.. It is impossible to reach an agreement with Austria and Holland on an alliance against the Ottomans. Vienna refuses even to recognize the transfer of Kerch and the corresponding strait to Russia, if they were captured by it. The young tsar has personal friendship only with the king of the Commonwealth Augustus II. For the election of his candidacy at the Polish Sejm, Peter the Great at one time made certain efforts and resources. Among other things, colleagues of the same age manage to agree on a joint war against Sweden.
Herbariums, tools and 15,000 small arms are being purchased.
In the summer of 1698, having received news of the uprising of the archers, the tsar returned to Moscow. The rebellion had already been suppressed by that time. The instigators have been punished. The troops of Generalissimo Shein, practically with one artillery, defeated a three-thousandth detachment of archers. Princess Sophia, the main reason for the revolt, becomes a full-fledged nun and goes to the Novodevichy Convent. He is in charge of the reprisals, according to the definition of Prince B. Kurakin, « by his appearance as a monster, by his temper an evil tyrant, a great unwilling person to do good to anyone, drunk all the days», the ruler of Russia in the absence of Peter, Prince Caesar Fyodor Romodanovsky. The Emperor, however, needs more sacrifices. For the first time, Muscovites see the Russian Tsar in the guise of a fierce executioner. He not only personally cuts off the heads of the archers, but makes the eminent boyars do the same. Some rebels are deprived of their lives in a progressive «overseas» way wheeling. Two thousand people die on the scaffolds. Several hundred underage «sons of the regiment» receive a shameful stigma and are sent to an eternal settlement in Siberia. Sixteen rifle regiments that did not participate in the uprising are disbanded.
Then that significant number of Russian good people decide that Peter the First (or the one who became him) is «the beast that came out of the abyss» Antichrist and Miroed. Confirmation of this judgment is the «All-Sure Councils» regularly convened on the island in the middle of the Yauza, where Orthodox rituals are parodied. The naming of church ranks and rituals are being altered using profanity. The «pontiff» chosen by the cathedral floats in a ladle in the middle of a vat of alcohol, while naked men and women of the highest boyar families drink wine and sing obscene songs.
Russia is a member of the Northern Union, created on the initiative of the rulers of Saxony and Poland. The general direction is the war with Sweden, the king of which, Charles the Twelfth, seems to other monarchs to be insufficiently experienced in military affairs. Peters aspirations are Karelia and Ingria (aka Ingermanlandia, the future Leningrad region). In addition, he is driven by personal resentment a cold welcome in the then Swedish Riga during the Great Embassy.
In 1700, Russian troops, 35 thousand fighters, mostly recruits, with light and varied artillery, with insufficient supplies, besieged Narva. Once this city intended to include in its possessions the prince (or tsar) Ivan the Third. To reduce human losses, he built the Ivangorod fortress opposite him. Then the Russian monarch was successful. However, 80 years later, the Swedes recaptured Narva and, connecting the defenses of the two cities with a fortified bridge, created a powerful citadel.
Charles the Twelfth, having forced the allies of Russia to withdraw from the war, rushes to the aid of the besieged. Sheremetyevs detachment enters into clashes with the advanced units. The prisoners, in accordance with the agreement with the king for this case, announce the size of the Swedish army at 50 thousand fighters. Believing this information, Peter leaves the army. Maybe he wants to quickly call other regiments to the place of battle, meet with an ally, the Polish king, or, in the end, he is simply afraid of perishing. A certain Dutch duke remains in command of the army.
The actual number of Karls troops is 89 thousand fighters. The king is building soldiers in columns and so attacks the Russian army. The latter is a six-kilometer line, five to six rows of soldiers within their camp. Columns of Swedes break through it like a crowbar. In the ranks of the regiments the cry «The Germans are traitors!» Is heard. Fearing beating by soldiers, foreign officers surrender. Preobrazhensky, Semenovsky and Lefortovo regiments, fenced off with carts, are resisting. Later they will be allowed to leave. Some units leave the battlefield with banners and weapons, but without the convoy and artillery, others without all of the above. The losses of the Swedes are 700 soldiers, the Russians 9,000, as well as all, except for 5 cannons out of 184, artillery. Charles the Twelfth is a good general, but a weak strategist. Instead of an immediate attack on Moscow, he turns his gaze to Poland and Saxony. Meanwhile, the troops of Boris Sheremetyev, who was not young at that time, but experienced, began to learn the art of war in practice. One by one, they break up detachments from the fifteen thousandth Swedish garrison left in Ingermanland and Livonia (present-day Lithuania). The whole of Narva is in the hands of the Russians. At its mouth, on the territory of Fomin Island, two and a half by four kilometers, with a village of thirty households and forty inhabitants, on May 27, 1703, Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg.
Peters Polish friend, Augustus II, loses the Fraustadt battle to Karl, in which the auxiliary Russian corps also participates. 4500 Russian soldiers are killed (all 500 prisoners of war by the Swedes were executed), 700 allied Saxons. Karl has at his disposal «an immense number of prisoners» of the Germans. The losses of the Swedes 450 people. August with a 12-thousandth army stands 25 kilometers from the battlefield and does not take part in the battle. In February 1706, a 20,000-strong Swedish army besieges a 40,000-strong Russian and Saxon army near Grodno. Peter instructs Commander Menshikov «not to accept in an open battlefield.» During the siege, retreat and crossing the Neman, the Russian army loses 17 thousand people. Because of the drift of ice, Karls troops miss her. The Polish king, who left Grodno in advance, concludes the Altranschnedt peace, breaks the alliance with Russia and abdicates the throne. The Great Lithuanian army is at the disposal of the Swedish protege in Poland, Stanislav Leszczynski. In June 1708, the Swedish monarch embarked on a long-planned large-scale campaign to the East. Its purpose, according to a group of historians, is the complete destruction of the statehood of Russia, its division into specific principalities, the rejection of Pskov, Novgorod, the annexation of Ukraine and other Western Russian territories. Another well-known version is that Karl plans to establish a buffer Pskov-Novgorod Republic in the north, return all the Swedish territories captured by Peter, and establish a direct protectorate over Eastern Ukraine.
By the beginning of the Russian campaign, Charless army reached 120 thousand people. Of these, 38 thousand are the invading army. The number of regular forces of Peter 200 thousand, plus 100 thousand in the irregular troops of the Cossacks and Asian peoples. Defense spending reaches 80% of the budget. The country is being militarized. Grain is brought to the cities, which are declared fortresses. The Moscow Kremlin is once again becoming a full-fledged citadel. Bastions are attached to it. The ditches near the walls, dried up since the seventeenth century, are filled with water from the Neglinka River.
The trek of the Swedish king starts from the outskirts of Minsk. Both armies are swiftly eating away supplies from the local population. Menshikov orders to burn cities Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev