[1704 A.D.]
The time was now approaching when the decision of the disputes in Poland enabled Charles to turn back upon Ingria, where Peter was making so successful a stand. On the 14th of February, 1704, the primate of Warsaw threw off his allegiance to Augustus, who was in due form deposed by the diet. The nomination of the new king was placed in the hands of Charles, who proposed Stanislaus Leszczynski, a young nobleman distinguished for his accomplishments, who was accordingly declared king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania. But Lithuania had not as yet sent in her adherence to either side; and Peter, still taking a deep interest in the fortunes of Augustus, whose Saxon troops were every day suffering fresh discomfitures from the Swedish army, sent that monarch a reinforcement of twelve thousand men to support his claims in the undecided province. The military force of Russia had now become a formidable body, highly disciplined, and fully equipped; and Peter, without loss of time, in the spring of 1704, disposed the remainder of his army into two divisions, one of which he sent under the command of Field-Marshal Sheremetrev, to besiege Dorpat, while he took in person the conduct of the other against Narva, where he had formerly endured a signal defeat.
Dorpat, which is better known by this siege than by the university which Gustavus Adolphus had previously established there, was forced to capitulate by a ruse de guerre. It was necessary in the first instance to become master of Lake Peipus, for which purpose a Russian flotilla was placed at the entrance of the Embach. Upon the advance of a Swedish squadron a naval battle ensued, which ended in the capture or destruction of the whole of the enemy’s fleet. Peter now sat down before Dorpat, but, finding that the commandant held out for six weeks, he adopted an ingenious device to procure entrance into the town. He disguised two regiments of infantry and one of cavalry in the uniforms of Swedish soldiers, giving them Swedish standards and flags. These pretended Swedes attacked the trenches, and the Russians feigned a fight. The garrison of the town, deceived by appearances, made a sortie, when the false attackers and the attacked reunited, fell upon the troops, and entered the town. A great slaughter ensued, and, to save the remainder of the garrison, the commandant surrendered.
At Narva Peter was equally successful. The siege was conducted under his own personal command. Sword in hand, he attacked three bastions that offered the strongest points of defence, carried them all, and burst into the town. The barbarities that ensued were of a nature to revolt even the czar himself. Pillage, slaughter, and lustful excesses were committed by the infuriated men; and Peter, shocked at the cruelties he witnessed, threw himself amongst the barbarians who refused to obey his orders and slew several of them in the public streets. A number of the unfortunate citizens had taken refuge in the hôtel de ville; and the czar, appearing in the midst of them, cast his bloody sword on the table, declaring that it was stained not with the blood of the citizens but of his own soldiers, which he had shed to save their lives.
These victories were decisive of the position of Peter. He was now master of all Ingria, the government of which he conferred upon Menzikov, whom he created a prince of the empire and major-general in the army. The elevation of Menzikov, through the various grades of the service, from his humble situation as a pastrycook’s boy to the highest dignities in the state, was a practical reproof to the indolent and ignorant nobility, who were now taught to feel that merit was the only recommendation to the favour of the czar. The old system of promotion was closed. The claims of birth and the pride of station ceased to possess any influence at court. The great body of the people, impressed with the justice that dictated this important change in the dispensation of honour and rewards, began for the first time to be inspired with a spirit of emulation and activity; and exactly in proportion as Peter forfeited the attachment of the few, whose power was daily on the decline, he drew around him the mixed wonder and allegiance of the many, whose power he was daily enlarging. Thus were laid the foundations of a mighty empire in the hearts of a scattered population, as various in habits and in language as it had always been discordant in interests and disunited in action.
Having acquired this valuable possession, and secured himself in St. Petersburg against the Swedes, it was the profound policy of Peter to keep up the war between Charles and Augustus, with a view to weaken by diversion the strength of the former. He accordingly made a great offer of assistance to the dethroned king, and despatched General Repuin with six thousand horse and six thousand foot to the borders of Lithuania; while he advanced in person into Courland at the head of a strong force. Here he received a severe check, having fallen in with the Swedish general Lewenhauft, who defeated the Russians after an obstinate battle, in which the czar’s troops lost between five thousand and six thousand men, and the Swedes no more than two thousand. Peter, notwithstanding, penetrated into Courland, and laid siege to the capital, which surrendered by capitulation. On this occasion the Swedes degraded themselves by committing an extensive pillage in the palace and archives of the dukes of Courland, descending even into the mausoleums to rob the dead of their jewels. The Russians, however, before they would take charge of the vaults, made a Swedish colonel sign a certificate that their sacrilegious depredations were the acts of his own countrymen.
POLISH AFFAIRS
The greatest part of Courland, as well as the whole of Ingria, had now been conquered in detail by Peter, and, as Charles was still engrossed by his operations in Poland and Saxony, he returned to Moscow to pass the winter; but intelligence of the approach of the Swedish king at the head of a powerful force towards Grodno, where the combined armies of Russia and Saxony were encamped, recalled him from his repose. Peter immediately hastened to the field, and found all the avenues occupied by Swedish troops. A battle ensued near Frauenstadt, in which the flower of the confederated battalions, under the command of General Schullemberg, to the number of eighteen thousand men, six thousand of whom were Russians, suffered a complete defeat. With an insignificant exception, they were nearly all slain. Some authorities attribute this disaster to the treachery of a French regiment, which had the care of the Saxon artillery; but it is certain that the most sanguinary atrocities were committed on both sides, in a contest upon the issues of which two crowns appeared to be dependent.
Wife of a Merchant of Kalonga