600

The great frost of 1708-9

[1707-9

1707, when King Stanislaus wrote to him direct, practically offering him his own terms if he would take the anti-Muscovite side, did he determine to do so. The crisis came when Peter ordered him actively to co-operate with the Russian forces in the Ukraine. Mazepa hereupon took to his bed, and sent word to the Tsar that he was on the point of death. The same day he communicated with Charles' First Minister, Count Piper, and agreed to harbour the Swedes in the Ukraine, and close it against the Russians (October, 1708). But Peter was too quick for him. He at once sent Menshikoff to see "the dying Hetman.” Mazepa at once took horse, and "sped away like a whirlwind," for three days and three nights, to the nearest Swedish outposts. Peter instantly commanded Menshikoff to have a new Hetman elected, and to raze Baturin, Mazepa's chief stronghold in the Ukraine, to the ground. In the race to Baturin which now followed between Charles and Menshikoff, the Muscovites outmarched the exhausted Swedes; and when Charles, a week later, passed by the Cossack capital, all that remained of it was "a heap of smouldering mills and ruined houses, with burnt, half-burnt and bloody corpses" scattered all around.

At the end of 1708, the Swedes had to encounter a new and terrible enemy in the great frost, the severest that Europe had known for a century. So early as the beginning of October the cold was intense; by November 1, firewood would not burn in the open air and the soldiers warmed themselves over big bonfires of straw. But it was not till the vast open steppes of the Ukraine were reached that the unhappy Swedes experienced the full rigour of the icy Scythian blast. By the time the army arrived at the little Ukrainian fortress of Hadjach, which they took by assault (January, 1709), wine and spirits froze into solid blocks of ice; birds on the wing fell dead; saliva congealed in its passage from the mouth to the ground. The sufferings of the soldiers were hideous. "You could see," says an eye-witness, "some without hands, some without feet, some without ears and noses, many creeping along after the manner of quadrupeds." "Nevertheless," says another eye-witness, "though earth, sky, and air were against us, the King's orders had to be obeyed, and the daily march made." Never had Charles XII seemed so superhuman as during those awful days. It is not too much to say that his imperturbable equanimity, his serene bonhomie, kept together the perishing, but still unconquered, host. His military exploits were prodigious. At Cerkova he drove back 7000 Russians with 400, and at Opressa, 5000 Russians with 300 men.

The frost broke at the end of February, 1709, and then the spring floods put an end to all active operations for some months. The Tsar set off for Voronezh to inspect his Black Sea fleet; while Charles encamped at Rudiszcze, between the Orel and the Worskla, two tributaries of the Don. By this time the Swedish army had dwindled from 41,000 to 20,000 able-bodied men, mostly cavalry. Supplies, furnished

1709]

Charles besieges Poltawa

601

for a time by Mazepa, were again running short. All communications with Europe had long since been cut off. Charles was still full of confidence. He hoped in the ensuing campaign, with the help of the Tartars, the Zaporogians and the Hospodar of Wallachia, to hold his own till Stanislaus, with Krassow's army-corps, had joined him by way of Volhynia. On May 11 he began the siege of Poltawa, a small fortress on the western bank of the Worskla, and the staple of the Ukraine trade, so as to strengthen his position till the arrival of Krassow. But the ordinary difficulties of a siege were materially increased by the lack of artillery and ammunition,1 and by the proximity of the Russian main army, which arrived a few days later, and entrenched itself on the opposite bank of the Worskla. Peter himself was delayed by the resistance offered by the Zaporogian Cossacks at the instigation of Mazepa, in their syech, or great water-fortress, among the islands of the Dnieper; but on June 8, "this root of all the evil and the main hope of the enemy," as Peter called it, was stormed by the dragoons of Volkovsky and Galaghan. A week later the Tsar set out for Poltawa, arriving there on June 15.

At last Peter had resolved to make a firm stand. "With God's help I hope this month to have a final bout with the enemy," he wrote to Admiral Apraksin. Yet even now, though the Swedes were a famished, exhausted, dispirited host, surrounded by fourfold numbers, Peter decided at a council of war, held soon after his arrival, that a general attack was too hazardous. Charles XII had never yet been defeated in a pitched battle, and Peter was determined to take no risks. Only when the garrison of Poltawa contrived to let him know that their powder had run out, and the enemy's sappers were burrowing beneath their palisades, did he order his army to advance. On that very day a crowning calamity overtook the Swedes. While reconnoitring the Russian camp, Charles received a wound in the foot from the bullet of a Cossack patrol, which placed him hors de combat. On hearing of this mishap, Peter resolved not to refuse battle, if it were offered him. Charles was equally ready to fight, and at a council of war held on June 26, Marshal Rehnskjöld, whom he had appointed commander-inchief in his stead, was ordered to attack the Russians in their entrenchments on the following day. The Swedes joyfully accepting the chances of battle in lieu of miseries of all sorts and slow starvation, advanced with irresistible élan, and were at first successful on both wings. After this, one or two tactical blunders having been committed, the Tsar, taking courage, drew all his troops from their trenches, and enveloped the little band of Swedish infantry in a vast semi-circle, bristling with guns of the most modern make, the invention of a French engineer, Le Mètre, which fired

Nearly all the powder had been spoilt by the weather during 1708-9, and it is said that the report of the Swedish guns was no louder than the clapping of gloved hands.

602 Battle of Poltawa.-Second league against Sweden [1709

five times to the Swedes' once, and literally swept away the Guards, the heart and soul of the army, before they could grasp their swords. After a desperate struggle, the Swedish infantry was annihilated, while the 14,000 cavalry, exhausted and demoralised, surrendered, two days later, at Perevolchna on the Dnieper, which they had no means of crossing. Charles XII, half delirious with pain, in his litter, escorted by Mazepa and 1500 horsemen, took refuge in Turkish territory. "The enemy's army," wrote Peter to his friend Romodonovsky next morning, "has had the fate of Phaethon. As for the King, we know not whether he be with us or with our fathers." To Apraksin he wrote: "Now, by God's help, are the foundations of Petersburg securely laid for all time.” At the end of the year, on his return to "the Holy Land," he laid the foundation-stone of a church dedicated to St Samson, to commemorate the victory of the strong and patient man who had at last vanquished his masters in the art of war.

The immediate result of the battle of Poltawa was the revival of the hostile league against Sweden. On hearing of Peter's victory, Augustus sent his chamberlain, Count Vizthum, to arrange for a conference; and the two monarchs met on a bridge of boats in the Vistula, a mile from Thorn, where, on October 17, 1709, a treaty cancelling all former compacts was signed. Peter undertook to assist Augustus to regain the throne of Poland; and, by a secret article, it was agreed that Livonia should form part of the victor's hereditary domains. Previously to this (June 28), an alliance had been concluded at Dresden between Augustus and Frederick IV of Denmark, "to restore the equilibrium of the north, and keep Sweden within her proper limits." Nevertheless, for fear of the Western Powers, which were amicably disposed towards Sweden, and by no means inclined to part with the Danish and Saxon mercenaries in their service, so long as the War of the Spanish Succession continued, the two Princes agreed to exempt Sweden's German possessions from attack unless their own possessions in the Empire were attacked by Sweden. The confederates then proceeded to Berlin, to persuade Frederick I of Prussia to accede to the new alliance; but the Prussian Minister, Ilgen, restrained his royal master from taking any decisive step. Consequently, "the league of the three Fredericks" was of so general a character that it did little more than engage the King of Prussia to prevent the passage through his territories of any Swedish troops bent on invading the territories of Denmark or Saxony.

And now Frederick IV, despite the angry remonstrances of the Maritime Powers, resolved to attack Sweden at the very time that the Tsar was harrying the remnant of her Baltic provinces. But Sweden was now to show the world that a military State, whose strong central organisation enabled her to mobilise troops more quickly than her neighbours, is not to be overthrown by a single disaster, however serious. She could still oppose 16,000 well-disciplined troops to the

1709-10] Danish and Russian invasions.

The Porte 603 Danish invader, and these troops were commanded by Count Magnus Stenbock, the last, but not the least, of the three great Caroline captains the other two of whom, Rehnskjöld and Lewenhaupt, were now captives in Russia. Her fleet, too, was still a little stronger than the Danish fleet, and, besides her garrisons in Stralsund, Wismar, Bremen, Verden, and other places, she had Krassow's army-corps of 9000 strong in Poland. Then came the tidings of Poltawa, and, in an instant, the authority of King Stanislaus vanished. The vast majority of the Poles hastened to repudiate him and make their peace with Augustus, and Leszczynski, henceforth a mere pensioner of Charles XII, accompanied Krassow's army-corps in its retreat to Swedish Pomerania. On November 12, 1709, 15,000 Danes landed in Scania, but, after gaining some slight advantage, were routed by Stenbock at Helsingborg (March 10, 1710), and compelled to evacuate Sweden. Yet, failure though it was, the short Scanian campaign had been of material assistance to the Tsar. It had prevented the Swedish Government from sending help to the hardly pressed eastern provinces, and had thus given Peter a free hand there. On July 15, 1710, Riga, into which Peter personally had the satisfaction of hurling the first bomb, was starved into surrender. During the next two months Pernau and Reval fell. Finland had already been invaded; and in June the fortress of Viborg was captured.

But, suddenly, alarming news from the south interrupted the Tsar's career of conquest in the north. Immediately after Poltawa, Peter Tolstoi, the Russian ambassador at the Porte, demanded the extradition of Charles and Mazepa. This was a diplomatic blunder, as it irritated the already alarmed Turks. Tolstoi next reported "great military preparations made in great haste." In August he offered the Grand Mufti 10,000 ducats and 1000 sables, if he would hand over the fugitives; but the Mufti gravely replied that such a breach of hospitality would be contrary to the religion of Islam. Evidently the Turks wished to prolong the Russo-Swedish War till they were ready to take the field themselves. Nor was Charles himself idle. For the first time in his life, he was obliged to have recourse to diplomacy; and his pen now proved almost as formidable as his sword. First he sent his agent, Neugebauer, to Stambul with a memorial in which the Porte was warned that, if Peter were given time, he would attack Turkey as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had attacked Sweden in 1700. The fortification of Azoff and the building of a fleet in the Black Sea clearly indicated his designs, and a Suedo-Turkish alliance was the only remedy against so pressing a danger. "Reinforce me with your valiant cavalry," concluded Charles, "and I will return to Poland, re-establish my affairs, and again attack the heart of Muscovy." These arguments, very skilfully presented, had a great effect upon the Porte; and, when Neugebauer was reinforced by Stanislaus Poniatowski, Charles' ablest diplomatist, the crisis became acute. At first, indeed, the Muscovite prevailed. In November, 1709,

604

The campaign of the Pruth

[1710-1

the Russo-Turkish peace was renewed, on the understanding that Charles should be escorted to the Polish frontier by Turkish, and from Poland to the Swedish frontier by Russian, troops. But in January, 1710, Poniatowski succeeded in delivering to the Sultan personally a second memorial by Charles, convicting the Grand Vezir, Ali Pasha, of corrup tion and treason; and in June he was superseded by Neuman-Kiuprili, whose first act was to lend Charles 400,000 thalers free of interest. Kiuprili also would have avoided war, if possible; but the patriotic zeal of the semi-mutinous Janissaries was too strong for him, and he had to give way to the still more anti-Russian Grand Vezir, Baltaji Mehemet. Peter, encouraged by his Baltic triumphs,. now thought fit to take a higher tone with the Porte, and in October, 1710, categorically enquired whether the Sultan desired peace or war, and threatened an invasion unless he received satisfactory assurances forthwith. The Porte, unaccustomed to such language from Muscovy, at once threw Tolstoi into the Seven Towers; while the Grand Vezir was sent to the frontier at the head of 200,000 men.

On March 19, 1711, war was solemnly proclaimed, in the Tsar's presence, against "the enemies of the Cross of Christ," in the Uspensky Cathedral; and Peter immediately set out for the front. At Iaroslavl, on June 12, he concluded a fresh alliance with Augustus, confirmatory of the Treaty of Thorn. The petitions and promises of the Orthodox Christians in Turkey now induced the Tsar to accelerate his pace, and he concluded on his way a secret treaty of alliance with Demetrius Cantemir, Hospodar of Moldavia. Peter had expected that a general insurrection of the Serbs and Bulgars would have compelled the Grand Vezir to recross the Danube; but unexpected difficulties suddenly ac cumulated. On June 27, Sheremetieff, the Russian commander-in-chief, reported that the whole land had already been sucked dry by the Turks and he knew not where to look for provisions and provender. At a council of war, held at the end of June, Peter decided to advance still further, in order to support Sheremetieff and unite with the Orthodox Christians. On July 16 he reached Jassy, by which time the question of supplies had become so pressing, that all other considerations had to be subordinated to it. On the rumour reaching him that an immense quantity of provisions had been hidden by the Turks in the marshes of Fulchi, near Braila, Peter crossed the Pruth, and searched for these phantom supplies in the forests on the banks of the Sereth. On August 8, the advanceguard reported the approach of the Grand Vezir; and the whole army hurried back to the Pruth, fighting rear-guard actions all the way. On August 11 the Muscovites, now reduced to 38,000 men, entrenched themselves; and the same evening 190,000 Turks and Tartars, with 300 guns, beleaguered them on both sides of the Pruth. An attack upon the Russian camp on the same day was repulsed; but the position of the Russians, with provisions for only a couple of days, and no hope of