Peter the Great (76 page)

Accordingly, Charles' regiments marched unopposed into Saxony and occupied the major cities, Leipzig and the capital, Dresden. On September 14, Charles established his headquarters at the castle of Altranstadt near Leipzig, and there he negotiated the terms of a peace treaty with two Saxon ministers. Charles demanded that Augustus give up the Polish crown forever and recognize Stanislaus in his place, as well as break his alliance with Russia and
turn
over to Charles all Swedish subjects employed by Augustus or fighting with the Saxon army. In return, Augustus would be allowed to keep the courtesy title of king although he could not call himself King of Poland. Finally, the Swedish army was to spend the coming winter in Saxony with all costs of supplies and provisions to be borne by the Saxon government. In

Augustus' absence, the Saxon emissaries accepted these terms, and on October 13, 1706, the Treaty of Altranstadt was signed.

For Augustus, not only the terms but also the timing of the treaty were unfortunate. At exactly the moment when Charles was negotiating Augustus' abdication with the Saxon ministers, Augustus himself was moving through Poland with a large force of Russian cavalry commanded by Menshikov, bent on attacking a smaller Swedish force under Colonel Mardefelt. Augustus complained that he was so poor that he had nothing to eat, and Menshikov gave the needy King 10,000 ducats from his own pocket. The Tsar, who had invested thousands of roubles and thousands of men in propping up this Saxon ally, was disgusted when he heard about it. "You know very well that one always hears from the King, 'Give, give! Money, money!' and you also know how little money we have," he wrote to Menshikov. "However," Peter added resignedly, "if the King is always to be in this evil plight, I think it would be best to give him strong hopes of being satisfied on my arrival, and I shall try to come by the quickest route."

While he was still with the Russian army and had just accepted Menshikov's generosity, Augustus learned privately of the signing of the treaty in Saxony. He managed to keep the news from Menshikov, but still he was in an extremely awkward position. The terms of the treaty called for him to break his alliance with the Tsar and give up the war, and yet here he was, in the company of a Russian army, preparing to attack a Swedish force. Trying to avert a battle, Augustus sent secret messages to Mardefelt, the Swedish commander, informing him of the treaty and begging him to retreat and not fight. Here, Augustus' reputation finally caught up with him. The King was so well known for duplicity and chicanery that Mardefelt assumed the message was only another of Augustus' tricks and ignored it. The result, on October 29, 1706, was the Battle of Kalisz, a three-hour fight in which the Russians, Augustus' former allies, badly defeated the Swedes with whom his ministers had just signed a treaty of peace. For Peter, it was a significant victory. Although the Russians outnumbered the Swedes two to one, Swedish soldiers had always before coped successfully with even larger odds. And it was Menshikov's first significant success as an independent commander. The Tsar was overjoyed.

Augustus, embarrassed by this Russian victory, scrambled desperately to adjust himself to his new position between Peter and Charles. He wrote to Charles apologizing for the battle and offering excuses for his inability to prevent its occurrence. In a more tangible gesture, Augustus persuaded the unwitting Menshikov to give him control of the entire body of 1,800 Swedish prisoners and promptly sent them on parole back to Swedish Pomerania, where they would be free to fight the following spring.

Meanwhile, Augustus tried not to anger Peter. He had a private conversation with Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, the Tsar's representative in Poland, and explained that he had no choice: He could not leave Saxony to be devastated by Charles' troops, and he had seen no way to save his homeland except by stepping down from the Polish throne. He assured Dolgoruky, however, that this was only a temporary subterfuge, and that as soon as the Swedish army left Saxony, he would renounce the treaty, raise a new army and resume his place at Peter's side.

On November 30, Augustus arrived in Saxony and visited Charles at Altranstadt. He apologized personally for what had happened at Kalisz, and Charles accepted his explanation, but insisted that Augustus confirm his abdication by writing Stanislaus to congratulate him on his accession to the throne of Poland. Being completely under Charles' power, Augustus swallowed even this bitter pill. As Charles had written discreetly but serenely in a letter to Stockholm, "For the present, it is I who am Elector of Saxony."

The two Kings, first cousins (their mothers were sister, both having been born Danish princesses), got along well together. Charles wrote to his sister that his cousin was "jolly and amusing. He is not tall, but of compact build; a little corpulent also. He wears his own hair, which is quite dark." Nevertheless, it became obvious through the winter of 1706-07 that Augustus was in no hurry to put the treaty into effect. This was especially true of Clause 11, which had been especially written to apply to the Livonian firebrand Johann Reinhold von Patkul.

The man most affected by the Treaty of Altranstadt was not Augustus but Patkul. The Livonian nobleman whose dedicated anti-Swedish efforts had helped to bring about the Great Northern War was a special object of Charles XII's hatred. Thus, Clause 11 had been written into the Altranstadt treaty demanding that Augustus hand over to Charles all Swedish "traitors" harbored in Saxony. Patkul's name headed the list. In the affair that followed, Augustus' perfidy and Charles' vengefulness were to horrify Europe.

Patkul was a flamboyant, talented and difficult man. When the war began, he served first as a general in Augustus' army. He was wounded and, while recovering, decided to quit the King's service in disapproval "of the way the King has treated his allies." Peter, admiring Patkul's qualities, immediately invited the homeless

Livonian to Moscow and persuaded him to enter Russian service as a privy councilor and lieutenant general. For the next five years, Patkul was indefatigable in Peter's service, but his imperious manner made him many enemies. He quarreled with Matveev in The Hague and Golitsyn in Vienna. Dolgoruky in Warsaw eventually refused even to exchange letters with him, and wrote to Fedor Golovin: "I think you know about Patkul. One must examine carefully not only his words but the letters in them. If he writes when he is in ill humor, he will not even give praise to God himself."

Ironically, the sequence of events which led to Patkul's downfall had its origin in a kindly element of his nature, his sympathy for the pathetic condition of the Russian troops whom Peter had sent to bolster the army of King Augustus. Eleven Russian regiments, numbering 9,000 men, and a force of Cossack cavalry, numbering 3,000 men, under command of Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, had set out from Kiev in the summer of 1704 to join Augustus in Poland. When they arrived, Patkul, as a Russian privy councilor and lieutenant general, superseded Golitsyn and took command. After a brief campaign in the autumn of 1704, Patkul was instructed by Augustus to retreat with his troops into Saxony. There, he found that no one took responsibility for his men. The ministers of the Saxon government had no use for Russian troops supplied to Augustus for his wars in Poland and refused to shelter and feed them. The men had not been paid for months; even if they had been paid, Saxon merchants would have refused their Russian money as worthless. With their thin, tattered uniforms and bare feet, the Russian soldiers were such an appalling sight that people came to stare at them. It seemed likely that during the winter ahead many of them would star
ve. But Patkul worked indefatig
ably on their behalf. He accused the Saxon ministers of acting contrary to the orders of the King-Elector in not supplying provisions and winter quarters. He wrote to Peter, to Golovih and to Menshikov, saying that the condition of the troops was bringing shame on the Tsar. They replied that the men should return to Russia—plainly impossible because the route through Poland was blocked by Swedish troops. Finally, to keep the men alive, Patkul raised large sums of money on his own personal credit. In the spring, he issued them new uniforms, and by summer their appearance was so altered that the Saxons admitted that they looked superior to German soldiers. Still no money came from Russia, and Patkul's credit was running out.

To ensure their survival, Patkul eventually proposed to rent them for a while to the Austrian government, which would become responsible for their pay and provisions. Golovin replied that the Tsar would give his approval if it was a matter of extreme necessity. In December 1705, with the agreement of the Russian officers under him, Patkul signed the troops over to the service of the imperial government for a period of one year.

PatkuTs action alarmed the Saxon ministers, who feared that both the King and the Tsar would be angry that their refusal to aid the Russians had resulted in this loss of soldiers to the common cause. Patkul had been hated for a long time in Dresden. (He was never cautious in his letters, and many of his bitter denunciations of the inefficiency and corruption of Saxon ministers made their way back to the accused.) Augustus himself was wary. "I know Patkul well," he complained to Dolgoruky, "and His Tsarish Majesty will soon learn also that Patkul has abandoned the service of his own master [Charles] only for his own plans and profit."

Scandalously, Patkul's act of mercy in signing the Russian troops over to Austria was made a charge of treason against him. Although the Saxon ministers had been informed at every stage of the negotiations, they suddenly charged him with harming Augustus' interests by signing away thousands of troops under his command. His arrest was ordered. At it happened, Patkul, tired of being caught between larger forces and despairing of his Livonian ambitions, had just become engaged and was on the point of marriage to a rich widow. He had bought an estate in Switzerland, where he intended to give up politics and live in retirement.

On his return from his betrothal, Patkul was seized, taken to the castle of Sonnenstein and put in a cell with no bed and no food for the first five days. The arrest created a sensation across Europe. A foreign ambassador in the service of a sovereign monarch had been arrested in discharge of his functions. In Dresden, the Danish and imperial ambassadors protested strongly and withdrew from the capital on grounds that they were no longer safe. The imperial ambassador rebutted the charge of treason by announcing that he personally had seen Patkul's authorization from Moscow to transfer the troops. Prince Golitsyn, now once again the senior officer of the Russian expeditionary troops, although personally antagonistic to Patkul, protested the arrest as an affront to his master the Tsar and demanded Patkul's immediate release.

Frightened that they had gone too for, the Saxon ministers sent word of their action to Augustus in Poland. Augustus wrote back that he approved what they had done and wrote briefly to Peter that, in order to protect their joint interests, his privy council had been forced to arrest Patkul. The task of drafting the indictment was given to the King's adjutant general, Arnstedt, who did it with great reluctance and wrote secretly to Shafirov in Moscow, "I am doing everything to save him. You must work to the same end. We must not and cannot allow such a fine man to perish."

Peter agreed with Augustus that Patkul should have waited for a more definite order before signing the troops over to Austria, but he nevertheless demanded that the prisoner be sent to him immediately so that he could investigate the charges against him. Patkul was, after all, in Russian service and the troops in question were Russian troops. From Augustus came excuses and delays. In February 1706, Peter wrote again, demanding the return of Patkul. But the Swedes were then encamped near Grodno, and Augustus' Saxon ministers knew that the Tsar was physically powerless to intervene. Patkul remained a prisoner.

Then came Charles' rapid march back from Grodno, his invasion of Saxony, Augustus' capitulation and the Treaty of Altranstadt. The handing over of Patkul and other "traitors" to Sweden was a condition of the treaty. Augustus was trapped. Having failed to release Patkul sooner, he was now to be forced to deliver him to Charles. Squirming desperately, he sent Major General Goltz to assure the Tsar that Patkul would never be handed over to the King of Sweden. Peter, disbelieving these promises and fearing greatly for Patkul's life, appealed to the Emperor, to the Kings of Prussia and Denmark and to the Netherlands States General. To each, he said in essence: "We trust that the King of Sweden will willingly yield to the intercession of Your Majesty and that in doing this he may gain before the whole world the reputation of a great-hearted monarch and not be partner in a godless and barbarian business."

Augustus hesitated and delayed in carrying out this article of the treaty, but Charles was implacable. Finally, on the night of March 27, 1707, Patkul was delivered into Swedish hands. He was kept at Altranstadt for three months in a cell, fastened to a stake with a heavy iron chain. In October 1707, he stood before a Swedish court-martial which had been instructed by Charles to judge him with "extreme severity." Obediently, the Swedish court condemned him to be broken alive on the wheel, beheaded and his body quartered. Patkul's composure finally deserted him when he was tied to the wheel. The executioner, a local peasant, gave him fifteen blows with a sledge-hammer, breaking his arms and legs, and then started on his chest. Patkul screamed and groaned, and then when he could cry out no longer, he gurgled, "Take off my head." The inexperienced executioner gave him four blows with a country axe before the neck was finally severed. The body was cut into quarters and exposed on the wheel, and his head was set on a post by the highway.