Among the more important performances of the allied fleet in the Baltic
was the severe injury inflicted on the fortress of Sveaborg, one of the
strongest belonging to Russia to keep her neighbours in awe in that part
of the world.
The fortress of Sveaborg is built on a granite island about a mile in
advance of Helsingfors, the Russian capital of Finland. There are eight
island rocks connected by strong fortifications, and in the centre is
situated the fort in which the Russian flotilla was congregated. It was
looked upon as the Gibraltar of the North, and had been considerably
strengthened since the commencement of the war. The citadel of this
water-surrounded fortress is called Wargon. The allied fleet,
consisting of seventeen British men-of-war, fifteen gunboats, and
sixteen mortar-vessels, with two French men-of-war, six gunboats, and
five mortar-vessels, left Nargen on the 6th of August, and anchored the
same night among the islands about five miles from Sveaborg. During the
night and next day, some batteries were thrown up on the neighbouring
islands; and early on the morning of the 9th, the squadron having taken
up their positions,--several behind the islands, where the enemy's guns
could not reach them,--the bombardment commenced. The showers of shot
and shell told with terrific effect on the devoted fortress; powder
magazines and stores of projectiles one after the other blew up, and
fires broke out in various directions, which all the efforts of the
garrison could not extinguish, and in a short time the whole of the
arsenal was reduced to ashes. Still the mortars continued to play, to
prevent the fires which were blazing up around from being extinguished.
Very few men were wounded, and none were killed during the whole of the
operations. Although the naval and military stores were destroyed, the
fortress still remained intact. The Russians, however, had been taught
the lesson that it would be better for them in future not to make
aggressions on their neighbours, or to venture hastily into war.
Captains Yelverton and Vansittart had already shown them how little they
could rely on their boasted fortifications, by destroying all between
Viborg and Helsingfors, Fredericksham, Kotka, and Swartholme.