Russia at that time asked only a port on the Gulf of Finland as the
price of an alliance against Poland.
[Sidenote: Battle of Poltava (1709): Defeat of Charles XII]
To all entreaties for peace, Charles XII turned a deaf ear, and pressed
the war in Russia. Unable to take Moscow, he turned southward in order
to effect a juncture with some rebellious Cossacks, but met the army of
Peter the Great at Poltava (1709). Poltava marks the decisive triumph
of Russia over Sweden. The Swedish army was destroyed, only a small
number being able to accompany the flight of their king across the
southern Russian frontier into Turkish territory.
Then Charles stirred up the Turks to attack the tsar, but from the new
contest he was himself unable to profit. Peter bought peace with the
Ottoman government by re-ceding the town of Azov, and the latter
gradually tired of their guest's continual and frantic clamor for war.
After a sojourn of over five years in Ottoman lands, Charles suddenly
and unexpectedly appeared, with but a single attendant, at Stralsund,
which by that time was all that remained to him outside of Sweden and
Finland.
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