NAVAL REVELATIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 12

NAVAL REVELATIONS

RUSSIA PLANNED TO ATTACK SWEDEN ORDERS COUNTERMANDED What purport to be revelations regarding two attacks planned by the Russian Baltic Fleet against the Swedish Navy at the commencement of the World W r ar, are published in the “Vaar Fiotta," a Swedish naval and non-official review, says the London “Daily Chronicle." These revelations are supposed to have been made by a former Russian naval officer, Naswetewitch, and corroborated by two other Russian officers. These attacks are said to have been designed by Admiral von Essen, Commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet, and both were countermanded at the last moment by the Russian Headquarters. The first expedition was undertaken by six destroyers, which, on August 9, 1914, were sent to the approaches of Stockholm, to bombard the coast, destroy lights and pilot stations, and mine the harbour entrances. These measures were countermanded next day, but the vessels stopped in Swedish waters till August 11, when they were recalled. The second attack, it is alleged, was fixed for September 9. Its object was to destroy a portion of the Swedish coastal navy, an attack by Sweden and Germany on the Gulf of Finland being apprehended. The scheme was that the Russian fleet should salute the Swedish fleet, and then attack it immediately, on the pretext that the salute had not been answered. The entire Russian Baltic fleet set out from Reval on the night of September 6, and steamed toward the Island of Gothland, where the Swedish fleet was supposed to be, but was recalled by the Grand Duke Nikolai Niklaievitch.