This battle is unique not only for its participants, but also for its geography. It took place during the Crimean War, but much further north than the Black Sea. However, this entire war became a rehearsal for the First World War – it involved dozens of countries far beyond Europe, and naval battles took place on three seas and two oceans.
The aim of the northern campaign of the British fleet was to harm Russian maritime trade. The Baltic and Black Seas were blocked by the ships of the anti-Russian coalition, leaving the ancient sea route to Arkhangelsk. The piquancy of the situation was that this route was used mainly by English merchants and, according to a long-standing tradition, they paid for Russian goods in advance.
Map of Arkhangelsk province (with coats of arms and city plans). 1844. Photo: Arkhangelsk Museum of Local History
That is, the naval blockade of the White Sea was hitting their pockets, which the worried merchants notified the Admiralty about. Two British ministers: the naval minister and the trade minister, gave vague explanations to the effect that there would be a blockade, but rather a demonstrative one, and the navy would try not to harm business interests.
Moreover, the British ships’ draft did not allow them to enter the Northern Dvina and land troops in Arkhangelsk, so a small squadron under Admiral Erasmus Ommaney was sent to the White Sea to intercept military and merchant ships leaving Russian ports and, if necessary, to perform other actions for the glory of the crown. Sir Ommaney flew the flag on the ship Eurydice, having two steam frigates, Brisk and Miranda, under his command, plus 540 soldiers and officers of the naval landing force. Correspondence between London and the White Sea took two months, which gave the admiral freedom to act at his own discretion.
According to eyewitnesses, the English admiral was harsh with the defenseless fishing villages and small towns on the coast: he bombarded them with naval guns and called for their surrender, sending victorious reports to the Admiralty on each occasion. However, the British squadron did not dare approach Arkhangelsk, which was protected by fifty guns of the Novodvinsk fortress. The longboats sent to measure the depths came under rifle and cannon fire from the shore, and the buoys set up by the English were removed by Russian gunboats at night. Having lost one sailor killed, the British ships went to the open sea.
Disabled team
Frustrated by the failure, the admiral decided to take revenge on the Solovetsky Monastery, the second major point of defense in the Russian north. Since England and France entered the Crimean War, the abbot of the monastery, the far-sighted Archimandrite Alexander, asked the military governor of the region, Roman Boyle, to strengthen the defense of Solovki, but he threw all his forces into strengthening Arkhangelsk.
The monastery garrison consisted of 200 monks and novices, 370 workers and free settlers, and a disabled crew of 53 people who were incapable of military service due to decrepitude or injuries. The disabled guarded the prisoners in the monastery prison. An inspection of the island arsenal showed that every single gun had become unusable, and the large supply of halberds and spears could do little to help in the fight against warships. Of the 20 cannons in the monastery, two three-pounders were considered fit for combat. The rest either exploded when fired or crumbled when touched.
Fortunately, Vice-Admiral Boyle did give the monastery the surplus left over from arming Arkhangelsk and Novodvinsk. Eight six-pound cannons with a set of 60 shells for each were delivered to the islands by monastery ships. With them came the engineering officer Bugaevsky and the fireworker Drushlevsky. The former was engaged in equipping artillery batteries, the latter in training the gun crew, recruited from among the disabled.
Among the inhabitants of Solovki there were several retired military men, and the abbot of the monastery, at his own risk, offered to take part in the defense of the island to some of the prisoners. Thus, an additional detachment of two dozen people was formed to help the invalid team. Bogomolets, in the worldly world retired collegiate assessor Pyotr Sokolov, who had some knowledge of fortification and artillery, began to put the monastery fortifications in order on his own initiative.
Solovetsky Monastery 1827 Photo: Saratov Regional Museum of Local History
The guns sent from Arkhangelsk were placed in the embrasures of the western wall of the monastery. A pair of small monastery guns were combined into a mobile battery, successfully positioned on the shore and camouflaged. “The construction of the Solovetsky battery was completed on the 25th of this month,” Drushlevsky reported to Boyle in June. From that day on, officers trained the monks, the invalid team, and the rest of the island’s population in shooting and bayonet fighting techniques every day.
On July 6, the steam frigates Brisk and Miranda appeared in sight of the monastery. They dropped anchor right opposite the hidden battery and raised colored flags on the yards, trying to negotiate. The monks, who did not know the naval code, did not respond. Then the English fired three warning shots from cannons, which were answered by the coastal battery. The exchange of cannonballs served as a formal pretext for the bombardment of the island. The monastery responded.
The heavy guns mounted on the walls were useless – their cannonballs did not reach the ships. But a cannonball fired by the coastal battery seriously damaged the Miranda – the frigate moved away from the shore and was put in for repairs. The Brisk followed suit. The hour-long bombardment of the monastery ended in victory for the monks.
Archimandrite Alexander and the monastery brethren perform a prayer service before the icon of the Mother of God, damaged by British shelling. 1855. Photo: wikipedia.org
“We drove and walked around the island for about four hours, when suddenly we saw that two three-masted frigates with archimetes machines (propellers – ed.), with about sixty guns on each, the same ones that were heading out to sea, were approaching straight to the monastery, I and Ensign Nikanovich went to the monastery, and the artillery fireworker with two guns, and two non-commissioned officers and 10 private invalids with hunters, to whom guns were issued, some from the old monastery Arsenal, and some from peasants, remained in the battery in such a position that they were not noticed.
The enemy ship stood opposite the battery itself and launched a cannonball at the monastery, at the Holy Gate, but missed, and began to continue bombardment from one ship, and another at a short distance dropped anchor; after the third shot, a shot was fired from our battery from two three-pounder guns so accurately and successfully that several shots caused damage to the enemy ship (and they say that one Englishman was also wounded), which, having fired about thirty shots, retreated to another ship not far from the shore, dropped anchor and immediately, before our eyes, made repairs; for this deed, I kissed the fireworks and congratulated everyone who was in the battery on the glorious victory and the royal award,” – this is how Archimandrite Alexander described the events of that day in a letter to the Holy Synod (spelling preserved).
“There is no one to surrender to”
The next day, a British launch under a white flag brought an angry letter from Admiral Ommaney to the abbot of Solovki. For “shooting at the English flag,” the squadron commander demanded the unconditional surrender of the commandant and the fortress. Ommaney’s ultimatum ordered the commandant to hand over his sword three hours after receiving the dispatch, and within six hours, the entire garrison with cannons and other weapons to surrender.
A military council hastily assembled by the abbot from senior monks and commanders of the invalid detachment composed a sarcastic response: we have neither soldiers nor a commandant, therefore there is no one to surrender to. The letter was signed: “Solovetsky Monastery”.
The artilleryman and pilgrim Sokolov volunteered to deliver the letter. After reading the reply, the British declared that for such insolence the monastery would be “ravaged from all sides.” As soon as the envoy returned to shore, the bombardment of the island began, lasting more than nine hours. During this time, the Brisk and the repaired Miranda fired about 1,800 cannonballs and bombs at the monastery, achieving very modest results: the English cannonballs pierced the wooden hotel and the Onufrievskaya cemetery church, which stood outside the monastery walls. In the citadel itself, the walls of the high Transfiguration Cathedral were damaged and the dome of the Nikolskaya Church was broken. The defenders of the island were not harmed.
Lubok “The Attack of the English on the Stavropegic Solovetsky Monastery”. 1865. Photo: Museum of L.N. Tolstoy
“On both days of the battle, not a single one of the monastery’s people was killed or wounded, although they, with their zeal, under the cannonballs flying above them, carried out their work inside and outside the monastery and on the wall of the fortress roof, which was only pierced in a few places by enemy cannonballs, which made small holes.
“Oh! The great intercession and intercession before God of the Solovetsky miracle workers for the holy monastery, all the inhuman efforts of the enemy, which were aimed at completely destroying it with their terrible shells, remained disgraced and shamed. The monastery remains intact, and the damage turned out to be the most insignificant, which could be repaired in a few hours, there was no fire from the shells anywhere and where a fire did appear, but even then it was small, unable to ignite, which at the same time was easily extinguished with a blanket of felt soaked in water and small flooding fire hoses placed along the fortress wall,” the abbot reported to the Synod.
The disgraced and shamed English ships departed from Solovki to sea and two days later vented their frustration on Kiy Island, where they burned the Onega port customs building, several administrative buildings and plundered the Onega Monastery of the Cross, not even disdaining the monks’ dishes.
“I don’t have any oxen, and I won’t give you any cows.”
The following year, ships of the Anglo-French squadron approached the Solovetsky Monastery five times, but did not dare to bomb the monastery or land troops on the island, believing that the monastery was ready for both.
The English were right: after the victory of 1854, Archimandrite Alexander was summoned to St. Petersburg, met with Emperor Nicholas I, and submitted a request for weapons needed by the monastery to the Minister of War and the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod. The monks received everything they asked for, plus two unicorn cannons with ammunition, 250 poods of gunpowder, 4,400 cannonballs for fortress cannons, 300 new Tula guns and 150,000 rounds of ammunition for them.
The English and French ships cruised at a respectful distance from Solovki, and, starving, sent a note to the abbot inviting him to a friendly dinner and asking him to sell them oxen. Archimandrite Alexander agreed to meet with the squadron officers – but not at the table, but on the shore, under the monastery walls. During the negotiations, the sailors alternately tried to persuade the abbot and then threatened to land troops on the island.
“I don’t have any oxen, and I won’t give you the cows – they feed the monks with milk. And if you try to land on the island, we’ll shoot all the cows and throw them into the sea in a place where no pathfinder will find them,” the archimandrite replied.
The enemies sailed away empty-handed, and on the shore, under the wall of the Solovetsky Monastery, a stone slab appeared, reminding us of these negotiations. It lies there to this day.
“Negotiation stone” on the shore near the monastery walls. Photo: wikipedia.org
Source: rodina-history.ru
