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Peter the Great Killed At Poltava

napoleon IV

Sheer Animal Cunning of the Groundhog
Location
Washington, Douglass Commonwealth
Pronouns
he/him
IOTL the Battle of Poltava in 1709 was a decisive Russian victory, ending King Charles XII of Sweden's invasion of Russian and turning the tide of the Great Northern War. But it nearly ended in tragedy. During the battle Peter the Great was shot in the chest, only surviving because the bullet deflected off a silver icon he wore on chain around his neck. What if Peter hadn't been wearing that, and he was killed? What are the long-term effects of a Peterine Reform that stops early?
 
This all depends on the reactions of Peter's generals in command of the army, led by marshal Sheremetiev and Peter's ex-working class 'new man' favourite Count/ Prince Menshikov, and of Peter's 19-year-old heir Alexei, who was nominally in charge of his new capital St Petersburg at the time. Alexei was weak, wayward, uncertain of himself, conventionally religious and with conservative instincts taught by his mother Eudoxia Lopukhina, from whom Peter had separated (and had removed him from her), and terrified of his father. Despite or because of his forced 'modern' education in the new Europeanised way of ruling and in sciences, engineering/crafts, maths, and military studies by Peter, he hankered after the traditional Russian medieval way of life and his mother's strict conservative Orthodoxy, which regarded Peter and his Western ways as a sinful abomination. Alexei was later to start boasting that once he was Cazar he would reverse all the recent reforms and bring Russia back to the old ways and godly Orthodox piety, and abandon St Petersburg for Moscow - hence Peter redoubling his bullying and eventually, when A ran away to Germany and Italy, forcing him home by blackmail and imprisoning and probably killing him (1718). Alexei's resentful attitudes were less open and known about as of 1709, but would Menshikov and co - facing disgrace and probable execution and the reversal of all their master Peter's reforms by Alexei as Czar - risk Alexei as Czar?

The entire Petrine elite, forcibly modernised and including 'new men' like Menshikov who a traditional Czar would never have had at his court, were at risk from Alexei if he carried out his apparent inclinations to reverse the reforms and brought his mother and sidelined conservative aristos and clerics back to court - and if A listened to angry Orthodox clerics calling the reforms blasphemy. (Peter had abolished the Patriarchate and turned the Church into a cowed dept of state, which led to much resentment.) Would the high command of the army have offered Alexei a 'deal' of accepting him as Czar if he kept to the reforms and have told him that this was essential for national preservation from Swedish revenge as his patriotic and holy duty, or more likely have not trusted him given his weak nature and openness to influence from revenge-seeking conservatives led by his mother and clerics? If he agreed to their terms, he could easily go back on this in a year or two - as all knew. In that case, given that Peter had not yet married his replacement consort , the Lithuanian ex-servant-girl Martha aka the later Empress Catherine I (who was not even Orthodox but a Lutheran) and their older daughter Anne was only 1 and Alexei did not marry until OTL 1711, probably the army leaders would choose Peter's younger sister Natalya (born 1674) as stop-gap Czarina as a continuity candidate, or as nominal regent for Anna. If there was a civil war, the well-equipped army would probably win over any local garrisons who Alexei called in to help - the Moscow regiments had been purged of dissidents by Peter after a plot during his absence in Holland and GB in 1697-8 - and at best Alexei would have to flee to Europe. The Petrine regime would then continue, under a 'junta' as in OTL 1725-30 after Peter died, with Anna or possibly Catherine as eventual leader as Natalya seems to have been uninterested in politics.

As for Sweden, if Poltava was a stalemate or even a Swedish victory Charles XII would still be veryshort of men and supplies , stranded in the hostile Ukraine and too exhausted to march on Moscow. He had lower Cossack support than he had hoped and still had Denmark and Brandenburg/ Prussia threatening his Baltic empire at home; probably he would have had to agree a truce with Russia and head back to Sweden to save his S Baltic ports . Assuming the Russian junta still had a large and resilient army after the civil war and migth even have had the advantage at Poltava until Peter fell, Charles did not have the men left to insist on their abandoning Carelia and St P; at most he could have secured his chosen king Stanislaus Leczinski in Poland as his client by a truce with Russia. Then he has to fend off Denmark and Brandenburg, and with no Russia in the war he has a good chance of this; but his pre-Poltava losses to his army in Ukraine would exhaust his empire and if he is not killed as in OTL there is a wary stalemate until the next round of anti-Swedish coalitions, ?once Anna is adult and Russia has recovered. By this time, arguably the pro-Jacobite stance of Charles XII would drive Britain / Hanover (united 1714) to sponsor a coalition to keep him busy and reduce the threat he posed; Swden would probably lose.
 
By this time, arguably the pro-Jacobite stance of Charles XII would drive Britain / Hanover (united 1714) to sponsor a coalition to keep him busy and reduce the threat he posed

No, not really. Charles XII's adoption of being pro-Jacobite came about opportunistically in the 1710s when Hanover had already joined the war, and Charles XII and his chief minister got this idea that trying to create a Jacobite rising might knock Hanover out of the war. If Hanover stays out of the war, there's no reason for Charles XII to adopt a Jacobite stance in the first place.
 
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