Kiel Canal, Germany: into the North Sea
Transition is implicit in any sea voyage, but today's passage marks a major gear change in European history. As we learnt in lectures from our historians David Barnes and Ron Suny, when the Vikings first took to their longboats in the 8th century, they stooped on southern Europe like falcons, plundering the wealth of religious and trade centres from Paris to St.Petersburg. Renouncing their predatory, pagan ways under the influence of Irish Christianity, they soon settled in these rich southern lands and became model citizens. Normandy in north-west France takes its name from these Norsemen, whose restless zeal turned from pillaging to ploughing to praying. Thus Norman churches sprang up right across Europe and with them, the urge to trade with eastern neighbours. By the 15th century the focus for this international trade was based firmly in the Baltic, a network of trade routes whose hub was Lûbeck, yesterday's destination. Baltic timber and wheat were traded with English wool, Danish herring and Norwegian cod and the proceeds built the fine cathedrals and merchant palaces of Europe. But within a century, Europe had a taste for eastern spices, and Columbus had found a westerly route to the New World, so the new focus became the Atlantic seaboard, and the maritime nations of Britain, Spain and Portugal. By the 16th century, the Baltic was an awkward inland lake, by the 19th an impractical backwater. World trade had left it floundering. Then the long flog up the Kattegat and Skagerrak was a trial, and having to fight down the west coast of Denmark, taking the brunt of the North Sea storms, was further torture for trade ships. In 1587 when Kornelius Kiel suggested digging a canal shortcut to North Sea, the Hanseatic burghers scoffed. In 1887 when his descendant Karl Kiel proposed the same thing, they looked at each other and said: "Let's do it." It took 9,000 men 8 years to build, but when it was opened in 1895, the Kiel canal became the Panama of Europe. It is now the busiest maritime shortcut in the world: 43,000 vessels passed through it in 2007. The 61 mile cut shaves 280 nautical miles off the original journey, a huge saving of fuel, time and lives.
We passed huge container ships bringing goods from China, Japan, Holland and Britain, while on either side of the canal, cattle and sheep grazed on rich grassy flatlands. For the birdwatchers there was plenty to keep us alert: ducks, coots, sandpipers, feral Egyptian geese and ruddy shelduck, and a remarkable sequence of birds of prey: kestrel, sparrowhawk, buzzard, osprey and a superb adult White-tailed Eagle which flew low across the canal right in front of us. When we reached the North Sea at Brünnsbuttel, we slotted into the giant lock and set off into a lively North Sea, with migrating swallows fighting a strong wind down the river Elbe. Now we are all partners in transition, for both ship and swallow are southbound for warmer waters as the northern summer wanes.
Transition is implicit in any sea voyage, but today's passage marks a major gear change in European history. As we learnt in lectures from our historians David Barnes and Ron Suny, when the Vikings first took to their longboats in the 8th century, they stooped on southern Europe like falcons, plundering the wealth of religious and trade centres from Paris to St.Petersburg. Renouncing their predatory, pagan ways under the influence of Irish Christianity, they soon settled in these rich southern lands and became model citizens. Normandy in north-west France takes its name from these Norsemen, whose restless zeal turned from pillaging to ploughing to praying. Thus Norman churches sprang up right across Europe and with them, the urge to trade with eastern neighbours. By the 15th century the focus for this international trade was based firmly in the Baltic, a network of trade routes whose hub was Lûbeck, yesterday's destination. Baltic timber and wheat were traded with English wool, Danish herring and Norwegian cod and the proceeds built the fine cathedrals and merchant palaces of Europe. But within a century, Europe had a taste for eastern spices, and Columbus had found a westerly route to the New World, so the new focus became the Atlantic seaboard, and the maritime nations of Britain, Spain and Portugal. By the 16th century, the Baltic was an awkward inland lake, by the 19th an impractical backwater. World trade had left it floundering. Then the long flog up the Kattegat and Skagerrak was a trial, and having to fight down the west coast of Denmark, taking the brunt of the North Sea storms, was further torture for trade ships. In 1587 when Kornelius Kiel suggested digging a canal shortcut to North Sea, the Hanseatic burghers scoffed. In 1887 when his descendant Karl Kiel proposed the same thing, they looked at each other and said: "Let's do it." It took 9,000 men 8 years to build, but when it was opened in 1895, the Kiel canal became the Panama of Europe. It is now the busiest maritime shortcut in the world: 43,000 vessels passed through it in 2007. The 61 mile cut shaves 280 nautical miles off the original journey, a huge saving of fuel, time and lives.
We passed huge container ships bringing goods from China, Japan, Holland and Britain, while on either side of the canal, cattle and sheep grazed on rich grassy flatlands. For the birdwatchers there was plenty to keep us alert: ducks, coots, sandpipers, feral Egyptian geese and ruddy shelduck, and a remarkable sequence of birds of prey: kestrel, sparrowhawk, buzzard, osprey and a superb adult White-tailed Eagle which flew low across the canal right in front of us. When we reached the North Sea at Brünnsbuttel, we slotted into the giant lock and set off into a lively North Sea, with migrating swallows fighting a strong wind down the river Elbe. Now we are all partners in transition, for both ship and swallow are southbound for warmer waters as the northern summer wanes.
