The Baltic Campaign in the Crimean War 1854

The following is a description of the battle in the Gulf of Finland in August 1854, in which HMS Cumberland was involved.  It is likely that, as one of the six sailing ships in the British fleet, the ship herself saw no direct action, and the campaign appears to have relied more on the more manouverable screw and paddle vessels.  700 Royal Marines were involved in an Allied attack on land, but as Henry was no longer in the Corps it would seem unlikely that he joined them.  Whether he saw action himself or not, this must be the battle for which he qualified for the Baltic Medal.

For a short description of the land action Richard Brooks* quotes Colonel Cyril Field RMLI (in "Britain's Sea Soldiers" , Lyceum Press, Liverpool, 1924) 
"Three naval 32 pounders ineffectively battered Fort Nottich, one of a circle of iron-roofed gun-towers around the fortress, until an RMA detail brought up fresh ammunition at midday.  As a favour they were allowed to give the seamen a spell and promptly demonstrated the superiority of military gunnery by concentrating all three guns on a single point, instead of firing independently.  Three or Four shots set the great stones "chattering"; one block fell out, then another until "an avalanche of looses rubbish", just as you see macadamising stones pour out from the back of a cart when the tailboard is removed".  Marine infantry occupied the shattered fort that evening and next day watched more than 2,000 Russians march out of Fort Bomarsund: 'A more horrid looking set of men can scarcely be imagined, nearly half of them, including the Greek priest, were drunk' "

A detailed description of the campaign, published in 1901  

During that period, and for some time afterwards, the usefulness of the British fleet in the Baltic was seriously hampered not only by Napier's age and moral timidity, (Admiral Napier was in overall charge of the fleet and the campaign - JCC) but also by the relative immobility of the French contingent, which, so far as its fighting ships were concerned, consisted almost exclusively of sailing vessels....

....Never, perhaps, was the immense importance of homogeneity in a fleet more clearly illustrated. Cholera had broken out on board the ships, and, as the waters in the neighbourhood of Cronstadt were supposed to be "pestiferous," the fleets withdrew to Baro Sound, westward of Sweaborg, where they anchored on July 6th. There they waited, while Rear-Admiral Plumridge, with a slightly reinforced squadron, blockaded Bomarsund; and while 10,000 French troops, under General Baraguay d'Hilliers, in British and French transports, were sent northwards, to be employed in the projected operations. This corps sailed from off Calais on July 22nd. On July 18th, the combined fleets moved from Baro Sound towards Ledsund, which was reached on the 21st. There, by August 5th, all transports, with troops, munitions and stores, had assembled ; and, Baraguay d'Hilliers, who had preceded his command, having already reconnoitred Bomarsund, all was ready for the attack.

The Aland Islands consist of a group of 280 rocks and islets, about 200 of which are uninhabited. They enclose a perfect labyrinth of channels most difficult to navigate. The islands had been Swedish until 1809, when they had been taken by Russia, which, to protect its conquest, had erected on the largest of the islands, commanding Lumpar Bay, in the strait separating Aland from Presto, the strong fortress of Bomarsund. The fortress itself, in 1854, formed the segment of a circle, having a chord about a quarter of a mile in length, and presenting to the roadstead a casemated battery of 120 guns, in two tiers. The system of defence was made complete by a series of works commencing on the heights behind, the chief work on the north being Fort Nottich, and the chief one on the west being Fort Tzee, each mounting 14 guns. To the southwest was an unfinished new fort, and, nearly south of it, on Tranvik Point, was a 7-gun battery. The works were continued across the water, on a chain of islets, to Presto, where stood another 14-gun fort, nearly north-west of the main fortress, and somewhat less than a mile distant from it.  All the forts were of granite, with guns in two tiers ; and they were held by about 2500 men. The plan .... will further explain the nature of the position.

The ordinary channel, leading from the fleets' anchorage at Ledsund to Lumpar Bay, was commanded by the fire of the Russians ; but by the exertions of Captain Sulivan, of the Lightning, and of Commander Henry Charles Otter, of the Alban, an uncommanded channel between Lumpar and Ango Islands was discovered and surveyed ; and on July 28th the squadron of Rear-Admiral Chads was taken through the sinuous and difficult passage,without the use of buoys or marks. Other vessels, both French and British, passed up later.

On August 6th, the fortress was reconnoitred within 6OO yards. On the 8th, near the southern extremity of Tranvik Point, the French army under the protection of the guns of the Edinburgh and Duperre, was landed, while a battalion of Royal Marines, and 90 British sappers and miners under Brig.-General Jones, with 2000 French Marines, were simultaneously disembarked at a point about two miles north of the fortress. On the same day the 7-gun battery near the southern landing-place was attacked and destroyed by the Amphion and Phlegethou, Napier, with his flag temporarily in the Bulldog, watching the operations. The landing of three short 32-pr. naval guns, four field-guns from the ships, and a rocket tube, on the 10th, was superintended by Rear-Admiral Chads, whose people had to drag them for four miles and a half over execrable ground to the point which had been selected as the site for the British battery (see plan). In this arduous work, Captains George Ramsay (Euryalus), and Richard Strode Hewlett {Edinburgh), and Commander George William Preedy {Duke of Wellington), specially distinguished themselves. The French, on Tranvik Point, had fifty horses to help drag their guns (four long 16-prs., and four 13-inch mortars) to their
station, 450 yards west of Fort Tzee.

On the l0th, while passing the fortress, the Penelope, 16, paddle. Captain James Crawford Caffin, wont ashore under the enemy's fire, and had to throw her guns overboard ere, much mauled by the enemy's red-hot shot, she could be floated off. She was struck twenty-one times, and had 2 men killed and 3 wounded. The Hecla, Gladiator, Valorous, and Pigmy, with boats, went to her assistance, and also suffered somewhat. Happily no blame was attributed to Captain Caffin.

On the 11th more guns were landed from the fleet, and sent up to the British battery, in charge of parties of 200 men under Lieutenants Donald McLeod Mackenzie {Edinhurgh), Thomas Davies (Hogue), George Henry Clarke {Blenheim), and Walter James Pollard (Ajax) respectively. The French battery, being ready early on the 13th, began firing without waiting for the British; and on the same evening Fort Tzee was abandoned. In consequence. General Jones's battery was turned against Fort Nottich. It opened on the 15th at 950 yards, and breached the place in eight hours. Nottich then surrendered. The British naval loss was only 1 killed and 1 wounded. The enemy had 6 killed and 7 wounded : and 125 prisoners were taken.

In the meantime Captain the Hon. Frederick Thomas Pelham, of the Blenheim, had landed a 10-inch pivot gun, and mounted it amid the ruins of the 7-gun battery which had been destroyed on the 8th. He made excellent practice against the main fortress, and, though he occupied a position of some danger, escaped without loss. On the 16th, when the French had established themselves on Presto Island, and were nearly ready with the whole of their breaching battery, a heavy fire was opened by Pelham, who was supported by the French mortars on shore, by the French squadron, and occasionally by the 10-inch guns of the Edinburgh, Ajax, Arrogant, Amphion, Valorous, Sphinx, and Driver. No great amount of damage was done to the fortress ; but the officer in command, General Bodisco, perceived that his position was desperate; and, at about mid-day, he exhibited a white flag. Captain William King Hall, of the Bulldog, and Commander de Surville, Parseval-Deschenes's aide-de-camp, with two of the French general's staff, were sent ashore to parley, and, as a result, it was agreed that the garrison should lay down its arms. The capitulation of Bomarsund was immediately followed by the surrender of the fort of Presto. Prisoners to the number of 2255 were taken, and were divided between the allies, the British share being sent at once to Ledsund, whence they were conducted to the Downs by Commodore the Hon. Frederick William Grey, C.B., of the Hannibal, 90, screw. ..... Bomarsund was destroyed, after Sweden had refused to accept it. Subsequent movements on the part of the fleets caused the Russians to blow up their fortifications at Hango.

Directions were despatched to Napier on August 29th, and to Parseval-Deschenes on August 30th, ordering a retirement from the Baltic. Napier had previously sent the Odin, Alban, Gorgon, and Driver to reconnoitre Abo ; and, as he considered that it might be successfully attacked, he asked the French Yice-Admiral to join him in the enterprise. The latter, however, refused, on account of the badness of the weather. Reval, Sweaborg, and Hango were also reconnoitred. With respect to Sweaborg, Brig.-General Jones thought that it might be taken by combined sea and land operations, while the French General Niel was of opinion that the fleets alone could render it untenable in less than two hours. On September 12th, Napier received from home a dispatch which allowed him a certain amount of discretion as to the time of withdrawal; and he at once met Vice-Admiral Parseval-Deschenes, and Rear-Admirals Penaud, Chads, and Seymour in order to discuss the idea of undertaking further operations. It was then decided unanimously that, owing to the lateness of the season, nothing could that year be attempted against Sweaborg or any fortified Baltic port, save at great risk. On September 17th, by which date some of the French ships had begun to go home, Napier received a further dispatch, asking for opinions on General Niel's plan for attacking Sweaborg with ships alone. Parseval-Deschenes saw no reason to modify his views, and declined to attend further councils of war ; and, although Napier again reconnoitred Sweaborg on September 23rd, and sent home a report which was intended to facilitate operations in 1855, he did not attack. Towards the end of the month Parseval-Deschenes went home. Napier himself still remained, chiefly off Nargen ; but, on September 27th, he sent part of the fleet, under Plumridge, to Kiel.

British expectations had not been satisfied by the work of the Baltic fleet in 1854. Napier was, perhaps, a weak officer in his old age, and may have been blameworthy ; but the Admiralty of that day was far weaker, in that it allowed itself to be forced by disappointed public opinion into inviting the Commander-in-Chief, at that late period, to undertake a venture which he and his colleagues had declared to be unfeasible a month earlier. On October 4th, there was sent to him a dispatch recommending him to choose a day and opportunity for an attack on Sweaborg, and containing the following passages :—

" You anticipate an attack by the Russian fleet, if many of your vessels are crippled or destroyed. We are always reminded that the Russians are most unwilling to navigate the Gulf of Finland in line-of-battle ships when autumn has commenced ; and Cronstadt is always locked up by ice fourteen days before Sweaborg is closed. The attack, therefore, on Sweaborg might be made towards the end of October, with least danger of attack from the Cronstadt portion of the Russian fleet. . . . This order is founded on your own last report. The final decision must rest entirely on yourself. If the attack on Sweaborg, in present circumstances, be desperate, it must on no account be undertaken by you. If, calculating the ordinary chances of war, and on full consideration of the strength of the enemy's fortress and fleets, you shall be of opinion that Sweaborg can be laid in ruins, it will be your duty, with the concurrence of the French Admiral, not to omit the opportunity."

The responsibility was thus left to Napier. The Admiralty had been induced to send him the order, partly by popular clamour, and partly by the receipt of an unfounded report that Sebastopol had fallen before an attack by the Black Sea fleet. Plumridge had been told to hurry back ; Parseval-Deschenes had been directed to postpone his departure; when, on October 9th, having learnt that Sebastopol had not fallen, the Admiralty ordered Napier not to attack Sweaborg, It is scarcely surprising that the Commander-in- Chief lost his temper. Having quitted Nargen on October 19th, he reached Kiel on the 22nd, leaving only a few ships to the northward under Captain Rundle Burges Watson, of the Imperieuse ; but not until December 4th, when there was danger of its being frozen in, was the fleet ordered to be wholly withdrawn for the winter.

On December 16th, Napier anchored at Spithead, and on the 18th he had a stormy interview with Sir James Graham. He was immediately, and rather curtly, directed to strike his flag ; nor
did he succeed in obtaining any public inquiry into his conduct. By way of protest he refused promotion to the highest class of the (Order of the) Bath.

 

Such was the first year's campaign in the Baltic. Beyond the destruction of Bomarsund, and the blockade of Russian ports, it effected little or nothing. The fiasco may be attributed to three
principal causes — causes which also influenced the results elsewhere. Firstly, the officers then available for responsible commands were, almost without exception, far too old to sustain the anxieties and fatigues of naval warfare under steam, without rapidly losing their efficiency. Secondly, there was at headquarters a conspicuous lack of information concerning the enemy's dispositions. And thirdly, even had the enemy's dispositions been fully known to the Admiralty, the fleet was materially incapable of doing the peculiar kind of work which the situation demanded. The commands of Napier and Parseval-Deschenes in the north, and of Dundas and Hamelin in the south, were made up mainly of craft of the heaviest draught and armament, and largely of sailing ships with necessarily limited powers of manoeuvring in narrow waters. In the first year of the war, neither Great Britain nor France was able to employ light-draught steam gunboats, and bomb or mortar vessels, because neither Power possessed anything of the sort. Yet such vessels were absolutely requisite for effective operations in the bays, and among the islands, of the Baltic, and in the shallow outlying parts of the Black Sea.

The Baltic Medal

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