1905 - A Peaceful Separation

By Øystein Sørensen. Taken from, and used with kind permission from, "The Norseman" no. 1-2004.

On June 7, 1905, the members of the Norwegian government held an emergency meeting with the members of parliament (Storting) with regard to the union between Sweden and Norway. Prime Minister Christian Michelsen, who had formed his national coalition government in March, declared that his government would resign. Because Swedish King Oscar II exercised power over Norway through the government, he lost his power when the government resigned. After it resigned, the Storting responded by adopting a declaration that conferred new powers upon the government and authorized it as the Government of Norway "to exercise, until further notice, the authority and power [that had been] vested in the King in accordance with the Constitution and the Laws of the Realm of Norway." In short, the Storting handed all power to the government, in effect dissolving the union between Sweden and Norway.

Thus Norway declared itself free of the union with Sweden, a union that had lasted for more than ninety years. But the action taken on June 7 by no means ended the dramatic events that were unfolding in 1905.

The union between Norway and Sweden was established in 1814. Norway was forced into this union. After Norway had been taken away from Denmark and handed over to the King of Sweden following the Peace of Kiel, the Norwegians revolted against the Swedes. The revolt resulted in the Norwegian Constitution of May 17, 1814. Sweden took up arms to secure its booty, and Norway had to accept a new union. But it was to be a loose union. The two kingdoms would have the same monarch, and they were to have a mutual diplomatic service. Not much more. Norway had internal self-rule in 1814. The union was more fully formalized in the so-called Riksakten (Document of the Realm) of 1815.

Nor was the relationship between the two union partners helped by the growth of strong protectionism in Sweden. In 1895, this led the Swedish parliament to repeal the laws governing economic relations between the two countries, a set of laws that in practice had created a Norwegian-Swedish common market. Before this, adherents of the union argued that it brought economic advantages. The repeal had a negative effect on some sectors of the Norwegian economy. After 1895, both Norway and Sweden readied themselves for military action. It is difficult to interpret this as anything other than an arms race between the union parties. This was most apparent when, in 1900, Norway began updating its old fortresses in Fredriksten and Kongsvinger and constructed several defense fortifications along the border with Sweden. These fortifications were, with good reason, a provocation against the union partner.

During the autumn of 1904 the crisis came to a head. Representatives of the two governments had negotiated long and hard to come up with a final solution concerning the issue of foreign policy and, more particularly, consular administration. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Erik Gustaf Boström, the unyielding attitude of the Swedish government provoked even the most faithful Norwegian adherents of the union. Early in 1905, it appeared as though the union was finished. On February 7, 1905, a joint meeting of the ministry of the two countries declared the negotiations officially closed. On March 11, 1905, the union-friendly Norwegian Prime Minister Francis Hagerup resigned and a new government was formed by his successor, Christian Michelsen.

The Norwegian national hero Fridtjof Nansen wrote a series of militant newspaper articles about Norwegian national honor and the need for immediate action. In 1905 public opinion abroad was uninformed about the relations between Norway and Sweden. On March 25, Nansen published an account of the union conflict in the London Times, and the paper supported it with a sympathetic editorial. It was also taken up by Le Temps, in Paris, in the Kölnische Zeitung and in many other leading newspapers. On June 7 Nansen published a small book: Norway and the Union with Sweden. In this book he gives an account of the origin and development of the Union, so that the causes of the conflict are made clear and the Norwegian claim understandable. The book appeared in English, German, French, and Norwegian. Through the educational work of Nansen and others, it began to dawn on Europe that Norway was not a subordinate country in the Union with the right to only a limited independence.

On May 17, 1905, Nansen held a speech in honor of the day in Norway's capital. In it he said, "A tiger will fight for its young as long as it can move a limb; and a people is surely not poorer spirited than a tiger. It will defend its independence and its hearth to the utmost of its abilities. Of this we are sure: come what may, we must and shall defend our independence and right of self-determination in our own affairs. On these rights we must now stand or fall."

In May 1905, the bill providing for the establishment of a Norwegian consular service was passed by the Norwegian parliament, a bill everyone knew King Oscar II would veto. The king's veto came on May 27. It was widely recognized the veto would result in a complete break between king and government-and between Sweden and Norway. The Norwegian cabinet refused to countersign the veto and handed in their resignations. Prime Minister Michelsen argued that according to the Norwegian Constitution, the King could exercise his royal functions only through a cabinet approved by the parliament, which he now lacked. Therefore he was no longer King and the union had ceased to exist. On June 7 the parliament declared the union with Sweden dissolved. The declaration by the Norwegian parliament was viewed in Sweden as a revolution. Swedish politicians and the Swedish press reacted violently. The question was: What would the Swedes would do?

Both Norway and Sweden sought to gain the support of the Great Powers in Europe, through propaganda and through diplomatic persuasion. Norway sent Nansen to Great Britain, where he helped win over British support and sympathy for Norway's position. Traditionally, Sweden had a good relationship with Germany, so concentrated its efforts there. But none of the Great Powers wanted to get involved in a war in Scandinavia.

The Swedish parliament (riksdagen) held an extraordinary session and formed a special committee whose members concluded that Sweden, in principle, could accept the breakup of the union, but not based on the action taken by the Norwegian parliament on June 7. The committee demanded that the Norwegians hold a national plebiscite, and that conditions on the dissolution of the union be negotiated. The Swedish government, however, would not accept the committee's conclusions and resigned. A new coalition government, led by conservative Christian Lundeberg, was appointed, and the parliament accepted the recommendations of the special committee.

The Norwegian plebiscite was held on August 13. The Norwegians voted 368,208 to 184 in favor of breaking up the union. Though women did not have the right to vote, about 250,000 Norwegian women signed a petition that supported the break up.

Norwegian and Swedish negotiators met in Karlstad, Sweden on August 31. The tough negotiations tackled delicate issues like the status of Norwegian fortresses. The Swedes demanded that they be dismantled. In addition, they insisted on a demilitarized zone on both sides of the border. While the politicians carried on their negotiations in Karlstad, the situation grew very tense. Both Norway and Sweden began military mobilization, even though they tried to conceal this from each other. The negotiators and many others were aware that war could break out at any moment. Following hours of work, the negotiators agreed to what would be called the Karlstad agreement.

The agreement represented a compromise. It established a demilitarized zone on both sides of the border, as far north as the 61st parallel. That meant that the new border defenses built by the Norwegians would have to be dismantled, but Swedes agreed to allow historic sections of the fortresses Fredriksten and Kongsvinger to stand. Both parties agreed that future conflicts between them would be settled by an international court. The Swedish Sami reindeer herders were guaranteed the right to let their reindeer graze on the Norwegian side of the border. But the specifics in this matter were not determined until later. The agreement was controversial in Norway, especially the matter of dismantling the border defenses. The opponents felt it was a sell-out to the nation's honor. But the agreement was at last approved by the Norwegian parliament with 101 for and 16 against. The Swedish parliament accepted the Karlstad agreement without taking a vote on October 13. With this, all obstacles were removed for a formally correct dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. On October 16 the Swedish parliament voted to recognize Norway as an independent nation, and on October 27 the Karlstad agreement was finally signed and Oscar II abdicated the throne of Norway.

In Norway there was debate about the form of government. In a new plebiscite on November 12 and 13, 259,563 persons voted for a monarchy and 69,264 for a republic. But, by then several prominent republicans in Norway, Fridtjof Nansen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson among them, encouraged people to vote for the monarchy for tactical reasons, primarily to gain the support of Great Britain. A new candidate for the Norwegian throne, Prince Carl of Denmark, had already been approached before the Karlstad agreement had been signed. Carl was married to Maud, third daughter of King Edward VII of Great Britain. He and his family arrived in Norway on November 25. Two days later he swore an oath of allegiance to the Norwegian Constitution, taking for himself the name Haakon VII. How could Norway break away from Sweden without an armed conflict? There were several contributing factors. The main one is that the individuals involved in negotiating the separation were willing to compromise. In Sweden, many people objected to a war with Norway. This was particularly the case with the labor movement, but also large segments of the liberal wing in Swedish politics. Another factor that helped secure a compromise is that the union between Sweden and Norway was so loose that the Great Powers had no interest in any war. There was, after all, no conflict concerning territories between the two countries, and there were no problems involving national minorities. The attitude of the royal house was also a factor. The elderly King Oscar II was disappointed and bitter, but he was also in poor health and obviously a tired man in 1905 who was resigned to giving up Norway without a fight. In addition, his son, Crown Prince Gustaf, worked actively toward a peaceful dissolution of the union.

Had the negotiations at the Karlstad conference failed, it is very possible that there would have been a war. Some people have speculated how that war would have turned out.

Norway had been building up her defenses since 1895. She had new ironclad ships and defense fortifications along her border. But Sweden had been doing the same thing, and the Swedish war machine was superior to that of the Norwegians. One can imagine two scenarios.

One possibility is that the Norwegian forces could have stalled the Swedish attack, and bought enough time for the Great Powers to step in and conclude a peace treaty. Another possibility is that superior Swedish military could have been victorious. In that case, Swedish forces might have occupied Kristiania (Oslo) and the entire southeastern part of Norway relatively quickly.

But the question remains: What would they have done then? The occupiers would have found few if any willing collaborators in such a situation. Norwegian forces-both regular and guerilla-would be able to continue to fight with bases in remote areas. Norway would, in short, have become a quagmire for the Swedes.

On the whole, it is difficult to see what Sweden would have gained by such a war. Most of the Swedish politicians and military men understood this-even those who had been very hostile toward Norway. Like the Norwegians, the Swedes came to believe that the best solution to the dispute was to end the union.