de his wife in 1707. Apraksin
was sent to take the supreme command by land and sea. Cantemir, the
hospodar of Moldavia, promised support, for his own ends.

The Turkish vizier, Baltagi Mehemet, had already crossed the Danube, and
was marching up the Pruth with 100,000 men. Peter's general Sheremetof
was in danger of being completely hemmed in when Peter crossed the
Dnieper, Catherine stoutly refusing to leave the army. No help came from
Cantemir, and supplies were running short. The Tsar was too late to
prevent the passage of the Pruth by the Turks, who were now on his lines
of communication; and he found himself in a trap, without supplies, and
under the Turkish guns. When he attempted to withdraw, the Turkish force
attacked, but were brilliantly held at bay by the Russian rear-guard.

Nevertheless, the situation was desperate. It was Catherine who saved
it. At her instigation, terms--accompanied by the usual gifts--were
proposed to the vizier; and, for whatever reason, the vizier was
satisfied to conclude a peace then and there. He was probably
unconscious of the extremities to which Peter was reduced. Azov was to
be retroceded, Taganrog, and other forts, dismantled; the Tsar was not
to interfere in Poland, and Charles was to be allowed a free return to
his own dominions. The hopes of Charles were destroyed, and he was
reduced to intriguing at the Ottoman court.

Peter carried out some of the conditions of the Pruth treaty. The more
important of them he successfully evaded for some time. The treaty,
however, was confirmed six months later. But the Pruth affair was a more
serious check to the Tsar than even Narva had been, for it forced him to
renounce the dominion of the Black Sea. He turned his attention to
Pomerania, though the injuries his health had suffered drove him to take
the waters at Carlsbad.

His object was to drive the Swedes out of their German territories, and
confine them to Scandinavia; and to this end he sought alliance with
Hanover, Brandenburg, and Denmark. About this time he married his son
Alexis (born to him by his first wife) to the sister of the German
Emperor; and proceeded to ratify by formal solemnities his own espousal
to Catherine.

Charles might have saved himself by coming out of Turkey, buying the
support of Brandenburg by recognising her claim on Stettin, and
accepting the sacrifice of his own claim to Poland, which Stanislaus was
ready to make for his sake. He would not. Russian