Livonia or in earlier records Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia.
The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony–Poland–Lithuania. Frederick IV and Augustus II were defeated by Sweden, under Charles XII, and forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706 respectively, but rejoined it in 1709 after the defeat of Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava. George I of Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover joined the coalition in 1714 for Hanover and in 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia joined it in 1715.
Charles XII, sometimes Carl XII or Carolus Rex, was King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach. Charles was the only surviving son of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder. He assumed power, after a seven-month caretaker government, at the age of fifteen.
The Battle of Narva on 30 November [O.S. 19 November] 1700 was an early battle in the Great Northern War. A Swedish relief army under Charles XII of Sweden defeated a Russian siege force three to four times its size. Previously, Charles XII had forced Denmark–Norway to sign the Treaty of Travendal. Narva was not followed by further advances of the Swedish army into Russia; instead, Charles XII turned southward to expel August the Strong from Livonia and Poland-Lithuania. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia took Narva in a second battle in 1704.
The Second Northern War (1655–60), was fought between Sweden and its adversaries the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1655–60), the Tsardom of Russia (1656–58), Brandenburg-Prussia (1657–60), the Habsburg monarchy (1657–60) and Denmark–Norway. The Dutch Republic waged an informal trade war against Sweden and seized the colony of New Sweden in 1655, but was not a recognized part of the Polish–Danish alliance.
Count Boris Petrovich Sheremetev was an Imperial Russian diplomat and general field marshal during the Great Northern War. He became the first Russian count in 1706. His children included Pyotr Sheremetev and Natalia Sheremeteva.
The Polish–Swedish wars were a series of wars between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden. Broadly construed, the term refers to a series of wars between 1563 and 1721. More narrowly, it refers to particular wars between 1600 and 1629. These are the wars included under the broader use of the term:
The Livonian War (1558–1583) was fought for control of Old Livonia. The Tsardom of Russia faced a varying coalition of the Dano-Norwegian Realm, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland.
Wolmar Anton von Schlippenbach (1653–1721) was Governor General of Swedish Estonia from 1704 to 1706.
The Russo-Swedish War of 1656-1658 was fought by Russia and Sweden as a theater of the Second Northern War. It took place during a pause in the contemporary Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) as a consequence of the Truce of Vilna. Despite initial successes, Tsar Alexis of Russia failed to secure his principal objective—to revise the Treaty of Stolbovo, which had stripped Russia of the Baltic coast at the close of the Ingrian War.
The Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611) was a continuation of struggle between Sweden and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth over control of Livonia and Estonia, as well as the dispute over the Swedish throne between Charles IX of Sweden and Sigismund III of Poland. After skirmishes, sieges and battles often aborted by Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, a truce was signed until the later invasion by the Russians.
The Battle of Gemauerthof was a battle in the Great Northern War, fought south of Riga near Jelgava, in present-day Latvia in July 1705. The Swedish forces under Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt fought a Russian army under Boris Sheremetyev. The Swedes were victorious, but the victory was only symbolic. In August, the Russians conquered Courland.
The Treaty of Constantinople or Istanbul was signed on 13 July 1700 between the Tsardom of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. It ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1686-1700. Russian tsar Peter the Great secured possession of the Azov region and freed his forces to participate in the Great Northern War. The treaty was superseded by the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711, after the Ottoman Empire became involved in this war.
The Battle of Erastfer took place on 29 December 1701 (O.S.) / 30 December 1701 / 9 January / 1702 (N.S.) near Erastfer in eastern Swedish Livonia between a Russian force of around 13,000 regulars along with 6,000 irregulars led by general Boris Sheremetev and a Swedish force of about 3,470 men, under the command of Wolmar Anton von Schlippenbach. The Swedes were defeated, with a loss of 1,000 men killed and captured along with all their artillery pieces. The Russians sustained about 1,000 killed along with another 2,000 wounded.
With the Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 the Swedish dominions Estonia and Livonia were integrated into the Russian Empire following their conquest during the Great Northern War. The Livonian nobility and the city of Riga capitulated on 4 July (O.S.) / 15 July 1710 (N.S.), Pernau (Pärnu) in August, and the Estonian nobility and the city of Reval (Tallinn) on 29 September (O.S.) / 10 October (N.S.). Russia left the local institutions in place and confirmed the traditional privileges of the German nobles and burghers as was established in Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti, especially with respect to the Protestant faith. The land reform of the so-called reduction which had been introduced by the Swedish king Charles XI, and transformed many serfs to subjects of the Crown, was reversed.
The Treaty of Warsaw was concluded on 18 November (O.S.) / 28 November 1705 during the Great Northern War. It was a peace treaty and an alliance between the Swedish Empire and the faction of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth loyal to Stanisław Leszczyński.
The Battles of Wenden were a series of battles for control of the stronghold of Wenden, in present-day Latvia, fought during the Livonian War in 1577 and 1578. Magnus of Livonia besieged the town in August 1577, but was deposed and replaced by Russian forces under Tsar Ivan IV, who eventually sacked the town and castle in what became a symbolic victory. Polish forces, however, re-captured the stronghold in November and beat back a Russian counter-attack in February 1578.
The siege of Nöteborg was one of the first sieges of the Great Northern War, when Russian forces captured the Swedish fortress of Nöteborg in October 1702. Peter the Great had assembled a force of 20,000 men for this task, and marched for ten days to his destination. About 12,000 of these men were positioned on the banks of the Neva river, where they camped until 6 October (N.S.). On that day, after giving command of the main force to Boris Sheremetev, he moved toward Nöteborg. After the Swedish commander, Wilhelm von Schlippenbach, refused to give up the fort immediately, the Russians began bombarding it. A final Russian assault on the fort was tactically unsuccessful, resulting in heavy casualties, but forced the fort's defenders to surrender on 22 October 1702. After taking control, Peter immediately began reconstructing the fort for his own purposes, renaming it Shlisselburg.
The Battle of Petschora took place on February 23, 1701 near the village of Pechory, Russia during the second year of the Great Northern War. The Swedish army of about 2,100 men assisted by approximately 2,000 peasants under the command of Jacob Spens defeated a Russian force of about 6,000 men.
The Campaign of Grodno was a plan developed by Johann Patkul and Otto Arnold von Paykull during the Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a part of the Great Northern War. Its purpose was to crush Charles XII's army with overwhelming force in a combined offensive of Russian and Saxon troops. The campaign, executed by Peter I of Russia and Augustus II of Saxony, began in July 1705 and lasted almost a year. In divided areas the allies would jointly strike the Swedish troops occupied in Poland, in order to neutralize the influence the Swedes had in the Polish politics. However, the Swedish forces under Charles XII successfully outmaneuvered the allies, installed a Polish king in favor of their own and finally won two decisive victories at Grodno and Fraustadt in 1706. This resulted in the Treaty of Altranstädt (1706) in which Augustus renounced his claims to the Polish throne, broke off his alliance with Russia, and established peace between Sweden and Saxony.
Swedish Empire 
Tsardom of Russia 