was to begin a battle by attacking the strongest part of the enemy line. Habitually, he used his own superbly trained, red-coated English infantry for this purpose. As the worried enemy commander fed more and more of his reserves into this area of the battle, Marlborough maintained and even increased the pressure, accepting whatever casualties he must. Then, when other segments of the enemy line were weakened, Marlborough unleashed his own reserves, usually a mass of cavalry, against a denuded point of the enemy front. Repeatedly, a breakthrough occurred and the Duke rode a victor across the field.
In the sheer dynamism of their attack, however, the finest infantry and cavalry in Europe were not the English but the Swedes. Swedish soldiers were trained to think only in terms of attack, no matter what the odds. If an enemy somehow seized the initiative and began to advance toward Swedish lines, the Swedes immediately charged forward to break the attack with a counterattack. Unlike the English under Marlborough, whose infantry tactics were based on making the most of its devastating firepower, the basis of the Swedish attack remained the 'armes blanches'—cold steel. Both infantry and cavalry deliberately sacrificed the firepower of their muskets and pistols in favor of closing with sword and bayonet.
It made an awesome sight. Slowly, steadily, silently except for the beating of their drums, the Swedish infantry advanced, holding its own fire until the last minute. At close range, the columns deployed out into a long wall of blue and yellow four ranks deep, halted, poured in a single volley and then erupted with a bayonet charge into the reeling enemy lines. It was many years before Peter's Russian levies could stand before this kind of fierce attack. The unexcelled momentum of the Swedish attack derived from two sources; religious fatalism and constant training. Each soldier was taught to share the King's belief that 'God would let no one be killed until his hour had come.' This produced a calm courage which was anchored in months and years of practice in marching, wheeling, halting, firing, which gave the Swedish infantry maneuverability and cohesion second to none.
Although, increasingly, infantry was the decisive arm, it still was the cavalry which provided the high drama and often, by breaking the enemy when he began to waver, carried the day. Light cavalry was used for screening the army, for reconnaissance, for foraging and for raiding. The Russians employed Cossacks for this purpose, and the Ottoman army, Tatars; the Swedes used the same horsemen in these peripheral duties and in the thick of battle. Heavy regular cavalry was organized into squadrons of 150 men, armored for battle in breastplates and backplates, and armed with swords and often pistols for use against ambush along the roads. In most modern armies of the day, the cavalry was as carefully and rigidly trained in tactical maneuver as the infantry. But there were limits on its use. One, obviously, was terrain; cavalry needed flat or gently rolling open fields. Another was the endurance of horses; even the best cavalry horses were reckoned capable of no more than five hours' fighting at a stretch. Still another was the growing destructiveness of infantry firepower. As flintlock muskets became more rapid-firing and accurate, cavalry had to beware. Neither Marlborough nor Charles XII sent cavalry into action until the climactic moment, when as a shock force it might break a crumbling enemy line, slam down on the flank of an advancing line of infantry or, in pursuit, turn a retreat into a rout.
Despite such limitations, however, these were still the great days of cavalry (Waterloo with its massed cavalry charges was still a century away, and the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava a century and a half). From a quarter to a third of the men in most armies were horse soldiers, and in the Swedish army the proportion was higher. Charles trained his cavalry to attack in tight formations. The Swedish horse approached an enemy at a slow trot, riding in a wedge formation, knee to knee, one trooper locked in beside and slightly behind the next. Three ranks deep, this broad arrow bore down relentlessly on whatever opponent, mounted or on foot, its officers designated.
Seen from afar, a cavalry charge made war seem beautiful: colorful squadrons of horsemen riding across an open field, their swords and breastplates flashing in the sun, their flags and pennants whipping in the wind, moving bravely toward an enemy line. But for those on the battlefield, it was a place of carnage, a corner of hell: cannon roaring and flashing; infantrymen struggling to keep their rigid formations and follow the commands to load and fire, while around their knees writhed the shattered bodies of comrades; men on horseback riding full tilt into a line of men on the ground; the force of impact, shouts, screams and grunts; men stumbling and falling; horsemen leaning from their saddles, slashing frantically with razorsharp blades at everyone in sight; the men on the ground thrusting upward toward the saddles with bayonets, catching riders in the chest, the legs, the back; on both sides, the instant of terrible pain, the last flash of surprise and recognition of what was happening, the overwhelming gush of bright-red blood; running men, riderless horses and, over it all, drifting clouds of thick, blinding, choking smoke. And when the firing had ceased and the smoke had lifted, a blood-soaked field carpeted with men still screaming or gasping, or lying quietly, gazing at heaven with unseeing eyes.
Thus did the nations decide their differences.
CHARLES XII
The blond, blue-eyed child who became King Charles XII of Sweden was born on June 17, 1682, almost exactly ten years after the birth of his great antagonist, Peter of Russia. Charles' parents were Charles XI, a stern, deeply religious man who had himself become king at the age of five, and Queen Ulrika Eleonora, a Danish princess who had managed by her warmth of character to maintain the affection of both the Danish and Swedish people, even when the two countries were at war. Seven children had been born during the first seven years and nine months of their marriage, but only Prince Charles and two sisters, Hedwig Sophia, a year older than he, and Ulrika Eleonora, six years younger than Charles, had survived. Four younger brothers died, one after another, before reaching the age of two.
Although Charles' body was frail, his boyhood was spent in rough, masculine activity. When he was only four, the people of Stockholm became accustomed to seeing his small figure in the saddle, riding behind his father at military reviews. At six, he was taken out of the care of women and installed in his own apartment with male tutors and servants. At seven he shot a fox, at eight he killed three deer in one day, at ten he killed his first wolf and at eleven his first bear. At eleven also, he lost the last element of feminine warmth in his life when his mother died at thirty-six. The Queen was beloved by her family, and at her death the King fainted and had to be bled and Prince Charles was carried to bed with a fever; soon after, he came down with smallpox, but his body was actually stronger after the disease than before. His face was pocked with deep scars, which he proudly considered marks of manliness. At fourteen, Charles had a slender, wiry body and was a superb horseman, an excellent hunter and an avid student of the military arts.
After the death of Queen Ulrika, King Charles XI spent as much time as possible with his children, who reminded him of their mother. The Prince took on as many of his father's beliefs and mannerisms as he could; his speech became brief, dry and understated, saved from being hopelessly cryptic by occasional glimmers of sympathy and wit. Honor and the sanctity of one's word became his two cardinal principles: A king must put justice and honor ahead of everything; once given, his word must be kept.
Charles' tutors found that he had a quick intelligence and learned easily. He did not much care for the Swedish language and always spoke and wrote it unevenly. German, the court language of all the northern kingdoms, came more easily to him and he used it as his mother tongue. He became extremely proficient in Latin, speaking it and listening to university lectures in it with much enjoyment. He was taught French, but, despite his tacit alliance with Louis XIV during his years of rule, he disliked speaking it; nevertheless, he read it with ease, and admired French theater. During his fifteen years of campaigning on the continent, he read and reread Corneille, Moliere and Racine. The idea of travel stirred him immensely and he devoured accounts and drawings by travelers and explorers. As a boy, he wistfully wished for a brother who might stay in Sweden to rule while he himself traveled the world. He was fascinated by history and biography, especially the lives of the military conquerors— Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Sweden's Gustavus Adolphus; later, he carried a biography of Alexander with him through all his campaigns, sometimes making specific comparisons between the Macedonian and his own military achievements. Charles was genuinely interested in religion. As a boy and young man, he spent an hour every morning with a bishop discussing the chapters of the Bible one by one. He was intrigued by mathematics and, like Peter, by its application to the arts of artillery ballistics and fortification. While his tutors admired his quick grasp, they worried about the strength of his will, which often seemed pure obstinacy. Once the Prince considered himself right, they discovered, it was impossible to change his mind.
Charles' education, off to a good start, was permanently interrupted when he was fourteen. On April 5, 1697, King Charles XI died at forty-two of cancer of the stomach. Traditionally, Swedish princes did not reach their majority and could not be crowned until they were eighteen, and with this in mind, the dying King appointed a council of regents, including the boy's grandmother, the Dowager Queen Hedwig Eleonora. After his father's death, Charles attended meetings of the Regency Council and at first made an excellent impression by his intelligent
