Charles began retreating south in the hope of reaching Turkish territory and from there to make his way back to Poland to join Stanislaus. To Charles, surrender was impossible, not only because of his own sense of honor, but because he knew that if Mazeppa and his Cossack allies were captured they would be tortured and executed as traitors.

When his army arrived at the Dnieper River, however, there were not enough rafts to take the entire host across. It was determined that Charles and Mazeppa would cross with about 1,600 men and as many of the wounded as possible, while the rest of the army would fight its way south and rejoin them at Ochakov on the Black Sea. But the day after Charles left, the pursuing Russian force of about 8,000 caught the Swedish force left behind. Lewenhaupt, who had fought so well before, seems to have had a failure of nerve–he now surrendered his much larger force of 14,000 to the Russians.

Charles did make it to Turkish territory, not without some adventures on the way, and was warmly welcomed. Lacking an army to fight his battles, Charles turned to the pen–he soon convinced the Turks to declare war on Russia. Peter promptly invaded Turkish territory, where he, too, was subjected to a scorched-earth strategy, and was trapped by a far superior force.

The Turks negotiated a peace favorable to Turkey, but Charles was outraged that Peter had been allowed to escape. Charles’ encouragement led to four more declarations of war, but nothing came of them. Finally the Turkish leadership tired of Charles’ interference and ordered him arrested. After Russia and Turkey signed the Peace of Adrianople in 1714, Charles decided to leave. He made his way incognito through Turkish and Austrian territory to Swedish Pomerania.

Charles spent most of 1715 using a combination of diplomacy and military strategy to defend the remnants of Sweden’s central European territories from a fresh coalition that now combined Russia, Denmark, Saxony, Prussia, Hanover and Great Britain against him He, was forced at last to take refuge in his own Sweden when the Pomeranian port of Stralsund fell after a long siege in December of 1715.

But Charles did not long remain idle. He immediately embarked upon a scheme to take Norway, then a part of Denmark, as compensation for the lands lost in the east. His first invasion was indecisive in outcome. He mounted a second and soon was besieging the fortress of Fredrikshald. He was out inspecting the siege works when he was shot through the head. He was killed instantly. At the time, December of 1718, he was 36 years old.

Amid rumors that Charles had been killed by Swedish fire, rather than Danish, Swedish resolve collapsed on the spot. In effect, the Great Northern War was over. The royal heirs to Charles (sister Ulrika and her husband, Frederick I of Hesse-Cassell) were forced to grant Stettin and western Pomerania to Prussia and Sweden’s eastern Baltic territories to Czar Peter’s Russia. By the Peace of Nystad, which followed argument over succession to the childless Charles, Sweden thus permanently lost Livonia, Estonia, Ingria and the Finnish province of Kershold with its strategic fortress of Viborg on the Gulf of Finland.

While Sweden vanished as a Baltic, even a world, power, Russia now took stage as a colossus with one foot firmly planted in Europe–still shaky, somewhat mysterious, but a colossal presence nonetheless.

This article was written by Gary K. Shepherd and originally published in the December 2001 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

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