The Ballet of Europe: Pas de deux for a nice-legged Gascon sergeant and a little Corsican corporal
- Thread starter Redolegna
- Start date
That's England. Clearly visiting based on the fact the Scandinavians have been visiting him for a long time.
I think it's England. It looks like an English flag, and the guy seems to be drinking tea. I don't get why England would be in the conversation though, so I might be wrong.
longsword14
Banned
Poor Austria things go right until they join and then Napoleon returns to form or rather his luck does.
Devvy
Donor
I don't often venture in to pre-1900, but did this time and stumbled on to this. Excellent time line, well researched and really well written. Loving it, loving it, loving it 
I wonder what the future has in store for Sweden; if it takes over Norway, I wonder if they will get the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland as well by default as they were possessions of the Norwegian Crown prior to the Congress of Vienna when they were transferred to the Danish Crown?
I wonder what the future has in store for Sweden; if it takes over Norway, I wonder if they will get the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland as well by default as they were possessions of the Norwegian Crown prior to the Congress of Vienna when they were transferred to the Danish Crown?
Thaks for the compliments, guys. I'm sorry for the delay in chapter 3 but the heat wave of those few days made it impossible for me to write seriously and there are some numbers I absolutely need to double-check. Luckily, there is a something of a fresh breeze this morning.
Yeah, Austria cocked it up. I'll make no mystery of it: the great diplomats Talleyrand and Metternich are not going to emerge of this crisis smelling of roses.
As for Sweden, Norway is the one thing Napoléon didn't offer and won't offer. It's just too useful to keep Denmark on his side. It was Bernadotte's pet project to solidify his rule and regain some credit for his new country and it was, at the time, quite a good idea. But it's simply not doable: he has burnt his bridges with the coalition, he can't do it with Napoléon too or he will be completely isolated in a Europe where everybody would think of him as the ultimate bastard who would sell his own mother in an eyeblink and he has not even a drop of aristocratic blood in his family tree – that's not a bad mark in my book, but that's not gonna fly with European monarchs if he's seen as undependable and treacherous. So, while OTL Bernadotte was quite justified in looking to the west (sorry, Thande, I just can't help myself), it's the one direction he can't turn too now that he made his choice ITTL.
Yeah, Austria cocked it up. I'll make no mystery of it: the great diplomats Talleyrand and Metternich are not going to emerge of this crisis smelling of roses.
As for Sweden, Norway is the one thing Napoléon didn't offer and won't offer. It's just too useful to keep Denmark on his side. It was Bernadotte's pet project to solidify his rule and regain some credit for his new country and it was, at the time, quite a good idea. But it's simply not doable: he has burnt his bridges with the coalition, he can't do it with Napoléon too or he will be completely isolated in a Europe where everybody would think of him as the ultimate bastard who would sell his own mother in an eyeblink and he has not even a drop of aristocratic blood in his family tree – that's not a bad mark in my book, but that's not gonna fly with European monarchs if he's seen as undependable and treacherous. So, while OTL Bernadotte was quite justified in looking to the west (sorry, Thande, I just can't help myself), it's the one direction he can't turn too now that he made his choice ITTL.
Chapter 3: I am the monarch of the (Baltic) Sea
Amphibious operations: the Swedish campaign in the Baltic Sea
Article published in Naval Strategic Theory and its Applications, volume 9, Université de Toulon, n°1 1924
Admiral Henri-Napoléon Lévy has retired two years ago from the active service in the French Marine. He has served as ambassador to Sweden since. The Université de Toulon wishes to convey him its thanks for allowing his introductory speech to Swedish naval cadets at the in the Karlsberg Palace to be reproduced here.
Gentlemen, it is an honour to speak to the young minds that will command the Swedish Navy in a few years and keep its colours flying high. The King asked me to offer my views on the operations that occurred in 1813. I will endeavour to do so to the best of my abilities over the course of this semester. I feel that one cannot separate Army and Navy and how they interacted with one another in that particular campaign. So let us start in Germany.
On September 5, the French and Swedish forces stood triumphant in Prussia. Through the radical decision of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, they had achieved nearly full occupation of the northernmost German kingdom and ruined half its army while the other part was stuck in Poland. Marshal Davout arrived that day in Berlin with XIII Corps from Hamburg. Wallmoden isolated corps had surrendered the day before and the three-thousand-strong British garrison in Stralsund would soon follow and with it a great many naval stores as well as troopships and transports. Wismar fell in that same period too [1].
Yet not all was rosy for the newfound allies: several German and Polish cities remained under siege, notably Stettin and Danzig where Marshal Rapp’s entire X Corps was bottled up. Two armies from the Coalition remained at large in the duchy of Warsaw and Eastern Prussia, the Army of Silesia under Feldmarschall Blücher, still with relatively high spirits after its victory at the Katzbach, and the Army of Poland under Count Benningsen, the Russian reserve. And while Davout’s arrival meant that the overall French command was much improved – Marshal Oudinot was heard to sigh with relief when he realized he could resume his duties as a simple corps commander – it meant significant acrimony between the two leaders. Ever since then-Marshal Bernadotte had failed to march to the sound of the guns and come to Davout’s help at Auerstaedt in 1806, the latter had held the former in contempt to the point he had wanted to fight a duel with him until Emperor Napoléon formally forbade it. Troops picked up on the animosity between their commanders and significant incidents began to occur.
The matter could not be dealt with until Napoléon wrote personally to Davout and told him that he expected him to campaign extensively in the east to keep Benningsen and Blücher at bay and that he had absolute trust in him. To Crown Prince Karl Johan, Napoléon pleaded to remain as civil as possible with the Iron Marshal and, if possible, to initiate a campaign into Finland. Time was running short before winter made campaigning in the far north very difficult and, with the siege of Prague progressing slowly, he felt he needed something new to throw the Russians into complete disarray.
The Baltic Sea had become a minor theatre in the war ever since Napoléon had been expelled from Russia. Whereas the Royal Navy had earlier kept a very heavy presence in its waters at the height of the Continental Blockade to protect its convoys under the excellent leadership of then-Vice-Admiral of the Red James Saumarez in his flagship Victory for five years, it had been gradually reduced and Saumarez had been replaced in late 1812 with a fairly knowledgeable Baltic hand, Rear-Admiral of the White George Johnstone Hope. Unfortunately for the Royal Navy, a new commander had been appointed in early August to take charge of the only six ships of the line (all of them 74s) and the dozen frigates left in the inland sea. Rear Admiral of the Blue Graham Moore had never served in the Baltic before and his appointment to fleet command was his first. He had fought all of two actions between frigates as a post-captain and, while his behaviour had been perfectly satisfying by the standards of the Royal Navy, he lacked the flair that made such great commanders out of Jervis, Nelson or Saumarez [2]. This manifested itself when he insisted to demolish Rostock’s fortifications by hand rather than setting fire to them for fear that houses would burn too. While a charitable action, it cost him precious time and kept him away from learning the news from Berlin. In addition, the British fleet was oft preoccupied with protecting convoys resupplying the besiegers of Danzig. Finally, on August 6, Crown Prince Karl Johan asserted that, because of the on-going armistice, British ships were not needed anymore. It is up to debate whether he already had a Finnish campaign in mind [3].
To compound the Coalition’s problems, the largest part of the Russian Baltic Fleet was anchored in England, mostly at the Nore. Some of it was there because it had been impounded after the Russians had sided with Napoléon after the peace of Tilsitt, some had been put there for its own protection after Napoléon had invaded in 1812. There were only three ships of the line left out of the nineteen that should have been there: Silnyi (74), Moshchnyi (66) and Neptunus (74); and six frigates out of twelve [4]. Four newly commissioned ships of the line had slowly been making the long voyage from the shipyards of Arkhangelsk but they were not expected to enter the Baltic before October.
That is not to say Sweden’s situation was much better. Part of its fleet had been lost in the disastrous war of 1808-1809. After the Sveaborg fortress had failed to live up to its nickname of Gibraltar of the North, several Swedish ships at anchor had burnt after a mysterious explosion – although one might argue that was not so bad since the Russians were likely to have seized them. None of the existing ten third-rates and one fourth-rate had been built any later than 1788 and were approaching obsolescence. The most recent warship was the second-rate Gustav den Store (84), commissioned in 1799, and hastily renamed after the revolution of 1809 since its original name Konung Gustav IV Adolf was by then very unfortunate.
In mid-September, Crown Prince Karl Johan and his twenty thousand troops embarked in Stralsund, leaving only a few thousand men as garrisons across the northern German plain, and headed first to Karlskrona where the Swedish fleet and four ships of the British squadron were stationed. The latter was at anchorage in the harbour of Lindenholmen, facing northwards. A very confused Graham Moore welcomed the Crown Prince and a small detachment of his guard. By then, rumours were swirling around in the great port, each more incredible and garbled than the next. The Crown Prince expressed his wishes to settle any doubt the admiral might labour under by inviting him and his captains to lunch at Drottningskars Kastell.
Unbeknownst to the British officers, Swedish troopships, which had hitherto kept their distance in order not to be spotted, began to unload soldiers on the south side of Lindenholmen. After five thousand had landed, they headed at a leisurely pace towards the British ships and mingled in a friendly manner with the few sailors and marines not on shore leave. The sole exception was on-board HMS Zealous where the British were more diffident. When the close-by Amiralitetskyrkan rang one o’clock, the Swedes surged into action. The crews of the first three ships of the line were easily overpowered, often with very little violence. Once again, the Zealous proved another matter entirely. The subsequent reports are very confused but the following seem clear: Lieutenant Alexander Borthwick had ordered the marines on board to load their muskets and fix bayonets, probably sensing something was amiss. When the Swedes turned hostile, he called for a volley and a quick charge. The surprise worked for a few minutes and the boarding parties were initially repulsed but, as new companies kept reinforcing them, and as the struggle continued, they forced their way to the upper deck of the Zealous. When Borthwick saw that the ship was about to be lost, he retreated below with a few men.
Approximately thirty seconds later, the unsuspecting Graham Moore jumped out of his chair as a deafening explosion thundered across the city. Zealous’s magazine had been ignited and the ship had blown up, throwing flaming pieces of wood to the four winds. One of them allegedly shattered a window in Drottningskars Kastell and landed at the feet of the admiral who stomped on it only to raise his head and be told by the Crown Prince that a state of war existed between Sweden and the United Kingdom and that he was a prisoner. That fact has often been considered pure fancy by historians and is not recorded in the diaries of the participants of the scene but it is not impossible that it may have happened. One piece of burning wood definitely did land into the Repslagarbanan and turned the immense rope-producing workshop into an inferno until only ashes remained, crippling the Swedish naval industry for years. Several ships were also lost at anchor, mostly sloops and one frigate. All in all, the short battle and its aftermath caused five hundred dead and wounded to the Swedes and maybe half that for the British. The remainder of the crews were soon rounded up and taken inland to secure fortresses where they would spend the rest of the war. Admiral Moore met his end in a cell: when a barber called upon him, he seized his razor and cut open his own throat. Although foul play was suggested, Graham Moore left a diary quite full of his despondency at having failed to do his utmost and bringing shame to a name ‘that was made great by [his] more meritorious brother’. It is quite likely he saw suicide as the only escape.
It is not clear how the Crown Prince came up with the idea of seizing the warships at anchor or whether it originated from one of his subordinates who did not get credit for it. Some historians have argued that he remembered the cavalry charge on ice that overpowered a Dutch fleet in 1795 [5] but could not place Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte at the scene since he was serving in another army at the time. Other scholars make the point that he might have been more inspired by the confiscation of all French merchant vessels in the United Kingdom when the Peace of Amiens broke down in 1803. Yet another group makes the case that Karl Johan had no experience upon the open seas and that he remained a land commander, prone to see every battle as a quick dash forward to seize the enemy’s position before he realized the danger, in the finest Napoleonic tradition. Ultimately, in the absence of Karl Johan’s explanations on the matter, we cannot decide whether one factor or the other was the most important or if they were equally at play. All we can conclude is that his gamble paid off.
Two days afterwards, on September 18, after having made some hasty repairs to the town and his damaged ships, the Crown Prince left Karlskrona. He was sending the aging generals Curt von Stedingk and Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor to the Norwegian border with the order to move out eight thousand soldiers overland to Oulu in northern Finland. The former was to plan and lead a campaign together with his more energetic chief of staff Carl Johan Adlercreutz and the latter was to survey and restore the fortifications of the Finnish strongholds. A bare two thousand men were left on the border, since Denmark was not a significant threat anymore. The Crown Prince also sent his Foreign Minister von Engeström and his Court Chancellor af Wetterstedt on a fast packet boat to Stockholm to inform the Riksdag of his new policies. This started an uproar in the four chambers, of course, but the members of that august Parliament were forced to bow to the fait accompli of their future monarch even if some exclaimed quite loudly that ‘Karl Johan has been a worst tyrant in three years than Gustav III ever was in twenty and he is not our king yet!’
Constitutional matters notwithstanding, the former French marshal was intent on achieving his military goals with as much speed as could be managed. The capture of the British ships in Karlskrona, although not as bloodless as he would have liked it to be, left him the undisputed master of the Baltic but that could prove temporary if the United Kingdom received word of it and dispatched reinforcements or if the Russian new ships arrived fast enough and if they could force the Belts. As a result, the Swedish fleet sortied en masse and sailed towards two destinations. The first squadron brought seven thousand soldiers to the Åland archipelago under the command of the piratical-looking Georg Carl von Döbeln, hero of the previous war and who knew the layout of the islands quite well for having had to retreat from them over iced sea only four years previously. The quite meagre Russian garrison offered only a token opposition and Döbeln sailed on to Åbo, the main city on Finland [6].
The biggest part of the army, close to eleven thousand men, sailed with the Crown Prince on to Helsingfors and Sveaborg [7] where Karl Johan felt his presence was needed to destroy the strongest part of the Russian army in Finland and which will be the topic of our next lecture.
[1] The fall of Wismar is OTL, that of Stralsund is not. But there’s nobody to stop Davout’s advance ITTL.
[2] For all I know, I might be doing grievous injury to the memory of Sir Graham Moore. But while his brother John was a renowned general who died while evacuating his soldiers at La Corunna after a harrowing pursuit in January 1809, I could find no particular indication that the man ever distinguished himself in a significant way, in a time period where British naval commanders had some truly exceptional people among their ranks. The fact that he was appointed commander of the Baltic Fleet in 1813 is to me a sign that this theatre was considered safe by the Admiralty and could thus be handed over to a relative newcomer: Saumarez had held the fourth highest rank among admirals, Hope had the last but one and Moore had the last. I know he left extensive diaries of his experience as a seaman and a captain. If anyone has access to them and wishes to bring up some character traits I might have overlooked, I’m quite willing to rectify mistakes.
[3] The answer is ‘maybe, maybe not’. He made the same request OTL. Of course, it was to make it easier to invade Denmark and Norway, so it’s impossible to discount further motives on the part of Bernadotte…
[4] It might look like I’m putting my thumb on the scales here in a pretty shameless way. I am not. It truly happened OTL. Indeed, the three ships of the line mentioned had only recently returned from internment in Britain. And I will state for the record that it’s not fun to trudge through lists of ships just to confirm that tidbit of information.
[5] I really can’t make that sort of thing up. Look up the capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder if you’re interested in finding out how unrealistic OTL is.
[6] There is no reason for the Russians to have good troops there, since they need their manpower elsewhere and there has been no time to transfer first-rate regiments over since learning of Bernadotte’s defection, if the commanders in St Petersburg are even aware of it. Additionally, there are no strong defensive works on the islands yet: the Bomarsund fortress, which fell during the Crimean War, was not under construction until the 1830s.
[7] Now known as Helsinki and Suomenlinna.
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I apologize for the wanton destruction on the Ropewalk, by the way, but when I found out about it, it just had to feature in this chapter. I hope I did not commit any anachronism with the way I described the city?
Not that I can tell, no. It should be pointed out though that Drottningskär is several kilometres south of the city itself, and so it'd be slightly improbable for shrapnel to travel all the way from Lindholmen to there.
Curses! Some way or another, it appears my casual googlemapping showed me where Drottningsgatan was, not the fortress. Ah, well. The good admiral Lévy did say it was an unverified story. He was just trying to keep the students interested.