Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK IV
Charles leaves Saxony--Pursues the Czar--Advances into Ukrania--His losses and wounds, and the battle of Pultowa--The consequences of the battle--Charles forced to escape into Turkey--His reception in Bessarabia. AT last Charles left Saxony in September 1707, with an army of 43,000 men, formerly steel-clad, but now shining resplendent in gold and silver, and enriched with the spoils of Poland and Saxony. Every soldier had with him fifty crowns ready money; not only, too, were all the regiments complete, but there were several supernumeraries to each company. Besides this army Count Levenhaupt, one of his best generals, was waiting for him in Poland with 20,000 men; he had, too, another army of 15,000 in Finland, and recruits were on their way from Sweden. With all these forces it was not doubted that he would dethrone the Czar. The Emperor was then in Russia, trying to keep up the spirits of a party which King Augustus seemed to have deserted. His troops, divided into several corps, fled in all directions on the first report of the approach of the King of Sweden. He had advised his generals never to wait for the arrival of the conqueror with a superior force, and he was well obeyed.
The King of Sweden, in the midst of his march, received an embassy from the Turks. The ambassador was received in Piper’s quarters; he kept up his master’s dignity by a certain display of magnificence, and the King, who was worse lodged, worse served, and more plainly clad than the humblest officer in his army, would often say that Count Piper’s quarters were his palace. The Turkish ambassador presented Charles with 100 Swedish soldiers, who had been taken by the Calmouks and sold in Turkey, redeemed by the Grand Master, and sent by him to the King as the most agreeable present he could make him. Not that the proud Ottoman meant to pay homage to the glory of Charles, but because the Sultan, the natural enemy of the Emperors of Russia and Germany, wished to strengthen himself against them by the friendship of the King of Sweden and alliance with Poland. The ambassador complimented Stanislas on his accession; so that he had been owned as King, in a short time, by Germany, France, England, Spain and Turkey. But the Pope deferred acknowledging him till time had confirmed him in a kingship of which a sudden fall might deprive him. Scarcely had Charles interviewed the ambassador of the Ottoman Porte than he went in search of the Russians. The Czar’s troops had left and returned to Poland more than twenty times during the war; as the country lay open on all sides, without strongholds to cut the retreat of an enemy, the Russians were often able to return to the very spot where they had suffered defeat, and could even penetrate as far into the country as the conqueror. During Charles’s stay in Saxony, the Czar had advanced to Leopold, on the southern frontier of Poland. He was at that time in the north, at Grodno, in Lithuania, about 100 leagues from Leopold.
Charles left Stanislas in Poland with about 1,000 Swedes and his new subjects to help him preserve his kingdom against his enemies at home and abroad; he himself, at the head of his horse, marched through ice and snow to Grodno, in January 1708. He had already passed the Niemen, within two leagues of the town, before the Czar knew anything of his march. Directly the news came that the Swedes were upon them, the Czar left the town by the north gate, while Charles entered by the south. The King had only six hundred of his guards with him, the rest being unable to follow him. The Czar, imagining that a whole army was entering Crodno, fled with 2,000 men; but he heard that very day from a Polish deserter that he had abandoned the place to not more than six hundred men, the body of the enemy’s army being still more than five leagues away. He did not lose time, but sent a detachment of 15,000 cavalry in the evening to surprise the King of Sweden in the town. The 15,000 Russians, helped by the darkness of the night, advanced as far as the first Swedish guard without recognition. This guard consisted of thirty men, and they alone supported the charge of the 15,000 for seven minutes. The King, who was at the other end of the town, came up presently with his six hundred guards, and the Russians fled in haste. In a short time his army joined him, and he pursued the enemy. All the Russians dispersed throughout Lithuania, retiring hastily into the Palatinate of Minski, where they had a rendezvous. The Swedes, whom the King also divided into several corps, continued to pursue them for about thirty leagues of their way. The fleers and the pursuers made forced marches almost every day, though it was mid-winter.
The soldiers of Charles and the Czar had long become indifferent to the seasons: it was only the terror inspired by the name of Charles which made the difference between the Russians and the Swedes. From Grodno eastward to the Borysthenes there is nothing but marshes, deserts, mountains and immense forests. Even where the ground is cultivated no provision was to be found; the country folk hid all their grain and other dry goods underground. In order to find these subterranean magazines, they had to sound the earth with long poles tipped with iron. The Russians and the Swedes used these provisions by turns, but they were not always discovered, nor were they always sufficient when they were. The King of Sweden, who had foreseen these difficulties, had provided biscuit for his army, so that nothing hindered his march. After he had crossed the forest of Minski, where his men were obliged every moment to cut down trees to make way for the troops and baggage, he found himself, on the 25th of June, 1708, near Borislou, in front of the river Berezine. The Czar had assembled the best part of his troops in this spot and had entrenched himself to advantage; his aim was to hinder the Swedes from crossing the river. Charles placed some of his regiment on the banks of the Berezine, close to Borislou, as though he intended to attempt the crossing in face of the enemy. At the same time he led his army about three leagues up the river, threw a bridge across it, cut his way through a body of 3,000 men who defended that post, and marched straight against the enemy without a halt. The Russians did not wait for his arrival, but immediately decamped and withdrew towards Borysthenes, spoiling all the roads, and destroying all on their line of march, so that they might at least delay the Swedes’ advance.
Charles surmounted all difficulties, continually advancing towards Borysthenes. On his way he met 20,000 Russians, entrenched at a spot called Hollosin, behind a marsh, which could not be reached without crossing a river. Charles did not wait till the rest of his infantry had arrived to make the attack, but threw himself into the water at the head of his foot-guards, and crossed the river and the morass, though the water was sometimes above his shoulders. While he thus attacked the enemy, he ordered his cavalry to pass round the morass and take them in the flank. The Russians, amazed that no barrier could defend them, were simultaneously routed by the King on foot, and by the Swedish horse. The horse, having made their way through the enemy, joined the King in the midst of the fray. He then mounted, but some time after, finding a young Swedish noble named Gyllenstein, for whom he had great affection, wounded in the fray and unable to walk, he insisted on his taking his horse, and continued to command on foot at the head of his infantry. Of all the battles he had ever fought, this was in all probability the most glorious--that in which he was exposed to the greatest risks, and in which he showed the greatest ability. The memory of it is kept by a medal with the inscription, “Silvæ, paludes, aggeres, hostes, victi” on one side and “Victrices copias alium laturus in orbem” on the other.
The Russians, driven out everywhere, recrossed the Borysthenes, which separates Poland from their own country. Charles lost no time in following them; he crossed the great river after them at Mohilou, the last town in Poland, which is sometimes in the hands of the Poles, sometimes in those of the Czar, after the usual fate of frontier places. The Czar, seeing his empire, into which he was introducing arts and commerce, becoming a prey to a war which might in a short time ruin his plans, and perhaps lose him his throne, was thinking of peace, and even made proposals by a Polish nobleman whom he sent to the Swedish army. Charles, who had been unaccustomed to granting peace to his enemy except in their capitals, only replied, “I will treat with the Czar at Moscow.” When the Czar heard this haughty answer, “My brother Charles,” he said, “would still pose as Alexander, but I flatter myself he will find me no Darius.” From Mohilou, where the King crossed the Borysthenes, turning north along the river, upon the frontiers of Poland and Russia, is situated the country of Smolensko, through which lies the main road from Poland to Moscow. The Czar fled by this road, and the King followed by forced marches. Part of the Russian rearguard was more than once engaged with the dragoons of the Swedish vanguard. Generally the latter got the advantage, but they weakened themselves by these skirmishes, which were never decisive, and always meant the loss of some of their men.
On the 22nd of September this year, 1708, the King attacked a body of ten thousand horse and six thousand Calmouks near Smolensko. These Calmouks are Tartars, living between Astrakan, which is part of the Czar’s dominions, and Samarcande, the country of the Usbeck Tartars. The Calmouks’ country stretches from the east to the mountains which separate the Mogul from the western part of Asia. Those who dwell near Astrakan are tributary to the Czar. He pretends to absolute dominion over them, but their wandering life hinders him from subduing them, and forces him to treat them as the Grand-Seignior treats the Arabs, sometimes bearing with their robberies, and at others punishing them. There are always some of the Calmouks in the Russian army, and the Czar had even succeeded in reducing them to discipline like the rest of his soldiers. The King fell on this army with only six regiments of horse and four thousand infantry; he broke the Russian ranks at the head of his Ostrogothic regiment and forced the enemy to retreat. The King advanced upon them by rough and hollow ways where the Calmouks lay hid; they then appeared and threw themselves between the regiment where the King was fighting and the rest of the Swedish army. In an instant both Russians and Calmouks had surrounded this regiment and made their way close up to his Majesty. They killed two aides-de-camp who were fighting near him. The King’s horse was killed under him, and as one of the equerries was offering him another, both equerry and horse were struck dead on the spot. Charles fought on foot, surrounded by some of his officers who immediately hastened to rally round him.
Several were taken, wounded or slain, or swept off to a distance from the King by the crowd which attacked them; so that there were only five men left near him. By that extraordinary good luck which till then had never deserted him, and on which he always relied, he had killed more than a dozen of the enemy with his own hand without one wound. At last Colonel Dardoff forced his way, with only one company of his regiment, through the Calmouks, and came up just in time to save the King. The rest of the Swedes put the Tartars to the sword. The army reformed, Charles mounted, and, fatigued as he was, pursued the Russians two leagues. The conqueror was still on the main road to the capital of Russia. The distance from Smolensko, where this battle was fought, to Moscow, is about 100 French leagues; the army had scarcely any provisions. The King was pressed to wait till General Levenhaupt, who was to bring up reinforcements of 15,000 men, came to join him. Charles, who rarely listened to advice, not only refused to listen to this wise counsel, but, to the great amazement of the whole army, left the Moscow road, and marched south towards Ukrania into the country of the Cossacks, between lesser Tartary, Poland and Russia.
This country is about 100 French leagues from north to south, and about the same from east to west. It is divided into two nearly equal parts by the Borysthenes, which crosses from north-west to south-west; the chief town is Baturin, on the little river Sem. The northernmost part of Ukrania is under cultivation, and rich; the southernmost part, in the forty-eighth degree, is one of the most fertile and at the same time the most deserted districts in the world; bad management quite counteracts its natural advantages. The inhabitants of those parts, which border on lesser Tartary, neither plant nor sow lest the Tartars of Budziac, Precop and Moldavia, who are all brigands, should carry off their harvests. Ukrania has always aspired to freedom; but being hedged in by Russia, the dominions of the Grand-Seignior, and Poland, it has been obliged to seek for a protector (who is, of course, a master) in one of those States. First it put itself under the protection of Poland, who treated it too much as a subject-state; then they appealed to the Russians, who did their best to reduce them to serfdom. At first the Ukranians had the privilege of choosing a prince, called general, but soon they were deprived of this privilege, and their general was nominated by the Russian Court.
The office was then filled by a Pole called Mazeppa; he had been brought up as page to King John Casimir, and had got a little learning at his Court. On the discovery of an intrigue with the wife of a Polish nobleman, the latter had him tied, stark naked, to a wild horse, and set him free in that state. The horse, which had been brought from Ukrania, returned to its own country, carrying Mazeppa with him half dead from hunger and fatigue. Some of the peasants gave him relief, and he stayed a long time among them, and distinguished himself in several attempts against the Tartars. The superiority of his intelligence made him a person of consideration in the eyes of the Cossacks, and as his reputation daily increased the Czar was forced to make him Prince of Ukrania. One day, as he was sitting at table with the Czar at Moscow, the Emperor proposed to him to drill the Cossacks and make them more independent. Mazeppa pointed out the situation of Ukrania and the nature of the people as insurmountable obstacles. The Czar, who was over-heated with wine, and had not always sufficient self-control, called him a traitor, and threatened to have him impaled. On his return into Ukrania Mazeppa planned a revolt. The Swedish army appearing shortly after on the frontier facilitated matters for him, and he resolved to gain independence, and to form for himself a powerful kingdom from Ukrania and the ruins of the Russian Empire. He was a man of great courage, of considerable enterprise, and most painstaking, though he was advanced in years.
He made a secret league with the King of Sweden, to hasten the Czar’s downfall and gain something himself out of it. He gave him a rendezvous near the river Desna; Mazeppa promised to meet him there with 30,000 men, ammunition and provisions, and all his treasure, which was immense. The Swedish army was therefore ordered to march towards that part of the country, to the great regret of the officers, who knew nothing of the King’s treaty with the Cossacks. Charles sent orders to Levenhaupt to bring his troops and provisions with all haste to Ukrania, where he intended passing the winter, that, having subdued that country, he might conquer Russia the following spring; meanwhile he advanced towards the river Desna, which flows into the Borysthenes at Kiouw. The obstacles they had hitherto encountered on their march were trifles to those they met on this new route; they had to cross a forest fifty leagues broad, which was full of marshes. General Lagercron, who led the van with 5,000 men and pioneers, led the army thirty leagues too far to the east. They had marched four days before the King discovered their mistake. They regained the right road with some difficulty, but almost all the artillery and wagons were stuck fast or sunk in the mud.
They then marched for twelve days in this painful and laborious fashion till they had eaten the little biscuit they had left, and so they arrived, spent with hunger and fatigue, on the banks of the Desna, where Mazeppa was to meet them. Instead of the Prince, however, they found a body of Russians advancing towards them on the other side of the river. The King was much astonished, and decided to cross the Desna and attack the enemy. The banks of this river were so steep that they were obliged to let the soldiers down by cords; then they crossed in their usual manner, some by swimming, some on hastily constructed rafts. The band of Russians, which arrived at the same time, were only 8,000, so that their resistance was feeble, and this obstacle was also overcome. Charles advanced further into this desolate country, uncertain of his route and of Mazeppa’s fidelity; at last the latter appeared, but rather as a fugitive than as a strong ally. The Russians had discovered and prevented his plan: they had fallen upon the Cossacks and cut them in pieces; his chief friends were taken red-handed, and thirty of them had been broken on the wheel. His towns were reduced to ashes, his treasures plundered, and the provisions he was preparing for the King of Sweden seized. He himself escaped with difficulty, accompanied by 6,000 men, and some horses laden with gold and silver. But he held out to the King the hope that he would be of some service from his knowledge of this unknown country, and by the affection of the natives, who, enraged with the Russians, came in troops to the camp, and brought provisions.
Charles hoped that at least General Levenhaupt would come to repair this ill fortune; he was to bring about 15,000 Swedes (of more use than 100,000 Cossacks), with stores and ammunition. He arrived at last, but almost in the same condition as Mazeppa. He had already passed the Borysthenes above Mohilou, and advanced about twenty leagues further on the road to Ukrania. He brought the King a convoy of 8,000 wagons, with the money he had raised in Lithuania and on march. On reaching Lesno, near the spot where the rivers Pronia and Sossa unite to flow into the Borysthenes far below, the Czar appeared at the head of 50,000 men. The Swedish general, who had not quite 16,000, decided not to entrench. Their many victories had given the Swedes so much confidence that they never inquired as to the enemy’s numbers, but only their position. Levenhaupt marched against them on the 7th of October, 1708, in the afternoon. At the first attack they killed 15,000 Russians; the Czar’s army took panic and fled in all directions, and the Emperor of Russia thought he would be entirely defeated. He saw that the safety of his dominions depended upon the action of the day, and that he could be ruined if Levenhaupt joined the King of Sweden with a victorious army.
As soon as he saw his troops fall back he ran to the rear, where the Cossacks and Calmouks were posted, and said, “I order you to fire on every man who runs away, and even to shoot me, should I be so cowardly as to turn my back.” Then he returned to the van and rallied the troops in person, assisted by the Prince Menzikoff and Prince Gallitsin. Levenhaupt, who had pressing orders to join his master, chose to continue his march rather than to renew the battle, thinking that he had done enough to discourage the enemy from pursuit. No later than eleven the next morning the Czar attacked him on the entrance to a morass, and spread his lines to surround him. The Swedes faced about, and the fight lasted two hours with equal resolution on both sides. The Russians lost three times as many men, but still held their position, and the victory was undecided. At four General Bayer brought the Czar reinforcements. The battle was then renewed for the third time with greater fury than before, and lasted till nightfall. Then the force of numbers carried the day; the Swedes were broken, routed, and driven back on their baggage. Levenhaupt rallied his men behind his chariots, and though they were conquered they did not flee.
Not one from an army of about 9,000 men took to flight. The general formed them up as easily as if they had not been beaten. The Czar, on the other hand, passed the night under arms, and ordered his soldiers on pain of death, and his officers on pain of dismissal, to abstain from plunder. Next morning at daybreak he ordered a fresh attack. Levenhaupt had retired to a strong position some miles distant, after having spiked some of his cannon and fired some of his wagons. The Russians came up just in time to hinder the whole convoy from being burned, and seized six thousand wagons which they saved. The Czar, who wished to utterly crush the Swedes, sent one of his generals, called Phulg, to attack them for the fifth time, and he offered them honourable terms if they would capitulate. Levenhaupt refused, and the fifth battle was as bloody as any of the former ones. Of the 9,000 soldiers he had left he lost half, the other half not breaking line. At last night came on, and Levenhaupt, after having fought five battles against 50,000 men, crossed the Sossa by swimming, followed by the 5,000 men remaining to him. The wounded were carried over on rafts. The Czar lost about 20,000 Russians in these engagements, in which he had the glory of conquering the Swedes, and Levenhaupt the credit of disputing the victory for three days, and of retreating without being forced from his last position. So that he came to his master’s camp with the honour of having made so good a defence, but without ammunition or forces. The King of Sweden, therefore, without provisions, and cut off from communication with Poland, was surrounded by enemies in the midst of a country where he had scarcely any resource but his own courage.
In this extremity the memorable winter of 1709, which was still more severe in those frontiers of Europe than it was in France, destroyed a part of his army. Charles resolved to defy the season as he had his enemies; he ventured on long marches with his troops during the bitter cold. It was on one of these marches that 2,000 of his men died of cold before his very eyes. The cavalry had no boots, and the foot no shoes, and hardly any clothes. They were forced to make footgear of the skins of beasts as best they could, and they often went hungry. They had even been obliged to throw the best part of their cannon into quagmires and rivers for want of horses to draw them; so that this once flourishing army was reduced to 24,000 men at the point of starvation. They neither got news from Sweden, nor were they able to send there. In this state of affairs one officer only complained. “What,” said the King to him, “are you miserable at being so far from your wife? If you are really a soldier I will lead you to such a distance that you will not hear from Sweden once in three years.”
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.