Great Northern War Between Russia & Sweden
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PETER THE GREAT'S WAR WITH SWEDEN AND ITS EFFECTS ON RUSSIA This research paper summarizes the Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden (1700-1721), its origins, course and the leadership of Tsar Peter the Great during that war, and analyzes its effects on Russia's position in the world and on internal Russian developments. The principal effects of this long, protracted, bloody and expensive struggle on Russia were: (1) militarily and in geopolitical terms, Russia under Peter's leadership eliminated Sweden as a military threat, gained control of its strategic northern Baltic provinces and coastline, achieved maritime supremacy in the eastern Baltic Sea and emerged for the first time as a great European power; (2) internally and largely in response to the exigencies of that war, major steps were taken through a series of reforms and other measures to modernize in a remarkably short period of time the hitherto backward Russian state. However, those reforms, incomplete as they were, were accomplished at a high price, the expansion of centralized state power based on absolutism and a lopsided economic and social system which retarded Russia's long-term development, deepened divisions within the country and contained the seeds of its own eventual destruction. Peter I, better known as Peter the Great, (1672-1725) was proclaimed as Tsar, together with his feeble half-brother, Ivan, in 1682 when Peter was ten. He assumed effective control from his ha
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and daringly in a number of actions. Fuller says that Peter excelled in the use of his navy in support of his ground forces (69). An interesting sidelight, according to Maclean,, was that one of his principal commanders and closest confidantes, Alexander Menshikov, was a "resourceful young man of humble origins . . . with whom Peter, though he normally preferred women to men, maintained an intermittent homosexual relationship" (73). There were rumors, too, that Charles was a homosexual. He said he was married to the army (Massie 417).
In the next major phase of the war, Charles and his 40,000 man army moved eastward through Poland. In September, 1708 Swedish forces crossed the Russian frontier. During the Polish campaign, some pitched battles were fought with the Russians in which Swedish concentrated infantry assaults supported by artillery generally prevailed. Fuller says that Peter made a wise strategic decision to fight delaying actions and in avoiding a major confrontation with Charles's forces which were still more lethal than Peter's unseasoned army (79-80). Peter was very much aware of the limited understanding of strategy which he and his commanders possessed and used councils of war, "a forum in which Peter and
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Approximate Word count = 4268
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)
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