1706-7] Execution of Patkul 595 as he called St Petersburg. In the autumn of the same year, the combined forces of Augustus and Menshikoff defeated the Swedish general Marderfeld at Kalisch (October 29); but the victory came too late to repair the shattered fortunes of the Elector. On September 24, his Ministers at Dresden had concluded with Charles the Peace of Altranstädt, which was ratified by Augustus at Petrików in Poland (October 20). By this treaty, Augustus recognised Stanislaus as King of Poland; renounced all his anti-Swedish alliances, especially the alliance with Russia; and undertook to support the Swedish army, during the winter, in Saxony, and to deliver up Patkul. To the last he was insincere. Thus, while imploring Charles to keep secret the Peace of Altranstädt, as otherwise he would fear for his personal security, he privately assured the Tsar of his unalterable devotion, and negotiated at Berlin and Copenhagen for a fresh anti-Swedish league. Charles rent asunder this web of falsehood by publishing the treaty and compelling Augustus to ratify it afresh (January 19, 1707) and carry out all its stipulations, not one of which was of the slightest political advantage to Sweden. Patkul was now removed from his Saxon dungeon and handed over to Charles. He was broken on the wheel and then decapitated (October 10), Charles having rejected an appeal for mercy from his own sister, the Princess Ulrica Leonora, on the ground that one who had forfeited his life as a traitor could, for example's sake, not be pardoned. Charles' conduct on this occasion was legitimate if harsh, but that of Augustus was wholly infamous. He had deliberately handed over to a horrible death a man who, after serving him to the utmost of his ability, had trusted in his honour. It was now that Peter seriously attempted to come to terms with his terrible opponent. This he could only do by soliciting the mediation of the Powers, as Charles steadily refused to have any direct communication with him. He began in London. He began in London. At the end of 1706, Andrei Matvieeff was sent there from Holland to promise Peter's adhesion to the Grand Alliance, if Great Britain would bring about a peace between him and Sweden. If necessary, Matvieeff was to bribe Harley, Godolphin, Marlborough, and the other Ministers. "I know not whether Marlborough would be inclined thereto, as he is already immensely rich," wrote Peter privately, "but you may promise him £1000." After a long procrastination, Harley informed Matvieeff that the Queen could not at present afford to quarrel with the King of Sweden, especially as he had engaged not to attack the Emperor. On the Continent, Peter's Dutch agent, Huyssens, negotiated with Marlborough direct. The Duke promised to meet the Tsar's wishes if a principality in Russia were granted to him. Peter at once gave him the choice between Kieff, Vladimir, and Siberia, besides promising him, in case a peace with Sweden was concluded by his efforts, 50,000 thalers a year, "a rock ruby such as no European potentate possesses," and the order 596 Peter and the Powers. - Mazepa [1707 of St Andrew in brilliants. But nothing came of it, although Peter now declared his willingness to surrender all his Baltic possessions except St Petersburg. In the spring of 1707 Peter negotiated for the mediation of France, through Desalliers, the French Minister at the Court of Francis II Rákóczy, Prince of Transylvania, whom Peter, for a moment, had thought of setting up in Poland as a rival to Stanislaus. Charles was approached on the subject of peace; but, recognising that the line of the Neva was really vital to the existence of Sweden's Baltic empire, he refused to cede St Petersburg, and insisted on Peter's restitution of all his conquests and the payment of a war indemnity. Meanwhile the Swedish Ministers at Vienna, the Hague, and elsewhere, insisted perpetually that, if Russia were allowed to increase, all Europe would be exposed to the peril of a second Scythian invasion; and all Europe was inclined to believe them. Prince Eugene, to whom Peter now offered the throne of Poland, refused the dangerous gift; and the Emperor hastened to recognise Stanislaus for fear of offending Charles. At Berlin, even the offer of 100,000 thalers could not tempt the Prussian Ministers to undertake the ungrateful task of mediation. Peter was evidently given up for lost. All diplomatic expedients for pacifying Charles having failed, Peter prepared to bear the brunt of a war a outrance with the invincible Swede. At a Council of War, held at the village of Mereczko, in Lithuania, in 1707, he decided not to oppose the Swedes in the open field, but to retire before them, drawing them further and further from their base, devastating the country before them and harassing them as much as possible, especially at the passage of the principal rivers. He had previously commanded that all the country-folks should be warned beforehand of the approach of the enemy that they might have time to hide their stores of corn in pits, or in the forests, and drive their cattle into the trackless swamps. The Cossack Hetman, Ivan Mazepa, was entrusted with the defence of Little Russia and the Ukraine. Kieff, with its congeries of fortress-monasteries, was additionally fortified and well supplied with artillery. All the light troops, including the Cossacks, were to fall back behind the Dnieper. Charles' departure from Saxony had been delayed for twelve months by a quarrel with the Emperor, against whom he had many just causes of complaint. The religious question presented the most difficulty. The Court of Vienna had treated the Silesian Protestants with tyrannical severity, in direct contravention of the Treaty of Osnabrück, of which Sweden was one of the guarantors; and Charles demanded summary and complete restitution in so dictatorial a fashion that the Emperor prepared for war. But political considerations prevailed. The sudden apparition of the King of Sweden and his "blue boys" in the heart of the Empire fluttered all the western diplomatists; and the allies at once suspected that Louis XIV had bought the Swedes. Marlborough was 1707-9] Charles XII at Altranstädt 597 forthwith sent from the Hague to the castle of Altranstädt, near Leipzig, where Charles had fixed his headquarters, "to endeavour to penetrate the designs of the King of Sweden." He soon convinced himself that western Europe had nothing to fear from Charles, and that no bribes were necessary in order to turn the Swedish arms from Germany to Muscovy. Nevertheless Charles' presence in central Europe seriously hampered the movements of the allies; and the fear lest he might be tempted to assist France, the traditional ally of Sweden, finally induced the Emperor to satisfy all his demands, the Maritime Powers agreeing to guarantee the provisions of the Treaty of Altranstädt. Delayed during the autumn months in Poland by the tardy arrival of reinforcements from Pomerania, Charles XII was not able to take the field till November, 1707, when he had under him an army of 24,000 horse and 20,000 foot, two-thirds of whom were veterans. The respite was of incalculable importance to the Tsar, who at this very time had suddenly to cope with a dangerous Bashkir rising on the Volga, followed by a rebellion of the Don Cossacks under Kondraty Bulavin, against "the innovations." So hardly pressed was he as to be forced to employ barbarians against barbarians, Calmucks against Bashkirs, for want of regulars. On Christmas Day, 1707, Charles reached the Vistula, which he crossed on New Year's Day, 1708, although the ice was in a dangerous condition. On January 26 he entered Grodno, only two hours after Peter's departure. "For God's sake," wrote Peter to Menshikoff on this occasion, "entrust the command of the rearguard to faithful men of our own people and not to foreign fools." The sneer is illuminating. It shows that even in the service of war the Muscovites were beginning to dispense with leading-strings. On February 12, Charles encamped at Smorgonie on the Velya, one of the tributaries of the Niemen. Two courses lay open to him. Either he might recover the lost Baltic provinces before attacking the Tsar, or he might pursue Peter into the heart of his Tsardom, and dictate peace to him after destroying his army. His ablest officers strongly advised him to adopt the first course as being both "cheap and reasonable"; but the alternative appealed irresistibly to the young hero's love of adventure, and tempted him by presenting difficulties which would have been unconquerable by anyone but himself. And, unfortunately for Sweden, he adopted it. This plan was, apparently (for even now it is largely guess-work) first, after crossing the Dnieper, to unite with the army-corps of Lewenhaupt, which was advancing from Riga to join him, and then to winter in the fruitful and untouched Ukraine, whose fortresses were to be held at his disposal by the Cossack Hetman Mazepa. Simultaneously, the Finnish army under Lybecker, with the help of the fleet, was to take St Petersburg and recapture Ingria, while Stanislaus, aided by a third Swedish army under Krassow, was to quell all disaffection in Poland. In the summer of 1709, the three Swedish armies, reinforced 598 Victory of Holowczyn.-Swedish march southwards [1708 by the Poles, the Cossacks, and the Crimean Tartars, were to attack Muscovy from the north, south and east simultaneously and crush Peter between them. The realisation of such a scheme, which absolutely disregarded difficulties, and was built upon nothing but the most fantastic hypotheses, lay far beyond the bounds of possibility. After a brief rest at Smorgonie, Charles XII resumed his march eastwards. The superior strategy of the Swedes enabled them to cross the first two considerable rivers, the Berezina and the Drucz, without difficulty, but on reaching the Wabis, Charles found the enemy posted on the other side, near the little town of Holowczyn, in an apparently impregnable position and evidently bent upon barring his passage. But his experienced eye instantly detected the one vulnerable point in the six mile long Russian line; on July 4, 1708, he hurled all his forces against it; and, after a fierce engagement, from daybreak to sundown, the Russians fell back with a loss of 3000 men. The victory of Holowczyn, memorable besides as the last pitched battle won by Charles XII, opened up the way to the Dnieper; and four days later Charles reached Mohileff, where he stayed till August 6 waiting for Lewenhaupt. The Swedes now began to suffer severely, bread and fodder running short, and the soldiers subsisting almost entirely on captured bullocks. The Russians, under Sheremetieff and Menshikoff, would not risk another general engagement, but slowly retired before the invaders, destroying everything in their path, till at last the Swedes had nothing but a charred wilderness beneath their feet and a horizon of burning villages before their eyes. Moreover, the Muscovites now began to display an unusual boldness, attacking more and more frequently, with ever-increasing numbers, as, for instance, at Chernaya Napa (September 9), where they fell upon an isolated Swedish division which lost 3000 men and was only saved from annihilation by the arrival of Charles himself. By the time the frontier of eighteenth century Russia was reached at Michanowich (October 1) it was plain to Charles that he could go no further eastwards through the devastated land, and at Tatarsk he held his first council of war. Rehnskjöld prudently advised the King to wait for Lewenhaupt, whose reinforcements and caravan of provisions were becoming indispensable, and then to retire to Livonia, so that he might winter in his own lands. But Charles, partly from a horror of retreating, partly because of an urgent summons from Mazepa, resolved to proceed southwards instead of northwards, and to this resolution everything else was sacrificed. And now began that last march of the devoted Swedish army through the forests and morasses of Severia and the endless steppes of Ukraine which was to be a long-drawn-out agony, punctuated by a constant succession of disasters. The first blow fell in the beginning of October, when the unhappy Lewenhaupt joined Charles with the débris of the army he had saved from the not inglorious rout of Lyesna, where the Russians, with 1707-8] Causes of Mazepa's treason 599 vastly superior forces, had interrupted and overwhelmed him after a two days' battle (September 29-30), in which the Swedes lost 8000 killed and wounded, 16 guns, 42 standards, and 2000 waggons of provisions, and the Russians 4000 killed and wounded. And Lewenhaupt was sacrificed in vain, for when, on November 8, Mazepa at last joined Charles, at the little Severian town of Horki, he came not as the powerful Dux militum Zaporowiensium, but as a ruined man with little more than his horsetail standard and 1300 personal adherents. The unlooked-for collapse of Mazepa was a terrible blow to Charles XII. He had built his hopes of ultimate victory on his alliance with the Cossack Hetman; and, in justice to Charles, it must be admitted that this alliance, so far from being a mere mirage luring him on to destruction, as which Swedish historians generally have regarded it, was really the one solid and substantial element in his fantastic combinations. The fact has been quite overlooked that, in those days, the Hetman of the Zaporogian Cossacks was often the determining factor of Oriental politics. Chmielnicki had held the balance even between Poland and Muscovy for years. Doroszenko, as the ally of the Sultan, had, for a time, been more powerful than Tsar and King combined. Mazepa himself was not so much the subject as the semi-independent tributary of the Muscovite Crown. He ruled on the Dnieper with more than princely power. 100,000 Cossack horsemen were at his disposal. The whole Ukraine obeyed his lightest nod. The Khan of the Crimea addressed him as "my brother." If Charles X of Sweden, one of the astutest statesmen as well as the greatest warrior of his age, in the plenitude of his power considered it not beneath his dignity to seek the alliance of the Hetman Chmielnicki against Poland, why should not his grandson, Charles XII, have sought the alliance of the Hetman Mazepa against Muscovy, now that Poland also was on his side? The power and influence of Mazepa were fully recognised by Peter the Great himself. No other Cossack Hetman had even been treated with such deference at Moscow. He ranked with the highest dignitaries in the State, sat at the Tsar's own table, and flouted the Tsar's kinsfolk with impunity. Mazepa would doubtless have remained loyal, had not Charles XII crossed his path. At the very beginning of the great Northern War, the crafty old Hetman began to have his doubts how this life-and-death struggle, going on before his very eyes, would end. As Charles continued to advance, and Peter to retreat, Mazepa made up his mind that Charles was going to win and that it was high time he looked after his own' interests. Moreover, he had his personal grievances against Peter. The Tsar was going so fast, that the arch-conservative old Cossack could not follow him; and he was jealous of the omnipotent favourite Menshikoff. More than once, some of his Cossack squadrons had been taken away from him to be converted into dragoons, and he deeply resented it. But he proceeded very cautiously. Not till September 27, |