Flag dispute Norway-Sweden

"Pure" Norwegian flag, tricolor

The flag dispute between Norway and Sweden is the name given to the dispute during the Norwegian-Swedish Union in the 19th century over a separate Norwegian flag . It reached its peak in 1895 and, in addition to the struggle for its own consular representation abroad, was the focal point of Norwegian politics since the separation from Denmark in the Peace of Kiel on January 14, 1814 until the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian Union in 1905.

prehistory

^{? ?} Norwegian flag according to regulation v. February 27, 1814.

Until the Peace of Kiel on January 14, 1814, Norway was a Danish province and carried the Danish flag (Dannebrog), which was mandatory from 1748. Immediately after the Peace of Kiel, which separated Norway from Denmark and transferred Sweden , Norway tried to make itself independent in protest against this provision. The Danish Crown Prince Christian Frederik was elected King by the Storting . With edict of February 27, 1814, he introduced his own Norwegian flag for war and merchant ships: it should be red with a white cross, which divides the flag into four sections, with the coat of arms of the empire, the lion with halberd in yellow upper leech . It is suspected that the Dannebrog was retained because there was not enough material in the country due to the previous blockade for a fundamentally different flag. According to another interpretation, the prince was hoping for a reunification with Denmark. It is noticeable that the lion shows its back to the flagpole, so that one spoke of a “turned lion” or a “fleeing lion”. A particular reason for this cannot be identified. But concerns soon arose because the Norwegian flag was indistinguishable from the Danish from a great distance.

In addition, it was decided in the Peace of Kiel that Denmark should get the joint fleet back, as far as it was stationed in Norway. But the crews of the ships were mostly Norwegians, whom Christian Frederik forbade to sail to Denmark. In addition, the fleet was stuck in icy fjords. Christian Frederik also asked the Norwegian seafarers to take an oath of loyalty. The Danish admiral Otto Lütken refused to take the oath, but promised to follow Christian Frederik's instructions. The fleet consisted of seven seaworthy warships ( briggs ) and a number of smaller coastal vessels . Lütken had initially banned the use of the new Norwegian flag on his ships until the Danish King Frederick VI. allow this. When Christian Frederik learned of preparations to bring the fleet to Denmark, he announced that although he recognized Denmark's ownership of the ships, he would not allow them to be transferred to Denmark while the ships were still needed for the defense of Norway. The fleet was forcibly taken over and Lütken arrested in Oslo . The new Norwegian flag was hoisted. After Christian Frederik became king, he chose green as the color of his court. On June 8th, Christian Frederik decreed that the Norwegian national colors should be gray and green.

On August 14, 1814, the Norwegian-Swedish war for Norway's independence, which began on July 14, ended with the Moss Convention . In it, Prince Karl Johan promised on behalf of the king to respect the Eidsvoll constitution with the changes that resulted from the union with Sweden. Christian Frederik abdicated on October 10th. On November 4, 1814, a new version of the constitution was passed, which was published on November 10. There it says in § 111

"Norge har Ret til at have sit eget Coffardie-Flag. The Orlogs-Flag bliver et Unions-Flag. "

“Norway has the right to use its own trade flag. The war flag becomes a Union flag. "

- Kongeriget Norges Grundlov given i Rigsforsamlingen paa Eidsvold the 17th of May 1814 and now i Anledning af Norges and Sveriges Rigers Forening, nærmere bestemt Norges overordentlige Storthing i Christiania the 4th of November 1814.

^? Union Flag (War Flag), 1815 to 1844

In 1815 a common war flag was set. It was the Swedish flag, executed as a double stand . In the upper leech there was a white St. Andrew's cross on a red background. The red and white Danish flag with the yellow Norwegian lion in the upper Liek was preserved until 1818, but only for use on land and in the waters north of Cape Finisterre in Spain . To the south of this they needed the so-called “Turkish Sea Pass”, which could be purchased for a protection fee and which protected from North African pirates. The king had made its own Norwegian flag dependent on Norway concluding its own protection money treaty. The tribute to the pirate states was set at 100 to 150,000 speciestalers . In addition, there were bribes to each of the governments, a shipload full each year. A ship under the new Norwegian flag sailed into the Mediterranean in 1814 and was seized by Algerian pirates. The Swedish consul got the ship free by negotiation, but the sultan made it clear that he would not allow this a second time. Sweden later used this as an argument against having its own Norwegian flag. Norway was unable to pay the tribute required for the passport.

At the request of the Storting of November 16, 1814, the King decreed on March 7, 1815 that Norwegian ships on the Mediterranean voyage may use the Swedish trade flag with or without a union space in the upper Liek, since Sweden gives the pirate states in the Mediterranean protection money for these ships paid. For this, Norway paid 50,000 Reichsthaler Swedish Banco as a contribution to the Swedish Konvoi fund. Sweden also provided each of the Norwegian ships with a “Turkish Sea Pass”, which the shipowner had to pay for separately. As far as Cape Finisterre, the Danish flag with the Norwegian lion or the Union flag could be used. The Norwegian government asked the king to start negotiations on the amount of the tribute payment. Since the prerequisite for such a negotiation, according to the King on December 21, 1818, were gifts to the North African governments in the amount of around 100,000 speciestalers, this plan was dropped.

^? Union Flag (Trade Flag), 1818 to 1844

On October 26, 1818, a common, identical-looking, but rectangular trade flag was introduced for both countries, which could also be used in the Mediterranean. The previous flag was used on the Norwegian coast and north of Cape Finisterre, but the lion in the jack was now surrounded by a white field to better distinguish it from the Danish flag.

In 1821 there was a new initiative in Storting for a Norwegian trade flag . It was a battle between red and blue: the MPs, who upheld Danish tradition, advocated red as the basic color, while the friends of the union with Sweden wanted blue. Many soldiers also kept their red uniform, although the Swedes asked for a change to blue. The Storting MP Fredrik Meltzer from Bergen designed a new flag in which he inserted the blue of the Swedish flag into the former Danish flag as an additional inner cross, thus creating the "pure" Norwegian flag. The King did not deal with the law passed by Storting accordingly in his resolution of July 13, 1821, because the determination of the flag was a royal prerogative, but then accepted it by reinterpreting the law as a proposal for shipping in the vicinity . On July 17, he specified that it could not be conducted south of Cape Finisterre. Here it stayed with the Union flag from 1818. Norway was also allowed to use the Swedish trade flag. But it took a long time for the new flag to establish itself on Norway's coast. The Danish flag was used in Masfjorden until 1881.

The flag dispute

The first phase

Hielm's suggestion

When France conquered Algeria and Turkey Tunis and Tripoli in 1830 , only Morocco remained as an independent state in North Africa. This made the protection money much lower.

On July 7, 1836, Jonas Anton Hielm submitted an application to the Storting that the Norwegian flag and the Swedish flag should be equated in all respects and that the Norwegian flag could also be used in the Mediterranean as soon as a “Turkish sea pass” was no longer required . The application was not dealt with in the Storting, as the King dissolved the Storting on July 8, 1836. The flag issue became the focus of Norwegian national feeling in Norway. The Swedish Conservatives turned against it, because they insisted on the one hand on their supremacy in the Union, on the other hand sensed in this project the first step towards the dissolution of the Union.

With a royal resolution of April 11, 1838, the “pure” flag was released indefinitely after the law was passed again by the Storting, but for the Mediterranean voyage at your own risk. The war flag remained unchanged. In Norway, however, people clashed with the Swedish war flag because it expressed the supremacy of Sweden in the Union.

The second phase

^? The trade flag introduced by King Oskar I, 1844 to 1899

16:27 ^? The war flag from King Oskar I, 1844 to 1905

4: 5 ^? Gösch, 1844 to 1905. It also served as the Union flag for embassies

A, December 3, 1844, on the occasion of his coronation , Oskar I introduced a jointly designed Union flag as a "morning gift" to the Norwegian people: the Norwegian and Swedish flags were given a newly designed Union field in which the colors of both countries were represented. It was also used as a war flag , so that now both countries had separate trade and war flags with the same union field. That was the compromise that had been found in the first Union committee. This solution was celebrated as a victory and attributed to Jonas Anton Hielm, who had persistently worked towards this solution in the Storting. The poet Henrik Wergeland therefore celebrated him in his own poem. The royal resolution took no account of flag section 111 in the November Constitution, which gave Norway the right to flag its own for merchant ships. But the king-friendly mood in Norway prevented official resistance to this provision, especially since the union field was also introduced into the Swedish trade flag as a sign of equality between the countries. The pure tricolor was sacrificed in order to receive its own war flag.

Neither the Norwegians nor the Swedes were satisfied with this solution in the long run. Morgenbladet criticized the agreement in Norway , and in the Swedish knight's house it was called "Sildesalaten" (herring salad). The name was adopted in the vernacular. The dispute finally subsided after 1844 and was soon almost completely forgotten. Private individuals on both sides also hoisted their national flag without objection without a union field. The king did not want to force an unwanted flag on either of the two peoples. This comes from the phrase "skibene bør bruke det nye handelsflagg med unionsmerket" (the ships should [not have to] carry the new trade flag with the union field). The flag from 1821 could still be used, but gradually more and more ships used the new flag.

The consequence of this development was that there was uncertainty as to which flag should be hoisted on public buildings and when.

The third phase

The period from 1878 to 1880

In 1879 the flag dispute began again with a law of the Storting, which made the pure three-color flag binding without a union field. The king refused to agree.

The central areas of the domestic political dispute over the future appearance of the Norwegian flag were the May 17th celebration and the storting. The warring parties were the conservatives ( Høyre ) and the left-wing nationalists ( Venstre ). Both sides sought legal support, Høyre from Professor Aubert, Venstre from Ernst Sars . Aubert argued that the royal ordinance of 1844 alone was lawful. Section 111 of the Constitution only fills out Section 1 of the Constitution, according to which Norway is an independent kingdom united with Sweden under one king. Paragraph 1 thus determines the principle according to which the flags are to be designed. The flag of 1844 had also been accepted by the people, and the resistance was only recent. Venstre argued that Karl Johan's refusal of 1821 to enact the flag law with the "pure" flag was illegal. Although it was approved for the seas north of Cape Finisterre, the refusal for the areas of the Mediterranean was illegal, so that the "liberation" of the flag announced in 1838 was not complete. In addition, no Norwegian was involved in determining the flag in 1844. The trigger, however, was that the Union field was also in the flag of war and the nationalists would have liked to remove it there too, but this was not possible without a constitutional amendment. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Sars therefore wanted to amend Section 111 of the constitution accordingly. There was still a moderate direction between these two poles, which wanted to legally establish the pure flag without a Union field and leave the war flag untouched.

The method of implementation was also discussed. The political circles in Trondheim and Levanger were in favor of a swift legal implementation for the trade flag, as this was clearly an internal Norwegian matter. The moderates within the Venstre implemented a different approach: based on Section 79 of the constitution, according to which a veto of the king could be overridden by three identical resolutions of the Storting, the flag law for the "pure" trade flag in Storting was passed in 1893, 1896 and 1898 and then proclaimed by the king.

In the other field of the dispute, the May 17th celebration, Høyre and Venstre demonstrated their political goals by using the flags, Høyre with union field, Venstre without. The supporters of an immediate legal solution also sought the support of the population. Solidarity marches for Minister of State Johannes Steen in Christiania in 1892 and 1893 and the parade march on Fridtjof Nansen's arrival in Trondheim in 1896 with flags without a Union field were also extra-parliamentary demonstrations for the immediate introduction of this flag.

Scandinavian poster

In 1878, without consulting the military , Oskar II assigned the cavalry corps white standards with his name. The editor of the Dagbladet Hagbard Berner considered the white in association with the French lily banner to be the color of an absolutist monarchy and criticized the banner. He proposed that a red flag with the Norwegian lion be made law for the military. Although there was no anti-union motivation behind it, it was assumed. In 1879 a conservative, anti-farmers wave went all along the coast to Tromsø . Berner's proposal became a seed that fell on Scandinavian and peasant soil. The wave was also carried by the seaman's associations, and Morgenbladet under editor-in-chief Christian Friele and Aftenposten agitated violently against Berner. The seafarers denied the farmers the competence to decide on ships' flags. May 17, 1879 became a mass demonstration for the Norwegian flag with the Union field. Whether Henrik Wergeland was a pioneer for the "pure" flag or for the flag with a Union field was an emotionally charged topic until 1898. The "pure" flag was understood as republican, on the same level as the black, red and gold flag in Germany or the tricolor in France. It was therefore referred to as the "three-colored flag" or "tricolor" until 1905. During the election campaign, the alternative was brought to the denominator by the Venstre: “Tricolor or salad? Freedom or submission? Norwegian or Swedish-Norwegian? ”The tricolor was a symbol of the republic and a provocation for royalists and Union supporters. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was the most popular representative of the pure tricolor. His endeavor was to awaken the sense of honor of independence, the awareness that it was the right of every people to regulate its own affairs. The tricolor without a union field was the symbol for this demand.

On March 13, 1879 a rally of the workers' association Christiania took place in Christiania, where Bjørnson, Sars and others wanted to organize a national resistance against the conservatives. But they misjudged the mood among the people. The people whistled the speakers and only the police could make sure that Bjørnson could deliver his speech. In the evening, the supporters of Høyre smashed the windows on the ground floor and the first floor of the house where Berner lived. Morgenbladet pointed out in the following issue that Berner lived on the second floor, whereupon these windows were also broken. The supporters of the pure tricolor went on the defensive, only appeared in the individual meetings and avoided open confrontation. In the years that followed, the festival committees often used the Swedish and Norwegian flags with the Union field on either side of the speaker's platform.

The period from 1890 to 1898

Around 1890 the Swedish flag disappeared next to the Norwegian flag on the lecterns, as this juxtaposition met increasing resistance. The Stang Høyre government pursued a cautious policy, recognized parliamentarism and kept a little distance from the Swedish king in terms of union policy. Until 1897 the Norwegian flag was not on the agenda of the storting. The flag was also not in the program of the Venstre party. The aim was to gather the various directions of the party behind one main demand, and that was to extend voting rights to the workers. Björnson had proposed a 30-point program, but at the state party conference in 1891 it was only accepted as a possible future goal. When the work program was discussed, he made a speech in which he highlighted the demand for equality between nations, including the flag dispute. But under the threat of some groups wanting to leave the party if the right to vote was not made the main demand, the flag dispute was left out. Bjørnson was the spokesman for Venstre when it came to explaining the election manifesto. In this capacity, he combined the workers' demand for voting rights with the Union question in his speeches, and placed the flag in this aspect. When the Swedish Foreign Minister Gustaf Åkerhielm made a provocative remark about the priority of Swedish recruits, outraged students around Hans Sars demanded the pure tricolor. Speaker was a conservative student who urged his supporters to display the pure tricolor in protest against Åkerhjelm's statement. This led to countermeasures by the Høyre, which urged Christiania's conservative academic youth to join the student union en masse. 600 conservative students entered. The Venstre did that too, but its members often did not have the money to pay their dues. The Conservatives soon had a solid majority.

The flag dispute now also got an economic dimension: In 1892 young merchants in Christiania founded the “Flaggsamlag” (flag company). The most important member were the Dobloug brothers. They were flag wholesalers and sold the pure flag. The company raised funds to buy pure flags for the children's parade on May 17th. On the other side stood Morgenbladet , who saw the pure flag as hostile to the Union. Supporters of this direction was the company Steen & Strøm, a flag dealer who only sold flags with Union fields. 1896 was the year most flags were distributed and displayed in Norway. The unconditional will that the flag of one's own party be in the majority also led to a price war on the flag market, so that a profit from the flag business is doubtful.

In 1892 the consular dispute came to a head. Since the government of Emil Stang knew that a law on the establishment of its own consulates would be rejected by the king, they chose the way to get funds for the preparations in the consular matter approved at the Storting, because the royal veto did not apply to funds. The king vetoed it anyway, and the Stang government resigned. There was a big rally of solidarity, where the pure tricolor was shown. The Høyre soon organized a solidarity demonstration with flags with a Union field for the king with almost 1000 participants. Stang let himself be changed and formed a minority government. It was fought by the majority party Venstre im Storting. and one vote of no confidence followed another. The flag dispute suddenly grew in importance because both the radical and the moderate wing of the Venstre in Storting came together behind the pure tricolor. A bill to this effect was drafted in 1892 and presented to the Odelsting in 1893 , and a heated debate ensued, in which Høyre and Venstre used all their resources. The flag dispute had a solidarity effect on Venstre in Storting. When the seamans' clubs again sent requests to the Storting to keep the Union field in the flag, there were significantly fewer, so that the Venstre pushed them aside as "top hat sailors". The consular dispute also flowed in, as this dispute was used in the debates as a reason for the dissolution of the Union being shown more and more sympathy and the speakers advocating “cutting out” the Union field. The moderates in Venstre wanted to defeat the Stang government, but did not want to question the Union. When the flag law was passed and the Stang government recommended that the king withhold consent, it was the wind in the sails of Venstre.

Venstre narrowly won the elections in 1894. Since Stang no longer wanted to lead a minority government, the government resigned on January 31, 1895. King Oskar entrusted Johannes Steen with the formation of a government and demanded that the Storting invalidate the agendas of 1892 and 1893. It was about the consular dispute. Since Steen refused, the king did not accept Stang's resignation. In addition, he now demanded that the flag law be repealed. Since a coalition government did not come about either, military intervention was considered in Sweden. The visit of the German Emperor Wilhelm II. In Stockholm was interpreted as probing whether one could count in case of war on German support. The Secret Committee of the Swedish Reichstag was convened on March 18, 1895, and the Reichsrat increased the military budget by 2.5 million crowns. The Norwegian press was also preparing for war. But on June 7th, the Storting decided to discard the agendas of 1892 and 1893. But the split at Venstre became apparent when one of its MPs, Jacob Lindboe , spoke out publicly against this rejection. Lindboe became Venstres spokesman in Storting in 1895 and remained so until 1898 when the flag law was passed for the third time. He was the only MP who worked openly for the dissolution of the Union, which isolated him from his own party. He advocated the rapid enforcement of the flag law, i.e. without the consent of the king, which he did not consider necessary, but sanctioned by the actual practice of the people. He directed his work directly against the king and against the Høyre government. More than 46 municipalities had already sanctioned the pure tricolor without a union field in 1893 by placing it on their public buildings. But most of the cities still used the Union flag. This attitude of the rural communes expanded the flag dispute into a dispute over local self-government. Furthermore, a political separation between town and country emerged: While the Union-marked flag was shown on public buildings in the towns, this was only the case in exceptional cases in the country. Since 1879 the pure tricolor was the flag of the farmers. They had already cut out the Union field from the flags after 1880.

In 1894, the socialist red flag emerged as a further flag. The labor movement used the red flag as the flag of internationalism and the pure tricolor as the national flag. The press fought the red flag as a declaration of war against both Høyre and Venstre.

After 1895, Lindboe justified his position in the flag dispute with the merger of the Norwegian with the Swedish fleet operated by the Swedish side. After the Swedish threat of war, the Norwegian ships were to remain separated from the Swedish fleet and thus also have their own flag, the red cloth with the lion, called the "Magnus flag". The Norwegian instruction came which forbade Norwegian ships from being placed under Swedish command. On his initiative, the Norwegian fleet received its own salute and signal regulations. He also advocated a separate command structure for the Norwegian fleet. The king's participation in the celebrations for the annexation of the former Norwegian Jämtland in 1645 was seen as an anti-Norwegian demonstration. Sweden's threat of war in 1895 gradually led to a turnaround at the Høyre, so that in 1898 the law was passed for the third time.

In 1895, the labor movement recommended the pure tricolor for their move on May 17th, as the red flag of socialism was not well received. It was described with the text “Voting rights for men and women”. Those who did not have this text on their flag were not allowed to march with the workers' move. Now the issues of “Norwegian consulate” and the question of voting rights had been drawn into the flag dispute. The royal veto against the granting of funds to prepare their own consulates, the dissolution of the Storting in 1836 and the establishment of a government without support in the Storting were viewed as humiliation. For Norway it was now a matter of regaining domiciliary rights for its own affairs.

Flag board of the Royal Foreign Office, 1899

On December 15, 1899, the Flag Act came into force, which determined the "pure" Norwegian flag as the national flag. On the last working day of the year, the pure tricolor was hoisted over the storting, a triumph for Lindboe. The war flag remained in use in Norway until the end of the union between Sweden and Norway on June 9, 1905, in Sweden even until the end of the year.

literature

• Website of the Norwegian Storting
• Bjørn Bratbak: “Flagget from 1814.” In: Sjøfartshistorisk årbok . Bergen 1988. pp. 7-32.
• Øystein Imsen: Flaggsak og flaggbruk i 1890-åra (PDF; 2.1 MB) - from Stortinget til Ilevolden. Oslo 2005

Web links

• Sweden and Norway, Common Flags (1814-1905) . Flags of the World (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ Bratbak p. 9 f.
2. ↑ Bratbak p. 12 f.
3. ↑ Bratbak p. 16 f.
4. ↑ Bratbak p. 21.
5. ↑ The so-called pirate states were Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers and Morocco.
6. ↑ Stortinget 1815-1816  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 228 kB) Forhandl. om Flaget p. 410 f.  
7. ↑ Bratbak p. 19.
8. ↑ The contract should cost 250,000 speciestalers. There was also the annual tribute.
9. ↑ Recommendation of the Union Committee 1893  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 457 kB), in which the history is recapitulated.  
10. ↑ 50,000 Reichstaler in Swedish Banco corresponded to around 25,000 speciestaler. Storthinget 1815  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 228 kB) p. 411.  
11. ↑ This convoy cash register was financed by ship taxes: 5% on all customs declarations. So 250 to 280,000 Reichstaler Swedish Banco came together. In addition, there was 1 Reichstaler Swedish Banco per load (space for ships) for the issue of the “Turkish passport”. Storthinget 1815  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 228 kB) p. 412.  
12. ↑ Bratbak p. 23.
13. ↑ ^{a b c} Imsen p. 7.
14. ↑ Recommendation  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 457 kB) of the Union Committee 1893, p. 4.  
15. ↑ ^{a b} Imsen p. 8.
16. ↑ Recommendation of the committee  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 509 kB) p. 8.  
17. ^ Flags of the World - Union mark and jack
18. ^ Flags of the World - National War Ensign, Union Rank Flags - 1844
19. ^ Stortings negotiations. Bjørnsons and Sars' 1889 Bill, Document No. 114.
20. ↑ Imsen p. 18.
21. ↑ Imsen p. 26.
22. ↑ The speech of Sars can be found here
23. ↑ Imsen p. 30.
24. ↑ Imsen, p. 35.
25. ↑ Imsen p. 37.
26. ↑ “I hold the flag of the future in my hand. ... and that is why I believe that a generation will come after us that has no other goal than that which, as I publicly declare here, will also be my goal from now on: a peaceful way to dissolve the union that belongs to my fatherland has cost so much material and spiritual strength. ”Quoted in Imsen p. 38.
27. ↑ Insen p. 39.
28. ↑ It was named after Magnus Barefoot , who is said to have introduced it.
29. ↑ Imsen p. 40 f.
30. ↑ Imsen p. 51.
31. ↑ Recommendation  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 477 kB) of the committee 1896 p. 14.