Charles Xii Of Sweden Quotes

[Charles XII] seldom took a more active part in the council than to cross his legs upon the table.

Voltaire’s History of Charles XII, which Napoleon read while in Moscow, described the Russian winter as so cold that birds froze in mid-air, falling from the skies as if shot.54 The Emperor also read the three-volume Military History of Charles XII by the king’s chamberlain, Gustavus Adlerfeld, published in 1741, which concludes with the disaster of Poltava.55 Adlerfeld attributed the King of Sweden’s defeat to stubborn Russian resistance and the ‘very piercing’ cold of the winter. ‘In one of these marches two thousand men fell down dead with the cold,’ reads a passage in the third volume, and in another Swedish troopers ‘were reduced to warm themselves with the skins of beasts as well they could; they often wanted even bread; they were obliged to sink almost all their cannon in morasses and rivers, for want of horses to draw them.

The dark face of Louis XIV was marred by the pox, as were the fair features of Charles XII of Sweden.

Another hetman, Ivan Mazepa, made a desperate attempt to save the country, and signed an agreement with Charles XII of Sweden to fight against the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great. However, Swedish troops suffered a disastrous defeat at the battle of Poltava in 1709.