READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XLI.

CHARLES XII AND PETER THE GREAT

WHILE these things were going on in Southern and Western Europe, the close of the seventeenth century was marked in the North by the breaking out of an extensive war. The death of Charles XI of Sweden, in April, 1697, and the accession of his son Charles XII, at the age of only fifteen years, inspired several of the northern sovereigns with the hope of aggrandizing themselves at the expense of so youthful a monarch, and of recovering some of the territories which had been wrested from them by his predecessors. Sweden still possessed the provinces which had been assigned to her by the treaties of Oliva, Copenhagen, and Kardis. Finland, Carelia, Ingria, Esthonia, and Livonia, as well as the greater part of Pomerania, the fortresses of Stettin and Stralsund, Wismar and its fortified harbour, and the Duchies of Bremen and Verden continued subject to her sceptre. Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was the prime mover in this conspiracy of sovereigns, and must be regarded as the main cause of a war which desolated Northern Europe during twenty years, and ruined for a long period his own dominions as well as Sweden.

Augustus himself, however, was led into the war by the counsels of Patkul, the Livonian noble, whose flight from Sweden and from the tyranny of Charles XI has been already recorded. Patkul inspired Augustus with the hope of acquiring Livonia by painting in glowing colours the discontent which prevailed in that province. An article of the Pacta Conventa, subscribed by Augustus on his election to the Crown of Poland, by which, in vague terms, he had undertaken to recover the provinces which had been dismembered from that Kingdom, might serve as an excuse with his Polish subjects for entering into the war; while, as regarded Sweden, it might be alleged that Livonia had been ceded to that Power by the Treaty of Oliva, only on condition that its privileges should be respected, and that these had been grossly violated by Charles XI. But under these plans of foreign aggression Augustus concealed another for strengthening himself at home. Under pretence of war, he contemplated introducing Saxon troops into Poland, and by reducing the party opposed to him in that Kingdom, to make himself absolute, and render the crown hereditary in his family. To conciliate the leading Poles, Cardinal Radziejowski, Primate of Poland, who enjoyed extensive influence, was bribed with 100,000 rix-dollars, which Patkul offered him in the name of the nobles of Livonia; and a kind of capitulation was drawn up and signed by Augustus, August 24th, 1699, for the future government and constitu­tion of that province.

As the King of Poland could not hope by himself successfully to oppose the power of Sweden, he determined to form alliances with such neighboring princes as, like himself, were and jealous of the Swedish might and ambition, or desirous of recovering some of the provinces which had been wrested from them by the Swedish arms. He first applied to the King of Denmark, the natural rival of Sweden, and now further embittered against that Power by the part which the Swedish King had taken against him in his quarrels with the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Fresh disputes had arisen in 1694 between Christian V and Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. The Danish Court having raised some difficulties about their common subjects doing homage to Frederick, the latter, with the aid of Swedish soldiers, constructed some new forts. In 1696 he formed an alliance with the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, in which Sweden was included; and subsequently he entered into treaties with Great Britain and the States-General; which Powers, in consideration of his furnishing a certain number of men for the war against France, guaranteed him from any attempt at coercion on the part of Denmark.

The Emperor now interposed, and, in August, 1696, a conference was opened at Pinneberg, in which the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg acted as mediators between the King of Denmark and the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. The debates were, however, protracted, and while the conference was still going on Charles XI of Sweden died (April 5th, 1697). His successor, Charles XII, was the intimate friend of the Duke of Holstein, with whom he had been educated. In 1698 Charles gave the Duke his sister in marriage, and promised to support him in his quarrels with Denmark; while Christian V, on his side, concluded a secret defensive alliance with the Elector of Saxony, who, as already related, had been elected to the Polish Crown in June, 1697, with the title of Augustus II. In the year 1699 Christian, having demolished the fortifications erected by the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, the latter sought the aid of his brother-in-law, Charles XII; and, having been made generalissimo of the Swedish forces stationed in Germany, he entered his duchy with a body of Swedes and reconstructed his forts.

In the midst of these events Christian V died, August 25th, 1699. Frederick IV., his successor on the Danish throne, resolved to extend the alliance already entered into with Augustus II, and to make it an offensive one; and a treaty for that purpose was signed at Dresden, September 25th. It was arranged that Augustus should invade Livonia, while Frederick should divert the Swedish forces by an attack upon Holstein. In order, however, to insure the success of these measures, Augustus resolved to obtain the assistance of the Tsar Peter, with whom a treaty was concluded, November 21st. This prince was now to play a remarkable part in the affairs of Europe, and it will, therefore, be proper to give a short account of his career.

The Tsar Alexis died January 29th, 1676, leaving by his first marriage two sons, Feodor and Ivan, and six daughters; and by his second marriage one son, Peter, afterwards called the Great, and two daughters. Feodor III, who succeeded Alexis, reigned till his death, in April, 1682; but these six years present nothing of much European importance. Feodor was succeeded by Ivan, who, however, from his weakness both of mind and body, reigned only nominally. He was also nearly blind and dumb; and in consequence of these disqualifications he had solemnly renounced the Crown in favour of his young step-brother Peter, in presence of the clergy, magistrates, soldiers, and citizens, assembled at the Kremlin, immediately after the death of Feodor. Peter now received the usual homage; but, as he was only in his tenth year, his mother, the Tsarina Natalia Kirillowna, was declared Regent during his minority. Sophia, however, the third sister of Feodor, an ambitious and enterprising princess, having formed a party in her favour, and gained over the Strelitzes, a body of troops which resembled, by their privileges and influence, as well as by their unruly conduct, the Turkish Janissaries, succeeded in seizing the reins of government; when she caused Ivan to be proclaimed Tsar jointly with Peter, and herself to be invested with the Regency. She even pretended to the title of Autocrat, and, with her paramour Golitsin, ruled everything at her pleasure. Sophia concealed under a hideous exterior a mind of extraordinary acuteness, although capable of committing the greatest crimes for the attainment of power. She had formed the design of espousing Golitsin, by whom she had children, after he should have succeeded in shutting up his wife in a convent; they were then to set aside, at a favourable opportunity, the claims of Peter, and virtually to rule the State in the name of the incapable Ivan. But these plans were defeated by the courage and conduct of Peter. The marriage of the young Tsar, in January, 1689, with Eudoxia Feodorowna, a young lady belonging to the rich and ancient family of the Lapuchin, served very much to increase his power and influence; and he soon took an opportunity to assert himself. In the following June, on the occasion of a public solemnity at Moscow, he insisted that his sister should appear, not as Regent and Autocrat, but only as Grand Princess; and, on her refusing to comply, he banished her the city. Sophia now formed a conspiracy to take Peter’s life, in which she engaged some of the Strelitzes. But Peter, having received timely notice of the plot, escaped by flight the sword of the assassins; turned all Sophia's arts against her; accused her and her paramour of high treason; caused Golitsin and several other nobles to be banished, and Sophia to be shut up in a convent which she had herself erected at a little distance from Moscow. Two days after Peter entered the capital on horseback, mustered the now obedient Strelitzes to the number of 18,000, and conducted his wife and his mother in state to the Kremlin, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the people. Thus did Peter, at the age of seventeen, become sole ruler of the Russian Empire. He displayed, however, the greatest affection for his unfortunate brother, Ivan; and, till the death of that prince, in 1697, allowed his name to appear at the head of the Imperial Ukases.

Peter now applied himself to reform the State, and particularly the army, in which cares he was assisted by General Patrick Gordon and Le Fort, a Genevese. He also directed his attention to commercial affairs and to the navy. In order to extend the Russian trade he was desirous of getting a footing both on the Baltic and the Black Sea, and to possess a navy which might protect the commerce thus created. He invited shipbuilders from Holland, whom he employed in building small vessels on the Russian lakes; and, in company with these men, whom he treated as his familiar friends, he speedily acquired the Dutch language. Dissatisfied, however, with such small efforts, Peter journeyed, in the summer of 1693 and following year, to Archangel, the only part of his dominions where he could obtain any practical knowledge of the sea and maritime affairs. Here he assumed the dress and exterior of a Dutch skipper, made small voyages in his yacht, and sometimes appeared on the exchange and made contracts with the merchants. It was during Peter's abode at Archangel that the keel of the first Russian merchant vessel was laid down. It left that port in 1695, to carry, for the first time, the Russian flag into foreign harbours. In that and the following year Russia was engaged in the war in the Crimea, as already related. After the capture of Azof, in 1696, Peter relinquished the conduct of the war to his generals, in order that he might carry out a plan which he had formed for acquiring knowledge by travelling into foreign countries. Before he set out, his life was again exposed to extreme danger through a conspiracy which his sister Sophia had hatched against him on the occasion of the death of their brother Ivan, in January, 1697; for Peter's reforms had excited great discontent among certain classes. But, having discovered and frustrated this design, and punished the ring­leaders, the young Tsar set out on his travels. His first journey was to Riga, whither he proceeded, under the name of Peter Michailoff, in the character of a military officer and one of the members of a splendid embassy consisting of 270 persons. The Tsar's reception here by Count Dahlberg, the Swedish commandant, was afterwards made one of the pretences for his war with Sweden. From Riga Peter made his way through Konigsberg and Berlin to Saardam in Holland. Here he hired from a poor widow an apartment consisting of two rooms in a back dwelling, and putting on the dress of a common labourer, obtained employment in one of the dock­yards as a shipbuilder. It must be confessed that he was more in his element here than among the beau monde, even such as it then was at Riga and Berlin, whom he at once amused and shocked by a strange mixture of barbarism, vivacity, and bashfulness. When the Russian embassy entered Amsterdam with great splendour Peter took his place in one of the last coaches, amid the noblemen who filled it; and, while his representatives were living in state and luxury in houses rented for 100,000 guilders, he himself occupied a small lodging on the quay, boiled his own pot, and lived in every respect like a common labourer, under the name of Master Peter, or Carpenter Peter, of Saardam. Our space will not allow us to dwell on all the adventures of this extraordinary man while in Holland; his interviews with William III, his studies in natural history under Leeuwenhoek, of botany and anatomy under Boerhaave. Early in 1698 Peter went over to England, where he preferred to Somerset House, which had been assigned to him as a residence, the house of Evelyn, near Deptford Dockyard. In England, as in Holland, his time was chiefly spent with workpeople and mechanicians of all descriptions. On his departure, early in May, King William made him a present of a handsome frigate of twenty-four guns, which had been prepared for the King's own use. Peter was so pleased with his visit to this country that he used often to tell his nobles that "it was a happier thing to be an English admiral than Tsar of Russia". In June Peter returned to his dominions by way of Dresden and Vienna. In his progress through Holland he had hired between 600 and 700 workmen, chiefly shipwrights, who were sent to Archangel; and at Vienna he took into his service nine Venetian sea-captains.

The Tsar was diverted from his intended journey into Italy by a fresh insurrection of the Strelitzes, which caused him to return to Moscow. At Rawa, a small place not far from Lemberg, in Poland, he met by appointment Augustus II; and it was here, during entertainments, which lasted three days, that the two sovereigns formed the plan of attack upon Sweden, for which, in the following year, they entered into a definite treaty. Patkul and General Von Carlowitz accompanied the Tsar to Moscow to arrange the details. When Peter arrived in his capital he found that the Strelitzes had been already reduced to obedience through the courage and firmness of General Patrick Gordon, and that little remained for him to do but to punish the mutineers. During a period of three weeks many hundreds of the Strelitzes were hanged or beheaded, and Peter sometimes compelled those Bojars, or nobles, whom he suspected of disaffection to perform the office of hangman. Peter's own wife, Eudoxia, who was implicated in the investigation, and who had incurred his dislike by her zeal for those old Russian customs which he wished to abolish, was sent to a nunnery and compelled to take the veil, under the name of Sister Helena. In August, 1700, he dissolved the whole corps of Strelitzes, then consisting of about 20,000 men.

Instead of the New Year’s Day hitherto observed in Russia (September 1st), Peter introduced at the opening of the last year of the seventeenth century (January 1st, 1700), the reckoning of the Julian calendar then in use in the Protestant countries of Western Europe. At the same time he made a change in the dress and manners of his subjects. The Dutch and German fashion of dress was ordered to be observed, models of which were hung up at all the entrances of the Imperial residence; and the police had orders to cut away to the knees the long frocks or pelisses of those who adhered to the ancient fashion. Even the women, who had been accustomed to wear large loose-flowing coats, were compelled to conform to the new mode. By introducing plays, concerts, balls, and the like, he endeavored to improve and soften the rude and barbarous manners of his subjects. In short, through all these improvements, and those which he introduced into the civil, military, and naval service of the country, Peter must be regarded as one of the most remarkable Reformers that the world has ever seen, and as better deserving the name of the "Great" than most of the princes to whom that epithet has been applied.

Peter’s chief motive for joining the alliance against Sweden was the desire of possessing a port upon the Baltic, and opening that sea to the navigation and commerce of his subjects, just as he had done in the Black Sea by the conquest of Azof. His ambition was at first confined to a single port. While his war with the Turks was still going on, he had sent an envoy to Stockholm to explain his plans, namely, to direct the trade of Persia into the Baltic; and he had asked either for Narva or Nyenskans, for which he offered an equivalent. It was not till after these offers had been refused that Peter listened to the proposals of the Kings of Poland and Denmark; and indeed it was scarcely for his interest to assist the Republic of Poland in the conquest of Livonia, a province to which he himself had pretensions. In consequence of his negotiations with General Carlowitz and Patkul at Moscow, Peter signed on November 21st, 1699, a treaty with Augustus II, by which it was agreed that the King of Poland should attack the Swedes in Livonia and Esthonia, and that the Tsar, to whom a footing on the Baltic was secured, should invade Ingria and Carelia, as soon as he should have concluded a peace with the Porte. This was not effected till July, 1702, the negotiations having lasted more than two years; but Peter, nevertheless found himself enabled to take part in the war in 1700. The allies endeavored to draw Frederick, the Elector of Brandenburg, into the league; but that Prince, although he was on a good footing with all of them, and especially with the Tsar, whom he had entertained in his dominions, and though he had, besides, as much cause as they for making reprisals upon Sweden, yet preferred to maintain inviolate his treaties with that Power.

Augustus II, at the very time that he was preparing to make war upon his cousin, was deceiving him by a show of friendship, and had sent an ambassador to Stockholm to negotiate a treaty. The Saxon troops began to move towards Riga towards the end of 1699; but, through the dilatoriness of their commander, General Flemming, who had just married the daughter of a Livonian noble, the attack on Riga was delayed till near the end of February, 1700, and the opportunity of surprising that place was consequently lost. Nor did the Livonians rise in favour of Augustus as Patkul had led him to expect. Flemming was, therefore, compelled to turn the siege of Riga into a blockade, and to attack some smaller places, as Dunamunde, Budberg, etc.. Dunamunde, important as commanding the mouth of the Dwina, was soon obliged to capitulate. Meanwhile, Frederick IV, relying on this diversion, which he thought would prevent Charles XII from assisting his brother-in-law, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, had commenced an attack upon that prince. But he had completely mistaken the character of the Swedish King.

Charles, who had not completed his fifteenth year at the time of his father's death, was a few months after that event declared major by the Swedish States; the regency appointed by his father's will was set aside, and the youthful king took into his own hands the reins of government. Count Piper, who had been the chief instrument in this affair, now became Charles's confidant and counsellor. During the first two or three years of Charles's reign, nothing happened to call forth his latent and yet hardly developed qualities; but he gave a foretaste of his reckless courage in desperate bear hunts, in which the danger of the sport formed its chief relish. His character was first displayed to Europe through the confederacy organized against him by his cousins. The news of the invasion of Livonia by the Saxons filled his counsellors with anxiety and alarm. But Charles's address to the Senate soon calmed their apprehensions. “I have resolved”, he said, “never to wage an unjust war; but, at the same time, never to close a just one except by the destruction of my enemies”. The hopes inspired by this remark were increased by the change observed in Charles's mode of life. His hunting parties, as well as the expensive ballets and plays, in which he had indulged, were exchanged for military exercises and reviews, and instructive conversations with the few veteran officers who had survived the wars of his grandfather. The faithless conduct of his cousin, the King of Poland, filled him with surprise and indignation; and when that monarch, after his ill-success at Riga, made some advances for an accommodation with Charles through the French ambassador, the Swedish King refused to treat till he should have inflicted some chastisement on his perfidious kinsman.

First of all, however, he resolved to fly to the aid of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, who had invoked his help against the King of Denmark. The Danes had entered Schleswig in March, 1700, and, after taking Husum, Eiderstedt, and other places, laid siege to Tonning, the Duke’s principal town; from which, however, they were forced to retire on the approach of an army of Swedes, Hanoverians, and Dutch, under the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg (June). Frederick IV, misled by the idea that the attack on Livonia by the Saxons and Poles would prevent the Swedes from going to war with him, had joined his army before Tonning, in the confident hope of an easy victory; instead of which he was to see his own capital threatened with destruction.

Charles XII had concluded at Stockholm a defensive alliance with the Dutch, February 22nd, 1698, which, in the following May, was acceded to by William III of England. The object of this alliance was declared to be, not only mutual defence, but also the maintenance of peace in Europe; and the views of the Maritime Powers in forming it were, to keep Sweden in that line of anti-French policy which she had adopted since the Peace of Nimeguen. Charles XII, indeed, at the persuasion of Piper, also concluded a defensive treaty with France in July of the same year; but this was only a temporary deviation from the policy adopted by his father. In January, 1700, he renewed and extended his alliance with the Maritime Powers by a fresh treaty, by which, in case of attack, the reciprocal succour was fixed at 6,000 men. But by a secret article, the King of Sweden bound himself to furnish 10,000 men, in case Great Britain or the States-General should be compelled to go to war to maintain the Peace of Ryswick; and, by another secret article, those two Powers guaranteed to the Duke of Holstein the rights secured to him by his treaty with Christian V at Altona in 1689, which they had helped to mediate. Agreeably to these treaties, Charles XII now called upon the Maritime Powers for aid. A combined English and Dutch fleet, under Rooke and Allemonde, passed the Sound in June, 1700, and in the following month formed a junction with the Swedish. The Danish fleet, too weak to contend with an armament which numbered upwards of sixty ships of the line, was compelled to take refuge under the guns of Copenhagen.

Notwithstanding the danger which threatened his capital, Frederick IV obstinately refused to treat till a descent of the Swedes in Zealand, led by the King in person, rendered his position altogether desperate. Covered by the fleet, Charles effected a landing near the village of Humlebek, August 5th. With fiery impatience, he himself was among the first to leap into the water, which reached up to his armpits. The few troops which opposed the landing were soon dispersed; the Swedish camp was safely established; and so strict was the discipline maintained among the soldiers, that the Danish peasants brought in an abundant supply of provisions, for which they were punctually paid. It being now obvious that Copenhagen could be saved only by a speedy peace, negotiations were opened at the castle of Travendahl, and on August 18th a treaty was concluded on better conditions than Frederick IV might have expected. Charles, desirous of prosecuting the war with Poland, consented to easy terms, and, forgetting his own interests, stipulated only in favour of his brother-in-law. All the ancient treaties between Denmark and Holstein were renewed and confirmed, and the King engaged to pay the Duke 260,000 rix-dollars as an indemnity for losses suffered. Thus did Charles finish his first war in the course of a few weeks without fighting a single battle. On September 3rd, he returned to Helsingborg; and on the 8th, Admirals Rooke and Allemonde withdrew their fleets from the northern waters, in which they had been the heralds of peace rather than the ministers of war.

The Peace of Travendahl (1700) took the allies by surprise. The Tsar, who was ignorant of it, declared war against Sweden, September 1st, and, for the first time, with all the usual forms of European diplomacy. But this apparent advance in civilization was counterbalanced by the observance of the good old Russian custom of throwing the Swedish resident at Moscow into prison; and this while the Russian envoy was giving Charles the warmest assurance of his master's friendship. The reasons which Peter alleged for hostilities could not but be very weak, and were chiefly grounded on the reception he had met with from the commandant at Riga. An army of 80,000 men—an immense force for that age—gathered together from all the Russian provinces, and even from Asia, was directed against Ingria under the command-in-chief of Duke Charles Eugene of Croy. A division under Prince Trubetskoi, Governor of Novgorod, appeared before Narva September 19th, and was joined by the Tsar and the Duke of Croy, October 1st, when the siege was commenced. Peter on his occasion assumed the rank and fulfilled the duties of a simple lieutenant; crossing the bridge which had been thrown over the river, pike in hand, with his company, in order to give the soldiers an example of subordination. Charles XII, after his return from Zealand, had determined to lead his forces against the Saxons in Livonia; but, as he was embarking them at Karlshamn, his plans were altered by news that the Russians had not only declared war against him and imprisoned his ambassador, but had even invaded Ingria. The Swedish armament sailed October 10th, and landed the troops partly at Pernau, partly at Revel. Charles immediately resolved to direct his march on Narva. The two divisions of his army, when they formed a junction at Wesenberg, numbered only 13,000 men, and after making the necessary detachments for the defence of the country, he advanced against the enemy with but 5,000 foot, 3,300 horse, and 37 guns. On November 27th Charles forced the reputed impregnable defile of Pyajokki, defended by 6,000 chosen Russians under Scheremetov, who fled in the greatest alarm to the Russian encampment before Narva, spreading the report that the Swedes were advancing 20,000 strong. On the morning of November 29th Charles had penetrated to Lagena, only six miles from Narva. The news of the defeat of Scheremetov and approach of the Swedes filled the Tsar with consternation. At three o'clock on the morning of the 28th, Peter entered the tent of the Duke of Croy, almost mad with fright, and, after drinking several glasses of brandy, desired the Duke to take the entire command of the army, while he himself, accompanied by Princes Golovin and Menschikoff, hastily left the camp, under pretence of fetching reinforcements from Pleskow.

The flight of their sovereign and principal commanders had a most demoralizing effect on the Russian army. When the Swedes debouched from the wood of Lagena and formed in order of battle, they appeared to be so few that Croy took them only for the advance guard of the 20,000 men reported by Scheremetov. He declined, therefore, to leave his intrenchments, which were assaulted by the Swedes under cover of a snow-storm which drove into the faces of the Russians. In less than a quarter of an hour the Swedes had penetrated into the encampment; when the Russians, regardless of their officers, fled in disorder. In the pursuit hundreds were drowned in the Narva, the bridge over which had been broken down; others, who tried to shelter themselves behind some huts and baggage-waggons, were cut down like sheep. The young King of Sweden distinguished himself by the personal part which he took in this dreadful day. A spent ball lodged in his cravat; and in leading an assault he lost his sword and one of his boots in a morass. He was dragged out by his followers, and continued to fight with only one boot. It is said that 12,000 Russians fell in this battle, and on the following morning the remainder of their infantry surrendered; the cavalry had saved themselves by flight. As it was impossible to keep so many prisoners, they were dismissed, after defiling bareheaded before Charles to the number of 18,000 men, and giving up their arms and colours. The general and higher officers alone were retained in captivity. The loss of the Swedes is computed at only 2,000 men.

The battle of Narva is an epoch in the history of Russia. It opened the eyes of the Tsar to the defects of his army; and as he was not of a temper to be discouraged by his defeat, he regarded it as a useful lesson and redoubled his efforts to bring his forces into a better condition. But as it afforded a handle to the discontented Bojars, and even threatened to produce a revolution, Peter hastened back to his capital, where his political courage and activity served to compensate for the lack of those qualities which he had displayed in the field.

Charles, who had taken up his winter-quarters in Livonia to refresh and recruit his little army, was long detained there in order to obtain reinforcements from Sweden. As it was uncertain whether, when he again took the field, he would direct his forces against the Russian provinces or the army of Augustus, that King and the Tsar had an interview at Birsa in February, 1701, to take measures for their future safety; where, amid banquets and drinking bouts, which both loved well enough, their friendship was cemented by personal acquaintance, mutual interest, and a common danger. On March 3rd they concluded a new treaty, by which the Tsar engaged to pay Augustus 200,000 rix-dollars, and to send him from 15,000 to 20,000 Russian troops. His motive for this last step seems to have been that his men might become habituated to European discipline.

Charles, having received large reinforcements from Sweden, broke up from Dorpat June 27th, 1701, the anniversary of his birthday. On July 20th, he crossed the Dwina a little below Riga, and defeated the Saxons under Marshal Steinau. Agreeably to the Tsar's promise, Prince Repnin was leading 20,000 Russians to the aid of Steinau, of which, however, only 4,000 had been able to form a junction with that general before he was attacked by the Swedes. Kokenhusen, Dunamunde, and other places held by the Saxons were recovered before the end of the year, and all Courland was occupied by Charles’s troops. The Swedish King might now have concluded an honorable and advantageous peace. The Tsar, alarmed at the rapid progress of the Swedish arms, endeavored to propitiate Charles through the mediation of the States-General. Augustus II had still more cause for alarm, as Charles, in letters addressed to the Cardinal Primate, Radziejowski, and to the Polish Senate, had plainly intimated his wish that Augustus should be deposed. The Polish King solicited the interference of the chief European Powers; and William III, who was desirous of maintaining peace in Northern Europe, strongly persuaded Charles to reconcile himself with his adversaries, pointing out that he was in a position to dictate his own terms. But Charles refused to listen to any such proposals till he had gratified his revenge. That the perfidious conduct of Augustus was a reasonable ground of offence, and that the war in its origin was a just one, cannot be questioned; but the vindictive feelings of Charles, and it must be added also his passion for war, made him overlook the true interests of Sweden, and finally precipitated both his country and himself into irretrievable ruin.

The Polish Republic, however, had given Charles no cause for complaint; for though the war was ostensibly waged by Augustus in the interest of Poland, yet it was carried on with Saxon troops, and against the wish of the Poles, who frequently assured Charles of their friendly disposition. He had cantoned his army along the borders of Samogitia, the frontier province of Poland Proper; but it was long before he could make up his mind to cross them. His first expedition was into Lithuania in the winter of 1701, whither he was attracted by the feuds of the two powerful families of Sapieha and Oginski. The faction of Sapieha was unfriendly to Augustus, whom it denounced as the enemy of the national liberties. But this rash expedition, which Charles undertook with only 1,500 horse and a few hundred infantry, without apparently any settled plan, led to no result. At Friski Charles was surprised by the troops of Oginski, and with difficulty found his way back to his army. It was after his return from this expedition that Augustus despatched to him his mistress, the beautiful Aurora von Konigsmark, a Swedish countess, to sue for peace; but Charles refused to receive the fair ambassadress. A deputation from the Diet assembled at Warsaw met with scarcely a better reception. Charles, who was now on his march towards that capital, successively appointed to meet the envoys at Kovno and Grodno, but evaded both these appointments, and only at length gave them an audience at Dlugowice (May 4th, 1702). The purport of their message was, that the Polish Republic wished for peace, but that they could never consent to the dethronement of their Sovereign; and they desired that the Swedish troops should evacuate Samogitia and Courland, which were fiefs of the Republic. Such demands, unsupported by an army, were little regarded by Charles. He refused to treat with Augustus, or to recognize him as King of Poland; and he directed his answer to Radziejowski, the Cardinal Primate, as if the throne had been vacant.

Against the advice of his best generals and counsellors, Charles especially Stenbock, Piper, and Oxenstiern, Charles now pushed on for Warsaw, and on May 24th reached the suburb of Praga on the right bank of the Vistula. His approach occasioned a panic in the capital. Most of the nobles, including the Primate, retired to their estates; King Augustus set off for Cracow, where he had appointed his Saxon troops to rendezvous. Charles entered the town and castle without opposition. His army numbered only 9,000 men: with so small a force had he undertaken to hold a city of 60,000 inhabitants, and to direct the policy of fourteen million Poles! He had expected to meet warm partisans at Warsaw, and was surprised and hurt at the sullen silence with which he was received. It was only after repeated invitations that the Primate, who had retired to his Archbishopric of Gnesen, could be induced to return to Warsaw. Charles endeavored to draw the Primate to his views; but Radziejowski declined to sanction the deposition of Augustus, or even to call a Diet, on the ground that he was not constitutionally empowered to do so.

Charles XII did not pursue his march towards Cracow till about the end of June. This interval had enabled Augustus, whose cause was favoured by the nobles of the Palatinates of Cracow and Sandomierz, to raise a much larger force than that of his adversary; and he was so elated by this circumstance that he resolved to give battle, though his most prudent generals advised him to wear out the Swedes by marches and counter­marches. The two kings met, July 20th, near Clissow, a place between Warsaw and Cracow; when Charles gained a complete victory over 20,000 Saxons and 12,000 Poles, under Jerome Lubomirski, and captured the camp of Augustus, with forty-eight guns, many standards, the military chest, and the King's silver dinner-service. Charles's joy at this victory was, however, damped by the death of his brother-in-law, Frederick of Holstein-Grottorp, who was killed by a cannon-ball. In consequence of this victory, Cracow fell into the hands of Charles, and Augustus retired to Sandomierz. Here the nobles of Little Poland, exasperated by the exactions of the Swedes, rallied round Augustus, and formed a confederation to support him, which was afterwards joined by many of the nobles of Great Poland and Lithuania. They sent an embassy to Charles to offer very favourable conditions of peace, which, however, he refused. A fall from his horse, by which he broke his thigh­bone, detained Charles longer at Cracow than he had intended. It was not till October 12th that he began his march towards Sandomierz in a litter; while Augustus, on his approach, set off for Thorn in Polish Prussia.

The winter was spent in debates and negotiations. The Cardinal Primate, whose wavering policy, dictated by self-interest, seemed sometimes to incline for Charles and sometimes for Augustus, summoned the Senate to meet at Warsaw; while the Polish King called a Diet at Marienburg, which gave its sanction to the Confederation of Sandomierz. Meanwhile Charles had taken up his winter-quarters at Lublin, and towards the middle of April, 1703, he concentrated all his forces at Warsaw. Hence an attack was directed against a Saxon division under Steinau, posted at Pultusk on the Narew, which was completely defeated (May 1st), with the loss of only twelve men on the part of the Swedes. Charles now directed his march upon Thorn, where Augustus had left 7,000 men. He appeared before that town May 23rd, but did not succeed in taking it till October 15th, when it surrendered at discretion. The fortifications were now demolished, and the garrison sent to Sweden. Charles remained at Thorn till November 21st, and then put his army into winter-quarters in the neighborhood of Dantzic and Elbing.

In the course of this summer Augustus had summoned another Diet at Lublin, which formed, as it were, the complement of that of Marienburg. This assembly showed itself favourable to the King. It again sanctioned the Confederation of Sandomierz, and authorized Augustus to take means for prosecuting the war; for which purpose the army of the Crown was to be raised to 36,000 men, and that of Lithuania to 12,000; but Saxons were not to be admitted into it, nor was any alliance to be formed with Russia. It was resolved that the question of the King's deposition should never be debated in the Diet. The Primate had the boldness to appear in this assembly and declare that he had taken no part against the King. He was received with a tumult of indignation; the bitterest reproaches were levelled against him; shouts arose of “The Swedes' friend! the betrayer of his country!” nay, swords were even drawn; yet the prelate, by his imperturbable coolness, succeeded in allaying all this animosity, and even seemed to have convinced the assembly of his innocence! The Diet resolved to dispatch a deputation to Charles with terms of peace; he was to be allowed a space of six weeks to decide whether he would accept them; and if, at the expiration of that period, he should declare for war, Augustus was to be at liberty to seek foreign aid. The offers made by the Diet, which were supported by the Court of Vienna and the States-General, were, the confirmation of the Peace of Oliva and the complete neutrality of Poland. But Charles refused to receive any proposals which had not for their basis the deposition of Augustus, and in September he published a circular denouncing the proceedings of the Diet of Lublin. Augustus, in consequence, made a new treaty with the Tsar, by which the latter engaged to send him 12,000 men, and promised 200,000 roubles yearly.

Only a few months after these proceedings, the treacherous Primate summoned another Diet at Warsaw (January, 1704); giving out that Charles, with whom he was in communication, and who sent two ambassadors to the assembly, would treat with the Polish Republic, but not with the Polish King. The Diet, which was composed of only ten senators and the Nuncios of Great Poland, formed itself into a Confederation to effect the deposition of Augustus. The propositions made to Charles, through the Countess of Konigsmark, which she had delivered into the hands of the Swedish ministers, were made a ground of accusation against Augustus. They proved that, in order to buy a peace, he had offered to cede some of the Polish provinces to Sweden. This charge excited universal indignation. Not a voice was raised in the King’s favour; the throne was voted to be vacant, and on February 16th, 1704, an interregnum was publicly proclaimed.

The Primate had been led by his friendship for James Sobieski to take this open and irretrievable step against Augustus. The memory of his father, King John, had rendered James Sobieski very generally popular among the Polish nobles; and it had been agreed, with the concurrence of Charles, to raise him to the throne. But Augustus frustrated this design by seizing the person of his intended successor. James Sobieski and his brother Constantine dwelt in the castle of Ohlau, near Breslau; and as they were one day riding towards that city they were suddenly surrounded by a party of Saxon dragoons and carried to Leipsic, where they were kept in a sort of honourable confinement in the Pleissenburg. Alexander, the youngest brother of John Sobieski, having declined the proffered crown, much difficulty arose as to the choice of a king. Four candidates appeared in the field; Jerome Lubomirski, Grand General of the Crown; Charles Stanislaus, Radzivill, Chancellor of Lithuania; Piemiazek, Voyvode of Siradia; and Count Stanislaus Lesczinski, Yoyvode of Posen.

The claim of Lubomirsk; was supported by the Primate; but Charles preferred Stanislaus Lesczinski. The Swedish army was moved towards Warsaw; a detachment appeared on the plain of Vola, the place of election; and on July 19th, 1704, against the wish of the higher nobles, and without the concurrence of Radziejowski, Stanislaus was saluted King of Poland.

He was not, however, to enjoy his new dignity in quiet. Augustus, who had still a considerable party in his favour, had retired to Cracow, and afterwards for greater security to Sandomierz, where his adherents, under the name of ‘Reconfederates’, published a manifesto against the proceedings at Warsaw and the election of Stanislaus (July 28th). The new Monarch was recognized by no Power except Sweden; and the Primate Radziejowski, who had ultimately acknowledged him, was deprived of all his dignities by a Papal bull. Soon after the election Charles and his army proceeded to Heilsberg to levy contributions, leaving Stanislaus with only a few troops at Warsaw; and he afterwards marched into fed Russia, or Galicia. Augustus quickly took advantage of this political as well as strategical error. By a rapid and dexterous march he pushed on his cavalry, among whom was a large body of Cossacks, to Praga : he himself, with the remainder of his forces, appeared before Warsaw, August 31st, and the Swedish General Horn was compelled to surrender the town and castle. Stanislaus now fled to Charles for protection; his estates, as well as those of the other confederates, were plundered; and he found himself deserted by many of the nobles who had joined him.

While these things were going on at Warsaw, Charles, whose chief object seems to have been plunder, was forming an expedition against Lemberg, the capital of Galicia. Having failed to surprise that place with a body of horse, he captured it by assault at the head of his dismounted troopers, he himself being among the first to mount the ramparts. Here it was that he was joined by Stanislaus, and he now hastened to repair the faults he had committed. The march of the Swedish army was again directed upon Warsaw, before which it appeared October 24th, after capturing Zamosc by the way. Augustus, after making some show of disputing the passage of the Vistula, deemed it more prudent again to evacuate his capital, and fled with his cavalry to Oracow. The Swedish infantry now took possession of Warsaw, while Charles, with his horse, pursued the Saxon foot under Schulenburg, whom he overtook at Punitz, in the Palatinate of Posen. But Schulenburg, by the admirable disposition of his troops, resisted for some hours all the attacks of Charles, till night came to his assistance, during which he effected his retreat in good order. The Swedish troops were now put into winter-quarters along the frontiers of Silesia; while Augustus repaired to Dresden, his capital, and employed himself in putting the fortifications in order.

Coronation of Stanislaus

The following year (1705), though almost destitute of military events, was fertile of political ones. The Cardinal Primate, who had taken refuge at Danzig, was at length persuaded to sanction the coronation of Stanislaus, but on condition that the King of Sweden should engage to support him during five years in his new dignity; that he should cease to levy the exorbitant war-taxes which were ruining the country, and that he should protect the Primate against the effects of the Pope's anger against him for having consented to the coronation. The Primate, however, declined to put the Crown on the head of Stanislaus with his own hand, and that office was performed by the Bishop of Lemberg, October 3rd. Charles himself, accompanied by Count Piper and the Prince of Wurtemberg, was present incognito at the ceremony.

The Cardinal Primate survived this event only a few days, Stanislaus appointed the Bishop of Lemberg as his successor, while Augustus named the Bishop of Cujavia. As the confederates of Sandomierz had mostly declared in favour of the conqueror, nothing now stood in the way of a treaty of peace and alliance between Sweden and the Polish Republic, which was accordingly signed at Warsaw, November 18th. The principal articles were, the confirmation of the Peace of Oliva; a general amnesty, except for King Augustus and his adherents, whether Saxons or others; no peace was to be made with Augustus till he should have renounced the Polish Crown, and given satisfaction to the Republic, as well as to the King of Sweden, for all their losses by the war; the contracting parties were to pursue the war against the Tsar of Muscovy with united forces till they had compelled him to give satisfaction; dissenters were to enjoy the free exercise of their religion; Sapieha, and other nobles of Lithuania, were to be restored to their estates and dignities.

After these occurrences, the only hope of Augustus seemed to rest on the friendship of the Tsar Peter, with whom he had an interview at Grodno towards the end of the year. Augustus on his way thither was met at Tykoczyn by a large body of the most distinguished dignitaries and nobles of Poland, including Lubomirski, the General of the Crown, who came to assure him of their friendship. At Grodno the meetings of the Polish senators were attended both by Peter and Augustus; and a new treaty was concluded between the Tsar and the Polish King. The Tsar was called away by some disturbances in Astrachan; but he left 15,000 men, under Ogilvy, at the disposal of Augustus. In spite, however, of Peter’s friendly behavior, Augustus put but little trust in him; and it was precisely at this time that he caused Patkul to be apprehended, who had left his service for that of Peter, and was now Russian envoy to the Saxon Court. Patkul, who was suspected of endeavoring to promote a peace between the Tsar and the King of Sweden, was confined in the fortress of Konigstein.

Charles XII set out in mid-winter with 20,000 men to attack Augustus at Grodno, before which place he arrived towards the end of January. In this ill-considered expedition the Swedish army suffered incredible hardships from cold and hunger, of which, however, if it be any excuse, it must be allowed that Charles himself bore his share. Nor did they meet with the slightest reward for all these hardships. Augustus escaped from Grodno with his cavalry; the Russian infantry shut themselves up in the town, and Charles, who could neither besiege nor assault it, retired to Kamionka, a place at some little distance, where he and his army lay two or three months inactive, enduring the greatest privation and misery. Augustus had ordered Schulenburg to march with the troops cantoned in Silesia to the relief of Grodno; but he was defeated at Erauenstadt (February 13th, 1706) by the Swedish general Rehnskiold, when the Saxon infantry was almost annihilated. After all, the Russian infantry, under Ogilvy, escaped Charles's vigilance, and made good their retreat in the spring from Grodno into Volhynia, whither he immediately followed them. His reasons for this difficult and dangerous march through almost impassable forests and morasses are said to have been to refresh his troops in Volhynia, and to annihilate the party of Augustus in that province. The Russians had placed themselves out of his reach by crossing the Dnieper; and though the Volhynians acknowledged Stanislaus with their lips, it was evident that their new-born devotion would vanish as soon as Charles's back was turned. The only satisfaction he derived from this laborious expedition was the maintaining his army and replenishing his military chest at the expense of the nobles who adhered to Augustus.

At length, however, after so many campaigns without a plan, Charles hit upon a scheme which might have put an end to his struggle with the Polish King some years earlier. He resolved to march into Saxony and dictate a peace to Augustus in his own capital. Although Charles kept his design concealed even from his own generals till the last moment, yet his movements appear to have raised a suspicion of it in the mind of Augustus, who, with a view to divert him from his enterprise, had formed a junction in Lithuania with 20,000 Russians under Prince Menschikoff. But Charles, without heeding this demonstration, marched straight to his object, and, on September 1st, entered Silesia with about 20,000 men. That province belonged to the Emperor; but as Joseph was then engaged in the War of the Succession with France, it was not to be feared that he would avenge this breach of his neutrality, especially as Augustus had also allowed himself the same licence. On September 16th, the Swedes crossed the Elbe, having established themselves in Saxony without meeting with any serious resistance.

Augustus was filled with dismay at the news of these events. He addressed a humble letter to Charles, beseeching him to spare an unfortunate prince and kinsman; and he sent envoys to the Swedish camp at Altranstadt, near Leipzig, to negotiate a peace, "on moderate and Christian conditions", including the resignation of the Polish Crown. Charles, in reply, dictated the following terms through his minister, Count Piper: that Augustus should renounce the throne of Poland for himself and his descendants, retaining, however, the title of King, but not of Poland; that he should give up his alliance with Russia, liberate the Princes Sobieski, and deliver up all renegades, especially Patkul. Augustus had no alternative but to comply with these conditions, which form the principal articles of the Treaty of Altranstadt, signed September 24th, 1706. The Swedes were to be allowed to take up their winter-quarters in Saxony, at the expense of the inhabitants. The treaty was to be kept secret till such time as Augustus could disengage himself from the Russians, and was, therefore, represented as a mere armistice. The most disgraceful feature of it was the surrender of Patkul, who had been seized in violation of the law of nations, and in spite of the protest of Prince Galitzin, the Russian minister at the Court of Saxony. The unfortunate Patkul, after being kept a prisoner nearly a year with the Swedish army, was broken on the wheel at Casimir in October, 1707.

The necessity for keeping this treaty secret from the Swedes placed Augustus in an awkward dilemma, and had nearly occasioned the upsetting of the whole peace. Augustus, as we have said, was with the army of Prince Menschikoff; who no sooner heard that Charles had entered Saxony, leaving in Poland only a small force under General Marderfeld, than he resolved to attack this commander; and Augustus, after exhausting every pretext for delay, found himself compelled to join in the attack. As the only way to avert it, he gave Marderfeld secret notice of the peace which had been concluded, and exhorted him to retire with his troops. But the Swedish general, regarding this advertisement as a snare, was only the more eager to give battle. The armies met at Kalisch, October 30th, when Marderfeld, being deserted by the Poles, and having lost a great part of his Swedes, was compelled to surrender himself prisoner with the remainder. Augustus wrote to Charles to excuse this unfortunate occurrence, and, after sending the Russians into winter-quarters in Volhynia, he himself hastened into Saxony to pacify the anger of the Swedish King. On December 27th, he had an interview at Leipsic with Charles XII and his own supplanter, Stanislaus I, when he affected indifference for a crown that had caused him so much bitterness.

The Peace of Altranstadt marks a pause in the struggle between Charles and Augustus, after which the policy of the Tsar becomes of great importance.

After his return from Birsa, the Tsar had employed himself in exercising his troops at Novgorod and Pleskow. Towards the end of the year (1701) he again ventured to take the offensive. A Russian corps, under Scheremetov, invaded Livonia, and defeated the Swedish general Schlippenbach at Erraster, in the district of Dorpat (December 30th), an exploit for which Scheremetov was made field-marshal. During the winter, Peter employed himself in constructing a fleet on Lake Peipus, with which, in the following summer, he gained some advantages over the Swedes. The Russians were also successful on land; and, in July, Schlippenbach was again defeated at Hummelshof. The Russians abused their success by the barbarous destruction of several Livonian towns and villages. Marienburg was captured in September, an event which was destined to have an important influence on the Tsar’s future life. Among the prisoners made on this occasion was Catharine, a young peasant girl of Esthonia, and then a servant in the family of Glück, the Provost of Marienburg, who, a few years after, became the wife of the Tsar, and ultimately sovereign of Russia with the title of Catharine I. In October Peter himself was present, as a captain of bombardiers, at the taking of Noteburg, a fortress which lay on an island in the Neva. Peter's desire to possess a fort on the Baltic was gratified the following year by the capture of Nyenschanz. Here, accompanied by his favourite, Menschikoff, he put to sea with thirty small vessels and captured two Swedish barks, which had come to the relief of the place. Peter celebrated this event as the first naval victory gained by the Russians, and decreed to himself and Menschikoff the order of St. Andrew, which he had recently revived. As Nyenschanz, however, did not appear to be well seated for the purposes of trade, he laid the foundations of a new city in an island at the mouth of the Neva. The site of this place still belonged, according to treaties, to the Swedes; yet he already destined it to be the future capital and chief marine station of his empire, and named it, after himself or his patron saint, St. Petersburg. It would be impossible for anything to display in a stronger light Peter's just appreciation of the situation and prospects of his adversary. Nyenschanz was ordered to be razed, and the population transferred to the new city; for whose defence he caused fortifications to be erected on an island that lies before the mouth of the Neva. This fortress, then known by the name of Kronschlot, has since become the formidable Kronstadt. In the two following years, some Swedish vessels in vain endeavored to bombard and capture it. In giving his new capital a German name, it was Peter's intention to remind his subjects that they must adhere to that adoption of foreign, and especially German, manners which he had prescribed for them. In November he celebrated his victories by entering Moscow in triumph; when the inhabitants beheld with astonishment their mighty Tsar following on foot, at the head of his company of bombardiers, the magnificent sledges of his generals Scheremetov, Repnin, and Bruce.

The Russian campaign of 1704 was signalized by the capture of the important towns of Dorpat and Narva. In the following year, Peter entered Lithuania with 60,000 men. Hence he dispatched Scheremetov into Courland, who was beaten by the Swedish general Lowenhaupt, at Gemauerthof, near Mitau; nevertheless, the Swedes, being so inferior in numbers, were ultimately compelled to evacuate the province. The Tsar himself, with 10,000 men, took Mitau. Peter's interview with Augustus at Grodno, towards the end of 1705, has been already mentioned, as well as Charles's pursuit of the Russians in the following spring, and the battle of Kalisch in October. The other operations of the Russians, in 1706, were not of much importance. A Swedish corps of 4,000 men, under General Moydel, penetrated, in July that year, to within a few miles of St. Petersburg; but the Russian conquests in that quarter were now too well established to be easily recovered. It was at Narva, in December, 1706, that the Tsar learnt the Peace of Altranstadt, and he immediately set off for Poland, to retain the heads of the Republic, without whose consent or knowledge the peace had been concluded, in the Russian alliance. The Bishop of Cujavia, the primate nominated by Augustus, showed himself a zealous adherent of Russia. He summoned, in January, 1707, an assembly of the Senate at Lemberg, which declared its readiness to adopt the views of the Confederation of Sandomierz; but it was difficult to bring them to any resolution, their only aim seeming to be to sell themselves at the highest price. At length a Diet of the Russian-Polish party, assembled at Lublin at the instance of Peter, declared the throne vacant, and issued summonses for an Elective Diet (July 8th).

To parry this blow, Charles set himself in motion in September, the Tsar and his forces evacuating Warsaw at his approach, and retiring towards Vilna. As the Swedish army, well refreshed by its quarters in Saxony, and recruited to the number of 44,000 men, was too formidable to be attacked, Peter resolved to harass and wear it out by long marches, a policy which was crowned with entire success. In October the Swedes went into winter-quarters in Polish-Prussia, but broke up early in 1708. Charles now marched upon Grodno and, after seizing that town, proceeded to Minsk, the Russians retiring before him and destroying all the bridges and magazines. Charles passed the Beresina July 10th, a river destined to be fatal, a century later, to a still greater conqueror than himself. A few days after he defeated Scheremetov, who, with 30,000 Russians, occupied an entrenched camp at Golowstschin, and pushed on to Mohilev, on the Dnieper. It seems to have been the opinion of Charles’s own army, as well as of the Russians, that it was his intention to march on Moscow; and, in fact, after some stay at Mohilev, he crossed the Dnieper, and advanced on the road to Smolensko. But all the difficulties of his undertaking began now to stare him in the face. The villages and houses were abandoned, the crops burnt, the roads fortified, the foraging parties in constant danger from the enemy's cavalry. Charles's only idea of warfare was to march straight at the enemy; and hitherto this very rashness, supported by the excellent troops which he commanded, had proved successful. But he had now seen the term of his prosperity. The Russian Empire presented a more vast and difficult field of enterprise than Poland; and in Peter he had to contend with a much more wary and skillful adversary than Augustus.

Charles now turned to the south, and determined to march to the Ukraine, whither he had been invited by Ivan Mazeppa, Hetman of the Cossacks. In the minority of Peter, during the regency of his sister Sophia, Mazeppa had been made Hetman by Prince Golitsin (1687), and he had subsequently gained the confidence of the Tsar by his exploits against the Turks. But Mazeppa, though near eighty years of age, was devoured by an insatiable ambition. He had formed a plan of making himself independent; the victorious progress of the Swedish king seemed to offer him a means to achieve his wish; and he opened communications with Charles through King Stanislaus, with whom he had become acquainted when stationed in Southern Poland. Charles’s situation after leaving Mohilev presented only a choice of difficulties; and he was decided by the pressing importunities of Mazeppa to make for the Ukraine, as well as by the consideration that a position in that country, while it insured a communication with Poland, would also enable him to annoy the Russian Empire.

On September 20th his leading columns took the road for the Ukraine; nor could the representations of his generals induce him to await the arrival of Lowenhaupt, who was bringing a reinforcement of more than 12,000 men, together with large quantities of stores and ammunition. Peter immediately perceived the mistake of the Swedish king. Marching with one of his divisions to Liesna, he totally defeated Lowenhaupt at that place (October 9th), destroyed half his men, and captured his convoy; so that when that general at length succeeded in joining Charles, he brought only about 6,000 or 7,000 men. Peter was not a little elated with his victory. “The battle of Liesna”, he says in his Journal, “is the true foundation of all the following successes of Russia, and our first essay in the art of war; it was the mother of the victory of Pultava, gained nine months later”. His joy was increased by the news which he soon after received of the miscarriage of an attempt of the Swedish general Lübecker to penetrate, with 12,000 men, from Finnland to the Neva, and to destroy St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. After a difficult march through the almost impassable forests of Severia, Charles arrived, in November, in the Ukraine. At Gorki, to his exceeding surprise and discouragement, he was met by Mazeppa, not as an ally with the 30,000 men whom he had promised, but as a fugitive and suppliant with some forty or fifty attendants! The Hetman had succeeded in inducing only about 5,000 Cossacks to join his standard, and by these he had been deserted on the third day! Baturin, Mazeppa’s capital, was taken by assault by Menschikoff, November 14th.

Charles took up his winter-quarters at the Cossack town of Gaditche; where he lost several thousands of his men through the intensity of the cold and continual skirmishes. In the spring of 1709 he somewhat recruited his numbers by an alliance with the Saporogue Cossacks, whom Mazeppa persuaded to join the Swedes. But the army was in a miserable state. The men’s clothes were worn out, and sufficed not to protect them from the weather, and many hundreds were without shoes. Mazeppa, as well as Piper, counselled a retreat into Poland; but Charles listened in preference to his general Rhenskiold and to the Saporogues, who were for besieging Pultava. The Swedes sat down before that place, April 4th. The siege had lasted more than two months with little effect, when an army of 60,000 Russians, under Scheremetov, Menschikoff, and Bauer, the Tsar himself serving as colonel of the guards, was announced to be approaching to its relief. Although Charles’s army numbered only about 20,000 men, nearly half of whom were Cossacks and Wallachians, he resolved to give battle.

A wound in the foot, received a few days before while reconnoitering, obliged the Swedish King to relinquish the command-in-chief on this important day to Rhenskiold, although he himself was present on the field in a litter. It is said that the movements of the Swedes were not conducted with the usual firmness; it is certain that they were short of ammunition, and without cannon; and though they made several desperate charges with the bayonet, and displayed all their usual valour, they were at length compelled to yield to superior numbers. Of the Swedish army, 9,000 men were left on the field, and about 3,000 were made prisoners, among whom were Rhenskiold himself, the Prince of Wurtemberg, Count Piper, and several other distinguished personages. Charles escaped with difficulty in a carriage. Peter distinguished himself by his activity and courage on this eventful day. Mounted on a little Turkish horse presented to him by the Sultan, he flew through the ranks encouraging his men to do their duty. A bullet pierced his cap; another lodged in his saddle. After the battle, he entertained the captured generals at his table, presented Rhenskiold with his own sword, and caused that of the Prince of Wurtemberg to be restored to him.

The Victory of Pultava, achieved July 8th, 1709, may be said to form an epoch in European history as well as in the Swedish and Russian annals. It put an end to the preponderance of Sweden in Northern Europe, occasioned the Grand Alliance to be renewed against her, and ultimately caused her to lose the conquests of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles X. Russia, on the other hand, now began to step forward as a great European Power. The penetrating mind of Peter saw at a glance the importance of his victory, which he commanded to be annually celebrated. In a letter addressed to Admiral Apraxin, at St. Petersburg, only a few hours after the battle, he observes: “Our enemy has encountered the fate of Phaeton, and the foundation stone of our city on the Neva is at length firmly laid”. Peter now assumed, at the request of his ministers, generals, officers, and soldiers, the title of Lieutenant-General in the army, and Rear-Admiral at sea. The annihilation of the remnant of the Swedish army was speedily achieved. Of the 54,000 Swedes who had quitted Saxony, and the reinforcement of 16,000 led by Lowenhaupt, only 9,000 remained; the rest had perished in the steppes of Russia. With this small force Charles was disposed again to try his fortune against the enemy; but he was at length persuaded by his generals to cross the Dnieper with an escort of a few hundred men, and accompanied by Mazeppa, to seek a refuge at Bender, in Bessarabia, where he was honourably received by the Turkish commandant. Before he took his departure, he intrusted the command of the army to Lowenhaupt, and he had some hopes that that general would be able to effect his escape into Tartary; but on the approach of a Russian division under Menschikoff, Lowenhaupt surrendered on capitulation (July 11th). Thus was annihilated an army which a few months before had been deemed invincible; and Sweden was unable to furnish another.

The misfortunes of Charles XII occasioned the renewal of the Grand Alliance against Sweden. Frederick IV of Denmark concluded a treaty with Augustus, at Dresden, June 28th, 1709, by which he engaged to invade Sweden as soon as the Tsar should have acceded to the alliance. Thus the false step which Charles had made in marching to the Ukraine was already plain to standers-by before the battle of Pultava. After that event, Lubomirski, with several other Polish nobles, proceeded to Dresden to invite Augustus to resume the Crown of Poland; and that Prince, declaring that the Peace of Altranstadt had been imposed upon him by force, marched to Thorn with an army of 13,000 men; the Confederation of Sandomierz was renewed; Stanislaus, deserted by most of his adherents, retired into Pomerania, and Augustus II was again generally recognized. The Tsar Peter, who had proceeded to Warsaw in September, was congratulated by the Diet on his victory at Pultava, which, they said, had preserved their liberties and restored to them their legitimate King! Early in October Peter had an interview with Augustus at Thorn, when a reconciliation took place between them, and their former alliance was renewed.

Augustus renounced the pretensions of the Polish Republic to Livonia, and Peter promised him a corps of 1,000 men. The King of Denmark was received into the alliance, and a league offensive and defensive was concluded at Copenhagen between him and the Tsar, October 22nd. Frederick I of Prussia entered into defensive treaties with the allies, and promised to aid them so far as might be compatible with the neutrality which he had assumed. In consequence of this renewal of the Grand Alliance, Frederick IV declared war against Sweden, November 9th, 1708, and in the course of that month a Danish army of 180,000 men landed in Schonen, took Helsingborg, and laid siege to Landskrona and Malmo. But they were defeated by Stenbock, March 10th, 1710, and compelled to re-embark.

In the course of the year (1710), the Emperor Joseph, Great Britain, and the States-General concluded two treaties (March and August) guaranteeing the neutrality of all the States of the Empire, including the Swedish and Danish; to the latter of which treaties the King of Prussia and several other German princes acceded. But Charles XII having protested from his retirement at Bender against these treaties, and declared that he should regard the parties to them as his enemies, the northern allies considered themselves absolved from their obligation of neutrality towards his German possessions; and in August, 1711, a combined army of Saxons, Poles, and Russians crossed the Oder, occupied Anclam and Greifswald, and blockaded Stralsund. In the following year siege was laid to Stettin, while the Danes, having crossed the Elbe, took Stade and occupied the duchies of Bremen and Verden. On the other side, the Swedish General Stenbock entered Mecklenburg, occupied Rostock, November 14th, and on the 20th defeated the King of Denmark in person at Gadebusch. Hence he penetrated into Holstein and burnt Altona (January 9th, 1713); a disgraceful act, which he attempted to justify on the plea of retaliation. But after several reverses, he was compelled by the allies to surrender with his whole army (May 16th).

The Swedish possessions in Germany being deprived of all defence by this event, the Swedish ministers, in the hope of saving some portion of them, proposed a sequestration into the hands of the King of Prussia. The throne of that kingdom was now occupied by Frederick William I, Frederick I having died February 25th, 1713. Frederick William was not averse to a proposal which might ultimately place many important towns in his hands without the risk or expense of fighting for them; and the northern allies on their side were willing to conciliate a sovereign whose enmity might be dangerous. By the Convention of Schwedt, October 6th, 1713, Prince Menschikoff agreed, on the part of the northern allies, that Stettin, Demmin, Anclam, Wolgast, and other places of Swedish Pomerania should be placed in the hands of the King of Prussia, and should be occupied, till a peace, by garrisons composed partly of his soldiers and partly of those belonging to the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

We must now return to the affairs of the Tsar, and of his adversary Charles XII. After the capitulation of Lowenhaupt and the remains of the Swedish army, the Russian general Scheremetov was dispatched with 40,000 men into Livonia to secure that important province and the coast of the Baltic. Peter himself, after his interview with Augustus II at Thorn, already related, proceeded, in November, to Riga, and opened the siege of that place by firing three bombs with his own hand. Hence he hastened to the Neva to inspect the progress of his new city, for the adornment of which his nobles were ordered to construct palaces of stone. Among other improvements a canal was planned between Lake Ladoga and the Volga, by which a water communication was established with the Caspian Sea. Towards the close of the year Peter entered Moscow with a triumphal procession, in which figured the captured Swedes. In 1710 the conquest of Livonia and Carelia was completed.

Meanwhile Charles XII had been straining every nerve to incite the Porte to hostilities against Russia; in which he was assisted by his friend Count Poniatowski, by the Khan of Tartary, and by the French ambassador at Constantinople. Their efforts at length succeeded. On November 21st, 1710, the Sultan Achmet III declared war against the Tsar, and, according to Turkish custom, imprisoned Tolstoi, the Russian ambassador, in the Seven Towers. Peter, relying on the negotiations which he had entered into with the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia, dispatched a Russian division, under Scheremetov, to the Pruth; and he himself set off in the same direction in the spring of 1711. Demetrius Cantemir, the Hospodar of Moldavia, a prince of Greek origin, who had engaged to assist the Tsar in his war with the Turks, on condition that Peter should aid him in rendering his sovereignty hereditary, induced the Russians to cross the Pruth by representing that they would be able to seize some considerable Turkish magazines. But Peter, when he had crossed the river, found that he had been completely deceived. The Moldavians were not inclined to rise, and the want of forage and other necessaries soon compelled the Tsar to retreat. But he had not proceeded far when he was overtaken and hemmed in by the Turkish army, which was infinitely more numerous than his own, in a spot between the Pruth and a morass. In this situation, to retreat or to advance was equally impossible; yet the want of provisions allowed him not to remain stationary.

Capitulation of the Pruth, 1711

In these circumstances a council of the principal Russian officers determined that the only chance of escape was to come to terms with the Grand Vizier, Mohammed Baltadschi, who commanded the Turkish army. None, however, was bold enough to communicate this decision to the Tsar, except Catharine his wife. Catharine, who, before her capture at Marienburg, had been betrothed to a Swedish corporal, had attracted the notice of Peter, who secretly married her in 1707, and before setting out on this expedition against the Turks, in which she accompanied him, he had publicly proclaimed her his lawful wife. Catharine, although so ignorant that she could not even read or write, had great skill in penetrating the characters of those with whom she was connected, and she had gained complete empire over Peter by entering warmly into all his plans, and, while seeming to humour him in all his caprices, she entirely governed him. She now persuaded him to send a messenger to the Vizier with offers of peace. She obtained from the principal officers what money they had to make up the customary present on such occasions, to which she added her own jewels. Fortunately for the Russians, Mohammed Baltadschi was anything but a hero. An intimation on the part of the Tsar, supported by a slight demonstration in the Russian camp, that, if his proposals were not accepted, he meant to force his way through at the point of the bayonet, induced the Vizier to come to terms. The Vizier consented to receive the Russian plenipotentiaries, and on July 21st was signed the Capitulation of the Pruth. By this Convention the Tsar agreed to restore Azov to the Porte, to destroy the fortifications of Taganrog, Kamenska, and Samara, to recall his army from Poland, and to forbear from all interference in the affairs of the Cossacks subject to the Khan of Tartary. No stipulation was made respecting the King of Sweden, except that he should be permitted to return unmolested to his own dominions.

When the Russian army was first surrounded in a situation from which it seemed impossible to escape, Poniatowski, who had accompanied the Grand Vizier, dispatched a messenger in all haste to Charles XII at Bender, begging him to come without delay and behold the consummation of his adversary's ruin. Charles instantly obeyed the summons, but, to his unspeakable mortification and rage, arrived only in time to see in the distance the last retreating ranks of the Russian rear-guard. Loud and bitter were the reproaches which Charles addressed to Baltadschi for his conduct. He besought the Vizier to lend him 20,000 or 30,000 men, wherewith he promised to bring back the Tsar and his whole army prisoners; but Baltadschi, with a mortifying apathy, pleaded the faith of treaties, and Charles, rushing from the Vizier's tent with a loud and contemptuous laugh, mounted his horse, and rode back at full gallop to Bender. Here he and Poniatowski, in conjunction with the Khan of Tartary, employed themselves in effecting the ruin of the Grand Vizier. He was accused of having taken bribes to grant the peace; and though the news of the Capitulation had at first been received at Constantinople with every demonstration of joy, these accusations, supported by the enemies of Baltadschi in the Seraglio, procured his banishment to Lemnos, where he died the following year.

The Sultan now endeavored to hasten the departure of the King of Sweden from his dominions, who was both a troublesome and an expensive guest. But Charles was not disposed to quit except on the most exorbitant terms. He demanded a payment of 600,000 dollars and an escort of 30,000 men, while the Porte was inclined to grant only 6,000 men and no money. After a forbearance of many months, the Sultan at length prepared to use force. Charles's daily allowance was withdrawn, and the Janissaries were commanded to seize his person dead or alive. Charles betrayed on this occasion his characteristic obstinacy and recklessness. Although surrounded by a force which left no hope of successful resistance, he resolved, with a few hundred followers, to defend to the last extremity his little camp at Varnitza, which he had fortified with a barricade composed of chairs, tables, casks, bedding, and whatever came to hand; and it was not till after a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, in which he was more than once wounded, that he was at length secured (February, 1713). Charles was now carried to Adrianople, and thence to Demotica, where a residence was assigned to him, but with a very reduced allowance. Shortly after his departure from Bender, King Stanislaus arrived at that place with the view, it is said, of mediating a peace between Charles and Augustus by resigning the crown of Poland. But Charles would not hear of such an arrangement. He still entertained the hope that the Porte might be induced to take up his cause as well as that of Stanislaus. But these expectations were frustrated by a treaty concluded in April, 1714, between the Porte and Augustus II, by which the Peace of Carlowitz was confirmed. Augustus undertook that Russian troops should no longer be suffered in Poland, while, on the other hand, the Pasha of Bender received orders to dismiss from that place all Polish “malcontents”. Stanislaus, who seemed to be tacitly included in this designation, set off in the autumn for the King of Sweden's duchy of Deux-Ponts, with the hope of finding in a private station that quiet and contentment which had been denied to him during his insecure and stormy reign.

About the same time Charles XII, at length abandoning all hope of inducing the Porte to take up his cause against the Tsar, was persuaded by General Lieven to return to his kingdom, or rather to his army in the north of Germany. The Emperor promised him a safe passage through his dominions; the Sultan provided him with an escort to the frontier; but Charles, impatient of the slow progress of the Turks, set off with only two companions from the Wallachian town of Pitescht, and crossing the Hungarian frontier at the Rothenthurm Pass, proceeded through Hermannstadt, Buda, Vienna, Ratisbon, Hanau, Cassel, Gustrow, and Tribsees, to Stralsund. This extraordinary journey, which was lengthened by a considerable detour, and must have been at least 1,100 miles in length, was performed for the most part on horse­back, and was accomplished in seventeen days.

One of the first steps of Charles, after his arrival in the North, was to demand from the King of Prussia the restitution of the places which he held in Pomerania; and as Frederick William demurred to comply with this demand, Charles proceeded to occupy the Isle of Usedom with 3,000 Swedes (April, 1715). This was the signal for war. The King of Prussia immediately caused the troops of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, which, along with the Prussians, formed the garrisons of Stettin and Wollin, to be disarmed; and he dispatched 20,000 of his troops to join the Danes and Saxons in the siege of Stralsund. Both he and the King of Denmark appeared in person before that place in the summer; and although Stralsund was defended and victualled on the sea side by the Swedish fleet, and on the land side was protected by an intrenched camp of 12,000 men, animated by the presence of their warlike King, yet the operations of the allies were gradually successful. Charles, foreseeing the fall of Stralsund to be inevitable, endeavored to avert it by offers of peace; and on their rejection, he embarked for Sweden. In the same year the Tsar appeared with a large fleet on the coasts of Gothland, while Prince Golitsin marched to the Gulf of Bothnia and threatened the northern boundaries of Sweden. The allies were assisted in the siege of Wismar by George I, King of England and Elector of Hanover, who had entered into an alliance with the King of Denmark, and obtained from him, for a large sum of money, the Duchies of Bremen and Verden. Wismar, the last place held by the Swedes in Germany, surrendered April 19th, 1716.

After this event the war languished, and a mutual jealousy began to sow dissension among the allies. The Tsar perceived that it would not be advantageous for him that Denmark should conquer Sweden, nor that Augustus should establish absolute monarchy in Poland; but rather that the two Scandinavian kingdoms should remain in a state of mutual weakness, and that the Poles, under the name of liberty, should be plunged in perpetual anarchy. These political motives were strengthened by his disgust at the conduct of the allies after the taking of Wismar. He had hoped to obtain that city for his nephew-in-law, the Duke of Mecklenburg; but after its capture the allied army had forcibly prevented a Russian corps from entering it and forming part of the garrison. Of the other allies, the King of Prussia was satisfied with having obtained possession of Stettin and the mouth of the Oder, and all the country between that river and the Peene, which had been relinquished to him by the allies after the capture of Stralsund; while Augustus II was precluded from taking any further part in the war by the events which had taken place in Poland. Although all the differences between the Polish Republic and the Ottoman Porte had been arranged in April, 1714, by the treaty already mentioned, the Saxon troops had been still retained in Poland, to the great jealousy of the Polish nobles. In the autumn of 1715 two Confederations were formed, one by the army of the Crown at Gorzyce, the other by the troops of Little Poland at Tarnogrod, to expel the Saxons; and hostilities broke out, which were at length pacified by the mediation of the Tsar. By a perpetual peace proclaimed at Warsaw, November 3rd, 1716, Augustus engaged to dismiss all his troops from Poland, except 1,200 guards; never to declare war without consulting the Diet, nor to absent himself from Poland more than three months in the year. These conditions established him on the throne, but precluded him from taking any part in the Northern war.

From 1716 the relations between Peter and Great Britain became strained, and the attempt on the part of one of the King of Sweden's ministers to detach the Tsar from his allies proved no difficult task. Baron Gortz, a man of enterprising character, not content with the circumscribed sphere of action which the service of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp afforded to his abilities, resolved to enter that of Charles XII, and to retrieve, if he could, the desperate fortunes of that sovereign and his kingdom. In the spring of 1716 Gortz proceeded to Holland, on the ostensible mission of procuring money for Charles. His principal object, however, was to conciliate the Tsar through Prince Kurakin, the Russian minister at the Hague; and though no formal alliance was yet concluded, or even negotiated, between Charles and Peter, and though the Tsar continued to act ostensibly with his former allies, yet his conduct showed that the efforts of Gortz had not been without success. Charles XII having invaded Norway in the spring of 1716 and occupied Christiania, the capital, the Tsar and the King of Denmark agreed to make a diversion by a descent in Schonen, in which they were to be supported by an English and a Dutch squadron. The Tsar assumed the command of the combined fleet, which numbered more than eighty vessels of war; but when everything seemed ready for the enterprise, Peter, to the surprise and disappointment of the Danish King, suddenly declared that the season was too far advanced to attempt such an operation (September). His behavior was so equivocal that he was even suspected of a design to surprise Copenhagen. Instead of 20,000 Russian troops he had introduced double that number into Zealand; and they behaved with such insolence that Frederick was compelled to demand their withdrawal. Peter put them into winter quarters in Mecklenburg, which they continued to occupy in spite of the remonstrances of the Emperor and the Elector of Hanover. Peter is said to have conceived a design of settling himself at this extremity of the Baltic, and becoming an unwelcome member of the German body.

The views of the Tsar were manifested by his subsequent policy. Gortz, after the negotiations of the Hague already mentioned, proceeded to France, where he intrigued with the Pretender, promised to help him to the British throne, and endeavored to obtain the assistance of the Regent Orleans in his schemes. Peter, who himself visited Holland and France in 1717, likewise used his influence with the Regent to further these views, but without avail, as that Prince was unwilling to endanger his alliance with England. Among other things it was proposed that Charles XII, who had conceived a mortal hatred against George, should invade England with 12,000 men. One fruit, however, of the Tsar's journey to Paris was the Treaty of Amsterdam, which may be said to have introduced Russia into the general European system. It was the design of Peter to occupy the place of Sweden, which he had humbled, as the leading Power of the North, and to succeed her in the French alliance. Prussia also was induced to become a party to this treaty. Frederick William I had indeed already formed an alliance with France by a secret treaty, September 4th, 1716, by which the possession of Stettin and Pomerania as far as the Peene had been assured to him, whilst he, on his side, guaranteed the Treaties of Utrecht and Baden, and promised to use his endeavors to prevent the Empire from declaring war against France. The chief articles of the Treaty of Amsterdam, concluded between France, Russia, and Prussia, August 4th, 1717, were that the Tsar and the King of Prussia should accept the mediation of France to restore peace between them and Sweden, and France promised not to renew the treaty of subsidies with Sweden which expired in 1718. This abandonment of the Swedish alliance by France was the Tsar’s principal object. On the other hand, the Regent persuaded him to withdraw his troops from Mecklenburg, and to suspend his designs upon the Empire.

The intrigues of Gortz having come to the ears of the English Government, he had been apprehended at Arnheim, in February, 1717, and a like fate had befallen Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador in London. After a few months' detention, however, they were set at liberty, and Peter, on returning into Holland after his visit to France, had an interview with Gortz at Loo. The Swedish minister having engaged to bring about in three months, at the expense of Denmark and Great Britain, a peace that should be agreeable to the Tsar, Peter agreed to abstain from all hostilities against Sweden. The schemes of Gortz had been aided by the Spanish minister Alberoni. Spain was now at open variance with Great Britain and the other members of the Quadruple Alliance. She had seized Sardinia, and was contemplating a descent on Sicily; and, in support of this movement, Alberoni wished to pacify and unite Russia and Sweden, to direct their joint arms with those of Spain against Great Britain, and effect the dethronement of George I and the restoration of the Pretender. On his return to Sweden, Gortz procured the consent of Charles XII to the negotiation of a peace with Russia; for which purpose a Congress was held in May, 1718, at Lofoe, one of the Aland Islands, under the mediation of a Spanish agent. The preliminaries of a treaty were here arranged, of which the following is a general outline. Ingria, part of Carelia, Esthonia, and Livonia, were to be ceded to the Tsar, he undertaking to help Charles to compensate himself for these losses in other ways. He engaged to depose Augustus II and reinstate Stanislaus on the Polish throne; to procure for the King of Prussia, in conjunction with Sweden, an equivalent for the restoration of Stettin and its territory, but at the expense of the Polish dominions in West Prussia; to assist Charles in conquering Norway, as well as in an attack upon Germany; and especially he promised to march with all his troops against the King of England as Elector of Hanover, and to compel him to restore to Sweden the Duchies of Bremen and Verden; or, as an alternative, Peter would persuade the Duke of Mecklenburg to abandon his dominions to Charles, that Sovereign being compensated by some part of the Polish territories.

Although these preliminaries had not been ratified in a formal treaty, Charles XII felt so secure of the Russian alliance that, with the view of compensating himself for his sacrifices and losses by the conquest of Norway, he directed all his available forces towards that kingdom, leaving his capital almost denuded of troops. A division, under Armfeldt, was directed to invade the northern part of Norway; whilst Charles himself, with the main body, entered the south, and in November laid siege to Frederikshald. Before this place, in the cold winter nights of that northern climate, Charles often slept in the open air on a plank or a bundle of straw, covered only with his cloak. In inspecting the progress of the trenches he frequently showed great boldness, and in an assault of one of the forts he led the storming column in person, and planted the ladder with his own hand. But he at length paid the penalty of his rashness. On the night of December 11th he was shot, while in the trenches, with a musket-ball through the head. Charles, at the time of his death, was thirty-six years of age.

After this event, the Swedish commanders immediately resolved to evacuate Norway. The retreat of Armfeldt, in January, 1719, over the mountains of the frontier, was most disastrous; his whole force except about 1,500 men perished of cold, and he himself returned home mutilated by the frost. Charles Frederick, the young Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, then eighteen years of age, was serving in the division before Frederikshald; and, being the rightful heir of the Swedish Crown, as the son of Charles's eldest sister, the generals in command had, after the death of that monarch, testified a disposition to acknowledge him as their sovereign. But the youthful prince wanted resolution to seize the occasion, and the Swedish Crown was soon snatched from his grasp. The revolution which took place at Stockholm had been long prepared, but was quickly developed after Charles's death. The Senate kept the fatal occurrence secret till it had taken measures to secure the government; when, passing over the rightful heir, they named Ulrica Eleanora, Charles’s second sister, as their queen. Ulrica was married to Frederick, hereditary Prince of Hesse Cassel, who had been serving under the late King in Norway, and after his death had assumed the command of the army. One of the first steps of the Government was to arrest Baron Gortz. That minister was arraigned, before an illegally constituted tribunal, for having intended to procure the crown for the Duke of Holstein, and to introduce the Russians into the kingdom; for having depreciated the currency, and other things. Even if these charges were true, Gortz had acted with the consent, or by the order of the late King; but he was sentenced to death against all forms of law and justice, and executed March 13th, 1719. An assembly of the States was summoned in February, and completely altered the constitution. Sweden was declared an elective kingdom, and the government was vested in a council of twenty-four members divided into eight colleges, who were invested with a power so absolute that their elected queen was reduced to a mere shadow. In short, the ancient oligarchy was restored, and Sweden was governed by a few noble families.

The foreign policy of the new Government was precisely the reverse of that of Gortz. The conferences with the Russian ministers were indeed continued till September, 1719, but they were then broken off, and Sweden approached the other powers from which Russia had separated herself. In November a treaty was sighed at Stockholm between Sweden and Great Britain, by which the Duchies of Bremen and Verden were ceded to George I in consideration of a payment of one million rix-dollars. By another treaty in January, 1720, George engaged to support Sweden against Denmark and Russia, and to pay a yearly subsidy of 300,000 dollars during the war. About the same time an armistice was concluded with Poland till a definitive treaty should be arranged on the basis of the Peace of Oliva. Augustus was to be recognized as King of Poland; but Stanislaus was to retain the royal title during his life, and to receive from Augustus a million rix-dollars. Both parties were to unite to check the preponderance of the Tsar, whose troops excited great discontent and suspicion by their continued presence in Poland. On February 1st a peace was concluded with Prussia under the mediation of France and Great Britain. The principal articles of this treaty were that Sweden ceded to Prussia, Stettin, the Islands of Wollin and Usedom, and all the tract between the Oder and Peene, together with the towns of Damm and Golnow beyond the Oder. The King of Prussia, on his side, engaged not to assist the Tsar, and to pay two million rix-dollars to the Queen of Sweden.

The terms of a peace between Sweden and Denmark were more difficult of arrangement. Frederick IV had conquered Stralsund, the Isle of Rugen, part of Pomerania, etc., and the example of Hanover and Prussia seemed to justify his pretensions to retain what he had gained. The allies, however, did not deem it advisable that the Swedes should be entirely expelled from Germany; and Denmark, as the weakest among them, was compelled to abandon her claims. By the Treaty of Stockholm, June 12th, 1720, the King of Denmark restored to Sweden, Wismar, Stralsund, Rugen, and all that he held in Pomerania; Sweden paying 600,000 rix-dollars and renouncing the freedom of the Sound. Thus the only territorial acquisition which Denmark made by the war was the greater part of the Duchy of Schleswig, the possession of which was guaranteed to her by England and France.

Sweden and Russia were now the only Powers which remained at war. During the years 1719, 1720, and 1721, the Russians gained many advantages both by sea and land, and committed the most frightful devastations on the Swedish coasts. These calamities, as well as the fear of being deprived by the Tsar of his new kingdom, induced Frederick I, to whom, with the consent of the States, the Swedish Crown had been transferred by his consort, Ulrica Eleanora, in the spring of 1720, to use every endeavor to procure a peace with Russia. As a means of intimidation, the Tsar had pretended to adopt the cause of the young Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, with whom he had an interview at Riga in March, 1721. That prince was seeking to assure himself of the Tsar's protection by a marriage with his daughter, Anna Petrowna. At length, through the mediation of France, conferences were opened in May, 1721, and the Peace of Nystad was signed, September 10th. Peter would not relax any of the conditions agreed upon with Gortz. The only portion of his conquests that he relinquished was Finland, with the exception of a part of Carelia; but as, by his treaty with Augustus II, at the beginning of the war, he had promised to restore Livonia to Poland if he conquered it, he paid the Crown of Sweden two million dollars in order to evade this engagement by alleging that he had purchased that province. The Tsar engaged not to interfere in the domestic affairs of Sweden.

Thus was at length terminated the Great Northern War, which had lasted upwards of twenty years. In a letter to Dolgoruki, his ambassador at Paris, written a few days after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nystad, Peter observes: “Apprenticeships commonly end in seven years; ours has lasted thrice as long; but, thank God, it is at last brought to the desired termination, as you will perceive from the copy of the treaty”. The apprenticeship was, indeed, long and arduous, but the results were in proportion. Having to contend with a State formidable both by sea and land, Peter found it necessary to remodel his army, and to create a navy; and it was from the Swedes themselves, then the most warlike nation of Europe, that he at length learnt how to beat them —a fact which he was always ready to acknowledge. After this peace, the Senate and Synod conferred upon him the title of “Emperor of All the Russias”; and, on his return to St. Petersburg in October, he was saluted by his nobles and people as “the Father of his country, Peter the Great”. Rarely have these titles been more fairly earned. Peter had risen, not by right of birth, but by his own abilities and perseverance, to be one of the first sovereigns of Europe.

CHAPTER XLII.

REVIEW OF THE PERIOD, 1648-1789