Stralsund, with its outer lines and inner, with its marshes, ditches, ramparts and abundant cannon to them, and leaning, one side of it, on the deep sea, which Swedish ships command as yet, is very strong. Wallenstein, we know, once tried it with furious assault, with bombardment, sap and storm; swore he would have it, "though it hung by a chain from Heaven;" but could not get it, after all his volcanic raging; and was driven away, partly by the Swedes and armed Townsfolk, chiefly by the marsh-fevers and continuous rains. Stralsund has been taken, since that, by Prussian sieging; as old men, from the Great Elector's time, still remember. [lOth-15th October, 1678 (Pauli, v. 203, 205).]
To Louis Fourteenth's menacing Ambassador, Friedrich Wilhelm seems to intimate that indeed big bullying words will not take it, but that Prussian guns and men, on a just ground, still may.
The details of this Siege of Stralsund are all on record, and had once a certain fame in the world; but, except as a distant echo, must not concern us here. It lasted till midwinter, under continual fierce counter-movements and desperate sallies from the Swedish Lion, standing at bay there against all the world.
But Friedrich Wilhelm was vigilance itself; and he had his Anhalt-Dessaus with him, his Borcks, Buddenbrocks, Finkensteins, veteran men and captains, who had learned their art under Marlborough and Eugene. The Lion King's fierce sallies, and desperate valor, could not avail. Point after point was lost for him. Koppen, a Prussian Lieutenant-Colonel, native to the place, who has bathed in those waters in his youth, remembers that, by wading to the chin, you could get round the extremity of Charles's main outer line. Koppen states his project, gets it approved of;--wades accordingly, with a select party, under cloud of night (4th of November, eve of Gunpowder-day, a most cold-hot job);other ranked Prussian battalions awaiting intently outside, with shouldered firelock, invisible in the dark; what will become of him. Koppen wades successfully; seizes the first battery of said line,--masters said line with its batteries, the outside battalions and he. Irrepressibly, with horrible uproar from without and from within; the flying Swedes scarcely getting up the Town drawbridge, as he chased them. That important line is lost to Charles.
Next they took the Isle of Rugen from him, which shuts up the harbor. Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, our rugged friend, in Danish boats, which were but ill navigated, contrives, about a week after that Koppen feat, to effect a landing-on Rugen at nightfall;beats off the weak Swedish party;--entrenches, palisades himself to the teeth, and lies down under arms. That latter was a wise precaution. For, about four in the morning, Charles comes in person, with eight pieces of cannon and four thousand horse and foot: Charles is struck with amazement at the palisade and ditch ("MEIN GOTT, who would have expected this!" he was heard murmuring); dashes, like a fire-flood, against ditch and palisade;tears at the pales himself, which prove impregnable to his cannon and him. He storms and rages forward, again and again, now here, now there; but is met everywhere by steady deadly musketry;and has to retire, fruitless, about daybreak, himself wounded, and leaving his eight cannons, and four hundred slain.
Poor Charles, there had been no sleep for him that night, and little for very many nights: "on getting to horse, on the shore at Stralsund, he fainted repeatedly; fell out of one faint into another; but such was his rage, he always recovered himself, and got on horseback again." [Buchholz, i. 36.] Poor Charles: a bit of right royal Swedish-German stuff, after his kind; and tragically ill bested now at last! This is his exit he is now making,--still in a consistent manner. It is fifteen years now since he waded ashore at Copenhagen, and first heard the bullets whistle round him. Since which time, what a course has he run; crashing athwart all manner of ranked armies, diplomatic combinations, right onward, like a cannon-ball; tearing off many solemn wigs in those Northern parts, and scattering them upon the winds,--even as he did his own full-bottom wig, impatiently, on that first day at Copenhagen, tiding it unfurthersome for actual business in batt1e.
[Kohler, <italic> Munzbelustigungen, <end italic> xiv. 213.]
In about a month hence, the last important hornwork is forced;Charles, himself seen fiercely fighting on the place, is swept back from his last hornwork; and the general storm, now altogether irresistible, is evidently at hand. On entreaty from his followers, entreaty often renewed, with tears even (it is said)and on bended knees, Charles at last consents to go. He left no orders for surrender; would not name the word; "left only ambiguous vague orders." But on the 19th December, 1715, he does actually depart; gets on board a little boat, towards a Swedish frigate, which is lying above a mile out; the whole road to which, between Rugen and the mainland, is now solid ice, and has to be cut as he proceeds. This slow operation, which lasted all day, was visible, and its meaning well known, in the besiegers' lines.
The King of Denmark saw it; and brought a battery to bear upon it;his thought had always been, that Charles should be captured or killed in Stralsund, and not allowed to get away. Friedrich Wilhelm was of quite another mind, and had even used secret influences to that effect; eager that Charles should escape.
It is said, he remonstrated very passionately with the Danish King and this battery of his; nay, some add, since remonstrances did not avail, and the battery still threatened to fire, Friedrich Wilhelm drew up a Prussian regiment or two at the muzzles of it, and said, You shall shoot us first, then. [Buchholz, p. 138.]
Which is a pleasant myth at least; and symbolical of what the reality was.