Peter was not in the habit of leading cavalry charges by himself. He did, however, often travel with the army and, in one marked instance, this nearly cost him everything.
After Poltava, when Peter the Great finally triumphed over Charles XII of Sweden after two decades of backsy-forthsy, Charles escaped to the Ottoman Empire and, by virtue of swagger, got the Ottomans to declare war on Peter. Peter, relying on the good word of some provisioning allies, thrust into the Empire with an army and his wife and promptly got himself entirely surrounded at the Battle of Pruth (1711). Had the Grand Vizier so desired it, he could have captured both Tsar and Tsaress and paraded them about town dressed as monkeys. That didn’t happen, and Peter went on to enjoy another 14 years of Tsaring.
– Count Dolby von Luckner