Sea battle in the Køgebucht (1710)

Sea battle in the Køgebucht (1710)

Part of: Great Northern War

The Dannebroge in flames, painting by Carl Neumann

date	24.-27. September 1710
place	Køge Bay , Baltic Sea
output	no winner

Parties to the conflict
Denmark	Sweden
Commander
Ulrik Gyldenløve	Hans Wachtmeister
Troop strength
26 ships of the line with a total of 1700 cannons 5 frigates 13 smaller warships 40 merchant ships as troop transports	21 ships
losses
800 men 1 ship sunk ( ship of the line Dannebroge ) 14 merchant ships burned a merchant ship captured by Sweden	two ships sunk (ships of the line Drei Kronen and Princess Ulrika Eleonora )

The sea ​​battle off the Køge Bay took place in the Great Northern War on October 4, 1710 in front of the Køge Bay between the Danish-Norwegian fleet under Admiral General Ulrik Christian Gyldenløve and the Swedish fleet under Admiral Hans Wachtmeister .

prehistory

In the summer of 1710, the Danish fleet sailed to Danzig under the command of General Admiral Gyldenløve to pick up 6,000 Russian soldiers. This army corps was supposed to fight on the Danish side in the fight against Sweden. The Danish High Command, with the help of Russian troops, was planning another invasion of southern Sweden.

During the crossing to Denmark, the convoy got into a severe storm that completely destroyed four ships of the line . Admiral Gyldenløve withdrew with his battered fleet to Køge Bay. In addition, diseases broke out among the crews of the ships, which made the situation worse and meant that the ships were only manned under the specified strength. Gyldenløve had to surrender four ships in the North Sea and put five more ships out of service (they were towed to Copenhagen ). As a result, his fleet shrank to 26 ships of the line with 1,700 cannons, five frigates and 13 smaller warships. In addition, 40 merchant ships, which were converted as troop transports for the Russian contingent, belonged to the Gyldenløve convoy. The total strength of the crews was about 10,000 men. The flagship of the fleet was the liner Elephant , which was armed with 90 cannons.

Despite the contrary order to set sail and land in Sweden, the Gyldenløves fleet remained in the bay. On September 21, 1710, the Swedish fleet set sail with 21 ships of the line (a total of 1,500 cannons), several frigates and smaller ships under the command of Admiral Wachtmeister from Karlskrona . Its flagship was the Gata Loewe , a ship of the line with 96 cannons. The Swedish fleet headed for the Øresund to involve the Danish invasion fleet in a sea battle.

The naval battle

When the Swedish fleet reached Køge Bay on September 24, 1710, the Danish fleet, which had been alerted beforehand, had already entered the combat position . The Swedish officers knew nothing of the low level of readiness of the Danish ships, so they avoided an open sea battle and only shot at the avant-garde of the Danes with the ships .

In the course of the firefight, the Danish liner Dannebroge caught fire. Since the cannons overheated from continuous fire, the surrounding planks caught fire. Due to the risk of explosion of the ship and the resulting risk of setting other ships in the fleet on fire, the ship did not steer through the fleet to the beach. The anchor of the Dannebroge was not lifted and the surrounding ships were instructed to move away from the burning ship. Captain Huitfeldt died with almost all of his 800 sailors. Only three men could be pulled out of the water alive after the explosion. The bodies of the other crew members were picked up by the other ships and buried in the bay.

An emerging storm stopped the fighting between the fleets from continuing. Two Swedish ships Drei Kronen under the command of Admiral Ruuth and Princess Ulrika Eleonora under the command of Rear Admiral of lions were damaged during the storm, ran aground and were abandoned by their crews and burned. Both were ships of the line with 90 cannons.

rating

The skirmish was not crucial, but the Russian-Danish plan to invade southern Sweden was foiled.

After the storm had subsided on September 27, 1710, the Swedish fleet withdrew to Ystad . Chasing the Danes in shallow waters was too dangerous for Admiral Wachtmeister. The Danish fleet withdrew to Copenhagen to winter.

monument

Monument column for the commander Ivar Huitfeldt (Mindesøjle for søhelten Ivar Huitfeldt)

A memorial column on the Langelinie in Copenhagen today commemorates the captain of the Dannebroge, Ivar Huitfeldt (1665–1710) and his around 800 crew members who lost their lives in the battle. The column is adorned with cannon parts that, like the anchor, were recovered from the wreckage still in the Køge Bugt in 1872–1875.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Lundblad, p. 215
2. ↑ Fyrell, p 89
3. ↑ Københavns Kommune: Mindesøjle for søhelten Ivar Huitfeldt (1665–1710) ( Memento of the original of July 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on September 19, 2012 (Danish) 

literature

• Anders Fryxell: Life story of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden Volume 3, Braunschweig (1861)
• Knut Lundblad, Georg Friedrich Jenssen-Tusch: History of Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden , Volume 2, Hamburg (1835)