After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning, by the battle of the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catharine, first the mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner and successor of Peter in the throne of Russia. By her coolness and prudence, while the Czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and self-reproach, was labouring under nervous convulsions, to which he was liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the Vizier in command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed life, liberty, and honour, but were obliged to resign Asof, to give up the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been very bitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland. Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and of the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to Russia by the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion, the senate or state assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title of Emperor of all the Russias, with the adjuncts of Great, and Father of his Country.