Tolstoy, who was used to the exchange of fabulous stones in Constantinople, complained that the ring he received was less valuable than those presented to Golovkin and Shafirov. Osterman, a junior diplomat in the Russian party, tried to calm Tolstoy's wrath by giving him also the small ring with which
To Peter's chagrin, the marriage caused grave complications with his North German allies, especially Hanover, which, with Prussia, had joined Russia, Denmark and Poland against Sweden. The common motive of these new allies was to expel Charles XII from the continent and to pick up and distribute among themselves the pieces of former Swedish territory inside the Holy Roman Empire. Increasingly, however, they began to realize that the destruction and disappearance of Swedish power was being accompanied by the rise of a new and greater power, that of the Russian Tsar. Until the Meckleburg marriage, the suspicions of the North German princes remained beneath the surface. In July 1715, the Danish and Prussian troops besieging Stralsund had even asked for Russian help. Sheremetev's army lay in western Poland and could easily have marched, but Prince Gregory Dolgoruky, the experienced Russian ambassador in Warsaw, feared that the situation in Poland was still too volatile and insisted that Sheremetev stay where he was. Accordingly, Stralsund fell without the participation of a single Russian soldier. When he heard the news, Peter was furious at Dolgoruky: 'I am truly astonished that you have gone out of your mind in your old age and have let yourself be carried away by these constant tricksters and so have held these troops in Poland.'
As Peter feared, a few months later when it came the turn of Wismar, the last Swedish port on the continent to be besieged, Russian troops were deliberately excluded. Wismar, a Pomeranian coastal town which Peter had specifically promised to Duke Karl Leopold of Mecklenburg as part of Princess Catherine's dowry, was invested by Danish and Prussian troops. When Prince Repnin arrived with four Russian infantry regiments and five regiments of dragoons, he was told to take them away. An argument broke out and the Russian and Prussian commanders almost came to blows, but the Russians withdrew. When Peter heard, he was chagrined, but he kept his temper, as he needed allied help for his sea-borne invasion of Sweden.
Shortly afterward, the situation worsened. A Prussian detachment passing through Mecklenburg was intercepted by a larger Russian force and conducted forcibly to the frontier. Frederick Willian of Prussia was outraged, declaring that his men had been treated 'as if they were enemies.' He canceled a meeting with the Tsar and threatened to withdraw completely from the alliance. 'The Tsar must give me complete satisfaction,' he fumed, 'or I shall immediately concentrate my army, which is in good condition.' To one of his ministers, he sputtered on, 'Thanks be to God I am not in need like [the King of Denmark], who has let himself be cozened by the Muscovites. The Tsar may know that he has to do with no King of Poland or Denmark but with a Prussian who will break his pate for him.' Frederick William's anger passed quickly, as did most of his rages. Beneath the surface, his annoyance and suspicion of Hanover were greater than his fear of Russia, and he soon agreed to meet Peter in Stettin, where he handed over the port of Wismar to the Duke of Mecklenburg. First, he insisted that the fortifications of the town be razed, for, he said, to give it to Karl Leopold with its ramparts intact 'would be like putting a sharp knife in the hands of the child.'
One of Frederick William's reasons for turning Wismar over to the Duke of Mecklenburg was that he thought it would irritate the Hanoverians, and he was right. Here in Hanover lay a deeper and more suspicious antagonism toward Peter and the Russian presence in North Germany. In part, it was personal: Bernstorff, the leading Hanoverian minister of King George I, was a native Mecklenburger and a member of the aristocratic party which was strongly hostile to Duke Karl Leopold. From his position at King George's elbow, he was able to insinuate his prejudices into the King's ear. Why was the Tsar establishing such close dynastic relations with a small duchy deep in the heart of North Germany? Why were ten Russian regiments to be permanently stationed there? Was not the Tsar's demand that Wismar be turned over to Mecklenburg as part of his niece's dowry simply a clever way of establishing a Russian base in the western Baltic? If more Russian troops were coming, supposedly to participate in an invasion of Sweden, who could say what use would be found for them once they were in North Germany? To all these prejudices and suspicions, George I listened with a ready ear, for he was himself worried about the growing Russian influence and the prospect of large numbers of Russian troops being quartered so close to Hanover. Had Peter been properly informed and counseled regarding these Hanoverian suspicions, he might have acted differently in regard to Mecklenburg. But Peter was already in Danzig, the marriage agreement was already drawn, and although he was eager to maintain an alliance with Hanover and gain an alliance with England, the Tsar refused to go back on his word.
After three weeks in Pyrmont drinking the waters and taking his cure, Peter returned to Mecklenburg, where he had left the Tsaritsa Catherine with Duke Karl Leopold and his bride, Catherine. It was now midsummer, and during the visit Peter preferred to dine in the garden of the Duke's palace, looking out over a lake. Karl Leopold insisted that to give the scene the proper formality, a number of his tall guardsmen, all of whom possessed giant mustaches, must stand at attention around the table, with drawn swords. Peter, who liked to relax at dinner, found this ridiculous and repeatedly asked that the guardsmen be dispensed with. Finally, one evening, he suggested to his host that they might all be more comfortable if the guardsmen would lay down their swords and use their large mustaches to swat the gnats which swarmed over the table.
Against a backdrop of suspicion and dissension between allies, Peter went ahead with his plans for a joint invasion of Sweden in the summer of 1716. Obstinate 'Brother Charles' showed no sign of making peace; on the contrary, the Charles who returned to Sweden after the fall of Stralsund was busily raising a new army and preparing once again to attack. Rather than leave the initiative to his enemies, he had already, in February, lashed out at his nearest enemy, Denmark. If the ice had frozen the Oresund that winter, he would have marched across into Zealand and stormed the city of Copenhagen with an army of 12,000 men. The ice formed, but broke up in a storm, and Charles marched his army instead into southern Norway, then still a province of Denmark. He swept through the mountain passes, quickly overcoming the rocky fortresses and occupying the city of Kristiania (now Oslo) before being forced to retreat because of inadequate supplies.
To Peter, Charles' offensive demonstrated that the only way to end the war was to invade Sweden and defeat Charles XII on his home ground. To do this, Russia needed allies. Even despite his commanding position on the upper Baltic, Peter did not dare risk a large-scale, water-borne invasion of Sweden with only the Russian fleet to protect his troopships; the Swedish navy was still too strong. Thus it was that in the spring of 1716, while Peter was overseeing a marriage in Mecklenburg and taking the waters at Pyrmont, the Russian galley fleet began moving westward down the southern coast of the Baltic, first to Danzig, then to Rostock. Stopping in Hamburg before taking the waters, Peter had met King Frederick IV of Denmark and worked out a general plan for the invasion. It called for a combined Russian-Danish landing in Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden, while simultaneously a strong entirely Russian force would land on the Swedish east coast, thus forcing Charles to fight on two fronts. Both invasion forces would be covered by the Russian and Danish fleets, acting as a unit under the Danish Admiral Gyldenl0ve. England also would contribute a powerful squadron, although neither Peter nor Frederick was certain that the English would actually fight if a naval battle occurred. Peter agreed to supply 40,000 Russian soldiers including infantry and cavalry, plus his entire Russian fleet, both galleys and men-of-war. The Danes would contribute 30,000 men, most of the artillery and ammunition for the entire army, and the whole of the Danish navy. To transport the huge number of men and horses and their equipment across the Oresund, Frederick IV also agreed to commandeer the Danish merchant fleet for the entire summer. Frederick William I of Prussia declined to participate in the actual invasion, but did agree to supply twenty transport ships for use in convoying the Russian infantry assembled at Rostock to Copenhagen, the jumping-off point for the Scania invasion. On paper, at least, it seemed a formidable aggregation, especially against a supposedly helpless Sweden. One part of the plan, devised to satisfy the egos of Frederick and Peter, appeared unwise: Supreme command of the expedition was to be divided, with the two monarchs assuming control in alternate weeks.
After three weeks in Pyrmont, Peter went to Rostock, where his troops were concentrated, and, leaving Catherine, set out with a flotilla of forty-eight galleys for Copenhagen, arriving in the harbor on July 6. He was received with thunderous honors and wrote to Catherine, 'Let me know when you will be here, so that I can meet you, for the formalities here are indescribable. Yesterday, I was at such a ceremony as I have not seen for twenty years.'
Despite this welcome, time was passing. July slipped away and Peter wrote to Catherine, 'We are only chattering in vain.' The main problem was that the Danish fleet, necessary to cover the invasion force, was still cruising off the coast of Norway, watching over the withdrawal of the Swedish force which had captured Kristiania. This fleet did not return to Copenhagen until August 7, and even then the transports were not ready for the troops
