СНАР. VIII. 1709. Remarkable parallel of the inva- Russia by not without its counterpart in that of the Succession. Charles XII. was the predecessor of Napoleon in the great assault on the Muscovite power. The identity 3. between these two memorable expeditions, with just a century between them, was such that it almost seems miraculous. Both paved the way for the attack on the XII, and great northern power, by the conquest of all the lesser Napoleon. states in their vicinity; both prepared long, and accumulated all their forces for the decisive struggle. The world anticipated for both triumphant success in its issue. Both brought to the attempt military talents of the highest, military glory of the most commanding kind. Both were surrounded before they set out by the princes and diplomatists of Europe, anxious to secure their favour or deprecate their wrath; both set out from Dresden. The world in anxious suspense, but confident expectation, gazed on the steps of both in the progress towards what seemed the entire dominion of Eastern Europe. Both met with destruction in the ultimate fate of the attempt; and it is hard to say to which the lines of the poet are most applicable : "No joys to him pacific sceptres yield; War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field. And some capitulate and some resign. Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain; On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, And all be mine beneath the Polar sky!' The march begins in military state, And winter barricades the realms of frost. He comes-not want and cold his course delay; Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day! And shows his miseries in distant lands; 4. tion of XII. at before he march to No sooner had Charles XII., by the indefatigable exertions and diplomatic address of Marlborough, effected Proud posia pacification with the Emperor and the German powers, Charles than he turned his attention to the East, and made Dresden, serious preparations for his long-meditated expedition began his against Russia. Not a doubt crossed his mind as to its Poland. ultimate success; and his confidence was generally shared by all the statesmen of Europe. He had so long and uniformly been victorious that he was thought to be invincible. He had defeated at Narva sixty thousand Russians with nine thousand Swedes. He had recently dictated, as a conqueror, from his camp at Alt-Ranstadt, near Leipsic, a glorious peace to his rival, Augustus, king of Poland, by which the latter renounced all his rights to that throne, and even consented to deliver up Count Patkul, the ambassador of the Czar Peter at his court, to his vengeance, whom, with frightful barbarity, at which all Europe shuddered, Charles had put to death like a common murderer on the wheel. He had recently 1 Biograph. visited the plain of Lutzen, and the tomb of Gustavus Universel. Adolphus, and said, on leaving it, "I have endeavoured (Charles to live like him perhaps God will accord to me a death tairelike his." His court at Dresden had resembled rather Grand. that of Timour the Tartar and Attila, than anything * JOHNSON'S Vanity of Human Wishes. viii. 193, XII.) Vol Pierre le 1709. CHAP. previously witnessed in European history.* Nothing VIII. was seen like it, till Napoleon, a century after, set out from the same capital on a similar expedition. No one could entertain a doubt of the success of an enterprise undertaken by a monarch possessed of such resources, at the head of an army which had never sustained a reverse, and actuated by such ambitious and heroic sentiments. 5. His march from Dres den to Po land, Sept. 1707. Charles commenced his march from Dresden on the 7th September 1707, directing his steps towards Poland. He was at the head of forty-three thousand veteran troops, admirably disciplined and equipped, and provided with every necessary for the most protracted campaign, from the heavy contributions they had so long levied on the opulent provinces of Saxony. Six thousand men were left by the Swedish monarch at Warsaw to defend the crown of Stanislaus, whom, in lieu of Augustus, he had placed on the throne of Poland. With the remainder of his forces Charles directed his march, with fearless intrepidity, into the interior of Russia. He never thought of his adversary's forces: Alexander the Great, with thirty-five thousand men, had attempted and effected the conquest of Asia. He directed his steps across Lithuania, forced the passage of the Beresina, crossed the Dnieper at Mohilow, the scene of one of the first actions between Napoleon and the Russians in the campaign of 1812, Univ. viii. and, after overthrowing a body of 16,000 Russians, arrived on the Dnieper, in the neighbourhood of Smolensko, the theatre of the first desperate battle between those redoubtable opponents in that dreadful contest.1 1 Biograph. 193. Vol tairePierre le Grand. * "Charles XII. jouissait de son succès dans Alt-Ranstadt, près de Leipsic. Les princes Protestans de l'Empire d'Allemagne venaient en foule, lui rendre leurs hommages et lui demander sa protection. Presque toutes les puissances lui envoyaient des ambassadeurs. L'Empereur Joseph I. déférait à ses volontés. Pierre succombait à ses vues à l'égard de Pologne."-VOLTAIRE, Vie de Pierre le Grand, chap. 16. CHAP. 1709. 6. difficulties in his march. Hitherto the Swedes had experienced no serious opposition in their march; but from the time that, in the neighbourhood of Smolensko, they entered the old territories of Red Russia, the case was very different. Increasing The terrible features of a national war immediately of Charles manifested themselves. The Russians pursued the system by which, a century after, on the advice of Wellington, they defeated the invasion of Napoleon. They made no attempt to resist the Swedes in pitched battles, for which they were conscious they were unequal, but withdrew from the villages as they approached; fired the houses, which, being all built of wood, were speedily reduced to ashes; destroyed the mills, burnt or carried away the grain, drove off the cattle, defaced the roads, and broke down the bridges. The main body of the Swedish army advanced without opposition, though very slowly, from these obstacles; but an active enemy, mounted on indefatigable steeds, hovered on its flanks, and the foraging parties and detachments which they sent out to obtain provisions were speedily assailed by an enemy previously invisible, but who never failed to make his presence felt when an insulated party presented an opportunity for attack. The old tactics of the East against the West were again repeated for the twentieth time; and the march of Charles XII. recalled the suffer- 1 Biograph. ings of Darius in Scythia, of Crassus in Mesopotamia, 193. Coxe's or of Richard Coeur-de-Lion in Palestine, of which an- 96. cient story and modern romance have left such graphic pictures.1* Meanwhile the Czar, while he avoided any serious * The Marlborough Papers contain several very interesting letters to the Duke of Marlborough from Count Piper, in which he details the rapid progress of Charles XII. through the western provinces of Muscovy, in his march towards the Ukraine. He describes the general consternation of the Russians, their abandonment of their homes, the voluntary conflagration of their towns Univ. viii. Marlb. v. CHAP. VIII. 1709. 7. action, followed the footsteps of the invader at a little distance with a large army; and this circumstance, joined to the difficulties experienced in his march from Charles di- the devastation of the country and flight of the inhabitants, induced Charles to lend a willing ear to the propothe Ukraine sitions of Mazeppa, Hetman of the Cossacks, who offered Mazeppa. him his alliance and the support of his people. rects his march to to join He never doubted of success when his veteran Swedes were supported by twenty thousand light horse, whom the Cossack chief could bring into the field. Thither, accordingly, Charles directed his steps, and, crossing the Dnieper, he plunged into the boundless and desolate plains of the Ukraine. Infinite difficulties were experienced in the course of the march, which took up a very long time; and when at length Mazeppa did make his appearance, in September 1708, it was with two regiments instead of twenty thousand men. In effect, he had raised eighteen thousand, who joined his standard, thinking they were to combat for the Czar; but no sooner did they learn that they were to join the King 17. Biog. of Sweden than all the rest abandoned their colours, and returned home, resolved not to be treacherous to a sovereign who had given them no cause of offence.1 1 Voltaire's Vie de Pierre, c. Univ. vi. 193. 8. Levenhaupt of his con Meanwhile a still more serious disaster befell the Defeat of Swedish monarch. His ammunition and stores of every and capture kind having been exhausted by his long marches and voy, Sept. protracted residence, now extending to above a year in Poland and the Ukraine, a great convoy was with infinite pains collected in Lithuania, and intrusted to the Swedish general, Levenhaupt, who was at the head 11, 1708. and villages, and considers the conquest of the country and dethronement of the Czar as inevitable. These accounts resemble those given in the bulletins of Napoleon of the self-sacrifices of the Russians in 1812.-See CoXE, v. 96, note. |