I want Charles in charge of me

Is this a Swedish strong timeline.

OK, so skipping the details about the Spanish War of Succession with Swedish and Polish input for now, let's just say the following happens:

During the War of Spanish Succession, Charles XII begins to hear hear stories filtered through his generals of the British and Dutch ship captains' trade with the New World and the East Indies and he becomes convinced that Sweden needed to expand its navy beyond the Baltic Sea.

To this end, he marries princess Sophia Hedwig of Denmark in the hopes of reducing or nullifying the Sound Toll for Swedish product going through the Øresund on non-Swedish ships but the Danes are intractable. Thus Gothenburg, started by Gustavus Adlophus a hundred years before, becomes his goal. Nominally Swedish ships built in Gothenburg from local timber but paid for and by crewed by Dutch and Scottish companies start exporting products from Livonia, Ingria, Pskov, Finland and Novgorod, plus importing in the reverse direction. Being nominally Swedish they use Sweden's exemption from the Danish Sound Tax under the Copenhagen Treaty of 1660 whenever they cannot stay close to the Swedish Coast and away from the Danish fort of Helsingør and its guns. Even though Sweden collects their own tolls, they are less than the Danish tolls so Dutch and British commerce begins to preferentially use the convenience of the Swedish flag.

This angers the Danish crown, who depend upon the tolls paid by the Dutch and British ships for much of their income. When Denmark announces that as of January 1st, 1718 they are rescinding Sweden's exemption from the Sound Toll, Charles XII declares this an abrogation of the Treaty of Travendal in 1700 which committed Denmark to upholding all previous Dano-Swedish treaties and demands that the exmption be reinstated. The Dutch- and British-owned ships flying under the Swedish flag continue to stick close to the Swedish coast to avoid the toll. On March 7th a Scottish-crewed ship is sunk by the Danish at Helsingør but some crew make it to Helsingborg in Sweden and on the 9th Charles XII declares war and requests the Travendal guarantors swift action in support. First the Swedish Navy, which has been built up over the last decade and trained by Dutch and British captains, only ferries troops into northern Jutland as well as backing up their Holstein-Gottop allies who attack from the south, but on November the 1st the bombardment of Copenhagen begins after all Holstein and much of Jutland and Schleswig were under Swedish control. It, however is just a distraction as Charles XII shows once again his military brilliance by sailing from Gothenburg up the Frederikssund and disgorging his army in Roskilde on November the 2nd. Because the Danes are expecting the Swedish attack to come from across the Øresund from behind the bombardment, Charles XII's "attack from behind" is a near complete surprise resulting in the collapse of the Danish forces.

Frederick IV of Denmark and his family escape in the confusion past the Swedish troops and attempt to make it to Iceland by sea. The ship's rigging is damaged by a lucky cannon shot at night but still manages to escape to the North Sea. There, they encounter a British Naval vessel which offers to help guide them to Edinburgh after they claim they are a Swedish trade ship beset upon by Danes. Several of the British sailors, though, had worked on merchant ships run out of Gothenburg and knew the difference between Danish and Swedish accents and alerted their officers. The British, as guarantors of Travendal, had been looking for something like this once it had become apparent that the Danish royal family had disappeared. The ship is escorted to Edinburgh, supposedly as teh British ship was heading there themselves for resupply and would be more than happy to make sure the Swedish ship with its damaged rigging would get their since they had though their were closing in on London. When the two ships arrived at Edinburgh, the royal family was confronted and placed "under diplomatic protection" before eventually ending up in the Tower of London palace.

Meanwhile, Charles XII clais the throne of Denmark through his mother, Ulrike Eleonara, who was the daughter of Frederick III of Denmark and aunt to Frederick IV. When the diplomatic arrest of the Danish royal family is made known a month later, Charles demands that the Travendal guarantors uphold his claim to the Danish throne as the closest male relative after Frederick's brother, the withdrawn bachelor Prince Charles, who escaped with his brother's household.

The United Provinces upholds Charles XII's claim to the Danish throne for commercial reasons and George I of Great Britain follows suit after Charles XII promises a stipend for Frederick IV's family if they renounce all claims to the Danish throne. Frederick IV holds out hope for return into 1720 as sporadic fighting continues to erupt across Jutland but the peace slowly returns after Charles XII extends the taxation and legal reforms he implemented in Sweden to Denmark and Norway, which are well received.

On finally receiving word of Frederick IV's capitulation in June of 1720, Charles XII is crowned as "King of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, Grand Prince of Finland, Duke of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia, Schleswig, Holstein and Pomerania, Prince of Pskov and Novgorod" on July 1st, 1720, in Stockholm, and over the next six months in the local capitals of each of those realms.

  Possibly but if both Sweden and Poland are on steriods compared to OTL then Prussia is going to find it difficult to get started on the road to greatness.  No defeat for Sweden in the Great Northern War means it doesn't lose so much territory, including those of southern Pomerania to Prussia.  If you still get a Frederick the Great he might make substantial progress against someone but whether that's Austria, Sweden or Poland he will need allies so just about anything can happen.

So I have the broad strokes of the Spanish War of Succession worked out where Swedish and Polish-Lithuanian armies intervene in 1708 and later. I need to figure out, first, how long troop movements would take back in the early 1700s to figure out which conflicts they will participate in. While Swedish armies fighting with the British and Dutch in the Spanish Netherlands or getting ferried down to Portugal to help the attacks from there will certainly make a difference, It seems to me that Polish-Lithuanian armies helping the Austrians attack France across Savoy & Piedmont has the greatest potential for altered borders.

Also, there's Russia. I need to determine whether the squabbling of the boyars results in multiple states or just delays the Russian Empire by a generation or three, how many of the conquered khanates regain independence, if Korea, Japan or China make gains in the Far East, or other changes in Central Asia, etc…

  I would suspect that Charles would rather fight in the Low countries and western Germany than have his forces as far away as Portugal.  Also Sweden has decent contacts in the region.  Could be complex with Charles and Churchill in the same theatre and not sure how well they would get on.  IIRC Churchill had a good relationship with Prince Eugene of Savoy, the chief Austrian leader but not sure how they would have got on with Charles.  Fear that the latter would expect, as a monarch and a apparently supremely successful general in his own right , that the others would accept his command but that could cause some serious political tensions.

  Not sure whether the Poles would be willing to serve that far from their homeland that soon after the change of monarch, especially since the new king would probably still be facing resistance to his reforms, especially the removal/reduction of the liberum veto.  However they could probably provide a small force and say other units to guard the Austrian borders against the Turks.  They might also be intervening in the chaos to their east.

  With Russia I suspect it would be a temporary division before some new ruler reunited much of the country.  [Although that and loss of lands and links to the west could well greatly weaken its links to the west and technological development.  Think there is too strong a Russian identity for it to be permanently lost, especially given the vulnerability of the resulting states.] 

  Not sure how much influence they had in central Asia while I suspect it would be too late for the former Tartars of say Kazan or Siberia to regain any real independence.  It could well delay their expansion into the Caucasus region as well as enable the Crimean Tartars to stay independent longer.

  In the Far East I think the Chinese had already pushed back the Russians some way, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nerchinsk, They may want to go further but I don't think there would be a massive interest unless the collapse of Russian power meant that there was a clear vacuum and the Manchus were drawn in to maintain peace and prevent fighting that could drift over into their own territories.  Or if say some Mongol group that were rivals of the Manchus looked likely to gain power in eastern Siberia.

  Given that Russia had already been pushed out of the Amur valley I suspect Korean wouldn't get a look in as there's no real contact between the two nations.  Where you might see changes however is in reduced Russian influence in Alaska.  Your unlikely to see Bering's expeditions to the region, which would reduce Russian knowledge of it while a collapse of central Russian power is likely to delay the spread of their influence into Alaska.  Unless possibly some merchant/trader groups operate far more without imperial control but how much independence they might have, or success in their operation I don't know.

  I would have thought the opposite, that the threat of the Khanates would make continued support from western/European Russia much more important so they would seek any link to any fragment willing to support them to maintain their position.  Which could be practical as I think the fur trade from the east was pretty lucrative.


  I doubt the Qing/Manchu [I'm old enough to be more familiar with the latter name ] would want to expand much further than they did in 1689.  Sorry if I gave the impression otherwise.  Unless as I say chaos in the region or the possible emergency of some Mongol type group there could pose a potential threat, which might draw them in.  Their more interesting in defending their ancestral heartland, which they achieved in 1689 and expanding in the richer southern lands.




  That is probably the big question and not sure what numbers were involved.  As I say I think the big drive, other than occasional central support like Bering's exploration, which is unlikely to occur TTL, was the wealth of the fur trade and possibly some other luxuary items.  This is still likely to attract some adventurers and the fact there are less of them would make any successful mission even more profitable for the survivors but how much of a permanent presence they would be until a stable Russian state re-emerged I don't know.  It gives time for other groups to strength their influence in the area, plus even after a Russian monarchy emerges it could be more concerned with seeking to regain land [and related sea links] in the west than in the eastern wilderness.

Charles In Charge
The Northern Theatre

In early March, 1700, Frederick IV, King of Denmark, Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Tsar Peter of Russia decide that it was time to carry out their secret treaty to partition the Swedish empire amongst themselves. Because Sweden's king, Charles XII, was only 17 they expect no major problems to stand in their way.


Denmark lays siege to Tönning in Holstein-Gottorp, and ally of the Swedes while simultaneously a Saxon army marches through Poland and lays siege to Riga in Swedish Livonia. To the surprise of Frederick IV, Charles XII deploys his army directly to Copenhagen and with the help of the British and Dutch fleets bombards the city for 6 days in late July. This surprise attack pushes the Danes out of the anti-Sweden entente with Saxony and Russia as they are made to repudiate the agreement in a treaty signed at Traventhal.


Charles XII then rushes an army to the other side of the Baltic Sea to deal with Augustus II, but by the time he has sufficient forces in the area the Saxe-Polish army has gone to winter quarters south of the Düna river and the Russian Army, about to lay siege to the city of Narva farther east, is the more immediate threat. As a blizzard envelopes the area, Charles XII executes a daring pincer attack on the Russian army which outnumbers his own by four to one. The poorly trained Russian recruits are demoralised by the attack and the chaotic stampede in retreat results in more losses for the Russian army than actual combat. The Swedish troops capture all of the enemy cannons as well as the bulk of their supplies leaving the remaining Russian army virtually defenseless without equipment.


Charles XII learns that Tsar Peter had only left the siege a day or two previously to head back to Moscow, and he now faces a choice. Does he forgo the retreating Russians in order to deal with Saxe-Polish threat to Riga? Or, as his generals advocate, does he push after Peter in order to remove him as a threat entirely?


Charles XII, never one to give up easily, chooses to take his general’s advice and follows Peter’s severely weakened army into Russia. Swedish troops catch up with the Russians and Peter twelve days later at Veliky Novgorod. The battle does not go well for Peter and he is killed trying to escape to Tver. The court of the Russian nobility, known as the Duma of the Boyars, hastily sets up a regency for the 10 year old Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich. The regency is forced, under threat of an invasion of Moscow, to turn over the Principality of Pskov to Sweden, pay an indemnity for attacking Narva, and to repudiate any alliance with Saxony and withdraw Russian forces from the siege of Riga where Peter had been helping Augustus II of Saxony.


With the Russian threat neutralised, Charles turns his attention to Saxony and lifts the Siege of Riga in July 1701 with a brilliantly executed attack on Saxon forces across the Duna River. Augustus II had been prosecuting the war against Sweden from his position as Elector of Saxony and Poland-Lithuania was formally neutral, but Charles XII decided to pursue his opponent into Poland just as he had given chase to Peter the Great into Russia. After numerous successful battles over the next few years against the Saxons, Charles XII is able to force the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm to remove Augustus II as King and Grand Duke and install his puppet, Stanisław Leszczyński, in October of 1704.


The crowning of Stanisław I leads to civil war in Poland-Lithuiania with the nobility dividing into the Sandomierz Confederation supporting Augustus II and the Warsaw Confederacy supporting Swedish-backed Stanisław I. The decisive victory of Charles XII and Stanisław I over Augustus II comes at the Battle of Fraustadt in February of 1706. When the Treaty of Altranstädt is signed that October, Augustus II gives up all claim to the Polish-Lithuanian crown, repudiates his alliance the Sandomierz Confederation, and formally recognises Stanisław I as King and Grand Duke.


The same month that treaty is signed, however, Russian Boyars from Veliky Novgorod attack Swedish Pskov and eastern Poland-Lithuania with help from the remnants of the Sandomierz Confederation and Cossacks from the south. The Tsarevich Alexei was now 16 and the infighting amongst the Russian Boyars that had commenced with his father’s death was now taking a violent turn. The Novgorod Boyars were attempting to increase the power of their faction in the Russian Duma.


The Novgorodians are repelled from the city of Pskov by Swedish forces from Narva and Riga, and when Charles XII arrives from Altranstädt in November he pursues them to Smolensk where he meets Polish forces under Stanisław I who are chasing the Sandomierz rebels. Before the combined Polish and Swedish forces manage to sync up and envelope Smolensk, the army of the Novgorodian Boyars makes a break for Veliky Novgorod. Charles XII pursues them, leaving Stanisław I to take care of the Polish rebels. When Veliky Novgorod falls to a Swedish siege and the Boyar leaders escape under the cover of winter yet again, Charles XII returns to Smolensk to help Stanisław I end the siege there, after which both armies push on to Tver which is easily captured. However, because Moscow is better defended, Charles XII decides to wait out the winter putting an end to the final Sandomierz militia remnants once and for all.


In March of 1707, before the Boyars can fully resupply their armies but after three months of steady deliveries from Warsaw and Stockholm, Charles XII’s fully equipped army starts its march on Moscow. After a month long siege, Tsarevich Alexei, feeling that he has become merely a pawn in the machinations of the Boyars and attempts to flee with his retinue to Siberia in the middle of the night through the city sewers and escape via the Moskva river. During the siege, Ivan Mazepa, leader of the Cossack Hetmanate is convinced to abandon the Russian side and join the Poles and Swedes. Mazepa, who has long chafed against the Russian requirements that the Cossacks fight in Russian wars and for the defense of the tsars without any promises to help the Cossacks defend their own lands against the Poles and Tatars, is heartened by the promise autonomy and mutual defense pacts offered by Charles XII and Stanisław I. It is Cossack soldiers who discover the fleeing Tsarevich and bring him to the Swedish command site. Alexei Petrovich is sent to Riga and eventually Stockholm under arrest, and and five weeks later the Cossack forces assist in breaking the siege of Moscow and ravaging the city.


The Boyar Duma, already weakened after eight years of infighting since the death of peter the Great are out-classed, out-fought, and facing a rebellion of their own people from starvation. They are forced to sign a treaty nominally on behalf of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich’s regency wherein they are required to give up any claim to Cossack lands to the south, to nullify any treaties with those people, and to recognize the Cossack Hetmanate as a sovereign nation. The Russian Tsardom is also required cede the area around Veliky Novgorod, the title of the prince of Novgorod, and the territories of Russian Karelia and the Kola peninsula to Sweden, as well as return Smolensk and associated territories taken from Poland Lithuania by the Treaty of Andrusovno. As part of the deal, Sweden also cedes to Poland-Lithuania parts of southern Pskov that had also been part of the Andrusovno agreement.


With victory assured, Charles XII returns through Riga to Stockholm after eight years away. When news reaches Stockholm early the next year of the full extent civil war that had erupted in Russia after the retreat of the occupying forces, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich feels vindicated in his fear that he would not have survived very long in Moscow if the wrong faction had gained the upper hand. Even though he is no longer under house arrest, the Tsarevich petitions Charles XII to be allowed stay in Stockholm and is granted a pension by the monarch.