The battle of Bomarsund was part of the Crimean War, although mostly fought a thousand miles away from the main action in the Black Sea. In 1854, a combined British and French army assaulted and captured the Russian fort in the archipelago between Sweden and Finland. The fort was far from being complete, but it could have been a formidable location had the Russians made a better effort to finish it.
In the so called first battle of Bomarsund, Charles Davis Lucas tossed a grenade overboard just moments before it exploded thus earning the very first (earliest) Victoria Cross.
Finally, after several years of being in the neighborhood (we sail there frequently), I had the chance to visit the site. Not much is left as it was blown to smithereens after the capture. The British and French had no plans to stay through the winter and Sweden did not accept to take over the Åland Islands which had been part of Russia since the Finnish War of 1808-09.
There is a brand new visitor center with a rather small display of the historical events.
It does have some quite interesting maps, drawings and models of the historical fort. Only the red parts had been completed and yellow had been started but not completed. One seventh of all work had been done by the time it was destroyed!
Not many guns, or cannons, are preserved. I assume these are more or less original.
At least they had some Russian stamps on them.
Also, very little of the actual fort is still there – small sections of the walls here and there. But, it was a big fortification with a town (or two) around it. Also, several batteries and towers were built and/or planned around the area.
And this is what’s left…
The details of the battle you can read here – I will not repeat it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bomarsund
We also stopped by one of the cemeteries that had been built on the island. Supposedly, the intention was to build a large town in the area and thus the cemetery was very large. Only a small section of it had been used and there was also another one that we did not visit (it had a Jewish and a Muslim section). This one had been prepared for Christians only with separate sections for Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran deceased.
The Roman Catholic section had a handful of graves of Poles, possible from the time of the Polish Rebellion in 1830s.
Also a number of Russians were buried here – including the four siblings of Kuptchikov – a sobering reminder how well off we are today.
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