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aroused bitter internal conflicts, not least in Sweden'sBaltic provinces where the interests of the German baronshad been attacked by the Vasa land policy. Her new kingwas only a stripling of eighteen. But he was Charles XII;and where he led in person the Swedes were the Swedesof old.No great war seemed so nearly won after its first year.Copenhagen had been captured and the Danes perforcehad sued for peace. The Saxons had been drivenreeling back from Riga; the Russians ignominiouslyoverwhelmed at Narva. A meteor had blazed forth, themost magnetic captain of his age, even of the age ofMarlborough and Eugene.Years later Peter frankly acknowledged his blindnessand miscalculations. But he first showed his true metalwhen he refused to be deterred by the disaster of Narva.Charles met his match in Peter; for he combined equaltenacity with more many-sided and even more tempestuousenergy, and in the end he learnt how to organizethe greatly superior resources of Russia.While Charles was deeply engaged against Augustus IIin Poland and Saxony, Peter, doing what he could tomaintain the resistance of Augustus, concentrated onbuilding up new armies on the Western model. Withthese he won back Ingria and avenged Narva by capturingit (1704); and he set about the creation of a Baltic fleetat his newly founded St Petersburg (1703). He washard pressed at home: there was a revolt in Astrakhan(1705-6), Bulavin's rebellion on the Don (1707-8), along sputtering civil war with the Bashkirs (1705-11).But by the time Charles was able to turn east once again(1708) the worst of Peter's difficulties were surmounted.He skilfully prevented intervention by the Crimean Tatarsand the Turks on the side of Charles, who was also unableto draw any military assistance from the Poles. Peter'sarmies were by now large and well-equipped. They hadtheir reward in the crowning victory of Poltava (1709).The Poltava campaign was not, as has often been representedby critics of Charles XII, the reckless fling of animpolitic gambler. Mazepa, the Ukrainian hetman of LittleRussia (see pp. 228-229), was in league with Charles and,263