The Danes, in the mean time, were making preparations to invade Sweden; so that every nation in Europe was now engaged in war, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Holland, and England, were contending for the dominions left by Charles II. of Spain; and the whole North was up in arms against Charles XII. There wanted only a quarrel with the Ottoman empire, for every village in Europe to be exposed to the ravages of war. This quarrel happened soon afterwards, when Peter had attained to the summit of his glory, and precisely for that reason.
Sultan Achmet III. declared war against Peter I. not from any regard to the king of Sweden, but, as may readily be supposed, merely from a view to his own interest. The Khan of the Crim Tartars could not without dread, behold a neighbour so powerful as Peter I. The Porte had, for some time, taken umbrage at the number of ships which this prince had on the Palus Mæotis, and in the Black Sea, at his fortifying the city of Azoph, and at the flourishing state of the harbour of Taganroc, already become famous; and, lastly, at his great series of successes, and at the ambition which success never fails to augment.
It is neither true, nor even probable, that the Porte should have begun the war against the czar, on the Palus Mæotis, for no other reason than because a Swedish ship had taken a bark on the Baltic, on board of which was found a letter from a minister, whose name has never been mentioned. Norberg tells us, that this letter contained a plan for the conquest of the Turkish empire; that it was carried to Charles XII. who was then in Turkey, and was by him sent to the divan; and that immediately after the receipt of this letter, war was declared. But this story carries the mark of fiction with it. It was the remonstrances of the khan of Tartary, who was more uneasy about the neighbourhood of Azoph, than the Turkish divan, that induced this latter to give orders for taking the field.[83]
It was in the month of August, and before the czar had completed the reduction of Livonia, when Achmet III. resolved to declare war against him. The Turks, at that time, could hardly have had the news of the taking of Riga; and, therefore, the proposal of restoring to the king of Sweden the value in money, of the effects he had lost at the battle of Pultowa, would have been the most absurd thing imaginable, if not exceeded by that of demolishing Petersburg. The behaviour of Charles XII. at Bender, was sufficiently romantic; but the conduct of the Turkish divan would have been much more so, if we suppose it to have made any demands of this kind.