The Grand Embassy failed to further Peter the Great's designs against Turkey. But, although European powers proved unresponsive to the proposal of a major war with the Ottomans, other political opportunities emerged. Before long Peter joined the military alliance against Sweden organized by Augustus II, ruler of Saxony and Poland. Augustus II, in turn, had been influenced by Johann Reinhold Patkul, an emigre Livonian nobleman who bore a personal grudge against the Swedish crown. The interests of the allies, Denmark, Russia, and Poland-Saxony - although, to be exact, Saxony began the war without Poland - clashed with those of Sweden, which after its extremely successful participation in the Thirty Years' War had acquired a dominant position on the Baltic and in the Baltic area. The time to strike appeared ripe, for Charles XII, a mere youth of fifteen, had ascended the Swedish throne in 1697. While Peter I concentrated on concluding the long-drawn-out peace negotiations with Turkey, Augustus II declared war on Sweden in January 1700, and several months later Denmark followed his example. On July 14 the Russo-Turkish treaty was finally signed in Constantinople: the Russians obtained Azov and Taganrog as well as the right to maintain a resident minister in Turkey. On August 19, ten days after Peter the Great learned of the conclusion of the treaty with the Porte and the day after he officially announced it, he declared war on Sweden. Thus Russia entered what came to be known as the Great Northern War.
Immediately the Russians found themselves in a much more difficult situation than they had expected. Charles XII turned out to be something of a military genius. With utmost daring he crossed the straits and carried the fight to the heart of Denmark, quickly forcing the Danes to surrender. Unknown to Peter, the peace treaty of Travendal marking the Danish defeat and abandonment of the struggle was concluded on the very day on which Russia entered the war. Having disposed of Denmark, the Swedish king promptly attacked the new enemy. Transporting his troops across the
Baltic to Livonia, on November 30, 1700, he suddenly assaulted the main Russian army that was besieging the fortress of Narva. In spite of the very heavy numerical odds against them the Swedes routed the Russian forces, killing or capturing some ten thousand troops and forcing the remaining thirty thousand to abandon their artillery and retreat in haste. The prisoners included ten generals and dozens of officers. In the words of a recent historian summarizing the Russian performance at Narva: 'The old-fashioned cavalry and irregulars took to flight without fighting. The new infantry levies proved 'nothing more than undisciplined militia,' the foreign officers incompetent and unreliable. Only the two guards and one other foot regiment showed up well.'
It was believed by some at the time and has been argued by others since that after Narva Charles XII should have concentrated on knocking Russia out of the war and that by acting in a prompt and determined manner he could have accomplished this purpose. Instead, the Swedish king for years underestimated and neglected his Muscovite opponent. After lifting the Saxon siege of Riga in the summer of 1701, he transferred the main hostilities to Poland, considering Augustus II his most dangerous enemy. Again Swedish arms achieved notable successes, but for about six years they could not force a decision. In the meantime, Peter made utmost use of the respite he received. Acting with his characteristic energy, the tsar had a new army and artillery ready within a year after the debacle of Narva. Conscription, administration, finance, and everything else had to be strained to the limit and adapted to the demands of war, but the sovereign did not swerve from his set purpose. The melting of church bells to make cannons has remained an abiding symbol of that enormous war effort.
Peter I used his reconstructed military forces in two ways: he sent help to Augustus II, and he began a systematic advance in Livonia and Estonia, which Charles XII had left with little protection. Already in 1701 and 1702 Sheremetev at the head of a large army devastated these provinces, twice defeating weak Swedish forces, and the Russians began to establish themselves firmly on the Gulf of Finland. The year 1703 marked the founding of St. Petersburg near the mouth of the Neva. The following year Peter the Great built the island fortress of Kronstadt to protect his future capital, while the Russian troops captured the ancient city of Dorpat, or Iuriev, in Estonia and the stronghold of Narva itself. The tsar rapidly constructed a navy on the Baltic, his southern fleet being useless in the northern war, and the new ships participated effectively in amphibious and naval operations.
But time finally ran out for Augustus II. Brought to bay in his own Saxony, he had to sign the Treaty of Altranstadt with Charles XII in late September, 1706: by its terms Augustus II abdicated the Polish crown in
favor of pro-Swedish Stanislaw Leszczynski and, of course, withdrew from the war. Peter the Great was thus left alone to face one of the most feared armies and one of the most successful generals of Europe. Patkul, incidentally, was handed over to the Swedes by Augustus II and executed. The Swedish king began his decisive campaign against Russia in January 1708, crossing the Vistula with a force of almost fifty thousand men and advancing in the direction of Moscow.
Peter I's position was further endangered by the need to suppress rebellions provoked both by the exactions of the Russian government and by opposition to the tsar's reforms. In the summer of 1705 a monk and one of the streltsy started a successful uprising in Astrakhan aimed against the upper classes and the foreign influence. It was even rumored in Astrakhan that all Russian girls would be forced to wed Germans, a threat which led to the hasty conclusion of many marriages. The town was recaptured by Sheremetev only in March 1706, after bitter fighting. In 1707 Conrad Bulavin, a leader of the Don cossacks, led a major rebellion in the Don area. Provoked by the government's determination to hunt down fugitives and also influenced by the Old Belief, Bulavin's movement followed the pattern of the great social uprisings of the past. At its height, the rebellion spread over a large area of southern Russia, including dozens of towns, and the rebel army numbered perhaps as many as one hundred thousand men. As usual in such uprisings, however, this huge force lacked organization and discipline. Government troops managed to defeat the rebels decisively a year or so before the war with Sweden reached its climax in the summer of 1709. Still another rebellion, that of the Turkic Bashkirs who opposed the Russian disruption of their way of life as well as the heavy exactions of the state, erupted in the middle Volga area in 1705 and was not finally put down until 1711.
Some historians believe that Charles XII would have won the war had he pressed his offensive in 1708 against Moscow. Instead he swerved south and entered Ukraine. The Swedish king wanted to rest and strengthen his army in a rich land untouched by the fighting before resuming the offensive, and he counted heavily on Hetman Ivan Mazepa, who had secretly turned against his sovereign. His calculations failed: Mazepa could bring only some two thousand cossacks to the Swedish side - with a few thousand more joining later - while a general lack of sympathy for the Swedes together with Menshikov's energetic and rapid countermeasures assured the loyalty of Ukraine to Peter the Great. Also, Charles XII's move south made it easier for a Russian force led by the tsar to intercept and smash Swedish reinforce-ments of fifteen thousand men on October 9, 1708, at Lesnaia. What is more, at Lesnaia the Russians captured the huge supply train which was being brought to Charles. Largely isolated from the people, far from home bases, short of supplies, and unable to
advance their cause militarily or diplomatically, the Swedish army spent a dismal, cold winter in 1708-09 in Ukraine. Yet Charles XII would not retreat. The hour of decision struck in the middle of the following summer when the main Russian army finally came to the rescue of the small fortress of Poltava besieged by the Swedes, and the enemies met in the open field.
The Swedish army was destroyed on July 8, 1709, in the battle of Poltava. The Swedes, numbering only from 22,000 to 28,000 as against over 40,000 Russians, and vastly inferior in artillery, put up a tremendous fight before their lines broke. Most of them, including the generals, eventually surrendered either on the field or several days later near the Dnieper which they could not cross. Charles XII and Mazepa did escape to Turkish territory. Whereas in retrospect the outcome of Poltava occasions no surprise, it bears remembering that a few years earlier the Swedes had won at Narva against much greater odds and that Charles XII had acquired a reputation as an invincible commander. But, in contrast to the debacle at Narva, Russian generalship, discipline, fighting spirit, and efficiency all splendidly passed the test of Poltava. Peter the Great, who had himself led his men in the thick of battle and been lucky to survive the day, appreciated to the full the importance of the outcome. And indeed he had excellent reasons to celebrate the victory and to thank his captive Swedish 'teachers' for their most useful 'lessons.'
Yet not long after Poltava the fortunes of Peter I and his state reached perhaps their lowest point. Instigated by France, as well as by Charles XII, Turkey, which had so far abstained from participation in the hostilities, declared war on Russia in 1710. Peter acted rashly, underestimating the enemy and relying heavily on the problematical support of the vassal Ottoman principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and of Christian subjects of the
