There are two interpretations of Peter the Great's motives for refusing to land on the Swedish island of Schonen in historiography: that the tsar feared unforeseen military risks and that he did not trust his allies, Denmark and Great Britain. In this article, the author attempts to analyse in a more detailed way the reasons and consequences for the mistrust in the Northern Alliance by looking at communications by Baron Friedrich Ernst von Cnyphausen, the Prussian ambassador in Copenhagen. It is shown that the Russophobic hysteria which grasped the Danish royal court in September 1716 looks completely irrational when we consider parallel attitudes in the Prussian court. Cnyphausen does not give the slightest hint that the hysteria had any factual basis. King Friedrich Wilhelm agreed with the arguments of the tsar and P. P. Shafirov presented on 18 October because of Hanoverian diplomatic intrigues at the Danish court. Russia had sufficient military strength to win the war against Sweden by itself: whatever happened, Prussia stood to gain.
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