English Wars (Scandinavia)
The English Wars were a series of conflicts between England and Sweden with Denmark-Norway as part of the Napoleonic Wars. It is named after the most prominent region of its other main participant, the United Kingdom, which declared war on Denmark-Norway due to disagreements over the neutrality of Danish trade and to prevent the Danish fleet falling into the hands of the First French Empire, it began with the first battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and its latter stage from 1807 onwards was followed by the Gunboat War, the Dano-Swedish War of 1808-1809 and the Swedish invasion of Holstein in 1814. After the death of Denmark-Norway's foreign minister Andreas Peter Bernstorff in 1800, crown prince Frederick began exerting his will in all areas; this meant that the finance minister Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann ignored protests from the foreign minister Christian Bernstoff to grant the Dutch-born merchant Frédéric de Coninck's repeated requests for a naval convoy to accompany 40 merchantmen. This convoy transported French and Dutch products from the Dutch East Indies to Copenhagen.
This led to an'armed neutrality' and though it gave mixed signals to the rest of the world as to that neutrality Denmark-Norway continued to insist on the inviolability of ships sailing under neutral flags. Several other such convoys set out the following day and these were given orders to resist if foreign naval ships attempted to examine the papers or cargoes in ships under the Danish flag, whatever the size of the force the convoy was faced with; this was a high-risk strategy since many non-Danish ships were sailing under the Danish flag to gain their neutrality benefits, though the policy proved profitable in its first year it drew diplomatic protests from the United Kingdom. In December 1799 an English sailor attempting to check a Danish-flagged ship at Gibraltar was killed; when in 1800 it appeared that Russia would head a new League of Armed Neutrality Great Britain reacted, in summer that year having a squadron of 130 guns try to board a Danish convoy escorted by the 40-gun frigate Freya at Ostend.
In accordance with his orders the captain of the Freya refused and gave battle, but was forced to strike its flag after an hour. This led to Denmark-Norway asking Russia to join the Armed Neutrality, though in August a British fleet arrived off Copenhagen. Under threat of a British bombardment Christian Bernstorff promised to stop convoys temporarily while Denmark and the United Kingdom set up common rules on how and when convoys were to be used; the following month a Russian ambassador arrived in Denmark with a formal invitation for the country to join the League of Armed Neutrality together with Sweden and Prussia which it did in December 1800. However, in 1801 the Tsar signed an alliance with France, Russia and France forced through the closure of all European ports to British trade, leading the United Kingdom to demand that Denmark-Norway leave the League. However, such a departure would make Denmark-Norway appear to ally itself with the United Kingdom and thus certainly lead to its being invaded by one of France or Russia's allies.
Denmark-Norway thus chose the lesser of two evils and refused all British proposals for negotiations. The United Kingdom thus sent a fleet against Denmark on 12 March 1801 to remove Denmark-Norway from the League by force; the Danes had begun to prepare for a possible attack from the British, but much of the fleet was, in late March, not ready after the winter and would take up to six weeks to make it ready. So the Danish defense plan was that the ships available should protect the entrance to Copenhagen by lying anchored in the curved line from Trekroner Fort to Amager. Command was given to Olfert Fischer, who placed himself in the middle of the formation, with his ship Dannebrog. Crew was lacking on various ships so additional crew was acquired by offering 15 "riksdaler" in wages, followed by a quick training in how to use a cannon and message to fight bravely for the king and country; the British fleet passed Kronborg unimpeded on 30 March and continued towards Copenhagen along the Swedish coast.
Crown Prince Frederick had, out of fear that the Swedes would be exempted from the Sound Dues, said no to help from them in the battle. The Swedish fleet was still, at the initiative of Gustav IV Adolf, on their way to help the Danes, but was impeded bad weather. By midday the British fleet had anchored at Taarbæk reef. Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's plan was that half of his fleet would attack the Danish fleet from the south, while the rest would attack the Danish blockade in Kronløbet; the attack was to be terminated by an attack on the island of Trekroner. In the following days the British prepared to attack, they sailed further south, past Copenhagen, to avoid the Danish land batteries Sixtus and Trekroner. Lord Horatio Nelson had been given command of twelve of the British liners, had the task of getting them through the tight defense that surrounded Copenhagen's reef, extremely difficult to navigate through, he took the initiative to attack, four of his largest ships grounded. The battle lasted long and after four hours of intense fighting it was not yet decided who would win.
Parker, with the rest of the fleet, 200 meters from the Danish line of defense, was fired upon from the cannons at Trekrone Fort, signaled to Nelson that he should withdraw the fleet. Nelson, was determined to win the battle and ignored the order. Nelson had noticed that many of th
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, northeast Germany, Poland and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53 ° N from 10 ° E to 30 ° E longitude. A mediterranean sea of the Atlantic, with limited water exchange between the two bodies, the Baltic Sea drains through the Danish islands into the Kattegat by way of the straits of Øresund, the Great Belt, the Little Belt, it includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the Bay of Gdańsk. The Baltic Proper is bordered on its northern edge, at the latitude 60°N, by the Åland islands and the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga, in the west by the Swedish part of the southern Scandinavian Peninsula; the Baltic Sea is connected by artificial waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal and to the German Bight of the North Sea via the Kiel Canal. Administration The Helsinki Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area includes the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat, without calling Kattegat a part of the Baltic Sea, "For the purposes of this Convention the'Baltic Sea Area' shall be the Baltic Sea and the Entrance to the Baltic Sea, bounded by the parallel of the Skaw in the Skagerrak at 57°44.43'N."Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea, in tandem: in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør.
The narrowest part of Little Belt is the "Middelfart Sund" near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers agree that the preferred physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill and Langeland; the Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg and the Bay of Kiel are parts of the Baltic Sea. Another usual border is the line between Falsterbo and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. It's the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water. Hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, a limit to the Belt Sea; the shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of heavy salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm and Gotland. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea have a rich biology; the remainder of the Sea is poor in oxygen and in species.
Thus, the more of the entrance, included in its definition, the healthier the Baltic appears. Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people of the Suebi, Ptolemy Sarmatian Ocean after the Sarmatians, but the first to name it the Baltic Sea was the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen; the origin of the latter name is speculative and it was adopted into Slavic and Finnic languages spoken around the sea likely due to the role of Medieval Latin in cartography. It might be connected to the Germanic word belt, a name used for two of the Danish straits, the Belts, while others claim it to be directly derived from the source of the Germanic word, Latin balteus "belt". Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt, he might have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Xenophon.
It is possible. Baltia might be derived from belt and mean "near belt of sea, strait." Meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning "white, fair". This root and its basic meaning were retained in both Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian. Another explanation is that, while derived from the aforementioned root, the name of the sea is related to names for various forms of water and related substances in several European languages, that might have been associated with colors found in swamps, yet another explanation is that the name meant "enclosed sea, bay" as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe. In the Middle Ages the sea was known by a variety of names; the name Baltic Sea became dominant only after 1600. Usage of Baltic and similar terms to denote the region east of the sea started only in 19th century.
The Baltic Sea was known in ancient Latin language sources as Mare Suebicum or Mare Germanicum. Older native names in languages that used to be spoken on the shores of the sea or near it indicate the geographical location of the sea, or its size in relation to smaller gulfs, or tribes associated with it. In modern lang
Aakirkeby
Aakirkeby or Åkirkeby is a town in Denmark with a population of 2,052. It is the third largest town on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, it was the main town of the now abolished Aakirkeby Municipality. The town is situated in the middle of the southern half of Bornholm, between Rønne and Nexø; the Danish TV-station TV2 has a local office in Aakirkeby. Aakirkeby could be translated to "Stream Church town", as Aa is a stream; when speaking of the church alone, which dates from the mid-12th century, it is separated into two words: Aa Kirke. Myreagre Mølle, a whitewashed windmill built in 1865, is located 3 km to the east of Aakirkeby on the road to Nexø. Media related to Aakirkeby at Wikimedia Commons Official Website TV2 Bornholm
Battle of Copenhagen (1801)
The Battle of Copenhagen of 1801 was a naval battle in which a British fleet fought a large force of the Dano-Norwegian Navy anchored near Copenhagen on 2 April 1801. As the British ships attempted to enter the harbour the Danish fleet, stationed in the city's inlet, formed a blockade; the Danish used older ships not meant to sail in the sea as blockades. Denmark defended the capital with these ships and bastions on both sides of the harbour inlet, Trekroner, Lynetten as well as Quintus and Strickers, it was the second attempt by the British to scare Denmark, as the British had entered Øresund with a navy in August 1800, in order to force Denmark to sign an alliance with Britain. Now Britain would have Denmark's entire navy and merchant fleet, so it would not fall into the hands of the French; the British were not aware that the modern Royal Danish Navy and many merchant ships were well hidden in the Roskilde fjord, a bluff, never called by the British. The battle was the result of multiple failures of diplomacy in the latter half of the 18th century.
At the beginning of 1801, during the French Revolutionary Wars, Britain's principal advantage over France was its naval superiority. The Royal Navy searched neutral ships trading with French ports, seizing their cargoes if they were deemed to be trading with France, it was in the British interest to guarantee its naval supremacy and all trade advantages that resulted from it. The Russian Tsar Paul, having been a British ally, arranged a League of Armed Neutrality comprising Denmark, Sweden and Russia, to enforce free trade with France; the British viewed the League to be much in the French interest and a serious threat. The League was hostile to the British blockade and, according to the British, its existence threatened the supply of timber and naval stores from Scandinavia. In early 1801, the British government assembled a fleet off Great Yarmouth at Yarmouth Roads, with the goal of breaking up the League; the British needed to act before the Baltic Sea thawed and released the Russian fleet from its bases at Kronstadt and Reval.
If the Russian fleet joined with the Swedish and Danish fleets, the combined fleets would form a formidable force of up to 123 ships-of-the-line. The British fleet was under the command of Admiral Hyde Parker, with Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson as second-in-command. Frustrated by the delay, Nelson sent a letter to Captain Thomas Troubridge, a friend and a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty; this prompted the Earl of St Vincent to send a private note, which resulted in the fleet sailing from Yarmouth on 12 March. Orders were sent to Parker to go to Copenhagen and detach Denmark from the League by'amicable arrangement or by actual hostilities', to be followed by'an immediate and vigorous attack' on the Russians at Reval and Kronstadt; the British fleet reached the Skaw on 19 March, where they met a British diplomat, Nicholas Vansittart, who told them that the Danes had rejected an ultimatum. Although the Admiralty had instructed Parker to frustrate the League, by force if necessary, he was a cautious person and moved slowly.
He wanted to blockade the Baltic despite the danger of the combination of fleets. In the end Nelson was able to persuade Sir Hyde to attack the Danish fleet concentrated off Copenhagen. Promised naval support for the Danes from Karlskrona, in Sweden, did not arrive because of adverse winds; the Prussians had only minimal naval forces and could not assist. On 30 March, the British force passed through the narrows between Denmark and Sweden, sailing close to the Swedish coast to put themselves as far from the Danish guns as possible. Attacking the Danish fleet would have been difficult as Parker's delay in sailing had allowed the Danes to prepare their positions well. Most of the Danish ships were not fitted for sea but were moored along the shore with old ships, no longer fit for service at sea, but still powerfully armed, as a line of floating batteries off the eastern coast of the island of Amager, in front of the city in the King's Channel; the northern end of the line terminated at the Tre Kroner forts armed with 68 guns.
North of the fort, in the entrance to Copenhagen harbour, were two ships-of-the-line, a large frigate, two brigs, all rigged for sea, two more hulks. Batteries covered the water between the Danish line and the shore, further out to sea a large shoal, the Middle Ground, constricted the channel; the British had no reliable charts or pilots, so Captain Thomas Hardy spent most of the night of 31 March taking soundings in the channel up to the Danish line. So, the British ships were not able to locate the deepest part of the channel properly and so kept too far to seaward. Parker gave Nelson the twelve ships-of-the-line with the shallowest drafts, all the smaller ships in the fleet. Parker himself stayed to the north-east of the battle with the heavier ships – whose deeper drafts did not allow them to safely enter the channel – screening Nelson from possible external interference and moving towards Copenhagen to engage the northern defences. Nelson transferred his command from the large 98-gun HMS St George to the shallower 74-gun HMS Elephant for this reason.
On 30 March Nelson, his second-in-command, Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, accompanied by Captain Domett and the commanding officer of the troops, sai
Christiansø Lighthouse
Christiansø Lighthouse is located on the top of the Store Tårn tower on the Danish island of Christiansø, some 18 kilometres northeast of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Constructed and brought into service in 1805, it is one of Denmark's oldest; the lighthouse was designed by Poul de Løvenørn in 1798. It was the first lighthouse in Denmark to have a flashing light inspired by the Swedish lighthouse at Marstrand, completed in 1781, the first in the world with a flashing light. In 1798, Løvenørn was authorized to go ahead with his project which consisted of building the lighthouse on the top of the existing tower known as Store Tårn; as a result of various delays, it was not until 1 October 1805 that the lighthouse with a height of 16 metres was brought into service. The lighthouse consisted of nine parabolic gilded copper mirrors with a diameter of 4 ft, divided into three groups with a four-wick oil burner located in the focal point of each group; each group was mounted on a horizontal wooden arm projecting from a vertical axel driven by clockwork.
The lamps were rotated by clockwork adjusted. The oil lamps remained in operation until 1879 when a lens system with a four-wick burner was introduced. In 1904, the burner was replaced by a paraffin lamp. In 1973, the Fresnel lens from the decommissioned Hyllekrog Lighthouse was installed. With a height of 16 metres, the white-painted round tower with a greenish lantern and gallery stands on the top of the granite Store Tårn fortification. With a range of 18 nautical miles, the light flashes once every five seconds. List of lighthouses and lightvessels in Denmark
Aarsdale
Aarsdale is a village on the eastern coast of the Baltic island of Bornholm, Denmark. Located between Svaneke and Nexø, it has a population of 411. Once a prosperous fishing village, its economy now relies on tourism thanks to its half-timbered houses, its harbour and its windmill; the name Aarsdale can be traced back to 1410 in connection with herring processing when it occurred as Osdael. The fishing village has been inhabited at least since the 17th century; the harbour built in 1870 has been extended several times since. It still has three smokehouses; the eight-sided Dutch windmill close to the main road at the southern end of the village is a local landmark. It is the only windmill on the island, in constant operation since it was built serving three generations of the Mikkelsen family. Flour production is now for private use only; the village has some of them 200 years old. The harbour built for fishing boats, now has facilities for pleasure craft. Aarsdale has a small beach suitable for bathing on Bornholm's rocky eastern coast.
The village has three smokehouses providing a variety of smoked fish and seafood. There are interesting walks along the rocky coastline both towards Svaneke to the north and Nexø to the south. Media related to Aarsdale at Wikimedia Commons
Media related to Ertholmene at Wikimedia Commons
