Suomenlinna

This guide to Suomenlinna in Helsinki opens on the sea fortress's fall on the sixth of April, 1808, when commander Carl Olof Cronstedt agreed to surrender an island built with Swedish and French money to be unconquerable. It traces the fortress's construction from 1748 by thousands of laborers, the French subsidies that helped raise its granite walls against a rising Russia, and the overwhelming garrison and firepower Cronstedt held that spring. For a century afterward, Swedes called him a traitor, certain Russian gold had bought him off.