The fall of the Swedish Empire started after the death of Charles XI. His underage son, Charles XII, took the throne in 1697, age 15, and within a few years, the Great Northern War broke out, testing how securely the young Swedish king sat on the throne.
The Great Northern War saw many countries fight. On the one side, led by the Tsardom of Russia, there were Denmark-Norway (at that time one state under the control of Denmark) and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, among several others. On the other side, the main power was the Swedish Empire.
What we think of today as the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and parts of Lithuania used to be part of the Swedish Empire. Neither the Russians nor the Polish liked the Swedish presence in the Baltic. Russia made a military pact with Denmark-Norway, and the war began. Denmark and Saxony, under the authority of the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, kept going after forts with little gain. The Polish refused to support their king and didn’t do much, while the Russians were waiting for a peace deal with the Ottomans in the south.
Sweden’s Charles XII, with the support of the Dutch and British navies, landed on a key island north of Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, and effectively forced Denmark to leave the alliance. Then the Swedes went to Estonia, linking up with Finnish and Estonian military forces. Narva, a key city in Estonia, remained under a Russian siege, and the Swedes were outnumbered four to one. However, a storm set in, the wind heading toward the Russians and lowering their visibility. Unlike the Swedes, the Russian army was not experienced. A Swedish shock attack took the Russians by surprise, allowing them to break into a fort. The Russians lost morale and surrendered. The battle ended with about 18,000 Russian losses compared to 2,000 Swedish casualties. Charles XII then turned to Poland, where he would capture many towns and cities and overthrow the king, replacing him with a puppet. Not only that, but Saxony surrendered. It all might have seemed to be part of a Swedish victory, but it was a blunder. Had they followed the Russians, they could have worn them down.
At this point, believe it or not, the conflict was not the full-scale war that it would later become. Sweden had taken Poland, but it wasn’t fully at war with Russia. The tsar of Russia, Peter I (soon to be Peter the Great), offered the Swedes all the land that Russia had captured. Charles XII said no and marched his army from Saxony to Russia, meeting up in Ukraine and making a deal with a local leader for an “army” that would outnumber the Russian one. They kept pushing further into modern-day Ukraine, but when they arrived, Charles found nothing more than a militia. Most of his men left him. Even so, the remainder marched toward Poltava.
Poltava, a town in modern-day Ukraine, would be the undoing of the Swedish Empire. At this point, the Russians regrouped and followed the Swedish. The Russians had 75,000 men against 30,000 for the Swedes. Furthermore, the tired Swedish forces were not ready for a large-scale battle. The Russian forces were strong, with Tsar Peter present at the battle. The Swedish and Russian forces met. One of the Swedish generals was captured, along with six battalions. Swedish forces attempted a charge, but the Russian cannons managed to stop the assault. Eventually, unable to regroup, Swedish forces fled into the woods, while their king, Charles XII, fled to the neighboring territory of the Ottoman Empire.
Charles the XII fled to Bender, Moldovia, after the crushing defeat at Poltava. The Ottomans grew tired of hosting Charles, so they wanted to force him out. Ottoman troops provoked a skirmish at Bender, attacking the Swedish forces there and forcing Charles to make a deal that would send him back to Sweden.
After five years away from Sweden, Charles returned. He started an assault on Norway, then occupied by Denmark. With 7,000 men attacking and occupying what is today Oslo, Charles wanted to take Fredrikshald. But there was a fort overlooking it. With 40,000 men, he laid seige to it. This would be the last thing he did.
On November 30, 1718 (December 11, according to today’s calendar), Charles peeked from the trench top, from which he was shot in the head. We still don’t know who killed him. There are three theories. The first one is that a Dano-Norwegian gun fired on him. Another theory is that a nearby fortress grapeshot round. Finally, some say that Charles took his own life. He was going to implement a new tax law that was unpopular with the rich. After the death of the king, his men retreated, transporting his body back to Stockholm with them. More small battles took place, but with the Treaty of Frederiksborg, the empire vanished. Sweden gave Bremen to Hanover and surrendered Stettin. The Treaty of Nystad gave Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and some parts of Finland to the Russian Tsardom. Russia formed the new Russian Empire, replacing Sweden as a major power in the region.
