Commodore Armiger
12-02-2008, 09:18
From the Finnish Embassy's website comes this admirable introduction to the less-known Baltic dimension of the Crimean War.
The Crimean War (1854-56) between Russia on one side and the alliance of Great Britain, France and Turkey on the other was not only fought in the Crimean peninsula. It was also fought in the Baltic Sea, and mainly along the Finnish coasts of the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia.
Why in Finland?
Why were hostilities expanded to Finnish waters? These regions were quite remote from the holy places of Jerusalem, and the dispute which had sparked off the war. Similarly they were distant from the gates of the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and from the main routes to Central Asia, which had been the object of rivalry between Imperial Russia and Britain since the Napoleonic Wars.
A major reason was the threat to Britain posed by the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Gulf of Finland, which was only a few days’ sail from the British coastline. Yet while blocking Russia’s access to the North Sea and endeavouring to cut her supply lines, the British fleet managed to destroy much of her naval defences as well as her merchant fleet.
At that time Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire and part of the defence system at the head of the Gulf of Finland protecting St Petersburg, the capital. Moreover, Finnish vessels formed the great bulk of the Empire’s merchant fleet while Finnish towns on the Gulf of Bothnia were major shipping centres and suppliers of shipbuilding materials, providing 35% of all tar imported by the British. Finland therefore bore the brunt of the British-French naval assaults in the Baltic in the summers of 1854 and 1855.
The arrival of the British Fleet
News from Hamburg of the approaching British Baltic fleet of 49 vessels was received in Finland in late March 1854. By April, the fleet had arrived at the gateways of the Baltic. On 8 April some British ships could be detected on the Helsinki horizon for the first time, and from then on, people were eagerly following their movements in the open sea.
The Allied forces seemed to do very little during the first few weeks of hostilities apart from building blockades to the main sea routes into the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. This was despite the waters around Helsinki being free from ice in the last week of April and in the upper part of the Gulf of Bothnia in late May. The situation caused some impatience among the British officers and demands for action were also voiced in Britain.
“Take, Burn or Destroy”
In Finland the authorities had been quietly preparing for the hostilities since early 1854 and more Russian troops were sent to the region. Around 1,000 men were strengthening the fortifications in Sveaborg, (the present-day islands of Suomenlinna at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour) and scores of gunboats were being built and guns cast. A chain of observation posts was set up along the entire Finnish coast.
However, news that the official archives had been transferred from the capital Helsinki to inland Finland, caused panic among Finnish people. A few were also aware that out of 32 coastal towns as many as 21 were vulnerable to attacks by the enemy’s steam powered battleships and gunboats which were able to penetrate the narrow passages inaccessible to big men-of-war. Finnish history is riddled with wars, but attacks from the sea had been rare, and attacks from the west almost unheard of.
During May and June 1854, their fears seemed justified as news spread of British attacks in May-June 1854 on merchant towns in the Gulf of Bothnia in order “to take, burn or destroy” all equipment and materials potentially useful for military purposes.
Within less than three weeks in the region the British fleet had destroyed 46 vessels; 40,000-50,000 barrels of pitch and tar; 6,000 square yards of rough pitch; stacks of timber, spars, planks and deal, sails, rope and various kinds of naval stores. The total value of the goods at that time amounted to £300,000 to £400,000. No notice was taken of the protests by Finns that much of the destroyed materials was actually British property, already paid for and awaiting export!
The burning of tar warehouses and ships in Oulu (Uleåborg) and Raahe (Brahestad) led to international criticism, and in Britain, a Mr Gibson demanded in the House of Commons that the First Lord of the Admiralty explain "a system which carried on a great war by plundering and destroying the property of defenceless villagers.” Nevertheless the British carried out naval attacks on Finnish coastal towns throughout the sailing seasons of 1854 and 1855, destroying much of the naval supplies as well as many optical telegraph communication points and coastal fortresses.
Midnight battle in Kokkola (Gamla Karleby) 7 June 1854
Apart from verbal protests, the British had experienced no resistance in Oulu and Raahe. But once news of their fate reached other towns, residents took precautions by hiding and sinking their vessels and throwing timber into the sea. In Kokkola (Gamla Karleby) the local burghers decided to meet the enemy with arms.
On the evening of 7 June, the 16-gun paddle-frigate HMSOdin and the six-gun paddle-frigate HMS Vulture steamed to Kokkola and lowered into the water nine boats with 17 officers and 180 men aboard. Protected by a negotiation flag, the British announced that they had been ordered to destroy all contraband of war – ships, tar, pitch and planks – and requested these be handed over voluntarily.
When representatives of the town refused to oblige, the British prepared for attack and one of the boats set out, at 11 pm, in the light summer night to explore the surroundings. However, when the boat came close to the Halkokari dock, it was fired on by the defenders who had been hiding behind boards constructed between the warehouses.
The skirmish lasted about an hour. As the British withdrew from the scene one of their boats was embedded on an old wreck and became war booty, which is still on display in the town. Altogether, the British lost more than a quarter of their men, with 52 from the Vulture, dead, wounded or missing. The wounded received treatment in Kokkola and 11 able-bodied prisoners were sent via Helsinki to St Petersburg together with the British flag and a bronze cannon taken from the captured boat.
The success at Kokkola attracted much attention in Finland and Russia, and the key defenders were decorated by the Tsar Nicholas I. Portraits of two of them, the merchant Donner and the yeoman farmer Kankkonen, were widely circulated in lithographs to Finnish homes while the original oils were hung in an Imperial residence of the Tsar.
The Battles of Bomarsund 21 June and 8-16 August 1854
Bomarsund in the Åland Islands and Sveaborg at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour, formed the main Finnish strongholds of the Russian defence system in the Baltic, and the British were instructed to do some reconnaissance of both fortresses and possibly attack the former.
This fortress had been an enigma for the British as little was known about what was going on in the Åland Islands. The Åland Islands dominated the eastern Baltic and, as their fortification had begun in the 1810s, Bomarsund was arguably the most modern Russian fortress. It was here that Russia saw her potential as a major sea power because the waters around Bomarsund were free of ice for most of the year.
After a lengthy exploration of the surrounding seas, the British attacked the fortress on 21 June 1854. However, the defenders responded with such vigour that the British had to withdraw after a few hours. The battle is mainly remembered as the one in which the first ever Victoria Cross was awarded for valour. In Finland, it is recalled in a popular ditty Oolannin sota, which emphasises the role of the Finnish defenders in producing the successful outcome of the June attack.
The Allied forces returned on 8 August, and the fortress was encircled on land by 11,000 French artillery troops and from the sea by a British fleet of four 60-gun block-ships, a 34-gun screw-frigate and a dozen smaller vessels. The actual attack was launched on 10 August and after several fierce battles, the last defenders surrendered on 16 August. The Allies then destroyed the Bomarsund fortress and transported the Finnish and Russian prisoners of war, with some with their wives to Britain and France.
In Britain, the Battle of Bomarsund evoked much public enthusiasm, as the operations in the Crimea had not been as successful as originally anticipated. A coal mine opened in Northumberland a couple of weeks later was called Bomarsund in honour of the battle, and the neighbouring village still carries the same name.
The Battle of Sveaborg 9-13 August 1855
The battle of Sveaborg (the present Suomenlinna) at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour took place about a year later from 9-13 August 1855.
Deemed old fashioned and in poor shape, the Sveaborg fortress would have been significant for the Allies only as a bridgehead for a land battle. This would, however, have tied up troops with an uncertain outcome, bearing in mind the Russian manpower resources and the Finnish fighting capacity for defending their own country on familiar terrain. The Allies therefore limited themselves to bombarding the fortress and left the city itself unharmed.
According to the naval historian Basil Greenhill, this course of action was mainly a political gesture aimed at providing good tidings to a British public dissatisfied with the secondary role of the British troops in the Crimea. For the Russians, it demonstrated that the Allies would soon be technically equipped enough to move onto Kronstadt if necessary.
After the initial panic, the burghers were able to follow the spectacle from the rocky hills of Helsinki without danger. Without knowing it, they also witnessed the first time in history when the British had to sweep waters for mines. The Russians had laid some 1,000 mines in the immediate approaches to the fortress and the town.
Epilogue
As historian A.J.P. Taylor has remarked, when the war ended in April 1856, the fate of the Holy Places in Jerusalem was still not clear and and few cared. By that time, Finnish prisoners of war had been transported back to the Baltic shores from Lewes in Sussex where they had been well treated according to a report in the leading Finnish newspaper Suometar in December 1854.
During the war years, the Finnish merchant fleet had been reduced to some half of its pre-war size, but trading links between Britain and Finland were re-established and Britain became Finland’s biggest export partner following the development of the Finnish timber and pulp industries.
In Finland, the Crimean War had revealed the backwardness of the existing communications system, and in June 1855, an electric telegraph link was established between St Petersburg and Helsinki, which was soon extended to northern Finnish towns. Together with the beginnings of the railway system a couple of years later, this network helped to pull the country’s different provinces into a distinctive geographical unit while facilitating a wider and more speedy dissemination of news not only from different parts of the country but also from Europe and overseas.
Thus the Crimean War helped, in an indirect way, to pave the way for Finland's independence in 1917 as a truly European nation.
by Marjatta Bell 20.4.2004
Main sources:
Backström, Åke, ”Vid Bomarsunds fall 1854 tillfångatagna finska officerare och civila tjänstemän”, Åländsk Odling. 46:e årgången. Årsbok 1986, 121-141 (Ålands folkminnesförbund Mariehamn)
Dodd, G., A Pictorial History of the Russian War 1854-5-6 with Maps, Plans and Wood Engravings (W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh and London 1856)
Greenhill, Basil & Giffard, Ann, The British Assault on Finland 1854-55. A Forgotten Naval War (Conway Maritime Press, London 1988)
Turpeinen, Oiva, Oolannin sota. Suuriruhtinaan Suomi 1. (Tammi, Helsinki 2003)
The Crimean War (1854-56) between Russia on one side and the alliance of Great Britain, France and Turkey on the other was not only fought in the Crimean peninsula. It was also fought in the Baltic Sea, and mainly along the Finnish coasts of the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia.
Why in Finland?
Why were hostilities expanded to Finnish waters? These regions were quite remote from the holy places of Jerusalem, and the dispute which had sparked off the war. Similarly they were distant from the gates of the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and from the main routes to Central Asia, which had been the object of rivalry between Imperial Russia and Britain since the Napoleonic Wars.
A major reason was the threat to Britain posed by the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Gulf of Finland, which was only a few days’ sail from the British coastline. Yet while blocking Russia’s access to the North Sea and endeavouring to cut her supply lines, the British fleet managed to destroy much of her naval defences as well as her merchant fleet.
At that time Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire and part of the defence system at the head of the Gulf of Finland protecting St Petersburg, the capital. Moreover, Finnish vessels formed the great bulk of the Empire’s merchant fleet while Finnish towns on the Gulf of Bothnia were major shipping centres and suppliers of shipbuilding materials, providing 35% of all tar imported by the British. Finland therefore bore the brunt of the British-French naval assaults in the Baltic in the summers of 1854 and 1855.
The arrival of the British Fleet
News from Hamburg of the approaching British Baltic fleet of 49 vessels was received in Finland in late March 1854. By April, the fleet had arrived at the gateways of the Baltic. On 8 April some British ships could be detected on the Helsinki horizon for the first time, and from then on, people were eagerly following their movements in the open sea.
The Allied forces seemed to do very little during the first few weeks of hostilities apart from building blockades to the main sea routes into the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. This was despite the waters around Helsinki being free from ice in the last week of April and in the upper part of the Gulf of Bothnia in late May. The situation caused some impatience among the British officers and demands for action were also voiced in Britain.
“Take, Burn or Destroy”
In Finland the authorities had been quietly preparing for the hostilities since early 1854 and more Russian troops were sent to the region. Around 1,000 men were strengthening the fortifications in Sveaborg, (the present-day islands of Suomenlinna at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour) and scores of gunboats were being built and guns cast. A chain of observation posts was set up along the entire Finnish coast.
However, news that the official archives had been transferred from the capital Helsinki to inland Finland, caused panic among Finnish people. A few were also aware that out of 32 coastal towns as many as 21 were vulnerable to attacks by the enemy’s steam powered battleships and gunboats which were able to penetrate the narrow passages inaccessible to big men-of-war. Finnish history is riddled with wars, but attacks from the sea had been rare, and attacks from the west almost unheard of.
During May and June 1854, their fears seemed justified as news spread of British attacks in May-June 1854 on merchant towns in the Gulf of Bothnia in order “to take, burn or destroy” all equipment and materials potentially useful for military purposes.
Within less than three weeks in the region the British fleet had destroyed 46 vessels; 40,000-50,000 barrels of pitch and tar; 6,000 square yards of rough pitch; stacks of timber, spars, planks and deal, sails, rope and various kinds of naval stores. The total value of the goods at that time amounted to £300,000 to £400,000. No notice was taken of the protests by Finns that much of the destroyed materials was actually British property, already paid for and awaiting export!
The burning of tar warehouses and ships in Oulu (Uleåborg) and Raahe (Brahestad) led to international criticism, and in Britain, a Mr Gibson demanded in the House of Commons that the First Lord of the Admiralty explain "a system which carried on a great war by plundering and destroying the property of defenceless villagers.” Nevertheless the British carried out naval attacks on Finnish coastal towns throughout the sailing seasons of 1854 and 1855, destroying much of the naval supplies as well as many optical telegraph communication points and coastal fortresses.
Midnight battle in Kokkola (Gamla Karleby) 7 June 1854
Apart from verbal protests, the British had experienced no resistance in Oulu and Raahe. But once news of their fate reached other towns, residents took precautions by hiding and sinking their vessels and throwing timber into the sea. In Kokkola (Gamla Karleby) the local burghers decided to meet the enemy with arms.
On the evening of 7 June, the 16-gun paddle-frigate HMSOdin and the six-gun paddle-frigate HMS Vulture steamed to Kokkola and lowered into the water nine boats with 17 officers and 180 men aboard. Protected by a negotiation flag, the British announced that they had been ordered to destroy all contraband of war – ships, tar, pitch and planks – and requested these be handed over voluntarily.
When representatives of the town refused to oblige, the British prepared for attack and one of the boats set out, at 11 pm, in the light summer night to explore the surroundings. However, when the boat came close to the Halkokari dock, it was fired on by the defenders who had been hiding behind boards constructed between the warehouses.
The skirmish lasted about an hour. As the British withdrew from the scene one of their boats was embedded on an old wreck and became war booty, which is still on display in the town. Altogether, the British lost more than a quarter of their men, with 52 from the Vulture, dead, wounded or missing. The wounded received treatment in Kokkola and 11 able-bodied prisoners were sent via Helsinki to St Petersburg together with the British flag and a bronze cannon taken from the captured boat.
The success at Kokkola attracted much attention in Finland and Russia, and the key defenders were decorated by the Tsar Nicholas I. Portraits of two of them, the merchant Donner and the yeoman farmer Kankkonen, were widely circulated in lithographs to Finnish homes while the original oils were hung in an Imperial residence of the Tsar.
The Battles of Bomarsund 21 June and 8-16 August 1854
Bomarsund in the Åland Islands and Sveaborg at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour, formed the main Finnish strongholds of the Russian defence system in the Baltic, and the British were instructed to do some reconnaissance of both fortresses and possibly attack the former.
This fortress had been an enigma for the British as little was known about what was going on in the Åland Islands. The Åland Islands dominated the eastern Baltic and, as their fortification had begun in the 1810s, Bomarsund was arguably the most modern Russian fortress. It was here that Russia saw her potential as a major sea power because the waters around Bomarsund were free of ice for most of the year.
After a lengthy exploration of the surrounding seas, the British attacked the fortress on 21 June 1854. However, the defenders responded with such vigour that the British had to withdraw after a few hours. The battle is mainly remembered as the one in which the first ever Victoria Cross was awarded for valour. In Finland, it is recalled in a popular ditty Oolannin sota, which emphasises the role of the Finnish defenders in producing the successful outcome of the June attack.
The Allied forces returned on 8 August, and the fortress was encircled on land by 11,000 French artillery troops and from the sea by a British fleet of four 60-gun block-ships, a 34-gun screw-frigate and a dozen smaller vessels. The actual attack was launched on 10 August and after several fierce battles, the last defenders surrendered on 16 August. The Allies then destroyed the Bomarsund fortress and transported the Finnish and Russian prisoners of war, with some with their wives to Britain and France.
In Britain, the Battle of Bomarsund evoked much public enthusiasm, as the operations in the Crimea had not been as successful as originally anticipated. A coal mine opened in Northumberland a couple of weeks later was called Bomarsund in honour of the battle, and the neighbouring village still carries the same name.
The Battle of Sveaborg 9-13 August 1855
The battle of Sveaborg (the present Suomenlinna) at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour took place about a year later from 9-13 August 1855.
Deemed old fashioned and in poor shape, the Sveaborg fortress would have been significant for the Allies only as a bridgehead for a land battle. This would, however, have tied up troops with an uncertain outcome, bearing in mind the Russian manpower resources and the Finnish fighting capacity for defending their own country on familiar terrain. The Allies therefore limited themselves to bombarding the fortress and left the city itself unharmed.
According to the naval historian Basil Greenhill, this course of action was mainly a political gesture aimed at providing good tidings to a British public dissatisfied with the secondary role of the British troops in the Crimea. For the Russians, it demonstrated that the Allies would soon be technically equipped enough to move onto Kronstadt if necessary.
After the initial panic, the burghers were able to follow the spectacle from the rocky hills of Helsinki without danger. Without knowing it, they also witnessed the first time in history when the British had to sweep waters for mines. The Russians had laid some 1,000 mines in the immediate approaches to the fortress and the town.
Epilogue
As historian A.J.P. Taylor has remarked, when the war ended in April 1856, the fate of the Holy Places in Jerusalem was still not clear and and few cared. By that time, Finnish prisoners of war had been transported back to the Baltic shores from Lewes in Sussex where they had been well treated according to a report in the leading Finnish newspaper Suometar in December 1854.
During the war years, the Finnish merchant fleet had been reduced to some half of its pre-war size, but trading links between Britain and Finland were re-established and Britain became Finland’s biggest export partner following the development of the Finnish timber and pulp industries.
In Finland, the Crimean War had revealed the backwardness of the existing communications system, and in June 1855, an electric telegraph link was established between St Petersburg and Helsinki, which was soon extended to northern Finnish towns. Together with the beginnings of the railway system a couple of years later, this network helped to pull the country’s different provinces into a distinctive geographical unit while facilitating a wider and more speedy dissemination of news not only from different parts of the country but also from Europe and overseas.
Thus the Crimean War helped, in an indirect way, to pave the way for Finland's independence in 1917 as a truly European nation.
by Marjatta Bell 20.4.2004
Main sources:
Backström, Åke, ”Vid Bomarsunds fall 1854 tillfångatagna finska officerare och civila tjänstemän”, Åländsk Odling. 46:e årgången. Årsbok 1986, 121-141 (Ålands folkminnesförbund Mariehamn)
Dodd, G., A Pictorial History of the Russian War 1854-5-6 with Maps, Plans and Wood Engravings (W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh and London 1856)
Greenhill, Basil & Giffard, Ann, The British Assault on Finland 1854-55. A Forgotten Naval War (Conway Maritime Press, London 1988)
Turpeinen, Oiva, Oolannin sota. Suuriruhtinaan Suomi 1. (Tammi, Helsinki 2003)