So severe was the winter that both Peter and Charles, contrary to their custom, agreed to a suspension of arms.  Isolated as he was, towards the end of May, Charles laid siege to Pultawa, the capture of which would have opened the way to Moscow.  Thither Peter marched against him, while Charles himself was unable to move owing to a serious wound in the foot, endured with heroic fortitude.  On July 8, the decisive battle was fought.  The victory lay with the Russians, and Charles was forced to fly for his life.  His best officers were prisoners.  A column under Lewenhaupt succeeded in joining the king, now prostrated by his wound and by fever.  At the Dnieper, Charles was carried over in a boat; the force, overtaken by the Russians, was compelled to capitulate.  Peter treated the captured Swedish generals with distinction.  Charles himself escaped to Bender, in Turkey.

Virtually a captive in the Turkish dominions, Charles conceived the project of persuading the sultan to attack Russia.  At the outset, the grand vizier, Chourlouly Ali, favoured his ideas; but Peter, by lavish and judicious bribery, soon won him over.  The grand vizier, however, was overthrown by a palace intrigue, and was replaced by an incorruptible successor, Numa Chourgourly, who was equally determined to treat the fugitive king in becoming fashion and to decline to make war on the Tsar.

Meanwhile, Charles’s enemies were taking advantage of his enforced absence.  Peter again overran Livonia.  Augustus repudiated the treaty of Altranstad, and recovered the Polish crown.  The King of Denmark repudiated the treaty of Travendal, and invaded Sweden, but his troops were totally routed by the raw levies of the Swedish militia at Helsimburg.

The Vizier Chourgourly, being too honourable for his post, was displaced by Baltaji Mehemet, who took up the schemes of Charles.  War was declared against Russia.  The Prince of Moldavia, Cantemir, supported Peter.  The Turks seemed doomed to destruction; but first the advancing Tsar found himself deserted by the Moldavians, and allowed himself to be hemmed in by greatly superior forces on the Pruth.  With Peter himself and his army entirely at his mercy, Baltaji Mehemet—­to the furious indignation of Charles—­was content to extort a treaty advantageous to Turkey but useless to the Swede; and Peter was allowed to retire with the honours of war.

III.—­The Meteor Quenched

The great desire of the Porte was, in fact, to get rid of its inconvenient guest; to dispatch him to his own dominions in safety with an escort to defend him, but no army for aggression.  Charles conceived that the sultan was pledged to give him an army.  The downfall of the vizier—­owing to the sultan’s wrath on learning that Peter was not carrying out the pledges of the Pruth treaty—­did not help matters; for the favourite, Ali Cournourgi, now intended Russia to aid his own ambitions, and the favourite controlled the new vizier.  Within six months of Pruth, war had been declared and a fresh peace again patched up, Peter promising to withdraw all his forces from Poland, and the Turks to eject Charles.