The Great Northern War (1700 - 1721) Russia

The Great Northern War (1700 - 1721) was the main military conflict of Peter the Great's reign, ending in a Russian victory over Sweden that made Russia an important European power and expanded Russia's borders to the Baltic Sea, including the site of St. Petersburg. The war began in the effort of Denmark and Poland-Saxony to wrest control of territories lost to Sweden during the seventeenth century, the period of Swedish military hegemony in northern Europe. When the rulers of those countries offered alliances to Peter in 1698 and 1699, he saw an opportunity to recover Ingria, the small territory at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland that Russia had lost to Sweden in 1618. Possession of Ingria would once again give Russia access to the Baltic Sea, which seems to have been Peter's principal aim. To achieve this aim Peter built a European-style army and a navy based in the Baltic. The war also served as a major stimulus to Peter's reforms.

The initial phase of the war (1700 - 1709) was marked by Swedish successes. Peter's attempt to capture the port of Narva in Swedish-held Estonia ended in catastrophic defeat on November 30, 1700, at the hands of Charles XII, king of Sweden. The defeat meant the destruction of most of Peter's new army, which he then had to rebuild. Fortunately, Charles chose to move south into Poland, hoping to unseat August II from the throne of Poland and expand Swedish influence. In 1706 Charles succeeded in forcing August II to surrender and leave the war and to recognize Stanislaw Leszczynski, a Swedish puppet, as king of Poland. In 1707 Charles moved east through Poland toward Russia, apparently hoping to both defeat and over-throw Peter and replace him with a more compliant tsar from among the Russian boyars. Charles also managed to convince Ivan Mazepa, the Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks, to join him against Peter, but in Russia itself there was no move in favor of Charles. Instead, the Russian army retreated before the Swedes,...