Anglo-Russian war

After Russia suffered a military defeat in the campaign against France in 1806 and 1807 , it was forced to begin peace negotiations. The meeting of the Russian and French emperors Alexander I and Napoleon I took place in Tilsit ( June 25, 1807 ). At the meeting, Alexander I spoke first: "I, just like you, hate the British and are ready to support you in everything that you take against them." “In that case,” said Napoleon I, “we can agree, and peace will be concluded.”

Between Prussia and the Russian Empire on the one hand, and the French Empire on the other, the Tilsit Peace Treaty was signed, under which Russia joined the Continental Blockade against Great Britain. This blockade struck the economy of both Russia and the United Kingdom.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the British fleet inflicted great damage on Denmark and forced it to take the side of Napoleon I. Having concluded an alliance with France, Denmark was preparing to declare a British blockade to Great Britain. But on August 16, 1807 , the British landed their troops in Denmark. The Anglo-Danish war began . November 7, British troops took Copenhagen . Denmark has long been an ally of Russia on the Baltic Sea, and the seizure of Copenhagen in St. Petersburg caused strong discontent.

Alexander I, based on the treatises concluded between Russia and Sweden in 1790 and 1800 , demanded from the latter that her ports were closed to the British, and having learned that she had entered into an alliance with Great Britain, declared war on her. In February 1808 , Russian troops entered Finland, thus starting the last Russian-Swedish war (1808-1809) . Sweden was soon defeated by Russia, after which it concluded a peace treaty with Russia and joined the Continental blockade. Finland, as a result, became part of the Russian Empire.

Fighting was conducted in the Atlantic Ocean , the Mediterranean , Adriatic , Barents and Baltic seas. But these battles were not large-scale and were rather the nature of individual fighting of small forces on each side.

On May 15, 1808, in the South African port of Simonstown, the British detained the Russian sloop “Diana” under the command of V. M. Golovnin , heading for the Pacific Ocean for scientific work.

Two of the bloodiest battles of this war took place in July 1808 in the Baltic Sea. The Russians lost the 74-gun battleship and 3 gunboats. Crews of all these ships were almost completely interrupted. British losses were insignificant, and they did not even have any lost ships.

On October 28, 1807, after a heavy storm, Russian ships entered Lisbon for repairs. On October 30, the British fleet entered the same harbor. The Russian admiral Senyavin was caught off guard. But the British did not attack the Russian ships broken by the storm. On August 23, 1808, Senyavin concluded a treaty with the British, according to which he transferred his ships to the British for safekeeping, but with the condition that Great Britain would issue them six months after the conclusion of peace with Russia in the same state as it had received. On August 31, Senyavin’s squadron, 7 battleships and frigate, sailed from Lisbon under the Russian flag and arrived in Portsmouth on September 27 . Another 2 battleships, Raphael and Yaroslav, remained in the port of Lisbon due to an emergency condition. On August 5, 1809, the Russian ship crews, together with the flags of their ships, left the port of Portsmouth on English transport ships and were brought to Riga on 9 September . In 1813, the United Kingdom returned to Russia 2 battleships, "Strong" and "Powerful", and guns from other ships, for which monetary compensation was paid ^[8] .

On June 11, 1808, on the way from Revel to Sveaborg, near the island of Nargen, the 14-guns Experience was attacked by the British 44-gun frigate , which resulted in four Russian sailors being killed and the captain Nevelskoy was wounded. The British fleet captured the crew of the "Experience". By giving a subscription not to serve in the continuation of the war against the British Empire , the sailors were released in the port of Libava ^[9] .

British actions on the White Sea were limited to the attack on the city of Kola and the destruction of the fishing haven on the Murmansk coast in May 1809. ^{[10] [11]}

After a peace treaty was concluded between Sweden and Russia, Great Britain ceased hostilities against Russia in the Baltic Sea, and in 1810 and 1811 there were no hostilities between the United Kingdom and Russia.

In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia. The continental blockade , which Russia was forced to declare to the United Kingdom after the Tilsit meeting of Alexander I and Napoleon I, was stopped. The trade, in which the United Kingdom desperately needed, was resumed, although from an economic point of view, during the blockade, Russia increased its own production of goods, which in the future could improve Russia's position in world trade. Experts also report that the deficit in the budget was not due to the blockade, but mainly due to an increase in army spending by half . Already on July 18, 1812, in the city of Örebro (Sweden), Great Britain and Russia signed a peace treaty . Under this agreement, Russia resumed trade with the United Kingdom , and the British, in turn, supported Russia against Napoleon in the outbreak of the Patriotic War of 1812 . The treaty was of great political importance, but it had little effect on the outcome of the war of 1812.

The episode of the Anglo-Russian war is dedicated to the story “The Sailor Nikitin” by A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky , based on real life events from M. A. Gerasimov ^[12] .

• The Anglo-Russian War (Undec.) . Chronos. The appeal date is April 15, 2008. Archived on March 12, 2012.

• The Anglo-Russian War of 1807-1812 // Encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : in 86 tons (82 tons and 4 extra). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• World history of wars. / Auto-comp. A. G. Mernikov , A. A. Spector . - Mn. : Harvest , 2005. pp. 317–319. - ISBN 985-13-2607-0
• Henri Troyat . Alexander I. - M .: Eksmo , 2008. - 163 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-25377-7 .