A Possible Future

In the first chapter, we asked: who understood political Scandinavianism? Bismarck, who took it seriously, or Scandinavian historians who have dismissed in the most condescending terms. Our answer is: Bismarck was right and Scandinavian historians have been wrong. Political Scandinavianism should not, as most of our predecessors have done, be written off as naive idealism and utopian fantasy. It ought to be seen as one of the futures that lie buried in the past and were never realised. It is hardly surprising that Bismarck understood his own time better than the historians of posterity. The famous opening line of L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between (1953) reads: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”. Bismarck was a native of that country. Historians are foreigners. But they are, of course, not ordinary foreigners. Historians spend a great deal of their lives travelling into the past. This makes them good travel guides for their contemporary countrymen. But why have so many historians, in some degree or other, got this wrong?

The causes are many, but let us begin with the most obvious. While Scandinavian historians of posterity have interpreted political Scandinavianism within the framework of a Norwegian, Swedish or Danish master narrative, the Prussian statesman of the time looked at the movement from a Scandinavian, German and European perspective. Even more important, to adapt a famous Søren Kierkegaard saying, while historians have all too often read history backwards, Bismarck lived history forwards.

Does this mean that all previous research in this field should be dismissed? Not at all. If we have seen political Scandinavianism in a new light, it is because we have been able to stand on the shoulders of other historians. If we have interpreted political Scandinavianism transnationally, it is because we have derived inspiration and insight from the revolution that has taken place in the study of practical and cultural Scandinavianism over the past two decades.

Just as importantly, we do not believe that the master narrative is wrong in every respect. There is no doubt that political Scandinavianism faced many serious challenges that contributed to its failure. Opposition from elements of the population, cultural and national differences, limited military resources and resistance from the great powers all played a role in the collapse of political Scandinavianism. The fundamental problem with the master narrative is the assumption that these challenges, either singly or in concert, meant that political Scandinavianism was doomed to fail.

It is important to understand that the master narrative about political Scandinavianism can be traced directly back to anti-Scandinavianism. The problem is not only that posterity has accepted such a politically partisan distortion. It is that historians have done so uncritically and that they accepted the claims of the anti-Scandinavianists simply because on the surface of things they fit better with later developments. Historians have too readily adopted anti-Scandinavianist analyses as self-evident truths without reflecting on who these anti-Scandinavianists were. Opposition to a three-state Scandinavianism (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) or four-state Scandinavianism (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) was the only thing that united the anti-Scandinavianists. In Denmark, many of them were unitary statists; in Sweden and Norway, a good deal were two-state Scandinavianists (Sweden and Norway). Some anti-Scandinavianists were either supporters of the Danish-German state that fell apart in 1864, or of the Swedish-Norwegian union that was dissolved in 1905. Being anti-Scandinavianist did not necessarily mean believing in the possibility of an independent Norwegian, Swedish or Danish national state. Anti-Scandinavianists did not predict the future, and their policy was no more realistic than that of the Scandinavianists.

It is always debatable whether Scandinavianism’s problems were greater or smaller compared with other national movements in the nineteenth century. What is essential to understand is that the problems they faced were basically the same and that, on the face of it, there is nothing to suggest that the Scandinavianist movement was dealt a worse hand than Italian nationalists. Why, then, have they been treated differently? Part of the answer is staring us in the face. As the British historian E.P. Thompson wrote, “Only the successful (in the sense of those whose aspirations anticipated subsequent evolution) are remembered. The blind alleys, the lost causes, and the losers themselves are forgotten”. To the extent that political Scandinavianism has been remembered, it is precisely as a blind alley and a lost cause that was allegedly only pursued by romantic utopians and fanatics. That is not to say that such types were not to be found among the Scandinavianists. They were, and some of them sabotaged their own policy unawares. Men such as Carl Ploug and Charles XV are part of the explanation why, to use Ernest Gellner’s words, “the dog never barked”—and why political Scandinavianism never became a reality.Footnote 1

When we say that Bismarck was right, this does not mean that we subscribe to the view that a unified Scandinavia was close to a historical necessity. Nor do we claim that Bismarck saw it as such. But the future that political Scandinavianists imagined has to be taken seriously as one of the possible futures that were latent in the past. Political Scandinavianism became the history that did not happen but, in contrast to the accepted traditional narrative, we do not believe that the efforts of the Scandinavianists were doomed to fail. A unified Scandinavia was one among several possible futures in the 1800s.

During the course of his career, Bismarck emphasised countless times that politics was not mathematics. It may be about making calculations on the basis of both known and unknown factors, but there are no rules or formulas that make it possible to work out a political result in advance. Politics for him was about selecting, in a fleeting moment, an action that in the circumstances could be expected to provide the most opportune outcome. Since the opponent’s actions could never be predicted with any certainty, the trick was to keep several irons in the fire. This is precisely how Bismarck’s relation to Scandinavianism should be seen. A unified Scandinavia was a possible future, but not the only one.Footnote 2

Why, then, does Scandinavianism not feature in Bismarck’s account of the campaign that served as his first political masterpiece in 1864? We cannot know this for certain, but a possible explanation can be found in the literature written about the Prussian politician. While Bismarck’s analysis of the nature of politics always emphasised uncertainty, his memoirs leave the reader with the impression that he always worked everything out in advance. The retired politician rejigged history to emphasise his genius. In that sense, his memoirs are often a better source for his strategic thinking than for historical events.Footnote 3

Contemporary sources, however, leave us in little doubt. The idea of partitioning the Danish state between Sweden and Prussia can be found as early as during the Napoleonic Wars, and again, during the First Schleswig War, while in the mid-1850s, it crops up both among Prussian politicians and in Napoleon III. Bismarck’s Scandinavianist iron was placed in the fire no later than 1857. A unified Scandinavia was just one possibility. But it was one that was pursued consistently in the years that followed, not only by Bismarck but also by other Prussian politicians and by King William. There were good reasons for this. Scandinavianism could be combined with Prussian expansion, with a security policy in the form of a Prussian-Scandinavian alliance, with German nationalism and pan-Germanism, with a dynastic way of thinking and with conservatism. But it was contingent on Scandinavianism—and Scandinavia—being adapted to suit Prussia. This was the message Bismarck transmitted to the Scandinavianists in 1857 and 1858, and it was the message he gave Jens Julius Hansen in December 1864. Prussia had no desire to see a democratic Scandinavian regime. It was, then, no accident that the Prussian minister president consistently looked for a solution involving Charles XV, or that he was interested in knowing where the Swedish aristocracy stood. For Bismarck, as for Napoleon III, Scandinavianism was linked to Swedish expansion.

Which Scandinavia?

Bismarck’s Scandinavia was supposed to resemble Prussia. Preferably as a Greater Sweden or a conservative federation. It was not the Scandinavia that the majority of Scandinavianists imagined. They imagined, roughly speaking, a Scandinavia as a federation of three equal and free nations with a union parliament, a monarchy, an army and an overall infrastructure. This was the dominant idea of the 1840s, and this was what was on the cards in the spring of 1864. From a European perspective, this Scandinavia would have been a liberal and constitutional federation. In other words, it was a “weak” Scandinavianism that was, in principle, compatible with Norwegian, Swedish and Danish nationalism. If the agrarian nationalists in Denmark had become a driving force in the association, it might even with some justice have been called “democratic”. Bismarck’s vision had more in common with the Greater Swedish Scandinavianism to be found among Swedish aristocrats in the circle close to Charles XV, who would not have been averse to the partition of Denmark. If a unified Scandinavia had been realised, neither its form of government nor its size could be taken for granted.

Whether Scandinavia should be unified was not, ultimately, a question Scandinavians alone could decide. It was a European question. That this was the case is amiss in Scandinavian historiography, which tends to see political Scandinavianism in splendid isolation with little or no regard for European high politics and other cases of unification nationalism. If we look at the question in a European perspective, it must be noted that there was nothing approaching unanimity among European statesmen and royalty. However, this in itself did not determine the fate of Scandinavianism. There was also deep-seated opposition to the unification of Italy and Germany, which meant that those projects could only be carried out through war. Exactly as was the case in Scandinavia. France and Prussia each supported a Scandinavian solution in their own way. In Great Britain, opinions differed widely, but basically the British were prepared to accept a Scandinavia as a fait accompli. So was, in fact, Russia, albeit most reluctantly. Preoccupied with domestic affairs after the end of the Crimean War, and reeling from severe financial crisis, Russia’s main concern was to avoid being entangled in another major war. For this reason, Scandinavian unification was a price St. Petersburg ultimately seem to have been prepared to pay. However, to Swedes, Danes and Norwegians, Russia always appeared as a threat, perhaps to the point that their governments, let alone the Scandinavianists, may sometimes have acted on assumptions of Russian policy. Still, Russia wasted few opportunities to exert diplomatic pressure and signal her aversion to Scandinavianism, above all for ideological reasons, and the internal considerations of the Russian government was obviously not known to Scandinavian diplomats. However, the ambivalent Russian policy goes to show that Russian opposition to Scandinavianism is not by itself a valid argument for the impossibility of Scandinavian unification. Indeed, Russia was ultimately prepared to accept Scandinavian unification as a fait accompli.

Although weakened after the Crimean War, Russia and Austria remained as conservative great powers and despite the anarchic turn in international politics, principles of legitimacy and monarchy still carried some weight. This may well explain why, after 1864, Charles XV was looking for a legitimist solution in the form of a marriage between Frederick and Lovisa. The same was to a large extent true for the other great powers, but for France the principle of nationality was also crucial. While the unitary state was incompatible with Napoleon III’s vision of a future Europe, a unified Scandinavia suited the emperor’s plans to a tee—a Europe consisting of 10–12 “nation states”. The bad news for those wanting to assess opportunities of the past on the basis of current political ideals is that several of the great powers were opposed to a liberal and democratic Scandinavia. The good news is that Russia and Prussia were probably the only powers that attributed it any real weight. The great powers were focused on whether the Danish unitary state would survive or not. And if it was to be divided, how should this be done, and which princes should have the various parts? In other words, a unified Scandinavia was not only one of the potential futures of the past but a future that existed in a variety of forms—even as a potential fait accompli acceptable to Russia.

Scandinavians may have had some influence on their own destiny, but it was primarily the great powers that decided the future of Scandinavia. As Siniša Malešević has remarked about the creation of Serbia, “[t]he rise of state power was a contingent product of geo-politics, coercive-organisational and ideological factors combined with fierce domestic elite rivalries in Serbia”. The importance of geopolitics is also more than evident in nineteenth-century Scandinavian history and state formation. The reshuffling of the Scandinavian states during the Napoleonic Wars was due to the wishes, interests and ultimately actions of the victorious great powers. The outcome of the First Schleswig War and the attempt to recreate the Danish unitary state were very in line with the “interest of Europe”, particularly that of Russia. And as we have seen in this book, the Second Schleswig War can only be understood within the framework of European high politics.Footnote 4

The policies of the great powers were determined by interests, by dynastic considerations and, in varying degrees, by political principles. What mattered here—as with Germany and Italy—was that a unified Scandinavia would serve certain great powers while working against the interests of others. The Vienna system made it extremely difficult to unify Scandinavia. On the other hand, Scandinavianism was evidently compatible with the nationality principle of the time, which made it the preferred solution in Paris and intensified opposition in Vienna and St. Petersburg. From a purely dynastic point of view, the project clearly faced challenges, but these were far fewer than those confronting German and Italian unification movements. France and Prussia supported a unification under the Bernadottes, while in January 1864 Queen Victoria imagined Scandinavia unified under the Glücksburgs.

The dynastic question, it goes without saying, also divided the two dynasties. There were, fundamentally, three possibilities. The first was that the Danish succession was changed in favour of the Bernadottes while Frederick VII was alive. This would have been possible during the First Schleswig War, during the congress in Paris in 1856 or at the subsequent European congresses that were planned between 1859 and 1864. The other possibility was a revolution whereby Christian IX would have been forced from the throne in Copenhagen between 1863 and 1865. It is clear that this would have challenged the European state system, but, under the right circumstances, a revolution could have been accepted as a fait accompli. This had already happened in Belgium, Italy and Greece over three decades. Whether the great powers accepted a revolution would ultimately have depended on their interests, their will and their ability to intervene. It is in this light that we need to see the revolutionary plans of December 1864. The third possibility was the one Monrad clearly put his faith in and the one Charles XV chose in the end, namely to unite Scandinavia under Crown Prince Frederick and Princess Lovisa at the expense of Prince Oscar and his offspring.

The outcome was what it was. The demise of the unitary state did not lead to a unified Scandinavia, but many of the most important political figures of the time regarded Denmark’s union with Sweden and Norway as a possible future. This could have come about with Schleswig, without Schleswig or with parts of Schleswig. Denmark could also have been divided at the Little Belt—as a natural boundary between Germany and a Greater Sweden.

The fear of Denmark disappearing from the map can be found not only among unitary statists but also among Norwegian Scandinavianists and nationalists, because, they felt, it would have led to an even more unequal Sweden-Norway union. Some Swedes were against partitioning Denmark between Sweden and Prussia, others in favour, and men such as Manderström believed that it might become necessary. The Danish envoy in Stockholm warned his government against Swedish expansionism. The question remains whether Danish politicians were unable to see the risk they were running. When Carl Ploug warned Charles XV against the policy of expansionism in the spring of 1864, it is unthinkable that Monrad, Lehmann and Hall were unaware of the danger. The most likely explanation can be found in their repeated statement that Denmark had only one choice: German or Swedish. The alternative to a Scandinavianist policy was not a Danish policy. It was either to be swallowed up in a process of German unification or to become a German dependency. Or what happened after 1871, when Denmark became “Finlandised”. The term “Finlandization” refers to a “the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighbouring country refrain from opposing the former’s foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system”. This is what Russia did to Finland after the Second World War and what, after its unification, Germany did to Denmark.Footnote 5 Fear of annihilation was a common feature of all political Scandinavianists, but nowhere was it more pronounced then in Denmark. Danishness, Scandinavianists thought, could only survive through Scandinavianism, and if this ultimately meant becoming Swedish, that was better than becoming German.

While nearly all the various divisions of the unitary state can be seen as possible futures, there are two Scandinavian solutions that single themselves out as unrealistic. The one is that which Frederick VII had in mind, namely that all his kingdoms and provinces would be inherited in their entirety by Charles XV. Such a dynastic solution may have been possible during the Napoleonic Wars, but it was unrealistic in the middle of the nineteenth century, when power relations between dynastic and national interests had changed. A Scandinavian Holstein was incompatible with German and Danish nationalism, with the interests of Prussia, and with the perception of the nationality principle that lay behind Napoleon III’s Scandinavianism. In theory, four-state Scandinavianism was also one of Scandinavia’s possible futures. It can clearly be seen during the Crimean War and can be traced in the ideas that, in 1863, Charles XV imagined that he could turn into a reality with the help of Napoleon III. However, while it might have been possible to realise a three-state Scandinavianism during the summer of 1864 without a major European war, a four-state Scandinavianism was unthinkable without a political transformation of large parts of the continent. This is probably one reason why only few people, apart from Emil von Qvanten, believed in four-state Scandinavianism. If this particular brand of Scandinavianism had a window of opportunity, it was during the Crimean War where a major reshuffle in the Baltic region was a possibility.

A Phenomenon Characteristic of the Time

In 1856, Camillo Cavour left the Paris congress that concluded the Crimean War. The Piedmontese statesman had flung his state into the Crimean War on the side of the Western powers in the hope of gaining their support for an expansion in northern Italy. He was disappointed. Piedmont achieved no more than recognition. Four years later, Italy was unified to an extent that went far beyond the ambitions he had had in Paris. Cavour had concocted a plan with Napoleon III at Plombières in 1858, but after the war broke out in the spring of 1859, events took on a life of their own. A year later, most of Italy was unified. This had happened without a plan, without a programme and in an extremely tense interplay between the conservative Cavour, Napoleon III, Victor Emmanuel II and revolutionary Republicans under Giuseppe Garibaldi. The peninsula became united through war, secret diplomacy and personal rivalry, in which central figures often worked against each other.Footnote 6

For posterity, the outcome appears to be inevitable. Many of the European nationalists of the time regarded it in the same way. The speed of the development, however, surprised almost everyone. Few, if any, expected in the spring of 1859 that Italy would be unified one year later. That this was possible due to a collaborative interplay that is recognisable both in the unification of Germany and in political Scandinavianism. It was an interplay between ideas of princely sovereignty and the sovereignty of the people, and between national interests (as seen by nationalists) and dynastic interests. Such a collaborative interplay had previously been either impossible or difficult. Ideas of the sovereignty of the people and nationalism only made themselves felt in Europe with the French Revolution, and after the Napoleonic Wars they had generally been suppressed. As the royal houses gradually became domesticated and their power limited, opportunities for collaboration disappeared again. In other words, there is something characteristic of the time in the way in which Italy and Germany were unified and in the interplay between political and dynastic Scandinavianism from 1848 until the end of the 1860s. From the 1870s onwards, we see no dynastic Scandinavianism. The remnants of any political Scandinavianism have become republican.

There is also something else that is characteristic of the time in the unification of Italy and Germany. They became unified when the Vienna system was under pressure. Between 1815 and 1848, the system was relatively unchallenged, but it was seriously tested and temporarily thrown off-balance by the revolutions of 1848. The system survived, however, partly owing to Russian intervention, infighting amongst the revolutionaries, the fact that in most cases the army remained loyal to the prince and not the new constitutional regimes. But it was shaken, and revolutions left behind them not only an ideological residue but also a political lesson. Either through conviction or through necessity, many conservatives now came to accept the nationalism that they had traditionally fought against. In the same way, many national liberals and radical Republicans found it necessary to collaborate with the crown. This was true not only in Germany and Italy but also in Scandinavia. Even though political contradictions by no means disappeared and there continued to be powerful tensions, this form of rapprochement formed part of the foundation of the two unification projects.

The Vienna system survived the revolutions, but with Louis Napoleon in power in France there was now a great power intent on crushing it. A new Europe was to be created. A Europe of nations—but not as we understand it today. The principle of nationality was subordinate to the threshold principle. New Europe was to consist of 10–12 large nation states that were of the required size. As was the case with the liberal ideology of the time, the ability to act independently was used as the basis for a good deal of liberal nationalism. This applied across the continent, and the threshold principle is manifested to the extreme in political Scandinavianism. In other words, it is a phenomenon characteristic of the time and coincides with the highpoint of European liberalism between 1840 and 1870.

Political Scandinavianism never managed the transition into the popular and the broader nationalist movement that spread across Europe from the 1870s to the 1880s. The attempt was made. After the defeat of 1864, practical Scandinavianism was, to start with, a step in long-term political project. The same was true of the more popular Scandinavianism, which the Danish followers of N.F.S. Grundtvig, in particular, attempted to create. Despite its political ambitions, practical Scandinavianism only achieved practical results, while a people’s Scandinavianism never took off. To believe the traditional master narrative, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. We see it differently. European developments between about 1848 and 1870 made a unified Scandinavia a potential reality. After that, the window of opportunity closed for good.

Windows of Opportunity

We will read history forwards and look at the windows of opportunity that opened for Scandinavianism, analysing how wide they were and why they were not made use of.Footnote 7 That is to say, what follows is a synthesis based on the material presented in this book.

In 1852, the unitary state returned and the Treaty of London formally clarified the royal succession in Denmark. The continuing dominance of Russia and the conservative unitary statist government in Denmark seemed on the surface to create poor conditions for Scandinavianism. However, just as many nationalists in the rest of Europe were trying to make alliances with the dynasties in the wake of the revolution, so it was in Scandinavia, where bonds were formed between the Bernadottes and Scandinavianists across the political spectrum.

As was the case in Italy and Germany, Scandinavianism became more elitist. This gave rise to a greater problem in Scandinavia because here the peasant had greater political influence. On the other hand, an integration took place whereby a network made up of Scandinavianists interacting with royalty permitted the development of a Scandinavianist policy circumventing the governments and parliaments of the three countries. The best European example is Napoleon III, whose diplomatic manoeuvres took place to a large extent through secret negotiations that often went behind the back of his own foreign minister. In Scandinavia, this policy saw its greatest opportunities under Oscar I in 1854–1857.

At the core of this policy was an attempt to have the Treaty of London rewritten, either through a war or through a European congress. For many Scandinavianists and for Danish nationalists, the royal Glücksburg line constituted a problem. It was not simply that their demands on the succession put a stopper on a unified Scandinavia under the Bernadottes, but the opponents of Prince Christian and his wife, Princess Louise of Hesse, saw them as both nationally and politically suspect. Their mother tongue was German, they wanted to retain the unitary state, they were not averse to absolutism and they had close links to a reactionary Russia. The Scandinavianists feared that, when they came to power, they would turn the clock back to before 1848 and align the state with Germany and Russia.

Scandinavia was “Finlandised” in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars, and Russia played a crucial role in the foreign policy of Scandinavian states, the czar interfering in Scandinavian internal politics. In all three countries Scandinavianism was a project to promote independence and limit Russian influence. For Sweden-Norway, this succeeded with the Crimean War, but the fear did not disappear, and Russian meddling in Danish domestic politics continued with fatal consequences.

It was, indeed, the Crimean War that opened a new window for Scandinavianism. There is a clear link between, on the one hand, Oscar I’s attempt to propel Sweden-Norway into the war and, on the other, Danish Scandinavianists’ attempts to do away with Russian influence and to create a Scandinavian union and a liberal Eider Denmark. But the November Treaty, which was to have propelled Sweden-Norway into the war, had the opposite effect. It provided a war-weary France with the opportunity to force Russia into a peace. If Oscar I had acted earlier, the outcome might have been different. We cannot know whether Finland could have been reconquered, but we might expect that Russian losses would have been even greater and their opportunities to prevent a Scandinavian unification would have been non-existent. France was looking for a fundamental reshaping of Europe to include a united Scandinavia, while Lord Palmerston had plans to reform the entire continent, to make it more liberal and national by moving borders. And we know for certain that, in these very years after the Crimean War, Great Britain was more open to a Scandinavian solution than at any other moment.Footnote 8 The Treaty of London had made one of the czar’s favourites the Danish heir presumptive. It was, therefore, legitimate to expect that the Western powers would be amenable if, after joining in the war, Oscar I and Frederick VII wished for an alteration to the succession in favour of the Bernadottes.

The question is whether Denmark would have followed Sweden-Norway into the war. The answer is that no one can say for certain, but it was a common assumption in European diplomacy that Denmark had no other choice. Furthermore, key liberal, Danish politicians were in favour of it, and they probably had the support of King Frederick. We can assume, therefore, that D.G. Monrad was right when, after the Crimean War, he emphasised that a great Scandinavianist opportunity had been wasted. At the same time, we have to imagine that Scandinavian participation in the war would also be of great significance for the Schleswig question. The price of unifying Scandinavia might very well have been the separation of Holstein and Lauenburg after Frederick VII’s death.

The Crimean War was not exploited, but its consequences impacted on Scandinavia. The November treaty provided formal protection for Sweden and Norway against Russian aggression, reduced Russian opportunities to protect the unitary state, while the German states were strengthened and German nationalism boosted. All this made the Schleswig question all the more relevant—and Denmark even more dependent on Sweden-Norway. This opened yet another window for Scandinavianism. For the political Scandinavianists, a Scandinavian alliance was the means to an end, namely a union. The Bernadottes saw it in the same way, and so, presumably, did Frederick VII and the Countess Danner.

A Scandinavian alliance would scarcely have prevented a new Schleswig War, but it would have made it Scandinavian. And that would have forced the Swedish and Norwegian governments and parliaments to accept and fund a war. Since, unlike his son, Oscar I had total control of foreign policy, the offer of an alliance in 1857 presented a golden opportunity. For the aim of a Scandinavian alliance was war, and the aim of the war was a union. The opportunity was wasted thanks to Frederick VII and his foreign minister, L.N. Scheele, and because Denmark was without a government when the offer came. This enabled Scheele, a unitary statist from Holstein, to play on the king’s dynastic thinking and to add the requirement that Holstein should be part of the alliance. When C.C. Hall tried to take it up again in 1857, the window was closed. Oscar I was terminally ill. His death two years later marked the passing of the Scandinavianist monarch who possessed the best intellectual and political capacity to unite Scandinavia.

Another window, however, opened that same year, when Otto von Bismarck contacted the Scandinavianists. This created an awareness on both sides that Scandinavianism, German nationalism and Prussian expansion did not necessarily exclude each other. There was regular contact in 1857 and 1858, in which Scandinavianists aristocrats such as Baron Blixen and Rudolf Tornérhjelm played a part. These were men whose background was conservative but who, in a manner typical for the period, embraced their own time and thought in terms of change and revolutionary ways forward that would previously have been foreign to their class. Very little in concrete terms came of the ultra-Scandinavianists’ private diplomacy with Bismarck, but it played a part in forming both parties’ expectations of the future. Their meetings discussed these very topics—Prussian expansion, the unification of Scandinavia and a future alliance. The foreign policy pursued by Hall and Vedel at the outbreak of the Italian War of 1859 should be seen in this light.

While Oscar I had appointed ministers whom he could bypass or play out against each other, Charles XV chose ministers who were to some degree in agreement with each other, or could at least cooperate. This had major consequences for foreign policy, domestic policy and for relations between Sweden and Norway. Most evidently, it meant that Sweden-Norway now had a foreign minister who was minister not only in name but also in nature. Manderström was of the old school and worked on the basis of the Vienna system. Charles XV’s approach to politics was reminiscent of his father’s, but the son did not have Oscar I’s abilities. It is worth remarking, though, that, if Piedmont and Prussia managed to unite Italy and Germany, their success was due neither to Victor Emmanuel II nor to William.

It was relatively easy for the ministers to block the king’s policy. At the beginning of his reign, Charles XV did not see this as a problem. But it turned into one, not just for three-state Scandinavianism but even for two-state Scandinavianism. The king’s defeat in the affair of the governorship was a sign of things to come, both for the future of Sweden-Norway and for the chances of carrying out a Scandinavianist foreign policy. Added to this, there was the internal split that the issue caused in the Scandinavianist movement. This divided not only Norwegian Scandinavianists into different camps but also contributed to creating splits between Scandinavianists across the three countries. The Danish Scandinavianists were closest to those men who, in their rage at Charles XV, played a part in sabotaging three-state Scandinavianism. The governorship affair also exemplifies a pattern that anticipates events in 1863 and 1865, when De Geer, whom Charles XV believed to be on his side in 1859, ended up being an opponent of the king’s policy, swayed by Gripenstedt. This, however, was less due to De Geer’s abilities as a politician than to him being knocked into place by the finance minister, J.A. Gripenstedt, who sabotaged Charles XV’s Scandinavianist policy.

In 1863 and 1864, opportunities beckoned for the Scandinavianists, but they were never seized. Danish nationalists were, by and large, prepared to do whatever it took to break the state’s foreign policy isolation and gain the support of Sweden-Norway. It was not simply a Schleswig issue but a profound fear of annihilation. Denmark desperately needed military support and was prepared in exchange to give anything, short of its soul. Even a union with its capital in Stockholm. It is worth emphasising that Monrad’s ideas in January 1863 bear a striking resemblance to the plans he had as council president the following year.

As a politician, Monrad rarely stuck firmly to one plan for any length of time but nevertheless traces of consistency can be seen. Monrad’s way forward at the beginning of 1863 was to unite Scandinavia, incorporate Schleswig and buy Prussian support by surrendering Holstein. The dynastic side of the matter was to be managed by removing Christian IX from the succession, making Charles XV the king of Scandinavia but allowing the kingdoms to be inherited by Frederick and Lovisa. This was by no means Monrad’s only plan in 1864, but it is hard to get away from the fact that the Danish politician pursued this option for his entire period in power, a little over six months.Footnote 9

In a curious way, the battle for the Greek throne also anticipated the course of events. The issue of getting one son of the Danish royal couple in line to the throne to be chosen as King of Greece poisoned relations between the Danish government and the Danish heir presumptive. This was because the two sides were thinking differently. The ministers were promoting the interests of the state and the nation, while the Glücksburgs were thinking of the dynasty and their son, which resulted in unrealistic demands. National and domestic interests clashed. However, no law of nature dictated the clash. While the Bernadottes in Sweden and Norway, William in Germany and Victor Emmanuekl in Italy conceived daring dynastic projects, the Glücksburgs preferred a conservative policy. This was partly due to their upbringing, but it was also to do with the exposed position in which they found themselves. Their claim to the throne was based on the Treaty of London and the support of Russia at a time when Russia was weakened and Napoleon III, the Bernadottes and the Scandinavianists were quite openly attempting to overturn the Treaty of London.

The Glücksburgs were on the defensive, and their attempts at an offensive policy consistently involved dynastic solutions that ran directly counter to Danish nationalism and Scandinavianism. Monrad offered them an offensive alternative, a policy that combined dynastic, national and Scandinavian interests. The policy was risky. At the same time, it is also reasonable to suppose that the Glücksburgs were afraid of being duped. There was a significant risk that, once Swedish soldiers were on Zealand, a combination of Swedish bayonets and a “French” referendum (a referendum that was anything but free) might have done away with the Danish monarch. This was precisely what, in 1863, Charles had told a British diplomat he would do. On the other hand, the benefits were huge, maybe not for Christian IX and Queen Louise, but for their son. If Monrad—and later also Charles XV—had had their way, Crown Prince Frederick would have become Charles XVI of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. An offensive dynastic strategy was not entirely anathema to Christian IX. If we are to believe Wachtmeister, the option had already been discussed with Prince Christian and Charles XV while he was the envoy in Copenhagen (1859–1861), and we know for certain that a Scandinavian marriage was discussed in 1862. And if we can believe Prince John, who had no good reason to lie, this was also what lay behind Christian IX’s thoughts of abdication in June 1864. Instead, the king—and the queen—chose a traditional strategy based on Russia and oriented towards Germany. It was not irrational, but in their defence of the throne the royal couple increased the real risk of revolution, as their policy was, indeed, seen as dynastic and not national.

The traditional master narrative has emphasised, rightly, that Danish nationalism was linked both to the suppression of the state’s German population and to the inevitable consequences of a new Schleswig War that would be difficult to win. However, it is often forgotten that, by 1863, the Schleswig question had become acute. There were three options: to give in to German demands, to introduce a form of absolutism in the unitary state or to opt for confrontation. The first two were closely linked and would de facto Finlandise Denmark. They were rejected by the great majority of Danish politicians for both national and constitutional reasons.

By juxtaposing familiar and previously unknown sources, there is no longer any room for doubt. The aim of Hall’s policy was to force either a European conference or a short war that would lead to a European conference. We can agree or disagree about the worth of the strategy, but it was rational enough. In the present context, however, what is more important is that the basis on which Hall based his policy was Scandinavianist. Holstein was hived off in accordance with Manderström’s wishes, and, if he maintained and intensified a policy of confrontation, it was because he believed in the Scandinavian alliance that had been agreed in the summer of 1863.

The alliance never became a reality, but its final death throes only came in February 1864, and even after that there was no certainty that Sweden-Norway would not intervene in the war. Right up until the summer of 1864, De Geer and Manderström agreed on the possibility of Sweden-Norway joining the war, though it was contingent on support from one of the Western powers. The traditional narrative is based on a false premise, namely that the aim of the alliance was either to prevent or to win a war. The Scandinavian alliance is seen in Danish history as yet another example of political irresponsibility, while the narrative is the reverse in Sweden and Norway. There, the abandonment of the alliance is seen as proof that responsible politicians prevented an irresponsible royal policy.

The aim of the alliance was not to win a military victory but to secure a European solution. In the summer of 1863, this involved either a conference or a short war that would end in an honourable defeat with Scandinavians standing shoulder to shoulder, after which the unification of Scandinavia could be bought by surrendering the German duchies and, possibly, some part of Schleswig to Prussia. Denmark’s defeat in no way excluded the victory of Scandinavianism. On the contrary, the precondition for a unified Scandinavia was the demise of the unitary state.

Unitary statists, Scandinavianists and Europe’s statesmen were well aware of this. It was only Frederick VII—and posterity—who failed to understand it. There was, however, a third European solution: a general European war. This was an option Napoleon III and Charles XV already seemed to have discussed in 1863, just as it is seen in the plans of 1864. Here the options were many and may appear fanciful, especially for Scandinavians of posterity. Seen through contemporary eyes, however, there was nothing irrational about assumptions of an Italian attack on Austria, French expansion along the Rhine, or an uprising in Hungary. Inviting a European war was a risky strategy, but it demonstrated an approach to politics in mid-nineteenth century Europe that was characteristic of the time.

However, what was not only irrational, but a blunder beyond belief, was Charles XV’s decision to outline what he believed to be a French plan for a European war in 1864 to the British diplomat William Grey in August 1863, and emphasising what he believed to be a firm alliance with Napoleon III. Lord Palmerston, who had been susceptible to the ideas of Scandinavian unification ever since the 1840s, was clearly horrified by the prospect of a Europe ablaze to achieve Scandinavian unification and accommodate French expansionism. Hence, instead of gaining British support for a Scandinavian alliance at this crucial juncture in Scandinavian history, Charles XV succeeded in undermining the policy of his own foreign minister and alienating Great Britain. In short, the ill-advised diplomacy of the king of Sweden and Norway certainly played its part in the failure of political Scandinavianism. That being said, King Charles’s diplomatic blunder in August 1863 did not in itself doom the Scandinavian alliance, but it contributed to making the alliance much more difficult to conclude insofar as it was made contingent on British or French support.

No one can say for certain what would have happened if Frederick VII had not died on 15 November 1863. To judge by Swedish and Norwegian sources, it is possible that the alliance would have been concluded and Sweden-Norway would have taken part in an inevitable war. What the outcome of that would have been is, of course, impossible to know. But we know that Charles XV and Frederick VII wanted a united Scandinavia and that Prussia and France were more than open to the idea. However, Frederick’s death in itself can be seen as a window of opportunity for Scandinavianism. “The psychological moment”. We do not know the extent of the plans, but there clearly were forces in Copenhagen pushing for revolution, and Prince Oscar was furious at the wasted opportunity. If, as the ultra-Scandinavianists wanted, the heir to the throne of Sweden-Norway had come to Copenhagen during the last six weeks of 1863, it might well have triggered a revolution. The reason for Oscar not coming was his brother.

We need, therefore, to ask what caused Charles XV to hesitate? We cannot know for sure, but there are three likely possibilities and they do not exclude each other. The first was that Charles was caught on the horns of two strategies—alliance and revolution—and ended in vacillation, confusion and doubt. The second was that Charles was afraid of how Europe would react if it was clear that he was behind the revolution. The Danes themselves had to trigger the revolution so that he could exploit it. But the Danes did not dare to act without knowing for sure that Charles would intervene. As a result, both missed an opportunity. The third was that Charles did not dare to act without the unambiguous—and preferably material—support of Napoleon III, and the French emperor failed to commit to the extent that Charles wanted and perhaps needed to sway his government.

Christian IX was close to coming to Charles XV’s rescue. The mood in Copenhagen invited revolution, and the new monarch could not count on support from either the city’s Holstein garrison, the national guard, the armed student volunteers or the police. According to Prince John, this led the king to consider fleeing to the duchies. If this had happened, it would have left a power vacuum that would have been filled by Hall, Lehmann and the Scandinavianists. The king’s flight would have been regarded as a betrayal of the nation. Christian would only have been able to return to the capital with an army, but it is doubtful whether the Danish army would have supported him and almost all the German states were against him. In reality, this would have required the Russian navy and army to step in, and it is highly unlikely that the other great powers would have accepted that. For Charles and Oscar, this would have presented, literally, a sovereign scenario, but it would also have triggered a race to see which of the two brothers would get to Copenhagen first and be proclaimed regent.

The next window opened already in December 1863, when King William once again proposed to Sweden-Norway that it partition the unitary state along with Prussia. Charles XV was said to have been tempted. If this had been tried, the odds are that it would have succeeded—at least in the short term. For years, the great powers had been discussing the partition of the unitary state over the heads of its population. France had discussed it with Great Britain, Prussia had discussed it with France and Prussia had discussed it with Great Britain. In each case, it had involved a Scandinavian solution. Why did Charles XV not jump at it? There are three reasonable explanations. Firstly, the Danes had been warning him for years against the solution that would undermine Scandinavianism in Denmark. Secondly, it would probably have required an aristocratic government in Sweden, and that would have buried parliamentary reform, at least for the time being. Charles did not dare to do that. Thirdly, Charles probably assumed that there were other options. In December, the alliance was not yet defunct, and there was still a chance of creating a war government with De Geer and Manderström. But that required support from the Western powers. Charles’s policy in January 1864 has to be understood against that premise. And if just one of the Western powers supported a war policy, then both the Swedish and the Norwegian government would have bound themselves to it. This meant that January was spent waiting for a British or French intervention. It never came.

It might seem clear to posterity that the Western powers would stay out of the war. It was not so at the time. The British considered intervening alone with Sweden-Norway. This was due to Russell’s policy in the Polish question and the British rejection of a European congress. The latter had caused a definitive breakdown in the alliance between Britain and France. This was a development that no Scandinavian politician could have predicted in advance, and there was nothing to suggest that the breakdown would last so long. The problem was that the British did not dare to act without France, while France would make no move towards an understanding with the British until Russell had been removed, the British had committed themselves to war, and the French were sure of being rewarded for their trouble by getting a border at the Rhine.

Both in January and February, France discussed a partition of the unitary state with Prussia, while withdrawal from Dannevirke caused mayhem in Copenhagen and prompted the Scandinavianists to request Charles and Oscar’s support for a revolution. There are several reasons why it did not come to that. Monrad managed to calm the situation, Oscar was unable to act without a go-ahead from Charles, and Charles, though willing to exploit a revolution, was not prepared to start one. Sweden-Norway’s king was waiting for a green light from Paris, and at the end of February it came. This may have been, after 1856–1857, the greatest window of opportunity for Scandinavianism. Whether it would have led to a federative Scandinavia or a Greater Sweden is an open question. But if Sweden-Norway, with the blessing of Napoleon, had acted at a moment when Prussia was more than open to an understanding, when the Danes were begging for help, and when Monrad was planning to extend the war to include Sweden-Norway and Italy in an understanding with France, this would have given Scandinavianism a good chance of success. To refuse Swedish and Norwegian soldiers was not a realistic option for Christian IX, but there were good reasons for Queen Louise to fear it. The ultra-Scandinavianists consistently planned to be able to force the abdication of Christian IX once the islands were under Swedish-Norwegian control.

It can be objected that a Scandinavianist solution was contingent on support from the Norwegian Storting and the Swedish Riksdag. Formally, this is correct. But we have to bear two things in mind. Did they have the will to deny their support? And did they have the ability? The history books have emphasised voting in the Storting in March 1864, in which a narrow majority expressed its scepticism about a Scandinavian union. It is worth noting here that the majority was small, that the reservation was not binding, and that the situation would have been different after a joint war. Opposition was probably greater in the Riksdag, but Charles’s plan was to buy its compliance by linking Scandinavianism to parliamentary reform. At the same time, a joint war would also have altered perceptions in Sweden. Furthermore, foreign policy lay outside their domain, and past experiences sent a clear message. In the first six months of 1814, the Norwegians had challenged the agreement that the two great powers had managed to force through in Kiel, that is, a union between Sweden and Norway. After a short war in the summer of 1814, the Norwegians had to give in. In 1852, the Rigsdag in Denmark tried to reject a royal succession that Russia had dictated. It was dissolved several times until finally it voted in favour. In the longer term, the opportunities for the two parliaments to block a union were limited. In the short term, however, they did have a powerful weapon. They could refuse to grant funding for a war. In Norway, Charles did, in fact, get his funding passed, but in Sweden he was only given a minimum of funding needed for essential military expenditure, and that was directed against Russia.

Both Sweden-Norway’s foreign minister of the day and its future foreign minister agreed that the unification of Scandinavia could be carried out at that time. Count Manderström, however, was not willing to take responsibility, while Count Wachtmeister was prepared to carry it out in practice, provided it was done full measure and a Scandinavian government was formed. This captures Charles’s problem in a nutshell and gives us part of the explanation why this window of opportunity was not exploited. Sweden-Norway’s king was unable either to press his government to accept a war policy or to create a new Swedish government that would turn his policy into a reality. It is unclear how much Manderström, De Geer and the other Swedish and Norwegian ministers knew about the secret diplomacy that Charles XV was conducting with Napoleon III. At all events, it did not promote trust. When it came to the alternative, the explanation is to be found in Charles’s lack of will to shelve parliamentary reform, in his possible hostility to Napoleon III’s proposal or in his fear of the domestic political consequences. It was not, however, because he lacked promptings. Sohlman spelt it out directly. Parliamentary reform could be carried out later. Scandinavia could be united now—and perhaps never again. That no new Swedish government was formed is allegedly because the aristocratic Scandinavianists hesitated to grasp power—probably because they, too, feared the domestic political consequences of forming a government without De Geer. His dithering and unclear statements only made it harder for Charles to make his case. They waited too long. The London conference assembled, and in May Napoleon III made it clear that the window of opportunity had closed.

Before that happened, union negotiations between Qvanten and the Danish Scandinavianists in general and the ultra-Scandinavianists of the agrarian nationalists, in particular, had provided the most spectacular opportunity. The result was the draft of a union treaty that built on the weak and federative form of Scandinavianism. As a proposal for a Scandinavian union, therefore, it was sensible enough. The problem lay in setting up negotiations for its realisation between the Swedish and Danish governments. The traditional narrative tells us that this was because only Charles XV, Qvanten and the ultra-Scandinavianists wanted to have them.

Superficially, this is a reasonable interpretation. We know from Vedel’s account that Monrad’s first response was a rejection, Christian IX was scarcely a supporter, while, according to his own memoirs, De Geer only took an interest in the matter to ensure its death by a thousand words. But Monrad and Vedel were prone to change their minds quickly, while the reliability of De Geer’s memoirs is questionable. Contemporary sources paint a picture of a Swedish minister who was not averse to these negotiations. De Geer only cried off the moment he became compromised and after the Danes had made negotiations impossible by bringing in Holstein. This last was subsequently seen from the Swedish side as an example of Monrad’s duplicity. It is more reasonable to believe that it was Christian IX—and Queen Louise—who put the spanner in the works. The interesting question is rather why Monrad’s first response was a camouflaged rejection when his policy otherwise appears to have been Scandinavianist. From the sources, we have not been able to unpick the logic behind this. It is certain that a Scandinavian solution was one of the possibilities that Monrad had in mind in May until his fall on 8 July. The day before his downfall he is said to have declared that his entire policy had been Scandinavianist.

This leads us onto the other windows of opportunity that arose during the London conference and soon afterwards. If Monrad had not taken the place of Hall in December 1863, the sources suggest that a very different policy would have been pursued and that there would have been an opportunity for the leader of the national parties to have forced Christian IX into a northern partition of Schleswig around Flensborg. Hall’s statements from the first half of 1864 are clearly Scandinavianist, but the solutions that he supported at the conference would not in themselves have led to a Scandinavian union. Monrad’s approach was different. He did not believe in the conference. Denmark’s future was dependent on a proper border, and that could only be insured by breaking up the conference and either forcing Great Britain into the war or reaching an understanding with Prussia. This was risky in the extreme but, as Monrad saw it, the benefits were greater. A northern partition, on the other hand, would mean the destruction of the nation. Denmark’s future depended on a border that could be defended and, in reality, also on a Scandinavian union that could only be created if Russell and Russia no longer took part in negotiations.

The conference broke down, Als was taken, and it proved impossible to force the British into the war. Monrad’s policy has been judged a catastrophe ever since. This is not without good cause, and we are not defending his policy. However, if we compare the thoughts and actions of Monrad, Vedel and Krieger with our knowledge of the plans and actions of Bismarck and King William, it is perfectly possible that Monrad’s chances of negotiating a direct peace with Prussia were better than those of his successor, Bluhme, who was directed by the aims set by Christian IX. The king wanted a personal union with Schleswig-Holstein and entry into the German Confederation. This was a dynastic solution, which may have been possible a couple of decades previously but was out of the question in 1864.

Bluhme attempted to divide Schleswig, and the rejection of his attempts was due to the new government trying to negotiate with both Austria and Prussia. This made it impossible to reach a solution whereby Prussia would annex those areas that Christian IX would surrender.

It is worth noting the congruity between King William’s letter to King Leopold at the beginning of July 1864 and Bismarck’s repetition of statements after that date about the possibility of a Scandinavian union and the return of northern Schleswig to Denmark in exchange for a Scandinavian-Prussian alliance. Moreover, at precisely this point even Russia appears to have acknowledged the possibility of Scandinavian unification without being intent to do anything to actively prevent it. Our source material is limited and parts of it may not be reliable. It is difficult to judge how large this window of opportunity was, but it is reasonable to assume it existed. And that, at least to some degree, it remained open until 1866. And it was precisely this awareness, coupled with hatred for Christian IX and fear of absolutism, fear of Russian influence, the personal union and incorporation into the German Confederation that prompted increasing numbers of Danish Scandinavianists—and nationalists—to embrace a revolutionary Scandinavian solution.

It is easy to dismiss the plan to kidnap the Danish royal family in December 1864 as unrealistic. Storming Bernstorff Castle would probably not have been difficult, but the risk was considerable, and it was almost certain that it would have aroused international scandal. The revolutionary plan of the beginning of 1865 was closer to the world of reality. Its links to both C.C. Hall and Hans Rasmus Carlsen gave it political weight domestically, while its links to conversations with Bismarck and France emphasise that it was not without potential in a European context. This does not mean that it was a foregone conclusion that Bismarck or Napoleon III would have accepted the plan, but on the other hand the possibility cannot be ruled out. The important factor is that Charles XV had given up the idea of revolution and now wished to unite the Nordic countries under Frederick and Lovisa. This was essentially the offer that Ploug—on Monrad’s behalf—had made to Charles in March 1864. And which he had then turned down.

In March 1864, the situation was grave enough to make the execution of a dynastic solution easier. After the Peace of Vienna was concluded in October and after the Unitary Parliament in Denmark had ratified it in November, this was no longer the case, seen from a European, Swedish or Norwegian perspective, while Oscar made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of surrendering his right of succession. Instead, the heir to the throne of the kingdoms took up residence in Scania, where Danish ultra-Scandinavianists presented him with plans for a revolution. However, Oscar could not act without Charles’s support. In that way, the two brothers blocked each other’s policy. The windows were closing. The only real opportunity remaining was to reach an understanding with Prussia. Prussia’s reward was Holstein, Lauenburg and the majority of Schleswig, while Denmark could recover northern Schleswig. In principle, this was possible in 1864, in 1865 and even in 1866, but the more time passed, the less need Bismarck had for Scandinavia. The plan had three underlying problems: Charles XV’s mounting hostility to Prussia, Christian IX’s well-founded fear of Scandinavianism and Carl Ploug’s unique capacity to sabotage Scandinavianism.

Ploug’s leaks to the press in December 1863 played their part in preventing an understanding between Charles XV, De Geer and Manderström. In May 1864, the leak to the Norwegian press alerted Gripenstedt and gave him the chance to put De Geer in his place, while, in his quarrel with the minister of justice, Eugenius Heltzen, in March 1865, Ploug allowed the J.J. Hansen case to explode in Fædrelandet. This cost Heltzen his job, but it also cost the Scandinavianists their influence with Prussia and France. And, once it had been restored, it was almost too late. Bismarck secured an alliance with Italy and had only limited need for Scandinavia—especially since neither Sweden-Norway nor Denmark covered themselves with glory either militarily or diplomatically. Moreover, the political costs of a Scandinavian solution were by now high to Bismarck. As Berlin saw it, Prussian endorsement of Scandinavian unification could provoke Russia, and that was not something Prussia needed if it was to remain on friendly terms with Russia during the Austro-Prussian war. At the same time, a surrender of northern Schleswig would be a powerful provocation to the German public, especially since King William had proclaimed it was his by right of conquest. While it was no easy matter to divide Schleswig during a war about Schleswig, when it still formally belonged under the Danish crown, to do so afterwards demanded far more. That Bismarck had not already shot down the idea of a Scandinavian union and the return of northern Schleswig before the war with Austria in 1866 may be due to a desire dictated by realpolitik to keep the door open and to avoid provoking France. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Scandinavianism was already a means to pacify France in December 1864, when Bismarck met with J.J. Hansen.Footnote 10

Simultaneously with Prussia’s defeat of Austria in the summer of 1866 came the collapse of Scandinavianism in Scandinavia. Parliamentary reform was carried out in Sweden, but—according to the Scandinavianists—De Geer reneged on his alleged agreement with the king to help him with a Scandinavian union. It may be indicative that the Swedish statesman definitively abandoned his flirtation with Scandinavianism at precisely the same moment as Otto von Bismarck. Here we come close to establishing the precise moment of the demise of political Scandinavianism. It is highlighted by the row that took place at the convention of Nordic political economists in Stockholm, at which Swedes and Norwegians attempted to create a practical foundation for the movement, while Ploug and Lehmann only wanted to talk about northern Schleswig. Swedish and Norwegian Scandinavianists were not blind to the significance of northern Schleswig, but the Danish demand had the opposite of its desired effect. It confirmed to the Swedes and the Norwegians that, for Danes, Scandinavianism was merely a cloak for Danish nationalism.

The last nail in the Scandinavianist coffin was the battle for a reform of the Swedish-Norwegian union. Here, two-state Scandinavianists had to battle not only against idiosyncratic Norwegian nationalism but also against many three-state Scandinavianists who belonged to the generation born during the Napoleonic Wars. With superb lack of timing, the Danish national liberals joined in the fight, and this poisoned the discussion. Ultimately, the outcome was a defeat for both two-state and three-state Scandinavianism and a victory for idiosyncratic Norwegian nationalism that regained the power it had had in 1814. The ability of weak political Scandinavianism to be compatible with Swedish, Danish and, in particular, Norwegian nationalism was on the wane. After 1867, Scandinavianism as a political movement faded away, and this was unaffected by the marriage between Frederick and Lovisa in 1869.

Charles XV continued to retain his faith in Napoleon III, but even if he had not met his Waterloo at Sedan in 1870, all windows had closed for political Scandinavianism. External and domestic circumstances meant that, between 1840 and 1870, political Scandinavianism was a movement that, for good reason, was taken seriously in its own time. It had its opportunities, for example, in 1848, 1854–1857 and 1863–1865—particularly in the spring of 1864. The common feature of all these windows of opportunity was war. This was just one element among many that found a parallel in the unification of Italy and Germany. This comes as no surprise. The sequence of events unfolding in these nationalist movements was linked, their ideology was the same and, even though the technical execution could be faulted, the political approach was the same in Scandinavia. This should not blind us, of course, to the mistakes, the failings and the challenges faced by the movement.

Why Did Scandinavianism Fail?

At the core of the Scandinavianists’ political endeavour was the same cynical realpolitik, with its secret agreements, alliances and war, that Cavour and Bismarck made use of to unify Italy and Germany. But they had a personnel problem. They had their Victor Emmanuel in Charles XV, but they never found their Cavour—a man who was supremely gifted, a great speaker, someone with no moral scruples who managed to navigate between liberalism and conservatism and, above all, was strategically adept in national, Scandinavian and European politics. We are not alone in this view. In an account of 1864, Monrad wrote that they lacked a “truly great political genius”.Footnote 11

If the Nordic countries had had a great political genius, which is now a fantasy picture, if the poets’ dreams of the unity of the Nordic countries had become a reality, then there would have been one army and one navy for the entire Nordic region and, instead of relations between Sweden and Norway now seeming to loosen in their blindness towards the greater perils that the creation of large complexes brings with it, they would have become firmer and deeper through the unity of the Nordic countries.Footnote 12

As Margaret MacMillan has observed there is a never-ending debate within historiography on whether the outcome of history is decided by “objective” forces or individuals. To this can be added chance events. As A.J.P. Taylor once noted, “most things in history happen by accident”.Footnote 13

Macmillan rightly emphasises there is no final answer, but there is a regrettable tendency in much historiography to dismiss the importance of individuals. Stressing the importance of agency—to say nothing of the political genius of dead white men—is seen as a hopelessly old-fashioned return to the nineteenth-century “great man theory of history” as found in Monrad’s explanation. This sort of history was abandoned in the twentieth century by historians, political scientists, sociologists and intellectuals in favour of more structural explanations. These approaches are, as Henry Kissinger has pointed out, all valid, but denying human agency leads to a false and potentially dangerous determinism.Footnote 14

There is good reason why the hero-worship of nineteenth-century historiography has been abandoned. History is more than the deeds of “great men”. Moreover, what is truly great can hardly be defined objectively. The autobiographies of politicians are highly political and selective documents, whereas the biography genre at least in earlier times have seen many hagiographies.Footnote 15 Moreover, it must be acknowledged that men and women are shaped by their environment and their time. The men in power in mid-nineteenth-century Scandinavia were certainly children of their time. Their view of the world was highly affected by being born during or in the immediate aftermath of the upheaval of the Napoleonic Wars, by the political, technological and social changes of their time and their general socialisation. Hence, they were just as much products of history as the makes of it. On the other side, neither the past nor the present can or should be understood purely through theories of impersonal structures denying human agency all importance. Kissinger rightly writes that there has ironically “been no more efficient tool of the malign consolidation of power by individuals than theories of the inevitable laws of history”.Footnote 16

Naturally, not all ideas of laws within history are malign. Francis Fukuyama’s modern-day Hegelian vision of a liberal end to history is highly sympathetic. Nonetheless, even in this benign form it may lead to what Timothy Snyder has called the “politics of inevitability”. “[A] sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives”. In the 1990s such ideas of historical progress led many to believe in a future that would be better for everyone. In the current millennium, terror, the financial crisis, the climate crisis, mass immigration, a renewed great power rivalry, Brexit, Trumpism and wars in Ukraine and Gaza have sowed seeds of division, created fear and a general sense of confusion, and opened the door for what Snyder calls “the politics of eternity”. That is the perception that time is cyclical, the nation is an eternal victim of foreign aggression and an impending sense of doom. Neither the politics of inevitability nor the politics of eternity should be seen as concepts only relevant to the post-Cold War period. They reflect two general political and historiographical tendencies throughout most of history, including mid-nineteenth century Scandinavia as by the theories of history found amongst both the Scandinavianists and the anti-Scandinavianists. As we see it, “politics of inevitability” are at best problematic, whereas “the politics of eternity” is dangerous in its denial of human agency.Footnote 17

If we turn to nationalism studies, we can according to Benedicte Brincker distinguish between three different generations of nationalism scholars. Whereas the first and the second had a more or less structuralist approach, the third generation’s analysis of nationalism is characterised by involving both institutions, organisations and agency in their study of nationalism.Footnote 18 As them, we believe this middle ground is more fruitful to the study of both nationalism and history in general. A possible compromise between an interpretation of the past that stresses impersonal structural factors and one that highlights individual agency can also be found in Ian Kershaw’s study of 12 prominent politicians of the twentieth century. In Personality and Power (2022), he puts forward and tests seven general propositions. They are:Footnote 19

  1. (1)

    The scope for individual impact is greatest during or immediately following huge political upheaval when existing structure of rule break down or are destroyed.

  2. (2)

    Single-minded pursuit of easily definable goals and ideological inflexibility combined with tactical acumen enable a specific individual to stand out and gain a following.

  3. (3)

    The exercise and scale of personal power are heavily conditioned by circumstances of the takeover of power and the earliest phase of its consolidation.

  4. (4)

    Concentration of power enhances the potential impact of the individual—often with negative, sometimes catastrophic, consequences.

  5. (5)

    War subjects even powerful political leaders to the overwhelming constraints of military power.

  6. (6)

    The individual leader’s power and room for manoeuvre are in good measure dependent upon the institutional basis and relative strength of support, primarily among the secondary conduits of power, but also among the wider public.

  7. (7)

    Democratic government imposes the greatest limitation on the individual’s freedom of action and scope to determine historical change.

Not all these propositions are of equal importance for our discussion, while others can easily be misconstrued when applied to mid-nineteenth century Scandinavian politics rather than twentieth-century European politics. This is especially true of the latter, as Scandinavian historians tend to project a present-day understanding of democracy back upon the constitutional monarchism of the nineteenth century. This is one of the prime reasons why traditionalist historiography has both misunderstood the power of the king and misjudged how politics of the period worked. That said, there is no doubt that the political system entailed limitation to royal power that played a vital role for the outcome. Moreover, Kershaw is also right in pointing to the importance of the institutional basis of a leader and strength of his support (in our case, it was always he). All of this may be part of the explanation for why political Scandinavianism eventually failed. However, more than once it seems to have been a fairly close call where individual choices, personality and chance events do seem to have affected the outcome. Something that points to the importance of agency.

Kershaw’s first proposition is in this connection vital as it helps us understand not only why individuals played a significant role in the history of political Scandinavianism, but also why Scandinavianism features prominently within Scandinavian and European politics in the period it did. Just as Macmillan and Kissinger, Kershaw points to the fact that crisis, war and upheaval give leaders and other political agents an extraordinary opportunity to affect the course of history. In short, Scandinavianism was a product of fear brought along by a great upheaval created by the Napoleonic Wars, the crisis of succession and constitution within the Danish unitary state created the possibility to realise it through war by Scandinavian and European royals and politicians alike. This was not something particular to Scandinavia. It reflects the fact that most (nation) states are born out of crisis, war and upheaval. It is no coincidence that all the above-mentioned windows of opportunity are connected to critical situations. In short, the period between 1848 and 1871 was as suggested by Richard J. Evans one of “single revolutionary change”.Footnote 20

In these situations, structures and rules can be bent or broken leaving a greater room for agency.Footnote 21 In other words, the period between 1848 (and especially from the western powers’ entrance into the Crimean War in 1854) and until 1871 can be seen as one where the preconditions for change were present. Under the right circumstances (e.g. crisis and war), events could be manipulated by leaders to alter the course of history and create new (nation) states. This interpretation goes against the grain of the historiography of Scandinavianism as it stresses impersonal structural factors in the failure of political Scandinavianism. We are not belittling the importance of structures. But like Macmillan, Taylor, Kissinger and Kershaw we simply do not believe that structural, cultural and social explanations can stand by themselves.

Bismarck is an eminent example of an individual whose policies affected the course of history. However, as Macmillan rightly stresses, he only reached his goals by time and again running a significant risk. In his study of leadership, Henry Kissinger frames the same in another way as he highlights courage and character as key characteristics of statesmanship.

The vital attributes of a leader in these tasks, and the bridge between the past and the future, are courage and character—courage to choose a direction among complex and difficult options, which requires the willingness to transcend the routine; and strength of character to sustain a course of action whose benefits and whose dangers can be only incompletely glimpsed at the moment of choice. Courage summons virtue in the moment of decision; character reinforces fidelity to values over an extended period.Footnote 22

Kissinger makes a distinction between two different types of leaders. The statesman and the prophet. Agents within the latter category are visionaries. They see institutions not from the perspective of the possible, but from what they deem to be imperative. Their approach is not one of gradualism. They believe in ultimate solutions. Maximilien de Robespierre can be seen as an archetype of the prophet. Scandinavianists, such as Carl Rosenberg and Carl Ploug, can be made to fit this mould. However, even if men like Rosenberg and Ploug played an important role neither of them were leaders with real power. The men who were should rather be found in the category of the statesman.Footnote 23

To Kissinger, the statesman is a farsighted person. He or she recognises when situations require existing institutions must be transcended and they manipulate circumstances to avoid being overwhelmed by them. They have a neck for realising when a window of opportunity opens. They embrace change, progress and work with the grain of history as they perceive it, but they do so in a manner that ensures that their societies retain a sense of itself through an evolution, which they encourage. Amongst the examples of true statesmen according to Kissinger are several leaders mentioned in this book, including Palmerston, Disraeli and Bismarck.Footnote 24

As it is evident from above, bad timing and circumstance certainly did play a role in the failure of Scandinavianism, but so did a lack of a statesman who had all the traits highlighted by Kissinger, especially a sense of when the windows of opportunity were open and how they could be exploited.

Hamilton and Manderström were nominated the Cavours of the North, Baron Blixen and Erik Sparre claimed they were cut of that cloth, and it is tempting to believe that in 1864 Monrad saw himself as a political genius. The problem was that none of them actually possessed that genius, and Manderström did not even want to have it. There was a lack of statesmen in Scandinavia. Like other national liberal Danes, C.C. Hall has been linked with the catastrophic defeat of 1864. The Danish council president was no Cavour, but there were similarities. Hall constantly kept several doors open, just as he managed to keep his cards close to his chest and to manoeuvre. Despite the judgement of posterity, his foreign policy was rational. And no one should doubt that Hall was Scandinavianist. But he was also Danish. This was not simply a hallmark of his politics. It also prevented him from becoming the Cavour of the North. If Scandinavia was to be united, Sweden would have to take on the role of Piedmont, and foreign policy would have to be managed by a man with the same approach to politics as Cavour, able to form alliances, prepared to break treaties, to grasp chances, to pursue risky policies and to take up arms and fight a war when that offered a real opportunity. Oscar I had the abilities, the opportunity and was prepared to run a risk, but he waited too long during the Crimean War. His son, Charles XV, was less capable. He had several opportunities, but when push came to shove, he always backed down. If we follow Kissinger, he lacked both the courage and the character. To that one might add that Charles lacked judgement and skill, as demonstrated by his ill-timed warlike remarks to William Grey in August 1863. No less important, unlike his father Charles did not control Sweden-Norway’s foreign policy. It was formally in the hands of the traditionalist Count Manderström, who was revolted by the cynical realpolitik of the time.

There were, however, Swedish diplomats inspired by Cavour’s approach to foreign policy. First and foremost, there was Carl Wachtmeister, who was friends with Cavour. Wachtmeister was Sweden-Norway’s envoy to Turin (1850–1858), Copenhagen (1858–1861, 1865–68), Constantinople (1861) and London (1861–1865), before he succeeded Manderström as foreign minister in 1868. In the spring of 1864, Wachtmeister wanted the united kingdoms to declare war on Prussia, to seal a union with Denmark and to create a Scandinavian government in Copenhagen. Wachtmeister had an eye for the window of Scandinavia, and he wanted to exploit it. Once the opportunity had passed, he saw that the window had closed for the foreseeable future. He was right.Footnote 25

Foreign policy was Wachtmeister’s strong suit. His weakness was domestic politics, for which, unlike Cavour and Bismarck, he did not have the same touch. Men like Louis De Geer and Gripenstedt, however, did. These two men, in their own different ways, played a part in preventing the realisation of Scandinavianism. They had, though, the qualities the Scandinavianists lacked. Gripenstedt was consistent and ruthless and managed to force his will through by knocking everyone else into place. This had crucial significance in 1863 and 1864. If Gripenstedt had retained the pro-Scandinavianist political standpoint he held in 1848, these qualities might have served Scandinavianism instead of obstructing it. Louis De Geer does not appear to have had Gripenstedt’s strength of character. On the other hand, he was flexible, as we can see from his dithering in 1863 and 1864. For the minister of justice, the crucial factor was his brainchild, parliamentary reform. To achieve that, he would bend far in any direction. At the end, when Louis De Geer distanced himself from Scandinavianism, this was not only because it could no longer serve his own interests but also because he had little regard for those striving for Scandinavianism.

Baron Blixen had the right connections, but he lacked political talent. Men like Georg Rosenmüller, August Sohlman, Carl Ploug and Carl Rosenberg were political amateurs. This is not to deny them any ability. Carl Rosenberg was a highly talented intellectual, but as a political figure he was more dilettante than Carl Ploug. And that is saying a lot. A man like Ploug was a problem for the Scandinavianists in two senses. He not only inflicted irreparable damage through his actions but he was also responsible for scaring competent politicians away. There was a reason for men such as Stang, Sibbern, Gripenstedt, De Geer and J.A. Hansen turning their backs on Scandinavianism. The revolutionary character of Scandinavianism in 1863–1865 also prompted many to distance themselves in all three Scandinavian countries.

For Scandinavianists, war was “a continuation of politics by other means”. If Scandinavia was to be united, it would be conditional on war. Only war would be able to fling existing treaties and rights of succession up into the air and create a new situation. But the Scandinavianists differed from Cavour and Bismarck in not preparing for war. Italy and Prussia used borrowed money to arm themselves to the teeth before their unification. Neither Denmark nor Sweden-Norway did so. This is especially surprising in Denmark’s case since the risk of war was imminent. It was less obvious that Sweden-Norway would get involved in a war, but it should have been clear that the risk was there. It is particularly surprising that Charles XV—who was wanting war—did not give this area his full and undivided attention.

The counterargument is that the unification of Scandinavia did not depend on a victory. Scandinavia could be unified through a war it had lost, as De Geer admitted in his memoirs, and in all honesty none of the political Scandinavianists believed that Scandinavia could defeat Prussia. In a purely Danish context, Hall was right in thinking that a short war would be enough to bring the country to the negotiating table. However, there are a number of problems with this argument. What brings a country to the negotiating table is not immaterial. The heavier the defeat it has suffered, the less weight it carries in the negotiations. In a Swedish-Norwegian context, the state of its military was itself a significant argument in favour of the united kingdom not going to war. Furthermore, Scandinavian politics were based on a belief in alliances, not only with each other but also with others—including France, Italy and, in the longer term, Prussia. In other words, the lack of the will and the ability to carry out military reforms and to use loaned money to arm sufficiently were contributory factors in the failure of Scandinavianism.Footnote 26

Scandinavianism also failed because it differed in significant points from movements for unification in Italy and Germany, where Piedmont and Prussia bulldozed the other states and so formed a polity. Such an approach would have been possible in Scandinavia. This was what aristocrats were after in their ambition for a Greater Sweden, and this was the opportunity that was offered several times to Charles XV by Prussia—and France. Sweden-Norway’s king, however, chose in the end a strategy that was based on Denmark more or less voluntarily uniting itself with his other two kingdoms. This strategy was not doomed to fail, but it was contingent on understanding, coordination and mutual trust. All of these were often missing in the relationship between key political agents in Scandinavia. Like other national movements, Scandinavianism was characterised by a struggle between the sovereignty of the people and the sovereignty of the king and by attempts to coordinate dynastic and national interests. This was understood by the Bernadottes, but neither by the last of the Oldenburgs or by the Glücksburgs. The young Bernadotte dynasty was born out of revolution and understood that Holstein could never become part of Scandinavia. This was not grasped by Frederick VII, and no one managed to explain it to him. Christian IX’s attempt to save the unitary state through a personal union not only stood in the way of Scandinavianism but had catastrophic consequences for Denmark.

Even when those involved were agreed that Holstein should be hived off, the Swedes were in doubt whether the Danes meant it. Hall and Manderström lacked trust in each other. They did not understand each other and for a long time they could not work out how to coordinate their policies. Hall was a Danish Scandinavianist. Manderström was Swedish. However, there was progress. From the summer of 1863, Manderström’s fear that Denmark was intent on enticing Sweden-Norway into a war for Holstein abated. In December 1863, Manderström clearly trusted that Hall was no covert unitary statist. In every sense, this meant that the fall of Hall and his replacement by Monrad were a catastrophe for Scandinavianism. In Stockholm, trust in Monrad was non-existent—both in him as a person and in his politics. While it is clear that Monrad politically was Scandinavianist, it is understandable that Swedish and Norwegian politicians suspected him of being a unitary statist—because he was one, intermittently. Scandinavia suffered serious—possibly terminal—damage, therefore, when, in the spring of 1864, at Christian IX’s request, Monrad brought Holstein into the negotiations. If we set the individuals to one side, there was a more general problem. Scandinavianists in the individual countries did not always have a clear sense of the political situation in the other Scandinavian countries. This led to mistakes and misunderstandings whereby Danish Scandinavianists, in particular, ended up working against their own interests.

The Battle for History

Political history is political, and the battle for ownership is continually being fought. Anyone doubting this needs only to look at what happened in Scandinavia in 1864. In August 1864, national liberals in the Danish Rigsdag, Hall and Monrad among them, were preparing to defend themselves against an impeachment for their actions while in government. It is no surprise, then, that a white paper of the same month was a defence of Hall’s policy. Especially since Hall was a member of the parliamentary committee, dominated by national liberals, that published the white paper. It was, however, also an indictment of Manderström, whose betrayal in 1863, according to the white paper, had had fateful consequences.Footnote 27

The white paper provided the Scandinavianists with useful ammunition. The Danish royal family ended up in the firing line, while Ploug provided Sohlman with unpublished diplomatic memoranda presenting Manderström in a poor light. The attacks in the press on the foreign minister that followed this prompted De Geer and Gripenstedt for their part to embark on a panic-stricken defence of the unity of the Swedish government. Hamilton had, they claimed, allowed the wool to be pulled over his eyes by the Danes. Gripenstedt’s friend, V.F. Dalman, set to work on the third issue in his series of pamphlets in defence of this unified Swedish government and attacked its Danish counterpart. “Such will the fruits always be for a little country that wants to dictate the laws of the great”, crowed the officer on the general staff, Erik af Klint. Swedish officers pointed accusing fingers at nationalism and “the freedom of the people”. In this way, the Swedes also contributed to the narrative that one cause of the catastrophe in 1864 was the arrogance of the Danish national liberals.Footnote 28

The two friends, Hall and Hamilton, closely followed the battle surrounding the story as it appeared to the public. Hamilton denied to Hall that he had “misled the Danish government” and avowed that he had “in Count Manderström’s private exchange of letters the complete proof, which I am unable to use”. With it, he could also prove that Manderström “again on 16 December [1863] required an active engagement from our side in the defence of Denmark, and that the ministerial crisis that came about in Stockholm around Christmas had something to do with it”. This statement could also be seen to support a partisan interpretation in the ongoing feud between the key political actors that were involved in the negotiations for a Scandinavian alliance. But, in contrast to some of the claims in Hamilton’s own Notes regarding the relation between Sweden and Denmark 1863–64 (first published in 1936), this information was correct.Footnote 29

By the time Hamilton’s account of this story was published, it was too late. Louis De Geer had published his memoirs in 1892, and they became hugely significant for the interpretation of events in 1863 and 1864. Even some of De Geer’s contemporaries, such as the Swedish minister and member of the Riksdag, Pehr Ehrenheim, and the Danish head of the foreign ministry, Peter Vedel, used Memoirs as a source in their own memoirs. They were extremely conscious of “the future history”, as De Geer related when he prepared his memoirs.Footnote 30

It was a battle that De Geer ended up winning. This should be no surprise. The Swedish statesman won the battle of history because he was one of history’s winners. His politically partisan version fitted neatly into history, while the Scandinavianist story did not. For history itself had proved them wrong. This came to be most significant in Denmark, where the consequences of the failure of a Scandinavianist policy were greatest. As George Orwell wrote in 1984: “Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past”. This was clearly one element in the battle for the right to interpret the events that had taken place. What was it that had happened? And who should take responsibility? Tscherning’s agrarian grouping in Jutland, conservative unitary statists and army officers were incandescent with fury at the thought that their fatherland, the unitary state, had been destroyed due to the crackpot and irresponsible foreign policy of nationalists and Scandinavianists! The national liberals as a whole and Orla Lehmann in particular returned fire. If things had gone wrong, it was because the unitary statists had recreated the unitary state on a foundation that was incompatible with a constitutional form of government and with Danish independence. The agrarian nationalists hit back even harder. The problem was not that the policy that had been pursued had been nationalist. It had not been nationalist enough.Footnote 31

To account for the consequences this had, not just for Danish politics but for politics in Scandinavia would require a whole book of its own. Our hypothesis is that the consequences were considerable, particularly when it came to security policy. The battle between Scandinavianists and anti-Scandinavianists comprised many elements, but one of them is most crucial—the defence of the nation’s independence. Political Scandinavianism spread across both the political and the philosophical spectrum. Two things the Scandinavianists did have in common, namely a belief in the threshold principle and fear of the annihilation of small Scandinavian states. Such thoughts could be found right across the continent and arose from experiences of the Napoleonic Wars, from developments in European history since the Middle Ages in general and from the political realities that had since made themselves felt, in particular between 1848 and 1871. The fear of annihilation felt by Scandinavianists derived more from Darwinian thinking than from an idealist history of philosophy. In that sense, their approach to politics was realistic. It was about securing resources and alliances to survive in “an age of iron”, as the Norwegian Scandinavianist, Michael Birkeland, so tellingly termed his own time.

This also explains their view of war, which differs significantly from the view of the majority of Scandinavians nowadays and, in particular, of Swedes. While Sweden has played a part of peacekeeping missions under the UN and EU, it has not been engaged in warfare for over 200 years. This same cannot quite be said for Norway and Denmark. Norwegian and Danish soldiers have taken part in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter, in particular, has brought with it losses, deprivation and suffering. This does not alter the fact that neither the Norwegian nor the Danish civilian population has experienced war in earnest at close hand since the Second World War. In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, few Scandinavians have feared an invasion, although Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 brought old fears of Russian expansionism and aggression to the fore overnight. But neither this nor their international involvement has altered the underlying view that these are essentially peaceful countries. The same goes for the terror attacks and catastrophes that have hit the three Scandinavian countries. They may to a greater or lesser extent affect society, but they do not alter the fact that war is something that happens a long way away. This contributes to making the past “a foreign country” for Scandinavians. And the antipathy to war felt by most people may have influenced Scandinavian historians’ view of a policy that involved war.

In the nineteenth century, war was simply part of reality. War had been a part of Europe’s history ever since it had had a history. It did not, of course, affect all of the continent all of the time. Parts of Europe were spared the death and destruction of war for generations, as was the case in Norway and Denmark during the long peace in the eighteenth century (1721–1801, interrupted only by the Theatre War in 1788). As a whole, however, every European generation experienced at least one war—and in most cases, many. In the mid-1800s, the Napoleonic Wars were still fresh in the minds of many and were an absolutely integral part of the collective experience of Scandinavians, echoing in the Schleswig Wars that shaped Denmark and affecting Sweden and Norway. Views of war differed dramatically and depended, in part, on point of view. The peasants, who had to do the fighting on the ground, were seldom enthusiastic. Gripenstedt and many business and tradespeople wanted peace. But this did not alter the fact that many politicians regarded war as an instrument. This was true of the Scandinavianists. They regarded war as the continuation of politics by other means as statesmen have since the beginning of time. For the great powers, war was about power, resources, influence and honour. This was also true of the political Scandinavianists, but for them it was also about survival. For them, war was an inevitable part of historical development. The alternative to war was not peace. It was obliteration.

The defeat of 1864 has been made into the judgement of history on who was in the right. Denmark had conducted an activist foreign policy that ended in catastrophe. Sweden and Norway had maintained their neutrality. The conclusion was evident. In 1867, Sweden and Norway placed neutrality at the heart of their security policy, and Denmark followed suit in 1870. A policy of neutrality was dominant in all three countries right up until the Second World War. This has meant that the Scandinavians of the present day—and their historians—find it easier to recognise themselves in the peaceful policy of neutrality than in the belligerent Scandinavianism that is said to have found expression in the abortive foreign policy pursued by Denmark up to and including 1864. The same can be seen in the writing of Swedish and Norwegian history, where the Scandinavian alliance policy is regarded as a foreign policy based on “hopes and dreams instead of on realistic assessments of the power political situation”.Footnote 32

A Political History

Methodological nationalism and historical determinism can explain, in part at least, why Scandinavian historians have generally written off Scandinavianism as a utopian movement, because it deviated not only from the history that happened but also from the national frameworks within which historians have written and to some extent continue to write. It is puzzling, however, why they should have done so in such colourful and emotive language, which is more political than it is scientific.

The concordance between the language and the arguments used by anti-Scandinavianists and historians is so pronounced that there can be no question of a coincidence. We have, therefore, to ask why a politically one-sided and partisan exposition should have been turned into scientific truth. There are three possible answers, and the one does not exclude the other. The first is that historians have built their narratives around the figures whom the history proved “right”. The second is that the narrative of anti-Scandinavianism best fits the national narratives. The third is that historians do not write in a vacuum but are influenced by their own time and their political standpoint. As the second reason has already been addressed numerous times in earlier chapters, we will here address the first and the last of these. It is an objective fact that political Scandinavianism failed. And failed spectacularly. The analyses and arguments of their opponents should, therefore, be taken seriously when its history comes to be explained. It is, however, unfortunate that until now historians have not made it clear what their analyses are based upon, and it is regrettable that, consciously or unconsciously, they have adopted a politically loaded rhetoric.

The explanation for their politically coloured language can be found by looking at when research into Scandinavianism first began. The first scientific works on Scandinavianism and the war of 1864 appeared only a generation after the breakdown of Greater Scandinavian politics and immediately before and after the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905. The Danish view of Scandinavianism was shaped by the defeat of 1864, while in Sweden and Norway it was coloured by the Swedish-Norwegian union. Conservative Swedish and Norwegian historians had combined their Swedish and Norwegian nationalism with Scandinavianism. This combination was no longer possible after the dissolution of the union, which seriously affected all forms of Scandinavian collaboration. In contrast to a religious faith, political conviction has difficulty in surviving large and traumatic defeat, and this inevitably leaves its traces in political history.Footnote 33

The first works on Scandinavianism and the Second Schleswig War in 1864 were written by honourable and competent historians, but they were also to a notable extent politically active. Among them were the Swede Carl Hallendorff, who became a member of the Riksdag, the Norwegian Halvdan Koht, who became foreign minister, and the Dane Niels Neergaard, who became council president and later prime minister. They belonged to different parties and had different ideologies, but for all of them activist Scandinavianism and the war of 1864 represented the opposite of the policies they were pursuing and wanted to pursue. For Hallendorff, the policy of neutrality was crucial, and he was bound to distance himself from Scandinavianism’s activist foreign policy. The same went for Neergaard and Koht, but in different ways. For Koht, it was combined with his activity in the peace movement, while for Neergaard the war of 1864 stood as the decisive event to be exploited in any discussion of Danish defence or foreign policy.Footnote 34

It is important to emphasise that politically active historians—such as the Danish minister of defence and foreign minister, P. Munch—did not themselves regard their history-writing as political. Leading historians from around 1900 in many parts of Europe—including Britain, France, Norway and Denmark—were liberal and positivists who wanted to see an end to the romantic historiography of their predecessors. They were looking for objective truth and practical political lessons, and this is precisely what a historian and politician like Munch believed his version of history was. The great overlap between his view of history and the politics he pursued indicated—of course—that his policies were based on objective truth and the lessons of history. The events of 1864 demonstrated to him the rightness of a policy of neutrality and compliance with German demands during the First World War and up until the Second World War. Exactly the same can be said of his historian colleague, the Norwegian foreign minister Halvdan Koht. In his work on Swedish and Norwegian foreign policy in the years 1863 and 1864, Koht made no bones of his sympathy for anti-Scandinavianists such as Frederik Stang. A tell-tale sign can be found in the fact that, while Koht in his substantial appendix of primary sources to the period did not record the majority declaration of the Norwegian government supporting Oscar I’s intervention in the First Schleswig War in 1848, he did record the entire minority vote tabled by Frederik Stang, which bore a remarkable similarity to the foreign policy he himself espoused in 1940.Footnote 35

History and politics did not go hand in glove only when it came to security policy in Scandinavia. The battle for and against the union between Sweden and Norway had constituted a battleground between the parties of Høyre (Right) and Venstre (Left, e.g. the agrarian national party) in Norway for decades. Each party had its own cohort of historians, who created narratives that could be used as arguments for or against the union. This history had, in Koht’s words, been “living politics”, but for him and his mentor, Ernst Sars, the dissolution of the union in 1905 had finally decided the issue. History had proved Koht, Sars and Venstre right, and there was no disputing the fact that political Scandinavianism—regardless of whether it involved two or three states—was an historic interlude. The future belonged to the nation state. It is a short step to the assumption that political historians found it easier to apply analyses and arguments taken from anti-Scandinavianists that complied with their own view of the teaching, development and aims of history, while it was more difficult for them to understand the Scandinavianists, who had failed not only in 1864 but again in 1905. In that way, it was not difficult to accept partisan evidence as scientific truth, since the historians themselves subscribed to this political view. In short, Munch, Koht and their colleagues created Scandinavian variants of “the Whig interpretation of history”.Footnote 36

How these “Whig” histories were constructed and what their effects were for the interpretation of the past and the political and artistic use of history in Scandinavia is beyond the scope of this book. However, one side of it must be highlighted as it is not only vital in understanding of both historiography of Scandinavianism and historiography in Scandinavia. It also reflects a general tendency of how defeats and upheavals can change paradigms within historiography and divide generations. If we look at nineteenth-century historians adhering to Scandinavianist ideology, they believed in the Primat der Außenpolitik. This can hardly be seen as surprising. This type of history dominated historiography across the continent, especially in Germany where it had been advocated by Leopold von Ranke. Moreover, the idea of the Primat der Außenpolitik within history was a prerequisite for Scandinavianism. Politically, it was tied to Realpolitik and ideologically it underpinned the threshold principle within nationalist thought and hereby political Scandinavianism.

This changed with Danish defeat of 1864 and the failure of political Scandinavianism. As we have mentioned earlier, the two following generations of historians, politicians and historian politicians drew both historical and political lesson from these events. The first post-1864 generation embraced a policy of neutrality, the second also pursued a policy of disbarment and supported the peace movement. Within history-writing, the idea of the Primat der Außenpolitik was in time replaced by the Primat der Innenpolitik. In this Scandinavian historiography post-1864 foreboded the shift within German historiography from the Primat der Außenpolitik to the Primat der Innenpolitik after the German defeat in World War II. A shift that also—as in Scandinavia—resulted in an aversion to a focus on the individual and an increased focus on structural explanations within history.Footnote 37

In the case of Scandinavia, the historiographical shift reinforced a policy of neutrality and disarmament and the idea of Scandinavia and the Scandinavian as being peaceful. Furthermore, this type of history-writing was well suited for the type of nationalism and nation-building that succeeded in Scandinavian. That of small heterogenous, national welfare states. However, it was not without side-effects. Presentism reigned (and to some extent still does). The new political ideals and self-image were projected back upon the past. In the case of Sweden, a policy of neutrality was essentially backdated to 1814 or 1834. In Denmark, the policy of neutrality in eighteenth century was glorified, while foreign policy in most other periods was vilified for not pursuing the ideals of the historian politicians. the same is partly true for Norway to the extent that foreign policy prior to 1905 is dealt with at all. In all cases, foreign policy of the past was in general understood through the lens of the three later-day nation states. In this sense, the shift in historiographical perspective reinforced methodological nationalism. Naturally, Scandinavian scholars do not live in a bubble. They contribute to international research. Nonetheless, it is telling when they do their narratives often highlight the advantages of being small and peaceful nation states. This is especially the case with Denmark where 300 years of dynastic defeat have been turned into the success story of the small nation state.Footnote 38

If we look more specifically on the works of history that were written on Scandinavianism between about 1900 and 1916, they created a master narrative, which was not challenged when the topic was explored again in earnest in the 1930s by, among others, Aage Friis and Einar Hedin. Friis’s narrative chimes not only with the judgments pronounced by Scandinavian historians both before and since, but also with the tradition for peace and a policy of neutrality that traditionally forms part of the self-understanding of the Scandinavian countries. The same goes for parts of the extensive research that was undertaken during the 1940s and 1950s. Without taking issue with the master narrative, there was a greater tendency to understand the Scandinavianists and there were fewer value judgements. This was true, for example, of Åke Holmberg and Einar Hedin. At the same time, we can see how the political battles of the past lived on. Erik Møller adopted for the most part Hall and Hamilton’s view of events. For Møller, Manderström was the beast of the Revelations. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that Møller took no prisoners in his reviews of Swedish and Finnish-Swedish historians who, at times, could be very flexible with the facts in their defence of Manderström and his foreign policy.

Between 1960 and 1999, a few larger works of significance for Scandinavianism were published by, for example, Henrik Becker-Christensen and Jens Arup Seip. But there were not many. Interest in the movement in the 1990s was linked predominantly with research into nationalism in general. Since the turn of the century, however, much has happened in Scandinavianism research, though the focus has been on cultural and practical Scandinavianism, which are forms of the movement that to some extent succeeded and are compatible with national narratives. It is worth asking why this research interest has arisen only over the past two decades. There are three partially conflicting explanations.

The first is materialistic and is linked to anniversaries and the funding they attract. The research was motivated, first, by the 1905 anniversary (of the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian union), later by the 1814 anniversary (of the Norwegian constitution) and recently by the 1920 anniversary (of Denmark’s reunification with North Schleswig). This book is related to the latter. Funding, however, does not govern everything. And, while researchers may make strategic choices, they do not spend their lives working on topics that they do not find interesting.

The second explanation relates to the Zeitgeist. In 1992, the British historian Eric Hobsbawm explained the increasing research interests in nationalism using the metaphor of Minerva’s owl flying in the dusk. What he meant with this thinly veiled quotation from Hegel was that researchers only become interested in phenomena when they are about to disappear into the dark. Hobsbawm, like so many others on the academic left wing, imagined that nation states would pass away. Time has proved them wrong. But what about cultural and practical Scandinavianism? Precisely as globalisation and Americanisation were seen as threats to the nation state, so, at the beginning of the new millennium, they had to be seen as threats to cultural Scandinavianism. The understanding of language and cultural awareness between the Scandinavian countries has been in decline. This may be particularly true between Denmark and the two other Scandinavian countries. These developments have sparked research interest into cultural identity that appears to be in decline and its history.Footnote 39

The third and final explanation points in the completely opposite direction. While the 1990s were characterised by optimism and a belief in “the end of history”, during recent decades the world has become increasingly dystopian. The international organisations which form the foundation for Europe and the western world have come under pressure. Only a few years ago, both EU and NATO were facing a crisis that prompted Scandinavian politicians to consider whether there might be alternatives. This can explain why politicians have spoken about broader Nordic coordination, including in the military sphere. If this interpretation is correct, it would fit into a larger historical pattern. Scandinavianism and research have often been at their strongest in those periods when the world is dangerous. It leaves Scandinavians—like other vulnerable people—wanting to huddle closer together.

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine immediately pushed questions of Nordic military cooperation further up on the political agenda. Recent events have increased Scandinavian fears of Russia, fears shared very much by their Scandinavianist forefathers. Finland and Sweden have become NATO-members. Their entry into the alliance will make further integration of the collective defence of the Nordic countries possible, such as by creating a distinct Nordic pillar within NATO. One could argue that this development to an extent is the fulfilment of Scandinavianism’s military defence aims in the mid-nineteenth century. As King Oscar I saw it, creating a Scandinavian alliance and unifying Sweden, Norway and Denmark were not by itself enough to provide full security for the three countries. The security of Scandinavia depended on an alliance with the western powers. The November Treaty of 1855 was a step in this direction. But as Oscar I and the Scandinavianist saw it, only a united Scandinavia would in the long run be an interesting ally for the western powers. A unified Scandinavia would have the resources to become viable ally and buffer state that could serve the interest of Great Britain and/or France. Independently, the three states could not defend themselves, they would not make worthy allies and they could hardly be used by the western powers to block Russia. The creation of a Nordic pillar within NATO may help the west to check Russia both in the Baltic and the Artic regions, while Swedish and Finnish membership of the alliance will add to the security of all the Nordic countries. The post-Cold War era was brought to a definitive end with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As current Russian geopolitical thinking and ambition clearly has more in common with the period between 1848 and 1870 than in the 1990s, or arguably even the ideological confrontation during the Cold War, an understanding of the international relations and the Realpolitik of the mid-nineteenth century becomes crucial.

The End of the Beginning

The aim of this book has been to understand political Scandinavianism in the 1850s and 1860s on its own premises. We have not set out to take issue with the master narrative. What we wanted to do was to understand how Scandinavianists and anti-Scandinavianists saw the world, and how and why they acted in the Scandinavian and European context. If our interpretation of the history appears to run counter to the master narrative, this is because our sources have led us to the conclusion that parts of the existing version of history do not accord with the material that contemporary players have left for posterity. There are two reasons for this. Too many historians have worked on political Scandinavianism from a Norwegian, Swedish or Danish perspective instead of seeing it in a Scandinavian or European context. And too many historians have interpreted the development from the viewpoint of the democratic nation states that have developed since and with which, understandably enough, they identify. We do likewise, as people. But we have done our best not to do so as historians.

In other words, we have no axe to grind. We do not regret that the history took the path that it did, but we do wish to make good the omission that the past has been deprived of one of the futures that constituted a real possibility. This is neither because we regret that it failed, nor because we are dissatisfied with the three Scandinavian nation states as they are. We do not regard the political Scandinavianists as heroes or the anti-Scandinavianists as villains. The fear of annihilation underlying political Scandinavianism was understandable, but so were Frederik Stang’s arguments against three-state Scandinavianism. The situation only became more complicated by Stang being a two-state Scandinavianist. The point is that we need to breakdown the old division between rational, clear thinking statesmen adept at Realpolitik (the anti-Scandinavianists) and irrational, utopian romantics pursuing a pipedream (the Scandinavianists). There were romantics and realists on both sides.

The problem with the master narrative accepted so far is not that it is unequivocally wrong as a whole but that in certain areas it has been tendentious. This can be explained in part through methodological nationalism and because it has been dominated by partisan accounts that are anti-Scandinavianist in origin. The latter is probably due to the fact that an anti-Scandinavianist account was better suited to posterity’s self-understanding and to the political lessons learned by the generations that came after 1864 from the defeat of political Scandinavianism. Julius Clausen, who wrote the major work on Scandinavianism in the year 1900, was born in Copenhagen in 1868. He was one of “the sons of the defeated”, as the Nobel Prize winner Johannes V. Jensen called the post-1864 generation, and this left its mark on him and his entire generation. Political historians like P. Munch and Halvdan Koht grew up in the shadow of Scandinavianism’s political collapse. They did not try to manipulate history, but they were influenced by it and from it they learned that anti-Scandinavianism had been in the right. This influenced both their politics and their writing of history. It is, therefore, important to bear in mind that, for their generation, this was close to being contemporary history. These events had only happened 35–40 years earlier. In many cases, the first generation of historians literally knew the men they were writing about. This applied, for example, to the Danish council president and later prime minister, Niels Neergaard, who discussed the events with Peter Vedel, who was still alive. This gave them unique opportunities as historians, but it also allowed living political players the chance to influence what was written about them. It is important for future research that this interplay and its significance is borne in mind.

As the majority of historians of this generation, and particularly political active historians, had a tendency to derive conclusions and learning that unequivocally accorded with their own political standpoint, the past was made more recognisable and less of a “foreign land”. They understood history on their own premises and too little on the premises of history itself. It can be claimed with some justice that the blinkered and deterministic narrative about Scandinavianism has served to inform the national identity of the three Scandinavian countries. But this form of determinism presents problems, not only because it diminishes the past but also because it risks influencing our view of the present. History is rarely black or white but endless shades of grey. Understanding the past is a complex business, and even gifted people can disagree, but we have tried to understand thought processes of the past on their own premises. In that way, we also get to understand the present better. History is not predetermined; it does not have an aim; and individuals are not without significance. This allows us to understand that other worlds were possible—and are possible.Footnote 40

It is impossible to say whether the world would have been a better place if Scandinavia had been unified. A Greater Swedish partition of Denmark between Prussia and Sweden at the Little Belt would have little appeal to Danes and Norwegians, either then or now. It is more interesting to ask what might have become of a Scandinavian union. This would depend to a large extent on how its elements were pieced together. We can only say with certainty that the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 cannot be used as an argument that a federative Scandinavian polity would have failed. A Scandinavian union in 1864 would have been different from the existing Swedish-Norwegian union and would have created a different dynamic.

Instead, squabbles between two- and three-state Scandinavianists in 1866 and 1867 helped pave the way for an idiosyncratic Norwegian nationalism, which in time would contribute to eroding the union with Sweden. Its dissolution in 1905 represents the opposite pole of the threshold principle to be found in both two- and three-state Scandinavianism. That year encapsulates the belief that a small nation can be independent. It is, however, difficult to reflect on the notion of national sovereignty as it was seen by political Scandinavianists. For them, complete national independence was an illusion. Even the great powers were limited in their freedom of action. Small nations had only limited independence, but they could increase it by uniting with others. In other words, giving up sovereignty could, in reality, increase independence. This, fundamentally, is the thought process that lies behind almost every political confederation, federation or political union. The point is that nineteenth-century nationalism was far more complex than we make it out to be, but also more relevant to current discussions about nationality and national sovereignty than we might think.

This is a suitable transition to the obvious objection that could be raised to our criticism of the traditional master narrative. Are the authors of this book not themselves looking at history from a particular perspective? Are we not also influenced by our own time and by political standpoints? The answer is clear. Of course we are shaped by our own time; of course we have political viewpoints; and this has certainly influenced our work. The aim has never been to write a book that claimed to provide the definitive and objective truth about political Scandinavianism. Using these sources, we have attempted to understand the past. They have meant that our understanding of political Scandinavianism has been constantly subject to change along the way. And then we have worked towards achieving objectivity—even if we know fully well that objectivity is ultimately utopian. This work will not be the last word on political Scandinavianism. History is not static, and we constantly acquire new knowledge. There remain a mass of archives waiting to be rifled through. In that sense, this book should be seen as a new beginning rather than an end. However, we believe that our methodological approach to Scandinavian history as transnational history in international perspective and context holds promise of enhancing both Scandinavian and international historiography. Moreover, like Siniša Malešević, we believe that nationalism needs to be studied and understood within a geopolitical framework. That is not to say that nationalism should only be studied in this way, but we are of the opinion that both international history, international relations and nationalism studies would be enhanced by combining these fields of research. The threshold principle, and the realist thinking it represents, is an obvious place to begin, suggesting that the development of a realist theory of nationalism is required to better understand the apparent fusion of war, politics and nationalism in the wake of the European revolutions in 1848–1849.