Danish Navy

“ It represented the Danish government as in the highest degree hostile, and their state of preparation as exceeding what our cabinet had supposed possible; for Denmark had profited with all activity, by the leisure which had so impoliticly been given her. "The more I have reflected," said Nelson to his commander, "the more I am confirmed in opinion that not a moment should be lost in attacking the enemy. They will every day and every hour be stronger; we shall never be so good a match for them as we are at this moment. ”

“ He received the warm encouragement of his former chief Amdrup, of Captain Holm, and others; a Committee was formed, a fund was raised, half contributed by the Danish Government, and the Alabama of Stavanger (only 40 tons) was bought, strengthened, equipped, and supplied with 18 months’ provisions. Dogs were obtained in Greenland. Mikkelsen had with him Lieut. Laub of the Danish Navy, Lieut. Jorgensen of the Danish army, Iver Iversen, a naval engineer, Olsen and Paulsen, mates, and the carpenter, Carl Unger. ”

“ The young king’s court was one of the most joyous and magnificent in Europe; yet he found time for work of the most various description, including a series of domestic reforms (see Denmark: History) . He also did very much for the national armaments. New fortresses were constructed under the direction of Dutch engineers. The Danish navy, which in 1596 consisted of but twenty-two vessels, in 1610 rose to sixty, some of them being built after Christian’s own designs. The formation of a national army was more difficult. ”

“ On the surrender of the Danish navy, he was directed to assist Lieutenant Boyd (second of the Brunswick) in fitting out and bringing to England a prize 74, the preservation of which from impending destruction may justly be attributed to his foresight and perseverance. ”

“ So he wrote to the Danish Crown Prince: "Lord Nelson has been commanded to spare Denmark when she no longer resists. The line of defence which covers her shores has struck to the British flag. Let firing cease, then, that he may take possession of his prizes, or he will blow them into the air along with the crews who have so nobly defended them. The brave Danes are the brothers, and should never be the enemies, of the English." ”

“ After Edgar's death the Danes held command of the sea. They formed the last fierce wave of hardy Norsemen to break in fury on the English shore and leave descendants who are seamen to the present day. Nelson, greatest of all naval commanders, came from Norfolk, where Danish blood is strongest. Most of the fishermen on the east coast of Great Britain are of partly Danish descent; and no one served more faithfully through the Great War than these men did against the submarines and mines. ”

“ All Edgar's successors had fleets; some of them at times had very large ones; but every squadron, and almost every ship, seem to have been jealous and distrustful of every other. Many of the English leaders at the most critical period of the struggle must have had Danish connections, if not Danish blood in their veins; and the mere presence in England of a tolerated Danelagh, or Danish pale, acted as a perpetual reminder to every weak-kneed Englishman that a large extension of the Danish power was not only possible, but probable. ”

“ Outside, in the Sound, a fleet as great as that led by Nelson waited, should he fail, to finish his work. That was to destroy the Danish ships, if need be to bombard the city and so detach Denmark from the coalition of England’s foes. So she chose to consider such as were not her declared friends.
Denmark had no fighting ships at home to pit against her. Her sailors were away serving in the merchant marine. She had no practised gunners, nothing but a huddle of dismantled vessels in her navy-yard, most of them half-rotten hulks without masts. ”

“ Here the Danish governor promised them all the assistance he could give, and to strengthen his hands the Dutch landed forty-one pieces of cannon, which he disposed in a line in front of the port, the Dutch forming another line of their largest ships across the bay, and then waiting the arrival of the English fleet. Bergen, being a neutral port, ought to have been an asylum of safety for these Dutch merchantmen, but the King of Denmark, hoping to share the plunder, showed himself willing to treat with the Earl of Sandwich for liberty to attack the convoy in port. ”

“ George and Defence; only six men from the latter ship being saved, out of a crew of 600. Two days afterwards, when the gale had abated, a Danish boat, with two of the English sailors, went on board the St. George to bring away the corpses of the admiral and others, but they found the decks had been entirely swept away. Nothing could exceed the hospitality and kindness with which the Danes treated the few who were thrown upon their shore. Nor was the Danish government backward in generosity. The dead were buried with military honours, and the survivors were sent to England without exchange. ”

“ The present King of Greece, and many other members of the Danish Royal Family, have also been trained at this Academy. The Academy course is expensive, and as promotion is slow, and pay small in the navy, the Lieutenants are sometimes permitted to captain a ship in the merchant service for three years. This they are glad to do, as it increases their pay and knowledge of navigation. Denmark being too small to maintain a large cruising fleet, these officers would have little opportunity of proving their sailing powers without this arrangement. ”

“ On the 30th the fleet passed the Sound, giving the Danish coast a wide berth, and not encountering any opposition from the forts on the Swedish side. It anchored at Hveen, an island in the Sound, about fifteen miles above Copenhagen. Parker, Nelson, Rear-Admiral Graves, Domett the captain of the Fleet, and Stewart, who commanded a contingent of soldiers carried by the warships, reconnoitred the enemy’s position on the same day in the lugger Lark. They soon saw that the Danes had not been negligent in preparing to resist attack. The position to be assailed was a strong one by nature. ”

“ In the King’s Deep the water is shallower on the eastern than on the western side. The admirals were ignorant of this fact, for their pilots served them ill. These so-called pilots were in fact mostly mates of merchant ships who had traded to the Baltic. They knew just as much as was needed for their trade, and proved both timid and untrustworthy. To fall on from Hveen at the north end of the Danish line would have been to take the bull by the horns, for the fleet must have begun by meeting the fire of the Trekroner and of the heavy ships the Danes had placed close by the forts. ”

“ In 1429 the King of Denmark forbade English merchants to sail to Finmark, or indeed to any place but Bergen.
In 1446 one Gibson of Glasgow is mentioned as trading to Polaud, France, and Holland, in pickled salmon. In 1449 John Taverner of Hull built a very large merchant ship, and was graciously permitted to sail with her to Italy for trading purposes. Now, too, Canyng, Mayor of Bristol, was sending ships to Danzig, Iceland, and Finmark, in spite of the Danish prohibition. In 1467 there was a treaty of reciprocity with Denmark. A large passenger trade was also springing up with Spain ”

“ He was encouraged to do this by finding allies in those countries which had formed the anti-British Armed Neutrality of the North twenty years before. Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, Prussia, and the Hansa Towns of Germany, were all glad to hit British sea-power in the hope of getting its trade for themselves. So the new Alliance arranged that, as soon as the Baltic ports were clear of ice, the Russian, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian fleets would join the French and Spanish. ”

“ A battle on land decides whether he is or is not to succeed in his purpose, whether of mere plunder or settlement. The Conqueror himself made so little use of his ships, except to cross the Channel, that he could not prevent the Danish king from hanging on the eastern coast for months. ”

“ He decided to attack the Dutch the next day. In the meantime the convoy had taken vigorous measures for its own safety. Great part of its goods had been landed on the guarantee of the Danish governor. As the water of the harbour at Bergen is very deep, the Dutch had been able to draw their ships up close to the shore, and it was the more difficult to attack them because the port is broken by masses of rock. If the Danes had co-operated actively, the Dutch would have been at the mercy [348] of the associates, but the governor did not render any assistance to Teddiman. ”

“ Under Edward the Elder (901-925) , the son and successor of Alfred, but two notable naval events took place, although during most of the reign the Danes were troublesome, both on the coasts and inland. In 904, Ethelwald, a son of Ethelred, having put forward his claim to the crown, obtained Danish assistance from Northumbria, and, with as many ships as he was able to collect, effected a descent in Essex, [41] subdued it and persuaded the East Anglian Danes to invade Mercia ”

“ Athelstan, [30] a son of Egbert, assisted by the ealdorman Ealchere, seems to have fought a naval action with a Danish force off Sandwich, and to have defeated it, taking nine vessels; but another and much stronger Danish force, consisting of three hundred and fifty ships, arrived in the mouth of the Thames, landed an army, stormed both Canterbury and London, defeated an army headed by the King of Mercia, and was moving through Surrey, when it was encountered by Ethelwulf and his son Ethelbald, and routed with immense slaughter at Ockley. ”

“ The great field of this peculiar commerce was the Baltic. The Peace of Tilsit, between France and Russia in July 1807, threatened England with a renewal of the Northern Coalition. Her Government, whether informed of the secret articles of the treaty directed against it, or acting, as it was entitled to act, on the certainty that the Emperor of the French would lay hands on any weapon he could reach to be used against England, took prompt measures to diminish the danger. In September it despatched a powerful combined expedition to occupy Copenhagen and seize the Danish fleet. ”

“ From the spot where I stand, I can catch a glimpse of the dockyards, and the hulls of six dismounted men-of-war. I have been told, that the Danish Government intends to build steam-frigates, and will have nothing more to do with sailing vessels of war. The Danes may be right, or they may be wrong; but what [Pg 123] will be the result of any future naval engagement where steam alone, or canvass alone is used, is beyond the intelligence of any living creature. On all human events, such as the issues of peace and war, human beings may conjecture, but cannot determine so precisely. ”

“ Early in the morning, the captain came to my berth, and called me, saying that a sail was in sight, and that he was holding up for her. I was on deck in an instant with spyglass in hand. All the men were on the alert, and every eye strained to discover what vessel it was. Our own colours were soon run up, and they were answered by the unknown showing the Danish flag. This immediately enlightened us, and we at once knew that the stranger was one of the government vessels of Denmark annually visiting Greenland. ”

“ Denmark, on the other hand, had 31 steam war vessels, among which were 1 battleship, 5 frigates, 3 corvettes, and 4 armoured craft. Even with the assistance of a number of Austrian ships, which arrived in the North Sea from the Mediterranean, the Prussian fleet could contribute nothing decisive towards the issue of the war. At the most it prevented the Danish blockade of the German coast-line from being effective. The Prussian Government attempted to reduce its inferiority by hiring merchant vessels, and hurriedly purchased warships in France and [Pg 69] England. ”

“ The chances were that the approaching craft was a Hun, since both Heligoland and Kiel were within easy steaming distance of the Skaw, and German light cruisers and torpedo-boats could manoeuvre with slight risk of being brought into action. If surprised by a British flotilla, it was a simple matter to make for Danish territorial waters. On the other hand, should no hostile craft put in an appearance, the presence of Hun warships off the shores of Jutland served to impress the Danes with the fact that Germany held supreme command of the North Sea. ”

“ The whole of their fleet was to have been placed at the disposal of this iron-minded man, to assist in the invasion of our beloved isle. But again our God warded off the blow. Our Government were not napping; they found it all out just in time to despatch our one-eyed, one-armed hero, Nelson, to Copenhagen. The whole of the Danish fleet was demanded. It was a daring stroke; but, reader, sharp diseases require sharp remedies. It was life or death with us as a nation. The brave Danes would not comply, but fought for it, and lost all, except their honour. ”

“ He himself, as a soldier, could not meddle with politics: but he was not at liberty to suffer a fleet—of which the intention was not yet known—to approach the guns of the castle which he had the honour to command, and he requested, if the British admiral should think proper to make any proposals to the King of Denmark, that he might be apprised of it before the fleet approached nearer. ”

“ Denmark had never been engaged in so arduous a contest, and never did the Danes more nobly display their national courage. A youth of seventeen, by name Villemoes, particularly distinguished himself on this memorable day. He had volunteered to take the command of a floating battery, which was a raft consisting merely of a number of beams nailed together, with a flooring to support the guns: it was square, with a breastwork full of port-holes, and without masts—carrying twenty-four guns and one hundred and twenty men. ”