Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden

by Voltaire

While he was thus providing Poland with a king, and the King of Denmark dare not harrass him, while the King of Prussia was courting his friendship and Augustus was withdrawing to his hereditary dominions, the Czar became daily more formidable. His assistance of Augustus in Poland had been feeble, but he had made powerful diversions in Ingria.

As for him, he not only began to be a great soldier himself, but also to teach his soldiers the art of war: discipline was established among his forces; he had good engineers, experienced artillery and many good officers; he had also learned the great art of supporting his armies. Some of his generals had learned both to fight well and, if necessary, to abstain from fighting; more than all, he had built up a fleet capable of making head against the Swedes in the Baltic.

Confident in all these advantages, due both to his genius and to the absence of the King of Sweden, he took Narva by assault after a regular siege and a blockade by land and sea. When the soldiers had taken the town they plundered it, and gave themselves to horrible barbarities: the Czar hastened from one place to another to stop the disorder and massacre. He rescued by force from the hands of the soldiers women whose throats they were going to cut after having outraged them; he was obliged to kill with his own hands some Russians who would not listen to his commands. In the town hall at Narva they still show the table where he laid his sword, as he said to the citizens who flocked after him, “This sword is not wet with the blood of the citizens I have slain, but with that of the Russians whom I have killed to save your lives.”

Had the Czar always shown such humanity he would have been the greatest of heroes. His ambition went beyond the destruction of towns. In the midst of his new conquests he was laying the foundations of a city not far from Narva. This was the city of Petersburg, which was henceforth his seat and the centre of his trade. It is between Finland and Ingria, in a marshy island, around which the Neva flows in several branches before it falls into the Gulf of Finland. He himself made the plan of the town, of the fortress, the port, the quays, which adorn it, and the fortifications defending its entry. This desert, uncultivated island, which is nothing but a mud heap during the short summer of that climate, and a pool of ice in winter, unapproachable by land except across wild forests and deep morasses, and till then the habitation of bears and wolves, was, in 1703, filled with more than 300,000 men whom the Czar had called together from the farthest limits of his dominions. The peasants of the kingdom of Astrakan and those who live on the frontiers of China were transported to Petersburg. Before he could lay the foundations of a town he was obliged to pierce forests, make roads, drain marshes and raise banks. Nature was subjugated in every direction. But the Czar was bent on peopling a country which did not seem meant for man’s habitation; he was not to be diverted from his resolve either by the floods, which ruined his works, or by the barrenness of the soil, or by the ignorance of the workmen, or by the mortality which swept away 200,000 men at the very beginning. The town was founded in spite of the obstacles which existed in nature herself, in the genius of the people, and an unfortunate war. Already in 1705 Petersburg was a considerable town, and its port was full of vessels. The Emperor attracted strangers in large numbers by the rewards which he gave them, giving some lands, others houses, and encouraging all the arts which might civilize life in that cruel climate. Above all, he made it inaccessible to the enemy. The Swedish generals, who frequently beat his troops in every other district, were not able to do the least harm to this increasing colony. It was at peace in the midst of the war which surrounded it.

The Czar, by thus creating new dominions for himself, still held out a helping hand to King Augustus, who was losing his. He persuaded him by the instrumentality of General Patkul, who had lately joined the Russian side, and was then the Czar’s ambassador in Saxony, to come to Grodno to confer with him once more on the unhappy state of affairs.

King Augustus came thither with some troops, attended by General Schullemburg, whose passage across the Oder had got him a reputation in the north, and in whom he placed his great hope. The Czar arrived followed by 100,000 men. The two monarchs formed new plans of war. As King Augustus was dethroned he was no longer afraid of exasperating the Poles by delivering their country to the Russian troops. It was decided that the Czar’s army should be divided into several bodies to oppose every action of the King of Sweden. During this interview King Augustus instituted the order of the White Eagle, a feeble resource to bring over to his side certain Polish lords who wanted real advantages rather than an empty honour, which becomes ridiculous when derived from a prince who is king only in name. The conference of the two Kings ended in a strange manner. The Czar departed suddenly, leaving his troops to his ally, in order to extinguish a rebellion with which he was threatened in Astrakan. He had scarcely started when King Augustus ordered the arrest of Patkul at Dresden.

All Europe was amazed that, in opposition to the law of nations, and apparently to his own interest, he should venture to imprison the ambassador of the only prince who afforded him protection. The secret history of the affair was this: Patkul, proscribed in Sweden for having maintained the privileges of his country, Livonia, had become general to Augustus: but his high spirit not according with the proud disposition of General Fleming, the King’s favourite, and more imperious than himself, he had passed into the Czar’s service, and was then his general and ambassador to Augustus. He was a man of great discernment, and had found out that the proposal of Fleming and the Chancellor of Saxony was to offer Charles peace on his own terms. He at once formed a plan to prevent this and to bring about some arrangement between the Czar and Sweden. The Chancellor got wind of his project, and obtained leave to seize him. King Augustus told the Czar that Patkul was a wretch and would betray them both. His only fault was that he served his master too well: but an ill-timed piece of service is often punished as a treason.

In the meantime, the 100,000 Russians, on one side, divided into several small bodies, burnt and ravaged the estates of Stanislas’ adherents: while Schullemburg, on the other, was advancing with fresh troops. But the fortune of the Swedes dispersed these two armies in less than two months. Charles XII and Stanislas attacked the separate corps of the Russians one after another, but so swiftly that one Russian general was beaten before he had heard of the defeat of his colleague. No obstacle could check the conqueror’s advance. If he found a river in the way he and his Swedes swam across it.

One party of the Swedes took the baggage of Augustus in which were 400,000 crowns of silver coin; Stanislas seized 800,000 ducats belonging to Prince Menzikoff, the Russian general, Charles, leading his cavalry, would often march thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, every soldier leading another mount to use when his own should be spent. The Russians, panic-stricken and reduced to a small band, fled in confusion beyond the Borysthenes.

While Charles was thus driving the Russians into the heart of Lithuania, Schullemburg at last repassed the Oder and came at the head of 20,000 men to offer battle to the great Marshal Renschild, who was considered Charles’s best general, and was called the Parmenio of the North. These two famous generals, who seemed to share the fate of their respective masters, met near Punits, at a place called Frauenstadt, a territory which had already proved fatal to the troops of Augustus. Renschild had only thirteen battalions and twenty-two squadrons, which made a total of about 10,000 men, and Schullemburg had twice that number.