WI:Charles XII didn't invade Russia?

What If Charles XII didn't invade Russia?

What other alternate options did he have?

If he accepted the peace of 1707, with Russia, would it have lasted? Could he have won a defensive war, in the Baltics, against Russia? Would Peter the Great have tried to invade Sweden?

From wiki: "At this point, in 1707, Peter offered to retrocede everything he had so far occupied (essentially Ingria) except Saint Petersburg and the line of the Neva, to avoid a full-scale war, but Charles XII refused."


Intrested in everyones thoughts!:D
 
At the time, the Swedish main army had crushed Russian and Saxon armies every year since 1700, and they did not have any reason to cede any territory to Russia. Even at the battle of Poltava two years later, the Swedes did not even consider that there was a possibility that they could lose.

For this peace to come about, you would have to change something. Perhaps Charles dies, or is convinced to involve himself in the French war instead. Sweden participating there might be decisive for either side.

Charles was too stubborn, and too singleminded, and too obstinate, and had received too much power. Added too this, he had one of the best modern armies in Europe at his disposal, and then there came a deceitful aggression from the three neighboring states, that just had promised a lasting peace.

Maybe Peter decides to go to Saxony after hearing of the peace treaty. He becomes friends with Charles and they decide upon a peace, freeing the Swedes for entering the war for or against France.

In hindsight, since Sweden's (soon to be) enemies supported the Dutch and British, Sweden should have reentered its traditional alliance with France, and crushed Denmark, Prussia and Hanover, along with Austria.

On the other hand, an Austrian alliance might be just the right thing to stave off any new attacks from Denmark and Prussia. Have Charles marry some suitable princess to seal the alliance, and peace will last for his lifetime.
 
In hindsight, since Sweden's (soon to be) enemies supported the Dutch and British, Sweden should have reentered its traditional alliance with France, and crushed Denmark, Prussia and Hanover, along with Austria.

On the other hand, an Austrian alliance might be just the right thing to stave off any new attacks from Denmark and Prussia. Have Charles marry some suitable princess to seal the alliance, and peace will last for his lifetime.

Wow!!!!:eek::eek::eek::eek: Carolus Rex entering Berlin and Vienna, i love it!
 
He could also go all-for-peace, marry some princess that gives him a fair claim to take half of Electoral Saxony, and be content with that. This should be considered before any peace with Augustus is settled.
 
He could also go all-for-peace, marry some princess that gives him a fair claim to take half of Electoral Saxony, and be content with that. This should be considered before any peace with Augustus is settled.

But are any of those options fitting with Charles XII's character? He didn't seem too interested in being married, having a final peace or being content doing nothing.
 
But are any of those options fitting with Charles XII's character? He didn't seem too interested in being married, having a final peace or being content doing nothing.
Now, "doing nothing" might not be how anyone usually would describe ruling a country, and his father had left much work undone when he died ten years earlier.

As to his character, we need to have someone make him realise that he has some dynastic duties to fulfill unless he wants to be the last Wittelsbach king of Sweden.
 
Now, "doing nothing" might not be how anyone usually would describe ruling a country, and his father had left much work undone when he died ten years earlier.

As to his character, we need to have someone make him realise that he has some dynastic duties to fulfill unless he wants to be the last Wittelsbach king of Sweden.

I mean he seemed to be much more interested in being a soldier/general than being a stay-at-home King. The Swedish Richard the Lionhearted. And I would not be surprised if he was planning to groom his nephew,Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp as his heir. Charles XII was already 36 when he was killed and there was little sign he was planning to get married, despite many potential brides or alliances (which he could have used) being bandied about.
 
His parents had a modern, to us normal, marriage, and his mother had to wait for the agreedupon marriage to happen because her brother had seen fit to go to war with Sweden. :(

We do not know whether CXII had any special leanings, sexual or asexual, only that he was raised in a very fundamentalist lutheran country where witches were burnt and immorality was criminal, and that he read the entire Bible several times. Sweden regarded itself as the biblical Israel.

I would guess that he would pick a reasonably agreeable (to him) bride, if he was forced to by the council or the parliament (or his father), and that he would get children then (but that is just a guess).
 
He was what?
From Wikipedia:
Sexuality[edit]
Many historians have considered whether Frederick the Great was homosexual or bisexual (and perhaps possibly celibate), and his relationship with Hans Hermann von Katte was widely speculated in the Prussian court to be romantic.[13] After Katte's execution by Frederick's father, Frederick was forced to marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, with whom he had no children. He immediately separated from his wife when Frederick William I died in 1740. In later years, Frederick would pay his wife formal visits only once a year.[142]

Frederick spent much of his time at Sanssouci, his favourite residence in Potsdam. The grounds there included a Friendship Temple (built as a memorial to his favourite sister, Wilhelmine), and celebrating the homoerotic attachments of Greek Antiquity, decorated with portraits of Orestes and Pylades, among others.[143] At Sanssouci Frederick entertained his most privileged guests, especially the French philosopher Voltaire, whom he asked in 1750 to come to live with him. The correspondence between Frederick and Voltaire, which spanned almost 50 years, was marked by mutual intellectual fascination. In person, however, their friendship was often contentious, as Voltaire abhorred Frederick's militarism. Voltaire's angry attack on Maupertuis, the President of Frederick's academy, provoked Frederick to burn the pamphlet publicly and put Voltaire under house arrest. Voltaire was accused by some of anonymously publishing The Private Life of the King of Prussia, wittily claiming Frederick's homosexuality and parade of male lovers, after he had left Prussia. Frederick neither admitted nor denied the contents of the book, nor ever accused Voltaire of having written it. Some years later, Voltaire and Frederick resumed their correspondence and eventually aired their mutual recriminations, to end as friends once more.[144]

Other historians disagree on the nature of Frederick's sexuality, saying that Frederick's writings indicate that he simply had greater priorities than women. In 2011, an unpublished erotic poem by Frederick was discovered amongst his letters; it was written, according to correspondence with Voltaire, in response to an Italian friend's contention that northern Europeans were not as passionate as southern Europeans.[145] Frederick's physician, Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann, claimed that the king let rumors of homosexuality appear to be true in order to avoid the public knowing that his genitalia were harmed by "a cruel surgical operation" to save his life from an unnamed venereal disease.[146] Historian Christopher Clark concludes Frederick "may well have abstained from sexual acts with anyone of either sex after his accession to the throne, and possibly even before. But if he did not do it, he certainly talked about it; the conversation of the inner court circle around him was peppered with homoerotic banter."[147]
So no one really knows.
 
One reasonable option would have been to still fight the war against Russia, but by clearing Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish lands from Russian incursions, so he never actually crosses the border. This would let the army have easier access to reinforcements (and have the Poles finance it), but it would not ease the Russian pressure on the Baltics as the invasion did.
 
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