UNUSUAL WRITING ABOUT THE SURRENDER OF SUOMENLINNA BY CRONSTEDT, 1811.

True information regarding the reasons which gave rise to the convention between the former Vice-Admiral and Commandant of the Suomenlinna Fortress Olof Cronstedt and the Imperial Russian General Suchteln on 6 April 1808, concerning the task of the fortress, Expenditure of former Admiral Olof Cronstedt. Jemte attached relation in this topic. by Major Gustaf Hjärne. Stockholm (Carl Delén) 1811.
8th (about 190x115 mm.). (7), 8-46 pp. Some underlines as well as markings and exclamation marks in the margins. Stapled and uncut with grey paper backing strip, Johan Forsander's signature on the back strip. Title page with blurred library stamp.
Cracked in back, title leaf stained and with rips in margin, stamp. Text partially blotted.

Setterwall 3782.
Provenance: Johan Forsander (Jönköping 1795-1866 Växjö).

Unusual defence paper by Cronstedt about why Suomenlinna had to be abandoned. He received a response to a speech in the same year by Major General Georg Carl von Döbeln, who in his rebuttal attacked Cronstedt and helped to create the image of the great traitor during the Finnish War of 1808-1809. After the peace, Cronstedt was sentenced to death for treason, and so chose to remain in Finland, with time increasingly isolated with no association with either Finns or Russians. Why he abandoned Suomenlinna is still an open question, although it is not now considered that he was directly treacherous.
Von Döbeln was not the only one to criticize Cronstedt. In a letter dated 3 May 1808, Captain Strömberg of the Royal Ostrobothnian Regiment Lif Compagnie writes:
“Suomenlinna has fallen! I have never seen our good brigade commander Georg Carl von Döbeln so cursed as on this day, May 3, when he read the report of the fall of Suomenlinna. How is this possible? Admiral and Commander Cronstedt, what have you done? You who are one of the toughest officers in the Reich, what didn't you do in Svensksund, brilliance! But now? You've ruined our entire war plan! We who just a few days ago on April 18 defeated the Russians at Siikajoki, just south of Oulu. We finally got to taste the sweetness of victory after several months of inconsolable but planned retreat. Now at last we heroically chase the Russians south, our men are finally in a radiant mood. We look forward to returning to our homelands and seeing how our homes, cottages and especially families have coped with the ravages of the Russians. Commandant Cronstedt, your proud fortress and defence support point, the “Gibraltar of the North” with a garrison of over 6,000 men, equipped with over 700 guns, gunpowder and supplies to last you well into the summer. After all, you would attack from the south and cut off the Russian supplies from St. Petersburg, simply tie the sack again and pick up the victory along with our successful advance from the north. We don't understand anything. What has happened? There will be rumors that you negotiated, conspired, allowed yourself to be misled by the Russian? We understand that you have barely used your cannons and only six men have fallen? HM The King's instructions and regulations were clear: “Fight to the last man! And the walls will not have fallen down, nor will the Russians have stormed you. How is this possible? This is treason! You have failed HM The King, the country, us... what do we do now?“

When the war of 1808-09 began, Carl Olof Cronstedt was commandant at Suomenlinna. Russian troops took Helsinki over the ice on 2 March 1808. However, it was unlikely that the first Russian force alone would be able to take Suomenlinna as long as there was gunpowder in the fortress, where 7,000 men and the entire Swedish archipelago fleet of over 200 ships were stationed. In total, the fortress itself also had over 2,000 cannons.[Cronstedt shelled the Russian troops in Helsinki so heavily that the remaining quantity of gunpowder became a clear problem. The shelling of the moving Russian troops continued to have little success. On 23 March, he met Russian negotiators on the islet of Lonnan. On 6 April Cronstedt agreed with Jan-Peter van Suchtelsen, the commander of the Russians in Helsinki, for a venerable surrender on 3 May, if Swedish rescue did not arrive beforehand. The Swedish couriers with requests for rescue were delayed by the Russians and reached Stockholm only on 3 May, the same day Cronstedt surrendered without continued fighting, ceding both the fortress and the archipelago fleet to the Russian commander-in-chief Frederick Wilhelm von Buxhoevden. In any case, rescue would not have been possible, as unusually the sea was still frozen at the beginning of May. After the transfer of Suomenlinna into Russian hands, it became even easier for the Russian upper power to occupy Finland. The ill-prepared and lost war helped trigger the Coup d'état of 1809, which led to Sweden obtaining a new constitution and Gustav IV Adolf being exiled and succeeded on the throne by his uncle, Charles XIII.

Johan Forsander was the son of the vicar of Södra Unnaryd parish Magnus Forsander. His father died in 1800 and his mother Johanna Maria Wernelin remarried in 1801 to Nils Stocke, later vicar of Hagshult parish. In 1802 he was enrolled in Växjö school, where he befriended his cousin Elias Fries, and here laid the foundation for Forsander's antiquarian interest, which grew since he got to know Johan Gustav Liljegren. In 1813 he became a student at Växjö gymnasium and in the same year he was enrolled as a student at Lund University. Forsander became a Master of Philosophy in 1817 and at that time intended to become a botanist. However, the conflict between his friend Elias Fries and Carl Adolph Agardh, who was a professor, made Forsander's chances of a lectureship impossible. In 1821 he was hired instead as a teacher of natural history at Växjö Gymnasium, a position he remained in until 1860. After his ordination in 1824, he also became a cathedral clerk in Växjö. He also engaged in other ways in the city and in the late 1820s was an accountant and later a member of the board of the Kronobergs län savings bank, was in 1828—1835 publisher of the Wexiö-Blad, secretary of the Kronoberg County Housekeeping Society and agent in the Växjö diocese for the Swedish Bible Society. From 1853 he was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Vitterhets Historie and the Academy of Antiquities.Show more

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