Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/31

 his life was despaired of, and a general panic seized the army; but though the wound proved decisive of his fate, the unhappy monarch had what may well be termed the misfortune to recover.

The foe drew near. The Czar, well aware of the importance of Pultowa, advanced to its relief with an army of 80,000 men, besides 40,000 irregulars, Kalmucks and Tartars. He brought 150 pieces of artillery along with him. Even with this vast superiority, and after the training of a nine years' war, the Russians did not venture to attack the Swedes, but drew closer and closer around them, till they began at last to intrench themselves within a league of the king's camp. Charles's illness gave them but too much leisure.

A hostile fortress on one side, a hostile army on the other, nothing but a victory could save the Swedes; and on the morning of the 8th of July, only ten days after Charles had been wounded, they marched out to battle. Their whole army did not amount to 20,000 men, 4,000 of whom were left in the trenches and with the baggage. Their artillery consisted of four field-pieces; and their powder was so bad that it did not, as Count Poniatovvsky and Lewenhaupt both affirm, throw the musket-balls more than thirty yards from the muzzles of the pieces. And yet these brave soldiers balanced fortune even against such overwhelming numbers. Three out of the seven Russian redoubts were taken; on the left wing the cavalry were victorious, and it is really difficult to say what the result would have proved, had Charles been able to exert his usual energy and activity. Certain it is that errors were committed which could not have happened under his immediate command; for the cavalry of the left wing did not follow up their success, and the cavalry of the right wing lost their direction, and took no share in the action. The king, who was carried on a litter between two horses, was pressent in the hottest of the fire, and exerted himself as much as was possible for a man in such a situation. A shot broke the litter, and the wounded monarch was for some time left alone on the ground. A lifeguardsman brought him a horse, and he endeavored to rally the yielding troops. The steed was shot under him, and--

Having assembled and reformed the remnants of his broken host round the forces which had been left for the protection of the baggage, the fainting monarch was placed in Count Piper's carriage, and conveyed toward the Turkish frontier. The exertions of the wounded Charles to rally his army at Pultowa contrast singularly with the total want of any such exertion displayed by the unwounded Napoleon at Waterloo. We take this want of exertion for granted, because had any been displayed, the world's echoes would have rung with praise bestowed upon the heroic effort.

The first result of the battle of Pultowa--its ultimate results are only now becoming apparent--was the entire destruction of the Swedish army, the famished and exhausted remains of which were some days afterward obliged to lay down their arms on the banks of the Dnieper, which they had no means of crossing.