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And this time the operation did succeed. The pasha commanding Azov surrendered it in July. Since Ivan had died two months before this, Peter returned to Moscow as sole tsar and autocrat. Yet Moscow was not to detain him long. In March 1697 he began his famous, and in part notorious, tour of Europe, sometimes presenting himself as the young ruler of the new power of the north, sometimes travelling incognito. He visited states in central Germany, England, Venice and Vienna, but his particular goal was Holland, where he set out to master all the secrets of modern shipbuilding. He was already intent on making Russia not only a great European power but a great sea power, and to do this he had to achieve what Ivan IV and Alexis had both failed to achieve: a breakthrough to the Baltic.

Arriving in Moscow in October 1696 he found that another revolt of musketeers had been suppressed in his absence. He felt obliged to supervise the interrogation of those involved, and, following his principle that no subordinate should be ordered to do anything that the Tsar himself was not prepared to do, whether in carpentry, battle, hammering sheet iron, or execution, he himself took part in the proceedings, which involved torture and killing. High treason was not, after all, a crime for which it was politic to show clemency. The proceedings were not to be concluded until 1705. Meanwhile, once a long-term truce with the Turks was in the offing, Peter turned impatiently to drive Sweden, the strongest power of the north, away from the eastern shoreline of the Baltic.

He did so in coalition with the kings of Denmark and Poland, and with the promised support of a fifth column of Swedish subjects in Livonia, headed by a local baron called Patkul, who, like others of his class, was enraged by recent and extensive transfers of land and peasants from the private domain to the Swedish crown. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were prepared for the campaign, ready to march as soon as news should arrive of the signing of an agreement with the Turks. It came in August 1700, but by that time Peter’s coalition had fallen to pieces. Denmark, which had begun aggressively by invading Swedish Holstein, had been forced to seek peace and withdraw from the war. The Polish king had begun well, sending his Saxon troops in against Riga, but the attack failed. The Russians had therefore to fend for themselves.

Still, their prospects looked reasonably good. Peter had over 60,000 troops ready to descend on Narva, which, if he could take it, would give him the access he needed to the Baltic Sea. Its walls were strong but its garrison was relatively small, and so the siege began — and with it a trial of strength between the two rival monarchs. Peter was twenty-eight years old and fresh from victory against the Turks. His opponent, Charles XII, was ten years his junior and virtually untried. On the other hand Sweden had long been recognized as a power to be reckoned with, while Russia was still regarded as a neophyte. The struggle between them would decide the supremacy of northern Europe.

The first clash of arms came in November, when Charles led a Swedish force to the relief of Narva. Though outnumbered three to one, he immediately took the initiative, launching an attack which wrong-footed the Russians. The day ended with a stinging rout for Peter’s forces, although the Tsar was not present in person, having returned to Moscow for Christmas. The Russian losses were serious: 8,000 men and nearly 150 guns. That encounter and the long struggle which followed reflected the two monarchs’ quite disparate military talents. Charles, by far the superior field commander, was master of the unexpected. Peter, having no talent as a tactician, depended on his generals (in the case of du Croy, whom he left in command at Narva, a rather careless one). In fact, given his reliance on councils of war, it could be said that this Russian autocrat governed military operations by committee. Peter’s strength lay as an organiser and ener-giser. The virtual destruction of his northern army galvanized him into raising another. Fortunately for him, Russia was able to meet all his demands for men and resources. And fortunately, too, he and his generals developed a talent for exploiting the adversary’s difficulties. ²

Charles had wanted to follow up his victory at Narva by advancing immediately against Pskov and from there into the heart of Russia. He was thwarted, however, by the need to secure his lines of communication against the Poles and Saxons. So he decided to occupy Courland and develop it as a base for his army. Eventually (in 1706) he forced Poland to abandon its alliance with Russia, but meanwhile Peter was able to capture Narva and send forces down the river Neva to snatch the unpromising marshes near its mouth. It was there, in 1703, that he began to build a fort which was to become the nodal point of a new city he called St Petersburg. ³