Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK V
This project was, as might be expected, not carried through. The princes who were to furnish their quota for the army contributed nothing; not two regiments were formed. There was much talk of neutrality, but no one observed it; and all the Northern princes who had any controversy with the King of Sweden were left at full liberty to dispute who should have his spoils. At this point the Czar, having stationed his forces in Lithuania and left orders for carrying on the siege of Riga, returned to Moscow, to show his people a sight as new as anything he had yet done in his kingdom. It was a triumph little inferior to that of the ancient Romans. He made his entry into Moscow under seven triumphal arches, erected in the streets, and adorned with all that could be produced in that climate, and that the flourishing trade which his energy had nourished could supply. The procession began with a regiment of guards, followed by the artillery taken from the Swedes at Lesnow and Pultawa, each piece being drawn by eight horses with scarlet trappings hanging to the ground. Then came the standards, kettle-drums, and the colours won at these two battles, and carried by the officers who had won them; all the spoils were followed by the Czar’s picked troops. After they had filed past, the litter of Charles XII, in a chariot made for the purpose, appeared as it had been found on the battle-field, all shattered by cannon-shot. Behind this litter marched the prisoners two by two, and among them Count Piper, Prime Minister of Sweden, the famous Marshal Renschild, Count Levenhaupt, Generals Slipenbak, Hamilton, and Stackelburg, and all the officers and soldiers who were later scattered through Russia. Immediately behind them came the Czar, riding the same horse he had used at Pultawa; just behind him were the generals who had their share in the success of this battle; after them came another regiment of guards, and the wagons loaded with Swedish ammunition brought up the rear.
This procession was accompanied by the ringing of all the bells in Moscow, by the sound of drums, kettle-drums and trumpets, and an infinite number of musical instruments, echoing each other. Volleys were discharged from 200 cannon, to the acclamations of 5,000,000 men, who at every halt of the Czar in his entry cried, “God save the Emperor our father!” This imposing procession increased the people’s veneration for his person, and gave him greater prestige in their eyes than all the good he had really done them. In the meantime he continued the blockade of Riga, and the generals subdued the rest of Livonia and part of Finland. At the same time the King of Denmark came with his entire fleet to attack Sweden, where he landed with 1,700 men, whom he left under the command of Count Reventlau. At that time Sweden was governed by a regency, composed of some Senators appointed by the King at his departure from Sweden. The Senatorial body, which regarded the right of governing as their prerogative, were jealous of the regency. The State suffered from these divisions, but directly they received news at Stockholm after Pultawa, that the King was at Bender in the hands of the Turks and Tartars, and that the Danes had made an attack on Schoner and had taken the town of Elsingburg, all jealousy disappeared, and they concentrated on saving Sweden. There were now very few regulars left, for though Charles had always made his great expeditions with small armies, yet his innumerable battles for nine years, the continual necessity for recruits, the maintenance of his garrisons, and the standing army he was obliged to maintain in Finland, Livonia, Pomerania, Bremen, and Verden, had cost Sweden, during the course of the war, more than 250,000 men; there were not as many as 8,000 of the veterans who, with raw forces, were now Sweden’s only resource.
The nation is born with a passion for war, and every people unconsciously imitate their King. Nothing was discussed from one end of the country to the other but the great exploits of Charles and his generals, and of the old regiment which fought under them at Narva, Duna, Crassau, Pultask, and Hollosin. Thus the humblest of the Swedes were filled with a spirit of emulation and thirst for glory. Besides this, they loved their King, were sorry for him, and hated the Danes thoroughly. In many other countries the peasants are slaves or are treated as such; here they form part of the body politic, consider themselves citizens, and think worthy thoughts. So that in a short time these forces became the best in the North. By order of the regency, General Steinbock put himself at the head of 8,000 veteran troops and 12,000 recruits, to pursue the Danes, who were ravaging all the country round Elsingburg, and had already put some places far inland under contribution. There was neither time nor money to get uniforms for the soldiers; most of the country labourers came dressed in their linen smocks, with pistols tied to their girdles by cords. Steinbock, at the head of this extraordinary army, came up with the Danes three leagues from Elsingburg, on the 10th March, 1710. He intended to rest his troops some days, to entrench, and to give his raw recruits time to get accustomed to the enemy; but the peasants clamoured to fight directly they arrived.
Some officers who were there told me that they saw them almost all foaming with rage, so great is the Swede’s hatred of the Dane. Steinbock took advantage of this disposition, which is almost as effective in war as military discipline. The Danes were attacked, and the strange sight was seen--of which there are, perhaps, no two other instances--of raw forces equalling in bravery a veteran corps at the first attack. Two regiments of these undisciplined peasants cut the Danish army to pieces, and left only ten survivors. The Danes, entirely routed, retreated under the cannon of Elsingburg. The passage from Sweden to Zeeland is so short that the King of Denmark heard of the defeat of his army in Sweden the same day at Copenhagen, and sent his fleet to bring off the remnant of his army. The Danes hastily left Sweden five days after the battle, but, being unable to bring away their horses, and not wishing to leave them to the enemy, they killed them all and fired their provisions, burning their corn and baggage, and leaving 4,000 wounded in Elsingburg. The majority of these died from the infection from the large number of dead horses, and from lack of food, which even their own countrymen deprived them of, lest they should fall into Swedish hands.
At the same time the peasants of Delecarlia, having heard in the depths of their forests that the King was prisoner in Turkey, sent a deputation to the Regency at Stockholm, offering to go, at their own expense, to rescue their master from the enemy’s hands with a force of 20,000 men. This proposal, useless as it was, was heard with pleasure, because it proved the courage and loyalty of the proposers, though it was rejected; and they gave the King an account of it, when they sent him word about Elsingburg. King Charles received this cheering news in his camp near Bender, in July 1710, just after another event which confirmed him in his hopes. The Grand Vizir Couprougli, who was opposed to his plans, was turned out of office after he had been in the ministry two months. Charles XII’s little Court, and his adherents in Poland, boasted that he made and removed vizirs, and was governing Turkey from his retreat at Bender. But he had no hand in the ruin of this favourite. The rigid justice of the Vizir, it was said, was the only cause of his fall; his predecessor had been accustomed to pay the janissaries, not out of the Imperial treasury, but from the money he got by extortion. Couprougli, on the other hand, paid them from the treasury. For this Achmet accused him of putting the subjects’ interest before that of the Emperor. “Your predecessor, Chourlouli,” he said, “managed to find other ways of paying my troops.” The Grand Vizir replied, “If he had the art of enriching your Highness by theft, it is an art of which I am proud to be ignorant.”
The great secrecy observed in the seraglio rarely lets such stories leak out, but this got known at the time of Couprougli’s fall. The Vizir’s courage did not cost him his head, because real goodness often forces even those whom it offends to respect. He had leave to retire to the island of Negropont. After this the Sultan sent for Baltagi Mahomet Pasha of Syria, who had been Grand Vizir before Chourlouli. The Baltagis of the seraglio, so called from balta, meaning an axe, are slaves employed to cut wood for the use of princes of the blood and the Sultana. This Vizir had been baltagi in his youth, and had always retained the name, according to the custom of the Turks, who are not ashamed to bear the name of their first profession, their father, or their birthplace. While Baltagi was a servant in the seraglio he was fortunate enough to do Prince Achmet some trifling service, that Prince being then a prisoner of State in the reign of his brother Mustapha. Achmet gave one of his female slaves, of whom he had been very fond, to Baltagi Mahomet, when he became Sultan. This woman made her husband Grand Vizir by her intrigues; another intrigue deposed him, while a third made him Grand Vizir again. Baltagi had no sooner received the seal of the Turkish empire than he found the party of the King of Sweden dominant in the seraglio. The Sultana Valida, the Sultan’s favourite, the chief of the black eunuchs, and the aga of the janissaries, were all in favour of war against the Czar.
The Sultan had decided on it, and the very first order he gave the Grand Vizir was to go and attack the Russians with 200,000 men. Baltagi had never been in the field, but was no idiot, as the Swedes, out of pure malice, have represented him to be. When he received from the Sultan a sabre set with precious stones, “Your Highness knows,” he said, “that I have been brought up to use an axe and fell wood, and not to wield a sword, or to command armies. I will do my best to serve you; but if I fail, remember that I have begged you not to lay it to my charge.” The Sultan assured him of his favour, and the Vizir prepared to carry out his orders. The Ottoman Porte’s first step was to imprison the Russian ambassador in the castle of seven towers. It is the custom of the Turks to begin by seizing those ministers against whom they declare war. Strict observers of hospitality in every other respect, in this they violate the most sacred of international laws. They act thus unfairly under the pretext of fairness, persuading themselves and trying to persuade others that they never undertake any but a just war, because it is consecrated by the approbation of their Muphti. Thus they look upon themselves as armed to chastise the violation of treaties (which they often break themselves), and argue that the ambassadors of kings at variance with them are to be punished as accomplices of their masters’ treachery. Besides this, they affect a ridiculous contempt towards Christian princes and their ambassadors, whom they regard as only consuls and merchants.
The Kan of Crimean-Tartary had orders to be ready with 400,000 Tartars. This Prince rules over Nagai, Bulziac, part of Circassia and all the Crimean district called by the ancients the Tauric Chersonese, whither the Greeks carried their commerce and their arms, building large cities there; and whither the Genoese afterwards penetrated, when they were masters of the trade of Europe. In this country there are the ruins of Grecian cities, and some Genoese monuments still subsisting in the midst of desolation and savagery. The Kan is called Emperor by his own subjects, but in spite of this grand title he is a mere slave to the Porte. The fact that they have Ottoman blood in their veins, and the right they have to the Turkish Empire on the extinction of the race of the Sultan, make their family respected and their persons formidable even to the Sultan himself: that is why the Sultan dare not destroy the race of the Kans of Tartary; but he hardly ever allows them to continue on the throne to an advanced age. The neighbouring pashas spy on their conduct, their territories are surrounded by janissaries, their wishes thwarted by the Grand Vizir, and their designs always suspected. If the Tartars complain of the Kan, this is an excuse for the Porte to depose him; if he is popular among them it is regarded as a crime, for which he will be even more readily punished. Thus all of them leave the throne for exile, and finish their days at Rhodes, which is generally both their place of exile and their grave.
The Tartars, their subjects, are the most dishonest folk in the world; yet, at the same time (inconceivable as it seems), the most hospitable. They go a fifty leagues’ journey to fall upon a caravan and to destroy towns, but if any stranger happens to pass through their country, he is not only received and lodged everywhere, and his expenses paid, but everywhere the inhabitants strive for the honour of having him as guest. The master of the house, his wife and daughters vie with one another in his service. Their ancestors, the Scythians, transmitted to them this inviolable regard for hospitality; and they still retain it, because the scarcity of strangers in their country, and the cheapness of provisions, makes this duty in no way burdensome to them. When the Tartars go to war with the Ottoman army they are maintained by the Sultan, but receive no other pay but their booty; this makes them more ardent at pillage than at regular warfare. The Kan, bribed by the presents and intrigues of the King of Sweden, got permission to have the general rendezvous of troops at Bender, under the King’s eye, that he might realize that the war was being made for him. The new vizir, Baltagi, not being bound in the same way, would not flatter a foreign prince so far. He countermanded the order, and the great army was collected at Adrianople.
The Turkish troops are not so formidable now as they were when they conquered so many kingdoms in Asia, Africa and Europe. Then they triumphed over enemies less strong and worse disciplined than themselves by physical strength, courage and the force of numbers. But now that Christians understand the art of war better, they seldom failed to beat the Turks in a drawn battle, even when their forces are inferior in number. If the Ottoman empire has lately gained some success, it is only in a contest with the Republic of Venice, reputed more wise than warlike, defended by strangers, and ill supported by Christian princes, who are always divided among themselves. The janissaries and spahis attack in disorder, and are incapable of action under command, or of a rally; their cavalry, which should be excellent, considering the good breed and agility of their horses, is unable to sustain the shock of German cavalry; their infantry were not yet able to use the fixed bayonet; besides this, the Turks have had no great general since Couprougli, who conquered Candia. A slave brought up in the idleness and the silence of the seraglio, made a vizir through favouritism, and a general against his own inclinations, headed a raw army, without experience and without discipline, against Russian troops, with twelve years’ experience in war, and proud of having conquered the Swedes.
The Czar, according to all appearances, must have vanquished Baltagi, but he made the same mistake with regard to the Turks as the King of Sweden was guilty of in his own case; that is, he had too poor an opinion of his enemy. Upon the news of the Turkish preparations he left Moscow; and having given orders to change the siege of Riga into a blockade, he drew up his army of 24,000 men on the Polish frontier. With this army he marched to Moldavia and Wallachia, formerly the country of the Daci, but now inhabited by Greek Christians, tributary to the Sultan. Moldavia was then governed by Prince Cantemir, a Greek by birth, who had the talents of the ancient Greeks together with a knowledge of letters and of arms. He was reputedly descended from the famous Timur, famous under the name of Tamberlain: this genealogy seemed more distinguished than a Greek one. They proved it from the name of the conqueror; Timur, they said, is like Temir: the title Kan, which Timur had before his conquest of Asia, appears again in the name Cantemir: thus Prince Cantemir is a descendant of Tamberlain; that is the sort of basis on which most genealogies are built.
To whatever house Cantemir belonged, he owed all to the Ottoman Porte. Scarcely had he been invested with his principality than he betrayed the Emperor his benefactor for the Czar, from whom he had greater expectations. He believed that the conqueror of Charles XII would easily triumph over an obscure vizir, with no military experience, who had appointed as his lieutenant the chief customs officer of Turkey; he reckoned on all Greece joining his faction, and the Greek priests encouraged him in his treachery. The Czar made a secret treaty with him, and having received him into his army, marched up country, and arrived in June 1711 on the northern side of the river Hierasus, now Pruth, near Jazy, the capital of Moldavia. As soon as the Grand Vizir heard that Peter had arrived, he left his camp at once, and following the course of the Danube, was going to cross the river on a bridge of boats near Saccia, at the same spot where Darius had built the bridge that bore his name. The Turkish army marched so rapidly that they soon came in sight of the Russians, with the river Pruth between them. The Czar, sure of the Prince of Moldavia, never expected that the subjects might fail him; but the Moldavians often oppose their interests to those of their masters. They liked the Turkish rule, which is never fatal except to the grandees, and pretends a leniency to its tributaries; they were afraid of the Christians, especially the Russians, who had always used them ill.
Those who had undertaken to furnish the Russians with provisions made with the Grand Vizir the same bargain they had made with the Czar, and brought all their provisions to the Ottoman army. The Wallachians, neighbours of the Moldavians, showed the same care for the Turks, for to such a degree the remembrance of former cruelties had alienated their minds from the Russians. The Czar, thus frustrated of his hopes, which he had perhaps indulged too readily, found his army suddenly destitute of food and without forage. In the meantime the Turks crossed the river, cut off the Russians, and formed an entrenched camp in front of them. It is strange that the Czar did not dispute the passage of the river, or at least repair this fault by engaging the Turks at once, instead of giving them time to tire out his army with fatigue and famine. But that Prince seems, in this campaign, to have acted in every way for his own ruin; he was without provisions, with the river Pruth behind him, and about 4,000 Tartars continually harassing him to right and left. In these extremities he said publicly, “I am at least in as bad a case as my brother Charles at Pultawa.” Count Poniatowski, indefatigable agent to the King of Sweden, was in the Grand Vizir’s army with some Poles and Swedes, who all thought the Czar’s ruin inevitable.
As soon as Poniatowski saw that the armies must inevitably meet, he sent word to the King of Sweden, who, eager for the pleasure of attacking the Russian Emperor, started that moment from Bender, with forty officers. After many losses, and several destructive marches, the Czar was driven back on Pruth, and had no cover left but some _chevaux de frise_ and some wagons. A party of the janissaries and spahis fell immediately on his army in that defenceless condition, but they attacked in disorder, and the Russians defended themselves with an energy inspired by the presence of their Prince and despair. The Turks were twice driven back. Next day M. Poniatowski advised the Grand Vizir to starve out the Russians, for they lacked all necessaries, and would be obliged to surrender at discretion in one day. The Czar has since then repeatedly acknowledged that he never felt anything so acutely as the difficulties of his position that night: he turned over in his mind all that he had been doing for so many years for the glory and good of his people, so many great plans, always interrupted by war, were perhaps about to perish with him, before having reached completion. He must either die of hunger or attack nearly 200,000 men with feeble troops, reduced by half from their original number, a cavalry with scarcely a horse between them, and infantry worn out by hunger and fatigue.
He called General Czeremetoff at nightfall, and ordered him peremptorily to have all ready by daybreak for an attack on the Turks with fixed bayonets. He gave strict orders also that all baggage should be burned, and that no officer should keep more than one wagon, so that in case of defeat the enemy might not have the booty they expected. Having made all arrangements with the general for the battle, he withdrew into his tent overcome by grief, and seized with convulsions, to which he was subject, and which worry brought on with redoubled violence. He forbade any one to enter his tent during the night on any pretext whatever, not wanting to receive remonstrances against a desperate but necessary resolve, and much less that any should witness the wretched state he was in. In the meantime they burned the greater part of the baggage as he had ordered; all the army followed this example with much regret, and some buried their most cherished treasures. The generals had already given orders for the march, and were trying to give the army the confidence which they did not feel themselves; the men, exhausted by fatigue, and starving, marched without spirit or hope. The women, of whom there were too many in the army, uttered cries which further unnerved the men; every one expected that death or slavery would be their portion next morning. This is no exaggeration, it is the exact account of officers who served in the army.
There was at that time in the Russian camp a woman as extraordinary as the Czar himself. She was then known only by the name of Catherine. Her mother was an unfortunate country woman called Erb-Magden, of the village of Ringen in Estonia, a province held in villeinage, which was at that time under the rule of Sweden. She had never known her father, but was baptized by the name of Martha. The priest of the parish brought her up out of pure charity till she was fourteen, then she went into service at Mariemburg, in the house of a Lutheran minister whose name was Gluk. In 1702, at the age of eighteen, she married a Swedish dragoon. The day after her marriage part of the Swedish troops were beaten by the Russians, and the dragoon was in the action. But he never returned to his wife, and she could never learn whether he had been taken prisoner, nor later could she get any news of him. Some days after she was taken prisoner herself, and was servant to General Czeremetoff, who gave her to Menzikoff, a man who had known fortune’s extremes, for he had become a general and a prince from being a pastry-cook’s boy, and then was deprived of everything and banished to Siberia, where he died in misery and despair. The Czar was at supper with this prince when he first saw her and fell in love with her. He married her secretly in 1707, not fascinated by womanly charms, but because he found that she had the strength of mind to second his designs, and even to continue them after him. He had long since put away his first wife Ottokefa, daughter of a boyard, on a charge of opposition to certain political reforms he had made.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.