Abstract
This book by Michael Jonas, professor of history at the University of Hamburg, deals with the small Scandinavian states and their relations with the Great Powers in the First World War. It is a collection of essays covering ‘a variety of problems related to or representing the Scandinavian experience of the First World War’ (p. 2).
The book starts with an introduction where the author defines his aims and also discusses some of the terms used in the book, mainly the concepts great power, small state, and neutrality. This is followed by a comparison of the different approaches of the Scandinavian countries towards the Great Powers (Great Britain, Germany, and Russia). After that five case studies are presented. The first one deals with the meeting of the kings of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway in Malmö, Sweden, in December 1914, where the author underlines the symbolic character of the meeting and stresses the importance of such symbolic actions for international politics. The next chapter deals with Swedish–German relations during the First World War. The main focus of the quite short chapter is on the Swedish activists from rather influential circles who wanted Sweden to enter the war on the German side and their contacts with the German Foreign Ministry. The next chapter covers the interaction between intellectuals and war with a special focus on the Danish critic and scholar Georg Brandes. Jonas shows the difficult position that Brandes and other European intellectuals found themselves in when having to grapple with trying to remain neutral in the turmoil of the war. The last two chapters of the book cover Finland and Swedish–Finnish matters. One discusses the establishment of Finland as an independent state in 1917, where Finnish independence is seen rather as an unintended result of the Russian revolution in 1917 than the result of the Finnish nationalists’ efforts. The last chapter deals with the Åland Question in Great Power politics from 1917 to 1921. Here, Jonas discusses the importance of international law and comes to the conclusion that it was the Swedish policy that was the main factor behind the longevity of the solution that the League of Nations decided upon.
This book tries, in other words, to cover quite a few different aspects of the relations between Scandinavia and the Great Powers. An important ambition for the author is to shed new light and interpret the cases chosen in new ways. This the author does successfully. The chosen methods and theoretical perspectives do shed new light on Scandinavia and the Great Powers in the First World War. There is no doubt that Jonas has an extensive knowledge in the field and is up to date on the newest research. The chapters are well researched and the cases are well suited to promote the understanding of important aspects of the Scandinavian states’ position in as well on the war, not least their neutral stance. The book also highlights important features of international relations, for example, the importance of the domestic scene for foreign policy or the symbolic character of international (and national) politics. Jonas’ book is certainly a welcome addition to the research on neutral states in war and especially on Scandinavian states.
But this book has a few drawbacks as well. One problem is its use of so many different approaches and Jonas’ ambition to cover so many different subjects, which lead to a certain lack of depth. I often found myself wanting to know more and to be given a more thorough appraisal of almost all of the subjects covered in the book. The author explains that he has chosen to write shorter essays instead of a more integrated narrative to get more flexibility in dealing with the subject. From a researcher’s perspective, such a flexibility is of course always welcome. But in this case, it creates a problem for the reader, especially as the book does not contain a concluding chapter where the results are summarized and the potential of the methodologies for further researching Scandinavia in the First World War could have been discussed. Such a chapter would have enhanced the book and could have been a solution to the lack of a more integrated overarching narrative. The title of the book is also a bit of a problem as it gives the impression that it deals with all of Scandinavia and the Great Powers in the First World War. That is not quite the case. Denmark, not to mention Norway, is a bit too absent for the book to be able to claim to analyse Scandinavia and the Great Powers in the First World War. The book’s main emphasis is on Sweden and its relations with the Great Powers.