BOOKS . .

THE RUSSIAN CONQUEST OF FINLAND.*

Dris narrative of the conquest of Finland by the Russians, in imia, was drawn up many years since, by a Russian officer of rank, now deceased ; who printed the book for private circulation, although it never was published. A copy was given by the author to General Monteith of the Madras Engineers. Present circum- stances have induced its appearance, under the superintendence of the General; and although its popular interest arises from the pos- sibility that an allied army may be engaged in Finland, as our fleets are already operating upon its shores, the book is worthy of publication, as well for its subject as for its intrinsic merit.

From the nature of the country, the climate, and the coast, a war in Finland will always be of a peculiar character, in which broad strategical objects must be combined with a degree of independence in particular officers ; the scanty resources of the

country render communication by sea indispensable to every army save a Russian, and the singular formation of the coast necessi- tates a peculiar flotilla. Unless we are much mistaken, the book will be found a useful addition to military literature, illustrating by its narrative some principles of warfare in a difficult country ; for although the difficulties are chiefly owing to water in some form,—lakes, torrents, and marshes,—the similar difficulty of interrupted communication would arise from mountains or forests. The narrative itself is what is called " military "; dealing with operations as a mathematical problem, rather than as a picture of actions. The problems for the most part are clearly worked out to the attentive reader ; the narrative is rapid ; and though events are not described with the broad and vivid pencilling of a Napier, full justice is done to the gallant struggles which seem to have taken place, nor are particular deeds of merit altogether overlooked. Portions of the campaign are subjected to a critical examination ; and the reader is introduced to a physical view of the country, salient and comprehensive in its features, without the dry minute- ness which frequently characterizes military topography. As any attempt to restore Finland to Sweden would involve a land cam- paign, the sketch of the country has a present value beyond its graphic quality.

The aspect of the Eastern part of the country does not differ materially from that of the portion of Finland anciently belonging to Russia. After passing Wiborg the mountains are more considerable in size, and enormous masses of rock are heaped upon each other in every direction. In some places the quantity of flints and of granite stones is so considerable that it would be difficult to find an unencumbered space, even of a few yards square. The roads are narrow and crooked, but tolerably firm, the forests dark, and the general appearance of the country savage and gloomy. The numerous sheets of water with which it is intersected were at that time converted into solid plains of ice, capable of bearing not only troops of every description but even the heaviest artillery.

*

"Another observation, which is perhaps worth making, concerns the man- ner in which the Russian army was broken up into small divisions ; for it must have been remarked, that from the very beginning of the invasion, in spite of the paucity of their numbers, the troops were spread over the con- siderable extent of country comprised between thei Lakes of Upper Finland sad the Gulf which washes the shores of its Southbrn extremity. This ap- parent dissemination is rendered necessary by the very nature of the country. !hough cut up and intersected in every direction by lakes, marshes, rocks, sad forests, the means of communication are far from rare, and may all lead to results of greater or less importance. They may serve to prcitect a post, to transmit supplies to it, or to expose it to danger. These roads are con- structed upon a firm and solid foundation, and are a noble trophy of the in- dustry of man. They very seldom give way, and, are almost always practi- cable for troops iand, whether a force be acting on the offensive or merely on the defensive. it would be as unsafe to neglect any one of them as it would be in the wallies of. Switzerland : indeed, it is necessary to possess oneself of nearly the whole of them, in order to secure the principal roads being kept open, to provide shelter for the soldiers in so severe a climate, and to enable them to avail themselves of some of the local resources which are rendered indispensable by the rapid and decisive system of warfare adopted in the present day; and these precautions are indeed doubly necessary, by the cir- cumstances of the habitations being but thinly scattered-over the face of the wuutrY, the villages in general inconsiderable, the country itself unproduc- tive, and deficient in the means of transport. There is:but little danger of being beaten in detail in Finland, and it would very rarely be possible for a superior force to meet with ground on which a great number of fighting men could be drawn up. Each detachment of 1000 or 1500 men forms, in fact, a !mall army; and its commander ought to peeseas a-certain degree of talent, as ne,tcast be capable of creating resources for himself, and will often be coin- Pelled to act without waiting for ordera from his superior officers. The his- tory of the engagements we shall have occasion to describe will prove that the victories alternately gained by each party were far more due to the con- stant relays of troops, and to the talent and resolution of their chiefs, than to any numerical superiority on the field of battle." The present importance of the book, however, arises from the ellipse it gives of those tactics which may be called peculiarly 41!ssian, and the application which may be made of that know- Imp to actual affairs. Everybody knows.that the seizure of Fin- „%3Narrative of the Conquest of Finland by the Russians, in the years 1808-'9. LT, unpublished Work by a Russian Officer of Rank. Edited by General Mon- r.u.s., Madras Engineers. Published by Booth. land by Alexander was the result of an iniquitous compact be-,, tween himself and Napoleon at the treaty of Tilsit. It is possible' that neither political foresight nor military skill and decision could '

have eventually resisted the power of Russia; but it should not be forgotten that Russia was engaged in other wars, and, as seems al, ways to have been the case, her resources when put to the strain seemed hardly equal to the enterprise small as it was. The most tangible cause of the ill success of Sweden was Gustavus the Fourth ; whose conduct in fact compelled his subjects to dethrone him before the termination of the war. He took the war into his own hands ; gave his personal directions to the general in Finland; and laid down a course of tactics that he should only act upon the defensive,—as it turned out, the worst tactics that could have been adopted. Instead of supplying the army with reinforcements in the spring, on which supply the whole of his system was based„ he kept a large body of troops under his immediate command, and. wasted their energies in desultory attacks. The consequence was, that the inferior forces of the Swedes, after gaining several battles, performing many partisan exploits of a clever and dashing kind, and losing the battle of Oravais by a too rash pursuit, and one ofi those turns of a minute which are all-powerful in war, were pressed' out of the country step by step.

According to the account of the "Officer of Rank,” (who, how- ever, may be suspected of strong Russian leanings,) great gal-, lantry was displayed on both sides ; though with the exception ofd Oravais the Russians seem generally to have been beaten when fairly met. The two great elements of Russian success in the Finnish war, as in the Turkish war of 1828-'29, were corruption and audacity. By corruption, unless we are to assume senility amounting to insanity, Sweaborg with its stores, its arsenal, its ships, and its command of the coast navigation, was surrendered. to the Russians. The audacity our author admits in terms, and in one of his criticisms censures it as having been too riskful. In fact, " audacity " or imposition seems to be a genuine Russian practice,—wrong according to our ideas, even on the principle that all is fair in war, but not wrong even in theory to a Russian ; just as respectable dealers in this country have one fixed price for their goods, whereas a similar class abroad will take anything they can get. The number of troops finally occupied in the conquest of Finland was sixty or seventy thousand men ; but the Russians began the campaign with only sixteen thousand, and scattered them over a large extent of country, imposing upon the Swedes the idea that their resources were immense.

The single facts in the following extracts may be small, but they are collectively important, from the light they throw upon the "audacious" tactics of the enemy. "Count Bouxhoevden was appointed by the Emperor Alexander to the command of the army. The Russian Government had succeeded in giving an exaggerated idea of the numerical strength of the force, by skilfully dis- playing their resources to the best advantage, and making great demonstra- tions of activity in military preparations and the movement of troops in the capital. The Swedish Ambassador at St. Petersburg could not fail to parti- cipate in the general error, and it rapidly found its way to Stockholm.

"After having thus advanced as far as he considered advisable with his left column, Count Bouxhoevden felt the necessity of losing no time in com- pelling Count Klingsporr to evacuate Tavastheus. Re rapidly brought for- ward all the columns of his little army to bear upon the town, and advanced to within a short march of it. Their total strength did not exceed 9000 men ; the rest of the troops being absorbed by the detachments, the guards of the magazines, and the number of men left before the various places they had invested. But few bad fallen in the skirmishes that had taken place, and the number of the sick was inconsiderable. "The approach to Tavastheus was disputed inch by inch. General Klercker, a man of seventy years of age, but full of energy and military ar- dour, ;- had made every preparation for a general action, and Klingsporr, on

his arrival from Sweden, found a garrison of 5000 men. The new comman- der-in-chief was very little younger than his predecessor. For a moment he appeared undecided what steps he should take, but the rapidity of the move- ments of the Russian army, the idea entertained of their great numerical superiority, and the fear of the heavy responsibility he would incur by going counter to the instructions he had received from the king, weighed upon the mind of General Klingeporr; he followed the advice of, his council, and- hastily abandoned Tavastheus and its citadel.

"The early days of the Russian invasion were distinguished by masterly arrangements in the marches and disposal of the troops, and by a degree Of energy and perseverance only to be met with in the people of Northern countries, when surrounded by icy frosts and deep snows. As their detach- ments advanced at the same time towards the South, the centre, and the North of this vast country, they appeared to be the.heads of so many for- midable columns, to which common report assigned an exaggerated degree of strength."

In the North, at a later date, Kamensky's success on a parti- cular occasion " was merely negative, but be had escaped a de- feat "; yet (we are quoting the. Russian Offioer of Rank) " Ka- mensky had the audacity to summon the Swedes to surrender." At Sweaborg, affairs took a more theatrical demonstration. As our author maintains that the charge of treason against Admiral Cronstedt was not true, and that the Russian General Suchtelen was too much a man of honour to offer a bribe, or Admiral Cron- stedt to take one, the idea of complicity must be abandoned. At any rate, the proceedings look more like the stratagems of ancient times than the strategy of modern war.

"Various parleys took place on different occasions; in the course of which General Suchtelen thought he observed that the moral vigour of some of the chiefs was hardly what might have been expected from the material strength with which the fortress was provided. His plans for accelerating the sur- render of the place were based upon this hint : he considered that one means of success would he in keeping up a constant anxiety and alarm among the garrison, composed of good troops, but who were little accustomed to war, and in fatiguing and harassing them by keeping them constantly on the alert. This system was carried out ; constant alarms were raised, some- times in the daytime, but much more often during the night. Sometimes it was a party of drums and riflemen ; sometimes one or even two field-batte- ries would take advantage of the shelter of the rocks to creep along the ice, even within the range of grape-shot.

"Colonel Argoum of the artillery distinguished himself particularly in these expeditions. He was a positive reveillon to the garrison. He con- tinually varied his stratagems, and the time and place where the attack would be made never could be foreseen.

"Under the veil of military politeness, the Russian officers took care to supply the Swedish Admiral regularly with the newspapers and gazettes they received from the continent. At this time they were filled for the most part with disastrous accounts of everything in Sweden. The bulle- tins of the Russian army, the proclamations, the letters from families dis- pirited by the loss or absence of their heads,—everything that could tend to depress the spirits of the garrison, and that it was to the advantage of Russia should be believed and discussed in Sweaborg, was transmitted there daily, and received with the eager curiosity naturally felt by men cut off from all other intercourse with the rest of the world.

"A personal acquaintance with some of the superior officers enabled the Russian generals more and more to appreciate the characters of those with whom they had to deal. Colonels who for twenty years had been assidu- ously occupied in the cultivation of their military farms, subalterns who had never seen the face of war ; a sort of rivalship between the Swedes and Finlanders; the number of women, the dissatisfaction of many, the prodigal consumption permitted by inexperience of the provisions, always so precious in a besieged place; the firm belief entertained of the superiority of the Rus- sian forces,—such were the principal elements of the perplexity and anxiety which distracted the minds of the Admiral and his officers."

Every fact and every book relating to Russian war or diplomacy tell the same story, from the time of Peter the Great to the lately raised siege of Silistria. To undervalue an enemy is proverbially dangerous, but it may be as destructive to success to overvalue him. We seem to have been going on long enough in a credulous belief of the power and resources of a state which when fairly met has been beaten, which when brought to a test has always failed, and whose success when investigated has been proved to arise from its mendacious arts and the timorous credulity of its dupes.