Finding Atlantis

by David King

  So the engagement was made, the two kings looked happy, and the plan seemed to be working. But all the fireworks and merry toasts to eternal friendship could not stop the Danish king, only a few months later, from declaring war.

  A few weeks after this royal engagement had been announced in June 1675, Swedish troops experienced an engagement of a different kind. Allied with the French, the Swedes were dragged into hostilities with one of Louis XIV’s enemies in northern Germany, the Brandenburg prince Frederick William. They had not particularly wanted war, but, bound by treaty, they attacked anyway on the fields of Fehrbellin. To great surprise on all sides, the Swedes were repulsed. The German prince effectively exploited the orderly retreat to shout out to the world that the Swedes were no longer invincible.

  Marriage proposal and celebrated engagement aside, the ever-vigilant king of Denmark, Christian V, sensed that this was too good an opportunity to miss. The current situation—a Swedish loss on the battlefield—surely constituted an exception to the general words of goodwill and reconciliation just pledged. Denmark had long wanted to regain the lost provinces, that valuable territory full of fortresses and fertile lands which Charles XI’s dad had forced Christian V’s dad to hand over. With Sweden distracted by the German enemy, now was their chance.

  The Danes declared war immediately. Their allies, the Dutch, also found this logic persuasive, and followed suit, looking toward more control over the lucrative Baltic trade. As if this coalition with its combined naval strength were not difficult enough to fight, the Hapsburg emperor also saw the possibility of finally kicking out the Swedes from nearby German territories—lands that he thought he could better dominate by himself.

  As formidable enemies were mobilizing their troops on a frankly nightmarish number of fronts, the previous nonchalance at the loss at Fehrbellin started to undergo a real change. When De la Gardie finally showed up in Stockholm again, three weeks after that defeat, he found a rather irate group of Riksråd (Council) and parliamentary officials. Serious questions were posed about the actions of the old regency government and the man who stood at its center, namely, De la Gardie himself.

  With Riksråd and parliamentary leaders distancing themselves from the past, there came a call for an official investigation. Many wanted to know how Sweden had entered into this alliance with France and had then agreed to fight in a war for which they were so obviously ill prepared. After only fourteen years of peace, statesmen also demanded to know why the Swedish military had fallen into such a poor condition. Again eyes turned to De la Gardie’s leadership. What on earth had happened to the army that only a few years ago was the feared hammer of the north?

  In the midst of the uproar and hysteria, more accusations were leveled against the chancellor. High-ranking men of society came forward claiming to have heard De la Gardie utter some treacherous words about the king, calling him a “rascal” and urging his removal. Led by Claes Rålamb, Stockholm’s highest official, and Knut Kurck, president of the Commerce College, the politicians took their information straight to the king.

  The count fell on his knees and begged his innocence. Their words were all lies and hearsay, he pleaded, and in turn, he accused the rivals of spreading false rumors. With such prominent people on both sides of the issue, the inexperienced king was uncertain how to proceed. Prudently, though, he steered a middle course. He refused to consider this a matter of state, and suggested that the two sides settle the dispute between themselves.

  But as both sides were conscripting allies in the autumn of 1675 for what would certainly have been a vicious struggle, something happened that would sway many of the remaining undecided opinions.

  EARLIER THAT SUMMER the king had ordered the Royal Navy to launch a preemptive strike on the Danish and Dutch warships gathering in the south. Three months and countless delays later, the Swedes were still preparing for the attack. By late October, as sailing conditions were rapidly deteriorating, sixty-six large and well-armed vessels sailed out in one of the largest fleets ever assembled on the Baltic. This Swedish armada was to put a stop to the malicious designs of the Danes and their ill-advised declaration of war.

  Ten days later the first ships were seen creaking back to shore, sails torn, ropes rotten, and anchors lost. And they had not even met an enemy. A nasty storm had emerged on the choppy Baltic Sea, causing dismal visibility and disrupting established means of communication. Some ships literally crashed into each other. Many supplies, including the stores of food, went overboard. It was an embarrassing performance, and the admiral, Gustaf Otto Stenbock, was fired for his incompetence. Prior to his appointment as admiral, it turned out, he had never even been to sea.

  As much as this disaster hurt De la Gardie’s prestige, things did not unfortunately improve. At the next opportunity, the summer of 1676, the Swedes pulled out their greatest weapon, the flagship Kronan (Crown). Drawing on the most advanced naval architecture developed by the great maritime powers England and Holland, Kronan was one of the largest and best-armed ships of its day. About 180 feet in length and forty-three in width, the man-of-war boasted a terrifying 126 cannon, including some highly regarded thirty- and thirty-six-pounders.

  As Kronan started to attack near the Baltic island of Öland on the first day of June 1676, one of the Swedish naval officers sent a message to his superior, the admiral Lorentz Creutz. Now, the admiral was new, and he had never fought a battle, with his previous experience consisting mainly of prosecuting witches. In the general confusion of the melee, Creutz misunderstood his officer’s message. Instead of continuing the fight as signaled, he ordered the monstrous ship to set a new course. At the same time, the inexperienced commander seems to have forgotten to give the accompanying order to adjust the sails and close the gunports. The enemy Dutch and Danish commanders looked on in bewilderment at what happened next to Sweden’s most feared warship: “Kronan careened, water poured in through the hatches, the cannons broke loose, a slow match ended up in the gunpowder stocks, and Kronan exploded and sank.” Of a crew of 850, only forty-two were known to have survived.

  A tragedy, a disaster, an embarrassment, and a stunning reversal—and it was not over yet. The second-largest ship in the navy, Svärdet (Sword), did not last much longer; and a third, Äpplet (Apple), went down as well. The commander of this ship, too, seems to have known frighteningly little of naval warfare. “He cannot even differentiate the forecastle and the poop,” the minutes of the later trial revealed. Evidently the commander’s previous position had been running a restaurant.

  None of this reflected well on De la Gardie’s stewardship. A total of eleven ships, including the three most impressive, went down with some three thousand sailors of the Swedish Royal Navy. In the wake of this overwhelming loss, Swedish defenses lay prostrate. It was only a matter of time before an all-out Danish invasion would begin.

  Morale had sunk very low in Stockholm, and the new king seemed manifestly depressed. Although he had long trusted De la Gardie, he was now inclined to listen to the pleas of the furious and the disenchanted who blamed the overall sorry state of the navy on De la Gardie’s government. For twelve years it had concentrated power too much, blocked access to the king, and, some suspected, kept the monarch in a state of ignorance about the true conditions of the kingdom.

  Sweden was now paying the price for these faults in the naval fiascoes and criminally ill-prepared forces. Soon it would also have to face a Danish invasion, one certain to be as bold, determined, and set on revenge as had been the Swedes who marched over the ice. Count Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie watched helplessly as the king reluctantly ordered an investigation into the charges of widespread misrule. Rudbeck, too, was anxious about these developments. Neither the war nor the prosecution of his patron boded well for his hunt for Atlantis.

  10

  ALL OARS TO ATLANTIS

  As time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein over our doubts.

  —
T. E. LAWRENCE, SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM

  TIMES WERE UNCERTAIN indeed, but Rudbeck poured his soul into the search. Soon he had turned up no less than 102 pieces of evidence of why Atlantis had actually been in Sweden. Many prominent landmarks—the rivers, the mountains, the temple, and the racetrack—had already been identified in Old Uppsala. Even the thick forests surrounding the capital were said to be the heavily wooded areas outside of Uppsala. Rudbeck was growing absolutely convinced. His countrymen were walking in the shadows of Plato’s lost world.

  The Swedish physician, however, was hardly the first to seek Atlantis. As the fantasy of such an extraordinary discovery tightened its grip, Rudbeck’s search would become a dialogue with rival visions of the vanished world. He would learn from, and at the same time compete with, the many theories that flourished in his day and before.

  The modern rediscovery of Atlantis had begun unexpectedly in the fateful and traumatic encounter between the Old and New Worlds in the Age of Discovery. Sixteenth-century Europeans came armed with muskets and portable cannon that roared as if the “dyvels of hell” had been loosed on the world. Mounted on horses, animals never seen before, the Spanish conquistadores must have looked to the indigenous peoples of Central and South America like strange, menacing beasts, perhaps like the half-man, half-horse centaurs who roamed the mythic hills of Arcadia.

  Driven by a complex set of motives, the first European explorers had set sail down the uncharted west coast of Africa. Many hoped to tap the ultimate source of gold that crossed the Saharan desert and enriched the coffers of trading cities like Venice or Genoa. Others saw the opportunity to win new converts to the faith, and possibly find the legendary Christian prince Prester John, who ruled somewhere in a sea of the heathen. Still others wanted to earn an honored name, gain eternal fame, or even fathom the “secrets of these parts” that had so long been “hidden from other men.”

  The initial gold rush broadened into a veritable spice race—and the frontiers of the search expanded from the coasts of Africa to the distant worlds of India, Ceylon, China, and beyond. Such “grains of paradise” not only preserved meat from spoilage, but also added variety to the diet and made bad meals on European tables less appalling. Spices were a valuable addition to the medicine chest, as well, combating coughs, countering colds, and preventing everything, it was said, from earache to the plague. The Portuguese were yet again the first to take tentative steps in securing this lucrative market. Important ports like Calcutta, strategic straits like Malacca, and waterways like the Bay of Bengal lay in their hands.

  Laden with pepper, cinnamon, ginger, mace, cloves, and nutmeg—the last of these literally worth more than its weight in gold—caravel triumphs were unimaginably profitable. They began to attract the attentions of ambitious neighbors. In this context, the Genoese sailor Cristóbal Colón, more commonly known as Christopher Columbus, devised a somewhat unconventional plan to reach the riches of the East by sailing in the opposite direction. Medieval legends seemed to confirm the vague possibilities of success in this “foolish mad” venture, and, significantly, learned miscalculations vastly underestimated the actual distances involved. The ancient geographer Ptolemy’s classic maps of the world, for example, which had recently been published, cut over six thousand miles from the journey, and played no small role in strengthening Columbus’s already legendary indomitable will.

  After countless rejections from several European heads of state, Columbus finally managed to persuade the rulers of Spain, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, to finance his voyage. So, in October 1492, after a thirty-three-day voyage from the Canaries, the captain and his crew struck land on the Bahamian island of San Salvador (today Guanahaní). Three more successful voyages followed, to Cuba, to Jamaica, and along the coast of Central America—all of which, Columbus thought, were the East Indies, the entrance to Japan, China, and the fabulous riches of the East. The navigator went to his death absolutely certain that he had glimpsed these oriental mysteries.

  Columbus did not, as we now know, discover the East Indies. As explorers ventured farther inland and mapmakers struggled to incorporate the discoveries on the latest maps, it gradually became clear that he had actually stumbled upon a brand-new continent. Two of them, as a matter of fact (though despite common belief today, Columbus himself never set foot on the continent in the north, i.e., today’s United States). Also, daring seafarers who most probably made the oceanic voyages before him include everyone from adventurous Vikings to Irish monks, though their exploits had faded from memory and were not rediscovered until later scholars started peering into the old manuscripts again. This time, however, with the printing press and rumors promising almost endless opportunities for power, profit, prestige, and preaching, it would be different.

  This discovery of a new continent was to have a tremendous impact on the Old World, not least in that it sparked new and lively speculation about the lost civilization of Atlantis. Hadn’t Plato written about a mysterious island somewhere in the far west, beyond the pillars of Hercules? Hadn’t the philosopher also placed it at a “distant point in the Atlantic”? Maybe it had not been destroyed after all, but had only fallen out of common knowledge. Could this “brave new world,” as Shakespeare called the enchanted isle that formed the setting of The Tempest, actually be the lost continent of Atlantis?

  In the period immediately after 1492, this seemed a likely option. It was made more so in the 1550s, when Ferdinand Magellan’s daring circumnavigation of the world proved for the first time that this America was an entirely unknown continent. As the old assurance of a three-continent Earth crumbled, Plato’s story about a former powerful island civilization in the far west no longer seemed all that far-fetched.

  In fact, Renaissance thinkers were quick to place new discoveries in the context of the old classical traditions, and the New World seemed to have many things in common with Plato’s Atlantis. For one thing, travelers’ reports told of the continent’s overwhelming size. Like Atlantis, it seemed “larger than Libya and Asia together,” enjoying all the natural advantages that the philosopher Plato attributed to Atlas’s isle. Explorers indeed strained their descriptive abilities to paint an accurate portrait of the many new birds, animals, and plants inhabiting this lush novus mundus. For those who refused to believe the stories about the Americas—and those tales were often outlandish—the goods that flowed into European harbors provided a more tangible confirmation: potatoes for the tables, chocolate for the cups, tobacco for the pipes, and sugar for almost everything else.

  The vibrant culture, too, seemed remarkably Atlantean. One civilization the Spanish encountered, the Aztecs, showed a close resemblance to Plato’s descriptions of the islanders’ great talent for engineering projects. The capital, Tenochtitlán, appeared to rise out of a lake of salt, and bridges looped over a system of canals that crisscrossed the land. Grand structures commanded attention, particularly the stone-terraced pyramids and the temples gilded with offerings and stained with the blood of many human sacrifices. Fountains in the gardens and baths in the palace further suggested the sophistication and luxury that readers had come to expect of old Atlantis.

  Most dramatically, the Aztec civilization shared a degree of wealth comparable to the legendary treasures of Atlantis. As Plato described it, the riches of the kingdom were so immense that “the like had never been seen before in any royal house nor will ever easily be seen again.” From the very beginning, European explorers could hardly fail to note the shining ornaments encircling the necks, dangling from the ears, and decorating the bodies of the natives. Main buildings in the Aztec capital glowed with bright white stucco, and gold adorned the lavish temples. Escorted into the palace, the Spanish gaped at the ostentatious display of the Aztec officials’ wealth. Pearls, emeralds, and other precious stones lined the clothes, covered the staffs, and accompanied the “marvelously delicate” featherwork. Even the soles of Montezuma’s sandals were tipped in gold.

  A few very bloody years later,
the conquistadores had stripped off, melted down, and carried back so much from their native hosts that Spain was virtually swimming in Aztec gold. After Francisco Pizarro’s brutal campaign in Peru, and the discovery of rich mines high in the Andes, the home country would also feast on Incan silver. So much bullion poured in from the New World that it flowed like “rain on a rooftop.” Conservative estimates put the total cargo until 1650 at 181 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver, and this does not account for the treasure lost to smuggling, piracy, and shipwreck. As one Aztec put it, the strangers “longed and lusted for gold” so much that “their bodies swelled with greed, . . . [and] they hungered like pigs.”

  So moved by the sights, one Spaniard paused from the plundering to put his observations on record. This was Francisco López de Gomara, the priest and private secretary of the “restless, haughty, mischievous and given to quarreling” young man, the infamous conquistador Hernán Cortés. From his vantage point, Gomara wrote our oldest account of the conquest of Mexico and the influential history of the Indies (1553), which remains today an invaluable source for understanding this brutal period of the past. Inside the work was an early statement placing Atlantis firmly in the Americas, a view that would be shared by many others in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  Not everyone, of course, would find this a sound idea, let alone be convinced that the Spanish had stumbled upon old Atlantis. The famous French thinker Michel de Montaigne, for one, doubted this identification. In one of his essays (1580)—he was one of the first and most influential thinkers to popularize the essay as a literary genre in its own right—Montaigne acknowledged that it was “very probable” that a great flood had in fact destroyed Atlantis as Plato described. But he expressed his skepticism that the newly discovered continent was really Plato’s world. “It is not very probable that the new world we have lately discovered is, in fact, that island.”