32.3 Europe: a.d. 1701 to 1800  (Page 25/28)

The unfortunate history of Poland through the ages seems due to multiple factors, not the least of which was the constant antagonism between the nobility and the crown, often subjected to various foreign pressures. The Polish territory overlapped an area containing Russians in the east and an area containing Germans in the west. The country was still abundant in Jews but the majority of the people were Catholic. There were no great cities and little trade and actually very little central authority. An arm of Poland reached out to the sea at Danzig and this separated Prussia into two halves, annoying Frederick II. Internal weakness was caused by obsolete institutions and religious antagonism brought about by central intolerance to both Protestantism on the western borders and orthodoxy in the great Ukraine.

Map from Reference 97

The other Baltic states suffered about the same ultimate f ate as Poland. Latvia and Lithuania were divided along with Poland in the various partitions between 1772 and 1795. Estonia, devastated by Peter's armies was then ruled by Russia for the next 200 years, although the culture of the country remained Germanic. (Ref. 61 , 225 )

Russia (please see map in russia section, next chapter)

After his defeat by Swedish forces at Narva, Peter I immediately started to rebuild his army and equipment. When he had been in England, he had bought about 40,000 modern flintlocks with bayonets and he used those remaining after the Narva battle as models, constructing 6,000 in 1701 and turning out 40,000 a year by 1711. One-fourth of all the church bells in Russia were melted down to make new cannons, with 20 new ones available by May, 1701. In the next three years seven new iron works were developed beyond the Urals, using good ore, perhaps even better than Sweden's

During the 6 years that Karl XII of Sweden was fighting in Poland, Peter had some small military successes, including the standing off of a Swedish naval expedition at Archangel and some victories against the 7,800 Swedes left to hold Livonia, taking some Swedish prisoners back to Moscow and eventually completely destroying the rest of that Swedish army, using savage Kalmuch and Cossack horsemen. In 1702, with a fleet of small gun- boats built on the south shore of Lake Lagoda, the czar attacked a Swedish squadron of three brigantines and three galleys, forcing the Swedes to withdraw down the Neva River, leaving the great lake to the Russians. After similar attacks the Swedes also had to with- draw from Lake Peipus, only to return in 1703 and again be run out by the Russians.