Grand Embassy of Peter I
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The Grand Embassy (Великое посольство in Russian) was a Russian diplomatic mission, sent to Western Europe in 1697-1698 by Peter the Great.
The goal of this misssion was to strengthen and broaden Russia's alliance with a number of European countries against Turkey in its struggle for the northern coastline of the Black Sea, hire foreign specialists for Russian service, order and acquire military supplies and weapons. Officially, the Grand Embassy was headed by the "grand ambassadors" Franz Lefort, Fedor Golovin and Prokopy Voznitsyn. In fact, it was led by Peter the Great, who went along incognito under the name of Peter Mikhailov.
Peter I conducted negotiations with Duke of Courland and concluded an alliance with Kurfürst of Brandenburg. After unsuccessful negotiations in the Netherlands, the Grand Embassy had to limit itself to acquiring different equipment and hiring foreign specialists. Peter the Great and part of the mission also went to Great Britain for 3 months, where the tsar conducted negotiations with William III of England, acquainted himself with shipbuilding, visited shipyards and artillery plants, and recruited foreign specialists.
On the way back to Russia, the Grand Embassy conducted fruitless negotiations in Vienna with Russia's former allies in the Holy League, Austrian foreign minister and Venetian ambassador, trying to prevent Austria's separate peace treaty with Turkey. An intended visit to Venice was cancelled due to the news about the Streltsy Uprising in Moscow and Peter's hasty return to Russia.
The Grand Embassy didn't accomplish its main goal, but it gathered valuable information about the international situation, ascertained the impossibility of strengthening of the anti-Turkish coalition due to the imminent War of the Spanish Succession, and brought back the plans for gaining access to the Baltic Sea. On his way back to Russia, Peter the Great met with Augustus II of Poland and conducted negotiations with him, which would form the basis for the Russo-Polish alliance against Sweden in the Great Northern War.
