The Battle of Poltava: Reshaping the Baltic Region
This paper will take a deeper look into the battle at Poltava in 1709. During much of Peter the Great’s reign he was in a struggle for power with a neighboring kingdom that had the same aspirations that he did. The Swedish and Russian Empires were butting heads over who would dominate the Baltic. One of the pivotal moments in the war was the Battle of Poltava. The paper will analyze not only Peter’s decisiveness in gaining the advantage but how his planning lead to the victory at Poltava, and how Charles’ impetuousness aided Peter.
Charles XII led his war machine against a faltering Russian army on June 28th, 1709 and a Russian commander named Menshikov. The battle would be a swift victory for the Swedish monarch and assure the victory of Sweden in the Great Northern War. Charles’ forces numbered over 22,000 but he had to guard his supply lines, watch his Cossack allies and watch the Russian retreat, so he only had 16,000 troops for this battle. Charles was a great military mind and knew that he had to guard his supply lines, as any great commander would do. Although Charles had guarded his supply lanes, he did not guard an escape route for himself. This is probably due to the impetuous feeling that Charles had because of the great success that Sweden had thus far in the war. In the first battle with the Russians at Narva his troops numbered around 9,000 men and defeated a Russian force of 40,000. Most of the war had gone his way and his feeling of superiority much have been earned but this would cause him much trouble in this battle.
Peter would then move his army into Poltava after hearing the news of Charles’ invasion and the next night the Swedes would attack the Ru...
... middle of paper ...
...etail?sid=e8e9f846-c57c-4293-8a25-6c81ef22f726%40sessionmgr13&vid=2&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=37021887 (accessed April 24, 2011).
Moulton, James R. Peter the Great and the final years of the Great Northern War, 1719-1721. New York: University Press of America, 2005.
Abbott, Jacob. Peter the Great. New York and London: Harper& Brothers Publishers, 1902.
Hughes, Lindsey. Russia in the age of Peter the Great. New Haven and London: The University Press, 1998.
Anisimov, Eugenii V. The Reforms of Peter the Great. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993.
Bain, Robert N. Charles XII: AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SWEDISH EMPIRE. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1969.
Stomberg, Andrew A. The History of Sweden. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1931.
Oliva, L. Jay. Russia in the Era of Peter the Great. Eaglewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969.
Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.
Though the book has no footnotes, it was researched methodically through documents and the work of other scholars. It is very detailed and specific for such a short book. The information about the foreign policy of Russia under Catherine’s rule, and her various wars and military maneuvers, helped explain some of the issues Russian is currently undergoing today in Crimea, the Ukraine and with Turkey. The central theme of reform was also examined in depth, and given the time in which she ruled, and the size of the country, it astonishes me the undertaking Catherine had in front of her. It could take 18 months for an imperial order to reach the far eastern side of Russia, then 18 more months for a reply to get back to her at the
Glete, Jan. Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650: Maritime Conflicts and the Transformation of Europe. London: Routledge, 2000. 150-60. Print.
Peter preferred to live comfortably, and didn’t have a need for extravagance as much as Louis XIV did. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think big. Peter’s main goals were to modernize Russia, and to make it a major European power—a force to be reckoned with—and also to gain control of the church. He tried to achieve these in many different ways. One way he attempted to make Russia more powerful was by westernizing the country. He traveled all over Western Europe, learning about the culture, more modern practices and way of ...
The eventual breakdown of severing relations between Charles I and Parliament gave way to a brutal and bloody English Civil War. However, the extent that Parliament was to blame for the collapse of cooperation between them and ultimately war, was arguably only to a moderate extent. This is because Parliament merely acted in defiance of King Charles I’s harsh personal rule, by implementing controlling legislation, attacking his ruthless advisors and encouraging public opinion against him. These actions however only proceeded Charles I’s personal abuse of his power, which first and foremost exacerbated public opinion against his rule. This was worsened
New York, Oxford University Press. Moorehead, Alan, Ed 1958. The Russian Revolution. New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc. Pipes, Richard, Ed 1995.
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
Peter the Great had many goals during the time he ruled. One of his biggest goals was to modernize and westernize Russia. The main reason Peter the Great modernized Russia was because he did not want the country he ruled to be left vulnerable to expansionist powers in Europe. The powers were constantly at war, fighting to take over each other’...
Kirby, David, The Baltic World 1772-1993: Europe's Northern Periphery in an Age of Change (London: Longman, 1995).
Wood, A. (1986). The Russian Revolution. Seminar Studies in History. (2) Longman, p 1-98. ISBSN 0582355591, 9780582355590
Observing that European technological superiority allowed it to enjoy extraordinary benefits, he adopted many European practices to assert his own dominance and increase Russia’s protection against its adversaries. In doing this, Peter the Great formed himself a lasting legacy. Although Peter the Great originally mimicked Louis XIV in his staunch practice of absolutism, he ultimately surpassed Louis XIV in his goal of supremacy. Peter replaced the previous head of the Orthodox Church, and had both religious and earthly supremacy. Thus, Peter achieved something that Louis could never manage: a control of both church and state. Outside of Russia’s borders, Peter succeeded in his endeavors to a much greater extent than Louis XIV. The Great Northern War against Sweden effectively gave Russia access to a warm water port: Saint Petersburg, where Peter created his own Versailles, the Winter Palace, that fulfilled goals similar to those of Louis. Thus, where Louis fell, Peter
Peter the Great, the Russian Czar, inherited his absolutist power from his brother, Ivan V. Born in aristocracy, Peter’s dad was the Czar, and later his brother, and after his brother’s death, him. He was a firm believer in the possible benefits from the control of a single leader to make decisions for the people, and he exercised this divine right to create many renouned institutions. At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was in a poor condition: many rejected modernization from the Renaissance, and large spending from his brother’s reign caused economic droughts. He took advantage of his absolutist power to help ameliorate Russia’s situation and first decided to minimalize power from the other aristocrats. The subduction of the rich allowed
Gunther, Rothenberg E. “Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Raimundo Montecuccoli, and the ‘Military Revolution’ of the Seventeenth Century”. Makers of Modern Strategy, from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Edited by Peter Paret, 33-40. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
7) Vernadsky, George. A History of Russia: Fourth Edition, Completely Revised. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954.
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford, 2005. Print.