Charles XII - King of Sweden by Carl Klingspor

Author:Carl Klingspor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

INVASION OF SAXONY

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AND NOW COMES A NEW turn in our affairs, and to the astonished and terrified Europe a new and unexpected scene on the stage of our wars. For the mountain being unwilling to come unto Mahomet, Mahomet decided to go to the mountain; or to speak without phrases, King Charles decided to march right into the Kingdom of Saxony. Once again were the bugles of Sweden and the Protestant hymns to sound across the battlefields of Germany; and the Roman Empire, as well as each little German state, was to look with apprehension upon coming events.

Before we turned however to the fleshpots of Saxony, we were to have a sorry winter, for there was but little of either victuals or forage, and the season began to look sourly upon us. The little Prince said that “Hunger war Koch und Mangel war Kellner.” Brandy, mead, butter and beer became more and more scarce. The miserable peasants dug their food down into the earth and then fled to some far-off region ere we reached their habitations and were able to question them. So we must find them by putting to good use divers curiously wrought swords and pikes with hooks and holes in their points, with which we poked in the ground where it looked suspicious. And when they drew out straw, there would we know was a hidden supply.

We found meat and pork, butter, tallow, honey, wax, mead, and brandy, cups and brass, all manner of clothes, linen, wheat, rye, corn and oats.

Especially when the thaw came on, at which times the snow melted from off these vaulted caverns, did we find wherewithal to keep us alive. But even then the great difficulty of finding these provisions was exceeded by the danger attending the discovery to those who descended, at the instant the cells were opened. Such abundance of vapors immediately belched forth with steam as killed numbers of our brave and starving people, till fatal experience taught them to wait with patience, despite the gnawing at their vitals, until such time as the vapors were dispersed and they might thus feed without suffocation surprising them first.

My memory of this time is a confused thought of swamps and nasty, wet weather. We had to our camp nought but muddy huts roofed with green branches, which had served us well enough for protection from burning sun or the pestilent night air, but for such torrents of rain as we had they were worse than useless, being ever flooded and half the time unbearable. The King had scarce better for himself, as ever he shared what fortune came to his soldiers. He had indeed a tent to himself and a cook tent for his kitchen, but his tent was always damp and cold, though his attendants tried their best to warm it with round shot heated in our fires and brought into the tent; but the heat that they gave out was less to be noticed than was the unendurable stench of the hot iron, and the smoke from such bits of the fire as always clung to them.

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