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| No. 457. New Series. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1852. | Price 1½d. |
AN EPISODE OF THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.
Brave old Denmark was sincerely neutral during the great French Revolution; but England, by a very questionable act, seized two Danish frigates—under search-warrants—and towed them to British ports. This arbitrary insult appears to have induced both Denmark and Sweden to join the 'Northern Armed Neutrality,' which they did in the middle of December 1800. Upon this, England embargoed all Danish and Swedish ships in our ports, and seized all, or nearly all, their colonies. Shortly afterwards, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker (commander-in-chief of the fleet), Admiral Lord Nelson, and Admiral Graves, sailed for the Baltic with some forty-seven ships of war. They passed without opposition through the Sound, and the Swedish fleet of seven ships of the line and three frigates, could not, or did not, leave Carlscrona; as to the Russian fleet, it was frozen up; besides which, the demise of the Emperor Paul caused a vacillation in the councils of Russia. The result was, that little Denmark was left unaided to bear the brunt of mighty England's vengeance.
Upon the crown-prince of Denmark—afterwards Frederick VI., one of the best sovereigns that ever swayed a northern sceptre—devolved the management of the nation's affairs; for he had been regent since 1784, in consequence of the mental derangement of Christian VII. The crown-prince was a brave and energetic man, and he made every possible preparation to defend Copenhagen—himself assuming the very responsible post of commander-in-chief. The land defences consisted of the Citadellet Frederikshavn, the Crown Batteries, and if they were as formidable in 1801 as they were when we saw them in 1850, they indeed possessed tremendous powers of destruction—also batteries on the shore of the island of Amak—Amager, as the English call it—which is separated from Copenhagen by a narrow arm of the sea called Kallebostrand. The Danish fleet was moored in the inner harbour, which is a very strong position, as the entrance is defended by booms, and batteries are along its east or seaward side.
On April 1, 1801, the English fleet loomed ominously in the horizon, and it became evident that a fearful combat was close at hand. The crown-prince issued his last orders to Admiral Fisher, the gallant commander of the Danish fleet, and to the officers in command of the several batteries. A terrible day and night was that for the Danes! They knew that with the morrow's sun many of their fathers, husbands, and brothers, must fall; and in case victory should declare on the side of the assailant, they knew not what horrors of war might befall their city. Yet the Danes—as brave and noble a people as any upon earth—yielded not to despair. They bitterly felt the cruel nature of their position, and with characteristic fortitude and unflinching resolution, prepared to meet it. They might be conquered, and their capital given to the flames—they knew that; but undauntedly did they rely on their native bravery, and the justice of their cause; for they believed they were engaged in a struggle of right against might.
At the hour of seven o'clock on this momentous evening of the 1st of April, a 'mess' of sailors on board a Danish ship of the line, the outermost of all in the harbour, had just received, in common with their shipmates, an extra allowance of brændeviin—white corn-brandy, somewhat like whisky. They were filled with feelings of high professional pride and confidence, and eagerly pledged one another, with patriotic resolves, to conquer or die in the morrow's conflict. Some tossed off their allowance with national toasts. One man among them held his brændeviin untasted until all the others had swallowed theirs. This man was a sailor who had volunteered to serve in the man-o'-war only the previous day. He was a native of Copenhagen, and hitherto had spent his life in the merchant service; but he had offered himself patriotically on this great emergency to fight in his country's cause. There was nothing remarkable or striking in his appearance: he was a sun-burnt, hardy-looking young man of about five-and-twenty, and slight rather than muscular in appearance. Like many of his countrymen, his hair was very light flaxen, and his eyes bright blue. His name was Anton Lundt.
'Come, messmate,' said one of the sailors, 'what is your toast?'
Anton Lundt started a little, his lip quivered, and his eyes grew lustrous with hidden emotion. Holding his glass on high, he exclaimed with fervour: 'For Pigen og vort Land—for Rosine og gamie Danmark!' (For the girls and our country—for Rose and old Denmark!) and drained his brændeviin to the last drop.
'Ah!' exclaimed his messmates, 'your sweetheart and your country—no toast can be better than that! Hurrah for Rosine and old Denmark!' Anton Lundt dashed the cuff of his sleeve over his eyes, and turned aside with a glowing heart, and a prayer on his lips.
On the eventful morning of the 2d April—
All the might of Denmark's crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone.
By each gun a lighted brand,
In a bold determined hand,
And the prince of all the land
Led them on.
Nelson was the chief in command of the English ships engaged on this eventful day, for Sir Hyde Parker could not possibly come up with his portion of the fleet, as wind and tide were both dead against him. Of Nelson, then, and his ships, it is that Campbell sings:
As they drifted on their path,
There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath
For a time.
And well might the boldest hold his breath! It was no ordinary foe that British valour had to contend with, but one of the bravest and most skilful both by sea and land in the whole world. At length the dread signal flew 'along the lofty British line,' and each gun—
Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.
The appalling roar of a thousand cannon answered on the part of the Danes, and soon the very wind of heaven was stilled by the thundering reverberations of the artillery. We leave the historian to describe minutely the progress of the fight, and turn to the ship of Anton Lundt.
We have already said that this ship was the outermost in the inner harbour, and as the combat deepened, she was exposed to the heavy broadsides of two English seventy-fours. She was moored stem and stern, but her stern moorings were shot away, and she consequently drifted in such a position, that both the English ships poured in an awful fire that raked her fore and aft. In a few minutes, her bowsprit was cut to shivers; her foremast was splintered and tottering; her main-yard broken up; her mizen-mast entirely carried away, and drifting under her counter; her bows riddled with shot; and her upper decks strewn with dead and dying. Only about half a dozen of her guns could be brought to bear, and although the crew made every possible attempt to manœuvre the ship, so as to recover her original position, they entirely failed in doing so; and it was obvious that the unfortunate vessel would soon be a mere floating shambles, if not altogether shattered to pieces, and sent to the bottom.
If a boat could have been sent ashore with a hawser, the ship would speedily have hauled, so as to avoid being raked, and also her own broadside would have been available; but it would have been hopeless to send off a boat, as every yard of intervening water was ploughed up with round and grape shot, and a boat would have been specially aimed at, and sunk before she had gone a couple of lengths. Moreover, every boat in the ship had been staved or knocked to atoms already.
In this horrible crisis, Anton Lundt, who was stationed on the quarter-deck, stepped up to the captain, stripped to the waist, all begrimed with powder, and sprinkled with the blood of his messmates, and said: 'I will leap overboard with a line, and swim ashore to that battery, and then you can bend a hawser to the line; and when we have hauled and secured it ashore, you will heave upon it, and get the ship back to her moorings!' The captain gazed a moment at the intrepid mariner who made such a chivalrous proposal, and then, without a word of reply, sadly shook his head, and significantly pointed to the water, which was all alive with hissing balls.
'I know it, captain,' rejoined the undaunted volunteer; 'but there is a God above all!' Without further parley, Anton seized a coil of small white line, and with the dexterity of a seaman, knotted the end over his neck and beneath one arm, bringing the bight over his shoulder for convenience in swimming. He then slipped off his trousers—the only garment he had on—and took a few loose coils in his hand, his messmates undertaking to attend to the running out of the bight after him. All was the work of a minute; and without pause, he plunged head-foremost into the sea from the taffrail, shouting, as he clave the air: 'For Rosine og gamle Danmark—hurrah!'
He rose some dozen yards or more from the ship's stern, having dived straight for his bourne, which was not more than eighty yards distant at the most. The general surface of the harbour would have been perfectly calm, had it not been for the continuous swells created by the oscillations of the Danish ships, as they rocked to and fro under their heavy broadsides. Just as Anton Lundt emerged, a twenty-four pounder struck the water within a few yards of his back, but ricochetted exactly over his head, merely stunning him for a moment with the spray. He swam straight as an arrow, with the long and powerful strokes of a first-rate swimmer; and occasionally, when the grape and musket shots whistled thick as hailstones around him, he dexterously dived. Thus swimming and diving alternately, he very quickly sped two-thirds of the perilous distance, amid the cheers of his countrymen. At length, however, the nearest English ship observed him, and probably guessed his object; for the marines on her poop fired a close volley at him, and a scream of rage and despair from his messmates arose, when they beheld him wildly throw up his left arm in unmistakable agony, and flounder in what appeared his death-flurry. Then his body rose perpendicularly, till his shoulders were a foot or more clear above the water, and he slowly fell backward, with his head pointing to the Danish battery. Contrary to expectation, he did not sink, however, but floated at full length, with nothing but a portion of his face visible. After a pause, he was observed to be propelling himself with his feet—swimming on his back, in fact—and his messmates on board the ship, and his countrymen at the battery, now cheered louder than ever. Two minutes of breathless suspense followed, and then a dozen hands were stretched forth, and he was lifted up the stony slope that led to the level of the battery. A moment he turned round, and faced towards his ship—his right arm hanging helplessly down by his side, shattered above the elbow by a ball, and his naked body streaming with blood from several wounds—then he waved his left arm in the air, and feebly hurrahing, fell senseless in the arms of the soldiers. By the order of one of their officers, he was immediately conveyed out of further danger. Meanwhile, had victory to the Danish arms depended on poor Anton Lundt's single heroic effort, Denmark would assuredly have triumphed, for his scheme succeeded perfectly. A hawser had been attached to the end of the line aboard the ship, the soldiers promptly hauled it ashore and secured it, and then the man-o'-war was easily hauled out of her critical position.
Let us now briefly glance at the progress of the main battle. It commenced exactly at five minutes , and in about an hour it was general on both sides. The Danes fought—as they ever have fought, and ever will fight—like worthy descendants of their Scandinavian forefathers, and for awhile the result seemed doubtful. As already mentioned, Sir Hyde Parker could not get to Nelson's aid; and it is related that this excellent man—who was as generous-minded as brave—endured dreadful anxiety on account of Nelson and Graves. In another half hour he could bear it no longer, and resolved to make a signal for the recall of the two subordinate admirals, remarking to his own captain, that if Nelson, whose extraordinary character he well understood, really felt himself in a position to continue the battle with a prospect of ultimate victory, he would heroically disobey the signal.
The signal of recall was accordingly hoisted, just at the time when the fire of the Danes had reached its acme, and it was yet a matter of considerable uncertainty to which side victory would incline. Nelson was swiftly pacing his quarter-deck, moving the stump of his lost arm up and down with excitement, and the balls of the foe whizzed thickly around him, stretching many a brave fellow lifeless at his feet. The splinters flew from the main-mast, which a ball perforated; and then it was that Nelson is said to have smilingly observed: 'Warm work! this day may be the last to any of us at a moment! But, mark you—I would not be elsewhere for thousands!'
The lieutenant whose duty it was to attend to the signals, now informed him that No. 39—'Leave off action!'—was hoisted on board the commander-in-chief. Nelson heard this unmoved, and made no reply. A second time the signal-lieutenant reported it to him, and asked if he should answer it in turn. 'No!' was the stern reply; 'but acknowledge it.' He then asked if his own signal for 'close action' was duly flying, and being affirmatively responded to, said: 'Mind you keep it so!' Let us quote the characteristic scene that immediately ensued:—
'"Do you know," said he to Mr Ferguson, "what is shewn on board the commander-in-chief! No. 39!" Mr Ferguson asked what that meant. "Why, to leave off action!" Then, shrugging his shoulders, he repeated the words, "Leave off action? Now, —— me if I do! You know, Foley," turning to his own captain, "I have only one eye—I have a right to be blind sometimes!" and then, putting the glass to his blind eye, in that mood of mind which sports with bitterness, he exclaimed: "I really do not see the signal!" Presently he exclaimed: "—— the signal! keep mine flying for closer battle! That's the way I answer such signals! Nail mine to the mast!"'
The action continued with increased vigour, for Admiral Graves, probably taking his cue from Nelson, also disobeyed Sir Hyde Parker's signal. At one p.m., the fire of the Danes grew weaker, and by degrees it slackened, so that at thirty minutes past two p.m., it had ceased altogether in many parts of their shore defences, and most of their ships struck to the English, although the Crown Batteries, and a few men-o'-war ahead of Nelson's position, still fought with desperation, and fired on the English boats sent off to secure the prizes. Some of the surrendered ships were, in fact, placed between two fires—that of friends and foes, and the unfortunate crews suffered proportionately. Nelson was both angry and grieved at this; and he immediately went into the stern-gallery, and addressed a world-renowned note to the crown-prince, couched in these words:—
'Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson has been commanded to spare Denmark when she no longer resists. The line of defence which covered her shores has struck to the British flag; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, he must set on fire all the prizes that he has taken, without having the power of saving the men who have so nobly defended them. The brave Danes are the brothers, and should never be the enemies, of the English.'
He sealed this in an unusually formal manner, saying, that 'it was no time to appear hurried.' Captain Sir Frederick Thesiger carried this letter ashore,[1] with a flag of truce, and delivered it to the crown-prince, at the Sally Port. The latter sent to know the precise meaning of Nelson, and he replied thus:—'Lord Nelson's object in sending the flag of truce was humanity; he therefore consents that hostilities shall cease, and that the wounded Danes may be taken on shore. And Lord Nelson will take his prisoners out of the vessels, and burn or carry off the prizes as he shall think fit. Lord Nelson, with humble duty to his Royal Highness the Prince, will consider this the greatest victory he has ever gained, if it may be the cause of a happy union between his own most gracious sovereign and his majesty the king of Denmark.'
The immediate result was a total cessation of hostilities, and a most complete victory to the English. When the contest was over, the wounded were gradually collected and removed to the hospitals and private houses of the city—to the latter when their personal friends claimed them. Many of the Danish soldiers and sailors engaged were natives of Copenhagen, or had relatives and dear friends therein, and the scenes that ensued during the afternoon, evening, and night, were heart-rending in the extreme. Parents, wives, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts, franticly ran from place to place, alike hoping and dreading to learn certain tidings of the fate of those so dear to them. All Copenhagen was a city of wo and wailing. Everybody had sustained a loss. Mothers and fathers wept for their brave sons killed, wounded, or prisoners; sisters for their brothers; girls for their lovers; the patriot for his poor conquered country and his slaughtered countrymen. Tremendous, in our estimation, was the moral responsibility of the English ministry for 'letting slip the dogs of war' for a slight cause—nay, strictly speaking, for no valid cause whatever. Our firm conviction is, that had England left Denmark to her own honourable instincts, the latter nation would never have given real occasion for an appeal to arms. Even yet more cruel and criminal was the bombardment of the city of Copenhagen itself, only six years subsequently to Nelson's raid—for it was nothing better. But they managed matters fifty years ago in a different manner from what the enlightened spirit of the age would now tolerate. No British ministry of the present day would dare or wish to act as did the ruling sachems in the early part of this century.
Anton Lundt—as true a hero as Nelson himself, although incomparably a humbler one—was, as already related, conveyed to the rear of the battery, and his wounds were attended to as well as circumstances would admit. Later in the evening, his father, an old invalid man-o'-war's-man, found him, and had him removed to his own humble home. The poor fellow had never recovered consciousness, and for many long hours he lay moaning, and occasionally struggling convulsively, under his natal roof, and in the same little room where he was born. His aged parents and a few friends wept around him; but there was one other watcher by his side, whose grief, although silent, surpassed theirs. It was his betrothed Pige, or sweetheart, Rosine Bœrentzen—she whose image had excited his heroism, she whose name was coupled with Denmark as his battle-cry. She shed not a tear—her anguish was too deep for that—but sat by his lowly pallet, supporting his head on her bosom, and wiping away the light foam from his bubbling lips. Ever and anon the dying sailor—for, alas! dying he was—would utter sea-phrases, or affecting words of friendship or of love, yet not even the voice of Rosine, continually murmuring in his ear, could recall him to sensibility.
The midnight hour approached: a medical man had just been in, and departed with the brief but decided assurance that the patient could not possibly survive many minutes. A worthy clergyman was kneeling with the family around the couch, praying to God to receive the parting spirit. In the midst of their supplications, the countenance of Anton Lundt was illumined with a gleam of unearthly triumph, and springing half-upright, he tossed his left arm aloft, and in soul-thrilling tones pealed forth his battle-cry of 'Rosine og gamle Danmark—hurrah!' He then instantly fell back a corpse on the bosom of his betrothed.
In the suburb of Oesterbrö, at Copenhagen, is a naval cemetery, and it generally attracts the eye of the stranger, as it most forcibly did our own, by a number of rough, picturesque fragments of unhewn granite, strewn over the mortal remains of the brave men who fell fighting for old Denmark against Nelson. The simple words, 'Anton Lundt, död 2 April 1801,' may be seen on one of them.
Rosine Bœrentzen never smiled again. On the first anniversary of the battle, she returned home from the cemetery, where she had been to place a wreath of immortelles on the grave of her betrothed, after the fashion of her country, and ere morning dawned, her soul had fled to rejoin her hero in heaven. Peace to the souls of the brave, and of all who loved and were loved of the brave who fell at the Battle of the Baltic!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] One of the grand basso-relievos recently placed on the base of Nelson's Monument, in Trafalgar Square, London, represents Nelson in the act of delivering the letter to the young captain who acted as his aid-de-camp on the occasion. The subjects of the three other relievos are St Vincent, The Nile, and Trafalgar.