While Peter is strengthening his conquests, and improving the police
of his dominion, his enemy Charles XII. gains several battles: gives
laws to Poland and Saxony, and to Augustus, notwithstanding a
victory gained by the Russians.--Augustus resigns the crown, and
delivers up Patkul, the czar's ambassador.--Murder of Patkul, who is
sentenced to be broke upon the wheel.
[Sidenote: 1706.]
Peter was hardly returned to Moscow, when he heard that Charles XII.
after being every where victorious, was advancing towards Grodno, to
attack the Russian troops. King Augustus had been obliged to fly from
Grodno, and retire with precipitation towards Saxony, with four
regiments of Russian dragoons; a step which both weakened and
discouraged the army of his protector. Peter found all the advances to
Grodno occupied by the Swedes, and his troops dispersed.
While he was with the greatest difficulty assembling his troops in
Lithuania, the famous Schullemburg, who was the last support Augustus
had left, and who afterwards gained so much glory by the defence of
Corfu against the Turks, was advancing on the side of Great Poland, with
about twelve thousand Saxons, and six thousand Russians, taken from the
body troops with which the czar had entrusted that unfortunate prince.
Schullemburg expected with just reason, that he should be able to prop
the sinking fortunes of Augustus; he perceived that Charles XII. was
employed in Lithuania, and that there was only a body of ten thousand
Swedes under general Renschild to interrupt his march; he therefore
advanced with confidence as far as the frontiers of Silesia; which is
the passage out of Saxony into Upper Poland. When he came near the
village of Fraustadt, on the frontiers of that kingdom, he met marshal
Renschild, who was advancing to give him battle.
Whatever care I take to avoid repeating what has been already mentioned
in the history of Charles XII., I am obliged in this place to take
notice once more, that there was in the Saxon army a French regiment,
that had been taken prisoners at the famous battle of Hochsted (or
Blenheim) and obliged to serve in the Saxon troops. My memoirs say, that
this regiment had the charge of the artillery, and add, that the French,
struck with the fame and reputation of Charles XII., and discontented
with the Saxon service, laid down their arms as soon as they came in
sight of the enemy (Feb.), and desired to be taken into the Swedish
army, in which they continued to the end of the war. This defection was
as the beginning, or signal of a total overthrow to the Russian army, of
which no more than three battalions were saved, and almost every man of
these was wounded; and as no quarter was granted, the remainder was cut
in pieces.
Norberg, the chaplain, pretends, that the Swedish word at this battle
was, 'In the name of God,' and that of the Russians, 'Kill all;' but it
was the Swedes who killed all in God's name. The czar himself declares,
in one of his manifestoes,[72] that a number of Russians, Cossacks, and
Calmucks, that had been made prisoners, were murdered in cool blood
three days after that battle. The irregular troops on both sides had
accustomed their generals to these cruelties, than which greater were
never committed in the most barbarous times. I had the honour to hear
king Stanislaus himself say, that in one of those engagements which were
so frequent in Poland, a Russian officer who had formerly been one of
his friends, came to put himself under his protection, after the defeat
of the corps he commanded; and that the Swedish general Steinbock shot
him dead with a pistol, while he held him in his arms.
This was the fourth battle the Russians had lost against the Swedes,
without reckoning the other victories of Charles XII. in Poland. The
czar's troops that were in Grodno, ran the risk of suffering a still
greater disgrace, by being surrounded on all sides; but he fortunately
found means to get them together, and even to strengthen them with new
reinforcements. But necessitated at once to provide for the safety of
this army, and the security of his conquests in Ingria, he ordered
prince Menzikoff to march with the army under his command eastward, and
from thence southward as far as Kiow.
While his men were upon their march, he repairs to Shlusselburg, from
thence to Narva, and to his colony of Petersburg (August), and puts
those places in a posture of defence. From the Baltic he flies to the
banks of the Boristhenes, to enter into Poland by the way of Kiow,
making it still his chief care to render those victories of Charles,
which he had not been able to prevent, of as little advantage to the
victor as possible. At this very time he meditated a new conquest;
namely, that of Wibourg, the capital of Carelia, situated on the gulf of
Finland. He went in person to lay siege to this place, but for this time
it withstood the power of his arms; succours arrived in season, and he
was obliged to raise the siege. (Oct.) His rival, Charles XII. did not,
in fact, make any conquests, though he gained so many battles: he was
at that time in pursuit of king Augustus in Saxony, being always more
intent upon humbling that prince, and crushing him beneath the weight of
his superior power and reputation, than upon recovering Ingria, that had
been wrested from him by a vanquished enemy.
He spread terror through all Upper Poland, Silesia, and Saxony. King
Augustus's whole family, his mother, his wife, his son, and the
principal nobility of the country, were retired into the heart of the
empire. Augustus now sued for peace, choosing rather to trust himself to
the mercy of his conqueror, than in the arms of his protector. He
entered into a treaty which deprived him of the crown of Poland, and
covered him at the same time with ignominy. This was a private treaty,
and was to be concealed from the czar's generals, with whom he had taken
refuge in Poland, while Charles XII. was giving laws in Leipsic, and
acting as absolute master throughout his electorate.
His plenipotentiaries had already signed the fatal treaty (Sept. 14.),
by which he not only divested himself of the crown of Poland, but
promised never more to assume the title of king; at the same time he
recognized Stanislaus, renounced his alliance with the czar his
benefactor; and, to complete his humiliation, engaged to deliver up to
Charles XII. John Reinold Patkul, the czar's ambassador and general in
the Russian service, who was then actually fighting in his cause. He had
some time before ordered Patkul to be arrested upon false suspicions,
contrary to the law of nations; and now, in direct violation of these
laws, he delivered him up to the enemy. It had been better for him to
have died sword-in-hand, than to have concluded such a treaty; a treaty,
which not only robbed him of his crown, and of his reputation, but
likewise endangered his liberty, because he was at that time in the
power of prince Menzikoff in Posnania, and the few Saxons that he had
with him, were paid by the Russians.
Prince Menzikoff was opposed in that district by a Swedish army,
reinforced with a strong party of Poles, in the interest of the new king
Stanislaus, under the command of general Meyerfeld; and not knowing that
Augustus had engaged in a treaty with the enemies of Russia, had
proposed to attack them, and Augustus did not dare to refuse. The battle
was fought near Calish (Oct. 19.), in the palatinate belonging to
Stanislaus; this was the first pitched battle the Russians had gained
against the Swedes. Prince Menzikoff had all the glory of the action,
four thousand of the enemy were left dead on the field, and two thousand
five hundred and ninety-eight were made prisoners.
It is difficult to comprehend how Augustus could be prevailed on, after
this battle, to ratify a treaty which deprived him of all the fruits of
his victory. But Charles was still triumphant in Saxony, where his
very name spread terror. The success of the Russians appeared so
inconsiderable, and the Polish party against Augustus was so strong,
and, in fine, that monarch was so ill-advised, that he signed the fatal
convention. Neither did he stop here: he wrote to his envoy Finkstein a
letter, that was, if possible, more shameful than the treaty itself; for
therein he asked pardon for having obtained a victory, 'protesting, that
the battle had been fought against his will; that the Russians and the
Poles, his adherents, had obliged him to it; that he had, with a view of
preventing it, actually made some movements to abandon Menzikoff; that
Meyerfeld might have beaten him, had he made the most of that
opportunity; that he was ready to restore all the Swedish prisoners, or
to break with the Russians; and that, in fine, he would give the king of
Sweden all possible satisfaction,' for having dared to beat his troops.
This whole affair, unparalleled and inconceivable as it is, is,
nevertheless, strictly true. When we reflect, that, with all this
weakness, Augustus was one of the bravest princes in Europe, we may
plainly perceive, that the loss or preservation, the rise or decline of
empires, are entirely owing to fortitude of mind.
Two other circumstances concurred to complete the disgrace of the king
of Poland elector of Saxony, and heighten the abuse which Charles XII.
made of his good fortune; the first was his obliging Augustus to write a
letter of congratulation to the new king Stanislaus on his election: the
second was terrible, he even compelled Augustus to deliver up Patkul,
the czar's ambassador and general.[73] It is sufficiently known to all
Europe, that this minister was afterwards broke alive upon the wheel at
Casimir, in the month of September, 1707. Norberg, the chaplain,
confesses that the orders for his execution were all written in
Charles's own hand.
There is not a civilian in all Europe, nay even the vilest slave, but
must feel the whole horror of this barbarous injustice. The first crime
of this unfortunate man was, the having made an humble representation of
the rights and privileges of his country, at the head of six Livonian
gentlemen, who were sent as deputies from the whole province: having
been condemned to die for fulfilling the first of duties, that of
serving his country agreeable to her laws. This iniquitous sentence put
him in full possession of a right, which all mankind derive from nature,
that of choosing his country. Being afterwards made ambassador to one of
the greatest monarchs in the universe, his person thereby became sacred.
On this occasion the law of force violated that of nature and nations.
In former ages cruelties of this kind were hidden in the blaze of
success, but now they sully the glory of a conqueror.