What altered this situation was the humiliation the Danes received following the Napoleonic Wars, when they ended up on the losing side and handed over (to Sweden) another of their great traditional possessions, Norway. Being thus shamed and weakened, and with their southern borders menaced by the growing power of Prussia, the Danes embarked on a frenetic new attempt to fan the flames of patriotism, by reinforcing a sense of their own distinctive past.
