Portal:Denmark/Selected article/Week 21, 2007



The naval Battle of Copenhagen (Slaget på Reden) was fought on April 2, 1801 by a British fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, against a Dano-Norwegian fleet anchored just off Copenhagen. The main attack was led by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, who famously disobeyed Parker's order to withdraw and destroyed many of the Dano-Norwegian ships before Denmark-Norway agreed to a truce.

The battle was the result of multiple failures of diplomacy in the latter half of 1800 and the beginning of 1801 during the Napoleonic wars. One of Great Britain's principal advantages against France was naval superiority and its ability to control sea traffic to France. The eccentric Russian Tsar Paul, after having been a British ally, arranged an Armed Neutrality of Scandinavia, Prussia, and Russia to enforce free trade. This was perceived by the United Kingdom to be very much in the French interest and a serious threat to her existence, particularly because it threatened the supply of timber and naval stores from Scandinavia as the league was hostile to the British blockade.

In early 1801, the British government assembled a fleet at Great Yarmouth, with the goal of intimidating or forcing Denmark-Norway into withdrawing from the League of Armed Neutrality. This needed to be done before the Baltic Sea thawed and released the Russian fleet from its bases at Kronstadt and Reval, which could then be combined with the Swedish and Dano-Norwegian fleets to form a formidable force of up to 123 ships-of-the-line. The fleet was under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker with Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, then in poor favour owing to his activities with the Hamiltons, in second-in-command. Parker (aged 61) had just married an eighteen year old and was reluctant to leave. Prompted by Nelson, a private note from St Vincent, the First Lord of the Admiralty, caused the fleet to sail from Yarmouth on 12 March. It reached the Skaw (Danish: Skagen) on 19 March where they met a British diplomat who told them that an ultimatum had been refused.

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