Peter ‘the Great’, Tsar (1682) and Emperor (1721) of Russia (1672-1725) Statesman, military leader, and diplomat, founder of Russian power and influence in Europe, of the regular Russian army and fleet, and of a national arms industry. Born Peter Alekseyevich Romanov, the son of Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich by his second wife, Peter was in constant danger from his half-sister Sofia and in 1682 he and his mother retreated to the village of Preobrazhenskoy near Moscow. Young Peter was fascinated by militaria and was soon drilling his own poteshnye—‘play soldiers’—recruited from his friends and experimenting with an old sailing boat, the origin of the Russian navy. In 1687 the poteshnye were reinforced by drafting men from the old streltsy regiments of Moscow and formed into two new, western-style regiments of the Imperial Guard, the Preobrazhenskiy and Semenovskiy.

In 1695 and 1696 Peter and his evolving army made two expeditions to the Turkish-held stronghold of Azov, in the south, the second of which was successful, establishing Russian power on the Sea of Azov. From March 1697 to July 1698 Peter made his famous incognito trip to the west, visiting Sweden, Prussia, Holland, and England and building up a vast store of naval, military, and scientific knowledge for his later reforms. His trip was curtailed by news of the final streltsy revolt. Peter then completed the transformation to a modern regular army on the western model, which had begun under his father, Tsar Aleksey. His strategic focus also shifted west, towards Europe and access to it via the Baltic, with the Great Northern war. Peter's new army saw its first action against the Swedes at Narva in 1700, but clearly had much to learn. They surrounded the Swedish fortress with about 34, 000 troops but the Swedish relief force, emerging from the woods, only 11, 000 strong, tore into them, killing up to 8, 000 and capturing all their artillery. Although Narva was a disaster, Peter continued his strategy of dominating the Gulf of Finland and securing access to the sea. By 1703 the Russians had the eastern end of the Gulf, and on 16 May the foundation stone of the Petropavlovsk—Peter and Paul—fortress was laid on the estuary of the river Neva. The growing settlement around was called Sankt Peter Burk, in Dutch: St Petersburg.

At Poltava on 27 June 1709, the first battle where Peter took personal command, the new Russian army scored its first victory over a western army, and one of Russia's greatest military triumphs. The Swedes, led by Charles XII, by now outnumbered nearly two to one and short of ammunition, nevertheless attacked a strongly defended Russian camp, and lost about half their strength killed and wounded. Historically, the Russians had been considered cowardly, lazy, and better at siege warfare than in the open field. This battle announced a new style.

In the ensuing years, Russia grew stronger, and foreign observers, including the Hanoverians and the English, newly joined, expressed anxiety about the growth of Russian power. Towards the end of his reign, Peter again turned south, seizing Derbent in 1722 and Baku and Reshut in 1723, gains recognized by the Persians and the Turks. The creation of three new fleets reflected the strategic direction of Peter's campaigns: the Baltic, the Azov, and the Caspian. The Baltic was the biggest and, by the end of the Great Northern war, had 124 Russian-built craft and 55 taken from the Swedes, including twenty sail of the line. Because the waters of the Baltic and the Sea of Azov were often shallow, galleys proved especially useful and Peter had 416 by the end of the Northern war. Although Peter drew much from foreign advisers, especially Scotsmen like Patrick Gordon, James Bruce, and G. B. Ogilvy, and the Swiss Franz Lefort, he also thought profoundly and wrote at length about the art of war. The Code of 1716 and Rules of Combat (1708) were his own work and drew heavily on his own experience. By the end of his reign Russia, according to a French diplomat writing to Louis XIV in 1723, ‘whose very name was scarcely known, has now become the object of attention of the greater powers of Europe, who solicit its friendship’.

Bibliography

• Duffy, Christopher, Russia's Military Way to the West (London, 1981)

— Christopher Bellamy

The Oxford Companion to Military History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.