Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden

by Voltaire

Happily they had still a miserable calash, which they had brought to that spot at great risk; they embarked it in a little boat, and the King and General Mazeppa in another. The latter had saved several coffers full of money, but as the current was very rapid and the wind began to blow the Cossack threw more than three parts of his treasure into the river to lighten the boat. Mullen, the King’s chancellor, and Count Poniatowski, who was now more than ever indispensable to the King, for his remarkable presence of mind in difficulties, crossed over in other boats with some of the officers. Three hundred horsemen and a large number of Poles and Cossacks, relying on the strength of their horses, ventured to cross by swimming. Their troop, keeping close together, resisted the current and broke the waves, but all who tried to cross separately a little lower down were carried away and sank. Of the foot that tried to cross not one got to the other side.

While the routed army was in this difficult position Prince Menzikoff came up with 10,000 horse, each with a foot soldier behind him. The bodies of the Swedes who had died on the way of wounds, fatigue and hunger were an index to the Prince of the route that the army had taken. The Prince sent a herald to the Swedish General to offer capitulation. Immediately four generals were sent by Levenhaupt to receive the conqueror’s order. Before that day 16,000 of King Charles’s soldiers would have attacked the whole force of the Russian empire and have perished to a man, rather than have surrendered; but after a battle lost and a flight of two days, and after having lost their Prince who had been forced to flee himself, the strength of every soldier being spent and their courage no longer supported by hope, the love of life overcame courage. The whole army was made prisoners of war. Some of the soldiers, in despair at falling into Russian hands, threw themselves into the Borysthenes, and the rest were made slaves. They defiled in Prince Menzikoff’s presence and laid their arms at his feet, as 30,000 Russians had done nine years before at the King of Sweden’s at Narva.

But while the King then sent back all the Russian prisoners he was not afraid of, the Czar kept all the Swedes that were taken at Pultawa. These poor wretches were dispersed throughout the Czar’s dominions, and particularly in Siberia, a vast province of greater Tartary which stretches eastward to the frontiers of the Chinese empire. In this barbarous country, where the use of bread was unknown, the Swedes, ingenious through necessity, exercised the trades and arts they had formerly been brought up to. All the distinctions which fortune makes between men were then banished, the officer who had no handicraft was forced to cut and carry wood for the soldier, who had now turned tailor, draper, joiner, mason, or smith, and got a livelihood by his labour. Some officers became painters and some architects, some taught languages and mathematics; they even went so far as to erect public schools, which gradually became so useful and famous that they sent children there from Moscow. Count Piper, the King’s first minister, was long imprisoned at Petersburg. The Czar, like the rest of Europe, believed that this minister had sold his master to the Duke of Marlborough, and so brought the arms of Sweden, which might have pacified Europe, on Russia, and he made his captivity more severe on this supposition. Piper died some years after at Moscow, having received little assistance from his family, which lived in great opulence at Stockholm, and uselessly lamented by his King, who would never humble himself by offering a ransom, which he feared the Czar would not accept, for there was never any challenge of exchange between Charles and the Czar. The Emperor of Russia, elated by a joy which he took no pains to conceal, received on the battle-field the prisoners whom they brought to him in troops, and asked every moment, “Where, then, is Charles my brother?”

He paid the Swedish Generals the compliment of inviting them to his table; among other questions he asked Renschild: What were the numbers of the army of the King his master before the battle? Renschild answered that only the King had the list of them and never gave information to any one, but that he thought the whole number might be 35,000 men, of whom 18,000 were Swedes and the rest Cossacks. The Czar seemed surprised, and asked how they dare invade so distant a country and lay siege to Pultawa with so small a force. “We were not always consulted,” answered the Swedish General, “but like faithful servants we obeyed our master’s orders without ever contradicting him.” On this answer the Czar turned to certain courtiers, who had been suspected of conspiring against him, “Ah!” he said, “see how a sovereign should be obeyed.”

Then, taking a glass of wine, “To the health of my masters in the art of war,” he said. Renschild asked who they were whom he honoured with so high a title? “You, gentlemen, the Swedish Generals,” answered the Czar. “Your Majesty is very ungrateful to handle your masters so severely,” replied Renschild. When dinner was over the Czar ordered their swords to be restored to all the officers, and treated them as a Prince who had a mind to give his subjects lessons in generosity and good breeding. But this same Prince, who treated the Swedish Generals so well, had all the Cossacks he caught broken on the wheel.

Thus the Swedish army, which left Saxony in such triumph, was now no more: one half having perished from want, and the other half being enslaved or massacred. Charles XII had lost in one day the fruit of nine years’ labours and almost a hundred battles.

He fled in a wretched calash, with General Hoorn, dangerously wounded; the rest of his troops followed, some on horseback, some in wagons, across a desert where there were neither huts, tents, men, animals nor roads; everything, even water, was lacking.

That was at the beginning of July. The country is in the forty-seventh degree of latitude; the sun’s heat was made less endurable by the dry sand of the desert; horses fell by the way, and men were near dying of thirst. Towards night they found a spring of muddy water; they filled bottles with the water, which saved the lives of the King’s little troop. After five days’ march he found himself on the banks of the river Hippais, now called the Bogh by the barbarians, who have disfigured even the names of the countries to which Greek colonies had brought prosperity. This river joins the Borysthenes some miles lower, and with it falls into the Black Sea. Beyond the Bogh, towards the south, is the little town of Oczakou, frontier-town of the Turkish empire. The inhabitants, seeing approach a troop of men-at-arms whose dress and language were strange to them, refused to carry them over to Oczakou without an order from the Governor of the town, Mahomet-Bacha. The King sent this Governor an express message, asking for a passage. But the Turk, not knowing how to act in a country where a false step often costs a man his life, dare not act on his own responsibility without the permission of the Pasha of the province, who lived at Bender, in Bessarabia, thirty leagues from Oczakou. While they were awaiting this permission the Russians had crossed the Borysthenes, and approached to seize the King himself.

At last the Pasha sent word to the King saying that he would send a small boat for him and for two or three of his suite. Then the Swedes seized by force what they could not obtain by gentle means: some went to the other bank in a little skiff, and seizing some boats brought them to their bank. This was the means of their rescue, for the owners of the Turkish boats, fearing to lose the chance of some gain, came in crowds to offer their services; just at this moment the favourable reply of the Governor of Bender arrived. But the Russians came up, and the King had the misfortune of seeing 500 of his followers who had not been able to get over in time seized by the enemy, whose insulting boasts he heard. The Pasha of Oczakou asked his pardon, by an interpreter, for these delays, which had caused the capture of the 500 men, and besought him not to mention it to the Grand-Seignior. Charles promised, after scolding him as if he were one of his own subjects.

The Commander of Bender sent in haste an aga to wait on the King, and offer him a magnificent tent, provisions, wagons, all conveniences, officers and attendants, necessary to bring him with splendour to Bender. For it is customary with the Turks not only to defray the expenses of ambassadors to their place of residence but plentifully to supply, during the time of their sojourn, the needs of the Princes who take refuge among them.