Battles of the Russo-Swedish War

17 July 1788 · Off Hogland, Gulf of Finland

Tactically indecisive, each side taking one ship; a strategic Russian victory

Gustav III's plan depended on the battle fleet clearing the way for a landing near St Petersburg. It sailed from Karlskrona in June under his brother, Duke Charles of Södermanland, and met Admiral Samuel Greig's fleet from Kronstadt off Hogland. In light airs the two lines drifted together in the late afternoon, using their boats to turn the ships. The Swedes fired high, at masts and rigging; the Russians concentrated on the Swedish flagship and the ships near her. At about 8 pm Prins Gustaf, carrying Vice-Admiral Wachtmeister's flag, was surrounded and struck by 10 pm, while the Russian Vladislav, drifting into the Swedish line, surrendered too. Out of heavy shot, the Swedes withdrew to Sveaborg in the night. There Greig blockaded them for the rest of the year, and the invasion of Russia from the sea was over.

26 July 1789 · South-east of Öland, Baltic Sea

Indecisive; the Russians kept control of the Baltic

Fever brought back by the prisoners from Vladislav had killed thousands at Karlskrona over the winter, and the Swedish fleet sailed in July 1789 still short of men. It hoped to catch Admiral Vasily Chichagov's fleet from Reval and Kronstadt before it could join the Russian squadron coming from Copenhagen. The fleets met south-east of Öland on 25 July, but the Russians kept their distance, and on the 26th the two lines fought at long range from about 2 pm until 8 pm, with a lull while the wind shifted. More men were hurt by bursting guns than by enemy shot. The Swedish rear under Rear-Admiral Liljehorn hung back, and three Russian ships that were cut off were let go; Liljehorn was court-martialled and lost his rank. On 31 July the Copenhagen squadron joined Chichagov, and the Swedes, with some 2,500 sick, went home to Karlskrona.

24 August 1789 · Svensksund, near present-day Kotka

Russian victory; the Swedish archipelago fleet driven back

The Swedish archipelago fleet under Lieutenant-Colonel Carl August Ehrensvärd lay in the sound of Svensksund among the islands off the Kymi river, guarding the army's flank. Prince Charles of Nassau-Siegen brought the Russian galley fleet against it from two sides: a squadron of bigger ships under Ivan Balle attacked from the south, while Giulio Litta's galleys worked through a shallow passage to the east that the Swedes had not blocked in time. The Swedes beat off Balle's ships and even took some of them, but when Litta's galleys broke through in the evening the defence fell apart. Several of the Swedish archipelago frigates ran aground and were taken, and about thirty transports were burned to keep them from the Russians. Most of the fleet escaped to the fortress of Svartholm and was ready to fight again the next year.

13 May 1790 · Reval roads, off present-day Tallinn

Russian victory; two Swedish ships of the line lost

For the 1790 campaign Gustav sent the battle fleet early, before the ice let the Kronstadt ships out, to destroy Chichagov's squadron of ten ships of the line wintering at Reval. Chichagov anchored his ships in a close line across the roads, with frigates, bomb vessels and the shore batteries behind them. The Swedes sailed down the Russian line in a strong wind, firing as they passed, but their shot went wide while the Russian gunners in the sheltered anchorage fired well. Duke Charles's flagship could not tack and drifted down on Rostislav, taking heavy grapeshot; Prins Carl lost her rudder and struck; and after about two hours the Duke called the attack off, the last ten ships turning away without firing. Riksens Ständer ran onto a reef off Aegna island and had to be burned. The Swedes lost two ships of the line and several hundred men, the Russians a few dozen.

3–4 June 1790 · Off Krasnaya Gorka, near Kronstadt

Indecisive; the Swedes withdrew into Vyborg Bay

After Reval the Swedish battle fleet sailed east up the Gulf of Finland to strike at the Kronstadt squadron under Vice-Admiral Alexander Cruys before Chichagov could join it. The two fleets fought off Krasnaya Gorka, within earshot of St Petersburg, over two days, but neither could get the better of the other. When Chichagov's squadron was reported coming up from Reval behind them, the Swedes, at risk of being caught between two fleets, fell back into Vyborg Bay to cover the archipelago fleet and the army ashore. The two Russian fleets joined and closed the bay behind them.

3–4 July 1790 · Vyborg Bay, Gulf of Finland

Swedish fleet broke out with heavy losses

For a month the whole Swedish navy, the battle fleet and the archipelago fleet with the king himself, lay trapped in Vyborg Bay, blockaded by Chichagov and Cruys with some fifty ships, running short of food and water. When the wind turned in their favour Gustav ordered a breakout to the west. Led by Colonel Johan Puke, the battle line ran along the narrow western channel past the Salvors shallows, straight through the anchored Russian blockading ships, with the galleys and gunboats following inshore; the Russian ships at that end fired into each Swedish ship as it passed. The worst came when the fireship Postiljonen, lit too soon, drifted into Enigheten and the frigate Zemire, and all three blew up. In the smoke, several ships ran aground on the shallows at Passaloda and Pensar. Robert Crown's frigates chased the slower ships out to sea and took several. Most of both Swedish fleets got out, the battle fleet to Sveaborg and the archipelago fleet to Svensksund, but Sweden lost seven ships of the line, three frigates and thousands of men, most of them taken prisoner.

9–10 July 1790 · Svensksund, near present-day Kotka

Decisive Swedish victory; the Russian galley fleet destroyed

After the breakout Gustav took the archipelago fleet back to Svensksund, where it anchored in an L-shaped line across the sound, with the bigger ships in the centre and the galleys and gunboats on the wings, sheltered from the rising south-west wind. Nassau-Siegen, eager to finish the Swedes off before they could recover, attacked on the morning of 9 July, the anniversary of Catherine the Great's accession, without waiting for his whole force or for the weather to ease. His ships went in against the wind into a concentrated fire, and as the day went on the heavy sea broke up his line and drove the Russian galleys and frigates onto each other and onto the rocks. The Swedes counter-attacked, and by the next morning the Russians had lost some fifty to eighty vessels, among them about a dozen frigates and xebecs and Nassau-Siegen's flagship Catharina, and some 6,000 men taken prisoner. It was the largest naval battle ever fought in the Baltic and Sweden's greatest naval victory. Five weeks later Catherine agreed to the Treaty of Värälä.