Abstract
During the First World War, the Danish government carried out a foreign policy which had been first in debate, and later in preparation, since the country’s defeat by Prussia and Austria in the War of 1864. This policy was one which the author calls “soft” neutrality; namely, a policy of neutrality whose success depended upon a degree of accommodation with the respective belligerents, rather than the threat of fierce resistance in the event of its violation. The left-wing governments of Denmark deemed it impossible to defend the country in the event of an invasion; they resolved, therefore, to avert hostilities by convincing both the Central Powers and the western Allies that their own interests lay in respecting Denmark’s peaceful neutrality. The policy proved eminently successful in the First World War, but this experience left the same politicians ill equipped to judge the quite different conditions they would face during the Second World War.
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Notes
- 1.
The neutrality of the then three sovereign Scandinavian countries attracts little interest from English language historians of the First World War. Christopher Clark’s recent study of the lead-up to the war, The Sleepwalkers, devotes just two paragraphs to the diplomatic stance of Sweden, and Denmark and Norway are hardly mentioned (Clark, 2012, pp. 499–500). On the other hand, the diplomacy conducted by all three Scandinavian countries relative to Russia, Britain and Germany is discussed at length by Salmon (1997).
- 2.
The meaning of the term I use here, “hard” neutrality, overlaps with the often-employed and seemingly more specific term “armed” neutrality. I avoid the latter, however, because in fact it is less specific; it fails to distinguish between a neutrality which is based in principle upon armed defense and the losses this will cause a violator, and a neutrality which, while perhaps also anticipating armed resistance, is based upon other principles.
- 3.
Other sources give slightly differing figures. Sauntved & Eberhardt (2007, p. 213) also supply the figure of 250,000 Danish speakers (see below) in occupied South Jutland though elsewhere they cite the number 200,000 (p. 13).
- 4.
The poem was actually composed in 1918, on the eve of South Jutland’s return to Denmark, and the first two lines run in full: “Det lyder som et eventyr, et sagn fra gamle dage:/ En røvet datter dybt begraedt er kommet frelst tilbage!” (“It sounds as from a fairy-tale, a legend from of old:/ A stolen daughter, deeply mourned, has joyfully come home!”).
- 5.
The “something” to be gained that the writer refers to was, of course, South Jutland.
- 6.
It need hardly be added that Danish irredentism vis-à-vis South Jutland came eerily to resemble, even to the details of its iconography, the French revanchisme directed towards Alsace and Lorraine.
- 7.
Danish: “Hvad skald det nytte?”—more colloquially, “What’s the use?”.
- 8.
- 9.
Peter Munch is referred to by seeming consensus among Danish historians as “P. Munch”—allegedly in tribute to his forbidding personal reserve. Whatever the reason for this custom, it will also be followed here.
- 10.
Many of these are cited in Staur (1981–1982), e.g.: “Tyskland og dets Kejser. Det ny Aarhundrede” (p. 103), “Det nye Tyskland. Tilskueren” (p. 103), Hvad Valgene gaelder” (p. 104), Danmark under en stormagtskrig” (p. 107), “Småstat mellem stormagter” p. 108), “Danmarks Selvstaendighed” (p. 110), “Hvad laerer Historien Danmark?” (p. 111), “Danmarks neutralitetspligter” (p. 113).
- 11.
The alliances that existed at the outbreak of World War I were not finally established until 1907, and Danish defensive thinking had thus to remain somewhat vague on who Germany’s opponents would, precisely, be, and therefore on whence help might actually come (except France, which was unlikely to be able to provide any). For the shifting great power alliances see, e.g., Clark (2012), pp. 121–167. The “hard” defense plan is adumbrated by Bo Lidegaard: “The idea was to have a place where, in the case of an attack, it would be possible to hold out until help should come, which in practice would mean to hold out against Germany, until one or more of the other great powers, in their own interest, joined the combat and came to Denmark’s rescue” (Lidegaard, 2003, pp. 16–17).
- 12.
“Et forsvarligt Forsvar er en Umulighed, det kan ikke fremskaffes i Danmark”. The same declaration appears in a slightly different form in Staur (1981–1982), p. 112: “Et forsvarlight forsvar er en umulighed, det kan ikke fremtrylles i Danmark” (“A secure defense is an impossible thing; it cannot be conjured up in Denmark”).
- 13.
“Hold Jer fra krigen og hvad dens er; I krig går det Jer ilde”.
- 14.
For an account of this movement and its influence upon Scandinavian pre-war politics, see Ringsby (2012).
- 15.
The 1913 election results for the Folketing were: Højre (Right)—7, Venstre (Left)—44, Radikale Venstre (Radical Left)—31, Socialdemokratiet (Social Democracy)—32. (In 1915 Højre became the Konservative Folkeparti (Conservative People’s Party). The Radikale Venstre, which exists to this day, is now termed in English the Social Liberal Party, but is referred to as the Radical Left in this paper.) Figures are from Skou (1999) (no page numbers).
- 16.
Dansk Center for Byhistorie, on its website devoted to the war, claims that “around 85 Danes served in the French army, mostly in the French Foreign Legion” (Dansk Center for Byhistorie (n.d.)). It is probable that a similar number joined British and Dominion forces.
- 17.
- 18.
But see, for example, Mikkelsen (2014).
- 19.
For the details of this mission see: Lidegaard (2003), pp. 49–52.
- 20.
The figure comes from Dansk Center for Byhistorie. Similar, but greater, numbers of seamen were lost in the same fashion by Denmark’s fellow neutrals Norway and Sweden.
- 21.
For the diplomatic contours of this episode see Lidegaard (2003), pp. 88–100.
- 22.
See, for example, Knudsen (n.d.)—a compilation of memoirs and photographs from the author’s relatives’ wartime experiences.
- 23.
These two figures, for the total number of South Jutland conscripts and for the total fatalities among them, are repeated in all the sources I have found. See e.g., Dansk Center for Byhistorie (n.d.).
- 24.
The King’s white horse so perfectly satisfied the national appetite for kitsch, that certain iconoclasts hinted the animal had been painted white for the occasion.
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[all translations of sources into English have been made by the author]
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Schauffler, D. (2018). “An Impossible Thing”: Danish Neutrality in the First World War, Its Causes and Consequences. In: Barker, A., Pereira, M., Cortez, M., Pereira, P., Martins, O. (eds) Personal Narratives, Peripheral Theatres: Essays on the Great War (1914–18). Second Language Learning and Teaching(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66851-2_16
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