Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden · Voltaire
BOOK VIII
Charles marries his sister to the Prince of Hesse--He is besieged in Stralsund and escapes to Sweden--The enterprise of Baron Gortz his premier--Plans of reconciliation with the Czar--An attack on England--Charles besieges Frederickshal in Norway--He is killed--His character--Gortz is beheaded. DURING these preparations the King gave his only surviving sister in marriage to Frederic, Prince of Hesse-Cassel. The Queen Dowager, his grandmother, aged fourscore years, did the honours of the _fête_ on the 4th of April, 1715, and died shortly afterwards. The King could not attend the ceremony, as he was so busy finishing the fortifications of Stralsund, which was in danger from the Kings of Denmark and Prussia. But he made his brother-in-law generalissimo of all the forces of Sweden. This Prince had served the States-General in the French war, and was considered a good soldier, a qualification for his sister’s hand in the eyes of Charles XII.
Misfortunes now followed as fast as victories had once done. In June 1715 the English King’s German forces and those of Denmark invested the strong town of Wismar; the Danes, Saxons and Prussians, 36,000 of them, marched in a body to Stralsund to form a siege. Not far from Stralsund, five Swedish ships were sunk by the Danes and Prussians. The Czar held the Baltic with two large men-of-war, and 150 transports, which had 30,000 men on board. He threatened a descent on Sweden, appearing alternately on the coast of Elsingburg and Stockholm. All Sweden was in arms, expecting an invasion; his land forces were chasing the Swedes from the places they held in Finland towards the Gulf of Bothnia, but he attempted nothing further. At the mouth of the Oder, a river that divides Pomerania, and, passing Stetin, falls into the Baltic, there is a little island called Usedom. Its position makes it a place of considerable importance, for it commands the Oder both on the right and the left, and whoever holds it is master of the navigation of that river. The King of Prussia had dislodged the Swedes, and was holding the place as well as Stetin, saying that he did so purely for the sake of peace. But the Swedes had retaken Usedom in May 1715, and held two forts there, one called Suine, on a branch of the Oder of that name, the other called Penamonder, of greater importance, on another branch of the river. The forts were manned with only 250 Pomeranians, commanded by an old Swedish officer called Kuze-Slerp, a man who deserves to be remembered. On the 4th of April the King of Prussia sent 1,500 foot and 800 dragoons into the island. They arrived and landed on the side of Suine without opposition. The Swedish commander had left them this fort, as being the least important, and, not being able to divide his small force, he withdrew to the castle of Penamonder, resolving to await the worst.
So they were forced to make a formal siege. They shipped artillery at Stetin, and sent in a reinforcement of 1,000 Prussian foot and 400 horse. On the 18th, they opened the trenches in two places, and a brisk battery was played by cannon and mortars. During the siege a Swedish soldier, sent privately with a letter to Charles, found means to land on the island and slip into the place. He gave the letter to the commander. It was as follows: “Do not fire till the enemy come to the edge of the ditch; defend yourselves to the last drop of your blood.--CHARLES.” Slerp read the note, resolved to obey, and die as he was bid in his master’s service. On the 22nd, at daybreak, the assault was made. The besieged did as they were told, and killed many, but the ditch was full, the breach large, and the besiegers too numerous. They entered at two different places at once. The commander now thought that he had no further duty but to obey orders and sell his life dear, so he abandoned the breaches, entrenched his few troops, who all had honour and courage enough to go with him, and placed them so that they should not be surrounded. The enemy hastened up, surprised that he did not ask for quarter; but he fought a whole hour, and when he had lost half his soldiers, was killed at last with his lieutenant and major. There were then left 100 men and one officer; these asked that their lives might be spared, and were taken prisoners. In the commander’s pocket they found his master’s letter, which was taken to the King of Prussia.
Just as Charles had lost Usedom, and the neighbouring islands which were quickly taken, while Wismar was on the point of surrender, with no fleet to lend aid, and Sweden in great danger, he himself was at Stralsund, besieged by 36,000 men. Stralsund, famous throughout Europe for the siege the King of Sweden sustained there, is one of the strongest places in Pomerania. It is built between the Baltic and the Lake of Franken, near the Straits of Gella. There is no land passage to it but across a narrow crossway defended by a citadel, and by retrenchments that were once thought inaccessible. There was in it a garrison of 9,000 men, and, more than all, the King of Sweden himself. The Kings of Denmark and Prussia besieged it with an army of 36,000 men, consisting of Saxons, Prussians and Danes. The honour of besieging Charles was too great an incitement to them to make any task difficult, so the trenches were opened on the night between the 19th and 20th of October, 1715. The King of Sweden said at first that he wondered how any place well manned and fortified could be taken. True, he had taken many towns himself in the course of his victories, but none by regular attack. It was the fame of his exploits that gained them; besides, he never judged others by his own standard, and always underrated his enemies. The besiegers carried on their work with great alacrity, and they were assisted by a curious chance.
It is well known that the Baltic has no flux and reflux. The entrenchments of the town were thought impregnable, as there was an impassable marsh on the west and the sea on the east. No one had remarked before that in a strong westerly wind the waves of the Baltic roll back so as to leave only three feet of water under the entrenchment. They had always thought it deep. A soldier, happening to fall from the top of the entrenchment, was surprised to find a bottom; but having made that discovery, he concluded that it might make his fortune. So he deserted, and going to the quarters of Count Wakerbath, General of the Saxon forces, he told him that the sea was fordable, and that it would be easy to carry the Swedes’ entrenchments. The King of Prussia was not slow to take the hint.
The next day the west wind was still blowing; Lieutenant-Colonel Kepel entered the water with 1,800 men, and 2,000 advanced at the same time on the causeway; all the Prussian artillery fired, and the Prussians and Danes gave an alarm on the other side. The Swedes were sure they could deal with those who were advancing with such rashness by the causeway; but Kepel, coming in behind them from the sea, enclosed them so that they could make no headway, and the position was carried after terrible slaughter on both sides. Some of the Swedes retired into the town, but they were pursued by the besiegers, and some entered pell-mell with those that were fleeing. Two officers and four Saxon soldiers were already on the drawbridge, but they had just time to shut it, and took the men, and so for that time the town was saved. They found four-and-twenty pieces of cannon on the entrenchments, which they turned against the town. After this success the siege was carried on eagerly, the town being cannonaded and bombarded without remission. Opposite Stralsund on the Baltic is the island of Ruegen, which is a rampart of the place, whither the garrison and people could retire if they only had boats. This island was of the first importance to Charles, for he knew that if the enemy were masters of it he would soon be invested both by sea and land, and probably buried in the ruins of Stralsund, or else taken prisoner by those whom he had formerly despised so much and used so harshly.
However, the wretched state of his affairs had prevented him from sending a sufficient garrison to Ruegen, and there were not more than 2,000 regular troops altogether on the island. For three months the enemy had been making all the preparations for an attack on it, but having built boats for the purpose, the Prince of Anhalt, favoured by good weather, made a landing at last with 12,000 men on the 15th of November. The King, who was everywhere, was in this island; he joined 2,000 men who were entrenched near a little haven, about three leagues from where the enemy had landed. He marched with them at midnight, with great silence. The Prince of Anhalt had used what seemed unnecessary caution to entrench his cannon. His officers expected no attack by night, and had no idea but that Charles was safe at Stralsund. But the Prince, who knew Charles much better, ordered a deep ditch, with _chevaux de frise_ on the edge, and took as much care as if he had to do with a superior force.
At two in the morning Charles came to the enemy’s camp, without the slightest noise. His soldiers said to one another, “Come, let us pull up the _chevaux de frise_.” These words were overheard by the sentinels; the alarm was quickly given, and the enemy stood to arms. The King, raising the _chevaux de frise_, saw a great ditch. “Ah,” he said, “impossible; this is more than I expected.” Not at all discouraged, and knowing nothing of their numbers, nor they of his, for the night favoured him in that, he decided at once, leaped into the ditch, followed by some of the boldest. The _chevaux de frise_ was removed, the earth levelled with any trunks and branches they could find, and the bodies of the dead for _fascines_. The King, generals, and boldest of the officers and soldiers got on one another’s shoulders as in assaults. The fight began in the enemy’s camp; the vigour of the Swedes threw the Danes and Prussians into disorder, but their numbers being too disparate, the Swedes were repulsed in about a quarter of an hour, and repaired to the ditch.
The unfortunate King rallied his troops in the field, and the fight was renewed with equal warmth on both sides. He saw his favourite Grothusen fall, and General Dardoff, and as he fought passed over the body of the latter while he was still breathing. During, his companion from Turkey to Stralsund, was killed before his face. The King himself was shot near the left breast; Count Poniatowski, who had been so lucky as to save his life before at Pultawa, had the good fortune to do the same again, and gave him a new mount. The Swedes retired to a part of the island named Alteferre, where they still held a fort; from thence the King returned to Stralsund, obliged to leave those brave troops who had served him so well in that expedition; they were all prisoners of war two days later. Among the prisoners was that unfortunate French regiment, the _débris_ of the battle of Hochstet, which had first served Augustus, and afterwards Charles. Most of the soldiers were drafted into a new regiment belonging to the son of the Prince of Anhalt, and he was their fourth master. In Ruegen the commander of this vagrant regiment was then the famous Count Villelongue, who had so nobly risked his life at Adrianople to save Charles. He was taken with all his men, and was ill rewarded for all his services, fatigues and sufferings.
The King, having only weakened himself by all these prodigies of valour, pent up in Stralsund and expecting to be taken, was yet the same as he had been at Bender. Nothing could surprise him. All day he was making ditches and entrenchments behind the walls, and at night he sallied out against the enemy. The town was badly damaged, bombs fell thick and fast, and half the town was in ashes. The townsfolk, far from complaining, were full of admiration for their master, whose temperance, courage and fatigues were astonishing; they acted as soldiers under him, following to the attack, and were now as good as another garrison. One day, as the King was dictating to a secretary some dispatches for Sweden, a bomb fell into the house, came through the roof, and burst very near his room. Part of the floor fell in, but the ante-room where he was at work, being attached to a thick wall, was undisturbed, and by a lucky chance none of the splinters came in at the door, though it was open. In this noise and confusion the secretary dropped his pen, thinking that the house was coming down. “What is the matter?” said the King calmly; “why are you not writing?” The man could only stammer out, “The bomb, Sire!” “Well,” said the King, “what has that to do with our writing? Go on.”
An ambassador of France, a M. de Croissy, was then shut up with the King in Stralsund. To send a man on an embassy to Charles was like sending him to the trenches. The King would talk with Croissy for hours together, in the most exposed places, where people were falling on all sides, killed by the bombs and cannon; the King was unconscious of the danger, and the ambassador did not care to say anything to make him chose a safer place for business. Before the siege this minister tried his best to make a treaty between the Kings of Sweden and Prussia; but the one expected too much, and the other would not make any concessions. So that the only satisfaction that Croissy got out of his embassy was the familiarity he enjoyed with this remarkable man. He often slept on the same cloak with him, and, as they shared so many dangers and fatigues, he was outspoken with him. Charles encouraged this in the case of those he liked, and would sometimes say to Croissy, “Veni, maledicamus de rege.” “Come, let us talk scandal of Charles.” Croissy stayed in the town till the 13th of November. Then, with the permission of the enemy to pass with his baggage, he took leave of Charles, whom he left among the ruins of Stralsund with only a third of his garrison left, and fully resolved to stand an assault.
In fact, the assault on the horn-work was made in four days. The enemy took it twice, and were twice beaten off. At last numbers prevailed, and they became masters of it. Charles stayed two days longer in the town, expecting every moment a general assault; on the 16th he stayed till midnight in a little ravelin quite destroyed by bombs and cannon; the day after the principal officers begged him to stay no longer in this untenable situation, but retreat was now as dangerous as to stay there. The Baltic was full of Russian and Danish ships; in the port at Stralsund there was only one boat with sails and oars. So many dangers made retreat glorious, and determined Charles to go; he embarked on the evening of December 20th, with ten persons aboard. They were obliged to break the ice, and it was several hours before they could get away. The enemy’s admiral had strict orders not to let Charles escape from Stralsund. Happily they were to leeward of him, and could not approach. He ran the most risk in passing a place called the Barbette, in Ruegen, where the Danes had fixed a battery of twelve cannon. They fired, and he made all the sail he could to get clear of their range. Two men were killed close by him, and at another shot the mast was shattered. In the midst of these dangers the King met two of his ships that were cruising in the Baltic, and the next day Stralsund was surrendered, and the garrison made prisoners of war. The King landed at Isted in Scania, and came to Carlscrona, in a very different state from that in which he had left it, ten years before, when he started in a ship of twelve guns, to dictate to the North.
As he was so near his capital, it was concluded he would go there after so long an absence. But he could not bear the thought of it till he had gained some great victories. Nor did he want to see his people who loved him, and to whose burdens he had perforce to add to defend himself against his enemies. He only wanted to see his sister, and he sent for her to meet him near Lake Wetter, in Ostrogothia. He rode post-haste with one attendant, spent a day with her, and returned. At Carlscrona, where he passed the winter, he levied new forces everywhere. He thought his subjects were only born to follow him to war, and he had accustomed them to think so too. He enlisted many of but fifteen years old. In many villages there were only old men, women and children left; in some places the women ploughed unaided. It was still more difficult to get a fleet. But to bring that about commissions were given to privateers, who enjoyed great privileges to the ruin of the country, but who provided him with some ships. This was the last effort of Sweden to meet the great expense; all the houses were searched, and half their provisions carried into the King’s warehouses. All the iron in the country was bought up for his use and paid for in paper, which he sold for ready money. Whoever wore silk, or wigs, or gilded swords was taxed, and there was a heavy hearth-rate.
A people thus loaded with taxation would have revolted under any other King, but here the most miserable peasant knew that his master was faring harder than he himself. So they quietly bore what their King was always the first to bear. In the public danger, private misfortunes were not thought of. They expected hourly an attack from the Russians, Danes, Prussians, Saxons, and the English. Their fear was so strong, and so well justified, that those who possessed valuables buried them. It was a surprise to all Europe, who had still an eye on Charles, when, instead of defending his country about to be attacked by so many princes, he invaded Norway at the head of 20,000 men. Since the time of Hannibal there had been no instance of a general who, unable to hold his own against his enemies at home, had gone to attack them in their own dominions. His brother-in-law, the Prince of Hesse, accompanied him. There is no way from Sweden to Norway except by dangerous by-ways, where at every turn one meets with pools of water, formed by the sea between the rocks; bridges have to be made every day. A very few Danes might have stopped the Swedish army, but they were not ready for such a rapid invasion. Europe was still more surprised to find the Czar so quiet, without descending on Sweden as he had intended.
The reason was that he had a plan, which was one of the greatest, and one of the most difficult to carry out, that has ever been conceived. Baron Gortz, a Franconian by birth, and Baron of the empire, having done the King of Sweden important services during his sojourn at Bender, was now his favourite and Prime Minister. He was the boldest and the most diplomatic of men: full of resource in adversity, ambitious in his plans, and active in his policy, no project was too ambitious for him, no means too dear for his end; he was prodigal with presents, oaths, truth and falsehood. From Sweden he went to England, France, Holland, to himself lay the train which he meant to use; he was able to inflame all Europe, and that was his idea. What his master was at the head of an army, he was in the cabinet, and this gave him more influence over Charles than any minister had ever had before. This King, who from the age of twenty had given orders to Court Piper, was now willing to receive them from Baron Gortz, and was the more submissive because his misfortunes had made it necessary for him to ask advice, and because Gortz’s advice suited with his courageous disposition. He found that of all the princes in league against him Charles felt especially resentful to George of Hanover, King of England: because he was the only one whom Charles had never injured, and had entered into the affair only as a mediator, with intent to hold Bremen and Verden, which he bought for a trifle from the King of Denmark.
It was early that he discovered the Czar’s secret discontent with the allies, who all wanted to prevent his getting any footing in Germany. Since the year 1714 the Czar had been in a position to make a descent on Sweden, but whether he could not agree with the Kings of Poland, England, Denmark, and Prussia, allies whose suspicions were justifiable, or whether he thought his troops not seasoned enough to attack that people at home, whose very peasants had beat the pick of the Danish forces, he still took care to put it off. The want of money was what had hitherto delayed him. For the Czar was one of the greatest monarchs in the world, but not one of the richest, his revenue not amounting to more than 18,000,000 French francs. He had discovered gold, silver, iron and copper mines, but the profit they yielded was uncertain, and the working of them expensive. He had established a great trade, yet at first it did not flourish; his new conquests increased his power and his fame, but brought him very little treasure.
Time was necessary to bind up the wounds of Livonia, a fertile country which had suffered much from a fifteen years’ war, by fire, sword and plague--almost desolate of inhabitants, and a burden to the conqueror. The fleets he now maintained; and every day some new enterprise was exhausting all his treasures. He had been reduced to the bad expedient of raising the value of the coinage, a remedy which never cures the evil, and is particularly injurious to any country where the imports exceed the exports. It was upon these grounds that Gortz had laid the basis of a revolution; he was bold enough to suggest to the King of Sweden that he should make peace with the Czar, insinuating that the Czar was very angry with the Kings of Poland and England, and that Peter and Charles together might make the rest of Europe tremble. There was no making peace with the Czar, unless he yielded a good many provinces to the east and west of the Baltic, but he called his attention to the fact that in yielding such places as the Czar possessed already, and which he could not possibly regain, he might have the honour of replacing Stanislas on the throne of Poland, and setting James II’s son upon that of England, besides restoring the Duke of Holstein.
Charles was pleased with all this, and without giving the matter much consideration he gave the minister full powers to act: Gortz left Sweden with _carte blanche_ for any prince he wished to treat with. His first business was to try how the Court of Moscow stood, which he did through the Czar’s chief physician, a man devoted to the Pretender’s interests, as most of the Scots are, where they are not in the pay of the English Court. This physician represented to Prince Menzikoff, with all the eagerness of a man much interested, the greatness and importance of such a plan. Prince Menzikoff was pleased with it, and the Czar approved it. Instead of an invasion of Sweden he sent his troops to winter in Mecklenburg, and came there himself on the pretext of settling some disputes between his nephew the Duke and his nobles: his real object was to gain a principality in Germany, for which he hoped to bargain with the Duke. The allies were angry at this step, not caring to have so terrible and formidable a neighbour, who, should he once gain German provinces, might become Emperor and oppress the sovereigns. The greater was their resentment, the more that Gortz’s plan flourished. But he negotiated with all the confederates in order to conceal his private intrigues. The Czar fed them all with vain hopes. Charles was all this while with his brother-in-law in Norway at the head of 20,000 men, the country was defended by 110,000 Danes in separate bands, which were routed by the King and Prince of Hesse. Charles advanced to Christiania, the capital, and fortune smiled on him again, but from want of provisions he was forced to retire to Sweden, there to await the result of his minister’s plan.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.