Hi everyone, this is my first attempt at a TL, and will probably be filled with mistakes and such, so any feedback is welcome. The idea is to turn Poland into a great power at the latest possible date.
A Land of Ice and Cold: Poland as a Great Power
Years of work by Johann Patkul finally paid off. Charles XI of Sweden had seized Patkul’s Livonian lands in the Great Reduction; however Patkul did not simply relinquish them. His demonstrations against the king became such a thorn in Charles’s side that Patkul was sentenced to death in absentia - luckily for Patkul, he had fled to Switzerland before his arrest. After Charles XII, a 14 year old boy, succeeded to the throne in 1697, Patkul petitioned him for pardon, but it was in vain. Having been defeated in peace, Patkul turned to war. He petitioned Augustus II the Strong, the elector of Saxony and king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to wrest suzerainty of Livonia from Sweden. Patkul planned initially for an alliance of Saxony, Poland-Lithuania, Denmark, and Brandenburg-Prussia to descend upon the Swedish giant like an avenging angel. Unfortunately for Patkul, this alliance fell apart – Friedrich III, the elector of Brandenburg was not convinced of the worth of the war.
However, a second, even more formidable, alliance arose out of the ashes of the first. On the 22nd of February, 1700 AD, the kingdom of Denmark-Norway, the electorate of Saxony and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Tsardom of Russia declared war on the kingdom of Sweden. Charles XII was young, inexperienced, and surrounded on all sides. The allied armies poured over the Swedish border. Frederick IV’s Danish forces stormed Holstein-Gottorp and besieged the city of Tonning; Augustus II’s Saxe-Polish army besieged Riga; Peter I’s massive Russian army moved ponderously into Estonia.
Charles responded quickly; anything less would have meant disaster. He commanded his fleet to brave the passage of Flintrannan – purported to be too shallow to permit ships to pass. After rendezvousing with the British and Dutch fleets, Charles followed the advice of Carl Magnus Stuart and Hans Wachtmeister; he landed at Humlabaek. Charles had outflanked the Danish forces and could now lay siege to Copenhagen at his leisure. Frederick IV saw the writing on the wall, and offered peace. Charles accepted and signed the Treaty of Travendal – all of his concentration would be needed in the east, to fight off the Saxe-Polish and Russian offensives.
Augustus II’s forces had, in the meantime, advanced through Swedish Livonia, captured Dunamunde, and were laying siege to Riga. However, it would take time for Riga to capitulate – the main threat to Sweden was in Ingria, where Peter I was besieging Narva. If Narva fell into Russian hands, then Peter would succeed in cutting Sweden’s overland link with her Baltic provinces, which would fall shortly thereafter.
On the 30th of November, 1700, the Swedish army, commanded by Charles XII and General Carl Gustav Rehnskiold, lined up outside Narva. It was small – only 8,000 men in the field, with another 2,500 in the city – but the most professional army in Europe. The Russian army, by contrast, was gigantic – 35,000 men – if poorly trained. Peter left his army in the hands of Charles Eugene de Croy, a foreign general, as he had himself took leave to attend to important domestic affairs in Russia.
Charles was not about to attack such a numerically superior Russian force in a prepared position – especially in the midst of a furious blizzard. However, he recognized opportunity when he saw it knocking. When the blizzard blew straight into Russian eyes, Charles launched his attack. The Swedish troops stormed the Tsarist lines and broke them into three separate components. The Russian situation was only exacerbated when a bridge over the Narova River collapsed. All told, 10,000 Russians were dead and the rest captured. With them went almost the entirety of Russia’s stock of cannons, muskets, and powder.
However, such a day of great celebration turned into a day of disaster and gloom. Charles, only 18 years old, decided to lead one of the last actions of the day – a cleanup action only – personally. During the last charge a Russian soldier – his name later stricken from all historical record by Swedish historians – fired a last, fateful, shot. Charles XII, by the Grace of God King of Sweden, the Goths and the Vends, Grand Prince of Finland, Duke of Scania, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, Lord of Ingria, Duke of Bremen, Verden and Pomerania, Prince of Rügen and Lord of Wismar, and also Count Palatine by the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Count of Zweibrücken–Kleeburg, as well as Duke of Jülich, Cleve and Berg, Count of Veldenz, Spanheim and Ravensberg and Lord of Ravenstein was dead, of a musket ball through his brain.