Towns and villages had been burned, treasures carried off, and the old Prince had with difficulty escaped with 6000 men and a small quantity of gold and silver, of little use in a country where there was no one to be bribed with gold and no commodity to buy.
Karl would have found a few wagon-loads of grain more to his liking. However, the Cossacks were useful if only from their knowledge of this wild country, though Karl despised them as soldiers and waited impatiently for the arrival of Lewenhaupt. But when this general finally made his way to the Swedish encampment, he had a tale to tell as disastrous as that of Mazeppa, and far more mortifying to the pride of the King of Sweden.
At Liesna he had been met by the Czar, and, after a fierce battle of three days, severely defeated.
He had continued to effect a magnificent retreat, but he had lost 8000 men, seventeen cannon, and forty-four flags, together with the entire convoy he was bringing to Karl, consisting of 8000 wagons of food, and the silver raised in Lithuania by way of tribute.
He had the satisfaction of knowing that Peter had lost 10,000 men, and that he had held him at bay for three days, but this could not balance the fact that he arrived at Karl’s encampment with his army depleted and without either provisions, ammunition, or treasure.
Karl received this reverse with his usual cold gravity; he neither blamed Lewenhaupt nor took anyone into his confidence.
His situation, so lately that of an all-powerful conqueror, was now indeed dangerous, if not desperate.
He was cut off from Poland, and an attempt on the part of Stanislaus to reach him failed utterly.
No news came through from Sweden, and it seemed as if this army, lately all-powerful, was isolated from the rest of the world; they could neither communicate with, nor receive help nor advice from, any part of the globe.
But the worst of their distresses was the weather; this winter of 1709, long to be remembered, even in Western Europe, as one of the most terrible on record, was almost insupportable in these arctic regions.