As Creasy says: “Yet a century and a half (two centuries) have hardly elapsed since Russia was first recognized as a member of the drama of modern European history—, previous to the battle of Pultowa, Russia played no part. Charles V. and his great rival (Francis I.), our Elizabeth and her adversary4 Philip of Spain, the Guises6, Sully, Richelieu, Cromwell, De Witt, William of Orange, and the other leading spirits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thought no more about the Muscovite Czar than we now think about the King of Timbuctoo.”
Sweden lost on that dread7 day when “fortune fled the royal Swede”, all that she had toilsomely gained thro’ the slow centuries. At one blow her fairest provinces were torn from her; and the rival Russian throne ascended9 to European prominence10 over the prostrate11 power of Sweden.
Peter the Great even upon the field of victory fully12 realized that Pultowa was for him the key to the Baltic. Even amid the carnage of the slaughter-field where ten thousand men lay dying or dead and the Vorksla river ran red, his eagle gaze beheld13 the Russia resultant from the Treaty of Nystadt. Exultantly14 he cried out that “the sun of the morning had fallen from[135] Heaven, and the foundation of St. Petersburg at length stood firm.”
From dread Pultowa’s day even to the hour, Russia has steadily16 advanced by slow, gigantic strides unto a dominating prominence among the family of nations. The cabinets of Turkey, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, and England are secretly tho’ effectively influenced by Russia.
Republic or Empire.
Napoleon said that all Europe would ultimately become either Muscovite or Republican. Which shall it be? The answer as deduced from present tendencies might be—Republican: but no thoughtful observer can fail to regard attentively17 and apprehensively18 that sullen19 Sclavonic dominance extending insidiously20 and simultaneously21 into India, Persia, Mongolia, Turkey, the Balkans, and Central Europe.
Amalgamation22, the mergence of the many into one, sameness—quiescent and content under a powerful, capable, and just administration, seem to be and ever to have been the ideal form of government. The empires of the past—Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, Roman; the Holy Roman Empire and the Socialistic commune of the future—all include as fundamental principle this solidarity23. So far, indeed, it has proved a marsh24-light leading to the marsh; but we dream that it will yet lead out of and beyond the muddy, bloody25 marsh and ultimately light up millennial26 realms of world-wide oneness, goodness, gladness, peace.
Charles XII. of Sweden.
When Charles set out on that expedition having for its object the castigation27 and possible subjugation28 of the upstart Tartar hordes29 weakly held together by Peter of Russia,—all[136] Europe believed that Charles would briefly30 and successfully accomplish that object.
Sweden was then a power for whose alliance and friendly interest the most powerful monarchs31 of Europe contended. Louis XIV. of France sought the aid of Charles in the war then waging between France and England; and Marlborough, leader of the English forces in France, went personally to the court of Charles in order to solicit32 that monarch’s aid or at least his neutrality in the great struggle then in progress.
Charles himself was fully confident of victory; and in his romantic plans drawn33 up for the future, the overthrow34 of Peter formed only an episode. A year, perhaps, would be required for the full accomplishment35 of the Russian enterprise; then he, Charles of Sweden, victor of Moscow and arbiter36 from the Kremlin, would hastily return to western Europe and begin preparations on a gigantic scale for his master-achievement—the dethronement of the Pope of Rome, and the demolition37 of the Papacy.
Desire-dream of many; achievement of none: for this magic Gibraltar elusively38 endures bearing its age-old scars as brightest ornamentations. Charles XII. did not, indeed, attack Rome; but did Pultowa save the Papacy? No: the missiles of the Madman of the North whether hurled39 in the real or only in that futile40 future plan, would have been equally ineffectual; the magic rock would, perhaps bear another scar bright shining today as trophy41 of its past struggle and victory.
The lesson of history would seem to teach mortals to expect the unexpected. At Saratoga, at Valmy, at Pultowa, in the Teutoberger Wald, at Marathon, and at Babylon—the undreamed of, the altogether unanticipated, unprepared for, both by the combatants themselves and the world-spectators—took place.
Charles XII., who had set out from Sweden with an army[137] of eighty-five thousand men, Swedes and allies, escaped from the shambles42 of Pultowa only by swimming across a river red with blood and thus reaching an alien shore weak, wounded, a fugitive43, and comparatively alone. Eighty-five thousand men died for the gratification of the personal ambition of the Swedish king; and, by the irony44 of fate, for the ruination of their native land and the aggrandizement45 of Peter the First, subsequently and, perhaps, consequently Peter the Great, of Russia.
Sclavonic versus46 Teutonic.
The battle of Pultowa was the first decisive victory of the Sclavonic race over the Germanic. Arnold, in his Lectures on Modern History, says that the last chapter of the history of Europe will narrate47 the achievements leading to Muscovite ascendency and the glories of world-dominant48 Panslavism.
Do nations and races attain1 only to a certain degree of excellence49 and then deteriorate50? And is that the plan fatefully fixed51 for the planet Earth? Mycen?, Troy, Phil?, Babylon, Athens make answer in the affirmative.
A poem, Christ in the Universe, by Alice Meynell comes to mind. In a few master touches the writer describes God’s way of revealing Himself to us mortals:
“With the ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us; these abide53:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the Young Man crucified.”
But do the other planets of our solar system, do the stars, those countless54 suns controlling countless planets—know aught of God’s way of dealing52 with our Earth? Or can we even in loftiest flight of thought conceive “in what guise5 He walked the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear?”
Then the good glad confidence of the soul in touch with God,[138] in tune8 with the Infinite, in Te Deum ecstasy55 of exultation56, overflows57 in the concluding lines:
“Oh, be prepared, my soul;
To read the unconceivable, to scan
The million forms of God those stars unroll
When in our turn we show to them—a Man.”
They are indeed blessed in whom dwells this abiding59 confidence, and for whom at times at least, there is overflow58 in Te Deum exaltation. The slaughter-fields of history and rivers rolling red; the answerless Whys wailing60 from out the past forlorn as Pharaoh-ghosts in search of non-existent mummies; the chaos61 of it all, from Memphis to modern Cairo; the damnable wrongs, the demon62 cruelties, the awful sufferings, the hellish horrors—all sound sonoral in orchestral harmony when faith and hope and good glad confidence play dominant and the soul is exultant15 in God.
Death of Charles.
Charles XII. never rallied from the defeat of Pultowa. He did, indeed, linger for a time in Turkey, striving to enlist63 the sympathies of the Sultan in his behalf. And history relates that at last the Sultan yielded to the importunities of Charles, and that an army was fitted out for the invasion of Russia: but the command of the forces was entrusted64 to the Vizier, not to Charles. And the story runs that the Russians were completely trapped by the Turkish troops and Pultowa seemed about to be avenged65 and the hand of destiny turned backward; when Catherine, later the wife of Peter the Great and first Empress of Russia, seeing the hopelessness of exit from the trap into which the Russians had fallen, went secretly by night into the tent of the Grand Vizier, and by her charms, and by her gifts of gold, diamonds, and pearls bribed66 the stern old soldier so that he failed to see the following day that the Russians were secretly stealing away from the trap in which he had caught them.
[139]
Charles withdrew to Sweden and, a war having broken out between Norway and Sweden, he was killed at the siege of Frederickshall: but just how he met death is not authoritatively67 known. He was found dead in the trenches68 the night preceding the battle.
Voltaire has sympathetically told the story of Charles XII. of Sweden. His meteoric69 career has often been used, as Johnson happily said, “to point a moral or adorn70 a tale.” He ranks with Alexander and Napoleon in personal magnetism71, in phenomenal attainment72, and in the ultimate loss and evanishment of all attained. His name and fame are ever subtly suggestive of—
Dread Pultowa’s day
When fortune left the royal Swede;
Around a slaughtered73 army lay
No more to combat and to bleed;
The power and fortune of the war
Had passed to the triumphant74 Czar.
—Byron.
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1 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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2 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
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3 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
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4 adversary | |
adj.敌手,对手 | |
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5 guise | |
n.外表,伪装的姿态 | |
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6 guises | |
n.外观,伪装( guise的名词复数 )v.外观,伪装( guise的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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8 tune | |
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整 | |
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9 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10 prominence | |
n.突出;显著;杰出;重要 | |
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11 prostrate | |
v.拜倒,平卧,衰竭;adj.拜倒的,平卧的,衰竭的 | |
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12 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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13 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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14 exultantly | |
adv.狂欢地,欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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15 exultant | |
adj.欢腾的,狂欢的,大喜的 | |
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16 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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17 attentively | |
adv.聚精会神地;周到地;谛;凝神 | |
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18 apprehensively | |
adv.担心地 | |
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19 sullen | |
adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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20 insidiously | |
潜在地,隐伏地,阴险地 | |
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21 simultaneously | |
adv.同时发生地,同时进行地 | |
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22 amalgamation | |
n.合并,重组;;汞齐化 | |
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23 solidarity | |
n.团结;休戚相关 | |
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24 marsh | |
n.沼泽,湿地 | |
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25 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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26 millennial | |
一千年的,千福年的 | |
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27 castigation | |
n.申斥,强烈反对 | |
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28 subjugation | |
n.镇压,平息,征服 | |
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29 hordes | |
n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 );部落 | |
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30 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
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31 monarchs | |
君主,帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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32 solicit | |
vi.勾引;乞求;vt.请求,乞求;招揽(生意) | |
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33 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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34 overthrow | |
v.推翻,打倒,颠覆;n.推翻,瓦解,颠覆 | |
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35 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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36 arbiter | |
n.仲裁人,公断人 | |
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37 demolition | |
n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
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38 elusively | |
adv.巧妙逃避地,易忘记地 | |
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39 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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40 futile | |
adj.无效的,无用的,无希望的 | |
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41 trophy | |
n.优胜旗,奖品,奖杯,战胜品,纪念品 | |
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42 shambles | |
n.混乱之处;废墟 | |
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43 fugitive | |
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
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44 irony | |
n.反语,冷嘲;具有讽刺意味的事,嘲弄 | |
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45 aggrandizement | |
n.增大,强化,扩大 | |
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46 versus | |
prep.以…为对手,对;与…相比之下 | |
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47 narrate | |
v.讲,叙述 | |
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48 dominant | |
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因 | |
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49 excellence | |
n.优秀,杰出,(pl.)优点,美德 | |
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50 deteriorate | |
v.变坏;恶化;退化 | |
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51 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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52 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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53 abide | |
vi.遵守;坚持;vt.忍受 | |
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54 countless | |
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
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55 ecstasy | |
n.狂喜,心醉神怡,入迷 | |
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56 exultation | |
n.狂喜,得意 | |
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57 overflows | |
v.溢出,淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 );充满;挤满了人;扩展出界,过度延伸 | |
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58 overflow | |
v.(使)外溢,(使)溢出;溢出,流出,漫出 | |
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59 abiding | |
adj.永久的,持久的,不变的 | |
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60 wailing | |
v.哭叫,哀号( wail的现在分词 );沱 | |
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61 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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62 demon | |
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
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63 enlist | |
vt.谋取(支持等),赢得;征募;vi.入伍 | |
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64 entrusted | |
v.委托,托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65 avenged | |
v.为…复仇,报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 );为…报复 | |
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66 bribed | |
v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 );向(某人)行贿,贿赂 | |
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67 authoritatively | |
命令式地,有权威地,可信地 | |
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68 trenches | |
深沟,地沟( trench的名词复数 ); 战壕 | |
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69 meteoric | |
adj.流星的,转瞬即逝的,突然的 | |
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70 adorn | |
vt.使美化,装饰 | |
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71 magnetism | |
n.磁性,吸引力,磁学 | |
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72 attainment | |
n.达到,到达;[常pl.]成就,造诣 | |
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73 slaughtered | |
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74 triumphant | |
adj.胜利的,成功的;狂欢的,喜悦的 | |
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