Elbe customs frigate
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The guard ships that carried out customs services and other sovereign tasks near Stade between the middle of the 17th and 19th centuries were called the Elbe customs frigate . The term was also used to refer to the Elbe customs station in Brunshausen near Stade.
The term frigate was originally used in a rather general form for various larger types of ships, which only had in common the fact that they were armed and equipped with three masts. It was not until the late 18th century that it became common to refer to smaller, fast warships with only one gun deck as frigates. The larger guard ships deployed on the Elbe were referred to as customs frigates or, as evidence of their legal status, also as crown ships , regardless of their type .
Customs collection on the Elbe
Before 1806 there were around 35 customs stations along the navigable course of the Elbe, which placed considerable burdens on shipping . The customs at Brunshausen were perceived as particularly burdensome. After the French occupation and the continental blockade , the Elbe Shipping Commission met in Dresden in 1819 to regulate the levying of customs on the Elbe. In 1821 the Elbe Shipping Act was passed, on the basis of which the tariffs against a shipping tax that should serve to preserve the fairway should be lifted. However, the amount of this charge was considerable and exceeded the old tariffs. While some states like Prussia were ready to facilitate navigation on the Elbe, others, including the Kingdom of Hanover in particular, as the operator of the Elbe customs station in Brunshausen, insisted on high taxes until the Elbe customs gradually became superfluous after the German War and the unification of the empire.
The Elbe customs station in Brunshausen
The Elbe customs station in Brunshausen was near Brunshausen at the confluence of the Schwinge into the Elbe, today part of the city of Stade. A customs collector belonging to the civilian state administration belonged to the station , usually a larger military guard ship called a customs frigate and, at times, other smaller boats. The vehicles were also known as outriggers because they were anchored outside the port and observed the traffic on the river or regularly drove off and checked certain areas. The customs building was on the Schwinger Schanze directly at the mouth of the Schwinge.
history
overview
As early as the 11th century, the archbishops of Bremen levied a duty on ships that passed the Elbe between Hamburg and the North Sea and temporarily laid out guard ships for this purpose.
After the Thirty Years' War , the formerly ecclesiastical territories of Bremen and Verden were combined into a duchy in 1648 and came under Swedish rule . Since 1650 the customs station was permanently manned by a ship. The station also remained active during the multiple changes in ownership of the Duchy of Bremen between Sweden, the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , later the Kingdom of Hanover and during the French occupation.
After the establishment of the German Customs Association in 1834, the Elbe customs lost their importance. Therefore, the station was abandoned in 1850, even if the Kingdom of Hanover did not join the Zollverein until 1854. With the abandonment of the station, the last guard ship was also decommissioned.
Swedish time
After Sweden set up its administration for the Duchy of Bremen in Stade, the Elbe customs station became a permanent facility. As early as 1645, some ships had been rented to temporarily strengthen the Bojer , which was already used in the customs service, until the peace agreement between Denmark and Sweden. After 1646 the bojer was reinforced by a speel yacht . Because the customs revenue sank significantly, the frigate Naepthunus was bought in order to be able to collect the taxes more forcefully. Despite the designation frigate, this vehicle could not have been very large, as it only had a crew of 18 men. After a short time these were reduced to a core team of only 5 men. For the years 1658 to 1660 only one hunting and one Galiot are reported. After that, Stade was forced by Sweden to control and collect customs at its own expense. It was not until 1663 that the Swedish frigate St. Margaretha was permanently assigned to the customs post. There was also a small hunt that was also armed.
At the beginning of the Northern War , two Danish warships attacked the Brunshauser Schanze, but were repulsed by the Swedish forces. One of the ships was sunk. Nothing is known about the involvement of the customs frigate. When Stade capitulated on August 13, 1676 and temporarily came under the administration of Brunswick-Lüneburg, St. Margaretha also fell into the hands of the new rulers and remained in service under the same name until 1679. After the end of the war she returned to Sweden and was then transferred back to Stade under the Hamburg skipper Hans Trau. It was in service until 1686 and was replaced in 1687 by the frigate called Bremer Schlüssel under the customs inspector Johan Dargemann . Since 1691 a yacht under the skipper Herman Schlottman has been added.
During this time it was one of the tasks of the frigate, in addition to the general customs service, to prevent trade in contraband between Germany and the Swedish war opponent Russia. After Sweden's defeat in the Battle of Poltava (1709) in the Great Northern War , it was so weakened that it could no longer protect its German possessions against Danish attacks. In 1712 Danish troops occupied the Duchy of Bremen. The Bremen Keys customs frigate escaped to Hamburg, where it was hidden until 1715. That was the end of the Swedish era.
Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg
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In 1715, the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , also known as the Electorate of Hanover, which had been ruled in personal union with Great Britain since 1714 , acquired the Duchy of Bremen from Denmark.
During several wars in the 18th century, fighting arms smuggling became an important task of the Elbe customs frigate. This was primarily in the interests of the British government, which was able to influence the operation due to the personal union with Hanover. It was mainly about arms deliveries to insurgents such as the Jacobites in Scotland or the settlers in North America during the American War of Independence 1775–83.
The government in Hanover put the Bremen key back into service in 1716 after taking over the rule of the Duchy of Bremen . In 1733 the ship was used up and had to be replaced. As a successor a frigate was built in Stade in the same year, which was named Weißes Ross and was in service until around 1757.
The ship's commander was also the highest-ranking naval officer in Hanover. His rank corresponded to that of a lieutenant colonel in the army . His subordination was not clearly regulated. In his function as military leader he was directly subordinate to the electoral government in Hanover and received some instructions from the court in London. In general administrative matters, the government in Stade also had subordinate authority, which at times led to differences of opinion with the commander of the Elbe customs frigate. In particular, the commander Joachim Wilhelm Brockes , who was in office from 1757 to 1767, lived in a permanent conflict with the district president Bodo von Bodenhausen , which eventually led to his replacement.
The beginning of Brocke's tenure coincided with the decommissioning of the White Horse in 1757. As a replacement, a smaller vehicle was found that was stranded as a French privateer near Juist . To support him in the customs service, two sloops were maintained. In addition, there was at least one so-called cron hunt, which was used for various purposes. No names have survived for these vehicles.
As Brockes' successor, the customs officer Heinrich Huge was chosen, who limited himself to his customs duties and did not seek any conflict with the Stade government. However, he was unable to prevent the smuggling of arms to North America that began in 1776. For this he not only lacked the experience as a naval officer, but also the appropriate equipment at the Elbe customs station. The existing ships were not fast or big enough to compete with the fast American ships. In addition, the armament of the Schwinger Schanze was so shabby that not a single gun was ready for use.
After Hüge's untimely death at the end of 1777, Christian Gottlieb Daniel Müller took over the task of commander of the Elbe customs frigate. He had to prevail against four competitors and was appointed on August 15, 1778 by the king in London. His tenure lasted 35 years, during which he was continuously promoted. He applied to the rank of lieutenant in the British Navy for the service, received with his appointment in 1778 the rank of captain, 1790 that of a major and 1801 that of a lieutenant colonel, as Brockes had already led him.
In 1780 he was responsible for the Cron-Jagt, two sloops, a gunboat and the Schwinger Schanze. The workforce was 34 people; it was roughly doubled during the wars with France in 1792/93. In addition, the commandant had been in charge of the Hanoverian pilotage on the Elbe since Huge's time , a task that Müller tried in vain to give up. In addition, Müller worked as a writer and author of textbooks on shipping .
French occupation
In 1803 the Hanoverian territories were occupied by French troops and France took over the administration of the electorate. In 1806, the French government imposed an economic blockade on Great Britain known as the Continental Blockade. The Elbe customs station at Brunshausen was also maintained during this time. In March 1813, the existence of at least one dinghy in the customs service is reported, while the other customs vehicles were lost in various ways. The guard ship itself had been burned, and two sloops were brought to Hamburg by the French.
Müller remained in the service until March 1, 1812 and received one-time financial support from the French administration. Otherwise he and his crew had no regular income. In 1814 Müller participated in the resistance against the French occupation. To support the operations of British gunboats against the Elbe estuary, he acquired ships in Stade in March 1814 to support these attacks. The course of the war allowed these ships to be sold back just two months later. At the same time, Müller drew up a list of the material that was needed for the reconstruction of the customs station. This included a sloop, a large and a small dinghy. Müller died surprisingly on May 8, 1814, presumably from the effects of gout, which he had suffered from for several years.
Kingdom of Hanover
Before a new commander was appointed at the end of 1814, the decision was made about a new guard ship. The British government provided an armed brig , referred to in contemporary documents as the gun brig, called The Piercer . This ship arrived in Stade at the beginning of June 1814 and was born on June 4th, the birthday of King George III. solemnly handed over from the British to the Hanover government. The British ship's crew left Stade shortly afterwards and a separate crew had to be set up, some of which consisted of former members of the Elbe customs station. In August 1814, ship's captain Joachim Deetjen was appointed the new commander. One of the reasons the British government chose him was because he had saved the Duke of Cambridge from capture by the French with his ship. Deetjen held the office until his death in 1827.
After the re-establishment of the Hanover customs station, many status issues remained unresolved. This included their subordination and their military character. Several government agencies in Stade were authorized to issue instructions, which led to bureaucratic obstacles. In 1820 Deetjen succeeded in having the military character of the Elbe customs frigate and his military rank as captain confirmed. Only the commander had a full officer rank, the skipper as his deputy a rank between officers and NCOs. In addition, the uniform of the commander and the crew was determined. The commanding officer and the skipper wore a blue skirt with gold fittings of different sizes. The commandant's trousers were white, those of the ship's blue. NCOs and sailors wore a red skirt with white trousers. There was a special suit for the sailors who rowed the sloop. They wore a short blue jacket with a red waistcoat underneath, blue pants and a black leather hat.
It was customary to leave the customs ship at anchor at its station only from April to October. In the other months it was also withdrawn to protect it from ice. In order not to leave the station unoccupied during the rest of the time, smaller vehicles were used as long as the ice drift allowed this. After the earlier sloops were lost, Deetjen campaigned 1815-16 for the procurement of a suitable cutter that should be at the same anchor as the Elbe customs frigate in summer. Deetjen offered an English cutter belonging to him, with which he had already transported troops during the war. Instead, in 1815 the government bought a 50-foot-long cutter built in Hamburg in 1812 on behalf of the French and later named William IV .
After Deetjen's death in 1827, Major Carl August Delius became the new commandant. He had already been considered the most promising candidate in 1814, but Deetjen was preferred to him. Delius prevailed against a field of 14 other applicants, most of whom were army officers. Only four candidates had a nautical background. Delius had fought Napoleon on the British side and lost an arm in the Battle of Talavera . In 1814 he organized the Landsturm in Stade and participated in the reconstruction of the Hanoverian armed forces . Delius died as early as 1833. At that time, customs revenues of 120,000 Reichstalers per year are recorded.
On November 22nd, 1833, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas von Schlütter was appointed as the last commandant in the history of the Elbe customs frigates. He was senior adjutant to the British Viceroy in Hanover and Field Marshal General Adolphus Frederick, 1st Duke of Cambridge . In addition to his salary as a ship's captain, he received a pension as a lieutenant colonel. Because of the high esteem he enjoyed in the government, he was awarded the rank of major general in 1845 .
From 1840 at the latest it became apparent that a sailing ship like The Piercer , the Wachkutter and the two associated sloops were not able to prevail against the increasingly numerous faster steamers on the Elbe. Therefore, efforts were made to enforce sovereign rights from the Schwinger Schanze with gun salutes and signals. Both of these often turned out to be ineffective against the steamships. In 1850 the king ordered the frigate to be pulled in, and Schlueter asked for his release on October 20th that year.
In 1855 the Kingdom of Hanover tried to counter the Prussian naval ambitions in the North Sea, which manifested themselves primarily in the acquisition of the jade region in 1853. Hanover claimed to be a so-called admiral state to form a German fleet in the North Sea. However, it did not take any practical steps in the form of strengthening its rudimentary naval forces at the Elbe customs station.
The customs station still existed as the Elbe customs guard ship command and was led by the skipper Dede, who had previously served under Schlueter and his predecessors. It initially had two boats, later one. On June 13, 1865, the Hanover Ministry of Finance ordered the station to be closed.
Ships
Not all of the names of the vehicles used at the Elbe customs station have survived. It was not customary to name smaller ships, so that during longer periods, especially in the second half of the 18th century, no ships known by name have survived. The names of the four largest ships, the three frigates of the 17th and 18th centuries and the armed brig in the first half of the 19th century are known.
St. Margaretha and ostrich
The St. Margaretha , according to Swedish sources Margareta , appeared in 1663 accompanied by two other warships off Stade, which, however, should not have stayed there. She was the first Swedish guard ship to be used permanently there, after presumably having previously performed a similar task on the Weser. The Margareta was built in Bodekull (today part of the Karlshamn marine port ) in 1660 and weighed around 125 t. She was a coastal or river ship, which was called "Struss" in Swedish. In this respect, it should have been well suited for service on the Elbe. In terms of ship type, it corresponded to what was later understood as a frigate. She was a three - masted fully rigged ship ; however, she only carried 14 cannons. In 1676 it came into the hands of Hanover, after having presumably fallen into Danish hands for a short time. In 1679 she returned to Swedish service, but without being used again as a customs frigate on the Elbe after the Duchy of Bremen returned under Swedish rule. It was decommissioned and broken up in 1686.
Another vehicle that could have served at least temporarily as a customs frigate on the Elbe was called Vogel Strauss (Swedish: Fågel Struts ). It came to Stade for the first time in 1663/4 to deliver ammunition. Then the ship went back to Sweden. Their commander was the same Lt. Brack, who later was the commandant of St. Margaretha . Brack's successor Ehler is also named in a file in 1772 as the captain of the earlier Orlog ship Vogel Strauss , which suggests that it was deployed on the Elbe. The Fågel Struts was a vehicle of around 200 tons built in Wolgast in 1657/8, which was sunk in 1674. How often and how long this ship was used on the Elbe is unknown.
The successor was a vehicle of unknown name acquired by the ship's captain Trau, which was equipped with only nine cannons.
Bremen key
The exact year of construction of the next known patrol ship, the Bremer Schlüssel, is unknown, but it is believed to have been between 1690 and 1695. It seems certain that it was already in service in 1697 under the command of a ship's captain Michael Müller. Hamburg is assumed to be the construction site. In peacetime the Bremen Key normally carried 18 cannons, but at times up to 21 pieces. As a figurehead she carried a large bear, at the stern a coat of arms with an upright key. During the Northern War, the ship was upgraded and is said to have carried a total of 48 guns in two battery decks. This identifies the ship as a relatively large frigate that remained in service after the end of Swedish rule in 1715. It was the most heavily armed and probably the largest customs frigate on the Elbe. It was not retired until 1733, after around forty years of service.
White steed
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The White Horse was a three-masted ship that carried 28 cannons. In this respect, it also corresponded to the type of ship frigate in terms of armament. The ship's figurehead was a white horse and the letters GR (for Georg Rex) under a crown on the stern. The White Horse was in service until about 1757 when it was retired. The smaller ship used as the successor was a former French pirate of unknown name. Between his end of service in 1772 and the completion of a new Elbe customs frigate in spring, there was a gap in which only smaller vehicles were available for customs service.
Custom frigate 1773
In 1773 the ship's carpenter J. Behrmann built a new frigate in Stade with a keel length of 78 feet ( 23.4 m). The armament consisted of 14 cannons, which were specially cast for the ship and were delivered at the end of 1774. This ship, the name of which has not been passed down, served until the Napoleonic period and was burned by the French around 1812.
The piercer
The last larger guard ship on the Elbe was a brig with the traditional name The Piercer . The Royal Navy had many of these armed brigs built during the Napoleonic War because they had proven their worth as escort and liaison vehicles. HMS Piercer was built and put into service in 1804. She carried 14 guns. During the war she was assigned to the Downs station , from where she was used in northern and western European waters. The ship took part in the British-Swedish siege and conquest of the Danish-owned city of Glückstadt in 1813-14, which surrendered on January 5, 1814. The commandant, Lieutenant Joshua Kneeshaw, and other officers of the British squadron were honored by the Swedish Crown Prince.
Kneeshaw's successor, Rose, handed the ship over to the Hanover government on June 4, 1814. As a relatively small but well-armed vehicle, it was initially well suited for guard duty on the Elbe. Towards the end of its service, however, it was no longer able to keep up with the fast steamers and was decommissioned in 1850 after 46 years of service.
Small vehicles
In addition to the largest guard ship, known as the Elbe customs frigate, there were usually one or more smaller vehicles as part of the Brunshauser customs station. On the one hand, these were smaller, one- or two-masted sailing vehicles that carried a small number of cannons. They were called hunted or galiots . There were also rowed boats, some of which had auxiliary sails. They were mostly called sloops .
The name of a royal hunt Maria who needed a dinghy and new sails in 1671 has been handed down. From the fact that the ship had its own dinghy, it can be concluded that it was itself at least of medium size. This or another ship that was armed with five cannons was still at the station in 1680.
Two new buildings for the customs station, which were built in Stade in 1760 and 1764, have also survived. First, the ship's carpenter J. Behrmann built a sloop 40 feet long and 8 feet wide with 10 straps , i.e. a vehicle about 11.6 × 2.3 m. Then he built a small cron hunt "to protect the customs at Brunshausen" of 52 feet (15 m) in length with six cannons. At that time, a former French privateer served as the Elbe customs frigate, so that a total of at least three vehicles must be assumed on the station. From 1772–1773 / 4, the hunt was probably the largest customs vehicle for a time before the frigate, built in 1773, was equipped and operational.
After 1815 there was a boat as a ship, which was built for the French in Hamburg from 1810-12 and which had fallen into the hands of Russian troops when they withdrew. They had auctioned it off to a private person. The Hanoverian state bought it in 1815 for 2,500 Reichstaler without sails or armament. The cutter was 50 feet (14 m) long, 13 feet (3 m) wide and offered space for 30 people below deck. It was armed with four cannons and was named William IV .
After the Piercer was decommissioned in 1850, there were still two boats with initially a total of 17 crew members, the number of which decreased to three by 1864. Since a ship like the William IV could hardly have been moved with three people , it can be assumed that it was decommissioned at this point at the latest.
See also
literature
- Richard Graewe: The two hundred year history of the Elb-Zoll-Frigate zu Brunshausen and its commanders 1650-1850 (= individual writings of the Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein eV No. 17, ISSN 0585-0037 ). Self-published by the Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein, Stade 1963.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Richard Graewe: The two hundred year history of the Elbe customs frigate at Brunshausen and its commanders 1650-1850. 1963.
- ^ Article "Elbe" in Meyers Konversationslexikon Leipzig and Vienna, Fourth Edition, 1885-1892
- ^ A b Claus Tiedemann: The shipping of the Duchy of Bremen during the Swedish era (1645-1712) Stade 1970. pp. 67–73.
- ↑ Article Hannover 1 , Meyers Konversationslexikon 1905
- ↑ a b Jan Glete: List of Swedish Warships 1521-1721, unpublished PDF file; until 2012 at ( www2.historia.su.se )
- ↑ Deployments of HMS Piercer ( Memento from April 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Use of HMS Piercer on the Elbe. ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
Remarks
- ↑ The information given by Graewe about the construction date is contradictory and ranges from 1685 to 1695.
- ↑ The ranks correspond roughly in today's terms: Leutnant - Oberleutnant zur See ; Capitain - lieutenant captain ; Major - Corvette Captain ; Lieutenant Colonel - Frigate Captain .
- ↑ According to a captain in the army