The longest war in human history: history, interesting facts. Caucasian War: the longest in Russian history

The history of mankind is the history of wars. Endless conflicts constantly redrew the map, destroyed nations and gave birth to great empires. There were also wars that lasted more than a century, that is, there were generations of people who in their lifetime saw nothing but war.

1. War without shots (335 years)


This unusual war between the Scilly Archipelago and the Netherlands is not like any other war, and is generally a mere formality. For 335 years, the rivals have never fired at each other, but it didn’t all start out so rosy.
This was during the second English Civil War, when Oliver Cromwell was pushing back the supporters of the English king. The fleeing royalists boarded ships and headed to the Isles of Scilly, which were owned by one of the king's followers. All this time, the Netherlands vigilantly monitored the development of the internal English conflict, and when Parliament began to win, they decided to support it, sending their ships against the weakened royalist fleet in the hope of an easy victory. But it was not for nothing that the British were considered the best naval commanders in the world; they were able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Dutch. A few days later, the main forces of the Dutch fleet arrived at the islands, demanding compensation from the British for the cost of sunken ships and property. They were refused, after which at the end of March 1651 the Dutch declared war on the Isles of Scilly, with which they sailed home. After 3 months, Cromwell persuaded the king’s supporters to surrender, but the Netherlands could not conclude a peace treaty, since it was unclear with whom it should have been concluded, since the Isles of Scilly had already also fallen under the control of the English parliament, with which Holland did not seem to be at war.
The end of the war was put in 1985 by the chairman of the council, Scilly R. Duncan, who discovered in the archives that the territory he controlled formally continued to be at war with the Netherlands. On April 17 of the following year, the Dutch ambassador was not too lazy to sail to the island, who signed the belated peace agreement.

2. Punic Wars (118 years)


At the beginning of the formation of the Roman Republic, the Romans were able to subjugate most of the Apennine Peninsula. But the rich island of Sicily still remained unconquered. Carthage, a powerful trading power in North Africa, also achieved the same goal. The Romans called the inhabitants of Carthage Punes. Having landed simultaneously in Sicily, the two armies inevitably began to fight. There were three Punic Wars, which intermittently lasted for 118 years with long periods of low-intensity conflict. At the end of the Punic Wars, Carthage was completely destroyed. It is believed that this conflict claimed up to a million lives, which was an incredibly high number at that time.

3. Hundred Years' War (116 years)


It was a war that broke out between medieval France and England and lasted for more than a century. Throughout the war, the parties involved had to take time out during the plague epidemic. This was a time when both countries were the strongest powers in Europe with powerful armies and allies. The war was started by England, whose king intended to return the ancestral lands in Normandy, Anjou and the Isle of Man. The French wanted to expel the British from Aquitaine and unite all the lands under the French crown. While the British used mercenary soldiers, the French used militia.
During the Hundred Years' War, the star of Joan of Arc shone, who brought many victories to France, but was treacherously executed. After the loss of their leader, the militia switched to guerrilla warfare methods. Eventually, England ran out of resources and admitted defeat, losing almost all of its possessions on the continent.


Each culture has its own way of life, traditions and delicacies, in particular. What seems ordinary to some people is perceived as...

4. Greco-Persian War (50 years)


The war between the Hellenes and the Iranians lasted from 499 to 449 BC. e. At the beginning of the conflict, Persia was a warlike and powerful power. And Hellas as a single state did not even exist yet; instead, there were disunited city-states (policies). It seemed that they had no chance to resist the mighty Persia. But this did not stop the Greeks from starting to destroy the Persian armies. In the process, the Hellenes were able to agree to act together. After the end of the conflict, Persia recognized the independence of the policies and abandoned previously seized lands. For Hellas, prosperity came. Since then, it has become the basis of the culture on the basis of which modern European civilization emerged.

5. Guatemalan War (36 years)


This war began in 1960 and ended in 1996. It was civil in nature. On the one hand, Indian tribes (especially the Mayans) participated in it, and on the other, the descendants of the Spaniards. In the 50s of the last century, a coup d'état took place in Guatemala with the complicity of the United States. The opposition began to gather a rebel army, which was constantly growing. Partisans often captured not only villages, but also large cities, creating their own governing bodies there. Neither side had enough strength to win, and the war dragged on. The authorities had to admit that military measures would not be able to resolve the conflict.
The war ended in peace, in which 23 different groups of indigenous people - Indians - were protected. During the conflict, about 200,000 people, mostly Mayans, died, and about 150,000 are still missing.

6. War of the Scarlet and White Roses (33 years)


In the second half of the 15th century, a war with a poetic name raged in England - the War of the Scarlet and White Roses. In fact, it was a string of civil conflicts that stretched over 33 years. The highest aristocrats, representing two branches - York and Lancaster, fought for power. After many bloody skirmishes, the Lancastrians eventually gained the upper hand. However, these seas of shed blood were in vain - after some time the Tudors ascended to the English throne, ruling the country for almost 120 years.


Large ships cannot always pass through traditional canals and locks. For example, in mountainous areas there can be a very large drop, where it’s just...

7. Thirty Years' War (30 years)


This is a prototype of the World War (1618-1648), in which almost all European countries took part, and the cause was the Reformation that began in Europe - the division of Catholics and Protestants. The war began with a conflict between German Lutherans and Catholics, and then all powers gradually became involved in this local dispute.
Russia also took part in the Thirty Years' War, only the Swiss remained neutral. The war was unusually bloody; for example, it reduced the population of Germany several times. In the end, it ended with the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia. In Europe, this war destroyed so much everything and everywhere that there was simply no winner.

8. Peloponnesian War (27 years)


The ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta took part in the Peloponnesian War. The start of the conflict was not accidental. If Athens was a democracy, then Sparta was an aristocracy. Between these policies there was not only cultural confrontation, but also other feuds. In the end, these two strongest cities of Hellas had to find out which of them was more important. If the Athenians raided the Peloponnese peninsula by sea, the Spartans terrorized the territory of Attica. After some time, peace was concluded between them, which was soon broken by the Athenians.
After this, the war between Sparta and Athens resumed. The Spartans had the advantage, and Athens suffered a painful defeat at Syracuse. Taking advantage of the assistance of Persia, the Spartans built their own navy, with the help of which they inflicted a final defeat on their rivals at Aegospotami. As a result of the war, Athens lost all its colonies, and the Athenian polis itself was forcibly included in the Spartan Union.

9. Northern War (21 years old)


The Northern War became the longest in Russian history. In 1700, young Peter's Russia clashed with Sweden, which was very powerful at that time. At first, Peter I received slaps in the face from the Swedish king, but they served as an incentive to begin significant reforms in the country. Therefore, by 1703, the Russian army managed to win several victories until it established control over the entire Neva. There, the first emperor of Russia decided to build a new capital of the empire, St. Petersburg, because he could not stand Moscow. A little later, the Russians captured Narva and Dorpat. The Swedish king was eager to take revenge, so his troops again attacked Russia in 1708. This was a fatal decision for Sweden, whose star then began to decline.
First, Peter defeated the Swedes near Forest, and then near Poltava, where the decisive battle took place. After the defeat at Poltava, Charles XII forgot not only about local revenge on the Russian Tsar, but also about plans to create a “great Sweden”. The new king of Sweden, Fredrick I, asked Russia for peace, which was concluded in 1721 and was disastrous for Sweden, which ceased to be a great European power and lost most of its conquered possessions.

10. Vietnam War (18 years old)


The United States fought tiny Vietnam from 1957 to 1975, but was never able to defeat it. If for America this war is the greatest shame, then for Vietnam it is a tragic, but also heroic time. The reason for the intervention was the rise of the Communists to power in China and North Vietnam. The American authorities did not want to get a new communist country, so they decided to get involved in an open armed conflict on the side of the forces ruling in South Vietnam. The technical superiority of the American army was overwhelming, but it was offset by guerrilla warfare methods and the high morale of the Vietnamese soldiers. As a result, the Americans had to get out of Vietnam.

Various wars occupy a huge place in the history of mankind.
They redrew maps, gave birth to empires, and destroyed peoples and nations. The earth remembers wars that lasted more than a century. We remember the most protracted military conflicts in human history.


1. War without shots (335 years)

The longest and most curious of the wars is the war between the Netherlands and the Scilly Archipelago, part of Great Britain.

Due to the absence of a peace treaty, it formally lasted 335 years without firing a single shot, which makes it one of the longest and most curious wars in history, and also the war with the least losses.

Peace was officially declared in 1986.

2. Punic War (118 years)

By the middle of the 3rd century BC. The Romans almost completely subjugated Italy, set their sights on the entire Mediterranean and wanted Sicily first. But the mighty Carthage also laid claim to this rich island.

Their claims unleashed 3 wars that lasted (with interruptions) from 264 to 146. BC. and received their name from the Latin name of the Phoenicians-Carthaginians (Punians).

The first (264-241) is 23 years old (it started because of Sicily).
The second (218-201) - 17 years (after the capture of the Spanish city of Sagunta by Hannibal).
The last one (149-146) - 3 years.
It was then that the famous phrase “Carthage must be destroyed!” was born. Pure military action took 43 years. The conflict totals 118 years.

Results: Besieged Carthage fell. Rome won.

3. Hundred Years' War (116 years)

It went in 4 stages. With pauses for truces (the longest - 10 years) and the fight against plague (1348) from 1337 to 1453.

Opponents: England and France.

Reasons: France wanted to oust England from the southwestern lands of Aquitaine and complete the unification of the country. England - to strengthen influence in the province of Guienne and regain those lost under John the Landless - Normandy, Maine, Anjou. Complication: Flanders - formally was under the auspices of the French crown, in fact it was free, but depended on English wool for clothmaking.

Reason: the claims of the English king Edward III of the Plantagenet-Angevin dynasty (maternal grandson of the French king Philip IV the Fair of the Capetian family) to the Gallic throne. Allies: England - German feudal lords and Flanders. France - Scotland and the Pope. Army: English - mercenary. Under the command of the king. The basis is infantry (archers) and knightly units. French - knightly militia, under the leadership of royal vassals.

Turning point: after the execution of Joan of Arc in 1431 and the Battle of Normandy, the national liberation war of the French people began with the tactics of guerrilla raids.

Results: On October 19, 1453, the English army capitulated in Bordeaux. Having lost everything on the continent except the port of Calais (remained English for another 100 years). France switched to a regular army, abandoned knightly cavalry, gave preference to infantry, and the first firearms appeared.

4. Greco-Persian War (50 years)

Collectively - wars. They dragged on with calm from 499 to 449. BC. They are divided into two (the first - 492-490, the second - 480-479) or three (the first - 492, the second - 490, the third - 480-479 (449). For the Greek city-states - battles for independence. For the Achaeminid Empire - aggressive.


Trigger: Ionian Revolt. The battle of the Spartans at Thermopylae has become legendary. The Battle of Salamis was a turning point. “Kalliev Mir” put an end to it.

Results: Persia lost the Aegean Sea, the coasts of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. Recognized the freedoms of the cities of Asia Minor. The civilization of the ancient Greeks entered a time of greatest prosperity, establishing a culture that, thousands of years later, the world looked up to.

4. Punic War. The battles lasted 43 years. They are divided into three stages of wars between Rome and Carthage. They fought for dominance in the Mediterranean. The Romans won the battle. Basetop.ru


5. Guatemalan War (36 years)

Civil. It occurred in outbreaks from 1960 to 1996. A provocative decision made by American President Eisenhower in 1954 initiated a coup.

Reason: the fight against the “communist infection”.

Opponents: Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity Bloc and the military junta.

Victims: almost 6 thousand murders were committed annually, in the 80s alone - 669 massacres, more than 200 thousand dead (83% of them Mayan Indians), over 150 thousand missing. Results: the signing of the “Treaty of Lasting and Lasting Peace,” which protected the rights of 23 Native American groups.

Results: the signing of the “Treaty of Lasting and Lasting Peace,” which protected the rights of 23 Native American groups.

6. War of the Roses (33 years)

Confrontation between the English nobility - supporters of two family branches of the Plantagenet dynasty - Lancaster and York. Lasted from 1455 to 1485.
Prerequisites: “bastard feudalism” is the privilege of the English nobility to buy off military service from the lord, in whose hands large funds were concentrated, with which he paid for an army of mercenaries, which became more powerful than the royal one.

Reason: the defeat of England in the Hundred Years' War, the impoverishment of the feudal lords, their rejection of the political course of the wife of the feeble-minded King Henry IV, hatred of her favorites.

Opposition: Duke Richard of York - considered the Lancastrian right to rule illegitimate, became regent under an incompetent monarch, became king in 1483, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth.

Results: It upset the balance of political forces in Europe. Led to the collapse of the Plantagenets. She placed the Welsh Tudors on the throne, who ruled England for 117 years. Cost the lives of hundreds of English aristocrats.

7. Thirty Years' War (30 years)

The first military conflict on a pan-European scale. Lasted from 1618 to 1648. Opponents: two coalitions. The first is the union of the Holy Roman Empire (in fact, the Austrian Empire) with Spain and the Catholic principalities of Germany. The second is the German states, where power was in the hands of Protestant princes. They were supported by the armies of reformist Sweden and Denmark and Catholic France.

Reason: The Catholic League was afraid of the spread of the ideas of the Reformation in Europe, the Protestant Evangelical Union strived for this.

Trigger: Czech Protestant uprising against Austrian rule.

Results: The population of Germany has decreased by a third. The French army lost 80 thousand. Austria and Spain - more than 120. After the Peace Treaty of Munster in 1648, a new independent state - the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (Holland) - was finally established on the map of Europe.

8. Peloponnesian War (27 years)

There are two of them. The first is the Lesser Peloponnesian (460-445 BC). The second (431-404 BC) is the largest in the history of Ancient Hellas after the first Persian invasion of the territory of Balkan Greece. (492-490 BC).

Opponents: Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and First Marine (Delian) under the auspices of Athens.

Reasons: The desire for hegemony in the Greek world of Athens and the rejection of their claims by Sparta and Corinthus.

Controversies: Athens was ruled by an oligarchy. Sparta is a military aristocracy. Ethnically, the Athenians were Ionians, the Spartans were Dorians. In the second, 2 periods are distinguished.

The first is "Archidam's War". The Spartans made land invasions of Attica. Athenians - sea raids on the Peloponnesian coast. Ended in 421 with the signing of the Treaty of Nikiaev. 6 years later it was violated by the Athenian side, which was defeated in the Battle of Syracuse. The final phase went down in history under the name Dekelei or Ionian. With the support of Persia, Sparta built a fleet and destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.

Results: After imprisonment in April 404 BC. Feramenov's world Athens lost its fleet, tore down the Long Walls, lost all its colonies and joined the Spartan Union.

9. Great Northern War (21 years)

The Northern War lasted for 21 years. It was between the northern states and Sweden (1700-1721), the confrontation between Peter I and Charles XII. Russia fought mostly on its own.

Reason: Possession of Baltic lands, control over the Baltic.

Results: With the end of the war, a new empire arose in Europe - the Russian one, with access to the Baltic Sea and possessing a powerful army and navy. The capital of the empire was St. Petersburg, located at the confluence of the Neva River and the Baltic Sea.

Sweden lost the war.

10. Vietnam War (18 years old)

The Second Indochina War between Vietnam and the United States and one of the most destructive of the second half of the 20th century. Lasted from 1957 to 1975. 3 periods: South Vietnamese guerrilla (1957-1964), from 1965 to 1973 - full-scale US military operations, 1973-1975. - after the withdrawal of American troops from Viet Cong territories. Opponents: South and North Vietnam. On the side of the South are the United States and the military bloc SEATO (South-East Asia Treaty Organization). Northern - China and the USSR.

The reason: when the communists came to power in China and Ho Chi Minh became the leader of South Vietnam, the White House administration was afraid of the communist “domino effect.” After Kennedy's assassination, Congress gave President Lyndon Johnson carte blanche to use military force with the Tonkin Resolution. And already in March 1965, two battalions of US Navy SEALs left for Vietnam. So the United States became part of the Vietnamese Civil War. They used a “search and destroy” strategy, burned out the jungle with napalm - the Vietnamese went underground and responded with guerrilla warfare.

Who benefits: American arms corporations. US losses: 58 thousand in combat (64% under 21 years of age) and about 150 thousand suicides of American military veterans.

Vietnamese casualties: over 1 million combatants and more than 2 civilians, in South Vietnam alone - 83 thousand amputees, 30 thousand blind, 10 thousand deaf, after Operation Ranch Hand (chemical destruction of the jungle) - congenital genetic mutations.

Results: The Tribunal of May 10, 1967 qualified US actions in Vietnam as a crime against humanity (Article 6 of the Nuremberg Statute) and prohibited the use of CBU thermite bombs as weapons of mass destruction.

(C) different places on the Internet

The Hundred Years' War is a long-running set of military conflicts between medieval England and France, the cause of which was England's desire to return a number of territories on the European continent that once belonged to English monarchs.

The English kings were also related to the French Capetian dynasty, which served to advance their claims to the French throne. Despite the successes in the initial stage of the war, England lost the war, capturing only one possession - the port of Calais, which the English crown was able to hold only until 1559.

How long did the Hundred Years' War last?

The Hundred Years' War lasted almost 116 years, from 1337. until 1453, and represented four large-scale conflicts.

  • The Edwardian War, which lasted from 1337 to 1360,
  • Carolingian War - 1369 - 1389,
  • Lancastrian War - 1415-1429,
  • The fourth final conflict - 1429-1453.
  • Main battles

The first stage of the Hundred Years' War consisted of the struggle between the conflicting parties for the right to own Flanders. After the victorious Slay naval battle for the English troops in 1340, the port of Calais was captured, which led to complete English supremacy at sea. Since 1347 until 1355 Fighting ceased due to the bubonic plague pandemic, which killed millions of Europeans.

After the first wave of the plague, England, unlike France, was able to restore its economy in a fairly short time, which contributed to it launching a new attack on the western possessions of France, Guienne and Gascony. In 1356 At the Battle of Poitiers, the French military forces were again defeated. The devastation after the plague and hostilities, as well as excessive taxation by England, caused the French uprising, which went down in history as the Paris Uprising.

Charles's reorganization of the French army, England's war on the Iberian Peninsula, the death of King Edward III of England and his son, who led the English army, allowed France to take revenge in the subsequent stages of the war. In 1388, the heir of King Edward III, Richard II, was embroiled in a military conflict with Scotland, as a result of which the English troops were completely defeated at the Battle of Otternbourne. Due to the lack of resources to conduct further military operations, both sides again agreed on a truce in 1396.

England's defeat after conquering a third of France

During the reign of the French king Charles VI, the English side, taking advantage of the dementia of the French monarch, in the shortest possible time was able to capture virtually a third of the territory of France and was able to achieve the actual unification of France and England under the English crown.

The turning point in military operations came in 1420, after the French army was led by the legendary Joan of Arc.

Under her leadership, the French were able to recapture Orleans from the British. Even after her execution in 1431, the French army, inspired by the victory, was able to successfully complete military operations, regaining all of its historical territories. The surrender of English troops at the Battle of Bordeaux in 1453 marked the end of the Hundred Years' War.

The Hundred Years' War is considered the longest in human history. As a result, the treasuries of the two states were emptied, internal strife and conflicts began: this is how the confrontation between the two dynasties of Lancaster and York began in England, which would eventually be called the War of the Red and White Roses.

Various wars occupy a huge place in the history of mankind.

They redrew maps, gave birth to empires, and destroyed peoples and nations. The earth remembers wars that lasted more than a century. We remember the most protracted military conflicts in human history.

1. War without shots (335 years)

The longest and most curious of the wars is the war between the Netherlands and the Scilly Archipelago, part of Great Britain.

Due to the absence of a peace treaty, it formally lasted 335 years without firing a single shot, which makes it one of the longest and most curious wars in history, and also the war with the least losses.

Peace was officially declared in 1986.

2. Punic War (118 years)

By the middle of the 3rd century BC. The Romans almost completely subjugated Italy, set their sights on the entire Mediterranean and wanted Sicily first. But the mighty Carthage also laid claim to this rich island.

Their claims unleashed 3 wars that lasted (with interruptions) from 264 to 146. BC. and received their name from the Latin name of the Phoenicians-Carthaginians (Punians).

The first (264-241) is 23 years old (it started because of Sicily).

The second (218-201) - 17 years (after the capture of the Spanish city of Sagunta by Hannibal).

The last one (149-146) - 3 years.

It was then that the famous phrase “Carthage must be destroyed!” was born. Pure military action took 43 years. The conflict totals 118 years.

Results: Besieged Carthage fell. Rome won.

3. Hundred Years' War (116 years)

It went in 4 stages. With pauses for truces (the longest - 10 years) and the fight against plague (1348) from 1337 to 1453.

Opponents: England and France.

Reasons: France wanted to oust England from the southwestern lands of Aquitaine and complete the unification of the country. England - to strengthen influence in the province of Guienne and regain those lost under John the Landless - Normandy, Maine, Anjou. Complication: Flanders - formally was under the auspices of the French crown, in fact it was free, but depended on English wool for cloth making.

Reason: the claims of the English king Edward III of the Plantagenet-Angevin dynasty (maternal grandson of the French king Philip IV the Fair of the Capetian family) to the Gallic throne. Allies: England - German feudal lords and Flanders. France - Scotland and the Pope. Army: English - mercenary. Under the command of the king. The basis is infantry (archers) and knightly units. French - knightly militia, under the leadership of royal vassals.

Turning point: after the execution of Joan of Arc in 1431 and the Battle of Normandy, the national liberation war of the French people began with the tactics of guerrilla raids.

Results: On October 19, 1453, the English army capitulated in Bordeaux. Having lost everything on the continent except the port of Calais (remained English for another 100 years). France switched to a regular army, abandoned knightly cavalry, gave preference to infantry, and the first firearms appeared.

4. Greco-Persian War (50 years)

In total - war. They dragged on with calm from 499 to 449. BC. They are divided into two (the first - 492-490, the second - 480-479) or three (the first - 492, the second - 490, the third - 480-479 (449). For the Greek city-states - battles for independence. For the Achaeminid Empire - aggressive.

Trigger: Ionian Revolt. The battle of the Spartans at Thermopylae has become legendary. The Battle of Salamis was a turning point. “Kalliev Mir” put an end to it.

Results: Persia lost the Aegean Sea, the coasts of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. Recognized the freedoms of the cities of Asia Minor. The civilization of the ancient Greeks entered a time of greatest prosperity, establishing a culture that, thousands of years later, the world looked up to.

4. Punic War. The battles lasted 43 years. They are divided into three stages of wars between Rome and Carthage. They fought for dominance in the Mediterranean. The Romans won the battle. Basetop.ru

5. Guatemalan War (36 years)

Civil. It occurred in outbreaks from 1960 to 1996. A provocative decision made by American President Eisenhower in 1954 initiated a coup.

Reason: the fight against the “communist infection”.

Opponents: Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity Bloc and the military junta.

Victims: almost 6 thousand murders were committed annually, in the 80s alone - 669 massacres, more than 200 thousand dead (83% of them Mayan Indians), over 150 thousand missing. Results: the signing of the “Treaty of Lasting and Lasting Peace,” which protected the rights of 23 Native American groups.

Results: the signing of the “Treaty of Lasting and Lasting Peace,” which protected the rights of 23 Native American groups.

6. War of the Roses (33 years)

Confrontation between the English nobility - supporters of two family branches of the Plantagenet dynasty - Lancaster and York. Lasted from 1455 to 1485.

Prerequisites: “bastard feudalism” is the privilege of the English nobility to buy off military service from the lord, in whose hands large sums of money were concentrated, with which he paid for an army of mercenaries, which became more powerful than the royal one.

Reason: the defeat of England in the Hundred Years' War, the impoverishment of the feudal lords, their rejection of the political course of the wife of the feeble-minded King Henry IV, hatred of her favorites.

Opposition: Duke Richard of York - considered the Lancastrian right to rule illegitimate, became regent under an incompetent monarch, became king in 1483, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth.

Results: It upset the balance of political forces in Europe. Led to the collapse of the Plantagenets. She placed the Welsh Tudors on the throne, who ruled England for 117 years. Cost the lives of hundreds of English aristocrats.

7. Thirty Years' War (30 years)

The first military conflict on a pan-European scale. Lasted from 1618 to 1648. Opponents: two coalitions. The first is the union of the Holy Roman Empire (in fact, the Austrian Empire) with Spain and the Catholic principalities of Germany. The second is the German states, where power was in the hands of Protestant princes. They were supported by the armies of reformist Sweden and Denmark and Catholic France.

Reason: The Catholic League was afraid of the spread of the ideas of the Reformation in Europe, the Protestant Evangelical Union strived for this.

Trigger: Czech Protestant uprising against Austrian rule.

Results: The population of Germany has decreased by a third. The French army lost 80 thousand. Austria and Spain lost more than 120 thousand. After the Peace Treaty of Munster in 1648, a new independent state - the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (Holland) - was finally established on the map of Europe.

8. Peloponnesian War (27 years)

There are two of them. The first is the Lesser Peloponnesian (460-445 BC). The second (431-404 BC) is the largest in the history of Ancient Hellas after the first Persian invasion of the territory of Balkan Greece. (492-490 BC).

Opponents: Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and First Marine (Delian) under the auspices of Athens.

Reasons: The desire for hegemony in the Greek world of Athens and the rejection of their claims by Sparta and Corinthus.

Controversies: Athens was ruled by an oligarchy. Sparta is a military aristocracy. Ethnically, the Athenians were Ionians, the Spartans were Dorians. In the second, 2 periods are distinguished.

The first is Archidamus' War. The Spartans made land invasions of Attica. Athenians - sea raids on the Peloponnesian coast. Ended in 421 with the signing of the Treaty of Nikiaev. 6 years later it was violated by the Athenian side, which was defeated in the Battle of Syracuse. The final phase went down in history under the name Dekelei or Ionian. With the support of Persia, Sparta built a fleet and destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.

Results: After imprisonment in April 404 BC. Feramenov's world Athens lost its fleet, tore down the Long Walls, lost all its colonies and joined the Spartan Union.

9. Great Northern War (21 years)

The Northern War lasted for 21 years. It was between the northern states and Sweden (1700-1721), the confrontation between Peter I and Charles XII. Russia fought mostly on its own.

Reason: Possession of Baltic lands, control over the Baltic.

Results: With the end of the war, a new empire arose in Europe - the Russian one, with access to the Baltic Sea and possessing a powerful army and navy. The capital of the empire was St. Petersburg, located at the confluence of the Neva River and the Baltic Sea.

Sweden lost the war.

10. Vietnam War (18 years old)

The Second Indochina War between Vietnam and the United States and one of the most destructive of the second half of the 20th century. Lasted from 1957 to 1975. 3 periods: South Vietnamese guerrilla (1957-1964), from 1965 to 1973 - full-scale US military operations, 1973-1975. - after the withdrawal of American troops from Viet Cong territories. Opponents: South and North Vietnam. On the side of the South are the United States and the military bloc SEATO (South-East Asia Treaty Organization). Northern - China and the USSR.

The reason: when the communists came to power in China and Ho Chi Minh became the leader of South Vietnam, the White House administration was afraid of the communist “domino effect.” After Kennedy's assassination, Congress gave President Lyndon Johnson carte blanche to use military force with the Tonkin Resolution. And already in March 1965, two battalions of US Navy SEALs left for Vietnam. So the United States became part of the Vietnamese Civil War. They used a “search and destroy” strategy, burned out the jungle with napalm - the Vietnamese went underground and responded with guerrilla warfare.

Who benefits: American arms corporations. US losses: 58 thousand in combat (64% under 21 years of age) and about 150 thousand suicides of American military veterans.

Vietnamese casualties: over 1 million combatants and more than 2 civilians, in South Vietnam alone - 83 thousand amputees, 30 thousand blind, 10 thousand deaf, after Operation Ranch Hand (chemical destruction of the jungle) - congenital genetic mutations.

Results: The Tribunal of May 10, 1967 qualified US actions in Vietnam as a crime against humanity (Article 6 of the Nuremberg Statute) and prohibited the use of CBU thermite bombs as weapons of mass destruction.

(C) different places on the Internet

*Extremist and terrorist organizations banned in the Russian Federation: Jehovah's Witnesses, National Bolshevik Party, Right Sector, Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Islamic State (IS, ISIS, Daesh), Jabhat Fatah al-Sham", "Jabhat al-Nusra", "Al-Qaeda", "UNA-UNSO", "Taliban", "Majlis of the Crimean Tatar People", "Misanthropic Division", "Brotherhood" of Korchinsky, "Trident named after. Stepan Bandera", "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists" (OUN)

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  • Vladimir Veretennikov

    How a Latvian partisan became an underground hero

    Photo from here February 18 marks the 75th anniversary of the day when Imants Sudmalis, a leader of the Latvian anti-Nazi underground, was captured by Gestapo agents in Riga in 1944. Sudmalis managed to become a real legend: his name struck fear into enemies and inspired friends. The life of the famous Latvian partisan could become a script for an adventure film. The Nazis completely conquered Latvia by 8...

    19.02.2019 18:50 12

  • Andrey Sidorchik

    Notebook from Moabit. The last feat of Musa Jalil

    Painting by Kharis Abdrakhmanovich Yakupov “Before the Sentence,” which depicts the poet Musa Jalil, executed by the Nazis in a Berlin prison in 1944. © / A. Agapov / RIA Novosti On February 15, 1906, the Soviet Tatar poet, Hero of the Soviet Union Musa Jalil was born. .. I would like to take a break from captivity, To be in a free draft... But the walls are freezing over the groans, The heavy door is locked. Oh heaven...

    17.02.2019 19:27 18

  • Alexey Volynets

    Ilyinka – the cradle of Russian capitalism

    RIA Novosti Since the times of early capitalism, the English term City has become a generally accepted and common noun for the “urban center of business life.” Hardly anyone in Russia today does not know about the skyscrapers of Moscow City, an area that the capital’s authorities define as a “business activity zone.” But in the past, our ancestors also used this term - from the middle of the 19th century, “Moscow City” traditionally referred to a small territory near the Kremlin, in Kitay-Gorod. There, first of all...

    17.02.2019 19:23 12

  • Burkina Faso

    Russia and the USSR have always had a special relationship with Afghanistan. Complex, but special. Suffice it to say that the USSR, trying to secure its southern underbelly, always tried to help and build good neighborly relations with these tribes, spreading there the reasonable, kind, eternal, including the great Russian culture and literature. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin served as one of the tools of the “insidious” Bolsheviks. Due to...

    16.02.2019 15:30 22

  • Burkina Faso

    Statistics before the revolution, in the USSR and now

    All critics of the Soviet system, being backed by facts, as a rule do not give up and resort to their last refuge, that all statistics in the USSR were falsified for the sake of propaganda. The argument is rather helpless, if only because in the USSR ordinary people were never interested in statistics and they were of a purely official, internal nature. We heard some numbers and calculations...

    10.02.2019 9:50 54

  • Elena Kovacic

    On the birthday of the Civil War hero Vasily Chapaev

    Only 32 years were allotted to him on earth. But posthumous fame surpassed all imaginable boundaries. He became a popular favorite, almost a folklore character - the hero of jokes about Vasily Ivanovich, Petka and Anka the machine gunner. See the gallery for the article “I told Vaska: study, fool, otherwise they will laugh at you! Well, I didn’t listen!” - I spoke about these jokes...

    9.02.2019 23:28 46

  • from blogs

    99 years ago. “Admiral? To the Angara!

    February 7 is the next anniversary of the execution of the “Supreme Ruler of Russia” Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. Below is the text of a memoir essay by the execution commander, chairman of the Irkutsk Extraordinary Investigative Commission that interrogated Kolchak, Samuil Chudnovsky. It was published in Pravda on January 16, 1935. Some phrases that were missing from the Pravda essay appeared in the book publication of the essay in 1961. They are lower...

    9.02.2019 23:11 52

  • Alexey Volynets

    Financial trap for the Ottoman Empire

    Grenville Collins Postcard Collection/Mary Evans/Vostock Photo In the 19th century, Turkey, or more precisely the Ottoman Empire, was still a huge power, stretching across three continents - from Libya to Iraq, from Serbia to Sudan. The Danube, Euphrates and Nile were then still formally considered “Ottoman” rivers. But in reality, the once mighty empire was mired in the backward Middle Ages. Its finances also remained medieval - before the Crimean War there were no banks at all in the country. In the market there were only money changers - “sarrafs”. However, due to...

    9.02.2019 16:32 21

  • Stanislav Smagin

    Street of Mentally Disabled People

    Chairman of the Bashkir Republican Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yunir Kutluguzhin spoke in favor of returning Zaki Validi Street, on which the committee is actually located, the name of Mikhail Frunze, which it previously bore. This is not the first time this question has been raised - and before, the Bashkir communists demanded that the previous name be restored. The initiative of the Bashkir communists can only be welcomed. Also because she...

    9.02.2019 15:34 33

  • arctus

    155 years since the inglorious Russo-Japanese War began

    As a result of the lost war, surprisingly, Russia also received one powerful advantage. It ceased to be bound by the Shimoda Treaty of 1855, according to which the Russian side ceded the Southern Kuril Islands in exchange for “permanent peace and sincere friendship between Russia and Japan,” as well as some trade advantages. It is unlikely, of course, Nicholas II and the then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Ingushetia...

    8.02.2019 16:07 28

  • Editorial office of "People's Journalist"

    “If there was a trough, there would be pigs”

    Today is the birthday of the giant of satire and the greatest clever man, Francois Rabelais (1494). “I fear nothing but danger”; “Together with the common property, the private property always perishes”; “There are no guts without shit”; “……the brain is the most perfect kind of food that nature gives us”; “Everything comes on time if people know how to wait”; “I don’t bother myself for hours - I’m not a person...

    4.02.2019 22:14 57

  • IA Krasnaya Vesna

    Immortal feat: Battle of Stalingrad

    Battle of Stalingrad Skopina Olga © IA Krasnaya Vesna On February 2, 1943, the Germans capitulated at Stalingrad. 76 years ago... We fell asleep thinking about you. We turned on the loudspeaker at dawn to hear about your fate. Our morning began with you. In the worries of the day, dozens of times in a row, clenching our teeth, holding our breath, we repeated: “Courage, Stalingrad!” Through our...

    3.02.2019 16:37 69

  • Alexey Volynets

    The last Russian-Turkish war began with a scandal at the top of the Russian Empire

    Minister of Finance Baron Mikhail Khristoforovich Reitern The History Collection/Alamy Stock Photo/Vostock Photo The Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 began almost with an open scandal at the top of the Russian Empire, which postponed it for six months. On September 14, 1876, the Minister of War sent an urgent telegram to the Minister of Finance “in order to prepare funds in case of mobilization of troops.” The head of the Ministry of Finance, Baron Reitern, defiantly retired to a country estate and ignored the telegram from the military. Just a challenge...

    3.02.2019 15:49 33

  • arctus

    Polish hero about the crimes of Ukrainian Nazis

    Jacek Wilczur. You can’t get to heaven right away: Lvov, 1941–1943. M.: Regnum Publishing House, 2013 Jacek Wilczur (1925−2018) is not very well known to the Russian reader. He was a historian and lawyer, the author of works on German studies. The most famous is his monograph “The Deadly Alliance of Hitler and Mussolini” about the destruction of Italian military personnel by the Nazis after Italy’s withdrawal from the war on the side of Germany. In addition to scientific activities,…

    3.02.2019 15:26 41

  • Burkina Faso

    How Telegrams were banned before the revolution

    At all times, the government tries to prohibit or take control of all channels of communication between citizens, especially independent ones. We remember this well from the Putin regime’s fight against Telegram. The Putin regime imagines itself as the heir to the regime of Nicholas II and Stolypin, who also at one time tried to fight such a communication channel of their time as pigeon mail. To do this, let’s turn to...

    31.01.2019 14:41 35

  • Burkina Faso

    The return of Russia, which Putin and Govorukhin lost

    The situation with the packaging of 9 eggs that recently outraged everyone, as well as the general tendency to package products in smaller, non-round weights different from the usual tens, kilograms, etc., making it difficult for Russians to perceive the rise in price of products, forces us to take a closer look at our pre-revolutionary past, which was and is served with times of perestroika, as a lost paradise, as an ideal of prosperity and well-being. If…

    30.01.2019 18:18 111

  • Alexander Gorelik

    Common cause: from Goebbels to Svanidze

    BREAD CARD. PHOTO: SPBDNEVNIK.RU During the Great Patriotic War, the word “fake” did not yet exist in the Russian language. But the fakes themselves, that is, fake news, already existed. One of the most famous is about tangerines, Boucher cakes, rum baba, smoked sausages on the tables of Leningrad leaders during the siege, when thousands of townspeople were dying of hunger. About,…

    30.01.2019 13:33 47

  • pioneer-lj

    Captains, their deceptions are easy to believe

    The other day I watched Galkovsky’s video channel, the story about the British Uncle Pasha and Uncle Lesha seemed to me the most inspired and artistically expressive of all. Although I think it would be even better if the Irish bastards robbed some new guy. And uncles Pasha and Lyosha stood up for him and killed the vile Irish rat. However, these are all artistic excesses and do not change the meaning of the story. History of British...

    29.01.2019 22:37 46

  • Alexey Volynets

    How Russian economic intelligence was founded

    Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire Yegor Kankrin. Vostock Photo Archive 190 years ago, in January 1829, the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire, Yegor Kankrin, sent a note to Tsar Nicholas I proposing an innovation unexpected for that era. The minister proposed establishing special representative offices in foreign capitals to monitor the economic situation, as well as new science and technology. In those years, the Ministry of Finance was in charge not only of finance, but also of the entire industry of the country, managing “state-owned” factories...

    29.01.2019 17:16 13

  • Oleg Matveychev

    About breaking the blockade of Leningrad

    Breaking the siege of Leningrad - 75 years. Some thoughts On this day in 1944, a salute of 24 salvos from 324 guns was fired in honor of the victory in Operation January Thunder - the final lifting of the blockade on the city! For my part, I recommend G.A. Shigin’s book “The Battle for Leningrad” - quite informative and objective, in addition, written by a Leningrader. I’ll just point out...

    29.01.2019 0:32 24

  • Burkina Faso

    Was Stalin's USSR Mordor?

    If you watch today’s movies and listen to anti-Soviet people, nurtured and fed by Putin’s government, you may get the depressing impression that the USSR under Stalin was one continuous Mordor, where people only knew that they were surviving and fleeing repression. This is especially true in 1937-38, when about 640 thousand people were repressed over 2 years in a row. These people...

    28.01.2019 17:16 46

  • Diary of Tanya Savicheva

    From besieged Leningrad: December 28, 1941. Zhenya died at 12 o'clock in the morning. Grandmother died on January 25, 1942, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Leka died on March 17 at 5 am. Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am. Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 pm. Mom - May 13 at 7.30 am...

    27.01.2019 15:48 87

  • 75leningrad

    Declassified documents. LADOGA ARTERY: OVERCOMING THE BLOCKade

    photo from here On the 75th anniversary of the lifting of the siege of the city of Leningrad, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation declassified documents. 28 months of life in besieged Leningrad would have become impossible for several million siege survivors, if not for the Road of Life - a transport artery that supplied the city with everything necessary and served as a route of refuge for everyone who was looking for him. Population, food, industrial cargo, fuel and...

    27.01.2019 15:46 217

  • Belavina Lina Ilyinichna

    The music of besieged Leningrad is a separate page in the heroic chronicle

    (photo from here) Everyone knows Shostakovich’s Seventh “Leningrad” Symphony. Meanwhile, dozens of composers lived and worked in the besieged city. “Leningraders. 900 days in the name of life” was the name of an unusual concert that took place on the first weekend of September. It was dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Siege, which is celebrated on September 8. The performance was organized by the “Classics” charitable foundation for supporting cultural and social programs. With…

    27.01.2019 15:22 40

  • blocknot.ru

    On January 27, 1945, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated the largest fascist mass extermination camp - Auschwitz. As a result, several thousand prisoners were released, whom the Nazis did not have time to kill. Thanks to the quick actions of the Soviet army, the Nazis were unable to destroy not only the prisoners, but also the traces of their crimes. Crematoria and gas chambers, guns appeared before the eyes of the liberating soldiers...

Original taken from edwardjournal in History of Russia, longest wars

In the history of mankind there are wars that differ in their duration. In this series, the record holder, of course, is the Hundred Years' War between England and France, which lasted from 1337 to 1453, i.e., almost 116 years. But Russian history also has its long wars. It is about them that I would like to talk about in this article.


Caucasian War (1817-1864) - 47 years.

As a result of the Russian-Iranian and Russian-Turkish wars, the North Caucasus was surrounded by Russian territory by the beginning of the 11th century. Attempts by the tsarist administration to impose its rules on the local peoples met resistance, which at times turned violent. The mountaineers were especially outraged by the ban on raids (a traditional form of fishing for the local population, accompanied by robbery and taking prisoners), the need to participate in the construction of bridges, roads, fortresses, and new taxation. Additional difficulties were caused by the different levels of socio-economic and political development of the North Caucasian peoples and the religious factor.

“Muridism became the ideological support of the mountaineers. The teachings of Muridism demanded blind obedience from every believer. Muridism charged its followers with the obligation to wage a “holy war,” ghazawat, against the infidels until they converted to Islam or were completely destroyed. The call for gazavat, addressed to all mountain peoples, was a powerful stimulus for resistance and at the same time contributed to overcoming the disunity of the peoples inhabiting the North Caucasus.”

Initially, the highlanders did not like the actions of General Ermolov: the construction of fortresses, roads, deforestation. All this made it easier to control the North Caucasus

The reason for the war was the actions of General A.P. Ermolov, who began active offensive operations - he built fortress settlements, laid roads between them, cut down forests, moving deep into the territories of the mountain peoples. In 1818, the Grozny fortress arose on the Suzha River. It began the systematic advance of the Russians from the old border line along the Terek to the very foot of the mountains. Ermolov’s activity caused a response from the mountain peoples. (The name Ermolov became a household word for the mountaineers, and they used it to scare children in this region for a long time). In 1819, almost all the rulers of Dagestan united in an alliance to fight against the Russians, and four years later the Kabardian princes did the same. And a chain reaction began. In 1824, an uprising in Chechnya was started by the former military man B. Taymazov. Gazi-Magomed, who became the first imam of Chechnya and Dagestan in 1828, fought both with Russian troops and with the Avar khans, considering them supporters of Russia. The war began to become protracted.

Russian fortress "Grozny"

In 1827, Ermolov, suspected by Nicholas I of having connections with the Decembrists, was replaced as commander of the Separate Caucasian Corps by I. F. Paskevich. Paskevich abandoned Yermolov’s methods of conquering the Caucasus and considered it sufficient to conduct separate military expeditions and build strongholds. It was Paskevich who began to build a road along the Black Sea coast, which later turned into the Black Sea coastline. These fortifications turned the mountaineers even more against the Russians.

Ethnic Avar Imam Shamil led the struggle of mountain peoples against the Russian Empire

In 1834, Shamil was elected the third imam. On the territory under his control, he created an imamate - a theocratic state where all power belongs to one person - the imam. Sharia law was in force here, and strict discipline reigned. Shamil managed to organize the mountaineers into a regular army. With the help of the British and Turks, he equipped his troops with the latest weapons, including artillery. For the 1840s. The greatest successes of the highlanders in the fight against Russia occurred - the capture of several Russian fortifications, the encirclement of the Russian expeditionary force under the command of M. Vorontsov, governor of the Caucasus.

Aul Vedeno was the residence of Shamil for a long time

The end of the Crimean War was marked by the intensification of military operations against Shamil. The number of armed forces in the Caucasus was increased, and some new types of weapons appeared. The new commander-in-chief in the North Caucasus, A.I. Baryatinsky, used flexible tactics: he abandoned the practice of punitive expeditions and managed to enlist the support of both the local nobility and the common people. All this began to bring results, moreover, over the long years of the Caucasian War, Russia learned to fight in mountainous terrain, so events began to develop more intensely. In April 1859, Shamil’s residence, the village of Vedeno, was taken. On August 25, 1859, Shamil, along with 400 associates, was besieged in Gunib and on August 26 surrendered to Baryatinsky’s army of thousands.

Surrender of Imam Shamil

However, the appearance of Russian settlers in the Caucasus led to discontent among the local population and the uprising of the peoples of Abkhazia in 1862. It was suppressed only in 1864. May 21, 1864 is considered the day of the end of the Caucasian War - the longest war in Russian history.

Livonian War (1558-1583) - 25 years.

Ivan IV had to solve many foreign policy problems, and in different directions: the Baltic (northwest), Crimean (south), Lithuanian (west), Kazan and Nogai (southeast), Siberian (east). Most of these areas were “inherited” from the foreign policy of Ivan IV’s predecessors - Ivan III and Vasily III (grandfather and father, respectively). The annexation of the Kazan, Astrakhan khanates, Siberian khanates, Bashkiria can be considered an asset for Ivan IV, and a liability - difficult relations with the Crimean Horde, which literally terrorized Russia with its constant raids, litigation over Western Russian lands with Poland and Lithuania, involvement in a large-scale, a long war for access to the Baltic Sea.

Territorial increments of the 16th century

The rapidly growing Russian state (in the period from 1462 to 1533 alone, the territory of the state grew 6.5 times - from 430 thousand sq. km. to 2.8 million sq. km.) needed new trade connections and routes. One of the main problems of Russia during this period was the difficult situation with sea routes. The lack of seaports (Arkhangelsk was built only in 1584) and access to European seas made it difficult for Russia to enter the world economic system.

Castle of the Livonian Order. The best preserved of all the castles of that time in the region

The choice of the Baltic direction became one of the reasons for the split among the closest associates of Ivan IV - Sylvester, A. Adashev, A. Kurbsky were inclined towards the Black Sea direction, believing that the threat from the south was more real, and the potential conquest of Crimea promised great prospects. However, the king, thereby breaking with his recent comrades, chose a northwestern direction, believing that Livonia was weak and would not provide serious resistance.

Capture by Ivan the Terrible Livonian Kokenhausen fortress

Indeed, initially everything turned out well for Russia - in about two years, Russian troops defeated the Livonian Order and occupied almost all of Livonia, including Narva, which for some time became the main Russian port on the Baltic. This course of events did not suit Sweden, Lithuania, and Poland at all (in 1569, Lithuania and Poland united into one state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), for which strengthening Russia's position in the Baltic meant the emergence of a new competitor and loss of profits. From this moment on, the Livonian War gradually developed into the largest war of the 16th century, in which several countries of Eastern and Northern Europe were drawn into it.

Progress of the Livonian War

Russia turned out to be unprepared, either diplomatically or politically, for such a war, which also turned out to be so protracted. Against the background of the period that began in the mid-1560s. During the oprichnina era, Russia had to face the combat-ready armies of Poland and Lithuania, and then with, perhaps, the best at that time in Europe, the Swedish army. To this were added factors that, apparently, could have a positive impact on the course of the war for Russia. (Ivan IV was twice considered as a candidate for the Polish throne in the 1570s; successful negotiations with Sweden, interrupted due to a change of king; a failed military alliance with England; Crimean raids that lasted virtually the entire Livonian War).

As a result of the Livonian War, Russia lost not only the conquered territories, but also part of its lands in the Baltic states and Belarus, and lost access to the Baltic Sea (at the end of the 16th century, Russia again briefly managed to gain access to the sea, but this, alas, turned out to be a short-term event).

Northern War (1700-1721) - 21 years

Peter I initially made efforts to develop a strategy for access to the southern seas and only in the conditions of a lack of allies did he radically change the direction of Russian foreign policy to the north-west. Here allies were found. They turned out to be Poland, Saxony, Denmark, which formed the Northern Union, and, unfortunately, soon turned out to be untenable as a military force. It must be said that, despite the fact that Sweden’s “best years” remained in the 17th century, Sweden, led by the young (18 years old) but talented King Charles XII, represented a serious military and naval force. This confirmed the start of the Northern War - Sweden quickly withdrew Denmark from the war, defeated numerically superior Russian troops at the Battle of Narva, and then left Russia alone (by 1706), defeating the Polish-Saxon troops.

Battle of Narva

Military failures stimulated Peter I to a whole series of transformations (limiting the number of foreign officers in the troops, the introduction of conscription, the formation of the Baltic Fleet, the construction of blast furnace and hammer factories for the needs of artillery, the creation of a network of military and naval educational institutions, etc.). As a result, after a series of victories, by 1703 the entire course of the Neva was in the hands of the Russians. On May 16 (27), 1703, the future capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, was founded. In 1704, Russian troops captured Narva and Dorpat, establishing themselves on the Baltic coast. After a short break, Karl XII decided to invade Russia. The victory at the Battle of Golovchin in the summer of 1708 was the last major success of the Swedish army. And then followed the epic battles near the village of Lesnoy and the battle of Poltava, which led to the defeat of the Swedish army and the escape of Charles XII to the Ottoman Empire.

Poltava

In 1709, the Northern Union was recreated (Prussia also joined it), and in 1710 Russia captured Riga, Vyborg, Revel and other Baltic cities. In 1713-1715 Russia captured Finland, and in 1714 a major victory was won in a naval battle at Cape Gangut. In May 1718, the Åland Congress opened, designed to work out the terms of a peace treaty between Russia and Sweden. However, the death of Charles XII interrupted the negotiations that had begun.

Battle of Gangut

England acted as an instigator in this case, creating anti-Russian public opinion and inciting other countries against Russia. And she partially succeeded in her plan - in 1719, Austria, Saxony and Hanover organized an anti-Russian coalition. However, against the backdrop of such a difficult international situation for Russia, new victories were won by the Russian fleet near the islands of Ezel and Grengam.

The Order of Judas was made in a single copy in 1709 by order of Tsar Peter I to reward the traitor Hetman Mazepa

On August 30, 1721, Russia and Sweden signed the Treaty of Nystadt. As a result of the war, Ingria, Karelia, Estland, Livonia and part of Finland were annexed to Russia. But the most important thing is that Russia solved the problem of access to the Baltic Sea and for many years established itself on this section of the main waterways as a leading maritime power.
Vladimir Gizhov, Ph.D.,
Specially for the magazine “Russian Horizon”