Part 39

On succeeding to the French throne, Louis XII. was prompt to revive the French claims in Italy (1498); but he agreed with Ferdinand on a partition of the kingdom of Naples, a remarkable project of robbery. The Great Captain was despatched to Sicily, and was soon engaged in conquering Calabria. It was not long, however, before France and Aragon were quarrelling over the division of the spoil. In July 1502 war was declared between them in Italy. The war was varied by set combats in the lists between champions of the opposed nations.

In 1503 a treaty was negotiated by Ferdinand's son-in-law, the Archduke Philip. Gonsalvo, however, not recognising instructions received from Philip, gave battle to the French at Cerignola, and won a brilliant victory. A few days earlier another victory had been won by a second column; and Gonsalvo marched on Naples, which welcomed him. The two French fortresses commanding it were reduced. Since Ferdinand refused to ratify Philip's treaty, a French force entered Roussillon; but retired on Ferdinand's approach. The practical effect of the invasion was a demonstration of the new unity of the Spanish kingdom.

In Italy, Louis threw fresh energy into the war; and Gonsalvo found his own forces greatly out-numbered. In the late autumn there was a sharp but indecisive contest at the Garigliano Bridge. Gonsalvo held to his position, despite the destitution of his troops, until he received reinforcements. Then, on December 28, he suddenly and unexpectedly crossed the river; the French retired rapidly, gallantly covered by the rear-guard, hotly attacked by the Spanish advance guard. The retreat being checked at a bridge, the Spanish rear was enabled to come up, and the French were driven in route. Gaeta surrendered on January 4; no further resistance was offered. South Italy was in the hands of Gonsalvo.

IV.--After Isabella

Throughout 1503 and 1504 Queen Isabella's strength was failing. In November 1504 she died, leaving the succession to the Castilian crown to her daughter Joanna, and naming Ferdinand regent. Magnanimity, unselfishness, openness, piety had been her most marked moral traits; justice, loyalty, practical good sense her political characteristics--a most rare and virtuous lady.

Her death gives a new complexion to our history. Joanna was proclaimed Queen of Castile; Ferdinand was governor of that kingdom in her name, but his regency was not accepted without demur. To secure his brief authority he made alliance with Louis, including a marriage contract with Louis' niece, Germaine de Ford. Six weeks after the wedding, the Archduke Philip landed in Spain. Ferdinand's action had ruined his popularity, and he saw security only in a compact assuring Philip the complete sovereignty--Joanna being insane.

Philip's rule was very unpopular and very brief. A sudden illness, in which for once poison was not suspected of playing a part, carried him off. Ferdinand, absent at the time in Italy, was restored to the regency of Castile, which he held undisputed--except for futile claims of the Emperor Maximilian--for the rest of his life.

The years of Ferdinand's sole rule displayed his worst characteristics, which had been restrained during his noble consort's life. He was involved in the utterly unscrupulous and immoral wars issuing out of the League of Cambray for the partition of Venice. The suspicion and ingratitude with which he treated Gonsalvo de Cordova drove the Great Captain into a privacy not less honourable than his glorious public career. Within a twelvemonth of Gonsalvo's death, Ferdinand followed him to the grave in January 1516--lamented in Aragon, but not in Castile.

During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the overgrown powers and factious spirit of the nobility had been restrained. That genuine piety of the queen which had won for the monarchs the title of "The Catholic" had not prevented them from firmly resisting the encroachments of ecclesiastical authority. The condition of the commons had been greatly advanced, but political power had been concentrated in the crown, and the crowns of Castile and Aragon were permanently united on the accession of Charles--afterwards Charles V.--to both the thrones.

Under these great rulers we have beheld Spain emerging from chaos into a new existence; unfolding, under the influence of institutions adapted to her genius, energies of which she was before unconscious; enlarging her resources from all the springs of domestic industry and commercial enterprise; and insensibly losing the ferocious habits of the feudal age in the requirements of an intellectual and moral culture. We have seen her descend into the arena with the other nations of Europe, and in a very few years achieve the most important acquisitions of territory both in that quarter and in Africa; and finally crowning the whole by the discovery and occupation of a boundless empire beyond the waters.

* * * * *

VOLTAIRE

History of Charles XII

Voltaire's "History of Charles XII." was his earliest notable essay in history, written during his sojourn in England in 1726-9, when he was acquiring the materials for his "Letters on the English," eleven years after the death of the Swedish monarch. The prince who "left a name at which the world grew pale, to point a moral and adorn a tale," was killed by a cannon-ball when thirty-six years old, after a career extraordinarily brilliant, extraordinarily disastrous, and in result extraordinarily ineffective. A tremendous contrast to the career, equally unique, of his great antagonist, Peter the Great of Russia, whose history Voltaire wrote thirty years later (see ante). Naturally the two works in a marked degree illustrate each other. In both cases Voltaire claims to have had first-hand information from the principal actors in the drama.

I.--The Meteor Blazes

The house of Vasa was established on the throne of Sweden in the first half of the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, Christina, daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, abdicated in favour of her cousin, who ascended the throne as Charles X. He and his vigorous son, Charles XI., established a powerful absolute monarchy. To the latter was born, on June 27, 1682, the infant who became Charles XII.--perhaps the most extraordinary man who ever lived, who in his own person united all the great qualities of his ancestors, whose one defect and one misfortune was that he possessed all those qualities in excess.

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 asserted 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 principalities, 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 title 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 fortitude. 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 fashion and to decline to make war on the Tsar.