As additional outgrowths of what he had seen, or heard, or had suggested to him on his foreign tour, Peter issued a new coinage, introduced schools, built factories, constructed roads and canals, established a postal system, opened mines, framed laws modelled after those of the West, and reformed the government of the towns in such a way as to give the citizens some voice in the management of their local affairs, as he had observed was done in the Netherlands and in England.
CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN.—Peter's history now becomes intertwined with that of a man quite as remarkable as himself, Charles XII. of Sweden, the "Madman of the North." Charles was but fifteen years of age when, in 1697, the death of his father called him to the Swedish throne. The dominions which came under his sway embraced not only Sweden, but Finland, and large possessions along the Southern Baltic,—territory that had been won by the arms of his ancestors.
[Illustration: Map of the BALTIC ISLANDS]
Taking advantage of Charles's extreme youth, three sovereigns, Frederick IV. of Denmark, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Peter the Great of Prussia, leagued against him (1700), for the purpose of appropriating such portions of his dominions as they severally desired to annex to their own.
THE BATTLE OF NARVA (1700).—But the conspirators had formed a wrong estimate of the young Swedish monarch. Notwithstanding the insane follies in which he was accustomed to indulge, he possessed talent; he had especially a remarkable aptitude for military affairs. With a well-trained force—a veteran army that had not yet forgotten the discipline of the hero Gustavus Adolphus—Charles now threw himself first upon the Danes, and in two weeks forced the Danish king to sue for peace; then he turned his little army of 8,000 men upon the Russian forces of 20,000, which were besieging the city of Narva, on the Gulf of Finland, and inflicted upon them a most ignominious defeat. The only comment of the imperturbable Peter upon the disaster was, "The Swedes will have the advantage of us at first, but they will teach us how to beat them."
THE FOUNDING OF ST. PETERSBURG (1703).—After chastising the Czar [Footnote: Czar is probably a contraction of Cæsar. The title was adopted by the rulers of Russia because they regarded themselves as the successors and heirs of the Cæsars of Rome and Constantinople.] at Narva, the Swedish king turned south and marched into Poland to punish Augustus for the part he had taken in the conspiracy against him. While Charles was busied in this quarter, Peter was gradually making himself master of the Swedish lands on the Baltic, and upon a marshy island at the mouth of the Neva was laying the foundations of the great city of St. Petersburg, which he proposed to make the western gateway of his empire.
The spot selected by Peter as the site of his new capital was low and subject to inundation, so that the labor requisite to make it fit for building purposes was simply enormous. But difficulties never dismayed Peter. In spite of difficulties the work was done, and the splendid city stands to-day one of the most impressive monuments of the indomitable and despotic energy of Peter.
INVASION OF RUSSIA BY CHARLES XII.—Meanwhile Charles was doing very much as he pleased with the king of Poland. He defeated his forces, overran his dominions, and forced him to surrender the Polish crown in favor of Stanislaus Lesczinski (1706). With sufficient punishment meted out to Frederick Augustus, Charles was ready to turn his attention once more to the Czar. So marvellous had been the success attendant upon his arms for the past few years, nothing now seemed impossible to him. Deluded by this belief, he resolved to march into Russia and dethrone the Czar, even as he had dethroned the king of Poland.
In 1708, with an army of barely 40,000 men, Charles marched boldly across the Russian frontier. At Pultowa the two armies met in decisive combat (1709). It was Charles's Waterloo. The Swedish army was virtually annihilated. Escaping with a few soldiers from the field, Charles fled southward, and found an asylum in Turkey. [Footnote: After spending five years in Turkey, Charles returned to Sweden, and shortly afterwards was killed at the siege of Frederickshall, in Norway (1718). At the moment of his death he was only thirty-six years of age. He was the strangest character of the eighteenth century. Perhaps we can understand him best by regarding him, as his biographer Voltaire says we must regard him, as an old Norse sea-king, born ten centuries after his time.]
CLOSE OF PETER'S REIGN.—In 1721 the Swedish wars which had so long disturbed Europe were brought to an end by the Peace of Nystadt, which confirmed Russia's title to all the Southern Baltic lands that Peter had wrested from the Swedes. The undisputed possession of so large a strip of the Baltic seaboard vastly increased the importance and influence of Russia, which now assumed a place among the leading European powers.