Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK IV
The Marquis of Brancas, now Swedish ambassador, told me that a soldier ventured to present the King, before the whole army, with a piece of bread that was black and mouldy. It was made from barley and oats, and was the only food they then had, and that in scanty quantities. The King received the piece of bread unmoved, ate it all, and then said coolly to the soldier, “It is not good, but one can eat it.” This characteristic touch, insignificant as it is (if, indeed, that should be called insignificant which increases respect and confidence), did more than all the rest to help the Swedish army to bear hardships which would have been insupportable under any other general. In these circumstances he at last received news from Stockholm, but only that his sister the Duchess of Holstein, aged 27, had been carried off by small-pox. She was as gentle and pitiful as her brother was imperious and implacable in revenge. He had always been very fond of her; he felt her loss the more as, now that the tide of his fortune had turned, he was more susceptible. He learned also that they had carried out his orders and raised troops and money, but could not send them to his camp; for there lay between him and Stockholm nearly five hundred leagues and an enemy with a superior force to encounter.
The Czar, who was as energetic as the King, after having sent fresh forces into Poland to assist the confederates, united under General Siniawski against Stanislas, and soon advanced into Ukrania, in the middle of this severe winter, to oppose the King of Sweden. He stayed there with the object of weakening the enemy by small engagements, for by this means he thought the Swedish army must be quite wrecked at last, as he was able to draw fresh forces every moment from his dominions, while they could not get recruits. The cold there must have been excessive, since it forced the two enemies to suspend hostilities. But on the first of February, amid ice and snow, they began to fight again. After several small skirmishes and some reverses, the King’s army was reduced in April to 18,000 men. Mazeppa alone, the Prince of the Cossacks, supplied them with the necessaries of life; without his assistance the army must have perished from hunger and destitution. At this moment, the Czar, to attract Mazeppa to his service again, offered him terms; but the Cossack stood by his new ally, either from fear of the terrible punishment of the wheel, by which his friends had perished, or because he sought revenge.
Charles, with his 18,000 Swedes and as many Cossacks, had not abandoned his plan of reaching Russia. Towards the end of May he went to siege Pultawa, on the river Vorskla, on the extreme eastern frontier of Ukrania, about thirteen full leagues from the Borysthenes, where the Czar had a magazine. This country is that of the Zaporavians, the strangest people in the world. They are a collection of former Russians, Poles, Tartars, and all make profession of a kind of Christianity, and of a kind of freebooting brigandage. They elect a chief, whom they depose or assassinate; they allow no women to live among them, but they kidnap all the children for twenty or thirty leagues round, and train them in their ways. During summer they are always in the field, during winter they sleep in vast barns, containing 400 or 500 men. They fear nothing, and live at liberty; they risk death for the smallest booty, with the same boldness with which Charles XII faced it to bestow crowns. The Czar sent them 60,000 florins in the hope that they would side with him; they took the money and then, through the exertions of Mazeppa, declared for Charles: but they proved of very little use, for they think it ridiculous to fight for anything but booty.
It was a great point gained that they did no harm: there were about 2,000 of them at most who did regular duty. Ten of their chiefs were one day presented to Charles, but they had great difficulty in finding those who were not intoxicated, for they always began the day in that condition. They were taken into the trenches, and showed their skill in shooting with long rifles, for they could pick off the enemies they singled out at 600 paces away. Charles added to these bandits some 1,000 Valaques; then he laid siege to Pultawa, with an army of about 30,000 men, in a wretched condition and wanting all necessaries. The Czar had made Pultawa a magazine: if the King took it it would open the road to Moscow for him, and he could await, well supplied, the recruits he expected from Sweden, Livonia, Pomerania and Poland. As, then, his sole resource lay in the taking of Pultawa, he carried on the siege with vigour. Mazeppa, who had informants in the town, assured him that he would soon master it, and hope began to reanimate the army. His soldiers regarded the taking of Pultawa as the end of all their miseries.
From the beginning of the siege the King realized that he had given his enemies some useful lessons in the art of war. Prince Menzikoff, in spite of all his precautions, threw reinforcements into the town, and the garrison then amounted to almost 10,000 men. They made sorties, sometimes successfully; but what made the town impregnable was the approach of the Czar, who was advancing with 10,000 combatants. Charles XII went to meet him on the 27th of May, his birthday, and beat one of their corps; but as he was returning from his camp he got a musket-shot, which pierced his boot and shattered his heel-bone. There was not the least sign on his face that he had been shot; he continued calmly to give his orders, and remained mounted nearly six hours after the accident. One of his servants at last noticing that the sole of his boot was covered with blood, ran for the doctor; then the King’s pain was so acute that they had to take him off his horse and carry him to his tent. The surgeons examined the wound and saw that it had already begun to mortify, and thought that the leg must be cut off. The consternation in the army was great. But one of the surgeons, called Newman, better skilled and braver than the rest, was certain that he could save the leg by means of a deep incision.
“Begin at once, then,” said the King; “cut boldly, fear nothing.” He held his leg with his own hands, looking at the incisions made as if they were in the leg of another. As they were putting on the dressing he gave orders for an assault next morning, but scarcely had he given the order than they brought him word that the whole army of the enemy was upon him. He was therefore obliged to alter his plan. Wounded and incapable of action, he found himself shut in between the river Borysthenes and the river which runs to Pultawa, in a desert district, with no forts or ammunition, and opposed to an army which cut him off from retreat or provisions. In this terrible position he did not, as might have been expected, assemble a council of war, but on the night of 7th July he sent for Marshal Renschild, and ordered him, without deliberation, but without uneasiness, to prepare to attack the Czar next morning. Renschild did not argue, but went to carry out his orders. At the door of the King’s tent he met Count Piper, with whom, as often happens between the minister and the general, he had long been on bad terms. Piper asked him if there were anything new. “No,” said the General coldly, and passed on to give his orders. As soon as Piper entered the royal tent the King asked if Renschild had told him anything. “Nothing,” answered Piper. “Well, then,” answered the King, “I tell you that to-morrow we shall give battle.” Count Piper was astonished at so desperate a resolve, but he knew that his master could never be made to change his opinion; he only expressed his astonishment by his silence, and left the King to sleep till dawn.
The battle of Pultawa was fought on the 8th of July, 1709, between the two most famous monarchs in the world: Charles XII, distinguished by a course of nine years’ victories, and Peter Alexiowitz by nine years of painstaking training of his troops to an equality with the Swedes; the one famed for having given away the dominions of others, the other for having civilized his own; Charles loving danger and fighting only for the sake of glory, Alexiowitz not running away from difficulties, and making war from interested motives only; the Swedish King liberal from a generous temperament, the Russian never generous but with some object in view; the former sober and temperate in an extraordinary degree, naturally brave and only once showing cruelty, the latter not having thrown off the roughness of his education or his race, as terrible to his subjects as he was wonderful to strangers, and addicted to excess which, as a matter of fact, shortened his days. Charles bore the title “Invincible,” which he might lose at any moment; the nations had already given Peter the title “Great,” which he could not lose by any defeat, as he did not owe it to his victories.
To get a clear idea of this battle and the place where it was fought, one must imagine Pultawa to the north, the King of Sweden’s camp to the south, slightly to the east; his baggage about a mile behind him, and the river Pultawa on the north side of the town, running from east to west. The Czar had passed the river about a league from Pultawa, towards the west, and was beginning to form his camp. At daybreak the Swedes appeared above their trenches with four cannon for their artillery; the rest were left in the camp with about 3,000 men, and 4,000 remained with the baggage. So that the Swedish army marching against the enemy consisted of about 25,000 men, of whom not more than 12,000 were regulars. Generals Renschild, Roos, Levenhaupt, Slipenbak, Hoorn, Sparre, Hamilton, the Prince of Wirtemburg, a relation of the King, and some others, most of whom had been at the battle of Narva, reminded the subalterns of that day, when 8,000 Swedes had destroyed an army of 100,000 Russians in entrenchments. The officers remarked it to the soldiers, and all encouraged one another on the march.
The King conducted the march, carried in a litter at the head of his infantry. By his order a party of horse advanced to attack that of the enemy; the battle began with this engagement. At half-past four in the morning the enemy’s cavalry lay to the west, on the right of the Russian camp: Prince Menzikoff and Count Golowin had placed them at intervals between redoubts fortified with cannon. General Slipenbak, at the head of the Swedes, fell upon them. All who have served with the Swedes know that it is almost impossible to resist their first onset. The Russian squadrons were broken and put to flight. The Czar himself ran to rally them, and his hat was pierced by a musket shot. Menzikoff had three horses killed under him, and the Swedes shouted victory. Charles was sure that the battle was gained; he had sent General Creuts about midnight with five thousand horse to attack the enemy’s rear while he attacked their front, but, as ill-luck would have it, Creuts lost his way and did not appear. The Czar, who had thought that all was lost, had time to rally his cavalry, and fell on the King’s horse in his turn; unsupported by Creuts’ detachment it was broken, and Slipenbak taken prisoner. At the same time seventy-two cannon from the camp played on the Swedish horse, and the Russian foot, issuing from their lines, advanced to attack Charles.
The Czar then detached Menzikoff and sent him to take up a position between Pultawa and the Swedes. He carried out his master’s orders dexterously and promptly: not only did he cut the communication between the Swedish army and the troops remaining in the camp at Pultawa, but meeting a body of 3,000 reserves he cut them to pieces. Meanwhile, the Russian foot issued from their lines and advanced in order into the plain on the other side; the Swedish horse rallied within a quarter of a league of the enemy’s army, and the King, assisted by General Renschild, gave orders for a general engagement. He ranged his remaining troops in two lines, his foot in the centre, his horse on the two wings. The Czar arranged his forces in the same way; he had the advantage in numbers and also seventy-two cannon, while the Swedes had only four, and were running out of powder.
The Czar was in the centre of his army, and at that time bore the title of Major-General, and was apparently in the service of General Czeremetoff; but as Emperor he went from rank to rank, mounted on a Turkish horse, a present from the Grand-Seignior, exhorting his officers and soldiers and promising them all rewards. At nine in the morning the battle began again. One of the first discharges of the Russian cannon carried off the two horses of the King’s litter; he had two others harnessed in, and a second volley shattered the litter and threw the King out. The troops who were fighting near him believed he was killed; in the consternation the Swedes lost ground, and, their powder failing and the enemy’s cannon keeping up fire, the first line fell back on the second, and the second fled. In this last action of the Swedish army they were routed by a single line of 10,000 Russian infantry; so much had matters changed. Prince Wirtemburg, General Renschild and several leading officers were already prisoners; the camp before Pultawa was forced, and all in utterly hopeless confusion. Count Piper and other officers had left the camp and did not know what to do, nor what had become of their King. They ran from one side of the field to the other; Major Bere offered to lead them to the baggage, but the clouds of dust and smoke which covered the field, and their own confusion, carried them to the other side of the town, where they were taken prisoners by the garrison.
The King was unwilling to flee, and would not defend himself. General Poniatowski chanced to be with him at that moment. He was a colonel of King Stanislas’ Swedish guards, and a person of remarkable merit, who was so attached to Charles XII that he had accompanied him as a volunteer to Ukrania. He was a man who in all the chances of life, and in danger, where others would at most have only shown courage, always made his plans at once and met with success; he signed to two soldiers, who took the King under the arms and put him on horseback in spite of the great pain of his wound. Poniatowski, though he had no command in the army, being made general by necessity on this occasion, rallied 500 horse round the King’s person: some were dragoons, some ordinary troopers, some officers. This band, inspired by the misfortune of their Prince, made their way through more than ten regiments of Russians and took Charles through the midst of the enemy, the distance of a league, to the baggage of the Swedish army. This amazing retreat was an achievement in such a disastrous situation, but it was necessary for the King to flee further.
Though the King had never had a coach since he left Stockholm, they found Count Piper’s among the baggage. They put him into it and started for the Borysthenes with all haste. The King, who had not spoken a single word from the time he was put on horseback till he came to the baggage, then asked what had become of Count Piper. “He has been taken prisoner with all his chancery officers,” they told him. “And General Renschild and the Duke of Wirtemburg?” he asked. “They too are prisoners,” said Poniatowski. “Prisoners of the Russians!” exclaimed Charles, with a shrug; “let us rather escape to Turkey.” His expression did not change, however, and whoever had seen him and been ignorant of his position would never have suspected that he had been either conquered or wounded. While he was escaping the Russians seized his artillery in the camp before Pultawa, his baggage and his military chest, containing 6,000,000 in specie, the spoil of Poland and Saxony. Nearly 9,000 Swedes were killed in the battle, about 6,000 were taken prisoners. There still remained some 18,000, including Swedes and Poles, as well as Cossacks, who escaped to the Borysthenes under the direction of General Levenhaupt. He went one way with these fugitives while the King, with some of his cavalry, took another direction. The coach in which he was riding broke down by the way, and they put him on horseback again. To complete his misfortunes he got lost in a wood during the night; there his courage could no longer make up for his spent strength, the pain of his wound was intensified by fatigue, and his horse fell under him from exhaustion. He lay for some hours at the foot of a tree, each moment in danger of a surprise from the conquerors who were looking for him everywhere.
At last, on the night of July 9th, he found himself on the banks of the Borysthenes, and Levenhaupt had just come up with the remnants of the army. The Swedes saw with joy mingled with grief, their King whom they had thought to be dead. The enemy drew near; they had no bridge to pass the river, nor time to make one, nor powder to defend themselves with, nor provisions to save the army from perishing with hunger, for they had eaten nothing for two days. At all events, the rest of the army were Swedes, and the conquered King was Charles XII. Almost all the officers advised that a stand should be made to meet the Russians, and that they should die or conquer on the banks of the Borysthenes. Doubtless Charles would have decided on this course had he not been overcome with weakness; his wound mortified and he had fever; and it has been remarked that most men, when attacked with the fever of suppuration, lose the instinct of valour which, like other virtues, needs a calm head. Charles was no longer master of himself. They carried him like a sick man who has lost consciousness.
Happily they had still a miserable calash, which they had brought to that spot at great risk; they embarked it in a little boat, and the King and General Mazeppa in another. The latter had saved several coffers full of money, but as the current was very rapid and the wind began to blow the Cossack threw more than three parts of his treasure into the river to lighten the boat. Mullen, the King’s chancellor, and Count Poniatowski, who was now more than ever indispensable to the King, for his remarkable presence of mind in difficulties, crossed over in other boats with some of the officers. Three hundred horsemen and a large number of Poles and Cossacks, relying on the strength of their horses, ventured to cross by swimming. Their troop, keeping close together, resisted the current and broke the waves, but all who tried to cross separately a little lower down were carried away and sank. Of the foot that tried to cross not one got to the other side.
While the routed army was in this difficult position Prince Menzikoff came up with 10,000 horse, each with a foot soldier behind him. The bodies of the Swedes who had died on the way of wounds, fatigue and hunger were an index to the Prince of the route that the army had taken. The Prince sent a herald to the Swedish General to offer capitulation. Immediately four generals were sent by Levenhaupt to receive the conqueror’s order. Before that day 16,000 of King Charles’s soldiers would have attacked the whole force of the Russian empire and have perished to a man, rather than have surrendered; but after a battle lost and a flight of two days, and after having lost their Prince who had been forced to flee himself, the strength of every soldier being spent and their courage no longer supported by hope, the love of life overcame courage. The whole army was made prisoners of war. Some of the soldiers, in despair at falling into Russian hands, threw themselves into the Borysthenes, and the rest were made slaves. They defiled in Prince Menzikoff’s presence and laid their arms at his feet, as 30,000 Russians had done nine years before at the King of Sweden’s at Narva.
But while the King then sent back all the Russian prisoners he was not afraid of, the Czar kept all the Swedes that were taken at Pultawa. These poor wretches were dispersed throughout the Czar’s dominions, and particularly in Siberia, a vast province of greater Tartary which stretches eastward to the frontiers of the Chinese empire. In this barbarous country, where the use of bread was unknown, the Swedes, ingenious through necessity, exercised the trades and arts they had formerly been brought up to. All the distinctions which fortune makes between men were then banished, the officer who had no handicraft was forced to cut and carry wood for the soldier, who had now turned tailor, draper, joiner, mason, or smith, and got a livelihood by his labour. Some officers became painters and some architects, some taught languages and mathematics; they even went so far as to erect public schools, which gradually became so useful and famous that they sent children there from Moscow. Count Piper, the King’s first minister, was long imprisoned at Petersburg. The Czar, like the rest of Europe, believed that this minister had sold his master to the Duke of Marlborough, and so brought the arms of Sweden, which might have pacified Europe, on Russia, and he made his captivity more severe on this supposition. Piper died some years after at Moscow, having received little assistance from his family, which lived in great opulence at Stockholm, and uselessly lamented by his King, who would never humble himself by offering a ransom, which he feared the Czar would not accept, for there was never any challenge of exchange between Charles and the Czar. The Emperor of Russia, elated by a joy which he took no pains to conceal, received on the battle-field the prisoners whom they brought to him in troops, and asked every moment, “Where, then, is Charles my brother?”
He paid the Swedish Generals the compliment of inviting them to his table; among other questions he asked Renschild: What were the numbers of the army of the King his master before the battle? Renschild answered that only the King had the list of them and never gave information to any one, but that he thought the whole number might be 35,000 men, of whom 18,000 were Swedes and the rest Cossacks. The Czar seemed surprised, and asked how they dare invade so distant a country and lay siege to Pultawa with so small a force. “We were not always consulted,” answered the Swedish General, “but like faithful servants we obeyed our master’s orders without ever contradicting him.” On this answer the Czar turned to certain courtiers, who had been suspected of conspiring against him, “Ah!” he said, “see how a sovereign should be obeyed.” Then, taking a glass of wine, “To the health of my masters in the art of war,” he said. Renschild asked who they were whom he honoured with so high a title? “You, gentlemen, the Swedish Generals,” answered the Czar. “Your Majesty is very ungrateful to handle your masters so severely,” replied Renschild. When dinner was over the Czar ordered their swords to be restored to all the officers, and treated them as a Prince who had a mind to give his subjects lessons in generosity and good breeding. But this same Prince, who treated the Swedish Generals so well, had all the Cossacks he caught broken on the wheel.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.