neglecting all other considerations. Whether it was hunting a hare, attacking a specific piece in a game of chess or overthrowing a hostile monarch, he fixed on his objective and would consider nothing else until he had achieved this purpose. Like the other royal field commander of the age, William III, Charles was convinced that he was acting as God's instrument to punish those who had begun an 'unjust' war. Prayer was part of his daily life and that of the Swedish army. In camp, his soldiers were summoned to prayer twice a day. Even on the march, the army was halted by a trumpet call at seven in the morning and at four in the afternoon. Thereupon, each soldier removed his hat, knelt in the middle of the road and said his prayers.
Because of his faith, Charles was fatalistic. He calmly accepted that destiny would watch over him only as long as he was needed to fulfill God's purpose. Although prone to accidents from his reckless behavior, he rode into battle, contemptuous of danger and death. 'I shall fall by no other bullet than that which is destined for me, and when that comes, no prudence will help me,' he said. But though Charles was calm at the thought of his own death and hardened to taking responsibility for the death of others, when he ordered his infantry to attack in the face of enemy fire, he was prompted by a desire for victory, not love of death. In fact, the King mourned the loss of his soldiers and once, as an alternative to this repeated carnage on the battlefield, suggested to Piper that he challenge | Tsar Peter to single combat. Piper dissuaded him.
Even during this year of relative ease in Saxony, while his soldiers grew fat around him, Charles' life remained simple and dedicated to war. He lived in his castle at Altranstadt as if he were living in a tent with a battle expected the following morning. He refused permission to his two sisters who wanted to visit him in Germany, and turned a deaf ear to his grandmother's plea that he come home to Sweden, at least for a visit, saying that it would set a bad example for his soldiers.
Sexually, Charles remained chaste. 'I am married to the army for the duration of the war,' the King declared; he had also decided against sexual experience while the war continued. As Charles saw it, this code of asceticism and self-denial was necessary to a military commander, but it has raised the suggestion that the King of Sweden was homosexual. Charles had had little contact with women in his life. At six, he was taken from his mother and reared in the company of men. He liked to look at pretty girls, and in adolescence there was a flirtation with the wife of a concertmaster, but there were no passions. In his years in the field, Charles wrote frequently to his sisters and his grandmother, but for seventeen years he did not see any of his female relatives, and by the time he returned to Sweden, both his grandmother and his older sister were dead. When the King met ladies in society, his manner was polite but not warm. He did not seek the companionship of women and where possible, he avoided it; it seemed to embarrass him.
As much as possible, Charles modeled the Swedish army on himself. He wanted an elite corps of unmarried men who thought only of duty and not of home, who saved their strength for battle rather than the pursuit of women and the cares of marriage. Married men with children were less likely to advance courageously across a field into a storm of enemy bullets and bayonets. Charles admired and faithfully sought to emulate the example of his father, Charles XI, who had conscientiously practiced abstinence during the years Sweden was at war.
As the years went by, the King's lack of interest in women became more pronounced. During the army's year of rest at Saxony, many Swedish-fathered babies were conceived, but there were no rumors from the headquarters of the twenty-five-year-old King. Later, when Charles spent five years as a prisoner-guest in Turkey, with long evenings devoted to plays by Moliere and concerts of chamber music, still there were no whispers of women. Perhaps having denied himself both love and women so long, he simply had lost the capacity for interest in either.
And if he was not interested in women, was he therefore interested in men? There is no evidence of this. In the early years of war, Charles slept alone. Later, a page slept in his room, but an orderly slept in Peter's room and sometimes the Tsar napped with his head on this young man's stomach; this did not make either Charles or Peter homosexual.
With Charles, one can only say that the fires which burned in him had reached the point of obsession, obliterating everything else. He was a warrior. For Sweden's sake, for the sake of his army, he chose hardness. Women were soft, a distraction. He had no sexual experience; perhaps he sensed the enormity of its power and held himself in check, not daring to test it. In this respect, Charles XII was abnormal. But we already know that in many ways the King of Sweden was not like other men.
Peter's reaction to Augustus' dethronement and the election and coronation of Stanislaus had been to immediately crown his own court fool as King of Sweden, but he knew that the events in Poland were deadly serious for Russia. Over the years, the Tsar had come to understand that he was dealing with a fanatic; that Charles was determined to overthrow Augustus, and that the Swedish King's invasion of Russia would be postponed until this victory in Poland was achieved. Therefore, realizing his own great stake in preserving Augustus' power, Peter had poured Russian money and soldiers into the effort to sustain the Elector of Saxony on the Polish throne. As long as the war was fought in Poland, it would not be fought in Russia.
When Augustus was forced to give up his claim, Peter searched for his own replacement as King of Poland— not a puppet but a stong, independent ruler who could both govern and command armies in the field. His first choice was Prince Eugene of Savoy, then at the peak of his reputation as one of the great commanders of the age. Eugene thanked the Tsar for the honor done him, but said that his acceptance would depend on the will of his master, the Emperor; he then wrote to the Emperor Joseph saying that, in accordance with the allegiance he had given his sovereign for twenty years, he left the decision strictly in the Emperor's hands. Joseph was torn: He could see the advantages of having so loyal and effective a subordinate on the Polish throne, but he dared not offend Charles, and he knew that Eugene's appointment would lead to war between Eugene and Stanislaus, with Charles supporting Stanislaus. Thus, he postponed a decision, writing to Peter that, as Eugene was about to embark on a new campaign, nothing could be decided until the following winter.
Peter could not wait. With Charles' army in Saxony preparing to march, if he was to have a new pro-Russian King of Poland, he needed him immediately. He approached James Sobieski, the son of the formed King Jan Sobieski, who quickly declined the prickly honor. Peter negotiated with Francis Rakoczy, the Hungarian patriot who had led Hungary into revolt against the imperial crown, and Rakoczy agreed to accept the crown if Peter could persuade the Polish Diet to offer it to him. But before anything further could take place, the project was forgotten. Charles had marched out of Saxony and was advancing on Russia.
Augustus' abdication removed the second of Peter's three original allies. Now, as Peter said later, 'this war lay only on us.' Left alone to face the Swedes, Peter intensified his efforts to offer Charles a peace settlement or, if this was impossible, to find allies who could help him avert what most of Europe regarded as his inevitable defeat.
In seeking a mediator or an ally, Peter approached both sides in the great war which had divided Europe. In 1706, Andrei Matveev proposed to the States General that if the maritime powers could persuade Sweden to accept peace with Russia, the Tsar would supply them with 30,000 of his best troops for use against France. When the Dutch did not reply, Peter approached two neutral powers, Prussia and Denmark, for help as mediators. These attempts also failed. Finally, in March 1707,'Peter sent proposals to Louis XIV, promising that if the Sun King would mediate successfully between Russia and Sweden, Peter would supply him with Russian troops to use against England, Holland and Austria. The terms which Peter offered Sweden were that he would cede Dorpat outright and pay a large sum of money to be allowed to keep Narva. He insisted only on keeping St. Petersburg and the Neva River. Louis promised to try.
Peter also approached England. As early as 1705, when Queen Anne's new ambassador, Charles Whitworth, arrived in Moscow, Peter had hoped that he could persuade his sovereign to act as mediator in the Baltic. Whitworth was favorable to Peter, but his dispatches were unable to elicit from his government any diplomatic intercession on the Tsar's behalf. At the end of 1706, Peter decided to carry the appeal directly to London and instructed Matveev to go himself from The Hague to the English capital and ask the Queen to threaten Sweden with war unless Charles made peace with Russia. Peter left the peace terms entirely up to the Queen, insisting only that he must be allowed to keep Russia's hereditary possessions on the Baltic—that is, Ingria and the course of the Neva River. Should formal negotiations fail, Matveev was to try to influence Marlborough and Sydney Godolphin, the leading English ministers, under the table. Peter was realistic about this, saying, 'I do not think that Marlborough can be bought because he is so enormously rich. However, you can promise him 200,000 or more.'
Before leaving Holland for England, Matveev saw Marlborough in The Hague. After the interview, the Duke wrote to Godolphin in London:
The Ambassador of Muscovy has been with me and made many expressions of the great esteem his master
