The reign of Håkon I was, arguably, the most consequential of any Scandinavian monarch of the Early Modern period. A skeptical reader of Håkon's reign might conclude that the man himself was largely a non-entity, that he was driven by forces outside of his control and by people who were far more clever and powerful than he was himself. And to some extent those skeptics would be correct: most of the developments in foreign affairs as well as all of the changes in domestic politics and development were driven and designed by forces outside of Håkon's control. No one, including me, will argue that Emperor Håkon was a great leader in the tradition of monarchs who imposed their will on the world, like Queen Sophia or King Christian II. But that being said, Håkon was, in my opinion, the right man for the right time. Emperor Håkon came to power in a changing world, following 4 decades in which Emperors Karl and Johan had, through force of will, kept that change at bay. But force of will can only hold back change for so long. It is not unreasonable to believe that had the unbending Emperor Johan survived another decade, the weight of change would have broken and crushed him, and along with it, Scandinavia itself. Emperor Håkon, by bending to the times, almost certainly saved Scandinavia from disaster, while overseeing the arrival of a new era of industry, science, wealth, liberty, and Scandinavian hegemony.
One of the most consequential events during Håkon's reign was rapid industrialization in Scandinavia and the Danelaw. This had little to do with the Emperor himself, except for allowing his father's censorship policies to lapse and completing the Kiel Canal (connecting the Baltic with the rest of the world in all weather). As new ideas spread throughout the realm, and wealth flowed in from Johan's Indian Ocean colonies, local investors and a growing class of the
nouveau riche began experimenting with new ways of producing goods and food. This in turn kickstarted the Scandinavian economy and began a period of massive growth and wealth in Scandinavia that even several major wars could not bankrupt.
The pioneers of this industrial revolution are too numerous to count and deserve their own long treatise, not a footnote in this discussion of Danish monarchs in the Early Modern Period, so I will not discuss them further.
To understand politics at the highest level under Emperor Håkon, we must first take note of the primary players. The most powerful men in court at Håkon's ascension were the philosopher Tomas Ehrenstrahl, diplomat Mikael Hjarne, and engineer Ingne Oxenstierna. Also of note were Johan Krag and Karl Fischer, who commanded the land and naval forces, respectively, in India. Without clear guidance from Copenhagen (and Håkon certainly had no interest in following his father to India), they in control not only of the military situation, but also Danish politics in India.
These men all had their own agendas and acted accordingly. Oxenstierna was largely responsible for the construction of the Kiel Canal, but used that position to dole out favorable contracts to his friends and family. Hjarne used his influence predominantly in foreign courts, taking advantage of Scandinavia's reputation to demand lavish ceremony and a rich lifestyle throughout Europe. Ehrenstrahl convinced the Emperor to expend lavish sums of money patronizing philosophers, scientists, and scholars. This drove Scandinavia back into debt in the early part of Håkon's reign, and had far-reaching consequences: promoting industry, prosperity, and knowledge, while spreading ideas that eventually led to Revolution and civil war.
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Krag and Fischer, left without guidance in India, simply negotiated an end to the war without real gains or losses. Fischer's motivationations remain unclear (although it is possible that he had simply already defeated in local fleets and there wasn't much left for him to do), but based on Krag's writings he seems to have genuinely cared about the welfare of his men and simply did not want to lead them to their deaths in a war far from home being fought for reasons that no one seemed to care about anymore. Even in the upcoming Revolution, Krag generally acted slowly and methodically, only attacking when he had overwhelming force or a favorable position. This eventually led to his removal and replacement by his protege: Johan Liljencrantz, a man who inherited all of Krag's brilliance and then some but none of his caution.
All of pet projects paled in comparison with the influence wielded by a latecomer, however: Oxenstierna's replacement Gunnar Toll. Gunnar Toll was hired to finish the construction of the Kiel Canal following Oxenstierna's untimely death at only 43. Toll would successfully oversee the construction - and indeed without much of the corruption and nepotism that had caused so many delays under Oxenstierna - but he also had a much larger project on his mind.
Toll was Prussian. At a young age, he was forced to flee Polish Prussia and his family found refuge in the Danish outpost of Danzig. In his 20s, Toll traveled Germany, studying engineering and political philosophy. Although it is likely that these ideas took root much earlier, by the mid 1740s Toll had become an avid nationalist and constitutionalist. He dreamed of liberating his homeland and establishing a Prussian Republic. His adopted land of Scandinavia, he believed, was the place to make that happen. On accepting the appointment in Copenhagen, Toll made fast friends with the Empress consort, who supported his plan and helped bully Håkon into declaring war on Poland.
Scandinavian forces advanced into Poland from Danzig and Lithuania. In October 1756 the decisive battle of the war took place outside of Warsaw. The Scandinavian army under General Kvistgaard used mass artillery against Polish forces as they tried to cross the Vistula, inflicting heavy losses. Warsaw fell before the December snows arrived.
Although hostilities nominally lasted another year and a half, the fall of Warsaw and arrival of French forces meant that serious Polish resistance - even when it occasionally found success - was no longer possible. Poland surrendered in 1758, ceding Prussia, and the rest of its Baltic coastline, to Scandinavia.
Toll convinced Håkon that more wealth would be derived from the Baltic enclave if the burghers were allowed some semblance of self-governance. They were to pay heavily for the privilege, of course, and exempted from military obligation to allow them to focus on trade. And with that, a new Prussian Republic was formed under the protection of Scandinavia.
But dark times were ahead for Scandinavia. The underlying causes of the Revolution were numerous, but the most significant factors seem to have been an overflow of tensions from the previous 40 years of repression, which came to a head exactly as information and new ideas about nationalism, representation, and liberty began to flow freely once again. There was also certainly an economic component: the wealth that had begun to grow into Scandinavia from trade and industrialization increased the importance of capital for the gain of wealth. This widened the gap between rich and poor, even as the Court took advantage of both that wealth and those poor to fund vanity projects that included leaving Scandinavian sons dead on foreign battlefields. Finally, many veterans of the Polish war had also encountered Polish revolutionaries on campaign, and had themselves fought to establish what was essentially a national republic. Less than 6 months after the peace with Poland and the establishment of the Prussian Republic, tensions overflowed and riots broke out in Denmark and Norway, seeking liberty and opportunity.
The army dispersed the rioters and the government largely ignored the demands of the protests. The government's misreading and mishandling of the situation escalated and in 1760 a full blown rebellion had broken out throughout Scandinavia.
(Krag disperses the protestors months after they rose up, as he sought a favorable battlefield, and the Court studiously ignores the demands of the people for years after the initial riots)
(Protests turn into Revolution across Scandinavia)
The situation appeared dire. At the outset of hostilities, the revolutionary forces outnumbered those of the Government by over 2:1, and many nationalist movements cropping up in India, West Africa, and Madagascar sought to use the chaos to pursue their own agenda.
These movements, however, struggled from lack of coordination. Rebels in Madagascar perhaps can't reasonably be expected to coordinate with those in London or even Ceylon, but even Rebel armies within a small an area as the Low Countries were plagued by infighting and poor cooperation. Even had they not been fractured, the Rebellion's ability to move troops freely was hamstrung by the fact that neither the majority of the navy nor the garrisons of key forts defected. The armed rebellions were defeated in detail by numerically much inferior forces.
By the middle of 1761, the Revolutionary armies had been entirely dispersed, with only a smattering of provinces still holding out hope of total victory.
But even in the waning days of the armed portion of the Revolution, it was becoming obvious that the problems facing the Realm were not going to disappear with the Revolutionary armies. The movement was sweeping across Europe. In Poland, Spain, Austria, and Germany revolutionaries were in constant conflict with their government, and Scandinavia was poised to follow suit. the most militant had been killed or driven to ground, but without systemic change more would have taken their place. Fortunately for Scandinavia, she had an Emperor who was willing to bend and advisors who were willing to push him to do so: In particular, Gunnar Toll, who had managed to keep his position after the completion of the Kiel Canal, was instrumental in negotiating the Compromise of Stockholm and restoring order the Realm.
The Compromise greatly limited the central authority of the Crown and provided local representation across mainland Scandinavia (the colonies and overseas territories were still out of luck). Although it was not initially written as a major abdication of power by the Emperor, Håkon's pliable nature meant that Parliament was, for all intents and purposes, in control of much of foreign and domestic policy throughout Håkon's reign.
Parliament began as a relatively small body with representatives from key provinces across representing various regional interests: One for Denmark with an additional representative for Copenhagen itself, one for the Danelaw, one for Sweden, one for Norway, one for Holland, one for Flanders, and one for Estonia. This gradually filled out over time based on population and economic importance.
[@DensleyBlair - you may be Danish in this universe, but at least you have representation?]
The center of influence for each of Parliament's early constituencies were all large trading ports or industrial hubs, if not both. Even as Parliament expanded as per the Stockholm Compromise, Parliament tended to shift power away from the old regime and landed nobility, and toward the wealthy cities. As such, the early Parliament was quite responsive to the desires of the growing merchant-industrial class. And, since they were also increasingly the people funding the Empire, Håkon was generally happy to approve Parliament's actions. They passed several key reforms to the army, using Johan's army reforms as precedent to allow commissions from the rank and file thus creating opportunity through service. They also authorized the dramatic expansion of the merchant marine and tamped down on smuggling.
Parliament's most consequential contribution to Scandinavian policy was likely their policy regarding intervention in the East. Although they largely refrained from wars of conquest perpetrated by many Scandinavian monarchs throughout history, they strove to limit the influence of any one foreign realm in the Indies as a means of protecting Scandinavian hegemony in these regions. Over the next two decades, this policy brought Scandinavia into conflict with two Great Powers and tested the longevity of the Compromise. The first was in January 1763, when Scandinavia intervened to halt Spanish expansion in the East Indies and the Philippines.
The war began poorly for Scandinavia, as General Ludwig Molke's attempt to defend Gascony was brutally repelled by an army commanded by King Alphonso XII himself. Meanwhile, General Liljencrantz attempted an ill-fated expedition to eastern Africa where he was overwhelmed and forced to surrender. Only the arrival of French forces nine months later saved the Pyrenees front from total collapse, while the Scandinavians would never again set foot in Spanish East Africa.
But the war at sea went much better for the Scandinavians. The new Merchant Marine proved more than capable of defending itself. Adding to Scandinavia's triumph, Admiral Simon Adlersperre caught a large Spanish fleet off the coast of West Africa carrying soldiers and supplies to the east. The fleet was wiped out, including the Spanish Flagship Nereida.
The defeat of the Spanish expeditionary force and the constant vigilance of Scandinavia's smaller naval squadrons in the Southeastern Atlantic and Indian Oceans left the East almost entirely inaccessible to the Spanish, and led to the occupation of most of her Asian territories by Sulu and Brunei, the initial targets of the war.
In 1765, Admiral Adlersperre trapped the last significant Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean, as the individual squadrons from Scandinavia strangled Spain's colonies. In a desperate effort to break the blockade and get his fleet free to escort badly needed troops to where they were needed most, Spain's Admiral Alphonso Gravina led a daring attack on the blockade at Gibraltar. The attempt was soundly defeated, and the Spanish navy, once the pride of the seas, spent the rest of the war hiding in various ports and trying to avoid total destruction... A fate it avoided poorly.
Unable to reinforce the homeland with forces from abroad, General Moltke and his French allies managed to press into Spain proper, forcing the King into exile in North Africa.
The one bright spot for the Spanish was in West Africa. Freed from the threat in his region after he captured the Scandinavian Indian Expedition, but unable to move his troops by sea due to the Scandinavian stranglehold on the waves, the Spanish explorer Diego de Beaumont led his army of 10s of thousands on a daring march through the Congo Basin [Oh, EU4....
]. This stunt undoubtedly surpasses even Hannibal's famed march across the Alps with elephants, and will forever cement Diego de Beaumont as a legend. His army appeared suddenly and unexpectedly in Scandinavian West Africa, threatening the lynchpin of the very trade Parliament had hoped to protect. But although he conquered the jungle, Johan's fortresses prevented de Beaumont from proceeding inland and capturing the vital trading ports. Scandinavian troops were diverted from Iberia, led by a newly-freed Liljencrantz, who soundly defeated the Spanish expedition and ended all hope Spain had of coercing Scandinavia from the war.
[yeah, this is not de Beaumont's army... Spain ALSO seems to have sent its Iberian forces to West Africa via Morroco. I have no idea why.]
Spain surrendered in 1768, giving up large swathes of its Indian Ocean, African territory, and American territory as well as key forts in the Pyrenees.
Spain faced major rebellions throughout the realm that remained to them. Faced with a battered army and almost no navy whatsoever to bring it home, Spain would not be an active contender in global affairs for decades to come.
The second major intervention undertaken during this time was against the Empire of Gujarat. Gujarat had secured almost all of India. It also had developed a modern army and navy. It was already projecting its influence into the horn of Africa, and central and Southeast Asia, and represented a major threat to Scandinavian interests in Ceylon. Should it unite the Indian subcontinent, it would emerge as a power that could easily dominate the entire Indian Ocean and undermine Scandinavia's growing hegemony there. [Delhi no longer owns Delhi and it makes no sense to call them that. They are instead concentrated in northeastern India and Bengal. I debated giving them a new name, but for simplicity I will stick with Delhi]
The Gujarati army attempted to overwhelm Delhi quickly and then turn its attention south. Unfortunately, large influxes of Scandinavian treasure flowed into Delhi kept the Delhi army afloat as the Scandinavian Indian Expedition advanced in the south and an additional army was transferred from Europe to reinforce.
Admiral Adlersparre continued to prove his worth, soundly defeating the Gujarati navy off the coast of Ceylon.
As Scandinavian forces rapidly advanced up the west coast toward Gujarat itself, easily reducing the outdated regional garrisons, the Gujarati army was forced to send increasing numbers of troops to stop them, giving Delhi a much-needed breather. Adlersparre used his control of the sea to rapidly move armies along the coast, concentrating at strategic points for key battles, defeating Gujarati armies in detail. After two ever-larger armies were captured by overwhelming force, Scandinavian forces marched into Ahmedabad itself. The last-ditch relief effort to save the capital failed.
Gujarat surrendered and the peace was signed the next year.
The rest of Emperor Håkon's reign was peaceful and prosperous. Scandinavian traders dominated the Indian Ocean as industrialists exploited coal in the Danelaw to build new, fascinating machines. The Compromise of Stockholm saved the realm from the unrest and revolutions that continued to rock Europe. In early 1786, Håkon passed away, leaving a much diminished throne and a much expanded realm to his son Frederik IV [not sure why it says Frederik I there... We've had 3 Frederik's already!].
Scandinavia protects a large swathe of the world, and its power is rivaled only by Spain and the Ottomans... the former of which is still humbled from their previous match.
Scandinavia has grown fabulously wealthy on trade with India and the Americas. Her colonies hold most of northern and Eastern America, while French colonies dominate South America.
Scandinavian diplomatic influence, showing the Protectorates and trade companies as well.
Finally, the Great Power table near the end of Håkon's reign.
With that, I think I will officially wrap up this AAR. It seems a good place to end our tale of Danish Kings in the Early Modern Period - Scandinavia is ascendant in the world; the New Age of industry is fast approaching, and the power of the ancient Danish throne has been struck down, not by external powers or internal factions that seemed so close to tearing it apart at times, but by the People themselves. I think that after Håkon's reign the world has well and truly changed, and we are leaving the Early Modern period behind. I considered that it might be fun for Frederik to oppose Parliament, and/or to have a showdown with the Ottomans (possibly over Egypt, so we can build the Suez Canal?), but my ancient computer was noticeably stuttering running this game by the time the war with Spain happened, so that sealed it for me. I will post a summary and final shots of the world in the next couple of days. Thanks to everyone who participated and commented and, I can honestly say, ultimately made this the most fun game of EU4 I have every played.
