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Then Peter would have been forced back upon his last intrenchments, at Moscow or elsewhere, while General Luebecker, who was in Finland with fourteen thousand men, fell on Ingria and on St. Petersburg, and Leszcynski's Polish partisans, with General Krassow's Swedes, held Poland. It was a mighty plan, indeed, but at the very outset it was sharply checked.
He drew plans of fortresses, projected military reforms, and inspired his soldiers with his own enthusiasm. And his energy and perseverance were soon rewarded. He captured Marianburgh, a strong city on the confines of Livonia and Ingria, and among the captives was a young peasant girl, who eventually became the Empress Catharine, and to whose counsels Peter was much indebted for his great success.
The truth is, that during the whole year 1756 there was not one fine day in Russia, or in Ingria at all events, and the mere proofs of this statement may be found in the fact that the tournament was not held in that year.
The town fell on August 20, 1704; when Peter, by his personal exertions, checked the violence of his soldiery. Menzikoff, a man of humble origin, was now made governor of Ingria. In June 1705, a formidable attempt of the Swedes to destroy the rapidly rising Petersburg and Cronstadt was completely repulsed.
This once granted, and the principle of the translation of the capital to the western extremity of the Czar's newly acquired possessions admitted, the advantages offered by Ingria would appear to me to outweigh all the drawbacks previously referred to.
Patgul hastened from Poland to Moscow, and urged Peter to unite with Augustus, in a war against Sweden, assuring him that thus he could easily regain the provinces of Ingria and Carelia, which Sweden had wrested from his ancestors. Denmark also, under its new sovereign, Frederic IV., was induced to enter into the alliance with Russia and Poland against Sweden.
Sweden, when he came to the throne, had risen to a high rank among the powers of Europe. In addition to its original dominion, it possessed the whole of Finland, the finest part of Pomerania, on the southern shores of the Baltic, and also Livonia, Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Viborg, the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, and other realms, all of long possession and secured by conquest and treaty.
His mind, indeed, was absorbed elsewhere. His old fancies and whims were strong upon him, and he left Apraxin to rage on the banks of the Neva, in Ingria, on the very spot where his future capital was to stand, while he himself gave all his time and strength to the building of a few wretched ships at Archangel.
In 1701-2, great part of Livonia and Ingria were subdued, including the banks of the Neva, where on May 27, 1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded.
Soon all Ingria was added to the empire of the czar, the government of which was intrusted to Menzikoff, a man of extraordinary abilities raised from obscurity, as a seller of pies in the streets of Moscow to be a prince of the empire. His elevation was a great mortification to the old and proud nobility.
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