The 19th Century, 1800 - 1899 War with The United Kingdom

1807 Bombardment

After a few years of peace south of the border of Denmark, France and United Kingdom are again at war with eachother.

To defend the Danish borders 20,000 soldiers are placed in Holstein. At the same time the crownprince Frederik and the minister of Foreign Affairs (Secretary of State) are moving to Kiel.

It means a kind of weakness in the government of Denmark, because it is much more difficult to make decisions, when the rest of the government still is at Copenhagen.

The German-Roman empire stopped to exist because France have occupied Prussia in 1806 and some Danish and french soldiers having a fight because the french are following some escaping prussian troops.

Denmark tells the United Kingdom clearly, Denmark will be allied with England if Denmark can't stay neutral in the conflict between France and the United Kingdom.

United Kingdom is forbidden all ships including ships from neutral countries to land in harbours of its enemies. Denmark is protesting and the new minister of foreign affairs in England, Canning, do not trust the Danes.

In August 1807 a big English fleet is operating in the Danish waters and at the same time a diplomat from the United Kingdom Jackson is arriving at Kiel to have a negotiation with the Danish crownprince Frederik.

Jackson has a proposal to the Danish government:

Denmark shall give England the Danish navy and also joins a military co-operation with England.

The proposal is like an ultimatum and the negotiations are ending in serious quarrels. The crownprince moves in a big hurry back to the Danish capital, the English diplomat follows. In Copenhagen the diplomat tries to negotiate again, but because the English proposal is an ultimatum, the negotiations stop and the diplomat goes onboard the English navyships, which are just outside Copenhagen.

August the 16th 1807 England is landing 31,000 welltrained soldiers north of Copenhagen at the little fishing-hamlet Vedbæk. The troops are moving south in the direction of Copenhagen. The moral in the Danish army is very high, but they are only 13,000 soldiers. The Danes were preparing for a longer siege and everybody was ready for the fight, the Danish commander of the capitol have been ordered not to surrender.

Some of the English officers did not want to bombard the Danish capital, but the diplomat - Jackson ordered the bombardment to begin.

September the 2nd began the very first bombardment in the world of a capitol to terrorize the civil people. For the first time their were used a new weapon - rockets. The bombardment lastet for 5 days, and the September the 7th Denmark was forced to surrender to the English.

Over 300 houses and some churches in Copenhagen were burned down or badly damaged as a result of the bombardment. The English demanded the whole Danish navy, and the October the 21st the English sailed away with 69 ship of lines, fregates, brigs, and other navyships.

The navy was something special to Denmark, the Danes have since they were vikings been proud of their ships. To ensure Denmark couldn't be able to build new navyships, the English also destroy the ships, which were in dock. Denmark felt the stealing of the navy and the bombardment of Copenhagen were very unjust so why should the Danes trust the English, when they said Denmark keep the neutrality and also could get the navy back after the war. - it lasted over a generation before the English were welcome in Denmark again.

October the 31st a Danish-french treaty were signed at Fontainebleau and the 4th of November England declares war at Denmark.

In 1808 Russia persuade Denmark to go to war once again against Sweden. 26,000 french-spanish troops are coming to Denmark to help the Danes to fight in Scania. The insane king, Christian being so scared of all the foreign troops, so he dies. King Christian is followed by his son, Frederik, who has been the de-facto ruler of Denmark since 1784.

After the loss of the navy was the English ruling the Danish waters. Denmark couldn't build new navyships quickly enough, instead the Danes build a lot of small boats with a canon in the stem. The boats were rowed like the old vikingships - in the minor waters, which are surrounding Denmark, the canon-boats did a great job, but they couldn't breake the English ruling of the Danish waters.

The war between Denmark and Sweden is ended by a new peaceagreement signed December the 10th 1809.

In 1810 king Frederik 6. could have been king of Sweden too, but he was too arrogant for the Swedes, instead Sweden got the french marshal Bernadotte.