Battle of Copenhagen

“ Battle of Copenhagen
The formation of a league between the northern powers, Russia, Prussia, Denmark and Sweden, on the 16th of December 1800, nominally to protect neutral trade at sea from the enforcement by Great Britain of her belligerent claims, led to the despatch of a British fleet to the Baltic on the 12th of March 1801. It consisted of fifty-three sail in all, of which eighteen were of the line. Prussia possessed no fleet. The nominal strength of the Russian fleet was eighty-three sail of the line, of the Danish twenty-three, and of the Swedish eighteen. ”

“ In the face of this "music" the shore was gained, the trenches were carried by fierce assault and King Charles's first battle was won. Two days later, Copenhagen submitted to its young conqueror, and King Frederick of Denmark hastened to the defence of his capital, only to find it in the possession of the enemy, and to sign a humiliating treaty of peace. ”

“ Let every man do his duty.” Leaning on his sword, he led the fight until darkness fell and the battle was won. Denmark was saved. The danger of an invasion was averted. In the palace of Rosenborg the priceless treasure they show to visitors is the linen cloth, all blood-stained, that bound the King’s face as he fought and won his last and biggest fight that day.
Christian IV at the Battle of Kolberger Heide Half blind, his body black and blue and sore from many bruises, King Christian yet refused to sail for Copenhagen to have his wounds attended. ”

“ It is difficult to understand why the troops which took part in the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807 should be denied the battle honour conferred on the Berkshires and Rifle Brigade for their services as Marines in the expedition of 1801. In neither case were the losses severe, but the later expedition was in no way less successful than the former. The attitude of the Danes and the fear that their fine fleet would fall into the hands of the French led the Ministry of the day to assemble a powerful fleet and a by no means inconsiderable army in order to carry out their policy. ”

“ Taken by surprise as they were, however, the Danes had no thought of weakly submitting to this hostile movement, and did their best to prevent the English from passing the Sound. Their chief defence was the fortress of Cronberg, near Elsinore, where heavy cannon were mounted to command the narrow strait here separating Sweden and Denmark. But by closely hugging the Swedish coast Parker kept beyond the range of these guns, and in April, 1801, cast anchor in the harbor of Copenhagen. His fleet consisted of fifty-one vessels, twenty of them being line-of-battle ships. ”

“ The commercial harbour is separated from the harbour for warships (Orlogshavn) by a barrier. The sea approaches are guarded by ten coast batteries besides the old citadel. The Middelgrund is a powerful defensive work completed in 1896 and most of the rest are modern. The landward defences of Copenhagen, it may be added, were left unprovided for after the Napoleonic wars until the patriotism of Danish women, who subscribed sufficient funds for the first fort, shamed parliament into granting the necessary money for others (1886–1895) . Copenhagen is not an industrial town. ”

“ Many of his general officers were slain; nearly half of his army was killed, disabled, or captured. Six Swedish standards were taken by the Danes. The moats were filled with the dead. The Swedes had “come in their shrouds.” The guns of the city thundered out a triple salute of triumph and the people sang Te Deums on the walls. Their hardships were not over. Fifteen months yet the city was invested and the home of daily privation; but their greatest peril was past. Copenhagen was saved, and with it the nation; the people had found itself and its king. ”

“ To the east of the Middle Ground is another shoal known as Saltholm Flat, and there is a passage available for large ships between them. The main fortification of Copenhagen was the powerful Trekroner (Three Crown) battery at the northern end of the sea-front. Here the Danes had placed their strongest ships. The southern part of the city front was covered by hulks and gun-vessels or bomb-vessels. There were in all eighteen hulks or ships of the line in the Danish defence. To have made the attack from the northern end would in Nelson’s words have been “to take the bull by the horns.” ”

“ As one approaches the city the scene is enlivened by the many windmills in the environs, whose wide-spread arms are generally in motion, appearing like the broad wings of enormous birds hovering over the land. Perhaps the earliest association in its modern history which the stranger is likely to remember as he looks about him in Copenhagen, is that of the dastardly attack upon the city, and the shelling of it for three consecutive days, by the British fleet in 1807, during which reckless onslaught an immense destruction of human life and property was inflicted upon the place. ”

“ Nelson urged immediate attack, and recommended, as an alternative, that part of the British fleet should watch the Danes while the remainder advanced up the Baltic to prevent the junction of the Russian Reval squadron with the ships in Kronstadt. Sir Hyde Parker was, however, unwilling to go up the Baltic with the Danes unsubdued behind him, or to divide his force. It was therefore resolved that an attack should be made on the Danish capital with the whole fleet in two divisions. Copenhagen lies on the east side of the island of Zealand ”

“ A very heavy fire was kept up by the Danes, but none of our ships received a shot. In the mean time, we had several bomb-ships firing on the town of Elsineur, the shells from which killed upwards of a hundred and fifty people on shore. At Copenhagen, still more confident in their strength, they had made every arrangement for the destruction of our fleet, but no preparation for the defeat of their own. Shielded by nature with dangerous shoals, and fortified by art with powerful batteries, they seemed rather to invite, than to dread, any hostile attack. ”

“ There are no coast fortifications.
Denmark, as commanding the approaches to the Baltic, is of great military importance to us. Copenhagen, the capital, is a strong fortress. The Army, on the other hand, is not an important factor of strength, as the training of the units is limited to a few months. This State maintains on a peace footing some 10,000 infantry, 800 cavalry, 2,300 artillery, and 1,100 special arms, a total of 14,200 men ”

“ The Danish Government on the one hand—and Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, Knight, Commander in Chief of his Britannic Majesty's Forces in the Road of Copenhagen, on the other—being, from motives of humanity, equally anxious to put a stop to the farther effusion of blood, and to save the City of Copenhagen from the disastrous consequences which may attend a farther prosecution of hostilities against that city, have mutually agreed upon a Military Armistice, or Suspension of Arms. ”

“ Our firm conviction is, that had England left Denmark to her own honourable instincts, the latter nation would never have given real occasion for an appeal to arms. Even yet more cruel and criminal was the bombardment of the city of Copenhagen itself, only six years subsequently to Nelson's raid—for it was nothing better. But they managed matters fifty years ago in a different manner from what the enlightened spirit of the age would now tolerate. No British ministry of the present day would dare or wish to act as did the ruling sachems in the early part of this century. ”

“ Here was a striking plan of aggressive warfare, aimed at the heart of the coalition. The proposal to leave part of the fleet at Copenhagen was indeed a dangerous compromise, involving divided forces and threatened communications, but was perhaps justified by the known inefficiency of the Russians and the fact that the Danes were actually fought and defeated with a force no greater than the plan provided. In the end the more conservative course was adopted of settling with Denmark first. ”

“ After some ineffectual attempts of the Danes to annoy the left wing of the army, by the fire of their gun-boats, and to impede its progress by sallies, which were always repulsed with loss, the city of Copenhagen was closely invested on the land side. ”

“ Valuable libraries, and collections of art and other valuable property, were destroyed by fire, 1,100 soldiers and citizens were killed and eight hundred wounded. The Danes had to surrender their whole fleet, which was then brought to England. The English government now gave Denmark the choice between three conditions: neutrality, an alliance, or war. In case of war Denmark was threatened with destruction of the Danish and Norwegian merchant marine, the occupation of Copenhagen by the Swedes, and, possibly, the forcible transfer of Norway to England’s ally, Sweden. ”

“ Sweden too was now in open revolt; and both Norway and Denmark were taxed to the uttermost to raise an army for the subjection of the sister kingdom. Foreign complications were now superadded to these domestic troubles. With the laudable object of releasing Danish trade from the grinding yoke of the Hansa, and making Copenhagen the great emporium of the north, Christian had arbitrarily raised the Sound tolls and seized a number of Dutch ships which presumed to evade the tax. Thus his relations with the Netherlands were strained, while with Lübeck and her allies he was openly at war. ”

“ Napoleon says that, even at that season, a few days would have been sufficient for placing a hundred guns in battery, and that Sweden had much more time than was requisite. And with a hundred guns on each side of the channel, served with skill and energy, the fleet must necessarily have sustained so much damage as to render it unfit to attack Copenhagen. ”

“ Perhaps it was the cruelties practised by Swedish troops in Denmark that preyed upon the mind of Jens Kofoed when he sent the parson to prepare them for death then and there; but better counsel prevailed. They were allowed to live. The whole war cost only two lives, the governor’s and that of a sentinel at the castle, who refused to surrender. The mate of the Spes and two of her crew contrived to escape after they had been taken to Copenhagen, and from them Karl Gustav had the first tidings of how he lost the island. ”

“ At 8.15 p.m. he rose to the surface; the Danish shore was bright with many lights, the Swedish shore all dark. He steered south-westward on the surface, altering course to avoid being seen by two destroyers which were going north along the Danish shore at a great pace; but now one of them suddenly turned south and stopped. E8 ran on, but into still more dangerous waters. The lights of Copenhagen were bright, and a searchlight was working from Middle Ground Fort; now and again it swept across the submarine. ”

“ A landing was effected near Copenhagen, and offers of alliance were again made, including the deposit of the Danish fleet; "but if this offer is rejected now, it cannot be repeated. The captured property, public and private, must then belong to the captors: and the city, when taken, must share the fate of conquered places." The Danes stoutly repelled offers and threats alike: the English batteries thereupon bombarded the city until the gallant defenders capitulated (September 7th) . ”

“ All Copenhagen was a city of wo and wailing. Everybody had sustained a loss. Mothers and fathers wept for their brave sons killed, wounded, or prisoners; sisters for their brothers; girls for their lovers; the patriot for his poor conquered country and his slaughtered countrymen. Tremendous, in our estimation, was the moral responsibility of the English ministry for 'letting slip the dogs of war' for a slight cause—nay, strictly speaking, for no valid cause whatever. ”

“ After various skirmishes with the Danish gunboats and batteries, it completely surrounded the island of Zealand, when the troops were landed, and the Danish general, Peiman, refusing the terms offered, on the 2nd of September the English fleet and batteries opened fire on Copenhagen, which was ultimately set on fire. The bombardment continued for three days, with a short interval, in the hopes that the Danes would yield; but it was not till a number of the garrison and inhabitants had been killed, and a large portion of the city burnt down, that General Peiman sent out a flag of truce. ”

“ England, at the same time, stole Heligoland from the Danes, and the island became a basis of operations for the English smugglers on the North Sea-coast.
The crime of Copenhagen was in so far profitable to Napoleon, that it obliged Russia to declare war on England. After the seizure of the Danish fleet, the Baltic was at the mercy of the English; whereas up till now Russia and Denmark had been united by 91the bonds of a natural solidarity, resulting from their respective geographical positions. ”

“ When the envoy on March 23 returned to the fleet, then anchored in the Cattegat, he brought an alarming tale of Danish preparations, and an air of gloom pervaded the flagship when Nelson came aboard for a council of war. Copenhagen, it will be recalled, is situated on the eastern coast of Zealand, on the waterway called the Sound leading southward from the Cattegat to the Baltic. Directly in front of the city, a long shoal named the Middle Ground separates the Sound into two navigable channels, the one nearer Copenhagen known as the King's Deep (Kongedyb) . ”

“ No reverses are ever reported in the German papers, nothing but victories appear, and Germans are treated like children. If it were not for the "Corriere della Sera" we should be tempted to believe the Allies in a bad way. The "beehrte gäste" departed this morning. At the station a band played, flags were waved, [33] and every American man and woman was presented with a small white book which contained the telegrams which passed between the belligerent nations at the beginning of the war. Again we hear that Copenhagen is to be our destination. ”