ABSTRACT
The martial reputation of Swedish troops was dealt several fearful blows during the war against Denmark and Brandenburg-Prussia in the 1670s, a war which revealed how woefully subordinate to French interests Sweden had become. The defeat at Poltava and the surrender of the remnants of the army at Perevolotnya not only set the seal on Sweden's hopes of forcing Peter to sue for peace. The expressions of friendship with Sweden which Peter professed concealed resentment at the treatment he had received in Riga on the first stage of his 'Great Embassy' to the West in 1697. Karl XII's death had momentous internal consequences for Sweden; the repercussions on the outcome of the war are difficult to gauge. The territorial empire was transitory, but the mobilisation and organisation of Sweden's scant resources which had permitted its creation also ensured that the Northern country did not sink into decay or nearer to home, the Polish-Lithuanian state.
