Verbose
Deity
Loosing Finland: The arch-traitor of Swedish history
The greatest single act of betrayal in Swedish military history was performed on May 3 1809. On this day Carl Olof Cronstedt (1756-1820) the commandant of the fortress Sveaborg (Suomenlinna, Fin.) outside Helsinki handed it over to the Russian army without a fight.
The background was the war of 1808-1809. As tsar Alexander of Russia and Napoleon had given each other a free hand to settle whatever scores they had in their neighbourhoods without interference by the other. Russia in early 1808 turned on Sweden with the intent of conquering the duchy of Finland, the eastern half of the kingdom since the middle ages.
After some heavy fighting all through 1808 the Swedish-Finnish army was virtually driven out of the country. However, one important toehold remained in the south, the fortress Sveaborg. Swedish military planners had put together a realistic plan and assembled the men and goods for a great spring offensive that, so it was hoped, would drive the Russians out. It would be a two pronged attack, one army advancing south from the Swedish border in the high north, another would be shipped to Sveaborg and execute a breakout northwards, to link up with the northern army. The control of Sveaborg was the key to this plan.
So what was Sveaborg?
It is an enormous fortress built by the Swedish government, using French money, in the mid 18th century. Just after its construction it was quite possibly the most powerful fortress in the world. The French wanted something that might rein in Russian expansion in the Baltic. So did Frances best buddies at the time the Swedes. The answer was a whopping big fortress.
It isnt really one fortress, but more of a whole range of fortifications spanning the islands around the inlet to Helsinki. Its a tourist attraction and nice to visit in the summer. Parts of it are still restricted military areas. In Finnish its known as Suomenlinna. As Sveaborg means The Swedish fortress, Suomenlinna means the Finnish fortress. The Russian gave it a third name of their own.
To give you some idea of what an awe inspiring fortification it was for its time, one can cite what happened in the Crimean war. Russian had two locks to its interior, Sebastopol in the Crimean and this fortress outside Helsinki. While the fight on land was taken to Crimea, a combined Anglo-French fleet sailed into the Baltic, ranged itself outside Helsinki and let fly for two consecutive days without doing much damage When the fleet had used up its ammunition it sailed home again. 70 defenders were killed as the fortress was banged about for a bit and that was about it. (Though the British claim extensive damage was done.)
Cronstedt was put in charge of these massive fortifications in 1801. For him it was a form of banishment. He had made his career in the navy, rising to the rank of vice-admiral (blue flag) in 1801. His rise to fame and power really began in 1790, when Cronstedt filled the role of flag-captain in the naval battle of Svensksund under king Gustaf III, who had assumed personal command of the Swedish navy in his war with Russia.
The king and the fleet had become trapped by the Russian fleet, and on July 9 it attempted a break out. This was 100% successful and garnered Sweden its greatest naval victory in its history. Since the king was an inexperienced dunce when it came to naval warfare (or warfare in general) credit went to his flag captain who directed a lot of the battle. Up until Svensksund this had been a bad war for Sweden. The victory ended the war on a positive note and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
From then on Cronstedt rose pretty quickly, becoming politically influential as well. But as he was made admiral in 1801, he also lost a political power struggle and his enemies managed to get him sent of to command this fortress, a task that thoroughly disgusted him.
So, after sitting in his fortress in a gloomy mood for seven years, there was finally a war. As said, 1808 wasnt a good year for the Swedish arms, but hopes were that 1809 would be better. Besides as long as Sweden held Sveaborg the Russians couldnt be sure of their control of much if anything in southern Finland.
Of course, as Helsinki was captured, the Russian forces laid siege to Sveaborg. A siege of sorts at least. The situation was roughly as follows: in the city of Helsinki a couple of thousand Russian infantry and cavalry commanded by general Suchtelen. Oh, and he had at his disposal only 46 pieces of field artillery.
Sitting off the coast was one of the worlds most powerful fortresses, manned by 6000+ Swedish troops, bristling with cannons (several thousand). The Russians were outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1. Technically they could have attacked across the ice, but that would have been suicide. The risk, had the Swedish commander realised how superior his forces were, of a Swedish break out was much greater.
As the ice lay, it would be impossible to resupply the fortress, but there would be no real need for this until much later in the year. The garrison hand plenty of provisions and ammunition. If the Russians wanted to take the place they would have to concentrate considerable forces and bring up plenty of heavy siege artillery. Given time they could certainly do that, but for the time being the fortress was in no danger whatsoever. Besides, in the fortress harbour lay the entire Swedish archipelago fleet, a hundred or more ships. (A peculiar aspect of naval warfare in the Baltic, heavily armed, small low-draft ships, often galleys, ideal for fighting in narrow, shallow waters.) Even if things got out of hand, Cronstedt could have waited for the ice to break and then simply sailed his entire garrison to Stockholm unopposed, at least saving his troops.
In this situation Suchtelen turned out to be a cunning old fox. He deployed and rotated his scarce troops in such a fashion as to give the impression of a much larger force. He also set his field arty to laying down a constant nuisance fire against the fortress. We are talking small bore guns useful against troops on an open battlefield. Despite of constant shelling over several months, when Cronstedt eventually gave up the fortress his, casualties, out of a 6000+ garrison, numbered 5 killed and 28 wounded. As long as the troops didnt do anything stupid or were extremely unlucky, all they had to do was to keep their heads down to be safe. With a kill rate of 1 in 1200, Sveaborg must have been the safest place in the entire Swedish army in late 1808 and early 1809.
Cronstedts big mistake was that he started negotiating with Suchtelen and his senior officers. On several occasions during the siege in the winter of 1808-1809 they met on the ice halfway between fortress and city. The Russians played Cronstedt like an instrument. They would be full of sympathy and somehow by hints suggest to him that his position was utterly desperate and hopeless. In this frame of mind Cronstedt would then return to continue to brood over his untenable position.
The entire situation became strange indeed when Cronstedt on Arpril 6 decided to come to an agreement with the Russians. According to this he would give the fortress up on May 3 1809 unless a certain number of Swedish warships had entered the fortress harbour. But in the mean time the Swedes would immediately give up three outer fortifications. In this month the Russians pressed every advantage they could and insinuated themselves into the fortifications to the point where what could have been an impregnable position looked flimsy indeed. In the end Cronstedt did find himself in the untenable position he had thought he was in all along and gave up the fortress on the stipulated date.
This effectively ripped the bottom out of any immediate plans for a continued war to retake Finland. It was left in Russian hands pending a resolution to the crisis it had produced in Sweden:
In 1809 king Gustaf IV was deposed in a military coup détat, and his childless uncle the very simple Charles XIII made king. This ended royal absolutism (a second time, it had been reinstated by Gustaf IIIs coup détat of 1772) and Sweden got a parliamentary constitution based on division of power.
A popular, obese Danish prince named Fredrick called in as the new heir to the throne. He died under mysterious circumstances (he fell of his horse, dead, at a military review, it is now assumed from a stroke or similar due to his obesity).
The senior politician Axel von Fersen (who had been Marie Antoinettes lover and possibly the father of her son the duke of Normandy) was suspected, and at the opening of the Parliament he was dragged from his carriage and beaten to death by an angry mob while a passive Royal Guard look on (probably under orders from Fersens enemies).
In this situation it was decided to get try to get Napoleon to hand Sweden some princeling of his to make king, but the young officer charged with the mission struck up a friendship with Bernadotte and managed to sell him as future king of Sweden instead.
Bernadotte became crown prince as it was hoped he would lead a successful war of reconquest with French aid against Russia. Bernadotte was no fool however. He knew the score, including the fact that by 1812 France was toast anyway, and decided that Finland had to be left to Russia. Instead he would nick Norway from the Danes as compensation. (The Danes had thrown in with the French after Nelsons unprovoked attack that destroyed the Danish fleet and burned Copenhagen.)
Considering the strangeness of the situation in which Cronstedt had given up the fortress immediate debates broke out over what the devil Cronstedt had really been up to. There were allegations that the Russians had bought him. These rumours seem to have ended with Suchtelens book about the war, where he portrayed Cronstedt as an honest idiot. Cronstedt himself was given a country estate in Finland by the Emperor, the arch-duke of Finland and Tsar of all Russians, where he lived out his life hated by the Swedes and despised by Finns and Russians alike.
As far as his relative lack of notoriety, already in the 19th c. the Finnish national poet (who wrote in Swedish) Johan Ludwig Runeberg wrote a poem about Sveaborg and the traitor, but without mentioning his name. He thought this was a fit retribution, to loose his name and go down in history simply as The Traitor. It worked, or so it would seem.
Another reason might of course be that Sweden quickly set about getting over the loss of Finland, and with liberalisation and industrialisation it had a busy 19th century where Finland was only rarely missed.
On its own Finland became the window of the Russian empire, where it showed itself of to Europe from its most pleasing side. Finnish officers repaid the compliment by throwing themselves whole heartedly into Russian empire building. From 1809 to the independence in 1917 there were more than 400 Finnish officers of the rank of general or above in the Russian armies.
The greatest single act of betrayal in Swedish military history was performed on May 3 1809. On this day Carl Olof Cronstedt (1756-1820) the commandant of the fortress Sveaborg (Suomenlinna, Fin.) outside Helsinki handed it over to the Russian army without a fight.
The background was the war of 1808-1809. As tsar Alexander of Russia and Napoleon had given each other a free hand to settle whatever scores they had in their neighbourhoods without interference by the other. Russia in early 1808 turned on Sweden with the intent of conquering the duchy of Finland, the eastern half of the kingdom since the middle ages.
After some heavy fighting all through 1808 the Swedish-Finnish army was virtually driven out of the country. However, one important toehold remained in the south, the fortress Sveaborg. Swedish military planners had put together a realistic plan and assembled the men and goods for a great spring offensive that, so it was hoped, would drive the Russians out. It would be a two pronged attack, one army advancing south from the Swedish border in the high north, another would be shipped to Sveaborg and execute a breakout northwards, to link up with the northern army. The control of Sveaborg was the key to this plan.
So what was Sveaborg?
It is an enormous fortress built by the Swedish government, using French money, in the mid 18th century. Just after its construction it was quite possibly the most powerful fortress in the world. The French wanted something that might rein in Russian expansion in the Baltic. So did Frances best buddies at the time the Swedes. The answer was a whopping big fortress.
It isnt really one fortress, but more of a whole range of fortifications spanning the islands around the inlet to Helsinki. Its a tourist attraction and nice to visit in the summer. Parts of it are still restricted military areas. In Finnish its known as Suomenlinna. As Sveaborg means The Swedish fortress, Suomenlinna means the Finnish fortress. The Russian gave it a third name of their own.
To give you some idea of what an awe inspiring fortification it was for its time, one can cite what happened in the Crimean war. Russian had two locks to its interior, Sebastopol in the Crimean and this fortress outside Helsinki. While the fight on land was taken to Crimea, a combined Anglo-French fleet sailed into the Baltic, ranged itself outside Helsinki and let fly for two consecutive days without doing much damage When the fleet had used up its ammunition it sailed home again. 70 defenders were killed as the fortress was banged about for a bit and that was about it. (Though the British claim extensive damage was done.)
Cronstedt was put in charge of these massive fortifications in 1801. For him it was a form of banishment. He had made his career in the navy, rising to the rank of vice-admiral (blue flag) in 1801. His rise to fame and power really began in 1790, when Cronstedt filled the role of flag-captain in the naval battle of Svensksund under king Gustaf III, who had assumed personal command of the Swedish navy in his war with Russia.
The king and the fleet had become trapped by the Russian fleet, and on July 9 it attempted a break out. This was 100% successful and garnered Sweden its greatest naval victory in its history. Since the king was an inexperienced dunce when it came to naval warfare (or warfare in general) credit went to his flag captain who directed a lot of the battle. Up until Svensksund this had been a bad war for Sweden. The victory ended the war on a positive note and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
From then on Cronstedt rose pretty quickly, becoming politically influential as well. But as he was made admiral in 1801, he also lost a political power struggle and his enemies managed to get him sent of to command this fortress, a task that thoroughly disgusted him.
So, after sitting in his fortress in a gloomy mood for seven years, there was finally a war. As said, 1808 wasnt a good year for the Swedish arms, but hopes were that 1809 would be better. Besides as long as Sweden held Sveaborg the Russians couldnt be sure of their control of much if anything in southern Finland.
Of course, as Helsinki was captured, the Russian forces laid siege to Sveaborg. A siege of sorts at least. The situation was roughly as follows: in the city of Helsinki a couple of thousand Russian infantry and cavalry commanded by general Suchtelen. Oh, and he had at his disposal only 46 pieces of field artillery.
Sitting off the coast was one of the worlds most powerful fortresses, manned by 6000+ Swedish troops, bristling with cannons (several thousand). The Russians were outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1. Technically they could have attacked across the ice, but that would have been suicide. The risk, had the Swedish commander realised how superior his forces were, of a Swedish break out was much greater.
As the ice lay, it would be impossible to resupply the fortress, but there would be no real need for this until much later in the year. The garrison hand plenty of provisions and ammunition. If the Russians wanted to take the place they would have to concentrate considerable forces and bring up plenty of heavy siege artillery. Given time they could certainly do that, but for the time being the fortress was in no danger whatsoever. Besides, in the fortress harbour lay the entire Swedish archipelago fleet, a hundred or more ships. (A peculiar aspect of naval warfare in the Baltic, heavily armed, small low-draft ships, often galleys, ideal for fighting in narrow, shallow waters.) Even if things got out of hand, Cronstedt could have waited for the ice to break and then simply sailed his entire garrison to Stockholm unopposed, at least saving his troops.
In this situation Suchtelen turned out to be a cunning old fox. He deployed and rotated his scarce troops in such a fashion as to give the impression of a much larger force. He also set his field arty to laying down a constant nuisance fire against the fortress. We are talking small bore guns useful against troops on an open battlefield. Despite of constant shelling over several months, when Cronstedt eventually gave up the fortress his, casualties, out of a 6000+ garrison, numbered 5 killed and 28 wounded. As long as the troops didnt do anything stupid or were extremely unlucky, all they had to do was to keep their heads down to be safe. With a kill rate of 1 in 1200, Sveaborg must have been the safest place in the entire Swedish army in late 1808 and early 1809.
Cronstedts big mistake was that he started negotiating with Suchtelen and his senior officers. On several occasions during the siege in the winter of 1808-1809 they met on the ice halfway between fortress and city. The Russians played Cronstedt like an instrument. They would be full of sympathy and somehow by hints suggest to him that his position was utterly desperate and hopeless. In this frame of mind Cronstedt would then return to continue to brood over his untenable position.
The entire situation became strange indeed when Cronstedt on Arpril 6 decided to come to an agreement with the Russians. According to this he would give the fortress up on May 3 1809 unless a certain number of Swedish warships had entered the fortress harbour. But in the mean time the Swedes would immediately give up three outer fortifications. In this month the Russians pressed every advantage they could and insinuated themselves into the fortifications to the point where what could have been an impregnable position looked flimsy indeed. In the end Cronstedt did find himself in the untenable position he had thought he was in all along and gave up the fortress on the stipulated date.
This effectively ripped the bottom out of any immediate plans for a continued war to retake Finland. It was left in Russian hands pending a resolution to the crisis it had produced in Sweden:
In 1809 king Gustaf IV was deposed in a military coup détat, and his childless uncle the very simple Charles XIII made king. This ended royal absolutism (a second time, it had been reinstated by Gustaf IIIs coup détat of 1772) and Sweden got a parliamentary constitution based on division of power.
A popular, obese Danish prince named Fredrick called in as the new heir to the throne. He died under mysterious circumstances (he fell of his horse, dead, at a military review, it is now assumed from a stroke or similar due to his obesity).
The senior politician Axel von Fersen (who had been Marie Antoinettes lover and possibly the father of her son the duke of Normandy) was suspected, and at the opening of the Parliament he was dragged from his carriage and beaten to death by an angry mob while a passive Royal Guard look on (probably under orders from Fersens enemies).
In this situation it was decided to get try to get Napoleon to hand Sweden some princeling of his to make king, but the young officer charged with the mission struck up a friendship with Bernadotte and managed to sell him as future king of Sweden instead.
Bernadotte became crown prince as it was hoped he would lead a successful war of reconquest with French aid against Russia. Bernadotte was no fool however. He knew the score, including the fact that by 1812 France was toast anyway, and decided that Finland had to be left to Russia. Instead he would nick Norway from the Danes as compensation. (The Danes had thrown in with the French after Nelsons unprovoked attack that destroyed the Danish fleet and burned Copenhagen.)
Considering the strangeness of the situation in which Cronstedt had given up the fortress immediate debates broke out over what the devil Cronstedt had really been up to. There were allegations that the Russians had bought him. These rumours seem to have ended with Suchtelens book about the war, where he portrayed Cronstedt as an honest idiot. Cronstedt himself was given a country estate in Finland by the Emperor, the arch-duke of Finland and Tsar of all Russians, where he lived out his life hated by the Swedes and despised by Finns and Russians alike.
As far as his relative lack of notoriety, already in the 19th c. the Finnish national poet (who wrote in Swedish) Johan Ludwig Runeberg wrote a poem about Sveaborg and the traitor, but without mentioning his name. He thought this was a fit retribution, to loose his name and go down in history simply as The Traitor. It worked, or so it would seem.
Another reason might of course be that Sweden quickly set about getting over the loss of Finland, and with liberalisation and industrialisation it had a busy 19th century where Finland was only rarely missed.
On its own Finland became the window of the Russian empire, where it showed itself of to Europe from its most pleasing side. Finnish officers repaid the compliment by throwing themselves whole heartedly into Russian empire building. From 1809 to the independence in 1917 there were more than 400 Finnish officers of the rank of general or above in the Russian armies.
