Victor von Schwarz

Notes from the memoirs of Victor von Schwarz: Meriupseerista työmieheksi (From Naval Officer to Blue Collar Worker) by T.T.Kaila, WSOY publishing company, Helsinki 1942.

Victor von Schwarz was born in October 1881 at Kuresaar and joined in May 1899 the fourth class of the naval cadet school. He graduated in May 1902 as Mitchman and joined the Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol.

He describes tests, that were made with a balloon and a man carrying kite at Sevastopol in Summer 1902. The balloon "Kobtchik" was raised from the deck of the battle cruiser Tshesman and was used to determine the right colour to camouflage mines. The balloon was steered by Leitenant Bortshev.

The kite was being towed by a torpedo boat and it had a life buoy suspended by four ropes and had large "shorts" in center of the buoy for the passenger. Start took place from the sea and landing was made in water or on the deck of the boat, as the towing rope was winched in. The leader of the kite crew was Leitenant Schreiber, who also developed Russian mine warfare.

During the Russo-Japanese war von Schwarz server on the privateer Peterburg on the Red Sea, later the ship was renamed Dnepr and joined a convoy around half the globe, just to miss Tsushima by few days.

He was promoted Leitenant around the turn of the year 1905/6. He served in field artillery for four years, but joined the Baltic Fleet in spring 1912 and was promoted Starchi Leitenant.

In the beginning of WW1 he was the commander of the mine layer Grozjash. In the beginning of 1915 he was promoted Kapitan II Ranga and made commander of the gun boat Bobrin. During this time he operated mainly from Helsinki and Turku.

In Autumn 1915 he was made commander of the 10th torpedo boat squadron, that hold bases at least at Lappohja and the Riga bay. In March 1917 the squadron spent the winter at Sveaborg (Finnish Viapori, now Suomenlinna) fortress outside Helsinki. The officers of one of his torpedo boats, Retivyi, were killed by the crew. Schwarz was sick at home in Helsinki at that time and escaped death by execution squads several times. From 16th to 25th Mach 1917 78 officers were killed in Helsinki. However, after the ice broke that spring, the war effort was resumed! After the October revolution von Schwarz resigned from the navy and stayed in Finland.

The book was published in 1942. The nature of the book is interesting, it does not share the "Russian hatred" common for many books of that period. Schwarz sees the Baltic Germans as superior seamen and warriors, whereas Jews are often in the other end of the scale. He blames a Bolshevik Jew plot for the fate of his loved Russia. The "international race", Jews, are blamed but not condemned and otherwise the book is very neutral and objective. He sees the lack of country side nobility, that has a good understanding of the needs of the people, as the most important reason for the revolution. He has also very good knowledge of the economic situation in Soviet Russia and blames the students, that demand factories for the people, but have no interest in leading those factories.

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