Scandinavianism During the Crimean War

Abstract

This chapter begins with the Treaty of London in 1852 to end the First Schleswig War (1848–1851) and ends with the conclusion of the Crimean War in 1856. It discusses the controversial instalment of Prince Christian of Glücksburg as heir presumptive to the childless Danish King Frederick VII and the constitutional and national struggles that bedevilled the Danish state after 1852, and accounts for the changing face of the Scandinavianist movement following their disappointment at the outcome of the war. However, the war had brought the Scandinavianists and royal houses closer together, a relationship that was rekindled when King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway looked to bring his realm into the Crimean War. This presented a major opportunity for the unification of Scandinavia, only for the sudden conclusion of the war in early 1856 to get in the way. Still, the first half of the 1850s had witnessed Scandinavianism going from disappointment to being endorsed by several leading politicians and officials in all three Scandinavian countries, to say nothing of the royal houses. The chapter shows how Scandinavianism had also expanded its base and become more ideologically flexible through the embrace by such diverse circles as conservative Swedish aristocrats and democratically minded Danish agrarian nationalists. Like many nationalists elsewhere in Europe, the Scandinavianists readied themselves to seize opportunities offered by Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War and the shattering of the international system established at the Congress of Vienna. Indeed, in 1857–1858 Scandinavian unification was brought up in the French Emperor Napoleon III’s discussions with the British government and the Prussian diplomat Otto von Bismarck.

The Treaty of London

On 8 May 1852, the great powers and the Scandinavian states signed a treaty declaring that the maintenance of “the integrity of the Danish monarchy” was in the interests “of European equilibrium” and “important for the preservation of peace”.¹

The Treaty of London, also known as the Second London Protocol, was built on the foundations of the London Protocol that had established European interests in the existence of the unitary state two years earlier. Firstly, the treaty asserted that the means to that end was an agnatic-cognatic royal succession for the unitary state. Secondly, Prussia did ratify, though reluctantly. Even though it was signed in London, the czar was the power behind the document. However, Great Britain prevented the treaty from providing a collective guarantee, while Russia ensured that the agreement was not passed around among the other powers. It was for Denmark’s eyes only. In this way their moral obligations were limited to the Danish king and only came into force the moment he died. They involved no commitment to each other, so that Prussia, for example, had no obligations in respect of the other great powers. The document emphasised the ambivalent status of the unitary state and the German Confederation’s right to involve itself in the internal affairs of that state. This took place without the Confederation even signing. The Confederation had no moral responsibility for the continued existence of the unitary state and did not recognise the validity of the treaty.²

The Treaty of London required that, against the wishes of the Danish Rigsdag, Denmark should alter both the constitution and the Act of Succession, since they ran counter to the way the succession was viewed by the Schleswig-Holsteiners, the German Confederation and several of the princely houses, who wanted a purely agnatic right of succession. It was only after massive pressure from Prussia and a huge sum in compensation that Christian August of Augustenburg made over his estates and signed an undertaking that he would not do anything to oppose the new successor to the throne or arrangements affecting the unitary state. It may have looked like a renunciation of all rights of succession, but that was not how the duke saw it. Christian August was simply waiting for a suitable moment to press the claims of his house.³

In 1850, the British envoy to St. Petersburg, Baron Bloomfield, had tested the waters in the Russian capital by mentioning the possibility of making “a Swedish Prince” the heir to the Danish Crown. He had been firmly rebuffed by the Russian foreign minister Count Nesselrode. Russia did not want “another union of Calmar”.⁴

As the house Augustenburg had rendered itself impossible and Russia rejected a Scandinavian solution, the Treaty of London allowed the great powers to make Prince Christian of Glücksburg the heir presumptive to the unitary state. The inherent opposition between him and the Danish national liberals and radicals was not only because his presence blocked a Denmark to the Eider and a unified Scandinavia but was also due to his absolutist tendencies, his links to St. Petersburg and his deep-rooted German sympathies. Christian was loyal to the throne, but he was a unitary statist born in southern Schleswig, and Holstein was just as much his fatherland as Denmark. This made him too Danish for the Schleswig-Holsteiners and too German for Danish nationalists and Scandinavianists. Things were not improved by him speaking Danish with a heavy German accent. The Danish Rigsdag had to be dissolved twice before a parliament was formed that would approve a law of succession that accorded with the will of the great powers.⁵

The July revolution in France in 1830 had shown that the great powers were not always prepared to defend the dynasties they had themselves put in place, since the Bourbons had lost popular support. Such support was also absent in the unitary state for the house of Glücksburg. Even though the Duke of Augustenburg had, to all appearances, accepted the new succession and Sweden-Norway had signed the London Protocol, Christian August continued regularly to make plans for partitioning the unitary state and uniting Denmark with Sweden-Norway, while Oscar was increasingly busy laying plans to undermine the royal succession. In this he was assisted by Frederick VII. The explanation for this can be found in the relation between the royal couple and the king’s third wife, the Countess Danner.⁶

The Countess

Christian VIII’s last wish had been that his son should give up his lover and marry another royal, but he had scarcely been laid to rest before the mistress moved in to Christiansborg. Louise Rasmussen kept his majesty’s spirits up and his alcoholism down. For these very reasons Frederick wished “to take her to wife”. Peace with Prussia and the victory at Isted against the Schleswig-Holstein rebels gave the king the courage he needed. On 7 August 1850, Frederick entered into a morganatic marriage with Louise, who became the Countess Danner. The national liberal professor A.F. Krieger called the marriage the government’s greatest mistake. There are three reasons to think that Krieger was right, and each of them paved the way for a dynastic Scandinavianism.⁷

The most important reason was that the non-royal marriage “damaged Denmark” by depriving “the country of a queen and the prospect of an heir of the body for the continuation of” the royal house. This was particularly true before the succession was clarified, but even afterwards it was a concern since not everyone recognised the London Treaty.⁸

The second reason related to social norms. At a time when royal families in Europe had not yet intermarried with the nobility, it was a scandal that the Danish monarch should marry the daughter of a servant girl born out of wedlock. The fact that Louise had been engaged to Frederick’s friend and private secretary, Carl Berling, with whom she had had a child did not improve matters. In Denmark, the marriage divided opinion; in the duchies, it undermined trust in the duke. Refined society kept the countess at arm’s length, and foreign relations suffered. For Prince Christian of Glücksburg and his wife, Louise of Hesse, the countess was and remained “the king’s former mistress”.⁹

The third reason was the effect of the marriage on Danish politics. The monarch had few political convictions, but while the conservatives and the national liberals distanced themselves from his wife, she was supported by those sympathetic to the peasants. The radical Scandinavianist Balthazar Christensen advised the court how it might win over the broad public, and his loyalty was rewarded by the crown’s financing of the left-wing press. In the 1850s, this created an unusual alliance between radical politicians and the crown. It was an axis that strengthened Scandinavianism.¹⁰

Royal Endorsement

Two student gatherings held in Christiania in 1851 and 1852 attracted around 1,500 participants. As with gatherings in the 1840s, there were lectures, discussions, speeches and toasts. For all that, neither Scandinavianism nor the Scandinavianists were quite as they had been. From having a membership of 900 in 1845, the Scandinavian Society in Copenhagen dwindled and was eventually dissolved in 1856. At the student gatherings in 1851 and 1852, passionate declarations of political programmes and denunciations of Russia - hallmarks of the student gatherings in the 1840s - were almost entirely absent. The rituals persisted but they needed new content suited to changing political circumstances and a new generation of Scandinavianists. Celebrating the deaths of Scandinavianist volunteers in the First Schleswig War as martyrs was one example of novel content brought into Scandinavianist discourse, suggesting the adherents to the ideology were no strangers to the idea of war to advance their cause.¹¹

Many Scandinavianists were disappointed that their expectations had not been fulfilled during the First Schleswig War. Instead of a dynastic unification of Scandinavia under the Bernadottes, a new Danish succession had been put in place, and the unitary state had become a Russian client state. This meant that they had to be careful what they said. One of the few who still spoke his mind was Carl Ploug, who remained at the head of the Scandinavianist movement. At a student gathering in Christiania in 1851, he made one of the meeting’s very few political declarations when explaining that the Nordic countries made up a national entity and that the three Scandinavian peoples together would find “the most secure recourse against foreign aggression”. He was supported from the Norwegian side by, among others, Ludvig Kristensen Daa, who declared that “with the great dangers that now threaten the independence of all smaller nations, the only salvation is to be found in a unification of the forces of the people against the lava masses or the avalanches that threaten to bury them”. Indeed, Ploug had shocked the audience during a speech to the Scandinavian Society in Copenhagen in February 1851 when declaring that the main question was what they were supposed to do “when at some point the Second Schleswig War breaks out”. At this point, the First Schleswig War had not even been concluded yet. Clearly, the Scandinavianists hoped to fight another day.¹²

If Ploug, Daa and other Scandinavianists did not quite allow disappointment, reaction and fear of Russia to develop into despondency it was also because they regarded the First Schleswig War as a Danish victory and because the years of revolution had clarified prospects for Scandinavianism. They had established links to the courts and gained experience of government, finding that they preferred to sit around the table with the king to being in opposition. There was a mutual appreciation between the Scandinavianists and the monarchs through the realisation that they could derive benefit from each other. In Denmark, this realisation was also shared by several leaders of the agrarian nationalists, who embraced Scandinavianism, the king and the Countess Danner.¹³

The Scandinavianists’ links to the court were due particularly to King Oscar’s propaganda and the dynastic issue. There was no question of direct cooperation but rather of a mutual recognition, which, in the eyes both of the Scandinavianists and of the king, could hold out the possibility of a dynasty union as a possible means to achieve their ends. King Oscar I invited the participants at a student gathering in Christiania in 1851 to a reception at Oscarshall Castle, while Frederick VII placed the steamship Schleswig at the disposal of Danish participants. The Swedish poet and author Herman Bjursten was delighted at his support: “Where on the mainland of Europe, outside Scandinavia, would any [such] gathering be able to rejoice in the encouragement and support of the government as this one can […]? But how different and how much more felicitous conditions are for us! For the king is with us!”¹⁴

In the years after the war, King Oscar I’s sons, Charles and Oscar, kept the question of the Danish succession alive on behalf of the dynasty. The conflict in the Danish Rigsdag over the issue had shown Charles how fractious it was, and he was convinced that Great Britain and France would eventually replace Russia as the principal powers in Europe. During a visit to Frederick VII in the summer of 1852, a candid Charles did not beat about the bush. They soon resumed their private correspondence after a four-year break: “In truth, I could be inclined to berate you a little”, wrote King Frederick, “because in your letter you are far too polite […] and in it constantly write ‘Your Majesty’ instead of You, my dear brother […]”.¹⁵

In the summer of 1856, Ploug’s newspaper Fædrelandet declared that Scandinavianism now received support from the very top and that supporters of a united Scandinavia had changed from being a minority to being on the winning side. The young students who had sworn a solemn out during the student gathering in Copenhagen in 1845 to advance the Scandinavianist cause now occupied prominent posts in politics, the administration and the press. Links to the royal houses and the moderate conservatives after 1851, however, caused radical Scandinavianists some discomfort. Some grew increasingly sceptical or left the movement. Other young Scandinavianists such as the Norwegians O.A. Bachke and Michael Birkeland, the latter a declared democrat and republican in 1848–1849, began an ideological journey that ended in outright conservatism.¹⁶

In liberal circles, opinions also divided after 1850—especially in Sweden where the links between Scandinavianism, royal power and active foreign policy caused some to turn their backs on Scandinavianism. In 1850, the editor of the liberal newspaper Aftonbladet, Lars Johan Hierta predicted that Scandinavianism would eventually end up in the service of reaction. The estate owner and politician Emil Key left the movement because he felt that it had become too elitist and had deprived itself of the opportunity to be a movement that was closer to the people and more in favour of reform. This observation is also appropriate for Norway, where academics and peasants in the opposition turned against Scandinavianism, but not for Denmark, where one wing of the agrarian nationalists eventually became extremist Scandinavianists. In other words, the grounds for support of Scandinavianism—and opposition to it—were equally diverse.¹⁷

Socially, the Scandinavianists were not necessarily more elitist than before, even though a number of Danish and Swedish aristocrats joined the movement in the 1850s. The defection of more radical elements of the movement in Sweden and Norway, however, gave it a national and political appearance that was equivocally elitist. A united Scandinavia would be created from above, in collaboration with the crown, while learned men would prepare the constitutional basis for unification. It was a strategy that was precisely suited to the political reality of reactionary Europe and had much in common with other European national liberal movements after the revolutions of 1848–1849.¹⁸

In the Wake of Revolution

Experiences from the revolutions in 1848–1849 made conservatives more open towards reform, whereas liberals were traumatised, shocked at the forces unleashed by the revolutions. On the one hand, liberals in Europe often turned their backs on the radicals and especially on the socialism that was progressing by leaps and bounds, while on the other hand they aligned themselves even more strongly to the constitutional monarchy as a guarantee for order and social peace. The liberals generally shared conservative fears for disorder and anarchy. For them, the division of power, representation and suffrage thus became matters of negotiation. This meant that, in return, some conservatives found it opportune to support key liberal issues such as free trade, civic liberty and nationalism. This, in turn, created the basis for a form of neo-conservatism, which in some regards was ideologically flexible and, crucially, was ready to exploit nationalist sentiments to win popular support. Thus, by the 1850s nationalism was no longer the ideological preserve of the political left. The ideological scope of nationalism widened, creating opportunities for new political alliances behind its banner.¹⁹

Amongst other things, the conservatives adopted a more pragmatic approach to reforms, all the more so when they realised that freedom of expression, civic liberty and political participation could be exploited for conservative purposes. In this way the artillery of the revolution could be turned against the revolutionaries themselves, as the Prussian conservative Ernst-Ludwig von Gerlach put it. Some conservative regimes began to promote official nationalism through nation-building orchestrated by the state. This was highly compatible with the elitist nationalist designs promoted by national liberals. For liberals in Prussia and Piedmont, moreover, the constitutions introduced in the years of revolution gave the conservative regimes in these countries a degree of credibility. Napoleon III, in particular, who had come to power with a landslide victory in the countryside and had since consolidated his victory by means of a coup, became a champion of nationalist movements. This took place through an idiosyncratic mixture of a politically authoritarian regime with social and economic liberalism called Bonapartism.²⁰

King Oscar I was an admirer of the French emperor. Like Napoleon III, he saw himself as being elevated over political factions and acted, in effect, both as his own prime minister and foreign minister and as such wielded his executive powers in a rather authoritarian manner. Political issues were often decided before they reached the council of state. This was also partly due to the fact that Oscar’s ministers were individual members of government rather than a collective group that stood or fell together. Before the emergence of modern political parties, it was possible for the king to divide and rule in both Sweden and Norway by playing the estates of the Swedish Riksdag and factions in the Norwegian Storting against each other, respectively. There were those who feared that Oscar was aspiring to absolutism and therefore began to press for the government to be turned into a collective body of ministers with shared solidarity and responsibility that could act as a counterweight to the king.²¹

Like many other European monarchs after 1850, King Oscar shifted in a conservative and authoritarian direction. Influenced by Napoleon III, he took a number of initiatives to bring in more restrictive legislation in Sweden, such as to restrict freedom of the press, but the council of state or the Riksdag blocked most of these proposals. On the other hand, he succeeded in preventing parliamentary reform, which had been a moot point in Swedish politics throughout the 1840s. At the same time Swedish conservatives were seeing changes in their own ranks. A group of younger estate owners from the nobility, referred to as “junkers”, gathered behind the officer and count Henning Hamilton and in 1851 promoted a new, but restrictive, proposal for parliamentary reform that was voted down at the following Riksdag session in 1853–1854. Even though the conservatives and liberals could not agree on major parliamentary reforms, a wave of reforms in other areas did pass, such as in trade and shipping. The king was not decidedly a supporter of free trade but regarded such reforms as a means to win liberal support for his foreign policy. Still, the reforms led to a series of political tugs-of-war, and the major bone of contention was the question of the Swedish railway, through which the minister (without portfolio) Johan August Gripenstedt made a significant name for himself.²²

By 1851, Gripenstedt was the only remaining liberal member of the reshuffled Swedish cabinet appointed in April 1848, when internal pressure and events elsewhere in Europe had forced the king into making concessions. This was also a sign of the conservative turn in Swedish and European politics in the wake of the revolutions of 1848–1849. After a tough battle in the Swedish Riksdag over the question of railways, Gripenstedt had his way in 1854 and a national railway, as opposed to privately financed and owned railways, was agreed. Gripenstedt believed in state ownership and support for infrastructure and trade when private capital was insufficient, and after 1850 he became increasingly interested in free trade ideology that emanated from the “Manchester School” of liberalism. He studied economic theorists such as Richard Cobden, John Bright and Frédéric Bastiat, who linked prosperity, growth and social harmony to a deregulated market and the idea of peace. This “harmony liberalism”, as the Swedish historian Göran B. Nilsson terms it, came to influence the views of the former military officer on war, peace and Swedish-Norwegian foreign policy, and would adversely affect his relationship to the crown, to say nothing of Scandinavianism.²³

In Norway, too, harmony liberalism was on the rise as the country experienced a financial upturn after 1850. Traditional businesses such as timber, ironworks, fisheries and agriculture expanded, and the opening of mechanical workshops and textile factories led to industrial growth. The lawyer and parliamentarian Anton Martin Schweigaard was also an adherent to harmony liberalism and, like Gripenstedt, had no problems with state regulation and state financing when required. Alongside Frederik Stang, Schweigaard was one of the leading Norwegian “national strategists” who built the foundation for modern Norway. Infrastructure and communications went through an explosive development under Stang as minister for the interior until 1856 and again after 1861. Stang shared Gripenstedt’s interest in liberal economic theory, as well as his aversion to activist foreign policy, the military and war. Stang and Schweigaard also shared Gripenstedt’s view of participation in political life. As such they played their part in cementing the liberal ideology of limited suffrage in Norwegian legislation.²⁴

On the whole, the political situation in Norway differed from Denmark and Sweden. The historian Jens Arup Seip asserts that the “decades between 1840 and 1870 are notable for their exceptional political stability, which was only briefly broken during the February revolution in 1848”.²⁵ A majority of officials and of the peasant opposition rejected proposals to extend suffrage, while the government and the Norwegian Storting were more on the same wavelength than during the fractious 1820s and 1830s. This was also because the opposition in the Storting, led by the peasant O.G. Ueland and the lawyer Johan Sverdrup, found some of their interests to be in line with the officials who controlled the government. This applied, for example, to some questions relating to the Swedish-Norwegian union and Scandinavianism, where in the 1850s and 1860s the opposition could sometimes find common ground with both Norwegian nationalist and unionist inclinations among politicians from the ranks of public officials. Furthermore, in Norway there were no domestic issues that were fundamentally divisive—in contrast to the constitutional battles fought out in Denmark and Sweden. Political strife in Norway was for the most part channelled into parliamentary politics and public debate.²⁶

Absolutism’s New Clothes

In March 1848 King Frederick VII had declared himself as a constitutional monarch. In the autumn, elections for a constitutional assembly were held with “universal” male suffrage (c. 15% of the population had the right to vote), and on 5 June 1849 the king signed Denmark’s first free constitution. In more traditionalist accounts that still dominated the public perception of the events, Denmark had gone from absolutism to democracy. From a contemporary point of view, it can indeed be argued, as we shall return to below, that this was the case as democracy was connected to the concept of universal male suffrage. The June constitution, as it became known, was however a far cry from a modern conception of democracy and it is better understood in the light of contemporary constitutional monarchism. The Danish constitution was a mixed constitution model on that of Belgium with elements of monarchy, democracy and aristocracy.²⁷

Ministers were legally responsible to parliament (the Rigsdag) but they were according to the constitution to be chosen by the king. In practical terms, the king’s choice was always limited, and he no longer exercised supreme executive power. However, the king did exert real power. There was a permanent tussle between the king and the prime minister (from 1855 until 1915, council president) as to whether the monarch should have influence over the choice of the other ministers. The dispute about who should appoint ministers along with the prime minister’s undefined powers meant that many ministers did not feel subordinate to the prime minister. A government often had a number of leading figures, each of whom steered their own political course, which was often in direct opposition either to the wishes of king or to those of the prime minister (council president).²⁸

Like elsewhere in Europe, constitutional monarchism came with an inbuilt power-dispute between the king and his government, within the government and between the government and the parliament. The latter was shaped by three narratives surfaced about the June constitution in Denmark. On the left wing it was said that the new constitution was a victory for the people and for freedom, while for the conservatives it was the result of a dangerous wave of revolution. The national liberal narrative lay in between these two poles. Like the radicals, they saw the June constitution as a victory for the rights of freedom but, in common with the conservatives, many national liberals believed that democracy lacked a counterweight to defend the minority and to prevent the rule of the rabble. The clash between these narratives came to have an influence on the Danish constitutional battle, a battle that pushed many national liberals and radicals in the direction of political Scandinavianism.²⁹

The constitutional battle was caused by the attempt to recreate the unitary state. The conservatives in the government and in the diplomatic service, with support from Russia, Austria and Prussia, forced the national liberals out of government, while the new foreign minister rolled out a plan for how the unitary state could be resurrected in an understanding with these three conservative powers. The duchies were to be ruled autocratically with the assistance of advisory provincial diets until a unitary constitution could form the basis for the unitary state. Schleswig could be united neither with Denmark nor with Holstein, the nationalities would have equal rights, the Schleswig-Holstein movement should be suppressed, and the German Confederation would have no rights in Schleswig and would not be able to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. The programme was approved in St. Petersburg and by the Danish government before it became the basis for negotiations with the governments in Berlin and Vienna. The Danish Rigsdag, on the other hand, was kept in the dark.³⁰

The correspondence between Copenhagen, Berlin and Vienna in December 1851 and January 1852 apparently created a common conservative vision for the future of the unitary state. The provincial diets were to be turned into Landtags (provincial parliaments), but Austria insisted that the constitutions of the duchies should be conservative and the right to vote restricted, which left the German-speaking elite holding the power in Schleswig. Assemblies in Denmark, Schleswig and Holstein would, so the foreign minister promised, be involved in creating a unitary constitution for the state. This diplomatic correspondence, so central to future developments, has passed over into history as the agreements of 1851–1852. The Danish side emphasised that it was only morally, not legally, binding. Nevertheless, the majority of diplomats and almost all historians have given it the status akin to a treaty. Even though these agreements are not mentioned in the London Treaty, they paved the way through endorsements from Austria and Prussia. These agreements—and with them the peace and the treaty—suffered from two underlying problems, which made it impossible to carry them out in reality. The unitary state had been burst apart because politicians did not want the same future. As a civil war The First Schleswig War had aggravated their differences, and the problem was further inflated by the fact that, in the eyes of the world outside, Denmark had acquired an extreme constitution and a democratic parliament, while the assemblies in the duchies remained conservative. With the German states behind them, Holsteiners could not be forced into a constitution against their will, while the Danes would never be able to accept a constitution in line with the wishes of the Holsteiners.³¹

The Austrian prime minister, Prince Felix von Schwarzenberg, had already made it clear what would be acceptable to the Holsteiners. He expected a federal constitution, in which every duchy and the kingdom of Denmark would have equal power. From the outset, there was no chance of a Danish government being able to ratify a constitution in which Denmark, with a population of 1.7 million, would have no greater influence than Lauenburg with its 50,000 citizens. Bluhme was perfectly aware of this, but he failed to tell Schwarzenberg. The German great powers were forced to expect a unitary constitution that never could become a reality without a form of absolutism. This was a conclusion that, for a number of prominent conservatives, was self-evident. For them, “the European necessity” became a tool in the hands of reaction, and they made use of it to accomplish something resembling a coup d’état.³²

On 28 January 1852, Bluhme presented before the Danish Rigsdag a white paper sketching out the future of the state. The unitary state would become a federation whose elements made up constituent states. The June constitution would be limited to the kingdom, where its power would be restricted. The duchies would be governed autocratically, while the state’s ministers would be responsible to the Rigsdag, but only in affairs that solely concerned the kingdom. This paper was a direct consequence of his correspondence with the two German great powers, but, in contrast to agreements of 1851–1852, it said nothing about Denmark not being able to incorporate Schleswig or about the provincial diets contributing to a unitary constitution. Foreign eyes regarded this declaration as a legally binding document that laid out Denmark’s obligations towards Prussia and Austria, while the Danes claimed that the declaration was made of their own free will. The difference may seem trivial, but it was crucial for determining whether the constitutional question could be determined within the unitary state or whether the German Confederation had a right of veto in constitutional issues pertaining to the Danish state.

Leading national liberal and radical politicians accepted the dictate of the great powers but for widely different reasons. D.G. Monrad genuinely wanted to create a constitutional unitary state on the basis of the June constitution. Orla Lehmann believed that in the long run the paper would serve the interests of national liberals. According to him, the Holsteiners would never accept a constitutional unitary state, and they would therefore sabotage it. This would make them responsible for the annihilation of the unitary state. A.F. Tscherning saw things in a completely different light. He had broken with the national liberals, renounced Scandinavianism and wanted to see a Danish-German unitary state. As a matter of common interest, he could accept absolutism in the common matters of the unitary state as long as the June constitution applied in Denmark itself. Danes wrote to the king in defence of the June constitution, while assemblies in the duchies requested an autocratic unitary state.

To comply with the wishes of the great powers, especially Russia and Austria, two Holstein counts, Carl Moltke and Heinrich Reventlow-Criminil, were appointed to the government. The government’s proposal for a unitary constitution was so reactionary that it could not be forced through the Rigsdag. After three attempts to have it voted through over ten months, Bluhme handed over the post of council president to A.S. Ørsted, who, with the two Holstein counts, applied the thumbscrews. Publicly appointed opposition politicians such as D.G. Monrad, C.C. Hall and C.G. Andræ were dismissed from their civil offices. Lauenburg, Schleswig and Holsten were given conservative constitutions that allowed them a certain freedom in their own internal affairs. The duchies were allowed neither freedom of the press nor ministerial responsibility, and the assemblies' right to make proposals was—like the right to vote—limited. But the government in Copenhagen would only be able to alter legislation with their approval. In Denmark, the government demanded that the Rigsdag removed paragraphs relating to the June constitution that addressed shared issues within the state, freedom of the press, censorship, voting rights and national service, just as it had to accept that the crown autocratically gave a unitary constitution for the state.³³

From this, it became clear to many in the peasant party (Venstre) that the government not only wanted to restrict the June constitution to the kingdom but that they also wanted to reverse it. The old politicians from the days of absolutism were alienating the people from the crown. But their policy had an unmistakeable advantage, for the duchies and the great powers could accept it. For that reason, on 26 July 1854 Frederick VII added his signature to Ordinance on the Danish monarchy’s constitution for its common body politic. It introduced a Unitary Parliament, Rigsrådet, made up of 50 men, of which 20 were chosen by the king and 30 by assemblies in the 4 parts of the state. This council had to approve all taxes and state borrowing but otherwise it was solely advisory. The unitary state had been given a chartered constitution that reintroduced partial absolutism by the back door.³⁴

This was done with the support of Russia and without objections from the duchies, but the Danish Rigsdag brought a case of impeachment against the government, which responded by rescinding freedom of assembly and calling a general election. This led to a thumping electoral defeat for the conservatives. Even though Frederick VII had no liking for the June constitution, he had long been nervous of the path the government was treading. Propped up by Berling and the countess and handfed with critical questions by her friend from Holstein, L.N. Scheele, the king challenged the government’s policy in the cabinet. Ørsted leapt up like a “a wild man”, flung his papers on the table and declared that he would no longer serve his majesty. Without the support of the monarch, the government could no longer remain in session, and therefore it resigned.³⁵

In its place, a coalition government was formed with moderate conservatives and liberals, among them two of the men that Ørsted had had dismissed, C.C. Hall and C.G. Andræ. Andræ, an officer in the army and a mathematician, was the brains behind the new constitution for the unitary state that would win acceptance in Denmark, the duchies and abroad. This required it to be far more conservative than the majority of Danes were happy to accept. Andræ created a Unitary Parliament made up of 80 parliamentarians. The king chose 20, parliaments in the constituent states 30, and 30 came through direct election. The right to vote was limited to 6000 of the unitary state’s 2.5 million citizens. Both the agrarian nationalists and the agrarian statists in Venstre and the national liberals on the left wing were furious, but the government made it clear that, if the proposal for the constitution was thrown out, then the government would follow. Everyone knew that this meant the return of absolutism. The threat worked, and the constitution for the unitary state was approved on 2 October 1855. The cabinets in Vienna and Berlin congratulated the Danish government on having solved this difficult task. The manoeuvre was only successful, however, because they avoided involving the assemblies in the duchies. And this was in contravention of the agreements of 1851–1852.³⁶

The October constitution had yet another problem. It had made it clear that the unitary state could only survive if political freedom was reduced. This caused a violent upsurge in antipathy towards it. This was significant not least for peasants’ party Venstre. “The party” was split into two. The majority, under the leadership of the cobbler J.A. Hansen and the lawyer Balthazar Christensen, who had close links to the royal court, came together in an agrarian nationalist group that in national issues collaborated with the national liberal left wing. A minority followed A.F. Tscherning and the theologian Geert Winther, who continued to support a unitary state. The agrarian nationalists were strongest on Zealand and on the islands, while Tscherning’s group of agrarian statists for good reason were known as the Jutland Venstre. However, the party was not solely divided nationally; it was also split into “Scandinavianists and non-Scandinavianists”. The “peasant-friendly Scandinavians—among them, many followers of Grundtvig—embraced Scandinavianism almost more consistently than the national liberals”. In the columns of the newspaper Morgenbladet, J.A. Hansen wrote that the redemption of Denmark lay in the abolition of the unitary state and an equal and just union with its brother nations, Sweden and Norway.³⁷

The support given to Scandinavianism by the majority of Venstre was due, in particular, to the fact that they associated it with the re-introduction of the June constitution. As the Scandinavianist Balthazar Christensen wrote in 1863, the Danes had to come together under the banner of “the Constitution and Scandinavia” and be reborn politically through “the realisation of a real and dynastically unified Scandinavia and a Danish kingdom under 5 June 1849”. The alternative was, as J.A. Hansen had made clear, to become either a German or a Russian vassal state instead of a free, independent and Scandinavian kingdom. Those on the left in the second half of the 1850s made no bones of the fact that independence required a war, but such thoughts had already been anticipated during the Crimean War, which once again brought attempts to unify Scandinavia.³⁸

The Crimean War in the Baltic Sea

The Crimean War was the first occasion after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 on which the great powers came to blows. It signalled, therefore, a shift in international politics and introduced a violent decade and a half. Congresses and conferences continued to play a role in resolving conflicts of the great powers, but they would no longer strive mainly to avoid major wars. Instead, in echoes of Clausewitz, war was increasingly acknowledged as an extended arm of politics that could both afford possibilities and be a necessity. This was the same conclusion that came to be reached by a number of national movements and by some second-rank states, not least Piedmont.³⁹

In the European press, the Crimean War was consistently regarded as a struggle of civilisations between liberal and progressive France and Great Britain in the West and despotic and barbarian Russia in the East. However, it was primarily a war about power and geopolitics, triggered after prolonged tensions and a deadlocked diplomatic crisis about an issue which on the face of it might seem no more than a trivial question about religion in the Ottoman Empire. In March 1854, the Western powers declared war on Russia.⁴⁰

War between three great powers was bound to affect the whole of Europe. For both political and geostrategic reasons, Sweden-Norway and Denmark found themselves in a bind. Sweden-Norway generally feared Russia, in no small part due to Russia’s proximity and power, and openly sympathised with the allies. The conservative Danish government, on the other hand, was aware of the strategic importance of Oresund, that the unitary state and royal succession hinged on Russian support and that Denmark’s position was dependent to an extent on the German Confederation. Ultimately the Scandinavian countries’ relations to the warring powers depended primarily on where geographically the most important battles would be fought. Major clashes in the Baltic Sea would almost certainly force the Scandinavian countries to take sides. Even though the Crimean War began as a Russian-Ottoman confrontation, there was no law dictating that it would mainly be fought in the region that gave the Crimean War its name. France was particularly keen to involve Sweden-Norway in the war in 1854 in order to make the Baltic a primary theatre of war, but the British government was more reserved and ultimately decided against a major campaign in late May of that year.⁴¹

Consequently, the Western powers’ main military offensive against Crimea was launched late in the autumn of 1854. In the words of King Oscar I, this corresponded to biting the Russian giant’s little toe instead of going directly for its throat in the capital, St. Petersburg. Still, in the spring and summer of 1854, a British squadron under Vice-Admiral Charles Napier had operated in the Baltic with 44 vessels, 2000 guns and 21,800 men, blockading the Russian coast and making occasional raids. It was joined in June by a French fleet of 26 vessels. With support from 10,000 French troops, the Russian coastal defences at Bomarsund on Åland were taken by the Franco-British forces on 16 August and demolished two weeks later. Queen Victoria declared that the Baltic had thus been prevented from becoming a Russian inland sea, but this was an exaggeration. To make a serious impact on Russia, larger targets had to be captured—such as Sveaborg fortress outside Helsinki, the principal Russian naval base at Kronstadt, Finland or Poland, or even St. Petersburg. The Western powers therefore needed more soldiers, bases in the Baltic and vessels suitable for shallow waters if they were to conduct such major operations. This made Austria, Sweden-Norway and Denmark very attractive allies. Indeed, the destruction of Bomarsund was an allied attempt to make an impression or to compromise Sweden-Norway, but King Oscar was so far proving intransigent, and the Danish government was clinging onto its neutrality.⁴²

Instead, Piedmont joined the Western powers in January 1855, which made the Black Sea and the Crimea even more attractive for allied operations. The Baltic, therefore, remained a secondary theatre of war. This long relegated it to the margins of the historiography of the Crimean War. Though the presence of the Western powers in the Baltic Sea was significant and even increased in 1855, the main allied operation continued to be the siege of Sebastopol, which fell on 9 September. However, after that the Baltic looked like becoming the most important theatre of war if the allies were to inflict a decisive defeat on Russia. In late 1855, both Austria and Sweden-Norway were on their way to join the war on the side of the Western powers, who were planning to continue the war in 1856. In January 1856, however, to everyone’s surprise Russia entered into peace negotiations following an Austrian ultimatum. British public opinion and its government did not feel that they had finished with Russia, but Napoleon III wanted to conclude the war. As a result, the warring parties signed the peace of Paris in March, which laid down humiliating but not crushing conditions for Russia.⁴³

As Charles XIV John’s ally since 1812, a guarantor for the Danish crown and the unitary state, and with its geostrategic position, Russia had had a strong influence on the Scandinavian states since the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The country’s position in the power politics of Europe, its diplomatic role during the First Schleswig War and its direct involvement in the Danish succession only strengthened its influence after the years of revolution in 1848–1849. The great majority of conservatives in Denmark and a few in Sweden and Norway had no objection to this, since they regarded Russia as a shield against revolution and unrest.⁴⁴

Others, above all Scandinavian liberals, regarded Russia with hate and fear—as representing political despotism and cultural barbarity, made even more dangerous by its military might and apparent expansionist urges. Peter the Great’s will and testament, a forgery dating back to 1812, did the rounds of the liberal Scandinavian press. Even though there were a few Danes who feared a push towards Oresund, fear of Russian territorial ambitions was most in evidence in Sweden and Norway. In Swedish eyes, the Russian military presence in Finland, and on the Åland islands in particular, were a constant source of anxiety. In the 1850s fortifications at Bomarsund were expanded and there were rumours of Russian intent to capture Gotland. In Norway, attention was directed particularly towards Finnmark, where a border dispute had arisen with Russia in 1852. Rumours suggested that Russia had ambitions to make conquests in Finnmark, such as to create a naval base in the Varanger Fjord.⁴⁵

The outbreak of the Crimean War reinforced all preconceptions and expectations concerning the threats inherent in a major showdown between the great powers, which inevitably would have consequences for Scandinavia. In Stockholm, there was nervousness about potential Russian plans in the Baltic region. In Copenhagen, the government swiftly hoisted colours of neutrality from fear of disturbing the delicate balance on which the unitary state hinged. The risk of a hostile visit from the fleets of Western powers led Danes to think back to the British attacks on Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807, but they were equally fearful of bringing down the wrath of Russia. What was more, Prussia and possibly Austria were threatening from the south. Nor were the Norwegian government and the public in the mood for war. The aging governor, Severin Løvenskiold, allowed his fears to be put to rest by assurances from the king, though the king was not being honest when he claimed to Løvenskiold that he intended to keep himself out of the war. Meanwhile, the Norwegian press began to direct critical commentaries against those elements in the Swedish press that were increasing their sabre-rattling during the spring of 1854, liberals chief among them.⁴⁶

An article in The Times of February 1854, sparked by secret Swedish-British discussions, suggested that a confrontation with Russia might see Sweden reclaiming Åland. Set alongside the outbreak of war in March, the presence of a Franco-British fleet in the Baltic and approaches from the Western powers as a whole, this encouraged many Swedish liberals who wished to see an alliance with the Western powers. The king also secretly contributed to whipping up the mood, and diplomatic overtures between Stockholm, Paris and London were made, with France being especially keen to bring Sweden-Norway into the war. The signals from Sweden appeared so strong that, in her diary of 3 April, Queen Victoria wrote that she had spoken with her foreign minister, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Palmerston, the then home secretary, “about the good news from Sweden and the prospects for an alliance”. However, her ministers were less impressed, noting that the coy King Oscar, the bellicose Crown Prince Charles and cautious Swedish government appeared to take independent lines. Still, significant sections of Swedish public opinion, including circles normally peace-loving and in favour of free trade, wanted war, their attitudes reflecting both fear and revanchism.⁴⁷

A number of Swedish liberals linked such fear and revanchism with Scandinavianism. Due to the history, cultural heritage and religion it shared with Sweden, its Swedish-speaking population and its geographical position, Finland came to be regarded as part of the Scandinavian fraternity. The arguments for this were, however, various. Some argued for a four-state Scandinavia and felt that the war was an opportunity to create a large state with Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Others thought more along the lines of Finland joining a Swedish-Norwegian union. Others again were thinking primarily in Swedish terms and demanded that Finland and Norway—and even Denmark—should be subordinated to Sweden. Finally, there were those who were not thinking of Finland but rather saw the Crimean War as an opportunity to unify the three Scandinavian kingdoms.⁴⁸

Remarkably few troubled themselves to ask whether the Finns themselves wanted to be reunited with Sweden or to enter into a unified Scandinavia, and some people disregarded or trivialised Finland’s Fennoman national movement, which felt that the country was best served by retaining the independent position it occupied in the Russian empire. Led by the professor of philosophy and politician, Johan Vilhelm Snellman, the movement associated Finnish national identity with the Finnish language, rallying behind the slogan “one land—one language”. The Fennoman movement did not, however, have sole rights on Finnish identity. The authorities in Finland were very aware that Scandinavianism held some appeal in the country and were on the lookout for secret Scandinavianist societies. One man who had both an intimate understanding of the Finnish nationalist movement and wished for a unified Finnish-Scandinavian state was the Finnish-Swedish writer and journalist Emil von Qvanten. In Stockholm in 1855, under the pseudonym Peder Särkilax, he published the pamphlet Fennomania and Scandinavianism, in which he combined political Scandinavianism with Finnish national patriotism using an argument based on the threshold principle. Finland should not be an independent state but nor should it be reduced to a Swedish province. The solution was, therefore, a Scandinavian-Finnish union state that would fulfil the need for Swedish and Scandinavian security and satisfy Finland’s internal national requirements. This idea was not mere chimera from a disgruntled intellectual. The British envoy to Copenhagen, Andrew Buchanan, was arguing in similar terms at the same time to the Danish diplomat George Quaade.⁴⁹

Qvanten’s article hit a nerve and provoked reactions. Russian officials in Finland attempted to get hold of him, which prompted Qvanten to move to Stockholm. A number of Scandinavianists could not imagine that Scandinavian-Finnish relations could be as harmonious as Qvanten suggested, for the Norwegians and the Finns were expected to be troublemakers. The Norwegian Ludvig Kristensen Daa, however, disagreed, feeling that it made little difference what Norwegians thought. The difficulties would “disappear of their own accord through the irresistible power of events and conditions once Finland was separated from Russia”, Daa argued. Finland’s accession to the union would also require a reordering of the union of Sweden and Norway. It was not by chance that four-state Scandinavianism found its most significant expression during the Crimean War, which seemed to afford the opportunity to sever Finland from Russia.⁵⁰

The Crimean War also turned Scandinavian political cooperation into a reality. Even before the outbreak of the war, the Danish and Swedish-Norwegian governments had entered into diplomatic negotiations, which concluded on 20 December 1853 with identical declarations of neutrality on terms that were beneficial to the allies. While this may not have been motivated by Scandinavianism, such Danish and Swedish-Norwegian coordination was nonetheless music to the ears of Scandinavianists. Russia accepted the declarations reluctantly, while the Western powers saw it as an opening that would allow the Scandinavian countries to be shepherded together into an alliance.⁵¹ This was not something Oscar I was against, but he was cautious, and the Danish government were quite rightly unsure as to his neutrality.

On the Road to War

The First Schleswig War had shown how Sweden-Norway had to dance to Russia’s tune—so much so that Oscar I was accused of being just as Russophile as his father, Charles XIV John. The Crimean War, however, led to the showdown with Russia that Oscar had been secretly looking forward to for decades. By mid-1855, he had gone some way in openly dismissing his father’s pro-Russian policy.⁵²

It was one thing to distance oneself from Russia; it was quite another to know how Sweden-Norway should extricate itself from appearing to be what Russian diplomats had become inclined to regard as a puppet state. Above all, Sweden-Norway needed firm guarantees and commitment from the allies, and everyone seemed to agree that Sweden-Norway’s joining the allies was contingent on Austria doing the same. King Oscar waited for the perfect moment to make his views plain. His hope was that he would be able to make his contribution to doing away with the Russian threat once and for all and so reap a reward in the shape of Finland, but at the same time he was careful not to compromise his position and the security of his domains. Consequently, the extent of his demands for allied financial, material and manpower support made Paris and London balk.⁵³

Russia had protested against the Swedish-Norwegian declaration of neutrality and, in truth, the fact that certain Swedish and Norwegian harbours were kept open for warring powers was a greater advantage to Great Britain and France than it was to Russia. At the same time, it made it less pressing for them to have Sweden-Norway join the coalition, though Napoleon III’s diplomats did make advances to the Scandinavian states. King Oscar made it clear that there was no imminent possibility of abandoning neutrality without firm allied obligations, but he let it be known that, if they were forthcoming, he could contribute 80 gunboats and a Swedish-Norwegian army of 120,000 men. The British prime minister, Lord Aberdeen, did not, however, let himself be persuaded by such informal royal diplomacy and feared that Swedish-Norwegian participation would prolong the war and make peace more difficult.⁵⁴

France was, at least initially, much more receptive to Oscar’s methods and conditions. On 14 June 1854, two French officers met with the king on Gotland. He demanded 60,000 allied soldiers for operations in the Baltic as well as subsidies, Austria’s entry into the coalition and promises not to conclude a peace with Russia before Finland was conquered. The officers responded—without, as it turned out, having a mandate to do so—by offering 100,000 French troops and 6 million francs a month in a treaty considered by the historian, Andrew Lambert as “worthless”. Indeed, the premises for Sweden-Norway’s entry into the war soon fell apart. The following month, Russia evacuated the Danubian Principalities, which left Austria with much less appetite for war and France more reluctant to commit to Sweden-Norway’s demands. When the allied fleet bombarded Bomarsund in August, Oscar turned down their offer to occupy Åland, arguing that it would compromise Sweden-Norway. He also pointed out that the 10,000 French troops taking part in the operation against Bomarsund were not anywhere near the tenfold number suggested by the French officers with whom he had negotiated. Trust between Sweden-Norway and the Western powers was damaged, and this contributed to the allies’ subsequent choice to prioritise the Crimea over the Baltic.⁵⁵

Meanwhile, diplomatic constellations were changing their orbit. On 2 December, Austria and France entered into a defensive alliance. In February 1855, the warlike Lord Palmerston replaced Aberdeen in London. Palmerston wanted to bring Russia to its knees so that the map of Europe could be redrawn. The year before, he had hatched a plan that would return Finland and Åland to Sweden, Lombardy and Venice to Piedmont, re-establish an independent Poland, give large parts of the Balkans to Austria, the Baltic countries to Prussia and southern parts of Russia to the Ottoman empire. Palmerston wanted to keep Russia in check on a global scale. Once again, war fever was on the increase in Stockholm, and behind the scenes military preparations were set in motion. After Piedmont’s entry into the coalition in January, however, King Oscar needed the Western powers more than they needed him, although Britain proved to be more responsive than the year before.⁵⁶

Oscar set both secret agents and publicists to work. His attempts at secret negotiations with France ran aground, but campaigns in the international press had their effect. Particular attention was directed towards Finnmark, where Palmerston had worried about Russian designs as far back as in the 1830s after warnings from the British vice-consul in Hammerfest, John Rice Crowe. By 1855, Crowe had been promoted to consul-general in Christiania and was a member of King Oscar’s network. In June, Crowe explained the possible Russian threat to Finnmark to Palmerston and linked it to alleged Russian designs in China. Palmerston was genuinely shocked, and it was not long before Napoleon III’s new foreign minister, Alexandre Walewski, learned of the matter. Although Napoleon III was by now growing sceptical of extending the war into Scandinavia and the Baltic, and found relations with London increasingly strained, the allies opened negotiations with Sweden-Norway, which concluded in a treaty in November 1855, guaranteeing Sweden and Norway’s territorial integrity.⁵⁷

The Swedish and Norwegian governments were left in ignorance of the king’s plans and personal diplomacy. Oscar’s approach to the council of state was usually to inform his ministers of “the decision I have made”. It was true that the Swedish constitution gave the king extensive power over foreign policy, but the foreign minister was constitutionally co-responsible for foreign policy decisions such as treaties and funding depended on the Riksdag and Storting. In Oscar’s case, this was, as a rule, a formality, insofar as he exercised full control over his government. Furthermore, if the king had already brought Sweden-Norway to the brink of a war, the royal foreign policy could, in reality, leave the Swedish Riksdag and the Norwegian Storting with no alternative than to approve the funding and permissions that the king desired. There were only a small number, among them his sons Charles and Oscar, who were allowed to be party to the king’s innermost thoughts. His ministers, senior officials and heads of the military who, as in 1848, generally opposed Swedish-Norwegian activism, were kept in ignorance.⁵⁸

The royal war policy aroused resentment among many. Public opinion in Norway was generally critical, while the government and the Storting delayed or opposed proposals for extraordinary military funding. Nevertheless, the Norwegians had to submit to the king’s foreign policy, and this had consequences for relations within the union. Outwardly, to Oscar’s delight, Norwegians showed a warm appreciation of the union, but they found themselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, the union satisfied a geostrategic and military need for security, but on the other the Crimean War had shown that Norway risked being drawn into what many regarded as royal and Swedish warmongering. At the same time, the vacillations of the Norwegians aroused dissatisfaction in that section of the Swedish press that was avid for war. This, in turn, sowed more uncertainty among the Norwegians as regards Sweden and the union.⁵⁹

The harshest reaction against King Oscar’s personal politics nevertheless came from the Swedish side. The tendency to pursue an activist foreign policy came under particular attack in 1855, but that was not the only thing that Johan August Gripenstedt disapproved of. He also suspected, rightly or wrongly, that the king contemplated a coup d’état. The king’s admiration for Napoleon III, his continued bypassing of his cabinet and his attempt to restrict the freedom of the press set warning lights flashing for Gripenstedt, who also feared that a war would risk Sweden’s economy, development and freedom. He fed his contacts in the liberal press with warnings and inside information, and this led to a media campaign against the executive powers vested in the king. Some prominent officers also played a part, warning the public that Sweden’s military capacity was extremely weak and that a war would have disastrous consequences.⁶⁰

The strength of the king’s position meant that Gripenstedt had to tread carefully in the council of state, but when the king, with his reputation damaged after the conclusion of the Crimean War, needed liberal support, Gripenstedt grasped his opportunity and demanded changes. When, in the spring of 1856, the king offered Gripenstedt the finance ministry and also took another liberal minister into the government, it was a small and inadvertent step towards a shift of power from the king to the government. Gripenstedt was satisfied, but from then on he was on his guard in relation to the crown and foreign policy activism and regarded a united and unanimous government as an essential counterweight to the king.⁶¹

The Crimean War did not turn out as King Oscar had planned. Yet, with his evasion and manipulation of political institutions, his ideological flexibility and his foreign policy ambitions, Oscar was in tune with his time and possessed qualities that would have been approved by other statesmen of his time pursuing Realpolitik. His political overtures, however, were so meticulous in their calculation and balancing of consequences that he failed to seize opportunities that Bismarck later would become famous for grasping and exploiting so skilfully. On the other hand, like Bismarck, Oscar had a wide network of journalists, a web of agents and fine-tuned skills in manipulating public opinion.⁶² From his father Charles John, Oscar had learnt how to influence the press, but Swedish historians have disagreed as to whether it was Oscar who influenced public opinion or vice versa. At all events, the most tangible effect of the turbulence in the international press, which almost always emphasised the danger from Russia, was that it aroused Palmerston’s interest in Scandinavia. Proposals to counter the Russian danger revolved, however, always around Sweden-Norway’s commitment to the Western powers, the reconquest of Finland and the unification of Scandinavia.⁶³

Between the Hammer and the Anvil

While the Crimean War provided Sweden-Norway with some diplomatic room for manoeuvre, it threatened Denmark externally and further divided the country internally. At the beginning, a short-lived consensus prevailed about the policy of neutrality. Denmark was in no position to challenge a great power. The consequence was, however, that the state became isolated and was forced to surrender its Oresund customs duties. This critical situation resulted in the breakdown of the temporary domestic truce. The conservative unitary statists supported Russia and condemned the war as a revolutionary crusade. The national liberals and radicals supported Great Britain and France, and in the spring of 1854 Carl Ploug and Alfred Hage openly supported the idea that Denmark, alongside Sweden-Norway, should join the Western powers.⁶⁴

The position the Scandinavian states found themselves in was, however, very different. Danish diplomats complained that the Western powers were putting greater pressure on Denmark than on Sweden-Norway, while Swedish and Norwegian diplomats grumbled about the Russian mood music. It was almost inevitable that Denmark should be seen as Russia’s friend. Russia had saved Denmark during the First Schleswig War, had recreated the unitary state and protected it against Prussia and Austria. The government had no wish to provoke the great power that ensured the existence of the unitary state. The suspicion surrounding the Danish government was not only due to its dependency on Russia but also because four ministers were overt Russophiles and the heir presumptive had a warm personal relationship with the czar’s family. The change of government in December 1854 muted Western mistrust of Denmark, while the Russians feared that democratic principles had spread, that Scandinavianists had been given high office, and that the Countess Danner and the left wing had seized power or would do so. The Danish foreign ministers, the Dane Christian Bluhme and the Holsteiner Ludvig Scheele, did everything in their power to preserve neutrality. This the Russians accepted. Formally, so did the British, but their ambassador put informal pressure on the government. France, on the other hand, tried quite openly to force Denmark into the war. On the one hand, Denmark was promised that it would regain Norway, while on the other there were threats that the duchies would be handed over to Prussia. This situation made Denmark dependent on Sweden-Norway. If it relinquished its neutrality, it was generally accepted that Denmark would be forced to follow suit.⁶⁵

While Denmark’s difficult position and the formal game of diplomacy have been thoroughly accounted for, few historians have commented on the diplomacy being conducted behind the scenes. The Crimean War, the constitutional battle and Scandinavianism became intertwined when the hugely wealthy Scandinavianist, Alfred Hage, began pulling strings. In March 1854, the Copenhagen magnate and politician made contact with the British envoy, Andrew Buchanan. On behalf of the “National Party”, Hage inquired about Great Britain’s attitude to the new government. He felt it was in the Britain’s interests to see men in power who would support Britain. Buchanan declined Hage’s approach, but in his confidential report the envoy commented that the king seemed to be in favour of a change of government. Frederick VII’s vacillation might be the reason that the opposition wanted to win over the British. Another possibility was put on the table, when Buchanan was sought out by yet another “Eider Dane”, who offered Danish entry into the war if Denmark could incorporate Schleswig into the kingdom.⁶⁶

Buchanan wanted an alliance and found a change of government “highly desirable”. but he did not trust Hage and his circle, and Buchanan had no wish to get involved in the country’s internal affairs. Hage again sought out Buchanan in October, trying to arrange a meeting between the envoy and the opposition politicians D.G. Monrad, A.F. Tscherning and P.A. Tutein. Once again, the offer was brushed off, so Hage changed tack. Peter Browne had been British chargé d’affaires in Denmark in 1824–1852 and still had a country house north of Copenhagen. By his own account, Browne was the only man to cultivate relations with the “English party”, as he called the national liberals. That Brown was alone in doing so captures the fact that diplomacy was an aristocratic business, and even the British looked down on the Danish professors’ party. Hage also contacted Lord Clarendon. The Dane’s letter has been lost, but Browne’s reply still exists. The “English party” may have been the strongest within Danish politics but, as the future of the state dependent on the will of the great powers, a change of government would require moral support from Britain. This would create the closest bonds between “England and Scandinavia” and ensure that Denmark followed the British in every respect. The war with Russia and the constitutional battle gave the British a unique opportunity to increase their influence in Scandinavia.⁶⁷

The means to this end were apparent from a conversation that Browne had had with Hage. On behalf of the liberal group, Hage proposed an offensive and defensive alliance to be sealed by marriage between the son of the Danish heir presumptive, Prince Frederick, and one of Queen Victoria’s daughters. This union would save the June constitution and thwart Prussian attempts to annex the duchies. We do not know how Clarendon responded to Browne’s letter, but Browne wrote once again to the foreign minister in December 1854. Ørsted’s government had recently fallen, and now was the time according to the former chargé d’affaires to win Denmark over to an alliance. This judgement was premature. While there were forces in the government that clearly wished to take a different course, the new foreign minister, the Holstein unitary statist Ludvig Scheele, clung to the policy of neutrality.⁶⁸

This was the reason that the minister for Schleswig, Harald Raasløff, approached Buchanan in February 1855. He wanted to see an alliance with the British so that the state could be protected from Prussia. He claimed that several ministers shared his opinion and that they wanted to see the foreign minister removed. By the end of March, it had become clear that Raasløff was unable to topple Scheele. In all likelihood, this was because the foreign minister had the support of the court and particularly of the countess. However, there was no guarantee that this would continue. According to a report from the end of August, the British ambassador in Paris, Lord Cowley, recorded that Frederick VII had made it clear to the French foreign minister that he was prepared to follow Sweden into the war on Britain’s side. The message came via the king’s private secretary, Carl Berling. Although the Danish government knew nothing of it, Frederick was prepared to dismiss any minister who opposed his plan. Emperor Napoleon was said to have received the message with a smile and regretted that Denmark was not yet on France’s side in the war. Encouraged, Frederick sent Vice-Admiral Emil Mourier to the French capital to negotiate.⁶⁹

Cowley’s report raises two questions: Did the Danish-French negotiations take place? And, if so, how should we assess them? Cowley has traditionally been seen as the only source, but King Oscar also spoke of Danish-French negotiations having taken place in Copenhagen. This might simply be an example of the diplomatic rumour mill of the time. However, there is no doubt that Berling and Mourier were in Paris in the summer of 1855, and there is no reason to believe that Cowley would pull the wool over his own foreign minister’s eyes. If Cowley’s information is incorrect, it must be because he was fooled by the French. This is not impossible, but the Western powers had a common interest in drawing Scandinavia into the war, something they had just been negotiating with Sweden-Norway. The Polish-Danish historian Emanuel Halicz doubts whether the king could have carried out a policy without reference to the government. His Majesty had, however, already dismissed two governments, and Raasløff’s approach to the British shows that there were ministers who wanted to support a war policy. That Oscar I regarded Danish participation in the war as a possibility is clearly demonstrated by his questioning of the Danish envoy to Sweden about a common Scandinavian troop contribution to the war.⁷⁰

A month after Frederick VII’s last emissary had met with the emperor, Alfred Hage launched yet another plan for an alliance. The background for it was the government’s proposal for a unitary constitution, which meant that he once again attempted to approach Lord Clarendon. Fear of the resurrection of the unitary state, loss of the freedoms of the June constitution and German influence prompted Hage to present a radical offer. “Scandinavia” was prepared to place 100,000 soldiers and 15,000 sailors at the service of Great Britain. In return, Denmark would be allowed to unite with Sweden and Norway. “Scandinavia can be a good ally in the war and subsequently act as a sensible bulwark against Russia”. Denmark would only be able to thrive together with Sweden and Norway. In this way, day by day Scandinavianism made inroads both in Denmark and in Sweden. Hage said nothing about who was to govern the union, but on no account should it be “the princes of Glücksburg”. They were Russian puppets; “Pay them off and let them know they are unwanted”.⁷¹

The wealthy merchant’s letter was not sent immediately. Instead, alongside two letters from “eminent” Danes, it was attached to a letter sent by Browne to Clarendon in London on 7 November. There are three possible reasons for this delay. Firstly, a wish that the negotiations between King Oscar and the Western powers had reached a conclusion. Secondly, that the proposal should gain further credence by being backed by the assurances of “eminent” men. Thirdly, that he was waiting to send them until he was in London himself, when the matter could be discussed in person. Browne attempted to arrange a meeting with the foreign minister, but this was not possible before he travelled on to Italy two days later. A letter from Rome written at the beginning of January 1856 shows, however, that Clarendon replied to Browne, who once again offered to be of service to Great Britain in Scandinavia.⁷²

What Clarendon thought about Hage’s plan we do not know. Browne was given no official posts in Scandinavia, but this does not mean that Great Britain was unsympathetic. The British envoy, Sir Andrew Buchanan, declared to a Lauenburg estate owner that the British had no qualms about a strong Scandinavian power. Indeed, in the autumn of 1855 Lord Palmerston wanted to involve Scandinavia in the war against Russia and asked him and Clarendon to be open to the idea of a Scandinavian union when it was discussed with France the following year. The most likely explanation for this plan not having been pursued is that it came too late. Russia and France were looking for peace, just as Oscar and the Scandinavianists were wanting war. But this leaves us with three questions. Why was there such a difference between the plans of 1854 and 1855? Who was the power behind Hage? And were his initiatives linked to plans made by Frederick VII, Raasløff and Oscar I? On the basis of the sources available, it is not possible to give a clear answer.⁷³

It may, however, be possible to get close to one. The reason that the plans were different in these two years is due to developments in the Danish constitutional battle. The battle in 1854 was to prevent the re-introduction of absolutism. The men behind Hage were, by his own account, Tscherning, Monrad and Tutein. That is a radical, a pragmatic liberal and a moderate conservative. There was not the least whiff of Scandinavianism in the plans of 1854, nor were there in plans proposed by the moderate conservative Raasløff in the beginning of 1855. Moreover, the latter supported the unitary state, as did Tscherning. Hence, it is unlikely that they were involved in the plans proposed by Hage in the second half of 1855. These plans should be seen in the light of government’s plans for a new unitary constitution (the October constitution). While this did not reintroduce absolutism, it did severely limit political freedom. As a result, it pushed many radicals and national liberals in the direction of Scandinavianism. Hence, it is reasonable to suppose that the liberal Monrad was party to the plans laid in the summer and autumn of 1855. On 6 January 1856, the national liberal politician A.F. Krieger noted in his diary that Monrad had declared “that now the time had come when, if war broke out, the Scandinavian kingdom could and should be implemented”. This would happen with the help of the Western powers. It was true that the succession was determined by a protocol, but what had been determined by one protocol could be re-determined by another. Krieger later noted that, in the years that followed, Monrad regularly insisted that “if the war in 1856 had not been halted, the time would have come” to unite Scandinavia. Hage himself claimed in 1855 that he was speaking on behalf of the entire national liberal “party”. Whether this is true is unknown, but his plans accorded with the editorial line taken in Fædrelandet and with opinions on the left wing of the national liberals and with agrarian nationalists in Venstre, which had links to the court. In 1857, Hage served as the middleman between C.C. Hall, who was the most important right-wing national liberal, and the Swedish court.⁷⁴

These plans were probably linked to royal diplomacy during the summer of 1855. Oscar I is likely to have been informed about Danish-French negotiations, and both his plans and Frederick VII’s were based on a Scandinavian entry into the war. Danish participation reappears directly in Oscar’s war plans and is prominent in the Scandinavian press throughout 1855. Its articles appear to tie in closely with the king’s policy. The newspapers commented on opinions at the Swedish-Norwegian court, on the need for Denmark to follow Sweden-Norway into the war, on the possibility of altering the Danish succession and on the likelihood of the Western powers accepting a unified Scandinavia at a European peace congress.⁷⁵

The king’s connections and his use of Scandinavianist networks make it likely that he knew of Alfred Hage’s activities. In the summer and autumn of 1855, one of the king’s agents, Gustaf Lallerstedt, used his French and British connections to warn against Russia and to argue for a Scandinavian-Finnish union. He put his thoughts into print in the 404-page pamphlet written in French, Scandinavia, its fears and its hopes. This opus was published in February 1856 with support from King Oscar and attracted considerable attention. At the same time, propaganda and undercover diplomacy had already brought about a treaty between the united Scandinavian kingdoms and the Western powers. The November treaty brought Sweden-Norway close to the war—a war that would open the sluice gates for a revolution across the whole of Scandinavia, even though official Danish diplomacy was excluded. The treaty and the plans for alliance also reflect something else. They show that political Scandinavianism was consistently anti-Russian and that it was tied to the coattails of the Western powers.⁷⁶

A New Course

The November treaty was a treaty of integrity, in which Sweden-Norway made a commitment to Great Britain and France that it would not cede territory to Russia. Negotiations had been opened after Palmerston’s interest in Finnmark was aroused in the summer of 1855. After the allied triumphs of September, the negotiations changed gear. Oscar signalled to Napoleon III that he was now prepared to take part in the war on the side of the Western powers as long as they made significant troops available for operations in the Baltic area.

A draft treaty was placed before a joint Swedish-Norwegian council of state on 30 October. This was the first time the Norwegians was officially informed about an issue that had been steamrollered past Foreign Minister Stierneld. Both the Swedish and the Norwegian governments regarded the treaty the way the king intended, namely as a springboard for an offensive alliance with the Western powers. Nevertheless, it was the king’s evasion of his ministers that aroused the greatest indignation. Members of the Swedish and Norwegian governments were fully aware, however, that to reject the treaty would be tantamount to signalling that they had no need for French or British help in a war with Russia. This realisation also left many members of the two countries’ parliaments in favour of the treaty. However, they could agree with its critics that it would be wise to limit the king’s future sphere of activity in foreign affairs.⁷⁷

On 6 November, the French General François Canrobert, a hero of the Crimea, arrived in Stockholm, where he was received with pomp and circumstance.⁷⁸ Canrobert was in Stockholm to negotiate. The general explained to Oscar that Napoleon III wished to conclude the war with Russia but that, if the Russians proved to be stubborn, the allies would have to continue the war in the Baltic. Thus, when the treaty was signed on 23 November, King Oscar was convinced that this was a great leap towards war. Indeed, all parties regarded the treaty as a firm step towards Sweden-Norway’s entry into the war, and Britain commenced massive armaments to prepare for a major Baltic campaign in the coming spring. The Swedish and Norwegian governments were downcast, while the Danish envoy Wulf Scheel-Plessen sensed that something was brewing but without knowing exactly what it was. According to Canrobert and King Oscar’s plans, an attack on Åland, Finland and the Baltic by 163,000 Swedish-Norwegian and French troops would be supplemented by somewhere between 15,000 and 16,500 from Denmark. These numbers were repeated when Canrobert discussed next year’s allied campaign in the Baltic with British Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Saunders Dundas, commanding Britain’s Baltic Fleet, in Kiel on 30 November. The Russian governor-general in Finland, Friedrich Wilhelm von Berg, an astute if perpetually suspicious observer, linked the prospect of Sweden-Norway’s entry into the war with Scandinavianist designs. In other words, few doubted that Denmark would follow Sweden-Norway into the war, which suggests some link with the secret diplomacy pursued by Frederick VII and Alfred Hage. Scandinavianism obviously played a role in secret discussions about an alliance between the Scandinavian countries and the Western powers in 1855. But the Scandinavian governments knew nothing about it, it left relatively few traces in allied war planning, and it was in any event forgotten by posterity.⁷⁹

In Denmark’s situation, even the slightest diplomatic manoeuvre could backfire. In stark contrast to his reception in Stockholm, Canrobert was coolly received in Copenhagen. His task appears to have been to get a clear idea of the practical possibility of Denmark contributing to the allied operations in the Baltic. There were presumably military discussions, but foreign minister Scheele hurried to inform St. Petersburg that Denmark had done nothing wrong. It was, however, no coincidence that the national liberal press had put the thumbscrews on Scheele and was loudly lamenting that his foreign policy line appeared to be distinct from that of Sweden-Norway. Similar regrets were expressed by Swedish Scandinavianists. Their aim was clearly to have Denmark enter into the war along with Sweden-Norway to pave the way for Scandinavian union.⁸⁰

This was indeed how the Prussian envoy in Copenhagen read the situation. He thought that Denmark was about to enter the war through an alliance with Sweden, which he maintained would encourage Scandinavianism. The envoy had clearly sensed what national liberal politicians were striving for and feared that they would succeed in leading Denmark into the war were the conservative government to fall.⁸¹

When ratifications of the November treaty were exchanged in Stockholm on 17 December 1855, at which point the diplomatic corps was notified, it came as a shock for the Danish foreign ministry.⁸² King Oscar’s secretiveness may well have been due to his suspicion that certain Danish ministers were sympathetic towards the Russians. This had, in fact, been a recurring theme in reports from his envoy in Copenhagen. For Scheele, the treaty was a reminder of how isolated Denmark could risk becoming in international politics. On the Danish national liberal side, there was no disappointment. A Swedish-Norwegian entry into the Crimean War would leave Denmark facing a crucial choice and a potential crisis of government, which could pave the way for the national liberals into government. In that case Danish troops would certainly be fighting alongside Swedish-Norwegian on the side of the allies, which is what King Frederick VII appears to have wanted. A Swedish-Norwegian war against Russia, in which Denmark played its part, could become a war that united Scandinavia.

But it never came to war for the Scandinavian countries. On 17 January 1856, King Oscar learned that Russia had submitted to an Austrian ultimatum and consequently sued for peace. According to one of his sons, the king literally paled upon receiving the news. Not many had expected Russia to accept the humiliating negotiating conditions it was offered. In King Oscar’s eyes, the Austrian ultimatum was to be the spark that set the Baltic alight, but instead the treaty that was to have brought Sweden-Norway into the war contributed to concluding it. Faced with Sweden-Norway’s treaty with France and Britain, the Austrian ultimatum and a looming financial crisis, Czar Alexander II could see the writing on the wall and realised that the alternative to peace was an escalation of the war and potential relinquishing of substantial territories. The czar caved in, but Sweden-Norway would from now on have to reckon with a Russian neighbour with hostile intentions.⁸³

It was small comfort that the peace in Paris on 30 March 1856 turned the Åland islands into a demilitarised zone and thus moved Russian guns further away from Stockholm. Oscar’s more comprehensive wish list for conditions of peace was ignored by the western powers, and Sweden-Norway was not even invited to Paris. The value of Sweden-Norway’s November treaty with the Western powers was debatable but was nevertheless more than Denmark was left with. While Denmark had fallen out with no one, it had done no one any favours either. Therefore, the great powers did not feel they owed Denmark anything. This was particularly true of Russia, who regarded the Scandinavianist and national liberal tendencies in Danish politics with increasing suspicion. After the Crimean War, Russia no longer had the strength to stand as Denmark’s protector but was not sufficiently weakened for Sweden-Norway to feel secure.⁸⁴ “Russia is not sulking. She is gathering her strength”, warned the newly instated Russian foreign minister Aleksander Gorchakov.⁸⁵

King Oscar felt himself forced to do something about his damaged status at home and abroad, to say nothing of the security of his domains. He opened the doors of the government to the liberals in Sweden and played the Scandinavianist card. Scandinavianists were mobilised to campaign for the king in conditions reminiscent of 1848–1849, when there was much to suggest that King Oscar had aligned himself with the Scandinvianists. Moreover, Prince Oscar was sent to Paris, officially to congratulate Napoleon III on the baptism of his son but in reality to draw attention to the opportunity for a dynastic reshuffle in the Nordic countries. This was done with the agreement of Frederick VII, who was keen to avoid the ascension of his appointed successor to the Danish throne. In a private note in May 1856, King Oscar outlined his new course: “A new foundation must be laid for the political future of the united kingdoms [Sweden and Norway], a new path must be laid for the development of their spiritual and material forces. The rebirth of the Scandinavian people through closer intellectual, commercial and, ultimately, political union is the only salvation for the Nordic countries!” The royal policy had thus become Scandinavianist and Scandinavianism an end rather than a means.⁸⁶