Christian Thomsen Carl was born in 1676 in Assens on the Danish isle of Funen as the son of Helvig Jensdatter (†1717) and Thomas Iversen,[1] also spelled Iffversen.
[5] After apprenticeship in Denmark, Christian Thomsen Carl on 17 January (Sander) or 28 February 1696 (Lützow) was allowed to serve in a foreign army, and began his military career in the navy of the Dutch Republic.
[9] By then, a coalition of Denmark-Norway, Russia and Saxony had just started the Great Northern War against Sweden; Denmark dropped out in August 1700 and re-entered in June 1709.
Christian Thomsen Carl served on the Danish vessel Dronning Charlotte Amalie and on 26 April 1701 entered the new naval cadet company as a lieutenant.
[1] In 1712 and 1713, he commanded the vessel Ditmarsken and was put in charge of vice-admiral Christen Thomesen Sehested's Pomeranian fleet during his absence.
[17] Carl ordered his crew to approach Greifswald at a run from their quarters in Wieck,[18] located about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) east of the town.
[21] Also on 27 March, while encamped at Friedrichsstadt in Holstein,[22] Menshikov on his own authority revoked the tsar's order,[23] in turn for a contribution of 1,000 reichstalers per town spared.
[25] Staff prepared to leave for Anklam to carry out the tsar's conflagration order, but first fought a duel with Christian Thomsen Carl on 29 March on the market square in Greifswald.
[21] In most German secondary literature, it is maintained that the duel took place because Carl called Staff a "murderous incendiary" ("Mordbrenner");[27] while Sander (1914) says that the primary sources retrieved by him, mostly from Denmark, do not reveal the reason for the duel - he nevertheless assumes that Carl already knew about his king's efforts in rescinding the tsar's order and that his argument with Staff was about that issue.
[28] On 24 March, Christen Thomesen Sehested actually ordered Carl to intervene - because of king Frederick IV's discontent - against the devastation of Swedish Pomerania by the Russians, but without alienating them; yet, this order arrived in Greifswald only on 30 March and was answered by the Danish captain Michael Gude, who informed Sehested about the duel and Carl's death.
[31] However, general major Bueck, a Mecklenburger in charge of the Russian forces in Pomerania, took over the responsibility for the burning of Anklam from Staff, rescheduling it for 3 April.
[22] The inhabitants of Anklam were ordered to leave the town on 1 April, carrying with them only two shirts each and food for four days; their houses were looted and filled with straw and tar.
[33] Saissan, the French mercenary who before had fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, remained in Saxon service and in 1718 led an unsuccessful attempt to abdicate Stanislaus Leszczynski;[34] he died in Madrid in 1728[6] or 1739.
[37] The same name is used by William August Carstensen(da.wiki) and Otto George Lütken (1887), who mention Carl's role in the Danish advance to Pomerania and his death.
[45] During Christian Thomsen Carl's lifespan, the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway were combined under the rule of the absolutist monarchs residing in Copenhagen and had a common fleet.
"[50] The focus of the German records is exclusively on Carl's role in the Greifswald town fire and/or, more prominently, on the events preventing the burning of Anklam.
[52] An annotated edition and German translation was published by Hans Georg Thümmel(de.wiki) in 2001; it includes a mention of the Greifswald town fire without making a reference to Carl, but prominently identifies the "commandator navium Danicarum, dominus Carlson" as the one who prevented Anklam from being burned, and has the same details about his death as the sources used by Barfod.
Martii anno 1713 von den barbarischen Moskowitern kläglich in die Asche gelegt worden [Short notice of the disgraceful burning of the Pomeranian towns of Gartz and Wolgast, as these were laid in ashes by the barbarian Moscovites on 10 resp.
"[64] Regarding Anklam, consensus has formed in the German tradition of the events that the delay caused by the interception of Staff by Carl(son) was the decisive factor for the town's rescue.
Based on Carl's duel with Staff, commemorating his role in saving Anklam from being burned, the following fictional works were published (all in German):