Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/703

Rh embraced not only Sweden, but Finland, and large possessions along the Southern Baltic,—territory that had been won by the arms of his ancestors.

Taking advantage of Charles's extreme youth, three sovereigns, Frederick IV. of Denmark, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Peter the Great of Russia, leagued against him (1700), for the purpose of appropriating such portions of his dominions as they severally desired to annex to their own.

The Battle of Narva (1700). But the conspirators had formed a wrong estimate of the young Swedish monarch. Notwithstanding the insane follies in which he was accustomed to indulge, he possessed talent; he had especially a remarkable aptitude for military affairs. With a well-trained force—a veteran army that had not yet forgotten the discipline of the hero Gustavus Adolphus— Charles now threw himself first upon the Danes, and in two weeks forced the Danish king to sue for peace; then he turned his little army of 8,000 men upon the Russian forces of 20,000, which were besieging the city of Narva, on the Gulf of Finland, and inflicted upon them a most ignominious defeat. The only comment of the imperturbable Peter upon the disaster was, "The Swedes will have the advantage of us at first, but they will teach us how to beat them."

The Founding of St. Petersburg (1703).—After chastising the Czar at Narva, the Swedish king turned south and marched into Poland to punish Augustus for the part he had taken in the conspiracy against him. While Charles was busied in this quarter, Peter was gradually making himself master of the Swedish lands on the Baltic, and upon a marshy island at the mouth of the Neva was laying the foundations of the great city of St. Petersburg, which he proposed to make the western gateway of his empire. The spot selected by Peter as the site of his new capital was low and subject to inundation, so that the labor requisite to make it fit