Maybe already an old topic, then I have missed it.
I was just researching several Napoleonic warships, and came across references that raised more than an eyebrow!
French T�m�raire class ship of the line 74 guns: 'Le Pultusk' (built 1807 in Antwerp, which was then part of the French Empire under Napoleon).
The name refers to the Polish town of Pu?tusk (pronounce Poow-toosk, the little scribe through the l isn't there for nothing, it turns the pronunciation from l into w! And the name has nothing to do with pulling the teeth of a boar...
) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu%C5%82tusk Well, I can understand the French didn't have the letter ? at their disposition in those days.
But now the story begins to be really funny! While researching the topic of the class of this ship (the Pluton sub-class of the famous T�m�raire...) I came across this little Danish booklet: 'The Danes on the Scheldt' De Danske Paa Schelden http://www.marinehist.dk/orlogsbib/L/LytkenSchelden.pdf
Fortunately it is also available in editable form here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/64487/64 ... 4487-h.htm
With a little help from Google I quickly had a translation made, and found in the annotations:
The ship of the line was named in memory of the Battle of Pultusk, but the French had given the ship the twisted name �Pulstuck�. The Danish officers soon drew the attention of the French to the misspelling, but the ship now had the distorted name; thus it was in the official lists, regulations, etc .; it was no easy matter to get it changed, at least not without much correspondence, and it therefore remained, both officially and in everyday speech, even among the Danes among themselves, to be called �Pulstuck,� until shortly before our crews were recalled when the Emperoraccidentally became aware of the error and gave the order to correct it with the remark:
�The French do not know therefore even the name of their victories.�
(Archive of the Navy, 8th vol.).So if you look around on the internet, you can find many references to 'the battle of Pulstuck' in 1806, in the form of coins, paintings, drawings etcetera.
But you may now ask: what the hell did those Danes do on the Scheldt in 1808? Well, the short version: in 1807 after the abduction of the Danish fleet in Copenhagen after defeat by the British, they seeked for help from Napoleon. As the emperor was in need of crews for his newly built warships in Antwerp, he quickly made a deal: the Danes would get his assistance in return for three. later two complete crews. This arrangement was quickly executed, but a year later, the two captains were arrested by the French for insubordination and the crews were returned to Denmark, without having had much to do in Flushing, where the ships were stationed then. So not much fun for either party in the end!
But nevertheless an interesting piece of reading! I found it after someone directed me to a set of rudimentary plans in the Danish Orlogsv�rfted archives, of the sister ship 'Dantzick' - also a different spelling then what you find in Wikipedia! This was the other ship crewed by the Danes. In this case the spelling was the correct and the common spelling in French for the town we know as 'Gda?sk' today.
