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The Danish navy's history


Jeytav

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The Danish Navy’s History

 

 

On the 10th of August 1510, King Hans Henrik Krummedige was appointed as “the supreme captain for all Captains, people and servants on the sea. We, our Kingdom and Country in service against our enemies.” This document, is estimated to be the Royal Danish Navy’s “Birth certificate”

 

Dominion over the Baltic Sea.

Denmark was during most of the 1500s and early 1600s the most dominate naval force on the Baltic Sea. It was necessary if Denmark were to maintain its extensive kingdom of Norway, large possessions in south Sweden and North Germany. Alongside that Denmark was able to collect the valuable Øresunds toll. King Christian IV claimed, that Denmark had sovereignty over the Baltic Sea - Dominum Maris Baltici. The King however wasn’t really a smart diplomat and in 1643-45 the Danish navy was up against the Swedish navy and the Dutch auxiliary fleet. Which resulted in the Danish navy’s biggest defeat at the Fehmern belt on the 13th of October 1644. Between 1645 and 1658 Denmark had to cede large areas of land to Sweden.

 

Revenge at sea

In the Scanian war 1675-79 and the great Nordic war in 1709-20 Denmark tried to recapture the lost territories back. The navy did well in these two wars. The naval officer Niels Iuel(1629 - 1697) was an excellent naval leader. He led the navy in the big sea battle 1st of July 1677 between Falsterbro and Stevns, where the Danish navy won a devastating victory against the Swedish. In the following year he helped modernize the fleet that had its base on Holmen in Copenhagen. The great Nordic war did also give birth to a great sea hero hos name was Peter Tordenskiold. It was partly thanks to him that the fleet drew the longest straw in this war against the Swedish

soeslaget1677.jpg

Naval battle between Stevns and Falsterbro 1st of July 1677. It might be Denmarks most

convincing victory ever. Painting by Viggo Fauerholt in 1856.

 

Only a few equipped ships.

After the great Nordic battle there was a long period with peace time. In this period Denmark had the 5-6th strongest navy. However that didn’t mean that all of their ships were at sea because that would have been too expensive for the state’s finances so most of the ships lay unarmed and unequipped on Holmen. If a war broke out the Navy’s crew would re-equip the fleet’s ships as if they were on an assembly line from Holmen’s many depots. This meant that Denmark had enough money to maintain a very big fleet, however it also meant that the country was vulnerable, if an enemy decided to attack its capitol city (Copenhagen).

 

The Navy’s open theft

In the early 1800s, Denmark came into conflict with the world's strongest naval power of Great Britain. Britain was annoyed with the fact that neutral Denmark earned tons of money selling goods to Britain’s enemies. A British fleet attacked Copenhagen on the 2 April 1801. It led to the battle of Copenhagen. Denmark lost, but the battle didn’t weaken the Danish fleet significantly. The British however was still a bit insecure about the threat that the Danish navy could be against the very important British Baltic trade. So in 1807 they attacked again but this time on land. After a long bombardment, Copenhagen surrendered and the British took the entire Danish navy as spoils of war – 16 Danish ships of the line, 15 Frigates and corvettes and 14 smaller vessels and that was the end of Denmark’s power on the sea.

 

Rebuilding the fleet

After the Napoleon wars, where Denmark went bankrupt and lost Norway, the navy had to rebuild it’s fleet. According to the fleet plan in 1815, Denmark was going to have 6 ships of the line, 8 frigates and 8 corvettes or brigs and 80 gun boats. That fleet was strong enough to block the german ports in the Scleswhig wars in 1848-51 and 1864. It also defeated the Prussian-Austrian squadron May 9, 1864 at Helgoland in the Navy's preliminary final naval battle.

 

Source: http://www2.forsvaret.dk/viden-om/historie/sovarnets/Pages/Soevaernetshistorie2.aspx

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Being Swedish as I am I just feel that the war betwen Denmark and Sweden was so unecessary because instead of fighting eachother we should have teamed up and taken Russia and then continue taking over everything else ... Fighting eachother over small pieces of land just ruined us both for no reason ... just think about what we could have done if we worked together hehe

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Nice and to the point summary Jey.

 

One thing I want to point out though, and hopefully the devs also take note of it and represent it accordingly in game; From 1510 until 1814, the Danish Navy was both Danish and Norwegian since the two Kingdoms were essentially one during this period.

I think It's more historically accurate to portray the name of this navy as The Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy in game.

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Nice and to the point summary Jey.

 

One thing I want to point out though, and hopefully the devs also take note of it and represent it accordingly in game; From 1510 until 1814, the Danish Navy was both Danish and Norwegian since the two Kingdoms were essentially one during this period.

I think It's more historically accurate to portray the name of this navy as The Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy in game.

Not sure I agree. yes in principle it was two kingdoms, But the kings where danish, Copenhagen was the capital and when it comes to the navy all the important institution and shipyard was in Copenhagen. 

 

I got the clear impression that it was called the danish navy in the everyday language during the period.. but I can't back it up with any evidence atm.

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I got the clear impression that it was called the danish navy in the everyday language during the period.. but I can't back it up with any evidence atm.

 

I honestly don't know what It was called during the period, but I'm sure some distinction was made between Danes and Norwegians.

 

Either way, I firmly support using the Dano-Norwegian term in game for anything pertaining to either nation.

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Most, if that all, the research I've done over the past 3 weeks had been in reference to the Dane-Norwegian...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dano-Norwegian_%28disambiguation%29

The adjective and derived noun Dano-Norwegian means "Danish and Norwegian". It can have two related meanings:

It can refer to the former (1536-1814) union between Denmark and Norway or its people; or by extension to anything relating to both of its two titular composite countries, Denmark and Norway (see Dano-Norwegian)

It can refer to the Dano-Norwegian language, formerly a Norwegian variant of the Danish language and predecessor of the Bokmål written standard of the modern Norwegian language. (Cf. Gøtudanskt)

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If you are going to quote wiki, take a look at the danish page about it.

http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danmark-Norge

"I samtiden anvendtes begrebet dog ikke, og staten blev som regel omtalt som "den danske krone" (kron zu Dennemarck) eller Tvillingrigerne."

 

or the Norwegian page:
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danmark-Norge
"Utad ble helstaten ofte oppfattet som dansk, og begrepet «Kongeriket Danmark» bruktes derfor upresist for å referere til hele området som den oldenburgske kongen behersket. Dette inkluderte de «kongelige» delene av hans besittelser, Danmark og Norge, men ekskluderte den «hertuglige» delen."

 

Both pages pretty much makes it clear that the term was not used except in official documents when it was important for the kings to remind everyone that they where kings of both.

---

 

That said, Iam not a fan of using wiki as a source.

 

 

Denmark was clearly the big brother in this. Just like England was the big brother in the UK, Austria in the Hapsburg empire... and so on.

 

I actually think it is more interesting what the sailors of other powers called them. When the British sent a naval force to Copenhagen in 1801, what did the the officers and sailors call the "target"? what did the British newspapers call it?

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In part 2 out of 3 in a danish documentary that is centered around the battle in 1801, 1807 and the aftermath(1808-15) we are told that the English diplomat Francis James Jackson in 1807 gave the Danish king(in this case the crown prince Frederic VI who was ruling in his fathers place King Christian VII because his father was sick) an ultimatum to hand over the entire Danish-Norwegian fleet.

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