The World's Greatest Books - Volume 12 Part 26

In childhood he developed exceptional physical powers, and remarkable linguistic facility. He succeeded to the throne at the age of fifteen, in 1697. Within the year he declared himself of age, and a.s.serted his position as king; and the neighbouring powers at once resolved to take advantage of the Swedish monarch's youth--the kings Christian of Denmark, Augustus of Saxony and Poland, and the very remarkable Tsar Peter the Great of Russia. Among them, the three proposed to appropriate all the then Swedish territories on the Russian and Polish side of the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic.

Danes and Saxons, joined by the forces of other German princ.i.p.alities, were already attacking Holstein, whose duke was Charles's cousin; the Saxons, too, were pouring into Livonia. On May 8, 1700, Charles sailed from Stockholm with 8,000 men to the succour of Holstein, which he effected with complete and immediate success by swooping on Copenhagen.

On August 6, Denmark concluded a treaty, withdrawing her claims in Holstein and paying the duke an indemnity. Three months later, the Tsar, who was besieging Narva, in Ingria, with 80,000 Muscovites, learnt that Charles had landed, and was advancing with 20,000 Swedes. Another 30,000 were being hurried up by the Tsar when Charles, with only 8,000 men, came in contact with 25,000 Russians at Revel. In two days he had swept them before him, and with his 8,000 men fell upon the Russian force of ten times that number in its entrenchments at Narva. Prodigies of valour were performed, the Muscovites were totally routed. Peter, with 40,000 reinforcements, had no inclination to renew battle, but he very promptly made up his mind that his armies must be taught how to fight. They should learn from the victorious Swedes how to conquer the Swedes.

With the spring, Charles fell upon the Saxon forces in Livonia, before a fresh league between Augustus and Peter had had time to develop advantageously. After one decisive victory, the Duchy of Courland made submission, and he marched into Lithuania. In Poland, neither the war nor the rule of Augustus was popular, and in the divided state of the country Charles advanced triumphantly. A Polish diet was summoned, and Charles awaited events; he was at war, he said, not with Poland, but with Augustus. He had, in fact, resolved to dethrone the King of Poland by the instrumentality of the Poles themselves--a process made the easier by the normal antagonism between the diet and the king, an elective, not a hereditary ruler.

Augustus endeavoured, quite fruitlessly, to negotiate with Charles on his own account, while the diet was much more zealous to curtail his powers than to resist the Swedish monarch, and was determined that, at any price, the Saxon troops should leave Poland. Intrigues were going on on all sides. Presently Charles set his forces in motion. When Augustus learned that there was to be no peace till Poland had a new king, he resolved to fight. Charles's star did not desert him. He won a complete victory. Pressing in pursuit of Augustus, he captured Cracow, but his advance was delayed for some weeks by a broken leg; and in the interval there was a considerable rally to the support of Augustus. But the moment Charles could again move, he routed the enemy at Pultusk. The terror of his invincibility was universal. Success followed upon success. The anti-Saxon party in the diet succeeded in declaring the throne vacant. Charles might certainly have claimed the crown for himself, but chose instead to maintain the t.i.tle of the Sobieski princes. The kidnapping of James Sobieski, however, caused Charles to insist on the election of Stanislaus Lekzinsky.

_II.--From Triumph to Disaster_

Charles left Warsaw to complete the subjugation of Poland, leaving the new king in the capital. Stanislaus and his court were put to sudden flight by the appearance of Augustus with 20,000 men. Warsaw fell at once; but when Charles turned on the Saxon army, only the wonderful skill of Schulembourg saved it from destruction. Augustus withdrew to Saxony, and began repairing the fortifications of Dresden.

By this time, wherever the Swedes appeared, they were confident of victory if they were but twenty to a hundred. Charles had made nothing for himself out of his victories, but all his enemies were scattered--except Peter, who had been sedulously training his people in the military arts. On August 21, 1704, Peter captured Narva. Now he made a new alliance with Augustus. Seventy thousand Russians were soon ravaging Polish territory. Within two months, Charles and Stanislaus had cut them up in detail, or driven them over the border. Schulembourg crossed the Oder, but his battalions were shattered at Frawenstad by Reuschild. On September 1, 1706, Charles himself was invading Saxony.

The invading troops were held under an iron discipline; no violence was permitted. In effect, Augustus had lost both his kingdom and his electorate. His prayers for peace were met by the demand for formal and permanent resignation of the Polish crown, repudiation of the treaties with Russia, restoration of the Sobieskies, and the surrender of Patkul, a Livonian "rebel" who was now Tsar Peter's plenipotentiary at Dresden.

Augustus accepted, at Altranstad, the terms offered by Charles. Patkul was broken on the wheel; Peter determined on vengeance; again the Russians overran Lithuania, but retired before Stanislaus.

In September 1707, Charles left Saxony at the head of 43,000 men, enriched with the spoils of Poland and Saxony. Another 20,000 met him in Poland; 15,000 more were ready in Finland. He had no doubts of his power to dethrone the Tsar. In January 1708 he was on the march for Grodow.

Peter retreated before him, and in June was entrenched beyond the Beresina. Driven thence by a flank movement, the Russians engaged Charles at Hollosin, where he gained one of his most brilliant victories. Retreat and pursuit continued towards Moscow.

Charles now pushed on towards the Ukraine, where he was secretly in treaty with the governor, Mazeppa. But when he reached the Ukraine, Mazeppa joined him not as an ally, but as a fugitive. Meanwhile, Lewenhaupt, marching to effect a junction with him, was intercepted by Peter with thrice his force, and finally cut his way through to Charles with only 5,000 men.

So severe was the winter that both Peter and Charles, contrary to their custom, agreed to a suspension of arms. Isolated as he was, towards the end of May, Charles laid siege to Pultawa, the capture of which would have opened the way to Moscow. Thither Peter marched against him, while Charles himself was unable to move owing to a serious wound in the foot, endured with heroic fort.i.tude. On July 8, the decisive battle was fought. The victory lay with the Russians, and Charles was forced to fly for his life. His best officers were prisoners. A column under Lewenhaupt succeeded in joining the king, now prostrated by his wound and by fever. At the Dnieper, Charles was carried over in a boat; the force, overtaken by the Russians, was compelled to capitulate. Peter treated the captured Swedish generals with distinction. Charles himself escaped to Bender, in Turkey.

Virtually a captive in the Turkish dominions, Charles conceived the project of persuading the sultan to attack Russia. At the outset, the grand vizier, Chourlouly Ali, favoured his ideas; but Peter, by lavish and judicious bribery, soon won him over. The grand vizier, however, was overthrown by a palace intrigue, and was replaced by an incorruptible successor, Numa Chourgourly, who was equally determined to treat the fugitive king in becoming fas.h.i.+on and to decline to make war on the Tsar.

Meanwhile, Charles's enemies were taking advantage of his enforced absence. Peter again overran Livonia. Augustus repudiated the treaty of Altranstad, and recovered the Polish crown. The King of Denmark repudiated the treaty of Travendal, and invaded Sweden, but his troops were totally routed by the raw levies of the Swedish militia at Helsimburg.

The Vizier Chourgourly, being too honourable for his post, was displaced by Baltaji Mehemet, who took up the schemes of Charles. War was declared against Russia. The Prince of Moldavia, Cantemir, supported Peter. The Turks seemed doomed to destruction; but first the advancing Tsar found himself deserted by the Moldavians, and allowed himself to be hemmed in by greatly superior forces on the Pruth. With Peter himself and his army entirely at his mercy, Baltaji Mehemet--to the furious indignation of Charles--was content to extort a treaty advantageous to Turkey but useless to the Swede; and Peter was allowed to retire with the honours of war.

_III.--The Meteor Quenched_

The great desire of the Porte was, in fact, to get rid of its inconvenient guest; to dispatch him to his own dominions in safety with an escort to defend him, but no army for aggression. Charles conceived that the sultan was pledged to give him an army. The downfall of the vizier--owing to the sultan's wrath on learning that Peter was not carrying out the pledges of the Pruth treaty--did not help matters; for the favourite, Ali Cournourgi, now intended Russia to aid his own ambitions, and the favourite controlled the new vizier. Within six months of Pruth, war had been declared and a fresh peace again patched up, Peter promising to withdraw all his forces from Poland, and the Turks to eject Charles.

But Charles was determined not to budge. He demanded as a preliminary half a million to pay his debts. A larger sum was provided; still he would not move. The sultan felt that he had now discharged all that the laws of hospitality could possibly demand. Threats only made the king more obstinate. His supplies were cut off and his guards withdrawn, except his own 300 Swedes; whereupon Charles fortified the house he had built himself. All efforts to bring him to reason were of no avail. A force of Janissaries was despatched to cut the Swedes to pieces; but the men listened to Baron Grothusen's appeal for a delay of three days, and flatly refused to attack. But when they sent Charles a deputation of veterans, he refused to see them, and sent them an insulting message.

They returned to their quarters, now resolved to obey the pasha.

The 300 Swedes could do nothing but surrender; yet Charles, with twenty companions, held his house, defended it with a valour and temporary success which were almost miraculous, and were only overwhelmed by numbers when they sallied forth and charged the Turkish army with swords and pistols. Once captured, the king displayed a calm as imperturbable as his rage before had been tempestuous.

Charles was now conveyed to the neighbourhood of Adrianople, where he was joined by another royal prisoner--Stanislaus, who had attempted to enter Turkey in disguise in order to see him, but had been discovered and arrested. Charles was allowed to remain at Demotica. Here he abode for ten months, feigning illness; both he and his little court being obliged to live frugally and practically without attendants, the chancellor, Mullern, being the cook of the establishment.

The hopes which Charles obstinately clung to, of Turkish support, were finally destroyed when Cournourgi at last became grand vizier. His sister Ulrica warned him that the council of regency at Stockholm would make peace with Russia and Denmark. At length he demanded to be allowed to depart. In October 1714 he set out in disguise for the frontier, and having reached Stralsund on November 21, not having rested in a bed for sixteen days, on the same day he was already issuing from Stralsund instructions for the vigorous prosecution of the war in every direction.

But meanwhile the northern powers, without exception, had been making part.i.tion of all the cis-Baltic territories of the Swedish crown. Tsar Peter, master of the Baltic, held that ascendancy which had once belonged to Charles. But the hopes of Sweden revived with the knowledge that the king had reappeared at Stralsund.

Even Charles could not make head against the hosts of his foes.

Misfortune pursued him now, as successes had once crowded upon him.

Before long he was himself practically cooped up in Stralsund, while the enemies' s.h.i.+ps controlled the Baltic. In October, Stralsund was resolutely besieged. His attempt to hold the commanding island of Rugen failed after a desperate battle. The besiegers forced their way into Stralsund itself. Exactly two months after the trenches had been opened against Stralsund, Charles slipped out to sea--the ice in the harbour had first to be broken up--ran the gauntlet of the enemy's forts and fleets, and reached the Swedish coast at Carlscrona.

Charles now subjected his people to a merciless taxation in order to raise troops and a navy. Suddenly, at the moment when all the powers at once seemed on the point of descending on Sweden, Charles flung himself upon Norway, at that time subject to Denmark. This was in accordance with a vast design proposed by his minister, Gortz, in which Charles was to be leagued with his old enemy Peter, and with Spain, primarily against England, Hanover, and Augustus of Poland and Saxony. Gortz's designs became known to the regent Orleans; he was arrested in Holland, but promptly released.

Gortz, released, continued to work out his intriguing policy with increased determination. Affairs seemed to be progressing favourably.

Charles, who had been obliged to fall back from Norway, again invaded that country, and laid siege to Fredericshall. Here he was inspecting a part of the siege works, when his career was brought to a sudden close by a cannon shot. So finished, at thirty-six, the one king who never displayed a single weakness, but in whom the heroic virtues were so exaggerated as to be no less dangerous than the vices with which they are contrasted.

HENRY MILMAN, D.D.

History of Latin Christianity

The "History of Latin Christianity, to the Pontificate of Nicholas V.," which is here presented, was published in 1854-56. It covers the religious or ecclesiastical history of Western Europe from the fall of paganism to the pontificate of Nicholas V., a period of eleven centuries, corresponding practically with what are commonly called the Middle Ages, and is written from the point of view of a large-minded Anglican who is not seeking to maintain any thesis, but simply to set forth a veracious account of an important phase of history.

(Milman, see vol. xi, p. 68.)

_I.--Development of the Church of Rome_

For ten centuries after the extinction of paganism, Latin Christianity was the religion of Western Europe. It became gradually a monarchy, with all the power of a concentrated dominion. The clergy formed a second universal magistracy, exercising always equal, a.s.serting, and for a long time possessing, superior power to the civil government. Western monasticism rent from the world the most powerful minds, and having trained them by its stern discipline, sent them back to rule the world.

Its characteristic was adherence to legal form; strong a.s.sertion of, and severe subordination to, authority. It maintained its dominion unshaken till, at the Reformation, Teutonic Christianity a.s.serted its independence.

The Church of Rome was at first, so to speak, a Greek religious colony; its language, organisation, scriptures, liturgy, were Greek. It was from Africa, Tertullian, and Cyprian that Latin Christianity arose. As the Church of the capital--before Constantinople--the Roman Church necessarily acquired predominance; but no pope appears among the distinguished "Fathers" of the Church until Leo.

The division between Greek and Latin Christianity developed with the division between the Eastern and the Western Empire; Rome gained an increased authority by her resolute support of Athanasius in the Arian controversy.

The first period closes with Pope Damasus and his two successors. The Christian bishop has become important enough for his election to count in profane history. Paganism is writhing in death pangs; Christianity is growing haughty and wanton in its triumph.

Innocent I., at the opening of the fifth century, seems the first pope who grasped the conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical dominion.

The capture of Rome by Alaric ended the city's claims to temporal supremacy; it confirmed the spiritual ascendancy of her bishop throughout the West.

To this period, the time of Augustine and the Pelagian controversy, belongs the establishment in Western Christendom of the doctrine of predestination, and that of the inherent evil of matter which is at the root of asceticism and monasticism. It was a few years later that the Nestorian controversy had the effect of giving fixity to that conception of the "Mother of G.o.d" which is held by Roman Catholics.

The pontificate of Leo is an epoch in the history of Christianity. He had utter faith in himself and in his office, and a.s.serted his authority uncompromisingly. The Metropolitan of Constantinople was becoming a helpless instrument in the hands of the Byzantine emperor; the Bishop of Rome was becoming an independent potentate. He took an authoritative and decisive part in the controversy formally ended at the Council of Chalcedon; it was he who stayed the advance of Attila. Leo and his predecessor, Innocent, laid the foundations of the spiritual monarchy of the West.

In the latter half of the fifth century, the disintegration of the Western Empire by the hosts of Teutonic invaders was being completed.

These races a.s.similated certain aspects of Christian morals and a.s.sumed Christianity without a.s.similating the intellectual subtleties of the Eastern Church, and for the most part in consequence adopted the Arian form. But when the Frankish horde descended, Clovis accepted the orthodox theology, thereby in effect giving it permanence and obliterating Arianism in the West. Theodoric, the Gothic king of Italy, in nominal subjection to the emperor, was the last effective upholder of toleration for his own Arian creed. Almost simultaneous with his death was the accession of Justinian to the empire. The re-establishment of effective imperial sway in Italy reduced the papacy to a subordinate position. The recovery was the work of Gregory I., the Great; but papal opposition to Gothic or Lombard dominion in Italy destroyed the prospect of political unification for the peninsula.

Western monasticism had been greatly extended and organised by Benedict of Nursia and his rule--comprised in silence, humility, and obedience.

Monasticism became possessed of the papal chair in the person of Gregory the Great. Of n.o.ble descent and of great wealth, which he devoted to religious uses as soon as he became master of it, he had also the characteristics which were held to denote the highest holiness. In austerity, devotion, and imaginative superst.i.tion, he, whose known virtue and capacity caused him to be forced into the papal chair, remained a monk to the end of his days.

But he became at once an exceedingly vigorous man of affairs. He reorganised the Roman liturgy; he converted the Lombards and Saxons. And he proved himself virtual sovereign of Rome. His administration was admirable. He exercised his disciplinary authority without fear or favour. And his rule marks the epoch at which all that we regard as specially characteristic of mediaeval Christianity--its ethics, its asceticism, its sacerdotalism, and its superst.i.tions--had reached its lasting shape.