Melee from Bender

The scuffle at Bender

The scuffle of Bender ( Swedish Kalabaliken i Bender ) describes a dispute on January 31st and February 1st, 1713 between Ottoman troops and the entourage of the Swedish King Charles XII. in his warehouse in Bender in today's Republic of Moldova .

prehistory

Charles XII. escaped in 1709 after the defeat in the Battle of Poltava with the remains of his Swedish army over the saving Prut and received a residence permit from the Ottoman Sultan . From here, Charles XII tried. to induce the Ottoman Empire to enter the war against the Russian Empire . After a devastating campaign by Tsar Peter I on the Prut, both powers made a quick peace, so that Sweden continued to stand alone in the fight against Russia. The chances for a renewed armed conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Russia improved again in the following period, so that Charles XII. refused to return to Sweden. At the beginning of 1713 the possibility of a renewed entry into the war of the Ottoman Empire was finally over after the Swedish army in Swedish Pomerania under General Stenbock concluded an armistice with the Russian, Saxon and Danish armies on site and thus an instruction from Charles XII. underwent an immediate strategic breakthrough to Poland. This was a prerequisite for a second Ottoman armed conflict. Charles XII. was to break through from Bender to Poland and there to unite with the Swedish army and wage war against Russia, while Ottoman troops were to advance against Russia.

Charles XII. but refused to leave Bender, so that the Ottoman Sultan Achmed III. on January 14, 1713 the compulsory expulsion of Charles XII. decreed. When Charles XII. received the Sultan's personal travel order on January 31, the latter had made a different decision. The Swedish success in the Battle of Gadebusch left the Sultan no longer in doubt about the seriousness of Charles XII's war policy. The following order of the Sultan, no open violence against Charles XII. However, it came too late, and the commanders charged with carrying it out, the Turkish Seraskan Ismail Pasha and the Tatar Khan Devlet II Giray , had clear instructions to storm the Swedish fortifications if the monarch refused to march. Charles XII. did just that which made a fight inevitable.

course

The Swedish camp at Bender, 1711. After the Sultan Karl XII. and granted asylum to his companions, a fortified camp was set up south of the town of Bender. In the upper part of the picture the king is shown on horseback and accompanied by Axel Sparre .

The Polish and Cossack troops left the camp of Charles XII as soon as the 10,000-man Turkish-Tatar forces approached. Nevertheless, he prepared the defense of the camp by his troops of more than 1000 Swedish soldiers.

The attack stalled at first. The Janissaries fired a few cannon shots at the royal family, but then refused to storm the Swedish camp. The Ottoman military leader finally let the soldiers the letter Achmeds III. read aloud and was able to convince the Janissaries that Charles XII. all Muslims despise what they were ready to take up the fight. Karl's officers and soldiers held out their weapons on the ramparts without a fight. For seven hours the monarch defended the royal house with around 50 soldiers and officers. He had made his way to the house, gun in hand, and a shot tore off part of his ear. When, in the eighth hour of the unequal slaughter, the burning house forced the rest of the Swedes to surrender with their king, the king fell to the ground and was eventually caught, ending the scuffle at Bender.

consequences

Charles XII. was first brought to Demotika Castle and, since April, to Timurtash near Adrianople , where the king spent most of 1713. He remained a prisoner with great freedom, but was no longer the sovereign of Bender. The Ottoman commanders were punished. The Grand Vizier Soliman Pasha was deposed, the Seraskan Ismail Pasha demoted and later executed. Devlet II Giray was exiled to Rhodes.

reception

Popular themes in Swedish historiography include depictions of Bender's so-called scuffle, the Kalabalik, as the Swedes call it. Mats Ahren filmed the material in the film comedy Kalabaliken i Bender in 1983 .

Web links

• Voltaire, History of Charles XII. in the Gutenberg project

literature

• Jörg-Peter Findeisen : Karl XII. of Sweden. A king who became a myth. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-428-07284-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Findeisen: Karl XII. von Schweden , Berlin 1992, p. 177.