Poltava in 1709 broke Sweden's Baltic supremacy and launched Russia's rise
From 1700 to 1721, a coalition led by Peter I's Russia ended Swedish dominance across northern, central and eastern Europe. The young Charles XII won brilliantly at first, but after his army was destroyed at Poltava the alliance regrouped and Russia emerged as the Baltic's new great power.
The war began as an opportunistic gamble. Denmark-Norway, Saxony and Russia judged Sweden vulnerable under its young king and struck together: the Danes invaded Sweden's ally Holstein-Gottorp, Saxony attacked Swedish Livonia and Russia marched into Ingria. Charles XII answered fast, forcing Denmark out at Travendal in August 1700 and routing the Russians at Narva that November. He then chased Augustus II the Strong across Poland-Lithuania into Saxony, deposed him in September 1706 and made him concede in the Treaty of Altranstädt, which also handed over Johann Reinhold Patkul, the alliance's original architect, for execution.
Peter used those years well. His armies recovered from Narva, pushed into the Swedish Baltic provinces and in 1703 founded Saint Petersburg, locking in Russian access to the sea. When Charles finally turned east and invaded Russia, the campaign ended in 1709 at Poltava in today's Ukraine, where his main army was annihilated. He fled into exile at Bender in Ottoman territory. The Ottomans, who sheltered him, beat a Russian-Moldavian army on the Pruth, but the resulting peace barely dented Russia's position. Sweden's other allies included Polish magnates under Stanisław Leszczyński and Ivan Mazepa's Cossacks.
Poltava revived the coalition. Denmark declared war again in October 1709, citing mistreatment of Danes in Scania, and although Sweden won at Helsingborg it was only a pause. George I brought in Hanover in 1714 and Britain in 1717, while Frederick William I of Prussia signed up in 1715. Swedish garrisons in plague-ridden lands south and east of the Baltic were driven out, the last being Tallinn in autumn 1710, and by 1714 Russian troops held Finland.
Charles kept fighting. In 1716 he invaded southeastern Norway, but defeats, Norwegian raids on his supply lines and stubborn resistance by the garrison and townspeople of Fredrikshald stalled him. When the naval hero Tordenskjold seized nearly all his supply fleet at Dynekilen, he retreated. A planned Danish-Russian landing in Sweden that year slipped into autumn and was cancelled amid delays and mutual suspicion between the allied monarchs.
Source: Great Northern War
