The Scandinavian Revival and the War
I
THE recent meeting of the three Scandinavian monarchs at Malmö, the historic Swedish seaport opposite Copenhagen, has moved but slightly a world engrossed with the greatest struggle of recorded history. Nevertheless, this conference may well presage a permanent union of the Scandinavian North as significant for future history as the battles now raging in Flanders and Poland. When we recall the great part that Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, despite their remorseless internecine wars, have played in history, the possible union of these intensely virile peoples cannot be disregarded.
It has been quite the fashion to regard the Scandinavian states as belonging to that category of ‘little nations’ whose day is over; whose very existence, indeed, depended upon mutual jealousies of greater neighbors or sentimental consideration for a heroic past. That Scandinavia could ever develop within itself such renewed national energy as might assure its independent future, probably occurred to few persons who are unfamiliar with Scandinavia’s somewhat obscure internal history.
To be sure, this is not strange. A generation ago most Scandinavians held similar opinions. Throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century the prevailing note in Scandinavia’s political thought was a pessimistic acceptance of national insignificance, a desire to be let alone, a tendency to seek safety in external guaranties rather than self-defense. Sweden continued stunned by the Russian conquest of Finland in 1809, Finland being considered an integral portion of the fatherland rather than a dependency. Of course the Vienna Congress had handed Sweden Norway as compensation, but this ‘compensation’ proved the cruelest of delusions, for the Norwegians refused to forget the age-long blood-feud with their Swedish kinsmen, and both peoples consumed their energies in chronic bickerings, culminating in the violent separation of 1905. For Denmark, also, the nineteenth century was a time of loss and sorrow. Forced to cede Norway to Sweden in 1814, she lost Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia just fifty years later. Amid those clashing imperialisms of world-empires which marked the closing decades of the last century, the lot of the Scandinavian peoples appeared at first sight to offer little save vain regrets for a dead past.
Nevertheless it was during just this period that the Scandinavian states laid the foundations for that national revival which has been one of the most extraordinary phenomena of recent years. These foundations were in the first instance economic. A century ago Scandinavia was profoundly poor. Sweden, with her cold, frost-bound soil, could never hope greatly to extend her cultivable area. Denmark, though possessed of rich farm-land, was very small and had suffered greatly from the Napoleonic wars. Norway was but a strip of barren mountains. However, all three peoples proceeded resolutely to the development of what they had, and the economic tendencies of the nineteenth century presently brought into play latent resources unknown or unutilizable before. Rapid steamship and railway transportation gave Denmark an inexhaustible market for her farm and dairy products in England and Germany. These same transportation facilities unlocked Sweden’s vast mineral wealth, carrying iron ore and timber from her remote mountains to the seaboard and thence to the outer world. In Norway the steamship developed the Arctic fisheries and bore to her remotest fjords annual freights of tourists with their welcome tithes of gold. Furthermore, for Sweden and Norway, electricity presently wrought as great a miracle as had steam. The myriad torrents and waterfalls of these mountain lands became sources of wealth as well as things of beauty; and, already richly dowered with iron as they were, this ‘ white coal ’ gave Sweden and Norway the second prerequisite of modern industrial life. Soon factories sprang up everywhere, and changed Sweden from an agricultural to an industrial land, with Norway following close behind. Lastly, as befitted the sons of the Vikings, all three peoples remembered the open sea, Norway especially building up a great merchant-marine. In fine, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the poor and backward Scandinavia of former days had been transformed into one of the most prosperous regions of the earth, striding forward daily in wealth and population.
The mental and spiritual consequences of all this were as obvious as they were inevitable. The Scandinavian peoples ceased to gaze sadly backward into the past. Furthermore, as they looked upon their works, they felt a growing pride in themselves and in their type of civilization. It was their intelligence, their virile energy, which had transformed these apparently unpromising Northlands into realms of prosperity and plenty. It was their character which had made them pioneers in the solution of many vexed political and social problems. It was their genius which had produced masterpieces of literature and music. These achievements, together with a glorious past, convinced the Scandinavians that theirs was a race-soul of rare endowment, whose rich promise must be preserved and developed to the full. Accordingly, the old pessimism disappeared before a vigorous, optimistic nationalism. Littérateurs and savants no longer professed cosmopolitan doctrines or followed French and German canons: instead they became consciously, aggressively, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians. Even those who realized the somewhat narrowing effects of such intensive development of the national consciousness asserted that neither cosmopolitanism nor the predominance of any of the great world-cultures could be tolerated if these small nations were to develop freely their peculiar individualities.
It was with such high hopes for their material and spiritual future that the Scandinavian peoples looked out over the new century. But, as they gazed, they grew troubled. While they were busied laying down the bases of national revival, theouter world had been moving fast. Huge empires had spread over the face of the earth, nearing, clashing, striking bright friction-sparks with every flash. Everywhere economic and colonial rivalries were becoming keener, race-hatreds growing deeper. Europe already suffered from that ominous malaise which heralded the present world-war. A hungry, predatory spirit was abroad. It was an evil day for the ‘little peoples.’ The Scandinavians felt their danger and scanned the horizon for latent perils.
Two dangers patently menaced the future peace of the Scandinavian peoples: Germany on the south, and Russia on the east. From the standpoint of Scandinavian unity this duality of danger was unfortunate. A single peril threatening all alike would have driven these kindred peoples forthwith together by a common instinct of self-preservation. As it was, Denmark alone felt herself menaced by the German, whom Sweden and Norway considered a possible counterpoise to Russian aggression; while this same Russia was to Denmark a potential ally against her German neighbor. For this reason the current of national revival, though psychologically identical in all three countries, had such diverse external stimuli that separate discussion becomes a necessity.
II
Modern Denmark long lived under the shadow of the Schleswig-Holstein War and its momentous consequences. Prior to that disaster Denmark cut a very respectable figure in the northern world. The amorphous mass of disunited Germany seemed impotent for aggression, and since it possessed no sea-power, the German coasts lay open before the Danish fleet. The triumph of German unity, however, left Denmark in a position of hopeless inferiority. True, the loss of Schleswig-Holstein as a whole was not keenly regretted. These provinces were overwhelmingly Germanic in blood, and all Danes realized the impossibility of keeping one million five hundred thousand Germans from union with their race-brethren. Nevertheless, in that portion of Schleswig just south of the new frontier dwelt some hundred and fifty thousand true Danes, and persistent and tactless efforts to germanize these stubborn folk kept alive Danish resentment for the unhappy past.
Moreover, besides this somewhat sentimental consideration, there were very practical grounds for dreading further German encroachment. Denmark, by her mere geographical situation, held the keys to the Baltic. In case of war with France or England, Germany might deem the prevention of a naval descent upon her long Baltic coast so vital a matter that the occupation of Copenhagen would appear a prime necessity. On the other hand, should Denmark attempt to close the Baltic straits to Western fleets, or even to preserve a strict neutrality, she might receive the cruel chastisement twice dealt her by England in the Napoleonic wars.
In view of these ominous possibilities what was Denmark to do? Opinions varied extremely and were much influenced by considerations of internal politics. The Conservatives, heirs of the proud, aristocratic tradition, held that Denmark should arm to the limit of her strength, preferring to fall, if fall she must, in the glorious cause of duty and national honor. On the other hand the Liberals, exponents of cosmopolitan pacifist hopes and national pessimism, asserted that Denmark was too small and poor to maintain her neutrality by force. Instead, therefore, of bankrupting herself on armaments which would surely prove inadequate in the hour of trial, Denmark should devote her slender revenues to internal development.
Up to the early years of this century the pacifists seemed to be gaining ground against the adherents of armed neutrality. Both foreign and domestic events favored the pacifist contentions, at least for the moment. The opening of the Kiel Canal in 1895 distinctly diminished the German peril. Henceforth the German navy could sail freely from the Baltic to the ocean without passing Copenhagen, while Western fleets might be deterred from raids in the Baltic by the threat of German attacks upon their rear. In Denmark itself a widened franchise had admitted the proletariat to public life, and Socialist deputies with cosmopolitan theories and absorbed in social reform brought powerful aid to the pacifist idea.
However, before long there came a turn in the tide. Denmark, as we have seen, had gained enormously in wealth and prosperity. New generations who had never known the dark days of the Schleswig-Holstein War had come to the fore: generations proud of Danish culture, confident in Denmark’s future. These men took up the patriotic watchword, not in the grim spirit of the old aristocrat Conservatives ready to fall in a hopeless fight for the national honor, but with the proud conviction that Denmark had grown strong and rich enough to maintain her neutral dignity in arms. Pointing with alarm to the solemn warnings then passing before their eyes, — russification of Finland, British conquest of the little Boer Republics, threatened partition of unarmed China, — the Danish patriots begged their Liberal and Socialist fellow countrymen to eschew the dangerous chimera that small defenseless states could safely exist amid hungry imperialisms and the clash of world-empires. Indeed, the whole course of recent history tended to drive this teaching home. In 1905 occurred the first of those great European crises foreshadowing the present catastrophe. During those tense months a British fleet swept defiantly into the Baltic, while a German battle-squadron answered this demonstration by paying a visit to Copenhagen. In this critical hour the spirit of young Denmark stood revealed. Old-line Liberals and Socialists, it is true, talked of non-resistance, international neutralization, or alliance with some Great Power, according to their respective personalities. Georg Brandes advised an English protectorate; others counseled a German alliance and the closing of the Baltic in time of war. But these voices were lost in the full-toned cry of patriotic exaltation, demanding the maintenance of absolute, unpledged neutrality, and unsparingly condemning all suggestions of foreign entanglements which should drag Denmark in the wake of some world-power and make her the battleground of warring empires. As Copenhagen’s leading newspaper expressed it at the time of the English and German naval demonstrations, ‘We shall receive both fleets courteously — and with no illusions. England has bombarded Copenhagen, Germany has dismembered our territory. We know that both things may happen again.’
The 1905 crisis passed, but the air refused to clear, and from that time on Europe was never free from rumors of war. The Danish Liberals made grudging concessions to the cry for national defense, but the patriots’ battle was not easily won. The Socialists obstinately opposed all military programmes, and even in Conservative ranks many tight-fisted peasant deputies shrank from the prospect of fresh loans and increased taxation. However, the national spirit was in no mood for halfmeasures. The Agadir crisis of 1911 caused a fresh outburst of patriotic feeling, and when the Danish Parliament still paltered, the country showed its temper in no uncertain fashion. A great popular subscription bought the heavy artillery refused by Parliament; a ‘volunteer movement’ supplemented the standing army and proved its value beside the regulars in the manæuvres of 1912. Even the ‘boy scouts’ trained with the idea of fitting themselves for the hour of national peril. The fatal summer of 1914 found Denmark awake and undaunted.
III
Before we discuss the events immediately preceding the recent Conference of Malmö, a brief survey of Swedish and Norwegian affairs seems necessary. Like Denmark, the northern Scandinavian states were absorbed in their local economic and political problems throughout the nineteenth century, the continuous quarrels of these ill-assorted partners giving them scant leisure for a study of external relations. Not till the year 1899 did the Russian peril loom insistently on the eastern horizon. Of course statesmen had long foreseen the latent danger of Muscovite aggression, and as far back as 1855, at the time of the Crimean War, England and France had signed a treaty pledging armed assistance to Sweden in case of Russian attack. Up to 1899, however, the Swedish people had felt no particular uneasiness on this score, for the very good reason that the Russian Empire stopped at the outskirts of St. Petersburg, the land facing Sweden across the narrow Bothnian Gulf being not strictly Russian territory at all, but the ‘Grand Duchy of Finland.’ At the time of the Russian invasion of 1809, the Finns had threatened war to the death rather than submit to unrelieved Muscovite domination, and Czar Alexander I had bought their surrender by the grant of full local autonomy, Finland being erected into a grand duchy of which the Russian Czars were to be grand dukes. Thus, bound to Russia only by a personal union, and possessing its own constitution, its own laws, and even its own army, Finland made a perfect ‘ buffer state ’ between the Scandinavian countries and their Russian neighbor.
After 1899, however, this condition of things was violently altered. In that year Czar Alexander III issued his famous ‘military rescript’ assimilating the Finnish forces to the Russian army. This flagrant breach of his ducal oath infuriated the Finns, and the stubborn land braced itself for passive resistance. But the stern autocrat was not to be turned from his purpose. Under the arbitrary rule of Governor-General Bobrikoff Finland’s liberties were menaced by a ruthless russification, and the civilized world soon rang with tales of Cossack violence and brutality.
To the outer world the russification of Finland signified only the irritation of a centralizing autocracy at the proximity of an autonomous, liberty-loving people. But to Sweden and Norway it meant a threat to national life. Across that Gulf of Bothnia whose narrow waters often froze over in winter, Sweden saw rising a huge Russian intrenched camp; when her eyes turned to the far north fear became downright terror. The outer world might shrug its shoulders at Russian‘stupidity’ in turning Finland from a contented, loyal dependency into a hotbed of revolutionary despair. Sweden, however, felt that, whatever else Russian statesmen might be, they were no fools, — that they would never have taken this step unless deep ulterior motives lay behind. And just such motives were discernible on the Russo-Norwegian frontier. Norway stretches to the Arctic Circle, yet despite its high latitude the waters of the Gulf Stream keep its deep fjords always free from ice. Now the keynote of Russian policy has ever been a determination to reach a warm-water port on the open sea. For this she fought Turkey two hundred years; for this she built four thousand miles of railroad to Port Arthur and waged her terrific duel with Japan. Yet here, at her very doors, is her supreme heart’s-desire — an open window on the Atlantic Ocean. Northern Norway is backed, not by Sweden, but by Russia. At one point in particular a long tongue of Russian territory reaches within eighteen miles of the Lyngen Fjord, near whose mouth lies the port of Tromsö — a splendid haven which a few heavy guns would transform into an impregnable base for Russian battle-fleets. Furthermore, dangerously near by is Sweden’s border province of Norrland, containing her chief treasure, the richest iron-ore deposits in the world. Before 1899 these were largely academic questions; but now a friendly buffer state had turned into a Russian province flooded with Russian troops. Even the factor of remoteness was eliminated, for Russia at once built a strategic railroad across the dismal wastes of Northern Finland right up to the Swedish frontier.
Nevertheless, Sweden met her danger with unflinching courage. As in Denmark, growing wealth and population had begotten a confidence impossible half a century before. In 1901 began the reorganization of the Swedish army and navy, the building of a railroad to the Russian border, and the heavy fortification of Boden, the strategic key to the Swedish North. Sweden was further encouraged by the continued existence of the Anglo-French guaranty treaty of 1855. Of course France, Russia’s ally since 1896, could probably not be counted on to the end; but England was at that time still anti-Russian and would certainly have fought for Scandinavian integrity.
High as was Sweden’s determination, however, it was destined to be sorely tried by a whole series of discouraging events. In 1905 came the Norwegian revolution. This intensely individualistic folk best represents that local separatism, so deep in the Scandinavian nature, which has hitherto wrecked the cause of union and consumed Scandinavia’s strength in internecine broils. To the Norwegians, separation from Sweden seemed far more important than future difficulties with distant Russia, now absorbed by the Japanese War and domestic revolution. Accordingly they grasped the occasion, took the plunge, and declared their independence. In Sweden, Norwegian secession was greeted, not merely with rage, but with positive horror. Intent as they had been on the Russian peril, this act seemed to Swedes nothing short of race-treason in face of the enemy. A wave of fury swept the country, and voices were actually raised for acquiescence in Russia’s Norwegian designs in return for a Muscovite guarantee of Swedish integrity. This movement was strengthened by the abrogation of the Anglo-French treaty of 1855. The chief motive for this treaty had been the exclusion of Russia from an icefree Norwegian port on the Atlantic Ocean. But now that Norway was an independent state, the pact with Sweden ceased to have any such meaning. Accordingly, in November, 1907, England, France, Germany, and Russia signed an instrument mutually guaranteeing Norway’s independence and territorial integrity, and in April, 1908, the treaty of 1855 was abrogated. However, this left Sweden with no guaranty whatever against Russia, while the whole trend of European politics made it more and more clear that she could not expect even probable help from her former guarantors. France certainly would never embroil herself with Russia over the Norrland iron mines. As to England, once Sweden’s tower of strength, she was moving fast toward reconciliation with Russia. Germany now occupied England’s exclusive attention, and Russia might henceforth be permitted many things which in other days would have been deemed just cause for war. In short, Sweden suddenly felt quite alone in the world.
It is not strange that this unfavorable state of affairs led to an internal crisis of acute intensity. As in Denmark, there had always been a Liberal party condemning the principle of national defense and claiming that safetylay in external guarantees or international neutralization. Hitherto the Swedish Liberals had been a minority party. But in 1909 came universal suffrage and the consequent admission of Sweden’s large working-class to parliamentary life. In the great industrial centres Socialism of a very radical type had taken root. Accordingly the elections of 1911 saw the Conservatives swept from power before a LiberalRadical coalition having a working understanding with the Socialist elements. This political overturn had a pronounced effect upon the handling of the problem of national defense. The Radicals were of course pacifists at heart, while their Socialist allies demanded nothing short of immediate and complete disarmament. The issue was soon raised in an acute form. The previous Conservative government had approved a comprehensive plan of military and naval reorganization worked out by a board of expert investigators. The new cabinet, headed by Staaff, the Radical leader, referred the matter to another board of inquiry, and even refused credits for the construction of a battleship on which preliminary work had already begun.
To the Conservatives this was an open declaration of war. At that very hour Europe, then in the throes of the Agadir crisis, seemed trembling on the edge of the abyss. That the RadicalSocialists should choose this moment for beginning Sweden’s disarmament infuriated the Conservatives past endurance. They determined to fight the issue to a finish. In January, 1912, Sven Hedin, the noted explorer and the most popular man in Sweden, published his Word of Warning, a ringing appeal to arm against the Russian peril. The success of this little book was tremendous. A million copies were sold, and when a popular subscription was opened to raise funds for the battleship refused by Parliament, over five million dollars was raised in a short time. When we remember that Sweden’s population is only five and one half million souls, the full significance of these figures becomes apparent. However, despite all these evidences of patriotic feeling, Premier Staaff still procrastinated. It was at this feverish moment that the spark was struck which fired the train of patriotic indignation. For years it had been an open secret that Sweden was flooded with Russian spies. But early in 1914 the Swedish secret service unravelled the threads of this espionage system, and caught no less a personage than the Russian Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of the Duke of Söermanland, second son of Sweden’s King! Exactly what was discovered we of course do not know, but the charges must have been both well-founded and serious, for Maria Pavlovna was incontinently shipped back to Russia and divorced immediately thereafter.
The effect of this disclosure may be imagined. A wave of wrath rolled over Sweden from one end to the other. On February 6 thirty thousand peasants, representing every province, marched in solemn procession through the streets of Stockholm and petitioned the King to put the country in a proper state of defense. This demonstration was deeply significant. The Swedish ‘peasants,’ a particularly fine class of freehold farmers akin to the old English yeomanry, have played a prominent part in Swedish history, and have always been considered the backbone of the nation. The Socialists, it is true, countered with a pacifist parade, but the affair fell flat and merely provoked a second patriotic demonstration of the United Swedish students organized in the ‘Union of Upsala,’ while three hundred thousand Swedish women petitioned the King to establish universal, long-term military service and implored him not to send untrained to battle their husbands, sons, and brothers.
The crisis now reached its climax. In his reply to the students’ demonstration King Gustaf promised to do his utmost to further the patriotic cause. This infuriated the Radical-Socialist deputies, who charged the King with abusing his prerogative by thus implying that he condemned the policy of his ministers. Violent scenes occurred in Parliament. Deputies denounced ‘personal rule,’ and in extreme Socialist quarters voices called for the Republic. Premier Staaff requested the King to explain away his words, and when King Gustaf refused, the Staaff cabinet resigned and appealed to the country.
The spring elections, however, showed that Sweden approved the principles and attitude of her King. In the new Parliament the Conservatives had a working plurality. The outbreak of the European war thus found Sweden in patriot hands. That the tide of national feeling continues to rise is shown by the fact that a network of women’s rifle-clubs is spreading over the country; at this hour a large portion of Sweden’s womanhood is learning the use of weapons and the rudiments of military drill.
One thing must have greatly heartened Sweden in her bold facing of present perils, — her reconciliation with Norway. Fortunately for both countries the hostility of 1905 was not of long duration. A little sober reflection showed Sweden that she and Norway must stand or fall together; that Russian annexation of Tromsö would spell the ultimate doom of her own northern provinces.
As to the Norwegians, now that their country was at last their very own they became more jealous of its integrity, while the course of European politics soon made this integrity increasingly uncertain. The instrument of 1907 was in some respects less satisfactory than the treaty of 1855. It contained no explicit obligation of foreign aid in case of violation, and it did not textually forbid indirect encroachments, such as a Russian ninety-nineyears ‘lease’ of Tromsö on the Port Arthur model.
What disturbed Norwegians most, however, was the feeling that they could no longer count absolutely upon England. The Persian affair made a very bad impression. England had guaranteed Persia’s independence and integrity as explicitly as she had Norway’s. And yet, to keep Russia in line against Germany, England now abetted the Bear in virtually wiping Persia from the list of independent nations. Suppose that some fine day Russia should name a lease of Tromsö harbor as the price of campaigns in Germany! Might not England yield, as she had capitulated over Persia? Like Sweden, Norway began to feel alone in the world, and, since misery loves company, old feuds quickly vanished before the consciousness of common interests and race-identity. In the spring of 1914 the dead past was formally buried by Sven Hedin’s journey to Christiania and Nansen’s return visit to Stockholm, when, amid cheers and ovations, Swedish-Norwegian solidarity was solemnly proclaimed.
IV
And, as the Russian peril has reconciled these ancient enemies, so the European cataclysm seems to be now welding a union of all the Scandinavian peoples. Of course this has been the ideal of northern statesmen for centuries. Only last spring Sven Hedin was preaching this doctrine, though the political corollaries of his plan made it unacceptable to both Norway and Denmark. Ever since the Anglo-Russian reconciliation of 1909, Sven Hedin, like Professor Fahlbeck and many other leaders of Swedish public opinion, has openly favored a German entente, asserting that Germany alone prevented a Russian mastery of the Baltic which would spell Sweden’s doom. Accordingly Sven Hedin has hinted plainly that his proposed Scandinavian union should be on close terms with Germany and her allies. Here, however, neither Norway nor Denmark could follow. Norway could under no circumstances gratuitously defy England. Not only would such action mean a Russian seizure of Tromsö; it would also bring English cruisers up Norway’s undefended fjords, which would literally cut her to pieces.
As to Denmark, a German alliance would threaten her national identity with slow absorption into her huge southern neighbor. True, since the beginning of the present war, Denmark feels her neutrality more menaced by England than by Germany. Winston Churchill’s celebrated ‘rat-digging’ speech clearly shows England’s furious determination to get at the German fleet. A frontal attack on Germany’s North Sea coast appears almost an impossibility, but Denmark dreads the day when England’s volunteer millions shall be ready to take the field. Just north of the German Schleswig border lies the fine Danish harbor of Esbjerg, — an ideal base for a British land campaign against Germany’s naval lifeline, the Kiel Canal. Still, the fact that England may attempt to seize Esbjerg is no reason why Denmark should make such a descent certain by forthwith throwing in her lot with Germany.
From all this tangle of interests and perils what is the lesson for the northern peoples? Obviously, the Scandinavian union apparently foreshadowed by the recent Conference of Malmö. By a mutual guarantee of their respective territories these peoples would do much to avert the perils that now menace their separate identities. All three nations at heart desire the same thing, — the maintenance of strict neutrality. None of them wishes to fish in troubled waters: Swedes and Danes alike realize that Finland and Schleswig-Holstein would be elf’s gifts, sure to be lost in disastrous wars of revenge. A united Scandinavia, bent solely on neutrality, however, would be the best guaranty for the peace of the North. The close coöperation of these eleven million people, well armed, full of courage, and known for splendid fighters, should present so stern a front that neither of the coalitions now rending Europe would dare disturb Scandinavia’s integrity or vital interests.