Great Northern War (1700-1721): Russia Against Sweden's Empire

The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a long struggle for control of the Baltic Sea in which Russia, Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland, later joined by Prussia and Hanover, fought the Swedish Empire. Sweden’s young king Charles XII won brilliant early victories, but his invasion of Russia ended in disaster at Poltava in 1709. By the peace of 1721 Sweden had lost its empire and Peter the Great’s Russia had become a European great power.

Background

During the 17th century Sweden built an empire around the Baltic. It held Finland, Estonia, Livonia (roughly northern Latvia and southern Estonia), Ingria at the head of the Gulf of Finland, and territories in northern Germany such as Swedish Pomerania and Bremen-Verden. Its well-organised army and control of Baltic trade made it a leading power, but its neighbours had all lost land to it.

When the 14-year-old Charles XII came to the throne in 1697, three of them saw an opportunity. Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, wanted Livonia. Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway wanted to recover territory and break Sweden’s alliance with the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. Peter I of Russia wanted a port on the Baltic, which Russia had lost to Sweden in 1617. In 1699 the three agreed to attack Sweden together.

Course of the war

Early Swedish victories (1700–1706)

The war began in February 1700 when Saxon troops invaded Livonia and moved against Riga. Denmark attacked Holstein-Gottorp in March. Charles XII responded with speed: with Anglo-Dutch naval support he landed near Copenhagen in August, and Denmark made peace at Travendal that month.

Russia declared war in August 1700, after securing peace with the Ottoman Empire, and besieged Narva in Estonia. On 30 November Charles attacked with about 10,000 men and routed a Russian army three to four times larger at the Battle of Narva.

Rather than pursue the Russians, Charles turned on Augustus. In 1701 he drove the Saxons from Livonia, then invaded Poland-Lithuania, which was not formally at war but whose king he wanted removed. He won at Kliszów in 1702 and Fraustadt in 1706, had his candidate Stanisław Leszczyński elected King of Poland in 1704, and in 1706 marched into Saxony itself. By the Treaty of Altranstädt in September 1706, Augustus gave up the Polish crown.

Russia’s recovery

While Charles was occupied in Poland, Peter rebuilt his army with conscription, new artillery and Western training. Russian forces won smaller battles in Livonia and Ingria. In 1703 they took the Swedish fort of Nyenskans at the mouth of the Neva, and Peter founded Saint Petersburg nearby. In 1704 the Russians captured Dorpat (Tartu) and Narva.

Peter also began a Baltic fleet and a fortified naval base at Kronshlot on Kotlin Island. By 1707, when Charles prepared to march east, Russia held a firm foothold on the Gulf of Finland.

The invasion of Russia and Poltava (1708–1709)

Charles invaded Russia in 1708, aiming for Moscow. The Russians retreated, burning crops and villages. When Charles turned south into Ukraine, a supply column under Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt was intercepted and beaten at Lesnaya in October 1708, losing its wagons. The Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa went over to Charles, but brought far fewer men than hoped after the Russians destroyed his capital, Baturyn.

The winter of 1708–1709 was one of the coldest in European records, and thousands of Swedish soldiers died of cold and disease. In spring 1709 Charles besieged the town of Poltava. On 8 July 1709 (27 June Old Style), his weakened army of roughly 16,000–19,000 men attacked about 40,000 or more Russians and was crushed at the Battle of Poltava. Three days later most of the survivors surrendered at Perevolochna on the Dnieper. Charles and Mazepa escaped into the Ottoman Empire.

Sweden on the defensive (1709–1718)

Poltava changed everything. Augustus II returned to the Polish throne and Denmark re-entered the war. In 1710 Russia captured Riga, Reval (Tallinn) and Vyborg, taking the whole of Livonia and Estonia. A severe plague epidemic swept the Baltic region between about 1708 and 1713, killing large numbers in Stockholm, Riga, Danzig and many other towns.

Charles stayed in the Ottoman Empire for five years, mainly at Bender in modern Moldova, and helped persuade the Sultan to declare war on Russia. In 1711 Peter’s army was surrounded on the Pruth River, and Peter had to return Azov to the Ottomans in exchange for a safe retreat. The setback did not change the outcome in the north.

In 1713–1714 Russian forces overran Finland and occupied it until 1721, a period Finns later called the Great Wrath. In July 1714 (Old Style) the new Russian galley fleet defeated a Swedish squadron at Gangut (Hanko), Russia’s first major naval victory. Prussia and Hanover, whose elector was also King George I of Great Britain, joined the coalition in 1715 to share Sweden’s German lands.

Charles returned to Swedish Pomerania in November 1714 after a famous ride across Europe, but Stralsund fell in December 1715. He then attacked Norway, Denmark’s possession, and on 30 November 1718 (Swedish calendar) was shot dead while besieging Fredriksten fortress at Halden.

The peace treaties

After Charles’s death Sweden’s new government made peace separately with each enemy. Hanover gained Bremen-Verden and Prussia gained southern Swedish Pomerania with Stettin in the treaties of Stockholm (1719–1720). Denmark received money and Sweden’s renunciation of its Holstein-Gottorp alliance at Frederiksborg in 1720.

Russia kept up raids on the Swedish coast until Sweden accepted its terms. By the Treaty of Nystad, signed on 10 September 1721 (30 August Old Style), Sweden ceded Livonia, Estonia, Ingria and part of Karelia including Vyborg. Russia returned most of Finland and paid two million riksdaler.

Armies, navies and the cost of war

Sweden began the war with one of the best armies in Europe. Under Charles XI, the allotment system (indelningsverket) tied soldiers to farms and districts that supported them in peacetime, giving Sweden a trained army that could be mobilised quickly. Swedish infantry relied on aggressive attacks, closing rapidly with the enemy and using cold steel, which brought victory against larger forces at Narva, Kliszów and Fraustadt. But Sweden had a population of only about 2.5 million, including Finland, and could not replace its losses indefinitely.

Russia had far greater manpower. From 1705 Peter introduced regular levies of recruits drawn from groups of peasant households, who served for life. The army was reorganised in permanent regiments with Western drill, and Russian iron works in the Urals supplied cannon and muskets. Peter also created a Baltic navy from nothing, building ships at Saint Petersburg and using shallow-draught galleys to move troops along the rocky coasts of Finland and Sweden.

The human cost was very high on all sides. Exact figures are not known, but soldiers died in far greater numbers from disease, cold and hunger than in battle, and the plague of 1708–1713 killed many civilians. Sweden’s losses were heavy for a small country, and parts of Finland, the Baltic provinces and Poland were badly depopulated.

Key people

• Charles XII (1682–1718), King of Sweden, a gifted battlefield commander whose refusal to compromise prolonged the war.
• Peter I (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia, who reformed his army and navy during the war and built Saint Petersburg.
• Augustus II (1670–1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who lost and later regained the Polish crown.
• Frederick IV (1671–1730), King of Denmark-Norway, who fought Sweden in 1700 and again from 1709.
• Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), Cossack hetman of Ukraine who allied with Charles in 1708.

Consequences

The war ended Sweden’s century as a great power. Absolutism was dismantled and Sweden entered its “Age of Liberty” (1719–1772), when parliament dominated the crown. Its armies and treasury were exhausted, and its population had suffered heavy losses from war, famine and plague.

Russia emerged as the leading power of northern and eastern Europe. In October 1721 (Old Style), after the peace, the Senate proclaimed Peter “Emperor of All Russia” and gave him the title “the Great”. Russia now had a navy, a European-style army and a capital on the Baltic. Poland-Lithuania, fought over for years by both sides, was left weakened and increasingly under Russian influence.

Legacy

The war fixed the political map of the Baltic for almost two centuries. Estonia and Livonia remained under Russian rule until 1918, while their German-speaking nobility kept wide local privileges.

In Sweden, Charles XII became a contested national hero, admired for his courage and blamed for ruining the country. Gustaf Cederström’s painting of soldiers carrying home his body in 1718 became one of the best-known images in Swedish art. In Russia, Poltava and Peter’s victory became central to the story of the empire’s founding.

Timeline

• 1700, February: Saxon troops invade Swedish Livonia.
• 1700, August: Denmark leaves the war at Travendal; Russia declares war on Sweden.
• 1700, 30 November: Charles XII defeats the Russians at Narva.
• 1703, May: Peter the Great founds Saint Petersburg.
• 1706, September: Augustus II gives up the Polish crown at Altranstädt.
• 1709, 8 July: The Swedish army is destroyed at Poltava; Charles flees to the Ottoman Empire.
• 1710: Russia captures Riga, Reval and Vyborg.
• 1714, July: The Russian fleet wins at Gangut.
• 1718, 30 November (Swedish calendar): Charles XII is killed at Fredriksten in Norway.
• 1721, 10 September: The Treaty of Nystad ends the war between Russia and Sweden.

Why it matters

The Great Northern War transformed the balance of power in Europe. It destroyed the Swedish Empire, made Russia a permanent part of European politics and gave it the Baltic coast on which Saint Petersburg grew into an imperial capital.