Siege of Vyborg

Siege of Vyborg

Part of: Great Northern War

Siege of Vyborg

date	March 22, 1710 - June 12, 1710
place	Vyborg , today's Russia
output	Decisive Russian victory and the start of the Russian offensive in Finland

Parties to the conflict
Sweden	Russia
Commander
Charles XII. Magnus Stiernstråle	Peter I. Fyodor Matveyevich Apraxin
Troop strength
6,000 men 141 cannons 9 mortars 2 howitzers	18,000 men 104 cannons 32 mortars
losses
around 2500 dead	over 1800 dead

The siege of Vyborg by the Tsarist army was a military intervention in the Great Northern War . It lasted from March 22, 1710 to June 12, 1710. It ended with the surrender of the Swedish occupation of Vyborg .

prehistory

As early as 1706 the Russian army tried to take Vyborg. Since his troops were needed more elsewhere, the tsar left it with a somewhat stronger garrison in Saint Petersburg and on the border with Finland and broke off the first siege. Still, Vyborg Fortress has always been a permanent threat to its new capital, Saint Petersburg . Only when the Swedish army was defeated in the Battle of Poltava and the Swedish King Charles XII. fled wounded into the Ottoman Empire , the tsar felt it was time to take Vyborg and invade Finland.

Due to the great success in Poltava and the destruction of the Swedish army, the tsar was able to launch a two-way offensive. One part of his army was sent against the fortress of Riga and the other towards Finland. Under the command of General Admiral Apraxin , 13,000 men began the siege of Vyborg on March 22, 1710.

Vyborg Fortress and its defenses

Engraving from 1709, on the left the Vyborg Castle

The fortifications of the city before the Russian attack

In 1709, Vyborg Fortress was the most important bastion in Finland before the Empire. It was in a key position and whoever ruled the city had the gateway to southern Finland and the eastern Baltic region open. The bastions Holtz, Neuport, Klein-Plattform, Wasserkport and Eleonora were facing the Russians. These were connected with a strong stone wall. The eastern part of the city had three bastions - Valport, Panzerlachs and Evrop - here too, the individual bastions were connected to one another, but not as strongly fortified as in the west. The protective wall was partly only equipped with wood and with stone watchtowers. Vyborg Castle, which still stands today, was on the small island in the middle of the sound. The fortress had 151 cannons for its defense.

The fortress was commanded by Major General Lybecker . Since this was needed elsewhere, Colonel Stiernstråle took command of the garrison . The defensive walls were in poor condition. They were last poorly repaired in 1702. The garrison in Vyborg was about 4,000 men in 1710. The city's residents were also eagerly involved in building and expanding the defenses.

The siege

In contrast to the first siege, Peter I planned a combined siege on land and a naval blockade.

In February 1710, the infantry and cavalry gathered under the command of General Admiral Apraxin near Saint Petersburg. She marched off towards Vyborg in two meetings. On March 21, the cavalry reached the suburbs of Vyborg. The Swedish occupation forces were forced to withdraw. To prevent the Russians from getting shelter or strategic points of retreat, the Swedes burned the suburbs and the residents fled to the fortress with the soldiers. On March 22nd the infantry regiments and the artillery reached the siege positions in front of Vyborg. A few days after the guns arrived, the Russians began artillery fire.

When the siege began at the end of March, the area around Vyborg was still covered with snow and it was very cold. As a result of this and the inadequate supply of supplies to the Russians, epidemics broke out among the besiegers.

The Russian artillery was too weak to force the Swedes to surrender. In a letter from Aleksander Myshlayevsky to the tsar it is said that your own weapons do too little damage and that if you shoot 100 bullets at Vyborg, 1000 bullets come back. According to a list drawn up by Myshlayevsky, the Russian gunners fired 2,975 shots from their mortars and 1,531 shots from their cannons on Vyborg from March 21 to April 9. The fortress crew responded with 399 mortar rounds and 7464 cannon shots. Nevertheless, the mortar impacts had their effect and caused severe damage to the fortress walls. The residents of Vyborg had to hide in their cellars. The Russian infantry regiments positioned on the hills around the city were repeatedly targeted by the Swedish artillery and suffered heavy losses.

At the end of March the Swedes tried to break through the siege ring around Vyborg. But this one was thrown back.

Contemporary depiction of the approaching Russian fleet

Major Generals Bruce and Bergholtz turned to Apraxin and raised the issue of storming the fortress. He wrote a letter to the tsar who was in Saint Petersburg to explain the situation and to receive further orders. The Tsar informed the Admiral General that as soon as the ice had thawed on the Baltic Sea, he would set off with a fleet in the direction of Vyborg in order to strengthen the army. He left Apraxin to decide to storm the fortress sooner. Since he did not want to take responsibility for a failed storm, Apraxin decided to wait for the tsar.

In the Russian siege army, more soldiers died from the plague and other diseases than from the fighting.

Reinforcement and reorganization of the artillery

When the snow melted and the Baltic Sea was free of ice, the Tsar was able to supply his troops with supplies and reinforce the artillery with a fleet of 250 ships. The Tsar travels to Vyborg with the fleet under the code name Peter Michajlov with the rank of rear admiral .

New artillery positions set up at the end of May 1710 on the orders of the Tsar

Museum model of the Vyborg fortress with the bullet damage to the fortress and the city wall

The Tsar immediately inspected the siege army and turned his main attention to the artillery positions. He had this changed. He had 60 cannons and 18 mortars aimed directly at one point on the fortress wall. In addition, 160 light mortars were set up. These should shoot the defenders from the walls. 20 cannons, 10 mortars and 50 light mortars remained in reserve. He also suggested that the ships that had built the naval blockade could also fire on the fortress. This does not happen in the course of the siege.

The Tsar himself said to General Admiral Apraxin that the city was to be taken, no matter what the cost. Since the siege lasted longer than expected, Peter I left the army and returned to Moscow.

On May 16, a Swedish flotilla cruised in Vyborg Bay. But she could not get close enough to the fortress because the heavy battleships had too much draft and the Russian Navy interfered with the lightening of the boats. The Swedes could no longer help the Vyborgs and turned away.

The reconstruction of the artillery positions began on May 17th, and on May 24th the first guns began to bombard the fortress wall. On May 29th, the general wrote to the Tsar that the renovation had been completed and that the shelling would begin on June 1st. The daily bombardment lasted until June 6th. The bombing of the city wall caused it to collapse in some places. In these six days, the Russian artillery fired 2,975 mortar shells and 1,539 cannon shots. The Swedish gunners responded with 7,464 rounds from their cannons and 394 from mortars, and were still causing heavy losses among Russian infantry units.

On June 6th, the decision to storm the fortress was made and two infantry regiments prepared to attack. The storming was prepared on the following days and the 2nd and 3rd waves were determined. The assault regiments had already been determined on June 6th.

The surrender

On June 9, the fortress commander sent a negotiator to the Russian Admiral General. He offered a truce and surrender negotiations.

On June 12, the Tsar marched into the city at the head of the Preobrazhensk body guard regiment . On June 13th the fortress was officially handed over to the Russians.

The assigned Swedish garrison still consisted of 3880 men, including 156 officers and 3274 soldiers of lower rank. The Swedish losses were estimated at around 2,500 men.

In the surrender of the city, the free withdrawal of the Swedish garrison and all family members was negotiated. General Admiral Apraxin let the Swedes withdraw. Only on the express order of Tsar Peter I were the Swedes captured again and deported to Petersburg. The Tsar wanted to populate his new capital as quickly as possible and so he forced the Swedes to stay in Petersburg under threat of being deported to Siberia.

The religious freedom granted in the surrender was also not observed. The church of the Lutheran congregation fell to the Russian church and the Lutherans had to move into the Finnish church. There is also talk of the deportation of some residents to St. Petersburg and the inner Russian Empire.

The consequences

Representation of the city of Vyborg in the 18th century as seen from the north

During and after the surrender of Vyborg, the Russians raged in Karelia . It is reported that villages were completely burned down and residents were deported to Russia. There is also written about unspeakable torture. Russian soldiers are said to have tied civilians to sticks and turned 10 to 12 times over the fire . Burn scars were also inflicted on the residents with sticks and spanners. Rapes are also reported. The Kalmucks are said to have even eaten children.

In his public announcement of the capture of Vyborg, Peter the Great wrote that from now on the "final security of Saint Petersburg has been established". With the capture of Vyborg, several important strategic goals were achieved. The Russian Empire had now improved its access to the Baltic Sea, from which it launched further attacks against Finland, a strong fortress was captured, and the new capital Saint Petersburg could be better defended to the north. The tsar ordered the fortress to be rehabilitated as quickly as possible with the help of a special army division and local farmers and to make it fully operational again. The tsar appointed the brigadier ( brigadier general ) Chernyshev as the fortress' commander .

With the loss of Vyborg, the Swedes lost an important sea and land base, and their activities in the Gulf of Finland were restricted. Russia's occupation of Vyborg and Karelia enabled the creation of a base to supply troops and build ships, and expanded the scope of the Baltic fleet. Vyborg was the most important military base in the 1712–1714 campaign against Finland.

For the successful siege of the city, the Admiral General Count Apraxin was awarded the Order of St. Andrew . Colonel Magnus Stiernstråle, in command of the fortress, remained in Russian captivity for eleven years .

In the Peace of Nystad , which was concluded in 1721 , the city was assigned to the Russian Empire. Now a multicultural era began to shape the city with Russian, Swedish, Finnish and German influences.

literature

• Konrad Kratzsch: War calendar for educated readers of all classes Volume 1, Leipzig 1809
• Eduard Pelz: History of Peter the Great , Leipzig 1848
• Not so Fryxell: Life story of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden . Volume 1, Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1861
• Knut Lundblad, Georg Friedrich Jenssen-Tusch: History of Karl the Twelfth, King of Sweden , Volume 1, Hamburg 1835.
• Peter Hoffmann: Peter the Great as a military reformer and general , Frankfurt am Main 2010
• Myshlaevsky, AZ (1894): Report on the Capture of Vyborg in 1710 . The Great Northern War in the Ingrian and Finnish theaters from 1708 to 1714: Documents of the City Archive. St. Petersburg.
• Moshnik, YI (2001): Garrison and Population of Vyborg from Spring to Summer of 1710 . From Narva to Nistadt - Peter's Russia in the Years of the Great Northern War. St. Petersburg.
• Russian National Library (n. D.) (In Russian). The Vyborg Fortress: Chronicles from 1710 to 1872.
• Andreev, AI, et al. (1887): "Volume 10". Letters and Papers of Peter the Great. St. Petersburg: State Typography.
• Peter von Gerschau : Attempt on the history of the Grand Duchy of Finland , Odense 1821
• Paul Anton Fedor Konstantin Possart: The Empire of Russia: Part 2 Topology , Stuttgart 1841
• Heinrich Karl Wilhelm Berghaus: Annals of Earth, Ethnology and Political Studies Volume 11, Berlin 1841
• Vasilyev, MV (1953): The Siege and Capture of Vyborg by the Russian Military and Fleet in 1710 . Moscow.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Moshnik 2001, p. 70
2. ↑ Lundblad p. 211
3. ↑ Kratzsch p. 214
4. ↑ Myshlaevsky p. 88
5. ↑ Moshnik p. 69
6. ↑ Myshlaevsky pp. 91-95
7. ↑ Fur p. 213
8. ↑ Russian National Library n. D., P. 4
9. ↑ Hoffmann p. 127
10. ↑ Russian National Library n. D., P. 4
11. ↑ Vasilyev (1953) p. 81
12. ↑ Myshlaevsky p. 120
13. ↑ Hoffmann p. 128
14. ↑ Andreev 1887, pp. 191-193
15. ↑ Moshnik 2001, p. 70
16. ↑ Pilz p. 213
17. ↑ by Gerschau p. 271
18. ↑ Kratzsch p. 216
19. ↑ Berghaus p. 305
20. ↑ Possart p. 74
21. ↑ Fryxell p. 119