Disillusionment and Years of Conflict, 1884– 1905

chapter 3 Disillusionment and Years of Conflict, 1884– 1905 In 1885, growing tensions between Great Britain and Russia ended a decade of relative ease and no foreign threat to Sweden-Norway. The two great powers ultimately clashed in Afghanistan in the so- called Panjdeh Incident on 30 March 1885. The Russian Empire had been advancing into central and south- ern Asia since 1839, and it pushed on to Afghanistan in the early 1880s. Great Britain considered the advance a threat to India, and quickly entered into discussions about the Afghan border with the Russians in 1882. An agreement on a boundary commission was reached in the summer of 1884, but the Russians kept driving southwards. In March 1885, they crushed the Afghan forces and annexed the Panjdeh district before the commissioners had arrived. The Brit- ish prepared for war, but the issue was eventually settled following the inter- vention of the Amir of Afghanistan.1 Before this solution was reached, however, the strained relations between London and St. Petersburg had transferred to the European territories. With the Baltic Sea forming a natural arena for a war between Russia and Great Britain, Sweden- Norway found itself in the most precarious situation it had been in since the Berlin Congress of 1878. The Swedish-Norwegian government ordered military preparedness when it learned of the confrontation between the British and the Russians, and quickly decided on the rearmament of what was left of its navy and the reinforcement of Gotland’s defences. It also revised its neutrality policy to better support Russia’s interests after Russia’s foreign minister, Nikolay Girs, told the Swedish-Norwegian minister in St. Petersburg, Frederik Knut Due, that his country expected Sweden- Norway not to repeat the pro- British attitude it had displayed during the Crimean War.2 Although a new war between Great Britain and Russia would be avoided in the end, it became increasingly clear that while Bismarck’s system of alliances had helped maintain Germany’s dominance, it had not diminished the risk of war, and had thus failed in one of its two major goals.3 Over the next few years, tensions between the European great powers increased, fuelling anxiety 1 On the incident, see Christopher Snedden, Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris (Lon- don: Hurst, 2015), 103– 104. 2 Lindberg, Den svenska utrikespolitikens historia, 76– 80 and 106. 3 Klaus Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler 1871– 1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags- Anstalt, 1995), 95– 146. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | DOI:10.1163/9789004414389_005 Disillusionment and Years of Conflict, 1884–1905 101 in Sweden and Norway about renewed foreign threats. In December 1888, Os- car received a letter from Berlin in which the new Kaiser, Wilhelm ii, told him that he expected a war on two fronts against France and Germany’s ally, Rus- sia. The Kaiser relieved Bismarck of his duties in 1890, and Germany entered a naval arms race with Britain. He also rejected a prolongation of the secret Reinsurance Treaty between Austria- Hungary, Germany and Russia offered by Tsar Alexander iii, allowing France to break out of its isolation by allying with Russia. Britain maintained its non- alignment, but saw its colonial interests increasingly clashing with those of France.4 As a result of these developments, by the early 1890s a growing number of Swedish- Norwegian decision- makers considered the need to revise their stance on neutrality.5 This was a more com- plicated and threatening world for the smaller European states. In Sweden and Norway, old discussions about the status of the Baltic Sea, the Öresund and Denmark’s neutrality resurfaced as a result of Germany’s arma- ment. At the same time, the Nordic Union was shaken by a renewed domestic crisis. The discord between Sweden and Norway widened when a statement by Swedish Prime Minister Gustaf Åkerhielm in the first chamber of the Swedish parliament sparked controversy. During a debate on the duration of mandato- ry military service on 3 May 1891, Åkerhielm made a comment about conscripts speaking Swedish ‘both towards the east and the west if necessary’.6 Norwe- gian anti- unionists viewed his words as a subtle threat against Norway and de- manded a separate foreign minister for Norway. The Norwegian Venstre party, under Johannes Steen, eventually settled for the more modest concession of a separate consular service instead. In general, these debates created a wid- ening gap between the foreign policy goals of Sweden, Norway and the Union as a whole. The possible involvement of great powers threatened to compli- cate things further, becoming more likely with Swedish-Norwegian relations deteriorating. Ultimately, however, Oscar’s recurring attempts to persuade the Kaiser to guarantee Germany’s military support of Sweden in case of a conflict with Norway failed. At the height of the political disharmony, Wilhelm visited Stockholm and promised support in case of a Norwegian revolt while remain- ing vague about the nature of his support. 4 On the increasing tensions during the 1890s, see Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (London: Allen Lane, 2012), chapter 3 and John C.G. Röhl, Wilhelm II. Der Aufbau der persönlichen Monarchie 1888– 1900 (München, C.H. Beck, 2001), chapter 14. 5 Lindberg, Den svenska utrikespolitikens historia, 85– 86. 6 Theodor Westrin, Ruben G:son Berg and Verner Söderberg (eds.), Nordisk familjebok: konver- sationslexikon och realencyklopedi. 33. Väderlek– Äänekoski (Stockholm: Nordisk familjeboks- förlag, 1922), 963..

Load more