Oscar II. has shown great discernment in his arrangement of dynastic matters. Himself married to the fervently religious Princess Sophie of Nassau, the king has married his oldest son, Crown Prince Gustavus Adolphus, to Princess Victoria of Bade, a granddaughter of Emperor William I. of Germany, and a great-granddaughter of Gustavus IV. of Sweden. His third son, Prince Charles, duke of West Gothland, is married to Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, a granddaughter of Charles XV. of Sweden. These unions are well calculated to accentuate the increasing political, commercial and cultural intimacy with Germany, the Scandinavian policy of his predecessor and the desire of King Oscar to see the descendants of the old royal line of Sweden as heirs to the crown. In giving his consent to the marriage of his second son, Prince Oscar (Bernadotte), to Lady Ebba Munck, of the Swedish nobility, King Oscar has given evidence of the fact that he is not a match-maker regardless of the feelings of the parties involved. Prince Oscar, formerly Duke of Gothland, upon renouncing his share of inheritance to the two thrones, was allowed to marry the choice of his heart. King Oscar has tried to heal the wounds of the past by opening the vaults of the church of Riddarholm to the sarcophagi of Gustavus IV. and his son, and by giving Queen Carola of Saxony, the only living granddaughter of the former, repeated proofs of esteem and considerate distinction.
King Oscar with his crowns had received as an inheritance two important problems to be solved—the reorganization of the Swedish army and the settlement of the difficulties in the relations between the two states of the Union. The latter has not yet found a satisfactory solution, although the king has devoted to it his most strenuous attention and the best of his efforts, in honest application to his royal motto: “The Weal of the Brother Nations.”
The reorganization of the Swedish army was not effected until after twenty years of parliamentary struggle. The road of a compromise policy which was opened in 1867 was followed up at the Riksdag of 1873, in all the long chain of years royal army bills being repeatedly rejected. In 1885 the government and Riksdag agreed on a remission of thirty per cent of the military taxes of landowners in exchange for new regulations for the militia compulsory service. In 1887 the Riksdag sanctioned the total abolition of the “indelta,” or cantoned troops, as far as the navy was concerned, which was the first step toward the reorganization of the navy, and the same year the militia law of 1885 went into effect.
The old Landtmanna, or agrarian party, in 1888 gave place to a new protectionistic party. A contested election of twenty-two members from Stockholm gave a sudden majority to the protectionists, O. R. Themptander, the able minister of state, resigning. The army bill did not fare well at first. In spite of the fact that the Landtmanna party was brushed aside, the old enemies of an army reform, the landowners, nobles and peasants alike, still being strong enough to successfully oppose it. The Riksdag of 1888 passed a grain tariff, which went into effect February 14th of the same year, enforcing several other points of a protective tariff system.
King Oscar called an extraordinary, or special, session of the Riksdag, October 18, 1892, when royal propositions were offered and accepted. The land-tax was abolished and a new army bill passed. According to the stipulations of the latter, the beværingstid, or period of liability for every citizen to bear arms, was extended to embrace twenty years instead of twelve, viz., eight years in the first ban of the landtværn, or militia, four years in the second ban, and eight years in the landstorm, or final levy. The first ban of militia is in time of war to form an integral part of the first fighting line, the second ban forming a reserve for the first fighting line. The final levy is to be called out for garrison duty exclusively, and for the defence of the country against foreign invasion. Six military districts have been established, five distributed along the entire coast of Sweden, the sixth inland in the western provinces to be a reserve ready to be used at the point and moment most needed. The reorganized army in active service is composed of værfvade, or enlisted troops, and indelta, or cantoned troops, the expenses also of the latter being paid by the government. The royal guards, chasseurs, hussars, artillery, and engineers are enlisted for two years up to eight. The militia troops are distributed among both the enlisted and the cantoned troops, the length of service with the colors being ninety days in time of peace. The infantry in which all the cantoned troops serve consist of twenty-six regiments and two battalions. The line is armed with Remingtons of 8.8 millimetres calibre. There are eight regiments of cavalry and six regiments and six batteries of field artillery, forty batteries in all, with 240 cannon. The effective of the active army, in 1896, was 1,953 officers, 571 employees, 1,779 non-commissioned officers, 1,641 musicians and 38,802 men, with 6,852 horses. The war effective is 272,994 men, besides 180,000 in the landstorm. The chief fortifications of Sweden are Carlscrona, on the south coast; two fortresses outside of Stockholm, viz., Vaxholm and Oscar Fredericsborg; and, in the interior, Carlsborg, near Lake Vetter. The navy comprises 4 turret ships, with 10-inch armor, armed each with 2 10-inch and 4 5.9-inch guns, and having a total displacement of 12,450 tons; 4 armor clad monitors, 9 armored gunboats, 3 corvettes, 9 first-class and 5 second-class gunboats, 2 torpedo cruisers, 7 first-class and 9 second-class torpedo boats, 5 torpedo launches, and 12 school ships. The navy is manned by 267 officers and about 4,500 sailors, not including conscripts to the number of 8,500 men. The entire cost of the defence of Sweden exceeds ten million dollars a year.
The movement for a reorganization of the defences has not been caused by any change in the policy of peace, which has faithfully been carried out by all the rulers of the Bernadotte dynasty. The ruler of Sweden and her people desire peace, but not as a gift of mercy from the great powers, but as a self-chosen right which can be effectively defended if necessary. The ever-increasing armament of the European powers has made a strengthening of the Swedish arms unavoidable, but the Swedish government was the first to announce its readiness to accept the invitation of Czar Nicholas II. of Russia to a conference for the discussion of a general reduction of the regular armies. Germany was made the pattern for the reorganization of the army and navy, the Swedish government having followed the German also in the treatment of the labor question, with schemes of accident and old-age insurance, accepted by the Riksdag.
King Oscar, at his succession to the throne, gave evidence of his desire to meet the reasonable demands of his Norwegian subjects. He sanctioned, in 1873, the abolition of the office of a governor-general of Norway, the government at Christiania to be presided over by a Norwegian minister of state. To the later Norwegian demands for a separate flag, consular service and ministry of foreign affairs, King Oscar has been unyielding. The flag question is of subordinate importance. King Oscar, in 1899, has refused to sanction the resolution of the Storthing, three times passed, for a flag without the mark of Union, for the reason that the flag with that mark was offered to Norway by his father, Oscar I., and gratefully accepted when the country had no colors at all, except the Swedish. The Swedish people will carry their old flag with the mark of Union, irrespective of any changes made in the Norwegian colors. More serious are the questions of consular and diplomatic service. In 1893, the Swedish government offered to compromise by establishing a common ministry of foreign affairs whose head might be indifferently a Swede or a Norwegian. This was rejected by the Norwegian Storthing. The same offer was made in 1837, when the dispute first arose, provided that the Norwegian troops should share the duty of the common defence of both kingdoms. The Swedish Riksdag of 1893 passed a resolution, in compliance with which King Oscar for a second time refused to sanction the bill of Norwegian consulates.
The diametrically opposite views which are held in regard to the relations of Sweden and Norway are, to a great extent, caused by a misconception of the nature of the Union. In lack of a Union parliament, it has by many been considered to be only a personal union of two countries under the same king. Such is not the case. It is true that the two countries are both free and independent states and that the king is the only visible bond between them, according to the Act of Union, but the Union is nevertheless an actual and not a personal one. If it was only personal, the king could at will, or when forced to do so, resign his power in one of the countries and continue his reign in the other. The Act of Union cannot be changed except upon a resolution, enacted in both of the respective diets, and with the sanction of the king in behalf of the Union. A change can be made at the same Swedish Riksdag at which it is proposed, at the Norwegian Storthing not until the next regular session. As a consequence the Union cannot be dissolved by the representatives of either country alone, and the king cannot dissolve it by exercising any power of his own. The king cannot abdicate one throne without abdicating the other, for the first paragraph of the Act of Union stipulates that the two countries shall be indissolubly and irrevocably united under the rule of the same king. No abdication can be granted, except by common consent of the two diets in joint session. When the two thrones are empty, without an heir-apparent, a new king shall be elected by the two diets in common. What underlies the Norwegian claims of a separate foreign ministry is, besides to own an outward sign of the country’s independence, a desire for a closer constitutional control of diplomatic affairs. From the Swedish side the desirability of a Union parliament and a greater authority for the Union government has been expressed. The Swedes have been found unwilling to grant any change of the constitution of the Union, except the right be added for the Union government to dispose of the military forces of both countries, in equal proportion, for the common defence. King Oscar’s standpoint in the Unionist conflict has contributed much to increase his popularity in Sweden, where his firm refusal to sanction any measure which would cause a weakening to the Union has been received with the highest approval.
A committee to review the relations of the Union and propose a revision of its charter was appointed in 1897, but failed to accomplish anything, the views of the Swedish and Norwegian members differing too radically in their opinions. It is to be hoped that the ultimate solution of the unionist conflict, whensoever it come or whatsoever it be, will bring the two countries of the Scandinavian peninsula closer together, without any great sacrifice on either side, least of all of their independence.
During the more than eighty years of peace which Sweden has enjoyed under the rule of the Bernadotte dynasty, she has developed her constitutional liberty and her material prosperity in a high degree. The dreams of glory by conquest belong to days gone by, but in the fields of peaceable industries she has attained a greatness which the world begins to realize. At the expositions of Paris in 1867, 1878 and 1889, of Vienna in 1873, of Philadelphia in 1876 and of Chicago in 1893, Swedish industry and art have taken part with honor in the international competition. The railways of Sweden have incessantly spun a more and more extended network of steel over the country, opening connections for enterprises in new districts and furthering commerce and industrial art in a wide measure. Oscar II. is an enthusiastic friend of railway improvements, the state having built and acquired a quite considerable length of road at his initiative. The length of Swedish railways, in 1896, was 6,145 miles, of which 2,283 miles belonged to the state, compared to a total of 1,089 miles of Norwegian railways.