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Book Synopsis'This victory', exulted Peter the Great, 'has laid the final stone in the foundations of St Petersburg!' The Battle of Poltava, 1709, marks the birth of the Tsar's vast Russian Empire. In 1700, seeking to open Russian trade routes to the West, the Tsar combined with Denmark, Saxony and Poland to attack Swedish hegemony in the North. Against the odds, King Charles XII of Sweden subdued the hostile coalition for nearly a decade, but in 1708 took his fatal decision to march for Moscow. His defeat at Poltava, in the Ukraine, proved the turning-point of the Great Northern War, heralding the collapse of the Swedish Empire and the rise of Russia, the effects of which would be felt for almost three hundred years. Swedish historian Peter Englund's vivid account of the three violent days of battle is an internationally acclaimed classic of military history, admired by scholars and the lay reader alike.
Table of ContentsIntroduction PROLOGUE The Stoat THE MARCH Sunday Morning The Road to Poltava The War The Campaign Anatomy of a Battlefield A Council of War Sunday Evening THE BATTLE 8. Let Us Go Forward 9. Give the Enemy No Time 10. Cavalry Forward!! Shot in Vain 11. Would God Roos Were Here 12. They Are Leaving Their Lines 13. Not My Men but the King’s 14. Sheep to Sacrifical Slaughter 15. No Musket-ball Will Hit 16. As Grass Before a Scythe 17. The Devil Couldn’t Make them 18. It Goes Ill 19. He Tramples Down 20. All is Lost 21. To Gather in Retreat 22. Bodies Mountain-High THE RETREAT 23. 100,000 Roubles 24. Fight at My Command 25. Would They Defend Themselves 26. Not Without Tears EPILOGUE 27. A Fist Filled with Soil Sources and Literature Biographical Appendix Index
