and as she possessed Pomerania, Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria,
and Carelia with Finland, the Baltic Sea was a Swedish
lake. But this brilliant position was menaced. All the
neighboring peoples had either to fight their way out or to
pay back ancient defeats. Russia could become a Euro-
pean power only by occupying the Gulf of Finland, and the
house of Brandenburg wished to expel from Germany the
intruders who within its sight had possession of so goodly a
share. Denmark had similar desires, and the Elector of
Saxony, chosen King of Poland, welcomed a war in order
to gain the right of keeping Saxon troops in that kingdom,
which he wished to render a hereditary possession.

Charles XI., the ablest King of Sweden since Gustavus
Adolphus, died, leaving the throne to a young prince of
eighteen. Forthwith a coalition was formed (1699): the
Russians of Peter the Great entered Ingria; the Saxons of
Augustus II., Livonia; the Danes of Frederick III., Hoi-
stein, whose duke was the brother-in-law of Charles XII.

The new King of Sweden was not a great prince, but a
heroic soul who, had he possessed a little wisdom, might
have done great things. He had carefully read Quintus
Curtius and he desired nothing else so much as to resemble
the Macedonian hero. "He was not Alexander, but he
might have been the first soldier of Alexander."

At the news of the coalition, far from being surprised and
terrified, he armed quickly and set out to defend his prov-
inces from the attack of the Muscovite Darius. He began
with Denmark, landed in the island of Zealand, and
marched straight to Copenhagen, which he threatened with
bombardment. The Danes, overwhelmed with terror, im-



CHAP. XXIV.] RISE OF RUSSIA. 391

plored peace and hastened to sign the treaty of Traventhal
(August 18, 1700). In six months Denmark had been
crushed.

Already the Saxons, led by Patkul, had raised the siege
of Riga in consequence of the representations of Holland.
Charles XII. hastened against the Russians and arrived
under the walls of Narva with 8000 men to confront an
army ten times more numerous. But the Czar had quitted
the camp; the generals did not agree and inspired no con-
fidence in their soldiers. A few hours sufficed the Swedes
to throw this mob of barbarians headlong (November 1300).
Charles XII. dismissed his prisoners, whom he despised, and
marched against the Saxons, whom he found intrenched
behind the Dwina. They were likewise beaten and lost
Mitau and Courland (July, 1701).

Never had war been made with more lightning rapidity.
Unhappily Charles XII. did not know how to profit by the
opportunity and conclude a glorious peace, as the Chan-
cellor Oxenstiern advised, nor how to recognize which of his
two enemies was the more formidable. Deceived by the
facile success of Narva, he conceived for the Russian
empire, and even for Peter the Great, a contempt which
was the cause of his disasters. He resolved to dethrone
Augustus; and leaving a few thousand men to watch the
Russians, he penetrated Poland (1702). He there lost five
years in winning barren victories. To make an end he in-
vaded Saxony. Augustus II. then yielded, and by the treaty
of Altranstadt renounced formally the crown of Poland in
favor of Stanislaus Leczinski, the prottg/ of the King of
Sweden (1706).

Charles XII. then found himself the arbiter of Europe.
The moment was solemn: if he threw himself upon Ger-
many, and assailed in the rear the allies who were attack-
ing France, the consequences of such a diversion were
incalculable; hence Marlborough himself came to Altran-
stadt to negotiate with the King of Sweden. Charles de-
manded of Joseph I. a multitude of concessions and
reparations: the emperor accorded everything. The allies
breathed again when Charles XII., quitting Saxony, turned
toward the east, to there fight hand to hand with an adver-
sary who began to cause him anxiety.

While he warred in Poland for the empty honor of making
a king, Peter the Great had reorganized his army and



39 2 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

beaten near Derpt 7000 Swedes (September, 1701). The
following year Peter conquered Ingria, where in order to be
master of Lake Ladoga and of the Neva he strengthened
the fortifications of the Swedish strongholds of Noteborg,
which he called Schusselberg, or the Fort of the Key, say-
ing that by this key he would open hostile countries.
His troops became accustomed to war, officers were devel-
oped, and a succession of unpretentious but solid victories,
such as the capture of Derpt, Narva, and Mitau, inspired
all the necessary confidence for confronting the terrible
soldiers 'of the Swedish hero.

Decided at last, after all this time wasted in Poland and
Saxony, to arrest the progress of an enemy whom he had
too much despised, Charles rapidly traversed Saxony and
Poland, driving before him the Russians who had ventured
upon Polish territory; he crossed the Beresina upon the ice
(1708), and entered Mohileff. He had no plan; first he
seemed resolved to march upon Moscow, while one of his
generals, Lubecker, attacked St. Petersburg, the infant
capital of Russia. With a little prudence this march might
have succeeded, and Peter in conquered Moscow would
have been compelled to accept the peace which he had
many times demanded. But arrived at Smolensk, Charles
abandoned the road toward Moscow and directed his course
southward. Before him he saw Scheremetoff retreating,
the most skillful general of the Czar, and he gave pursuit.
Scheremetoff laid waste everything in his march, destroyed
the forage, burned the magazines, and desolated the fields
to starve the enemy.

Charles XII., lost in the midst of deserts, continued
nevertheless to advance; he counted upon an insurrection
of the Cossacks of the Ukraine in order to cut off the
retreat of Scheremetoff. He had concluded an alliance
with their hetman, Mazeppa. Unfortunately the army
lost its way in the pathless marshes of Pinsk, and Charles
reached the rendezvous too late. The Czar had had time to
beat Mazeppa, and the hetman brought the king only a
handful of troops (1708). Charles XII. counted at least
on Lewenhaupt, who was approaching with 16,000 men and
immense stores. The Czar threw himself between the king
and his lieutenant. Lewenhaupt, attacked by 60,000 men
near the Soja, an eastern affluent of the Dnieper, resisted
heroically, and after five murderous engagements was com-



CHAP. XXIV.] RISE OF RUSSIA. 393

pelled to set fire to the 7000 wagons he was escorting;
he rejoined the' king with only 5000 men, leaving 44
standards in the hands of the Czar. "This victory," said
Peter, "was the mother of Pultowa." At the same time
Apraxin defeated a Swedish corps in Ingria. Then came
the terrible winter of 1709: in a single march 2000 soldiers
fell dead. The army lost half of its effective force.

Peter the Great maneuvered, however, with equal ability
and prudence to confine the Swedes in the Ukraine; Charles
XII. endeavored vainly to break through by partial attacks;
his detachments were beaten. He then determined to
besiege Pultowa, where the Czar had his magazines ; the city
possessed only walls of earth. Peter the Great arrived at
the head of 70,000 men and intrenched himself in a formi-
dable position. Charles, after having lost two months at
the siege, had no resource left save to give battle. Not-
withstanding all the valor of his soldiers, he was defeated
and his army captured or destroyed. He himself fled to
Turkey with 500 horsemen (1709).

This victory overthrew the power of Sweden and trans-
ferred to Russia the supremacy in northern Europe. The
Charles xii. Czar, who at Pultowa had fought as a common
at Bender: soldier, knew as a skillful general how to profit

treaties of the , , . ' /-> v T

Pruth (1711) and by his victory: he seized Carelia, Livonia,
Nystadt (1721). and Esthonia, and called to arms all those
whom Charles had conquered. The King of Denmark
fell upon Scania, and Augustus II. re-entered Poland.
The Divan was alarmed at seeing a power born yester-
day increase so fast; it yielded to the entreaties of the
King of Sweden, and declared war against Russia. The
grand vizier, Mohammed Baltadji, crossed the Danube. The
Czar, invited by the hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia,
marched against the Ottomans, but could not defend the
passage of the Pruth, and found himself with his 40,000
men destitute of food and ammunition, surrounded by
150,000 enemies. The Czarina Catherine, a young Livo-
nian, widow of a Dutch dragoon, made prisoner by the
Russians in Marienburg (1702), whom the Czar captivated
by her beauty and intelligence had espoused, delivered him
by herself opening negotiations with the grand vizier, who
allowed himself to be won over. The Czar restored Azof;
by the destruction of the port of Taganrog he renounced
the idea of opening up the Black Sea ; he also agreed to



394 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

have his troops evacuate Poland and to no longer interfere
in the affairs of that republic. Charles by this treaty was
a second time conquered. He persisted through three
years in remaining in Turkey, putting in play a thousand
springs in order to rouse the Sultan against the Czar. He
could not succeed. Tired by his intrigues, the Divan
wished to compel him to quit the Ottoman territory.
Charles XII. defended himself at Bender with his domestics
and officers against 15,000 men. When he decided to
depart in 1714 it was too late.

To no purpose he had wasted three years in those heroic
freaks, and meanwhile Sweden had lost all its foreign prov-
inces. In vain Steinach had in 1709 destroyed the Danish
army near Helsingborg; he was, despite a second victory,
compelled to capitulate in Tonningen at the mouth of the
Eider (1713). Peter sent into Pomerania Mentschikoff,
formerly a pastrycook's boy, whom he had made general
and prince, and who deserved his honors. With the fleet
which he had created he himself gained, near the Aland
Islands, a naval battle over the Swedes, the ancient masters
of the Baltic, which gave him Finland. The King of Den-
mark sold to George I., King of England, Bremen and
Verden, which he had seized. The King of Prussia caused
Stettin and Pomerania to be surrendered to himself. The
spoils of Sweden were at auction.

At that moment Charles XII. finally decided to depart
from Turkey: he crossed all Germany on horseback in dis-
guise and stopped only at Stralsund, the last city which he
possessed outside of Sweden. A combined army of Danes,
Saxons, Prussians, and Russians at once besieged him
there; he defended it a month and was compelled to aban-
don the city so as not to be captured on its surrender. It
capitulated that same day (December 13, 1715).

Agriculture and manufactures ruined, commerce annihi-
lated, 250,000 men, the flower of the nation, cut off by a
fifteen years' war, the ancient ascendency lost such was the
situation to which Charles XII. had reduced his kingdom,
and in which he refound it. He, however, gave no sign
that the past had at least served him as a lesson. He con-
sented only, following the counsels of Baron de Goertz, to
divide his enemies; a tacit truce was concluded between
Sweden and the Czar; Goertz even had an understanding
with Alberoni, and Charles XII. promised to lead 20,000



CHAP. XXIV.] RISE OF RUSSIA. 395

men into England to dethrone George I. First he attacked
Denmark and invaded Norway, but he perished before
Frederickshall, probably by assassination (December n,
1718). Three months later Baron de Goertz died upon
the scaffold. Charles XII. had twice missed the oppor-
tunity of filling a grand role: in 1707 that of a Gustavus
Adolphus in the complications of western Europe; later
that of a triumphant peacemaker in conquered Poland and
Russia. He had believed himself a second Alexander, he
had been only a brave adventurer; he had destroyed the
prosperity of his people and ruined his country for a
century.

The sister of Charles XII., Ulrica Eleanora, was chosen
by the States to succeed him (January 31, 1720), but upon
the condition of signing a formal agreement which peculiarly
restricted the royal authority. She made joint ruler with
herself (April 4, 1720) her husband, Frederick of Hesse-
Cassel, and by onerous treaties re-established peace among
the northern states. Sweden recognized Augustus II. as
King of Poland, retained Wismar in Mecklenburg, but kept
of Pomerania only what is north of the Peene (Stralsund),
ceded to Prussia, together with the islands of Usedom and
Wollin, the part of that province comprised between the
Peene and the Oder (Stettin), and confirmed Denmark in the
possession of Schleswig. The treaty of Nystadt with Russia
(1721) cost her all the countries bathed by the gulfs of Riga
and Finland from the Duna as far as the Kymene, that is
to say, Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, a part of Carelia, of the
country of Viborg, and eastern Finland. When the ambas-
sador of France entreated less harsh terms for Sweden Peter
replied, "I do not wish to see from my windows the lands
of my neighbor."

Sweden declined, Russia ascended. In 1716 Peter had

taken advantage of the negotiations opened by Baron

Goertz to make a new journey to Europe.

ne^ eC of n peter U to He already thought of obtaining a foothold

Europe (1716); in Germany; this gave umbrage to the Elector

St. Petersburg ;, T , v u j i V ft?

the Czar chief of Hanover, who had become King of Eng-
church. Russian land. In order to succeed in this design he
needed the friendship of France, and he said
with great justice to the French agents: "You have used
Sweden to check Austria. The former power is ruined;
I offer myself in her place if you guarantee me my



39 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

conquests and pay me the subsidies which you gave to
Sweden; furthermore, I bring you the alliance of Poland
and Prussia." Dubois, the confidant of the Regent of
France and an ardent partisan of the English alliance,
did all in his power to hinder this negotiation, which,
however, resulted in the treaty of Amsterdam, whereby
France, the Czar, and Prussia guaranteed the treaties
of Utrecht and Baden, as well as those which should
be concluded for the peace of the north by the Czar and
Prussia. This agreement was the abandonment of Sweden,
the ancient ally of France. The Czar devoted six
months to visiting France and its marvels. He received
the most magnificent hospitality; he was made to accept
everything which he admired in matters of art. He visited
the mint; one of the medals which had been struck in his
presence fell to the ground; he picked it up and saw his
portrait with this legend: "Vires acquirit eundo."

Returning to his states, he completed his new capital to
replace the ancient Moscow, which he considered too
remote from Europe and too Asiatic. He had laid its
foundation in 1703 on the ruined bastions of the city of
Nieuschantz, captured that same year from the Swedes, and
he called it St. Petersburg, after his own name. The situa-
tion was well chosen, thirty versts distant from the mouth
of the Neva, near the Gulf of Finland, and confronting
Sweden. The place was unhealthy; more than 100,000
workmen perished; but the Czar did not reckon the dead.
He took up his quarters in the midst of the laborers, had
earth brought to fill the marshes and canals dug to carry
away the stagnant waters. One of the most beautiful capitals
of Europe rose by the invincible will of its founder in a spot
where Nature would hardly have located a village. As
early as the year 1704 the city was protected from sudden
attack by sea by the construction of the fortress of Kron-
slott on an island at the mouth of the Neva ; and the harbor
of Kronstadt, excavated in 1710 from a bank of sand in the
Gulf of Finland, received the infant navy of the Czar.

St. Petersburg, hardly built, saw rise within it a glass
factory, a carpet manufactory, and another of gold and silver
thread. Peter had already caused shepherds and flocks to
come from Saxony and Poland that he might have wools
suitable for the making of good cloth and be no longer
obliged to depend upon the manufactures of Berlin to clothe



CHAP. XXIV.] JKISE OF RUSSIA. 397

his troops; he furthermore invited from abroad workmen
in iron and brass, gunsmiths, and founders ; at his death
Moscow and Yaroslav contained fourteen manufactories of
linen and hempen cloth. To facilitate interchange he made
weights and measures uniform, and established a chamber
of commerce composed half of foreigners, half of Russians.
At the same time the mines of Siberia were opened; the
Baltic, Black, and Caspian seas were bound together by
canals, the banks of Lake Peipus converted into dockyards;
the plan of the canal and locks of the Ladoga was outlined
by Peter himself in 1718. Forts, erected at equal distances,
protected the frontier against the Tartars. Commercial
relations were established with China; an attempt was made
to open a new route to the products of India through Great
Bokhara, and to those of Persia by the Caspian Sea, so as
to put all this lucrative commerce into the hands of Russia.
Forts were built as far as Kamtchatka, and Behring sur-
veyed the coasts of eastern Siberia (1725), where he was
shortly to discover the strait which bears his name (1728).

The Russian clergy was famous for its ignorance ; its
members knew hardly more than two things: that they were
of the Greek religion, and that they must hate the Latins.
Peter obliged them to recruit their ranks in three colleges
which he established at Moscow. He took away from
ecclesiastical jurisdiction the right of condemnation to capi-
tal punishment or to severe penalties, and authorized
monastic vows only after the age of fifty. He had allowed
the patriarchal throne to remain vacant since 1703; he
abolished it formally in 1721, and gave the supreme direc-
tion of religious affairs to the Holy Synod, a council com-
posed of twelve bishops or archimandrites whom he
appointed and who swore fidelity to him. He thus became
in reality supreme head of religion, which he subordinated
entirely to the interests and actions of the temporal authority.
In his laws he punished with the same penalties blasphemies
against God and murmurs against himself.

But Peter was not satisfied with fortifying the autocratic
principle of the Russian government; he modified its
nature. He in fact applied the system of military hierarchy
to all the administration of the empire, declaring that offi-
cers should possess personal nobility and superior officers
hereditary nobility. The Russian people gradually became
a regiment of mutes, and, as says a modern traveler, "the



39 8 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

discipline of the camp was substituted for the order of the
city."

His first wife, Eudoxia Lapoutchin, Peter had repudiated
because of her opposition to his reforms. She had borne him
a son, Alexis Petrovitch, chief of the discontented party,
who, governed by the priests and embittered against his
father and his stepmother Catherine, one day had said: "If
I find an opportunity when my father is not present I shall
say something to the archbishops, who will repeat it to the
curates, and the curates will repeat it to their parishioners,
and it may be they will make me reign in spite of myself."
And he would have reigned, as all the world well under-
stood, to annul his father's work, to permit the wearing of the
long beard and the Asiatic robes, to re-establish the patri-
arch and the three fasts, to banish the foreigners and the
reforms. The intrigues of Alexis made the Czar anxious;
he several times had him warned, then arrested, and then
brought him before an exceptional tribunal of 121 commis-
sioners, who, after having subjected him to the rack, unani-
mously condemned him to death. At the news of the deci-
sion the prince fell into convulsions, which according to the
courtiers brought about an attack of apoplexy. The follow-
ing day he died* (1718). The Englishman Henry Bruce,
then present in Russia, wrote home that the Czar had
administered a potion to his son which caused his death in
convulsions. Very few people, he added, considered his
death as natural, but it was dangerous to say what one
thought. Many of his supposed accomplices perished;
General Gleboff was impaled, the Archbishop of Rostoff
was broken alive upon the wheel, the Empress Eudoxia was
flogged.

The man who did not pardon his son would not be greatly
inclined to pardon his unfaithful agents. Extortion, that
curse of the Russian administration, found the Czar pitiless.
In 1721 the Governor of Archangel was shot; the Vice-

* It was proved that the Czarevitch Alexis was the center of a vast plot
not only against his father's reforms but against his throne and life. For
this end he had solicited the armed assistance of the Austrian emperor
and had sought help from Sweden. In the eyes of Peter he was not so
much a rebellious son as a " traitor to his country, the chief of her
domestic enemies and the ally of all her foreign foes." Still the manner
of his death, whether it was natural or by violence, has remained to the
present, and will probably always remain, an impenetrable mystery. ED.



CHAP. XXIV.] RISE OF RUSSIA. 399

governor of St. Petersburg was beaten with the knout for
having abused his power. Some time before a chamber of
justice, instituted to re-establish order in the finances, had
even caused the favorite of the Czar, Prince Mentschikoff,
to tremble. By this merciless harshness Peter succeeded, as
he himself said, in clothing his herd of wild beasts like men.

The last years of the Czar were also marked by successes.
He had then a regular army of 120,000 men and a fleet of
30 ships of the line. He had won by conquest predomi-
nance in the north; the treaty of Nystadt ratified this
supremacy. An expedition against Persia brought him
Derbent south of the Caucasus (1722). Thus Peter I. had
pointed out to his successors the double route they have so
boldly followed toward the west and south of their empire.
Under his despotic but powerful hand Russia was impelled
toward progress with violence, but with rapidity. Three
years later this civilizing genius of Russia, whom the senate
and the synod had surnamed the Great and the Father of
his Country, died from the consequences of his debauches*
(February 8, 1725). Voltaire called him half hero, half
tiger, and Frederick II. said of him and his Russians, ' 'Aqua
fortis which eats into the iron."

Few sovereigns after death have exerted equal influence
over their people. This in the case of Peter has not been
simply the result of work accomplished during his lifetime
but in consequence of the reverence paid to his memory
and hence to his supposed wishes and plans. Even peas-
ants cherish his name in their ballads and common tradi-
tions, and important action has more than once been
determined by the argument that, in like circumstances,
Peter would have done thus and so. Russia's tendency
toward expansion on the east and south is sometimes re-

* According to Russian history Peter's death was brought about in a
very different way. Seeing a boat capsize in the floating ice, he plunged
into the water to rescue a drowning woman. He caught a violent cold,
which was aggravated by his obstinacy in attending the Orthodox cere-
mony of the Baptism of the Waters (January 18), and which resulted in
his death three weeks after at the age of fifty-three. His last words are
reported to have been : "I trust God will pardon my sins in view of the
good I have endeavored to do my people." A character of the wildest
and most extravagant contradictions, he can be judged fairly only as the
disadvantages of his youth and the dominant purpose of his life are taken
into account. lie is one of the three foremost men, if not himself the
foremost, of modern times. ED.



400 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

garded, even by Russians, as not only natural and inev-
itable but as obedience to the designs of the Great Czar.*
Europeans have believed that he formulated with his own
hand the outline of a course of action for his successors, and
that the impulse given almost two hundred years ago has de-
termined the subsequent course of Russia's foreign history.

* There is hardly a more interesting subject for historical curiosity than
the genuineness and authenticity of this so-called "Testament of Peter
the Great." The two most opposite theories have been, (i) that it is
genuine, traced by Peter's own hand, and (2) that it was forged in 1811 by
Lesur under the dictation of Napoleon, and first published in 1812, in