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Fall of Tallinn
 
     On June, 1709 the army of Carl XII was mercilessly defeated at Poltava. The next year Viipuri, Riga, Pärnu and Kuressaare were seized by the Russian army. Tallinn was to be the next. The situation in Tallinn was extremely bad. The crop failure had brought along another famine. Wealthier townspeople and refugee aristocracy were forced to give the government loans in grain and money. Beggars, i.e. refugee peasants were driven out of the town. As if it were not enough, the plague struck on August 11. On August 15. Russian troops reached the town. The Tallinn garnison together with the town troops and eight citizens' companies was 4600-4700 men in July. By the end of August 1710 there were about 20 000 Russian soldiers at Tallinn. As the Russians closed the water canal from Lake Ülemiste, there was a grave shortage of water. By the end of September there were only 500 able men left of the 4000-strong garnison. 
Picture: Confirmation of the privileges of the city of Tallinn by Tsar Peter I of Russia, signed by the the tsar himself on March 13, 1712 in St. Petersburg. In the background a portrait of Peter I.
Only 1962 civil inhabitants of the population of 10 000 had survived. In his message of August 16, 1710 Peter I promised to confirm all the former privileges of the town in case Tallinn surrendered. The vice governor D. F. Patkul had no other way than to start capitulation negotiations. On September 29 the representatives of the town Swedish garrison and Estonian knighthood on the one, and lieutenant general R.F.Bauer on the Russian side, signed the capitulation document