The Battle of Sävar was fought on Saturday, 19 August 1809, between Swedish and Russian forces, during the Finnish War; it was the last pitched battle to be fought in Sweden. After the Russian conquest of eastern Sweden (present-day Finland) in 1808, the Swedish forces retreated to actual Sweden. In March the following year, Russian emperor Alexander I launched a threefold attack on Sweden, to force the country into the Continental System and to cede Finland to the Russian Empire; despite early advantages at Kalix and the Åland Islands, the attack failed to achieve a quick ending to the war. After further campaigning in northern Sweden, with battles such as Skellefteå and Hörnefors, the Russian forces under Nikolay Kamensky occupied all of Västerbotten by June.
The Swedes, who were ready to cede Finland, disputed Alexander I's demands of having the border at the Kalix River. To improve the terms, a Swedish expedition to Västerbotten was prepared, under the command of Johan af Puke, to cut off Kamensky from Russian-occupied Finland by landing at Ratan (a village north of Umeå); Fabian Wrede would simultaneously come from the south, by which Kamensky would be crushed between the two Swedish forces. The Swedes landed at Ratan on 17 August and the army, led by Gustaf Wachtmeister, marched south towards Umeå. Wachtmeister, however, was excessively cautious and failed to reach Umeå before Kamensky had already passed through the city and marched straight at him, to break free.
On the 19th, the Swedish army was attacked in a disadvantageous position at Sävar and, instead of withdrawing across the river, Wachtmeister chose to fight over the vital heights of Krutbrånet. More fighting occurred further south towards Ytterboda as Kamensky sent a diversion force to attack the Swedish flank. Around midday, Wachtmeister withdrew his troops at Krutbrånet across the river to Sävar, even though he still had five battalions in reserve - while Kamensky was down to his last. Kamensky sent another force over the river of which half attacked the Swedes near Ytterboda, who had thus far been very successful, and the other assaulted Sävar itself. As he was now cut off from the Swedes at Ytterboda, and with intensified Russian pressure across the river, Wachtmeister chose to retreat; the battle was, along with the Battle of Oravais the previous year, the bloodiest of the war.
Instead of retaking a position at Djäkneboda, as planned, Wachtmeister fell back to Ratan, which allowed the Russians to use the main road north - Kamensky had thus managed to slip out of the intended trap; he sent a force the following day to attack the Swedes at Ratan, to cover his retreat. Wrede received word of the Swedish landing on the 19th (as the battle of Sävar had already ended) and set march north the following day. He took Umeå on the 24th, as the last Russian battalion marched north. The Swedish expedition had failed to destroy Kamensky's army, but it had been forced out of Västerbotten. According to the subsequent Treaty of Fredrikshamn, the Swedes ceded Finland to Russia all the way to the Torne River; the somewhat weaker Russian demands were most likely a result of the Västerbotten expedition.
Background
Following the Convention of Olkijoki, signed on 19 November, the Swedish army withdrew over the Kemi River in December and thus abandoned the eastern part of the kingdom (present-day Finland), after nine months of fighting. In March the next year, in the midst of the Swedish revolution (in which Gustav IV Adolf was overthrown and subsequently replaced by his uncle Charles XIII), Alexander I ordered a threefold attack on actual Sweden, to force the country into submission; he demanded that Sweden would enter the Continental System, while also ceding its eastern territorium to the Russian Empire. The offensive, in which about 30,000 Russians participated, forced the Swedish armies to withdraw from Åland and Umeå, while another force capitulated at Kalix, in Norrbotten. Despite the early triumphs, however, another , which deprived the Russian emperor from achieving a quick victory.
Angered by the prolonged negotiations, Alexander I ordered a continued offensive in northern Sweden; in May, a small Swedish force was quickly overwhelmed at the Battle of Skellefteå—after an heroic defence which saved the vital provisions—leading to the Russian capture of Umeå. Västerbotten, all the way from the Kemi and Öre Rivers, was thus occupied by the Russians who, after being denied the Swedish magazines, suffered greatly from the lack of provisions. These could not be brought overseas, since the Swedes had naval supremacy over the Bothnian Bay. After a Swedish counterattack at the Battle of Hörnefors by Johan August Sandels, in July, the fighting once again died out in favor of the prolonged, but ongoing, peace negotiations. Many Russian deserters seized the opportunity to surrender themselves to the closest Swedish forces. The same month, Nikolay Kamensky replaced Pavel Andreyevich Shuvalov as the overall commander of the Russian army; he made plans to force the crossing at the Öre River (behind which Sandels' army was positioned) and march into Ångermanland the following month, to collect provisions.
Västerbotten expedition Sweden, while having accepted the loss of its eastern territorium, disputed the Russian demands by Alexander I of having the border (between Sweden and Russian–Finland) established behind the Kalix River; to somehow improve the terms, a Swedish council of war on 19 July decided upon a large combined naval–land operation against Kamensky's troops occupying Västerbotten. The Swedes mustered 10,300–11,000 men (including naval personnel), under the Supreme Command of Johan af Puke, as part of a fleet which would land 6,800 men under Gustaf Wachtmeister behind enemy lines. Simultaneously, Fabian Wrede and Sandels (with 4,000 men) would advance from the Öre River in the south, the Russian army would thus be caught between the hammer and anvil. Kamensky's forces around Umeå counted about 8,000 men, excluding 3,500 who either served on the Russian flotilla or patrolled the coastline between Umeå and Uleåborg.
The Swedish fleet anchored outside Ratan on 16 August and started disembarking the troops the following day accordingly. Puke ordered Wachtmeister to rapidly march south to retake Umeå. On his way, Wachtmeister received false intelligence of an enemy threat to the north, against which he unnecessarily dispatched the whole Uppland Regiment with two guns. Further south, at Djäkneboda and the nearby passage, about 420 Russians were quickly beaten back by the Swedish vanguard of 220 men, after having lost 10 men in captured. As Wachtmeister feared enemy counterattacks along the way, he had his army march at a remarkably slow pace of an hour, during which only minor engagements occurred; he reached Sävar around midday on the 18th and there decided to rest his troops for the whole day and night—against the given orders by Puke which advocated for a quick march to Umeå—he was soon informed that Kamensky had turned about and was marching right at him.
Kamensky had received news of Wachtmeister's landing in his rear on the 17th and immediately cancelled his incipient southern campaign and marched north, to confront him; he left three battalions (1,200 men) against Wrede to mask the withdrawal, supported by a reserve of 1,000 men at Umeå. Contrary to his Swedish foe, Kamensky marched rapidly with his army, which went through Umeå the following day. Without the essential land support, an attempt made by the Swedish fleet to destroy the bridge going over the Ume River, to slow down the Russian troop movements, could easily be repulsed the same day; the two Swedish forces lacked in communication as well as cooperation, with neither general willing to make any significant movements before the other. Kamensky reached Täfteå the next day, after which he continued on towards Sävar to attack the Swedish general. Wachtmeister had dispatched a battalion northwest to Tväråmark to secure a side road towards Sävar, where he remained in a disadvantageous position which was exposed from the south; had he instead marched to Umeå as planned, or even Täfteå, he would have gained a much superior position to defend.
Battle
Wachtmeister had 4,644 men and 10 guns at his dispositional, as several dispatchments had been sent elsewhere to cover his flanks and rear, while Kamensky's army counted between 5,000 and 6,000 men with 8 guns. Only the first out of three Swedish divisions was deployed west of the rather fordable Sävar River, which runs south to north through the village, while the second and third initially remained on the east side. The first brigade established outposts to the west of Sävar, as well as on the vital wooded heights further southwest, called Krutbrånet—referred to, by Wachtmeister, as "virtually a fortress"—on which the main confrontation would take place. The distance between Krutbrånet and the Sävar bridge was about over mainly open fields and valleys, which were split by a small stream (Oxbäcken) which ran in a north-western direction from the river.
Additional Swedish outposts were established along the river to the south, towards Ytterboda—about south of Sävar and east of the river—to observe possible crossings; the wadable river bay with its overgoing ferry was of particular strategic interest to both sides. The pathway between the two villages went over Finnberget (Finnish mountain), where much of the fighting on this side would take place. The bulk of the Russian army, which was hungry, exhausted and desperate to break through the Swedish trap, was marching northeast, from Täfteå, on the main road running over Krutbrånet; 600 men had been diverted to force the crossing at the ferry, northwest of Ytterboda, to fall upon Sävar in the Swedish flank (an additional 250 was sent over later). The battlefield was, apart from the fields around Sävar and a few lakes, mainly covered in woods and some bogland which could only be traversed after certain difficulty.
Fighting over Krutbrånet At 06:30, the vanguard of the first Russian column encountered the outposts of a Södermanland battalion just south of Krutbrånet. The few Swedes resisted bravely and even brought a few prisoners back, as they were eventually forced to withdraw. When Kamensky had 1,200 men at hand, he ordered a general attack towards Krutbrånet, from where the whole Swedish battalion concurrently counter-attacked; it came down to a bitter bayonet struggle, until the Swedes were eventually overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the Russian attack, which had increased to about 2,500 men. A renewed attack by the Swedish battalion, reinforced with another, was repulsed. Sometime past 08:30, Kamensky was finally able to deploy his artillery near the road on the heights, which made him the master of the summit. The Swedes retook a position slightly north, at the down slope of Krutbrånet, just south of the small stream. The two armies faced each other in rough lines—as much as the terrain allowed—north to south, in a distance of less than : The Russian formation stretched from the river in the east to the nearest lake in the west (Kesen); the Swedes, who were outnumbered, had their left to the river and the right just past Krutbrånet, opposite the Russian centre.