A TEG Down resident has translated and edited a new book, originally written in Swedish. 

The Baltic Cauldron commemorates several centuries of Anglo-Swedish relations.

The book is a history of navies, in particular the Royal and Merchant Navies of Britain and Sweden, in the Baltic Sea and its approaches, from the Skaggerak to the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland.

Michael Ellis, who has lived in Winchester since 1987, said: “As a former British Naval Attaché in Stockholm and able to speak and read Swedish, I was invited to join a group of British and Swedish naval historians to contribute to the Swedish edition and then to translate it and edit it for the English edition. It was fascinating work. I learned much about the history of both nations that I was unaware of before. For example, it was not the land campaign in the Crimea, but the naval threat to St Petersburg in 1856 which forced the Russians to conclude the war.”

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Many larger-than-life characters appear in the story, including Lieutenant Augustus Agar, who took his tiny torpedo boat into Kronstadt harbour in 1919 and sank a Bolshevik cruiser. 

For this, he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His grave is in Alton cemetery. 

Another is Admiral Sir James Saumarez, a Guernseyman, who earned high praise and a diamond studded sword from the King of Sweden in 1812 for keeping Sweden out of the Napoleonic wars by means of skillful ‘gunboat’ diplomacy. But it is not all battles and admirals, there are some light-hearted episodes, like the trick which naval attaché Captain Henry Denham played on the Swedish secret police in 1943. The final chapter tells of the 2019 capture by the Iranians of the Swedish owned, British flagged tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz and the subsequent intervention by the Royal Navy frigate, HMS Montrose.

This chapter rounds off the book’s continuous theme of the vital importance of maritime trade and the consequent need for freedom of navigation.

Mr Ellis said: “The book is beautifully produced with many illustrations, including original paintings by leading Swedish marine artist Christer Hägg, charts and photographs – some of which have not been published previously. What with reading, translating, editing and proof reading, I reckon I have read the book six times, but I still think it’s good.”

The book is available at whittlespublishing.com/The_Baltic_Cauldron.