History of the North Sea the North Sea though they saw little action. The Austro-Prussian War (1866) resulted in Prussia's gaining full control of the Kiel Canal, allowing their Baltic ports access to the North Sea. France declared war on Prussia 19 July 1870 which initiated the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). The French Navy was, at the time far larger and superior to the North German Federal Navy, the Navy of the North German Confederation. Though the French did take a number of merchant ships bound to and from North Germany, shortages of manpower and coal, as well as conflicting orders, made the attempted blockade of
White Sea–Baltic Canal Camp) has been reorganized into the White Sea-Baltic Combine (Baltiysko-Belomorsky Kombinat [BBK]), still within the NKVD system, by the order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated August 17, 1933. The Combine was charged with operating the canal and the economic development of the adjacent areas, including 2.8 million hectares of forest lands, and all the industrial facilities that had been constructed along the canal. A major part of the Combine's workforce consisted of Beltbaltlag's prisoners, around 75-85 thousand of them. In addition, the Combine included 21 "special settlements" ("spetsposyolok"), with some 30 thousand residents, mostly dispossessed