Gustaf V of Sweden - Public Life

Public Life

By inclination, Gustaf V was a conservative man, and did not approve of the democratic movement or demands for workers' rights. Theoretically, he was a near-autocrat under the 1809 Instrument of Government. However, his father had been forced to accept a government chosen by the majority in Parliament in 1905.

Gustaf V seemed to be willing to accept parliamentary rule. After the 1911 elections netted a massive landslide for the Liberals, Gustaf appointed Liberal leader Karl Staaff as Prime Minister, despite his own conservative predispositions. However, during the run-up to World War I, the elites objected to Staaff's defence policy. In February 1914, a large crowd of farmers gathered at the royal palace and demanded that the country's defences be strengthened. In his reply – the so-called Courtyard Speech — Gustaf promised to strengthen the country's defences. Staaff was outraged, telling him that parliamentary rule called for the Crown to stay out of politics. However, Gustaf retorted that he had the right to speak to his own people. The Staaff government resigned in protest, and Gustaf appointed a civil servant government headed by Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (father Dag Hammarskjöld) in its place.

After the 1917 elections showed a heavy gain for the Liberals and Social Democrats, however, Gustaf was forced to appoint Staaff's successor, Nils Eden, as prime minister. By this time, it was apparent that Gustaf could not keep a government in office against the will of Parliament. He grudgingly accepted the principles of parliamentary rule, and reigned for the rest of his life as a model constitutional monarch.

Gustaf V was considered to have German sympathies during World War I. His political stance during the war was highly influenced by his wife, who felt a strong connection to her German homeland. On 18 December 1914, he sponsored a meeting in Malmö with the other two kings of Scandinavia to demonstrate unity within and between them. Another of Gustaf V's objectives with this three-king conference was to dispel suspicions that he wanted to bring Sweden into the war on Germany's side.