| Battle of Valkeala | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Russo-Swedish War (1788–90) | |||||||
 Battle of Valkeala, by Pehr Hilleström | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Sweden |  Russian Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Fyodor Denisov | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 3,000 | 3,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 13 killed 137 wounded [1] | 50 killed 70 wounded 40 captured [1] | ||||||
Battle of Valkeala took place in Gustav III's Russian War April 29, 1790 at Valkeala in Kymenlaakso in Southern Finland and ended with a Swedish victory.
On April 28, 1790, a Swedish army corps of 4000 men under the command of Gustav III and several of his closest officers crossed the Kymi River in Pörille village, at a hastily struck bridge over a ford. The next day, they continued their march to Valkeala, where a Russian force of 3000 men stood ready to face them. The Swedish force available for battle consisted of roughly 3000 men, since 3 battalions had been diverted to guard the ford crossing and rear positions.
The Swedes were victorious in the following battle, pressing home the victory with several successful head-on bayonet charges. After Colonel Swedenhjelm's adversity through Anjala on May 5, the Army Corps of Keltis returned the Kymi river. Swedish units involved included the Västmanland Regiment, Östergötland Infantry Regiment, Life Grenadier Regiment, 1st Life Grenadier Regiment and Kronoberg Regiment. [2] [3]
The Swedes had 13 killed and 137 wounded of the lower rank soldiers (of which 9 killed and 68 wounded from the Kronoberg, 4 killed and 49 wounded from the Västmanland, 13 wounded from the Östgöta regiments and the rest attributed to the Jägers, dragoons and artillery) and 1 killed and 20 wounded of the higher rank, including both Gustav Wachtmeister who had been shot in his arm and the king himself who had suffered a light contusion in his arm. Left on the battlefield there were 50 Russians killed and 70 wounded with another 40 unharmed captives of the lower rank. Additionally two higher ranked officers had been killed with another two captured. The total casualties of the Russians are unknown, many may have been brought with them as they retreated, however, it is said that their Jeager battalion had 317 at the beginning of the battle, but only 60 remained as they retreated. The Swedes captured a large bulk of supplies left by the retreating Russians. [1]
Wachtmeister was the hero of the hour for a king who wished for good publicity. Wachtmeister was made a Major-General for his heroic intervention. [4]
The Battle of Ratan was the last battle fought on Swedish soil during the Russian-Swedish War of 1808 - 1809. It took place a day apart from the Battle of Sävar, on 20 August 1809. Having conquered Finland from Sweden, the Russians had a small force in the northern areas of Sweden. The Swedes sought to eliminate this through a combined assault from land and sea, but the Russians moved more rapidly, defeating the Swedish force landed at Ratan at Sävar on 19 August. The next day, on 20 August, the Swedish riflemen was attacked and pushed out of Ratan, turning to the flotilla and starting the evacuation. At the same time, artillery fire from Swedish warships kept the Russians at bay. Peace negotiations followed the heavy fighting.
The Battle of Sävar was fought on Saturday, 19 August 1809, between Swedish and Russian forces, during the Finnish War; it was the last pitched battle to be fought in Sweden. After the Russian conquest of eastern Sweden in 1808, the Swedish forces retreated to actual Sweden. In March the following year, Russian emperor Alexander I launched a threefold attack on Sweden, to force the country into the Continental System and to cede Finland to the Russian Empire; despite early advantages at Kalix and the Åland Islands, the attack failed to achieve a quick ending to the war. After further campaigning in northern Sweden, with battles such as Skellefteå and Hörnefors, the Russian forces under Nikolay Kamensky occupied all of Västerbotten by June.
The Second Battle of Svensksund was a naval battle fought in the Gulf of Finland outside the present day city of Kotka on 9 and 10 July 1790. The Swedish naval forces dealt the Russian fleet a devastating defeat that brought an end to the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790). The battle is the biggest Swedish naval victory and the largest naval battle ever in the Baltic Sea. It qualifies among the largest naval battles in history in terms of the number of vessels involved.
The Battle of Revolax took place on 27 April 1808 at Revonlahti, in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland, when the Swedish supreme commander Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor and the Savolax brigade under Colonel Johan Adam Cronstedt, a total of about 2,250 Swedes surprised an isolated Russian column of about 1,700 men under Major General Michail Leontievich Bulatov. The Russians were surrounded and tried to cut their way through but failed and the Russian general Bulatov was taken prisoner by the Swedes.
The Battle of Oravais was one of the decisive battles in the Finnish War, fought from 1808 to 1809 between Sweden and the Russian Empire as part of the wider Napoleonic Wars. Taking place in modern-day Vörå in western Finland, it is sometimes regarded as the turning point of the Finnish War: the last chance for Sweden to turn the war to her advantage. It was the bloodiest battle of the conflict, along with the Battle of Sävar, which some historians attribute to the exhaustion, resignation and desperation of the Swedish army: it was losing the war, and defeat led to its loss of Finland to Russia.
The Battle of Kliszów took place on July 19, 1702, near the village of Kliszów in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Great Northern War. A Swedish army under the command of King Charles XII of Sweden defeated a Polish–Saxon army twice the size that was led by King Augustus II the Strong of Saxony.
The Battle of Helsingborg was the last major engagement of the Great Northern War to take place on Swedish soil, and resulted in a decisive victory of a Swedish force of 14,000 men under the command of Magnus Stenbock against a Danish force of equal strength under the command of Jørgen Rantzau, ensuring that Denmark's final effort to regain the Scanian territories that it had lost to Sweden in 1658 failed. The battle was fought on March 10, 1710, in the province of Scania, just outside the city of Helsingborg, and directly on the Ringstorp heights just north-east of the city.
The Battle of Pyhäjoki was a retreating action fought on 16 April 1808, at Pyhäjoki in Northern Ostrobothnia during the Russian–Swedish war of 1808–09. The winter made the operations more difficult and the battle of Pyhäjoki became one of the first skirmishes to be fought after the Swedish retreat stopped. The Russian army had been following the Swedish army to the north. At the same time, they had left large portions of Finland to be occupied by the Russians. Yakov Petrovich Kulnev led a vanguard of 1,300 men — his army counted 4,000 men in total — and caught up with the rearguard of the retreating Swedish main army at the village of Ypperi. Skirmishes occurred all the way to Pyhäjoki, where the Swedes made a brief stand, before Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor gave orders to von Döbeln and Gripenberg to continue the retreat to follow the original strategic plan. The Swedes had checked Kulnev's attack with about 2,000–2,500 men, however, as the Swedes fought a retreating battle, only one battalion at the time could go up against the Russians for most of the fighting. They had lost 183 men in killed, wounded and captured. Kulnev had lost 71 men at Pyhäjoki alone but probably around double that number when applying the losses from the fighting at Ypperi towards Pyhäjoki.
Gustaf Wachtmeister was a Swedish Army officer made famous at the Battle of Valkeala in Finland in 1789 against Russia where he was wounded by a musket shot to his arm, which had to be amputated. He was made the hero of the hour by King Gustav III who was in desperate need of publicity as he tried to silence domestic opposition with a crushing victory over Russia.
Karl Gustav von Baggehufwudt was a lieutenant general of the Russian Empire who took part both in Napoleonic Wars and Finnish War. His family was originally Norwegian, but had moved to Sweden in the 16th century, then to Estonia in the 17th century.
The Helsinki village landing was fought during the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia on 26–28 September 1808, a part of the battles of the Turku archipelago. King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden planned a large landing operation, over 8,000 strong. Due to the difficult sea weather conditions, the task force under Colonel Anders Fredrik Skjöldebrad was forced to return to Sweden, damaged and broken. The other task force of 3,300 men under Lieutenant Colonel Gustav Olof Lagerbring landed at Helsinki village (Taivassalo) successfully and the troops advanced to the inland areas. The king of Sweden was late to the battle area himself; he arrived on 28 September 1808 in his own yacht.
The Dano–Swedish War of 1808–1809 was a war between Denmark–Norway and Sweden due to Denmark–Norway's alliance with France and Sweden's alliance with the United Kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. Neither Sweden nor Denmark-Norway had wanted war to begin with but once pushed into it through their respective alliances, Sweden made a bid to acquire Norway by way of invasion while Denmark-Norway made ill-fated attempts to reconquer territories lost to Sweden in the 17th century. Peace was concluded on grounds of status quo ante bellum on 10 December 1809.
The Battle of Keltis or Battle of Keltis barracks took place in Gustav III's Russian War between May 19–20, 1790 at Keltis in present-day Finland. It ended with a Swedish victory.
The Battle of Uttismalm took place on June 28, 1789 during Gustav III's Russian War, Sweden won over the Russian Empire.
The Battle of Neuensund was a smaller battle at Neuensund of the Seven Years' War between Swedish and Prussian forces fought on September 18, 1761. The Swedish force under the command of Jacob Magnus Sprengtporten managed to rout the Prussian forces commanded by Wilhelm Sebastian von Belling.
The Battle of Uransari or the Battle of Kachis Capel took place on June 16, 1790 during the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790).
The Great Sortie of Stralsund was fought in the Franco-Swedish War on 1–3 April 1807, in Swedish Pomerania. A French army under Édouard Mortier invaded Swedish Pomerania in early 1807 and initiated a blockade of the Swedish town of Stralsund, to secure the French rear from enemy attacks. After several smaller sorties and skirmishes around Stralsund, Mortier marched part of his army to support the ongoing Siege of Kolberg, leaving only a smaller force under Charles Louis Dieudonné Grandjean to keep the Swedes at check. The Swedish commander Hans Henric von Essen then commenced a great sortie to push the remaining French forces out of Swedish Pomerania. The French fought bravely on 1 April at Lüssow, Lüdershagen and Voigdehagen, but were eventually forced to withdraw; the Swedes captured Greifswald the next day, after a brief confrontation. The last day of fighting occurred at Demmin and Anklam, where the Swedes took many French prisoners of war, resulting in the complete French withdrawal out of Swedish Pomerania—while the Swedes continued their offensive into Prussia. After two weeks Mortier returned and pushed the Swedish forces back into Swedish Pomerania. After an armistice the French forces once again invaded, on 13 July, and laid siege to Stralsund, which they captured on 20 August; all of Swedish Pomerania was captured by 7 September, but the war between Sweden and France continued until January 6, 1810, when the Swedes were finally forced to sign the Treaty of Paris.
The Battle of Lappfjärd was fought between Swedish and Russian forces at Lappfjärd in Finland on 29 August 1808 during the Finnish War.
The Battle of Lokalaks was fought between Swedish and Russian forces at Lokalaks, Finland on 17–18 September 1808 during the Finnish War.
The Battle of Hörnefors took place during the Finnish War, on 5 July 1809, when 2,400 Swedes under Johan August Sandels went on a counter-offensive against 3,350 Russians under Ilya Alekseyev and Pavel Andreyevich Shuvalov, at Hörnefors, Sweden. After more than two hours of intense fighting along the Hörnån (river) Sandels ordered a retreat, after having been misinformed of a greater Russian flanking attack.