Marriage of the czarowitz.--The marriage of Peter and Catherine publicly solemnized.--Catherine finds her brother. This unsuccessful campaign of Pruth proved more hurtful to the czar than ever the battle of Narva was; for after that defeat he had found means not only to retrieve his losses, but also to wrest Ingria out of the hands of Charles XII.; but by the treaty of Falksten, in which he consented to give up to the sultan his forts and harbours on the Palus Mæotis, he for ever lost his projected superiority in the Black Sea. He had besides an infinite deal of work on his hands; his new establishments in Russia were to be perfected, he had to prosecute his victories over the Swedes, to settle king Augustus firmly on the Polish throne, and to manage affairs properly with the several powers with whom he was in alliance; but the fatigues he had undergone having impaired his health, he was obliged to go to Carlsbad[90] to drink the waters of that place. While he was there he gave orders for his troops to enter Pomerania, who blockaded Stralsund, and took five other towns in the neighbourhood. Pomerania is the most northern province of Germany, bounded on the east by Prussia and Poland, on the west by Brandenburg, on the south by Mecklenburg, and on the north by the Baltic Sea. It has changed masters almost every century: Gustavus Adolphus got possession of it in his famous thirty years war, and it was afterwards solemnly ceded to the crown of Sweden by the treaty of Westphalia: with a reservation of the little bishopric of Camin, and a few other small towns lying in Upper Pomerania. The whole of this province properly belongs to the elector of Brandenburg, in virtue of a family compact made with the dukes of Pomerania, whose family being extinct in 1637, consequently by the laws of the empire the house of Brandenburg had an undoubted right to the succession; but necessity, the first of all laws, occasioned this family compact to be set aside by the treaty of Osnaburg; after which, almost the whole of Pomerania fell to the lot of the victorious Swedes. The czar's intention was to wrest from Sweden all the provinces that crown was possessed of in Germany; and, in order to accomplish his design, he found it necessary to enter into a confederacy with the electors of Hanover and Brandenburg, and the king of Denmark. Peter drew up the several articles of the treaty he projected with these powers, and also a complete plan of the necessary operations for rendering him master of Pomerania. In the meanwhile he went to Torgau, to be present at the nuptials of his son the czarowitz Alexis with the princess of Wolfenbuttel (Oct. 23, 1711.), sister to the consort of Charles VI. emperor of Germany; nuptials which, in the end, proved fatal to his own peace of mind, and to the lives of the unfortunate pair.