Written by Frederick Engels about March 18, 1858, and published unsigned in The New American Cyclopaedia. A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, vol. III (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1858), p. 451. Text of the Cyclopaedia, from the public-domain scans in the Internet Archive (newamericancycl21danagoog, University of Wisconsin copy), with the OCR corrected against the page images; collated paragraph by paragraph with the German version in Marx/Engels, Werke, vol. 14 (Berlin, 1961), p. 283, and found complete. The breaks that the Cyclopaedia marks with a dash inside the article are given as new paragraphs. Traducción al español
BOMARSUND, a narrow channel between the island of Alands and Vardo, at the entrance of the gulf of Bothnia. The Russian fortifications to the harbor of Bomarsund were destroyed by the British and French fleets during the war of 1854. The channels leading up to Bomarsund were blockaded at the end of July by 4 British ships and a few small steamers. Shortly afterward strong detachments of the allied fleets arrived, with the admirals Napier and Parseval-Deschênes, followed, Aug. 7, by the line-of-battle ships with Gen. Baraguay d'Hilliers and 12,000 troops, mostly French. The Russian commander, Gen. Bodisco, was compelled to surrender on Aug. 16, the allies continuing to occupy the island until the end of the month, when the whole of the fortification was blown up. The trophies of the victors were 112 mounted guns, 79 not mounted, 3 mortars, 7 field guns, and 2,235 prisoners. The principal military interest offered by this siege is its setting completely at rest the question as to the employment of uncovered masonry in fortifications with land-fronts.