Hard Times

Abstract

This chapter analyses the political problems in Scandinavia in the 1840s with a special focus on the Danish unitary state. The Danish-German Gesamtstaat had for 400 years been held together by dynastism, absolutism and common interests. However, from the Napoleonic Wars onwards the unity of the state came under increasing pressure. Liberals and radicals sought absolutism to be replaced with constitutional monarchism. These constitutional demands became ever more interwoven with regionalist, nationalist and pan-nationalist demands. The crisis was brought further along by a looming conflict over the line of succession in different parts of the unitary state. In theory, the various nationalist and hereditary claims could have been accommodated by dividing the state into German and Danish. The former could have joined a future united Germany, if it so chose, while the latter could have become a part of united Scandinavia, as the political Scandinavianists wished. But as elsewhere in Europe, nationalists did not agree on where the line between the two nations ran. Both Danish and German nationalists lay claim to the national mixed duchy of Schleswig, where the line of succession was contented. This created the infamous the Schleswig(-Holstein) question. The chapter discussed the different attempts to solve this question prior to 1848 by agents both inside and outside of the unitary state. Moreover, it is shown how the Schleswig question and Danish became entwined with political Scandinavianism in the 1840s. The chapter ends with an analysis of the Danish king’s failed attempt to save the unitary state just prior to the outbreak of revolution by replacing absolutism with a conservative, federalist constitution.

Scandinavia at a Crossroads

The economic and social challenges of the 1840s put both the elitist liberal ideology of limited suffrage and liberal free trade principles under severe pressure. Artisans, workers and smallholders became increasingly politicised and often more receptive to radical ideas, whereas many liberals were ashamed of the revolutions in 1830 and feared that they would be repeated. Much for the same reason liberals feared the masses and clung onto limited suffrage and constitutional monarchy, ensuring that even liberal regimes such as July Monarchy in France were rather politically restrictive. Still, liberals and radicals could still cooperate where they were driven together by fear of conservative reaction, or where they were prepared to accept each other as parts in parliamentary life.¹

Liberals and radicals could also share national aspirations and regard the nation state as the embodiment of their political demands, but it was still symptomatic for liberal-radical friction that the radical nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini complained that Europe’s national movements were too elitist. National mass movements hardly existed in Europe before 1848. Liberal national ideologues rarely concealed their elitist understanding of the nation, and even if radical national activists purported to speak on behalf of the mass of the population and backed it up with demands for universal (male) suffrage, they often shared with liberal ideologues a social background from urban educated strata and were generally more concerned with political and economic problems piling up in the 1840s, leaving demands for a complete social and economic reorganisation of society to new ideologies and movements.²

Characteristic features of Europe in the 1840s were population increase putting pressure on resources, as well as economic crises, rising poverty and political conflicts. All these elements fed into each other and made the decade into the Hard Times of Dickens’ 1854 novel. There was much unrest, sometimes triggering rebellions, such as in Silesia in 1844 and Galicia in 1846. Population increase and poverty in rural Europe made many people seek their fortunes in the continent’s expanding and increasingly industrialised cities, only to find that living conditions were hardly much better. By the mid-1840s Europe was facing one of the worst economic crises of the century, in which social problems, demands for political reform and the lack of ability on the part of Europe’s regimes to adequately handle the situation created a perfect storm. Europe’s existing political and social order was unable to absorb the crisis and the conflicts it entailed. Many people demanded change and sensed that change was now indeed within reach.³

The question was what Europe was supposed to be. Even though conservatives, liberals, radicals and reactionaries had fought over their competing visions since the Congress of Vienna, the crises of the 1840s hardened ideological stances and increased levels of conflict between them, while at the same time new ideologies emerged with altogether different visions for future society.⁴ Generally speaking, political opposition became more pronounced in Europe in the 1830s and 1840s. The growth and expansion of civil society, especially through new modes of communication and the transformation of the public sphere, provided public opinion with stronger influence, while new forms and fora for debate and protest made political and social mobilisation possible on a greater scale than before. Societies, associations and clubs were formed all over Europe, stretching from small reading clubs to secret societies with membership by the thousands. In Paris, street banquets were held to circumvent the ban on public political meetings. Associations, societies, clubs and banquets all became fora for political discussion and mobilisation, with a significant potential for collective action. The largest of the radical underground movements was the Carbonari, with some 300,000 members in Italy and 50,000 in France. The Carbonari and similar secret societies had a hand in insurrections and attempts at coups d’état, such as in Frankfurt in 1833, Turin in 1834, Paris in 1839 and Krakow in 1846.⁵

The spread of news and exchanges of opinions across state boundaries through the printed matter and networks inspired enthusiasm and expectations, and reinforced senses that change was indeed within grasp—in the eyes of some even unavoidable. A sense of living in times of constant change had profound effect on most contemporaries, even arch conservatives such as Metternich. Writing to the Russian foreign minister Karl von Nesselrode in 1830, he remarked, ‘[m]y most immediate opinion is that the old Europe is at the beginning of its end. Having decided to die with it, I will do my duty, and this is not only my intention, but also the [Austrian] Emperor’s. In any case, the new Europe is only at its beginning. Between the end and the beginning there will be chaos’.⁶ Metternich and his fellow travellers saw it as their duty to bring order to this chaos. Insofar as something was to be changed, it had to be reformed in an orderly manner and on conservative terms.

Where conservatives saw chaos, liberals and radicals regarded changes as the march of the Zeitgeist towards new and better times, where ‘national and liberal institutions would flourish within a European framework’.⁷ Such expectations often manifested themselves as nationalism, which prior to 1848 was largely the domain of liberals and radicals. According to the historian, Michael Rapport, ‘[n]ational movements thrived where civil society nourished the shaping of identities through language, history and political debate’.⁸ This was certainly the case in the Scandinavian countries, where the public sphere even in absolutist Denmark became more open after the death of Frederick VI in 1839. This way conditions were created for national and transnational exchanges of ideas as well as for gatherings, which was crucial to the development of the Scandinavianist movement in the 1840s.⁹

Populations grew in the Scandinavian countries at about the same level as in the rest of Europe, increasing by approximately a third after the Napoleonic Wars. This also contributed to making living conditions more difficult for many people in rural areas, where between 75% and 90% of Scandinavians lived. Even though not everyone lived in wretched misery, more and more people found it necessary to look for work in the burgeoning industries of expanding urban areas. Others travelled even further away. The first significant exodus from Scandinavia to America took place in the 1840s.¹⁰

Taken as a whole, however, the 1840s was not a time of pronounced crisis and decline in the Scandinavian countries. In this, these countries differed from the majority of Europe. Ernst Moritz Arndt, professor of modern history in Bonn, remarked after a stay in Sweden in 1844 that the whole of Scandinavia was making economic and political progress. Sweden and Norway were, it is true, under economic pressure in the 1840s, but production and prosperity were growing in line with developments in agriculture, the liberalisation of the economy and, not least, reductions in British customs duties and increases in free trade. Denmark was making best progress, significantly reducing its foreign debt as a result of Christian VIII’s reformist policy, of massive growth in agricultural production and of exports of corn and cattle to Great Britain. At the same time, industry was taking off, the merchant fleet was enjoying a heyday in Copenhagen, and business and trade were being liberalised. A huge fire in Hamburg in 1842 crippled the city’s status as a financial centre and this went some way to explaining why both Denmark and Sweden-Norway increasingly turned towards Great Britain. Furthermore, in 1846–1847 Sweden initiated a wave of minor reforms. Following the example of Norway, privileges and restrictions linked to production and trade were removed. In the Riksdag session of 1847–1848, the government followed this up with new liberalising reforms that included changes in social, financial and administrative areas. The king and a clutch of his ministers were the force behind these reforms, which were more extensive than many liberals had dared to hope—after their many years of resistance to the protectionism and conservatism underlying corporate privilege.¹¹

The economic crisis in Europe did eventually catch up with these Scandinavian countries, but its negative effects were largely offset by the previous years of growth and prosperity. This did not mean that economic downturn left the Scandinavian countries unaffected. In Norway, it meant a worsening in conditions for smallholders and labourers, in particular, but some of the increasing numbers of academics also found life more difficult. Inflation in 1846–1847 increased economic and social differences in Denmark and hit the popular classes in the duchies especially hard. Even though many people were finding life tougher because of the economic crisis, at the start of 1848 the situation was nevertheless, on the whole, not as socially explosive in the Scandinavian countries as in several other parts of Europe.¹²

Political and constitutional questions of reform were addressed in all three Scandinavian countries in the 1840s. A new generation of political activists, new monarchs on the thrones of Denmark and Sweden-Norway, and demands for reform created a period of political and national upheaval in which new opportunities arose. As in the rest of Europe, civil society in the Scandinavian countries was expanding. New forms of communication and channels for public activity saw the light of day, distances became smaller, and more people found a voice.¹³

As in several other European countries, the Danish opposition in the 1830s came together around the successor to the throne. Their hope was that Christian (VIII) Frederick had a ‘Norwegian’ constitution lying ready to be introduced as soon as Frederick VI had breathed his last. However, no constitution was forthcoming. Under pressure from the country’s foreign policy difficulties, from demands of conservative forces in the Holy Alliance and from internal tensions in the unitary state, Christian VIII initially restricted himself to administrative reforms. Expectations turned into disappointment, and in May 1840 the hussars had to be deployed against thousands of demonstrators demanding a free constitution.¹⁴

Ever since, historians have puzzled as to how this apparently liberal successor to the throne, and one-time constitutional king of Norway, turned into a conservative king of Denmark. There is broad agreement that the king was both gifted and conscientious. Nevertheless, he has often been presented as weak and indecisive. If we are to understand Christian VIII, we need to understand the thought process that shaped everything he did. In line with romanticism and classical conservatism, he regarded change as a process that had to be linked to dynastic considerations. His aim was to preserve the realm that he had inherited. The king appealed for moderation and looked for compromise, while he opposed both Danish and German nationalism, Scandinavianism and Schleswig-Holstein regionalism. Schleswig was to be a link between the Danish and German parts of the state. According to Christian VIII, civil liberty was conditional upon a sense of collective responsibility for the future of the whole state.¹⁵

As the hopes of Danish liberals faded with Christian VIII’s rejection of a constitution in 1839, so liberal hopes rose in Sweden. The proposal for reform of parliamentary representation accepted by the Riksdag’s constitution committee in 1840–1841 were to be put to the vote at the next parliamentary session. Moreover, Charles John had grown old. When the proposal for reform was put to the vote in the Riksdag July 1844, he was dead. The proposal was fairly liberal and was, with some inspiration from Norway, based on a bicameral parliament. However, it had more restrictive criteria than Norway’s Storting, which was, in effect, unicameral with two departments. Compared with the other Scandinavian countries, political conflicts were less pronounced in Norway, where most people found themselves fundamentally in agreement with the constitution. Political battles were fought out either in newspaper columns or in the Storting over concrete political issues. The new generation on the right wing (in Norwegian terms) of politics and government in the 1840s represented relatively progressive ideas and were nationalist in outlook in a Norwegian, unionist or Scandinavianist sense. The mutual exclusion of these identities were still a few decades away. The new cohort of politicians such as Frederik Stang, Anton Martin Schweigaard and Bernhard Dunker were all officials who regarded themselves as what the historian Jens Arup Seip calls ‘the edified aristocracy’. In the spirit of classical liberalism, they believed that educated men should be the instruments of reason and the people’s leaders in government, whereas independent citizens with education, property or capital should vote and be represented in the Storting.¹⁶

From a political point of view, the Norwegian opposition sat somewhat to the left of the edified aristocracy. It was predominantly oriented around Norwegian nationalism, wanted a broader suffrage, made common cause against the political class of civil servants and insisted that the Storting should have better control of government. The opposition in the Storting was in no way an organised party but rather an assortment of individuals and smaller groups with different backgrounds. The peasantry, under the leadership of Ole Gabriel Ueland was the largest and dominant group, but in the 1840s shopkeepers, academics and later also artisans and lawyers were active in the opposition.¹⁷

In 1845, the opposition acquired a majority in the Storting, after which it was dominated in practice by the peasants—with the support of the Scandinavianist and philologist Ludvig Kristensen Daa and the newspaper editor Adolf Bredo Stabell. However, Daa and Stabell turned against each other, while many students—the next generation of officials—reacted strongly to what they despised as a peasant parliament. The antipathy was mutual. After 1845, Scandinavianism and the collective Norwegian political opposition were poles apart. Thus, unlike Denmark and Sweden, Scandinavianism did not become an integral part of the political opposition in Norway. While, on the one hand, this may have helped to limit the spread of Scandinavianism, on the other it did not necessarily have to weaken Scandinavianism as a political force in Norway. Since Scandinavianism had several adherents among the officials of the future, it had the potential to become the regime’s ideology.¹⁸

In Sweden, political differences were greater and the battle lines were drawn more sharply than in Norway. Here, too, the population growth meant that an increasing percentage of the population was not represented in the Riksdag. Yet, the proposal for parliamentary reform to expand political representation was rejected in 1844, when the majority of the nobility and the ecclesiastical estates turned it down. Nevertheless, liberal parliamentarians did not lose heart. One hundred and seventy of them from all four estates immediately joined together in the association Friends of Parliamentary Reform to prepare a new proposal for reform. Many put their faith in King Oscar I, who had come to the throne in March and whom they called ‘the future’. Initially, their hopes appeared to be met. In 1844–1845, the right to expropriate printed matter assumed by the government since 1812 was abolished, and it was decided that the Riksdag should convene every third year instead of every fifth.¹⁹

The new king also became popular among the Norwegians, and the cooperative mood in the union improved when, shortly after his coronation, he granted Norwegians their own flag and coat-of-arms. However, Norwegian joy at king Oscar’s symbolic ‘morning gift’ was tinted by suspicion about Swedish plans for a closer union, for a union committee, set up in 1839, was also proposing revisions to the Act of Union (1815). For the majority of the Norwegian government and the Storting, the proposal went far too far in the direction of a closer legislative union, while the Swedish side were reluctant to accede to Norwegian counter-demands for formal equal status in the union. This meant that the process was kicked down the road into an uncertain future. Even though the majority of Norwegians supported the union as a framework and had for the most part overcome their fear of cultural and national amalgamation with Sweden, they zealously defended their institutional independence and its symbols. In their eyes, the union was a matter of inter-state collaboration.²⁰

Swedish liberals attempted to bond with their Norwegian fellow-travellers to quieten their suspicions about Sweden, strengthen the union and promote the exchange of political ideas and experience. The parliamentary strength of the Norwegian peasants in 1845, on the other hand, exerted a somewhat different effect on Swedish-Norwegian political synergy than they had imagined. In the first place, it reinforced a reluctance, especially among moderate liberals, to giving peasants an equivalent status and influence in Sweden. Yet, the peasants and the liberal leader and editor Lars Johan Hierta would not allow their insistence on a constitution built entirely on the Norwegian model to be shaken. Others, such as the moderate liberal Johan August Gripenstedt, were confirmed in their wish for limited representation in a more restrictive bicameral system. In the second place, the king’s view was also influenced by the so-called peasant parliament of 1845, which weakened his interest in a reform of the Swedish constitution in fear of a similar outcome there. It also contributed to a certain passivity on the part of king Oscar as regards the question of representation. Consequently, the mood among the liberals turned from hope to despondency.²¹

Reformers in Sweden during the first three years of King Oscar’s reign kept alive their liberal expectations for parliamentary reform. At the opening of the Riksdag in November 1847, however, it became clear to the majority that a reform was not immediately on the cards. A proposal was presented to the Riksdag, but not even the special committee who had prepared it endorsed the reform. Nor did the king, and he dropped the question of parliamentary reform altogether. This infuriated the liberals. The king also encountered opposition from many conservatives, who did not like the economic reforms and feared the social consequences if their paternalistic social system was allowed to be dismanted. It was paradoxical, then, that the economic reforms also failed to win favour with artisans and labourers, who were fearful of the competition the reforms opened up. For all that, differences between the radical artisans and the conservatives among the nobility were too deep to permit an alliance. Disaffection was felt equally by all parties, and much of it was directed towards the king. One observer close to king Oscar even feared that the parliamentary session of 1847–1848 could turn into an ugly confrontation costing the king his last remnants of goodwill and support.²²

In one way, Oscar I resembled Christian VIII. Both had been the hope of the liberal opposition and stood up for economic, social and administrative reforms but resisted political reforms at the level of the realm. Their reluctance was not just due to unwillingness, though neither of the two kings was interested in extensive political reform. In Sweden, ideological, economic and social interests made it complicated to achieve any reform of parliamentary representation, not least because it required the endorsement of all four estates and of the king himself. In Denmark, the formulation of a unitary constitution for the whole state was a legislative nightmare, as Christian VIII knew from his experience as heir to the throne.

The 1830s opposition in the kingdom of Denmark and in the duchies agreed on the need to do away with absolutism and to introduce a free constitution, but in the 1840s their common interests began to fall apart when faced with national disagreements about Schleswig. National liberals with a Danish or German mindset drew up political fronts against each other, while both groups were frowned upon by the conservative unitary statists. This also went for the radicals in urban areas and the increasingly politically active peasants, who discovered a political shared interest and demanded constitutional reforms with broad representation. The peasants were in the process of developing into a political power and in May 1846 created the Society for Friends of the Peasantry. This society rapidly reached 10,000 members and was supported both from the radical side and from some on the left wing of the national liberals. Some of the leading figures of the society soon embraced Scandinavianism. In a united front against absolutism and the conservatives, the national liberals could stand side by side with the so-called friends of the peasantry and with urban radicals, but on the question of the form of a future constitution and of the prioritisation of the question of nationality they were not immediately in agreement or automatically allied. As time went on, even the conservatives became convinced of the necessity for a constitution. This was due not only to divisions in the Danish unitary state but also to the unpredictably of Crown Prince Frederick (VII) and the unresolved question of the succession, if the heir to the throne did himself not bring legitimate children into the world.²³

The Royal Succession

Christian VIII shared the concern for his son’s future government and everything points towards the king’s wish to find a solution to the question of the constitution. If this is correct, however, why did he not force through a conservative constitution for the unitary state at the beginning of his reign?

There are several reasons, but according to J.P. Trap, Chief Secretary to the Cabinet at the time, the king saw ‘the resolution of the question of succession’ as ‘the most difficult task’ that he had to deal with. So he put this before everything else. A solution would require acceptance from the great powers in general and support from Russia in particular. This was not only because Russia had a keen interest in the continued existence of the Danish unitary state but also because of the tsar’s hereditary claim on Holstein. Uncertainty about the succession left Denmark in thrall to Russia. Russia wanted to see absolutism preserved and required Denmark to show absolute faith in the conservative regimes in the east.²⁴

Christian VIII bet on two horses; one was his son, Crown Prince Frederick (VII), the other was his nephew, Frederick of Hesse. In 1828, Prince Frederick (VII) had married the daughter of Frederick VI, princess Wilhelmina, to secure the succession of the house of Oldenburg. However, the marriage ended in scandal due to domestic violence and excessive drinking and partying. The couple were finally divorced in 1837. After ascending the throne, Christian VIII made it a priority that his son should remarry, but Frederick’s second marriage to Mariane of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was not happy. Nor did it produce an heir.²⁵

The crown prince required a woman who could control his moods, limit his drinking and keep his Dionysian nature in check. This was a Herculean task that was beyond the frail princess. When her sister died, Mariane returned home to her family. The following five years were a tug-of-war in which the crown prince and the king attempted, in vain, to get the princess back to Denmark. Negotiations about a divorce began in 1846, and the marriage was dissolved in 1847.²⁶

By this time, the king’s other bet, Frederick of Hesse, had already failed. At the start, it had boded well. His nephew had been married in 1844 to the tsar’s favourite daughter, Alexandra, who swiftly became pregnant. However, she died in childbirth. A shocked Christian VIII declared a period of court mourning, while the tsar directed his fury at the ‘German’ prince.²⁷

Frederick of Hesse continued to be Christian VIII’s favourite, but there were also two other royal houses whose hereditary claims could preserve a unitary state into the future: the Augustenburgs and the Glücksburgs. The Glücksburgs were a young and impoverished offshoot of the royal house that few considered a candidate to the throne. No one ascribed political significance to it, therefore, when the duke’s fourth son was married to Louise of Hesse in 1842. At the time, people regarded the battle for succession as a duel between Frederick of Hessen and the Duke of Augustenburg.

Like Christian VIII, Duke Christian August of Augustenburg was betting on two horses. The difference was that, while the king was betting on two different families to preserve the unitary state, the duke had two different aims—to become either king of Denmark or duke of a united Schleswig-Holstein. While Frederick of Hesse had the strongest claim to the crown of Denmark, the duke himself believed that he had the strongest claim to the duchies. There are different opinions as to whether he was right. What matters is that this view became widespread in the duchies and in Germany. If the duke secured the two duchies for himself, the unitary state could be saved by making him king. The thought was not new to Danish unitary statists nor to the great powers, who were wanting to limit Russian power. By tying himself the cause of the Schleswig-Holstein movement, he became a German favourite. The strategy was a risky one. By allying himself with a regionalist movement that tied into German nationalism and was potentially separatist, he was regarded in Copenhagen as a German and a traitor.²⁸

Christian August was no German and certainly no nationalist. He was a cosmopolitan aristocrat born in Copenhagen to the daughter of a Danish king, was married to a Dane and had an equal command of Danish and German. He was an arch-conservative but a shrewd politician. He deplored radicalism, and his collaboration with liberal Schleswig-Holsteiners only began when it served his ambitions. If his actions, both then and since, have been linked to German nationalism and Schleswig-Holstein regionalism, it was because, paradoxically enough, he was thinking and acting in the interests and honour of his own dynasty.²⁹

The French envoy to Copenhagen, baron Billing, felt that both houses were equally impossible. The Augustenburgs because of their links the Schleswig-Holsteiners, and the Hesses because of their links to Russia. This was the reason, according to the baron, that increasing numbers sought refuge in Scandinavianism. France had two aims. The first was to prevent the Baltic becoming a Russian inland sea. The second was to ensure that the balance of power in northern Europe was either maintained or altered in favour of France. This ruled out the Hessens and left two possibilities: the Duke of Augustenburg or a Scandinavian union. On Billing’s initiative, the matter was raised in London, so the western powers could pre-empt a conflict between Denmark and Germany. France proposed that the two powers should determine the succession for the Danish state by presenting it in Copenhagen as a fait accompli. The British foreign minister, the Earl of Aberdeen, approved the French aim but not the means. They should await developments.³⁰

Scandinavia to the River Eider

The ongoing German debate about making Denmark into a German admiral state frightened the national liberals out of their wits and prompted Orla Lehmann to put pen to paper. ‘Denmark will not!’ he wrote. Lehmann, the de facto leader of Young Denmark in the 1840s, conjured up fear of a future in which the German fleet would be based in a Copenhagen controlled by a German confederate fortification. In such a future lay the seed to the nation’s downfall.³¹

This article formed the basis for the speech that Lehmann held in Copenhagen on 28 May 1842. At a celebration for the national liberal elite, he was to propose a toast for Denmark, but he declared, polemically, that sadly he did not know what Denmark was. Lehmann took the famous words of the German poet Friedrich Schiller that he did not know where Germany was and applied them to Denmark, but his irony was politically more explosive. Employing the standard European discussion about how borders should be determined, he listed five possibilities. The first was the Kongeå river, which separated the kingdom of Denmark from Schleswig, the second was Flensburg Fjord, the border between the Danish and German languages, the third was the narrow Slien fjord, the old border between ‘Scandinavian and German nationality’, the fourth was the river Eider, which since the time of Charlemagne had been the border between Denmark and Germany, while the fifth was the Elbe, the boundary of the king’s power.³²

To avoid confusion, the border should be determined on the basis of ‘nature, history and the law’. That border was the Eider—the river that divided Schleswig from Holstein. It was clear that he intended to exclude Holstein. It linked Denmark to Germany. The idea of dividing Schleswig was rejected on the grounds that constitutional law and the royal succession bound it to Denmark, that the people of Schleswig had a ‘Scandinavian nationality and a Danish tongue’. It was, in Lehmann’s words, a ‘question of life and death’ for the state that Denmark and Schleswig should remain united. ‘Only united with Schleswig does [Denmark] have, in a military sense, a well-defended border and sufficient means for sound internal development’. What is interesting here is not whether Lehmann’s claims are correct but that he, as a nationalist, deployed arguments based on constitutional law and royal succession.

Traditionally, two explanations have been put forward. Firstly, that the people of Schleswig were themselves against division and that few Danes supported the idea. Hence, dividing the duchy along the lines of nationality lacked popular support. Secondly, when Lehmann called the Eider border ‘a question of life and death’, he was thinking of what we know as the threshold principle. The state had to ensure for itself sufficient resources and a border that could be defended. This criterion was satisfied by the Eider with its fortified town of Rendsburg and its Dannevirke earthwork. Furthermore, a division of Schleswig would create a national minority that could be used to resurrect the question as to where the border should go.³³

This is not wrong, but these explanations overlook the strategic thinking that also lay behind the idea of a Denmark extending to the Eider and which were explained in On the division of Schleswig (1849). This pamphlet, published during the First Schleswig War and a year after the fall of absolutism, came from the pen of the writer and politician Hans Egede Schack, who belonged to the inner circle of the national liberals. According to Schack, the constitutional legal arguments belonged to the time of absolutism. After the fall of absolutism in 1848, the borders of the state should accord with its people. The unitary state should be divided according to nationality.

Schack claimed that this way of thinking had been widespread in the ‘national’ party long before the outbreak of the war. If ‘champions of nationality’ had previously argued otherwise, this, according to the author, was for two reasons. The first was that they knew that they would never be able to convince Christian VIII and his government of their cause if they proposed the division of Schleswig. The second was that, according to Schack, what the ‘nationals’ expected was that constitutional law would give Denmark the upper hand in the diplomatic negotiations that, at the end of the day, would resolve the Schleswig question. In other words, they placed their trust in France, Great Britain and Russia abiding by the treaties that the former two had signed in 1720 and the latter in 1773 ensuring the king of Denmark the right to Schleswig.³⁴

Schack’s pamphlet does not prove that this is how Lehmann was thinking, but actions and words before and since make it likely. As early as 1842, Lehmann was trying to form an alliance with the crown when he wrote: ‘The Schleswig question, second only to the great Scandinavian question, is the most important […]. Let us finally unite around our king with confidence’. The same can be seen in the attempt by national liberals to work on European opinion and convince diplomats, statesman and princes of their case. Like the people of Augustenburg and Schleswig-Holsteiners knew that the solution to the Schleswig question would be ‘European’.³⁵

Lehmann’s speech, which was a eulogy for the unitary state, has passed into history as ‘Denmark to the Eider’, but the name does not capture the future that he had in mind. Lehmann spoke of Scandinavian nationality, of the material interests and the wish for freedom that bound democratic people of Schleswig to a ‘democratic Scandinavia’. For Lehmann, the Eider was the frontier of both Denmark and Scandinavia. The majority of Swedish and Norwegian Scandinavianists adopted the idea of citizens that Schleswig was Scandinavian and that the Eider was Scandinavia’s natural border. This was particularly true of the student gathering of 1845. A telling sign is that the Swedish minutes of the meeting speak of the battle for Schleswig being a matter not only for Denmark ‘but for all the Nordic countries’. Here the Danes placed the ‘most sacred demands on the participation of us all’. For, if people from Schleswig were Scandinavians, any threat to Schleswig was a threat to Swedes and Norwegians.³⁶

There were several reasons for Swedes and Norwegians accepting the idea of the Eider as the southern frontier of Scandinavia. Some believed that Denmark had a just cause or saw it as a defence of the status quo, while others accepted that European politics was founded on constitutional law and rights of succession. But there were also Swedes and Norwegians who felt that Schleswig should be divided according to the principle of nationality. This also applied to some of the Swedish and Norwegian Scandinavianists who found it easier than the Danes to embrace the principle of division, as it did not have the same consequences for internal and foreign policy as in Denmark. Critique of the idea of the Eider as the border of Scandinavia did not arise in earnest until 1848, when the principle of nationality divided Scandinavianists. Differences were reinforced by the fact that not all political Scandinavianists on the Scandinavian peninsular saw Scandinavianism and the Schleswig question as two sides of the same coin.³⁷

The reason that Schleswig came to play such an important role was partly that the willingness of Sweden and Norway to help Denmark was seen as a litmus test for political Scandinavianism. However, for orthodox Scandinavianists, the Schleswig wars were more than that. They became a concrete way of mobilising Scandinavians behind a common cause. Just as war would later be a necessary instrument in the unification of Italy and Germany, so they might be necessary to unify Scandinavia, either as a fait accompli or by involving one or more of the great powers on one’s side as part of a wider European reshuffle. Schleswig was, however, a strategic lever not only for the Scandinavianists. If the Eider was crossed, Dannevirke earthwork fell and Schleswig was forfeited, a dam would have been burst. Swedish and Norwegian Scandinavianists were afraid not only that Schleswig would be lost to Scandinavia but also that it would lead to the loss either of the Jutland peninsular or of the whole of Denmark. Even if this did not happen, severance from Schleswig would create an amputated Denmark that would be unable to resist pressure from Germany. Without Schleswig, Denmark would be too small to survive. The country would have to choose between being Swedish or being German.

If Denmark collapsed, the Scandinavian peninsular would be squeezed between a reactionary Russia and an expansive Prussia, strengthened by Danish resources. The fall of Denmark would, according to the Scandinavianists, also mean that of Sweden and Norway. For many, though not all, Schleswig was the first domino to fall. The anti-Scandinavianists rejected this analysis, but, interestingly, it was shared by a number of those who were indifferent or undecided, among them Swedish and Norwegian ministers. Like the Scandinavianists, they feared that, if Schleswig fell, first Jutland and then Zealand would follow, leaving a Prussia that stretched to the Oresund. Sweden-Norway would never be able to countenance Denmark being crushed, and this was made clear to Great Britain and France. London and Paris interpreted this to mean that a German invasion of Schleswig would unleash a German-Scandinavian war.³⁸

The idea of a Scandinavian Schleswig was also to be found in Danish sympathisers in Schleswig such as Peter Hiort Lorenzen, who discussed the future of the unitary state with the most prominent Danish national liberal politician of the 1840s, Orla Lehmann. Lehmann had nothing against ‘the collapse of the current Denmark, which is nothing other than the Holstein-Oldenburg house’s entailed property and estate complex’. The future of the Danes belonged in the Scandinavian people’s family tree, which would create a state out of the ashes of the dynasty. Later, Lehmann made it clear that he saw Schleswig as a part of this tree, but, in contrast to his Eider speech, added that the people of Schleswig should decide for themselves whether their future belonged in a Nordic free state or in a German confederation. Lehmann did not touch upon the division of Schleswig, but he maintained the right of national self-determination. For Lehmann, the Schleswig question and Scandinavianism were inseparably linked. But what was the Schleswig question?³⁹

The Schleswig Question

The question is most familiar from an anecdote about Lord Palmerston. In answer to Queen Victoria’s question as to what the Schleswig-Holstein question was all about, the prime minister replied that the matter was so complex that only three people had understood it. One was Prince Albert, and he was dead. The other was a German professor, and he had gone mad. The third was Lord Palmerston himself, and he had forgotten all about it. Fact or more likely fiction, this story not only captures the complexity of the situation but also reflects that international historiography often has adopted the German position. The anecdote refers to a German-born prince consort and a German professor addressing a queen from the royal house of Hannover, while the issue is referred to using the German form of ‘the Schleswig-Holstein question’ and not, as the Danes would have said, ‘the Slesvig [sic] question’. For Danes, the question was only about Schleswig for, from a Danish or Scandinavian standpoint, Holstein was irrelevant. It was an area that Denmark were to go to war over in 1848 and in 1864—only to lose the entire duchy. Moreover, they did not recognise the existence of a political entity called Schleswig-Holstein. However, the German understanding carried greater international weight, as can be seen in the international literature.⁴⁰

The difference is significant, as the name shapes the way in which the question is understood. If it was simply a matter of the duchy of Schleswig, it would strengthen the Danish case, but, if it was about the united duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, it strengthened the German. The fact that, outside Scandinavia, the chosen interpretation was the German one is an indication of the imbalance between the opposing sides. The Russian foreign minister, the German Baltic Count Nesselrode, made it clear to the Danish government that a small state could have no right to justice even though it had a just cause. Danish culture would have to give way to that of the larger nation, for German culture was mighty while Danish was insignificant. If, despite this, Russia had supported Denmark during the First Schleswig War, it was only because it suited its geostrategic interests and because the people of Schleswig and Holstein had rebelled against their prince.⁴¹

If we have chosen to use the Scandinavian terminology rather than the German, it is to highlight how the clash between Danish and German nationalism in Schleswig was interlinked with Scandinavianism. Holstein, on the other hand was purely German and had no place in the future imagined by the Scandinavianists. Moreover, by using the Scandinavian terminology—and not the one used in Germany and the Anglophone world—we mean to draw the reader’s attention how size influences international politics and historiography alike. Lord Palmerston could quite possibly have approved of this choice. Unlike the anecdote cited above, which is not supported by any known source, there is evidence that the British statesman corrected the queen’s stance when she in October 1851 brought up the Schleswig-Holstein question:

First there is no such State as Sleswig-Holstein in existence. There is a Duchy of Sleswig and a Duchy of Holstein, separate in their origin, history and political condition, the one being a member of the German Confederation, the other not, the one entirely German as to its population, the other chiefly Danish; the former (Sleswig) guaranteed to the Crown of Denmark by Foreign Powers, the other (Holstein) not being so.⁴²

How, then, should we understand the Schleswig question? The conflict epitomises in microcosm the broader conflicts that marked nineteenth-century Europe. It was a matter of nationality, language, history and mentality, which were interwoven with social disparities and political conflicts in the duchies, in the Danish state and in Europe. As was the case on the rest of the continent, there were disputes about where borders between nations should lie, and about the basis on which they should be drawn, since questions regarding the constitution, succession, security, sovereignty and nationality all had to be combined with a fear of annihilation on the one hand and an urge for expansion on the other. The absence of any unambiguous and accepted definition of nationality only increased the number of potential borders.

The multiple strands of the question came together in a Gordian knot. While it might seem obvious to posterity, many Danes, not least many inhabitants of Schleswig and Holstein, saw no reason to dissolve their 400-year constitutional links with the Danish unitary state or to cut their close economic, political and personal ties. The fact that the status quo fell apart was due to a sliding away from the princely sovereignty that held the unitary state together towards a sovereignty of the people in which the people had a share of the power. The crucial question in the unitary state became, therefore, whether the people should be regarded as a voluntary association of individuals bound by a social contract or as a pre-existing entity united by language, culture, history and descent. As with most other places in Europe, the answer was the latter. This made Schleswig a bone of contention.

In the thirteenth century, Schleswig was separated from the rest of Denmark as a fiefdom under the Danish crown, so the king’s younger sons were given a title and an income as ‘dukes of Jutland’. Southern Jutland, the Danish name originally given to Schleswig, was a more integral part of the kingdom than the other Danish border areas that also became duchies. The difference was that they reverted to the Danish king. This Schleswig did not. It became more independent and linked to the German Holstein. Over the next 200 years, the duchy became a battleground between the power of the king and the counts of Holstein, until in 1460 the Danish king was chosen to be the Count (later Duke) of Holstein. This was a choice that formally linked the two territories without amalgamating them.⁴³

Over the following centuries, authority of the two duchies was divided countless times between the various branches of the royal house, which were given lands in both Schleswig and Holstein. Authority was brought together again, so that in 1720 there was only one duke who ruled over Schleswig and to whom its people swore allegiance. This was the Danish king, who was his own vassal. After 1773, the same came to apply to Holstein. The remaining dukes had limited formal powers, but their princely origins gave them prestige and influence. For Danish nationalists, the matter was a simple one. Schleswig was Danish by constitutional law, which was recognised by France and Britain in 1720 (and Russia in 1773), and oaths of fealty in 1721 had, in Danish eyes, confirmed that the succession in Schleswig followed that of the kingdom of Denmark. This was a view shared by Danish unitary statists, but unlike nationalists they regarded Schleswig as a link between the kingdom and Holstein. While the crown did everything within its power to persuade countries abroad to accept the same succession in Holstein as in Denmark, the national liberals accepted the claim of the Augustenburgs to Holstein, which would permit the state to be divided.⁴⁴

The elite of the duchies viewed the matter with entirely different eyes. Despite considerable differences in the legislation of the two regions, Schleswig and Holstein had been under common administration for centuries. There had been a common governor and government in the duchies and a common chancellery in Copenhagen. The close links across the Eider meant that officials in general and the landed aristocracy in particular regarded the duchies as an entity with roots in the rights of the aristocracy. The constitutional basis for the case had been made by two professors from Kiel, Niels Nicolaus Falck and Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, who based their argument on the Ribe letter of 1460, in which Christian I had promised the nobles that Holstein and Schleswig would forever be joined and undivided. Whether the letter was valid beyond the reign of the king was in dispute, and its significance prior to 1800 seems to have been limited.⁴⁵

For Falck and Dahlmann, the letter proved that Schleswig-Holstein was a state with the same male succession. This constitutional and hereditary argument formed the basis for the Schleswig-Holstein movement.

The reason that liberals and radicals in Schleswig and Holstein ended up embracing these historical arguments was that, if they were to win over the great powers and a German Confederation, all of them founded on royalty, they would have to base their arguments on constitutional law and the right of succession. Just as the national liberals in Denmark were drawing closer to the crown, so the people of Schleswig and Holstein came to embrace the Duke of Augustenburg, since his claim on the succession could be used in the fight for independence. Across these different ideologies an alliance arose, based around three fundamental statements. The first was that the duchies were independent states, the second that male succession applied to the duchies, and the third that Schleswig and Holstein were states united with each other.⁴⁶

Just as Danes were divided between the unitary state, nation state and a unified Scandinavia, so was the Schleswig-Holstein movement split between regionalism and German nationalism. German nationalists believed that Schleswig-Holstein’s future was with a united Germany, and their argument was based around the threshold principle. By itself, Schleswig-Holstein was tiny, while Germany offered it size, strength, progress and protection from Danish nationalism and a future united Scandinavia. In contrast to the nationalists, the regionalists wished to retain links with Denmark. For them, Schleswig-Holstein was a state with its own constitution, which should have a personal union with Denmark. They belonged to a German cultural nation, but they had no desire at that stage for Anschluss. As the conflict intensified, increasing numbers felt that joining the Confederation would be necessary if they were to preserve Schleswig’s independence.⁴⁷

Internal disagreement also touched upon their ability to constitute a distinct state. Radical democrats and the group around the duke regarded it as possible, but others wanted a personal union with Denmark. They saw an independent Schleswig-Holstein as an illusion. Separated from Denmark, the duchies would become a Prussian puppet state or a province. Many of the landed aristocracy were subject to a cosmopolitan view of the world, loyalty to the crown and close ties to Denmark—ties that ensured that the aristocratic estate was given favourable appointments and diplomatic postings.⁴⁸

The claim to succession and constitutional justice were, however, not the only means whereby the various parties exploited history. They also made use of nationality and origins. From which branch of the Germanic peoples did the people from Schleswig originate? This was a question which both sides regarded as significant in determining where the border should be drawn. This made it difficult to resolve the conflict by dividing the duchy, as the nation was seen as indivisible and the national consciousness of those who were excluded would be regarded as imagined or false.⁴⁹

The specific dividing lines in Schleswig were, however, neither about imagined golden ages in the past, nor origins, nor succession, but about language, social difference and material interests. Previously, language had not played a crucial role. This was, however, in the changing, and the cause was the same cultural nationalism that could be found in Germany. To preserve their nationality, people had to speak their own mother tongue, since a nation without language was doomed to annihilation. Some people took a step further and claimed that the nation had the right to rule itself. The consequence was a belief that every nation should have its own state delimited by its language.⁵⁰

Germans and Danes were not only unable to agree about which language had been spoken in Schleswig in former times but also about languages in contemporary Schleswig. As a rule of thumb, Danish was spoken in the north, Low German in the south and Frisian in the west. At the end of the eighteenth century, the language spoken in rural areas in southern and central Schleswig had been southern Jutlandish, while high German was a foreign language. Over the subsequent 50 years, the language border moved dramatically to the north. This was a result of the improved teaching of German and of a desire among rich landowners to have their sons learn a language that gave access to high culture and to German markets. Social and linguistic discrepancies turned into national divides within the duchy. This was particularly true in northern Schleswig, where there was extreme tension between German-speaking officials and the peasants of southern Jutland, who understood no high German. They wanted language equality so that Danish would become the language of law and officialdom where it already was the language of school and church. In this battle, they were assisted by Danish nationalists, which made the Schleswig-Holsteiners reject language equality.⁵¹

Linguistically, southern Schleswig was lost to Denmark, while the outcome remained unclear in central Schleswig, where Danish nationalists hoped to be able to stem the tide. If this did not happen, they feared that it would not only be Schleswig but the entire peninsula of Jutland that would be lost. If Jutland became German in its language, culture and economy, the islanders would have to choose between being German or Swedish. As a result, nationalists and Scandinavianists saw the battle for language in Schleswig as a battle for existence. In northern Schleswig they established a Danish press, Danish libraries and Danish reading societies. The fear of annihilation was also felt by Schleswig-Holsteiners, who dreaded Danish national liberals reviving their policy of Danification, which the crown had attempted to push through in both duchies during the Napoleonic Wars. This mutual fear created a vicious circle in which the conflicting sides exploited and radicalised each other.⁵²

Ruptures in the Unitary State

After thorough preparation, the government presented a proposal for an extension to the provincial diets. It was put before the four diets in 1842. The aim was to create common committees for the unitary state. The estates committees contained the core of a federative Danish-German parliament. The proposal split the opposition in Denmark. The majority saw the king’s policy as a step towards a free constitution that bound a ‘Scandinavian’ Schleswig to Denmark. The separation of Holstein would follow of itself. A minority feared that the compromise would accelerate developments, fetter Denmark to the German Confederation and prevent a Scandinavian union. In the duchies, the majority rejected the proposal as an infringement of regional rights. Instead, the Schleswig-Holsteiners made a bid for Schleswig to be accepted into the German Confederation.⁵³

The gradual slide towards a battle of nationality was further reinforced, by the language issue which exploded in the Schleswig Provincial Diet, when a Danish delegate, Peter Hiort Lorenzen, spoke Danish and not, as formerly, German. The president of the Diet requested him to be silent and leave the hall, whereupon Lorenzen appealed to the king to defend the Danish language in Schleswig. The conflict, which arose from provocation on both sides, escalated and forced the king to choose between incompatible national demands.⁵⁴

In the true spirit of absolutism, it ended with compromise. Christian VIII gave the Danish sympathisers the right to speak Danish but tried to convince Hiort Lorenzen to speak German. His majesty’s appeal fell on deaf ears, as both sides mobilised their forces in preparation for the next Diet in 1844.

The battle for the throne and the battle for Schleswig’s independence were brought together into a single issue with the marriage of convenience between the Duke of Augustenburg and the liberal Schleswig-Holsteiners. In the eyes of Christian VIII, the duke’s actions proved that he was not fit to become king of Denmark. The majority of Danish national liberals were of the same opinion, but men such as A.F. Tscherning, Christian Flor and the northern Schleswig politician Laurids Skau were open to a solution that involved the Augustenburgs.⁵⁵

Tscherning and Christian August embarked upon an extensive correspondence. For Tscherning, the crucial factors were the future of the state and a free constitution. The question of who sat on the throne was subsidiary. The duke saw things in reverse. Laurids Skau tried to build bridges between the two ways of thinking. The plan of the politician from northern Schleswig was to make the duke’s youngest son, Prince Christian, king of Denmark and duke of Schleswig, while the eldest, Prince Frederick, would inherit Holstein and Lauenburg. If this was to succeed, the duke would have to win over Danish-minded inhabitants of Schleswig and the king and aim to establish a Denmark bordering on the Eider, a free constitution and a Scandinavian defence union. Skau’s plan required the Scandinavian countries to be bound together by a marriage between the duke’s youngest son and a Swedish-Norwegian princess. The Hesses, on the other hand, would be removed from the succession, and Russia would be sidelined with the support of France and Great Britain.⁵⁶

With this plan in mind, the ducal family travelled to Scania in the summer of 1846, where Christian August met with King Oscar. This was, according to rumour, to win Oscar over to support both his claim to the succession and the idea of a marriage between their families. Skau’s Scandinavian overture presumably lay behind the duke’s desire to buy an estate in Scania, which would ensure Swedish citizenship for his youngest son and for himself a discrete place for political meetings close to the Danish capital. The policy ran aground, however, due to a breakdown in relations between Christian VIII and Christian August, which made the duke unacceptable to the Scandinavianists.⁵⁷

The cause of this breakdown was an open letter issued by the king on 8 July 1846. It was a dynastic declaration of war. The letter stated that the succession in Schleswig and Lauenburg followed that of the kingdom of Denmark. The same went for the majority of Holstein, but there were doubts about that part of the duchy that had belonged to the Gottorps (a family related to the Romanovs). His majesty promised that he would do everything he could to prevent these territories being lost to the state.⁵⁸

By publicly stating his support for agnatic-cognatic succession, he denounced the duke’s claim on both duchies and the throne, distanced himself from the Schleswig-Holsteiner movement, provoked German nationalists, challenged several German princes and German adherence to the Salic law. The duke refused an offer to negotiate. Christian August delivered a protest. So did the Duke of Glücksburg and several German states. Christian August’s younger brother, the Prince of Nør, stepped down as governor of the duchies, while a number of Holstein officials resigned their positions. In Copenhagen and Flensburg, his majesty was greeted with jubilation, but in a number of towns in the duchies the letter caused unrest.⁵⁹

In Holstein, the Provincial Diet filed a written protest against the open letter, and when the royal commissarius refused to receive it, the Diet dissolved itself, but only after a complaint had been submitted to the German Confederation. Matters fared no better in Schleswig, where a majority in the Diet demanded that the duchy should be admitted into the Confederation and its administration separated from Denmark. The duke then played his trump card by getting approval for a proposal demanding a unitary constitution for Schleswig-Holstein. After this, the royal commissarius elected to dissolve the diet. Things went more smoothly in the Danish assemblies, which supported the open letter. The national approval that the king had earned for himself did not, however, make the constitutional demands disappear. On the contrary, the demand for a constituent provincial diet was raised in both the Danish provincial diets, and, even though the proposal was voted through in neither, it was clear that the king could expect it to be tabled even more strongly in 1848.⁶⁰

The King’s Plans Hit the Rocks

The open letter represented, as the Prussian envoy remarked, a challenge to open ‘international political negotiations’, and this was also what it was taken to mean in diplomatic circles. The French felt that the matter should be cleared up at a European conference, while the new British foreign minister, Lord Palmerston, wished to avoid involvement for as long as possible. In Berlin, it was felt that the letter ‘was injurious to’ Germany rights. In Vienna, Metternich thought that Christian VIII should be helped to find a solution that would satisfy all parties. In both German capitals, people awaited a response from the tsar, since he had an undeniable claim to succession in parts of Holstein.⁶¹

King Christian was also waiting, and on 27 August the Russian response arrived. The tsar wished to see the Danish state preserved, stressed King Christian’s loyalty and was prepared to negotiate the renunciation of his family’s claim to succession. But, when the Danish king offered to send his foreign minister to St. Petersburg, the tables were turned, and he was called upon to enter into negotiations with Austria and Prussia. The most likely explanation for this volte-face is that the powerful reaction in Germany had given the tsar cold feet. The tsar’s response was a climb-down, while at the same time the German Confederation was dealing with the complaints that had been submitted by Holstein, by princes and German states. Thanks to Metternich, the Confederation’s reaction was muted but founded on principle. The Confederation expressed its confidence in Christian VIII’s ability to find a solution that ensured the rights of succession and the rights of the estates while respecting the German confederation, which insisted on its right to involve itself in the issue.⁶²

From the German side, there was a demand for a solution based on German law, e.g. the Salic law. Austria and Prussia were, therefore, of the opinion that the Danish Act of Succession should be altered so that the Duke of Augustenburg could inherit the unitary state. This was a demand that ran counter to Danish constitutional law. Metternich meanwhile avoided any clear statement of his position. It was not until the late summer of 1847 that king Christian had a clear view of the matter. There is every indication that, after the tsar’s advice in September, the monarch decided to let matters rest until the mood in Germany had calmed down. The question of the succession had come to a dead end, and the focus now shifted to the other major problem confronting the unitary state.⁶³

Closet Politics

While things were relatively calm on the public front, politics continued behind the scenes. In the duchies, extremist Schleswig-Holsteiners laid plans for a military uprising, while the government in Copenhagen discussed the abolition of absolutism and the introduction of constitutional monarchism. The king and his ministers predicted that differences between Danish and German nationalism would only increase, and that the demand for a liberal constitution in 1848 would be raised in all the provincial diets even more urgently. Pressure for change also mounted from without. The question of taking up foreign loans in February 1847 obliged the Prussian king to convene the state’s provincial diets as an Estates-General. Prussia acted as a political model for Denmark, and Christian VIII had promised Frederick William IV that he would not alter his form of government unless Prussia did so. Berlin now expected Denmark to follow its example.⁶⁴

In July 1847, when the king realised that the question of succession was getting nowhere, he asked ministers to give their opinion about the introduction of an extended sovereign council modelled on that in Prussia. The idea of introducing an extended sovereign council was rejected unanimously by the ministers. This led Christian VIII to ask the government to give their opinion on the introduction of constitutional monarchism in the Danish monarchy. The king gave his ministers permission to discuss what was forbidden by the Act of Succession of 1665, namely abolishing absolutism. The answer was unambiguous, The situation demanded change, and the crown prince was unfit to govern. His majesty then asked a government official, P.G. Bang, to prepare a recommendation for a new form of governance. His conclusion was clear. A free constitution was not only necessary but also possible to introduce without the king breaking the Act of Succession. Bang had already prepared a draft constitution. What Christian VIII thought of this we do not know. But we know what he did. He summoned a Cabinet meeting for 10 January 1848. The only item on the agenda: The summons of the state’s ‘men of experience’ and the question of the constitution. The first tells us what the king had concluded about the second. Summoning the ‘men of experience’ only made sense if they were to discuss a draft constitution.⁶⁵

The Abdication of Absolutism

On 5 January, after Christian VIII had bidden farewell to the frigate Valkyrien, heading for the East Indies, the king caught a cold and required—by the standards of the day—a blood-letting. The knife used by the doctor was not sterile, and as a result Christian VIII got blood-poisoning. The king drew up his political testament in which he ordered his son to give the state a free constitution, to take as ministers two Holsteiners, Carl Moltke and Heinrich Reventlow-Criminil, who had kept faith with the unitary state, to give up his mistress and to marry for the third time.⁶⁶

As the king lay dying, Carl Ploug wrote to his Swedish editor colleague O.P. Sturzen-Becker. The nationalist liberal Ploug feared that the crown prince would ascend ‘the throne as a despot’. If this happened, drastic measures would be necessary, while the Gulf of Finland ‘lies covered with ice and the Great Belt with it,’ he wrote, so Russia would not be able ‘to disturb us’. Ploug was not thinking only of revolution, but it was something he was prepared to trigger, and he claimed to have troops at the ready.⁶⁷

It is difficult to know what plans Ploug was brewing. A sign that it was something revolutionary can be found in the memoirs of the peasant politician Christen Larsen. Larsen writes that he and several others were brought together by a common acquaintance, the Scandinavianist ‘V’. They kept themselves awake at night and were ready for action, as they ‘expected at any moment a dispatch from Copenhagen that the Swedish king had been named king of Denmark’ because ‘under the heir to the throne we now had to take the Danish throne there was nothing for us to hope for’. Therefore, ‘it was necessary to take a swift step and proclaim the Swedish king in Denmark under a free constitution’.⁶⁸

It would not prove to be necessary. Christian VIII died on 20 January 1848. Soon after, Frederick VII executed his father’s last will. The abdication of absolutism. The man whom no one thought fit to rule now took on the mantle of power and the responsibility of introducing a new constitution in a divided state. The new king did almost exactly as his father had commanded. He appointed the two Holsteiners, Reventlow-Criminil and Carl Moltke, as ministers so that they could ensure that the constitution respected the duchies, and on 28 January came the announcement of the ‘royal ordinance on the introduction of a constitution’. It was a conservative compromise that attempted to rescue the unitary state through a unitary constitution, which insured the rights of citizens, freedom of expression and a parliament for the unitary state with two chambers, an aristocratic upper house and a representative lower house with indirect elections. The details were to be fine-tuned prior to the draft of the constitution being presented before the state’s ‘men of experience’.⁶⁹

The Calm Before the Storm

Conflict-ridden domestic politics and economic problems mostly made the 1830s and 1840s a relatively, if deceptively, tranquil decade in international politics. While it is true that the 1840s began with the Oriental Crisis, which threatened a major war, the international political system still functioned as long as the greater powers were prepared to avoid war with each other. Neither the July revolutions nor the First Carlist War in Spain had resulted in a clash of arms between the greater powers, but in return they weakened the principle of anti-revolutionary intervention adhered to by the Holy Alliance. Austria, Prussia and Russia still proved willing and able to intervene—such as in Krakow in 1846—and the subsequent protests from France and Britain were reminders of the increasing schism between the Western and Eastern powers. Still, the general tendency was that ideological principles were secondary to power politics and interests, and the continued emphasis on diplomacy and legality among the greater powers heightened the threshold for military intervention. This became clear when none of the greater powers took action to prevent the triumph of the radical cantons in the Swiss civil war in 1847. To the European political opposition this was a signal that far-reaching change was indeed possible without necessarily having to fear intervention from the greater powers. Thus, in a way the international political system made the revolutions of 1848 possible.⁷⁰

By 1848 Scandinavianism had come a long way since Swedish students from Lund had marched across the frozen Oresund to visit fellow students in Copenhagen ten years previously. It had turned into an articulated ideology and a movement to be reckoned with. As a political ideology, its primary focus was still on the demand for a liberal constitution in Denmark and Sweden, but with time it became dominated by the threshold principle.

This development was given particular impetus by German plans for an admiral state and by the Schleswig question, but fear of Russia should not be underestimated. It was symptomatic of the relationship between Russia and Scandinavia that in the autumn of 1845 Nicholas I made it clear to the Swedish-Norwegian envoy that he would not permit constitutional reform close to his borders and that he regarded Scandinavianism as a disruptive element. That this threat was felt to be serious is more evident if we consider the Danish response, where Christian VIII tailored his entire policy to suit Russia in his attempt to solve the question of succession. Such fears were only aggravated by continual rumours of Russian expansion into Scandinavia.⁷¹

What gave the Scandinavianist movement a sufficient cloak of respectability for the monarch to be able to support it directly in its harmless cultural form was its ability to adapt. Increasing acceptance and the success of its student assemblies bolstered their confidence and convinced a good number that their project was politically viable. It is in this light that we need to see the programme presented before the Scandinavian Society in Copenhagen in the winter of 1846 by the Swedish Scandinavianist, C.J.L. Almqvist. Although it was deliberately vague on a number of points, it was still a reasonably clear plan of action for how the union could be achieved in the long term. Such optimism was given particular encouragement by the student gathering in Copenhagen in 1845, which had been a monumental event for Scandinavianism. Many up-and-coming political leaders had joined the movement and solemnly sworn to advance Scandinavian unification. The lack of any solution to the question of the Danish succession and a royal summit between Christian VIII and Oscar I in the summer of 1846 only reinforced their optimism. However, the following two years would be something of an anti-climax.⁷²

There are several reasons for this. All three countries shifted their focus to internal political reforms and intense political disagreement. In Sweden, there was the question of representation; in Norway, the repercussions of the peasant parliament; and in Denmark the issues surrounding Schleswig and the constitution. This gave Scandinavianism a subordinate role, even though its activists did their best to keep things on the boil. Lehmann complained in 1846 that disillusioned national liberals were beginning to turn their backs on Scandinavianism. This was probably because more and more of them were hoping that, after his open letter, Christian VIII would secure links with Schleswig and create a constitution for the unitary state that did not involve separation from Holstein.⁷³

In addition, there were divisions in Scandinavianism’s own ranks. These became visible not simply between the purely cultural and the political Scandinavianists but also between its political extremists and the more moderate advocates. It was also evident that interest was on the wane. An annual Scandinavianist festival on 13 January 1848 attracted little attention either from the general public or from students. In Christiania, those who gathered to celebrate the festival would rather drink a toast to the reforms of Pope Pius IX in the Vatican state than to Scandinavianism, which G.A. Krohg vainly attempted to convince the attendants as being the most important issue of the day. The situation was not much better in Copenhagen, where waning interest and apparent political standstill made Ploug fear that political Scandinavianism ‘was in the process of dying out’.⁷⁴

That did not happen. Scandinavianism had become inextricably linked with the Schleswig question. When this, alongside the question of the constitution, blew the Danish state to pieces two months later, the movement was brought back to life. Historians since have been divided as to whether the explosion could have been avoided. Some have seen the constitutional ordinance as a masterpiece that could have saved the unitary state if it had not been for the European revolutions and the ‘lies’ spread by national liberals. Unitary statists in the kingdom, elements of the aristocracy and a few liberals were also open to reconciliation. But the ordinance also met massive opposition. The aristocracy feared for the duchies and their own privileges, radicals in the kingdom could accept the unitary state but wanted democratic concessions, while the peasants demanded social justice. Dissatisfaction was strongest among Schleswig-Holsteiners in Kiel and national liberals in Copenhagen. The former thought that on nationalist issues those living in northern Schleswig would vote with the Danes. They insisted, therefore, on a united, independent and German Schleswig-Holstein, separated from Denmark. The national liberals, on the other hand, were unable to accept either that the duchies were over-represented in the common parliament or that there would be a constitutional unitary state. A massive campaign was set in motion. Its aim was a national liberal constitution for Denmark and Schleswig.⁷⁵

Even in happier circumstances, it is doubtful whether the government could have ridden the storm brewing in the state. The national liberal A.F. Krieger noted in his diary that the change of monarch could have one of three consequences: ‘dictatorship, revolution, with or without the intervention of foreign powers […] and a constitutional solution to the question of national unity and to movements for freedom’. The professor doubted whether the solution would be peaceful. The continuation of absolutism would result in revolution, a Danish nationalist policy would spark revolt in Schleswig and Holstein, while the unitary state and a united German Schleswig-Holstein posed a threat to the existence of Denmark as a nation. If Denmark was not capable of retaining Schleswig, the nation had to no other choice than to separate from the duchies and become united with Sweden-Norway.⁷⁶

In Stockholm, the situation was calmer in the winter of 1848. Conflicts may have continued to smoulder under the surface, but the opposition of the conservatives and radicals towards economic reforms and the thwarted proposal for parliamentary reform had left many liberals disillusioned. Nevertheless, the Riksdag had not become the kind of battleground some had expected. Liberal parliamentarians were more in the grip of despondency than of belligerence. On 20 February, close to a hundred of them met for a dinner, among them a number of Scandinavianists. What concerned them that evening was not Scandinavianism, however, but a new Society for the Friends of Reform, which in keeping with the spirit of the times was founded during the dinner. Their hope was to breathe new life into the question of the reform, but many present were still inclined to pessimism, which was only reinforced by the evident lack of political progress elsewhere in Europe. In an attempt to lighten the mood, the influential newspaper editor and liberal leader Lars Johan Hierta took the floor and reminded the assembled company that, shortly before the July Revolution of 1830, an English newspaper had also bemoaned the quiet state of affairs. That complaint had soon proved to be empty words. Appearances can deceive was the positive message offered by Hierta, without him having the least idea that at that very moment storm clouds were gathering again in Paris.⁷⁷