Mazepan, Hordicuko and many of their Cossacks swam across the river led by the Zaporozhians, who knew the river’s currents. Karl was ferried across on the night of June 30 along with the other wounded. Also crossing were the Drabants (the 80 left), 700 other cavalry and 200 of the Södermanland Foot. The rest of the army and 5,000 Cossacks were to march to the Crimea for a rendezvous with Karl in a month. But at 8:00 on the morning of July 1 Menshikov with 6,000 Russians and 2,000 Cossacks appeared on the heights above the river trapping the army below. Many of the Cossacks bolted and escaped. Lewenhaupt and Creutz made no attempt to fight. They surrendered the last of the Swedish army, 1,161 officers and 13,138 men. It was indeed an ignoble end to an army that had fought for nine years, seen great victories and marched over so much territory.
After being paraded through Moscow in Peter’s victory procession, reminiscent of a Roman triumph, the Swedish officers were distributed to remote corners of the empire. The men were pressed into the Russian Army, or into labor battalions to build fortifications, or work in the mines. Many died, some escaped and some made it back to Sweden thirteen years later when the Peace of 1721 was signed between Sweden and Russia. But by then the troops of Karl’s great military machine were old men. Sweden’s magnificent field army and its exceptional officer corps had been destroyed.
26. The End of Empire
Karl and his band left Perevolotjna pushing out into the hostile Eurasian Steppes. It was hot, dry and inhospitable. There was grass, but water was scarce. The soldiers lived on berries, roots and horse flesh. Finally, they arrived at the Buh River, near the Black Sea, and the Turkish town of Oczakow. Getting across, however, proved problematic as the local chief haggled over the price of the boats to ferry the little army across the river. Karl finally lost his temper and confiscated the craft, but the delay allowed his Russian pursuers to catch up and 800 more men were cut off and captured. Only 500 survivors made it to the sultan’s major fortress of Bender on the Dneister in Moldavia. The country was lush with beautiful green fields, fruit orchards, and an abundance of food. The little troop could finally rest in safety. The sultan, Achmed III, had granted the Swedes and Cossacks asylum in accordance with Muslim law.
It was here that Karl learned of his favorite sister’s death, Hedwig Sophia, duchess of Holstein. Karl, who was stoic about everything, victory, defeat, hunger and want, even joking about his excruciating foot wound as a little fever in the foot, was now devastated. He was inconsolable for days and would see no one so he could hide his outbursts of tears. He said later this was the one great sorrow of his life.
At Bender Karl built a stone mansion, thick and sturdy, to serve as a fort if needed. He was given an honor guard of Janissaries and maintained a chancellery with secretaries. It was a small government in exile. He had brought money with him, but was also given an allowance by the porte (sultan). A colony of Swedes, Poles and Germans collected around Bender as the sultan freed, in Karl’s honor, a substantial number of the slaves that had been captured during Peter’s devastation of the Baltics and sold at Constantinople. Local Muslims, officials of rank and others flocked to Bender to meet and observe the king from the north. They were favorably impressed with his habits of sobriety, celibacy and devotion to prayers.
For advisors Karl had only Axel Sparre (the last of his generals), Stanislaus Poniatowski, the Polish diplomat who Karl used as an effective ambassador at the sultan’s court, and Mazepan who died in 1710. That same summer the Holstein minister, Baron Ernest Fredrick de Fabrice, joined him and served as contact with the courts of Europe.
Karl probably intended to stay in Ottoman territory only until his wound healed, but gradually he became more and more involved in government affairs of the Turkish Empire and began to promote a plan to attack Tsar Peter in a great two front war, the Ottomans attacking from the south and the Swedes and Poles from the north. This had been Peter’s great fear when he was being invaded by Karl earlier, but with the Swedish threat substantially reduced, he became careless about avoiding war with his southern neighbor.
Poniatowski was instrumental in removing the Ottoman grand vizier and getting Mehemet Baltaji appointed with the backing of the Crimean Tartar khan. The sultan, influenced by Baltaji, issued an ultimatum to the tsar demanding the surrender of Azov, the evacuation of Poland and the restitution of all provinces taken from Sweden. Peter replied in the negative and then some, where upon the porte declared war, November 10, 1710.
In 1711 Tartar hordes savaged the Ukraine and Southern Russia, burning, looting and taking captives as far north as Kharkov. Meanwhile, the grand vizier set out with an army of 100,000 men declaring he would cut a swath through Peter’s empire so that the Swedish king could go home whichever way he wanted.
Peter, no less confident, headed south with his own army, pulling troops away from the north and the campaigns against the Poles and Swedes. He was promised help from Constantine Brancovanu, hospondar (governor) of Wallachia, and Demetrius Cantemir, hospondar of Moldavia, two Romanian princes chafing under the thumb of the sultan. Brancovanu offered provisions and 30,000 troops while Cantemir signed an alliance with the tsar.
Peter, on the Pruth with 60,000 troops under Scheremetyev, celebrated his coming victory and new alliance with Cantemir. He planned to march across the Danube and the Bulkans to the gates of Constantinople. The hospondar of Wallachia, however, was getting a little anxious and offered to mediate a settlement between the tsar and the sultan. Peter would not even listen to a proposal and sent a division of his army to take Braila, one of Brancovanu’s fortresses. The hospondar of Wallachia was incensed at these high handed tactics, withdrew his support, and went over to the grand vizier with the promised men and supplies.
Peter quickly found himself in trouble. He was on the Pruth between Husi and Stânderci with his 60,000 men and no provisions. Want and then famine set in followed by pestilence. The grand vizier was maneuvering toward the Pruth with over 200,000 Turks, Tartars and Wallachians following a campaign plan drawn up by Karl XII. Baltaji closed in on the Russians until he had them completely isolated and pinned against the Pruth. It looked like Karl was about to even the score with his old nemesis. Peter’s army would be crushed and the tsar imprisoned or, at the very least, he would have to buy his way out with terms very favorable to Sweden. Poniatowski, with the grand vizier, sent word to Karl who left Bender immediately for Husi to insure Swedish interests were in the forefront of any negotiations. He knew Peter would promise anything to extract himself from this trap.
But Baltaji had a healthy respect for the new Russian soldier and was leery of Austrian and Venetian hostilities reopening. Karl arrived at the grand vizier’s headquarters on July 12 to find a treaty had already been signed. The Treaty of Pruth (signed July 11, 1711) allowed the entire Russian army to leave Turkey intact. In return Peter would give up Azov to the Ottomans and dismantle Tagarod (the Russian naval base nearby). Russian troops would be withdrawn from Poland and allow Karl to return to Sweden unmolested.
Karl, normally completely unflappable, was furious. As the Russian troops streamed from the camp toward the Ukraine, Karl raged at Baltaji for squandering such an opportunity. Shafirov, Peter’s chief negotiator, was left as a hostage to insure compliance on the Russian’s part, but Karl knew the tsar would think nothing of sacrificing a diplomat for the sake of the empire. From that moment on the Swedish king and Baltaji were enemies. Karl lost his Janissary honor guard, allowance from the Ottomans, and he received an invitation from Baltaji to leave the sultan’s domain. Karl refused to move, answering that no chancellor was going to tell him when he had to leave.
Karl proved to be right about Peter’s intentions on carrying out the terms of the treaty. Baltaji was replaced by a Janissary pasha and a second war was declared against Russia. But English and Dutch diplomats intervened to prevent a disruption in sea trade. The second war died stillborn. Now the sultan sent a message to Karl that it was time to leave, but again he refused.
In May
1712 Magnus Stenbock landed in Pomerania with an army scraped together by Sweden from a depleted country. Karl seized the opportunity and organized the Swedes and Poles from the refugee colony around Bender into an army. He sent them into Poland under Johann Grudzinski to join Stenbock in support of Stanislaus.
Grudzinski’s small band, once in Poland, attracted adherents and his army grew to a force of 15,000. It appeared the northern campaign against Russia might finally be under way. The Janissary pasha was overthrown and a new grand vizier installed. A third war on Russia was declared as Peter had still not made good on any of his treaty agreements with the sultan.
But Grudzinski could not make contact with Stanislaus and Stenbock did not get to him quickly enough. Grudzinski’s army was surrounded at Posen by Polish, Saxon, and Russian forces and destroyed. Turkey abandoned the latest war on Russia and Karl was declared persona non grata by the porte, who finally got serious about deporting the king.
The refugee settlement around the king’s mansion and outbuildings had grown into a little town complete with shops and huts. Around this community, called New Bender, Karl had trenches and earthen walls constructed. On January 31, 1713, the porte ordered the pasha in charge of the town to evict Karl and sent a few thousand Janissaries, Tartars and Turkish soldiers to assist. As this army advanced toward New Bender, the refugees, who Karl had armed, dropped their weapons and refused to fight. Karl retreated to his mansion with about 40 loyal men. Here they found Turks and Janissaries already busy looting the place. The Swedes expelled the intruders then held the sultan’s forces at bay for several hours. Finally, the king was captured when he stumbled while running from one building to another. The Turks were burning Karl’s compound one building after another. The Swedes lost some 15 killed, while 40 Turks died.
This fracas was called the Kalibalik and caused a sensation in the courts of Europe although opinions were divided. Some credited the king with a heroic stand, while others criticized him for attacking his benevolent hosts. In any case Karl was now separated from all but a few of his small band and taken to Timurtasch near Adrianople, west of Constantinople.
After a short stay, Karl was moved to Demotika just south of Adrianople and here he stayed for almost a year. Finally, with Sweden stripped of nearly all her possessions and facing civil war, Karl determined to quit Turkey. He set out from Demotika on September 20, 1714, on a famous journey across Europe. He was going home to a drained Sweden sorely in need of a strong unifying leader.
Disguised as a Captain Peter Frisk, Karl and two companions left the Ottoman Empire, crossing into Wallachia on horseback. Twelve hundred members of his retinue followed under Sparre, but used a different route at a slower pace. The royal party rode through the Rotenturn Pass into Transylvania on October 30. At Mülhalbach, Transylvania, the horses were traded for a stagecoach which took them through Hungary to Vienna, reached on November 5. In the Hapsburg capital horses were again readily available and the trio left there mounted. Riding post-horses, they crossed Austria, Bavaria, the Holy Roman Empire and Mecklenburg, passing through Pomerania, arriving at Stralsund the night of November 11–12.
The daring ride electrified Europe. In Sweden the country went wild; the king was back, leadership and order would be restored. The hard pressed country cheered. Their legendary king had returned—well almost. Karl was in Stralsund, one of only two cities that remained in Swedish hands in Germany. Much had been lost since the king’s defeat at Poltava.
The destruction of the Swedish field army at Perevolotjna on July 1, 1709, signaled to Sweden’s old enemies that the carcass of the Swedish Empire was ready for plucking and the vultures were not slow in descending. In less than a month after Poltava, Augustus was back in Poland at the head of 11,000 Saxons. By October he had signed an agreement with Tsar Peter at Thorn. In November Danish troops landed in Skåne and Peter reinvaded Kurland and Liviona, laying siege to Riga. The carcass was about to be dismembered, but there was a little fight left in the old bird.
The 16,000 Danish troops that crossed the Sound quickly invested Malmö and Lund, then proceeded to the fortress of Kristianstadt by January 1710. Magnus Stenbock, governor-general of the province, had only three regiments of cavalry and could only fall back defending Karlskrona and the navy docked there. But in February, Stenback, who was a popular governor, was able to organize a 13,000 man army, though it was made up of untrained raw recruits. With these troops, derided by the Danes as “goat boys,” Stenbock marched south. The Danes fell back before him until they reached Helsingborg where they finally made a stand. Stenbock’s army of goat boys routed the Danes, killing 3,000 and capturing another 3,000 along with cannon and baggage. The Danish survivors took refuge inside the walls of Helsingborg, and then evacuated the province. This totally unexpected reversal stunned the rest of Europe. Sweden was not dead yet. And the old Danish province of Skåne had stood by Sweden and not rebelled as in previous wars.
But elsewhere the news was not as good. In the Baltics, being scourged by plague, resistance was minimal. Peter took Riga that summer though the long siege cost him 40,000 men. He captured Pernau in August. In September he conquered Ösel and the oldest of Swedish Baltic possessions, Reval. Kurland, Livonia and Estonia were his. He invaded Finland and took Kexholm and Viborg. With his fleet of galleys operating out of St. Petersburg he could harass and attack the Finnish coast at will. The Russian tsar was now the power in the eastern Baltic.
Sweden’s only remaining field army was the one Karl had left in Poland to aid Stanislaus. It was now required to pull back into Pomerania to survive along with the Polish king. The Northern Maritime Powers looked askance at this new threat close to their territories. They had finally gained a decided advantage in the Spanish Succession War at the bloody Battle of Malplaquet (September 11, 1709) and had no desire for the Great Northern War to spill over into Germany and alter the favorable situation. England, The Netherlands and Denmark attempted to neutralize this army through a treaty guaranteeing Swedish interests in Northern Germany. The Råd concurred, but Karl vetoed the plan, beginning a drift of Swedish foreign policy away from the Maritime Nations in favor of France.
All Europe had followed the Russo-Turkish war with interest, especially when it became apparent Peter and his army were surrounded. The surprising terms of the Treaty of Pruth (July 1711) seemed to point out the failure of Karl’s grand plan against Russia and Sweden’s weak condition. Denmark invaded and occupied the Duchy of Bremen in 1712 while Russian, Polish and Saxon forces dismembered Krassaw’s Pomeranian army. Swedish German possessions were now quite defenseless.
Karl ordered a new army be raised and the fleet refitted. He demanded a new invasion of Poland to coincide with a new campaign from the south. His people responded. The royal and noble families donated money and goods. Members of the Råd contributed and government officials took cuts in pay. Burghers and merchants sacrificed. Avid Horn, the chancellor, was able to raise an army and rebuild the navy. At the end of August 1712 Admiral General Wachtmeister left Karlskrona with the fleet and 9,000 soldiers under the command of Magnus Stenbock. They landed on Rügen Island in September, but lost a good share of their supplies, picked off by Danish raiders. Stenbock moved into Pomerania at the same time Grudzinski moved into Poland and the Ottomans had declared war on Russia for the third time.
But Grudzinski was crushed at Posen before Stenbock could help him and King Stanislaus moved into Pomerania, joining Stenbock, boosting the army to 17,000. This was not even enough of an army to attack the Russo-Polish force besieging Stralsund let alone invade Poland. Stenbock took his army into Mecklenburg where he could at least feed it. The move relieved the pressure on Stralsund and Wismar.
The king of Denmark called for a united effort to destroy this latest Swedish threat. Frederick IV took command of a large Danish army and closed in from the west while a Russian-Saxon army advanced from the east. Stenbock mounted his infantry and pushed hard to the west, catching Frederick at Gadebusch. The Danes were
encamped in a strong position and outnumbered the Swedes badly. Still, with the Russian-Saxon army advancing from the east, Stenbock didn’t have a lot of choice and attacked Frederick immediately.
On paper Stenbock had no chance. He had 6,000 Swedish cavalry against 7,000 Danes and 3,000 Saxons. His infantry was 7,800 compared to 9,300 Danes. He did have one advantage, however, and that was Karl Cronstedt, his artillery engineer. Cronstedt had adopted a screw device invented by Christopher Polhem (a Swedish scientist and engineer) that allowed for accurate adjustment of the height of a shot. Thus the Swedish guns were much more accurate than the Danish. A second improvement was Cronstedt’s own invention. This was a strong but easily uncoupled mechanism attaching harness to the gun carriage allowing the cannon to be moved with the muzzle pointed to the front. In this way the field pieces could advance right with the infantry, be quickly unlimbered, and put into action, increasing their effectiveness dramatically.
It was a closely fought battle, but in the end the Danes were routed losing 3,000 casualties, 4,000 prisoners, 13 guns and all their baggage. It won for Stenbock the rank of field marshal. The victory also stimulated an offer of assistance.
Russian successes in the Baltic had alarmed Augustus and Frederick I of Prussia. Frederick sent a proposal to Karl at Bender meant to curb Peter’s expansion. He offered to put at Karl’s disposal 6,000 Prussian troops to be combined with his own and Augustus’s as an army to liberate Livonia and Estonia. In return he asked for Elbing, the bishopric of Ermeland and Stanislaus’s resignation as king of Poland. A Prussian-Saxon-Swedish army commanded by Karl XII seemed a way of regaining lost territories and gaining allies against the Russian-Danish-Polish coalition, but Karl would not budge even though Stanislaus journeyed to Turkey to beg for release from a throne that had only brought him misery. Perhaps Karl had seen in the victory at Gadebusch proof of Sweden’s reemerging military might. If so, it was short lived.
Warrior Kings of Sweden Page 49
