. Meanwhile, the Russian foot issued from their lines and advanced in order into the plain on the other side; the Swedish horse rallied within a quarter of a league of the enemy’s army, and the King, assisted by General Renschild, gave orders for a general engagement.

He ranged his remaining troops in two lines, his foot in the centre, his horse on the two wings. The Czar arranged his forces in the same way; he had the advantage in numbers and also seventy-two cannon, while the Swedes had only four, and were running out of powder.

The Czar was in the centre of his army, and at that time bore the title of Major-General, and was apparently in the service of General Czeremetoff; but as Emperor he went from rank to rank, mounted on a Turkish horse, a present from the Grand-Seignior, exhorting his officers and soldiers and promising them all rewards. At nine in the morning the battle began again. One of the first discharges of the Russian cannon carried off the two horses of the King’s litter; he had two others harnessed in, and a second volley shattered the litter and threw the King out. The troops who were fighting near him believed he was killed; in the consternation the Swedes lost ground, and, their powder failing and the enemy’s cannon keeping up fire, the first line fell back on the second, and the second fled. In this last action of the Swedish army they were routed by a single line of 10,000 Russian infantry; so much had matters changed. Prince Wirtemburg, General Renschild and several leading officers were already prisoners; the camp before Pultawa was forced, and all in utterly hopeless confusion. Count Piper and other officers had left the camp and did not know what to do, nor what had become of their King. They ran from one side of the field to the other; Major Bere offered to lead them to the baggage, but the clouds of dust and smoke which covered the field, and their own confusion, carried them to the other side of the town, where they were taken prisoners by the garrison.

The King was unwilling to flee, and would not defend himself. General Poniatowski chanced to be with him at that moment. He was a colonel of King Stanislas’ Swedish guards, and a person of remarkable merit, who was so attached to Charles XII that he had accompanied him as a volunteer to Ukrania. He was a man who in all the chances of life, and in danger, where others would at most have only shown courage, always made his plans at once and met with success; he signed to two soldiers, who took the King under the arms and put him on horseback in spite of the great pain of his wound.

Poniatowski, though he had no command in the army, being made general by necessity on this occasion, rallied 500 horse round the King’s person: some were dragoons, some ordinary troopers, some officers. This band, inspired by the misfortune of their Prince, made their way through more than ten regiments of Russians and took Charles through the midst of the enemy, the distance of a league, to the baggage of the Swedish army.

This amazing retreat was an achievement in such a disastrous situation, but it was necessary for the King to flee further.

Though the King had never had a coach since he left Stockholm, they found Count Piper’s among the baggage. They put him into it and started for the Borysthenes with all haste. The King, who had not spoken a single word from the time he was put on horseback till he came to the baggage, then asked what had become of Count Piper. “He has been taken prisoner with all his chancery officers,” they told him. “And General Renschild and the Duke of Wirtemburg?” he asked. “They too are prisoners,” said Poniatowski. “Prisoners of the Russians!” exclaimed Charles, with a shrug; “let us rather escape to Turkey.” His expression did not change, however, and whoever had seen him and been ignorant of his position would never have suspected that he had been either conquered or wounded.

While he was escaping the Russians seized his artillery in the camp before Pultawa, his baggage and his military chest, containing 6,000,000 in specie, the spoil of Poland and Saxony. Nearly 9,000 Swedes were killed in the battle, about 6,000 were taken prisoners. There still remained some 18,000, including Swedes and Poles, as well as Cossacks, who escaped to the Borysthenes under the direction of General Levenhaupt. He went one way with these fugitives while the King, with some of his cavalry, took another direction. The coach in which he was riding broke down by the way, and they put him on horseback again. To complete his misfortunes he got lost in a wood during the night; there his courage could no longer make up for his spent strength, the pain of his wound was intensified by fatigue, and his horse fell under him from exhaustion. He lay for some hours at the foot of a tree, each moment in danger of a surprise from the conquerors who were looking for him everywhere.

At last, on the night of July 9th, he found himself on the banks of the Borysthenes, and Levenhaupt had just come up with the remnants of the army. The Swedes saw with joy mingled with grief, their King whom they had thought to be dead. The enemy drew near; they had no bridge to pass the river, nor time to make one, nor powder to defend themselves with, nor provisions to save the army from perishing with hunger, for they had eaten nothing for two days.

At all events, the rest of the army were Swedes, and the conquered King was Charles XII. Almost all the officers advised that a stand should be made to meet the Russians, and that they should die or conquer on the banks of the Borysthenes. Doubtless Charles would have decided on this course had he not been overcome with weakness; his wound mortified and he had fever; and it has been remarked that most men, when attacked with the fever of suppuration, lose the instinct of valour which, like other virtues, needs a calm head. Charles was no longer master of himself. They carried him like a sick man who has lost consciousness.

Happily they had still a miserable calash, which they had brought to that spot at great risk; they embarked it in a little boat, and the King and General Mazeppa in another. The latter had saved several coffers full of money, but as the current was very rapid and the wind began to blow the Cossack threw more than three parts of his treasure into the river to lighten the boat. Mullen, the King’s chancellor, and Count Poniatowski, who was now more than ever indispensable to the King, for his remarkable presence of mind in difficulties, crossed over in other boats with some of the officers. Three hundred horsemen and a large number of Poles and Cossacks, relying on the strength of their horses, ventured to cross by swimming. Their troop, keeping close together, resisted the current and broke the waves, but all who tried to cross separately a little lower down were carried away and sank. Of the foot that tried to cross not one got to the other side.

While the routed army was in this difficult position Prince Menzikoff came up with 10,000 horse, each with a foot soldier behind him. The bodies of the Swedes who had died on the way of wounds, fatigue and hunger were an index to the Prince of the route that the army had taken. The Prince sent a herald to the Swedish General to offer capitulation. Immediately four generals were sent by Levenhaupt to receive the conqueror’s order. Before that day 16,000 of King Charles’s soldiers would have attacked the whole force of the Russian empire and have perished to a man, rather than have surrendered; but after a battle lost and a flight of two days, and after having lost their Prince who had been forced to flee himself, the strength of every soldier being spent and their courage no longer supported by hope, the love of life overcame courage. The whole army was made prisoners of war. Some of the soldiers, in despair at falling into Russian hands, threw themselves into the Borysthenes, and the rest were made slaves. They defiled in Prince Menzikoff’s presence and laid their arms at his feet, as 30,000 Russians had done nine years before at the King of Sweden’s at Narva.

But while the King then sent back all the Russian prisoners he was not afraid of, the Czar kept all the Swedes that were taken at Pultawa. These poor wretches were dispersed throughout the Czar’s dominions, and particularly in Siberia, a vast province of greater Tartary which stretches eastward to the frontiers of the Chinese empire. In this barbarous country, where the use of bread was unknown, the Swedes, ingenious through necessity, exercised the trades and arts they had formerly been brought up to. All the distinctions which fortune makes between men were then banished, the officer who had no handicraft was forced to cut and carry wood for the soldier, who had now turned tailor, draper, joiner, mason, or smith, and got a livelihood by his labour. Some officers became painters and some architects, some taught languages and mathematics; they even went so far as to erect public schools, which gradually became so useful and famous that they sent children there from Moscow. Count Piper, the King’s first minister, was long imprisoned at Petersburg. The Czar, like the rest of Europe, believed that this minister had sold his master to the Duke of Marlborough, and so brought the arms of Sweden, which might have pacified Europe, on Russia, and he made his captivity more severe on this supposition. Piper died some years after at Moscow, having received little assistance from his family, which lived in great opulence at Stockholm, and uselessly lamented by his King, who would never humble himself by offering a ransom, which he feared the Czar would not accept, for there was never any challenge of exchange between Charles and the Czar. The Emperor of Russia, elated by a joy which he took no pains to conceal, received on the battle-field the prisoners whom they brought to him in troops, and asked every moment, “Where, then, is Charles my brother?”

He paid the Swedish Generals the compliment of inviting them to his table; among other questions he asked Renschild: What were the numbers of the army of the King his master before the battle? Renschild answered that only the King had the list of them and never gave information to any one, but that he thought the whole number might be 35,000 men, of whom 18,000 were Swedes and the rest Cossacks. The Czar seemed surprised, and asked how they dare invade so distant a country and lay siege to Pultawa with so small a force. “We were not always consulted,” answered the Swedish General, “but like faithful servants we obeyed our master’s orders without ever contradicting him.” On this answer the Czar turned to certain courtiers, who had been suspected of conspiring against him, “Ah!” he said, “see how a sovereign should be obeyed.”

Then, taking a glass of wine, “To the health of my masters in the art of war,” he said. Renschild asked who they were whom he honoured with so high a title? “You, gentlemen, the Swedish Generals,” answered the Czar. “Your Majesty is very ungrateful to handle your masters so severely,” replied Renschild. When dinner was over the Czar ordered their swords to be restored to all the officers, and treated them as a Prince who had a mind to give his subjects lessons in generosity and good breeding. But this same Prince, who treated the Swedish Generals so well, had all the Cossacks he caught broken on the wheel.

Thus the Swedish army, which left Saxony in such triumph, was now no more: one half having perished from want, and the other half being enslaved or massacred. Charles XII had lost in one day the fruit of nine years’ labours and almost a hundred battles.

He fled in a wretched calash, with General Hoorn, dangerously wounded; the rest of his troops followed, some on horseback, some in wagons, across a desert where there were neither huts, tents, men, animals nor roads; everything, even water, was lacking.

That was at the beginning of July. The country is in the forty-seventh degree of latitude; the sun’s heat was made less endurable by the dry sand of the desert; horses fell by the way, and men were near dying of thirst. Towards night they found a spring of muddy water; they filled bottles with the water, which saved the lives of the King’s little troop. After five days’ march he found himself on the banks of the river Hippais, now called the Bogh by the barbarians, who have disfigured even the names of the countries to which Greek colonies had brought prosperity. This river joins the Borysthenes some miles lower, and with it falls into the Black Sea. Beyond the Bogh, towards the south, is the little town of Oczakou, frontier-town of the Turkish empire. The inhabitants, seeing approach a troop of men-at-arms whose dress and language were strange to them, refused to carry them over to Oczakou without an order from the Governor of the town, Mahomet-Bacha. The King sent this Governor an express message, asking for a passage. But the Turk, not knowing how to act in a country where a false step often costs a man his life, dare not act on his own responsibility without the permission of the Pasha of the province, who lived at Bender, in Bessarabia, thirty leagues from Oczakou. While they were awaiting this permission the Russians had crossed the Borysthenes, and approached to seize the King himself.

At last the Pasha sent word to the King saying that he would send a small boat for him and for two or three of his suite. Then the Swedes seized by force what they could not obtain by gentle means: some went to the other bank in a little skiff, and seizing some boats brought them to their bank. This was the means of their rescue, for the owners of the Turkish boats, fearing to lose the chance of some gain, came in crowds to offer their services; just at this moment the favourable reply of the Governor of Bender arrived. But the Russians came up, and the King had the misfortune of seeing 500 of his followers who had not been able to get over in time seized by the enemy, whose insulting boasts he heard. The Pasha of Oczakou asked his pardon, by an interpreter, for these delays, which had caused the capture of the 500 men, and besought him not to mention it to the Grand-Seignior. Charles promised, after scolding him as if he were one of his own subjects.

The Commander of Bender sent in haste an aga to wait on the King, and offer him a magnificent tent, provisions, wagons, all conveniences, officers and attendants, necessary to bring him with splendour to Bender. For it is customary with the Turks not only to defray the expenses of ambassadors to their place of residence but plentifully to supply, during the time of their sojourn, the needs of the Princes who take refuge among them.

 

BOOK V

The state of the Ottoman Porte—Charles retires to Bender—His occupations—His intrigues at the Porte—His plans—Augustus restored—The King of Denmark attacks Sweden—All the King’s other territories are invaded—The Czar keeps festival at Moscow—The affair of Pruth—History of the Czarina.