Great Northern War - Peace

Peace

By the time of Charles XII's death, the anti-Swedish allies became increasingly divided on how to fill the power gap left behind by the defeated and retreating Swedish armies. George I and Frederik IV both coveted hegemony in northern Germany, while August the Strong was concerned about Frederick William I's ambitions on the southeastern Baltic coast. Peter the Great, whose forces were spread all around the Baltic Sea, envisioned hegemony in East Central Europe and sought to establish naval bases as far west as Mecklenburg. In January 1719, George I, August II and emperor Charles VI concluded a treaty in Vienna aimed at the reduction of Russia's frontiers to the pre-war limits.

Hanover-Great Britain and Brandenburg-Prussia thereupon negotiated separate peace treaties with Sweden, the treaties of Stockholm in 1719 and early 1720, which partitioned Sweden's northern German dominions among the parties. The negotiations were mediated by French diplomats, who sought to prevent a complete collapse of Sweden's position on the southern Baltic coast and achieved that Sweden was to retain Wismar and northern Swedish Pomerania. Hanover gained Swedish Bremen-Verden, Brandenburg-Prussia incorporated southern Swedish Pomerania.

In addition to the rivalries in the anti-Swedish coalition, there was an inner-Swedish rivalry between Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Frederick I of Hesse-Cassel for the Swedish throne. The Gottorp party succumbed and Ulrike Eleonora, wife of Frederick I, transferred power to her husband in May 1720. When peace was concluded with Denmark, the anti-Swedish coalition had already fallen apart, and Denmark was not in a military position to negotiate a return of her former eastern provinces across the sound. Frederick I was however willing to cede the Swedish support for his rival in Holstein-Gottorp, which came under Danish control and the northern part annexed, and furthermore cede the Swedish privilege of exemption from the Sound Dues. A respective treaty was concluded in Frederiksborg in June 1720.

When Sweden finally was at peace with Hanover, Great Britain, Brandenburg-Prussia and Denmark–Norway, she hoped that the anti-Russian sentiments of the Vienna parties and France would culminate in an alliance which would restore to her her Russian-occupied eastern provinces. Yet, primarily due to internal conflicts in Great Britain and France, that did not happen. Therefore, the war was finally concluded by the Treaty of Nystad between Russia and Sweden in Uusikaupunki (Nystad) on 30 August 1721 (OS). Finland was returned to Sweden, while Swedish Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, Kexholm and the bulk of Karelia were ceded to Russia. Sweden's dissatisfaction with the result led to fruitless attempts at recovering the lost territories in the course of the following century, such as the Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743), and the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790).

Saxe-Poland-Lithuania and Sweden did not conclude a formal peace treaty, instead, they renewed the Peace of Oliva that had ended the Second Northern War in 1660.

Sweden had lost almost all of its "overseas" holdings gained in the 17th century, and ceased to be a major power. Russia gained its Baltic territories, and became the greatest power in Eastern Europe.