Russia and Sweden’s Struggle for Supremacy: 1705–90

A Russian Galley of 1719 Campaign: these big beasts were 40m (130ft) in length, 7m (23ft) abreast and 1.5m (5ft) deep, and included 25 pairs of oars, 2-4 guns, 90 crew and 200 soldiers. They could make five knots by oar.

Swedish Gunboat: The Udemaa was a revolutionary design, with the guns stored amidships when moving. In battle, these could be rolled and placed into the fire position, combining the function of gunboat and galley.

With its brackish waters, indented shoreline and lack of tides, the Baltic is more of a vast inland lake than a real ocean, making for difficult sailing and navigation conditions. A semi-Arctic climate imposes yet further restrictions upon sailing fleets and their use. It took all the iron will and determination of Tsar Peter the Great to found the Russian Navy in 1705 with the naval base at Kronstadt, on the Gulf of Finland. To outflank Swedish defences in Finland, Peter built a powerful galley fleet to combine with his new Europeanized army in amphibious operations.

Galleys were cheap and easy to mass produce, could easily be manned by sailors and did not require experienced naval officers to command them. Furthermore in the Baltic, like the Mediterranean Sea, the winds were often fickle and the oar was often superior to the sail. The Petrine galley measured 40m (130ft) in length, 7m (23ft) in width, had a shallow draft of only 1.5m (5ft) and was equipped with 2-4 heavy guns and 18 lighter mounted guns. With a crew of 90 sailors and 200 troops manning 24 pairs of oars, the galley could make a speed of five knots, weather and sea permitting. The hold had enough room for 30 horses, although the crew had to sleep on shore during the night.The effort expended on the galley fleet was vindicated when the Russians defeated a Swedish fleet at Gangut (Hangö Head) in August 1714, paving the way for an outright Russian occupation of Finland.

Less than five years later, Peter gathered a massive galley fleet in the Åland archipelago. His aim was to capture the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The Swedish sailing fleet would be unable to pursue the shallow-drafted galleys and would be immobilized by the lack of wind power. Numbering almost 270 vessels, including 40 ships of the line and 123 galleys, the Russian fleet set sail in late July 1719 with 26,000 troops on board.The aim was to land near Stockholm with one corps while the rest of the fleet laid waste to the long easterly Swedish coastline. The coastal raids ravaged the towns and settlements, leaving thousands of Swedes without homes. However, the great fear for the Swedes was that the capital could be reached via the narrow and shallow Stäket Sound.To prevent this, the Swedes placed a floating artillery pråm (battery deck) at the northern exit of the Staket Sound and three heavily armed galleys in the middle passage.At the eastern entry to Staket, where the Russians were expected, the Swedes built defensive works mounted by stakes and a gun battery, and manned by 500 troops. On 13 August 1719, 7000 Russian troops landed as expected at Staket but were halted and driven back by a stout Swedish defence. This may have saved Stockholm, but the Russians captured the Baltic provinces with their ports at Riga, Reval, Pernau and Viborg, in addition to Kronstadt.

The Decline of the Baltic Fleet

When Peter died in 1725, Russia had a fleet numbering 34 ships of the line, 9 frigates, hundreds of galleys, sloops, gunboats and some 25,000 experienced men, and was the strongest naval power in the Baltic. Under the next six rulers, the Baltic Fleet was allowed to deteriorate to the point where it was weaker than the Danish Navy, despite Russia’s status as a European Great Power. Compared to the army, the Baltic Fleet played a very minor role during the Seven Years War - where it was, ironically, Sweden and Russia who allied against Frederick’s Prussia. This war showed that the key role for navies in the Baltic was not maritime at all but amphibious; coastal flotillas needed to cooperate closely with the army and, in turn, both services needed to collaborate closely with the navy. If that coordination could be perfected, amphibious operations could be of great value. In the Baltic, the navies were operating close to the coastlines and under the direct operational controls of the admiralties in the capitals. This stifled initiative and independence in the naval officers, even admirals, to the detriment of the operational efficiency and combat potential of the Baltic navies. The Russians and Swedes, in their coming war, would show a fatal obsession with linear battle formations and theoretical operational procedures at a time when the British and French navies were revolutionizing naval warfare in the west. Russian and Swedish naval officers lacked combat experience, self-confidence and professional esprit de corps when compared to their Western counterparts.

Sweden had a few inherent advantages that were to give her the edge in naval warfare against Russia. After 1721, Sweden became a maritime trading nation in her own right with a considerable merchant fleet that could provide a useful pool of experienced sailors in time of war. Furthermore, Sweden, unlike her Russian foe, never allowed her sailing ships to deteriorate - even at the nadir of Sweden’s military misfortunes in the 1740s, the building and repair of battleships were maintained. Having been at the receiving end of an attack by Russian galleys in 1719, the Swedes also built up a respectable flotilla of galleys based at the naval fortress of Sveaborg in Finland and at Stockholm. The Swedish Admiralty at Karlskrona was also turning out a larger number of professionally trained naval cadets and encouraging their cadets, as well as their officers, to join the Western navies for experience.

The Russian Navy staged a remarkable recovery under the rule of Catherine II, who sought to establish Russian hegemony over the Black Sea. Although she had no practical knowledge or hands-on experience of naval matters like Peter I, Catherine had a sound grasp of strategy and was just as ruthless in pursuing her aim of expanding Russia to the west and south. The full extent of Russia’s naval recovery and new-found power was demonstrated in 1769-1770, when a fleet was sent, with some British assistance, to the Mediterranean. The expedition was a great success since the Russian Fleet managed to defeat and sink most of the superior Turkish Navy in a single battle at Chesme on 8 July 1770. There were rich pickings for Russia in the south, but the real danger lay in the northwest with Russia’s old enemy, Sweden.

Skärgårdsflottan: Sweden’s Secret Weapon

One of Catherine’s few and most damaging mistakes was to allow her talented and ruthless cousin, Gustavus III, to take absolute power in Sweden in August 1772. He was to prove a formidable enemy, both to Russia and to her ally, Denmark-Norway. The king worked hard to rebuild the Swedish Navy in order to assist the new coastal fleet to take Zealand and force Denmark to cede Norway to Sweden. With Norway in his grasp, the king hoped to expand Sweden’s maritime trade and power yet further.

The building of a skärgårdsflotta, or coastal fleet, had been underway since the disastrous 1741-43 war against Russia - when the lack of just such a fleet had enabled Russia to take Finland a second time. While the Karlskrona Admiralty wanted large ships of the line, the government back in Stockholm pushed for a strong coastal fleet. This fleet was to be under the command of the Army, with majors in charge of ships. Rejecting the Mediterranean-style galley, the Swedes sought something that could combine sails and oars with a large number of guns. The typical galley was poorly armed, weak in structure and used too many sailors and oarsmen. Sweden, with Finland, had barely 2 million inhabitants, which severely limited the pool of manpower for the coastal fleet. Luckily, the Swedes had an outstanding ship designer and architect in Fredrik Henrik af Chapman - the son of an immigrant British naval engineer. Chapman designed a special ‘coastal frigate’ (skärgårdsfregatt) that could sail or be rowed underway but which had the same number of guns as a frigate. It was far superior to the galley in most aspects and would wreak havoc on the Russian galleys at Svensksund. It was most vulnerable while underway - when it could not fire its guns - but it had huge potential.

Chapman, now Chief Naval Engineer, designed three types of coastal frigates of varying size and artillery strength. The smallest Pojama-class galley was least interesting from a design point of view. The Udema-class galley was designed such that its guns were stowed away amidships on the gundeck while the vessel was underway and rolled into place only when it was prepared for battle. The other two lighter classes, Turuma and Hemmema, were more conventional ‘coastal frigates’ without the stowing capacity.

With the King’s enthusiastic backing, these new ships were mass produced with amazing speed and cost efficiency. All of the new coastal ships combined a low silhouette with high firepower for such small vessels, good manoeuvrability, and fairly good sailing performance, offering relatively high speeds when propelled by oars. In battle, they could be used for supporting fire or landing troops. Their only drawback was the need for a naval escort when underway, their low radius of action and dependence on transport ships for supplies. With 14 benches for oars, the galley had a crew of 48-60 men, not counting troops. It was armed with several 181b (8kg) and 24 (11kg) guns. Thanks to another of Chapman’s ingenious innovations, these guns had an unobstructed field of fire since the upper parts of the stern and helm was detachable. In this, Chapman was about two centuries ahead of his time.

The Fall of Malakoff

The last defenders of the Malakoff Tower

The Attack on Malakoff

The church at the back of the redan showing damage from shot and shell

The Battle of Malakoff, during the Crimean War, was fought between the Allied and Russian armies on 7 September 1855 as a part of the Siege of Sevastopol. It resulted in the French army under General MacMahon successfully storming the Malakoff redoubt, though a simultaneous British attack on the Redan to the south of the Malakoff was repulsed. In one of the war's defining moments, the French zouave Eugène Libaut installed the French flag on the top of the Russian redoubt. Malakoff brought about the capture of Sevastopol after one of the most memorable sieges of the 19th century.

The harbour of Sevastopol, formed by the estuary of the Chernaya, was protected against attack by sea not only by the Russian war-vessels, afloat and sunken, but also by heavy granite forts on the south side and by the defensive works. For the town itself and the Karabelnaya suburb the trace of the works had been laid down for years. The Malakoff, a great tower of stone, covered the suburb, flanked on either side by the Redan and the Little Redan. The town was covered by a line of works marked by the Flagstaff and central bastions, and separated from the Redan by the inner harbour.

Lieut.-Col. Eduard Totleben, the Russian chief engineer, had very early begun work on these sites, and daily re-creating, rearming and improving the fortifications, finally connected them by a continuous enceinte. Yet Sevastopol was not, early in October 1854, the towering fortress it afterwards became, and Totleben himself maintained that, had the allies immediately assaulted, they would have succeeded in taking the place. There were, however, many reasons against so decided a course, and it was not until 17 October that the first attack took place.

All that day a tremendous artillery duel raged. The French siege corps suffered heavy losses and its guns were overpowered. The fleet engaged the harbour batteries close inshore, and suffered a loss of 500 men, besides severe damage to the ships. On the other hand the British siege batteries silenced the Malakoff and its annexes, and, if failure had not occurred at the other points of attack, an assault might have succeeded. As it was, by daybreak, Totleben's engineers had repaired and improved the damaged works.

For months the siege of Sevastopol continued. During July the Russians lost on an average 250 men a day, and at last it was decided that Gorchakov and the field army must make another attack at the Chernaya, the first since Inkerman. On 16 August the corps of Liprandi and Read furiously attacked the 37,000 French and Sardinian troops on the heights above Traktir Bridge. The assailants came on with the greatest determination, but the result was never for one moment doubtful. At the end of the day, the Russians drew off baffled, leaving 260 officers and 8,000 men on the field; the allies only lost 1,700.

With this defeat vanished the last chance of saving Sevastopol. On the same 16 August, the bombardment once more reduced the Malakoff and its dependencies to impotence, and it was with absolute confidence in the result that Marshal Pélissier planned the final assault. On 8 September 1855 at noon, the whole of Bosquet's corps suddenly swarmed up to the Malakoff. The fighting was of the most desperate kind: every casemate, every traverse, was taken and retaken time after time, but the French maintained the prize, and though the British attack on the Redan once more failed, the Russians crowded in that work became at once the helpless target of the siege guns.

Even on the far left, at the opposite Flagstaff and Central bastions, there was severe hand-to-hand fighting. Throughout the day the bombardment mowed down the Russian masses along the whole line. The fall of the Malakoff was the end of the siege. That night the Russians filed over the bridges to the north side, and on September 9 the victors took possession of the empty and burning prize. The losses in the last assault had been very heavy: for the Allies over 10,000 men, for the Russians 13,000. No fewer than nineteen generals had fallen on the final day. But with the capture of Sevastopol the war was decided. No serious operations were undertaken against Gorchakov who, with the field army and the remnants of the garrison, held the heights at Mackenzie's Farm. But Kinburn was attacked by sea and, from the naval point of view, became the first instance of the employment of Ironclad warships. An armistice was agreed upon on 26 February and the Treaty of Paris was signed on 30 March 1856.

The strategically decisive importance of the siege of Sevastopol lies beneath the surface: why did the fall of a place, at first almost unfortified, lead to the end of the war. At first sight Russia would seem to be almost invulnerable to a sea power, and no first success, however crushing, could have humbled Nicholas I. Indeed the mere capture of Sevastopol would not have been strategically decisive. However, once the Tsar had decided to defend it at all costs, the Allies' unlimited resources operated in their favour.

The invaders were supplied by sea with whatever they needed, whilst the desert tracks of southern Russia were littered with the corpses of men and horses who had fallen bringing supplies to Sevastopol. The hasty nature, too, of the fortifications, which, daily crushed by the fire of a thousand guns, had to be re-created every night, made huge and therefore unprotected working parties necessary, and the losses were correspondingly heavy. The double cause of loss completely exhausted even Russia's resources, and, when the Russians were forced to employ large bodies of militia in the battle of Traktir Bridge, it was obvious that the end was at hand. The short stories of Leo Tolstoy, who was present at the siege, give a graphic picture of the war from the Russian point of view, portraying the miseries of the desert march, the still greater miseries of life in the casemates, and the almost daily ordeal of manning the lines, under shell-fire, against an assault which might or might not come.

The battle at Traktir Bridge.

The Battle of the Chernaya (Battle of Traktir Bridge,) was a battle by the Chernaya River fought during the Crimean War on August 16, 1855. The battle was fought between Russian troops and a coalition of French, Sardinian and Ottoman troops. The Chernaya River is on the outskirts of Sevastopol. The battle ended in a Russian retreat and a victory for the French, Turks and Sardinians.

The battle was planned as an offensive by the Russians with the aim of forcing the Allied forces (French, British, Sardinian, and Ottoman) to retreat and abandon their siege of Sevastopol. Czar Alexander II had ordered his commander in chief in the Crimea, Prince Michael Gorchakov to attack the besieging forces before they were reinforced further. The Czar hoped that by gaining a victory, he could force a more favorable resolution to the conflict. Gorchakov didn’t think that an attack would be successful but believed the greatest chance of success to be near the French and Sardinian positions on the Chernaya River. The Czar ordered the hesitating Gorchakov to hold a war council to plan the attack. The attack was planned for the morning of August 16 in the hope to surprise the French and Sardinians as they had just celebrated the Feast day of the Emperor (France) and Assumption Day (Sardinians). The Russians hoped that because of these feasts the enemy would be tired and less attentive to the Russians.

58,000 Russian troops in two army corps under Prince Michael Gorchakov fought against 28,000 French and Sardinian troops under French General Aimable Pélissier and Sardinian General Alfonso La Marmora. Although the British correspondents were amazed at the courageousness and impetuosity of their attack, the assault of the Russian army was handicapped by poor organization and lack of experienced soldiers which, due to Sevastopol, forced their corps to consist mostly of militia.

In the cover of the morning fog, the Russians advanced on Traktirburg with 47,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry and 270 cannon under command of general Liprandi on the left and general Read on the right. The two generals had been ordered by Gorchakov not to cross the river until given explicit orders. Annoyed that things weren’t happening fast enough, Gorchakov sent a note to his generals with the words "Let's start it." By this, Gorchakov only meant that the Russians should start to deploy their forces. Unfortunately his generals interpreted his words as his order to attack and they acted accordingly, although reserve forces were still on route to the battlefield. The attacking Russians immediately met stiff resistance from the French and Sardinians. Read’s forces crossed the river near Traktirburg but without cavalry and artillery support, they were easily stopped by the French on the Fedjuchin Heights. Read then ordered his reserve formation, the 5th Infantry Division, to attack the Heights but instead of launching a coordinated assault, he fed them piecemeal in to the fray. Going in regiment by regiment, the assaulting reserve troops accomplished nothing. Seeing this Gorchakov ordered Read to deploy the entire division against the French. This forced the French back up the hill but the Russians could not capture the Heights. In the following retreat General Read was killed. Upon the death of Read, Gorchakov took personal command of the right and ordered 8 battalions of Liprandi’s left wing to reinforce the right wing. These forces came under fire from the Sardinians and were driven back. At 10 o’clock in the morning, Gorchakov concluded that the situation was hopeless and ordered a general retreat.