Charles marries his sister to the Prince of Hesse--He is besieged
in Stralsund and escapes to Sweden--The enterprise of Baron Gortz
his premier--Plans of reconciliation with the Czar--An attack on
England--Charles besieges Frederickshal in Norway--He is killed--His
character--Gortz is beheaded. 301
INDEX 339
PREFATORY NOTE
“_To Charles the Twelfth of Sweden I owe much of what has stood me
in best stead all my life. It was nearly thirty years ago, when but a
boy, that I bought his Life for a penny in the New Cut. I took it home
and devoured it. It made a great impression on me. Not his wars, but
the Spartan heroism of his character. He inspired me with the idea of
triumphing over physical weakness, weariness and pain. To inure his
body to bear all manner of hardships indifferently, to bathe in ice,
or face the torrid rays of the sun, to discipline his physical powers
by gymnastics, to despise the niceties of food and drink, to make his
body an instrument as of tempered steel, and at the same time to have
that body absolutely at the disposition of the mind, that seemed to
me conduct worthy of a hero. And so, boylike, I tried to imitate him,
and succeeded at least so far as to be happily indifferent to the
circumstances of my personal environment._”
JOHN BURNS.
“Och än är det likt det slägte som bor
Bland Nordiska fjellar och dalar,
Och ännu på Gud och på Stålet det tror,
An fädernas kärnspråk det talar.”
“And still as of old are the folk that abide
‘Mid northerly mountain and valley;
In God and their weapons they ever confide,
To voice of their fathers they rally.”
INTRODUCTION
THE “Life of Charles XII” that Mr. John Burns once bought for a penny
in the New Cut--an incident in itself historical if one looks at it in
the right way--was, he writes to say, an English version of Voltaire’s
book. The “Histoire de Charles XII, Roi de Suède,” was first published
at Rouen in 1731, first freely translated into English by Alexander
Henderson in 1734, and soon afterwards reduced into a chap-book, which
made the King a proverbial hero in English fairs and market-places.
There have been other translations since Henderson’s, and it is now
retranslated by Miss Todhunter with a closer correspondence than his to
Voltaire’s original.
The book may claim a particular right to an English hearing, apart from
the main interest of its subject. It was in England that the life of
Charles XII was written by Voltaire, when he was on a visit of exigency
there after the Rohan escapade and his second Bastille imprisonment.
The effect of this stay in England was that of a determining event
in his career. “Voltairism,” writes Mr. John Morley, “may be said to
have begun from the flight of its founder from Paris to London. This,
to borrow a name from the most memorable instance of outward change
marking inward revolution, was the decisive ‘hegira,’ from which the
philosophy of destruction in a formal shape may be held seriously
to date.” We may supplement this passage from the criticism of a
French critic of another school, who says, “England at this time was
worked by a spirit of dogmatic irreligion which based itself on a
false erudition, a bold criticism and an insidious metaphysic. It was
the time of Woolston, of Toland, of Tindal, of Chubb, of Collins, of
Bolingbroke. Until then, an _insouciant_ disciple and imitator
of the epicureans of the Temple and the _roués_ of the Regency,
Voltaire had only ventured on impiety by sallies; dogmas and mysteries
had so far only inspired him with _bon mots_. In the school of the
English philosophers he learnt to reason out his incredulity.”
Voltaire had had time by this to mend his youth and find his
intellectual stature. Born in 1694, he was now a man approaching
thirty-three. He had written plays, for his love for the theatre, as
it lasted late in him, began early; he had completed his epic, “la
Henriade”; he had used his wit irresponsibly, and, thanks to it, had
twice been in the Bastille. In England he learnt, if one may say so, to
take his wit seriously, that is, to realize it as a decisive weapon in
his inevitable revolt and warfare. Similarly he was to use some of his
other faculties in their most adroit perfection. If in the “Henriade”
the epic method had failed him, considered by the side of other poems
as ambitious and as long, he was able to sit down on his return from
his English exile and complete this rapid piece of biography, in
effect a short prose epic, which shows us the narrative art used by a
consummate master in that art.
More than this we need not claim for him. If we admit Carlyle’s stigma
of “persifleur” as applying to his first period, we need not go on
to write him down now philosopher, by way of compensation, because
he had studied for a brief period under certain notorious English
philosophers. He was neither a persifleur nor a philosopher: he was a
militant scribe and hyper-critic with a master bias, anti-religious or
anti-Catholic, and an inimitable gift of expression. We see his gift in
a very luminous special form in his “Charles XII,” which luckily need
offend no man’s susceptibilities.
We do not know whether that extraordinarily long indicative nose of his
was at this time as telling a sign of his character, backed by his keen
twinkling black eyes, as it became later? The two best pen-portraits
of Voltaire we have belong to a later day than 1728, when “Charles
XII” was written. The first takes us to the year when his “Sémiramis”
was produced, when he appears in a strange disguise among the casual
nightly apparitions of the Café de Procope.
“M. de Voltaire, who always loved to correct his works, and perfect
them, became desirous to learn, more specially and at first hand, what
good or ill the public were saying of his Tragedy; and it appeared
to him that he could nowhere learn it better than in the Café de
Procope, which was also called the Antre (Cavern) de Procope, because
it was very dark even in full day, and ill-lighted in the evenings;
and because you often saw there a set of lank, sallow poets, who had
somewhat the air of apparitions. In this café, which fronts the Comédie
Française, had been held, for more than sixty years, the tribunal of
those self-called Aristarchs, who fancied they could pass sentence
without appeal, on plays, authors and actors. M. de Voltaire wished
to compear there, but in disguise and altogether incognito. It was
on coming out from the playhouse that the judges usually proceeded
thither, to open what they called their great sessions. On the second
night of ‘Sémiramis’ he borrowed a clergyman’s clothes; dressed
himself in cassock and long cloak; black stockings, girdle, bands,
breviary itself; nothing was forgotten. He clapt on a large peruke,
unpowdered, very ill combed, which covered more than the half of
his cheeks, and left nothing to be seen but the end of a long nose.
The peruke was surmounted by a large three-cornered hat, corners
half bruised-in. In this equipment, then, the author of ‘Sémiramis’
proceeded on foot to the Café de Procope, where he squatted himself
in a corner; and waiting for the end of the play, called for a
_bavaroise_, a small roll of bread, and the Gazette. It was
not long till those familiars of the Parterre and tenants of the
café stept in. They instantly began discussing the new Tragedy. Its
partisans and its adversaries pleaded their cause with warmth; each
giving his reasons. Impartial persons also spoke their sentiment;
and repeated some fine verses of the piece. During all this time, M.
de Voltaire, with spectacles on nose, head stooping over the Gazette
which he pretended to be reading, was listening to the debate;
profiting by reasonable observations, suffering much to hear very
absurd ones and not answer them, which irritated him. Thus, during an
hour and a half, had he the courage and patience to hear ‘Sémiramis’
talked of and babbled of, without speaking a word. At last, all these
pretended judges of the fame of authors having gone their ways, without
converting one another, M. de Voltaire also went off; took a coach in
the Rue Mazarine, and returned home about eleven o’clock. Though I knew
of his disguise, I confess I was struck and almost frightened to see
him accoutred so. I took him for a spectre, or shade of Ninus, that
was appearing to me; or, at least, for one of those ancient Irish
debaters, arrived at the end of their career, after wearing themselves
out in school-syllogisms. I helped him to doff all that apparatus,
which I carried next morning to its true owner--a Doctor of the
Sorbonne.”
Another cartoon, still better known, is that of the familiar scene of
his apotheosis at the Comédie Française. A briefer sketch of that same
year of his death, 1778, may be given, because it contrasts with his
sharp sketch of Charles XII at Adrianople, carried on a sofa from his
carriage, when, to avoid been seen, the King covered his face with a
cushion--
“M. de Voltaire appeared in full dress on Tuesday, for the first time
since his arrival in Paris. He had on a red coat lined with ermine; a
large peruke, in the fashion of Louis XIV, black, unpowdered; and in
which his withered visage was so buried that you saw only his two eyes
shining like carbuncles. His head was surmounted by a square red cap in
the form of a crown, which seemed only laid on. He had in his hand a
small nibbed cane; and the public of Paris, not accustomed to see him
in this accoutrement, laughed a good deal.”
One interesting point about Voltaire’s English associations, in so far
as they prepare the way for the writing of his “Charles XII,” has not
hitherto been pointed out. It is this: that a history of the “Wars of
Sweden,” written by no less a hand than Defoe’s, was in existence when
Voltaire was studying English literature in London. The work, or at
any rate its first part, was anonymously published, like Voltaire’s,
in 1715; a continuation was added, and the two parts were then issued
together in 1720. Between these two dates, let us note, or in 1719,
“Robinson Crusoe” had appeared. Defoe’s career has some incidents of
prison and persecution that are like enough to Voltaire’s to warrant
a fanciful apposition of the two rebel authors. He was in severe
straits when he wrote the first part of his Wars of Charles XII; deeply
involved in political intrigues. He had had, too, a severe illness--a
violent fit of apoplexy--at the end of the previous year; and his trial
for libelling Lord Annesley in the whig “Flying Post” was impending.
His sentence, and curious escape from being imprisoned, and his “Hymn
to the Mob,” have at best a remote bearing on the present book. But one
notes these ironical lines to the Mob as having an added irony, when
read in the light of his “Charles XII” and Voltaire’s interest in his
writings--
“Thou art the Essence of the War;
Without thee who wou’d in the Field appear?
’Tis all thy own, whoever gets the Praise--
Thy Hands that fight, and ’tis thy purse that pays.
How partial is the common state of things,
And how unjust the Fame of Emperors and Kings!”
Defoe’s “History of the Wars” is written as “by a Scots gentleman in
the Swedish service.” It is a more documentary book than Voltaire’s, to
all outward appearance; and in it he has written with characteristic
fidelity to the make-believe of his literary double the pseudo “Scots
gentleman.” It has much the air of the off-hand, matter-of-fact
military narrator, who does not look for rhetorical openings, or
greatly trouble himself to make the most of his subject.
In his preface he says of Charles XII: “He has done Actions that
Posterity will have room to Fable upon, till they make his History
Incredible, and turn it into Romance.” The romance is already in
process in Defoe’s pages. The following passage in the text may be
quoted to give an idea of his Scots gentleman’s estimate of the King--
“And such as these were his Discourses to us, who were his Servants,
which so effectually convinc’d us, that his Cause was just, and his
Foundations right, that however black the Prospect was, which we had
before us; for we could see nothing attending us in the Process of the
War, but Death, or being made Prisoners of War, which among Northern
Princes especially, is but one Degree less in its Nature to a Soldier;
and yet it must be said, in Honour of his _Swedish_ Majesty’s
Service, and of his Servants too; that not an Officer of Note deserted
him to the Day of his Death, or quitted his Service, tho’ always
unfortunate; nay, even the foreign Officers did not desert him; for
we all thought, so much Virtue, such personal Bravery, such gallant
Principles, such immoveable Steadiness, could not fail, but _one Time
or other_ must necessarily have a Turn of Fortune in the World, must
_some Time or other_ find Friends to support it: For who could
imagine, that so gallant a Prince should at once be abandon’d of all
the Princes of the Earth, from whom any Assistance could be expected;
and that he, whose Ancestors had been the Refuge and Sanctuary of
all the Protestant Powers and Princes in _Germany_, in their
Distress, should at last receive Help from none of the Successors of
those very Princes, who were establish’d by the Blood and Power of
_Sweden_; nay, to apply it nearer, should at last be driven out of
his Possessions by those very Powers, whose Ancestors ow’d the Being
of their Government, to the Gallantry and Friendship of the King of
_Sweden’s_ Predecessors.”
Other extracts might be made which would show that Defoe was writing at
his utmost stretch of speed when he wrote the “History.” This, too, is
proved by the occasional gaps, dates left blank, and uncorrected errors
of fact, or of the press.
Voltaire’s book, on the other hand, though it repeats some of Defoe’s
errors, is an admirably adroit, and a well-poised and considered
biography: one of the best biographies of great soldiers ever given
to the world. We may conclude, if we will, that Voltaire’s English
experiences in the decisive years of the writing of the book, which
undoubtedly gave a new force and impulse to his genius, helped him
also to his particular mastery in this vein. His tribute to England in
his “Lettres Philosophiques sur les Anglais” is an indirect testimony
to his intellectual expatriation; and with these two books and his
tragedy, “Zaïre,” which followed in 1732, Voltaire may be said to have
attained his brilliant majority.
The students of history who wish to collate Voltaire’s book with later
authorities may be recommended to turn to Mr. Nisbet Bain’s volume
on Charles XII, in the “Heroes of the Nations” series, Mr. Oscar
Browning’s monograph, and Schuyler’s “History of Peter the Great.”
E. R.
The following are the works of Voltaire--
Dramatic Works:--Œdipe, 1718; Artémire, 1720; Mariamne, 1724; Zaïre,
1732; Samson (opera), 1732; L’Enfant Prodigue, 1736; Mahomet, ou le
Fanatisme, 1742; Mérope, 1743; Sémiramis, 1748; Nanine, 1749; Oreste,
1750; L’Orpheline de la Chine, 1755; Tancrède, 1760; L’Ecossaise,
1760; Le Dépositaire, 1772; Irène, 1778; Agathoclès, 1779 (performed
on the anniversary of the poet’s death). Other dramas and operas.
Poems:--La Bastille, 1717; La Henriade (fraudulently published as
La Ligue, 1723-4) 1728; Mort de Mlle. Lecouvreur, 1730; Temple
du Goût, 1733 (prose and verse); Le Mondain, 1736; Discours sur
l’homme (Épîtres sur le Bonheur, 1738-9); Sur les Événements de 1744;
Fontenoi, 1745; Temple de la Gloire, 1745; La Pucelle d’Orléans, 1755
(some of the “Chants” had been in circulation since 1735), in twenty
Chants, 1762; a supplemental one, “La Capilotade,” appeared separately
in 1760; Sur le désastre de Lisbonne, 1756; Sur la Loi Naturelle,
1756; La Vanité, Le Pauvre Diable, Le Russe à Paris, 1760; Contes
de Guillaume Vadé (with prose, 1764); La Guerre Civile de Génève
(burlesque poem), 1768; Les Trois Empereurs en Sorbonne, 1768; Épître
à Boileau, 1769; Les Systèmes, Les Cabales, 1772; La Tactique, 1773;
and others.
Prose Tales:--Le Monde comme il va (or Babouc), 1746; Zadig, 1748
(published in 1747 as “Memnon, Histoire Orientale”); Memnon, ou la
Sagesse Humaine, 1749; Micromégas, 1750; L’Histoire d’un Bon Bramin,
1759; Candide, 1759; Le Blanc et Le Noir, 1764; Jeannot et Colin,
1764; L’Homme aux Quarante Écus, 1767; L’Ingénu, 1767; La Princesse de
Babylone, 1768; Histoire de Jenny, 1769; Lettres d’Amabed, 1769; Le
Taureau Blanc, 1774; Les Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield, 1774; and
others.
Historical Works:--Histoire de Charles XII, 1731; Siècle de Louis
XIV, 1751; enlarged edition 1753 (two chapters had been printed and
suppressed in 1739); Abrégé de l’Histoire Universelle, vols. i and
ii, 1753; vol. iii, 1754; complete edition, 1756 (fragments had
appeared in 1745); Annales de l’Empire, 1753; Précis du Siècle de
Louis XV, published in part 1755 and 1763, with additional chapters,
1769; Essai sur l’Histoire Générale et sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des
Nations depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à nos jours, five vols, 1756, given
in vol. vii of Siècle de Louis XIV (some chapters had appeared in
the “Mercure” in 1745-6); Histoire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand:
first part, 1759; second part, 1763; La Philosophie de l’Histoire,
1765 (later the “Discours préliminaire” to “Essai sur les Mœurs”);
La Défense de mon Oncle (in reply to an adverse criticism on the
above work), 1767; Le Pyrrhonisme de l’Histoire, 1768; Fragments sur
l’Histoire Générale (Pyrrhonism and Tolerance), 1773.
Works on Philosophy and Religion:--Épître philosophique à Uranie,
1732; Lettres sur les Anglaises (twenty-four letters), 1733, 1734
(also published as “Lettres Philosophiques”); Traité de Métaphysique,
1734; Éléments de la Philosophie de Newton, 1738; Métaphysique de
Newton, 1740; Articles for the Encyclopédie, 1757; Dictionnaire
Philosophique Portatif, 1764; Catéchisme de l’Honnête Homme, 1763; Le
Philosophe Ignorant, 1766; La Raison par Alphabet (new edition of the
Dictionnaire Philosophique), 1769; Lettres de Memmius, 1771; Questions
sur l’Encyclopédie par des Amateurs, 1770-2; Lettres Chinoises,
Indiennes, et Tartares par un Bénédictin, 1776; Mémoires pour servir à
la vie de M. Voltaire (printed 1784); and others.
Critical Works:--Essai sur la Poésie, 1726; Utile Examen des Épîtres
de J. J. Rousseau, 1736; Lettres sur la “Nouvelle Héloïse,” 1761;
Appel à toutes les Nations de l’Europe des Jugements d’un écrivain
Anglais (later known as “Du Théâtre Anglais”), 1761; Éloge de M.
de Crébillon, 1762; Idées Républicaines (in the “Contrat Social”),
1762; Théâtre de Corneille (with translation of Shakespeare’s
“Julius Cæsar”), 1764; Examen Important de Milord Bolingbroke, 1767;
Commentaire Historique sur les Œuvres de l’auteur de la Henriade,
1776; Éloge et Pensées de Pascal (corrected and enlarged edition),
1776; Commentaire sur l’Esprit des Lois de Montesquieu, 1777; and
others.
Miscellaneous Writings:--Épîtres aux Manes de Genonville, 1729;
Épître des Vous et des Tu, 1732; Sur la Calomnie, 1733; Anecdotes
sur Pierre le Grand, 1748; Mensonges Imprimés (on Richelieu’s Will),
1749; Des Embellissements de Paris, 1750; Remerciement sincère à
un Homme Charitable, 1750; Diatribe du Doctor Akakia, 1752; Les
Quand, 1760; Writings for the rehabilitation of Jean Calas, who had
been unjustly executed, 1762; Traité sur la Tolérance à l’occasion
de la Mort de Jean Calas, 1763; Le Sentiment des Citoyens (attack
on Rousseau), 1764; Discours aux Welches, 1764; Les Anciens et les
Modernes, ou la Toilette de Mme. de Pompadour, 1765; Commentaires sur
le livre des délits et des peines, 1766; Le Cri des Nations (against
Papal domination), 1769; De la Paix Perpétuelle (on fanaticism and
tolerance), 1769; La Méprise d’Arras (on another judicial mistake),
1771; Éloge de Louis XV; de la Mort de Louis XV et de la Fatalité,
1774; and other works.
Editions of Voltaire’s works include a few works on physics and an
enormous correspondence.
Chief General Editions of Works:--Ed. Beaumarchais, etc., 70 vols.
8°, 1784; 92 vols. 12°, 1785-90; Beuchot, 70 vols., 1828, etc.; Ed.
du Siècle, 8 vols., 1867-70; Moland, 50 vols., 1877-83; with “Table
Générale et Analytique,” by Charles Pierrot, 1885; Selections have
been published, and separate volumes of letters.
Bibliography:--G. Bengesco, 1882-90.
Life, etc.:--Condorcet, 1787; G. Desnoireterres, “Voltaire et la
Société Française au XVIII^{me} Siècle,” 1871-76; Longchamp et
Wagnière, “Mémoires sur Voltaire, et ses ouvrages,” 1825; Bersot,
Études sur le XVIII^{me} Siècle, 1855; A. Pierron, “Voltaire et ses
Maîtres,” 1866; Maynard, “Voltaire; sa vie et ses œuvres,” 1867; D. F.
Strauss, 1870; J. Morley, 1872, 1886; James Paston, 2 vols., 1881; G.
Maugras, “Voltaire et Jean Jacques Rousseau,” 1886; E. Faguet, 1895;
E. Champion, “Voltaire: Études Critiques,” 1897; L. Cronslé, 1899;
G. Lanson, 1907; and in Sainte-Beuve, “Causeries du Lundi,” vol. ii;
Brunetière, “Études Critiques,” vols. i, iii, iv.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
“CHARLES XII” was written during the years 1727 and 1728. It is more
than 170 years since it was first translated into English. Opinions
of its merits differ widely. Macaulay, classing it with Boswell’s
“Johnson” and Marmontel’s “Mémoires,” says that it “may be perused with
delight by the most frivolous and the most indifferent.” Carlyle goes
even further: “‘Charles XII,’” he writes, “may still pass for a model
in that oft-attempted species of biography; the clearest details are
given in the fewest words; we have sketches of strange men and strange
countries, of wars, adventures, negotiations, in a style which for
graphic brevity rivals Sallust. It is a line engraving on a reduced
scale of that Swede and his mad life, without colours, yet not without
the foreshortenings and perspectives of a true picture. In respect of
composition, whatever may be said of its accuracy and worth otherwise,
we cannot but reckon it as greatly the best of Voltaire’s histories.”
Adverse criticism, on the other hand, began as early as 1732, when La
Mottraye, who had lived on terms of intimacy with the King, wrote a
scathing criticism of Voltaire’s work. Voltaire succeeded in making
a laughing-stock of this gentleman, but the publication of the works
of Nordberg, the King’s chaplain, and of Adlerfelt, his chamberlain,
shortly afterwards, did bring discredit on some of Voltaire’s details.
Of the modern school of critics, Mr. Nisbet Bain, who has made a
special study of original authorities, does not hesitate to call the
book a “romance.”
Underlying this difference of opinion is the time-honoured question
of the “scientific” as opposed to the “epical” treatment of the lives
of the great. The history of any great man’s career is a kind of epic
poem, and, to borrow Mr. Birrell’s words, “I do not see why we children
of a larger growth may not be interested in the annals of mankind
simply as a story.”
It must, indeed, be admitted that Voltaire is no precise or scientific
historian; but, in the portrayal of the life of a man of action,
rapidity and charm of style is surely as important as the careful
tracing of cause and effect.
Voltaire’s literary style is famous; but work of high literary merit
always suffers in translation; so that any roughness in the present
rendering must be attributed to the translator and not to the author.
“Ett vet jag som aldrig dör--
Det är dom öfver död man.”
One thing I know that never dies--
The verdict passed upon the dead.
“The history of Sweden is the history of her kings,” and of those kings
the most striking is undoubtedly Charles XII, the Lion of the North.
One of the few heroic figures in a prosaic age, he seems to belong
rather to the times of Alfred the Great and Charlemagne than to those
of Richelieu and Louis XIII. He has well been called “the last of the
Vikings,” for the extraordinary nature of his adventures no less than
his dauntlessness and endurance make him a kind of Saga-hero. The
stories told of his childhood show the beginnings of those Spartan
powers of enduring hardship which made him the idol of his “brave blue
boys” in later life.
It is said that at the age of six he almost killed himself by leaving
his bed in a Swedish mid-winter to “harden himself” by sleeping on the
bare boards. The obstinacy which was the most marked characteristic of
his boyhood developed in after years into the resolution with which as
a mere youth he faced the treachery of his neighbours. “I am resolved,”
he said in his first speech to his Parliament, “never to begin an
unrighteous war, but I am also resolved never to finish a righteous war
until I have completely humbled my enemies.”
In all matters of convention he was “in his simplicity sublime.” He
cared nothing for the pomp of sovereignty, and always wore a soldier’s
plain buff coat; he took his meals standing, spreading the bread and
butter, which was his usual fare, with his thumbs. His letters to his
sister (whom he addresses as “mon cœur”) are full of real affection,
and a glance at them dispels the popular illusion that he was cold and
heartless, just because he could resist the blandishments of Anna von
Königsmarck!
Apart from occasional lapses into the fatalism characteristic of his
race, he seems to have been devout. Shortly after his accession he
ordered the titles “Our Most Gracious Majesty” to be removed from
the liturgy, on the ground that “Almighty God is not appeased by
high-sounding titles but by the prayers of humble and faithful hearts.”
He was the last to lose heart in adversity; he lost his Empire with
as good a grace as he won it. “It is only requisite,” he wrote after
Pultawa, where all was lost but honour, “not to lose courage, or let
go the conduct of affairs.”
His early death was a disaster not only for Sweden but for the whole of
Europe, for he was the first to realize and check the growing power of
Russia.
BOOK I
HISTORY OF CHARLES XII
KING OF SWEDEN
BOOK I
Outline of Swedish history up to the time of Charles XI--Charles’s
education--His enemies--Character-sketch of the Czar, Peter
Alexiowitz--His peculiarities--Alliance of Russia, Poland, Denmark
against Charles XII.
THE kingdom which is made up of Sweden and Finland is, according to our
measurement, about 200 leagues broad and 300 long, and stretches from
south to north as far as the 55th degree or thereabouts. The climate
is severe; there is scarcely any spring or autumn, but there are nine
months of winter in the year, and the heat of summer follows hard upon
the excessive cold of winter. Frost from the month of October onwards
is continuous, nor are there any of those imperceptible gradations
between the seasons which, in other countries, render changes less
trying. In compensation Nature has endowed the Swedes with clear sky
and pure air. The summer sunshine, which is almost continuous, ripens
fruit and flowers very rapidly. The long winter nights are shortened
by the twilight evenings and dawns, which last in proportion to the
sun’s distance from Sweden; and the light of the moon, unveiled by any
clouds, and intensified by reflection from the snow-clad ground, and
often, too, by lights like the Aurora Borealis, makes travelling in
Sweden as easy by night as by day.
The fauna are smaller than in the more central parts of Europe, on
account of the poor pastures. The people are well developed; the purity
of the air makes them healthy, and the severity of the climate hardens
them. They live to a good old age when they do not undermine their
constitutions by the abuse of strong drink, which Northern nations seem
to crave the more because they have been denied them by Nature.
The Swedes are well built, strong and active, and capable of undergoing
the most arduous labours, hunger and want; they are born fighters, high
spirited and daring rather than industrious. They have long neglected
commerce and are still poor business men, though commerce alone can
supply their country’s wants.
Tradition says that it was chiefly from Sweden (a part of which is
still called Gothland) that there poured those hordes of Goths who
overran Europe and wrested it from the sway of Rome, who for the past
500 years had played the rôle of tyrant, usurper and lawgiver in that
country. The Northern countries were at that time far more populous
than they are to-day; there was no religious restraint preventing the
citizens from polygamy; the only reproach known to the womenfolk was
that of sterility or of idleness, and as they were both as industrious
and as strong as the men, the period of maternity was of longer
duration.
In spite of this, Sweden, together with what remains to it of Finland,
has not above 4,000,000 inhabitants. The soil is sterile and poor,
and Scania is the only district which produces barley. There is not
more than four millions current money in the whole land. The public
bank, the oldest in Europe, was established to meet a want, because,
as payments are made in brass and iron coin, difficulties of transport
arose.
Sweden enjoyed freedom until the middle of the fourteenth century;
during this long period several revolutions occurred, but all
innovations were in the direction of liberty.
The chief magistrate had the title King, which in different countries
involves very different degrees of power. Thus in France and Spain it
implies an absolute monarchy, while in Poland, Sweden and Finland it
stands for a representative or limited monarchy. In Sweden the King
was powerless without the Council, and the Council in turn derived
its powers from the Parliament, which was frequently convened. In
these great Assemblies the nation was represented by the nobility,
the bishops, and deputies from the towns. In course of time even the
peasantry, that section of the community which had been unjustly
despised and enslaved throughout almost the whole of North Europe, was
admitted to the Parliament.
In about 1492 this nation, essentially liberty-loving, and never
forgetful of the fact that she had conquered Rome thirteen centuries
before, was brought into subjection by a woman and a nation weaker than
the Swedes. Margaret of Valdemar, the Sémiramis of the North, Queen of
Denmark and Norway, conquered Sweden partly by force of arms and partly
by means of diplomacy, and united her vast estates into one kingdom.
After her death Sweden was rent by civil war; she alternately shook
off and submitted to the Danish yoke, and was ruled by kings and
ministers alternately. In about 1520 she passed through a period of
cruel oppression at the hands of two tyrants: one was Christian II,
King of Denmark, a monarch with all the vices, and no one redeeming
feature; the other, Archbishop of Upsala, and Primate of the kingdom,
was as cruel as the former. One day these two, acting in concert, had
the consuls, the magistrates of Stockholm and ninety-four senators
seized and massacred by the executioners, on the ground that they had
been excommunicated by the Pope for having defended the State against
the Archbishop. Whilst these two men, united in oppression, but
opposed when it was a question of dividing the spoil, were exercising
the utmost tyranny and the cruelest vengeance, a new event changed the
whole aspect of affairs in the North.
Gustavus Vasa, a youth descended from the old line of kings, issued
from the depths of the forest of Delecarlia, where he had been in
hiding, and appeared as the deliverer of Sweden. He was one of those
rare products of Nature, a great genius with all the qualities of a
commander of men. His noble stature and an air of distinction brought
him adherents the moment he appeared. His eloquence, reinforced by his
good looks, was all the more persuasive because it was unassumed. His
genius led to the conception of great undertakings, which ordinary
people deemed foolhardy, but which, in the eyes of the great, were
simply brave. His never-failing courage carried him through all
difficulties. He combined valour with discretion, was essentially
gentle in an age of savagery, and had a reputation for uprightness, as
far as that is possible for a party leader.
Gustavus Vasa had been a hostage of Christian, and kept prisoner
contrary to the laws of nations. Having escaped from prison he had
wandered, disguised as a peasant, in the mountains and woods of
Delecarlia; there, to provide himself both with a livelihood and with
a hiding-place, he found himself forced to work in the copper-mines.
While buried in these vaults he dared to form the project of dethroning
the tyrant. He revealed himself to the peasants, and impressed them as
a man of extraordinary gifts, whom ordinary men instinctively obey.
In a short time he turned these barbarians into veterans. He attacked
Christian and the Archbishop, gained several victories over them, and
drove them both from Sweden. Then the States duly elected him King of
the country which he had liberated.
Scarcely was he firmly seated on the throne before he embarked on an
enterprise of greater difficulty than his conquests. The real tyrants
of the State were the bishops, who, possessing nearly all the wealth of
Sweden, employed it to oppress the people and to make war on the kings.
This power was all the more terrible because, in their ignorance, the
people regarded it as sacred. Gustavus punished the Catholic Church
for the crimes of her priests. In less than two years he introduced
Lutheranism into Sweden, using as a means diplomacy rather than force.
Having thus, as he put it, wrested the kingdom from the Danes and the
clergy, he reigned in prosperity and absolutism, and died at the age
of seventy, leaving his dynasty securely seated on the throne, and his
form of faith firmly established.
One of his descendants was that Gustavus Adolphus who is called the
Great. This king conquered Livonia, Ingria, Bremen, Verden, Vismar,
Pomerania, besides more than a hundred towns in Germany, given up
by Sweden after his death. He shook the throne of Ferdinand II, and
protected the Lutherans in Germany, his efforts in that direction being
furthered by the intrigues of Rome herself, who stood more in awe of
the power of the Emperor than of heresy itself. He it was who, by his
victories, contributed to the downfall of the House of Austria, an
undertaking accredited to Cardinal Richelieu, who was past master in
the art of gaining a reputation for himself, while Gustavus contented
himself with great deeds. He was on the point of carrying war across
the Danube, with the possibility of dethroning the Emperor, when, at
the age of thirty-seven, he was killed in the battle of Lutzen, where
he defeated Valstein. He carried with him to the grave the title of
“Great,” the regrets of the North, and the esteem of his enemies.
His daughter Christine, an extremely gifted woman, preferred
disputations with savants to the government of a people whose knowledge
was confined to the art of war.
She won as great a reputation for resigning the throne as her ancestors
had gained in winning and securing it. The Protestants have defamed
her, as if Lutherans have the monopoly of all the virtues; and the
Papists exulted too much in the conversion of a woman who was a mere
philosopher. She retired to Rome, where she passed the rest of her
life surrounded by the arts which she loved, and for the sake of which
she had renounced an empire at the age of twenty-seven. After her
abdication she induced the States of Sweden to elect as her successor
her cousin Charles Gustavus, the tenth of that name, son of the Count
Palatinate, Duke of Deux Ponts. This king added new conquests to those
of Gustavus Adolphus. First he invaded Poland, where he gained the
celebrated three days’ battle of Warsaw; for some time he waged war
successfully against the Danes, besieged their capital, re-united
Scania to Sweden, and secured the tenure of Sleswick to the Duke of
Holstein. Then, having met with reverses, and made peace with his
enemies, his ambition turned against his own subjects.
He conceived the idea of establishing absolutism in Sweden, but, like
Gustavus the Great, died at the age of thirty-seven, before having
achieved the establishment of that despotism which his son, Charles
XI, completed. The latter, a warrior, like all his ancestors, was more
absolute than them all. He abolished the authority of the Senate,
which was declared to be a royal and not a national assembly. He was
economical, vigilant, and hard-working--in fact, such a king as would
have been popular had not fear dominated all other sentiments in the
hearts of his subjects. He married, in 1680, Ulrica Eleanora, daughter
of Ferdinand, King of Denmark, a virtuous princess worthy of more
confidence than her husband gave her; the offspring of this marriage
was Charles XII, perhaps the most extraordinary man ever born--a
hero who summed up in his personality all the great qualities of his
ancestors, and whose only fault and only misfortune was that he carried
them all to excess. It is of him, and all that is related of his
actions and person, that we now purpose writing.
The first book they gave him to read was _Samuel Puffendorf_,
in order that he might become early acquainted with his own and
neighbouring States. He then learned German, which he henceforward
spoke as fluently as his mother tongue. At seven years old he could
manage a horse. Violent exercise, in which he delighted and which
revealed his martial inclinations, early laid the foundation of a
strong constitution equal to the privations to which his disposition
prompted him.
Though gentle enough in early childhood he was unconquerably obstinate;
the only way to manage him was to appeal to his honour--he could be
induced to do anything in the name of honour. He had an aversion to
Latin, but when he was told that the Kings of Poland and Denmark
understood it, he learned it quickly, and for the rest of his days
remembered enough to speak it. Recourse was had to the same means to
induce him to learn French, but he was so obstinately determined
against it that he could not be prevailed upon to use it even with
French ambassadors who knew no other language. As soon as he had some
knowledge of Latin they made him translate Quintus Curtius; he took a
liking to the book rather for the subject than the style. The tutor who
explained this author to him asked him what he thought of Alexander. “I
think,” said the Prince, “that I would like to be like him.” “But,” was
the answer, “he only lived thirty-two years.” “Ah!” replied the Prince,
“and is not that long enough when one has subdued kingdoms?” These
answers were reported to the King his father, who exclaimed, “That
child will excel me and he will even excel Gustavus the Great.”
One day he was amusing himself in the King’s room by looking over some
geographical plans, one of a town in Hungary taken by the Turks from
the Emperor, and the other of Riga, capital of Livonia, a province
conquered by the Swedes a century earlier. At the foot of the map
of the Hungarian town was this quotation from the Book of Job, “The
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord.” The young Prince read these words, then took a pencil and wrote
beneath the map of Riga, “The Lord gave thee to me, and the devil shall
not take thee from me.” Thus, in the most insignificant acts of his
childhood, his resolute disposition revealed traits characteristic of
greatness, showing what he was one day to be.
He was eleven years old when he lost his mother; she died from an
illness brought on by the anxiety caused her by her husband and by
her own efforts to conceal it. By means of a kind of court called the
Chamber of Liquidation, Charles XI had robbed many of his subjects of
their property. A crowd of citizens ruined by this court--merchants,
farmers, widows and orphans--filled the streets of Stockholm, and daily
poured forth their useless lamentations at the gate of the Palace. The
Queen gave all her substance to help these poor wretches: her money,
jewels, furniture and even her clothes. When she had nothing left to
give them she threw herself weeping at her husband’s feet, praying
him to have compassion on his subjects. The King answered sternly,
“Madam, we have taken you that you may give us children, not advice.”
Henceforward he is reported to have treated her with such severity
that he shortened her life. He died four years after her, in the
fifty-second year of his age and the thirty-seventh of his reign, just
as the Empire, Spain and Holland on the one hand, and France on the
other, had referred the decision of their quarrels to his arbitration,
and when he had already begun the work of peace-making between these
powers.
To his son of fifteen he left a kingdom secure at home and respected
abroad. His subjects were poor, but brave and loyal; the treasury
in good order and managed by able ministers. Charles XII, on his
accession, not only found himself absolute and undisturbed master
of Sweden and Finland, but also of Livonia, Carelia and Ingria; he
possessed Wismar, Wibourg, the Isles of Rügen, Oesel, and the most
beautiful part of Pomerania and the Duchy of Bremen and Verden, all
conquests of his ancestors, assured to the crown by long tenure and by
the solemn treaties of Munster and Oliva, strengthened by the prestige
of Swedish arms. The peace of Ryswick, begun under the auspices of the
father, was completed by the son; who was thus arbiter of Europe from
the beginning of his reign.
Swedish law fixes the age of the King’s majority at fifteen years; but
Charles XI, who exercised absolute power in all points, deferred that
of his son, by will, to the age of eighteen. By this will he favoured
the ambitious views of his mother, Edwiga Eleanora of Holstein, widow
of Charles X.
This Princess was nominated by Charles XI guardian of her grandson
and, in conjunction with a Council of six persons, regent of the
kingdom. The regent had taken part in politics during the reign of
the King her son. She was old, but her ambition, greater than her
strength and ability, made her hope to enjoy the sweets of authority
long during the minority of the King, her grandson. She kept him away
from public business as far as possible; the young Prince passed his
time hunting, or busied himself with reviewing his troops. Sometimes
he even went through their exercises with them. These pursuits seemed
the natural outcome of the vivacity of youth, and there was nothing in
his conduct to alarm the regent. Then, too, she flattered herself that
the dissipation of these exercises made him unable to apply himself,
and so gave her the opportunity of a longer regency. One November day,
the very year of his father’s death, after he had reviewed several
regiments accompanied by the State-councillor Piper, he was standing
plunged apparently in deep thought. “May I take the liberty,” said the
latter to him, “of asking your Majesty of what you are thinking so
seriously?” “I am thinking,” answered the Prince, “that I feel worthy
of the command of those fine fellows, and that it is not my will that
either they or I should receive our orders from a woman.” Piper at
once seized the chance of making his fortune, and realizing that his
own influence was not strong enough for him to venture on so dangerous
an enterprise as depriving the Queen of the regency, and declaring
the King of age, he proposed the matter to the Count Axel Sparre,
an ambitious and aspiring man, pointing to the King’s confidence as
a likely reward. Sparre was credulous, undertook the business, and
worked hard in Piper’s interests. The Councillors of the Regency were
drawn into the scheme, and vied with one another in hastening the
execution of it in order to gain the King’s favour. They went in a body
to propose it to the Queen, who did not in the least expect such a
declaration.
The States-General were then assembled, the Councillors of the Regency
laid the matter before them, and they voted unanimously for it. The
affair was hastened on with a rapidity which nothing could check; so
that Charles XII merely expressed a wish to rule, and within three days
the States handed over the government to him. The power and influence
of the Queen melted away at once. Henceforth she lived in private, a
life more suited to her age, but less to her taste.
The King was crowned on the following 24th of December. He made his
entry into Stockholm on a sorrel horse, shod with silver, with a
sceptre in his hand, and amid the acclamations of a whole nation--a
nation always extravagantly fond of novelty and full of great
expectations of a young Prince.
The right of consecrating and crowning the King belongs to the
Archbishop of Upsala, and is almost the only privilege remaining to him
from among a number claimed by his predecessors. After having anointed
the Prince according to custom, he was holding the crown ready to put
on his head, when Charles seized it from his hands, and, with a proud
glance at the Prelate, crowned himself. The mob, always impressed by
a touch of majesty, applauded the King’s action; even those who had
suffered most from the tyranny of the father could not refrain from
praising the pride which was the inauguration of their servitude.
As soon as Charles was master, he took Councillor Piper into his
confidence, and handed over the direction of affairs to him, so that
he was soon Premier in all but name. A few days later he made him
Count, a title of distinction in Sweden, and not, as in France, an
empty title to be assumed at will. The first period of the King’s rule
did not give people a good impression of him; it looked as if he had
been rather impatient of rule than deserving of it. As a matter of
fact, he indulged no dangerous passions, and the only remarkable thing
about him seemed to be youthful fits of rage and a settled obstinacy.
He seemed proud and unable to apply himself. Even the ambassadors to
his court took him for a second-rate genius, and so described him to
their masters. The Swedish people had the same opinion of him; no one
understood his character; he himself had not realized it, when storms
arising in the North suddenly gave his hidden talents an opportunity of
displaying themselves.
Three strong princes, taking advantage of his extreme youth, made
simultaneous plans for his ruin. The first was Ferdinand IV, King of
Denmark, his cousin; the second Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of
Poland; the third, and most dangerous, was Peter the Great, Czar of
Russia. It is necessary to explain the beginning of these wars, which
had such great results. We will begin with Denmark.
Of the two sisters of Charles XII, the elder had married the Duke of
Holstein, a young prince of great courage and kindliness. The Duke,
oppressed by the King of Denmark, came to Stockholm with his consort,
in order to put himself under the King’s protection, and ask his help,
not only as a brother-in-law, but also as King of a people which
nourishes an undying hatred for the Danes.
The ancient house of Holstein, merged with that of Oldenburg, was
elected to the throne of Denmark in 1449. All the Northern kingdoms
were at that time elective, but that of Denmark shortly after became
hereditary. One of its kings, Christian III, had an affection for his
brother Adolphus for which there are few parallels in history. He
neither wished to leave him powerless, nor could he dismember his own
States. By an extraordinary arrangement he shared with him the duchies
of Holstein-Gottorp and Sleswick. The descendants of Adolphus should,
in future, rule Holstein in conjunction with the kings of Denmark, so
that the two duchies should be common property, and the King could
do nothing in Holstein without the sanction of the Duke, and _vice
versa_. This extraordinary union, of which there had, however, been
a parallel instance a few years previously, was, for more than eighty
years, a source of quarrels between the Denmark and Holstein branches
of the dynasty, since the kings always made it their policy to oppress
the dukes, and the dukes were equally determined on independence. The
struggle had cost the last Duke his liberty and his supremacy. He
had regained both at the Conference of Altena in 1689, through the
mediation of Sweden, Holland and England, the guarantors of the treaty.
But as a treaty between princes is often only a temporary makeshift,
until the stronger is able to oppress the weaker, the quarrel between
the new Danish King and the young Duke began again more violently than
ever. While the Duke was at Stockholm, the Danes had already begun
hostilities in the district of Holstein, and had made a secret alliance
with the King of Sweden himself.
Frederic Augustus, Elector of Saxony, whom neither the eloquence and
schemes of the Abbé de Polignac, nor the great qualifications of the
Prince of Conti, his competitor for the throne, had been able to
deprive of election as King of Poland, was a prince still more famed
for his courage and chivalrous ideals, than for his incredible physical
strength. His court, after that of Louis XII, was second to none in
Europe in distinction. There was never a prince more generous or
liberal, nor one who gave with so good a grace.
He had bought half the votes of the Polish nobility, and gained the
other half by force on the approach of a Saxon army. He considered it
better to keep a standing army to strengthen himself on the throne; but
he wanted a pretext for keeping it in Poland. He had, in fact, planned
to send it against the King of Sweden, on the occasion we are now going
to relate.
Livonia, the most beautiful and fertile province of the North, had once
belonged to the Knights of the Teutonic order. The Russians, Poles,
and Swedes had since severally disputed their claim to it. Sweden had
enjoyed it for nearly one hundred years, and was solemnly confirmed in
possession of it by the Peace of Oliva.
The late King Charles XI, in his severity to his subjects, had not
spared the Livonians. He robbed them of their privileges and part of
their estates. Patkul, who from his unhappy death has since gained
the notoriety of misfortune, was deputed by the nobility of Livonia
to lay their grievances before the King. His speech to his master was
respectful, but strong and full of the rugged eloquence begotten of
calamity and courage. But kings too often regard public speeches as
vain ceremonies, which they must endure without paying attention to.
But Charles XI, who, when he did not give way to transports of rage,
knew how to act a part, patted Patkul gently on the shoulder and said,
“You have spoken for your country like a brave man; I honour you for
it. Proceed.” But a few days after he had Patkul declared guilty of
high treason and condemned to death.
Patkul, who had hidden, took to flight, and carried his resentment to
Poland. Some time after he was admitted to the court of King Augustus.
Charles XI was dead, but the sentence of Patkul was not annulled, and
he was still most resentful. He pointed out to the King of Poland
how easily Livonia could be conquered; the people were in despair,
and eager to shake off the Swedish yoke; the King was only a child,
and unable to defend himself. These proposals were well received by
a prince who had long meditated this conquest. Preparations were
immediately made for a sudden invasion of Sweden, empty formalities of
ultimata and manifestoes being dispensed with.
At the same time the storm darkened on the Russian frontier. Peter
Alexiowitz, Czar of Russia, had already made his name feared by the
battle in which he defeated the Turks in 1697, and by the conquest of
Azov, which gave him the control of the Black Sea. But the actions
which won him the title of “The Great” were far more glorious than
conquests.
Russia occupies the whole of Northern Asia and Europe, and from the
frontiers of China extends 1,500 leagues to the borders of Poland and
Sweden. Yet the existence of this immense country was not even realized
by Europe before the time of the Czar Peter. The Russians were less
civilized than the Mexicans at the time of their discovery by Cortez;
born the slaves of masters as barbarous as themselves, they were sunk
deep in ignorance, and unacquainted with the arts and sciences, and so
insensible of their use that they had no industry. An old law, held
sacred among them, forbade them, on pain of death, to leave their
own country without the permission of their Patriarch. Yet this law,
avowedly enacted to prevent them from realizing their state of bondage,
was agreeable to a people who, in the depths of their ignorance and
misery, disdained all commerce with foreign nations.
The era of the Russians began with the creation of the world; they
reckoned up 7,207 years at the beginning of the last century, without
being able to give any reason why they did so. The first day of the
year corresponded to our 13th of September. The reason they gave for
this was that it was probable that God created the world in autumn, in
a season when the fruits of the earth are in full maturity!
Thus the only traces of knowledge found among them were founded on
gross mistakes; not one of them suspected that autumn in Russia might
be spring in another country in the antipodes. Not long before, the
people were for burning the secretary of the Persian ambassador,
because he had foretold an eclipse of the sun. They did not even know
the use of figures, but in all their calculations made use of little
beads strung on wire; and this was their method of reckoning in all
their counting-houses, and even in the treasury of the Czar.
Their religion was, and still is, that of the Greek Church, but
intermingled with superstitions, to which they firmly adhered in
proportion to their absurdity and their exacting nature. Few Russians
dare eat a pigeon, because the Holy Ghost is portrayed in form of a
dove. They regularly kept four Lents a year, and during that time
might eat neither eggs nor milk. God and St. Nicholas were the objects
of their worship, and next to them the Czar and the Patriarch. The
authority of the latter was as boundless as the people’s ignorance. He
had power of life and death, and inflicted the cruelest punishments,
from which there was no appeal. Twice a year he rode in solemn
procession, ceremoniously attended by all the clergy; and the people
prostrated themselves in the streets before him, like the Tartars
before their Grand Lama.
They practised confession, but only in the case of the greatest crimes;
and then absolution was held necessary, but not repentance; they
believed themselves purified in God’s sight as soon as they received
the priest’s benediction. Thus they passed without remorse straight
from confession to theft or murder; so that a practice which, in the
case of other Christians, acts as a deterrent, was, in their case,
only an incentive to crime. They scrupled to drink milk on a fast-day,
but on festivals fathers of families, priests, matrons and maids got
inebriated with brandy. As in other countries they had religious
differences among themselves, but the most important cause of dispute
was whether laymen should make the sign of the cross with two fingers
or with three, and a certain Jacob Nursoff had, during a previous
reign, raised a rebellion on this question.
The Czar, in his vast kingdom, had many subjects who were not
Christians; the Tartars, on the west coast of the Caspian, and the
Palus Mæotis were Mahometans; while the Siberians, Ostiacs and
Samoides, who live near the Baltic, were pagans. Some of these were
idolators, and some were without God in the world; still, in spite of
that, the Swedes, who were sent as prisoners among them, report more
favourably of their manners than those of the ancient Russians.
Peter Alexiowitz had received an education which tended to increase
the barbarity of his part of the world. His disposition led him to
like strangers before he knew they could be useful to him. Le Fort
was the first instrument that he made use of to change the face of
Russia. Peter’s mighty genius, checked but not destroyed by a barbarous
education, suddenly broke out; he resolved to act a man’s part, to
hold command of men and to create a new nation. Several princes before
him had renounced their thrones, from distaste for public business,
but there was no instance of a prince resigning that he might learn to
rule better, as Peter the Great did. He left Russia in 1698, before
the completion of the second year of his reign, and took a journey
into Holland, under an ordinary name, as if he were the domestic
servant of M. le Fort, whom he appointed ambassador-extraordinary to
the States-General. When he reached Amsterdam he entered his name on
the list of ships’-carpenters to the Indian Admiralty, and worked in
the dockyard like other carpenters. In his leisure time he learned
those branches of mathematics which might prove useful to a prince,
_e. g._ such as related to fortifications, navigation, and the
making of plans. He went into the workmen’s shops, examined all their
manufactures, and let nothing escape his notice. Thence he passed to
England, where he perfected himself in the science of ship-building,
and, returning to Holland, carefully investigated everything which
might be of use in his own country.
At last, after two years of travel and labour which nobody else would
have willingly undergone, he reappeared in Russia, bringing thither
with him the arts of Europe. A band of artists of all kinds followed
him, and then for the first time great Russian vessels were to be seen
on the Black Sea, the Baltic, and even on the ocean. Imposing buildings
of architectural merit were set up amidst the Russian huts. He founded
colleges, academies, printing-houses and libraries. The great towns
were civilized; and gradually, though not without difficulty, the dress
and customs of the people were changed, so that the Russians learned
by degrees what social life really is. Even their superstitions were
abolished, the Czar declared head of the Church, and the influence of
the Patriarch suppressed. This last undertaking would have cost a less
absolute Prince his throne and his life, but in the case of Peter not
only succeeded, but assured his success in all his other innovations.
Peter, having subdued the ignorant and barbarous clerical orders, dared
to venture to educate them, and so ran the risk of making them a power
in the State--but he believed that he was strong enough to take this
risk.
In the few monasteries which remained he had philosophy and theology
taught; though this theology was only a survival of the age of
barbarity from which Peter had rescued his country. A credible witness
assured the writer that he had been present at a public debate, where
the question was whether the use of tobacco was a sin; the proposer
argued that it was lawful to intoxicate oneself with brandy, but not to
smoke, because the Holy Scriptures say that, “Not that which goeth into
the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this
defileth a man.”
The monks were not content with the reform. Scarcely had the Czar
set up printing-presses than they made use of them to abuse him.
They called him Antichrist, because he had the men’s beards cut off,
and because post-mortem dissection was practised in his academy. But
another monk, who wanted to make his fortune, wrote refuting this
argument, and proving that Peter was not Antichrist because the number
666 was not included in his name! The author of the libel was broken on
the wheel, and his opponent made Bishop of Rezan.
The Reformer of Russia carried a law which puts to shame many a
civilized state; by this law no member of the civil service, no
“bourgeois” with an established position, and no minor, might enter a
monastery. Peter quite grasped the importance of not allowing useful
subjects to take up idleness as a profession, nor those who had not yet
command of the least part of their fortune to renounce liberty for ever.
The Czar not only, after the example of the Turkish Sultans, subjected
the Church to the State, but, by a greater stroke of policy, he
destroyed a band of troops like the Janissaries; and that which the
Ottoman Emperors failed to do, he succeeded in very rapidly; he
disbanded the Russian Janissaries, called Strelitz, who had dominated
the Czars. This band, feared rather by its masters than its neighbours,
consisted of about 30,000 infantry, half stationed at Moscow, and the
other half at various points on the frontier; a member of the Strelitz
only drew pay at the rate of four roubles a year, but privileges and
abuses amply made up for this.
Peter at first formed a band of mercenaries, in which he had himself
enrolled, and was not too proud to begin as drummer-boy, so much were
the people in need of good example. He became officer by degrees, made
new regiments from time to time, and at last, finding himself at the
head of disciplined troops, broke up the Strelitz, who were afraid to
disobey him.
The cavalry resembled that of Poland, and that of France in the days
when France was only a collection of fiefs. Russian noblemen took
the field at their own expense, and engaged without discipline, and
sometimes unarmed but for a sabre and a quiver; they were quite unused
to discipline, and so were always beaten.
Peter the Great taught them to obey, both by example and by punishment.
For he himself served as a soldier and subordinate officer, and as
Czar severely punished the “boyards,” as the noblemen were called, who
argued that the privilege of the nobility was to serve the State in
their own way. He instituted a regular corps of artillery, and seized
500 church bells to cast cannon. By the year 1714 he had 13,000 brass
cannon. He also formed a corps of dragoons, a form of arm both suited
to Russian capacity and for which their horses, which are small, are
particularly fit.
Russia has, at the present day (1738), thirty well-equipped regiments
of dragoons of 1,000 men each.
He it was, too, who established the hussars in Russia; he even got a
school of engineers in a country where he was the first to understand
the elements of geometry.
He was a good engineer himself; but he excelled especially in
seamanship. As he was born with an extreme fear of the sea, it is all
the greater credit to him that he was a good captain, a skilful pilot,
a good seaman, and a clever carpenter. Yet in his young days he could
not cross a bridge without a shudder; and he had the wooden shutters
of his carriage closed on these occasions. It was his courage and will
which led him to overcome this constitutional weakness.
He had built on the Gulf of Tanais, near Azov, a fine port; his idea
was to keep a fleet of galleys there, and as he considered that these
long, flat, light craft would be successful in the Baltic, he had
300 of them built in his favourite town of Petersburg. He taught his
subjects how to construct them from ordinary fir, and then how to
manage them.
The revenue of the Czar was inconsiderable, compared with the immense
size of his empire. It never exceeded twenty-four millions, reckoning
the mark as £50, as we do at the present moment; but, after all, only
he is rich who can do great deeds. Russia is not densely populated,
though the women are prolific and the men are strong. Peter himself,
by the very civilization of his empire, contributed to its population.
The causes of the fact that there are still vast deserts in this great
stretch of the continent are to be sought in frequent recruiting for
unsuccessful wars, the transporting of nations from the Caspian to
the Baltic, the destruction of life in the public works, the ravages
wrought by disease (three-quarters of the children dying of small-pox),
and the sad result of a means of government long savage, and barbarous
even in its civilization. The present population of Russia consists of
500,000 noble families, 200,000 lawyers, rather more than 5,000,000
“bourgeois” and peasants paying a kind of poll-tax, and 600,000 men in
the provinces conquered from the Swedes; so that this immense realm
does not contain more than 14,000,000 men; that is to say, two-thirds
of the population of France.
The Czar Peter, having transformed the manners, laws, militia, and
the very face of his country, wished also to take a prominent part
in commerce, which brings both riches to a State and advantages to
the whole world. He intended to make Russia the centre of Asian and
European trade. The Volga, Tanais, and Duna were to be united by
canals, of which he drew the plans, and new ways were to be opened
from the Baltic to the Euxine and the Caspian, and from these to the
Northern Ocean.
In the year 1700 he decided to build on the Baltic a port which should
be the mart of the North, and a town which should be the capital
of his empire, because the port of Archangel, ice-bound for nine
months in the year, and the access to which necessitated a long and
dangerous circuit, did not seem to him convenient. Already he was
seeking a passage to China through the seas of the north-east, and the
manufactures of Paris and of Pekin were to enrich his new town.
A road of 754 versts, made across marshes which had to be first filled,
led from Moscow to his new town. Most of his projects were carried
out by his own hand, and two Empresses who succeeded him successively
carried out his policy whenever practicable, and only abandoned the
impossible.
He made tours throughout his empire whenever he was not engaged in
active warfare. But he travelled as lawgiver and natural philosopher.
He carefully investigated natural conditions everywhere, and tried
to correct and to perfect. He himself plumbed rivers and seas, had
locks made, visited the timber-yards, examined mines, assayed metals,
planned accurate maps, and worked at them with his own hand.
He built, in a desolate district, the imperial town of Petersburg,
which, at the present day, contains 60,000 houses, and where there has
arisen in our day a brilliant Court, and where the greatest luxury is
to be had. He built the port of Cronstadt on the Neva, Sainte-Croix on
the frontiers of Persia, and forts in the Ukraine and in Siberia, docks
at Archangel, Petersburg, Astrakan, and at Azov; besides arsenals and
hospitals. His own residences he built small and in bad style, but his
public buildings were magnificent and imposing. The sciences, which in
other parts have been the slow product of centuries, were, by his care,
introduced into his empire in full perfection. He made an academy,
modelled on the famous institutions of Paris and London; at great
expense men like Delisle, Bilfinger, Hermann, Bernoulli, were summoned
to Petersburg. This academy is still in existence, and is now training
Russian scholars.
He compelled the younger members of the nobility to travel to gain
culture, and to return to Russia polished by foreign good breeding.
I have met young Russians who were quite men of the world, and
well-informed to boot.
It is shocking to realize that this reformer lacked the cardinal virtue
of humanity. With so many virtues he was yet brutal in his pleasures,
savage in his manner, and barbarous in seeking revenge. He civilized
his people, but remained savage himself. He carried out his sentences
with his own hands, and at a debauch at table he displayed his skill
in cutting off heads. There are in Africa kings who shed the blood
of their subjects with their own hands, but these monarchs pass for
barbarians. The death of one of his sons, who ought to have been
punished or disinherited, would make his memory odious, if the good he
did his subjects did not almost atone for his cruelty to his own family.
Such a man was Peter the Czar, and his great plans were only sketched
in outline when he united with the kings of Poland and Denmark against
a child whom they all despised.
The founder of Russia resolved to be a conqueror; he believed the task
an easy one, and felt that a war so well launched would help him in all
his projects. The art of war was a new art in which his people needed
lessons.
Besides, he wanted a port on the east side of the Baltic for the
execution of his great plans. He needed Ingria, which lies to the
north-east of Livonia. The Swedes possessed it, and it must be seized
from them. His ancestors, again, had had rights over Ingria, Estonia,
and Livonia; it seemed the right time to revive these claims, which not
only dated from a hundred years back, but had also been annulled by
treaties. He therefore concluded a treaty with the King of Poland to
take from Sweden the districts which lie between the Gulf of Finland,
the Baltic, Poland and Russia.
BOOK II
BOOK II
Sudden and extraordinary transformation in the character of Charles
XII--At the age of eighteen he carries on war with Denmark, Poland
and Russia--He concludes the war with Denmark in six weeks--Beats
an army of 80,000 Russians with 8,000 Swedes, and proceeds to
Poland--Description of Poland and its Government--Charles wins
several victories, and conquers Poland, where he makes preparations
to nominate a king.
THUS three powerful kings were threatening the throne of the boy-king,
Charles XII. Rumours of these preparations dismayed the people, and
alarmed the King’s Council. The great generals were dead; everything
was to be feared under a young king who had so far made a bad
impression on people. He was hardly ever present at the Council without
crossing his legs on the table; he seemed too absent-minded and callous
to take part in any business.
The dangerous position of affairs was deliberated by the Council in his
presence, and, as some Councillors were proposing to divert the storm
by means of negotiation, Charles suddenly rose from his seat with the
determined air of a man of resolution who has decided on a course of
action. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have resolved never to engage in an
unjust war, but, on the other hand, never to conclude a just war but
by the ruin of my foes. I have made up my mind. I intend to attack
the first who declares war against me, and when I have conquered him
I hope to strike terror into the rest.” This speech amazed the old
Councillors; they exchanged glances without venturing a reply, and
finally, astonished at this revelation of their king’s courage, and
ashamed to show less courage than he, they received his orders for the
war cordially.
They were still more surprised when they observed that he suddenly
renounced all the most innocent, youthful pleasures. From the moment
that he began to prepare for war he entered on a new mode of life, from
which he never afterwards departed in one particular. With Alexander
and Cæsar as his ideals, he set himself the task of imitating those
conquerors in everything but their vices.
He renounced all magnificence, pastimes and recreations, and reduced
his menu to the utmost frugality. He had affected display in dress, but
in future wore the uniform of a common soldier. There had been a rumour
that he had entertained a passion for a lady of the Court. But whether
this was true or not, it is certain that he abstained from the society
of women for ever after, not only to avoid coming too much under their
influence, but that he might prove to his soldiers his determination to
live under the severest discipline; possibly, too, he wished to pose as
the only Prince who had conquered so difficult a temptation. He also
resolved to abstain from wine for the rest of his life. Some people say
that he made this resolve in order to curb nature in every particular,
and to add a new virtue to his heroism; but the majority say that he
took this means of punishing himself for an excess which he had once
committed, leading to an insult offered to a lady at table in the
presence of his mother. If that was so, his self-condemnation and the
life-long deprivation which he imposed on himself are none the less to
be admired.
He began operations by a promise of relief to his brother-in-law,
the Duke of Holstein. Eight thousand men were immediately sent to
Pomerania, a province bordering on Holstein, to protect the Duke
against the attacks of the Danes. The Duke certainly needed them; his
dominions were already ravaged, his castle at Gottorp taken and the
town of Tonning closely besieged, the King of Denmark being there
in person, to enjoy a conquest of which he felt certain. This spark
enflamed the empire. On one side the Saxon troops of the King of Poland
and those of Brandenburg, Volfenbuttel and Hesse-Cassel marched to join
the Danes. On the other the King of Sweden’s 8,000 men, the troops of
Hanover and Zell, and three Dutch regiments came to the help of the
Duke.
While the little country of Holstein was thus made the theatre of war
two squadrons, one from England and the other from Holland, appeared in
the Baltic.
These two States were guarantors of the treaty of Altena, which the
Danes had broken, and they were all the more eager to relieve the
oppressed Duke, as it was to the interest of their trade to prevent
the growth of the power of the King of Denmark. For they knew that the
Danes, when they once had control of the Sound, would lay heavy dues on
the trading nations, as soon as they were strong enough to do so.
The English and the Dutch had, for this reason, kept, as far as
possible, the balance of power equal between the princes of the North;
they joined the King of Sweden, who seemed on the point of being
overwhelmed by many enemies acting in concert, and helped him for the
same reason that the others attacked him, viz. because they thought him
incapable of self-defence.
He was bear-hunting when he got news of the invasion of Livonia by the
Saxons. He was conducting the hunt in a way as dangerous as novel; the
only arms used were forked cudgels, behind a net stretched between
trees; a bear of enormous size rushed straight at the King, who, after
a long struggle, brought it to the ground, with the help of his net and
cudgel.
He started for his first campaign on the 8th of May, new style, in the
year 1700. He left Stockholm never to return.
An immense crowd of people went with him as far as Carlscroon,
praying for him and weeping and praising him. Before he left Stockholm
he established a Council of Defence, composed of Senators. This
commission was to have charge of all that concerned the fleet, the
troops and fortifications. The Senate was to provisionally regulate
all other internal affairs. Having thus arranged all securely within
his dominions he concentrated entirely on the war. His fleet consisted
of forty-three vessels, that in which he embarked, called the King
Charles, was the largest they had ever seen, and carried 120 guns;
Count Piper, his Prime Minister, and General Renschild embarked with
him. He joined the squadron of the allies; the Danish fleet refused an
engagement, and gave the united fleets the opportunity of coming so
near Copenhagen that they could throw some bombs into the town.
There is no doubt that it was the King himself who then proposed to
General Renschild that they should disembark and besiege Copenhagen
by land while it was invested by sea. Renschild was astonished at a
proposal which displayed in a young and inexperienced Prince as much
skill as courage. Soon all was ready for the disembarkment; orders were
given for the embarkation of 3,000 men who were stationed on the coast
of Sweden, and who were added to the men they had on board. The King
left his large ship and embarked on a lighter frigate; then they sent
300 grenadiers in small vessels along the coast. Among these vessels
were small, flat-bottomed boats, which carried the fagots, _chevaux
de frise_ and the weapons of the pioneers.
Five hundred picked men followed in other shallops. Then came the
King’s men-of-war with two English and two Dutch frigates, whose
cannon were to cover the landing of the troops. Copenhagen, the
capital of Denmark, is situated in the island of Zeeland, in the midst
of a beautiful plain, which has the Sound on the north-west and the
Baltic on the east, where the King of Sweden then had his position.
At the unexpected movement of the vessels which threatened invasion,
the inhabitants, dismayed by the inactivity of their own fleet and
by the motion of the Swedish ships, looked round in terror to see
on what point the storm would burst. Charles’s fleet stopped before
Humblebek, seven miles from Copenhagen. The Danes immediately drew
up their cavalry on this spot. The infantry were placed behind deep
entrenchments, and all the artillery forthcoming was directed against
the Swedes.
The King then left his frigate to embark on the first boat at the
head of his guards. The ambassador of France was constantly at his
elbow. “Sir,” said the King to him in Latin, for he never would speak
French, “you have no quarrel with the Danes, and must now oblige me
by retiring.” “Sir,” answered the Count de Guiscard, in French, “the
King my master has commanded me to attend your Majesty; and I flatter
myself that you will not banish me from your Court, which has never
been so brilliant as to-day.” With these words he gave his hand to
the King, who leapt into the boat, followed by Count Piper and the
ambassador.
They advanced supported by the broadsides of the vessels which were
covering the descent. The small boats were within a hundred yards
of the shore when Charles, impatient of the delay in landing, threw
himself from the boat into the sea, sword in hand, and with the water
up to his waist, and in spite of a shower of musket-shot, discharged by
the Danes, his ministers, the ambassador of France, and officers and
soldiers followed his example. The King, who had never before heard a
discharge of loaded muskets, asked Major Stuart, who stood next to him,
what that whistling was in his ears. “It is the sound of the muskets
they are firing at you,” said the Major. “Ah!” remarked the King, “that
shall henceforth be my band.” At that very moment the Major, who had
explained the noise to him, was shot in the shoulder, and a lieutenant
fell dead at the other side of the King.
Troops attacked in entrenchments are generally beaten, because the
attacking party has an impetus which defenders cannot have; besides,
waiting for the enemy in one’s lines is often a confession of
inferiority.
After a faint resistance the Danish horse and foot fled. As soon as
the King had seized their entrenchments he fell on his knees to thank
God for the first success of his arms. He immediately had redoubts
formed in the direction of the town, and himself marked out the line of
the encampment. At the same time he sent his fleet back to Scania, a
part of Sweden not far from Copenhagen, to get reinforcements of 9,000
men. Everything conspired to second Charles’s energetic efforts; the
9,000 men were on the shore ready to embark, and the very next day a
favourable wind brought them to him.
All this happened within sight of the Danish fleet, which had not dared
to advance. Copenhagen, in consternation, sent deputies to the King to
ask him not to bombard the town. He received them on horseback at the
head of his regiment of guards, and the deputies fell on their knees
before him. He demanded of the town four hundred thousand dollars,
with all sorts of provisions for the camp, for which he gave his word
of honour to pay. They brought him the provisions, because they dare
not refuse, but did not expect that the conquerors would condescend
to pay for them; and those who brought them were astonished to find
that they were paid generously by the humblest soldier in the army.
The Swedish troops had long been accustomed to the strict discipline
which contributed not a little to their victories, but the young
King increased its severity. A soldier would not have dared to refuse
payment for what he bought, much less maraud, or even go out of the
camp. He even easily brought his troops to keep his rule that the dead
should not be stripped after a victory without his permission. Prayers
were said in camp twice a day, at seven in the morning and five in the
afternoon, and he never failed to be present at them himself and to
give his soldiers an example of piety as well as of valour.
His camp, which was far better governed than Copenhagen, had everything
in abundance; and the country folk preferred to sell their goods to
their enemies the Swedes than to their own countrymen, who did not pay
so good a price for them. So it happened that the townsmen were often
obliged to fetch goods, which were unobtainable in their own markets,
from the King of Sweden’s camp.
The King of Denmark was then in Holstein, whither he seems to have
marched only to raise the siege of Tonning. He saw the Baltic covered
with his enemies’ ships, and a young conqueror already master of
Zeeland and ready to take possession of the capital. He published a
declaration that whoever took up arms against the Swedes should gain
their liberty. This declaration had great influence in a country which
had once enjoyed freedom, but where all the peasants and many even of
the townsmen were then serfs. Charles sent word to the King of Denmark
that he must make up his mind either to do justice to the Duke of
Holstein, or have his kingdom laid waste with fire and sword.
The Danes were, indeed, fortunate in dealing with a conqueror who
prided himself on his justice. A congress was summoned to meet in
the town of Tevendal on the frontiers of Holstein. The Swedish King
would not allow diplomacy on the part of the ministers to lengthen the
proceedings; he wanted the treaty settled with the same rapidity with
which he had invaded Zeeland. As a matter of fact it was concluded on
the 5th of August to the advantage of the Duke of Holstein, who was
indemnified for all the expenses of the war and freed from oppression.
The King of Sweden would make no claims on his own behalf, being
satisfied with having helped his ally and humbled his enemy. Thus
Charles XII, at eighteen years old, began and ended this war in less
than six weeks.
Just at the same time the King of Poland laid siege in person to the
town of Riga, the capital of Livonia, and the Czar was marching from
the East at the head of 100,000 men. Riga was defended by the old
Count D’Alberg, a Swedish general who, at the age of eighty, combined
the enthusiasm of youth with the experience of sixty campaigns. Count
Fleming, afterwards minister for Poland, a man great both in the field
and at the council board, together with M. Patkul, carried on the
siege under the directions of the King; in spite of several advantages
gained by the besiegers the experience of the old Count D’Alberg
counteracted all their efforts, and the King of Poland despaired of
gaining the town. At last he got an honourable pretext for raising
the siege; Riga was full of merchandise belonging to the Dutch; the
States-General ordered their ambassador at the Court of Augustus to
make representations to him on the subject. The King of Poland did
not require much pressing, but consented to raise the siege rather
than occasion the least inconvenience to his allies, who were not much
surprised at his ready compliance, as they knew the cause of it.
The only thing left to Charles to complete his first campaign was to
march against his rival for glory, Peter Alexiowitz. He was the more
angry with him because there were at Stockholm three ambassadors who
had just sworn to an inviolable peace: he who prided himself on his
probity could not understand how a legislator like the Czar could make
light of what should be held sacred. The young and honourable Prince
never dreamed that there might be one code of morality for princes
and another for private individuals. The Russian Emperor published a
manifesto which he had much better have suppressed: he gave as reason
for war that he had not been sufficiently honoured when he passed
incognito to Riga, and also that provisions were sold too dear to his
ambassadors. These were the grievances for which he ravaged Ingria with
80,000 men.
It was on the 1st of October, a month in which the weather is more
severe in that climate than is January in Paris, that he appeared
before Narva. The Czar, who in such weather would often ride 400
leagues to see a mine or a canal, spared his men no more than himself.
Besides, he knew that the Swedes, ever since the time of Gustavus
Adolphus, fought in the depth of winter as well as in summer, and he
wanted to accustom his Russians not to care about the seasons, so that
some day they might at least equal the Swedes. So at a time when frost
and snow force nations in temperate climates to suspend hostilities
Peter was besieging Narva, thirty degrees from the Pole, and Charles
was advancing to its relief. The Czar had no sooner arrived before the
place than he hastened to put into practice all that he had lately
learned on his travels: he drew out his camp, fortified it on all
sides, built walls at intervals, and opened the trench with his own
hands. He had given the command of the army to the Duke of Croy, a
German, and a clever general, who got little support from the Russian
officers.
The Czar himself had only the ordinary rank of lieutenant in his own
army. He thought it necessary to give an example of military obedience
to his nobility, who up till then had been undisciplined and accustomed
to lead bands of ill-armed slaves without experience or order. There
is nothing surprising in the fact that he who at Amsterdam turned
carpenter to procure fleets for himself should at Narva turn lieutenant
in order to teach his people the art of war.
The Russians are strong and indefatigable, and perhaps as brave as the
Swedes, but it requires time to make veterans, and discipline to make
them invincible. The only fairly reliable regiments were commanded by
German officers, but there were very few of them; the rest were savages
torn from their forests, clothed in the skins of wild beasts, some
armed with arrows and others with clubs. Few had muskets, none had seen
a regular siege, there was not one good gunner in the whole army.
A hundred and fifty cannon, which ought to have reduced the little
town of Narva to ashes, hardly made a breach, while every moment the
artillery of the town were destroying whole lines at work in the
trenches. Narva was practically unfortified, and Count Horn, who was in
command, had not a thousand regular troops, and yet this immense army
was not able to reduce it in ten weeks.
On the 15th of November the Czar heard that the King of Sweden had
crossed the sea with 200 transports and was on his way to the relief
of Narva. There were not more than 20,000 Swedes, but superiority of
numbers was the Czar’s only advantage. He was far, therefore, from
despising his enemy, and used all his skill to crush him; and not
content with 100,000 men he levied another army to oppose him and
harass him in his advance. He had already sent for 30,000 men who were
advancing from Plescow by forced marches. He then took a step which
would render him contemptible if so great a legislator could be so. He
left his camp, where his presence was necessary, to go to meet these
reinforcements, which could quite well reach the camp without his
aid; this step made it appear that he was afraid of fighting, in an
entrenched camp, a young and inexperienced prince, who might attack him.
However that may be, his plan was to hem in the King between two
armies. Nor was this all: a detachment of 30,000 men from the camp
before Narva was posted at a league’s distance from the town, on the
King of Sweden’s route, 20,000 Strelitz were further off on the same
route, and 5,000 others formed an advanced guard. Charles would have to
force his way through all these troops before he could reach the camp,
which was fortified by a rampart and a double ditch. The King of Sweden
had landed at Pernaw, on the Gulf of Riga, with about 15,000 foot and
more than 4,000 horse. From Pernaw he made a forced march to Revel,
followed by all his horse and only 4,000 of his foot. He continually
advanced without waiting for the rest of his troops.
Soon he found himself, with only 8,000 men, in presence of the enemy’s
outposts. He did not hesitate to attack them one after the other,
without giving them time to find out with how small a number they had
to contend. The Russians, when they saw the Swedes advancing against
them, took it for granted that they had a whole army to encounter, and
the advanced guard of 5,000 men, who were holding a pass between the
hills where 100 men of courage might have barred the passage of a whole
army, fled at the first approach of the Swedes. The 20,000 men behind
them, terrified at the flight of their countrymen, were overcome by
fear and caused panic in the camp to which they fled. All the posts
were carried in three days and a half, and what would have been on
other occasions reckoned three distinct victories did not delay the
King an hour. At last he appeared with his 8,000 men, wearied with
the fatigues of so long a march, before a camp of 80,000 Russians,
protected by 150 cannon. He hardly allowed them time for rest before he
gave orders for an instant attack.
The signal was two musket-shots, and the word in German, “With God’s
help.” A general officer pointed out to him the greatness of the
danger. “Surely you have no doubt,” he replied, “but that I with my
8,000 brave Swedes shall trample down 80,000 Russians!” Then a moment
after, fearing that his speech was boastful, he ran after the officer.
“Do you not agree with me,” he said, “that I have a double advantage
over the enemy? First because their horse will be useless to them, and
secondly because, as the position is cramped, their numbers will only
incommode them, so that I shall really possess the advantage.” The
officer thought it best not to differ from him, and so they attacked
the Russians about noon, on the 30th November.
As soon as the cannon of the Swedes had made a breach in the
entrenchments they advanced with fixed bayonets, having the snow,
which drove full in the face of the enemy, behind them. The Russians
stood the fire for half-an-hour without quitting their posts. The King
attacked the Czar’s quarters, on the other side of the camp, and hoped
to meet him in person, for he was ignorant of the fact that he had gone
to meet his 40,000 reinforcements who were expected shortly. At the
first discharge the King received a ball in the shoulder; but it was a
spent ball which rested in the folds of his black cravat and did him no
harm.
His horse was killed under him, and it is said that the King leapt
nimbly on another, exclaiming, “These fellows make me take exercise.”
Then he continued to advance and give orders with the same presence
of mind as before. Within three hours the entrenchments were carried
on all sides: the King chased the enemy’s right as far as the river
Narva with his left, if one may speak of “chasing” when 4,000 men
are in pursuit of nearly 50,000. The bridge broke under them as they
fled; in a moment the river was full of dead bodies; the rest in
despair returned to their camp without knowing the direction in which
they were going. They found some huts behind which they stationed
themselves; there they defended themselves for a time because they had
no mean of escape; but finally their generals, Dolgorouky, Gollofkin
and Federowitz surrendered to the King and laid down their arms at
his feet. Just then the Duke of Croy arrived to surrender with thirty
officers.
Charles received all these prisoners with as charming and engaging a
manner as if he were feting them in his own Court. He only put the
general officers under a guard; all the under officers and soldiers
were disarmed and taken to the river Narva, where they were provided
with boats to convey them to their own country. In the meantime night
came on, and the right wing of the Russian force was still fighting.
The Swedes had not lost 1,500 men; 18,000 Russians had been killed in
their entrenchments, many had been drowned, many had crossed the river;
but still there remained enough to entirely exterminate the Swedes.
But it is not the number lost, but the panic of survivors which spells
defeat in war. The King made haste to seize the enemy’s artillery
before nightfall. He took up an advantageous position between their
camp and the town, and there got some hours’ sleep on the ground,
wrapped in his cloak, waiting till at daybreak he could fall on the
enemy’s left wing, which was not yet completely routed.
At two o’clock in the morning General Wade, who was in command of
that wing, having heard of the King’s gracious reception of the other
generals and his sending home of the subalterns and soldiers, asked
the same favour of him. The conqueror sent him word that he need
only approach at the head of his troops and surrender his arms and
standards. Soon the general appeared with his Russians, to the number
of about 30,000. Soldiers and officers marched bare-headed in front of
less than 7,000 Swedes. As the soldiers passed before him they threw
down their muskets and swords; the officers surrendered their ensigns
and colours.
He let the whole band cross the river without keeping one single
prisoner. Had he put them under guard the number of prisoners would
have been at least five times that of the conquerors.
He then victoriously entered Narva, attended by the Duke of Croy and
the other Russian officers; he ordered their swords to be restored to
them, and when he heard that they wanted money, because the tradesmen
of Narva refused to trust them, he sent the Duke of Croy 1,000 ducats,
and 500 to every Russian officer, who were full of admiration for this
treatment, which they had never conceived possible. An account of the
victory was at once drawn up to send to Stockholm, and to the allies,
but the King erased with his own hands whatever redounded too much to
his own credit or to the discredit of the Czar. His modesty could not
hinder them from striking several medals to commemorate the event at
Stockholm. One of these represented him, on one face, standing on a
pedestal, to which a Russian, Dane and Pole were chained; and on the
reverse a Hercules, armed with a club, trampling a Cerberus, and the
inscription, “Tres uno contudit ictu.”
Among the prisoners made on the day of the battle of Narva was one who
was typical of the revolutions of fortune. He was the eldest son and
heir of the King of Georgia. He was called the “Czarafis,” a name which
means son of the Czar among all the Tartars as well as in Russia; for
the word Czar meant King among the ancient Scythians, from whom all
these peoples are descended, and is not derived from the name of the
Cæsars, so long unknown to these barbarians. His father, Mitelleski,
who was master of the most beautiful part of the country between the
mountains of Ararat and the eastern extremity of the Black Sea, had
been driven from his kingdom by his own subjects in 1688, and preferred
throwing himself on the mercy of the Emperor of Russia, to applying to
the Turks. This king’s son, at the age of nineteen, helped Peter the
Great in his expedition against the Swedes, and was taken in battle
by some Finnish soldiers, who had already stripped him, and were on
the point of killing him, when Count Renschild rescued him from their
hands, supplied him with clothes, and presented him to his master.
Charles sent him to Stockholm, where the wretched prince died shortly
after. When he took leave, the King made aloud a natural reflection on
the strangeness of the fate of an Asiatic prince, born at the foot of
the Caucasus, and going to live a prisoner among the snows of Sweden:
“It is just,” he said, “as if I were to be one day prisoner among the
Tartars of the Crimea.” At that time these words made no impression,
but afterwards, when the prediction had been justified in the event,
there was but too much reason to remember them.
The Czar was advancing by long marches with a force of 40,000 Russians,
expecting to surround his enemy on all sides. When he had got half-way
he heard of the battle of Narva, and the dispersal of his whole camp.
He thought it best not to attack a victor who had shortly before
destroyed 100,000 entrenched troops, with a force of 40,000 raw
and undisciplined men. He retraced his steps, hoping to discipline
his troops at the same time as civilize his subjects. “I know,” he
remarked, “that the Swedes will long beat us, but in time they will
teach us to beat them.” Moscow, his capital, was terror-stricken to
hear of this defeat. So great was the pride and ignorance of the people
that they were convinced they had been conquered by superhuman agency,
and that the Swedes had secured their victory by magic. This opinion
was so widespread that a public prayer to Saint Nicholas, patron saint
of Russia, was ordered. This prayer is too singular to be omitted. It
runs thus--
“O thou, our perpetual consolation in all our adversities, great
Saint Nicholas, of infinite power, how have we offended thee in our
sacrifices, our genuflections, our bowings, our thanksgivings, that
thou hast thus forsaken us? We have implored thine assistance against
these terrible, insolent, savage, dreadful, invincible destroyers,
when, like lions and bears who have lost their young, they have
fallen upon us, terrified us, wounded us, slain us by thousands, who
are thy people. As it is impossible that this should have happened
without sorcery and witchcraft, we beseech thee, O great Nicholas,
to be our champion and standard-bearer, to deliver us from this band
of sorcerers, and to drive them from our coasts with the reward they
deserve.”
While the Russians were thus complaining of their defeat to St.
Nicholas, Charles XII returned thanks to God, and prepared himself for
fresh victories.
The King of Poland fully expected that his enemy, who had conquered
the Danes and Russians, would next turn his arms against him. He
made a firmer alliance with the Czar, and the two princes arranged
an interview at which they could agree on some policy. They met at
Brizen, a small town in Lithuania, without any of the formalities which
only delay business, and for which they were in no humour under the
circumstances. The princes of the North met with a familiarity which is
not yet the fashion in the south of Europe. Peter and Augustus passed
fifteen days together in pleasures which passed all bounds; for the
Czar, who had set himself to reform his kingdom, could not restrain his
own dangerous inclination to riotous living.
The King of Poland promised to furnish the Czar with 50,000 German
troops, which were to be hired from several princes, and which the
Czar was to pay. He, on the other hand, was to send 50,000 Russians to
Poland to be trained in the art of war, and was also to pay the King
of Poland 3,000,000 rixdollars within two years. Had this treaty been
carried out it might have been fatal to the King of Sweden. It was a
ready and sure way of making good soldiers of the Russians, and might
perhaps have forged irons for half Europe.
Charles XII set himself to prevent the King of Poland from getting the
benefit of this treaty. After passing the winter in Narva, he marched
into Livonia, to the very town of Riga which King Augustus had failed
to take. The Saxon troops were posted along the river Dwina, which is
very broad at this spot, and their task was to dispute the passage with
Charles, who lay on the other bank. The Saxons were not then commanded
by their Prince, who was at that time ill; but their leader was Marshal
Stenau, who was general; under him commanded Prince Ferdinand, Duke of
Courland, and the same Patkul, who, after having maintained his rights
on paper, defended his country against Charles sword in hand at the
peril of his life.
The King of Sweden had great boats made, after a new model, so that the
sides were far higher than ordinary, and could be let down and drawn up
like a drawbridge. When raised they protected the troops they carried,
and when let down they formed a bridge to land by.