The Second League of Armed Neutrality or the League of the North was an alliance of the north European naval powers Denmark–Norway, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia. It occurred between 1800 and 1801 during the War of the Second Coalition and was initiated by Paul I of Russia. It was a revival of the First League of Armed Neutrality, which had been quite successful during the American War of Independence in isolating Britain and resisting attempts to interfere with their shipping, but the Second League was less successful than the First.
The Second League was intended to protect neutral shipping against the Royal Navy's wartime policy of unlimited search of neutral shipping for French contraband, in an attempt to cut off military supplies and other trade to the First French Republic. The British government, not now anxious to preserve Russian goodwill, openly considered it a form of alliance with France and attacked Denmark, destroying parts of its fleet in the first Battle of Copenhagen and forcing it to withdraw from the League. In addition to this Prussia invaded Hanover in April 1801 as a way to attack the British. Paul's death in March 1801 and the acccesion of Alexander I led to a change of policy in Russia, and the alliance collapsed. Russia later joined the British in a coalition against Napoleonic France.
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Famous quotes containing the words league, armed and/or neutrality:
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)