1864-1866: Robert Georg Wrede (Hat majority)
1866-1871: Robert Georg Wrede (Hat leading War Government with War Caps)
1869: "National Unity" (254; Hat 210, War Cap 44), Peace Cap (53), New Liberal (3)
1871-1875: Robert Georg Wrede (National majority)
1874: National (204), Liberal (104)
1875: National (201), Liberal (112)
Still rated high on the list of Chancery Presidents by most historians, Baron Wrede is perhaps less known to the general public than the war he led Sweden through. Started over religious politics in the Middle East, the war of 1866-69 saw Russia attack the Ottoman Empire and then face a coalition of Turkish, French, British and Swedish forces, which inflicted a sound defeat on it and came close to capturing St. Petersburg. The peace treaty saw the recovery of the far more defensible 1721 boundary in Karelia, along with the islands of Hogland, Tyterskär, Seitskär and Lövskär, giving Sweden essentially its modern-day borders.
At home, Wrede was a champion of protectionist tolls designed to shore up domestic industry, an age-old Hat position that carried over into the new National Party formed out of the wartime coalition. The Peace Caps and New Liberals merged into a corresponding Liberal Party, whose main policy was free trade; this proved unable to break through Wrede's majority in 1874, and again when King Gustav V died and the Riksdag was dissolved in 1875. Having served for close to twelve years, Wrede declared that he would not carry on under Adolf II, retiring to his estates in Finland Proper where he died in 1884.
1875-1877: Johan August Bååth (National majority)
Bååth is, frankly, not one of our better-remembered heads of government. Tapped by the King to replace Wrede, he failed to win the confidence of Wrede's old lieutenants, and a cabinet revolt forced him out after a year and a half in office.
1877-1882: Mauritz Klinckowström (National majority)
1878: National (199), Liberal (117), Radical (2)
Klinckowström, who had been President of the College of War for the better part of a decade and served as a general in the Army before that, was a stronger leader than Bååth or arguably Wrede. A tall man with a strong voice and a legendary temper, he suffered only for his lack of real independent ideas. His disposition made him a good general and an excellent cabinet minister, but as head of government he was questionable at best. Indeed, his domineering style suppressed many initiatives from both the Riksdag and the world of letters, ensuring that very little policy got carried out and Sweden merely carried on for the five years he was in power. The electorate, happy to give the Nationals a chance when Klinckowström's leadership was new, turned away from them when King Adolf's death triggered an early dissolution in 1882.
1882-1886: Erik Gustaf von Ungern-Sternberg (Liberal majority)
1882: Liberal (169), National (145), Radical (7)
The first Liberal government ever, and the first government in thirty-five years not led by a Hat or National, came to power with a slim majority, and Ungern-Sternberg did all he could to make sure he didn't suffer the sort of split that had brought down his predecessors. He was aided in this by the fact that a left split, the Radical Party, had already taken hold. Like the New Liberals before them, the Radicals were formed by backbenchers angry with the leadership for their vacillation on one key issue - but this time it wasn't trade, it was the franchise. The Radicals were staunch proponents of universal suffrage, and the satirical press soon gave them the nickname "Phrygians", which would follow them throughout their existence.
None of this particularly concerned Ungern-Sternberg, a Livonian nobleman of ancient lineage who led his government from the Lords. Instead he focused on the old Liberal flagships: free trade and free enterprise. The ancient restriction of foreign trade to chartered staple ports was abolished, as were the few remaining guild privileges, the burgher franchise was brought into line with the rural one, and tariffs were lowered across the board. The reforms came after most other European countries had already abolished their tariffs, and indeed some were moving back toward protectionism, but nevertheless helped keep prices down for the burgeoning industrial classes. Satisfied with his achievements, Ungern-Sternberg asked the King to dissolve the Riksdag for an election in spring 1886. In hindsight, this was likely a mistake...
1886-1889: Gustaf Fredrik Carpelan (National majority)
1886: National (193), Liberal (119), Radical (12)
Two days after the Riksdag was dissolved, a platoon of Russian soldiers on maneouvre crossed the border at Nujama. Swedish border troops opened fire, killed two Russians, and had one of their men crippled by a shot to the hip in response. The Russian government issued a formal apology, claiming it had been a genuine mistake, and war would ultimately not come, but the incident showed tensions were on the rise again in the Baltic. After a chaotic campaign where the defence issue drowned out any other consideration, the Swedish voters saw fit to return the Nationals. The new Chancery President was of an old Finnish family (whose name was originally Karppalainen), and spent his three years in office strengthening Army recruitment and expanding the fortresses at Sveaborg and Fredrikshamn. He was effective at this, and many expected him to survive for a long time, until the release of incriminating documents forced his resignation in 1889.
1889-1895: Augustin Beck-Friis (National majority)
1890: National (203), Liberal (99), Radical (20), Finnish Tenants (9)
Carpelan was replaced by one of the most successful peacetime leaders in the National Party's history. Beck-Friis was an old-school Hat of the Wredean tradition, and while extremely conservative, saw the benefits of a strong state economically as well as socially. His government would raise tariffs again, and with the revenue gained from this, buy up the railway network and extend it into the peripheral regions, turning it into an efficient transport network that could ferry passengers, cargo and - yes - troops from Malmö to Kuopio in as little as four days. The College of Mountains led the expansion of heavy industry, including the first prospecting surveys of the Norrbotten iron mines, and city councils were given increased powers to regulate street grids and clear out slums. Sweden was moving into the second Industrial Revolution with haste, and it was all going quite well, until a spate of crop failures in 1894 (which would turn out to be the last in Swedish history) caused a stock-market crash.
1895-1897: Alexander von Friesen (Liberal minority)
1895: Liberal (161), National (129), Finnish Tenants (20), Radical (17), Workers' Associations (7)
The 1895 elections were indecisive, but it was at least clear that the Nationals had been rejected. Using this argument, Friesen was able to get the backing of the Radicals and the Finnish Tenants' Association, which had been founded after Ungern-Sternberg's government expanded the franchise to include certain tenants as well as freeholders. Their main goal was to bring about more secure tenancy laws, and Friesen would deliver on this in exchange for their support. Other than that, not much was achieved - the Finnish Tenants were against most social reforms other than Finnish language rights, which many Liberals in the western half of the realm opposed, and any economic reforms were sure to be defeated by the National majority in the Lords. The Friesen ministry lasted twenty-seven months before resigning, and the resulting snap election did not go well for any party involved.
1897-1900: Augustin Beck-Friis (National majority)
1897: National (244), Liberal (51), Radical (39), Workers' Associations (3), Finnish Tenants (3)
"Beck-Friis back, please" was certainly not the slogan that won the 1897 elections, but it might as well have been. The old nobleman brought back more or less the old ministry, and true to his pragmatic sensibilities, did not try to undo the few changes Friesen had brought about. He presided over three years of quiet recovery, before dying of a brain haemmorhage seven months into the new century. The National grandees met to determine who would lead them, and would bring into power a man whose legend eclipsed that of Beck-Friis, and approached that of Wrede: the man who would lead Sweden through its greatest trial in two hundred years...
1900-1903: Adolf Lagerheim (National majority)
1902: National (177), Liberal (84), Radical (64), Labour (17)
1903-1907: Adolf Lagerheim (National leading War Government with Liberals and Radicals)