[1788 A.D.]

supported by England and Prussia. Razumovski, the Russian ambassador, was ordered to leave Stockholm on the 23rd of June, and went to the army in Finland. The king appeared as if he designed immediately to march against St. Petersburg, which excited no small concern in the minds of the government, because, in confident reliance on the king's misunderstanding with the Swedish nobles, the whole of their good troops had been despatched to the frontiers of Turkey.

The king of Sweden was acquainted with the feelings of his nobles, consequently with those of the generals and officers of his army; he therefore endeavoured to deprive the malcontents of the apparently legal point of a refusal to serve, by changing the offensive war which he contemplated into a defensive one, and for this purpose had recourse to a very childish subterfuge. There had been a long-existing dispute between the two countries respecting the bridge over the small river Kimmene, the boundary between the two states, whether it should be painted in Swedish or Russian colours; he provoked the Russians to maintain this disputed right by force of arms, and then proclaimed that he had been attacked by them, and was therefore justified in carrying on a defensive war without consulting the estates. We leave it undecided whether he took possession of the bridge by force, and thereby compelled the Russians to resist force by force; or whether, as the best accounts allege, he caused some Swedes to be clothed in Russian uniforms in order to attack his own soldiers, and in this way to justify an offensive war.

The distance from the river Kimmene to St. Petersburg is less than 150 miles. There would have been no difficulty in storming the small fortresses of Viborg and Friedrichsham, which lay upon the route, and an unexpected attack from the sea might probably have led to the surprise and capture of Kronstadt and Kronslot, the former of which is less than twenty miles from the open waters, and the latter is situated on a sand-bank in the sea.' The favourable moment, however, for an attack by sea had been already allowed to pass by the king's brother Charles, duke of Södermanland, who commanded the Swedish fleet, and by land the king was precipitate when he ought to have delayed, and hesitated when everything depended on rapidity.

On the 22nd of June Duke Charles, with fifteen ships of the line and five frigates, had fallen in with three sail of Russian ships, to the north of the island of Gothland, which he ought to have captured, but was restrained by a feeling of reluctance to begin the war (which was then actually commenced), and immediately a superior Russian fleet appeared. Admiral Greig, an Englishman, commanded it; his fleet outnumbered the Swedish by two ships of the line and two frigates, and therefore the issue of the engagement between the two fleets which took place on the 17th of July was the less inglorious for the Swedes. They fell in with the Russians off the island of Hogland, and fought with great skill and courage; they lost, it is true, one of their line-of-battle ships, but took one of the Russian fleet in its stead; at length, however, they were compelled to seek for safety in the harbour of Sveaborg, where they were kept in a state of blockade by the Russians during the whole of the campaign.

'The Swedes were not aware of the fortuitous advantage then offered them by a singular incident. Just before the Russian admiral received orders to weigh, the empress had given the command of a ship to the famous Paul Jones. As soon as the British officers in the Russian service heard of this appointment, they repaired in a body to the admiralty, and announced their determination to quit the squadron to which that pirate had been attached. By this act on their part seven or eight ships were left without officers, until the empress, smothering her resentment, withdrew Paul Jones from the squadron, under pretence of sending him to the Black Sea; but, fearing a repetition of so unpleasant a scene, she contrived to get rid of the daring adventurer altogether.

H. W.-VOL. XVII. 2D

[1789 A.D.]

The secretary of the king's embassy in St. Petersburg delivered such an extremely absurd ultimatum that no other answer was given than an order from the commandant to take his departure from the capital. Gustavus commanded armaments to be prepared and a commissariat to be provided, but left the whole superintendence to others, who neglected everything, and instead of preparing means to oppose entered into secret correspondence with the Russians. All this immediately appeared when the king at length resolved to storm the fortress of Friedrichsham. He found himself destitute of heavy artillery and other materials of war, which he supposed were all in readiness, and whilst the artillery was being slowly brought up by land, the nobles were devising the most shameful treason.

It was arranged that Friedrichsham should be at once attacked both by sea and by land; and Siegeroth had actually landed his troops and commenced operations when he suddenly received counter orders, because the troops which were with the king refused obedience. In these circumstances, Gustavus had no other alternative than to return to Stockholm, in order there to recover his royal dignity and power which he had lost at Friedrichsham. He entered Stockholm in September, and thenceforth occupied himself in preparing a coup d'état, which he accomplished on the 17th of February in the following year. Meanwhile, his traitorous nobles had concluded a truce with Russia, which was so far advantageous to Gustavus that it liberated his fleet from its captivity in the bay of Sveaborg. He was now dictator and autocrat; he had at command the means of prosecuting the war with Russia: but the favourable moment was past, and the Russians had already completed all their preparations by land and sea for the defence of their provinces bordering upon Sweden. Gustavus' project of burning the Russian fleet in the harbour of Copenhagen was discovered beforehand, and brought him nothing but disgrace. When he again joined the army in Finland, his Swedes gave evidence of their attachment and courage; but he himself again contrived to injure the success of the war by his interference in its conduct. In the murderous fights which ensued from the middle of June till the end of July, both the Russians and Swedes lost great numbers of men, without any other gain on either side than military renown. The Swedes in the meantime were unfortunate at sea, and could not have profited by their success had they been victorious by land.

Admiral Ehrenswerd commanded the Swedish flotilla of flat-bottomed boats, constructed for navigating the rocky shallows of the coast, whilst the similar Russian fleet was under the orders of the prince of Nassau-Siegen, who had shortly before been commander of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and had fallen into disputes with Potemkin, which led to his being sent to the Baltic. The Russian ships of the line were under the command of Admiral Tchitchakov, and had on board a considerable number of British naval officers of experience. This fleet had on the 26th of June fallen in with that of the Swedes, which was so injured in an engagement between Bornholm and Gothland as to be obliged to return to Karlskrona. The unfortunate issue of the battle was generally ascribed to disloyalty on the part of some of the naval officers.

The king still persisted in his determination of opening up a way for himself to St. Petersburg, and therefore of storming Friedrichsham. He himself directed the execution of the project, although he was, properly speaking, merely a volunteer with his army. By his interference he exposed the Swedish army to considerable loss, on the same day (August 24th) on which the Russian flotilla gained an important victory over the Swedes at Rogensalm.

[1790 A.D.]

Friedrichsham, according to the king's command, was to be stormed by the three generals, Siegroth, Kaulbart, and Platen; the assault, however, failed of success, and the Swedes were obliged to retire: their flotilla was twice beaten. The first victory of the Russians at Rogensalm was attributed to the prince of Nassau-Siegen, who, however, was accompanied by three or four persons who rendered him the same service which the British officers did to Admiral Tchitchakov. On the 1st of September the Swedish flotilla experienced a defeat at Högfors, and the land army, commanded by the king, was there also compelled to retreat. The loss in human life was indeed great, but the real injury small, for the Swedish army continued till the beginning of winter to occupy its quarters on the frontiers of Russia.

The Campaign of 1790; the Treaty of Varela

During the winter, Gustavus withdrew from his army, but he resumed his duties as commander in March, 1790, and was now careful to supply all the deficiencies of the two previous years. On the 15th of April, in Finland, he reduced the two important posts of Kärnakoski and Pardakovski near Vilmanstrand; his Swedes were victorious at Valkiala; and on the 30th repulsed the Russians in their attempt to recover the two posts just mentioned. On the 4th and 5th of May the Swedes were afterwards beaten at Aberfors by the Russian general Numsen, and lost twelve pieces of cannon. The king having again taken Pardakovski, the key of Savolax, immediately caused a portion of his land forces to embark in the flotilla, of which he himself assumed the command, and ordered the remainder of the army to press forward by the shore towards St. Petersburg, relying on the assistance of the fleet, which was to receive them on board in case of a defeat. The fleet consisted of nineteen large ships, twenty-seven galleys, and a number of gunboats, which in all mounted about two thousand guns. It was absolutely necessary to the execution of this adventurous undertaking that Friedrichsham should in all haste be reduced by storm. The king, having been successful on the 15th in a naval engagement, made his third attempt at storming the fortress on the 17th and 18th of May, and notwithstanding a great loss in men failed in effecting his object. Although the way by land thus remained barred, he nevertheless persisted in his design of terrifying the empress in her capital.

Gustavus, having now embarked a greater number of Swedish troops than before, reached Viborg, and on the 2nd of June, 1790, disembarked a division of his army at Blörke, about forty miles from St. Petersburg. The whole success of this rash enterprise depended on his remaining master of the sea. In order to maintain this superiority, Duke Charles was to prevent the junction of the two Russian fleets, one of which was lying in Kronstadt and the other in Revel, and on the 3rd of June he was ordered to engage the division of the fleet in the former harbour. The Swedish fleet was no sooner thus withdrawn from its position than an opportunity was afforded to the Russians to form a junction between their two fleets, which actually took place on the day the duke entered the sound of Viborg (June 6th). The Swedish fleet was blockaded by the Russian squadrons, consisting, when united, of thirty ships of the line and eighteen frigates; the former, however, continued to keep up its connection with the flotilla. It appears that both the Swedish fleets would have been entirely lost had the two Russian admirals been qualified for such a command. Captain Pélissier, who had served in Holland, is said to have given Admiral Tchitchakov advice which he ought to have followed,

[1790 A.D.]

had he not been too obstinately attached to his own opinions; Pélissier even pointed out to generals Suchtelen and Soltikov the places where they ought to have erected their batteries in order effectually to bar the egress of the Swedish fleet from the bay; no attention, however, was paid to his advice. The prince of Nassau-Siegen proved himself to be in no respect superior as a commander to Tchitchakov. On the other hand, if the advice of Duke Charles had been adopted, the Russians would have been victorious without a battle; King Gustavus and Stedingk, however, rescued the honour of the Swedish name.

The Swedes had now been closely shut up in the bay of Viborg for three weeks, and at the end of June were reduced to extremities; in the beginning of July a grand council of war was held. Duke Charles and many other members of the council recommended a capitulation, but the king and Stedingk were in favour of making a desperate effort to force their way through the enemy's line. The attempt was accordingly made on the 3rd of July, and through Tchitchakov's neglect it was so far successful, as it enabled the Swedish fleet to bring the blockading squadron to an engagement. But the Swedes lost in it not only seven ships of the line, three frigates, and more than thirty galleys and gunboats, but almost the whole of the royal guards, the queen's regiment, and that of Upland, amounting to six thousand or seven thousand men, which had been put on board the fleet. Whilst the larger Swedish ships thus endeavoured to gain the open sea, the flotilla had withdrawn for safety into an arm of the gulf, which runs parallel to the shore and stretches towards Friedrichsham. This inlet, called the sound of Suenske, is extremely difficult of access on the side towards Friedrichsham, in consequence of a group of rocky islands at its mouth, but it may be safely reached through the open harbour of Asph. By this way the prince of Nassau-Siegen determined to pass into the sound with the Russian flotilla, and attack the Swedes in their place of refuge.

The latter were well protected from the attack of the Russian fleet by rocks, and when the prince gave orders for the assault, on the 9th, the sailors were so exhausted and his orders for battle were so unskilful that the king of Sweden gained a splendid victory on that and the following day. The loss of the Russians was so great as to have surpassed any which they had suffered since the Seven Years' War. Fifty-five vessels were captured, a number of others destroyed, and fourteen thousand Russians either taken prisoners or slain. In spite of this signal victory, the king of Sweden now awoke from his dream of humbling the pride and glory of Russia; already he began to cast his eyes towards France, and in the following year he dreamed his monarchical dream in favour of the French émigrés. The idea of becoming the Godefroy de Bouillon of the aristocratic and monarchical crusade, which Burke at that time proclaimed in the English parliament and in his work on the French Revolution, had been awakened in his mind in 1790, and the empress of Russia found means of confirming him in his visionary projects. Moreover his means were exhausted, and he therefore lent a favourable ear to the proposal of Galvez, the Spanish ambassador, who began to mediate for a peace between Sweden and Russia.

This peace, concluded at Varela on the Kimmene on the 14th of August, 1790, served to show how empty all Gustavus' splendour was, and how unreal and inefficient were all the efforts he had made. It was now seen that all the blood had been shed to no purpose, and all the treasures of his very poor kingdom mischievously squandered, for everything remained on the footing on which it had been in the spring of 1788.

[1790 A.D.]

PROGRESS OF THE AUSTRO-RUSSIAN WAR WITH TURKEY

We now return to the war in which Austria and Russia were jointly engaged against Turkey. The whole Austrian army was ready to take the field at the end of the year 1787: it formed an immense cordon stretching from the mountains on the coast of the Adriatic Sea to the Carpathians, and consisted of a main body and five divisions. Unhappily, the emperor Joseph was desirous of commanding the main army in person, under the unskilful direction of Lacy, his military Mentor, who, like his pupil Mack, was a good drill-sergeant, but no general. The main body consisted of 25,000 infantry and 22,000 horse, and the whole of the troops together amounted to 86,000 cavalry and 245,000 foot, accompanied by 898 pieces of artillery.

In February, 1788, Russia and Austria had simultaneously declared war against the Turks; but in August of that year England and Prussia entered into an alliance, the main object of which was to place Prussia in a situation to prevent the aggrandisement of Austria, if necessary, by force of arms. This, however, was superfluous in 1788, because the diversion effected by the king of Sweden prevented the Russians from proceeding with their usual rapidity, and the emperor Joseph by his presence with the army frustrated the effect of his immense armaments. The dissatisfaction with the whole conduct of the war became so general that Joseph was at length obliged earnestly to entreat Laudon, who had been the popular hero of the Austrians since the time of the Seven Years' War, and whom the emperor had hitherto neither employed nor consulted, to assume the command of the army in Croatia.

Successes o, Laudon (1788 A.D.)

Laudon, having made an express stipulation that the emperor was not to interfere with his plans marched against the Turks, defeated them under the walls of Dubitza the very day after he joined the army, and reduced that fortress; then, pushing into the heart of Bosnia, he compelled Novi to surrender, whilst the emperor himself was obliged to hasten to the aid of the army in the Bannat, which was very hard pressed by the Turks. The division under Wartensleben, which should have supported it, had been driven back by the Turks, who succeeded, in consequence of an incomprehensible neglect on the part of the Austrians, in getting complete possession of the rocky bed through which the Danube has forced a passage at a distance of six-and-twenty miles above New Orsova. The pass, which is not more than a pistol-shot in width, is commanded by a fortified cleft in the rock, called Veterani's Hole, and this post the Austrians should and could have maintained when the main body of the Turks appeared at Old Orsova on the 7th of August; this, however, they neglected to do. The Austrian general suffered himself to be defeated and lost thirteen pieces of cannon, and as his communications with the main army were cut off, he was obliged to retreat so far that the garrison of this important post was left to its fate. The Turks sacrificed great numbers of men in order to seize this fastness, by the possession of which they immediately became masters of the whole navigation of the Danube as far down as Belgrade. As soon as the Danube was lost, the imperial army found itself threatened in the rear.

Nothing but disaster attended the operations of Joseph and Wartensleben. The army under the prince of Coburg was somewhat less unfortunate. Khotin, which the Russians had captured in the last war without firing a shot, was