Description
This album covers Edward Gennys Fanshawe's Baltic service in command of HMS 'Cossack' during the Crimean War, August 1854 - August 1855, and his brief transfer to the 'Hastings' in the Baltic and latterly at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, 1855-56, though on her return to England in late 1855 he was invalided ashore until rejoining the ship at Queenstown in January 1856. It also covers his command of the 'Centurion' in the Mediterranean from May 1856 to June 1858, when he was again invalided home. Also included are holiday drawings made in Scotland in 1843 and 1883, Switzerland in 1877 and 1880, and a single drawing of Moulmein, Burma, made in 1846 during his Eastern posting as Commander in the 'Cruizer', 1844-46.
No. 1 in Fanshawe's Baltic, later service and holiday album, 1843 - 83. Captioned by the artist on the album page below the image, as title. The historic town and port of Kotka is on the north side of the Gulf of Finland, east of Helsingfors (modern Helsinki) and about halfway between Tallin and St Petersburg on the Gulf's southern side. It is on an island connected to the mainland by a causeway bridge. Although an abandoned Russian fort on a nearby island had already been destroyed, Kotka had some remaining military barracks, which Captain Yelverton of the' Arrogant' burnt on the night of 26-27 July 1855, preparatory to a further attack on a Russian position up the adjacent Kymena River. Fanshawe's role, commanding the 'Cossack' under Yelverton, was to guard the causeway to prevent a Russian counter-attack. He wrote to his father on the 25th: 'this week we go to Kotka at the mouth of the Kymena, the old boundary between Sweden and Russia..We shall, I believe first take complete possession of Kotka, and destroy the bridge and some large barracks still remaining there, and then from a high point on the island ..hope to see the [Russian] position on Hogforsholm and what we can make of it..' (Fanshawe [1904], pp. 324-25). This view shows the destroyed causeway bridge roughly from the east, after the attack, with smoke rising from the smouldering buildings on Kotka island to the right. The ships' masts seen beyond are probably those of the 'Arrogant' and 'Cossack'.
Image Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Image Credit
© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Location
Kotka, Kymenlaakso, Finland
Country
Finland
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Landscapes & Seascapes
