Siege of Sveaborg - Aftermath

Aftermath

The capture of Sveaborg helped the Russian conquest of Finland greatly, as it removed the threat of a counterattack from the south and west. To Sweden it was a devastating blow as it made the resupply of the battered Finnish army much more difficult. It was considered by many as one of the major reasons (if not the major reason) Finland was lost. Cronstedt was subsequently considered a traitor by many Swedes and Finns, notably Johan Ludvig Runeberg in his epic The Tales of Ensign Stål.

Amongst other things Russian captured bulk of the Swedish archipelago fleet. This included 3 hemmema and 7 turuma type archipelago frigates, 25 gun sloops, 51 gun yawls and various other ships. This had immense effect to the war in Finnish archipelago especially since the chance of the Russian battlefleet to successfully engage joint Swedish and British battlefleets in the open sea was marginal. Before Russians were able to deploy their newly captured fleet an explosion happened at Sveaborg on 3 June 1808 which together with the fire that broke out afterwards caused considerable damage to the ships at Sveaborg destroying amongst other things six of the seven captured turuma type archipelago frigates.