Grain shipments from Denmark to Norway stopped, and Norwegian exports could not get out. German forces were able to slip through the mines Britain had laid around Norwegian ports because local garrisons were ordered to allow the Germans to land unopposed. Due to negotiations regarding constitutional reforms, the Danish parliament was in session in the summer of 1914. [7] On the other hand, the country’s largest municipality by far, Copenhagen, was highly energetic when it came to relieving the pressures on living conditions. The variety of the contemporary publications is great, ranging from propaganda materials from the warring countries to surveys of the development of the war to popular novels. German sympathies predominated in Schleswig and Holstein at the time, however, and the duchies responded to Frederick’s initiative by requesting admission to the German Confederation as a single state. Denmark’s considerable economic problems were worsened by low grain prices across Europe. The war years saw a similar strengthening of various employers’ organisations as they used their representation on boards and commissions as well as the pivotal role they played in negotiating trade agreements not just to secure their vested interests but also to also strengthen their positions as the representatives of all employers in their sector. Only when this approach failed did the government follow the recommendation of a majority of the Extraordinary Commission and introduced a maximum price for rye in December 1914. The relevant volume of Politikens Danmarks Historie (Politiken’s History of Denmark), published in 1965, covers the period 1913-1939, while twenty-five years later, the editor of Politiken og Gyldendals Danmarkshistorie (Politiken and Gyldendal’s History of Denmark) chose the years 1900 and 1925 as the significant bounds for the history of the early 20th century. Federal troops occupied Holstein soon afterward. That document was ratified by the Rigsråd (Council of the Realm) on November 13 and signed on November 18 by the new king, Christian IX, three days after Frederick’s death. 11-18. In 1805 France had lost its fleet to the British at the Battle of Trafalgar. In politics, the Burgfrieden broke down in early 1918. Whereas conservatives argued in favor of a strong defense centered on Copenhagen, liberals were highly skeptical. The occupation of the Sudetenland, the border regions in the north and west of Czechoslovakia, was the first time Hitler flexed his military muscles in Europe. (However, Denmark maintained its rule of the old Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland.) By 1945 Denmark was a run-down country characterised by shortages of goods, fear and conflict. On 5 August, Germany demanded that Denmark lay mine fields in the Belts, the straits between Jutland and the island of Funen, the strait between Funen and the island of Sealand, and finally the sound between Sealand and Sweden, in order to establish strict control over traffic to the Baltic Sea. Denmark was still a failure. How do we explain the (relative) lack of radicalization in Denmark? Rising prices were also due to an exceptionally poor Danish harvest in 1914. [22] It is no accident that agricultural interest groups who felt underrepresented in the organs of the regulated war economy established the Agricultural Council (Landbrugsraadet) in the wake of the war to secure their position both vis-à-vis the state and other organised business interests. By then sugar and bread had already been rationed in a situation when grain supplies were expected to fall 40 percent short of normal consumption. The Dollar Is Stronger Than Ever – But Can The Euro Challenge Its Rule? Measured in impact, the most successful by far was the harsh indictment of the German atrocities in Belgium offered by Johannes Jørgensen (1866-1956) in his book Klokke Roland (1915). The proclamation of Prince Frederick’s rule was popular in Germany, and he was recognized by the chief German princes. This marked the first land-air-sea invasion in military history. Nevertheless, in the final phase of the war, Denmark grew more and more dependent on imports from Germany. Has Christianity Got Anything To Do With Pan-European Identity? When the British fleet next proceeded to threaten the Swedish naval port of Karlskrona, Russia started negotiations with Britain. The period of occupation thus ended reasonably peacefully, and in most places people could take to the streets and celebrate the new freedom. It was, however, as Einar Cohn summarized in his detailed study of the Danish war-time economy, “an act of balancing on a knife’s edge.”[5]. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. The have both been occupied, but neither has been anything but the primary element of any entity which they may have been part of. The German Kriegsmarine had their heart set on the Norwegian fjords as a base for breaking out into the Atlantic, and they needed to secure the iron ore supply from Northern Sweden which was shipped out through the Norwegian port of Narvik. En bibliografi [Cooperation and Resistance. With the outbreak of revolution in Germany in March, the duchies rebelled against Denmark, and on March 24 a provisional government at Kiel proclaimed their independence, offered support for German freedom and unity, and renewed their appeal for admission to the German Confederation. As time passed and the danger of Denmark being involved in the war seemed increasingly unlikely, a power struggle between military leadership and the Secretary of Defence followed. All of Scandinavia had done as much as they could to aid Finland, without actually joining the Winter War, but Finland still had to accept the war was unwinnable, and settled for a deal with the Soviets. This meant that Denmark relied on imports, not only for fuel and for raw materials for industries but also for food and animal feed. The legislation envisioned the establishment of “government commissions” to control prices and the dynamic Minister of the Interior Ove Rode (1867-1933) oversaw the establishment of numerous commissions. Germany invaded and split Poland with help from the Soviet Union, and the UK and France declared war on Germany. As the liberal movement grew in strength, especially in the academic world and among the middle classes, the liberal press, whose leading journal was Fædrelandet (“The Fatherland”; established in 1834), subjected the monarchy and its conservative administration to severe criticism. And this time the Danish Army had not even shown up on the battlefield. Unemployment rose substantially at the outbreak of war but started to fall from late 1914 and, by 1916, had all but disappeared. Danish social history 1914-1939], Copenhagen 1984, p. 75. Their aim is to supplement the Danish Army, and be ready to fight for their homes, villages, towns, and cities – thereby allowing Danes to fight back even in the event that Denmark failed to defend its sovereignty once more. In early August it passed sweeping emergency legislation supported by all political parties empowering the government to ban exports, regulate prices, and confiscate food and ”other goods of social importance” (against full compensation). The Danish army had a much less eventful time. Insecurity about the future immediately lead to a run on the gold deposit of the National Bank and already on 2 August government suspended the gold convertibility of the krone. (Without a Trace, 1917) and Hvorfor? The government quickly acknowledged that the income of the poorer segments of the population would come under severe pressure. Being fearful of the next war, Denmark chose to hold a plebiscite to determine what territory wanted to rejoin the Kingdom and leave those wishing to remain Germans to Germany. Meetings of the regional governments in Holstein in 1859 and 1861 and in Schleswig in 1860 failed to settle the constitutional dispute in a conclusive manner. Denmark’s government under Frederick VI (1808–39) can be described as a patriarchal autocracy. Meanwhile the Germans disarmed the Danish army and also tried to take over the navy. A socialist working class movement gained ground from the 1870s. Already in January 1915, a maximum price for wheat followed and by the end 1917, the list of government-controlled maximum prices, published by the Statistical Office in its yearbook, ran into fifteen pages. (Why?, 1918) on the suffering of seamen and their families in the period of unrestricted submarine war. At first glance the social liberal government was not the best equipped when it came to dealing with defense matters in a world that had suddenly become acutely dangerous. On March 27 Frederick published a draft constitution linking Schleswig more closely to Denmark than to Holstein. On April 8th 1940, the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine near simultaneously set sail for Norway. Conclusion: Longer-Term Consequences of the War? Required fields are marked *. On April 9, 1962, Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno becomes the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar, for her role of Anita in West Side Story (1961). The Germans overran Danish defences with relative ease. Prior (chairman of. Located on the Jutland Peninsula in northern Europe, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had been ruled separately by Danish kings since the 15th century but had been united at various points in their history (notably from 1386 to 1460). The Germans proved to be the most cooperative as Danish exports to Germany depended on Danish imports from overseas. Officers wanted to maintain the mobilized force, while the government found it both useless and too expensive to continue the level of mobilization reached in the early phase of the war. This came to pass in 1864, when Austria and Prussia set aside their battle for hegemony within the German Confederation, and instead took not only Holsten, but also all of Slesvig from Denmark.