Maritime state formation and empire building in the Baltic (II)

 

The rise of Nordic sea power, 1500–70

The Nordic union had been formed by Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the late fourteenth century. Its first rulers had been able to create a strong monarchy which was able to fight the Hanse at sea on equal terms. However, from the 1430s aristocratic groups in Denmark and Sweden took control of the states. From 1448 the Oldenburg dynasty ruled in Denmark and Norway but various attempts to re-establish the union with Sweden failed. From 1470, Sweden was in practice an aristocratic republic. The Oldenburg kings of Denmark and Norway were formally elected kings also in Sweden but they were not allowed to govern there. During the 1480s and 1490s King Hans (r. 1481–1513) methodically accumulated power to himself in Denmark and Norway. He was one of the European pioneers in creating strong sailing navies as instruments of state power. In 1497 he was able to take control of Sweden with a combination of armed force and negotiation. But soon after, in 1501, a faction of the Swedish aristocracy again rebelled against the King. Nevertheless, King Hans retained control over the Baltic Sea with his powerful navy, using it for a trade blockade of Sweden as well as support of Swedish castles in his possession and attacks against Swedish towns and coasts.

In 1509 Lübeck went to war against Denmark, followed by the smaller Hanse cities of Rostock, Wismar and Stralsund in the next year. These cities had become increasingly dissatisfied with the king’s policy which was intended to reduce their trade privileges in Denmark and Norway and to support Dutch trade with the Baltic. They were also hurt by the Danish blockade of Sweden which was one of their key markets. Lübeck sent a fleet to Stockholm which broke the blockade and during 1510/11 Danish and Lübeckian fleets operated against each other. Lübeck did its best to close the Sound to foreign shipping and both fleets raided enemy coasts. The Danish fleet could no longer support the remaining Danish positions in Sweden and in 1510 the Swedes took the castle in Kalmar and the island of Öland.

In spring 1511 the Danish fleet escorted a convoy of more than 200 merchantmen from Holland to various Baltic ports. After that it attacked Wismar and captured its fleet. On 9 August 1511 20 Danish and 18 Lübeckian ships fought an intense action off the island of Bornholm in the southern Baltic. It was mainly, perhaps only, fought with guns and other missile weapons. The two fleets were finally separated by the night and by heavy weather, but three days later the Lübeck fleet sighted the Dutch merchantmen returning from Baltic ports escorted by four Dutch warships. Lübeck’s fleet was able to capture, burn and drive ashore many ships before the Danish fleet arrived, the worst catastrophe ever suffered by Western European shipping in the Baltic. The naval operations in this year had been attempts to gain control of the sea lines of communication for strategic purposes. In 1512 peace was concluded. King Hans had for the time being given up the attempt to reconquer Sweden, but the Hanse had to give up the attempt to exclude the Dutch from the Baltic. It was Danish naval power which kept the Sound open for ships from outside the Baltic, although the Dutch catastrophe of 1511 showed that Lübeck might still be a powerful naval adversary.

King Hans’ son, Christian II (r. 1513–23), continued his father’s policy and made it into a more clear-cut programme for an early modern prince with radical ideas. Christian hoped to reconquer Sweden (where he had been elected heir to the throne in 1497), to create a centralised unified monarchy, to found a trading company based in Copenhagen and Stockholm in order to control trade between the Baltic and Western Europe and to eliminate the Hanse as a strong economic and political power. A strong and modern navy with large ships armed with heavy guns and an increased Sound Toll were corner-stones in this policy. He married a sister to Charles of Ghent, soon to become king of Spain and German emperor as Charles V. As Charles was the ruler of the Netherlands, this dynastic alliance was intended to create bonds of interest between Denmark and the rising mercantile centre in Western Europe. This Habsburg–Oldenburg connection became important in Nordic politics up to the 1540s. It was a complicated connection as Charles had to act as ruler of the Netherlands, as German emperor (as such the nominal protector of German Hanse cities), and as head of the House of Habsburg. These interests were often contradictory and usually made his support of his Danish brother-in-law ineffectual.

Christian II made new attempts to reconquer Sweden with amphibious attacks against Stockholm in 1517 and 1518 but his army was defeated on land. During 1520 a Danish mercenary army was able to occupy Sweden which was forced to accept Christian as king. The army, however, was too expensive to maintain and by 1521 rebellious Swedes under the young aristocrat Gustav Vasa were in control of most of the country. Christian could keep only Stockholm and some other coastal towns which could be supplied by his navy. Oldenburg empire-building efforts again proved to be essentially maritime: the kings could control fortified towns and enforce blockades, but their ability to control the vast rural areas of Sweden without the co-operation of local elites was limited.

Control over territory could, however, be converted into maritime resources and the future Vasa monarchy in Sweden was to prove this. In 1522 Gustav Vasa bought a substantial fleet of armed merchantmen in Lübeck and hired mercenaries in order to gain complete control over Sweden. Lübeck merchants provided the necessary credits which were to be paid by future taxes and trading privileges. Lübeck and other Hanse cities soon joined Sweden and the allied fleets began to assert control over the Baltic. Christian II’s regime in Denmark had become increasingly insecure and in early 1523 the Danish nobility sided with Lübeck. In spring 1523 Christian left Copenhagen with part of his fleet and sailed to the Netherlands. His uncle Frederik was elected king of Denmark and Norway, while Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden. The allied Hanse and (largely German-manned) Swedish fleets could blockade Stockholm, Copenhagen and other fortified towns into surrender.

Christian II had sailed to the Netherlands in order to organise a counterattack on land and at sea. This failed, partly because of Dutch resistance towards a conflict which might damage Baltic trade, but his admiral Sören Norby, equally skilled in fighting and politics, continued the resistance in the Baltic by sea and on land up to 1526.7 Lübeck played a major role in the fighting which gradually eliminated Norby’s and Christian II’s power base. The city was now in a position where it could get improved trade privileges from the Nordic kingdoms which were also in financial debt to it. The old mercantile metropolis on the Trave river seemed to have regained its former glory as the central Baltic entrepôt.

Christian II did finally sail to Norway with a Habsburg-sponsored army in 1531, but he was met by resistance from Sweden on land and by a Danish-Lübeckian fleet and was finally taken prisoner. Much had happened in his former Nordic kingdoms in his absence, especially in Sweden, where Gustav Vasa rapidly created a modern dynastic state, introduced Lutheranism, confiscated church property and used it to create a strong army and navy. In Denmark and Norway the power base of the junior branch of the Oldenburg dynasty was less secure. When King Frederik died in 1533 the majorities in the councils of the two kingdoms did not wish to elect his oldest son Christian (later Christian III) as king, partly because he was a sincere Lutheran. In 1534 a civil war started in Denmark. Lübeck intervened, occupied Copenhagen and the city of Malmö on the opposite side of the Sound and gained control over the Danish fleet. This was part of a radical programme, where the old Hanse city tried to close the Sound to the Dutch and regain favourable trading privileges in Scandinavia.

In Sweden, King Gustav had already begun to cancel these privileges and he regarded Lübeck’s offensive actions as a serious threat. He chose to support Christian (III) in the Danish civil war.8 Gustav sent his army to occupy eastern Denmark (Scania) and in spring 1535 his new fleet, including four major ships of about 500 to 1,700 tonnes displacement, was sent to the southern Baltic. The Swedes joined a Prussian fleet and a squadron of ships controlled by Christian (III), although most of these ships were small or simply armed merchantmen. A major part of the Swedish army sailed with the fleet which was further strengthened by Dutch merchantmen requisitioned for naval service. The allied fleet first defeated Lübeck’s main fleet (whose major units were Danish warships) at Bornholm in a gunfire battle on 9 June and then destroyed or captured another enemy fleet which controlled the Danish straits. The allies were now in control of the sea lines of communication in the Baltic, the island of Zealand could be invaded, and Copenhagen and Malmö were surrounded by the allied army and fleet. In November 1535 Lübeck’s fleet was able to land supplies close to Copenhagen, but early in the next year the city had to conclude peace. Its role as a power on the same level as the two Nordic kingdoms, with ambitions to intervene in their domestic politics, was finished.

Somewhat ironically, the defenders of Copenhagen and Malmö now sought and obtained support from the Habsburgs who began to prepare a large fleet with an army in Holland for intervention in Denmark and Norway in favour of Christian II and his relatives. It was, however, delayed by the reluctance of the Dutch towns to be involved in a war that might damage their Baltic trade, and the expedition was finally abandoned when the Habsburgs became involved in a war with France during 1536. Christian III could now send a fleet and an army to take control of Norway, where a powerful group under the leadership of the last Catholic archbishop had hoped for a Habsburg intervention. Protestantism now became firmly established in Denmark-Norway and confiscated church property increased the financial base of state power, not least the navy. From 1536, Denmark-Norway developed into a centralised monarchy, balanced by a strong but co-operative aristocratic council.

For some years, the Habsburgs continued to support Christian II’s claim to the Nordic thrones and Sweden and Denmark-Norway felt compelled to form an alliance in 1541.9 In these years there was much open and potential domestic insurrection against the still very recent creation of strong states and Protestant churches, but the opposition’s traditional access to foreign support was cut off by sea power. Both kingdoms had given high priority to the creation of permanent royal navies of gun-armed ships, and this now gave them an edge over potentially much superior powers which had paid less attention to naval organisation and new technology. The two monarchies were now the dominant sea powers in the Baltic (the Prussian duke sold his navy in the 1540s) and this position made them fairly secure against invasion or infiltration (support to the opposition) from the House of Habsburg, Lübeck, the Dutch provinces and various power groups in northern Germany.

Geography, new technology and conscious state building rather suddenly made the Nordic powers into more powerful players on the international scene. In 1542 Denmark joined France in the war against Charles V. The Sound was closed to Dutch shipping and the Danish navy even took the offensive in the North Sea. It was planned to attack the strategically important island of Walcheren in the Netherlands in 1543, but severe gales in the North Sea made it impossible. Peace was concluded with the Habsburgs in 1544 where the emperor finally accepted that Christian III was king of Denmark, but the Danish navy had to continue to protect Danish-Norwegian waters from privateering and piracy during the almost continuous wars in Western Europe. From 1544 to the late 1550s the Baltic was a comparatively calm area where trade flourished and the new power structure began to settle. Sweden and Russia were involved in war from 1554. From 1540, Sweden had built a considerable galley fleet where its new army of state-controlled militia soldiers could be used as both oarsmen and landing force. This galley fleet was used in an attack along the river Neva in 1555 but without success against the unexpectedly strong Russian resistance.

The war ended in 1557 without any loss or gain, but in 1558 Russia took the important trading city of Narva in the Gulf of Finland. Thus started the final dissolution of the German Order when the towns and nobility of the eastern Baltic rapidly began to look for protectors against Russian expansion. The island of Ösel became a Danish protectorate in 1559, while Reval (Tallinn) and Estonia submitted to the Swedish crown, and Livonia and Courland to Poland-Lithuania in 1561. The three protecting powers immediately ran into a conflict about their spheres of interest. From a maritime point of view control of the trade to Narva, Reval, Pernau and Riga was at stake. Sweden began to claim a dominion over the Gulf of Finland, and its fleet began to capture ships from Lübeck and other towns which did not follow Swedish decrees that their Russian trade must be directed to Swedish-held Reval and that the profitable Narva trade should be left to the subjects of the Swedish king.

Sweden and Poland went to war in Livonia and tensions also rose rapidly between Sweden and Denmark-Norway, now ruled by two young, ambitious and naval-minded kings, Erik XIV (r. 1560–68) and Frederik II (r. 1559–88) respectively. Frederik found the new power assertions of Sweden intolerable and allied himself with Lübeck. The tensions erupted in a naval battle off Bornholm on 30 May 1563. Swedish and Danish fleets met and the Danish admiral demanded that the Swedes offer the customary marks of respect to the Danish king in the waters under his dominium. These were denied and a four-hour battle followed in which the Danish flagship and two other ships were taken and two more damaged. The Danish fleet had attempted to board the Swedish ships which answered with gunfire, mainly from modern copper guns which could be fired with large powder charges. The Danish fleet was mainly armed with the older type of wrought-iron breech-loaders which could only be fired with small powder-charges and had less effect on major ships.

Tactically the battle was typical of the following years of war. The Swedes attempted to fight with gunfire and Erik XIV made a major effort to provide his rapidly increasing fleet with new copper guns from the royal foundries which could use Sweden’s vast resources of copper ore. Denmark and Lübeck originally had to rely on boarding tactics, as their ordnance mainly consisted of wrought-iron breech-loaders. During the war they gradually renewed their armament, the Danes especially by purchase of English-made cast-iron guns – as the only guns which could be acquired quickly. The contending navies also made large-scale investments in purpose-built gun-armed warships where Sweden initially had a superiority. Tactically the navies developed new ideas. From 1564 the Danish admiral Herluf Trolle divided his and Lübeck’s fleet into groups of three ships, one large and two smaller. The fleet was intended to form a wedge when it attacked from a windward position. If the fleet was attacked in a leeward position it was intended that it should form line ahead for mutual support. The Swedish fleet also used three-ship formations but here the tactical idea seems to have been that the major ships should form line abreast or line ahead, each with two smaller ships in a second line, ready to support the major units when they became engaged with the enemy. The contending fleets fought seven major battles in 38 months from 1563 to 1566. Technology, tactics and practical implementation of theories and lessons from earlier battles interacted as never before since the introduction of gunpowder in warfare between sailing ships.

During the summer of 1563 Denmark and Lübeck fitted out large fleets, mainly by buying and hiring merchantmen which were provided with guns and soldiers. The allied fleet sailed northwards in the Baltic Sea to blockade Stockholm and to force the Swedes to a battle. The Danes had around 20 major units of at least 300 tonnes displacement, while Lübeck had five. 12 Sweden met this fleet with a dozen major units of 300 tonnes or more, although most of these were purpose-built warships, and some smaller Swedish ships which took part in the battle probably had heavier armament than the allied merchantmen. The two fleets joined battle on 11 September, the allies to enforce the blockade, the Swedes probably to inflict so much damage on the enemy that he would have to return home for repairs. Tactically, the allies again attempted to board and the Swedish fleet was able to avoid that. It was, however, forced to retreat into the Swedish archipelago. The allies cruised in northern Baltic until late October in spite of the increasingly severe autumn weather, but it is doubtful if their blockade was effective. Baltic autumns were often too severe for effective naval operations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In the next year, the alliance hoped to continue the trade blockade of Sweden while Erik XIV intended that his fleet should decisively defeat the enemy with gunfire in order to break the blockade and support offensive army operations in Scania. On 30 May 1564 a Swedish fleet of 16 major units (300 tonnes and more) met at least 15 Danish and ten Lübeck ship of the same size off the island of Öland. Most of the Swedish ships were purpose-built warships while all except the largest on the allied side were armed merchantmen. An intense gunfire battle followed in which the Swedes had the initiative as long as they had the weather gauge. On the following day, the wind turned, the allied fleet could attack, and gradually the Swedish ships left the battle, leaving the flagship, the giant Mars (c. 1,800 tonnes) to fight alone. This ship was finally destroyed by fire after her rudder had been damaged by gunfire. The attempt to win a naval battle with guns only had failed, although gunfire obviously had had significant effects. One of Lübeck’s ships sank and some Danish ships suffered serious structural damage.

Apparently the battle caused the allies to underestimate the Swedish fleet. It was soon at sea again and at Bornholm it captured a large Lübeck convoy from Narva. The fleet returned to port with its prizes but was sent out once more by a dissatisfied Erik XIV who put it under the command of Klas Horn, an experienced soldier, in the hope that it would achieve what the king hoped for, a decisive defeat of the enemy battle fleet. The two fleets met once again in a series of fights between Öland and Gotland from 11 to 15 August 1564. The Danish admiral, Herluf Trolle, described the actions as an enervating chase of an enemy which consistently avoided close-range action and used the superiority in speed and weatherliness of his purpose-built warships to keep the distance. Apparently the Swedish fleet had learnt how to avoid close-range action, but not how to win a stand-off battle by gunfire. In the end, three Danish ships which probably mistook the positions of the fleets during the night were captured by the Swedes, but strategically the battle was a draw. The Swedes went to Kalmar and controlled the northern Baltic, while the allied fleet cruised in the southern Baltic, thus cutting off Swedish trade with Germany.

In 1565, Erik XIV was able to send a larger fleet to sea in early May, in itself an organisational achievement. It comprised around 25 major ships of 300 tonnes or more. Around ten allied ships cruising in the southern Baltic were surprised by the early appearance of the Swedes. Most of them were burnt by their own crews or interned by the Duke of Pomerania for the rest of the war. The blockade of Sweden was broken and the Swedes also took tolls from a large number of neutral (mainly Dutch) merchantmen which passed through the Sound. Apart from the income, it was a symbolic act to show that control of the southern Baltic had passed into new hands. When a hastily assembled fleet of 11 Danish and 10 Lübeckian major ships attacked the Swedes in the waters between Mecklenburg and the Danish isles on 4 June, it was beaten back by gunfire. Its commander Herluf Trolle, one of the most interesting admirals of the sixteenth century, was mortally wounded. On 7 July, the allies made a new and determined attempt to defeat the Swedish fleet off the island of Bornholm. In a fierce contest between around 27 major ships on each side, a close-range action was fought with heavy loss of life. It ended with an allied retreat after the Danish flagship had been taken and another Danish ship (possibly also a Lübeck ship) had been sunk by gunfire. The Swedes lost three ships.

In 1566 the Swedish fleet again started early, taking control of southern Baltic in June with a fleet of almost 30 major ships. Again tolls were levied at the southern end of the Sound and many merchantmen were forced to sail to Sweden to sell their cargoes there. The allies were able only slowly to gather a fleet of the same size which on 26 July fought an intense but indecisive action off Öland. Interestingly, both sides adhered to gunnery tactics in this battle. The allied fleet sailed to Gotland where it was caught on a lee shore when an unusually severe summer gale arose. Denmark lost nine and Lübeck three major ships (300 to perhaps 1,500 tonnes) wrecked off the town of Visby.

These losses could not be made good during the war. In 1567, the Swedish fleet dominated the Baltic, but in 1568 civil war (in which Erik XIV was deposed by his brothers) and financial exhaustion made it impossible to send the main fleet to sea. The situation on the allied side was much the same, although they were able to make a raid against Reval in 1569. Sweden and Denmark-Norway (allied with Lübeck and Poland) had fought a war on land and at sea on a much larger scale than ever before. The ability of the centralised state to mobilise resources for war had been proved but no victory was in sight on any side. In 1570 the three naval powers intended to make a final effort at sea but only the Swedish fleet finally appeared in full strength. No major battle took place and the three huge fleet flagships of at least 2,000 tonnes built in the middle of the war never met in combat. These three, the Swedish Röde Draken (originally called Neptunus), the Danish Fortuna and Lübeck’s Adler, were the largest warships in the world at this time, and, together with other new purpose-built warships, they represented the lessons of the first ‘modern’ war between sailing fleets.

The least dramatic, but probably most important, lesson learned in this war was logistical and organisational. Both sides had attempted to keep their fleets at sea from spring to autumn. Earlier naval operations had often been concentrated in confined waters such as the Danish straits and the Swedish archipelago where the strain from the weather was less intense. The new type of naval operations required intense preparations during the winter and a well-planned supply of food and spare parts during the operations. The Swedish fleet was usually provisioned for about two months and continuously supplied with food from storeships. Ships damaged in combat and by heavy weather must quickly be repaired and seamen and soldiers must be found continuously to replace losses. Most officers were initially inexperienced in sea service and they had to learn how to solve these problems on a routine basis without returning to the main bases in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Lübeck which were often at a distance from the critical area of operation.

Tactically, it had become clear that gunfire could prevent boarding and even sink ships. Another lesson was that purpose-built warships were far superior to armed merchantmen due to their armament, speed, weatherliness and ability to resist gunfire. Armed merchantmen with infantry could no longer be the main force of a battle fleet. The large investments made in guns and warships by the three powers show that they drew the same lesson from the battles. However, the gun was not a wonder weapon that inevitably brought quick victory. The Swedish ammunition expenditure is known for the years 1564 and 1565. The ships which were engaged in most or all actions in these years fired on average 25 to 30 rounds for every gun during one year – major units usually more than the minor which suggests that they were more heavily engaged. This means that most ships did not fire more than a few shots from each gun every hour. As some ships are known to have fired more rapidly than this, the general slow firing rate cannot be explained only by slow loading procedures.13 It must reflect the fact that the battle formations did not give many opportunities to fire, at least not full broadsides. In spite of that, ships were sunk or suffered considerable damage in hull and rigging and many men were killed and wounded by gunfire.
Strategically, both fleets consistently tried to defeat the enemy’s main fleet in a decisive battle in order to take control of the sea lines of communication. Blockade, control of supply lines and power over neutral trade were important objects of naval operations. In earlier Baltic wars the main army had often been carried by the main fleet to a decisive area of operation, such as Copenhagen or Stockholm. In this war, the contending armies were much larger than in earlier wars and too large to be concentrated on the fleet. Erik XIV hoped to use his fleet for support of offensive army operations in areas close to the coast, but this was not achieved. As the fleets were no longer required to carry a very large number of soldiers their endurance and ability to stay at sea for extended periods increased. However, compared to later periods, the Baltic warships of this war still had very large crews and many soldiers.

The interaction between state formation, technology and naval and military organisation was also obvious. It was an initial Swedish advantage in modern gunnery and purpose-built warships that enabled that country to break the blockade which otherwise might have caused an early defeat. As the allies must have had an advantage in their number of experienced seamen – Lübeck was still a major shipping city – the Swedish advantage in technology was even more important as it neutralised this inferiority. The fact that Sweden, the power with the least developed maritime economy, was able to resist and defeat an alliance of the two powers which since the fifteenth century had fought over naval hegemony in the Baltic shows that the organisational power of the state had become decisive in naval warfare.

 

(To be followed)