Svärdet (1662)
 The Svärdet in a painting by Claus Møinichen from 1686. Her transom can be seen in the far right center of the picture. The Kronan explodes in the front left .
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The Svärdet (in German "The Sword") was a Swedish sailing warship ("Regalskepp") with 86-94 cannons that took part in the sea battle at Öland . She acted here as the flagship of Admiral Claas Uggla and was badly damaged in battle, so that she sank after an explosion in the powder chamber in the Baltic Sea. In 2011, a wreck was found near the alleged point of loss, which experts assume must be the Svärdet .
The ship
The ship was a square sail with three masts ( mizzen mast , main mast and foremast ). Only on the mizzen mast was there a latin sail in the lowest position (undersan sail) . In addition, the blind could be seated at the bowsprit . At the bowsprit there was a Mars , on which a bowsprit mast was installed, on which the upper blind (Bouvenblinde) could be set.
The Svärdet was a three-decker and ended in the stern area with a smooth transom . As a central eye-catcher and representative carving, there were two lions facing each other in the upper third of the transom, leaning on the royal sword. This sculptural work was framed by various allegorical and baroque carvings. The ornate transom led into the side galleries at the outer lateral ends . Above the transom, three large stern lights were attached, which rounded off the traditional appearance of the stern area of a flagship .
The hull was planked in the Kraweel construction including the bulwark , which, in contrast to the clinker construction, was characterized by a relatively flat surface.
The Svärdet was equipped with 86-94 cannons , with the heavier calibers positioned on the lower armored deck. The cannons were usually from our own Swedish production and were integrated on the three weapon decks , the upper deck and in the transom.
The name "The Sword" is taken from the Swedish imperial insignia . At the same time, other ships were also named after the insignia: Kronan (Imperial Crown), Riksäpplet ( Imperial Orb) and Riks-Nyckeln ( Imperial Key ). Ships with these names were usually the largest in the fleet.
history
Construction and time after launch
The ship Svärdet was launched in 1662 under the supervision of master shipbuilder Thomas Day in Stockholm . It was started under Karl X. Gustav and carried out by the shipbuilder Jakob Voss.
She was the second largest sailing warship in the Swedish Navy of her time and was only surpassed by the Kronan . In addition to the Kronan , she was also the only ship in the Swedish fleet during the service time of both ships that carried 36 pounder cannons.
No serious details are known about the story from the launch up to the sea battle at Öland.
Scandinavian war and sea battle near Öland
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Both the Kronan and the Svärdet were used in the Scandinavian War (1674–1679) , in which from 1675 Sweden and Denmark fought for the former Danish possessions in southern Sweden, which were ceded to Sweden by Denmark in the Peace of Roskilde in 1658 were. The Kronan and the Svärdet were to join the Swedish fleet off the island of Öland in June 1676 in order to fight a battle for naval supremacy on the Baltic Sea against a united Dutch-Danish fleet .
The Svärdet flag officer at that time was Claas Uggla, who as Vice Admiral commanded part of the Swedish fleet.
On April 1, 1676 at around 11 a.m., the enemy had already come at close range, Svärdet, sailing in the keel line, gave a signal shot. The right-seeunerfahrene Baron Lorentz Creutz , who a year had previously been appointed supreme commander of the Swedish fleet only misinterpreted the signal, leaving its flagship Kronan under full sail and with open gun ports perform a hard turning maneuvers. The ship was hit by a gust and heeled so much that considerable amounts of water penetrated the hull through the open gun ports and the ship was listed.
This list apparently also caused some cannons to be detached from the brook ropes intended for anchoring on the ship's sides and shifted the center of gravity of the ship even more unfavorably to the side of the ship now partially in the water. Flying fuses or lanterns that came into contact with black powder eventually triggered a chain reaction that led to an explosion of the powder chamber. As a result, the ship began to sink.
The Svärdet hurried to the aid of the sinking Kronan and even collided with her, but then had to fall off to avoid collision or fire damage.
Apparently demoralized and shocked by the early loss of the lead ship and the commander in chief of its own fleet, the Swedish battle line quickly got into disarray, especially as the Swedish vanguard fled the battle.
The Dutch-Danish admirals, including the Dutchman Cornelis Tromp , who as admiral-general had supreme command of the Danish Navy, took advantage of the collapse of the Swedish battle formation and continued:
At around 12:00 p.m., after the almost complete collapse of the vanguard battle line with his flagship Svärdet , Vice Admiral Claas Uggla found himself surrounded by several ships of the allies, including Tromp's flagship Christianus Quintus , and involved in a violent firefight.
For over two hours, the Svärdet fought almost alone against four ships from the Danish-Dutch fleet. The bulk of the remaining Swedish ships could not cross free due to the leeward position and give Uggla no support.
In this phase of the battle, around 2:00 p.m., the Svärdet was attacked and set on fire by the Dutch fireman t'Hoen , who hooked himself to her ship's side. The Svärdet was quickly caught in the flames, which spread more and more. Finally, some guns and their powder ignited themselves, some of which blasted holes in the underwater hull.
Uggla eventually saw his ship slowly becoming uncontrollable after it was de-masted, shot to pieces, and even riddled below the waterline. Nevertheless, he did not give the order to remove the flag . Since the ship seemed lost anyway and should not fall into the hands of the enemy, Uggla ordered no fire-fighting measures. He therefore intentionally stayed on the helpless drifting ship and was ready to go down with it if necessary.
At around 4 p.m., the fire finally reached one of the powder chambers and caused an explosion that blew away part of the stern and led to the final sinking of the ship.
Only about 20 men of the entire ship's crew and soldiers survived - Vice Admiral Uggla was not one of them. In the files of the Swedish archives, the loss of this ship is given as 191,000 Reichstaler .
Wreckage
After the wreck of the Kronan had been found and identified in 1981 and 30,000 artifacts had meanwhile been recovered, the Swedish company Deep Sea Productions , which specializes in underwater film recordings, came across a wreck in the south-east of Öland at a depth of 70 meters in 2011 , which experts assume that it is Svärdet , which sank in 1676 .
The wreck lies outside Swedish waters and is in a preserved and therefore extremely good condition.
This is due to the fact that the water temperatures at the wreck site are low. In addition, the Baltic Sea has only a low salinity and is not inhabited by the wood-eating shipworm , which normally eats up the wrecks. Thus, rotting processes and rust formation as well as animal damage were largely absent and left the ship in almost unchanged condition as it sank. Even the galley in the foredeck is completely intact.
More detailed investigations will show whether the wreck is actually the Svärdet , but there are some indications for this:
- The site is closely related to the sea battle near Öland .
- The aft ship, which exploded near Svärdet at the end of the battle, is also missing from the wreck that was found.
- Investigations of wood samples showed that the wood used dates from the 17th century.
- The number of cannons and the fact that it was a shipwreck with three cannon decks.
Sometimes the name of the ship is also engraved in the cannons - then the degree of identification would be quite high if such a cannon could be found in the wreck.
According to a statement by one of the divers who worked at the site, salvage of the entire ship is very likely out of the question because of the rather great depth, but salvage of artefacts will be attempted as soon as the legal framework and the financial means appear to be secure.
literature
- Carlo M. Cipolla: Sails and Cannons - The European Expansion at Sea. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-8031-3602-4 .
- Finn Askgaard: Kampen till sjöss . In: Göran Rystad (ed.): Kampen om Skåne . New extended edition. Historiska media, Lund 2005, ISBN 91-85057-05-3 , pp. 171-186.
- Günter Lanitzki : flagship Kronan. Treasury off the coast of Sweden . Transpress, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-344-00398-4 .
- Helmut Pemsel : Command of the Sea. A world maritime history from its beginnings to 1850 . Volume 1: From the beginning to 1850 . License issue. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89350-711-6 .
- Artur A. Svensson (Ed.): Svenska Flottans Historia. Volume I, Malmö 1942.
- Lists of men of was 1650-1700 . Volume 3: Hj.Börjeson: Swedish ships . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1936-1939.
- Björn Axel Johansson (Ed.): Regalskeppet Kronan. Trevi, Stockholm 1985, ISBN 91-7160-740-4 .
Web links
- Spiegel Online Reporting
- Swedens News in English: Reporting on the wreckage
- Report on the wreckage finds Mars and Svärdet
- PM magazine coverage ( Memento from November 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Footnotes
- ↑ the description of the ship shown here partly refers to contemporary paintings of the ship
- ↑ After initial quality deficiencies, Swedish cannons were successfully manufactured according to Dutch know-how, so that Sweden rose to become one of the leading arms manufacturers in Europe from 1639 onwards. In 1668 a total of 1,346 cannons left the Swedish manufactories on the export route (after Cipolla, p. 61 ff.). The export demand was only taken into account when the Swedish demand was met.
- ↑ Information on the website of the Swedish Maritime History Network ( Memento from November 20, 2011 on WebCite )
- ↑ Some comments on media coverage of the wreckage refer to the Kronan and the Svärdet as sister ships, although the Kronan was in fact equipped with considerably more cannons.
- ↑ The appearance of the ship in this illustration differs somewhat from the original and is freely interpreted, probably also painted considerably later than the paintings by contemporaries. In particular, the three stern lights typical of a flagship are missing.
- ↑ There are descriptions of the battle that say that Ugglas falling from the accident site of the Kronan was interpreted by the Swedish vanguard as an escape maneuver and was therefore a model for their own behavior, namely to withdraw from the battle as quickly as possible.
- ↑ There are quotes that put the battle at up to five hours.
- ↑ A description of the battle states that the Svärdet flag caught fire and could therefore no longer be painted, which is why the attack continued.
- ↑ Uggla is said to have exclaimed in the last phase of the battle: “The Danes will neither get me alive nor my ship. Let it burn! "
- ↑ One of the survivors was the Captain Anders Homman. He later rose to become Holms major and did not die until 1685. His epitaph with the image of Svärdet is in the cathedral church of Kalmar.
- ↑ Günter Lanitzki: flagship Kronan. Treasury off the coast of Sweden . P. 60.
- ↑ According to information from Deep Sea Productions (DSP), the wreck of the Swedish Mars , which sank in 1564, is also nearby. Since the legal circumstances for possible salvage work are apparently not clear and the laws allow a lot of room for interpretation, DSP does not want to publish the exact position of both wrecks in 2011 until the general conditions for salvage work are established.
- ↑ according to Johan Rönnby, professor of marine archeology at Södertörn University
- ↑ according to a statement by diver Richard Lundgren
- ↑ Various cannon calibers were also found on the wreck - if there were 36 pounder cannons among them, this could be a further indication, as only the Svärdet and Kronan on the Swedish side had this caliber on board. The location of the Kronan's wreck has been known since 1981. Conversely, the wreck can only be the Svärdet with the appropriate ship dimensions .
- ↑ Mars , which was also found near the Svärdet site , could be identified by engraving the ship's name on the cannons.
- ↑ Johan Rönnby of Deep Sea Productions