Charles XII. was born on the 27th June, 1682. He was the son of Charles XI., a harsh and despotic prince. From his earliest years, he glowed to imitate the heroic character of Alexander, and, in his eagerness to reign, caused himself to be declared king of Sweden at the age of fifteen. At his coronation, he boldly seized the crown from the hands of the archbishop of Upsal, and set it on his own head.
His youth seemed to invite the attacks of his neighbors, of Poland, Denmark and Russia; but Charles, unawed by the prospect of hostilities, and though scarcely eighteen, determined to assail his enemies, one after the other. He besieged Copenhagen, and, by his vigorous measures, so terrified the Danish monarch, that, in less than six weeks, he obliged him to sue for peace.
From humbled Denmark, he marched against the Russians; and though at the head of only eight thousand men, he attacked the enemy who were besieging Narva with one hundred thousand men. The conflict was dreadful; thirty thousand were slain, twenty thousand asked for quarter, and the rest were[Pg 173] taken or destroyed; while the Swedes had only twelve hundred killed, and eight hundred wounded. From Narva, the victorious monarch advanced into Poland, defeated the Saxons who opposed his march, and obliged the Polish king, in suing for peace, to renounce his crown and acknowledge Stanislaus for his successor.
It was a disgraceful condition of the treaty made with Augustus that he should give up Reinhold Patkul, a Polish nobleman, to the Swedish king. This patriot had nobly defended the liberties of his country against its enemies, and to escape the consequences, when Poland had fallen, went to Russia, and entered into the service of the Czar. Peter sent him as ambassador to Poland, and Augustus delivered him up to Charles. He was taken to Stockholm, tried as a rebel and traitor, and broke on the wheel. Such was the justice, such the mercy, of the chivalrous Charles XII.!
Fixing his head quarters near Leipsic, with a victorious army of fifty thousand veteran Swedes, he now attracted the attention of all Europe. He received ambassadors from the principal powers, and even the Duke of Marlborough paid him a visit to induce him to join the allies against Louis XIV. But Charles had other views, which were to dethrone his rival, Peter of Russia. Accordingly, after adjusting various matters, he proceeded to the north, with forty-three thousand men, in September, 1707.
In January, he defeated the Russians in Lithuania, and in June, 1708, met Peter on the banks of the Berezina. The Swedes crossed the river, and the[Pg 174] Russians fled. Charles pursued them as far as Smolensk; but in September he began to experience the real difficulties of a Russian campaign. The country was desolate, the roads wretched, the winter approaching, and the army had hardly provisions for a fortnight. Charles, therefore, abandoned his plan of marching upon Moscow, and turned to the south towards the Ukraine, where Mazeppa, hetman or chief of the Cossacks, had agreed to join him against Peter.
Charles advanced towards the river Desna, an affluent of the Dnieper, which it joins near Kiew; but he missed his way among the extensive marshes which cover a great part of the country, and in which almost all his artillery and wagons were lost. Meantime, the Russians had dispersed Mazeppa\'s Cossacks, and Mazeppa himself came to join Charles as a fugitive with a small body of followers. Lowenhaupt, also, who was coming from Poland with fifteen thousand men, was defeated by Peter in person.
Charles thus found himself in the wilds of the Ukraine, hemmed in by the Russians, without provisions, and the winter setting in with unusual severity. His army, thinned by cold, hunger, fatigue and the sword, was now reduced to twenty-four thousand men. In this condition, he passed the winter in the Ukraine, his army subsisting chiefly by the exertions of Mazeppa. In the spring, with eighteen thousand Swedes and as many Cossacks, he laid siege to the town of Pultowa, where the Russians had collected large stores. During the siege, he was severely wounded in the foot; and soon after, Peter himself[Pg 175] appeared to relieve Pultowa, at the head of seventy thousand men. Charles had now no choice but to risk a general battle, which was fought on the 8th of July, 1709, and ended in the total defeat of the Swedes.
At the close of the battle, Charles was placed on horseback, and, attended by about five hundred horse, who cut their way through more than ten Russian regiments, was conducted, for the space of a league, to the baggage of the Swedish army. In the flight, the king\'s horse was killed under him, and he was placed upon another. They selected a coach from the baggage, put Charles in it, and fled towards the Borysthenes with the utmost precipitation. He was silent for a time, but, at last, made some inquiries. Being informed of the fatal result of the battle, he said, cheerfully, "Come then, let us go to the Turks."
While he was making his escape, the Russians seized his artillery in the camp before Pultowa, his baggage and his military chest, in which they found six millions in specie, the spoils of Poland and Saxony. Nine thousand men, partly Swedes and partly Cossacks, were killed in the battle, and about six thousand were taken prisoners. There still remained about sixteen thousand men, including the Swedes, Poles and Cossacks, who fled towards the Borysthenes, under conduct of General Lowenhaupt.
He marched one way with his fugitive troops, and the king took another with some of his horse. The coach in which he rode broke down by the way, and they again set him on horseback. To complete his misfortune, he was separated from his troops and[Pg 176] wandered all night in the woods; here, his courage being no longer able to support his exhausted spirits, the pain of his wound became more intolerable from fatigue, and his horse falling under him through excessive weariness, he lay some hours, at the foot of a tree, in danger of being surprised every moment by the conquerors, who were searching for him on every side.
At last, on the 10th July, at night, Charles reached the banks of the Borysthenes. Lowenhaupt had just arrived with the shattered remains of his army. It was with a mixture of joy and sorrow that the Swedes beheld their king, whom they had supposed dead. The victorious enemy was now approaching. The Swedes had neither a bridge to pass the river, nor time to make one, nor powder to defend themselves, nor provisions to support an army which had eaten nothing for two days. But more than all this, Charles was reduced to a state of ............