Hard Times

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.