Viking Concho, 40 x 40 mm, Antique brass plated, 2 rivet pins
The Great Northern War (1700–21) was a conflict in which a coalition led by Russia successfully contested Swedish supremacy in northern Central and Eastern Europe. Initially, the anti-Swedish alliance was composed of Peter I, said the Great, of Russia, Frederik IV of Denmark-Norway and August II of Saxe-Poland-Lithuania. Frederik IV and August II were forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706, respectively, but re-joined it in 1709. George I of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) joined the coalition in 1714 for Hanover, and 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia in 1715. On the Swedish side were Holstein-Gottorp, between 1704 and 1710 several Polish and Lithuanian magnates under Stanisław Leszczyński and between 1708 and 1710 cossacks under the Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa. The Ottoman Empire temporarily hosted Charles XII of Sweden and intervened against Peter I. The war started with a threefold attack on Holstein-Gottorp, Swedish Livonia and Swedish Ingria by Denmark-Norway, Saxe-Poland-Lithuania and Russia, respectively. Sweden parried the Danish and Russian attacks at Travendal and Narva, and in a counter-offensive pushed August II's forces through Lithuania and Poland to Saxony, dethroning August on the way and forcing him to acknowledge defeat in Altranstädt. Peter I had meanwhile recovered and gained ground in Sweden's Baltic provinces, where he cemented Russia's access to the Baltic Sea by founding Saint Petersburg. Charles XII moved from Saxony into Russia to confront Peter, but the campaign ended with the destruction of the main Swedish army in Poltava (now Ukraine), and Charles XII's exile in Ottoman Bender. Russian pursuit was halted at the Pruth by the Ottoman army. After Poltava, the initial anti-Swedish coalition was re-established and subsequently joined by Hanover and Prussia. The remaining Swedish forces south and east of the Baltic Sea were evicted from the Swedish dominions, which the allies partitioned among themselves. Sweden proper was invaded by Denmark-Norway from the West and by Russia from the East. Though the Danish attacks were repulsed, Russia managed to occupy Finland and inflict severe losses on the Swedish navy and coastal fortresses. Charles XII opened up a Norwegian front, but was killed in Fredriksten in 1718. The war ended with a defeat for Sweden, leaving Russia as the new major power in the Baltic Sea and a new important player in European politics — in fact, it signed the beginning of a pattern of Russian expansion that would only be stopped two centuries later. The formal conclusion of the war was marked by the Swedish-Hanoveranian and Swedish-Prussian Treaties of Stockholm (1719), the Dano-Swedish Treaty of Frederiksborg (1720), and the Russo-Swedish Treaty of Nystad (1721). Therein, Sweden ceded her exemption from the sound dues, all her dominions except for the northern part of Swedish Pomerania, and broke ties with Holstein-Gottorp. Hanover gained Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg-Prussia incorporated the Oder estuary, Russia secured the Baltic provinces, and Denmark her position in Schleswig-Holstein. In Sweden, the absolute monarchy had come to an end with Charles XII's death, and the Age of Liberty began.
