Sea battle in the Lister Tief

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Christian IV of Denmark and Norway, painting by Pieter Isaacsz , 1611–1616

The sea ​​battle in Lister Tief was a sea ​​battle during the Swedish-Danish War 1643–1645 between Danish-Norwegian and Swedish- Dutch squadrons on May 16, 1644 in Lister Tief between the North Frisian islands of Sylt and Rømø .

prehistory

After the December 12, 1643 without a declaration of war carried out surprise attack of the Swedish Field Marshal Lennart Torstensson to the Danish parts of the country in Holstein and the subsequent conquest of the entire peninsula Jutland needed Torstensson a fleet to ferry troops to the main Danish islands. Sweden therefore commissioned the Dutch merchant and factory owner Louis de Geer , naturalized in Sweden in 1627 and ennobled in 1641 , to recruit a fleet in the Netherlands. De Geer, who arrived in Amsterdam on February 16 , found himself confronted with considerable difficulties and finally equipped a fleet at his own expense, which was ready to leave the Vlie in mid-April . However, it only consisted of more or less makeshift small-caliber cannons, mostly 12, 8 and 6 pounders, 22 small merchant ships equipped with crews with practically no war experience, and 10 practically unarmed transporters. The commander, as the ship's priest, was Maerten Thijssen from Zealand on the Vergulde Swaen , who had fought for the Dutch West India Company in the Caribbean and off South America , among other things . His vice admiral was Hendrik Gerritson on the Groote Dolfijn .

The Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV , to whom de Geer's work was not unknown, began on April 5, 1644 with 11 modern warships, mostly galleons , a sea ​​blockade of Gothenburg , Sweden's only access to the North Sea .

Thijssens squadron sailed to the west coast of Jutland in the second half of April, where they wanted to take Torstensson's soldiers on board.

Christian IV then broke off his blockade of Gothenburg on April 30th and sailed south with nine of his ships in search of Thijssen along the west coast of Jutland. His main concern was to prevent the Dutch from uniting with the regular Swedish fleet, as the combined forces would be clearly superior to the Danish fleet. In the Lister Tief he found the Swedish-Dutch squadron, which was anchored there and had begun to take in 1000 Torstensson musketeers .

The battle

Christian IV, on his flagship Trefoldighed (48 cannons), blocked the passage between Sylt and Rømø with his nine large warships and thus locked the enemy in the Lister Tief. The battle began around 10 a.m. and continued until around 4 p.m. in the afternoon. The Danish-Norwegian ships wreaked havoc among their opponents, who, although they did not lose any ships, had more than 500 dead and wounded. Thijssen had intended to board the Danish ships , but this turned out to be impracticable because of their far too high freeboard . In the artillery duel, however, the Dutch were hopelessly inferior: the bullets from the Danish 36 pounders often hit the Dutch ships smoothly, while their much lighter projectiles often ricocheted off the thick oak planks of the Danish ships. On the Danish-Norwegian side there were only eleven dead and wounded.

Thijssen was forced to retreat to Lister Tief, where Christian IV could not follow him because of the greater draft of his ships. Christian IV left part of his squadron under Admiral Pros Mund to continue the blockade. It was not until May 25 that the agile Dutch ships were able to break through the blockade during a storm, when precise gunfire was hardly possible, and escape to Holland.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Only two ships had some larger-caliber guns on board: the Gecroonde Lifde had four 28-pounders and the Witte Engel had 14 18-pounders.
  2. ^ Erik Wilhelm Dahlgren: Louis De Geer 1587-1652; hans lif och Verk. Uppsala, 1923; New edition, Atlantis, Stockholm, 2002, ISBN 978-9-17486-636-0
  3. ↑ † March 21, 1657; he was ennobled by Sweden as Lord of Anckarhielm in September 1644, after he had broken through into the Baltic Sea with a second fleet hired by de Geer ( http://www.30jaehrigerkrieg.de/thijssen-tyssen-martin-anckarhielm/ ).
  4. ^ Englund, Desolation , pp. 374f.
  5. ↑ * 1589; killed on October 13, 1644 in the sea ​​battle in the Fehmarnbelt .

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literature

Coordinates: 55 ° 3 ′ 36 ″  N , 8 ° 28 ′ 12 ″  E