page_title: Galley
section_title: Baltic revival and decline
hierarchical_section_title: Galley / History / Use in northern Europe / Baltic revival and decline
caption_attribution_description: The battle of Grengam took place in the Åland Islands in the Ledsund strait; It was the last major naval battle in the Great Northern War (1700-1721) in which a coaltion including Russia, Lithuania and Denmark-Norway, successfully contested Swedish supremacy in northern Central and Eastern Europe; It is known in Sweden as the battle of Ledsund
context_page_description: A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by rowing. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard. Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human effort was always the primary method of propulsion. This allowed galleys to navigate independently of winds and currents. The galley originated among the seafaring civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea in the late second millennium BC and remained in use in various forms until the early 19th century in warfare, trade, and piracy.
  Galleys were the warships used by the early Mediterranean naval powers, including the Greeks, Illyrians, Phoenicians, and Romans. They remained the dominant types of vessels used for war and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea until the last decades of the 16th century. As warships, galleys carried various types of weapons throughout their long existence, including rams, catapults, and cannons, but also relied on their large crews to overpower enemy vessels in boarding actions. They were the first ships to effectively use heavy cannons as anti-ship weapons.
context_section_description: Galleys were introduced to the Baltic Sea in the 16th century but the details of their designs are lacking due to the absence of records. They might have been built in a more regional style, but the only known depiction from the time shows a typical Mediterranean style vessel. There is conclusive evidence that Denmark became the first Baltic power to build classic Mediterranean-style galleys in the 1660s, though they proved to be generally too large to be useful in the shallow waters of the Baltic archipelagos. Sweden and especially Russia began to launch galleys and various rowed vessels in great numbers during the Great Northern War in the first two decades of the 18th century. Sweden was late in the game when it came to building an effective oared fighting fleet (skärgårdsflottan, the archipelago fleet, officially arméns flotta, the fleet of the army), while the Russian galley forces under Tsar Peter I developed into a supporting arm for the sailing navy and a well-functioning auxiliary of the army which infiltrated and conducted numerous raids on the eastern Swedish coast in the 1710s.
  Sweden and Russia became the two main competitors for Baltic dominance in the 18th century, and built the largest galley fleets in the world at the time. They were used for amphibious operations in Russo-Swedish wars of 1741–43 and 1788–90. The last galleys ever constructed were built in 1796 by Russia, and remained in service well into the 19th century, but saw little action. The last time galleys were deployed in action was when the Russian navy was attacked in Åbo (Turku) in 1854 as part of the Crimean War. In the second half of the 18th century, the role of Baltic galleys in coastal fleets was replaced first with hybrid "archipelago frigates" (such as the turuma or pojama) and xebecs, and after the 1790s with various types of gunboats.
  Both the Russian and Swedish navies were based on a form of conscription, and both navies used conscripts as galley rowers. This had several advantages over convicts or slaves: the rowers could be armed to fight as marines, they could be also used as land soldiers and invasion force, and were more skilled than forced labor. Since most naval conscripts came from coastal parishes and towns, most were already experienced seafarers when they entered the service.
caption: A painting of the Battle of Grengam in 1720 by Ferdinand Perrot (1808–41) showing a large Russian galley engaging Swedish frigates at close range. Note the crowded fighting platform (rambade) in the bow.
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