#fotd185

[afactaday]

#aFactADay2021

#185: in 1714, in the Great Northern war, a Danish ship ran out of ammunition and sent a ship over to the enemy asking for some cannonballs 14 hours into a battle so they could continue the fight. the captains ended up drinking together so no one actually died. the captain of the Danish ship, Peter Jansen Wessel "Tordenskjold" (thunder shield), saw the Swedish ship thinking it was a British ship because the Swedes had sent it over to Britain to be fitted with all these guns. he had disguised his own ship as a Dutch ship but it was a lot smaller, so when he got home his admiral or whatever it is reprimanded him for initiating battle and took him to court. he found an obscure bit of naval law that not only got him off but got him promoted!

so from the outside it looked like a Dutch and a British ship when it was actually a Swedish and a Danish-Norwegian ship!