History of Moldovia

== The Early Ages - A Fortress Abandoned ==

The Principality of Moldovia, the ancient state that calls their eponymous plateau home. A rich land blessed with fertile soil, with the Black Sea bringing it a mild climate, Moldovia was ideal for agriculture - which led to the nation's rise in its early periods. Its people, the Vlach, embraced Christianity - and like many in Europe of that era - found themselves swearing fealty to a greater power, namely the Kingdom of Hungary.

The formal founding of Moldovia dates back to 1359, when the Vlach Knyaz (prince) by the name of Dragoș was tasked by the Hungarian King of the time to establish a line of defence against the Mongolian Golden Horde. This frontier, based on the Siret River, would go on to become Moldovia. Decades of political rivalries ensued, from the wrenching of the land from the founding dynasty by one Bogdan of Cuhea which resulted in Moldovia's independence from Hungarian control; to religious conflicts between the native Eastern Orthodox faith and the Roman Catholicism propagated by the Holy See. Hungarian-Polish affairs further into Europe soon saw Moldovia seek refuge in a third liege - the Ottoman Empire. And thus, a state founded expressedly as a bulwark against eastern influence found itself with little choice but to accept their Muslim overlords.

== Stephen the Great - A Nation Stands ==

Moldovia current form can be traced back to the mid 1400s, during the rule of Stephen III of Moldovia. Venerated as "Stephen the Great and Holy", canonised by the Romanian Orthodox Church and regarded as one of the greatest Moldovian national heroes, his unusually long reign (for its time) was marked by profound stability and national growth, both of which may be attributed to timely applications of both his astute political skill as well as measured violence.

In a region fraught by political instability, in an era of ever-shifting ties, Stephen's diplomacy was his first and foremost weapon. By shifting his own allegiances in step with the frantic waltz pursued by the nations around him, he managed to play the three great regional powers - the Ottoman Empire, Poland, and Hungary - against each other and emerging unscathed. Still, he retained a good balance in his means, and wouldn't hesitate to resort to arms if he deemed it necessary. Within his own nation, he reaped the benefits of immigration - namely foreign expertise - while strengthening his own rule against the more ambitious boyars of his court. By the time of his death in the late 1400s, Moldovia has emerged as a regional power a mere step beneath its more prominent neighbours, in a position of rising strength after deterring Ottoman encroachment as well as various attempts by Poland and Hungary to regain suzerainty. With decades to strengthen its defences, Moldovia was - defensively - deemed as impregnable.

== Vlad the Impaler - First of the Blood ==

To talk about Olena, the reigning voivode of Moldovia, one would have to talk about her father first of all. Olena Stefanovna is the daughter of Stephen the Great, in his union with Evdochia of Kiev. In another time, perhaps, she might have been married off to one of the nearby ruling families, in a political marriage to seal the ties of two nations. But such a time did not arrive, due to a single decision made by Stephen.

In his youth, Stephen had made the acquaintance of one Vlad Dracula, exiled Voivode of Wallachia, who sought refuge in his neighbouring lands. When Stephen's own father - Bodgan II - was murdered by Bodgan's own brother Peter III Aaron in a bid for the Moldovian throne, Stephen in turn fled to Wallachia where he joined Vlad in his own bid for the Wallachian throne. After that affair was concluded to the satisfaction of the son of Dracul, Vlad supported Stephen in his bid for the Moldovian throne. And thus, in a series of reciprocated political and military support, the two voivodes forged a tie that was second only to that of blood.

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What was not known to Stephen, was that Vlad had held a deep fascination for the occult. Believing that it held the key to securing his already turbulent rule, Dracula sought the knowledge that was not to be known. In a period of peace, between him and Stephen's campaigns against those who sought to subjugate their realms, Vlad journeyed deep into the Carpathian Mountains. Rumours spoke of an ancient fortress guarding neither land nor subjects, but the deepest of understandings. At long last, in his 30th winter and two years after he had regained the throne of Wallachia, he came upon the ruined stone steps of the Solomonărie. For seven days and seven nights he awaited by the iron doors, beseeching the great keep for the knowledge it guarded. On the seventh night, a moonless night, the doors swung open and Vlad Dracula, Voivode of Wallachia, walked in.

Five years he spent, his matters of state laid wayside as he sought to master the darkest of arts. He learnt to subvert life, to renagade from death; to rewind the age of flesh, and to harness the power of blood. What walked out from the great iron doors of the Solomonărie was still Vlad Dracula. But one who had cast aside his mortal chains.

The first vampire.

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 Decades after the mysterious disappearance of Voivode Dracula, and both nations of Wallachia and Moldovia thrived - despite their rulers' most contrasting conduct. Stephen III of Moldovia was greatly involved in the daily affairs of state, a great patron of the arts and his peoples, and often found leading his men into battle. His sworn brother, Vlad III, was in comparison a recluse, although rumours sprouted about his nocturnal inspections of his realm and great legends were borne of the Wallachian great host - or army - and their nighttime march upon former Ottoman holdings in Wallachian borders. This, in fact, brought about the quick pace of the initial Wallachian-Moldovian campaign against the Ottomans launched in the summer of 1480 - the Day-Host of Moldovia and the Night-Host of Wallachia giving the Sultan's forces no rest from battle. Three years on, the war had stalled with the alliance keeping the ambitions of Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire in check at their traditional borders. The Wallachian border fortress of Giurgiu became a key defensive point and talks were sparked about launching a seige on the Ottoman holdings across the Danube, in particular the opposing fort of Rusçuk. This stalemate was eventually to end up as a temporary and uneasy peace for the rest of the century between the two parties.

In 1483, twenty years after his seclusion within the Solomonărie, Vlad III found himself widowed after the unfortunately early death of his second wife, Jusztina Szilágyi. After much discussion, it was decided that Stephen's own daughter, Olena Stefanovna, was to be wed to Vlad as a means of bringing the two regimes closer in an alliance of blood. The wedding took place in the same year, and Olena became the third princess-consort to Vlad.

And that was when the wheels of change truly begun to turn.

== Olena the Bloody - A Fist of Iron in Satin Clad ==

Stephen the Great passed in the summer of 1504, and his son Bogdan III took the throne as Voivode of Moldovia. Perhaps sparked by the death of the one he considered his closest brother, Vlad found himself pondering mortality. In the end, he made a private offer to his closest courtiers - to join him in eternal life. Many Wallachian nobles took up the offer, and thus the first vampire court of Europe was formed. Olena, as was the practice of the time, merely acceded to her husband's demands and was too turned.

That would turn out to have a most disruptive result in Moldovia in the year of 1514. Bogdan III, facing the impending threat of the Tartars to his rule, sought the protection of the Ottoman Empire and had sent his chancellor, Tăutu, to seek audience with Sultan Selim I in order to negotiate terms. In this move, Bogdan threatened both Vlad's own anti-Ottoman stance as well as the alliance forged by Olena's marriage, and brought upon himself the immense displeasure of his own half-sister.

Perhaps emboldened by her newly gained immortality, Olena - against the wishes of Vlad - took off to her homeland. Raising an army by gathering the support of dissenting nobles - notably several more independently-minded daughters of Bogdan's supporters - she marched on the Moldovian capital of Suceava and laid seige to it, a path of blood and ruined armies at her back shaded by a growing forest of stakes.

Eventually, at the behest of his own court, Bogdan opened the gates to his half-sister's army to negotiate terms. And thus sealed his own downfall in stone. For forty-nine days Olena had starved the city and when she entered Suceava, forty-nine nobles she put to the sword - each one a proponent of Ottoman suzerainty over her nation. The forty-ninth being Tăutu himself, who had brought an Ottoman host to the city to conclude negotations and found on the throne another ruler. The Ottoman envoys became a forest at her city's gates, as Olena took a page from her former-husband's books and had them impaled. Bogdan the One-Eyed became Bogdan the Blind, thrown into Suceava's dungeons for eternity - though Olena did grant him one final respect by letting him lay at state after his death.

As Olena surveyed her holdings and found it lacking and her newly expanded court of questionable loyalty, the survivors of Bogdan's old court were granted a choice - to take upon themselves her blood, or to lose their noble status. Of course, many rejected her offer and took up arms. The Suceava Forest grew, and thus Olena secured a name for herself in the annals of history - The Bloody.

== The Great Turkish War - The Principality Alliance ==

The period later known as the Age of Wars in Moldovia began with the Great Turkish War of 1683. Joining the Sacra Ligua alongside the Papal States of Pope Innocent XI, the Holy Roman Empire of Emperor Leopold I, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth of John III Sobieski, and the Venetian Republic, the Wallachian-Moldovian Alliance launched their first assault after the Ottoman Empire attempted to expand into the Habsburg Empire - and failed.

Deciding to compound their long-time rival's problems, the Wallachian Host - Vlad's largest yet - crossed the Danube, pushing deep into the poorly-manned Ottoman border across Bulgaria. Meanwhile to the east, Olena's own forces forced the Dniester river from Tighina into Ottoman Ukraine alongside Polish forces further north. At the same time, the Russian Tsardom's entry into the European alliance quickly eliminated the further threat of the Khanate of Crimea, an Ottoman client state. Her northeastern flank secured, Moldovia marched south along the Black Sea coast, joining Wallachia's Bulgarian campaign around the same time the Hasbsburg forces entered from the west.

The war ended in the end of the 1600s, with the Ottoman Empire left with Greece and Macedonia amongst its European holdings. Ending their encirclement, Wallachia gained Transylvania to the north and brought their borders up to Poland. Moldovia regained its earlier-lost Black Sea border and re-established its rule over the region of Basarabia. Crimea became part of Russian territory, and Ukraine was split between Russia and Poland. Croatia, a Kingdom of the Habsburg Monarchy, was granted Bosnia, while the Principality of Bulgaria declared independence from the Ottoman Empire, joining Wallachia and Moldovia in what was known as the Principality Alliance.

== The Great Northern War - The Return of the Varangian ==

The Great Northern War of 1700 was sparked shortly after the ascension of the Swedish King Charles XII, when the alliance of Denmark-Norway, Saxony, Poland, and Russia declared war on the reign of the young Swedish King. In an astounding feat of military might, Charles XII led his forces to a swift victory against Denmark, his troops landing at a hill near Copenhagen with supporting fire from something that came as a surprise to most parties - the first airships. The skies over the Danish capital fell dark as the Swedish fleet drifted across overhead, heading for the various hills around the city. Ramps, built into the hull of the vessels, were lowered. And the army of Carolus Rex converged upon the city, bringing it to heel - and Denmark out of the war.

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To the east, the groundwork was being laid, inadvertently, for Charles' later campaign upon Russia. Peter I, Tsar of Russia, had been seeking to consolidate his influence over nearby territories. Over the years, he had made various attempts, through the neighbouring Cossack Hetmanate, to coerce the reclusive Moldovian court into acknowledging the Russian Empire as the regional power of Eastern Europe.

Naturally, a court of immortal beings much older than the Tsar and having observed the rise and fall of its various neighbours throughout the years found Peter's antics far from amusing, and held their silence. Perhaps it was this that prompted the Tsar to go after Sweden, with the intent of seizing Finland. Eyeing the impending shift of Europe's power balance, and keen on keeping the status quo, the gears of the Moldovian war machine - a complex, centuries-old marriage of precision military might and far-flung political intrigue in various courts of the land - began moving at last.

Final drills were conducted at anchorages across the Bukovinian and Moldavian Subcarpathians, troops are mobilised and armed, and provisions gathered as the ancient state readied for war. Far from home, reports were compiled as the affairs of the Russian court was keenly observed, as the Moldovian government waited for the precise moment to strike.

The moment came in the June of 1709, at Poltava. The Swedish army, despite their earlier successes up til the campaign in Poland, found themselves facing a series of setbacks as they marched for Russia. A combination of a particularly harsh winter, Tsar Peter I's use of scorch-earth tactics, and lack of supplies due to Russia's successful interception of his second army (and supply train), Charles - with his 20,000 troops - was forced to lay seige to the Russian fortress at Poltava in a bid for urgently-needed supplies. The resultant battle that occurred when contact was made with the Tsar's 80,000-strong relief force started poorly and deteriorated steadily against the Swedes, and would have concluded with a Russian victory if it wasn't for the unintended consequences of the Sack of Baturyn in the previous year.

Consequences that, if one knew where to look, was rife with the fingerprints of a certain Eastern European vampire aristocracy.

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To examine the full extent of Moldovia's involvement in the Great Northern War, one would have to look back, to the reign of Gustavus Adolphus the Great of Sweden. It was during this time, after a long retirement from European politics, Moldovia began to take steps towards returning to prominence. After a long period of observation with particular attention drawn towards the campaigns of the Lion of the North, Moldovia chose their entry point into European politics - the Swedish Empire on the rise.

Their envoy of choice was most appropriate, being an early descendant of the Vikings. Serana Haakonsson, long-serving High Chancellor of Moldovia, personally led a delegation northwards. Negotiations lasted several years, during which High Chancellor Haakonsson was lodged - by her own choice - in a small settlement that would later become the town of Kiruna. It was there where she made a significant breakthrough during her recreational research into a long-observed phenomenon called "metalblight" - the rapid decomposition of metals upon contact with saltwater.

Using a microscope commissioned from famed microscopists Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Haakonsson discovered small microscopic creatures that appeared to be eroding metallic objects that they came into contact with. Comparison with local water samples taken from the Gulf of Bothnia and the North Sea found the same creatures. However, it was while observing them when the vampire - thanks to her keener than human sense of smell - began wondering about the strange odour she noticed repeatedly. Her studies turned towards trying to isolate and characterise this hypothesised gas. Eventually, this led to an experimental gas harvesting plant in northern Sweden once the Swedish monarch became interested in this endeavour, and the following year the first flight of an experimental vessel conducted on the higher reaches of the Kebnekaise - and a secret treaty of alliance between the rising Swedish Empire and the little-known Principality of Moldovia.

Decades later, this technology had been refined by the alliance nations, and each began the final stages of weaponising it - building their respective war fleets. Of course, the Swedish fleet made their debut at the turn of the century, taking the starring role in Charles XII's reprisal of Denmark.

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And thus one can see that Moldovian involvement in the Great Northern War has always been inevitable. But it was due to the actions of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, Russian Prince and military leader, at Baturyn that granted Olena of Moldovia free reign to interfere without international reprisal in a conflict that appeared to have little to do with her nation.

Through agents operating in the Russian Tsar's court, the Moldovian government had acquired steady updates on Peter I's drive towards greater central power. When talks about directly administering the Cossack Hetmanate began to move beyond theoretical conjecture, Olena decided to leak the information to Ivan Mazepa, Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host and her neighbouring ruler in the lands of Ukraine. This news, of course, was received initially with skepticism until the Tsar dispatched Alexander Menshikov to Ukraine ostensibly to prepare for a possible Swedish invasion - and inevitably gave Olena's words traction within the Hetman Mazepa's own court. Thus the wedge between the Ukrainian local government and the Russian central administration was driven deeper.

While Mazepa had originally intended to immediately switch his allegiance to the approaching Swedes in exchange for maintaining his rule, lack of support from his people (along with some advice imparted by Olena) held his hand. That was, until Menshikov, in an attempt at depriving the Swedish army of vital supplies, put Mazepa's capital Baturyn to the sword in what was later known as the Sack of Baturyn. This provided Mazepa the impetus - and galvanised support - to openly revolt against the Tsar.

Moldovia finally took overt action after the slaughter by joining the conflict on the side of the Cossacks. Mare Spătar (Grand Sword Bearer) Hryhoriy Loboda - a veteran of the Cossack rebellion of 1596 who was granted a position of nobility for his involvement in Moldovia's on-and-off anti-Ottoman campaigns - led the Moldovian army in a series of engagement with Russian forces to relief the understrengthed troops of Hetman Mazepa. Eventually, Mazepa's own forces were bolstered by those who deserted Russian command to return from Livonia and Lithuania alongside the approaching Swedish forces, and Russian presence in Ukraine was gradually diminished.

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And thus we return to Poltava, where the much-weakened Swedish forces engaged the Russian forces relieving their seige on the local fortress. Who else to lead the Moldovian forces in relieving the faltering Swedish army than the same individual instrumental in the alliance of the two nations, High Chancellor Serana Haakonsson.

At 10 am in the morning, the crucial moment in the engagement between Swedish and Russian line infantry, the sun was suddenly blotted out. This was but the first step of the plan, to eliminate the fatal effects of sunlight on any vampires taking the field. Then, ropes rained upon the field to the bewilderment of both sides, and gazing up the Russians found a sight that caused their hearts to seize in fear. A fleet of wooden vessels, hoisted high up in the air, and men clad in black coats descending upon their lines from above with swords in hand. Cannons sounded out to their back, but what crumbled was the redoubts that Tsar Peter I had built for his defense. Then a flotilla drifted down between the Russian lines and their camp. The Moldovians, invoking their alliance with Sweden, finally saw fit to take the field.

Peter the First, from his position at the Russian encampment, watched in horror as the table was less turned against his favour and more flipped right into his face. He had known that the Swedish cavalry, crucial to any attempts at breaking his own infantry line, was absent and will thus hand him victory. A wooden wall, clad in black and red paint with silver gilding, then descended before him. When they departed skyward, a vast host in black had descended upon his infantry's rear. The High Chancellor of Moldovia took it upon herself to lead two cavalry regiments - the Voivode's Dragoon Guards and the Moldovian Royal Hussars - in a charge that broke the Russian line. Swedish infantry, rallying at this turn of events, joined in the fray begun earlier by the regiment of Moldovian marines which descended from above.

It was a slaughter.

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The Russian Tsar's troubles didn't stop at Poltava. Unaware of the Cossack's own campaign in the surrounding lands, he gathered his remaining troops and retreated from Poltava, heading for Moscow. Worn out by the battle and disoriented by their sudden turn of fortunes, the Russian forces were ill-organised and stretched out, their rear harrassed by the finally-present Swedish cavalry. Nights were worse, as the absence of sunlight meant that the Moldovian forces too could join the skirmishes.

The final bout of misfortune arrived for Peter's forces at the border settlement of Kharkiv, where he encountered the fleeing Russian forces dispatched earlier to Ukraine - as well as the combined forces of Ivan Mazepa's Cossacks as well as Hryhoriy Loboda's Moldovian army. A crushing defeat of the ill-prepared Russians ensued, with but a fraction remaining when Peter finally crossed over to Russian soil, taking with him Russian influence in Ukraine.

== The Napoleonic Wars - The Anvil in the East [Pop: 2,262,357] ==

Throughout the bulk of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, the Balkans generally saw no reason to involve themselves in the conflicts of Western Europe. The French has also been careful not to invoke the unwanted attentions of the Eastern Cordon - composed of the Swedish Empire (which had by then obtained suzerainty over a nominally independent Norway as well as the easternmost partition of Poland); the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate; and the ancient Principality Alliance of Moldovia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria. This particular policy was motivated by the fact that as merely a fledging member of what was later called the First Wave Navies, the French Marine Nationale was no match for the far more well-established Pioneer Navies - namely, the Navale Moldovei (Moldovian Navy), the Navale Românească (Wallachian Navy), and the Kungliga Flottan (Swedish Royal Fleet).

Focusing on their main opponent - Britain - during the Third Coalition War, Napoleon took steps towards effecting a full-scale invasion across the English Channel. However, one major obstacle stood before the French Emperor's goals. Namely, the up-and-rising Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. Thus, on 21 October 1805, the combined fleets of the Spanish and French Navy - then docked at the Pyrenees - made way for Brest with the intention of forcing a decisive battle against the British fleet. Napoleon's plan was to amass a sizable naval threat towards the English, leaving the Royal Navy with no choice to commit to the battle at the southern end of the Channel while his Army of England made the crossing at the Strait of Dover.

The allied fleets' movement, however, was tracked by the British frigates on patrol once it became clear that they intended to cast off the coastline at San Sebastián and cross the Bay of Biscay - an attempt to make up for lost time when the planned departure from their anchorage was delayed. Sailing into the wind, the French-Spanish fleet was further delayed on their voyage and gave the main British battlefleet - commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson - time to form up for the imminent battle.

As the British slowly closed in across the Bay of Biscay, hoping to assess the exact order of their opponents, they noticed that the enemy fleet wasn't sailing in any order, and appeared to be in a rush. A lack of any command pennants hid the enemy flagship from Nelson. Still, it was clear to the Vice-Admiral that the British were outnumbered and outgunned as the larger forms of the Spanish four-decker "Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad" and her slightly smaller 112-gun compatriots "Príncipe de Asturias" and "Santa Ana", all three first-rates outweighing any vessel under Nelson's command.

However, as the two fleets drew near, it appeared that the French and Spanish had somehow not noticed the British fleet. Some semblence of a line has been formed, and the allied fleets started making for a northernly course. Seizing the opportunity handed to him, Nelson had his battle orders signalled to the fleet - full speed ahead, two columns, cut enemy line.

The British fleet picked up speed. Tension grew thick, and amongst the British officers and sailors anxiety began to grow - it was evident to all, that the fate of their nation rested upon this battle. Then, across the fleet, an announcement was made - it was a final message from their admiral.

"England expects that every man will do his duty."

An iron will rose from within the British fleet and as the alarms were finally raised by the Spanish and France fleets, the first-rates HMS Victory and HMS Royal Sovereign closed in on their panicking foes...

The Battle of Biscay was a major victory for the Royal Navy, which lost no ships to their opponents' 22. Having shattered the combined Franco-Spanish fleet, the battle cemented Britain's naval supremacy amongst the First Wave Navies and ensured Britain's protection from invasion for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars. Vice-Admiral Nelson however didn't live to tell his tale, for he fell to French musket-fire during the battle and died soon after. Yet his feats lived on, and he went on to become Britain's greatest naval war hero, and an inspiration to the rapidly-maturing Royal Navy.

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Back on continental Europe, the War of the Third Coalition carried on with little regard to Biscay other than Napoleon completely abandoning any plans to invade Britain. The war ended with major shifts to the European political scene - the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, a buffer amongst the German states was formed by France as the Confederation of the Rhine, and the French Empire was further consolidated. Still, while Napoleon had managed to extend his influence in Europe, his inability to obtain a decisive victory over Britain drove him towards an attempt at economic warfare - the Continental System, which was a large-scale embargo against British trade enforced upon all his territories and allies. Still, with both the Russian Empire and Swedish Empire still beyond his control, the French Emperor decided to take steps to correct the situation rather than settle for a compromise.

Having decisively defeated the Russian army at the earlier Battle of Austerlitz but with little political gain, Napoleon had initially sought another decisive battle with what he perceived to be a weakened Russia, in order to bring the Tsar under his influence. However, the ancient alliance of the Eastern Cordon stood between him and the Russian heartlands. With little means of sparking a military conflict along the Cordon and impatient for results, Napoleon instead engaged in a little diplomatic subterfuge. Promising Russia the Swedish holdings east of the Gulf of Bothnia, he obtained Alexander I's support in the upcoming campaign aimed at Sweden.

In September 1806, Napoleon declared war on Sweden. Mobilising the Grande Armée he breached the Danish border and captured the border town of Rendsburg along the Eider River. However, he was soon faced with stiff opposition by a Swedish army that had - while watching the developments down south - bolstered and trained for a possible French incursion. The initial French intrusion was repulsed, and Napoleon was dragged into a deadlock at various points along the Eider, pinned in place by naval artillery. However, the French Emperor was puzzled by the heavy presence of the Swedish fleet, which he had expected to be split between two fronts. He soon came to the conclusion that he had miscalculated the extent of the Eastern Cordon alliance.

Indeed, Russian troops - mostly composed of the remainder from their earlier defeat at Austerlitz but still greatly outnumbering what Sweden had in the area - found themselves locked into constant skirmishes by Finnish rifle regiments the moment they crossed into Swedish territory. Quick marches out into open fields where the light infantry units no longer have cover revealed an ever worse position, for they are now open to naval artillery fire from above delievered by the few frigates stationed on the Swedish eastern frontier. Nightfall brought rest, but this reprive was short-lived. Two months of frantic skirmishing and no decisive victory left the Russian forces worn out right as the harsh northern winter set in.

And two months was the time needed for the Moldovian-Wallachian joint fleet to arrive. The first night of November saw the Tsar's troops deprived of their much-needed rest after Moldovian and Romanian marine regiments descended upon them. What followed was one final month of round-the-clock skirmishing that eventually saw the Russian forces decimated, all prior gains returned to Sweden, and the Tsar pleading for peace negotiations. And while that was being concluded, the Grand Fleet of the Carpathians departed, heading west across the Baltic.

Napoleon, upon receiving news of the Grand Fleet's impending arrival, realised that his gambit had failed and took the better option while it was still available. He ceased all hostilities towards Swedish Empire, and sued for peace.

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