The janissaries and spahis attack in disorder, and are incapable of action under command, or of a rally; their cavalry, which should be excellent, considering the good breed and agility of their horses, is unable to sustain the shock of German cavalry; their infantry were not yet able to use the fixed bayonet; besides this, the Turks have had no great general since Couprougli, who conquered Candia. A slave brought up in the idleness and the silence of the seraglio, made a vizir through favouritism, and a general against his own inclinations, headed a raw army, without experience and without discipline, against Russian troops, with twelve years’ experience in war, and proud of having conquered the Swedes.
The Czar, according to all appearances, must have vanquished Baltagi, but he made the same mistake with regard to the Turks as the King of Sweden was guilty of in his own case; that is, he had too poor an opinion of his enemy. Upon the news of the Turkish preparations he left Moscow; and having given orders to change the siege of Riga into a blockade, he drew up his army of 24,000 men on the Polish frontier. With this army he marched to Moldavia and Wallachia, formerly the country of the Daci, but now inhabited by Greek Christians, tributary to the Sultan.
Moldavia was then governed by Prince Cantemir, a Greek by birth, who had the talents of the ancient Greeks together with a knowledge of letters and of arms. He was reputedly descended from the famous Timur, famous under the name of Tamberlain: this genealogy seemed more distinguished than a Greek one. They proved it from the name of the conqueror; Timur, they said, is like Temir: the title Kan, which Timur had before his conquest of Asia, appears again in the name Cantemir: thus Prince Cantemir is a descendant of Tamberlain; that is the sort of basis on which most genealogies are built.
To whatever house Cantemir belonged, he owed all to the Ottoman Porte. Scarcely had he been invested with his principality than he betrayed the Emperor his benefactor for the Czar, from whom he had greater expectations. He believed that the conqueror of Charles XII would easily triumph over an obscure vizir, with no military experience, who had appointed as his lieutenant the chief customs officer of Turkey; he reckoned on all Greece joining his faction, and the Greek priests encouraged him in his treachery. The Czar made a secret treaty with him, and having received him into his army, marched up country, and arrived in June 1711 on the northern side of the river Hierasus, now Pruth, near Jazy, the capital of Moldavia.
As soon as the Grand Vizir heard that Peter had arrived, he left his camp at once, and following the course of the Danube, was going to cross the river on a bridge of boats near Saccia, at the same spot where Darius had built the bridge that bore his name. The Turkish army marched so rapidly that they soon came in sight of the Russians, with the river Pruth between them.
The Czar, sure of the Prince of Moldavia, never expected that the subjects might fail him; but the Moldavians often oppose their interests to those of their masters. They liked the Turkish rule, which is never fatal except to the grandees, and pretends a leniency to its tributaries; they were afraid of the Christians, especially the Russians, who had always used them ill.
Those who had undertaken to furnish the Russians with provisions made with the Grand Vizir the same bargain they had made with the Czar, and brought all their provisions to the Ottoman army. The Wallachians, neighbours of the Moldavians, showed the same care for the Turks, for to such a degree the remembrance of former cruelties had alienated their minds from the Russians.
The Czar, thus frustrated of his hopes, which he had perhaps indulged too readily, found his army suddenly destitute of food and without forage.
In the meantime the Turks crossed the river, cut off the Russians, and formed an entrenched camp in front of them.
It is strange that the Czar did not dispute the passage of the river, or at least repair this fault by engaging the Turks at once, instead of giving them time to tire out his army with fatigue and famine. But that Prince seems, in this campaign, to have acted in every way for his own ruin; he was without provisions, with the river Pruth behind him, and about 4,000 Tartars continually harassing him to right and left. In these extremities he said publicly, “I am at least in as bad a case as my brother Charles at Pultawa.”