Battle of Helsinki (1713)

After the Swedish main army commanded by King Charles XII was destroyed in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Finland was exposed to Russian attack. After securing peace with the Ottoman Empire in the south, Russian tsar Peter the Great finally decided in 1713 to attack Finland in order to force Sweden to peace in a war that had been going on for 13 years. As soon as the Gulf of Finland was freed from the ice, a fleet of more than 200 light ships (including 110 landing crafts, 93 light galleys, and at least two gun prams and one mortar galliot), commanded by Admiral Fyodor Apraksin, set off from the Kotlin Island, accompanied by 17,000 infantry soldiers, or 18,700 men in total. ==Battle==

Apraksin's galley fleet arrived in front of Helsinki shortly after the departure of the ice on 8 May 1713, conveniently before the return of the Neva squadron from Karlskrona, when the city was unprotected from the sea. Since Commander-in-Chief Lybecker did not know where the Russians would try to land, he had spread his forces along the coast of Uusimaa and remained at his headquarters in the Sarvilahti Manor in Pernå. In Helsinki, the commander of the Nyland Regiment of Foot, Major General Carl Gustaf Armfelt, only had 1,800 men at his disposal, of which 1,500 were fit for battle, so the Russians had a huge superiority. On the night between 10 and 11 May, Major General Carl Gustaf Armfelt, Nyland and Tavastehus County Governor Johan Creutz, Helsinki Mayor Henrik Tammelin and the wealthy merchant Johan Henrik Frisius, who was responsible for the maintenance of the army, decided in a meeting that defending the city was hopeless and the only option would be to retreat to the north. Charles XII had ordered the army to follow the scorched earth tactic in Finland, so when the Swedes left, they set fire to the entire city and also burned the Crown's grain stores in Katajanokka with their contents. While retreating, Armfelt's army also burned the long bridge on Siltasaari, but the Russians crossed the strait on rafts to continue the pursuit. There was a small skirmish in the old town, where the Swedes failed to stop the Russian advance. Armfelt's troops then encountered the Häme Regiment sent by Lybecker as an auxiliary force and they retreated together to the east to Porvoo. Peter the Great disembarked in the burning Helsinki during the day of 11 May. At first he ordered the Russians to put out the fire, but after finding the attempt hopeless, he ordered the rest of the buildings to be destroyed. Only the merchant Burgman's house and the church belfry were saved from the fire. The Tsar's plan to use Helsinki as a supply center had failed because the city was in ashes, and he left the same day. The next day, the Swedish Neva squadron arrived, causing the Russians to retreat without a fight. If Helsinki's defense had lasted a day longer, the arrival of reinforcements would probably have turned Russia's victory into a crushing defeat. There was little joy for either side in the now-destroyed city. ==Aftermath==

Subsequently, to the Russian departure, the Swedes captured a colonel who stated a loss of 70 Russians on 10–11 May; it is uncertain if this figure includes the whole fleet or not. The Swedish casualties were likewise minor. At the end of May, Peter the Great returned to his capital St. Petersburg, but Apraksin still had orders to conquer Finland. When the Russians arrived from the direction of Helsinki, Lybecker had initially retreated inland to Lammi, when Apraksin made contact with the Russian forces east of the Kymi River and thus took control of the entire coast east of Porvoo. In July 1713, Lybecker marched his army back to Porvoo, but Apraksin's infantry slipped past him and on 15 July captured Helsinki again, this time by land from the north, as the ruins of the city were now defended on land by only 200 men. In this situation, the Neva squadron also withdrew from Helsinki, leaving it permanently to the Russians. Apraksin built a Russian base and fortress on the ruins of Helsinki, from where he carried out his next operations in Finland. The inhabitants did not return to the city until eight years later, after the end of the Great Wrath. ==See also==