TIL during the exceptionally cold winter of 1795, a French Hussar regiment captured the Dutch fleet on the frozen Zuiderzee, a bay to the northwest of the Netherlands. The French seized 14 warships and 850 guns. This is one of the only times in recorded history where calvary has captured a fleet.

| Category: Learned

Reddit Image
Source

bonapartstench: somebody got a promotion for that one

Poemi: “One of”???

jenlou289: The captains of those ships must have face palmed so hard seeing the cavalry rushing towards them hahahaha

ThePowerOfFarts: I’ve heard of this incident before but after doing a bit of research on it it seems likely that the truth is probably a little bit more mundane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Dutch_fleet_at_Den_Helder

The wikipedia article says that there is a lot of uncertainty about what actually happened but there is an /r/AskHistorians thread which seems to suggest that the Dutch were surrendering anyway and that it the formal handover of the Dutch fleet to the French just happened to have been received by a cavalry regiment.

Did French hussars actually engage in, and win, a naval battle with the dutch fleet at Den Helder in 1795?
byu/mkalvas inAskHistorians

Still really interesting.

GreenStrong: THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!

PvtDeth: It’s truly inspiring that Jesus’ sacrifice overcame those pagan Nederlanders.

coffeeinvenice: “cavalry”. Calvary is a hill outside of Jerusalem.

Sitonthemelon: Cavalry*

I’m not a Grammar Nazi, I’m a Spelling Soviet.

Edit: I just realized this has already been corrected.
kek

Howlyhusky: Ah yes, the Zuiderzee. Doesn’t exist anymore.

Imadethis4things: *cavalry.

yellowlorryslow: Hello and welcome to Revolutions… *cue Haydn’s Oxford Symphony 92*

emanresu_tnaveler: Somebody was browsing history memes this morning.

Sk8r Bois
byu/Bpax94 inHistoryMemes

Artiquecircle: The funny thing is they only had to turn the flags sideways as well. That’s efficient.

“Now it’s the Netherlands, now it’s French.”

Magnetronaap: Fun fact, the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea) was later disconnected from the North Sea by a giant dyke (the Afsluitdijk) and thus turned into a giant lake. Later on we proceeded to create a whole new province in this lake called Flevoland. This has nothing to do with the story of OP, but you learned a bit more about the body of water that was involved.

buckfever626: I don’t really understand how the bay is Northwest of the Netherlands. It’s more in the Netherlands Northern portion of the country.

carpetano: This reminds me of the [Battle of Empel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Empel)

SgothanSiorruidh: Why does everyone misspell cavalry? I don’t blame op, even the article says calvary.

fluffyxsama: … Isn’t it “cavalry”?

Pretty sure “calvary” has something to do with Jesus.

AnderzzTV: >This is one of the only times in recorded history where calvary has captured a fleet.

What other times have cavalry captured a fleet?! hahaha

Medieval_Mind: How well can horses run on ice?

grapesdown: Damnit Elsa…

whingeypomme: Isn’t everything that ever happened “one of the only times”?

KJ6BWB: > This is one of the only times in recorded history where calvary has captured a fleet.

Wait, there were more times? Or did you mean “This is the only time”? Also, OP, it’s “cavalry” — Calvary is the English translation of one of the placenames for where Jesus was crucified.

(Aramaic: Gagultâ -> Latin: Calvariæ Locus -> English: Calvary)

Upvoted — I just wanted to point these out. 🙂

moeilijk_ouwe: How embarrassing

Filed Under: Learned

« TIL In 2013, a Pizza Hut GM Stood Up and Refused to Force His Employees to Work Thanksgiving, Believing They Should Get to Spend Time With Family Instead.
TIL that Axe advertising was targeted to work on insecure males. The ads were so successful that the brand eventually backpedaled, as the brand was being too closely associated with their target group. »
  • Learned
  • Explain