Great Northern War

Between 1700 and 1721 a coalition led by Russia fought Sweden for control of the Baltic and northern Europe. Sweden, under its young king Charles XII, won a string of early victories, but the destruction of its main army at Poltava in 1709 turned the war decisively. By the final peace, Sweden had lost most of its overseas empire, and the Russia of Peter the Great had become a European great power with a window on the Baltic Sea.

Over the previous century and a half Sweden had built an empire around the Baltic, taking Karelia, Ingria, Estonia and Livonia, lands in northern Germany, and provinces in the south of the Scandinavian peninsula from Denmark and Norway. Its professional, well-drilled army was formidable, but the kingdom's small population and economy struggled to sustain long wars. Russia had been cut off from the Baltic by a treaty of 1617, and Peter was determined to regain access.

When the fourteen-year-old Charles XII inherited the throne in 1697, his neighbours saw an opportunity. Russia, Denmark–Norway and Saxony, whose elector Augustus II was also king of Poland, formed a secret alliance and attacked in 1700.

Charles struck first at Denmark, landing near Copenhagen and forcing it out of the war by August 1700. He then crossed the Baltic and, in November, routed a much larger Russian army besieging Narva. Instead of pursuing Peter, he turned on Augustus. Years of campaigning across the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth followed; Charles had Augustus deposed in favour of Stanisław Leszczyński in 1704 and finally invaded Saxony itself, forcing Augustus to renounce the Polish crown in the Treaty of Altranstädt in 1706.

Meanwhile Peter reorganised his army and pushed into the Swedish Baltic provinces. In 1703 he captured the fortress of Nyen at the mouth of the Neva and began building a new city nearby, Saint Petersburg. Peter sought a negotiated peace that would let him keep that foothold, but Charles refused.

Charles marched east from Saxony in 1707, aiming for Moscow. Russian scorched-earth tactics and one of the most severe winters in modern European history wore his army down. He turned south into Ukraine, allying with the Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa, but his supply column was defeated at Lesnaya and Mazepa's stores at Baturyn were destroyed. At the Battle of Poltava in 1709 Peter's larger army destroyed the Swedish force, and its remnants surrendered days later at Perevolochna. Charles fled to the Ottoman Empire, where he stayed for five years.

Poltava revived the alliance. Denmark and Saxony re-entered the war in 1709, Augustus regained the Polish throne, and in 1710 Russia took Riga and Tallinn, ending Swedish rule in the Baltic provinces. Russian forces occupied Finland in 1713 and 1714, a harsh period remembered there as the Great Wrath, and won a naval victory at Gangut. Hanover and Prussia joined the coalition, and by 1716 all of Sweden's German possessions had fallen. Charles returned and launched campaigns against Norway, but he was shot dead while besieging Fredriksten in late 1718.

Sweden made peace piece by piece: with Hanover and Prussia at Stockholm in 1719 and 1720, with Denmark at Frederiksborg in 1720, and with Russia at Nystad in 1721. Russia kept Estonia, Livonia, Ingria and part of Karelia, while returning Finland. Charles's death also ended absolute monarchy in Sweden, opening its so-called Age of Liberty. Sweden never again ranked as a great power, while Russia had become one.

Our 1700 map shows Sweden's Baltic empire and the Tsardom of Russia at the start of the war, and our 1715 map shows the Swedish position collapsing in its later stages.