Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
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.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.