of Europe, at the very crisis of the war of the
Spanish Succession, fluttered all the western diplomats. The allies, in
particular, at once suspected that Louis XIV. had bought the Swedes.
Marlborough was forthwith sent from the Hague to the castle of
Altranstadt near Leipzig, where Charles had fixed his headquarters, "to
endeavour to penetrate the designs" of the king of Sweden. He soon
convinced himself that western Europe had nothing to fear from Charles,
and that no bribes were necessary to turn the Swedish arms from Germany
to Russia. Five months later (Sept. 1707) Augustus was forced to sign
the peace of Altranstadt, whereby he resigned the Polish throne and
renounced every anti-Swedish alliance. Charles's departure from Saxony
was delayed for twelve months by a quarrel with the emperor. The court
of Vienna had treated the Silesian Protestants with tyrannical severity,
in direct contravention of the treaty of Osnabruck, of which Sweden was
one of the guarantors; and Charles demanded summary and complete
restitution so dictatorially that the emperor prepared for war. But the
allies interfered in Charles's favour, lest he might be tempted to aid
France, and induced the emperor to satisfy all the Swedish king's
demands, the maritime Powers at the same time agreeing to guarantee the
provisions of the peace of Altranstadt.

Nothing now prevented Charles from turning his victorious arms against
the tsar; and on the 13th of August 1707, he evacuated Saxony at the
head of the largest host he ever commanded, consisting of 24,000 horse
and 20,000 foot. Delayed during the autumn months in Poland by the tardy
arrival of reinforcements from Pomerania, it was not till November 1707
that Charles was able to take the field. On New Year's Day 1708 he
crossed the Vistula, though the ice was in a dangerous condition. On the
4th of July 1708 he cut in two the line of the Russian army, 6 m. long,
which barred his progress on the Wabis, near Holowczyn, and compelled it
to retreat. The victory of Holowczyn, memorable besides as the last
pitched battle won by Charles XII., opened up the way to the Dnieper.
The Swedish army now began to suffer severely, bread and fodder running
short, and the soldiers subsisting entirely on captured bullocks. The
Russians slowly retired before the invader, burning and destroying
everything in his path. On the 20th of December it was plain to Charles
himself that Moscow was inaccessible. But the idea of a