The DSFMC Recruitment Bug
Since you are already a geocacher, you like to walk your boots off in towns and countryside alike. You like to read the stories behind the caches you find. Some of you will surely also make superb re-enactors, and therefore I send the “DSFMC recruitment bug” on this mission.
Re-enactment is a hobby with many faces. Mediaeval tournaments, Roman legions or the soldier's life of the Napoleonic era are just some of many ways history is re-lived and re-created by re-enactors. It is a great way to learn about history, and of course it will make you meet people who share your interests. Perhaps this Travel Bug® [1] will inspire you to look up just that particular group that suits you, where you live.
From a re-enactment at Langnes near Askim, Norway. DSFMC in the foreground, and behind visiting groups from the Czech Republic. Photo: Einar H. Berg (2004)
The Travel Bug ®
We made the medal in connection with the 200 years commemorations of the Seven Years War between Denmark-Norway on one side and Sweden and Britain on the other. After Britain had attacked Copenhagen in 1807 and took the entire Danish-Norwegian fleet in order to prevent it from falling into Napoleon's hands, Denmark-Norway was forced into war.
The following year, the spring of 1808, Sweden attacked Norway, and battles were fought at the places you find mentioned on the back of the medal. Norway pushed the Swedes off in 1808.
In January 1814, Sweden finally got a hold of Norway. Napoleon's empire crumbled after he lost the battle at Leipzig in October 1813. He was to keep his title as Emperor and was given the small island of Elba to rule, while as a small part of all that took place in those days, Denmark had to give up Norway. The two countries had been one kingdom for 434 years. No one asked the Norwegians their opinion.
During the spring of 1814, those that are forever after known as “the Eidsvoll men” assembled at Eidsvoll near Lake Mjøsa, and on the 17th of May 1814 they signed the Norwegian Constitution. Norway was declared independent and the Danish prince Christian Frederik was elected king of a free Norway.
The Swedish crown prince, Carl Johan, could not accept this. Carl Johan was previously known as Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, for years one of Napoleon's generals. After he had been elected crown prince of Sweden in 1810, he later broke with Napoleon and became a crucial adviser and participant during the battles that cost Napoleon the power in 1813. In July 1814, Carl Johan attacked Norway, and his forces took the country within a few weeks. Several of the battles fought then, are also mentioned on the back of the medal.
Military resistance against a general as experienced as Bernadotte was useless, Yet, the Norwegians' willingness to go to war struck his heart and played its role when he allowed Norway to keep its constitution. When eventually he became king Carl XIV Johan in 1818, he lived to be a respected and loved head of state in both his countries until his death in 1844. Not the least the fact that Oslo's main street still carries his name tells a whole lot about this.
The Constitution was important. In this document was laid down all the tools that later lead up to the breakup of the Union on 7th June 1905. Seen as part of the political process that let Norway keep the Constitution in 1814, also the military resistance that Norway made during those days in July and August 1814 proved important. We lost the war. We won our freedom.
The Constitution is still in work today, and May 17th is Norway's National Day.
DSFMC
Det søndenfieldske frivillige musqueteer corps (DSFMC) is based at the Defence Museum at Akershus fortress in Oslo. “Our time” is around 1808, the last few years of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway, and with Napoleon as ruler of large parts of Europe. During autumn, winter and spring we meet every second week – no obligations attached – for talks and planning of the summer's activities. We arrange our own re-enactments, and we take part in other events in Norway and abroad. Everyone is just as active as he or she pleases.
The group provides uniforms as well as weapons, and besides that, it is really up to yourself. Some make their own uniforms and buy equipment that could drain anybody's wallet for money, while others hang on to the same old uniform the museum lent them for years and years. If you want to know more about DSFMC, do send me some words (The 'DSFMC recruitment bug' has reference # TB29YMY under Trackable items on geocaching.com, in case you came into this page from another place). And if this has inspired you to take up re-enactment in any other form, the “DSFMCs recruitment bug” has also done its job. Ask and look around where you live. Who knows, maybe you'll find just the group for you!
Good luck!
- [1] Travel Bug®
A Groundspeak Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online. Learn more at http://www.geocaching.com/track/faq.aspx.