Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  45

  THE KALABALIK

  Bitterly frustrated by his failure to prevent the peace made on the Pruth, Charles XII had worked doggedly to undo it. To some extent, the three subsequent short "wars" a year or two apart between Russia and the Ottoman Empire had been his work, although Peter's unwillingness to hand over Azov and to withdraw his troops from Poland had also been responsible. A promising opportunity had come with the third of these wars, declared by the Turks in October 1712. Then, a huge Ottoman army had assembled at Adrianople under the personal command of the Sultan. As part of a joint war plan, Ahmed III had agreed to send Charles XII north into Poland with a strong Turkish escort so that the King could rendezvous with a new Swedish expeditionary force under Stenbock's command. But when Stenbock landed in Germany, he moved west, not south, and he was eventually captured in the fortress of Tonning. Charles remained a king without an army, and the Sultan, reflecting on the uncertainties of invading Russia alone, had decided to make peace and return to his harem.

  Thus, by the winter of 1713, Charles XII had been in Turkey for three and a half years. Moslem hospitality notwithstanding, most Turkish officials had grown weary of him. He was indeed a "heavy weight on the Sublime Porte." The Sultan wanted to make a permanent peace with Russia, but Charles' constant intrigues had made this difficult. It was decided, one way or another, to send Charles home.

  Out of this decision developed a plot. Devlet Gerey, the Tatar Khan, had originally been an admirer of Charles, but his feelings had changed when the King refused to join the Turkish army marching to the Pruth. Now the Khan made contact with Augustus of Poland and worked out a plan whereby the King of Sweden would be offered a strong escort of Tatar cavalry ostensibly to cross Poland and return to Swedish territory. Once under way, the escort would be progressively weakened as parts of the force were detached under various pretexts. Across the Polish frontier, the group would be confronted by a strong force of Poles, and the diminished escort, too weak to resist, would surrender and hand over the Swedish King. Thus, both sides would profit: The Turks would get rid of Charles, and Augustus would have him.

  This time, however, fortune was with Charles. A body of his men, disguised as Tatars, intercepted the messengers and brought the correspondence between Augustus and the Khan to the King at Bender. Charles learned that both the Khan and the Seraskier of Bender were involved in the plot; as best he could determine, the Sultan was not. For years, Charles had been trying to get away from Turkey, but now he made up his mind not to go. He tried to contact Ahmed III to tell him of the plot, but he found that all communication between Bender and the south had been cut. None of the messages he sent, even by roundabout routes, arrived.

  In fact, the Sultan was anxious to see the last of Charles, but had worked out a different solution. On January 18, 1713, he gave orders to abduct the King, by force if necessary, but without harming him, and take him to Salonika, where he would be put on board a French ship which would carry him back to Sweden. Ahmed did not believe that force would be required. He did not know of the Khan's plot, and of course he did not know that Charles was aware of it. From this tangle of plots, partial knowledge and misunderstandings arose the extraordinary episode known by its Turkish name as the Kalabalik (tumult).

  The Swedish camp at Bender had greatly changed in three and a half years. Tents had been replaced by permanent barracks built in rows as in a military camp, with glass windows for the officers and leather-covered windows for the common soldiers. The King lived in a large, new, handsomely furnished brick house which, with a chancery building, officers' quarters and a stable, formed a semifortified square in the center of the compound. From the balconies of his upper windows, he had an excellent view of the whole Swedish encampment and the surrounding cluster of coffee houses and small shops in which merchants sold figs, brandy, bread and tobacco to the Swedes. The settlement, called New Bender, was a tiny Swedish island lost in a Turkish ocean. But it was not a hostile ocean. The Janissary regiment posted to guard the King watched over him with an admiring eye. Here was a hero of the king that Turkey desperately lacked. "If we had such a king to lead us, what could we not do?" they asked.

  Despite these friendly feelings, when the Sultan's orders arrived in January 1713, the air around the Swedish camp began to fill with tension. Charles' officers watched from the balconies as thousands of Tatar horsemen rode in to join the Janissaries. To confront this force, Charles had fewer than a thousand Swedes and no allies; seeing the massing of the Turkish forces, the Poles and Cossacks nominally under Charles' command had quietly drifted away and placed themselves under Turkish protection. Undeterred, the King began preparations to resist; his men began collecting provisions to last six weeks. To stiffen Swedish morale, Charles one day rode alone and unmolested through the waiting ranks of the Tatar army standing thickly "like organ pipes so close together on all sides."

  On January 29, Charles was warned that an attack would come the following day. He and his men spent the night trying to build a wall around the camp, but the frozen earth made digging impossible. Instead, they created a barricade of wooden carts, wagons, tables and benches, and shoveled piles of dung between the wagons. What happened the following day was one of the most bizarre martial episodes in European history. As the dramatic tale resounded through Europe, people shook their heads, but of course, at the time, none who heard the tale knew that Charles intended simply to make a token stand to foil the plot to carry him off and betray him in Poland. Unable to inform the Sultan of this plot, he hoped by his stand to force the Khan and the Seraskier to pull back, wait and ask for new instructions from their master, Ahmed III.

  The "tumult" began on Saturday, January 31, when Turkish artillery opened fire with a salvo of cannonballs at the Swedish makeshift fortress. Twenty-seven cannonballs hit the King's brick house, but the powder charges were light and the bombardment did little damage. Thousands of Turks and Tatars massed to attack. "The whole host of Tatars advanced toward our trench and made a halt within three or four steps of it, which was very frightful to see," wrote a Swedish participant. "At ten in the forenoon, there appeared several thousand Turkish horse, after that several thousand Janissaries on foot from Bender. These were drawn up in order as if they were to attack us presently."

  The attack was ready, but for some reason it never came. According to one account, the Turkish soldiers were reluctant to attack the Swedish King, whom they admired, and demanded to see a written order from the Sultan commanding them to do so. Another story is that fifty or sixty Janissaries carrying only white staves marched up to the Swedish camp and entreated Charles to place himself in their hands, swearing that not a hair of his head would be touched. Supposedly, Charles refused, warning, "If they do not go away, I will singe their beards," whereupon all the Janissaries threw down their weapons, declaring they would not attack. Finally, there is a story that, just before the assault, three rainbows, one on top of the other, appeared over Charles' house. The astonished Turks refused to attack, saying that Allah was protecting the Swedish King. The most likely reason is that the Seraskier and the Khan had simply staged the bombardment and the massing of troops to cow Charles into submission without violence. In any case, the Turkish army stood silent and still, the cannonade stopped and the ranks eventually broke up.

  On the morning of the following day, Sunday, February 1, the view from the Swedish camp was depressing: "Such a vast number of these infidels that when we were on top of the Royal House we could not see over them." Small red, blue and yellow flags fluttered along the waiting lines of Turks, and on a hill behind was a huge red standard, "planted to signify that they were going to push the Swedes to the last drop of blood." Shaken by this sight, some of the Swedish soldiers and junior officers, not understanding that all this was a game and seeing themselves as the prospective victims of a massacre, began to trickle out across the barricades to places themselves under the protection of the Turks. To stiffen their courage, Charles ordered his trumpet
ers to blow and his kettledrummers to beat their drums on top of his house. To halt the desertions, he sent a promise and a threat to all his men: "That His Majesty did assure every one from the highest to the lowest who should stand with him for two hours longer and not desert, should be rewarded by him in the kindest manner. But whoever should desert to the infidels he would never see more."

  As it was Sunday, the King went to a church service in his house, and he was listening to the sermon when the air was suddenly filled with the thunder of cannon and the whistling of cannonballs. The Swedish officers, rushing to the upper windows of the house, saw a mass of Turks and Tatars, swords in hand, running toward their camp, shouting, "Allah! Allah!" At this, the Swedish officers on the barricade called to their men, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" A few men fired their muskets, but most of the men on the barricades surrendered quickly. This act, even against hopeless odds, was so unlike the normal behavior of Swedish soldiers that it strongly implies a royal order to avoid bloodshed.

  Similarly, on the other side, the Khan and the Seraskier apparently gave equivalent instructions. Although a "cloud of arrows" fell on the compound, few hit anything. The cannonballs directed at the King's house either "flew over the house and did no hurt" or, fired with a minimum charge of powder, bounced harmlessly off the walls.

  Nevertheless, although the original intention on both sides may have been to stage a battle rather than to fight one, a drama involving cannoballs, musket shots and naked swords is difficult to keep entirely peaceful. Very soon, tempers became inflamed and blood began to flow. With most of the Swedes scarcely resisting, the Turks swarmed into Charles' house and began looting. The great hall of the house filled with Turks taking everything in sight as plunder. This insult was more than Charles could stand. In a rage, with a sword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, the King threw open the doors and rushed into the hall, followed by a band of Swedes. There were pistol volleys on both sides, and the room filled with the dense smoke of gunpowder. Through the swirling haze, Swedes and Turks, choking and coughing, thrust and parried in hand-to-hand combat. As so often on the battlefield, the impetus of the Swedish charge had its effect; besides, in the house itself, the numbers of Swedes and Turks were more nearly equal. The hall and house soon were cleared; the last Turks jumped out the windows.

  At this point, one of Charles' Drabants, Axel Roos, looked around and did not see the King. He dashed through the house and found Charles in the High Steward's Chamber, "standing betwixt three Turks, both arms raised in the air, sword in the right hand. ... I shot down the Turk with his back to the door. . . . His Majesty lowered his sword arm and stabbed the second Turk through the body and I was not slow in shooting the third Turk dead." "Roos," cried the King through the smoke, "is it you who have saved me?" When Charles and Roos stepped over the bodies, the King's face was bleeding from nose, cheek and the lobe of an ear where bullets had nicked him. His left hand was badly sliced between thum and forefinger where he had warded off a Turkish sword by grasping the enemy blade bare-handed. The King and Roos rejoined the others, who had driven the Turks out of the house and were firing at them from the windows.

  The Turks wheeled up cannon, which began to boom at close range. The balls shattered the masonry, but the thick walls held up. Charles filled his hat with musket balls and toured the house, parceling reserves of powder and ammunition to the men stationed at the windows.

  By now, dusk was falling. The Turks understood the absurdity of trying to storm a house containing less than a hundred men with an army of 12,000, particularly when they were under orders not to kill the hundred. They decided to try a new tactic to force the Swedes into the open. Tatar archers fastened burning straw to their arrows and shot them at the wood-shingled roof of the King's house. At the same time, a group of Janissaries rushed to a comer of the house with bales of hay and straw, which they piled up and set afire. When the Swedes attempted to push the burning bundles away with iron bars, the Tatar archers, aiming accurately, forced them back. Within minutes, the roof was ablaze. Charles and his comrades rushed into the attic to fight the flames from below. Using swords, they hacked at the roof, tearing away as much as possible, but the fire spread rapidly. The burning beams, roaring with flames, forced the King and his followers to retreat down the staircase with coats over their heads to protect themselves from the scorching heat. On the ground floor, the exhausted men drank brandy, and even the King, equally parched, was persuaded to swallow a glass of wine. It was the first time since leaving Stockholm thirteen years before that Charles had touched alcohol.

  Meanwhile, burning shingles were falling from the roof onto the top floors, spreading the flames. Suddenly, what remained of the roof fell, and the whole upper half of the house became a furnace. At this point, some of the Swedes, seeing nothing to be gained by being burned alive, proposed surrender. But the king, in great excitement, possibly inspired by his unaccustomed gulps of wine, refused to yield "until our clothes begin to burn."

  Still, they obviously could not remain. Charles agreed to a proposal that they dash to the chancery building, which was still untouched fifty paces off, and renew the struggles from there. The watching Turks, wondering if the King were still alive, amazed that men could survive in the furnace before their eyes, suddenly saw King Charles, sword and pistol in hand, emerge at the head of his small band and run through the night, silhouetted against the blazing building. The Turks dashed forward. It was a race. Unfortunately, as Charles rounded a comer of the building, he tripped over one of the spurs he always wore and fell headlong.

  Before he could rise, the Turks were upon him. One of his followers, Lieutenant Aberg, threw himself on top of the King to protect his master from Turkish steel. Aberg received a saber blow in the head and was dragged off, bleeding. Two Turks then hurled themselves on the King to wrench his sword from his hand. Their weight inflicted on Charles his most serious wound of the day: Two bones in his right foot were broken. Unnoticing, the Turks began tearing the King's coat to shreds; the man who could deliver the Swedish King alive had been promised six ducats, and the coat would be proof of who made the capture.

  Despite the pain in his foot, Charles rose. He was not otherwise harmed, and the Swedes behind him, seeing that the King had given up, themselves surrendered immediately. They were stripped on the spot of their watches, money and the silver buttons on their coats. Charles was bleeding from nose, cheek, ear and hand, his eyebrows were singed off, his face and clothes were black with gunpowder and reeking with smoke, and his coat was torn into strips, but he resumed his usual air of calm, almost amused unconcern. He had done what he had set out to do and had resisted not for two but for eight hours. Satisfied, he allowed himself to be carried to the house of the Seraskier of Bender. Charles entered ragged, blood-stained, his face caked with blood and dirt, but with imperturbable serenity. The Seraskier received him politely with apologies for the misunderstanding that had led to the fight. Charles sat down on a couch, asked for water and a dish of sherbet, refused the supper that was offered him and promptly fell alseep.

  The following day, Charles and all who had fought with him were escorted to Adrianople. Some who saw him go were distressed by the sight. Jefferyes wrote to London: "I cannot express to Your Excellency what a melancholy spectacle this was to me, who had formerly seen this prince in his greatest glory and terror, now to see him so low as to be the scorn and derision of the Turks and infidels." But others thought that Charles seemed cheerful. "In as good a humor as in the days of his luck and liberty," said one, and to another he seemed as pleased with himself "as if he had all the Turks and Tatars in his power." Certainly, he had succeeded in his objective: After a battle on this scale, the Khan and the Seraskier would not be carrying him off to Poland.

  Ironically, on the day after the Kalabalik, new orders from the Sultan arrived in Bender countermanding the permission he had given to use force to abduct Charles. An emissary of the Sultan met the King and pleaded that "his Great Master was
an utter stranger to these hellish conspiracies."

  In Adrianople, Charles was received with honor and installed in the stately castle of Timurtash, where he lay for weeks, waiting for his foot to heal. In punishment for the Kalabalik, both the Khan and the Seraskier were deposed. Three months later, the Ottoman Empire embarked on a fourth brief war with Russia. Charles' action had been a temporary success on all points.

  Throughout Europe, the Kalabalik caused a sensation. Some saw it as heroism: Like a legdendary hero, the King had fought in personal combat against overwhelming odds. But many saw it as sheer insanity. How could the King so offend the Sultan's hospitality? This was Peter's attitude when he heard the news: "I now perceive that God has abandoned my brother Charles, inasmuch as he has taken it upon himself to attack and irritate his only friend and ally."

  And, in fact, was it such a heroic story? On the surface, 100 Swedes with muskets, pistols and swords defended themselves against 12,000 Turks equipped with cannon. Stories circulating in Europe told of Turks falling in droves, of bodies piling up in heaps in front of the King's house. Actually, forty men were killed on the Turkish side* while the Swedes lost twelve. Even this loss was unnecessary, for the Janissaries had used great forbearance. Had the Turks not burst into Charles' house and begun wild-eyed looting, most of those who died would have remained alive. The truth was that the Kalabalik was a charade turned bloody, played for political reasons, to prevent the King's deportation and capture. But it was also a game which Charles desperately enjoyed and allowed to continue. He had not had a fight for over three years; he had suffered the humiliation of the Pruth; here at least he could wield his sword. The Kalabalik took place because Charles XII loved the heady excitement of battle.