Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK VI
Intrigues at the Porte--The Kan of Tartary and the Pasha of Bender try to force Charles to depart--He defends himself with forty servants against their whole army. THE fortune of the King of Sweden, greatly changed as it was, now failed him in the smallest details. On his return he found his little camp at Bender, and his whole quarters, under water, flooded by the waters of the Neister. He withdrew to a distance of some miles, near a village called Varnitza; and, as if he had a secret suspicion of what was going to happen to him, he had a large stone house built there, capable, in an emergency, of sustaining some hours’ siege; he furnished it magnificently, contrary to his usual custom, and in order to impress the Turks. Besides this he built two more, one for his Chancery, and the other for his favourite, Grothusen, whom he supported. While the King was thus building at Bender, as if it was his intention to stay always in Turkey, Baltagi, being more than ever fearful of his intrigues and complaints at the Porte, had sent the resident consul of the German Emperor to Vienna to gain for the King of Sweden a passage through the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria. This envoy returned in three weeks with a promise from the Imperial Regency that they would give Charles all due honour, and conduct him safely to Pomerania.
The application had been made to the Regency because Charles, the successor of Joseph, who was then Emperor, was in Spain as a rival with Philip V for the crown. While the German envoy was carrying out his mission to Vienna, the Vizir sent three pashas to the King of Sweden bidding him begone from Turkish territory. The King, who knew their mission, sent them a message, that if they were venturing on any dishonourable or disrespectful proposal to him he would have them hanged forthwith. The pasha who delivered the message cloaked the harshness of his message in the most respectful language. Charles dismissed the audience without deigning a word of reply; but his chancellor, who remained with the three pashas, signified in few words his master’s refusal, which they had already concluded from his silence. But the Grand Vizir was not discouraged. He ordered Ishmael Pasha, the new serasquier of Bender, to threaten the King with the Sultan’s displeasure if he did not haste to come to some conclusion. The serasquier was of an agreeable and tactful disposition, and had therefore gained Charles’s good-will and the friendship of the Swedes.
The King held a conference with him, and informed him that he would only depart from Turkey when the Sultan granted him two things: the punishment of his Vizir, and 100,000 men with which to return to Poland. Baltagi was aware of the fact that Charles’s presence in Turkey meant his ruin, so he placed guards on all the roads from Bender to Constantinople, with orders to intercept the King’s letters; he also cut off his “thaim,” the allowance that the Porte makes to exiled princes in her dominions. The King of Sweden’s was immense, 500 crowns a day in money, besides all that contributed to the maintenance of a court in pomp and abundance. As soon as the King heard that the Vizir had dared to cut off his allowance he turned to his steward, remarking, “So far you have had only two tables, for to-morrow prepare four.” Charles XII’s officers had never found any order of their master’s impossible, but having neither money nor provision they were forced to borrow at twenty, thirty, and forty per cent. of the officers’ servants and janissaries, who had grown rich by the King’s liberality. M. Fabricius, ambassador from Holstein, Jeffreys, English minister, their secretaries and their friends, gave what they had; the King, with his usual pride, and without a thought for the morrow, lived on these gifts, which would not have long sufficed. They had to go through the Turkish guard, and send secretly to Constantinople to borrow from European money-lenders. All refused to lend to a king who seemed to be powerless to pay; but one English merchant, named Cook, at last ventured to lend 40,000 crowns, taking the risk of losing them if the King of Sweden was killed. They took the money to the King’s camp, just as they were feeling actual want, and were beginning to despair of supplies.
In the meantime M. Poniatowski wrote actually from the Grand Vizir’s camp an account of the Pruth campaign, accusing the Vizir of cowardice and treachery. An old janissary, enraged at the weakness of the Vizir, and bribed by Poniatowski, undertook the delivery of the letter, and, having got his discharge, presented it with his own hands to the Sultan. Some days later Poniatowski set out from the camp and went to the Ottoman Porte to form intrigues against the Grand Vizir as usual. All seemed to favour the design. The Czar, now at liberty, was in no hurry to carry out his promises; the keys of Azov did not come, and the Grand Vizir, who was responsible for them, justly fearing his master’s resentment, dare not appear in his presence. The seraglio was then more full of intrigues and factions than ever. These cabals, which exist at all courts, and which, in our case, generally end in the removal of a minister from office, or at most by a banishment, always meant more than one execution in Constantinople. It ended in the execution of the former Vizir Chourlouli, and of Osman, the lieutenant of Baltagi, who was the chief author of the Peace of Pruth, and who since the peace had held a prominent office at the Porte. Among the treasures of Osman they found the Czarina’s ring and 20,000 gold pieces, in Saxon, Polish and Russian coin; this was a proof that it was money alone which had rescued the Czar from his perilous position, and had ruined the chances of Charles XII. The Vizir, Baltagi, was exiled to the isle of Lemnos, where he died three years later. The Sultan did not confiscate his property either at his exile or at his death; he was not rich, and his poverty protects his memory.
This Grand Vizir was succeeded by Joseph, whose fortune was as singular as that of his predecessors. He was a Russian by birth, and had been taken prisoner by the Turks at six years of age with his family, and had been sold to a janissary. He was long a valet in the seraglio, then became the second person in the empire where he had been a slave. But he was only the shadow of a minister. The young Ali-Coumourgi had placed him in the slippery post until he could seize it himself, and Joseph, his creature, had nothing else to do but affix the Imperial seals to the favourite’s desires. The policy of the Ottoman Court seemed to be revolutionized from the very beginning of this Vizir’s ministry. The Czar’s plenipotentiaries, who lived at Constantinople both as ministers and hostages, were better treated than ever; the Grand Vizir countersigned the Peace of Pruth with them. But that which annoyed the King of Sweden more than all else was the news that the secret alliance made at Constantinople with the Czar was brought about by the mediation of the English and Dutch ambassadors. Since Charles’s retreat to Bender, Constantinople was occupying the position that Rome had so often held, as the centre of the business of Christendom. Count Desaleurs, the French ambassador at the Porte, was supporting the interests of Charles and of Stanislas; the Emperor of Germany’s minister was opposing them. The Swedish and Russian factions were falling foul of each other, as those of France and Spain have long done at the Court of Rome.
England and Holland posed as neutrals, but were not really such; the new trade of Saint Petersburg attracted the attention of those two trading powers. The English and the Dutch are always on the side of the prince who most favours their trade, and there was just then much to be gained from the Czar, so that it is no wonder that the English and Dutch ministers should work secretly in his interest at the Porte. One of the conditions of this new alliance was that Charles should at once be driven from the Turkish dominions. Perhaps the Czar thought him less formidable at home than in Turkey, where he was always on the spot ready to raise the Ottoman arms against the Russian empire, or perhaps he hoped to seize him _en route_. The King of Sweden continued his petitions to the Porte to send him home through Poland with a large army. The Divan resolved to send him back, but only with a guard of 7,000 or 8,000 men, not like a King they wished to help, but as a guest they were anxious to be rid of. With this object in view the Sultan Achmet wrote him the following letter: “Most powerful of the Princes that worship Jesus, redressor of wrongs and injuries, and protector of justice in the ports and republics of South and North, shining in Majesty, lover of Honour and Glory, and of our sublime Porte, Charles, King of Sweden, whose enterprises may God crown with success.
“As soon as the most illustrious Achmet, formerly Chiaoux-Pasha, shall have the honour to present this letter to you, adorned with our Imperial seal, be persuaded and convinced of the truth of our intentions expressed therein, namely, that, although we had planned to march again against the Czar, yet that Prince, to avoid our just resentment at his delay in the execution of the treaty concluded on the banks of the Pruth, and renewed again at our sublime Porte, having surrendered to us the castle and city of Azov, and having endeavoured by the mediation of the English and Dutch ambassadors, our ancient allies, to form a lasting peace with us, we have granted his request, and given up his plenipotentiaries, who remain with us as hostages, our Imperial ratification, after having received his from their hands. “We have given our inviolable and salutary orders to the right honourable Delvet Gharai, Khan of Budziac, of Crimea, Nagai, and Circassia, and to our wise counsellor and noble serasquier of Bender, Ishmael (whom God preserve and increase in magnificence and wisdom), for your return through Poland, according to your first plan which has been again laid before us from you. You must, therefore, prepare to set out next winter under the guidance of Providence and with an honourable guard, that you may return to your own territories, taking care to pass through Poland in a peaceable and friendly manner.
“You will be provided by my sublime Porte with all that is needed for your journey, both money, men, horses and wagons. But above all else we advise and exhort you to give the most express and detailed orders to the Swedes and other soldiers in your retinue not to commit any act of disorder, nor be guilty of any action which may either directly or indirectly tend to the breach of this peace. By that means you will preserve our good-will, of which we shall endeavour to give great and frequent proofs as we shall find opportunity. The troops to attend you shall receive orders to that effect, according to our Imperial will and pleasure. “Given at our sublime Porte of Constantinople on the 14th of the month Rebyul Eureb, 1214. Which corresponds to the 19th April, 1712.”
This letter did not, however, entirely destroy the hopes of the King of Sweden. He wrote to the Sultan that he was ready to go, and would never forget the favour he had shown him; but he added that he believed the Sultan was too just to send him away with nothing but a flying camp through a country already overrun with the Czar’s troops. Indeed, the Emperor of Russia, in spite of the fact that the first article of the Treaty of Pruth obliged him to withdraw his forces from Poland, had sent recruits thither, and it seemed strange that the Sultan was ignorant of the fact. The bad policy and vanity of the Porte in suffering the Christian princes to maintain their ambassadors at Constantinople, and not keeping one single agent in any Christian court, gives the former an opportunity of probing and sometimes of directing the Sultan’s most secret resolutions, while the Divan is always ignorant of the most public transactions of Christendom. The Sultan, shut up in the seraglio among his women and his eunuchs, sees only through the Grand Vizir’s eyes; the latter is as inaccessible as his master, taken up with the intrigues of the seraglio, and without any communication with the world outside. He is therefore generally imposed on himself, or imposes on the Sultan, who deposes him or has him strangled for his first mistake, in order to choose another as ignorant or as treacherous as the former, who behaves in the same way as his predecessors and falls as soon as they.
Such is, for the most part, the negligence and profound security of this Court, that if the Christian princes leagued against the Porte their fleets would be at the Dardanelles and their army at the gates of Adrianople before the Turks could think of taking the defensive. But the different interests which divide Christendom will protect that people from a fate for which they at present seem ripe in their want of policy and their ignorance in war and naval matters. Achmet was so little acquainted with what was happening in Poland that he sent an aga to see if the Czar’s forces were there or not. Two of the King of Sweden’s secretaries, who understood Turkish, went with him, to keep a check on him in the event of a false report. The aga saw the forces with his own eyes and gave the Sultan a true account of the matter. Achmet, in a rage, was going to strangle the Grand Vizir, but the favourite, who protected him, and thought he might prove useful, got him pardoned and kept him some time in the ministry. The Russians were openly protected by the Vizir, and secretly by Ali-Coumourgi, who had changed sides; but the Sultan was so angry, the infraction of the Treaty was so palpable, and the janissaries, who often make the ministers, favourites and Sultans themselves tremble, clamoured so loudly for war that no one in the seraglio dare counsel moderation.
The Sultan at once put the Russian ambassadors, who were already as accustomed to go to prison as to a concert, in the seven towers. War was declared again against the Czar, the horse-tails hoisted, and orders issued to all the pashas to raise an army of 200,000 fighting men. The Sultan left Constantinople for Adrianople in order to be nearer the seat of war. In the meantime a solemn embassy from Augustus and the republics of Poland to the Sultan was on the road to Adrianople. At the head of this embassy was the Prince of Massovia with a retinue of 300 persons. They were all seized and imprisoned in the suburbs of the city. Never was the Swedish party more hopeful than on this occasion; but these great preparations came to nothing, and all their hopes were dashed. If a minister of great wisdom and foresight, who was then living at Constantinople, is to be credited, young Coumourgi had other plans in his head than hazarding a war with the Czar to gain a desert. He wanted to take Peloponnesus, now called Morea, from the Venetians, and to make himself master of Hungary.
To carry out his great designs he wanted nothing but the office of Grand Vizir, for which he was thought too young. With this in view the friendship of the Czar was more important to him than his enmity. It was neither to his interest nor to his inclination to keep the King of Sweden any longer, much less to raise a Turkish army for him. He not only advocated sending the Prince away, but declared openly that henceforth no Christian minister ought to be tolerated at Constantinople; that the ordinary ambassadors were only honourable spies, who corrupted or betrayed the vizirs, and had too long interfered in the affairs of the seraglio; that the Franks settled at Pera, and in the commercial ports on the Levant, were merchants, who needed no ambassador, but only a consul. The Grand Vizir, who owed both his position and his life to the favourite, and who feared him besides, complied with his plans the more readily that he had sold himself to the Russians, and hoped to be avenged on the King of Sweden, who would have ruined him.
The Mufti, Ali-Coumourgi’s creature, was also completely under his thumb: he had given the vote for war against the Czar when the favourite was on that side, but he declared it to be unjust as soon as the youth had changed his mind. Thus the army was scarcely collected before they began to listen to proposals for a reconciliation. After several negotiations the vice-chancellor Shaffiroff and young Czeremetoff, the Czar’s plenipotentiaries and hostages at the Porte, promised that the troops should be withdrawn from Poland. The Grand Vizir, who knew that the Czar would not carry out this treaty, decided to sign it for all that; and the Sultan, content with the semblance of laying down the law to the Russians, remained at Adrianople. Thus, in less than six months, peace was made with the Czar, then war was declared, then peace was renewed.
The main article of all the treaties was that the King of Sweden should be forced to depart. The Sultan would not imperil his own honour and that of the Porte to the extent of exposing the King to the risk of being captured _en route_ by his enemies. It was stipulated that he should be sent away, but on condition that the ambassadors of Poland and Russia should be responsible for the safety of his person; these ambassadors swore, in their masters’ names, that neither the Czar nor Augustus should molest him on his journey. On the other hand, Charles was not to endeavour to make any disturbance in Poland. The Divan, having thus determined the fate of Charles, Ishmael, serasquier of Bender, repaired to Varnitsa, where the King was encamped, and acquainted him with the Porte’s resolve, explaining civilly enough that there was no time for delay, but that he must go. Charles’s only answer was that the Sultan had promised him an army and not a guard, and that kings ought to keep their word. In the meantime General Fleming, King Augustus’s minister and favourite, maintained a private correspondence with the Kan of Tartary and the serasquier of Bender. A German colonel, whose name was La Mare, had made more than one journey from Bender to Dresden, and these were an object of suspicion.
Just at this time the King of Sweden caused a courier sent from Fleming to the Tartar prince to be seized on the Wallachian frontier. The letters were brought to him and deciphered; there was obviously a correspondence going on between the Tartars and Dresden, but the references were so general and ambiguous that it was hard to say whether King Augustus’s plan was to detach the Turks from the Swedish alliance, or to persuade the Kan to hand over Charles to his Saxons as he attended him on the road to Poland. It is hard to imagine that so generous a prince as Augustus would, for the sake of seizing the King of Sweden, risk the lives of his ambassadors and 300 Poles, detained at Adrianople as hostages for Charles’s safety. On the other hand, Fleming was absolute, very shrewd, and quite unscrupulous. The outrageous treatment of the Elector by King Charles might be thought an excuse for any method of revenge, and if the Court of Dresden could buy Charles of the Kan of Tartary they may have thought that it would be no difficult matter to purchase the liberty of the Polish hostages of the Ottoman Porte. These reasons were argued between the King, Mullern, his private chancellor, and his favourite Grothusen. They read the letters over and over again, and, their wretched plight increasing their suspicions, they resolved to believe the worst.
“The object of this Imperial letter is to inform you that, upon your representation and request, and that of the right noble Delvet Gherai Kan to our sublime Porte, our Imperial munificence has granted the King of Sweden 1,000 purses, which shall be sent to Bender in the custody of the most illustrious Mahomet Pasha, to remain in your hands till such time as the King of Sweden departs, whose steps may God direct, and then to be given him with 200 purses more, as an overplus of our Imperial liberality beyond what he desires. As to the route through Poland, which he has decided on, you and the Kan, who are to accompany him, must be careful to take such prudent and wise measures as shall prevent, during the whole journey, the troops under your command and those of the King of Sweden from any disorderly conduct or anything which may be reckoned a breach of the peace between our sublime Porte and the realm and republic of Poland, so that the King of Sweden may travel as a friend under our protection. “By so doing (and you are to desire it of him in set terms) he will receive all the honour and respect due to his Majesty from the Poles, as we have been assured by the ambassadors of King Augustus and the republic, who have offered themselves and certain other of the Polish nobility, if required, as hostages for his safe passage. At the time which you and the right noble Delvet shall agree on for the march you shall put yourselves at the head of your brave soldiers, among whom shall be the Tartars, led by the Kan, and go with the King and his men.
“May it please the only God, the Almighty, to direct your steps and theirs. The Pasha of Aulis shall continue at Bender, with a regiment of spahis and another of janissaries, to defend it in your absence. Now, by following our Imperial orders and wishes in all these points and details, you will earn the continuance of our royal favour, as well as the praise and rewards due to all such as observe them. “Given at our Imperial residence of Constantinople, the 2nd day of the month Cheval, 1124 of the Hegira.” While they were waiting for the Sultan’s answer the King had written to the Porte, to complain of the supposed treachery of the Kan. But the passages were well guarded, and the ministry against him, so that his letters never reached the Sultan. The Vizir would not allow M. Desaleurs to go to Adrianople, where the Porte then was, lest he, as the King of Sweden’s agent, tried to thwart their design of driving him away. Charles, indignant at seeing himself hunted, as it were, from the Sultan’s territory, resolved not to stir a step. He might have asked to return through German territory, or to take ship at the Black Sea, in order to reach Marseilles by the Mediterranean, but he preferred to ask no favour and see what happened.
When the 1,200 purses arrived, his treasurer, Grothusen, who from long residence in Turkey had learned to speak the language, went to the Pasha without an interpreter, hoping to get the money from him, and then to form some new intrigue at the Porte, on the false supposition that the Swedish party would at last arm the Ottoman Empire against the Czar. Grothusen told the Pasha that the King’s equipage could not be prepared without money. “But,” said the Pasha, “we are going to defray all the expense of departure; your master will have no expenses while he continues under the protection of mine.” Grothusen replied that the difference between the Turkish equipages and those of the Franks was so great that they must apply to the Swedish and Polish workmen at Varnitsa. He assured him that his master was ready to go and that this money would facilitate and hasten his departure. The too credulous Pasha gave him the 1,200 purses, and in a few days came and respectfully asked the King to give orders for his departure. He was most surprised when the King told him he was not ready to go and that he wanted 1,000 purses more. The Pasha was overcome by this, and remained speechless for some time; then he walked to a window, where he was seen to shed some tears. Then, turning to the King, he said, “I shall lose my head for having obliged your Majesty. I have given you the 1,200 purses contrary to the express orders of my sovereign.” With these words he took leave and was going away full of grief.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.