Charles XII, the teenage king who refused every chance at peace
In 1700 three neighbouring powers attacked Sweden, betting that its 18-year-old king would crumble. Instead Charles XII knocked Denmark out of the war within months and routed a Russian army nearly four times his size in a blizzard. He then spent the rest of his life at war and never married.
Born in Stockholm's Tre Kronor castle in 1682, Charles was the only son of Charles XI to survive infancy; four younger brothers died as babies. He rode by age four and, after his mother's death in 1693, trailed his father on inspections and official business. When the old king died in April 1697, the Riksdag declared the 15-year-old of age by November. He was the first and last Swedish ruler to inherit absolute power, and despite his numeral he was really only the sixth King Charles, since earlier kings had counted from a mythological history.
The alliance of Denmark–Norway, Saxony–Poland and Russia owed much to Johann Patkul, a Livonian noble who turned against Sweden after the crown seized estates. With English and Dutch backing, Charles landed on Zealand with 8,000 men and 43 ships and forced the Danes to terms that August. At Narva that November, attacking under cover of snow, he split the Russian lines; roughly 10,000 Russians died against 667 Swedes. He then turned on Poland, defeating Augustus II at Kliszow and installing Stanisław Leszczyński as king in 1704.
Meanwhile Peter the Great modernised his army and founded Saint Petersburg on captured land. Charles marched on Moscow, winning at Holowczyn, but Russians ambushed his reinforcements at Lesnaya and crushed the Cossack uprising he was counting on. A brutal winter followed. Shot in the foot before Poltava in July 1709, he watched about 23,000 Swedes face some 45,000 Russians and lose. The defeat ended Sweden's empire and marked Russia's rise.
Charles fled to Ottoman territory and camped at Bender with around 1,000 soldiers, even winning the sympathy of the sultan's mother, Gülnuş Sultan, who corresponded with him. Back in the north, he invaded Norway twice and was killed at the siege of Fredriksten in 1718. His sister Ulrika Eleonora succeeded him but had to yield real power to parliament.
Source: Charles XII of Sweden
