26 - The Napoleonic Wars in Scandinavia

Summary

A European periphery though the region may have been, the Napoleonic Wars had profound impact on Scandinavia, contributing decisively to the emergence of the modern Scandinavian nation-states in place of multi-national Danish and Swedish empires. Pitting Denmark and Sweden against each other through their alliances to France and Britain, respectively, the wars in Scandinavia bore almost every hallmark of the Napoleonic warfare elsewhere: Mass mobilization, economic warfare and disruption, guerrillas, and political and dynastic upheaval. Their geographic scope was extensive, as fighting took place from the North Cape to the river Elbe, from Bergen to Karelia, and in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Although the Scandinavian armies were small by continental standards, naval and economic warfare ensured that the wars were nevertheless fought on a grand scale with enormous human consequences, as civilian society was heavily impacted and sometimes even made a deliberate target of military operations. Still, as the Napoleonic Wars in Scandinavia ended with a massive territorial and political shift in 1814, the military restraint and political moderation shown by the belligerents in the latter stages of the wars contrasted with warfare and events elsewhere in Europe.