Charles XII of Sweden

Charles XII of Sweden (Carolus Rex) was an audacious military prodigy who spent almost his entire adult reign in the field leading his elite Carolean army. Ascending the Swedish throne in 1697 at just fifteen, Charles was attacked in 1700 by a triple coalition of Russia, Denmark-Norway, and Saxony-Poland in the Great Northern War, who assumed the boy king would quickly capitulate.

Stunning Europe with his ferocious speed and tactical audacity, the eighteen-year-old Charles forced Denmark out of the war in weeks, and on November 30, 1700, shattered Peter the Great's fourfold larger Russian army in a blinding snowstorm at the Battle of Narva. He marched through Poland, dethroning Augustus the Strong and installing Stanisław Leszczyński. Invading Russia in 1708, Charles was thwarted by the harshest Russian winter in a century and suffered catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Poltava (1709). After spending five years in exile in the Ottoman Empire, he returned to Sweden and invaded Norway. Inspecting siege trenches at Fredriksten on November 30, 1718, Charles was struck dead by a projectile through his temples at age thirty-six, bringing an end to the Swedish Empire.