Svartholm fortress

By 1745 Degerby (later Lovisa - Finnish: Loviisa) was deemed to be a suitable location for a border fortification and to protect it from hostile naval forces a seafortress at Svartholm was required to be built.

Over half of the Swedish army in Finland was tasked with the construction and in 1750 more than 6,000 men were working on the fortifications at Svartholm and Sveaborg.

Ehrensvärd had tasked first Captain O. R. Clansenstierna and later (1751-1757) Lieutenant-Colonel Fabian Casimir Wrede with the construction efforts at Degerby and Svartholm who had in 1751 around 2 000 workers at their disposal.

King Adolf Frederick visited the site in 1751 which was renamed from Degerby to Lovisa (Finnish: Loviisa) after his wife Louisa Ulrika during his reign.

In 1775 works at fortifications around Lovisa were stopped when of the six planned bastions, only two were ready and efforts at Svartholm slowed further down and in 1778 only some minor construction took place.

Small arms were in similar condition and fort lacked both food and ammunition which had not been stocked in sufficient quantities.

[5] Commander of Svartholm before the war had been Captain Carl Gustaf von Schoultz who had to tend with badly trained garrison of which only third could be armed with a functional weapon.

On 17 March Russian General commanding the armies in Finland, Friedrich Wilhelm von Buxhoeveden, accepted the surrender.

Swedes surrendered the fortress with all its weapons intact to the Russians who in turn agreed just to dismiss the mostly Finnish garrison of Svartholm.

As soon as the British squadron appeared, the fortress was evacuated by the Russians and its armament removed, Captain Yelverton blew up everything that remained.