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QINGDAO TODAY
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Speak Shenzhen -> 
The Battle of Poltava
    2019-05-23  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

James Baquet

Many of the battles most famous in the English-speaking world occurred in western Europe, particularly Spain, France, Italy, England, the Netherlands and Germany. But northern Europe had its share of strife as well.

Take the Great Northern War. The Swedish Empire had held supremacy in northern, central and eastern Europe during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Starting in 1700, the Tsardom of Russia undertook to challenge this hegemony, and by the end of the war in 1721, the Swedish Empire as such had fallen.

Russia did not act alone, of course. In addition to the Tsar, Peter I (another “the Great”), there was Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony-Poland-Lithuania. Sweden took out Frederick near the start of the war in 1700, and Augustus (apparently not so strong) in 1706, but both were to rejoin the alliance in 1709.

That is when Charles XII, King of Sweden, was defeated at the Battle of Poltava, in Ukraine. In 1706 Peter the Great had offered to turn the Baltic region over to Charles, provided Russia could keep St. Petersburg, but Charles turned him down. So Peter adopted a scorched-earth policy, depriving the Swedes of supplies as they marched into Russian territory, perhaps even intending to take Moscow.

Russia was dealing with a rebellion at the time, allowing Charles some success. However, by the spring of 1709, Charles had lost half of his 44,000 men, partly due to supply problems and small skirmishes. When Peter’s 80,000 men met with Charles’s diminished forces, which were besieging Poltava--the result was inevitable, especially after Peter built 10 forts in the no-man’s-land between his army and the Swedes.

Charles had previously been wounded, and could not participate in the battle. His army was defeated, his Field Marshal was captured, and Charles himself went into exile for five years. After several years of mopping up, treaties were signed, and most of Sweden’s territories were ceded to other powers. Russia became from then until now the greatest power in Northern Europe.

Vocabulary:

1. Russian king, derived from the title “Caesar”

2. made smaller

3. taking away (from)

4. struggle, turmoil

5. area not under control of either side

6. committed themselves to do something

7. gave away

8. only if, in the case that

9. consider as an example

10. placing under sustained attack

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