. A history of mediaeval and modern Europe for secondary schools. troduce Western arts and habits into all phases of Russianlife. Early in his reign he visited Holland and England. InHolland the tale runs that he worked for a brief time as acommon shipwright in a shipyard, so determined was he togive Russia a navy. From England he took away nearly fivehundred engineers, ship-carpenters, skilled artisans, artillery-men, and surgeons, to execute his great building projects andto teach his people. He set up printing-presses, caused trans-lations of foreign books to be made, and took measures fort
. A history of mediaeval and modern Europe for secondary schools. troduce Western arts and habits into all phases of Russianlife. Early in his reign he visited Holland and England. InHolland the tale runs that he worked for a brief time as acommon shipwright in a shipyard, so determined was he togive Russia a navy. From England he took away nearly fivehundred engineers, ship-carpenters, skilled artisans, artillery-men, and surgeons, to execute his great building projects andto teach his people. He set up printing-presses, caused trans-lations of foreign books to be made, and took measures forthe education of at least the upper classes among his hith-erto almost illiterate countrymen. These works of peace hesupplemented by warfare, in which, though by no meansalways victorious, he won for Russia the status of a greatpower. 193. Peter the Great and Charles XII of Sweden. Swedenwas still (thanks to her victories in the Thirty Years War)counted a great military power. She had a brilliant andaggressive king, Charles XII, considered to be one of the first. PETER THE GREAT Czar of Russia (1689-1725)Born 1672 Died 1725 THE GROWTH OF RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA 339 captains of his The possession of the Swedish lands alongthe Baltic was absolutely essential to Peter if Russia was notto be hemmed in forever from the sea — and the sea meant forher commerce, new ideas, national life. In his first battlesPeter learned his shortcomings as a general and the weaknessof his ill-disciplined Cossacks before the veteran Swedes. AtNarva (1700), Charles won a brilliant victory, but he madeill use of it. Peter reorganized his army, and seized some sea-coast at the mouth of the river Neva. Here, in 1703, the czarfounded a new capital city, St. Petersburg,2 to be the home ofhis reorganized government. When Charles invaded Russiaa second time, he was utterly defeated at Poltava (1709). Themilitary prestige of Sweden was blasted, and Russia was recog-nized as a mighty power. When peace was at l
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