Part 8 (1/2)
The King of Sweden had, of course, nothing now to do but to advance from Riga to Narva and attack the army of the Czar.
This army was not, however, commanded by the Czar in person. In accordance with what seems to have been his favorite plan in all his great undertakings, he did not act directly himself as the head of the expedition, but, putting forward another man, an experienced and skillful general, as responsible commander, he himself took a subordinate position as lieutenant. Indeed, he took a pride in entering the army at one of the very lowest grades, and so advancing, by a regular series of promotions, through all the ranks of the service. The person whom the Czar had made commander-in-chief at the siege of Narva was a German officer. His name was General Croy.
General Croy had been many weeks before Narva at the time when the King of Sweden arrived at Riga, but he had made little progress in taking the town. The place was strongly fortified, and the garrison, though comparatively weak, defended it with great bravery. The Russian army was encamped in a very strong position just outside the town. As soon as news of the coming of the King of Sweden arrived, the Czar went off into the interior of the country to hasten a large re-enforcement which had been ordered, and, at the same time, General Croy sent forward large bodies of men to lay in ambuscade along the roads and defiles through which the King of Sweden would have to pa.s.s on his way from Riga.
But all these excellent arrangements were entirely defeated by the impetuous energy, and the extraordinary tact and skill of the King of Sweden. Although his army was very much smaller than that of the Russians, he immediately set out on his march to Narva; but, instead of moving along the regular roads, and so falling into the ambuscade which the Russians had laid for him, he turned off into back and circuitous by-ways, so as to avoid the snare altogether. It was in the dead of winter, and the roads which he followed, besides being rough and intricate, were obstructed with snow, and the Russians had thought little of them, so that at last, when the Swedish army arrived at their advanced posts, they were taken entirely by surprise. The advanced posts were driven in, and the Swedes pressed on, the Russians flying before them, and carrying confusion to the posts in the rear. The surprise of the Russians, and the confusion consequent upon it, were greatly increased by the state of the weather; for there was a violent snow-storm at the time, and the snow, blowing into the Russians' faces, prevented their seeing what the numbers were of the enemy so suddenly a.s.saulting them, or taking any effectual measures to restore their own ranks to order when once deranged.
When at length the Swedes, having thus driven in the advanced posts, reached the Russian camp itself, they immediately made an a.s.sault upon it. The camp was defended by a rampart and by a double ditch, but on went the a.s.saulting soldiers over all the obstacles, pus.h.i.+ng their way with their bayonets, and carrying all before them. The Russians were entirely defeated and put to flight.
In a rout like this, the conquering army, maddened by rage and by all the other dreadful excitements of the contest, press on furiously upon their flying and falling foes, and destroy them with their bayonets in immense numbers before the officers can arrest them. Indeed, the officers do not wish to arrest them until it is sure that the enemy is so completely overwhelmed that their rallying again is utterly impossible. In this case twenty thousand of the Russian soldiers were left dead upon the field. The Swedes, on the other hand, lost only two or three thousand.
Besides those who were killed, immense numbers were taken prisoners.
General Croy, and all the other princ.i.p.al generals in command, were among the prisoners. It is very probable that, if Peter had not been absent at the time, he would himself have been taken too.
The number of prisoners was so very great that it was not possible for the Swedes to retain them, on account of the expense and trouble of feeding them, and keeping them warm at that season of the year; so they determined to detain the officers only, and to send the men away. In doing this, besides disarming the men, they adopted a very whimsical expedient for making them helpless and incapable of doing mischief on their march. They cut their clothes in such a manner that they could only be prevented from falling off by being held together by both hands; and the weather was so cold--the ground, moreover, being covered with snow--that the men could only save themselves from peris.h.i.+ng by keeping their clothes around them.
In this pitiful plight the whole body of prisoners were driven off, like a flock of sheep, by a small body of Swedish soldiery, for a distance of about a league on the road toward Russia, and then left to find the rest of the way themselves.
The Czar, when he heard the news of this terrible disaster, did not seem much disconcerted by it. He said that he expected to be beaten at first by the Swedes. ”They have beaten us once,” said he, ”and they may beat us again; but they will teach us in time to beat them.”
He immediately began to adopt the most efficient and energetic measures for organizing a new army. He set about raising recruits in all parts of the empire. He introduced many new foreign officers into his service; and to provide artillery, after exhausting all the other resources at his command, he ordered the great bells of many churches and monasteries to be taken down and cast into cannon.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BUILDING OF ST. PETERSBURG.
1700-1704
Continuation of the war--Stratagems of the Swedes--Peculiar kind of boat--Making a smoke--Peter determines to build a city--The site--Peter's first visit to the Neva--Cronstadt--A stratagem--Contest on the island--Peter examines the locality--He matures his plans--Mechanics and artisans--s.h.i.+ps and merchandise--Laborers--The boyars--The building commenced--Wharves and piers--Palace--Confusion--Variety of labors--Want of tools and implements--Danger from the enemy--Supplies of provisions--The supplies often fall short--Consequent sickness--Great mortality--Peter's impetuosity of spirit--Streets and buildings--Private dwellings--What the King of Sweden said--Map--Situation of Cronstadt--Peter plans a fortress--Mode of laying the foundations--Danger from the Swedes--Plan of their attack--The Swedes beaten off--The attempt entirely fails--Mechanics and artisans--Various improvements--Scientific inst.i.tutions
The struggle thus commenced between the Czar Peter and Charles XII. of Sweden, for the possession of the eastern sh.o.r.es of the Baltic Sea, continued for many years. At first the Russians were every where beaten by the Swedes; but at last, as Peter had predicted, the King of Sweden taught them to beat him.
The commanders of the Swedish army were very ingenious in expedients, as well as bold and energetic in action, and they often gained an advantage over their enemy by their wit as well as by their bravery. One instance of this was their contrivance for rendering their prisoners helpless on their march homeward after the battle of Narva, by cutting their clothes in such a manner as to compel the men to keep both hands employed, as they walked along the roads, in holding them together. On another occasion, when they had to cross a river in the face of the Russian troops posted on the other side, they invented a peculiar kind of boat, which was of great service in enabling them to accomplish the transit in safety. These boats were flat-bottomed and square; the foremost end of each of them was guarded by a sort of bulwark, formed of plank, and made very high. This bulwark was fixed on hinges at the lower end, so that it could be raised up and down. It was, of course, kept up during the pa.s.sage across the river, and so served to defend the men in the boat from the shots of the enemy. But when the boat reached the sh.o.r.e it was let down, and then it formed a platform or bridge by which the men could all rush out together to the sh.o.r.e.
At the same time, while they were getting these boats ready, and placing the men in them, the Swedes, having observed that the wind blew across from their side of the river to the other, made great fires on the bank, and covered them with wet straw, so as to cause them to throw out a prodigious quant.i.ty of smoke. The smoke was blown over to the other side of the river, where it so filled the air as to prevent the Russians from seeing what was going on.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Stratagems of the Swedes.]
It was about a year after the first breaking out of the war that the tide of fortune began to turn, in some measure, in favor of the Russians.
About that time the Czar gained possession of a considerable portion of the Baltic sh.o.r.e; and as soon as he had done so, he conceived the design of laying the foundation of a new city there, with the view of making it the naval and commercial capital of his kingdom. This plan was carried most successfully into effect in the building of the great city of St.
Petersburg. The founding of this city was one of the most important transactions in Peter's reign. Indeed, it was probably by far the most important, and Peter owes, perhaps, more of his great fame to this memorable enterprise than to any thing else that he did.
The situation of St. Petersburg will be seen by the map in the preceding chapter. At a little distance from the sh.o.r.e is a large lake, called the Lake of Ladoga. The outlet of the Lake of Ladoga is a small river called the Neva. The Lake of Ladoga is supplied with water by many rivers, which flow into it from the higher lands lying to the northward and eastward of it; and it is by the Neva that the surplus of these waters is carried off to the sea.
The circ.u.mstances under which the attention of the Czar was called to the advantages of this locality were these. He arrived on the banks of the Neva, at some distance above the mouth of the river, in the course of his campaign against the Swedes in the year 1702. He followed the river down, and observed that it was pretty wide, and that the water was sufficiently deep for the purpose of navigation. When he reached the mouth of the river, he saw that, there was an island,[1] at some distance from the sh.o.r.e, which might easily be fortified, and that, when fortified, it would completely defend the entrance to the stream. He took with him a body of armed men, and went off to the island in boats, in order to examine it more closely. The name of this island was then almost unknown, but it is now celebrated throughout the world as the seat of the renowned and impregnable fortress of Cronstadt.
There was a Swedish s.h.i.+p in the offing at the time when Peter visited the island, and this s.h.i.+p drew near to the island and began to fire upon it as soon as those on board saw that the Russian soldiers had landed there.
This cannonading drove the Russians back from the sh.o.r.es, but instead of retiring from the island they went and concealed themselves behind some rocks. The Swedes supposed that the Russians had gone around to the other side of the island, and that they had there taken to their boats again and returned to the main land; so they determined to go to the island themselves, and examine it, in order to find out what the Russians had been doing there.
They accordingly let down their boats, and a large party of Swedes embarking in them rowed to the island. Soon after they had landed the Russians rushed out upon them from their ambuscade, and, after a sharp contest, drove them back to their boats. Several of the men were killed, but the rest succeeded in making their way to the s.h.i.+p, and the s.h.i.+p soon afterward weighed anchor and put to sea.