Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  One of Frederick William's reasons for turning Wismar over to the Duke of Mecklenburg was that he thought it would irritate the Hanoverians, and he was right. Here in Hanover lay a deeper and more suspicious antagonism toward Peter and the Russian presence in North Germany. In part, it was personal: Bernstorff, the leading Hanoverian minister of King George I, was a native Mecklenburger and a member of the aristocratic party which was strongly hostile to Duke Karl Leopold. From his position at King George's elbow, he was able to insinuate his prejudices into the King's ear. Why was the Tsar establishing such close dynastic relations with a small duchy deep in the heart of North Germany? Why were ten Russian regiments to be permanently stationed there? Was not the Tsar's demand that Wismar be turned over to Mecklenburg as part of his niece's dowry simply a clever way of establishing a Russian base in the western Baltic? If more Russian troops were coming, supposedly to participate in an invasion of Sweden, who could say what use would be found for them once they were in North Germany? To all these prejudices and suspicions, George I listened with a ready ear, for he was himself worried about the growing Russian influence and the prospect of large numbers of Russian troops being quartered so close to Hanover. Had Peter been properly informed and counseled regarding these Hanoverian suspicions, he might have acted differently in regard to Mecklenburg. But Peter was already in Danzig, the marriage agreement was already drawn, and although he was eager to maintain an alliance with Hanover and gain an alliance with England, the Tsar refused to go back on his word.

  After three weeks in Pyrmont drinking the waters and taking his cure, Peter returned to Mecklenburg, where he had left the Tsaritsa Catherine with Duke Karl Leopold and his bride, Catherine. It was now midsummer, and during the visit Peter preferred to dine in the garden of the Duke's palace, looking out over a lake. Karl Leopold insisted that to give the scene the proper formality, a number of his tall guardsmen, all of whom possessed giant mustaches, must stand at attention around the table, with drawn swords. Peter, who liked to relax at dinner, found this ridiculous and repeatedly asked that the guardsmen be dispensed with. Finally, one evening, he suggested to his host that they might all be more comfortable if the guardsmen would lay down their swords and use their large mustaches to swat the gnats which swarmed over the table.

  Against a backdrop of suspicion and dissension between allies, Peter went ahead with his plans for a joint invasion of Sweden in the summer of 1716. Obstinate "Brother Charles" showed no sign of making peace; on the contrary, the Charles who returned to Sweden after the fall of Stralsund was busily raising a new army and preparing once again to attack. Rather than leave the initiative to his enemies, he had already, in February, lashed out at his nearest enemy, Denmark. If the ice had frozen the Oresund that winter, he would have marched across into Zealand and stormed the city of Copenhagen with an army of 12,000 men. The ice formed, but broke up in a storm, and Charles marched his army instead into southern Norway, then still a province of Denmark. He swept through the mountain passes, quickly overcoming the rocky fortresses and occupying the city of Kristiania (now Oslo) before being forced to retreat because of inadequate supplies.

  To Peter, Charles' offensive demonstrated that the only way to end the war was to invade Sweden and defeat Charles XII on his home ground. To do this, Russia needed allies. Even despite his commanding position on the upper Baltic, Peter did not dare risk a large-scale, water-borne invasion of Sweden with only the Russian fleet to protect his troopships; the Swedish navy was still too strong. Thus it was that in the spring of 1716, while Peter was overseeing a marriage in Mecklenburg and taking the waters at Pyrmont, the Russian galley fleet began moving westward down the southern coast of the Baltic, first to Danzig, then to Rostock. Stopping in Hamburg before taking the waters, Peter had met King Frederick IV of Denmark and worked out a general plan for the invasion. It called for a combined Russian-Danish landing in Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden, while simultaneously a strong entirely Russian force would land on the Swedish east coast, thus forcing Charles to fight on two fronts. Both invasion forces would be covered by the Russian and Danish fleets, acting as a unit under the Danish Admiral Gyldenl0ve. England also would contribute a powerful squadron, although neither Peter nor Frederick was certain that the English would actually fight if a naval battle occurred. Peter agreed to supply 40,000 Russian soldiers including infantry and cavalry, plus his entire Russian fleet, both galleys and men-of-war. The Danes would contribute 30,000 men, most of the artillery and ammunition for the entire army, and the whole of the Danish navy. To transport the huge number of men and horses and their equipment across the Oresund, Frederick IV also agreed to commandeer the Danish merchant fleet for the entire summer. Frederick William I of Prussia declined to participate in the actual invasion, but did agree to supply twenty transport ships for use in convoying the Russian infantry assembled at Rostock to Copenhagen, the jumping-off point for the Scania invasion. On paper, at least, it seemed a formidable aggregation, especially against a supposedly helpless Sweden. One part of the plan, devised to satisfy the egos of Frederick and Peter, appeared unwise: Supreme command of the expedition was to be divided, with the two monarchs assuming control in alternate weeks.

  After three weeks in Pyrmont, Peter went to Rostock, where his troops were concentrated, and, leaving Catherine, set out with a flotilla of forty-eight galleys for Copenhagen, arriving in the harbor on July 6. He was received with thunderous honors and wrote to Catherine, "Let me know when you will be here, so that I can meet you, for the formalities here are indescribable. Yesterday, I was at such a ceremony as I have not seen for twenty years."

  Despite this welcome, time was passing. July slipped away and Peter wrote to Catherine, "We are only chattering in vain." The main problem was that the Danish fleet, necessary to cover the invasion force, was still cruising off the coast of Norway, watching over the withdrawal of the Swedish force which had captured Kristiania. This fleet did not return to Copenhagen until August 7, and even then the transports were not ready for the troops to board. Meanwhile, with die arrival of Admiral Norris and an English squadron of nineteen ships-of-the-line, a gigantic combined fleet had assembled at Copenhagen. In the interim until the armies could be embarked, Admiral Norris proposed a cruise of the joint fleets in the Baltic. Peter, tired of doing nothing, consented. As neither Norris nor the Danish Admiral Gyldenl0ve would consent to serve under the other, the Tsar was named as commander-in-chief. On August 16, Peter hoisted his flag on the Russian ship-of-the-line Ingria and signaled the fleet to weigh anchor. It was the noblest fleet of sail ever to appear in the Baltic: sixty-nine men-of-war—nineteen English, six Dutch, twenty-three Danish and twenty-one Russian warships—and more than 400 merchantmen, all under the command of a self-made sailor whose country had not possessed a single ocean-going ship twenty years before.

  Yet, for all its majesty and overwhelming strength, it achieved little. The Swedish fleet, its twenty ships-of-the-line outnumbered three to one, remained in Karlskrona. Norris wanted to brave the fortress guns, enter the harbor and try to sink the fleet at its moorings, but the Danish Admiral, partly out of jealousy and partly because his government had secretly instructed him to withhold the fleet from risky action, declined. Peter was frustrated and, after returning to Copenhagen, went back to the Swedish coast with two small frigates and two galleys to reconnoiter. He found that Charles XII had not wasted the time provided him by the allied delays; as Peter's ships edged in close to shore to get a better look, cannon balls hit his ship. Another Russian ship suffered more serious damage. A troop of Cossacks landed from the galleys and captured some prisoners, who declared that the King of Sweden had an army of 20,000 men.

  In fact, Charles had worked wonders. He had garrisoned and provisioned all the fortresses along the coast of Scania. At inland towns, reserves of infantry and cavalry were gathered, ready to counterattack an enemy bridgehead. A large reserve of artillery was held at Karlskrona, awaiting the King's command. Charles had o
nly 22,000 men—12,000 cavlary and 10,000 infantry—but he knew that not all the invaders could be brought across at once, and his hope was to attack and defeat the vanguards before they could be reinforced. If he himself was forced to retreat, he was prepared to follow Peter's example and burn all the villages and towns of southern Sweden, confronting the invaders with a blackened desert. (It helped, in forming this plan, that Scania had been Danish until the mid-seventeenth century.)

  In Zealand, through the early days of September, the preparation went ahead. Seventeen regiments of Russian infantry and nine regiments of Russian dragoons, totaling 29,000 men, had been brought from Rostock. Added to 12,000 Danish infantrymen and 10,000 Danish cavalry, the combined allied force totaled 51,000. The landing date, September 21, was fixed. Then on September 17, just before the regiments were to move to their embarkation sites, Peter suddenly announced that the invasion had been called off. It was too late in the year, he declared; the assault would have to wait until the following spring. Both George I of England and Frederick IV of Denmark, as well as their ministers, admirals and generals, were stunned by this unilateral decision. Frederick protested that postponement meant cancellation, as he could not possibly commandeer the merchant fleet of Denmark for two years in a row.

  Nevertheless, Peter remained adamant. His allies had lost the summer through procrastination, he argued, and now the arrival of autumn made the expedition hazardous. He understood that Charles would meet the first invaders ashore with a pulverizing counterblow and explained that to repulse this stroke and gain a secure foothold which could be held through the winter, a large number of troops would have to be landed very quickly, a successful battle fought and at least two towns, Malmo and Landskrona, besieged and taken. If this operation failed, he asked, where were his troops to spend the icy winter? The Danes replied that the soldiers could shelter in pits dug in the earth. Peter replied that this would kill more men than a battle. And how could his men find food and forage in the unfriendly province of Scania? "Thirty thousand Swedish troops are sitting at that table," Peter said, "who will not easily give place to uninvited guests."

  The Danes argued that provisions could be brought across the Danish islands. "Soldiers' bellies," said Peter, "are not satisfied with empty promises and hopes but they demand ready and real storehouses." Further, he asked, how could the allies prevent Charles from burning and ravaging the country as he retreated north? How could they force him to stand and give battle? Might the allied armies not find themselves dwindling away in a hostile country in the dead of winter, just as Chares' own army had dwindled away in the Russian winter? Instead of delivering the coup de grace to Sweden, might they not be courting disaster for themselves? Peter understood and had great respect for Charles. "I know his way of making war. He would give us no rest, and our armies would be weakened." No, he repeated decisively, given the lateness of the season and the strength of the enemy, the invasion must be postponed until the following spring.

  Peter's decision caused a diplomatic storm. Abandonment of the expedition seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of his allies. Cleverly, Peter had brought 29,000 Russian soldiers to Copenhagen not to invade Sweden but to occupy Denmark, seize Wismar and dictate the politics of North Germany. Frederick IV of Denmark was apprehensive about the numerous Russian regiments camped in the suburbs of his capital; he was also angry that

  Peter's sudden decision had robbed him of certain victory over Sweden. The English were worried about the effect a powerful Russian army and fleet stationed at the entrance to the Baltic would have on English trade in that sea. But it was the Hanoverians who were most violently distressed by this Russian "plot." Bernstorff, their chief minister, went to see the English General Stanhope, who was then in Hanover with King George I, and hysterically proposed that English "crush the Tsar immediately and secure his ships, even seize his person" as a means of ensuring that all Russian troops would evacuate Denmark and Germany. Stanhope refused, and Bernstorff thereupon sent an order directly to Admiral Norris at Copenhagen to seize the Tsar and the Russian ships. Norris prudently refused also, saying that he took orders from the government of England, not of Hanover.

  While all these accusations flew behind his back, Peter remained at Copenhagen, where he continued to be honored by the Danes. The Tsar was especially pleased by the treatment accorded Catherine. She was accepted as his wife and Tsaritsa, and in acknowledgement of her rank, the Queen of Denmark paid a formal call to welcome her to the capital. Admiral Norris was respectful and amiable to his fellow admiral, the Tsar. On the anniversary of the Battle of Lesnaya, the victory for which Peter had taken personal credit, all the ships of the English squadron thundered a salute.

  In fact, the suspicions of the Tsar's allies were groundless. Peter's intention had been to invade Sweden in order to end the war. When the invasion attempt seemed too risky, he canceled it, but immediately he began looking for another means to achieve his purpose. As early as October 13, he had written to the Senate in St. Petersburg, explaining what he had done and declaring that the only possibility remaining would be to attack the Swedish homeland from a different direction: across the Gulf of Bothnia from the Aland Islands. He ordered such an attack prepared. As for the threat to Denmark and Hanover, it melted away even as Bernstorff was proclaiming doom. The Russian battalions quietly returned to Mecklenburg and thence—with the exception of a small force of infantry and one cavalry regiment—to Poland. The Russian fleet sailed north for its winter harbors, Riga, Reval and Kronstadt. On October 15, Peter and Catherine also left the Danish capital, traveling slowly through Holstein to meet King Frederick William of Prussia at Havelsberg.

  Frederick William disliked Hanover, although both his wife and his mother were Hanoverian princesses. When Bernstorff accused the Russians of wishing to occupy Lubeck, Hamburg and Wismar, Frederick William stood by Peter. "The Tsar has given his word

  that he will take nothing for himself from the empire," the Prussian King pointed out. "Besides, part of his cavalry is marching toward Poland, and it would be impossible for him to take those three cities without artillery which he does not possess." To a report from his own minister, Ilgen, on the Hanoverian insinuations, the King replied, "Tomfoolery! I shall refuse and sit fast by brother Peter." Not surprisingly in view of Frederick William's attitude, the Tsar's meeting with the King went well. As tokens of friendship, the two monarchs exchanged gifts: Peter promised more Russian giants for the Potsdam Grenadiers, while Frederick William presented the Tsar with a yacht and a priceless amber cabinet.

  It was winter in Northern Europe. Darkness came early, the air had a chilling edge, the roads were hardening into ruts. Soon, snow would cover everything. Catherine was in advanced pregnancy and the long journey back to St. Petersburg would not be easy. Peter decided, accordingly, not to return to Russia for the winter, but to travel farther westward and pass the coldest months in Amsterdam, which he had not seen for eighteen years. Leaving Catherine to follow more slowly, he traveled through Hamburg, Bremen, Amersfoort and Utrecht, arriving in Amsterdam on December 6. Even on these relatively well-traveled roads, conditions were primitive. Peter wrote to warn Catherine:

  What I have written before I now confirm, not to come by the way which I came, for it is indescribably bad. Do not bring many ' people, for life in Holland has become very expensive. As to the church singers, if they have not already started, half of them will be enough. Leave the rest in Mecklenburg. All who are with me here sympathize with you about your journey. If you can endure it, you had better stay where you are, for the bad roads may be dangerous to you. However, do as you please, and for God's sake do not think that I do not want you to come, for you know yourself how much I wish it, and it is better for you to come than to be lonely and sad. Still, I could not desist from writing and I know that you will not endure being left alone.

  Catherine started, but after a difficult journey she was forced to halt at Wesel, near the Dutch frontier. Here, on January 2, 1717, she
gave birth to a son, whom they had agreed should be called Paul. The Tsar, who was once again lying in bed with a six-week bout of fever, wrote to her enthusiastically:

  I received yesterday your delightful letter in which you say that the Lord God has blessed us by giving us another recruit ... for which praise be to him and unforgetting thanks. It delighted me doubly, first about the newborn child, and that the Lord God has freed you from your pains, from which also I became better. Ever since Christmas I have not been able to sit up as long as yesterday. As soon as possible, I will immediately come to you.

  The following day, Peter received a shock: His son was dead and his wife was very weak. Peter, who had already sent couriers to Russia to announce the birth, tried to be helpful to Catherine.

  I received your letter about what I knew before, the unexpected occurrence which has changed joy to grief. What answer can I give except that of the long-suffering Job? The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord. I beg you to reflect on it in this way; I do as far as I can. My illness, thank God, lessens from hour to hour, and I hope to soon go out of the house. It is now nothing but irritation. Otherwise, I praise God I am well, and should long ago have gone to you if 1 could have gone by water, but I fear the shaking up of land traveling. Besides, I am waiting for an answer from the English King, who is expected here in these days.