A Union Undivided or the survival of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway

Foreword

Counterfactual history are often about the big changes to history, the rise and fall of grand empire and dread ideologies. Denmark-Norway are somewhat different. It do not have the potential to rival the great power of Europe, but the survival of the state would be interesting in it own right, as in OTL the Nordic countries are dominated by the small state, but industrial powerhouse; Sweden, with 3 four other small states seeking their own niches and one microstate living its own life. If we put the modern states of Denmark and Norway together it have a population a little larger than Sweden, but at the same time it do not have the industrial potential Sweden have. On the other hand Denmark they have synergy effects Sweden lack, Denmark have a very diverse economy, while Norway have a relatively undiverse economy, but it have had a industrial potential which was never fulfilled, because the lack of capital and the OTL union with Sweden meant investments in Swedish industry was a better investments.

So this timeline ask the question what would have been the effect of Denmark-Norway stayed one state, I will try to look into the political, the demographic, economic and linguistic effects, what will be the synergies of such a union.

In general this timeline will avoid butterflies unless it serve the plot, unless the development and survival of the union direct effect foreign countries or marriages, I will seek to create a history as close to OTL, at least through the 19th century.



Useful terms.

Helstaten: “Whole State” an ideology which sought to keep Denmark, Norway and the Duchies a centralise state.

The Duchies: Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.

Bokmål: “Book Language” one of several terms for the dominating Norwegian dialects, which are de facto dialects of Danish. It’s closer related to standard Danish than several Jutish dialects.

Nynorsk: “New Norwegian” one of several terms for a written standardisation of western and northern dialects of Norwegian, which are de facto a separate language from Danish and Bookmål, Danes can understand it in written form thanks to much of the vocabulary being adopted from Danish, but it’s incredibly hard to understand when spoken. Faroese de facto a dialect of it. Today mostly used in Western Norway, while the northern dialect decide to use Bokmål as written language.

Principality of Rügen: Swedish Pomerania.

Feedback is welcomed, I especially seek people who can give my a general idea how Sweden will develop through the 19th century without the union with Norway and still dealing with the loss of Finland.

Beside that I also seek suggestion what could start the war between Prussia and Austria without the war in 1864, and the disagrement over the occupation of Schleswig-Holstein.
 
I am interested in this (and in the POD needed for this tl), but I unfortunately cannot help you much on the two points you mention, apart from saying that even limitrd butterflies will impact the Austro Prussian way significantly, maybe it could even not happen or the first war against Danemark in 1848 might br different or not happen, causing ripples in the revolutionary period in Germany and Austria.
 
I am interested in this (and in the POD needed for this tl), but I unfortunately cannot help you much on the two points you mention, apart from saying that even limitrd butterflies will impact the Austro Prussian way significantly, maybe it could even not happen or the first war against Danemark in 1848 might br different or not happen, causing ripples in the revolutionary period in Germany and Austria.

I doesn't plan for the first Schleswig War to happens, that war will be removed simply because changes in the structures which lead to the conflict between Denmark and Holstein will happen. The second one can still happen, but it will be quite different.

As for the POD I will honestly don't go much into it, but it will be pretty much be that Denmark jump ship before Sweden does.
 
General overview of the Union
A general overview are needed to describe the Union and how many structures are different from OTL. Because the loss of Norway changed how the union continued to develop in the 19th century and this post will focus on this.

How did the union of Denmark-Norway survive, well I will go with them somehow changing side before Sweden did. It’s not really important, the important part is the result.

As for the Vienna Congress Denmark-Norway succeed in gaining Lauenburg, Sweden kept Swedish Pomerania. How this happened are very complex, but not really important, so roll with it people.

The result are a map of Europe in 1815, where the only significant changes are Danish Norway and Sweden keeping its province in Pomerania.

So what else are different for Denmark-Norway, well the end of conflict with UK earlier lead to Denmark avoiding its State Bankruptcy in 1813 as the state are able to export (Yay).
So the Denmark-Norway going into the post-War period have a far better economy, than OTL Denmark.

At the same time Denmark-Norway was quite different from the kingdom which entered the Napoleonic Wars, the fortunes build on slave and sugar trade was gone, instead large landowners and smuggler had made their own fortunes. The state had not end up in bankruptcy, but it was a impoverish state making it out of the wars, the Norwegian population dealt with aftermath of the famines.

Demographic the Union was home to around 2,8 million people, Norway and Denmark had each around a million people while Holstein was home to 400.000, Schleswig 300.000 and Lauenburg 35.000 people. the North Atlantic possession had another 60.000 people. Beside these there was also the Danish colonies of the Danish West Indies, Danish India and Danish Gold Coast. But the full population of these areas was unknown, but even with African vassals/allies the colonies counted less than 200.000 people.

If we look at the population around four out of five are Scandinavian speakers, while the rest are mostly German speakers. The most relevant speakers of other language are a small population of Frisian speakers, Icelander and a few Sami and Finns in northern Norway. The West Indies are in the middle of a language shift from a Dutch creole to English, the Cold Coast are populated by speakers of several local languages, through a Danish speaking biracial group lives around the Danish forts. At last Danish India are split between Tamil and Bengali speakers.

In OTL the Danish industry suffered the loss of Norway, which meant the centre of growth moved from the inner Danish waters (the islands and eastern Holstein) to south Holstein which was connected with Hamburg and had easier access to the European markets. In Norway much of the manufacturing collapsed without access to the Danish markets and the mining and forestry export suffered too. Well here the old structures of trade and transportation of goods stay. This means neither Denmark nor Norway suffer the economic crisis of OTL. Of course Holstein still see the growth of south Holstein, but it keep the growth in eastern Holstein which keep its agricultural export to Norway. In OTL the rise of south Holstein let to a greater focus on Germany and identity as Germans for the duchies. Here the east coast of the duchies keep a much greater focus on Denmark, the result are that Kiel, Schleswig (the town) and Flensburg stay oriented toward Denmark instead of Hamburg and Germany. The results are that the idea of Holsteiners as German speaking Danes rather than Germans living under a Danish king stays alive.

The result are that rather than placing their loyalty to the Danish king, instead they place their loyalty toward the Danish state. Of course German nationalism are still happening and it gain a widespread popularity among German students, but while in OTL it resulted in a alliance between liberals who wanted to join Germany and conservative who wanted greater autonomy against the Denmark, we instead see an alliance between Danish and Holsteiner conservatives to keep Helstaten united. While the liberals on the other hand are split between Danish/Scandinavian and German nationalists, with the Danish liberals force in the end into a coalition with the conservatives to keep the union together.

This will serve to fundamental change what a Danish and Scandinavian identity are. Danish simply becomes a term for people dwelling in the Danish-Norwegian Union, instead Danish and Norwegian nationalist see themselves as part of a Scandinavian national identity. There will be exceptions to this. Fundamental Danish shift or rather stay a similar identity to Austrian, Swiss, British or Canadian.

Of course just as we usually identify the average Canadian as a English speaking person, the Swiss with the German speakers and the British with the English. In the same manner foreigners will see the typical Dane as a speaker of standard Danish (Rigsdansk) and related dialects, but there will be a awareness of the existence of Danes who speak a weird version of German.
 
As for the POD I will honestly don't go much into it, but it will be pretty much be that Denmark jump ship before Sweden does.
But the bombing of Copenhagen still happens and Bernadotte still becomes King of Sweden? I think that somehow removing Bernadotte from the equation makes it easier to have Sweden not getting Norway, but I am not really an expert on the matter.
 
But the bombing of Copenhagen still happens and Bernadotte still becomes King of Sweden? I think that somehow removing Bernadotte from the equation makes it easier to have Sweden not getting Norway, but I am not really an expert on the matter.

I agree, but I prefer to keep Bernadotte to keep Swedish history as similar to OTL out of pure laziness.
 
Denmark-Norway will definitely need the U.K. nonantagonistic or at least unpersuaded by Swedish attempts to ally.

While I can see Danish used commonly to mean "unionish" - similarly that English is used for British, Holland for Netherlands, etc - there will need to be a term for "unionish".
Would Nordensk be viable at this time?
 
Denmark-Norway will definitely need the U.K. nonantagonistic or at least unpersuaded by Swedish attempts to ally.

While I can see Danish used commonly to mean "unionish" - similarly that English is used for British, Holland for Netherlands, etc - there will need to be a term for "unionish".
Would Nordensk be viable at this time?
OTL there's no "union name" for the Danish Realm, so I would guess people would still call themselves Danes.

Nordic wouldn't work, since Sweden and Finland are also Nordic countries. Not sure how Swedes would react to that, though I could imagine them believing it to be a Danish cassus beli.
 
OTL there's no "union name" for the Danish Realm, so I would guess people would still call themselves Danes.
There would have to be a way to separate Dane from "Danish Realmer" or this will fuel nationalism and wreck the unity you are after.
The U.K. usually stressed British over English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh with some success (obviously not total!)
Russia used Rossiski to mean citizen of Russia versus Russki for Russian speaker/ethnicity.
 
There would have to be a way to separate Dane from "Danish Realmer" or this will fuel nationalism and wreck the unity you are after.
The U.K. usually stressed British over English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh with some success (obviously not total!)
Russia used Rossiski to mean citizen of Russia versus Russki for Russian speaker/ethnicity.
I can see this becoming a problem for the German-speaking provinces, but AFAIK OTL they still identified themselves as German-speaking Danes.

You also don't have the same issues for the other provinces (bar perhaps Norway) since they're underdeveloped and has a small population.
 
I don't think this TL will see the same Norwegian nationalism as OTl. 1) I think the Norwegian population is gonna be very pro-Danish when the Napoleonic wars ends, due to Danish efforts to smuggle agricultural goods to Norway, under the English blockade. 2) the Norwegian Elite is practically Danish at this point or at least also very pro-Danish. 3) Norways economy is gonna stayed tied a lot more to Denmark than to GB as it was historical. 4) The Norwegian peasants were never treated harshly by the Danish King, or atleast not harsher than Danish peasants were.

I am wondering what the effect of Aalborg will be, due to the city's close links to Norway, I think a good guess would be that it is significant larger than OTL. Another city which might have a interesting but somewhat different development is København, if I remember correct it had a very large German population which disappeared after world war I, so that might stay. Other cities that will be affected, is that Altona [Part of Hamburg now] stays in the Helstat, which is gonna be interesting development wise for both Altona, but also Hamburg. Esbjerg is also probably not gonna be more than a fishing town, but what that means for western Jutland I don't know.

One of the intriguing parts is that Sweden keeps Swedish Pomerania, with you mentioned keeping to OTL as much as possible. So are this TL gonna see a Prussia/German war against Denmark-Norway + Sweden for the German territories ?
 
How would the Faroes and Greenland develop? If Denmark and Norway stays out of an economic crisis, as ATL says, would the Faroes and Greenland develop further since DK would be richer, or would they suffer since the Danish resources will (most likely) be spent on developing Norway?
 
Hopefully Norway will still break free and have their own constitution and royal family by 1905... just maybe without being in union with Sweden first like in OTL?

Of course they won't, I won't write a timeline like this for that, Norwegian independence could have been avoided by Sweden, it would just have demanded the Swedes thought of the entire union. Denmark and Norway on the other hand share a whole lot of interest, which is why I don't think a union will break down.

Denmark-Norway will definitely need the U.K. nonantagonistic or at least unpersuaded by Swedish attempts to ally.

Yes but I have decided to handwave it, the important fact are the survival of the Union, not precisely why the British decides that Denmark are a preferable ally.

While I can see Danish used commonly to mean "unionish" - similarly that English is used for British, Holland for Netherlands, etc - there will need to be a term for "unionish".
Would Nordensk be viable at this time?

The official term will be Danish-Norwegian, but Danish will be used as a shorthand outside official documents.


OTL there's no "union name" for the Danish Realm, so I would guess people would still call themselves Danes.

Nordic wouldn't work, since Sweden and Finland are also Nordic countries. Not sure how Swedes would react to that, though I could imagine them believing it to be a Danish cassus beli.

I haven't fully decided on the use of Nordic and Scandinavian, before the Swedish loss of Finland, Nordic was used as a term for North Germanic speakers, Scandinavian only replaced that with the rise of pan-Scandinavianism, where Finns became fully included in the term Nordic. A weaker Sweden and a stronger Denmark may mean we don't see that replacement.

I can see this becoming a problem for the German-speaking provinces, but AFAIK OTL they still identified themselves as German-speaking Danes.

You also don't have the same issues for the other provinces (bar perhaps Norway) since they're underdeveloped and has a small population.

Denmark, Norway and the Duchies are as you said the only provinces which matters, we will see some change to that.

I don't think this TL will see the same Norwegian nationalism as OTl. 1) I think the Norwegian population is gonna be very pro-Danish when the Napoleonic wars ends, due to Danish efforts to smuggle agricultural goods to Norway, under the English blockade. 2) the Norwegian Elite is practically Danish at this point or at least also very pro-Danish. 3) Norways economy is gonna stayed tied a lot more to Denmark than to GB as it was historical. 4) The Norwegian peasants were never treated harshly by the Danish King, or atleast not harsher than Danish peasants were.

Yes we won't see the change of focus toward UK, in fact in OTL Norway suffered from the fact that any industrial improvement suffered under the Swedes could do anything the Norwegians did, just better. Denmark lack the vast forest, the massive hydro power potential and the significant mineral riches Norway have. So Norway will turn into the centre of Danish heavy industry.

I am wondering what the effect of Aalborg will be, due to the city's close links to Norway, I think a good guess would be that it is significant larger than OTL.

Aalborg will be different, as north Jutland will turn into the place where the Norwegian elite travel on vacations, but on the other hand Aalborg won't take the position of Denmark's connection to the North Atlantic possessions, Bergen will keep that. I think the main difference for Aalborg, Aarhus and Odense are that they will third tier cities rather than second tier cities in the Danish-Norwegian state. We will have Copenhagen which will be larger than OTL, next we will have Christiania (Oslo), Altona and maybe Bergen as second tier cities.

Of course Aalborg will still be far larger than in OTL.

Another city which might have a interesting but somewhat different development is København, if I remember correct it had a very large German population which disappeared after world war I, so that might stay
.

Copenhagen was 20-25% German, that number will still fall, because of the rural migration to Copenhagen, but with Denmark keeping German language areas, we will still see a significant German minority in Copenhagen, but I suspect it will lay around 15%.
Other cities that will be affected, is that Altona [Part of Hamburg now] stays in the Helstat, which is gonna be interesting development wise for both Altona, but also Hamburg.

Yes it will be pretty interesting, I expect Hamburg-Altona will grow into a weird double city.

Esbjerg is also probably not gonna be more than a fishing town, but what that means for western Jutland I don't know.

Yes I lean toward Esbjerg not being developed, but this will mean that Ribe will have room to grow instead, while Ribe won't rival OTL Esbjerg, it will still dominate the local area in the same manner as Næstved dominates it's local area, I expect Ribe to have 40-60.000 people.

One of the intriguing parts is that Sweden keeps Swedish Pomerania, with you mentioned keeping to OTL as much as possible. So are this TL gonna see a Prussia/German war against Denmark-Norway + Sweden for the German territories ?

I doesn't plan for it, I plan for Prussia to simply accept these area staying outside Germany. Sweden always was quite friendly with Prussia and Swedish Pomerania aren't worth the loss of that relationship. Schleswig-Holstein on the other hand are worth the conflict. But honestly without Denmark giving a so idiotic casus belli, I expect Prussia prefer a peaceful northern border

How would the Faroes and Greenland develop? If Denmark and Norway stays out of an economic crisis, as ATL says, would the Faroes and Greenland develop further since DK would be richer, or would they suffer since the Danish resources will (most likely) be spent on developing Norway?

I haven't fully written it out yet, not even n my mind, but I expect we will see a language conflict in Norway, between Danish (Bokmål) and Norwegian (Nynorsk) speakers, the former will win as in OTL in all areas except Vestlandet, there Nynorsk will dominate, but across the sea Nynorsk will also have success on the Faroes, where Nynorsk end up the written standard instead of modern Faroese. Fundamental Faroese will end up integrated with Vestlandet. Of course Vestlandet speaking a different language will create a "interesting" dynamic when the oil are found.

Greenland I expect will see greater Norwegian immigration than Danish one in OTL, the climate are significant different from Denmark, but the best areas of Greenland are better than the worst areas in Norway, beside that with the greater Norwegian experience with mining than Danies (Danes do mine, but we go after bulk material like granite, gravel, clay and chalk) as such I expect to see more mining on Greenland.

Beside that we also have two other north Atlantic areas to talk about.

Iceland I expect to be also to be somewhat better developed, Denmark did improve Iceland through the 19th century, but Norway will keep a lot of expertice in develop areas with climate like Iceland.

At last Svalbard I expect with Danish capital and the bigger need for coal, we will see a much bigger mining community, but also a much clearer ownership of the territory.
 
Next we will have Christiania (Oslo), Altona and maybe Bergen as second tier cities.

Ok bare with me here:

I agree that these three cities are probably gonna the second tier cities, though I would argue that Kiel will quite comfortable be the star of the third rate cities.

I think there might be a good argument for Altona to be the largest of the Second rate cities. Christiania I think is one of the few cities that will get the "least" out of the Dano-Norwegian Union, I expect you're gonna have substantiel population growth so it is probably gonna end up a bit larger than OTL but not more than that. Bergen on the other hand I think could quite likely end up rivaling Christiania population wise.

Why? Because I suspect that Norway is gonna be much more regional, in the sense that Christiania is not gonna be the center of government.

So in Denmark you have Copenhagen soaking up population from the rural areas like a sponge, but Christiania won't so there is more cities that get to shine, especially Bergen.

Now why Altona:

I doesn't plan for it, I plan for Prussia to simply accept these area staying outside Germany. Sweden always was quite friendly with Prussia and Swedish Pomerania aren't worth the loss of that relationship. Schleswig-Holstein on the other hand are worth the conflict. But honestly without Denmark giving a so idiotic casus belli, I expect Prussia prefer a peaceful northern border

Historical before the First and Second Schleswig war Denmarks main trading partner was with Germany (Or the various Germans state) During these war the national rhetoric changed towards them for obvious reasons, and GB became the Main trading partner due to the ongoing blockade during the wars, but also because the market was incredible profitable. But OTL GB only remained our main trading partner for a century or so, before it changed back to Germany.

Sure the market of GB is something that Denmark-Norway probably are gonna be heavily invested in. But in this TL the link between Denmark and Germany won't be broken due to no war, so I think there is a fair bet that the German states are gonna remain the major trading partner, and most of that trade will go through Altona.

Might be wrong though :p!

I expect Hamburg-Altona will grow into a weird double city.

Yea indeed, but with Altona large enough to stay significantly outside Hamburgs light, compared to OTL Copenhagen-Malmö

yes I lean toward Esbjerg not being developed, but this will mean that Ribe will have room to grow instead, while Ribe won't rival OTL Esbjerg
I think Esbjerg probably are gonna be a city in its own right, say OTL Ribe size, just because it is a okay place to have a habour. But it will probably stay the soulless city that it is today. Compared to Ribe which while not as large as OTL Esbjerg probably will have plenty of soul!
 
Ok bare with me here:

I agree that these three cities are probably gonna the second tier cities, though I would argue that Kiel will quite comfortable be the star of the third rate cities.

I'm not so sure even in OTL where it's the cpital of Schleswig-Holstein it's smaller than Aarhus. I suspect we see a pearl chain of tertiary "Jutish" cities around the same size (Kiel, Flensburg, Aarhus and Aalborg). I suspect that Trondheim will be the largest tertiary city simply because the lack of competing cities close by.

I think there might be a good argument for Altona to be the largest of the Second rate cities. Christiania I think is one of the few cities that will get the "least" out of the Dano-Norwegian Union, I expect you're gonna have substantiel population growth so it is probably gonna end up a bit larger than OTL but not more than that. Bergen on the other hand I think could quite likely end up rivaling Christiania population wise.

Why? Because I suspect that Norway is gonna be much more regional, in the sense that Christiania is not gonna be the center of government.

So in Denmark you have Copenhagen soaking up population from the rural areas like a sponge, but Christiania won't so there is more cities that get to shine, especially Bergen.

Now why Altona:

Historical before the First and Second Schleswig war Denmarks main trading partner was with Germany (Or the various Germans state) During these war the national rhetoric changed towards them for obvious reasons, and GB became the Main trading partner due to the ongoing blockade during the wars, but also because the market was incredible profitable. But OTL GB only remained our main trading partner for a century or so, before it changed back to Germany.

Sure the market of GB is something that Denmark-Norway probably are gonna be heavily invested in. But in this TL the link between Denmark and Germany won't be broken due to no war, so I think there is a fair bet that the German states are gonna remain the major trading partner, and most of that trade will go through Altona.

Might be wrong though :p!

Yea indeed, but with Altona large enough to stay significantly outside Hamburgs light, compared to OTL Copenhagen-Malmö

I agree with your analysis, Christiania will suffer because it's not the Norwegian capital. On the other hand Oslo/Christiania lies in the centre of the agricultural centre of Norway, it have access to incredible amount of hydropower, it have access to large amount of raw materials and at last with sea travel it's very close to Copenhagen. I suspect the Viken region (or greater Christiania) will be the industrial heart of Denmark. So I think it will be far greater population in the region than in OTL.

On the other hand Altona will be a major Danish export port to western Europe and Germany. I suspect the result will be that Hamburg-Altona will have even bigger population than in OTL.

I think Esbjerg probably are gonna be a city in its own right, say OTL Ribe size, just because it is a okay place to have a habour. But it will probably stay the soulless city that it is today. Compared to Ribe which while not as large as OTL Esbjerg probably will have plenty of soul!

I suspect you're right.
 
The early Danish industrialisation 1815-1860
Well how do keeping Norway affect Danish science research, well in OTL Denmark was on the forefront in the early 19th century in researching chemical elements and electricity. One of the results in OTL was Denmark was a major exporter of the raw materials (cryonite) needed to produce aluminium, sadly Denmark lacked the hydro power to dominate the production. Norway on the other hand became the centre of aluminium production but lacked the capital and population to become anything but a produce of bulk materials.

Well here these two states stay united. The Viken region was a major proto-industrial region in Denmark-Norway with production of bulk metals. Of course the production build on use of charcoal, which was another reason it was outcompeted.

Well here these two things end up connected, using electric arc to melt metal was already proven to work before the POD, but it wasn’t economic rentable before the development of hydropower. I think people can see what way this is going.

Well Ørsted continue his research of OTL, but other researchers begin a more practical research based on the electric arc research by Sir Davy. The Danish crown support it, because it see a potential if the charcoal production of iron in Norway could be replaced with other fuel. There’re also research into producing larger amount of electricity. The result are the creation of a primitive generator in 1829. It’s connected to a water mill on the Mølleå. The experiment together with the development and discoveries by Faraday and Pixii result in improved generator. The result are a experimental water mill generator at Moss Iron Work and a experimental electric arc furnace in 1837. These show themselves to be a success and spread to other Norwegian ironworks in the next few decades. The result are a massive fall in the need of charcoal, of course new damms need to be made to fuel the water mills. Suddenly Denmark-Norway are competitive with the iron production elsewhere.

But the research into aluminium show that electricity can also be used to produce aluminium and in 1846 a experimental aluminium work are made in Viken. While the production are small, it’s bigger than the rest of the global production and Denmark will for decades enjoy a de facto aluminium monopoly.

Of course the production of bulk materials, also results in the need to work them into useful products. In the Viken region several factories which product cast iron, copper and aluminium products are established. At the same time Norway have a massive surplus population only made worse compared to OTL by the Danish policy of introduce new crops and agricultural techniques, which result in a even growth of the population. While some of these have begun to emigrate, there have also been a massive outflow the large city. Copenhagen have exploded in size. But the new factories of Viken also serve as safety valve and around these factories new communities are established. The Viken region in this period becomes dominated by many small factories towns. Christinia see the develop of the same kind of light industry as Copenhagen, and grow into a large city full of diverse industry.

Copenhagen see much the same development. Both in Denmark and in Norway outside the Viken region a a explosion in the use of mills to generate electricity to factories happens. Of course the result of this are that Denmark-Norway becomes dominated by decentral rural industry.

Of course Made in Denmark are international just the name of cheap shoddy industrial products, they doesn’t compare to the more mature industries of UK and Belgium. But it serves as a source of foreign currency.
 
Top