The Battle of Copenhagen was one of the most savage sea actions of the Napoleonic Wars. In a matter of hours, the British suffered more than 900 casualties, and the number of Danes killed and wounded was even greater. But beyond the appalling human toll, the events off Copenhagen on 2 April 1801 were historically important for additional reasons. First, they changed the geopolitical landscape at a crucial point in Britain’s life-and-death struggle with Napoleonic France. In addition, the Battle of Copenhagen provided a unique window on the character of one of history’s most successful combat leaders, a view revealing new—and in some ways surprising—aspects of the intriguing personality of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson. To date, the significance of the four hours when Nelson and the Danes exchanged death and destruction has been underplayed by historians, and the 200th anniversary year of the ferocious struggle is an appropriate time to revisit the event with an eye toward new perspectives.
Danger from the North
By 1801, Britain’s war with France had been raging for eight years. It had ranged from the West Indies to North Africa, and as the century turned, ominous developments gathered momentum in the Baltic. There, under Russia’s lead, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia had joined in the formation of the League of Armed Neutrality. An immediate cause of the formation of the league was Britain’s insistence on its right to stop and search neutral vessels at sea for contraband. But the existence of the league was much more than a threat to Britain’s ability to flex its naval muscles. In a broader geopolitical context the movement of the league’s members toward an open alliance with France was a dagger from the north aimed right at Britain’s heart.
The threat was multidimensional. There was the potential loss to Britain of important trade. Although its trade with the West and East Indies was substantially greater, Britain’s trade in the Baltic had more than a strictly economic impact. Scandinavia was Britain’s primary source of strategic naval materiel—masts, spars, iron, hemp, pitch, and tar—that was vital both to the muscle of its foreign policy (the navy) and the sinews of a growing empire (the merchant marine). The league also was a major threat to Britain’s alliance-building strategy to contain Napoleon. Finally, there was the fear that the Danish fleet would join that of France. The maritime context of all these threats was particularly significant, for at the time Britain’s campaigns against the French were sea- rather than land-oriented.
An Irresistible Force Confronts an Immovable Object
In March 1801, Britain organized a fleet to meet the threat in the Baltic. Sixty-one-year-old Admiral Sir Hyde Parker—just returned from a shore assignment in the West Indies—was appointed commander-in- chief, and Nelson was designated second-in-command. The contrasts between the two officers were stark. Parker, who had a distinguished early career, had become rich from prize money, much of which came from his admiral’s share of prizes taken by the captains under his command. He no longer was an aggressive leader who sought combat, and he had a reputation for showing blatant favoritism among his officers. Adding to Parker’s negative inertia as commander-in-chief of the Baltic fleet, he had just been married to an 18-year-old girl, referred to in the fleet as “Batter Pudding.”
In contrast, Nelson’s career, up to the time of his Baltic assignment at age 42, had been filled with much combat but little prize money. He had been in action more than 120 times; hand-to-hand combat, single-ship actions, and major fleet battles all were prominent in his resume. As a result of his combat leadership, Nelson inspired fierce loyalty among those who served with him. Following his combat doctrine, based on the principle that “the boldest measures are the safest,” he had led the British Navy to an electrifying victory over the French at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798. Dudley Pope bluntly summed up the battle in his book The Great Gamble (London: Weidenfeld &. Nicolson, 1972), writing that, “There had never before been such a great British sea victory as the Battle of the Nile.” After this triumph at Aboukir Bay, Nelson was lionized as “the savior of Europe.” His crushing victory there also changed the face of naval warfare, making navies potentially more decisive instruments of national policy.
Just as Nelson’s reputation as an aggressive war fighter contrasted with Parker’s as a cautious, risk-averse leader, so did their personal lives contrast sharply. In 1800, Nelson made a controversial return to Britain from the Mediterranean in the company of Sir William and Emma Lady Hamilton, and he had suffered considerable criticism for his behavior while commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean during the previous year. His domestic life was in turmoil, and in January 1801 he separated from his wife of almost 14 years. Simultaneously, Nelson was embarked on a notorious romance with Lady Hamilton, whom he had met in Naples, and who was described many ways—but never compared to anything as innocuous as batter pudding.
Surprising Subtlety
Nelson was ordered to Parker’s command on 17 February 1801, and it immediately became clear that he was uncomfortable with his commander-in-chief’s unenthusiastic preparations. Parker was showing few signs of getting his fleet under way from Great Yarmouth on England’s Norfolk coast. Surprisingly, however, Nelson showed a patience with his senior officer that had not been obvious in his early career. He avoided a direct confrontation and instead chose to accelerate the fleet’s departure using subtler methods. He quietly made Parker’s creeping preparations known to his mentor of long standing, Earl St. Vincent (at the time First Lord of the Admiralty), and to his friend of many years, Captain Thomas Troubridge, a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty. As a result, Earl St. Vincent gently but firmly communicated to Parker that he was to get under way without further delay, and the fleet departed on 12 March.
Once under way, the operating relationship between Parker and his second-in-command clearly was not what it should have been. On 16 March, Nelson wrote to his friend, Alexander Davison, “I have not yet seen my Commander-in-Chief and have had no official communication whatever. All I have gathered of our first plans, I disapprove most exceedingly; honour may arise from them, good cannot.” But again Nelson did not precipitate a confrontation with Parker. Instead, as the transit to the Baltic progressed, he pressed diplomatically and steadily for a more active approach to the mission. On 24 March, for example, he wrote a long letter to Parker that said in part: “The conversation we had yesterday has naturally, from its importance, been the subject of my thoughts; and the more I have reflected, the more I am confirmed in opinion, that not a moment should be lost in attacking the Enemy: they will every day and hour be stronger; we never shall be so good a match for them as at this moment. The only consideration in my mind is, how to get at them with the least risk to our Ships.”
As Parker moved irresolutely toward Copenhagen, Nelson doggedly advanced his “the-boldest-measures- are-the-safest” doctrine in the commander-in-chief’s councils, and consistently Parker resisted a commitment to combat. Eventually, however, as the squadron worked its way through the North Sea, around Jutland, and then south through the Kattegat, Nelson was able to convince his commander-in-chief that a more aggressive approach to the mission was needed.
On 29 March, Nelson shifted his flag from HMS St. George to a lighter ship, HMS Elephant, which was better suited to the waters off Copenhagen. She was commanded by one of Nelson’s Band of Brothers, Thomas Foley, who had captained HMS Goliath, the van ship in the battle line at Aboukir Bay.
As they cleared the choke point at Elsinore on 30 March, the Danes fired on the British ships without effect, and the fleet then anchored to the north of Copenhagen. Parker, Nelson, and several others reconnoitered the extremely difficult navigational situation in a schooner and noted that the Danes had removed the buoys that usually marked the tricky waters. It also was clear that the Danes had taken advantage of Parker’s slow approach to strengthen their defenses. At the war council that followed, Nelson was assigned a division of ships-of-the-line and ordered to make a direct attack on the main Danish force. Nelson’s doctrine finally had emerged as the mission’s driving force, and the die was cast for combat.
On 1 April, Nelson made a decisive move by taking advantage of a northerly wind to move his division to the southern end of a shoal area called the Middle Ground. Colonel William Stewart, who was on board the Elephant and was an important chronicler of the battle, described the reaction to Nelson’s signal to the detached squadron to weigh: “The shout with which it was received throughout the Division was heard to a considerable distance.”
In the meantime, the Danes continued preparing their defenses. Because their ships and floating gun batteries were immediately adjacent to a shoal, the Danes were able to support them directly from the shore. During the battle, Captain Johan Olfert Fischer, who commanded the defense of Copenhagen Roads, took full advantage of this circumstance to ferry fresh gun crews and ammunition from Copenhagen to the battle. In an interesting historical note, Nelson and Fischer had met many years before, when both commanded frigates in the West Indies.
Eyeball-to-Eyeball Combat
On the morning of 2 April, the previously northerly wind shifted—an example of the gods of war favoring the bold. With the wind out of the southeast, Nelson was in a position to strike, and strike hard. The Danes, like the French at the Battle of the Nile, chose to fight from an anchored position. They had established a strong defensive line of ships and floating gun batteries along a shoal area, where they could support their line with fresh personnel from shore and with the guns of several forts. Although there was no room to get to the landward side or break through his opponent’s line, as he had done at the Nile, Nelson had the twin advantages of the weather gauge and the initiative. In addition, despite the narrowness of the channel between Middle Ground and the shore, he was able to choose how to position his ships. Nelson instructed his captains to anchor by the stern after finding their assigned positions and to use spring lines to adjust their arcs of fire. Nelson also took advantage of having the initiative by attacking the Danish line from the south, rather than from the north, as the Danes anticipated.
Nelson paid a quick price for his aggressiveness. One of his ships, HMS Agamemnon, ran aground at the southern tip of Middle Ground and never made it into battle. Two others, HMS Russell and HMS Bellona, ran aground on the eastern edge of Middle Ground, where they played a limited role in the fighting. As a result, only 9 of Nelson’s 12 ships-of-the-line were effective in engaging the Danes’ main position. Accounts of the number of units in the Danes’ line vary, but in The Great Gamble, arguably the best modern account of the battle, Pope indicates that 14 large ships and 4 floating gun platforms faced Nelson on the morning of 2 April.
Shortly after 1000 the ferocious battle began in earnest. Then, roughly three hours into the slugfest, Parker threw out a flag signal, number 39—the signal to cease action. Since it was a general order, directed to each of Nelson’s ships and not a signal to Nelson for him to transmit to his ships, it required all ships to break off fighting. The squadron of frigates and sloops operating between Nelson’s main force and Parker was too close to the commander-in- chief to ignore this general order. They hauled off, leaving their sterns exposed to fire from some of the Danish forts. They paid an immediate price in blood when Captain Edward Riou of HMS Amazon and others were cut down by raking fire through their ships’ sterns.
The Stuff of Legend
Nelson’s reaction to the signal to break off action reflected both his characteristic willingness to ignore an order from afar (based on his knowledge of an immediate situation) and his ability to express himself in colorful terms. When his signal officer reported the signal to break off action to him, Nelson ordered that the signal be acknowledged but not repeated. The latter would have meant that he was complying with the order. He then asked the flag officer if his own signal for close action still was flying. When the officer replied in the affirmative, Nelson’s response was, “Mind you keep it so.”
With the Commander-in-chief’s order to break off action handled, Nelson turned to Captain Foley and said, “You know Foley, I have only one eye—I have a right to be blind sometimes.” With that, he raised his glass to his blind eye and remarked, “I really do not see the signal.” The grim humor was vintage Nelson and was an example, lasting through 200 years of legend-building, of why those who fought alongside him were so emotionally dedicated to him. As the combat raged on, there was not the slightest indication that any of the captains who followed Nelson into battle at Copenhagen were inclined to do anything but continue fighting at the side of their leader.
Nelson Modifies Doctrine to the Situation at Hand
By 1400 the Danish force was almost totally subdued, and at that point Nelson sent a flag of truce ashore. His proposal of a cease-fire was a radical departure from the combat approach he exhibited previously against the French at the Battle of the Nile or later at the Battle of Trafalgar. In both of those instances, he fought for complete destruction of his opposition. Also in those cases, only a few enemy ships were able to escape.
There were several reasons for this unexpected action from the naval leader whose career was dedicated to annihilating the enemy. One was that after individual Danish units struck their colors (Nelson’s final tally claimed, “Of the eighteen Vessels of all descriptions, seventeen are sunk, burnt, and taken”) the Danes fired on the British boats sent to take possession of the defeated vessels. This was particularly true of the forts supporting the Danish line. Nelson’s reaction was that “he must either send on shore, and stop this irregular proceedings, or send in our Fire-ships and burn them.” Nelson chose the former.
The second reason was by far the more important. As Nelson himself described his offer of truce, his “object in sending on shore a Flag of Truce is humanity.” As he later pointed out, the purpose of that humanity was to avoid making the Danes permanent enemies to Britain’s east and north. This was another in a long line of decisions that demonstrated Nelson’s ability to see beyond his immediate tactical situation to the larger strategic picture.
From War Fighter to Peacemaker
The flag of truce evolved into extended armistice negotiations between the British and the Danes. Nelson immediately found himself a principal in the process, which included direct negotiations with Crown Prince and Regent Frederick and his ministers. And despite his disclaimers about his diplomatic skills, clearly his renown as a plain- talking combat leader gave him a special credibility in his negotiator’s role. He took full advantage of this in the proceedings, and put great emphasis on his underlying respect for the Danes and the traditional friendship and commercial ties between their two countries. Simultaneously, he maintained the threat of total destruction of the Danish forces and the city of Copenhagen itself.
The victory at Copenhagen and subsequent negotiations were of considerable strategic benefit to Britain. In summarizing the results, Nelson focused on both immediate and long-term results. Among them he listed:
1st. We had beat the Danes. 2nd. We wish to make them feel that we are their real friends. 3rd. They understand perfectly that we are at war with them for their treaty of Armed Neutrality made last year. 4th. We have made them suspend the operations of that treaty. 5th. It has given our Fleet free scope to act against Russia and Sweden. 6th. Sir Hyde Parker was determined not to have Denmark hostile in his rear. 7th. Every reinforcement, even a cutter, can join us without molestation. 8th. Great Britain is left with the stake of all the Danish property in her hands, her Colonies, &.c, if she refuses peace. 9th. The hands of Denmark are tied up; ours are free to act against her confederate Allies. 10th. Although we might have burnt the City, I have my doubts whether we could their ships.
Aftermath
Shortly after the victory at Copenhagen, Parker was relieved and Nelson was appointed commander-in-chief of Britain’s Baltic fleet. As he began to move against Russia, and presumably after that Sweden, the combination of his victory at Copenhagen and the assassination of Tsar Paul I made further naval attacks unnecessary. The League of Armed Neutrality collapsed, the slide of the Baltic nations toward alliances with France was halted, and a prime source of Britain’s naval materiel was secured—all through Nelson’s combat leadership and his lesser-known skills as a no-nonsense diplomatic negotiator. Although Nelson’s victories at the Nile and Trafalgar, and even his earlier action at Cape St. Vincent, usually get more attention from historians, American naval prophet Alfred Thayer Mahan saw his career differently. In his 1897 biography, The Life of Nelson, Mahan wrote, “Having regard to the general political conditions, and especially to the great combination of the North at this time directed against Great Britain, the victory of Copenhagen was second in importance to none that Nelson ever gained; while in the severity of the resistance, and in the attendant difficulties to be overcome, the battle itself was the most critical of all in which he was engaged.”
At Copenhagen Nelson displayed many attributes that had been associated with his career up to that point, including an ability to grasp strategic issues that transcended immediate battle circumstances, a willingness to ignore an order based on his knowledge of an immediate situation, and an aggressive combat doctrine. What also emerged was an increasingly mature naval leader, one with new dimensions reflected in his patient dealings with an irresolute commander-in-chief and in his sensitive but sharply focused diplomatic negotiations that went beyond simply securing a tactical victory. It was that fully matured combat leader who moved on to his now-legendary victory at Trafalgar in 1805.
