BOOK VII

The Turks remove Charles to Demirtash—King Stanislas is seized at the same time—Bold action of M. de Villelongue—Revolutions in the seraglio—Battles in Pomerania—Altena is burnt by the Swedes—Charles returns to his kingdom—His strange method of travelling—His arrival at Stralsund—The state of Europe at that time—The losses of King Charles—The successes of Peter the Great—His triumphal entry into Petersburg.

 

THE Pasha of Bender waited in state in his tent, with a certain Marco for interpreter, expecting the King. He received him with great respect, and asked him to rest on a sofa; but the King disregarded his civilities and continued standing.

“Blessed be the Almighty,” said the Pasha, “that your Majesty is safe. I am grieved that you have forced me to execute the Sultan’s orders.” The King, on the other hand, was only vexed that his 300 men had allowed themselves to be taken in their entrenchments, and said, “Ah! if they had fought like men we should have held out these ten days.” “Alas,” said the Pasha, “what a pity that so much courage should be misapplied.” Then the King was taken on a fine horse with magnificent trappings to Bender. All the Swedes were either killed or taken prisoners. The King’s equipage, furniture and papers, and the most needful of his clothes were pillaged or burned; on the roads the Swedish officers, almost naked and chained in pairs, followed the horses of the Tartars and janissaries. The Chancellor and the general officers were in the same condition, becoming slaves to those of the soldiers to whose share they fell.

The Pasha Ishmael, having brought the King to his seraglio at Bender, gave him his own room, where he was served in state, but not without a guard of janissaries at the room door. They prepared a bed for him, but he threw himself down on a sofa in his boots, and fell fast asleep. An officer in waiting near by put a cap on his head; the King threw it off directly he awaked, and the Turk was amazed to see a king sleeping on a sofa in his boots and bare-headed. In the morning Ishmael brought Fabricius to the King, and when he saw his Prince’s clothes all rent, his boots, his hands, and his whole person covered with blood and dust, his eyebrows scorched, yet even in this state smiling, he threw himself on his knees unable to speak; but, soon reassured by the natural and gentle manner of the King, he resumed his ordinary familiarity, and they began to make sport of the battle.

“They tell me,” said Fabricius, “that your Majesty killed no fewer than twenty janissaries.” “No, no,” said the King, “you know a story always grows in the telling.” In the midst of the conversation the Pasha brought to the King his favourite Grothusen and Colonel Ribbins, whom he had generously ransomed at his own expense. Fabricius undertook to ransom all the other prisoners.

Jeffreys, the English ambassador, helped him with money, and La Mottraye, the French noble who had come to Bender from curiosity to see him, and who has written some account of these matters, gave all he had. These strangers, assisted by the Czar’s advice and money, redeemed all the officers and their clothes from the Tartars and Turks.

Next morning they took the King in a chariot decked with scarlet to Adrianople, and his treasurer Grothusen was with him; the Chancellor Mullern and some officers followed in another carriage. Many others were on horseback, and could not restrain tears at the sight of the King’s chariot. The Pasha commanded the escort. Fabricius remarked that it was a shame that the King had no sword. “God forbid,” said the Pasha; “he would soon be at our throats if he had a sword.” But some hours after he had one given to him.

While they were carrying, disarmed and a captive, the King who had shortly before dictated to so many countries, and been arbiter of the North and the terror of all Europe, there occurred in the same neighbourhood another instance of the frailty of human greatness. King Stanislas, seized in the Turkish dominions, was being taken prisoner to Bender at the same time as Charles was being taken to Adrianople. Stanislas, without support from the hand that had made him king, having no money, and so no friends in Poland, retired to Pomerania, and as he was not able to keep his own kingdom had done his best to defend his benefactor’s.

He even went to Sweden to hasten the recruits needed in Livonia and Poland; he did all that could be expected of him as friend to the King of Sweden. At this time the first King of Prussia, a very wise prince, justly uneasy at the near neighbourhood of the Russians, planned to league with Augustus and the Polish republic to dismiss the Russians to their own country, and to get Charles himself to share in the project. There would be three great results from such a course: the peace of the North, the restoration of Charles to his estates, and a barrier erected against the Russians, who were becoming formidable to Europe. The preliminary of this treaty, on which the tranquillity of the republic depended, was the abdication of Stanislas; Stanislas not only agreed, but he undertook to carry through a peace which deprived him of the throne: necessity, the public good, the glory of sacrifice, and the interests of Charles, to whom he owed so much, decided him.

He wrote to Bender, explaining to the King the position of affairs, the evils and their remedies. He besought him not to oppose an abdication which was necessary under the circumstances, and which was to take place from honourable motives; he begged him not to sacrifice the interests of Sweden to those of an unhappy friend, who would rather sacrifice himself for the public good.

Charles XII received the letters at Varnitsa, and said, in a rage, to the courier, before many people, “Well, if he will not be a king I shall find some one else.” Stanislas insisted on the sacrifice that Charles refused to accept; he wished to go himself to persuade Charles, and he risked more in the losing of a throne than he had done to gain it. He stole away at nine one night from the Swedish army, which he was commanding in Pomerania, and started with Baron Sparre, who was afterwards the Swedish ambassador to England and France, and another colonel. He took the name of a Frenchman called Haran, then major in the King of Sweden’s army and since killed at Dantzig. He passed round the whole of the hostile army, stopped several times, but released under a passport in the name of Haran; at last he arrived after many risks at the Turkish frontier.

When he reached Moldavia he sent Baron Sparre back to his army, believing himself safe in a country where the King of Sweden had been so honoured; he was far from suspecting what had happened since.

They inquired who he was, and he said a major in Charles’s service. They stopped him at the bare mention of his name; he was brought before the hospodar of Moldavia, who, already informed from the newspapers that Stanislas had stolen away, had some inkling of the truth. They had described the King’s appearance to him, and it was very easy to recognize his pleasant face with its extraordinary look of sweetness. The hospodar questioned him pointedly, and at last asked what had been his work in the Swedish army. Stanislas and the hospodar were speaking in Latin. “Major,” said Stanislas. “Imo maximus est,” replied the Moldavian, and at once offering him an arm-chair he treated him like a king, but like a captive king, and they kept a strict watch outside the Greek convent where he was forced to stay till they got the Sultan’s orders. The order came to take him to Bender, whence they had just removed Charles.

The news was brought to the Pasha as he was travelling with the King of Sweden, and he told Fabricius who, coming up in a chariot, told Charles that he was not the only king prisoner in Turkey, and that Stanislas was prisoner a few miles away. “Hasten to him, my dear Fabricius,” said the King, “and tell him never to make peace with King Augustus, for we shall certainly have a change of affairs soon.”

Fabricius had permission to go with the message attended by a janissary. After some miles’ journey he met the body of soldiers who were bringing Stanislas, and addressed one who rode in the midst, in a Frankish dress and indifferently mounted. He asked him in German where the King of Poland was. It proved to be Stanislas, whom he had not recognized in that disguise. “What,” said the King, “have you forgotten me?” Fabricius then told him of the King of Sweden’s sad condition, and of his unshaken but unsuccessful resolution.

When Stanislas came to Bender, the Pasha, who was returning from accompanying Charles, sent the King an Arabian horse with elegant trappings. He was received in Bender with a volley of artillery, and, except that he was a prisoner, had no cause to complain of his treatment there. Charles was on the way to Adrianople and the town was full of gossip about his battle. The Turks both admired him and thought him blame-worthy; but the Divan was so exasperated that they threatened to confine him in one of the islands of the Archipelago.

Stanislas, who did me the honour of informing me on most of these details, assured me also that it was proposed in the Divan that he too should be kept prisoner in one of the Greek islands, but some months later the Sultan softened and let him go.

M. Desaleurs, who could have championed him and prevented this affront to all Christian kings, was at Constantinople, as well as Poniatowski, whose resourcefulness was always feared. Most of the Swedes were at Adrianople in prison, and the Sultan’s throne seemed inaccessible to any complaints from the King of Sweden.

The Marquis of Fierville, a private envoy to Charles at Bender, from France, was then at Adrianople, and undertook a service to the Prince at a time when he was either deserted or ill-used by all. He was luckily helped in this design by a French noble of good family, a certain Villelongue, a man of great courage and small fortune, who, fascinated by reports of the King of Sweden, had come on purpose to join his service.

With the help of this youth M. de Fierville wrote a memorial from the King of Sweden, demanding justice of the Sultan for the wrong offered in his person to all crowned heads, and against the treachery of the Kan and the Pasha of Bender.

It accused the Vizir and other ministers of having been corrupted by the Russians, of having deceived the Sultan, intercepted letters, and of having employed trickery to get from the Sultan an order contrary to the hospitality of the Mussulmans, in violation of the laws of nations, and this in a manner so unworthy of a great Emperor, that a king who had none but his retinue to defend him, and who had trusted the sacred word of the Sultan, was attacked by 20,000 men.

When this memorial had been drawn up it had to be translated into Turkish, and written upon the special paper used for the Sultan’s petitions.

They tried to get it done by several interpreters, but the King’s affairs were at such a pass, and the Vizir so openly his enemy, that none of them at all would undertake it. At last they found a stranger whose hand was not known, so for a considerable fee, and a promise of profound secrecy, he translated the memorial and copied it on to the right sort of paper. Baron Ardidson counterfeited the King’s hand and Fierville sealed it with the arms of Sweden. Villelongue undertook to deliver it to the Sultan as he went to the mosque. This had been done before by people with grievances against the ministers, but that made it now the more dangerous and difficult.

The Vizir was certain that the Swedes would seek justice from his master, and knew from the fate of his predecessors what the probable sequel was. So he forbade any one to approach the Sultan, and ordered that any one seen in the neighbourhood of the Mosque with petitions should be seized.

Villelongue knew the order, and that he was risking his life; but he dressed as a Greek, and, hiding the letter in his breast, went early to the place. He feigned madness, and danced into the midst of the two lines of janissaries, where the Sultan was to pass, and now and then dropped some money to amuse the guards.

When the Sultan was coming they wanted to push Villelongue aside; he fell on his knees and struggled with the soldiers. At last his cap blew off, and showed that he was a Frank, from his long hair: he received several blows and was ill-used.

The Sultan heard the scuffle, and asked what was the matter; Villelongue cried with all his might, “Amman, Amman” (mercy), and pulled out the letter. The Sultan commanded that he should be brought before him. Villelongue hastened forward, and embracing his stirrup gave him the paper, saying, “Sued call dan” (the King of Sweden gives it to thee). The Sultan put the letter in his breast, went on to the mosque, and Villelongue was secured in one of the out-houses of the seraglio.

The Sultan read the letter on his return from the mosque, and resolved to examine the prisoner himself. He changed the Imperial coat and turban, and, as he often does, took the disguise of an officer of janissaries, and took an old Maltese with him as interpreter. Thanks to his disguise Villelongue had a private talk of a quarter of an hour with the Turkish Emperor, an honour that was never done to any other Christian ambassador. He did not fail to detail all the King of Sweden’s hardships, accusing the minister and demanding vengeance with the greater freedom, because he was throughout the conversation talking to the Sultan as to an equal. He had recognized the Sultan, although the prison was very dark, and this made him the bolder in his discourse. The seeming officer of the janissaries said to him, “Christian, be assured that the Sultan my master has the soul of an Emperor, and that if the King of Sweden is in the right he will do him justice.” Villelongue was soon released, and some weeks after there was a sudden change in the seraglio, which the Swedes attribute to this conference. The mufti were deprived, the Kan of Tartary banished to the Rhodes, and the serasquier Pasha of Bender to an island in the Archipelago.

The Ottoman Porte is so subject to such storms that it is hard to say whether this was an attempt to appease the King of Sweden or not; his subsequent treatment by the Porte showed little anxiety to please him.

Ali-Coumourgi, the favourite, was suspected of having made all these changes for some private ends of his own; the pretext for the banishment of the Kan and the serasquier of Bender was that they had given the King 1,200 purses against the express orders of the Sultan. He put on the Tartar throne the son of the deposed Kan of Tartary, a young man who cared little for his father and on whom Ali counted for military help. Some weeks after this the Grand Vizir Joseph was deposed, and the Pasha Soliman was declared Prime Vizir.

I must say that M. de Villelongue, and many Swedes, have assured me that the letter he gave was the cause of these changes, but M. de Fierville denies this, and I have in other cases met with contradictory accounts. Now, an historian’s duty is to tell plain matter of fact, without entering into motives, and he must relate just what he knows, without guessing at what he does not know.

In the meantime, Charles was taken to a little castle called Demirtash, near Adrianople. Crowds of Turks had collected there to see him alight. He was carried on a sofa from his chariot to the castle; but to avoid being seen by this mob he covered his face with a cushion.

It was several days before the Porte would consent to his residence at Demotica, a little town six leagues from Adrianople, near the river Hebrus, now called Marizza. Coumourgi said to the Grand Vizir, “Go and tell the King of Sweden he can stay at Demotica all his life. I warrant he will ask to move of his own accord before the year is over, and be sure you do not let him have a penny of money.”

So the King was moved to the little town of Demotica, where the Porte allowed him sufficient supplies for himself and his retinue.

They allowed him twenty-five crowns a day to buy pork and wine, a sort of provisions that the Turks do not supply, but as to the allowance of five hundred crowns a day, which he had had at Bender, it was quite withdrawn. Scarcely had he arrived at Demotica with his small court than the Grand Vizir Soliman was deposed; his place was given to Ibrahim Molla, a haughty, bold and rough man.

He had been a common sailor till the accession of Achmet III. This Emperor often disguised himself as a private citizen, a priest, or a dervish; he would then slip in the evening into the cafés and other public places of Constantinople to listen to what was said of him, and to hear the people’s opinions with his own ears. One day he heard this Molla finding fault with the Turkish ships because they never brought home any prizes, and swore that were he a captain he would never return home without some infidel ship. The next morning the Sultan gave him a ship and sent him out on a cruise. A few days later the Captain brought back a Maltese boat and a Genoese galley, and in another two years he was Admiral, and then Grand Vizir. He was no sooner appointed than he began to think that he could dispense with the favourite, and to make himself indispensable he planned to make war on the Russians; in order to do so he set up a tent near the castle where the King of Sweden was living.

He invited the King to meet him there with the new Kan of Tartary and the French ambassador. The King’s misfortunes made him feel the indignity of being sent for by a subject the more; he ordered the Chancellor Mollern to go in his place, and because he feared that the Turks might be disrespectful, and force him to compromise his dignity, he resolved to stay in bed during his stay at Demotica. This he did for ten months, just as if he had been ill. The Chancellor, Grothusen, and Colonel Dubens were his only table-companions. They had none of the conveniences of the Franks, all had been carried off at Bender, so that their meals lacked pomp and elegance. They waited on themselves, and Chancellor Mullern did all the cooking during that time.

While Charles was thus staying in bed, he heard news of the wreck of all his foreign dominions.

General Steinbock, famous for having driven the Danes out of Scandinavia, and for having defeated their picked troops with a band of peasants, was still maintaining the credit of the Swedish arms. He defended Pomerania, Bremen, and the King’s possessions in Germany as long as he could, but could not prevent the Saxons and Danes united from passing the Elbe and besieging Stade, a strong town near that river, and in the Duchy of Bremen. It was bombarded and burnt to ashes, and the garrison was obliged to surrender at discretion, before Steinbock could come to their assistance.

He had about 10,000 men, and half of them were cavalry, with which he pursued the enemy, though they were twice his number, and forced them to recross the Elbe. He caught them at a place called Gadebesck, on a small river of the same name, on the 20th December, 1712. The Saxons and Danes were posted with a marsh in front and a wood in the rear;  they had all the advantage both in number and position, for there was no getting at them but across the marsh, through the fire of their artillery.

Steinbock led on his men, and, advancing in battle order, began one of the most bloody engagements that had ever taken place between those rival nations. After a sharp fight of three hours’ duration, the Danes and the Saxons were forced back and had to leave the field.

After this victory Steinbock could not but remember how the Danes had reduced Stade to ashes, and resolved to avenge himself on Altena, a town belonging to the King of Denmark. Altena is above Hamburg, on the river Elbe, which brings up large vessels thither. The King of Denmark had granted it great privileges, in the hope of making it a place of considerable trade. Hamburg therefore got jealous, and wished nothing but their destruction. When Steinbock came within sight of the place, he sent a herald to bid them begone at once with their possessions, for he intended to destroy their town immediately.

The magistrates came and threw themselves at his feet and offered him a ransom of 100,000 crowns. Steinbock said he must have 200,000. They begged for time to send to their correspondent at Hamburg, and promised that he should have it by the next day. The General told them that if they did not pay at once he would burn their town about their ears.

His soldiers were in the suburbs ready with their torches in their hands. The town had no defence but a poor wooden gate and a dry ditch; so that the poor wretches were forced to flee at midnight. It was on the 9th of January, 1713; the weather was severely cold, and a great north wind helped to spread the flames, and to increase the sufferings of the people exposed in the open fields.

Men and women, loaded with their property, went weeping and lamenting towards the neighbouring ice-clad hills. Paralytic old folk were carried by the young on their shoulders, women just delivered were carrying their children, and died of cold on the hillside, in sight of their burning homes. The people had not all left the town when the Swedes fired it. It burned from midnight to about ten the next morning; the houses, being mostly of wood, were easily burnt, so that by morning there was scarcely any trace of a town left. The aged, the sick, and the women of delicate health, who had refuged on the frozen ground while their houses were burning, dragged themselves to the gates of Hamburg, and begged that they would let them in and save their lives, but they were refused on the ground that there had been infectious disease among them. So that most of these poor wretches died under the walls, calling Heaven to witness the cruelty of the Swedes, and of the still more inhuman Hamburgers.

All Germany was scandalized by this violence. The ministers and generals of Poland and Denmark wrote to Steinbock, complaining of his cruelty, which was inexcusable because it was uncalled for, and must set God and man against him.

He replied that he never would have gone to these extremities were it not to show his master’s enemies how war ought to be made—not like barbarians, but in consideration of the laws of nations; that they had committed atrocities in Pomerania to ruin that beautiful country, and sell 100,000 people to the Turks; that his torches at Altena were only a fitting return for the red-hot bullets they had used at Stade; that it was with such violence that the Swedes and their enemies made war on each other. If Charles could have appeared then in Poland, he might possibly have retrieved his former fortune. His armies, though they needed his presence among them, were yet actuated by his spirit; but when the master is away success is seldom turned to good account. Steinbock gradually lost all that he had gained in those great actions, which might have been decisive at a more fortunate time.

With all his success it was not in his power to prevent the Russians, the Saxons, and the Danes from uniting. They seized his quarters, and he lost several of his men in little skirmishes; 2,000 of them were drowned in the Oder as they were going to their winter quarters in Holstein; these were losses which could not be repaired in a country where the enemy was strong in all directions. He intended to defend the country of Holstein against Denmark, but in spite of his ruses and efforts the country was lost, the whole army destroyed, and Steinbock taken prisoner. To complete the misfortunes of the Swedes, the King persisted in his resolve of staying at Demotica, and fed his mind with vain expectations of help from Turkey.

The Vizir, Ibrahim Molla, who had been so bent on war with the Russians in opposition to the favourite, was pressed to death between two doors. The post of Vizir was now so dangerous that none dare take the office; but after it had been vacant for about six months, the favourite Ali-Coumourgi took it. Then the King of Sweden abandoned all hope. He really knew Coumourgi, because he had been of service to him when the favourite’s interest had corresponded with his own.

He had spent eleven months buried in idleness and oblivion at Demotica; this extreme idleness, following the most violent exercise, made the illness which he had before assumed a fact. All Europe believed he was dead, and the Regency which he had settled when he left Stockholm, getting no word from him, the Senate went to the Princess Ulrica Eleanora to ask her to take the Regency during the absence of her brother. She accepted it; but when she found that the Senate were trying to force her to peace with the King of Denmark, who was attacking Sweden from all sides, and with the Czar, she resigned the Regency in the certainty that her brother would never ratify the peace, and sent a long account of the affair to him in Turkey.

The King received the dispatches at Demotica, and the despotic theories which he had inherited made him forget that Sweden had once been free, and that the Senate had formerly governed the kingdom together with the Kings. He looked on them as servants, who were usurping the government in the absence of their master; he wrote to them that if they wanted to govern he would send them one of his boots, to whom they might apply for orders. Then, to prevent any attempt to overthrow his authority in Sweden, and to defend his country, hoping for nothing further from the Ottomans, he depended on himself, and told the Grand Vizir that he would go through Germany.

Desaleurs, the French ambassador who transacted all the affairs of Sweden, made the proposal to the Vizir. “Well,” said the Vizir, “didn’t I say that the year would not pass without the King’s asking to go? Tell him that he is free to go or stay, but that he must fix his day, that we may not have a repetition of the trouble we had with him at Bender.”

Count Desaleurs softened the form of this message to the King. The day was fixed, but Charles wished, in spite of his wretched position, to show the pomp of a grand king before leaving. He made Grothusen his ambassador extraordinary, and sent him to make a formal leave at Constantinople, with a suite of fourscore persons in rich attire. But the splendour of the Embassy was not so great as the mean shifts to which he descended to provide it were disgraceful. M. Desaleurs lent the King 40,000 crowns, Grothusen borrowed, through his agents at Constantinople, 1,000 from a Jew, at the rate of fifty per cent., besides 200 pistoles of an English merchant, and 1,000 of a Turk.

They amassed this money solely to act before the Divan the comedy of a Swedish embassy. At the Porte, Grothusen received all the honour paid to ambassadors extraordinary on their day of audience. The object of the whole thing was to get money from the Vizir, but the scheme failed. Grothusen proposed that the Porte should lend him a million. But the Vizir answered that his master could be generous when he wished, but that lending was beneath his dignity; that the King should have all necessary for his journey, and in a degree becoming to the giver; and that possibly the Porte might send him a present of uncoined gold, but that he was not to count on that.

The King began his journey on the 1st of October, 1714. A capigi-pasha, with six chiaoux, went to accompany him from Demirtash, whither he had removed a few days before. The presents they brought him from the Sultan were a large scarlet tent embroidered with gold, a sabre set with jewels, eight beautiful Arab horses, with fine saddles and stirrups set with massive silver. It is not beneath the dignity of history to tell that the Arabian groom, who had charge of the horses, gave the King an account of their genealogy; it is the custom there to think more of the family of a horse than of a man; which is not unreasonable, for if we are careful of the breed these animals never degenerate.

The convoy consisted of sixty chariots, laden with all sorts of provisions, and three hundred horses. The Pasha, knowing that many Turks had advanced money to the King’s suite at high rate of interest, told him that, as usury was forbidden by the law of Mahomet, he desired his Majesty to settle the debts, so that his resident at Constantinople should only pay the principal. “No,” said the King, “if my servants have given bills for a hundred crowns it shall be paid, even if they have only received ten for it.” He proposed to the creditors to go with him, and promised payment of all their debts; and many did go to Sweden, and Grothusen was responsible for seeing that they were paid.

The Turks, to show more respect for their guest, made very short stages in the journey; this respectful delay bored the King; he got up as usual about three in the morning; as soon as he was dressed he himself called the capigi and the chiaoux, and ordered them to march in the midst of pitch darkness. The Turkish solemnity was not pleased by this novel way of travelling, and the King was glad to find it was so, and said that he would avenge Bender a little.

When he arrived at the Turkish frontier, Stanislas was leaving it by another road, intending to withdraw into Germany to the Duchy of Deux Ponts, a country bordering on the Rhine Palatinate and Alsace, which had belonged to the King of Sweden ever since it had been united to the crown by Christina, successor to Charles XI.

Charles assigned the revenue of this Duchy to Stanislas; it was then reckoned at about 70,000 crowns. And this was the end of so many wars and so many hopes. Stanislas both would and could have made an advantageous treaty with Augustus, if Charles had not been so obstinate as to make him lose his actual estates in Poland only that he might keep the title King.

The Prince stayed at Deux Ponts, till Charles’s death, then this Duchy falling to the Palatine family, he retired to Weissemburg in French Alsace. When M. Sum, King Augustus’ ambassador, complained to the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, he received this strange answer: “Sir, tell the King, your master, that France has ever been a refuge for kings in misfortune.”

The King of Sweden, having arrived on the German frontier, found that the Emperor had given orders for his reception with proper state throughout his dominions. The towns and villages where harbingers had fixed his route were making great preparations to entertain him; and every one was looking forward to see the passing of this extraordinary man, whose conquests and misfortunes, whose least actions and whose very times of rest had made so much talk in Europe. But Charles disliked so much pomp, nor did he, as the prisoner of Bender, care to go on show; he had even resolved to never re-enter Stockholm till he had repaired his misfortunes.

So dismissing his Turkish attendants at Tergowitz, on the border of Transylvania, he called his people together in a yard, and bade them not to be anxious about him, but make the best of their way to Stralsund, in Pomerania, about 300 leagues from that spot, on the Baltic. He took no one with him, but a certain During, and parted cheerfully with all his officers, leaving them in astonishment, fear and grief. As a disguise he wore a black wig, a gold-laced hat, and a blue cloak, passing for a German officer. Then he rode post-haste with his travelling companion.

On the road he kept clear of places belonging to his real or secret enemies, and so, through Hungary, Moravia, Austria, Bavaria, Wirtemburg, the Palatinate, Westphalia and Mecklenburg, he made the tour of Germany, and doubled his route. At the end of the first day, During, who was not used to such fatigues, fainted when he alighted. The King would not wait a moment, but asked him how much money he had. He said about a thousand crowns. “Give me half,” said the King; “I see you can go no further; I will go without you.” During begged him to rest for at least three hours, assuring him that then he would be able to go on, and desired him to consider the risk of travelling alone. The King would not be persuaded, but made him hand over the five hundred crowns, and called for horses. During, fearing the consequences, bethought himself of a plan.

He drew the post-master to one side, and, pointing to the King, “Friend,” he said, “this is my cousin; we are travelling on the same business, and you see he won’t wait three hours for me; pray give him the worst horse you have, and procure me a chaise or coach.” He put a couple of ducats in the man’s hand, and was obeyed punctually; so that the King had a horse which was both lame and restive. He started at about ten at night, through wind, snow, and rain. His fellow-traveller, after a few hours’ rest, set out again in a chaise with very good horses. At about daybreak he overtook the King, with his horse in a state of exhaustion, and walking to the next stage. Then he was obliged to get in with During, and slept on the straw; then they continued their journey, on horseback during the day and sleeping in the coach at night. They did not make any halts, and so, after sixteen days’ riding, and often at the risk of being taken, they arrived at last at the gates of the town of Stralsund, at one o’clock in the morning. The King shouted to the sentinel that he was a messenger from the King of Sweden in Turkey, that he must speak that very moment to General Ducker, the governor of the place; the sentinel answered that it was late, that the governor was in bed, and that they must wait till daybreak. The King answered that he was on important business, and declared that if they did not wake the governor without delay he would have them all hanged. The next morning a sergeant went and called the governor; Ducker imagined that he was perhaps one of the King of Sweden’s generals; the gates were opened, and the courier was brought into the room. Ducker, half asleep, asked the news. The King seized him by the arm. “What,” he said, “my most faithful subjects have forgotten me!” The General recognized the King; he could hardly believe his eyes. He threw himself from his bed, and embraced his master’s feet, shedding tears of joy. The news was all over the town in a minute; every one got up, the soldiers collected round the governor’s house; the streets were full of people asking if the news were true; the windows were illuminated, the conduits ran with wine, and the artillery fired a volley.

In the meantime they put the King to bed, as he had not rested for sixteen days. They had to cut his boots from his legs, so much were they swollen from excessive fatigue. He had neither linen nor clothes. They hastily manufactured a wardrobe from whatever would fit him best that was in the town. When he had had some hours’ sleep, he got up to go and review his troops, and visit the fortifications. That very day he sent his orders to all parts for renewing the war against his enemies with more vigour than ever.

Europe was now in a very different condition from that she had been in when Charles went away in 1709. The war in the South, between England, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, was over; this general peace was due to some private quarrels in the English Court. The Earl of Oxford, a clever minister, and Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest geniuses and most eloquent men of his century, were in the ascendant against the famous Duke of Marlborough, and persuaded Queen Anne to make peace with Louis XIV. France having made peace with England, soon forced the other Powers to terms. Philip IV, grandson of Louis XIV, was beginning a peaceful rule over the ruins of the Spanish monarchy. The Emperor, master of Naples and Flanders, was firmly settled in his vast dominions. The only thing that Louis asked was to finish his long career in peace. Queen Anne of England died in August 1714, hated by half the nation for having given peace to so many States. Her brother James Stewart, an unfortunate prince excluded from the throne almost from his birth, failing to appear in England to try to recover a succession which new laws would have settled on him, had his party prevailed, George I, Elector of Hanover, was unanimously chosen King of Great Britain. The throne came to him not by right of descent, but by Act of Parliament.

Called at an advanced age to rule a people whose language he did not understand, and where everything was strange, George considered himself rather Elector of Hanover than King of England; his whole ambition was for the improvement of his German States; nearly every year he crossed the seas to visit the subjects who adored him. In other ways he preferred a private to public life; the pomp of majesty was burdensome to him, and what he liked was a familiar talk with a few old courtiers. He was not the most dazzling king of Europe, but he was one of the wisest of the kings, and perhaps the only one who could, as king, taste the pleasures of friendship and a private life. These were the chief princes, and this was the position of affairs in South Europe. The changes that had occurred in the North were of another kind: the kings there were at war, but all united against the King of Sweden.

Augustus had been long restored to the crown of Poland, by the help of the Czar, and with the consent of the Emperor, Queen Anne, and the States-General, who, though guarantors of the Peace of Altranstadt, in Charles’s better days, forgot their obligations when they found there was no longer anything to fear from him. But Augustus was not at peace in his kingdom. His people’s fears of arbitrary power returned with the return of their King; they had taken up arms to make him submit to the Pacta Conventa, a solemn compact they had with their King.

They seemed to have summoned him home only to make war on him. At the beginning of these troubles not a word was said of Stanislas, his party seemed to have disappeared, and the King of Sweden was no more remembered than as a kind of torrent, which had for a time borne down all before it.

Pultawa and Charles’s absence, which caused the fall of Stanislas, was also the cause of the fall of the Duke of Holstein, Charles’s nephew, who was dispossessed of his dominions by the King of Denmark. The King of Sweden had a great regard for the father, and was moved and humiliated by the son’s losses. Besides, as he only acted for the sake of glory, the fall of princes which he had himself set up was as vexing to him as his own losses. His enemies vied with each other in profiting by his ruin. Frederic William, the new King of Prussia, who seemed as anxious for war as his father had been for peace, took Stetin and a part of Pomerania for four hundred thousand crowns, which he advanced to the King of Denmark and the Czar. George, Elector of Hanover, now King of England, had the Duchy of Bremen and Verden for three-score thousand pistoles which he had lent to the King of Denmark. Thus was Charles spoiled, and those who had gained these territories as pledges were from their interests as much opposed to him as those who had taken them from him. The Czar was indeed most of all to be feared. His former losses, his victories, and his very mistakes, combined with his diligence to learn, and care to teach his subjects in their turn, and his hard work, made him a remarkable man.

Riga, Livonia, Ingria, Carelia, part of Finland, and all the countries that had been won by Charles’s ancestors, were now subject to Russia. Peter, who had only twenty years before not so much as one ship on the Baltic, had gained control of those seas with a fleet of no fewer than thirty ships of the line. He built one of these ships with his own hands; he was the best carpenter, admiral and pilot in the North. From the Gulf of Bothnia to the ocean he had sounded every league of the way. He had united the labour of a common sailor to the experiments of a theorist, and having become admiral gradually, and by dint of victories, as he had before when he aimed at land command. While Prince Gallitsin, a general made by him, and the best at seconding his plans, was completing the conquest of Poland, by taking Vasa and beating the Swedes, this Emperor put to sea to make a descent on Alan, on the Baltic, about twelve leagues from Stockholm.

He went on the expedition in the beginning of July 1714, while his rival Charles was in bed at Demotica.

He embarked at Cronslot, a harbour he had built four miles from St. Petersburg. The harbour, the fleet, the officers and sailors were all the work of his own hands, and he could see nothing that he had not made himself.

The Russian fleet found itself off Aland on the 15th of July; it consisted of thirty ships of the line, fourscore galleys, and a hundred half-galleys; it carried twenty thousand men, and was commanded by Admiral Apraxin, the Russian Emperor being Rear-Admiral.

The Swedish fleet came up on the 16th, under the command of Vice-Admiral Erinschild, and was weaker by two-thirds; yet they fought for three hours, the Czar himself attacking the flag-ship, and taking it after an obstinate fight.

The day of the victory he landed 16,000 men at Aland, and took many of the Swedish soldiers who could not board their own fleet prisoners. Then he returned to his port of Cronslot, with the flag-ship and three smaller ones, a frigate, and six galleys, which he had taken.

From Cronslot he went to St. Petersburg, followed by his victorious fleet and the ships he had taken. He was greeted by a salute of 150 guns. Then he made his triumphal entry, which gave him more pleasure than that at Moscow, as it was in his favourite town, where ten years before there was not so much as a shed, and which now possessed 34,000 fine houses. Then, too, he was at the head of a victorious army, and of the first Russian fleet ever seen in the Baltic; and among a people who, before his time, had never known what a fleet was.

At Petersburg the ceremonies were much the same as at Moscow. The Swedish Vice-Admiral was the pièce de résistance. Peter appeared as Rear-Admiral, and a Russian, who represented the Czar on these occasions, was set upon a throne surrounded by twelve senators. The Rear-Admiral presented him with an account of his victories, and was then made Vice-Admiral in consideration of his services. It was an odd ceremony, but suited to a country where the Czar had introduced military distinctions as a novelty.

The Russian Emperor, having thus got the better of the Swedes by land and by sea, and having helped to expel them from Poland, was master there himself; he made himself mediator between the King and the people, an honour perhaps equal to that of setting up a King. The pomp and fortune of Charles had passed to the Czar; he made a better use of it than his rival, for he used all his successes for his country’s good. If he took a town the chief artisans were transferred to Petersburg. The manners, arts and sciences of any place he took were carried home to enrich and refine his own country. So that of all conquerors he had the best excuse for his conquest.

Sweden, on the other hand, had lost all her foreign possessions, and had neither trade, money, nor credit; her veterans were either killed or had died of want. More than a hundred thousand Swedes were slaves in the vast Russian Empire, and as many more had been sold to the Turks and the Tartars. The male population was visibly becoming scarce; but in spite of all this, their hopes revived when they heard that their King had arrived at Stralsund.

The sentiment of respect and admiration for him was still so strong that the rustic youth crowded to enlist, leaving the land without cultivators.

 

BOOK VIII

Charles marries his sister to the Prince of Hesse—He is besieged in Stralsund and escapes to Sweden—The enterprise of Baron Gortz his premier—Plans of reconciliation with the Czar—An attack on England—Charles besieges Frederickshal in Norway—He is killed—His character—Gortz is beheaded.