did they elect him? i thought he was installed by the Germans after Russias withdraw from WWI to turn Finland into a German puppet.
That is a common misconception on the forum it seems. The Germans did no such thing - in fact it seems that they didn't care about the form of the Finnish government, or who ran it, as long as it was bourgeois, politically German-aligned and economically dependant on Germany. While there
were broad pre-war and wartime German plans that mention the possiblity of establishing a German-aligned Kingdom of Finland (on which I believe the misconception is based), the actual OTL project for a Finnish monarchy was conceived by local Finnish monarchists who thought calling over a German prince would join Germany to Finland with ties of blood and make the Germas more amenable to the Finnish cause. A case, one could say, of the Finns "out-Germaning" the Germans themselves.
Friedrich Karl was elected by the Finnish parliament in October 1918. The legitimacy of the election was very much disputed, both because it was based on an obsolete Swedish law dating to 1772 and the parliament was still sitting without its Social Democratic members as a result of the Civil War. The deal fell through after the armistice in November-December as Germany lost its clout in Finland, the Allies demanded the Finns to abandon the scheme and Friedrich Karl declined the throne.
The Finnish royalists, while a reasonable strong "party" on their own, were also outnumbered by the republican parties, mainly the SDP and the Agrarians.
A German king in Finland would have been in earnest based on German / White Finnish bayonets and a royalist
diktat as a truly representative parliament would have not accepted it at the time.
Some time back, I started a timeline where I tried to tweak the events of WWI and the Finnish Civil War so that Finland could haver become a kingdom under Friedrich Karl. It has been on a back burner for a couple of years, but I think I might return to it later...
PoeFacedKilla said:
How could you get it where Finland elects the king of Sweden as grand duke creating a personal union?
Highly unlikely. If Finland detaches itself from Russia, in this timeframe it will want true independence, or failing that, strong protection from any future Russia. A personal union with Sweden offers neither.
It is much more likely that there would be an independent, Swedish-aligned Finland with a Swedish royal on the throne. But that would also go against the grain of Finnish republicanism and might require one or several pre-WWI PODs. Swedish involvement in WWI and/or a Finnish "War of Independence" against Russia might be needed to make the royalist option popular and seemingly legitimate enough.
Welshroyalhistory said:
If your objective is simply to establish a Finnish monarchy in 1918, then clearly the selection of the Kaiser's brother-in-law was a terrible mistake.
A better option would have been Carl of Sweden, Duke of Västergötland or even his soon to be son-in-law Prince Axel of Denmark.
A constitutional monarchy would have flourished in Finland, much as it did in Norway.
A real wasted opportunity.
The monarchy could well have been a unifying factor in Finnish society and the royals well liked. Looking at the Kekkonen period, Finns don't seem to mind having the same leaders for long periods of time...
But the success of monarchy in Finland would have depended on it also originally being a thing at least a simple majority of the people wanted when Finland gained independence. And it would have had to seem to benefit Finland above all else, not foreign powers. For example, a Swedish king in Finland can't be seen to receive his orders from Stockholm.