Baltic Fleet - Imperial Russia

Imperial Russia

The Imperial Russian Baltic Fleet was created during the Great Northern War at the initiative of Peter the Great, who ordered the first ships for the Baltic Fleet to be constructed at Lodeynoye Pole in 1702 and 1703. The first commander was a Dutch admiral, Cornelius Cruys, who in 1723 was succeeded by Count Fyodor Apraksin. In 1703, the main base of the fleet was established in Kronshtadt. One of the fleet's first actions was the taking of Shlisselburg. In 1701 Peter the Great established a special school, the School of Mathematics and Navigation (Russian: Школа математических и навигацких наук), situated in the Sukharev Tower in Moscow. As St. Petersburg was built it was moved to St. Petersburg and in 1752 its was renamed the Naval Cadet Corps. Today it is the St. Petersburg Naval Institute – Peter the Great Naval Corps.

The Baltic fleet began to receive new vessels since 1703, the first vessel the leader is 24-gun three-master frigate Standart is considered. By 1724, the fleet boasted 141 sail warships and hundreds of oar-propelled ships.

During the Great Northern War, the Baltic Fleet assisted in taking Viborg, Tallinn, Riga, the West Estonian archipelago (Moonsund archipelago), Helsinki, and Turku. The first claimed victories of the Russian Navy were the Gangut (Swedish: Hangöudd) in 1714 and, arguably, the Grengam (Swedish: Ledsund) in 1720. From 1715, the Royal Navy intervened in the Baltic Sea on behalf of Hanover and more or less in a tacit alliance with Russia. During the concluding stages of the war, the Russian fleet would land troops along the Swedish coast to devastate coastal settlements. However, after the death of Charles XII, the Royal Navy would rather protect Swedish interests after a rapprochement between Sweden and George I. A Russian attempt to reach Stockholm was checked at the Battle of Stäket in 1719. The losses suffered by the Russian Navy at the Grengam in 1720, as well as the arrival of a Royal Navy squadron under admiral John Norris, also prevented further operations of any greater scale before the war ended in 1721.

During the Seven Years' War, the Russian Baltic Sea fleet was active on the Pomeranian coast, helping the infantry to take Memel in 1757 and Kolberg in 1761. The Oresund was blockaded in order to prevent the British Navy from entering the Baltic sea. During Catherine II's Swedish War the fleet, commanded by Samuel Greig, checked the Swedes at Hogland (1788) and the Viborg (1790). An impetuous Russian attack on the Swedish galley flotilla on 9 July 1790 at the Second Battle of Svensksund resulted in a disaster for the Russian Navy who lost some 9,500 out of 14,000 men and about one third of their flotilla. The Russian defeat in this battle effectively ended the war.

During the Russo-Turkish Wars the fleet sailed into the Mediterranean and destroyed the Ottoman Navy at Chesma (1770), the Dardanelles (1807), the Athos (1807), and the Navarino (1827). At about the same time, Ivan Krusenstern circumnavigated the globe, while another Baltic Fleet officer — Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen — discovered Antarctica.

In the Crimean War, the fleet – although stymied in its operations by the absence of steamships – prevented the Allies from occupying Hangö, Sveaborg, and Saint Petersburg. Despite being greatly outnumbered by the technologically superior Allies, it was the Russian Fleet that introduced into naval warfare such novelties as torpedo mines, invented by Boris Yakobi. Other outstanding inventors who served in the Baltic Fleet were Alexander Stepanovich Popov (who was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic (radio) waves), Stepan Makarov (the first to launch torpedoes from a boat), Alexei Krylov (author of the modern ship floodability theory), and Alexander Mozhaiski (co-inventor of aircraft).