Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden

by Voltaire

DURING these preparations the King gave his only surviving sister in marriage to Frederic, Prince of Hesse-Cassel. The Queen Dowager, his grandmother, aged fourscore years, did the honours of the fête on the 4th of April, 1715, and died shortly afterwards. The King could not attend the ceremony, as he was so busy finishing the fortifications of Stralsund, which was in danger from the Kings of Denmark and Prussia. But he made his brother-in-law generalissimo of all the forces of Sweden. This Prince had served the States-General in the French war, and was considered a good soldier, a qualification for his sister’s hand in the eyes of Charles XII.

Misfortunes now followed as fast as victories had once done. In June 1715 the English King’s German forces and those of Denmark invested the strong town of Wismar; the Danes, Saxons and Prussians, 36,000 of them, marched in a body to Stralsund to form a siege. Not far from Stralsund, five Swedish ships were sunk by the Danes and Prussians. The Czar held the Baltic with two large men-of-war, and 150 transports, which had 30,000 men on board. He threatened a descent on Sweden, appearing alternately on the coast of Elsingburg and Stockholm. All Sweden was in arms, expecting an invasion; his land forces were chasing the Swedes from the places they held in Finland towards the Gulf of Bothnia, but he attempted nothing further. At the mouth of the Oder, a river that divides Pomerania, and, passing Stetin, falls into the Baltic, there is a little island called Usedom. Its position makes it a place of considerable importance, for it commands the Oder both on the right and the left, and whoever holds it is master of the navigation of that river. The King of Prussia had dislodged the Swedes, and was holding the place as well as Stetin, saying that he did so purely for the sake of peace. But the Swedes had retaken Usedom in May 1715, and held two forts there, one called Suine, on a branch of the Oder of that name, the other called Penamonder, of greater importance, on another branch of the river. The forts were manned with only 250 Pomeranians, commanded by an old Swedish officer called Kuze-Slerp, a man who deserves to be remembered. On the 4th of April the King of Prussia sent 1,500 foot and 800 dragoons into the island. They arrived and landed on the side of Suine without opposition. The Swedish commander had left them this fort, as being the least important, and, not being able to divide his small force, he withdrew to the castle of Penamonder, resolving to await the worst.

So they were forced to make a formal siege. They shipped artillery at Stetin, and sent in a reinforcement of 1,000 Prussian foot and 400 horse. On the 18th, they opened the trenches in two places, and a brisk battery was played by cannon and mortars. During the siege a Swedish soldier, sent privately with a letter to Charles, found means to land on the island and slip into the place. He gave the letter to the commander. It was as follows: “Do not fire till the enemy come to the edge of the ditch; defend yourselves to the last drop of your blood.—Charles.”

Slerp read the note, resolved to obey, and die as he was bid in his master’s service. On the 22nd, at daybreak, the assault was made. The besieged did as they were told, and killed many, but the ditch was full, the breach large, and the besiegers too numerous. They entered at two different places at once.

The commander now thought that he had no further duty but to obey orders and sell his life dear, so he abandoned the breaches, entrenched his few troops, who all had honour and courage enough to go with him, and placed them so that they should not be surrounded.

The enemy hastened up, surprised that he did not ask for quarter; but he fought a whole hour, and when he had lost half his soldiers, was killed at last with his lieutenant and major. There were then left 100 men and one officer; these asked that their lives might be spared, and were taken prisoners. In the commander’s pocket they found his master’s letter, which was taken to the King of Prussia.

Just as Charles had lost Usedom, and the neighbouring islands which were quickly taken, while Wismar was on the point of surrender, with no fleet to lend aid, and Sweden in great danger, he himself was at Stralsund, besieged by 36,000 men. Stralsund, famous throughout Europe for the siege the King of Sweden sustained there, is one of the strongest places in Pomerania. It is built between the Baltic and the Lake of Franken, near the Straits of Gella. There is no land passage to it but across a narrow crossway defended by a citadel, and by retrenchments that were once thought inaccessible. There was in it a garrison of 9,000 men, and, more than all, the King of Sweden himself. The Kings of Denmark and Prussia besieged it with an army of 36,000 men, consisting of Saxons, Prussians and Danes. The honour of besieging Charles was too great an incitement to them to make any task difficult, so the trenches were opened on the night between the 19th and 20th of October, 1715.

The King of Sweden said at first that he wondered how any place well manned and fortified could be taken. True, he had taken many towns himself in the course of his victories, but none by regular attack. It was the fame of his exploits that gained them; besides, he never judged others by his own standard, and always underrated his enemies. The besiegers carried on their work with great alacrity, and they were assisted by a curious chance.

It is well known that the Baltic has no flux and reflux. The entrenchments of the town were thought impregnable, as there was an impassable marsh on the west and the sea on the east.

No one had remarked before that in a strong westerly wind the waves of the Baltic roll back so as to leave only three feet of water under the entrenchment. They had always thought it deep. A soldier, happening to fall from the top of the entrenchment, was surprised to find a bottom; but having made that discovery, he concluded that it might make his fortune. So he deserted, and going to the quarters of Count Wakerbath, General of the Saxon forces, he told him that the sea was fordable, and that it would be easy to carry the Swedes’ entrenchments. The King of Prussia was not slow to take the hint.