The defence of the famous fortress had been entrusted to Admiral Count Cronstedt, a veteran officer of the Swedish navy, although the force under his command included only about 200 sailors among more than 7,000 combatants. Half the garrison were Swedes, the rest Finns. A large flotilla of galleys and gunboats lay in the creeks between the islands, protected by the works, but themselves unable to take any part in the defence of the fortress, for they were frozen fast in the ice. The same thick ice joined the islands to the coast, and extended in a solid sheet far out to seaward.

The Russian force which was detached from the army of invasion for the siege of Sweaborg, was directed by an engineer officer, General Suchtelen. When he approached the place in February he had not quite 3,000 men at his disposal, but he was gradually reinforced until, in the first week of March, he commanded eleven battalions of infantry, four squadrons of cavalry, four field-batteries, a company of garrison artillery, and two companies of engineers.

Heavy guns for the siege-batteries were taken from the Russian fortresses on the frontier of Finland, packed on sledges, and dragged slowly across the snow ice to Helsingfors, the busy commercial town which stands on a point of the mainland west of Sweaborg. Naturally, there was a limit to the number of guns that could be thus brought up, especially as for every gun a quantity of ammunition would have to be conveyed to the front in the same laborious fashion.

Thus it was that Suchtelen had never more than thirty heavy guns and sixteen mortars in his batteries, though there were some 2,000 cannon, mounted and unmounted, in the forts and arsenal of Sweaborg. Nor was the want of ordnance the only difficulty of the attack - Suchtelen had to construct the batteries for the few guns he possessed with logs, bundles of brushwood, gabions filled with snow and other light materials; for the bare rocky ground of the islands and capes made it impossible to dig, and between the capes and the fortress there was only the level ice of the Gulf of Finland, covered with frozen snow, and broken here and there by a ridge of rocks.

To carry parallels and zigzags across such a surface, and erect breaching batteries upon it was out of the question. Suchtelen, therefore, decided that this singular siege should be chiefly a blockade, varied with an occasional bombardment, when his limited supplies of ammunition could permit such a display of fireworks.

He mounted his heavy guns and mortars at Cape Helsingfors and on Skandetlandet island, and some adjacent rocks. Back Holm, on the east of Sweaborg, was held by a detached force, and the expanse of ice to the northward covering the great roadstead was continually patrolled by night and watched by day. There was not much chance of the garrison breaking out to the south where the ice covered the open sea for miles. At first Suchtelen had thought of attempting a coup-de-man, in the shape of a sudden assault with scaling ladders but considering the great risk and the certain cost in life of such an enterprise, he decided that it should be attempted only if other means failed.

The first cannon-shots were exchanged on March 6th. At daybreak a Swedish working party, several hundred strong, was seen to be busy on the west side of Sweaborg, breaking up the ice in front of the fortifications. It was a difficult piece of work; for blocks of ice had to be sawn out and carried off. Count Cronstedt was trying to secure a barrier of open water, or at least of thin ice, for the forts that he believed to be most exposed to attack.

A Russian battery on a rocky island between Sweaborg and Helsingfors opened fire on the ice-cutters, and they ran back behind the nearest forts, which promptly replied to the Russian fire. Laid with a high elevation, the Swedish guns sent most of their projectiles over the Russian battery and into the town of Helsingfors behind it, where roofs and walls were soon crashing down. On this Suchtelen ceased firing, and sent an officer with a flag of truce across the ice to Sweaborg. The officer was brought to Admiral Cronstedtt's quarters, and told the Swedish commander that he had been sent by General Suchtelen, out of motives of humanity; to remonstrate with him as to the damage his guns were doing to the peaceful inhabitants of Helsingfors.

Most of them, he pointed out, had relations and friends in the garrison; and if, nevertheless, the governor was so unfeeling as to destroy their homes and expose them to the horrors of a northern winter, the Russian army would make reprisals on Swedish towns that were already in its possession. The old sailor replied that the destruction of Helsingfors was necessary for the security of his garrison and sorry as he was for the poor people of the town, he must think first of the defence of the fortress. But Cronstedt was anything but a determined man, and after giving this decision he consented to take the advice of a council of war on the point.

Now, councils of war almost without exception avoid strong measures and disagreeable courses, so the result was that later in the day Cronstedt agreed to a compromise suggested by Suchtelen. On the one hand the Swedes agreed not to fire upon Helsingfors, on the other, the Russians pledged themselves not to erect any batteries in the direction of the town. There was to be no fighting on the northwest front of Sweaborg, 'from motives of humanity.'

But the old sailor had been outwitted by the wily Russian, who had gained a tremendous advantage out of this humanitarian compact. To quote Suchtelen's own words in his report on the siege: 'Our ammunition trains, our hospitals and stores, could thus be placed in perfect safety at Helsingfors. The town afforded at the same time to the headquarters, and to the troops carrying on the siege, the only shelter from the weather that was to be found in the neighbourhood.'

The Winter Campaign in Finland 1808 Part 1

Part 1: Russian Invasion
Part 1: Defense of Sweaborg

The Winter Campaign in Finland 1808 Part 2 Siege of Sweaborg and Campaign to Armistice