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Baltic provinces was by then so acute that Ivan hadgood hopes of forestalling their acquisition by Poland,Sweden, or Denmark. The outcome was twenty-fiveyears of tangled warfare and diplomacy, which ended inthe disastrous failure of Ivan. In part alliance with theDanes, he had had to contend ultimately with the Swedesas well as with the Poles, in combination with theCrimean Tatars. He could not maintain his earlysuccesses at Polotsk and in Livonia or at Narva and inEstonia, where Revel (Tallinn) gave itself over to Swedenand proved impregnable. In the end Ivan was compelledto acknowledge Poland as master of Livonia,Sweden of Estonia. He had gained nothing and wasforced back to where he had started from, the narrowIngrian outlet.Even that was lost as a result of the Time of Troubles(1604-13), when internal disintegration opened the wayto the competition of Sweden and Poland for the spoils andthe very throne of Muscovy (cf. pp. 82-83 and 205-206).All the north-west, including Novgorod and Pskov, fellfor a time into Swedish hands. In the end the patriotrallying round the first Romanov tsar, Michael, rescuedMuscovy from both Poles and Swedes, but peace withthe latter was not obtained until 1617. ThoughNovgorod and Pskov were regained, Ingria had to beceded. Muscovy was deprived of even a foothold on theBaltic.After the Time of Troubles it was forty years beforeMuscovy could move westward again with success, andwhen she did so she moved first against Poland (1654).By then the situation in the Baltic had been radicallyaltered by the ascendancy of Sweden, thanks to GustavusAdolphus, and the rise of Prussia, thanks to the GreatElector. Livonia was in Swedish hands; the Treaty ofWestphalia (1648) had recognized the dominating positionof Sweden in northern Germany; and she was about todislodge Denmark completely from the eastern side ofthe Sound (1658).In the resultant 'period of deluge' for Poland(1654-67)—a deluge not only of Muscovites andUkrainian Cossacks, but of Brandenburgers and above261