Charles XII doesn't do his Russian adventure

OS fan

Banned
Swedish king Charles XII had read the biography of Alexander the Great and was greatly influenced by it. This was an important reason for his invasion of Russia and the catastrophic defeat at Poltava in 1709.

But what if he hadn't done this? Could he have won the war against Russia if he had been more careful? At this time, Russia had much less strength than later.
 
I think Baltic region would be more Swedish influenced than Russian influenced in OTL and if Charles XII doesn't do his Russian adventure, I will presume to there would be no St. Petersburg and the capital of Russia would be Moscow in entire Romanov ruling in Russia and Russia would be less powerful than in OTL because there is no Russian territories in Baltic region.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Charles XII might have avoided the disaster at Poltava if he had finished off the Russians after his victory at Narva, eight years earlier, rather than basically ignoring Russia and focusing on Poland.
 
if Charles XII doesn't do his Russian adventure, I will presume to there would be no St. Petersburg and the capital of Russia would be Moscow in entire Romanov ruling in Russia and Russia would be less powerful than in OTL because there is no Russian territories in Baltic region.
St. Petersburg may not emerge as capital, but Russia will fight tooth and nail for access to Baltic Sea (it fought for that for 100+ years pre-Peter) and wouldn't pay much attention to choice of books by Swedish kings. So I would say that Swedish Baltic is consequence of a weak Russia, not vice versa.

Charles XII might have avoided the disaster at Poltava if he had finished off the Russians after his victory at Narva, eight years earlier, rather than basically ignoring Russia and focusing on Poland.
I am curious how exactly could Charles "finish Russia off"? Polish and French (against Russia) and Swedish (against Poland) experiences show that even occupying enemy's capital city and most over important cities (which will be quite a task for Charles, garrisoning each city from Astrakhan to Urals) doesn't mean victory as soon as local nobles are pssed off about occupation and general population supports them. Charles could not know about Napoleon disaster (which was to happen century later), but he knew about Times of Trouble in Russia and Deluge in Poland.
 
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