Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/433

OF SWEDEN.] CHARLES XII. 421 time lie had to retire before the Swedes. By the autumn of 1707 Charles had collected 43,000 men in Saxony; a reserve of 20,000 under General Levenhaupt was in Poland, and a third army, 15,000 strong, was upon the frontier of Finland. In the following January, in the midst of the ice and snow, he suddenly broke up his camp, marched against the Russians, surprised and almost captured the czar at Grodno, and then continued his advance, driving the Russians before him, and defeating them in numerous encounters. He had forced the Beresina and won a battle near Smoleusko, and the way to Moscow lay almost open before him, when, to the surprise of his army, he turned southward to the district of the Ukraine. The fact was that he had a secret treaty of alliance with the hetmann of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, Mazeppa, whose romantic story has been made so famous by the verse of Byron. The hetmann had promised to join the Swedes with 30,000 Cossacks and abundant supplies. But when, after a difficult march, Charles reached the Ukraine, he found that the Russians had discovered and frustrated Mazeppa s design, and the hetmann brought him only a handful of followers. Xor was this his only disappointment. A reinforcement of 15,000 men under Levenhaupt was inter cepted and cut to pieces by the czar, and after wasting the summer in a desultory warfare, the Swedes found them selves overtaken by the severe winter of 1708-1709 in the midst of an enemy s country. Still Charles would not abandon the idea of reaching Moscow. Though his army was reduced by cold and privations to 23,000 men, he maintained himself till spring, and then besieged the fortress of Pultowa. The place held out until July, when the czar approached at the head of a large army. On the 7th Charles was wounded in reconnoitring the enemy. In the famous battle which took place next day he had to be carried in a litter amongst his staff. The battle ended in the complete defeat of the Swedes. Charles, leaving most of his officers prisoners in the hands of the enemy, fled with a few- attendants across the Bug into the Turkish territories, and was hospitably received by the Turks at Bender on the Dniester. Charles resided three years in Turkey, during all which time his expenses, and those of his numerous household, were paid by the Turkish Government, in accordance with a very liberal interpretation of the Eastern law of hospi tality. From the day of his arrival at Bender his constant aim was to involve Russia and Turkey in war. He succeeded in producing an outbreak of hostilities ; the Turks out manoeuvred and surrounded Peter and his army on the banks of the Pruth, and- the czar would have been either killed or taken had not his wife Catherine, by her energy and courage, obtained an armistice for him on favourable terms from the grand vizier. Removing his residence to Yranitza, where his followers formed a little camp around the strongly-built house in which he lived, Charles con tinued his intrigues to produce another war with Russia, and though once on the point of success, he eventually failed, and the counter-intrigues of the czar began to pro duce an effect at Constantinople. At this time Charles occupied a very humiliating position, short of money, afraid to leave Turkey for fear of falling into an enemy s hands, dreading at any moment to be betrayed by the Turks, and knowing that all his conquests had been useless, and that the Swedish provinces were being invaded by Danes, Saxons, Poles, and Russians. The Porte displayed a singu lar amount of patience in treating with him, but at length it became evident that so long as Charles felt himself safe among his Polish and Swedish guards at Vranitza he would not leave Turkey. A fetva of the Sheikh-ul-Islam declared that the rights of hospitality would not now be violated by his forcible removal, and Ismae l Pacha, the governor of the district, received orders to seize him dead or alive. Charles having persistently refused to come to terms, Ismae l, with several thousand janissaries and Tartars, sur prised the little camp and took his 300 guards prisoners ; he then attacked the house held by Charles and forty of his suite. The king defended himself desperately ; the house was set on fire over his head, and he was retiring, driven out by the flames, when his spurs became entangled, and he fell and was secured and disarmed by the janissaries. His eyebrows were singed and his clothes torn and stained with blood. For a while he was kept in honourable imprisonment, then he was allowed to reside with a few attendants at Demotica, where he still spoke of departing escorted by a Turkish army, and feigned illness in order to gain time for negotiations, which in the end led to nothing. The king of Prussia was desirous of forming a league with him against the czar, and would have secured for him an honourable return to his states, the one con dition being that Stanislas should abdicate and Augustus II. be recognized as king of Poland. Stanislas was quite willing to abandon his doubtful claim to the throne, but Charles with characteristic obstinacy refused to listen to the proposal. " If," he said, " my friend Stanislas will not be king, I can find some one else to take his place." At length he saw that there was no chance of the Porte granting his demands, and sending his respectful adieux to Constantinople, he set out suddenly with only two attendants, and travelling unceasingly, riding by clay and sleeping in a carriage or cart at night, he passed through the Austrian territories, Bavaria, Westphalia, and Mecklen burg, and thus avoiding the districts held by his enemies, reached his own town of Stralsund, in- Swedish Pomerania, late at night, on November 21-, 1714, after a journey of sixteen days. He announced himself as a Swedish officer charged with important despatches from Bender. The governor received him at once in his bedroom, and asking for news of the king, recognized Charles by the sound of his voice when he replied, and the tidings of his arrival soon spread through the city, which was illuminated for the rest of the night. The return of Charles only drew more closely the alliance between the powers which had been plotting in his absence the dismemberment of Sweden. Stralsund was besieged by a combined army of Saxons, Danes, Prussians, and Russians. Charles made a protracted defence, but on December 23, 1715, the place was forced to capitulate, the king embarking immediately before the surrender, and taking up his residence at Lund in Scania. Arrived in Sweden, he took measures to protect the coasts of the kingdom against a descent of his enemies, and with a small army invaded Norway in March 1716 ; he overran a large part of the country, but was forced to retire for want of supplies. About this time the Baron von Gortz, a German officer, who had during his stay in Turkey become his principal adviser, proposed to him a complete change of policy, and Charles immediately accepted the scheme which Gortz had elaborated, and of which he had already executed some of the preliminaries. He proposed that Charles should make peace with the czar, cede to him the Baltic provinces of Sweden, and gain his alliance. The allies were to replace Stanislas on the throne of Poland and restore the duke of Holstein to his states which had been seized by Denmark. Charles was to invade and conquer Norway, and then land a small army in Scotland, and with the help of the Jacobites, restore the house of Stuart in England, Cardinal Alberoni, then all-powerful in Spain, promising to assist in the accomplishment of this part of the project. The other allies had lately been showing a marked jealousy of the growing power of the czar, and it was no difficult matter

for Gortz to detach him from the alliance and negotiate a