southern Baltic and permanent recruitment of skilled personnel through the allotment system. Swedish commission Within a week, the news of the failure at Bornholm and the major defeat at Öland reached King Charles, who immediately ordered that a commission be set up to investigate what had happened. Charles wanted to see if Bär and other officers were guilty of cowardice or incompetence. On 13 June, the King wrote "some of our sea officers have shown such cowardly and careless behavior" that they have "placed the safety, welfare and defense of the kingdom at great peril", and that "such a serious crime should be severely punished". The commission began its work on 7 June 1676. At the hearings, strong criticism surfaced and was directed against individual officers as well as Swedish conduct in general. Anders Homman, one of the officers on Svärdet, was among those who chastised his colleagues the hardest. In his testimony he said that Admiral Uggla had exclaimed "look how those dog cunts run" when he was surrounded, fighting the allied flagships. Homman himself described the actions of his colleagues as those of "chickens running about the yard, each in his own direction", and added that he "had been in seven battles, but had never seen our people fight so poorly". The commission did not find anyone guilty of negligence or misconduct, but Lieutenant Admiral Bär, commander of Nyckeln, and Lieutenant Admiral Christer Boije, who had run aground on Äpplet, were never again given a command in the navy. Lieutenant Admiral Hans Clerck, commander of Solen, went through the process unscathed, and was promoted to full Admiral by the King before the commission even presented its verdict. Creutz has quite consistently been blamed for the loss of his ship by historians, and has been described as an incompetent sea officer and sailor who more or less single-handedly brought about the sinking through lack of naval experience. Military historians Lars Ericson Wolke and Olof Sjöblom have attempted to nuance the picture by pointing out that Creutz's task was akin to that of an administrator rather than a military commander. The practical issues of ship maneuvering should have been the responsibility of his subordinates, who had experience in naval matters. Disputes among the allied officers Despite the victories, several allied officers were displeased with the conduct of their forces. Naval historian Jørgen Barfod explains that the battle was fought "in