Castlereagh (1769-1822) created the Greenland question, which interests President Trump today. The Ulster Scot secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom (1812-1822) was in charge of the treaty, which defines the current legal status quo of Greenland.

 

The Treaty of Kiel was signed in 1814 and established that Greenland was part of Denmark and would not be returned to Norway. It is known also as the Dano-English treaty, because it finally defined Denmark as an ally. Castlereagh, as Minister for War (1806-1812) had ordered the bombing of Copenhagen (September 1807) due to the country’s friendship with Napoleon. This sparked the Anglo-Russian War (1807-1812) since Russia had joined forces with Napoleon and the UK had successfully blockaded the Baltic Sea (Denmark controls access to the Baltic Sea by way of Elsinore Castle, famous because of Shakespeare’s Hamlet).

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Denmark signed the treaty on 14th January 1814, because Napoleon had suffered an irreversible defeat at the battle of Leipzig (October 1813) and the allies were marching steadily towards Paris which they would eventually occupy in March 1814. Castlereagh and his brother Charles Stewart had managed to persuade Sweden to change sides before the battle and therefore the king of Sweden would retain his throne after the hostilities were over (the Bernadotte family rule Sweden to this day, even though they descend from a Napoleonic general).

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Castlereagh returned most territories to Denmark in 1814. He also imposed the abolition of slavery to that country with the same treaty. Irish members of the UK parliament were abolitionists and when Ireland was incorporated into the UK, they helped pass the abolition of slave trade in the UK in 1807, which was later extended abroad (most noticeably at the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815).

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The Treaty of Kiel (1814) was never fully implemented. Norway refused to be annexed to Sweden and fought a brief war. Swedish Pomerania was never returned to Sweden but became part of Prussia. Two major points of the treaty of Kiel were never applied.

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Article 4 of the Treaty of Kiel indicated that Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands would become Danish (though formerly and formally Norwegian). The passage in question discusses the return of all other Norwegian dependencies to Norway.

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Castlereagh’s brother, Charles Stewart (UK ambassador to Berlin), was there at Kiel. He arrived a couple of weeks before the signature and complained that Sweden and Denmark had already reached some sort of consensus. They had previously agreed to discuss the matter at the future peace congress (Congress of Vienna). Without the adequate diplomatic supervision, the Treaty of Kiel failed.

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The legal problem, which concerns Greenland, was that the Treaty of Kiel altered the relation between Norway and its dependencies guaranteed by the Union of Kalmar (1397-1523) and even by the Denmark Norway Union (1523-1814). This is not a historic footnote. It was the legal point brought by Norway in 1931-1933 before an international court to reclaim at least part of Greenland.

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Trump wishes to expand US territory and incorporate Greenland for his own political agenda. However, it is clear that behind him is a legal team that has looked into the botched Treaty of Kiel which even Castlereagh and Charles Stewart had doubts about. The question should have had the proper supervision of such a gathering as the Congress of Vienna. Greenlanders would be less worried about their future.