Charles XII of Sweden and Frederick II of Prussia:Allies or Rivals

Allies or Rivals

  • Both would become Allies

    Votes: 10 58.8%
  • Both would become Rivals

    Votes: 7 41.2%

  • Total voters
    17
In an alternate scenerio, where the Swedish Empire lost the Great Northern War, but Charles XII lived and was forced to make peace, and makes it to the 1740s, would he ally himself with Frederick II of Prussia?
 
In an alternate scenerio, where the Swedish Empire lost the Great Northern War, but Charles XII lived and was forced to make peace, and makes it to the 1740s, would he ally himself with Frederick II of Prussia?

Charles will want to get revenge of Russia so they will probably be Allies.
 
Charles will want to get revenge of Russia so they will probably be Allies.


Almost the last thing Fritz wanted was to have any problems with Russia: his primary goal was Hapsburg Empire (war of the Austrian Succession). And by the time of the 7YW Charles would be 72 years old (and Russia attacked Prussia, not other way around).
 
Almost the last thing Fritz wanted was to have any problems with Russia: his primary goal was Hapsburg Empire (war of the Austrian Succession). And by the time of the 7YW Charles would be 72 years old (and Russia attacked Prussia, not other way around).

I agree. Most likely Carl XII is doddering around in a wheelchair (can't think he's been involved in NO wars in the near 2 decades between TTL Nystadt and 1740), and if the succession goes as OTL, Fritz's sister is married to Carl's heir anyway (and if it goes to the duke of Holstein I could see Carl trying for a Prussian match (Wilhelmine or Friederike) for the boy rather than a Russian grand duchess).
 
I agree. Most likely Carl XII is doddering around in a wheelchair (can't think he's been involved in NO wars in the near 2 decades between TTL Nystadt and 1740), and if the succession goes as OTL, Fritz's sister is married to Carl's heir anyway (and if it goes to the duke of Holstein I could see Carl trying for a Prussian match (Wilhelmine or Friederike) for the boy rather than a Russian grand duchess).

Well, we can't tell for sure what Sweden would be like with Charles being alive. Would he continue fighting until his country is destroyed beyond the repair or would he agree to something like the OTL peace at approximately the same time frame? If we assume the last option (and everything else OTL-like) then there was a war of 1741 - 43 ("the Hats' Russian War") with a Swedish goal being to get back the losses of the GNW and ending with ceding to Russia piece of the Finnish territory close to St-Petersburg. At that time Charles is "only" 58 and should be capable of leading the troops but OTOH commander on the Russian side, Peter Lacy, was a quite capable general and the Swedish quality advantage of the GNW did not exist anymore (besides advantage in the capital ships which proved to be rather irrelevant because most of the naval operations on both sides had been conducted by the galley fleets close to the shores).

Of course, in this equation Frederic would be relevant only by proxy: he was busy fighting the Hapsburgs (War of the Austrian Succession) and interested in Russian non-intervention into this war which in OTL was one of the factors behind the Russian-Swedish War: besides Swedish wish of revenge France had the same interests as Young Fritz and the French diplomacy was quite influential in Sweden. IIRC, the grand schema consisted of putting the French candidate Elizabeth on the throne of Russia in expectation that she would return Sweden the lost territories. The 1st part was successful but the 2nd proved to be naive.
 
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