[Sidenote: Battle of Poltava (1709): Defeat of Charles XII]
To all entreaties for peace, Charles XII turned a deaf ear, and pressed the war in Russia. Unable to take Moscow, he turned southward in order to effect a juncture with some rebellious Cossacks, but met the army of Peter the Great at Poltava (1709). Poltava marks the decisive triumph of Russia over Sweden. The Swedish army was destroyed, only a small number being able to accompany the flight of their king across the southern Russian frontier into Turkish territory.
Then Charles stirred up the Turks to attack the tsar, but from the new contest he was himself unable to profit. Peter bought peace with the Ottoman government by re-ceding the town of Azov, and the latter gradually tired of their guest's continual and frantic clamor for war. After a sojourn of over five years in Ottoman lands, Charles suddenly and unexpectedly appeared, with but a single attendant, at Stralsund, which by that time was all that remained to him outside of Sweden and Finland.
[Sidenote: Obstinacy and Death of Charles XII]
Still, however, the war dragged on. The allies grew in numbers and in demands. Peter the Great and Augustus were again joined by the Danish king. Great Britain, Hanover, and Prussia, all covetous of Swedish trade or Swedish territory, were now members of the coalition. Charles XII stood like adamant: he would retain all or he would lose all. So he stood until the last. It was while he was directing an invasion of Norway that the brilliant but ill-balanced Charles lost his life (1718), being then but thirty-six years of age.
[Sidenote: Decline of Sweden]
Peace which had been impossible during the lifetime of Charles, became a reality soon after his death. It certainly came none too soon for the exhausted and enfeebled condition of Sweden. By the treaties of Stockholm (1719 and 1720), Sweden resigned all her German holdings except a small district of western Pomerania including the town of Stralsund. Denmark received Holstein and a money indemnity. Hanover gained the mouths of the Elbe and Weser; Prussia, the mouth of the Oder and the important city of Stettin. Augustus was restored to the Polish throne, though without territorial gain. Great Britain, Denmark, and Prussia became the principal commercial heirs of Sweden.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Nystad (1721): Russia on the Baltic]
[Sidenote: Petrograd]
The treaty of Nystad (1721) was the turning point for Russia, for thereby she acquired from Sweden full sovereignty over not only Karelia and Ingria but the important Baltic provinces of Esthonia and Livonia and a narrow strip of southern Finland including the strong fortress of Viborg. Peter the Great had realized his ambition of affording his country a "window to the west." On the waste marshes of the Neva he succeeded with enormous effort and sacrifice of life in building a great city which might be a center of commerce and a bond of connection between Russia and the western world. He named his new city St. Petersburg [Footnote: Known generally in the Teutonic form "St. Petersburg" from its foundation until the War of the Nations in 1914, when the Slavic form of "Petrograd" was substituted.] and to it he transferred his government from Moscow. Russia supplanted Sweden in the leadership of the Baltic and assumed a place among the Powers of Europe.
Peter the Great did not realize his other ambition of securing a Russian port on the Black Sea. Although he captured and held Azov for a time, he was obliged to relinquish it, as we have seen, in order to prevent the Turks from joining hands with Charles XII.