Hamina Cadet School

The Hamina Cadet School and Finland Cadet School were the common names for the Fredrikshamn cadet school during the period 1819–1901. The Cadet School was founded in 1780 by Georg Magnus Sprengtporten at Kuopio and transferred in 1781 to Rantasalmi where it was called Haapaniemi Cadet School. In 1819, after the School was transferred to Hamina (Swedish: Fredrikshamn) the name was changed accordingly, in common usage.^[1]

Main building of the reserve officers school

Grand Duchy of Finland 1809-1917

The Finnish War interrupted the activities of the Topography School. The Governor-General of the Grand Duchy of Finland, Michael Barclay de Tolly, and his successor, Fabian Steinheil, supported the continuation of the school. The political activity of the chairman of the Committee for Finnish Affairs, Count Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, was decisive for the continuation of the school. Its future was further secured by the support of State Secretary Mikhail Speransky and the Grand Duke of Finland, Alexander I. Lieutenant Colonel Otto Carl von Fieandt served as the head of the Topography School from 1812 to 1819, after which the school’s name was changed to the Cadet School.^[1]

Major General Peter Georg Thesleff was the first head of the Imperial Finnish Cadet School. The Cadet School operated under the authority of the Emperor of Russia and the Quartermaster-General. Financial matters were overseen by the Imperial Finnish Senate.^[1]

The buildings of the Cadet School in Hamina were designed by architect Carl Ludvig Engel. The school was of a general educational nature. Its core subjects included modern languages, mathematics, and the natural sciences.^[1]

The purpose of the Cadet School’s regulations was to form:

"Useful and loyal servants of Ours (the Emperor’s) and of the fatherland, to keep strict watch over their morality, to awaken in them an interest in religion as well as an unwavering sense of honor—in short, to make them in every respect reliable and noble men."^[1]

Many of the school’s graduates transferred to significant civilian positions, including as directors of central government agencies and provincial governors. Practical military skills were hardly taught; instead, they had to be acquired during service in the troops. Of the 1,607 cadets in total, as many as 211 were promoted to the rank of general.^[1]

Among the families active in Finland, the largest number of cadets graduated in the following order: Aminoff (22), Neovius (22), Gripenberg (18), von Alfthan (16), Grotenfelt (15), Spåre (15), Thesleff (11), von Willebrand (11), af Forselles (11), Procopé (11), Stjernvall (11), Tigerstedt (11), Enckell (10), von Essen (10), Schauman (10), Standertskjöld (10), Tamelander (10), Blåfield (9), Boije (9), von Fieandt (9), Forstén (9), von Knorring (9), and Ramsay (9).^[1]

The Fennomans criticized the school for its Swedish orientation. Its pupils came almost exclusively from Swedish-speaking families and were mostly of noble origin. In the early decades of the 19th century, Finnish had been taught at the school, but later the administration abolished it as unnecessary. Only a few boys whose mother tongue was Finnish managed to graduate, one of the most notable being Lieutenant General Kaarlo Kivekäs.^[1]

The eventual fate of the cadet school was sealed by the general policy of Russification. The graduates, known as fredrikshamnarna (from Fredrikshamn = Hamina), nevertheless continued to wield influence in Finland for a long time. Notable alumni included Adolf Aminoff, Carl Enckell, Boris Gyllenbögel, Hannes Ignatius, Carl Gustaf von Kraemer, Hugo Robert Standertskjöld, Rudolf Walden, and, though expelled from the school, Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.^[1]

The abolition of the cadet school was connected to the conscription strike of 1901–1903, after which Russia ultimately disbanded Finland’s national military units. The Grand Duchy of Finland compensated for the reduction in its defense duties by providing the so-called military millions (direct financial transfers) to the budget of the Russian Empire. When abolishing the Cadet School in 1903, Governor-General Nikolay Bobrikov gave a perceptive description of the institution.^[1]

Cadets were intended to become good officers for the Emperor’s army, but the ideological foundation of the school was Runebergian patriotism (after J. L. Runeberg and The Tales of Ensign Stål). The institution was at once a window of the Finnish elite into the Russian Empire and a barometer of Finnish–Russian relations.^[1]

Republic of Finland

After Finnish independence in 1917 the Cadet school was moved to Santahamina in Helsinki.^[2]

In the 1920 the premises were occupied by the Reserve Officer School of the newly formed Finnish defence forces. Today the main building of the Cadet school hosts the headquarters of the Reserve Officer School of the Finnish Army.^[1]

Hamina Cadet School was abolished in 1903 with the abolition of the separate Army of the Grand duchy of Finland as part of the Russification policy. The conscription of Finnish soldiers directly to various units of the Russian Empire was seen as illegal and unconstitutional in Finland. Finnish officers protested first in through mass resignations and later through a strategy of disobedience, in what is now known as the conscription strikes. Finally it was settled that the Grand Duchy of Finland would fulfil its obligation to the common defence with a monetary compensation to the Russian Empire instead through the provision of conscripts.^[1]

Significance

Many of the officers from the Fredrikshamn Cadet school played an important part in the early independence movement of Finland; both in the administration of the Grand Duchy as well as in active support of the resistance.^[1]

In 1917 when the Russian Empire broke apart and Finland gained its independence, as the highest ranking Finnish officer at the time, Mannerheim was called by the Senate to organise the Civil Guard into a new Finnish army. Until early 1917 Mannerheim was a general in the Imperial Russian Army commanding Russian cavalry troops in the southern front. After the abdication of the Tsar Nicholas II in March, he returned to Finland.^[1]

Some other former Hamina cadets such as Carl Enckell, Rudolf Walden, and Hannes Ignatius would rise to the occasion, but their effect was due to individual abilities. Most reliable Finnish officers from Hamina were too old and retired from active duty to form an effective core for the new Finnish army.^[1]

The field command of the new army had to be formed from the members in the Finnish Jäger troops. These were men who had travelled as individuals to Germany 1915-1917 to receive training in the German army in order to liberate Finland. Jäger troops had fought against the Russian Empire. Those Finnish officers who had continued to serve in the Russian army were seen unpatriotic and considered unreliable by the Jäger.^[1]

Therefore, at first there was a certain degree of distrust between Mannerheim's headquarters and the younger, mainly Finnish speaking, generation of Jäger officers. However the differences never surfaced during the war of 1918. After the Whites' victory in that war, Mannerheim resigned as Commander-in-Chief, dismayed at the increasing German influence in Finnish military and political affairs.^[1]

After the fall of the German Empire later in 1918 the background of individual officers lost its political significance. Mannerheim was called in to be the Regent of Finland. Army of Finland and the Civil Guard were organised by Mannerheim and Walden as the Minister of Defence. However jäger officers continued to form the basis of the officer core.^[1]

Notable Hamina cadets

• Field Marshal Mannerheim was a cadet at Hamina cadet school. Due to a disciplinary breach he was expelled in his final year in 1886, which caused him to continue his military career in the Imperial Russian Army.
• Hugo Robert Standertskjöld colonel, business magnate, and owner of Aulanko.
• Alexander Järnefelt was a Finnish topographical officer who made a topographic survey of large swathes of Bulgaria in the late 1870s. In the 1880s, he served as a governor in several Finnish provinces, advancing the programme of the Fennoman movement forcefully, ending his career as a senator of the Senate of Finland
• Karl Fredrik Wilkama was a Finnish general who graduated from Hamina Cadet School in 1896. He served in the Imperial Russian Army and returned to Finland after independence. Wilkama fought in the Finnish Civil War on the White side, where he played a key role in organizing cavalry units. After the war, he held several senior positions in the Finnish General Staff. Wilkama was appointed Commander of the Finnish Army in 1919, 1924, and 1925, overseeing the early development of Finland’s defense forces. He retired from active service in 1926 but remained influential in military circles. His brother, Oskar Wilkama, also graduated from Hamina Cadet School and had a notable military career in Finland. He served as an officer in the Finnish Army and held various command positions. Oskar served in the Imperial Guard Cavalry and was a riding instructor at the Russian imperial court. He also competed for Russia in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.
• Carl Enckell, a politician, officer and a diplomat, graduated as an officer from Hamina Cadet School after which he served in the Imperial Russian Army learning fluent Russian. In 1917 Enckell negotiated for Finnish independence in Saint Petersburg in the position of Finnish Minister Secretary of State and representative of Senate of Finland. Later he served Finland on several occasions as the minister of foreign affairs and as the Finnish delegate to the League of Nations.
• General Rudolf Walden received his military education at Hamina Cadet School 1892-1900. He was the best of his class. Walden was dismissed from service in 1902, in connection with a conscription strike. After leaving the army Walden had a notable career in business.
• General Hannes Ignatius received his military education at Hamina Cadet School 1885-1892, and in the Nicholas General Staff Academy in St Petersburg 1896-1899. Served in the Finnish Dragoon Regiment 1892-1901 after which he was a businessman.
• Vilhelm Aleksander Thesleff received his military education at Hamina Cadet School from 1894–1901, and in the Nicholas Academy of General Staff in St.Petersburg 1904-1907, and the Officers Cavalry School 1910-1911. He was a Finnish general, first Minister of Defence of Finland and briefly the commander in chief of the Finnish army in 1918.
• Waldemar Becker graduated from the Hamina Cadet School in 1858, served in the Finnish Guard and then in the Nicholas General Staff Academy. Deserted Russian army in 1862 after which he served with several different regimes and armies on four continents, including France, Spain, Mexico, Egypt and Serbia.
• Johan Mauritz Nordenstam graduated from Hamina Cadet School in 1823, served in the Russian army in two wars, and went on to be the longest-serving head of the Senate of Finland, effectively prime minister, from 1858 to 1882.