Chapter 1: A rocky road to independence

“The principal objective of Norwegian security policy is to safeguard and promote national security policy interests”, says the Ministry of Defence. “This is best achieved by contributing to peace, security and stability both in areas adjacent to Norway and in the wider world.”

Norway is a young nation. It only achieved full independence in 1905, and in the first century of its short life has had to endure two World Wars, the Cold War, and now most recently the unravelling of what was supposed to be a peaceful new world order.

Occupied by the Nazis in World War II, menaced after liberation by the Soviet forces looming on its eastern flank, and always vulnerable by virtue of its extensive coastline, Norway has developed a complex and rather subtle defence policy. Cooperation with a range of regional and transnational organizations, from NATO at one extreme to the various UN agencies at the other, seeks to reconcile opposing aims of military preparedness and long-term peace.

Birth of a nation
The modern Norwegian Constitution states unequivocally: “As a general rule every subject of the State is equally bound to serve in the defence of his country for a specific period of time, irrespective of birth or fortune. The application of this principle and the restrictions to which it shall be subject shall be determined by law.”

As early as the 13th century, when the very concept of Norway’s nationhood was still in its infancy, every able-bodied Norwegian man was nevertheless prepared as well as obliged to defend his land and his family. Wearied by centuries of internecine warfare, in which the native nobility had been largely eliminated, the population was more than fed up with the “every man for himself“ approach of the Dark Ages. Laws were passed requiring every Norwegian male to keep weapons at home, to make them available for annual inspection, and to fight when necessary in defence of the realm. This was the genesis of Norway’s Armed Forces.

In due course, fast ships designed to carry warriors and their supplies developed thanks to a unique joint venture with town residents and administrators of the coastal districts, where the latter agreed to build, crew and maintain a warship as a kind of tax, known as the leidang.

A system of fire signals on mountain tops would alert the population to imminent hostilities, and call conscripts to battle. The system is thought to have enabled the Norwegian kings of the era to call upon a fleet of 300 warships and 30,000 soldiers at short notice: a sizeable contingent even by modern standards.

The leidang armed forces were not given land in return for their services, as elsewhere in Europe; in any event, almost everyone was a landowner to begin with – one reason that Norway never developed a feudal society. The poorer knights often fought on foot, while mounted troops were equipped and funded by the better-off, a situation that soon evolved into the distinction between cavalry and infantry.

Black Death
Several centuries of Scandinavian turmoil followed, during which the evolution of the Norwegian Armed Forces ground to a halt as the leidang system was abolished in order to prevent unrest. In 1349 the Black Death struck, killing almost two-thirds of the population, and in 1387 the Norwegian crown passed to Denmark, where it would remain for the better part of four centuries.

The Danish kings installed small garrisons of foreign mercenaries in Norway, in preference to a heavily armed local contingent – a strategy that was to backfire after the Kalmar union between Denmark-Norway and Sweden broke down in 1536. When, inevitably, the Kalmar War broke out in 1611, the Danish king tried to revive the leidang... with dire results.

As the Norwegian citizenry had not been armed or trained in the use of arms for nearly three centuries, the rag-tag army the Danish king was able to muster was hopelessly inept. Soldiers deserted en masse, or were routed. However, this military disaster prompted the Danish King Christian IV to promulgate a series of military ordinances between 1614 and 1628.

	Denmark's decision to align with Napoleon meant that hostilities had to reach Norway sooner or later.

Designated groups of farmers were required to provide, equip and billet one soldier each. The soldiers had to participate in military drills, while providing supplementary labour to the local community when not in active service. Although the army still did not represent the whole nation, as city residents were exempt from military duty, 1628 is generally regarded by historians as the year when the modern Norwegian citizen army was born.

During the war of 1643-45, the Norwegian army performed well while its Danish counterpart flopped. As a result, large areas had to be ceded to Sweden. This led the Danish king to invite German mercenaries to coach and command the Danish-Norwegian Armed Forces: a decision echoing down the centuries in traces of Germanic vocabulary used by the Norwegian military to this day.

In the early 18th century the Swedes invaded Norway yet again, and this time the Norwegian army held its own, setting the stage for nearly a century of peace – the longest yet in modern Norwegian history – during which a distinct Norwegian identity began to take root. German was dumped as the official language of command in 1772, in favour of “Dano-Norwegian”. With the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars, Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland tried to remain outside the fray; but Denmark’s King Fredrik IV’s decision to align with Napoleon meant that hostilities had to reach Norway sooner or later. By 1807, Denmark-Norway was formally at war with Britain.

As the Napoleonic era drew to a close, the victorious allies decided to award Norway to Sweden as compensation for its loss of Finland to Russia. This was ratified in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January, 1814. But this time, Norwegians were no longer prepared to let their destiny be decided by third parties. Norway declared independence, and adopted a new constitution on 17 May, 1814, electing the Danish viceroy in Norway, Crown Prince Christian Fredrik, as King of Norway.

Why did Christian Fredrik play along? One theory is that he harboured ambitions ultimately to reunite Norway with Denmark. His father, Denmark’s King Fredrik IV, tried to do his bit by shipping grain to help feed the Norwegian population.

But by now the Norwegian hunger for genuine independence was gathering force, and here the army played a notable role. Of the 112 members of the Norwegian National Assembly which met in 1814 to ratify a new constitution, nearly a third had been elected as representatives of the Armed Forces. None of this deterred the Swedes, however. Determined to implement the Treaty of Kiel, they attacked and defeated Norway’s fighting men in the summer of 1814.

Norway was allowed to keep its parliament

	King haakon VII arriving in newly independent Norway with Crown Prince Olac in his arms; photo takten in 1905 shortly after the King and hos retinue had left the Danish royal yacht Dannebrog.

Generous in victory
The victors were sufficiently generous – and realistic – to involve the Norwegian army in drawing up the peace treaty. This allowed Norway to keep virtually all of the May 17 constitution, with the relatively minor difference that the Swedish King replaced the Danish Crown Prince as ruler. Norway was also allowed to keep its parliament, the Storting, which retained control over domestic taxation and policy. The Storting’s ambit extended to funding and regulating the Norwegian Armed Forces, although these remained nominally under the command of Swedish general staff.

Eventually the spirit of independence, which owed so much to the passion and political adroitness of the Norwegian Armed Forces, proved irresistible. In June 1905 the Storting unilaterally dissolved the 91-year-old union with Sweden. After a short but tense period of mobilization, Sweden bowed to the inevitable, and Norway was truly independent at last.

But no sooner had the independence celebrations died down than Norway, together with the rest of Europe, had to face up to the end of Arcadia as the make-believe paradise that was Europe at the dawn of the 20th century tumbled into madness.

Though nominally a neutral nation during World War I, Norway was in the unenviable position of being dependent on the warring sides for its trade. Coal from Britain was needed to keep the country going, and Norway had thus to agree that each shipload of coal leaving Britain be matched with incoming Norwegian cargoes such as copper ore and fish. This attracted the attention of German submarines. The United States’ entry into the war in 1917 intensified the losses. The Tonnage Agreement between Norway and Britain, which mandated British merchant ships to bring coal into Norway, came a little too late. Between 1914 and 1918 Norway lost 915 ships and 2,123 seamen.

German invasion
Norway’s Armed Forces were kept mobilized throughout the First World War; but they were no match for the German invasion of April 1940. A desperate rearguard action held the Germans just long enough to allow the King and parliament to escape from Oslo and flee to Britain. Although the Norwegian Air Force fleet and remnants of the Navy managed to make their way to Britain as well, the Army and the Officers’ Corps had to surrender to the Germans. However, much of Norway’s merchant fleet also escaped.

Over the next five years of World War II, a thousand-odd ships aggregating nearly 4 million gross tonnes carried supplies to the hard-pressed Britons. Allied generals are reported to have described the Norwegian merchant navy as “a weapon mightier than a million men “. But the cost was terrible: almost 4,000 Norwegian merchant mariners were lost, together with 47 per cent of Norway’s total fleet and 34 per cent of its pre-war tonnage.

During the years of occupation, a small Norwegian army was rebuilt by refugees in Britain and Sweden. A mountain brigade and two commando companies were formed, plus a number of “police units” which were organized through a dozen infantry battalions divided into three brigades. An underground resistance army in occupied Norway, the Milorg (Militærorganisasjonen), numbered about 40,000 by the time the country was liberated in 1945.

Defensive alliances
If nothing else, the terrible events in the first half of the 20th century made it clear that few if any single countries – and in particular no small European country – could realistically hope to survive entirely free of defensive alliances.

At one stage immediately after the Second World War, Norway seriously discussed with Denmark and Sweden the prospect of forming a Scandinavian union. These pan-Scandinavian talks fizzled out after less than a year, leaving Norwegian membership of NATO as the only apparent option, even though there was no pressure on either side, or even a great deal of enthusiasm, for such a move.

As the Cold War waxed and waned, there were times when NATO membership would become a more controversial domestic issue. However, the major changes in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s took much of the heat out of the debate.

And later still, after 9/11, who could argue that military alliances between free nations – or, for that matter, a well equipped and highly motivated military in a free nation – were not more a necessity than ever...?