The Battle of Copenhagen (also known as the Bombardment of Copenhagen) occurred between 16 August and 7 September 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars. British forces bombarded the Danish capital of Copenhagen in order to capture or destroy the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. Following the Danish surrender, most of their navy was seized by the British and taken to England. The battle led to the outbreak of the Anglo-Danish Gunboat War, and the Anglo-Russian War of 1807–1812.
From 1803 onwards, Britain and France had been embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars, and by 1807 both nations were focused on Denmark, which maintained a large navy. The Danish government attempted to remain neutral, but this pleased neither the British or French, with the former being concerned by the possibility of France taking control of the Danish navy. In mid-July 1807, George III authorised a British expedition to monitor Copenhagen and capture the city if necessary. A force of 18,000 soldiers, under General Lord Cathcart, supported by a fleet of 17 warships under Admiral James Gambier, set sail for Copenhagen, arriving off the city on 15 August.
British troops landed at Vedbæk on 16 August and began besieging Copenhagen, defeating a Danish army at the Battle of Køge on 29 August. On 2 September, the British began bombarding Copenhagen, which led to the city's defenders suing for peace on 5 September and surrendering two days later. Most of the Danish navy was seized and sailed to England, while several Danish warships under construction were destroyed by the British. Following the battle, the Danes allied with France and joined the anti-British Continental System, along with engaging in the Gunboat War against Britain. The attack gave rise to the term to Copenhagenize as a reference to the pre-emptive seizure of a nation's fleet while it was anchored.
Background
Despite being defeated in the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, Denmark–Norway still maintained a considerable navy. Most of the Royal Danish Army, led by the Crown Prince, was in 1807 defending Denmark's southern border against a possible French invasion. There was concern in Britain that Napoleon might try to force Denmark to close the Baltic Sea to British ships, perhaps by marching French troops into Zealand. The Baltic was "vitally important to Britain" for trade as well as a major source of necessary raw materials for building and maintaining warships; access to the Baltic also gave the Royal Navy a route to help Britain's allies Sweden and (before the treaties of Tilsit) Russia against France. The British were concerned by the fact after Prussia had been defeated by France in December 1806, Denmark's independence looked increasingly under threat from the French. George Canning's predecessor as Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick, had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Denmark to join a secret alliance with Britain and Sweden.
On 21 January 1808, Lord Hawkesbury told the House of Lords that he had received information from someone on the Continent "that there were secret engagements in the Treaty of Tilsit to employ the navies of Denmark and Portugal against this country". He refused to publish the source because he said it would endanger their lives. The reports of French diplomats and merchants in northern Europe made the British government uneasy, and by mid-July, the British believed that the French intended to invade Holstein in order to use Denmark against Britain. Some reports suggested that the Danes had secretly agreed to this. The British cabinet decided to act, and on 14 July Lord Mulgrave obtained from George III permission to send a naval force of 21 to 22 ships to the Kattegat for surveillance of the Danish navy in order to pursue "prompt and vigorous operations" if that seemed necessary. The cabinet decided on 18 July to send Francis James Jackson on a secret mission to Copenhagen to persuade Denmark to hand over its navy to Britain. That same day, the Admiralty issued an order for more than 50 ships to sail for "particular service" under Admiral James Gambier. On 19 July, Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, ordered General Lord Cathcart at Stralsund to go with his troops to the Øresund where they would get reinforcements.
On the night of 21 July, Canning received intelligence from Tilsit that Napoleon had tried to persuade Alexander I of Russia to form a maritime league with Denmark and Portugal against Britain. Spencer Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote a memorandum setting out the government's case for sending forces to Copenhagen: "The intelligence from so many and such various sources" that Napoleon's intent was to force Denmark into war against Britain could not be doubted. "Nay, the fact that he has openly avowed such intention in an interview with the Emperor of Russia is brought to this country in such a way as it cannot be doubted. Under such circumstances it would be madness, it would be idiotic... to wait for an overt act". The historian Hilary Barnes claimed that Canning had no knowledge of the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit and argued that Canning's decision was "rash, calamitous, and lacking in understanding of the Danes and of Danish foreign policy."
The British assembled a force of 25,000 troops, and the vanguard sailed on 30 July; Jackson set out the next day. Canning offered Denmark a treaty of alliance and mutual defence, with a convention signed for the return of the fleet after the war, the protection of 21 British warships and a subsidy for how many soldiers Denmark kept standing. On 31 July, Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to tell Denmark to prepare for war against Britain or else Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte would invade Holstein. Neither Talleyrand nor Jackson persuaded the Danes to end their neutrality, so on 15 August Jackson went back to the British fleet assembled in the Sound. The British published a proclamation demanding the deposit of the Danish fleet; the Danes responded with "what amounted to a declaration of war". As the first move in the campaign a division of 29 vessels under Commodore Richard Goodwin Keats was detached to the Great Belt with instructions to seal the island of Zealand off from Funen and the west. Within a week some 200 miles of coast had been secured and the Danish army in Holstein prevented from passing into Zealand to lend support. Copenhagen was left to its own resources to defend itself from a British force of 25,000. On 12 August, the 32-gun Danish frigate Friderichsværn sailed for Norway from Elsinore. Gambier sent the 74-gun third-rate Defence and the 22-gun sixth-rate Comus after her, even though war had not yet been declared. Comus was much faster than Defence in the light winds and so outdistanced her. On 15 August, Comus caught Friderichsværn off Marstrand and captured her. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Frederikscoarn.
Battle
British forces besieging the city comprised 18,000 men in 3 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry regiments and 84 field guns and 101 siege guns.
The Danish forces in the city amounted to 5,000 regular troops and a similar number of militias. The city itself was fortified with approximately one mile of ramparts and bastions in the Dutch manner, supplemented in the north by the Citadel, disposing an artillery total of 321 guns and 82 mortars. Most of the civilian inhabitants of Copenhagen were evacuated in the few days before Copenhagen was completely besieged. On 26 August, General Arthur Wellesley was detached with his reserve and two light brigades of British artillery, as well as one battalion, eight squadrons and one troop of horse artillery from the King's German Legion (KGL) to disperse a force which had been sent to relieve the beleaguered city. On 29 August, at the rivulet of Køge, this significant British force swiftly overpowered the Danish troops, which amounted to only three or four regular battalions and some cavalry. The Danes rejected British demands, so the British army under the command of General Lord Cathcart bombarded the city from 2 to 5 September. In addition to the military casualties incurred by the Danish army, the bombardment killed roughly 195 civilians and injured 768. The bombardment included 300 Congreve rockets, which caused fires. Due to the civilian evacuation, the normal firefighting arrangements were ineffective; over a thousand buildings were burned.
On 5 September, the Danes sued for peace, and the capitulation was signed on 7 September. Denmark agreed to surrender its navy and its naval stores. In return, the British undertook to leave Copenhagen within six weeks. Ernst Peymann, the Danish Commander, had been under orders from the Crown Prince to burn the Danish fleet, which he failed to do, though the reason for his failure is unknown. Thus, on 7 September Peymann surrendered 18 ships of the line, 11 frigates, two smaller ships, two ship-sloops, seven brig-sloops, two brigs, one schooner and 26 gunboats. In addition, the British broke up or destroyed three 74-gun ships of the line on the stocks, along with two of the ships-of-the-fleet and two elderly frigates. After her capture, one ex-Danish ship of the line, Neptunos, ran aground and was burnt on or near the island of Hven. Then, when a storm arose in the Kattegat, the British destroyed or abandoned 23 of the captured gunboats. The British added the fifteen captured ships of the line that reached Britain to the British Navy but only four—Christian VII 80, Dannemark 74, Norge 74 and Princess Carolina 74—saw subsequent active service. On 21 October, the British fleet left Copenhagen for the United Kingdom. However, the war continued until 1814, when the Treaty of Kiel was signed.
Aftermath
The news of what happened did not reach Canning until 16 September. He wrote to Rev. William Leigh: "Did I not tell you we would save Plumstead from bombardment?" One week later he wrote: "Nothing ever was more brilliant, more salutary or more effectual than the success [at Copenhagen]" and Perceval expressed similar sentiments. The Times said that the confiscation of the Danish fleet was "a bare act of self-preservation" and noticed the short distance between Denmark and Ireland or north-east Scotland. William Cobbett in his Political Register wrote that it was "vile mockery" and "mere party cavilling" to claim that Denmark had the means to preserve her neutrality. MP William Wilberforce said the expedition could be defended on grounds of self-defence. Thomas Grenville wrote to his brother Lord Grenville that he could not help feeling "that in their [the government's] situation we should very probably have given the same order without being able to publish to Parliament the grounds on which we had believed in the hostile mind of Denmark".
The opposition claimed the national character was stained and Canning read out in Parliament the previous administration's plans in 1806 to stop the Portuguese navy falling into the hands of France. Canning and Castlereagh wished to hold Zealand and suggested that when the British evacuated it as part of the peace they should immediately occupy it again. This was strongly opposed by Sir Arthur Wellesley, however, and it did not happen. The opposition claimed that the attack had turned Denmark from a neutral into an enemy. Canning replied by saying that since hostility towards Britain existed throughout Europe the British could wage an "all-out maritime war" against France without worrying who they were going to upset. Lord Erskine condemned the attack by saying "if hell did not exist before, Providence would create it now to punish ministers for that damnable measure".
The opposition did not at first table a vote of censure on the battle and instead, on 3 February 1808, demanded the publication of all the letters sent by the British envoy in Denmark on information regarding the war-readiness of the Danish navy. Canning replied with a three-hour speech which Lord Palmerston described as "so powerful that it gave a decisive turn to the debate". The three motions on this subject were heavily defeated and on 21 March the opposition tabled a direct motion of censure on the battle. It was defeated by 224 votes to 64 after Canning made a speech "very witty, very eloquent and very able". The bombardment frustrated the first attempt to publish a modern edition of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf as the subsequent fire destroyed the 20-year work of scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin. Two manuscripts, however, were recovered and Thorkelin eventually published the poem in 1815. A horse foaled in 1808 (the year following the battle) was named "Copenhagen" in its honour, and was eventually sold to Wellesley and became his favoured mount, most notably at the Battle of Waterloo.
Within one week of the British forces departing Copenhagen, King Christian VII's government promulgated the Danish Privateers Regulations (1807). Denmark was now at war with Britain, and a part of the Anglo-Danish conflict would be taken up by privateers. Kaperbreve (letters of marque) were issued in Denmark and Norway from 1807 to 1813—copies of original letters of marque for the two ships Odin and Norges Statholder are included in this reference. Danish shipping companies donated suitable ships (brigs, schooners and galleases) to the state which could then equip the ships for their new privateering role. One such ship was the brig Admiral Juel which ranged the North Sea before her capture by the British off Scarborough.
Forces involved
British troops
The British troops under General Lord Cathcart were organised as follows: