The Treaty of Kiel () or Peace of Kiel (Swedish and or ') was concluded between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Kingdom of Sweden on one side and the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway on the other side on 14 January 1814 in Kiel. It ended the hostilities between the parties in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, where the United Kingdom and Sweden were part of the anti-French camp (the Sixth Coalition) while Denmark–Norway was allied to the French Empire. (Norway would unsuccessfully contest the Danish claim to all of Greenland in the Eastern Greenland Case of 1931–1933.)

However, not all provisions of the treaty would come into force. Norway declared its independence, adopted a constitution and elected Crown Prince Christian Frederik as its own king. Sweden therefore refused to hand over Swedish Pomerania, which instead passed to Prussia after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. After a short war with Sweden, Norway accepted entering into a personal union with Sweden at the Convention of Moss. King Christian abdicated after convening an extraordinary Storting, which revised the Constitution to allow for the Union. It was formally established when the Storting elected Charles XIII as king of Norway on 4 November 1814.

Background

In the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark–Norway and the Kingdom of Sweden tried to maintain neutrality but soon became involved in the fighting, joining opposite camps. Swedish king Gustav IV Adolf entered an alliance with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Russian Empire against Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805, and declared war on Napoleonic France. Russia was therein obliged to attack Napoleon's enemies, and since Gustav IV Adolf refused to break his alliance with the United Kingdom, the Tsar invaded Finland and severed it from Sweden in the Finnish War, 1808/1809.

In 1812, Napoleon's forces were decimated in their failed attempt to subdue Russia, and started their westward retreat. Sweden allied with Russia on 30 August 1812, with the United Kingdom on 3 March 1813, and with Prussia on 22 April 1813. Previously, on 23 March 1813, she had declared war on Napoleon. When Prussia finally accepted the Swedish claim to Norway on 22 July, Sweden joined the alliance of Reichenbach concluded between Russia, the United Kingdom and Prussia on 14/15 June. Bernadotte, now free to attack Denmark after Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig in Mid-October, took his combined Swedish/Russian Army and quickly defeated the outnumbered Royal Danish Army and occupied Holstein and Schleswig during late December 1813. Frederick VI agreed to make peace once it was clear that Bernadotte would occupy Jutland and Zealand (with British naval assistance), if necessary to force the Norwegian cession.

Dano-British treaty

The treaty between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was negotiated by Danish diplomat Edmund Bourke and the British envoy at the Swedish court, Edward Thornton. This Danish contingent was to be treated the same way the Swedish contingent was treated, and the Danish king was to receive an annual 400,000 pounds of British subsidies for maintenance and pay of the army, to be paid in monthly installments as soon as the army entered Allied service. It consisted of 28 articles and one separate article. and with reference to the Dano-British treaty confirms his obligation to put part of his army under Swedish command.

In article IV, the Danish king in his and his successors' name "irrevocably and forever" renounced claims to the Kingdom of Norway, The Norwegian kingdom was defined as consisting of the bishoprics of Christiansand, Bergen, Akershus and Trondheim, as well as the coastal islands and the northern regions of Nordland and Finnmark to the Russian border. In article XIII,

Article XVII provided for a mutual exchange of all prisoners of war. The problem was solved at the Congress of Vienna, when the Great Powers followed a plan worked out by Karl August von Hardenberg, prime minister of the Kingdom of Prussia, who proposed a ring exchange of territories and payments between the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Hanover (ruled in personal union with Great Britain and Ireland), the Kingdom of Prussia and the Kingdom of Sweden. On 5 April 1933 however, the court ruled that on the basis of the Treaty of Kiel and subsequent treaties, Denmark was the sovereign over the whole of Greenland.

See also

  • History of Sweden
  • History of Denmark
  • History of Norway
  • Scandinavia

References

Bibliography