(1682-1718)
[Illustration: Charles XII. [TN]]
Charles XII., against whom it has been made a fault that he carried
virtues to extremes, was born at Stockholm, on June 27, 1682, during a
storm that
"Rived the mighty oak, and made
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds."
Astrologers observed that the star called the "Lion's Heart"
predominated at his nativity, and that the "Fox" was on the
decline--omens and prodigies well suited to announce the birth of a
prince who was himself a living tempest. Charles's infancy has nothing
very remarkable. His education was strictly attended to, and he proved
an attentive scholar. He acquired considerable knowledge of history,
geography, mathematics, and the military sciences, and became
perfectly familiar with several languages, though he never, after his
accession to the throne, spoke any but Latin, Swedish, or German. The
gallant Charles Stewart, the same who afterward led the king across
the Duna, was his instructor in the art of war, and is said to have
communicated to the young prince much of the fiery spirit for which he
was himself distinguished. In his fifteenth year Charles ascended the
throne, and, contrary to usual assertion, already evinced considerable
ability and application to business, though no particular predilection
for military affairs, unless his bear-hunting expeditions may be so
considered, for they were more than "faint images of war," being
attended with great danger. No arms were used in these encounters; the
sportsman was provided only with a single doubly-pointed stick and a
cast-net, like the one perhaps, used by the ancient gladiators. The
object of these fierce combats was to capture and bind the bear, and
to carry him in triumph from the scene of action! Charles was, it
seems, a great proficient in this dangerous sport.
At the age of eighteen Charles was obliged to take the field against
the four greatest powers of the North. Forced to contend with small
means against vastly superior foes, he made genius and courage supply
the place of numbers. Heroism was never more nobly displayed than by
this gallant monarch and his followers. What men could do was done.
For nine years he triumphed over constantly augmenting enemies. And
when the "unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain" fell at last,
crushed by the weight of masses, fortune more than shared with his
innumerable adversaries the honor of his overthrow.
It was during the Polish campaign of 1703 that Max Emanuel of
Wirtemberg, then only fourteen years of age, joined Charles. When
introduced, the king asked him whether he wished to go to Stockholm
for a time, or to remain with the army. The prince, of course,
preferred the latter. "Well, then," said Charles, "I will bring you up
in my own way," and immediately placed the boy, tired as he was from
his journey, on horseback, and led him a long and fatiguing ride. From
this period to the battle of Pultowa, Max continued to be his constant
companion, shared his dangers, and attended him in all his adventures,
many of which border almost on the fabulous. The affectionate kindness
evinced by Charles toward his pupil could not be surpassed. When the
boy, as sometimes happened, was worn down by sickness and fatigue, the
monarch attended him with parental care; and when on one occasion he
fell speechless from his horse, and his recovery was despaired of, the
king never left his couch till he was pronounced out of danger.
The adventures they encountered together were endless. On inspecting
the regiments before the opening of the campaign of 1706, they rode
five hundred miles in six days, were never in bed, and hardly ever out
of the saddle, and frequently reduced to milk and water as their only
nourishment--
"Alike to Charles was tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime."
Having on another occasion lost their road and escort during a stormy
night, they arrived in the midst of a tempest before the town of
Tousha. Neither calling nor firing brought any one to the gates. The
king at last dismounted and sought for an entrance, while the prince
held the horses in the pelting rain. An entrance having at last been
discovered, they took possession of a hut in which was a fire. The
king threw himself, booted and spurred, on a bundle of straw, and fell
fast asleep. The prince, less hardy, took off his boots, filled them
with straw, and placed them by the fire. While sleeping, the flame
caught and consumed the valuable gambodoes. The prince was next day
obliged to get a pair of peasant's boots, in which he rode about for
eight days; a proof that the princely wardrobe was but slenderly
furnished.
And yet the camp was not without its gayeties either; for while the
head-quarters were wintering at Rawitcz, the town became the scene of
great festivities; balls and parties succeeding each other as rapidly
as battles had done before. Charles was usually present, was always
very polite, but made only a short stay, and retired as soon as he
could.
[Illustration: Charles XII. and an unwilling recruit.]
During the stay of the army in this place, a fire broke out and
consumed several houses. The king flew to aid in extinguishing the
flames. He ascended to the top of a house that was already on fire,
and continued working till the building was sinking under him. He
escaped with difficulty, was thrown down by one of the beams, and for
a moment believed to be dead. "It was discovered two years afterward,"
says Bardili, "that the place was set on fire by an incendiary bribed
by Augustus II. to slay the king of Sweden in the confusion;" and a
man actually came forward and denounced himself as the intended
assassin, declaring that some unknown power had prevented him from
stabbing the king when he got near his person. Charles said the man
was mad, and sent him about his business. Napoleon would have sent him
before a military commission and had him shot, as he caused the
student at Schoenbrunn to be shot.
We regret that we cannot give a sufficient account of the Duke of
Marlborough's visit to Charles's head-quarters at Altranstadt; for
what Voltaire says on the subject is but an idle fable. That the
English general should easily have penetrated the views of the Swedish
conqueror, which the latter took no pains to conceal, is sufficiently
probable; but that the conversation between two such men should have
turned principally on the king's large boots, which, as Voltaire says,
Charles told Marlborough "he had not quitted for seven years," is of
course a mere puerility. Besides, we find from Max's "Memoirs," that
Charles was not so coarse in his dress as is usually represented, for
his clothes were made of fine materials. He always wore a plain blue
coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat and breeches, a black crape
cravat, and a cocked hat; a waist-belt, and a long cut-and-thrust
sword. He never disfigured himself by the full-bottomed wig of the
period, but always wore his own brown hair, combed back from his
forehead. His camp-bed consisted of a blue silk mattress, pillow and
coverlid; materials that would have suited even a dandy guardsman.
The invasion of Saxony occasioned great uneasiness at Vienna,
Charles's arrival being considered alike dangerous to the Catholic
states of the Empire and to the success of the Grand Alliance. It
happened, under these unpleasant feelings, that at a party the Swedish
Minister, Count Stralenghielm, proposed his master's health as a
toast. An imperial chamberlain, a Count Zabor, a magnate of Hungary,
refused to drink it, declaring that "no honest man ought to drink the
health of the Turk, the devil, and of a third person." The Swede
struck the offender, and swords were drawn; but the adversaries were
of course separated. The ambassador demanded satisfaction for the
insult; and Zabor was arrested, and sent in irons to Stettin, and
delivered up to the Swedes. Charles instantly set him at liberty,
simply desiring him to "be more guarded in his speeches for the
future."
The Saxon nobility (Ritterschaft, chivalry) having been taxed to aid
in defraying the Swedish contributions, applied to Charles, claiming
their privilege of exemption from all taxation, except that of
furnishing horses for the chivalry engaged in defence of the country.
"Had the Saxon chivalry," said Charles, "acted up to the duties to
which they owe their privilege, I should not have been here."
The King of Sweden left Saxony, and set out on his Russian expedition
at the head of 43,000 men. Of these 8,000 remained in Poland; so that
he undertook the march to Moscow with only 35,000--a force amounting
to about one-fifteenth part of the army with which Napoleon set out on
a similar expedition. The Russians followed the same system they
afterward employed against the French, retiring and laving waste the
country. The difficulties the Swedes had to encounter, in consequence
of bad roads and want of provisions, are almost incredible. The
soldiers were forced to contend, not only against the enemy, but
against the localities also; roads for the advance of the army had to
be opened through forests and morasses before the least progress could
be made; and it often happened that a league a day was the greatest
extent of march gained after immense toil. But nothing checked the
ardor of these gallant soldiers. The Russians attempted to defend the
passage of rivers and swamps that impeded the march of the foe. Their
efforts were vain; no superiority of numbers, no strength of position,
could arrest the indomitable valor of Charles and his troops. And the
actions performed during this march would be deemed absolutely
fabulous, were they not recorded on authority which cannot be doubted.
During the severe winter of 1709, the army suffered dreadfully from
want and cold. When, early in spring, the thaw set in, the whole of
those flat countries were overflowed, and long marches had to be made
through complete inundations, by which quantities of stores were lost,
and the powder greatly damaged. It was, as we now find, in consequence
of the losses thus sustained that Charles accepted Mazeppa's proposal
of marching into the Ukraine. Finding his army too much weakened to
penetrate further into Russia, and not wishing to fall back upon
Livonia, which he thought would look like a retreat and encourage his
enemies, he determined to march to the south, and there await the
supplies and reinforcements which his generals were to bring up.
The loss of the convoy which General Lewenhaupt was conducting to the
army rendered further delay necessary, and obliged the king to
undertake the siege of Pultowa, in order to gain a firm footing in the
country, and to secure the supplies which the place contained. The
Swedish battering-train was weak, the powder not only bad from having
been frequently injured by the wet and dried again, but very scarce
besides. Still, courage and energy were making progress, when, June
27th, on his very birthday, Charles, in repulsing a sally, was struck
by a musket-ball that entered his left foot, above the root of the
toes, and went out at the heel. The king continued in the field for an
hour afterward, giving his orders as usual; but when he retired to his
quarters, the leg was so much swelled that the boot had to be cut off,
and the wound had so unfavorable an appearance as greatly to alarm the
attendants.
Charles behaved heroically, as usual. He held his leg to the surgeon
with his own hands, nor did a single groan escape him during the
terrible operation which the cutting away of some of the fractured
bones rendered necessary. At one time his life was despaired of, and
a general panic seized the army, but though the wound proved decisive
of his fate, the unhappy monarch had what may well be termed the
misfortune to recover.
The foe drew near. The Czar, well aware of the importance of Pultowa,
advanced to its relief with an army of 80,000 men, besides 40,000
irregulars, Kalmucks and Tartars. He brought 150 pieces of artillery
along with him. Even with this vast superiority, and after the
training of a nine years' war, the Russians did not venture to attack
the Swedes, but drew closer and closer around them, till they began at
last to intrench themselves within a league of the king's camp.
Charles's illness gave them but too much leisure.
A hostile fortress on one side, a hostile army on the other, nothing
but a victory could save the Swedes; and on the morning of the 8th of
July, only ten days after Charles had been wounded, they marched out
to battle. Their whole army did not amount to 20,000 men, 4,000 of
whom were left in the trenches and with the baggage. Their artillery
consisted of four field-pieces; and their powder was so bad that it
did not, as Count Poniatowsky and Lewenhaupt both affirm, throw the
musket-balls more than thirty yards from the muzzles of the pieces.
And yet these brave soldiers balanced fortune even against such
overwhelming numbers. Three out of the seven Russian redoubts were
taken; on the left wing the cavalry were victorious, and it is really
difficult to say what the result would have proved, had Charles been
able to exert his usual energy and activity. Certain it is that errors
were committed which could not have happened under his immediate
command; for the cavalry of the left wing did not follow up their
success, and the cavalry of the right wing lost their direction, and
took no share in the action. The king, who was carried on a litter
between two horses, was present in the hottest of the fire, and
exerted himself as much as was possible for a man in such a situation.
A shot broke the litter, and the wounded monarch was for some time
left alone on the ground. A lifeguardsman brought him a horse, and he
endeavored to rally the yielding troops. The steed was shot under him,
and--
"Gierta gave
His own, and died the Russian slave."
Having assembled and re-formed the remnants of his broken host round
the forces which had been left for the protection of the baggage, the
fainting monarch was placed in Count Piper's carriage, and conveyed
toward the Turkish frontier. The exertions of the wounded Charles to
rally his army at Pultowa contrast singularly with the total want of
any such exertion displayed by the unwounded Napoleon at Waterloo. We
take this want of exertion for granted, because had any been
displayed, the world's echoes would have rung with praise bestowed
upon the heroic effort.
The first result of the battle of Pultowa--its ultimate results are
only now becoming apparent--was the entire destruction of the Swedish
army, the famished and exhausted remains of which were some days
afterward obliged to lay down their arms on the banks of the Dnieper,
which they had no means of crossing.
With this battle, which opens a new era in European history, the
history of Charles XII. may be said to end; for his subsequent career
was only a succession of disappointments, his poor and thinly peopled
country not affording him the means of recovery from a single
'defeat'.
On his arrival at Bender, the king learned of the death of his sister,
the Duchess of Holstein; and he who had calmly supported the loss of
his fame and his army yielded to the most impassioned burst of sorrow,
and was during four days unable to converse with his most intimate
attendants--a proof how unjust are the accusations of want of feeling
so often brought against him. His long stay in Turkey is certainly
evidence of obstinacy, or of that pride which could not brook the
thought of returning, a vanquished fugitive, to his native land, which
had done so much for him, and which his best efforts had failed to
protect from unjust violence. In Charles's high and noble countenance
it is seen at once that he was endowed with--
"The glance that took
Their thoughts from others at a single look."
He knew the worthlessness of his enemies; and it is doubly galling to
the generous and the brave when fortune, in her base fancies, obliges
them to succumb to mean and malicious adversaries. And such was the
fate of Charles. His defeat was no sooner known than Denmark, Poland,
and Saxony again flew to arms. Hanover and Prussia joined the unworthy
league against the fallen monarch, who had been so dreaded, and was
therefore so much hated; for Charles had injured no one--he was the
aggrieved from first to last. His return to Sweden, the defence of
Stralsund, the invasion of Norway, call for no particular attention.
He was killed at the siege of Frederickshall, in Norway, on November
30, 1718, under circumstances that long gave currency to the belief
that he had been assassinated. Schott and Bardili positively assert
the fact; but we are on this point disposed to agree with Voltaire,
who, to save the honor of his countrymen, as positively denies it.
After evening service, the king went out as usual to visit the
trenches. He was attended by two French engineers, Megret and Siquier.
A heavy fire was kept up by the enemy. Near the head of the _boyau_,
or zigzag, he kneeled down, and, leaning against the parapet, looked
toward the fortress. As he remained motionless for a long time, some
one approached and found him perfectly dead, a ball having entered his
right temple and passed through his head. Even in death the gallant
hand had grasped the hilt of his sword; and this probably gave rise to
the belief in the murder, which was afterward confirmed by Siquier's
own confession. But this confession was only made while the pretended
criminal labored under an attack of brain fever, and was retracted as
soon as he recovered.
Thus fell, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, one of the most
extraordinary men that ever acted a part on the great stage of the
world. Endowed by nature with a noble person, "a frame of adamant, a
soul of fire," with high intellectual powers, dauntless bravery,
kingly sentiments of honor, and a lofty scorn of all that was mean
and little, he became, from the very splendor of these gifts, perhaps
one of the most unhappy men of his time. Less highly gifted, he would
have been less hated and less envied; of humbler spirit, he would have
been more pliant, and might possibly have been more successful.