31

CHARLES IN SAXONY

The dramatic appearance of King Charles XII and his Swedish army in the heart of Germany sent powerful tremors through Europe. While in Saxony, the young monarch was visible to the continent as never before, and curiosity about him was boundless. Every move, mood and habit was scrutinized; travelers planned trips to pass by the Swedish headquarters at Altranstadt in hopes of catching a glimpse of the young King. Among the monarchs and their ministers and generals, curiosity was mingled with concern. It was understood that Charles had come to put the formal seal on his removal of Augustus of Saxony from the Polish throne, but now that this was achieved, what next? The veteran, undefeated Swedish army was camped in Central Europe only 200 miles from the Rhine. In which direction would the youthful monarch turn his invincible bayonets? Through the winter and spring of 1707, ambassadors and other emissaries flocked to the Swedish King seeking answers.

Some had specific pleas or propositions. Louis XIV’s ambassador proposed uniting the Swedish army with that of France’s Marshal Villiers. This would tip the balance in Germany; afterward, France and Sweden could divide up the German states between themselves. The Protestants of Silesia solicited Charles to remain in Germany as their protector against the Catholic Emperor. (By a threat to march against Vienna, Charles did win for the Silesians the right to reopen their Lutheran churches; indeed, the Emperor Joseph said that he was lucky that the King of Sweden had not demanded that he become a Lutheran himself.) But of all the visitors who made their way to Charles’ castle in Saxony, the most famous was John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the central figure, both militarily and politically, in the allied coalition against the Sun King.

When Charles first entered Saxony, the Duke expressed alarm that the impetuous young King and his antagonism toward the Hapsburg empire could upset the delicate balance of Catholic and Protestant powers arrayed against Louis XIV’s bid for European hegemony. The English minister in Charles’ camp, John Robinson, had forwarded to London a gloomy prediction as to what role a victorious Charles might play as arbiter of Europe. “That he will favor the allies is very uncertain,” wrote Robinson. “That he will force them to a disadvantageous peace is not improbable; that he will act against them is possible, and if he so does … we must suffer what he pleases. For supposing the war in Poland and Muscovy at an end, neither the Emperor, Denmark, Prussia, nor any Prince or state in Germany will dare to appear against him. All will yield to his will and England and Holland must do so too or stand alone.”

Marlborough understood that the volatile Charles would have to be handled with extreme caution. Immediately after the King’s invasion of Saxony, the Duke wrote to his Dutch allies, “Whenever the States [General of Holland] or England write to the King of Sweden, there must be care taken that there be no threat in the letter, for the King of Sweden is of a very particular humor.” Handling Charles would require great care and discretion as well as a nose for diplomacy and intelligence, and Marlborough proposed that he himself go to see the King. Marlborough’s offer was gratefully received, and on April 20, 1707, Marlborough set off in his coach from The Hague across Germany to Altranstadt. As Marlborough, despite his towering reputation, was not a monarch, his first contact in Altranstadt was to be not with the King but with Count Piper, Charles’ senior civilian advisor and de facto prime minister. When the Englishman arrived, Piper sent word that he was busy and kept Marlborough waiting in his coach for half an hour before walking down the steps to receive Queen Anne’s ambassador. Marlborough was equal to the game. As the Swede came forward, the Duke stepped from his coach, put on his hat and walked past Piper without acknowledging his presence. A few feet away, with his back to the Count, the Duke peacefully urinated against a wall while Piper was left to wait. Then the Duke adjusted his dress and greeted Piper in courtly fashion, and, equality restored, together they entered the building for an hour’s conversation.

The following morning, at a little after ten, the Duke called on the King. Here were the two greatest military commanders of the age: Marlborough was fifty-seven, pink-faced, and formally dressed with the blue sash and star of the Order of the Garter on his brilliant scarlet coat; Charles was twenty-five, his face darkened by sun and wind, in his customary blue coat, big boots and wearing his long sword. The two men talked for two hours until “twelve trumpets called the King to vespers,” with Marlborough speaking French, which Charles understood but did not speak, and Robinson, who had served as English minister to Sweden for thirty years, translating when necessary. Marlborough presented the King with a letter from Queen Anne, written, in her words, “not from her chancery but from her heart.” Marlborough elaborated: “Had her sex not prevented it,she would have crossed the sea to visit a prince admired by the whole universe. I [Marlborough himself] am in this particular more happy than the Queen, and I wish I could serve in some campaign under so great a campaigner that I might learn what I yet want to know in the art of war.” Charles was not so pleased by this flattery that he did not subsequently remark that he thought Marlborough overdressed for a soldier and his language a bit overdone.

During his two-day visit to the Swedish camp, Marlborough made no formal proposals. He simply tried to ascertain the intentions of the King and the feelings of the army. Knowing Charles’ concern for the welfare of German Protestants, the Duke professed the warmest sympathy of England for this cause, but also expressed England’s concern that it not be pressed against the Catholic Emperor until conclusion of the war with the more dangerous Catholic enemy, Louis XIV of France. The visitor discreetly scouted the Swedish army, noting its minimum amount of artillery and its lack of the hospital service which his own forces considered normal. He heard enough talk to conclude that a Swedish campaign against Russia was certain and that the Swedish officers expected it to be difficult and to last at least two years. Marlborough left Altranstadt relieved and pleased with his mission: “I hope that it [the visit] has entirely defeated the expectations that the French court had from the King of Sweden.”

In 1707, on the eve of his greatest adventure, the triumphant King was a different man from the eighteen-year-old youth who had sailed across the Baltic to confront his enemies more than seven years before. Charles’ body still looked youthful—he was five feet nine inches tall, with slim hips rising into broad shoulders—but his face had aged considerably. Long, egg-shaped and pockmarked, it now was permanently tanned and creased by tiny squint lines. The deep-blue eyes were calmer and more quizzical; on the full lips played a constant, knowing smile as he gazed at the world around him. He wore neither beard nor mustache nor wig; his brownish-auburn hair, cut short, was brushed upward over his increasing baldness.

Charles took as few pains with his dress as with his person. His uniform was simple: plain dark-blue coat with high collar and brass buttons, yellow vest and yellow breeches, largely covered by thick leather riding boots with high heels, long spurs and long flaps at the knees which came over the knee and halfway up the thigh. In addition, he wore a black taffeta cravat wound several times around his neck, large, heavy deerskin gloves with broad cuffs and an outsized Swedish sword. He rarely wore his broad three-cornered hat; in summer, his hair was bleached by the sun; in fall and winter, rain and snow fell directly on his head. In cold weather, Charles threw an ordinary cavalry cape around his shoulders. Never, even in the heat of battle, did he wear a breastplate to deflect bullet, pike or saber. On campaign, Charles often remained in these clothes for days, sleeping in them on a mattress, a heap of straw or a bare plank. Stripping off his boots, laying his sword nearby where he could reach it in the dark, wrapping himself in his cloak, he read before going to sleep from a gold-embossed Bible which he always carried with him until he lost it at Poltava, and never slept more than five or six hours.

The King ate simply—a breakfast of bread and, when it was available, butter, which he spread with his thumb. His dinner was meat with fat, coarse vegetables, bread and water. He ate silently, with his fingers, rarely taking more than fifteen minutes, and during long marches he ate in the saddle.

Even when the army was in camp, Charles wanted strenuous exercise. He kept a horse saddled in the courtyard of the Altranstadt castle so that when he felt the need, he could leap into the saddle and ride for miles, favoring days filled with storm, wind and rain. When cooped up in a room, he was restless, endlessly pacing. His literary style was rough—his letters were splotches of ink and blottings of attempted erasures—and he preferred to dictate, pacing the room, his gloved hands clasped behind his back, then seizing a pen to add in his illegible scrawl, “Charles.”

For all his restlessness, he was a patient listener, sitting with a half-smile on his face, his hand resting quietly on the hilt of his long sword. If the King was on horseback when someone spoke to him, he took off his hat and tucked it under his arm for as long as the conversation lasted. His manner toward subordinates (and, with rare exceptions in his life, Charles spoke only to subordinates) was calm, reassuring and friendly but never familiar; a distance always remained between sovereign and subject. He almost never got angry, and in day-to-day matters he found it difficult to refuse his officers’ requests. He liked those around him to be lively and cheerful and he would sit back, watching and listening with his quiet smile. He preferred subordinates who were forceful, direct and optimistic, and permitted those who disagreed with him great freedom of expression.

It was in adversity that Charles became more animated. Challenge brought out the steel—the streaks of hardness and ruthlessness in his character. With the approach of combat, the King stepped forward, projecting an aura of power and determination. It was then that argument stopped and the King’s decisions were obeyed. Charles commanded not only by rank but by example. His officers and soldiers saw his self-discipline, his physical courage, his willingness not only to share but to exceed their own physical hardship. They not only respected him as a king, but admired him as a man and a soldier. They had come to believe implicitly in his command. They would attack wherever he pointed his sword: If he asked it, it could be done. As one victory followed another, a supreme confidence, an absolute assurance was inculcated, both in the men and in the leader. This, in turn, reinforced Charles’ superb control and ease of command, permitting him to relax and enjoy his men without lowering all the barriers between them.

Charles’ strength as well as his weakness was his single-mindedness. Obstinately, he pursued his goal, neglecting all other considerations. Whether it was hunting a hare, attacking a specific piece in a game of chess or overthrowing a hostile monarch, he fixed on his objective and would consider nothing else until he had achieved this purpose. Like the other royal field commander of the age, William III, Charles was convinced that he was acting as God’s instrument to punish those who had begun an “unjust” war. Prayer was part of his daily life and that of the Swedish army. In camp, his soldiers were summoned to prayer twice a day. Even on the march, the army was halted by a trumpet call at seven in the morning and at four in the afternoon. Thereupon, each soldier removed his hat, knelt in the middle of the road and said his prayers.

Because of his faith, Charles was fatalistic. He calmly accepted that destiny would watch over him only as long as he was needed to fulfill God’s purpose. Although prone to accidents from his reckless behavior, he rode into battle, contemptuous of danger and death. “I shall fall by no other bullet than that which is destined for me, and when that comes, no prudence will help me,” he said. But though Charles was calm at the thought of his own death and hardened to taking responsibility for the death of others, when he ordered his infantry to attack in the face of enemy fire, he was prompted by a desire for victory, not love of death. In fact, the King mourned the loss of his soldiers and once, as an alternative to this repeated carnage on the battlefield, suggested to Piper that he challenge Tsar Peter to single combat. Piper dissuaded him.

Even during this year of relative ease in Saxony, while his soldiers grew fat around him, Charles’ life remained simple and dedicated to war. He lived in his castle at Altranstadt as if he were living in a tent with a battle expected the following morning. He refused permission to his two sisters who wanted to visit him in Germany, and turned a deaf ear to his grandmother’s plea that he come home to Sweden, at least for a visit, saying that it would set a bad example for his soldiers.

Sexually, Charles remained chaste. “I am married to the army for the duration of the war,” the King declared; he had also decided against sexual experience while the war continued. As Charles saw it, this code of asceticism and self-denial was necessary to a military commander, but it has raised the suggestion that the King of Sweden was homosexual. Charles had had little contact with women in his life. At six, he was taken from his mother and reared in the company of men. He liked to look at pretty girls, and in adolescence there was a flirtation with the wife of a concertmaster, but there were no passions. In his years in the field, Charles wrote frequently to his sisters and his grandmother, but for seventeen years he did not see any of his female relatives, and by the time he returned to Sweden, both his grandmother and his older sister were dead. When the King met ladies in society, his manner was polite but not warm. He did not seek the companionship of women and where possible, he avoided it; it seemed to embarrass him.

As much as possible, Charles modeled the Swedish army on himself. He wanted an elite corps of unmarried men who thought only of duty and not of home, who saved their strength for battle rather than the pursuit of women and the cares of marriage. Married men with children were less likely to advance courageously across a field into a storm of enemy bullets and bayonets. Charles admired and faithfully sought to emulate the example of his father, Charles XI, who had conscientiously practiced abstinence during the years Sweden was at war.

As the years went by, the King’s lack of interest in women became more pronounced. During the army’s year of rest at Saxony, many Swedish-fathered babies were conceived, but there were no rumors from the headquarters of the twenty-five-year-old King. Later, when Charles spent five years as a prisoner-guest in Turkey, with long evenings devoted to plays by Molière and concerts of chamber music, still there were no whispers of women. Perhaps having denied himself both love and women so long, he simply had lost the capacity for interest in either.

And if he was not interested in women, was he therefore interested in men? There is no evidence of this. In the early years of war, Charles slept alone. Later, a page slept in his room, but an orderly slept in Peter’s room and sometimes the Tsar napped with his head on this young man’s stomach; this did not make either Charles or Peter homosexual.

With Charles, one can only say that the fires which burned in him had reached the point of obsession, obliterating everything else. He was a warrior. For Sweden’s sake, for the sake of his army, he chose hardness. Women were soft, a distraction. He had no sexual experience; perhaps he sensed the enormity of its power and held himself in check, not daring to test it. In this respect. Charles XII was abnormal. But we already know that in many ways the King of Sweden was not like other men.

Peter’s reaction to Augustus’ dethronement and the election and coronation of Stanislaus had been to immediately crown his own court fool as King of Sweden, but he knew that the events in Poland were deadly serious for Russia. Over the years, the Tsar had come to understand that he was dealing with a fanatic; that Charles was determined to overthrow Augustus, and that the Swedish King’s invasion of Russia would be postponed until this victory in Poland was achieved. Therefore, realizing his own great stake in preserving Augustus’ power, Peter had poured Russian money and soldiers into the effort to sustain the Elector of Saxony on the Polish throne. As long as the war was fought in Poland, it would not be fought in Russia.

When Augustus was forced to give up his claim, Peter searched for his own replacement as King of Poland—not a puppet but a strong, independent ruler who could both govern and command armies in the field. His first choice was Prince Eugene of Savoy, then at the peak of his reputation as one of the great commanders of the age. Eugene thanked the Tsar for the honor done him, but said that his acceptance would depend on the will of his master, the Emperor; he then wrote to the Emperor Joseph saying that, in accordance with the allegiance he had given his sovereign for twenty years, he left the decision strictly in the Emperor’s hands. Joseph was torn: He could see the advantages of having so loyal and effective a subordinate on the Polish throne, but he dared not offend Charles, and he knew that Eugene’s appointment would lead to war between Eugene and Stanislaus, with Charles supporting Stanislaus. Thus, he postponed a decision, writing to Peter that, as Eugene was about to embark on a new campaign, nothing could be decided until the following winter.

Peter could not wait. With Charles’ army in Saxony preparing to march, if he was to have a new pro-Russian King of Poland, he needed him immediately. He approached James Sobieski, the son of the former King Jan Sobieski, who quickly declined the prickly honor. Peter negotiated with Francis Rakoczy, the Hungarian patriot who had led Hungary into revolt against the imperial crown, and Rakoczy agreed to accept the crown if Peter could persuade the Polish Diet to offer it to him. But before anything further could take place, the project was forgotten. Charles had marched out of Saxony and was advancing on Russia.

Augustus’ abdication removed the second of Peter’s three original allies. Now, as Peter said later, “this war lay only on us.” Left alone to face the Swedes, Peter intensified his efforts to offer Charles a peace settlement or, if this was impossible, to find allies who could help him avert what most of Europe regarded as his inevitable defeat.

In seeking a mediator or an ally, Peter approached both sides in the great war which had divided Europe. In 1706, Andrei Matveev proposed to the States General that if the maritime powers could persuade Sweden to accept peace with Russia, the Tsar would supply them with 30,000 of his best troops for use against France. When the Dutch did not reply, Peter approached two neutral powers, Prussia and Denmark, for help as mediators. These attempts also failed. Finally, in March 1707, Peter sent proposals to Louis XIV, promising that if the Sun King would mediate successfully between Russia and Sweden, Peter would supply him with Russian troops to use against England, Holland and Austria. The terms which Peter offered Sweden were that he would cede Dorpat outright and pay a large sum of money to be allowed to keep Narva. He insisted only on keeping St. Petersburg and the Neva River. Louis promised to try.

Peter also approached England. As early as 1705, when Queen Anne’s new ambassador, Charles Whitworth, arrived in Moscow, Peter had hoped that he could persuade his sovereign to act as mediator in the Baltic. Whitworth was favorable to Peter, but his dispatches were unable to elicit from his government any diplomatic intercession on the Tsar’s behalf. At the end of 1706, Peter decided to carry the appeal directly to London and instructed Matveev to go himself from The Hague to the English capital and ask the Queen to threaten Sweden with war unless Charles made peace with Russia. Peter left the peace terms entirely up to the Queen, insisting only that he must be allowed to keep Russia’s hereditary possessions on the Baltic—that is, Ingria and the course of the Neva River. Should formal negotiations fail, Matveev was to try to influence Marlborough and Sydney Godolphin, the leading English ministers, under the table. Peter was realistic about this, saying, “I do not think that Marlborough can be bought because he is so enormously rich. However, you can promise him 200,000 or more.”

Before leaving Holland for England, Matveev saw Marlborough in The Hague. After the interview, the Duke wrote to Godolphin in London:

The Ambassador of Muscovy has been with me and made many expressions of the great esteem his master has for Her Majesty … and as a mark of it, he has resolved to send his only son into England [to be educated] … I hope Her Majesty will … [permit] it; for it is certain you will not be able to gratify him in any part of his negotiation.

Matveev’s mission, thus, had little chance of success even before it began, for Marlborough’s voice was authoritative. Nevertheless, the essence of diplomacy is letting each player act out his role and Marlborough not only did not dissuade Matveev from going to London but even lent the Ambassador his own yacht, Peregrine, to make the Channel crossing.

Matveev arrived in the English capital in May 1707, and was greeted amiably, but it was not long before he understood that nothing would happen quickly. Writing to Golovkin, who by this time had succeeded Golovin as Chancellor, he warned that progress would be slow: “Here there is no autocratic power”; the Queen could do nothing without the approval of Parliament. Finally, in September, Queen Anne gave the Russian Ambassador an audience. She was prepared, she said, to ally England with Russia by including Russia in the Grand Alliance, but first she had to have the acquiescence of her current allies, Holland and the Hapsburg empire. During this period of further delay, Matveev’s hopes were kept alive by Marlborough, who wrote from Holland that he was using all his influence to persuade the States General to agree to the Russian alliance.

The game was slipping away—Charles had marched from Saxony in August to begin his long-dreaded invasion of Russia—and Matveev’s exasperation grew. “The Ministry here is more subtle than the French even in finesse and intrigue,” he wrote to Moscow. “Their smooth and profitless speeches bring us nothing but loss of time.” In November, Marlborough himself arrived in London. Matveev visited him the evening after his arrival and asked the Duke to say plainly, as an honest man without sweet promises, whether the Tsar could hope for anything from England. Once again, Marlborough refused to give a definite reply.

Through another source—Huyssen, who was acting as a Russian diplomatic agent on the continent—a different approach to Marlborough was under consideration. According to Huyssen, the Duke had said that he would be willing to arrange English help for Russia in return for a substantial Russian gift of money and land to him personally. When Golovkin reported this to Peter, the Tsar declared, “Tell Huyssen that if Marlborough wishes a Russian principality, he can promise him one of three, whichever he wishes, Kiev, Vladimir or Siberia. And he can promise him also that if he persuades the Queen to make a good peace for us with the Swedes, he shall receive as revenues of his principality 50,000 ducats for every year of his life, in addition to the Order of St. Andrew, and a ruby as large as any in Europe.”

Neither Matveev’s nor Huyssen’s approach went further. As late as February 1708, with Charles XII already across the Vistula on his march to Moscow, Matveev issued a final appeal for an English alliance. The appeal was left unanswered. In April, Peter wrote to Golovkin: “Concerning Andrei Matveev, long ago we said it was time for him to depart, for all there [i.e., in London] is tales and shame.”

Charles adamantly refused to consider any negotiations for peace with Russia. He rejected the French offer of mediation, saying that he did not trust the Tsar’s word; the fact that Peter had already given the title of Prince of Ingria to Menshikov was evidence that the Tsar had no intention of returning the province and therefore could not be interested in negotiating a peace. When it was suggested that Peter might compensate Sweden in order to keep a small slice of the conquered territory on the Baltic, Charles replied that he would not sell his Baltic subjects for Russian money. When Peter offered to return all of Livonia, Estonia and Ingria except St. Petersburg and Schlüsselburg-Nöteborg and the Neva River which connected them, Charles declared indignantly, “I will sacrifice the last Swedish soldier rather than cede Nöteborg.”

In this pre-invasion period of tentative peace offers by Peter and rejections by Charles, one specific and irreconcilable difference between them became clear to all: St. Petersburg. Peter would give up anything to keep the site which gave him access to the sea. Charles would give up nothing without first coming to grips with the Russian army. Therefore, on behalf of St. Petersburg—still scarcely more than a collection of log houses, an earth-walled fortress and a primitive shipyard—the war continued.

In fact, negotiation made no sense to Charles. At the pinnacle of success, with Europe paying court at his door, with a superbly trained, victorious army ready for action, with a grand strategy faithfully adhered to and successfully pursued up to this point, why should he be willing to cede Swedish territory to an enemy? It would be dishonorable and humiliating for him to give up provinces still formally Swedish by solemn treaty between his grandfather, Charles X, and Tsar Alexis—territories now temporarily occupied, as it were, behind the back of the Swedish King and army. Besides, a Russian campaign offered Charles the kind of military operation he dreamed of. Through all his years in Poland, he had been caught in the fluctuating tides of European politics. Now, with a clean stroke of the sword, he would decide everything. And if the risks of marching an army a thousand miles into Russia were great, so were the possible rewards when a King of Sweden stood in the Kremlin and dictated a peace with Russia which would last for generations. And perhaps the risks were not so great. Among Swedes and West Europeans in general, opinion of the Russians as warriors remained low. The effect of Narva had sunk deep, and none of Peter’s subsequent successes in the Baltic had erased the impression that the Russians were an unruly mob which could not fight a disciplined Western army.

Finally, there was the Messianic side of Charles’ character. In Charles’ view, Peter must be punished as Augustus had been punished: The Tsar must step down from the Russian throne. To Stanislaus, who was urging peace because of the misery of the people of Poland, Charles said, “The Tsar is not yet humiliated enough to accept the conditions of peace which I intend to prescribe.” Later, he again rebuffed Stanislaus by saying, “Poland will never have quiet as long as she has for a neighbor this unjust Tsar who begins a war without any good cause for it. It will be needful first for me to march thither and depose him also.” Charles went on to talk of restoring the old regime in Moscow, canceling the new reforms and, above all, abolishing the new army. “The power of Muscovy which has arisen so high thanks to the introduction of foreign military discipline must be broken and destroyed,” the King declared. Charles looked forward to this change, and as he was leaving on his march to Moscow, he said cheerfully to Stanislaus, “I hope Prince Sobieski will always remain faithful to us. Does Your Majesty not think that he would make an excellent Tsar of Russia?”

Charles knew from the beginning that a Russian campaign would not be easy. It meant traversing vast expanses of rolling plain, penetrating miles of deep forest and crossing a series of wide rivers. Indeed, Moscow and the heart of Russia seemed to be defended by nature. One after another, the great north-south river obstacles would have to be crossed: the Vistula, the Neman, the Dnieper, the Berezina. Working from maps of Poland and from a new map of Russia given to Charles as a present by Augustus, Charles and his advisors plotted their march, although the actual route was so hidden in secrecy that even Gyllenkrook, Charles’ Quartermaster General in charge of the maps, was not sure which one had been chosen.

The first possibility—one which most of the officers at Swedish headquarters in Saxony assumed the King would adopt—was to march to the Baltic to cleanse these former Swedish provinces of their Russian occupiers. Such a campaign would expiate the insult of their loss, seize the new city and port which Peter was building and drive the Russians back from the sea—a powerful blow at Peter, whose passion for salt water and St. Petersburg were well known. The military advantage of such a great sweep up the Baltic coast was that Charles would be advancing with the sea close to his left flank, providing his army with easy access to sea-borne supply and reinforcement from Sweden itself. In addition, the large army he was assembling would be further augmented by forces already stationed in those Baltic regions: almost 12,000 men under Lewenhaupt at Riga and 14,000 under Lybecker in Finland already poised for a blow at St. Petersburg. But there were negative aspects to a Baltic offensive. These Swedish provinces already had suffered terribly from seven years of war. The farms were burned, the fields in weeds, the towns almost depopulated by war and sickness. If these exhausted provinces once again became a battlefield, nothing would be left. More important than his feelings of compassion, Charles also realized that even if such a campaign were wholly successful, even with the entire coast recaptured and the flag of Sweden floating over the Peter and Paul Fortress he would not have achieved a decisive victory. Peter still would be Tsar in Moscow. Russian power would be driven back, but only temporarily. Sooner or later, this vigorous Tsar would reach for the sea again.

Thus, the march to the Baltic was rejected for something bolder: a strike directly at Moscow, Russia’s heart. Charles had concluded that only by a deep thrust which could place him personally inside the Kremlin could he achieve a lasting peace for Sweden.

The Russians, of course, were not to be allowed to know this. To encourage the Tsar to believe that the objective was the Baltic, important subsidiary operations in that area were planned. Once Charles had begun to march eastward directly across Poland, and the Russians had begun to shift troops from the Baltic coast to Poland and Lithuania, the Swedish armies in the Baltic would take the offensive; the Finnish army under Lybecker would drive down the Karelian Isthmus toward Schlüsselburg, the Neva and St. Petersburg. Then, as the thrust of the main Swedish army drew Russian troops away from the force opposing Lewenhaupt near Riga, Charles would use those troops as the escort for a vast supply convoy which would move south from Riga to rendezvous with and resupply the main army for the last stage of its march to the Russian capital.

Meanwhile, in all those towns and villages of Saxony where Swedish regiments were stationed, military preparations were moving forward. Squads and platoons were mustered from the houses and barns where they had spent the idle months. Thousands of new recruits flocked to join the ranks, many of them German Protestants. Silesian Protestants, anxious to serve a monarch who supported their cause against Catholic domination, clustered so quickly about the recruiting booths that Swedish sergeants had only to pick and choose the best.

Augmented by these new volunteers, the army which on its entry into Saxony had numbered 19,000 had now risen to more than 32,000. In addition, 9,000 fresh recruits from Sweden were drilling in Swedish Pomerania, preparing to join the main army after it had entered Poland. There, the overall strength of Charles’ army would reach 41,700 men, including 17,200 infantrymen, 8,500 cavalrymen and 16,000 dragoons. Many of the dragoons were newly recruited, although not necessarily inexperienced, Germans; as dragoons, they were in effect mounted infantrymen, prepared to fight either on foot or on horseback as circumstances dictated. Finally, there were the surgeons, chaplains, officers’ servants, civil officials. Not part of the army proper and thus not counted were the hundreds of civilian wagoners, locally hired to drive cartloads of supplies and ammunition over specific sections of the road.

Adding the 26,000 men under Lewenhaupt and Lybecker who waited at Charles’ command in Lithuania and Finland, the grand total of the force preparing to march on Russia reached almost 70,000 men. And it was being drilled and honed into a formidable fighting machine. Foreign recruits were trained in Swedish battle drill, learned the signals of Swedish drums and were taught to use Swedish weapons. The entire army was rearmed. The so-called “Charles XII sword,” a lighter and more pointed model, was issued to replace the heavier, less wieldy weapon which the King had inherited from his father’s reign. Most of the battalions already carried the modern flintlock muskets, and now the Swedish cavalry was also equipped with flintlock pistols. Large supplies of gunpowder were procured for the campaign, but the emphasis remained, as always in the Swedish army, on the attack with cold steel.

The tailors of Saxony were busy stitching these proud and well-fed soldiers into new Swedish uniforms. The Swedish veterans who had been described as looking like gypsies when they marched into Saxony in their ragged, weather-beaten uniforms were now fitted into new boots and new blue-and-yellow uniforms with cloaks of dark blue or gray. In some regiments of cavalry, cloth breeches were replaced by elkskin, better adapted to long days in the saddle. New Bibles and hymnbooks were brought from Sweden, and medical supplies accumulated. Generous amounts of food were stockpiled and distributed between the regimental wagons. Swedish soldiers were accustomed to hearty rations: almost two pounds of bread and two pounds of meat a day, along with two and a half quarts of small beer, some peas or grain, salt, butter and a weekly issue of tobacco.

By mid-August, all was ready. Charles ordered all the women who had found their way into the Swedish camp to leave, and then attended a solemn prayer service for the army. And at four o’clock in the morning on August 27, 1707, Charles XII of Sweden rode out of Altranstadt at the beginning of his greatest adventure. Behind, in a stream of cheerful men and spirited horses, marched the largest and finest army ever commanded by a King of Sweden. As the long blue-and-yellow columns moved along the dusty Saxon roads in those late August days, they made an impressive sight. “To human eyes these brave, sturdy, well-trained, well-equipped fellows look invincible,” exulted one Swedish observer. “I cannot express how fine a show the Swedes make: broad, plump, sturdy fellows in blue-and-yellow uniforms,” reported a Saxon. “All Germans must acknowledge that they are incomparable. And there had been a deal of grieving among the Leipzig women. They are not content to weep and cry out, but must swoon and fall down at parting.… It is the same in all the other small towns … for the freedom our Swedes have used in such matters is past belief. Some, nay all, are spoiled. Should they ever return home, I pity wives who are to welcome such pampered men; and were a girl my worst enemy, I would not counsel her to take one of these officers for a husband—no not though he were a colonel.”

The first stage of the march, through Protestant Silesia, became more of a triumphal progress than the opening of an arduous campaign. The population, whose Protestant churches had been reopened thanks to Charles, regarded the King as their special savior. Crowds of people attended the daily open-air services in the army’s encampments, hoping simply to catch a glimpse of their hero. The sight of Charles kneeling among his men made a deep impression, and many young men wholly untrained as soldiers sought to accompany the army as if it had been a band of passing crusaders. Charles welcomed and even bathed in this wave of popular feeling, instructing his chaplains to choose only hymns which had been translated from German so that the population visiting the camp would recognize the music and be able to join in singing.

The campaign on which the King was embarking would be a maximum test for his superb war machine. From the beginning, it was clear that this was to be an epic march. To take an army from deep in Germany in the heart of Europe eastward more than a thousand miles to Moscow required an audacity equal to Hannibal’s or Alexander’s. In Marlborough’s famous march up the Rhine before the Battle of Blenheim, three years before, the Englishman had moved 250 miles from the Netherlands into Bavaria. But Marlborough’s men had tramped through populated regions, staying close to the great river which carried his supply barges and which, had the situation begun to deteriorate, would have provided a watery avenue on which to embark and float downstream to their original base. Charles was setting out on a journey four times as long, across plains, swamps, forests and rivers, where the roads were few and the population scarce. If misfortune or disaster struck, there was no way to retreat except to walk.

Nevertheless, Charles’ own attitude was more than confident; it was light-hearted. Even as the Swedish columns of infantry, cavalry, cannon and supply wagons were rippling along the Saxon roads, Charles, accompanied by only seven Swedish officers, rode incognito into Dresden to spend an afternoon with his former enemy, the Elector Augustus. Charles’ visit was so sudden that he found the Elector still in his dressing gown. The two monarchs embraced, Augustus put on a coat, and together they went for an afternoon ride along the Elbe. It was a pleasant meeting between the two first cousins and Charles bore no personal ill-will against the man who had attacked him six years before and whose dethroning he had pursued so relentlessly for so many years across the plains of Poland. Now that Augustus was punished, Charles’ attitude toward him was sunny. At the end of their ride, Charles inspected the famous Green Vault collection that had so fascinated Peter nine years before, and visited his aunt, Augustus’ mother, the Dowager Electress of Saxony. It was the last time the King would see either his aunt or his cousin.^* Despite these pleasantries, the Swedes around Charles worried about the King’s reckless decision to ride into the capital of a former enemy accompanied by only seven men. Charles later put their fears aside, smiling and saying, “There was no danger. The army was on the march.”

* In fact, during Charles’ thirty-six years of life, Augustus was the only man of kingly rank whom the King of Sweden would ever meet.