Great Northern War

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This article is about the 18th-century war. For wars with similar names, see Northern
Wars.

Great Northern War

Clockwise from top left:

• Battle of Narva

• Battle of Düna

• Battle of Poltava, Battle of Gangut

• Battle of Gadebusch

Date 22 February 1700 – 10 September 1721

(21 years, 6 months and 2 weeks and 5 days, N.S.)
Location •
o Northern Europe
o Central Europe
o Eastern Europe
Result Coalition victory:

• The Tsardom of Russia establishes itself as

a new power in Europe
 • Decline of the Swedish Empire and
the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Territorial • Treaty of Nystad: Russia gains the three
changes dominions Estonia, Livonia and Ingria as well as
parts of Kexholm and Viborg.
• Treaties of Stockholm: Prussia gains parts
of Swedish Pomerania; Hanover gains Bremen-
Verden.
• Treaty of Frederiksborg: Holstein–
Gottorp loses its part of the Duchy of
Schleswig to Denmark.
• Treaty of the Pruth: Azov and area is ceded
back to the Ottoman Empire. Russia demolishes
strategic castles such as Taganrog. Charles XII
of Sweden gets safe passage from Turkey to
Sweden in 1711.

Belligerents

• Swedish Empire • Tsardom of

• Holstein-Gottorp Russia

(1700–20) • Cossack Hetmanate

• Warsaw Confederation • Kalmyk Khanate

(1704–09) • Saxony

• Ottoman Empire (1700–06, 1709–19)

(1710–14) • Duchy of Courland

• Crimean Khanate (1700–01)

(1710–14) • Polish–Lithuanian

• Wallachia Commonwealth

(1710–14) (1701–04, 1709–19)

• Cossack Hetmanate • Sandomierz

(1708–09) Confederation

• Dutch Republic (1700) (1704–09)

• England (1700) • Denmark–Norway

• Scotland (1700) (1700, 1709–20)

• Ireland (1700) • Prussia (1715–20)

• Great Britain • Hanover (1715–19)

(1719–20) • Great Britain

(1717–19)

• Montenegro

(1711–12)

• Moldavia (1711)
 Commanders and leaders

• Charles XII † • Peter I

• Eleonora I • Alexander Menshikov

• Frederick I • Boris Sheremetev †

• Carl G. • Fyodor Apraksin

Rehnskiöld (POW) • Anikita Repnin

• Magnus Stenbock † • Mikhail Golitsyn

• Adam L. • Carl Rönne †

Lewenhaupt † • Jacob Bruce

• Arvid A. Mardefelt † • Robert Bruce †

• Carl G. Armfeldt • Matvei Zmayevich

• Johan A. Meijerfeldt • Charles Croÿ †

• Wolmar A. von • Ivan Mazepa

Schlippenbach (POW) • Danylo Apostol

• Otto Vellingk † • Ivan Skoropadsky

• Hans Wachtmeister † • Ayuka Khan

• Carl G. Creutz (POW) • Augustus II

• Carl Nieroth † (personal union)

• Frederick IV † • Jacob Flemming

• Charles Frederick • Johann Schulenburg

• William • Adam Steinau †

III • Otto Paykull (POW)

(personal union) • Ferdinand Kettler

• Stanisław I • Adam M. Sieniawski

• Józef Potocki • Stanisław Chomętowski

• Jan K. Sapieha the • Michał S. Wiśniowiecki

Younger † • Hieronim A.

• Jan K. Sapieha the Elder Lubomirski †

• Ahmed III • Grzegorz A. Ogiński †

• Baltacı M. Pasha • Frederick IV

• Ivan Mazepa † • Christian D. Reventlow

• Pylyp Orlyk • Jørgen Rantzau †

• Kost Hordiyenko • Ulrik C. Gyldenløve †

• Devlet II Giray • Peter Tordenskjold †

• George I • Frederick William I

 • Leopold I, Prince of

Anhalt-Dessau

• George I

(personal union)

• Danilo I

• Dimitrie Cantemir

Strength

• Swedish Empire: • Russian Empire:

76,000[1] 110,000[7]

• Holstein-Gottorp: • Cossack Hetmanate:

5,000[2] 30,000[7]

• Brunswick-Lüneburg: • Saxony:

10,000 30,000[8]

• Warsaw Confederation: • Polish–Lithuanian

24,000[3] Commonwealth:

• Ottoman Empire: 50,000[9]

130,000[4] • Denmark–Norway:

• Cossack Hetmanate: 40,000[10]

4,000[5] • Prussia:

• Dutch Republic: 50,000

13 ships of the line[6] • Hanover:

• England: 20,000[11]

12 ships of the line[6] • Total:

• Total: 340,000

249,000

25 ships of the line

Casualties and losses

About 200,000: About 200,000:

• 25,000 killed in combat • 30,000 Russians killed,

• 175,000 killed by famine, wounded and captured in

disease and exhaustion[12] combat

(including over 40,000 Finns who died • 110,000 killed by famine,

in combat or other ways)[13] disease and exhaustion[14]

 • 14,000–20,000 Poles, Saxons

and 8,000 Danes killed in the

larger battles

between 1709–1719[15]

show

• v

• t

• e
Great Northern War

show

• v

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• e
Dano-Swedish wars

show

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Polish–Swedish wars

show

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Russo–Swedish wars

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• t

• e
Russo-Ottoman Wars

The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by
the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish
Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish
alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the
Strong of Saxony–Poland–Lithuania. Frederick IV and Augustus II were defeated by
Sweden, under Charles XII, and forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706
respectively, but rejoined it in 1709 after the defeat of Charles XII at the Battle of
Poltava. George I of Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover joined the coalition in
1714 for Hanover and in 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-
Prussia joined it in 1715.
Charles XII led the Swedish army. Swedish allies included Holstein-Gottorp, several
Polish magnates under Stanisław I Leszczyński (1704–1710) and Cossacks under
the Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1708–1710). The Ottoman Empire temporarily
hosted Charles XII of Sweden and intervened against Peter I.
The war began when an alliance of Denmark–Norway, Saxony and Russia, sensing an
opportunity as Sweden was ruled by the young Charles XII, declared war on the
Swedish Empire and launched a threefold attack on Swedish Holstein-Gottorp, Swedish
Livonia, and Swedish Ingria. Sweden parried the Danish and Russian attacks
at Travendal (August 1700) and Narva (November 1700) respectively, and in a counter-
offensive pushed Augustus II's forces through the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to
Saxony, dethroning Augustus on the way (September 1706) and forcing him to
acknowledge defeat in the Treaty of Altranstädt (October 1706). The treaty also secured
the extradition and execution of Johann Reinhold Patkul, architect of the alliance seven
years earlier. Meanwhile, the forces of Peter I had recovered from defeat at Narva and
gained ground in Sweden's Baltic provinces, where they cemented Russian access to
the Baltic Sea by founding Saint Petersburg in 1703. Charles XII moved from
Saxony into Russia to confront Peter, but the campaign ended in 1709 with the
destruction of the main Swedish army at the decisive Battle of Poltava (in present-
day Ukraine) and Charles' exile in the Ottoman town of Bender. The Ottoman Empire
defeated the Russian-Moldavian army in the Pruth River Campaign, but that peace
treaty was in the end without great consequence to Russia's position.
After Poltava, the anti-Swedish coalition revived and subsequently Hanover and Prussia
joined it. The remaining Swedish forces in plague-stricken areas south and east of the
Baltic Sea were evicted, with the last city, Riga, falling in 1710. The coalition members
partitioned most of the Swedish dominions among themselves, destroying the
Swedish dominium maris baltici. Sweden proper was invaded from the west by
Denmark–Norway and from the east by Russia, which had occupied Finland by 1714.
Sweden defeated the Danish invaders at the Battle of Helsingborg (1710). Charles
XII opened up a Norwegian front but was killed in Fredriksten in 1718.
The war ended with the defeat of Sweden, leaving Russia as the new dominant power
in the Baltic region and as a new major force in European politics. The Western
powers, Great Britain and France, became caught up in the separate War of the
Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which broke out over the Bourbon Philip of Anjou's
succession to the Spanish throne and a possible joining of France and Spain. The
formal conclusion of the Great Northern War came with the Swedish-Hanoverian and
Swedish-Prussian Treaties of Stockholm (1719), the Dano-Swedish Treaty of
Frederiksborg (1720), and the Russo-Swedish Treaty of Nystad (1721). By these
treaties Sweden ceded her exemption from the Sound Dues[16] and lost the Baltic
provinces and the southern part of Swedish Pomerania. The peace treaties also ended
her alliance with Holstein-Gottorp. Hanover gained Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg-
Prussia incorporated the Oder estuary (Stettin Lagoons), Russia secured the Baltic
Provinces, and Denmark strengthened her position in Schleswig-Holstein. In Sweden,
the absolute monarchy had come to an end with the death of Charles XII, and
Sweden's Age of Liberty began.[16]