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(SWEDEN, RUSSIA and the GREAT NORTHERN WAR -- continued)
SWEDEN, RUSSIA and the GREAT NORTHERN WAR (4 of 5)
Russians described the victory at Poltava as a divine miracle. Europeans outside of Russia were also astounded, and they viewed the Russian victory with foreboding. Russia, they thought, would now be a formidable power in European affairs.
Seeing Sweden as having been weakened, Augustus of Saxony and Frederick IV of Denmark renewed their alliance with Russia. A prince of the Hohenzollern family, Frederick of Brandenburg-Prussia, agreed with Russia to bar Swedish troops in Pomerania from access to Poland in exchange for gaining the town of Elbing (Elblag).
In November 1709, Frederick IV of Denmark invaded Sweden with 16,000 troops, overrunning the towns of Malmö and Lund, and in February they were driven back to Denmark, Sweden's successful defense impressing the rest of Europe.
Charles XII remained with the Ottomans, at Bender, about a hundred miles west of Okyakov. He urged the Ottomans to war against the Russians, and Europe watched with anticipation of another such war, with Sweden on the side of the Ottomans. The war between Russia began again, with Peter hoping to win the Christians in Ottoman territory to his side.
The Russians, meanwhile, had seized Vyborg, Riga, and Revel and had pushed into Finland. With Charles II defeated in East Europe, King Stanislaus I was repudiated in Poland, and with help from Peter, Augustus again assumed the title King of Poland. Stanislaus escaped to Swedish Pomerania, and from there he went to Weissenbourg, becoming master of the principality of Zweibrücken -- his daughter, Mary, to marry King Louis XV of France.
Peter's hopes regarding his war with the Ottomans had failed. With Peter's armies spread thin, the Ottomans had the advantage over him. In 1711, numerically superior Ottoman forces surrounded Peter and an army, by the Pruth River, deep into Moldavia. Peter's army was short of ammunition and supplies. But the Ottomans did not share Charles' passion for crushing the Russians, and they allowed the Russians to withdraw.
In 1712, the Danes took the Duchy of Bremen from the Swedes, and they took Charles's spot of land in Holstein. In 1713, Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia took Stettin.[note] And Georg Ludwig, the Elector of Hanover -- soon to be King George I of England -- joined the coalition against Sweden.
Peter and the Ottomans signed a peace treaty. Peter returned Azov and other territory he had gained from the Ottoman Empire in 1700, and he agreed to allow Charles safe passage from Ottoman territory back to Sweden. And the Ottomans recognized Augustus as Poland's rightful king.
In late 1714, Charles and around 1500 troops made their way back to Sweden by way of Vienna, and with help from the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna, which had begun to look with favor upon Charles and Sweden as a brake on Germans to their north. The Swedes journeyed through Bavaria and western Germany as incognito as possible, for the sake of safety.
Charles still saw the area around St. Petersburg as his territory, and Peter now considered St. Petersburg as Russia's capital. In 1714, Peter had begun ordering people to move there. Nobles were obliged to build homes in St. Petersburg and to live in them most of the year. The more serfs that a noble had the bigger his home had to be. Merchants and artisans were also ordered to move to St. Petersburg and to build on the side of the Neva River opposite the nobles. The new residents of St. Petersburg were ordered to pay for the building of avenues, parks, canals, embankments, bridges and other projects. And huge government buildings, designed by foreign architects, were constructed.
From Ottoman territory, Charles went to Swedish Pomerania -- to his fortress at Stralsund. With his arrival back on Swedish territory, after a fourteen-year absence, the people of Sweden momentarily forgot the unusual hardships of the recent years and erupted with joy. They foresaw their king as now about to smash those who had dared to move against Swedish territory.
It was a powerful coalition that Charles faced: Peter of Russia, Frederick of Denmark, Augustus of Saxony and Poland, Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia, and George of Hanover and England. Like some rulers in the twentieth century, Charles was undeterred in facing a great coalition. Having at that point lost the most important of contests -- the diplomacy war -- he was not about to ask for mercy and sue for peace. Instead, he entertained the notion that he could hurt his adversaries enough that they would want to make peace and return to him all of his empire -- or at least an empire equal in size to that which he had before the war.
By late June, Prussian and Danish troops had encircled Wismar by land. And on the sea, the Danish and British navies were cooperating, and the Danes were blockading Wismar. Facing numerically superior forces in Pomerania, Charles withdrew his troops to his fortress at Stralsund. In November a flotilla of 640 transport ships landed Danish and Prussian troops that overran the fortress at Stralsund. Charles escaped to the southern tip of Sweden. Swedish troops at Stralsund were made prisoners of war, marching into captivity with banners flying and music playing, expecting to be released in a few months following payment for their keep to Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia. Civilian officials at Stralsund were released immediately. Mercenaries who had been fighting on the side of the Swedes were made prisoners of war, and most of them, as expected, chose to do service for their captors.
Charles was now concerned about his enemies invading Sweden proper. He decided that he could discourage any such invasion by attacking Norway. An invasion of Sweden, he reasoned, required the Danes, and by attacking Norway -- then property of his cousin, the Danish king, Fredrick IV -- he could persuade his cousin to withdraw from the coalition against him, by crushing the Danish army in a major engagement. Charles also believed that invading Norway would compel the British to keep some of their navy along their coast opposite Norway, weakening help from the British fleet in an invasion of Sweden.
Charles' Norwegian campaign began in February, 1716. Norway's government fled the capital city, Christiania (Oslo). The Swedes occupied Christiania in March. Norwegians failed to cooperate with the Swedes, eschewing their traditional hospitality to foreigners. The Swedes in Christiania were low on supplies. Winter was delaying logistic support, and Denmark's navy commanded the approach to Christiania, forcing Charles to abandon Christiania in April, before Danish reinforcements landed at Fredrikshald. Charles and his troops made their headquarters near Fredrikshald instead, where they waited for Swedish ships to bring them supplies. The Swedes and Danes fought for control of the waters around Fredrikshald. The Swedish navy won in May, but in late June the Swedes lost both on sea and on land. Charles and his troops returned to Sweden without his crushing victory over Denmark's army, but his invasion of Norway did disturb the plans for an invasion of Sweden by the coalition against him.
Wismar had finally surrendered to the coalition's forces, but Peter was upset over the refusal of the Danes, Prussians and Saxons to permit Russian participation in the occupation of Wismar. The use of Russian troops was planned for an invasion of Sweden that year. During the summer, the coalition was slow in getting a navy together large enough for a landing in Sweden, including the wait on Danish ships that had been involved in actions against the Swedes in Norway. The attack by Charles, moreover, had impressed coalition members -- especially Peter. They had thought in 1715 that Sweden had been all but defeated. They had been aware of war-weariness in Sweden and Sweden's diminished supply of money. Now, in 1716, they were impressed by the fighting capability that remained with Charles. Peter reconnoitered Sweden's coast, concluding that Sweden's defenses were strong. He was disappointed that Sweden's navy had not been defeated, and in mid-September he pulled out of the planned invasion, claiming that it was too late in the season and suggesting postponement of the invasion until the following year. This did not suit Fredrick of Denmark, who had commandeered the ships of Danish merchants and believed that he could not hold them for two years running. The decision to invade was postponed, and there would be no invasion of Sweden.
Charles made his headquarters at Lund, where he hoped for further division of the coalition against him. He began to talk peace with members of the coalition, but it was only to gain time to prepare for a military offensive. He saw no hope of making peace with George of England or Peter of Russia, whom he saw as his two main enemies. He wanted a major victory so that he could bargain from strength.
At Lund, he took an interest in theological disputes -- his praise of Muslim virtues, which he had learned while with the Ottomans, disturbing some. Charles began each day with prayer and some reading from the Bible. His chaplain claimed that it was his duty to bring an end to the war as soon as possible, but Charles acquired no inspiration to bargain seriously for an end to the war, including a willingness to give up territory already lost. Charles was not about to give up on empire.
Meanwhile, some Swedes were being influenced by the new belief in constitutional government that had developed in the Netherlands and Britain. After the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 even the French were experimenting with constitutionalism. In Sweden, opposition to the absolutism of Charles was perhaps small, but it was growing. And opposition was growing also to the continuation of war, spurred by Charles' decree of raised taxes as the public's contribution to the war effort -- a tax to be paid by nobles, high-ranking officers in the military and high ranking members of the bureaucracy.
Charles was allowed to build his strength through 1717 and much of 1718. Rather than let the war fade, he had plans for an offensive for October, 1718. On the 16th of October he moved again toward Fredrikshald, aiming at the nearby frontier fortress of Fredriksten. The going was slow, and, toward the end of November, Charles and his army were encamped in front of the fortress. Charles was interested in the new line that was being dug fifty yards closer to the fort, and around eight in the evening, on November 30, Charles raised himself above the crest of his rampart to have a look. Flares were burning on the fortress, and lightbombs were giving some illumination. Scattered shots were being fired and one struck Charles on the left side of his head as he was looking to the right. He fell off of the ladder, dead at the age of thirty-six. [note]
It was believed by some that Charles had been immune to ordinary bullets and that the missile that had killed him had been a silver or brass button. It was rumored too that he had been assassinated and that Charles' younger sister, Ulrica Leonora, who appeared too ready to succeed Charles, had been part of a conspiracy against him. Ulrica Leonora had been devoted to Charles and was observed horrified and hurt by his death. But the assassination theory lived on and controversy was to rage into the twentieth century over whether Charles had been assassinated.
Copyright © 2001-2010 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.