Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet

On 17 February 1918 Vladimir Lenin ordered the ships of the Baltic Fleet to leave their bases at Tallinn and sail to Helsinki.{{cite web|url=http://www.rusnavy.ru/d03/150.htm|title=History of the Soviet Navy|access-date=20 April 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140503092154/http://www.rusnavy.ru/d03/150.htm|archive-date=3 May 2014}} On 19 February, due to a new German offensive, the Baltic Fleet ordered the further transfer of ships located in Helsinki to Kronstadt. On the same day ships started leaving Tallinn. A general evacuation began on 22 February, with a group of four ships, led by the icebreaker Yermak, departing for Helsinki. They were followed on 24 February by a convoy of transport ships, accompanied by two submarines, three minesweepers and a minelayer.

By the time German troops entered Reval on 25 February, most of the Russian ships had already left, escorted by the icebreakers Yermak, Tarmo and Volynets.{{cite book|last=Fock|title=Z-vor!|page=193}} The operation, superintended by Alexey Schastny, succeeded in evacuating the bulk of the Baltic Fleet to Helsinki, where all of the ships had arrived by 5 March, with the exception of the submarine {{ill|Russian submarine Edinorog|ru|Единорог (подводная лодка)|lt=Edinorog}}, which had been crushed by ice.

On 12–13 April, German forces captured Helsinki. Russian sailors scuttled four submarines in Hanko harbour on 3 April, just before the 10,000-strong German Baltic Sea Division landed in support of the White Guard. The {{convert|335|t|LT|abbr=on}} submarines—AG-11, {{Ship|Finnish submarine|AG-12||2}}, {{ill|Russian submarine AG-15|ru|АГ-15|lt=AG-15}} and {{Ship|Finnish submarine|AG-16||2}}—were made by Electric Boat Co. in the United States.{{cite web|url=http://kotisivut.fonet.fi/~aromaa/Navygallery/Submarines/submarines.htm|title=History of the Finnish Navy|access-date=21 August 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140308044806/http://kotisivut.fonet.fi/~aromaa/Navygallery/Submarines/submarines.htm|archive-date=8 March 2014|url-status=dead}} The German Army later returned all of the ships captured in Helsinki under the terms of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

All of the evacuated ships had reached Kronstadt or Petrograd by 22 April.

The ships transferred included:

• Four dreadnought battleships: Gangut, Petropavlovsk, Poltava, Sevastopol
• Three pre-dreadnought battleships: Andrei Pervozvanny, Respublika, Grazhdanin
• Five armoured cruisers: Rurik, Admiral Makarov, Bayan, Gromoboi, Rossia
• Four cruisers: Bogatyr, Oleg, Aurora, Diana
• 59 destroyers
• Three gunboats: {{ill|Russian gunboat Grozyashchy|ru|Грозящий (канонерская лодка)|lt=Grozyashchy}}, Khrabry, {{ill|Russian gunboat Khivinets|ru|Хивинец (канонерская лодка)|lt=Khivinets}}
• 12 submarines
• Three minelayers
• 144 other ships

Two air force brigades and large amounts of military equipment were also transferred. The transferred ships went on to play an important role in the defence of Petrograd.

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|first=Harald|last=Fock|title=Z-vor! Internationale Entwicklung und Kriegseinsätze von Zerstörern und Torpedobooten 1914 bis 1939|language=de|publisher=Koehler|year=1989|volume=1|isbn=9783782202077}}

• Н. С. Кровяков. "Ледовый поход" Балтийского флота в 1918. Moscow, 1955.
• В. И. Сапожников. Подвиг балтийцев в 1918. Moscow, 1954.

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Category:Military operations of the Russian Civil War in 1918

Category:Imperial Russian Navy

Category:Icebreakers

Ice Cruise

Category:German involvement in the Russian Civil War

Category:1918 in Russia

Category:1918 in Estonia

Category:1918 in Finland

Category:Estonia in the Russian Civil War

Category:Helsinki in the Russian Civil War

Category:Military history of Tallinn

Category:Kronstadt

Category:Naval battles of the Russian Civil War