The Swedes, according to the custom of war, got ready their pontoons, and erected batteries to favour their passage; but Charles, whose impatience to engage would not let him brook the least delay, did not wait till the pontoons were ready. Marshal Schwerin, who served a long time under him, has assured me several times, that one day that they were to come to action, observing his generals to be very busy in concerting the necessary dispositions, said tartly to them, 'When will you have done with this trifling?' and immediately advanced in person at the head of his guards, which he did particularly on this memorable day.
He flung himself into the river, followed by his regiment of guards. Their numbers broke the impetuosity of the current, but the water was as high as their shoulders, and they could make no use of their firelocks. Had the artillery of the parapet been but tolerably well served, or had the infantry but levelled their pieces in a proper manner, not a single Swede would have escaped.
July 25.] The king, after wading the river, passed the morass on foot. As soon as the army had surmounted these obstacles within sight of the Russians, they drew up in order of battle, and attacked the enemies intrenchments seven different times, and it was not till the seventh attack that the Russians gave way. By the accounts of their own historians, the Swedes took but twelve field-pieces, and twenty-four mortars.
It was therefore evident, that the czar had at length succeeded in disciplining his troops, and this victory of Holozin, while it covered Charles XII. with glory, might have made him sensible of the many dangers he must have to encounter in adventuring into such distant countries, where his army could march only in small bodies, through woods, morasses, and where he would be obliged to fight out every step of his way; but the Swedes, being accustomed to carry all before them, dreaded neither danger nor fatigue.[74]
Charles XII. crosses the Boristhenes, penetrates into the Ukraine, but concerts his measures badly.--One of his armies is defeated by Peter the Great: he loses his supply of provisions and ammunition: advances forward through a desert country: his adventures in the Ukraine.