To the fate of Sweden, her rulers in the seventeenth century contributed no small share. Nearly all of them were born fighters and nearly all of them were neglectful of home interests and of the works of peace. The military instincts of the Swedish kings not only sacrificed thousands of lives that were urgently needed in building up their country and cost the kingdom enormous sums of money but likewise impaired commerce, surrounded the empire with a broad belt of desolated territory, and implanted an ineradicable hatred in every adjacent state. Then, too, the extravagance and negligence of the sovereigns led to chaos in domestic government. Taxes were heavy and badly apportioned. The nobles recovered many of their political privileges. The royal power steadily dwindled away at the very time when it was most needed; and a selfish, grasping aristocracy hastened their country's ruin. [Footnote: A reaction appeared under the capable Charles XI (1660-1697), but its fruits were completely lost by his son and successor, Charles XII.]
[Sidenote: Coalition against Charles XII]
At length, in 1697, when Charles XII, a boy of fifteen years, ascended the throne of Sweden, the neighboring Powers thought the time had arrived to partition his territories among themselves. Tsar Peter, while returning home the following year from his travels abroad, had discussed with Augustus II, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, a plan which the latter had formed for the dismemberment of the Swedish Empire: Poland was to recover Livonia and annex Esthonia; Russia was to obtain Ingria and Karelia and thereby a port on the Baltic; Brandenburg was to occupy western Pomerania; and Denmark was to take possession of Holstein and the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. Charles XII was to retain only his kingdom in the Scandinavian peninsula and the grand duchy of Finland. At the last moment Brandenburg balked, but Saxony, Denmark, and Russia signed the nefarious alliance in 1699. The allies expected quick and decisive victory. All western and southern Europe was on the verge of a great struggle for the Spanish inheritance and would clearly be unable to prevent them from despoiling Sweden.
[Sidenote: Military Exploits of Charles XII]
But the allies grossly underrated their foe. Charles XII was a mere boy, but precocious, gloomy, and sensitive, and endowed with all the martial determination and heroism of his ancestors. He desired nothing better than to fight against overwhelming odds, and the fury of the youthful commander soon earned him the sobriquet of the "madman of the North." The alliance of 1699 precipitated the Great Northern War which was to last until 1721 and slowly, but no less inevitably, lower Sweden to the position of a third-rate power. It was amid the most spectacular exploits of the boy-king that the ruin of Sweden was accomplished. It was a grander but more tragic fate than in the same period befell Spain.
Charles XII did not give the allies time to unite. Hurriedly crossing the straits, he invaded Denmark, whose terrified king promptly signed a treaty with him (1700), paying a large indemnity and engaging to keep the peace in future.
Thence Charles hastened across the Baltic to Esthonia in order to deal
with the invading Russians. At Narva he met and annihilated their army.
Then he turned southward, clearing Livonia and Lithuania of Poles,
Saxons, and Russians.
Into the very heart of Poland he carried the war, possessing himself of both Warsaw and Cracow. He obliged the Polish Diet to dethrone Augustus and to accept a king of his own choice in the person of a certain Stanislaus Leszczynski (1704).
All these things had been done by a young man between the age of seventeen and twenty—two. It was quite natural that he should be puffed up with pride in his ability and successes. It was almost as natural that, hardened at an early age to the horrors of war, he should become increasingly callous and cruel. Many instructions the impulsive youth sent out over conquered districts in Russia, Poland, and Saxony "to slay, burn, and destroy." "Better that the innocent suffer than that the guilty escape" was his favorite adage.
Small wonder, then, that neither Peter the Great nor the Elector
Augustus would abandon the struggle. While Charles was overrunning
Poland, Peter was reorganizing his army and occupying Karelia and
Ingria; and when the Swedish king returned to engage the Russians,
Augustus drove out Stanislaus and regained the crown of Poland. Yet
Charles, with an unreasoning stubbornness, would not perceive that the
time had arrived for terminating the conflict with a few concessions.
Russia at that time asked only a port on the Gulf of Finland as the
price of an alliance against Poland.