Kiel Peace

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Column in memory of the Peace of Kiel, designed by Illa Blaue

Kiel Peace is the name given to the peace treaty concluded in Kiel on January 14, 1814, between Denmark on the one hand and Sweden and the United Kingdom on the other. After the defeat of the two allies Denmark and France in the Napoleonic War, the treaty led to a territorial reorganization of Scandinavia: Denmark had to renounce Norway in favor of Sweden. Norway left the Danish state as well as the Danish-Norwegian personal union. The United Kingdom retained sovereignty over Heligoland .

prehistory

Denmark's foreign policy

Since 1780 Denmark pursued a policy of armed neutrality , which brought the entire Danish state a period of economic boom. Crown Prince Regent Friedrich and Foreign Minister Christian Günther von Bernstorff therefore initially endeavored to maintain this neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars . Therefore, on December 16, 1800, Denmark formed an alliance with Sweden, Prussia and Russia in order to obtain their protection against the maritime power of the United Kingdom. This policy failed because after the assassination of Tsar Paul I in March 1801, his successor Alexander I no longer maintained the blockade of the Baltic Sea against the British: British warships were able to reach Copenhagen unhindered in April 1801 and almost the entire Danish fleet in a sea ​​battle destroy.

Bernstorff tried to maintain neutrality, but when British warships bombed Copenhagen in 1807 and confiscated the newly built Danish fleet, Denmark entered into an alliance with France on October 31, 1807 and declared war on the United Kingdom in the Glückstädter Wasmer-Palais . On 13 March 1808, the insane king died Christian VII. The next day declared Sweden the war that was fought primarily on the Norwegian territories Sweden in the Treaty of Brömsebro had been awarded in 1645 and Denmark now wanted to recapture. In 1809 this war ended under the pressure of the British trade barrier against Denmark with the Peace of Jönköping , which confirmed the status quo. In 1810, Denmark had to join the coalition against Napoleon under pressure from Sweden and the United Kingdom . The enormous costs of the war led to national bankruptcy in 1813 . Through a currency reform , balances were devalued to one sixth of their previous value.

Sweden's war goals

Sweden had already joined an anti-French alliance in 1805. When Russia changed sides in the Peace of Tilsit in 1807 and Denmark entered into an alliance with France, Sweden and Denmark faced each other as opponents. In the Russo-Swedish War , Russia conquered Finland in 1809 . In the same year Karl XIII followed. the deposed nephew Gustav IV Adolf on the throne. In 1810, King Charles adopted the French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte , who later became King Charles XIV. Johann. From October 21, 1810, Bernadotte was the commander-in-chief of all Swedish armed forces . The war that Sweden declared on the United Kingdom under French pressure in 1810 was non-war and ended on July 18, 1812.

Bernadotte sought compensation for the loss of Finland; because he knew that he would not be able to retake Finland. For Sweden's participation in an anti-Napoleonic alliance, he had the property of Norway assured instead. In order to force the decision, Bernadotte marched into the Duchy of Holstein on December 1, 1813 as commander-in-chief of the Northern Army after defeating Napoleon in the Battle of Leipzig over the Elbe near Boizenburg ( Mecklenburg-Schwerin ) . Lübeck , which had been occupied by Napoleon since 1806, was liberated beforehand . After the fighting at Bornhöved on December 7, 1813, Denmark withdrew from Kiel. Bernadotte moved with 7,000 soldiers into the city of only 5,000 inhabitants and made it his headquarters, from where he continued his war of attrition against Denmark. In the Schleswig-Holstein population, this winter went down in history as the Cossack winter , as Bernadotte also had a powerful free corps of Russian Cossack horsemen who plundered far into Jutland .

The peace treaty

The Buchwaldsche Hof in Kiel around 1904

On January 9, 1814, oppressed Denmark capitulated. On the night of January 14th to 15th, 1814 , the Peace of Kiel was signed in the Adelpalais Buchwaldscher Hof , Bernadotte's headquarters. The treaty was ratified on January 31, 1814 in Stockholm and on February 7, 1814 in Copenhagen. In addition to peace between Denmark and Sweden, the treaty also included the conclusion of peace between Denmark, Prussia and Russia. Denmark undertook to actively support the war against Napoleon (Art. 3). The Danish king renounced Norway for himself and his heirs (Art. 4) and received the Swedish share from Pomerania (Art. 7). In return, Sweden guaranteed the Norwegians their previous rights and privileges (Art. 5).

consequences

Meaning for Norway

National territory of the Danish-Norwegian personal union until 1814

Crown Prince Christian Frederik , the Danish governor of Norway since 1813, refused to accept his royal cousin's declaration of renunciation of Norway. After the peace treaty became known, he therefore summoned the country's 21 most important men to Eidsvoll to introduce himself to them as the successors of his cousin as the absolutist king of a sovereign Norway. However, the 21 opposed this request. They argued that Norway gave its independence to the Danish King Christian III in 1537 . lost, but its laws remained in force. This also includes the right to elect the king. Now, after the abdication of the Danish king, state power fell to the Norwegian people, which is why they demanded a liberal constitution and a constitutional monarchy . Christian Frederik remained regent for the time being, while the people or men over 25 years with a certain minimum number of electors elected 112 delegates. On April 11, 1814, the constituent assembly was opened; on May 17, 1814, the still valid constitution of Eidsvoll was enacted. Christian Frederik was elected Hereditary King of Norway on the same day and two days later took his oath on the constitution before the constituted Storting .

However, Bernadotte did not accept an independent Norway and attacked on July 26, 1814. After a short war , Norway capitulated in early August 1814. Christian Frederik abdicated on August 17, 1814. In return for the new personal union with Sweden, Norway was able to enforce its constitution in the Moss Convention . However, it did not achieve full sovereignty until June 7, 1905. The last attempt to regain the Orkney archipelago for Norway, ultimately failed with the Peace of Kiel.

In general, the Peace of Kiel is seen as an important milestone on the way to Norway's sovereignty. The Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen described the previous Danish period as a 400-year night . Constitution Day, May 17th, is still a national holiday today.

Significance for Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands

From the point of view of the Greenlanders, Icelanders and Faroese, the Peace of Kiel was a perpetuation of Denmark's dominance, which had existed since 1380, over their countries previously ruled by Norway. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are still part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but with far-reaching autonomy since the 20th century. Iceland finally became sovereign on June 17, 1944. For the Faroe Islands, a direct consequence of the Peace of Kiel was the dissolution of their parliament, the Løgting, which had existed for about a thousand years .

Importance for Denmark

If Denmark had been a major European empire since the times of the Kalmar Union of 1397, with the peace treaty in Kiel it also lost Norway to Sweden. But it kept Greenland , Iceland , the Faroe Islands and its colonies in America , Africa and Asia . It also received the Baltic island of Bornholm , which had been conquered in 1809, back from the United Kingdom .

Economically, the previously prosperous Denmark was set back after the ruinous war, the loss of land through the peace treaty and the burden of billeting the almost 60,000-strong Swedish army for almost a year. Since Denmark could not pay further reparations demanded by Sweden, Prussia took over Swedish Pomerania in the Congress of Vienna against the cession of the Duchy of Lauenburg to Denmark and assumption of the Danish reparation payments to Sweden.

Within the strongly shrunk state as a whole, the proportion of German speakers in the total population increased considerably, which led to nationalist tensions between Danes and Germans and forty years later to the Schleswig-Holstein War .

Significance for Germany

Main articles: Hamburg French Time and Lübeck French Time

Heligoland in the North Sea , conquered in 1807, remained with the United Kingdom. Sweden ceded Swedish Pomerania to Denmark, which then came to Prussia through the Congress of Vienna in 1815 in exchange for the Duchy of Lauenburg and formed the administrative district of Stralsund there from 1818 to 1932 . The Free Imperial City of Lübeck thus effectively became an enclave and was subject to increased repression by the entire Danish state, particularly in trade with Hamburg . The status of the Danish Duchy of Schleswig and the German Duchy of Holstein , which was connected to it in personal union , was brought back to the state of before 1806 and thus the incorporation of Holstein into the Danish monarchy was reversed.

literature

  • Sonja Kinzler (Ed.): The Peace of Kiel 1814. A fateful year for the north. - The Peace of Kiel 1814. A Fateful Year for the North. - Kielfreden 1814. Et skjebnear for hele north. Together with Doris Tillmann, Johannes Rosenplänter u. Martin Krieger. Wachholtz, Neumünster / Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-529-02998-1 .
  • Georg Nørregård: Freden i Kiel 1814 . Rosenkilde & Bagger, København 1954.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt , Ortwin Pelc (Ed.): The new Schleswig-Holstein Lexicon. Wachholtz, Neumünster 2006, Lemma Kieler Frieden.
  2. Politicians pay tribute to the peace in Kiel. In: Weser Kurier from January 15, 2014, p. 18.
  3. ^ Translation of the contract
  4. ^ History of Norwegian Storting
  5. Eidsvoll 1814