User:InspectorTiger/North Sea History

History

Early history

The first records of marine traffic on the North Sea come from the Roman Empire, which began exploring the sea in 12 BC. Great Britain was formally invaded in 43 AD and its southern areas incorporated into the Empire, beginning sustained trade across the North Sea and the English Channel. The Romans abandoned Britain in 410 and in the power vacuum they left, the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes began the next great migration across the North Sea during the Migration Period, conquering and displacing the native Celtic populations.^[1]

The Viking Age began in 793 with the attack on Lindisfarne and for the next quarter-century the Vikings ruled the North Sea. In their superior longships they raided without fear and established colonies and trading outposts on the Sea's coasts.

As Viking dominance petered out, trade on the North Sea came to be controlled by the Hanseatic League. The League, though centered on the Baltic Sea, had important outposts on the North Sea. Goods from all over the world flowed through the North Sea on their way to and from the Hanseatic cities.

By 1441 the Netherlands had risen as an economic and shipping power to rival the League. By the 16th Century the Netherlands were the leading economic power. The North Sea was a hotbed of commerce and shipping connecting far-flung colonies with markets all over Europe.

Early modern history

Dutch power during her Golden Age was a concern for growing England, which saw its future in the merchant marine and overseas colonies. This conflict was at the root of the first three Anglo-Dutch Wars between 1652 and 1673. By the end of the War of Spanish Succession the Dutch were no long a major player in European politics.

Britain's naval supremacy faced its only real challenge before the 20th Century from Napoleonic France and her continental allies. In 1800, a union of lesser naval powers, called the League of Armed Neutrality, formed to protect neutral trade during Britain's conflict with France. The British Navy defeated the combined forces of the League of Armed Neutrality in the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 in the Kattegat. Britain later defeated the French Navy in the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain.

20th Century

Tensions in the North Sea were again heightened in 1904 by the Dogger Bank incident, in which Russian naval vessels mistook British fishing boats for Japanese ships and fired on them, and then upon each other. In the resulting confusion 3 British fishermen, a Russian sailor, and a priest aboard a Russian ship were killed. The incident, combined with Britain's alliance with Japan and the Russo-Japanese War led to an intense diplomatic crisis. The crisis was defused when Russia was defeated by the Japanese and agreed to pay compensation to the fishermen.

During the First World War, Great Britain's Grand Fleet and Germany's Kaiserliche Marine faced each other on the North Sea, which remained the main theater of the war for surface action. Britain's larger fleet was able to establish an effective blockade for most of the war which restricted the Central Powers' access to many crucial resources. Major battles included the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the Battle of the Dogger Bank, the Battle of Jutland, and the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight. Britain was not always tactically successful, however maintained the blockade and thus kept the High Seas Fleet in port. The German navy remained a threat that kept the vast majority of Britain's capital ships in the North Sea. (:See also: Naval warfare of World War I)

The Second World War also saw action in the North Sea, though it was restricted more to submarines and smaller vessels such as minesweepers, and Fast Attack Craft.^[2] On April 9, 1940 the Germans initiated Operation Weserübung in which almost the entire German fleet was focused north toward Scandinavia in the North Sea as well as in the Skagerrak and Kattegat.^[3] Throughout the occupation of Norway the Shetland Bus operation ran secretly across the North Sea from Great Britain to Norway. First Norwegian fishing boats were used and then three 100 foot (30 m) submarine chasers. (see also: HNoMS Hitra).^[4]

In the last years of the war and the first years thereafter, huge volumes of weapons were sunk in the North Sea. These comprised mainly grenades, land mines, naval mines, bazookas, cartridges, and some chemical weapons. Though estimates vary widely, it is clear that hundreds of thousand tons of munitions were sunk.^[5]

After the war, the North Sea lost much of its military significance because though Cold War adversaries faced off in the Baltic, the North Sea was bordered only by NATO member-states. The North Sea gained significant economic meaning in the 1960s as the states on the North Sea began to exploit oil and gas resources.

Political status

De facto control of the North Sea played a decisive role in the political power relationships in north-west Europe since the time of the Vikings, and became a question of world politics after the First Anglo-Dutch War. Border countries officially claimed no more than narrow coastal waters until after the Second World War.

The countries bordering the North Sea all claim the twelve nautical miles of territorial waters within which they have many rights including exclusive fishing rights. Iceland, however, as a result of the Cod Wars has exclusive fishing rights for 200 mi (320 km) from its coast, into parts of the North Sea. The Common Fisheries Policy of the EU exists to coordinate fishing rights and assist with disputes between EU states and the EU border state of Norway.

After the discovery of mineral resources in the North Sea, Norway claimed its rights under the Continental Shelf Convention. The other countries on the sea followed suit. These rights are largely divided along the median line. The median line is defined as the line "every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points of the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea of each State is measured."^[6] The ocean floor border between Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark was only reapportioned after protracted negotiations and a judgment of the International Court of Justice.^[7]

Environmental concerns led to the MARPOL 73/78 Accords, which created 25 mi and 50 mi (40 and 80 km) zones of protection. The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic is established for the preservation of the ocean in the region. Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands have a trilateral agreement for the protection of the Wadden Sea, or mudflats, which run along the coasts of the three countries on the southern edge of the North Sea.