WWI Land Fortifications
[Paloheinä]

​​When Russia lost most of its Baltic Sea Fleet in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), for the upcoming war in Europe with Germany (1914-1918), the Russians knew that the Germans would use two attack routes to capture St. Petersburg.

 

By sea, using the Gulf of Finland.

 

By land, along the southern coast of Finland.

 

The Russians devised a defensive strategy to counter these two attack routes, using Sveaborg as its essential forward base of operation in the Gulf of Finland.

 

To stop the land attack across southern Finland and keep long-range land artillery from bombarding Sveaborg from the north, from 1912 to 1918 the Russians built thirty-six (36) Fortified Bases. This was hundreds of kilometres of trenches and gun emplacements to the distance of twelve kilometres from Sveaborg, surrounding it in a fortified curtain.​​​