In 1709, the people of Europe faced their coldest winter in 500 years. Sudden storms,
endless frosts, and vast famines led to the deaths of countless people over the next year
or so — but the exact nature of the Great Frost remains a mystery to this day.
It was called the Great Frost in England and Le Grand Hiver in France, but whatever anyone
wanted to call it, it basically meant everything had become very, very cold. And the weirdest
thing is that it literally happened overnight. When people across Europe went to sleep on
the evening of January 5th, 1709, they couldn't possibly have known what they were in for.
When they woke the next morning, the temperature had plunged to the very bottom of the thermometer.
Snow had begun to fall, too, and didn't stop, either, covering pretty much the whole of
Europe in a near-instant. This new world had an average temperature of around -5 degrees
Fahrenheit.
Today, we can check the weather for the week and know that, while it might not be 100%
accurate, we can get a pretty good idea of what's in store. In 1709, though, there was
no warning that any of this was going to happen. Thousands and thousands of people died from
hypothermia before anyone realized how serious the plummeting temperature was, and animals
— including valuable livestock such as sheep, chickens and cows — froze to death where
they slept. And that was just the beginning.
As the days dragged on, and the temperatures remained freezing, people and animals alike
continued to struggle.
Parisians were left to fend for themselves for three months — with no supplies able
to get into the city. Snow blocked roads across the continent, and a number of rivers froze,
with some seeing up to 11 inches of ice. Germany's hot springs froze, too, along with Amsterdam's
canals, Switzerland's lakes, and the Adriatic and Baltic Seas. One small grace was that
people were able to walk across those frozen lakes to search for food. But it may not have
done them much good, and sometimes the frozen bodies of the dead became dinner.
There are accounts of the cold being so overwhelming that trees cracked and shattered spontaneously,
and church bells even stopped ringing, because they'd break and crack if they tried. Wine
froze in the wine cellars of the rich, along with bread, meat, and what little food remained.
As for livestock, it was the cattle and other large animals who were the first to die. Soon
enough, however, smaller wild animals were decimated too, and entire populations of wildlife
were wiped out.
Humanity hasn't really had a great track record when it comes to treating the world's poorest
with any kind of respect. So it may not be entirely surprising to learn that, yes, Europe's
poorest residents had it pretty bad during the Great Frost. What's more surprising, however,
is that the rich fared little better.
Europe's elite had spent a good long time building massive, sprawling palaces for themselves,
on huge estates that were kept more for decorative purposes than for anything else. After all,
practicality was something that only the peasants needed to concern themselves with.
"Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!"
"Shut up!"
"Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!"
Take Versailles, for example. Louis XIV turned his father's hunting lodge into a palace in
the 1670s, and as part of the renovations he installed tall, wide windows that were
specifically designed to impress anyone who saw them. But they didn't do much good for
the weather. In the midst of the cold snap, the Duchess of Orleans was staying at Versailles,
and wrote:
"The cold here is so fierce that it fairly defies description. I am sitting by a roaring
fire, have a screen before the door, which is closed, so that I can sit here with a fur
around my neck [...] and I am still shivering and can barely hold the pen. Never in my life
have I seen a winter such as this one..."
The winter of 1709 included the coldest month the continent had seen in 500 years. That
was followed by six more cold snaps, where temperatures once again plummeted, and these
freezing conditions lasted until March. By then, the ground was frozen, entire forests
of trees were dead, and, when temperatures finally rose again, the snow and ice melted,
leading to devastating floods. Crops that should have been growing by spring were lost,
famine spread… and, inevitably, revolts flared up as a result.
Between February and June of 1709, there were 155 instances of open rebellion in France
alone, as starving people descended on any building that might have food left. Famine
became just as bad as the cold, and according to one letter written by the sister-in-law
of the French king, by June it was so bad that even the "children had devoured each
other."
It's almost impossible to measure the long-term effects of such devastation, but a report
in The Guardian recently suggested that England's entire agricultural economy was destroyed,
with GDP falling by a shocking 23%. It was around 10 years before the nation saw anything
close to a rebound to pre-freeze conditions and productivity.
Any historian will tell you that it's basically impossible to accurately pin huge historical
events down to singular root causes. That said, it may be entirely possible that, had
the Great Frost of 1709 never happened, Russia may not have become a superpower. And if that
never happened, we'd never have gotten this.
"I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism: space!"
This story goes back to the beginning of the century, and the so-called Great Northern
War. This was the conflict that decided how the balance of power in eastern Europe was
going to fall, and it all came down to Sweden and Russia. At the time, Peter the Great's
Russia had been making significant gains against Sweden, which was headed by the young and
inexperienced Charles XII.
During the Great Frost, the Swedish army suffered devastating losses to the cold. Around 20,000
Swedish soldiers died, and there were some nights that saw as many as 2,000 men perishing
before the sun rose. Throw in a lack of supplies to weaken those who did survive, and the lead-up
alone to the Battle of Poltava basically crippled the Swedish forces. Ultimately, the battle
ended with Sweden being roundly defeated and Peter the Great becoming that much greater.
Poltava is credited by many with being one of the key moments in Russian history; one
that helped cement the country as a leading player in global politics. All in all, it
really does seem like Russia's fortunes were spurred along by the bitter cold of winter.
And not for the last time, either.
When the historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie sat down with Meteo-France to discuss the
Great Winter, he made it quite clear that, for all we know about the terrible cold spell,
there's plenty we don't know, too — including just how many people died. In a 1709 edition
of the newspaper La clef du cabinet, this observation can be found:
"An infinite number of people [...] died everywhere [...] whole families were found to be frozen
to death."
Deaths didn't just come with the cold, either, and for those who survived, there were other
difficulties lurking in the months ahead. Le Roy Ladurie says that it's estimated around
100,000 people died immediately from the cold — and that's only in France. Then, as many
as 200,000 died in the famine that followed, and after that, there was another round of
around 300,000 deaths. This last group perished as a result of their higher vulnerability
to diseases they may otherwise have been able to survive — such as typhoid, smallpox,
measles, dysentery, and even scurvy.
Many also died from eating spoiled food, or from eating things that just aren't suitable
as food, such as carrion. Suicide wasn't uncommon, either, and many people were killed in the
riots and rebellions that broke out across the country. In total, it's estimated that
the Great Winter led to the deaths of some 600,000 people… in France alone.
The biggest mystery of the Frost of 1709, however, is this: what actually caused it
in the first place? One of the most frequently touted theories suggests that it had something
to do with a phenomenon called the Maunder Minimum.
Described by NASA as a time at which the sun "entered a quiet phase," the Maunder Minimum
technically occurred between 1645 and 1715. During this time, the sun became dimmer and
calmer, and with fewer sunspots came less output — meaning that temperatures dropped
across the Earth.
The theory put forward by some climate scientists basically suggests that a decrease in energy
received from the sun meant the formation of less ozone, which in turn impacted weather
patterns such as the jet stream. That, in turn, impacted the presence of low- and high-pressure
systems, and resulted in particularly bad weather for that particular year. Makes sense,
right? Well, not everyone thinks so.
While some researchers suggest that decreased sunspot activity and solar radiation ought
to lead to colder temperatures on Earth, others aren't so sure. Georg Feulner of the Potsdam
Institute on Climate Change Research published research suggesting that the sun's output
and surface activity has an "insignificant" impact on Earth's overall temperature — especially
when compared to the impact of humankind on the climate.
Feulner suggests that another period of decreased activity — such as the one seen around the
deep-freeze of 1709 — would only lower the average temperature by about .1 of a degree
Celsius. Unfortunately, if this climate model is to be believed, that means we're kinda
back at square one.
Some theorists have suggested that the Maunder Minimum may have had something to do with
the Frost of 1709… but not everything. In 2010, NASA's Ames Research Center solar physicist
David Hathaway wrote that, to some extent, "there is good evidence" that activity on
the sun's surface might cause fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. And here's the
thing: these sun cycles actually happen pretty regularly — they're just different each
time.
Sun cycles occur about every 11 years, but they're always variable. For example, while
it's impossible to know for sure, it has been theorized that, for around 70 years, sunspot
activity nearly stopped for good. This coincided with the centuries-long cooling period on
Earth known as the Little Ice Age. Experts disagree on the exact dates of the Little
Ice Age, but it's most commonly regarded as spanning from the 16th century to the 19th
century.
Robert McLachlan, a professor in Applied Mathematics at Massey University, claims that this 11-year
sun cycle has been happening pretty regularly for hundreds of millions of years, and that
no, we're not entirely sure what makes it happen. Even in recent memory, we've seen
both "strong" and "weak" sun cycles take place, including a strong one in the decade between
1954 and 1964, and a weak period between 2009 and 2019. The problem here, however, is that
these instances didn't lead to massive fluctuations in the weather. So what gives?
Well, there are a few other theories about what caused the Little Ice Age, and by extension
the Winter of 1709. One suggests it all began with a series of volcanic eruptions that started
at the end of the 13th century.
A study by the University of Colorado found that it may have been possible that four massive
volcanoes — which erupted between 1250 and 1300 — filled the atmosphere with so much
debris that it reflected solar energy away from the planet. This, in turn, led to lower
temperatures that resulted in an expansion of the polar ice caps, causing temperatures
to drop even further.
While the study admits that it's impossible to calculate with any certainty just what
kind of impact that would have had on the climate, it's entirely possible that a short
burst of really cold weather was enough to kick-start the Little Ice Age. Others are
doubtful, however, arguing that the cooling period in question just couldn't have had
such drastic consequences.
Researchers from the NORCE Norwegian Research Center have put forward one particularly novel
theory for the cause of the Little Ice Age. Basically: that's life.
These scientists say that sometimes climate models just behave strangely, and that there's
no rhyme or reason for why events like this take place. They even have a name for these
particular instances: they're called "ugly ducklings," because they seem to be completely
wrong... even when they're not.
The theory goes that, just because we don't completely understand something, doesn't mean
it didn't happen. For example, when this group of researchers studied weather patterns from
the beginning of the Little Ice Age, they found evidence that a huge section of sea
ice had left the Arctic Ocean and headed for warmer climates. Why? Who knows! But that
migration continued for the next 100 years, and the scientists suggest the impact that
had on ocean currents and winds could have been enough to kick-start the Little Ice Age.
Bottom line? The world is weird, life is unpredictable, and we're all just along for the ride.
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