The wreck of the Danish warship Dannebroge has been discovered on the seabed of Copenhagen Harbor, where it has lain for more than two centuries after being sunk in the Battle of Copenhagen on April 2, 1801. Denmark’s Viking Ship Museum announced the find on the 225th anniversary of the battle, in which the double-decker served as the Danish flagship and was lost after heavy damage and an explosion following combat with the British Royal Navy under Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson.
Marine archaeologists located the 18th-century wreck while surveying the area ahead of construction on a planned housing district. The site corresponded with the presumed final position of the stricken Dannebroge, which had drifted from the battle line before blowing up.
Morten Johansen, head of maritime archaeology at the Viking Ship Museum, said the battle and the Dannebroge are central to Danish national feeling and that the wreck can reveal what it was like to be aboard a ship “being shot to pieces.” Divers have recovered two cannons, navy insignia, sailors’ uniforms and shoes, glass bottles, ceramics, basketry and even part of a human jaw—likely from one of the 19 crew members still unaccounted for.
Johansen described the experience of being on a ship under fire as a nightmare: when cannonballs struck, it was flying wooden splinters rather than the shot itself that inflicted the most casualties. Surviving timbers match historical drawings of the Dannebroge, and dendrochronological dating of the wood corresponds to the ship’s 1772 construction.
The Battle of Copenhagen took place against the backdrop of the French Revolutionary Wars. Britain, worried that a northern naval alliance including Denmark, Sweden, Prussia and Russia was protecting neutral ports and facilitating trade with France, attacked to break Denmark’s protective blockade of Copenhagen Harbor and force it out of the alliance. Despite tough Danish resistance and the sinking of 12 British ships, the British won, aided by superior firepower and Nelson’s decision to ignore an order to retreat—a moment that reportedly gave rise to the phrase “to turn a blind eye.”
Archaeologists hope the Dannebroge’s remains will help reexamine the battle and uncover personal stories of those who fought that day. “There are bottles, there are ceramics and even pieces of basketry,” said diver and maritime archaeologist Marie Jonsson. “You get closer to the people on board.”
Edited by: Karl Sexton