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.[1]
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.
In 1723 troubles in Persia that resulted in the massacre of some Russians afforded Peter a pretext for sailing down the Volga and
- ↑ 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.
