The Great Northern War Essay

843 Words2 Pages

The Great Northern War was fought between Charles XII (Sweden), and Peter the Great (Russia). Before the start of the war, Sweden was very strong. And it occupied large amounts of land. When Peter the Great started his reign for Russia, he could not get to the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea. His goal was to gain access to those two seas. He desired a way to get to those seas, and the way he did it was because he made alliances. He made an alliance with Poland, and Denmark. Because of these alliances, this led to the beginning of The Great Northern War itself. During the cause and early stages of the war, Sweden began with a few wins in battle. The war started because Peter formed alliances with Saxony, Denmark, and Poland. Poland at that time …show more content…

The military changes that were made and victories that Gustavus Adolphus had brought to the table left her as the dominant power in the Baltic. She led tours that resulted in defeat all around Northern Germany and the baltic. Augustus II of Poland, Peter the Great of Russia, and Frederick IV saw Sweden as a viable decision to attack because of the youngness of Charles XII, at sixteen years of age. Charles the Great answered to invasions of his very large plots of land. Charles responded with a gutsy invasion of Zealand, taking his army through treacherous seas and attacking Copenhagen, causing the Danes to retreat out of the war. Poland was invaded in 1701 by Charles the Great. In the battle of Dunamunde he defeated a Saxon and Russian army. Meanwhile, Charles still concentrated on Poland. In 1702 he captured Warsaw in May, in advance to battling …show more content…

Peter had taken a dip in numbers from the Cossack revolt, and in 1708 he managed to take action of it, while later in 1708, the Swedish supply column of 11,000 men was defeated by a larger Russian army Only 6,000 troops from the column reached Charles, after having to destroy the desperately needed supplies. This left Charles stranded in Russia for the winter of 1708-9, one of the coldest ever in Europe. In 1708/9 Charles XII initiated his Russian campaign from Poland. He teamed up with the Cossacks to present to the Ukraine and advance on Moscow. The beginning of winter, grave illnesses and Russian raids weakened the Swedish forces, and Charles XII had to turn back. The Swedish and Russian armies went head to head in southern Ukraine where they fought a definite resulting battle in 1709 at Poltava. Peter personally prepared the battle. He made the the battlefield by the work of his engineers, who were ordered to raise supplementary paths of the Swedish troops to break their battle arrangements, and to split them into small groups. The battle ended in grave Swedish defeat and the wounded Swedish king had fled to

Open Document