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Northern War Scenario Accurate?

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I just read Peter Englund's book "Poltava" and am wondering whether the Northern War scenario is accurate enough to provide any insights into the actual events.

Is it possible for Charles XII to win?

Does the game allow for small armies to beat much bigger ones like at Narva?

I saw that Peter Englund wrote a review of the game on a Swedish site, which I assume is a good sign, but I don't read Swedish so I don't know what he said.
 
I am a Swedish Historian

Swedish forces where a lot better than Russians (so where hitlers wehrmacht in ww2)
But russia is to large
 
Originally posted by Bushmaster
I just read Peter Englund's book "Poltava" and am wondering whether the Northern War scenario is accurate enough to provide any insights into the actual events.

Is it possible for Charles XII to win?

Does the game allow for small armies to beat much bigger ones like at Narva?
Click to expand...

When I play as Sweden i often win and it is very likely that smaller swedish armies win over Russian armies - happens to me all the time. :D It's because of the superior tech.:)
BTW this often applies too when I'm Russia, Denmark or P-L too.
 
The deal with Karl XII losing at Poltava was mainly due to having followed an increasingly modern Russian army with a badly equipped Swedish dito... If he had accepted peace with the Russians after having defeated the Polish-Lithuanian king (August II, wasn't it?) in 1706 the Swedish power might've remained at the top for a few years... Swedish hegemony over the Baltic was doomed, however, with the modernisation of Russia...
 
I think Peter the Great at that time was willing to accept peace in return for the Baltic territory that he had conquered while Charles XII was involved in Poland. So Russia would still have acquired a port on the Baltic and begun its rise to Great Power status, but Sweden would have avoided being ruined by a protracted war (as would Poland), giving both of them more durability in resisting later aggression from Russia and other nations.
 
At the time (1706/7) giving away Swedish territory to the Czar would have seemed a bit strange. The Swedish main army had an unbroken string of successes and was rightly considered the best in Europe. After having defeated two of the three opponents suddenly signing a peace that granted Russia a strategic victory can hardly be considered a realistic option for the Swedish king. What kind of message would that have sent to the other neighbors? "Everybody come get your free land right here, yessir!".

I would say that Sweden needed "luck" to win the Great Northern War considering the forces arrayed against her. That element had certainly served Sweden several times before during the conquest of empire. But Sweden's luck ran out in Russia. Charles XII's march on Moscow was certainly a "gamble" if you will, just as much as when his grandfather rolled the dice on the Danish ice. In my mind there were not many alternatives open to Charles XII when he left Saxony in 1707 if he wanted to preserve the empire he was raised to defend. Signing the peace the Czar offered? -> Sweden loses. Liberating the Baltic provinces? -> Would not have ended the war. Marching on Moscow? -> If successfully done Sweden's position would be secure, probably at least for as long as Charles was alive. From what I know about this period this was the logical choice to make.
 
Peter's strategy

A key element of Peter I's strategy was the scorched earth policy that forced Charles XII southward to find food for his army. Is there any way in this game to replicate such a strategy? In other words, enhance the attrition of the invader by screwing up your own provinces?
 
He should have waited for the smaller force coming from Sweden with supplies. Then continued on to Moscow.

Instead he choose to march towards the rebelling Ukraine to gain their support in the war against Russia, and get food at the same time.
 
By smaller force, do you mean Lewenhaupt with 13,000 men and two months of supplies? The Russians defeated them at the battle of Lesnaya and took all the supplies Lewenhaupt was bringing to the main army.
 
My understanding of the situation in 1708 is that Charles waited for Lewenhaupt for as long as he could, until supply problems forced him to get moving. I think that this necessary movement of the main army exposed Lewenhaupt's force to the Russians, leading to Lesnaya. Had Lewenhaupt been quicker, had the weather been better etc etc...

BTW, I don't know much about the game scenario.
 
When I wrote a project for school I found an estonian source saying that after having defeated P-L and Saxony in 1707 tsar Peter offered a white peace, which was turned down by the increasingly overconfident Swedsih king. can anyone back this up?
 
Originally posted by Hallsten
When I wrote a project for school I found an estonian source saying that after having defeated P-L and Saxony in 1707 tsar Peter offered a white peace, which was turned down by the increasingly overconfident Swedsih king. can anyone back this up?
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I can neither confirm nor deny that. Which was the source?

Edit: Come to think of it, in my correspondence with anti-Charles historian Sverker Oredsson he never mentioned any such peace proposals, even though they would have helped his cause enormously. This doesn't prove anything but whatever.
 
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What's a white peace?

Just curious. What do you mean by 'white peace'?

I have heard nothting about Charles XII offering any sort of peace to Peter the Great. After Narva, I was under the impression that Charles had nothing but contempt for the Russians' military abilities.

Perhaps if Charles had not been wounded and, therefore, forced to relinquish tactical command to Rehnskold the Swedes might even have won at Poltava. My impression is that, despite some serious mistakes and really bad luck, the Swedish army came closer to winning that battle than they should have.
 
Karl's folly

Peter offered a peace to Sweden through France as Karl would not see any Russian diplomats, essentially before Karl invaded Russia Peter offered to return Narva and most of the other conquered teritories in exchange for keeping the newly founded St.Petersberg and the Noteborg-Schusselborg fortress (excuse my spelling) but the over confident Karl who had not fought a real Russian force since Narva had only contempt for the Russians and decided to go for moscow to place a puppet Tsar on the throne, even though most of his Generals wanted to retake the baltic teritories back, for one the knew the teritory and they could be easily supplied from the swedish navy, personally I believe had Karl taken this option and won back the baltic states he would have forced a peace on Peter as such a defeat would have weakened Peters position in Russia amongest his nobles and people.


Poor Lewenhaupt with 13,000 men and two months of supplies is a popular scapegoat for Karl's Rashness in russia,Lewenhaupt was late but Karl had not allowed for the fact that roads were almost non existent in russia and that Russian calvary would harress such a coloumn, in fact Lewenhaupt got to the original meeting point but Karl was gone south and when Peter dicovered that Lewenhaupt was basically on his own without any hope for help he had the supply coloum attacked and destroyed.

As for Poltava, the chances for success with or without Karl in command on the battlefield were slim, the swedes were weak,tired,hungary and their morale was shot, also they were outgunned, outnumbered and in an inferior position but at the end of the day defeat occured due to the fact that certain generals did not talk to each other due to personal differances thus a lack of comunication caused some swedish troops to be displaced on the battlefield at the vital moment of the final assault making the Russians job easier.

Just some humble opinions and facts from someone who is very intrested in Swedish history.
 
Yes, my understanding is also that Peter offered to return everything but St Petersburg. For several reasons however accepting this would have been a serious blow to the swedish position in the Baltic area. First, that would allow Peter to build a russian fleet in the Baltic and that would spell the end of swedish control of the sea lanes. Second, that would mean that the swedish possessions south of St Petersburg would not be connected by land to the rest of the swedish empire. That may not seem like much since most communication from Sweden proper to those possessions was by ship, but for several weeks each year that communication was lost when the ice was too thick for boats and too thin for couriers. Indeed, the very message that told Charles XII of the outbreak of war had had to travel by land all the way around the Gulf of Bothnia. Third, accepting such a peace while winning would be an unacceptable show of weakness. Fourth, if undefeated nothing would have stopped the Czar from starting another war once the swedish army had been demobilized.

An alternative would of course be to take back Narva and St Petersburg by force. Basically a zero-risk strategy. Unfortunately also a zero-gain strategy. Peter had already suffered catastrophic defeat in that region once without giving up the war or being overthrown. Nothing indicates that he would have changed his mind now. The war could not be decided in that remote, relatively unimportant area (sorry estonians et al, and by unimportant I mean compared to Moscow or Stockholm). Also, those provinces had suffered greatly and were hardly an ideal place for campaigning with large armies. Even if the operation went smoothly (as it probably would) Charles would just have lost another year without coming much closer to deciding the issue.
 
Even if the operation went smoothly (as it probably would) Charles would just have lost another year without coming much closer to deciding the issue.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but I tend to disagree. The true crux in this discussion is the personality of Peter I. He was undoubtedly tenacious and determined to gain his precious port city. On the other hand, he also seemed to harbor an almost personal fear of Charles XII. Consider his position: everything he threw at the Swedes had been crushed (people talk about Narva, but the battle of Grodno in 1706 was an even greater defeat for the Russians) no matter numbers or clever plans, all his allies had been destroyed and another Turkish war loomed on the horizon.

In this light, I believe that if Charles had liberated the Baltics and made limited thrusts at Novgorod, Pskov, Kola and Arkhangelsk the Czar would have agreed to a humiliating peace. The further consequences are hard to judge, but surely it would not have been the end of the struggle.
 
Originally posted by Doomdark


Perhaps, but I tend to disagree. The true crux in this discussion is the personality of Peter I. He was undoubtedly tenacious and determined to gain his precious port city. On the other hand, he also seemed to harbor an almost personal fear of Charles XII. Consider his position: everything he threw at the Swedes had been crushed (people talk about Narva, but the battle of Grodno in 1706 was an even greater defeat for the Russians) no matter numbers or clever plans, all his allies had been destroyed and another Turkish war loomed on the horizon.

In this light, I believe that if Charles had liberated the Baltics and made limited thrusts at Novgorod, Pskov, Kola and Arkhangelsk the Czar would have agreed to a humiliating peace. The further consequences are hard to judge, but surely it would not have been the end of the struggle.
Click to expand...


My impression of Peter is that he indeed was "determined to gain his precious port city". So much so that he didn't back down even when Charles aimed his army at the heart of Russia and Peter risked losing everything and not just St Petersburg. Maybe he would have agreed to peace if Charles had liberated the swedish territories, maybe he wouldn't. But that would be Peter's decision based on convenience, Charles couldn't force his will upon Peter just by winning in the St Petersburg area. Also Peter's allies were hardly destroyed, more like temporarily subdued.

I totally agree about the Grodno campaign being ignored by many. Here Charles annihilated a russian army without even having to fight a pitched battle.

Even if Peter would agree to peace, where would that leave swedish national security? With Peter still in power, especially after having reformed his army and government, a new russian invasion could be expected (rightly or wrongly, who knows?) anytime.

Charles appears to have wanted to settle this issue once and for all and the only place to do that was Moscow. It couldn't be done in St Petersburg, peace or no peace. Or that is my impression at least.
 
While I appreciate the historical commentary I am also interested in the scenario. Both the Swedes and the Russians are winnable but the game seems to crash when playing the Poles and I would love to hear of a workable strategy for the Danes:)
 
Originally posted by jay
While I appreciate the historical commentary I am also interested in the scenario. Both the Swedes and the Russians are winnable but the game seems to crash when playing the Poles and I would love to hear of a workable strategy for the Danes:)
Click to expand...

Sounds pretty realistic to me.
 
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