mmense numbers before the officers can arrest them. Indeed, the
officers do not wish to arrest them until it is sure that the enemy is
so completely overwhelmed that their rallying again is utterly
impossible. In this case twenty thousand of the Russian soldiers were
left dead upon the field. The Swedes, on the other hand, lost only two
or three thousand.

Besides those who were killed, immense numbers were taken prisoners.
General Croy, and all the other principal generals in command, were
among the prisoners. It is very probable that, if Peter had not been
absent at the time, he would himself have been taken too.

The number of prisoners was so very great that it was not possible for
the Swedes to retain them, on account of the expense and trouble of
feeding them, and keeping them warm at that season of the year; so they
determined to detain the officers only, and to send the men away. In
doing this, besides disarming the men, they adopted a very whimsical
expedient for making them helpless and incapable of doing mischief on
their march. They cut their clothes in such a manner that they could
only be prevented from falling off by being held together by both
hands; and the weather was so cold--the ground, moreover, being covered
with snow--that the men could only save themselves from perishing by
keeping their clothes around them.

In this pitiful plight the whole body of prisoners were driven off,
like a flock of sheep, by a small body of Swedish soldiery, for a
distance of about a league on the road toward Russia, and then left to
find the rest of the way themselves.

The Czar, when he heard the news of this terrible disaster, did not
seem much disconcerted by it. He said that he expected to be beaten at
first by the Swedes. "They have beaten us once," said he, "and they
may beat us again; but they will teach us in time to beat them."

He immediately began to adopt the most efficient and energetic measures
for organizing a new army. He set about raising recruits in all parts
of the empire. He introduced many new foreign officers into his
service; and to provide artillery, after exhausting all the other
resources at his command, he ordered the great bells of many churches
and monasteries to be taken down and cast into cannon.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BUILDING OF ST. PETERSBURG.

1700-1704

Continuation of the war--Stratagems of the Swedes--Peculiar kind of
boat--Making a smoke--Peter determines to