page_title: Battle of Jasmund (1864)
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Jasmund (1864) / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Moderne Kunst had this picture as part of its series Unsere Bilder accompanied by some history about the battle of Jasmund and the Prussian Navy.
context_page_description: The naval Battle of Jasmund took place between elements of the Danish and Prussian navies on 17 March 1864 during the Second Schleswig War. The action took place east of the Jasmund peninsula on the Prussian island of Rügen, during a Prussian attempt to weaken the Danish blockade in the Baltic Sea. The Prussian squadron, commanded by Eduard von Jachmann, sortied with a screw frigate, a screw corvette, a paddle steamer, and six gunboats to attack the Danish squadron blockading the eastern Prussian coast. The Danish force was commanded by Edvard van Dockum, and it consisted of one screw frigate, one ship of the line, and two steam corvettes. In an action lasting two hours, the superior Danish squadron forced the Prussians to withdraw, both sides suffering damage and light casualties. The Danish victory was compounded by the arrival of further warships after the battle, which cemented the blockade. The outcome of the battle, and the naval war in the Baltic as a whole, was irrelevant to the outcome of the war, however, as the Prussian and Austrian armies decisively defeated the Danes on land, forcing them to surrender.
context_section_description: Danish losses were six killed and sixteen wounded, all on the frigate Sjælland. The Prussian ships suffered lighter casualties; three men were killed aboard Arcona, and three more were wounded. Two men were killed and four were injured aboard Nymphe, and just a single man was wounded aboard Loreley. Nymphe was the most damaged vessel of either side, having been hit nineteen times in her hull, four times on her superstructure, and fifty times on her masts and rigging. On the night of 17 March, the screw frigate Jylland joined the Danish blockade force, and she was fast enough to catch Jachmann's corvettes. Danish naval supremacy in the Baltic was further cemented with the arrival on 30 March of Dannebrog, which was impervious to any weapon the Prussians then possessed. As a result, the Prussian fleet remained in port for the remainder of the war; the only events of note were a pair of sorties by the aviso Grille in April, though the Prussian ship did not encounter any Danish vessels on either operation. Jasmund proved to be the only naval action of consequence in the Baltic.
  Despite having been forced to flee, Jachmann was promoted to the rank of rear admiral for his actions during the battle. The Prussians made several further patrols in the Baltic, but refused to seek a pitched engagement with the far superior Danish fleet. Instead, the Second Schleswig War was decided on land. Additionally, the arrival of an Austrian squadron in the North Sea allowed the Austrians and Prussians to break the Danish blockade of the North Sea coastal ports at the Battle of Heligoland on 9 May. The Austrians, fearing that a more aggressive operation to defeat the Danish fleet in the Baltic would provoke the British, kept their squadron in the North Sea for the remainder of the war. On 9 May, the two sides signed an armistice in London that took effect three days later, temporarily ending the fighting. The armistice lasted until 26 June, when fighting broke out again on land. The Austrian and Prussian naval forces in the North Sea supported operations to capture the islands off the western Danish coast. These advances, coupled with the capture of the island of Als in the Baltic Sea, forced the Danes to seek a second armistice on 29 June. Ultimately, Denmark sued for peace after it became clear that they had lost naval superiority and that Britain would not intervene in the conflict.
caption: Painting of the battle, depicting the Prussian squadron, by Willy Stöwer
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