514

PETER'S CAMPAIGNS.

[CHAP. XLI. following years, some Swedish vessels in vain endeavoured to bombard and capture it. In giving his new capital a German name, it was Peter's intention to remind his subjects that they must adhere to that adoption of foreign, and especially German, manners which he had prescribed for them. In November he celebrated his victories by entering Moscow in triumph; when the inhabitants beheld with astonishment their mighty Czar following on foot, at the head of his company of bombardiers, the magnificent sledges of his generals Scheremeteff, Repnin, and Bruce.

The Russian campaign of 1704 was signalized by the capture of the important towns of Dorpat and Narva. After the taking of the latter place, the Russian soldiers indulged in the most detestable cruelties. The Czar himself cut down some of these offenders; and, throwing his sword, still reeking with blood, on the table of the Burgomaster, exclaimed, "Fear not! this is Russian blood, not German." In the following year, Peter entered Lithuania with 60,000 men. Hence he despatched Scheremeteff into Courland, who was beaten by the Swedish general Löwenhaupt, at Gemauerthof, near Mitau; nevertheless, the Swedes, being so inferior in numbers, were ultimately compelled to evacuate the province. The Czar himself, with 10,000 men, took Mitau. Peter's interview with Augustus at Grodno, towards the end of 1705, has been already mentioned, as well as Charles's pursuit of the Russians in the following spring, and the battle of Kalisz in October. The other operations of the Russians, in 1706, were not of much importance. A Swedish corps of 4,000 men, under General Moydel, penetrated, in July that year, to within a few miles of St. Petersburg; but the Russian conquests in that quarter were now too well established to be easily recovered. It was at Narva, in December, 1706, that the Czar learnt the Peace of Altranstädt, and he immediately set off for Poland, to retain the heads of the Republic, without whose consent or knowledge the peace had been concluded, in the Russian alliance. The Bishop of Cujavia, the primate nominated by Augustus, showed himself a zealous adherent of Russia. He summoned, in January, 1707, an assembly of the Senate at Lemberg, which declared its readiness to adopt the views of the Confederation of Sandomierz ; but it was difficult to bring them to any resolution, their only aim seeming to be to sell themselves at the higest price.' At length a Diet of the Russian-Polish party, assembled at Lublin at the Parthenay, Hist. de Pologne sous Auguste II. t. iii. p. 181 sqq.

CHAP. XLI.]

CHARLES INVADES RUSSIA.

515

instance of Peter, declared the throne vacant, and issued summonses for an Elective Diet (July 8th).

2

To parry this blow, Charles set himself in motion in September, the Czar and his forces evacuating Warsaw at his approach, and retiring towards Vilna. As the Swedish army, well refreshed by its quarters in Saxony, and recruited to the number of 44,000 men, was too formidable to be attacked, Peter resolved to harass and wear it out by long marches,' a policy which was crowned with entire success. In October the Swedes went into winter quarters in Polish-Prussia, but broke up early in 1708. Charles now marched upon Grodno, and, after seizing that town, proceeded to Minsk, the Russians retiring before him and destroying all the bridges and magazines. Charles passed the Beresina July 10th, a river destined to be fatal, a century later, to a still greater conqueror than himself. A few days after he defeated Scheremeteff, who, with 30,000 Russians, occupied an entrenched camp at Golowstschin, and pushed on to Mohilev, on the Dnieper. It seems to have been the opinion of Charles's own army, as well as of the Russians, that it was his intention to march on Moscow; and, in fact, after some stay at Mohilev, he crossed the Dnieper, and advanced on the road to Smolensko. But all the difficulties of his undertaking began now to stare him in the face. The villages and houses were abandoned, the crops burnt, the roads fortified, the foraging parties in constant danger from the enemy's cavalry. When Charles at length asked the advice of his quartermastergeneral, Gyllenkrook, as to his proceedings, that officer replied by inquiring what plan he had formed for the campaign? To his astonishment and alarm, the King answered, "I have no plan." Gyllenkrook could scarcely believe but that Charles was jesting. Rehnskiöld, however, whom he consulted on the occasion, confirmed this state of things, and assured him that, when he consulted Count Piper as to future operations, he had often been told by that minister, "The Devil, who has hitherto been chief adviser, may, for me, continue to be so." In fact Charles's only idea of warfare was to march straight at the enemy; and hitherto this very rashness, supported by the excellent troops which he commanded, had proved successful. But he had now seen the term of his prosperity. The Russian Empire presented a more vast and difficult field of enterprise than

1 Tagebuch, B. i. S. 194.

2 Peter, in his Journal, describes the march of Charles upon Smolensko only as a feint, to draw away the Russians

Poland; and in Peter he had to

from the roads leading to the Ukraine. Ibid. B. i. S. 213.

3 Lundblad, Th. ii. p. 49 sqq.

516

CHARLES'S PLANLESS CAMPAIGNS. [CHAP. XLI. contend with a much more wary and skilful adversary than Augustus.

Charles now turned to the south, and determined to march to the Ukraine, whither he had been invited by Ivan Mazeppa, Hetman of the Cossacks. In the minority of Peter, during the regency of his sister Sophia, Mazeppa had been made Hetman by Prince Galitzin (1687), and he had subsequently gained the confidence of the Czar by his exploits against the Turks. But Mazeppa, though near eighty years of age, was devoured by an insatiable ambition. He had formed a plan of making himself independent; the victorious progress of the Swedish king seemed to offer him a means to achieve his wish; and he opened communications with Charles through King Stanislaus, with whom he had become acquainted when stationed in Southern Poland. Charles's situation after leaving Mohilev presented only a choice of difficulties; and he was decided by the pressing importunities of Mazeppa to make for the Ukraine, as well as by the consideration that a position in that country, while it insured a communication with Poland, would also enable him to annoy the Russian Empire. On September 20th his leading columns took the road for the Ukraine; nor could the representations of his generals induce him to await the arrival of Löwenhaupt, who was bringing a reinforcement of more than 12,000 men, together with large quantities of stores and ammunition. Peter immediately perceived the mistake of the Swedish king. Marching with one of his divisions to Liesna, he totally defeated Löwenhaupt at that place (October 9th), destroyed half his men, and captured his convoy; so that when that general at length succeeded in joining Charles, he brought only about 6,000 or 7,000 men. Peter was not a little elated with his victory. "The battle of Liesna," he says in his Journal, " is the true foundation of all the following successes of Russia, and our first essay in the art of war; it was the mother of the victory of Pultava, gained nine months later." His joy was increased by the news which he soon after received of the miscarriage of an attempt of the Swedish general Lübecker to penetrate, with 12,000 men, from Finnland to the Neva, and to destroy St. Petersburg and Kronstadt.2

After a difficult march through the almost impassable forests of Severia, Charles arrived, in November, in the Ukraine. At Gorki, to his exceeding surprise and discouragement, he was met by Mazeppa, not as an ally with the 30,000 men whom he had proTagebuch, B. i. S. 219. 2 Ibid. p. 223.

CHAP. XLI.]

HE ENTERS THE UKRAINE.

517

mised, but as a fugitive and suppliant with some forty or fifty attendants! The Hetman had succeeded in inducing only about 5,000 Cossacks to join his standard, and by these he had been deserted on the third day! Baturin, Mazeppa's capital, was taken by assault by Menschikoff, November 14th. Charles took up his winter quarters at the Cossack town of Gaditche; where he lost several thousands of his men through the intensity of the cold and continual skirmishes. In the spring of 1709 he somewhat recruited his numbers by an alliance with the Saporogue Cossacks," whom Mazeppa persuaded to join the Swedes. But the army was in a miserable state. The men's clothes were worn out, and sufficed not to protect them from the weather, and many hundreds were without shoes. Mazeppa, as well as Piper, counselled a retreat into Poland; but Charles listened in preference to his general Rhenskiöld and to the Saporogues, who were for besieging Pultava. The Swedes sat down before that place, April 4th. The siege had lasted more than two months with little effect, when an army of 60,000 Russians, under Scheremeteff, Menschikoff, and Bauer, the Czar himself serving as colonel of the guards, was announced to be approaching to its relief. Although Charles's army numbered only about 20,000 men, nearly half of whom were Cossacks and Wallachians, he resolved to give battle. A wound in the foot, received a few days before while reconnoitring, obliged the Swedish King to relinquish the command-in-chief on this important day to Rhenskiöld, although he himself was present on the field in a litter. It is said that the movements of the Swedes were not conducted with the usual firmness; it is certain that they were short of ammunition, and without cannon; and though they made several desperate charges with the bayonet, and displayed all their usual valour, they were at length compelled to yield to superior numbers. Of the Swedish army, 9,000 men were left on the field, and about 3,000 were made prisoners, among whom were Rhenskiöld himself, the Prince of Würtemberg, Count Piper, and several other distinguished personages.

Hermann, Gesch. Russlands, B. iv. S. 242. Some writers, however, represent Mazeppa as really bringing 4,000 or 5,000 men.

2 These hordes were so called from their inhabiting the islands beneath the waterfalls (sa parogi, Russ.) of the Dnieper, some 300 miles beyond Kiev. This singular people, a sort of male amazons, who lived chiefly by plunder, professed to repudiate the commerce of women, and were

recruited by renegades from all nations. Nevertheless, their numbers seem also to have been kept up in the natural way, though their wives were domiciled in dis tant places, and were not allowed to be seen in the Sitschj, or capital of the men; a sort of town or village of mud huts surrounded with an earthen rampart. See Engel, Gesch der Kosaken, S. 43 (Allgem. Welthistorie, Halle, 1796); Lundblad Th. ii. S. 95 f.

518

BATTLE OF PULTAVA.

[CHAP. XLI. Charles, whose litter was found on the field shattered to pieces by balls, escaped with difficulty in a carriage. Peter distinguished himself by his activity and courage on this eventful day. Mounted on a little Turkish horse presented to him by the Sultan, he flew through the ranks encouraging his men to do their duty. A bullet pierced his cap; another lodged in his saddle. After the battle, he entertained the captured generals at his table, presented Rhenskiöld with his own sword, and caused that of the Prince of Würtemberg to be restored to him.

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

1

Tagebuch, B. i. S. 271; Halem, Leben Peters d. Gr. B. i. S. 270 (Leipzig, 1803). 2 The Porte had made proposals for an alliance to Charles after he had dethroned

Augustus, and he appears to have reckoned on the support of the Khan of Tartary on arriving in the Ukraine. Von Hammer, Osm. Reich, B. vii. S. 136 f.