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Updated: June 10, 2025
They effected a junction in the Bay of Barosund on the 11th of June. The allied fleet numbered thirty ships and fifty frigates, corvettes, and other vessels. The naval commanders wished to attack the defenses of Bomarsund, on one of the Aland Isles, but, after a reconnoissance, they came to the conclusion that it was necessary to have land-forces.
It was clearly perceived that the fleet alone could not take the place. Bomarsund, indeed, might well be considered the Sebastopol of the Baltic, its evident object being to overawe the neighbouring kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark. Its destruction, therefore, was of the greatest importance.
The ships directed their fire against a large circular fort mounting nearly 100 guns, with a garrison of 2000 men, when the shot soon shattered the huge masses of stone, which literally crumbled away before them, and in a short time the garrison, seeing that resistance was useless, yielded, and Bomarsund was taken possession of.
Suffice it, that if ever open mutiny was displayed not by the crews of the ships, but by many of the captains, men who attained the highest rank in their profession it was during the cruise in the Baltic in 1854: and no wonder. Many gallant deeds were performed by single ships, but the fleet did absolutely nothing, except help to capture Bomarsund. I returned to England disgusted and disheartened.
They were to start at midnight, and would reach Bomarsund, on the main island of Aland, on the following evening, wait there for twenty-four hours to rest the animals, and would reach the mainland the next day. The frost continued unbroken, and they crossed the gulf without difficulty, travelled rapidly across Sweden, and reached England without adventure of any kind.
The allied fleet lay at anchor at Ledsund, about eighteen miles from Bomarsund, anxiously waiting for the arrival of the French troops promised for the service. It was not, however, till the end of July that the first division reached Ledsund, brought in British ships-of-war. They were under the command of General Baraguay D'Hilliers.
I shall never forget old Charley's answer to me when I applied for my promotion, it was so worthy of him. He said, 'Don't ye come crying to me, Sir; you are a lord's son: I'll have nothing to do wi' ye. Immediately after the capture of Bomarsund, the admiral detached a small squadron under Captain S to reconnoitre the Russian port of Abo.
"I recollect after the bombardment of Bomarsund and the capture of a lot of prizes up the Baltic, we put into Kiel again, and the men wanted to draw advances to have a spree ashore, but the admiral told the purser to refuse them, and when they grumbled about it he gave them a `dressing-down' from the poop, having them all piped aft by the bosun for the purpose. `Lads, says he, `I'll let you have ten shillings apiece, but not a farthing more to spend, now!
This way of making war reminds me forcibly of the state of things in the Crimean War, when a powerful English fleet set out with a great flourish of trumpets against Cronstadt and St. Petersburg, but did nothing except bombard Bomarsund, a place nobody cared about. The English Press had great difficulty in excusing the fiasco of its world-renowned fleet."
Me?" she exclaimed. "Yes, indeed! But not so very many, if you count them. Five, all told! Two of my little girls I lost 'tis a many years agone now. My two boys are aboard ship, one in the Black Sea, one in the Baltic. My eldest on the Agamemnon. My second he's but sixteen on the Tithonus. But he's seen service he was at Bomarsund in August.
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