Harfleur to Hamburg by D. J. B. Trim Brendan Simms (Editors)

Author:D. J. B. Trim Brendan Simms (Editors)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd
Published: 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

As the Holy Places crisis deepened in 1853, the Assistant Hydrographer, Captain John Washington, travelled to St. Petersburg, by way of Sweden and Finland, ostensibly to discuss lifeboat stations. In reality he would report on the Russian fleet, naval bases and coastal fortresses, including Bomarsund. Washington wrote the war plan for the Baltic early the following year. He emphasized an early attack on the Russian battle squadron that normally over-wintered at Reval (Tallinn) and capturing Bomarsund. Reval, one of three Russian Naval bases in the Gulf of Finland, would be ice-free before Cronstadt and Sweaborg. Nelson had planned the operation during his 1801 Baltic campaign: the Russians may have known that, moving the Reval squadron the previous autumn. The hydrographer appointed Captain Bartholomew Sulivan as Baltic Fleet Surveying Officer, effectively Chief of Staff (Plans), working closely with the commander-in-chief in both campaigns. Charting key areas of the Russian and Finnish coasts and planning offensive operations, Sulivan found ways to outflank the fixed defences of Bomarsund, Sweaborg, and Cronstadt, demonstrating the central role of the coastal offensive in British strategy.

The Reval plan explains why the Baltic fleet sailed earlier than expected in 1854. Reports reached London that the sea ice was breaking up. Sir Charles Napier cancelled the operation on 25 March, just as his fleet entered the Baltic, when HMS Miranda reported Reval harbour was empty.34

Without the Reval option, Napier was left to visit Stockholm, plan for an economic blockade, and investigate Åland. The Government hoped that offering the islands to Sweden would secure an alliance, Sweden providing the gunboats and troops needed to support the British fleet in further offensives. The Swedish King, Oscar I rejected the offer, to avoid earning the undying enmity of Russia. After his second set-back Napier sailed east to inspect the Russian and Finnish coasts. Over-zealous British raids in the Gulf of Bothnia caused complaints in Finland and Britain, destroying large quantities of shipbuilding materials, much of it already purchased by British merchants. This campaign came to a dramatic conclusion on 19 June when the steam warships Vulture and Odin sent over 200 Royal Marines and sailors into the harbour of a small Finnish town in the north of the Gulf of Bothnia, then known by the Swedish name Gamla Carleby, today Finnish Kokkola, with orders to destroy ‘gunboats’ and timber stores. Ambushed and driven off by Russian and Finnish troops, backed by local militia, the British lost fifty men killed, wounded, or captured, along with a boat, a flag, and gun. The gun, a military trophy, was sent to St. Petersburg, to show how the Empire was being defended. Nine British sailors were buried in the local cemetery. Their bullet-holed boat is the centrepiece of the ‘English Park’.35 Finnish casualties were minimal.

The battle at Kokkola was the exception in a series of otherwise unopposed coastal raids. Not only were Finnish casualties in these Bothnian raids generally negligible, but the consideration shown for private property, and the interests of the local people, demonstrate that

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