Five days later, after marching through Silesia with the cheers of the Protestant Silesians ringing in their ears, the Swedish soldiers stood on the frontier of the Electorate of Saxony. There, the arrival of the Swedes produced a feeling akin to terror. Stories of Swedish plundering and ravishment during the Thirty Years' War were vividly retold. Augustus' family fled in various directions: His wife hurried to the protection of her father, the Margrave of Bayreuth; his ten-year-old son went to Denmark; his elderly mother fled to Hamburg. The state treasury and jewels were hidden in a remote castle. Nevertheless, the Saxon Governing Council, empowered to govern in Augustus' absence, had determined not to resist the Swedish invasion and to entrust the safety of the electorate to Charles' mercy. The council had in fact had enough of their Elector's Polish ambitions; Saxony had sacificed 36,000 troops, 800 cannon and eight million livres in the effort to keep its sovereign on the throne of Poland. Now, Saxons were weary of the struggle and determined not to sacrifice the electorate itself on Augustus' behalf.
Accordingly, Charles' regiments marched unopposed into Saxony and occupied the major cities, Leipzig and the capital, Dresden. On September 14, Charles established his headquarters at the castle of Altranstadt near Leipzig, and there he negotiated the terms of a peace treaty with two Saxon ministers. Charles demanded that Augustus give up the Polish crown forever and recognize Stanislaus in his place, as well as break his alliance with Russia and turn over to Charles all Swedish subjects employed by Augustus or fighting with the Saxon army. In return, Augustus would be allowed to keep the courtesy title of king although he could not call himself King of Poland. Finally, the Swedish army was to spend the coming winter in Saxony with all costs of supplies and provisions to be borne by the Saxon government. In
Augustus' absence, the Saxon emissaries accepted these terms, and on October 13, 1706, the Treaty of Altranstadt was signed.
For Augustus, not only the terms but also the timing of the treaty were unfortunate. At exactly the moment when Charles was negotiating Augustus' abdication with the Saxon ministers, Augustus himself was moving through Poland with a large force of Russian cavalry commanded by Menshikov, bent on attacking a smaller Swedish force under Colonel Mardefelt. Augustus complained that he was so poor that he had nothing to eat, and Menshikov gave the needy King 10,000 ducats from his own pocket. The Tsar, who had invested thousands of roubles and thousands of men in propping up this Saxon ally, was disgusted when he heard about it. "You know very well that one always hears from the King, 'Give, give! Money, money!' and you also know how little money we have," he wrote to Menshikov. "However," Peter added resignedly, "if the King is always to be in this evil plight, I think it would be best to give him strong hopes of being satisfied on my arrival, and I shall try to come by the quickest route."
While he was still with the Russian army and had just accepted Menshikov's generosity, Augustus learned privately of the signing of the treaty in Saxony. He managed to keep the news from Menshikov, but still he was in an extremely awkward position. The terms of the treaty called for him to break his alliance with the Tsar and give up the war, and yet here he was, in the company of a Russian army, preparing to attack a Swedish force. Trying to avert a battle, Augustus sent secret messages to Mardefelt, the Swedish commander, informing him of the treaty and begging him to retreat and not fight. Here, Augustus' reputation finally caught up with him. The King was so well known for duplicity and chicanery that Mardefelt assumed the message was only another of Augustus' tricks and ignored it. The result, on October 29, 1706, was the Battle of Kalisz, a three-hour fight in which the Russians, Augustus' former allies, badly defeated the Swedes with whom his ministers had just signed a treaty of peace. For Peter, it was a significant victory. Although the Russians outnumbered the Swedes two to one, Swedish soldiers had always before coped successfully with even larger odds. And it was Menshikov's first significant success as an independent commander. The Tsar was overjoyed.
Augustus, embarrassed by this Russian victory, scrambled desperately to adjust himself to his new position between Peter and Charles. He wrote to Charles apologizing for the battle and offering excuses for his inability to prevent its occurrence. In a more tangible gesture, Augustus persuaded the unwitting Menshikov to give him control of the entire body of 1,800 Swedish prisoners and promptly sent them on parole back to Swedish Pomerania, where they would be free to fight the following spring.
Meanwhile, Augustus tried not to anger Peter. He had a private conversation with Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, the Tsar's representative in Poland, and explained that he had no choice: He could not leave Saxony to be devastated by Charles' troops, and he had seen no way to save his homeland except by stepping down from the Polish throne. He assured Dolgoruky, however, that this was only a temporary subterfuge, and that as soon as the Swedish army left Saxony, he would renounce the treaty, raise a new army and resume his place at Peter's side.
On November 30, Augustus arrived in Saxony and visited Charles at Altranstadt. He apologized personally for what had happened at Kalisz, and Charles accepted his explanation, but insisted that Augustus confirm his abdication by writing Stanislaus to congratulate him on his accession to the throne of Poland. Being completely under Charles' power, Augustus swallowed even this bitter pill. As Charles had written discreetly but serenely in a letter to Stockholm, "For the present, it is I who am Elector of Saxony."
The two Kings, first cousins (their mothers were sister, both having been born Danish princesses), got along well together. Charles wrote to his sister that his cousin was "jolly and amusing. He is not tall, but of compact build; a little corpulent also. He wears his own hair, which is quite dark." Nevertheless, it became obvious through the winter of 1706-07 that Augustus was in no hurry to put the treaty into effect. This was especially true of Clause 11, which had been especially written to apply to the Livonian firebrand Johann Reinhold von Patkul.
The man most affected by the Treaty of Altranstadt was not Augustus but Patkul. The Livonian nobleman whose dedicated anti-Swedish efforts had helped to bring about the Great Northern War was a special object of Charles XII's hatred. Thus, Clause 11 had been written into the Altranstadt treaty demanding that Augustus hand over to Charles all Swedish "traitors" harbored in Saxony. Patkul's name headed the list. In the affair that followed, Augustus' perfidy and Charles' vengefulness were to horrify Europe.
Patkul was a flamboyant, talented and difficult man. When the war began, he served first as a general in Augustus' army. He was wounded and, while recovering, decided to quit the King's service in disapproval "of the way the King has treated his allies." Peter, admiring Patkul's qualities, immediately invited the homeless
Livonian to Moscow and persuaded him to enter Russian service as a privy councilor and lieutenant general. For the next five years, Patkul was indefatigable in Peter's service, but his imperious manner made him many enemies. He quarreled with Matveev in The Hague and Golitsyn in Vienna. Dolgoruky in Warsaw eventually refused even to exchange letters with him, and wrote to Fedor Golovin: "I think you know about Patkul. One must examine carefully not only his words but the letters in them. If he writes when he is in ill humor, he will not even give praise to God himself."