Russian Pillage of 1719–1721

The purpose was to pillage, sack, and burn to force the Swedish regime to concessions during the peace negotiations on Åland.

The Swedish representative, Georg Heinrich von Görtz, was at the time stalling the negotiations in hope of military support from the second Stanhope–Sunderland ministry in England.

[1] Peter the Great, on the other hand, wished for a swift end to the war, which would make it possible for him to focus on inner reform.

[2] In the summer of 1719, a Russian fleet consisting of 132 galleys and several smaller boats, totaling 26000 men, assaulted Stockholm archipelago.

[3] In 1720, Russian troops razed Umeå, and in 1721 the cities of Hudiksvall, Sundsvall, Söderhamn, Härnösand and Piteå.