"Vikings" against the Janissaries. The incredible adventures of Charles XII in the Ottoman Empire
Swedish King Charles XII contemporaries compared with Alexander the Great. This monarch, like the great king of antiquity, already at a young age achieved the fame of a great commander, he was also unpretentious in campaigns (according to the Saxon general Schulenberg, “he dressed like a simple dragoon and just had lunch”), as well personally participated in battles, risking their lives and injuring themselves.
However, in my opinion, he is much more like Richard the Lionheart - the knight king, who was looking for “the most sophisticated dangers” in the war.
And Karl, too, according to the testimony of many memoirists, did not hide his joy at the sight of the enemy and even clapped his hands, turning to those around him: “Come, go!”
And he was in a bad mood if the enemy suddenly retreated without a fight, or, did not show strong resistance.
Richard often returned after the battle "prickly, like a hedgehog, from the arrows that gnawed on his shell."
And Charles XII played with fate, constantly getting involved in unnecessary fights and skirmishes in the most adverse conditions. In 1701, it suddenly occurred to him to raid the territory of Lithuania: taking with him only 2 thousand people, he disappeared for a month, surrounded by Oginsky’s troops, reached Kovno, and returned to his camp with only 50 cavalrymen.
During the siege of Thorne, Karl set his tent so close to the walls that bullets and Saxon nuclei constantly flew up to it - several officers from his retinue were killed. Count Piper tried to defend the king, even if he placed a haystack in front of the tent - Karl ordered to remove him.
In 1708, at the Grodno bridge on the bridge over the Neman, the king personally killed two officers of the enemy army. In the same year, he, at the head of the Ostgotland Cavalry Regiment, attacked the superior forces of the Russian cavalry. As a result, this regiment was surrounded, a horse was killed under Karl, and he fought on foot until other Swedish units approached.
In Norway, in a battle at the Göland Manor, during a night attack by the Danes, Karl defended the camp gate by killing five enemy soldiers, and even engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the attacking commander, Colonel Kruse - this is indeed an episode worthy of any "Royal Saga" .
Richard was captured in Austria, and Karl spent several years in the Ottoman Empire.
Charles XII had better starting conditions (and he was also born “in a shirt”) - Sweden, at the time of his accession to the throne, was the second largest European state (second only to Russia). The kingdom included Finland, Karelia, Livonia, Ingermanland, Estonia, most of Norway, part of Pomerania, Bremen, Ferden and Wismar. And the Swedish army was the best in the world. By 1709, it had already suffered losses, and its qualitative composition worsened, however, the Saxon general Schulenberg wrote about the army, which went to Poltava:
Having started well, Richard and Karl ended equally, almost ruining their states and leaving them in a state of deep crisis.
And the death of these monarchs was equally inglorious. Richard was mortally wounded during the siege of Viscount Ademar V castle, Karl was killed during the siege of the Fredriksten fortress, becoming the last monarch of Europe to fall on the battlefield.
Karl XII himself understood that his behavior did not correspond to the royal rank, but said: "Better let me be called crazy than a coward."
But after the Battle of Poltava, Charles XII was no longer compared with Alexander the Great, but with Don Quixote (because he got into an unnecessary skirmish with the Russians on the eve of the most important battle) and with Achilles (because during this ridiculous clash he was wounded in the heel):
I will stalk the enemy at night;
Dump like a Cossack today
And exchange for a wound
- A.S. Pushkin wrote about this.
Charles XII after Poltava
It is with the defeat of the Swedes at Poltava that we will begin our main story. Then Charles XII, yielding to the requests of his close associates, left the army and crossed the Dnieper, heading for Ochakov. The next day, his entire army (according to Swedish data, 18 people), left on the other side, surrendered to the 367th cavalry detachment of Alexander Menshikov.
Zaporizhzhya Cossacks were not included in this number, since they were not considered prisoners of war, but traitors. General Levengaupt, whom Karl left the commander, negotiated quite decent conditions for the surrender of the Swedish soldiers and (especially) officers, but did not bother with the “untimely”, willingly betraying the unlucky allies. He dined with appetite with Menshikov, observing how the Cossacks were “driven off like cattle,” killing those who showed the slightest disobedience in place.
Charles XII was accompanied by about 2800 people on his way - Swedish soldiers and officers, as well as part of the Mazepa Cossacks. These Cossacks were extremely hostile to the hetman, and only the Swedes then protected him from reprisal. Some of the Cossacks left the retreating altogether - and this turned out to be an extremely wise decision.
The detachments of Karl and Mazepa were forced to linger at the Bug due to the fact that the Ochakov commandant Mehmet Pasha, embarrassed and even frightened by so many armed people who wanted to go to territory controlled by him, allowed only the king and his retinue to cross. The rest were forced to stay on the opposite bank, waiting for permission from the Sultan, or to higher authorities, to which the commandant sent messengers with a notice of the situation that had arisen at the borders of the empire. Having received a bribe, he nevertheless gave permission to transfer the units of Karl and Mazepa to his shore, but it was too late: Russian cavalry units appeared at the Bug. 600 people managed to cross the Turkish coast, the rest were killed, or drowned in the river, 300 Swedes were captured.
According to some reports, Karl sent a complaint to Sultan Ahmet III about the actions of Mehmet Pasha, as a result of which he received a silk cord, which meant an unspoken order to strangle himself.
Karl XII and Mazepa in Bender
On August 1, 1709, Karl XII and the Hetman Mazepa arrived in the city of Bender, which is now part of the Transnistrian Republic. Here, the king was received with all possible respect by the seraskir Yusuf Pasha, who greeted him with a salute of artillery guns and even presented the keys to the city. Since Karl decided to settle outside the city, a house was built for him in the camp, and then houses for officers and barracks for soldiers: it turned out to be something like a military town.
But seraskir scorned Mazepa - when he complained that he was not given premises in Bendery, he said: if the hetman was not satisfied with the magnificent palaces that Peter I gave him, then, moreover, he could not find him a decent room.
September 21 (October 2), 1709, an unsuccessful traitor and the current hero of Ukraine died in Bender.
March 11, 1710 Peter I, at the request of a new hetman (Skoropadsky) issued a manifesto prohibiting insulting the Little Russian people, reproaching him with betrayal of Mazepa. The attitude of the Little Russians themselves to Mazepa is characterized by rumors circulating among them that the hetman did not die, but, having adopted the schema, took refuge in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra in order to pray for the sin of betrayal.
I would look for the hetman's grave:
Forgotten Mazepa for a long time!
Only in the triumphant shrine
Once a year, anathema to this day
Threatening, the cathedral rattles about him.
(A.S. Pushkin.)
King's strange behavior
Meanwhile, in Bender, events began to develop according to a completely unbelievable and phantasmagoric scenario. France and the Netherlands offered Carl help, offering ships that would bring him to Stockholm. Austria promised him free passage through Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover, Peter I and Augustus the Strong made a statement that they would not prevent the return of their adversary to Sweden. For some reason, Charles XII refused to return to his homeland. He entered into correspondence with Sultan Ahmet III, was engaged in horseback riding, trained soldiers, played chess. By the way, his manner of playing was distinguished by a rare originality: more often than any other figures he moved the king, therefore he lost all games.
The Sultan ordered free supplies of the camp of Charles XII, and the Swedes liked the local dishes very much. Upon returning home, the “caroliners” (sometimes also called the “carolins”) brought along some recipes. Familiar to many tourists who visited Turkey, the kufta turned into Swedish meatballs and dolma into cabbage rolls (since grapes do not grow in Sweden, they began to wrap minced meat in scalded cabbage leaves). November 30 - the day of the death of Charles XII, Sweden is now celebrating Stuffed cabbage Day.
In addition to the funds allocated for the maintenance of the detachment that arrived with the king, Charles XII from the Sultan treasury was paid 500 ecu per day. France also provided financial assistance to the king, and he borrowed money from the merchants of Constantinople. Karl sent part of these funds to the capital to bribe the sultan's close associates, wanting to drag Turkey into the war against Russia. The king thoughtlessly spent the remaining money on gifts to his officers and the janissaries guarding him, thanks to which he became very popular both among them and among the townspeople.
His favorite, Baron Grottguzen, who was appointed treasurer, did not lag behind the king. It is said that, once, reporting to Carl about the spent 60000 thalers, he said:
The king’s reaction is simply amazing: smiling, he said that he liked such a short and clear answer - not like the former treasurer Müllern, who forced him to read multi-page expense reports for each thaler. A certain elderly officer told Karl that Grottern simply robbed them all, and heard the answer: "I give money only to those who know how to use it."
Karl's popularity was growing and soon people began to come to Bendery from all over the province to look at the strange but generous overseas king.
Meanwhile, the situation in Sweden worsened every day. Russian troops took Vyborg (which Peter I called "a sturdy pillow for St. Petersburg"), Riga, Revel. In Finland, the Russian army approached Abo. Expelled by Charles from Poland, August II the Strong captured Warsaw.
Prussia claimed Swedish Pomerania, Mecklenburg declared claims to Wismar. The Danes were preparing to seize the Duchy of Bremen and Holstein, in February 1710 their army even landed in Scania, but was defeated.
Relations of Charles XII with the Turkish authorities
The Sultan still could not decide what to do with this uninvited, but, in the literal sense, very “dear” guest. The presence of Charles XII in Turkish territory exacerbated relations with Russia, immediately took advantage of the local "hawks" (including even the mother of Akhmet III), and French diplomats assuring the Sultan that, having finished with the Swedes, the Russians would go against the Ottoman Empire. But the Russian ambassador P. Tolstoy (whose servants were now Swedes captured under Poltava - and this impressed both the Sultan and the Ottoman nobles), generously spending Swedish trophy gold, obtained from Akhmet III a letter confirming the 1700 Constantinople Peace Treaty.
It seemed that the fate of Karl, who was tired of everything, was decided: under the protection of a detachment of 500 Janissaries, he had to go through Poland to Sweden “only with his people” (that is, without the Cossacks and Poles). As a farewell gift (and compensation), on behalf of the Sultan, Karl was sent 25 Arab horses, one of which was driven by the Sultan himself - her saddle and cap were decorated with precious stones, and stirrups were made of gold.
And the great vizier Köprülü sent the king 800 wallets with gold (each contained 500 coins) and in the letter attached to the gift he advised to return to Sweden via Germany or France. Karl took horses and money, but Bender refused to leave the hospitable. The Sultan could not afford to break the laws of hospitality, and forcibly send the king out of the country. Together with the vizier, he entered into negotiations with Karl, and went to meet him, agreeing to allocate a 50-strong army to accompany the Swedish king through Poland, occupied by Russian troops. But Peter I stated that he would let Karl through only on condition that the size of his escort would not exceed 3 thousand people. Carl, who was clearly trying to provoke a conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, did not agree to this.
Russian-Turkish war
And in Port at that time, a certain vizier was a certain Baltaji Mehmet Pasha - a native of a family whose men were traditionally engaged in logging (“balta” - “ax”), who turned out to be a “hawk” and an ardent Russophobe. He summoned Devlet Giray to the Crimean capital: together they managed to persuade the Sultan to declare war on Russia. On November 20, 1710, the Russian P. Tolstoy and his subordinates were arrested and put in the Seven-Tower Castle. The French ambassador, Desaler, boasted that "he contributed most to this, since he led the whole matter with his advice."
It was during this unfortunate war for Russia that the so-called Prut catastrophe occurred: underestimating the strength of the enemy, Peter I accepted the offer of Moldavian ruler Dmitry Cantemir to meet the Turks. Kantemir vowed to provide the Russian army with everything necessary - and, of course, did not fulfill his promises.
So, by the Prut River, Peter I appeared in the role of Charles XII, and Cantemir in the role of Mazepa. It all ended with the bribery of the former lumberjack, Baltaji Mehmet Pasha and some of his subordinates, and the signing of a shameful peace, among which there was even an obligation to renew the payment of tribute to the Crimean Khan.
Charles XII, learning about the environment of the Russian army, rushed to the camp of the Turks, drove 120 miles without stopping, but was late: the Russian troops had already left their camp. Reproaches he managed to anger Mehmet Pasha, who mockingly said:
Enraged, Karl allowed himself an unprecedented audacity - with a sharp blow of his spur, he tore the floor of the vizier’s robe and left his tent.
In Bender, he found his camp flooded by the spilled Dniester, but out of obstinacy remained for a long time in it. Nevertheless, it was necessary to move the camp to the village of Varnitsa, where a new “military town”, called Karlopolis, was built for him. It had three stone houses (for the king, his retinue and treasurer of Grotguzen) and wooden barracks for soldiers. The largest building (36 meters in length) was called the Charles House, another in which the king received guests - the Great Hall.
And the angry Mehmet Pasha now demanded the expulsion of Karl from the country, and the Austrian emperor agreed to let him through his possessions. The king said that he would leave only after the punishment of the vizier and accompanied by a hundred thousandth army. Mehmet Pasha, in response, ordered him to reduce the "taim" - the content that was issued to foreign guests and diplomats. Upon learning of this, Karl reacted very peculiarly, telling the butler: “Until now, they gave me food twice a day; from tomorrow I order to give food four times. ”
To fulfill the king’s order, I had to borrow money from usurers at high interest rates. 4 thousand ecu was given by the English ambassador Cook.
Unhappy with the outcome of the war, Sultan Ahmet nevertheless ousted Mehmet Pasha, sending him into exile on the island of Lemnos. The new vizier was Yusuf Pasha, who at the age of 6 was captured in the territory of Southern Russia by the Janissaries. As for Karl, tired of his quirks and antics, the Sultan sent him a letter saying:
In response, Karl “nabednichalis” the Sultan about the non-compliance with the terms of the Prut Treaty by the Russians, which provoked a new crisis in Russian-Turkish relations. P. Tolstoy was again sent to Seven-Tower Castle, but the environment of the Sultan no longer wanted war, a compromise was reached, according to which the Russian troops were withdrawn from Poland, and Karl was to go to Sweden.
But the king said that he could not leave without paying his debts, and asked for this purpose 1000 purses of gold (about 600 thalers). Ahmet III ordered to give him 000 wallets, having received which, the Swedish king, without batting an eye, demanded another thousand.
The pissed off sultan gathered up the High Ports Sofa, on which he asked a question:
The sofa sided with the Sultan, and the great Mufti said that "hospitality is not prescribed for Muslims in relation to infidels, and even more so to the ungrateful."
War of the "Vikings" with the Janissaries
At the end of December 1712, a sultan decree and fatwa mufti approving him were read to Karl. The king, completely lost touch with reality, said in response: "We will prepare for everything and give strength a rebuff."
The Swedes stopped issuing money for maintenance, and the Poles and Cossacks saved it, leaving the royal camp. Karl XII responded in his own unique style, ordering the killing of 25 Arabian horses presented by the Sultan.
Now the king has 300 left at his disposal - only the Swedish "caroliners".
He ordered his camp to be surrounded by trenches and barricades, and he himself had fun, periodically attacking the Ottoman pickets. Janissaries and Tatars, fearing to injure him, did not enter the battle and drove away.
At the end of January 1713, the commandant Bender Ismail Pasha received a new decree of the Sultan, which ordered the capture of Charles XII and sent him to Thessaloniki, from where he was to be sent by sea to France. The decree said that in the case of Karl’s death, not a single Muslim would be declared guilty of his death, and the supreme mufti sent a fatwa, according to which the faithful said goodbye for the possible murder of the Swedes.
But Karl was popular among the Janissaries, who, although they called him stubbornly “demirbash” (“iron head”), nevertheless, did not want his death. They sent delegates who begged the king to surrender and vouched for his safety - both in Bender and during the journey. Karl, of course, refused.
To storm the Swedish camp (in which, recall, only 300 people remained), the Turks gathered up to 14 thousand soldiers with 12 guns. The forces were clearly unequal, and, after the first shots, Grottguzen again tried to enter into negotiations, arguing (for the umpteenth time) that the king was not opposed to leaving, but that he needed time to prepare, but the Turks did not believe these words. But after Karl’s direct appeal to the Janissaries, they rebelled and refused to go on the assault. At night, the instigators of this revolt were drowned in the Dniester, but, unsure of the loyalty of those remaining, the seraskir in the morning invited the Janissary elders themselves to enter into negotiations with the crowned madman. Carl, seeing them, said:
Now the Janissaries were already indignant. On February 1, they still attacked Karlopolis. On this day, Drabant Axel Eric Ros three times saved the life of his king. But most Swedes, realizing the senselessness of resistance, immediately surrendered. The lightly wounded Karl, led by twenty drabants and ten servants, took refuge in a stone house, where there were 12 more soldiers. Having barricaded himself in one of the rooms, he made a sortie into the hall, filled with marauding Janissaries. Here, the king personally killed two of them, wounded the third, but was captured by the fourth, who was let down by the desire to take Karl alive - as a result, the royal cook shot him. Karl then killed two more Janissaries who ended up in his bedroom. Forcing the Turks to retreat, the Swedes took up positions at the windows, and opened fire. It is claimed that during the assault, up to 200 Janissaries were killed and injured. The Swedes killed 15 people, were seriously injured 12. The Turkish leaders ordered the shelling of the house with cannons, and the Swedes were forced to move away from the windows, and the Janissaries, having encased the house with logs and hay, set fire to them. The Swedes decided to fill the fire with the contents of the barrels found in the attic - it turned out that they were filled with strong wine. Trying to support and encourage his people, Karl shouted: “There is still no danger until the dresses light up” - and at that moment a piece of the roof fell on his head. Having regained consciousness, the king continued to shoot at the Turks, killing another one of them, and then, making sure that it was completely impossible to be in the burning house, he agreed to try to break into another, in the neighborhood. On the street, the Janissaries surrounded and captured all the Swedes, including the king. “If they (the Swedes) defended themselves, as the duty commanded them, they would not have taken us in ten days,” he said, standing in front of the seraskir.
The events of this day in Turkey are called “Kalabalyk” - literally translated as “playing with a lion”, but in modern Turkish it means “quarrel”. This word has entered the Swedish language with the meaning of “bustle”.
A.S. Pushkin, who visited Bender, devoted the following lines to this event:
Surrounded by a peace fence
Bender desert peals,
Where buffalo horn roam
Around the war graves
The remains of a ravaged canopy
Three recessed in the ground
And moss overgrown steps
They say about the Swedish king.
The mad hero reflected them
Alone in the crowd of domestic servants
Turkish rat attack noisy
And threw the sword under the bunchuk.
Continuation of the "Turkish tour" of Charles XII
Despite the king’s apparent inadequate behavior and the losses suffered by the Ottomans during the assault, Carl was still treated well. At first he was taken to the house of Seraskir and spent the night in the room and on the master’s bed, then he was transported to Adrianople. It is difficult to say how the Sultan would have acted with Karl - not a guest, but a prisoner. But the king was helped by General Magnus Stenbock, who just at that time won his last victory over the Danes - at Gadebusch in Pomerania.
Having learned about this, the sultan ordered him to be transferred to the small town of Demirtas near Adrianople and left him alone. And Karl now changed his tactics: from February 6, 1713 to October 1, 1714, he enthusiastically played Carlson (who lives on the roof), pretending to be seriously ill and not getting out of bed. The Turks only rejoiced at the transition of the “guest” psychosis from the manic to the depressive phase and did not pay much attention to his “suffering”.
Meanwhile, in May 1713, the army of the last successful Swedish commander, Magnus Stenbock, capitulated in Holstein. Almost all of Finland was occupied by Russia, Peter I wrote then: “We don’t need this country at all, but we need to occupy it in order for the world to have something to give in to the Swedes.”
To the letter of his sister Ulrika, to whom the Senate proposed the regency, Karl answered with a promise to send his boot to Stockholm, which the senators would have to ask for permission.
But further to remain in the territory of the Port was pointless, this was already understood by Karl himself, who began to gather home. The great vizier Kömürgyu said to Grotguzen, who had asked for another batch of gold:
Kemyurju Ali Pasha was the son of a coal miner, and became the vizier and son-in-law of the Sultan. If you recall that one of his recent predecessors was from a family of woodcutters, and the other came to Porto as a captive at the age of 6, you have to admit that the “social elevators” in the Ottoman Empire of those years were in perfect order.
Return of the King
On October 1, Ahmet III nevertheless presented the assembled, finally, to leave Karl with a scarlet tent embroidered with gold, a saber, the hilt of which was decorated with gems, and 8 Arabian horses. And for the Swedish convoy, on his orders, 300 horses and 60 carts with supplies were allocated.
The sultan even ordered to pay the debts of the "guest", but without interest, since usury is prohibited by the Qur'an. Karl was again offended and invited creditors to come to Sweden for debts. Oddly enough, many of them really got to Stockholm, where they received the required amounts.
On October 27, Karl left his convoy and then went light - under a stranger's name and with a few "caroliners." On November 21, 1714, Charles XII, who had left the retinue, arrived at the Stralsund fortress belonging to Sweden. And the very next day, the king, "rested" in Turkish "resorts", signed a decree on the resumption of hostilities against Russia and its allies.
His war will end at the Fredriksten Fortress on November 30, 1718. Many historians are sure that he was killed by one of his close associates, who understood that the king was ready to fight for a very long time - until the last surviving Swede. And he helped Karl to go to Valhalla, from which this king, similar to a berserker, apparently escaped - at the neglect of the Valkyries.
Information