The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

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 partition 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' ships 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.