AHC: Sweden wins the Great Northern War

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

What if Sweden wins the Great Northern War and does not loose her baltic provinces Livonia, Estonia and Ingria to Russia?
Will there be another Northern war or will Peter the Great decide that Russia should take the Balkans from the Ottomans?
And want if the Russians succeed there and oust the Ottomans out of Europe?

 

[mattep74]

A few more wars. Sweden and Russia fought 3-4 times more before Russia had enough of the pesky Swedes and took Finland and after that they didnt fight again

 

[Maniakes]

It depends how Sweden wins.

If Charles XII accepts Russia's peace offer in 1707 (retroceding all Russian-occupied territories except St. Petersburg), the Swedish Empire might survive. Russia achieves its major objective of a Baltic port and thus may not feel a second round of hostilities a few years later would be worth it, and Sweden holds its gains against Poland, Saxony, and Denmark and avoids its massive manpower losses from later in the OTL war.

If Charles's invasion of Russia succeeds in forcing Peter to make peace on terms favorable to Charles, I have a hard time seeing that ending well for Sweden. Even a victorious invasion of Russia would be costly, and Sweden lacked the resources to occupy enough territory long-term to stop Russia from coming back a few years later for another round. Eventually, Russia would grind Sweden down.

If Charles's death at Fredriksten is averted and his campaigns succeed well enough to force favorable peace terms, that's a Pyrrhic victory for Sweden. By that point, the cost of fighting (in both lives and money) had become absolutely ruinous for Sweden. So long as the coaltion against them kept reforming, it's only a matter of time before Sweden's luck would run out.

 

[RGB]

In interest of log-term gains: while achieving Swedish victory, you can have Peter get killed somehow and get Russia into dynastic troubles. They will still want to come back and get the Baltic, but that might buy Sweden some 20-30 years on top of what they had.

 

[Jefferson Lee Roosevelt]

i discussed such a scenario during a lesson and we all agreed that a win in the GNW could have delayed or even avoided the Swedish decline in the 18th and 19th century as a great power, but we also were quite sure that Peter (and Russia's) claim on the Baltic wouldn't be left hanging for long. probably another war, with sweden starting on a stronger position because of the previous win, but in the end Russia's manpower would have overcome the Swedes no matter what, some time in the future

 

[Marko]

I think the only way for Russia to remain out of the baltics and Sweden to remain strong is to have Peter killed as a child which would leave based on all indicators Russia in a medieval quagmire for another 50 years to a century, long enough for some European power to consider her as a possible colonisation territory akin to later China.

 

[RGB]

I think the only way for Russia to remain out of the baltics and Sweden to remain strong is to have Peter killed as a child which would leave based on all indicators Russia in a medieval quagmire for another 50 years to a century, long enough for some European power to consider her as a possible colonisation territory akin to later China.

Disagree.

Sophia has to go as well. Sophia or Peter, a Russia-Polish alliance is all but guaranteed, and Russia was reforming fast. If she could somehow survive long enough and not send Golytsyn (who really was a very able statesman, just a very unsuccessful general) into battle with Sweden, Sweden is almost certainly going to be facing Russia+Poland in a long, serious war in the early 18th c. Denmark goes without saying.

The most perfect moment is after he's shriven Sophia but before Alexei Petrovich is born, so 1689/90

 

[TapReflex]

Three Ways this could play out:
1). An early victory after a much more destructive Battle of Narva, and a quick foray into Poland. They come back in less than a decade, and Charles's naivety and brashness leads to the destruction of his empire, one way or another.
2). Charles accepts Russia's offer of peace early on in the war. With a Baltic port and a bloody nose, Russia will eventually be back, but not for another decade or two. Charles' Empire survives, but is heading in a bad direction.
3). A Really unlikely 1709 March on Moscow. The Russians suck up a loss of land in Karelia and the surrounding area, but Sweden is looking at supporting an unstable empire, surrounded by vindictive enemies.

Only Option #2 is a relatively secure way of getting out of it. But unfortunately #2 is also the least likely option of the three due to Charles's brash and self-confident personality.