The Scandinavian Alliance

By early 1863, the Danish-German conflict was coming close to its point of culmination. This chapter first discusses how leading and increasingly desperate Danish politicians were prepared to offer Sweden-Norway a Scandinavian union and crown in return for a military alliance, as well as Danish measures to separate out the duchy of Holstein through the so-called March Declaration, further aggravating the conflict with the German Confederation. Meanwhile, the Polish uprising in January 1863 seemed to bring Europe closer to general war. On the one hand, this complicated relations between France and Britain and their stance towards the Danish-German conflict. On the other hand, it had Charles XV spoiling for war, it being against Russia or Germany, putting further pressure on the Swedish-Norwegian government. When in July 1863 Charles virtually offered Denmark an alliance, his foreign minister caved in and opened formal negotiations. The chapter discusses how the alliance came about and was negotiated, and how it divided the Swedish and Norwegian governments. Yet, rather than regarding the Scandinavian alliance as being immediately shot down by democratic, peace-loving and responsible ministers—like traditional Scandinavian historiography has habitually done—this chapter argues that the question of the alliance, however complicated it was, remained on the table and thus fed into the policy of the Danish government when constitutional reform in November brought Denmark and the German Confederation to the brink of war.