PETER THE GREAT.
From 1697 to 1702.
Young Russians Sent to Foreign Countries.--The Tzar Decides Upon a
Tour of Observation.--His Plan of Travel.--Anecdote.--Peter's Mode of
Life in Holland.--Characteristic Anecdotes.--The Presentation of the
Embassador.--The Tzar Visits England.--Life at Deptford.--Illustrious
Foreigners Engaged in His Service.--Peter Visits Vienna.--The Game of
Landlord.--Insurrection in Moscow.--Return of the Tzar, and Measures
of Severity.--War with Sweden.--Disastrous Defeat of Narva.--Efforts
to Secure the Shores of the Baltic.--Designs Upon the Black Sea.
It was a source of mortification to the tzar that he was dependent
upon foreigners for the construction of his ships. He accordingly sent
sixty young Russians to the sea-ports of Venice and Leghorn, in Italy,
to acquire the art of ship-building, and to learn scientific and
practical navigation. Soon after this he sent forty more to Holland
for the same purpose. He sent also a large number of young men to
Germany, to learn the military discipline of that warlike people.
He now adopted the extraordinary resolve of traveling himself,
_incognito_, through most of the countries of Europe, that he might
see how they were governed, and might become acquainted with the
progress they had made in the arts and sciences. In this European tour
he decided to omit Spain, because the arts there were but little
cultivated, and France, because he disliked the pompous ceremonials of
the court of Louis XIV. His plan of travel was as ingenuous as it was
odd. An extraordinary embassage was sent by him, as Emperor of Russia,
to all the leading courts of Europe. These embassadors received minute
instructions, and were fitted out for their expedition with splendor
which should add to the renown of the Russian monarchy. Peter
followed in the retinue of this embassage as a private gentleman of
wealth, with the servants suitable for his station.
Three nobles of the highest dignity were selected as embassadors.
Their retinue consisted of four secretaries, twelve gentlemen, two
pages for each embassador, and a company of fifty of the royal guard.
The whole embassage embraced two hundred persons. The tzar was lost to
view in this crowd. He reserved for himself one valet de chambre, one
servant in livery, and a dwarf. "It was," says Voltaire, "a thing
unparalleled in history, either ancient or modern, for a sovereign, of
five and twenty years of age, to withdraw from his kingdoms, only to
learn the art of government." The regency, during his absence, was
entrusted to two of the lords in whom he reposed confidence, who were
to consult, in cases of importance, with the rest of the nobility.
General Gordon, the Scotch officer, was placed in command of four
thousand of the royal troops, to secure the peace of the capital.
The embassadors commenced their journey in April, 1697. Passing
directly west from Moscow to Novgorod, they thence traversed the
province of Livonia until they reached Riga, at the mouth of the
Dwina. Peter was anxious to examine the important fortifications of
this place, but the governor peremptorily forbade it, Riga then
belonging to Sweden. Peter did not forget the affront. Continuing
their journey, they arrived at Konigsburg, the capital of the feeble
electorate of Brandenburg, which has since grown into the kingdom of
Prussia. The elector, an ambitious man, who subsequently took the
title of king, received them with an extravagant display of splendor.
At one of the bacchanalian feasts, given on the occasion, the bad and
good qualities of Peter were very conspicuously displayed. Heated with
wine, and provoked by a remark made by La Fort, who was one of his
embassadors, he drew his sword and called upon La Fort to defend
himself. The embassador humbly bowed, folded his hands upon his
breast, and said,
"Far be it from me. Rather let me perish by the hand of my master."
The tzar, enraged and intoxicated, raised his arm to strike, when one
of the retinue seized the uplifted hand and averted the blow. Peter
immediately recovered his self-possession, and sheathing his sword
said to his embassador,
"I ask your pardon. It is my great desire to reform my subjects, and
yet I am ashamed to confess that I am unable to reform myself."
From Konigsburg they continued their route to Berlin, and thence to
Hamburg, near the mouth of the Elbe, which was, even then, an
important maritime town. They then turned their steps towards
Amsterdam. As soon as they reached Emmeric, on the Rhine, the tzar,
impatient of the slow progress of the embassage, forsook his
companions, and hiring a small boat, sailed down the Rhine and
proceeded to Amsterdam, reaching that city fifteen days before the
embassy. "He flew through the city," says one of the annalists of
those days, "like lightning," and proceeded to a small but active
sea-port town on the coast, Zaandam. The first person they saw here
was a man fishing from a small skiff, at a short distance from the
shore. The tzar, who was dressed like a common Dutch skipper, in a red
jacket and white linen trowsers, hailed the man, and engaged lodgings
of him, consisting of two small rooms with a loft over them, and an
adjoining shed. Strangely enough, this man, whose name was Kist, had
been in Russia working as a smith, and he knew the tzar. He was
strictly enjoined on no account to let it be known who his lodger was.
A group soon gathered around the strangers, with many questions. Peter
told them that they were carpenters and laborers from a foreign
country in search of work. But no one believed this, for the
attendants of the tzar still wore the rich robes which constituted the
costume of Russia. With sympathy as beautiful as it is rare, Peter
called upon several families of ship carpenters who had worked for him
and with him at Archangel, and to some of these families he gave
valuable presents, which he said that the tzar of Russia had sent to
them. He clothed himself, and ordered his companions to clothe
themselves, in the ordinary dress of the dockyard, and purchasing
carpenters' tools they all went vigorously to work.
The next day was the Sabbath. The arrival of these strangers, so
peculiar in aspect and conduct, was noised abroad, and when Peter
awoke in the morning he was greatly annoyed by finding a large crowd
assembled before his door. Indeed the rumor of the Russian embassage,
and that the tzar himself was to accompany it, had already reached
Amsterdam, and it was shrewdly suspected that these strangers were in
some way connected with the expected arrival of the embassadors. One
of the barbers in Amsterdam had received from a ship carpenter in
Archangel a portrait of the tzar, which had been for some time hanging
in his shop. He was with the crowd around the door. The moment his eye
rested upon Peter, he exclaimed, with astonishment, "_that is the
tzar!_" His form, features and character were all so marked that he
could not easily be mistaken.
No further efforts were made at concealment, though Peter was often
very much annoyed by the crowds who followed his footsteps and watched
all his actions. He was persuaded to change his lodgings to more
suitable apartments, though he still wore his workman's dress and
toiled in the ship-yard with energy, and also with skill which no one
could surpass. The extraordinary rapidity of his motions astonished
and amused the Dutch. "Such running, jumping and clambering over the
shipping," they said, "we never witnessed before." To the patriarch in
Moscow he wrote,
"I am living in obedience to the commands of God, which were spoken to
father Adam: '_In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread._'"
Very many anecdotes are related of Peter during this portion of his
life, which, though they may be apochryphal, are very characteristic
of his eccentric nature. At one time he visited a celebrated iron
manufactory, and forged himself several bars of iron, directing his
companions to assist him in the capacity of journeymen blacksmiths.
Upon the bars he forged, he put his own mark, and then he demanded of
Muller, the proprietor, payment for his work, at the same rate he paid
other workmen. Having received eighteen _altins_, he said, looking at
the patched shoes on his feet,
"This will serve me to buy a pair of shoes, of which I stand in great
need. I have earned them well, by the sweat of my brow, with hammer
and anvil."
When the embassadors entered Amsterdam, Peter thought it proper to
take a part in the procession, which was arranged in the highest style
of magnificence. The three embassadors rode first, followed by a long
train of carriages, with servants in rich livery on foot. The tzar,
dressed as a private gentleman, was in one of the last carriages in
the train of his embassadors. The eyes of the populace searched for
him in vain. From this fête he returned eagerly to his work, with saw,
hammer and adz, at Zaandam. He persisted in living like the rest of
the workmen, rising early, building his own fire, and often cooking
his own meals. One of the inhabitants of Zaandam thus describes his
appearance at that time:
"The tzar is very tall and robust, quick and nimble of foot, dexterous
and rapid in all his actions. His face is plump and round; fierce in
his look, with brown eyebrows, and short, curly hair of a brownish
color. He is quick in his gait, swinging his arms, and holding in one
of them a cane."
The Dutch were so much interested in him, that a regular diary was
kept in Zaandam of all he said and did. Those who were in daily
intercourse with him preserved a memorandum of all that occurred. He
was generally called by the name of Master Peter. While hard at work
in the ship-yard, he received intelligence of troubles in Poland. The
renowned king, John Sobieski, died in 1696. The electors were divided
in the choice of a successor. Augustus II., Elector of Saxony, by
means of bribes and his army, obtained the vote. But there was great
dissatisfaction, and a large party of the nation rallied around the
prince of Conti, the rival candidate. Peter, learning these facts,
immediately sent word, from his carpenter's shop, to Augustus,
offering to send an army of thirty thousand men to his assistance. He
frequently went from Zaandam to Amsterdam, to attend the anatomical
lectures of the celebrated Ruisch. His thirst for knowledge appeared
to be universal and insatiable. He even performed, himself, several
surgical operations. He also studied natural philosophy under Witsen.
Most minds would have been bewildered by such a multiplicity of
employments, but his mental organization was of that peculiar class
which grasps and retains all within its reach. He worked at the forge,
in the rope-walks, at the sawing mills, and in the manufactures for
wire drawing, making paper and extracting oil.
While at Zaandam, Peter finished a sixty gun ship, upon which he had
worked diligently from the laying of the keel. As the Russians then
had no harbor in the Baltic, this ship was sent to Archangel, on the
shores of the White Sea. Peter also engaged a large number of French
refugees, and Swiss and German artists, to enter his service and sent
them to Moscow. Whenever he found a mechanic whose work testified to
superior skill, he would secure him at almost any price and send him
to Moscow. To geography he devoted great attention, and even then
devised the plan of uniting the Caspian and the Black Sea by a ship
canal.
Early in January, 1698, Peter, having passed nine months at Zaandam,
left for the Hague. King William III. sent his yacht to the Hague, to
convey the tzar to England, with a convoy of two ships of war. Peter
left the Hague on the 18th of January, and arrived in London on the
21st. Though he attempted here no secrecy as to his rank, he
requested to be treated only as a private gentleman. A large mansion
was engaged for him, near the royal navy yard at Deptford, a small
town upon the Thames, about four miles from London. The London
Postman, one of the leading metropolitan journals of that day, thus
announces this extraordinary visit:
"The tzar of Muscovy, desiring to raise the glory of his nation, and
avenge the Christians of all the injuries they have received from the
Turks, has abrogated the wild manners of his predecessors, and having
concluded, from the behavior of his engineers and officers, who were
sent him by the Elector of Brandenburg, that the western nations of
Europe understood the art of war better than others, he resolved to
take a journey thither, and not wholly to rely upon the relations
which his embassadors might give him; and, at the same time, to send a
great number of his nobility into those parts through which he did not
intend to travel, that he might have a complete idea of the affairs of
Europe, and enrich his subjects with the arts of all other Christian
nations; and as navigation is the most useful invention that ever was
yet found out, he seems to have chosen it as his own part in the
general inquiry he is about. His design is certainly very noble, and
discovers the greatness of his genius. But the model he has proposed
himself to imitate is a convincing proof of his extraordinary
judgment; for what other prince, in the world, was a fitter pattern
for the great Emperor of Muscovy, than William the Third, King of
Great Britain?"[11]
[Footnote 11: Postman, No. 417.]
In London and Deptford Peter followed essentially the same mode of
life which he had adopted in Amsterdam. There was not a single article
belonging to a ship, from the casting of a cannon to the making of
cables, to which he did not devote special attention. He also devoted
some time to watch making. A number of English artificers, and also
several literary and scientific gentlemen from England, were taken
into his service. He made arrangements with a distinguished Scotch
geometrician and two mathematicians from Christ Church hospital, to
remove to Moscow, who laid the foundation in Russia of the Marine
Academy. To astronomy, the calculation of eclipses, and the laws of
gravitation he devoted much thought, guided by the most scientific men
England could then produce. Perry, an English engineer, was sent to
Russia to survey a route for a ship canal from the ocean to the
Caspian and from the Caspian to the Black Sea. A company of merchants
paid the tzar seventy-five thousand dollars for permission to import
tobacco into Russia. The sale of this narcotic had heretofore been
discouraged in Russia, by the church, as demoralizing in its tendency
and inducing untidy habits. Peter was occasionally induced to attend
the theater, but he had no relish for that amusement. He visited the
various churches and observed the mode of conducting religious worship
by the several sects.
Before leaving England the tzar was entertained by King William with
the spectacle of a sham sea fight. In this scene Peter was in his
element, and in the excess of his delight he declared that an English
admiral must be a happier man than even the tzar of Russia. His
Britannic majesty made his guest also a present of a beautiful yacht,
called the Royal Transport. In this vessel Peter returned to Holland,
in May, 1698, having passed four months in England. He took with him
quite a colony of emigrants, consisting of three captains of men of
war, twenty-five captains of merchant ships, forty lieutenants, thirty
pilots, thirty surgeons, two hundred and fifty gunners, and three
hundred artificers. These men from Holland sailed in the Royal
Transport to Archangel, from whence they were sent to different places
where their services were needed. The officers whom the tzar sent to
Italy, also led back to Russia many artists from that country.
From Holland the Emperor of Russia, with his suite, repaired to Vienna
to observe the military discipline of the Germans, who had then the
reputation of being the best soldiers in Europe. He also wished to
enter into a closer alliance with the Austrian court as his natural
ally against the Turks. Peter, however, insisted upon laying aside all
the ceremonials of royalty, and, as a private person, held an
interview with the Emperor Leopold.
Nothing of especial interest occurred during the brief residence of
Peter in Vienna. The Emperor of Germany paid the tzar every possible
attention which could be conferred upon one who had the strongest
reluctance to be gazed upon, or to take part in any parade. For the
amusement of the tzar the emperor revived the ancient game of
landlord. The royal game is as follows. The emperor is landlord, the
empress landlady, the heir apparent to the throne, the archdukes and
archduchesses are generally their assistants. They entertain people of
all nations, dressed after the most ancient fashion of their
respective countries. The invited guests draw lots for tickets, on
each of which is written the name or the nation of the character they
are to represent. One is a Chinese mandarin, another a Persian mirza,
another a Roman senator. A queen perhaps represents a dairy maid or a
nursery girl. A king or prince represents a miller, a peasant or a
soldier. Characteristic amusements are introduced. The landlord and
landlady, with their family, wait upon the table.
On this occasion the emperor's eldest son, Joseph, who was the heir
apparent, represented, with the Countess of Traun, the ancient
Egyptians. His brother, the Archduke Charles, and the Countess of
Walstein appeared as Flemings in the reign of Charles V. His sister
Mary and Count Fraun were Tartars. Josephine, another daughter of
Leopold, with the Count of Workla, represented Persians. Marianne, a
third daughter, and Prince Maximilian of Hanover were North Holland
peasants. Peter presented himself as a Friesland boor, a character, we
regret to say, which the tzar could personify without making the
slightest change in his usual habits, for Peter was quite a stranger
to the graces of the polished gentleman.
This game seems to have been quite a favorite in the Austrian court.
Maria Antoinette introduced it to Versailles. The tourist is still
shown the dairy where that unhappy queen made butter and cheese, the
mill where Louis XVI. ground his grist, and the mimic village tavern
where the King and Queen of France, as landlord and landlady, received
their guests.
Peter was just leaving Vienna to go to Venice when he received
intelligence that a rebellion had broken out in Moscow. His ambitious
sister Sophia, who had been placed with a shaven head in the cloisters
of a monastery, took advantage of the tzar's absence to make another
attempt to regain the crown. She represented that the nation was in
danger of being overrun with foreigners, that their ancient customs
would all be abolished, and that their religion would be subverted.
She involved several of the clergy in her plans, and a band of eight
thousand insurgents were assembled, who commenced their march towards
Moscow, hoping to rouse the metropolis to unite with them. General
Gordon, whom Peter had left in command of the royal guard, met them,
and a battle ensued in which a large number of the insurgents were
slain, and the rest were taken prisoners and conducted to the capital.
Hearing these tidings Peter abandoned all plans for visiting Italy,
and set out impetuously for Moscow, and arrived at the Kremlin before
it was known that he had left Germany.
Peter was a rough, stern man, and he determined to punish the abettors
of this rebellion with severity, which should appall all the
discontented. General Gordon, in the battle, had slain three thousand
of the insurgents and had taken five thousand captive. These prisoners
he had punished, decimating them by lot and hanging every tenth man.
Peter rewarded magnificently the royal guard, and then commenced the
terrible chastisement of all who were judged guilty of sympathizing in
the conspiracy. Some were broken on the wheel and then beheaded.
Others were hung in chains, on gibbets near the gates of the city, and
left, frozen as solid as marble, to swing in the wind through the long
months of winter. Stone monuments were erected, on which were engraved
the names, the crimes and the punishment of the rebels. A large number
were banished to Siberia, to Astrachan, and to the shores of the Sea
of Azof. The entire corps of the _strelitzes_ was abolished, and their
place supplied by the new guard, marshaled and disciplined on the
model of the German troops. The long and cumbersome robes which had
been in fashion were exchanged for a uniform better adapted for rapid
motion. The sons of the nobles were compelled to serve in the ranks as
common soldiers before they could be promoted to be officers. Many of
the young nobles were sent to the tzar's fleet in the Sea of Azof to
serve their apprenticeship for the navy. The revenue of the empire had
thus far been raised by the payment of a stipulated sum from each
noble according to his amount of land. The noble collected this sum
from his vassals or bondmen; but they often failed of paying in the
amount demanded. Peter took now the collection of the revenue into his
own hands, appointing officers for that purpose.
Reforms in the church he also undertook. The patriarch, Adrian, who
was the pope of the Greek church, dying about this time, Peter
declared that he should have no successor. Virtually assuming the
authority of the head of the church, he gathered the immense revenues
of the patriarchal see into the royal treasury. Though professedly
intrusting the government of the church to the bishops, he controlled
them with despotism which could brook no opposition. Anxious to
promote the population of his vast empire, so sparsely inhabited, he
caused a decree to be issued, that all the clergy, of every, grade,
should be married; and that whenever one of the clergy lost a wife his
clerical functions should cease until he obtained another. Regarding
the monastic vow, which consigned young men and young women to a life
of indolence in the cloister, as alike injurious to morality and to
the interests of the State, he forbade any one from taking that vow
until after the age of fifty had been passed. This salutary regulation
has since his time been repealed.
The year, in Russia, had for ages commenced with the 1st of September.
Peter ordered that, in conformity with the custom in the rest of
Europe, the year should commence with the 1st of January. This
alteration took place in the year 1700, and was celebrated with the
most imposing solemnities. The national dress of the Russians was a
long flowing robe, which required no skill in cutting or making.
Razors were also scarce, and every man wore his beard. The tzar
ordered long robes and beards to be laid aside. No man was admitted to
the palace without a neatly shaven face. Throughout the empire a
penalty was imposed upon any one who persisted in wearing his beard. A
smooth face thus became in Russia, and has continued, to the present
day, the badge of culture and refinement. Peter also introduced social
parties, to which ladies with their daughters were invited, dressed in
the fashions of southern Europe.
Heretofore, whenever a Russian addressed the tzar, he always said,
"Your _slave_ begs," etc. Peter abolished this word, and ordered
_subject_ to be used instead. Public inns were established on the
highways, and relays of horses for the convenience of travelers.
Conscious of the power of splendor to awe the public mind, he added
very considerably to the magnificence of his court, and instituted an
order of knighthood. In all these measures Peter wielded the energies
of an unrelenting despotism, and yet of a despotism which was
constantly devoted, not to his own personal aggrandizement, but to the
welfare of his country.
The tzar established his great ship-yard at Voronise, on the Don, from
which place he could float his ships down to the Sea of Azof, hoping
to establish there a fleet which would soon give him the command of
the Black Sea. In March, 1699, he had thirty-six ships launched and
rigged, carrying each from thirty to sixty guns; and there were then
twenty more ships on the stocks. There were, also, either finished or
in process of construction, eighteen large galleys, one hundred
smaller brigantines, seven bomb ships and four fire ships. At the same
time Peter was directing his attention to the Volga and the Caspian,
and still more vigorously to the Baltic, upon whose shores he had
succeeded in obtaining a foothold.
And now the kingdom of Sweden came, with a rush, into the political
arena. Poland had ceded to Sweden nearly the whole of Livonia. The
Livonians were very much dissatisfied with the administration of the
government under Charles XI., and sent a deputation to Stockholm to
present respectful remonstrances. The indignant king consigned all of
the deputation, consisting of eight gentlemen, to prison, and
condemned the leader, John Patgul, to an ignominious death. Patgul
escaped from prison, and hastening to Poland, urged the new sovereign,
Augustus, to reconquer the province of Livonia, which Poland had lost,
assuring him the Livonians would aid with all their energies to throw
off the Swedish yoke. Patgul hastened from Poland to Moscow, and urged
Peter to unite with Augustus, in a war against Sweden, assuring him
that thus he could easily regain the provinces of Ingria and Carelia,
which Sweden had wrested from his ancestors. Denmark also, under its
new sovereign, Frederic IV., was induced to enter into the alliance
with Russia and Poland against Sweden. Just at that time, Charles XI.
died, and his son, Charles XII., a young man of eighteen, ascended the
throne. The youth and inexperience of the new monarch encouraged the
allies in the hope that they might make an easy conquest.
Charles XII., a man of indomitable, of maniacal energy, and who
speedily infused into his soldiers his own spirit, came down upon
Denmark like northern wolves into southern flocks and herds. In less
than six weeks the war was terminated and the Danes thoroughly
humbled. Then with his fleet of thirty sail of the line and a vast
number of transports, he crossed the Baltic, entered the Gulf of
Finland, and marching over ice and snow encountered the Russians at
Narva, a small town about eighty miles south-west of the present site
of the city of St. Petersburg. The Russians were drawn up eighty
thousand strong, behind intrenchments lined with one hundred and
forty-five pieces of artillery; Charles XII. had but nine thousand
men. Taking advantage of one of the fiercest of wintry storms, which
blew directly into the faces of the Russians, smothering them with
snow and sleet mingled with smoke, and which concealed both the
numbers and the movements of the Swedes, Charles XII. hurled his
battalions with such impetuosity upon the foe, that in less than an
hour the camp was taken by storm. One of the most awful routs known in
the annals of war ensued. The Swedes toiled to utter exhaustion in
cutting down the flying fugitives. Thirty thousand Russians perished
on that bloody field. Nearly all of the remainder were taken captive,
with all their artillery. Disarmed and with uncovered heads, thirty
thousand of these prisoners defiled before the victorious king.[12]
[Footnote 12: These are the numbers as accurately as they can now be
ascertained by the most careful sifting of the contradictory accounts.
The forces of the Russians have been variously estimated at from forty
thousand to one hundred thousand. That the Swedes had but nine
thousand is admitted on all hands.]
Peter, the day before this disastrous battle, had left the
intrenchments at Narva to go to Novgorod, ostensibly to hasten forward
the march of some reinforcements. When Peter was informed of the
annihilation of his army he replied, with characteristic coolness,
"I know very well that the Swedes will have the advantage of us for a
considerable time; but they will teach us, at length, to beat them."
He immediately collected the fragments of his army at Novgorod, and
repairing to Moscow issued orders for a certain proportion of the
bells of the churches and convents throughout the empire to be cast
into cannon and mortars. In a few months one hundred pieces of cannon
for sieges, and forty-two field pieces, with twelve mortars and
thirteen howitzers, were sent to the army, which was rapidly being
rendezvoused at Novgorod.
Charles XII., having struck this terrific blow, left the tzar to
recover as best he could, and turned his attention to Poland, resolved
to hurl Augustus from the throne. Peter himself hurried to Poland to
encourage Augustus to the most vigorous prosecution of the war,
promising to send him speedily twenty thousand troops. In the midst of
these disasters and turmoil, the tzar continued to prosecute his plans
for the internal improvement of his empire, and commenced the vast
enterprise of digging a canal which should unite the waters of the
Baltic with the Caspian, first, by connecting the Don with the Volga,
and then by connecting the Don with the Dwina, which empties into the
Baltic near Riga.
War continued to rage very fiercely for many months between the Swedes
on one side, and Russia and Poland on the other, Charles XII. gaining
almost constant victories. The Swedes so signally proved their
superiority in these conflicts, that when, on one occasion, eight
thousand Russians repulsed four thousand Swedes, the tzar said,
"Well, we have at last beaten the Swedes, when we were two to one
against them. We shall by and by be able to face them man to man."
In these conflicts, it was the constant aim of Peter to get a foothold
upon the shores of the Baltic, that he might open to his empire the
advantages of commerce. He launched a large fleet upon Lake Ladoga, a
large inland sea, which, by the river Neva, connects with the Gulf of
Finland. The fleets of Sweden penetrated these remote waters, and for
months their solitudes resounded with the roar of naval conflicts. We
can not refrain from recording the heroic conduct of Colonel
Schlippenbuch, the Swedish commander of the town of Notteburg, on this
lake. The town was invested by a large Russian army. For a month the
Russians battered the town night and day, until it presented the
aspect of a pile of ruins, and the garrison was reduced to one hundred
men. Yet, so indomitable was this little band, that, standing in the
breaches, they extorted honorable terms of capitulation from their
conqueror. They would not surrender but on condition of being allowed
to send for two Swedish officers, who should examine their remaining
means of defense, and inform their master, Charles XII., that it was
impossible for them any longer to preserve the town.
Peter was a man of too strong sense to be elated and vainglorious in
view of such success. He knew full well that Charles XII., since the
battle of Narva, looked with utter contempt upon the Russian soldiers,
and he was himself fully conscious of the vast superiority of the
Swedish troops. But while Charles XII., with a monarch's energies, was
battering down the fortresses and cutting to pieces the armies of
Poland, Peter had gained several victories over small detachments of
Swedish troops left in Russia. To inspire his soldiers with more
confidence, he ordered a very magnificent celebration of these
victories in Moscow. It was one of the most gorgeous fête days the
metropolis had ever witnessed. The Swedish banners, taken in several
conflicts on sea and land, were borne in front of the procession,
while all the prisoners, taken in the campaign, were marched in
humiliation in the train of the victors.
While thus employed, the stern, indefatigable tzar was pressing
forward the building of his fleet on the Don for the conquest of the
Black Sea, and was unwearied in his endeavors to promote the elevation
of his still semi-barbaric realms, by the introduction of the
sciences, the arts, the manufactures and the social refinements of
southern Europe.