History of Denmark

Excerpts from the book

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The Danish position at the outbreak of nearly every war may puzzle some people: did the Danes then never learn? Time and again the same strategic situation, time and again apparently the same mistakes, e.g. the army inconveniently in Holstein just when the attack was being launched in Zealand. The difficulty is the geography of the country, unique in Europe: the Scanian provinces, Jutland and the five hundred islands. Until 1658 Denmark’s borders to the south and east were threatened, and since then the kingdom’s weak point has been the southern border at the root of Jutland. It is here that the army should be stationed in readiness. If the enemy should launch his attack elsewhere, against Copenhagen, for instance, the army cannot just march to the scene of action for it has to be shipped. The moving of troops from one end of Denmark to the next has always been complicated for it involves maritime transportation and it is impossible to have a fleet of transports lying eternally in readiness. Time and again this fact has decided Denmark’s destiny.

The situations are often similar, yet each time they develop in a fairly logical and explainable way. Too much confidence was probably placed – just as the English in England as an entity – in Zealand’s being an island and therefore naturally protected. And then there was no inter-

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-est in military matters, for an earthbound, sober outlook makes for little interest in war. The Danes are not militarists and in reality never were.

When in olden days the King sent out a call to arms the peasants responded in times of stress the odd thing might happen. But it always took time to get started. Later on, during the 17th and 18th centuries, the fleet was generally in good shape, in fact during the wars against Sweden it was definitely the superior force. But when England attacked Denmark the country had been enjoying a period of peace for almost a hundred years.

Her ships were good enough, and so were her crews, but they lacked battle experience and nobody wanted war, for it was regarded as destructive and pointless. Even as far back as the Viking Age, under Sweyn Forkbeard, the “peace party” formed by the Danish peasants was seemingly a very big one. In 1814, when Denmark was separated from Norway, it was felt to be pointless to join in the major European strife. But the most contributory factor has probably been the ingrained peasant-thrift mentality that regards money spent on arms as money spent unwisely. One sometimes has the feeling that the Danish outlook has never developed beyond the idea that, in time of war, you take your rusty battle-axe down from the wall – or go and try to find it in the woodshed where it has been serving a useful purpose and sharpen it on a grindstone. It is difficult to make people realize in peacetime that newer forms of war require materials and preparations which cannot be produced at short notice – as in ancient times when the enemy suddenly appeared in your paddock. Preparedness has seldom been a strong point in Danish history. The Danes are too tied up with everyday life, are blessed with too great a sense of humour to be eternally en garde. Their mentality dictates their fate.

Something was still left to Denmark of the old Scandinavian kingdom, for when Bernadotte was presented with Norway, he was not given the old Norwegian dependencies as well. Denmark retained Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands, and still owned small colonies in the tropics: the Virgin Islands in the West Indies, some trading stations on the coast of Guinea, the Indian trading stations of Tranquebar and Fredericknagore, and the Nicobars. But the Danish colonies were not worth very much, the prime reason for their lack of success being that they were much too

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small. Denmark had put a stop to the import of negro slaves on its West Indian islands in 1792, the first country in the world to forbid slave-trading, and together with the falling off of the slave trade, one of the Guinea coast’s most lucrative sources of income disappeared.

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Frederick VI sat on his throne, the absolute monarch of his people. Despite the fact that he was no genius and no doubt often made wrong decisions, his integrity was beyond question. He symbolized the fact that the country still existed; he was a contact with the past, and this at a time when the country could see the past collapsing unmercifully. The mighty rococo palace of Christiansborg had been gutted by fire, the Church of Our Lady lay in ruins, Hirschholm Castle had been built on too soft soil and began to show cracks, the fleet had gone, and so had Norway. But Danish poets discovered that the ancient Nordic past could be a substitute for classical Greece. Tragedies were written about Nordic gods and goddesses, and writers “became conscious of the spirit and conscience of Scandinavia”. And there on his old throne sat King Frederick, with his “dearly beloved family” about him. He was a father to his two peoples, the Danes and the Holsteiners. He was their commander-in-chief, departmental manager and administrator, was aware of everything that went on, and did everything himself, even the most trivial of tasks. Just like old Christian IV, he issued an endless stream of ordinances and orders concerning matters both large and small, right down to petty details which one would think could have been attended to by persons on the spot, such as: “the linen articles belonging to the field hospital which are stored in Glückstadt (in Holstein) shall be aired once or twice during fine weather in order that no harm be occasioned them by damp.” And every night, on the simple, white-painted, deal writing-desk in his bedchamber, were placed the keys to the four gates of the city of Copenhagen.

But it was here, over the course of the next 30 years or so, in this atmosphere of modest demands and thriftiness, that Hans Andersen wandered round the streets and talked to the inventor of electro-magnetism, H. C. Oersted, here that Soeren Kierkegaard, the theological philosopher, and Grundtvig, the spiritual revivalist of the Danish people, both strolled, here that Oehlenschläger, Denmark’s national poet, lived and wrote, here that the news was received with a mixture of pride and joy that Thorvaldsen, in his studio in Rome (after an Englishman with the promising name of Sir Thomas Hope had provided him with working capital by commission-

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ing his first major work, “Jason”, in carrara marble) had started to revive classical Greek sculpture. It was at this time that Eckersberg, the father of modern Danish painting, was living in Copenhagen and painting pictures for Denmark’s bourgeois homes, picture after picture, always of sailing ships (what else did the Danes want him to paint?) ship after ship, endless flotillas of white-sailed men-o’-war ploughing through the water, in and out amongst the bright green islands, always in beautiful sailing weather, peacefully, Eckersberg’s great idyll of the Danish Armada, balsam on the deep Danish wounds, sailing ships painted with the precision and detail of rigging diagrams – they had to be, for those who commissioned them knew every plank.

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Thus Denmark’s absolute monarchy, having been in force for 190 years, was finally overthrown. It was already outdated at the time of its fall, but the reason why it fell as late as it did and why it was retained for SO long, was that it was never abused to the point of being intolerable. None of Denmark’s Kings had been tyrants during the 190-year period, and the administration of justice had never become arbitrary.

In fact admitted, as mentioned, that her state of legislation was better and more reliable, and her courts of law more approachable and cheaper, than in England, despite England’s political freedom. Nothing could take place without passing through the law courts; nobody could be imprisoned or executed without due legal procedure being taken and judgment being passed. All the absolute monarchs had been upright men within the limits of their abilities. Most of them managed to procure themselves the services of good, at times excellent, ministers. Even under the mad King, Christian VII, the government of the country did not collapse, and the period during which it was abused, i. e. the Struensee episode, was only a short interlude. Most of the autocratic monarchs worked energetically and conscientiously in the interests of their twin kingdoms, and it had thus been difficult to work up a sufficiently powerful opposition when everything appeared to be proceeding peacefully and reasonably well. Moreover, although it is correct, from a political standpoint, that democracy was introduced in Denmark in 1849 with the signing of the new constitution, it was in reality based upon very ancient traditions that provided a foundation upon which Denmark’s new political democracy could rest: for hundreds of years (or thousands, more likely) the ancient Danish rural settlements had been independent. After the Viking Age and the establishment of a united Danish Kingdom, centuries were to pass before monarchy and newer forms of administration took a firm hold on the country’s self-governing settlements, a self-government which continued through village thing meetings and through town councils. Throughout the land, people were accustomed to discussing matters at meetings and making decisions. One valuable tradition in particular had been main-

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-tained, a tradition that happens to be one of the most difficult to introduce in newly established democracies, in fact almost impossible: there had always existed an ancient, unfailing ability to choose more or less the right leaders. Election propaganda was of very little importance, for people had a knack of picking sober-minded, sensible men, and no time for fly-by-nights. A political system and political practice may be disinterested in, even irritated by, this ancient, genial tradition, may even to a certain extent try to counteract it in order to push forward a poor candidate, but the old tradition is always there in the background. Without it, Danish democracy would have been helpless.

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In Denmark, the immediate effect of the war was paralysis. Nobody could see any way of starting afresh. The country had been reduced to one of Europe’s smallest nations, and the general expectation was that she would subside completely and become obliterated, perhaps divided up between Germany and Sweden.

A natural outcome of the defeat in Denmark was a feeling of deep bitterness. But this, from a superficial viewpoint at any rate, did not last long. The political outcome was that the party which had been in power up to now, the National Liberals, was obliged to accept responsibility both for the policy pursued and the resultant defeat. The party was more or less dissolved, and a more conservative policy followed. The big landowners acquired a considerable amount of political power and in opposition the “Venstre” (or “Left”) party was formed. The Danes became involved in a political struggle that was to be kept up vigorously for decades. It was centred upon an ambiguously formulated phrase in the Constitution that read: “The King shall choose his ministers freely.” Taken literally, it could mean that the King was allowed to choose his ministers regardless of the outcome of the elections and regardless of the relative strengths of the parties in parliament. But the “Venstre” party claimed that the phrase could only be construed to mean that “normal parliamentary practice” was to be followed on this point, i.e. that the King could choose his ministers freely from amongst the members of the party holding a majority in parliament. But the Conservative party stuck to the literal wording of the constitution, and so for many years a peculiar situation prevailed whereby the country’s ministers had most of the

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as well as members of parliament against them. Thus it was not even possible to put through the annually proposed budget. In other words, strictly speaking, the government was unable to govern. It managed in emergency situations, of “provisional”, or temporary laws which only could by making use of an emergency paragraph permitting the passing, required the signatures of the ministers responsible and the King. They were supposed to be approved by parliament at a later date “when the occasion to do so shall arise”, and for a number of years Denmark was an impossible one in the long run, and political feelings ran higher and higher. But the government took advantage of these years to put through various projects, amongst them the fortification of Copenhagen, which consisted of the building of fortresses on the coast and a military defence line on land surrounding the entire capital, so that at any rate a situation similar to that in which Copenhagen had found itself in 1658 and in 1701, when the Swedes suddenly landed in Zealand, or in 1801 and 1807, when the English attacked Copenhagen, should not be able to recur and find Copenhagen completely defenceless. On the other hand no new defence system was built down on the German border. The very thought of a new war with Germany seemed so hopeless that it was considered at all events unwise to start provoking, by the erection of heavy fortifications, the new German Empire which, within but a few decades, had risen to be the victorious, warlike, and ambitious Great Power of the European mainland.

Revival

But behind all the political activity the defeat had another effect. Once again, Denmark’s strange ability to recover quickly from disasters and catastrophes revealed itself. Under the motto “what is outwardly lost is inwardly won”, work was commenced on the consolidation of the country within the extremely limited framework available. A start was made on the wide, barren moors of Jutland, and within a few decades large sandy stretches of heathland had been broken up. Forests were cleared, and crops sown, with the result that the moors rapidly began to planted, the soil shrink in size. Work was started all over the country drying out the bogs

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and marshlands and damming up shallow bays and inlets so that large areas of what previously had been marshland or shallow sea now became arable land. Behind this agricultural uprising stood the Danish Folk High Schools. During the course of several decades this educational movement had developed into a strong, nation-wide organization. Practically all young people in rural districts now enrolled in the Folk High Schools for additional, post-school education. Not only did they learn practical farming, but history and literature too, in fact what spread through the land and turned the “regeneration” process into a task everybody came to regard as a duty, was a tremendous, deeply enthusiastic elevation of intellectual standards. The shipping industry was modernized, the merchant navy expanded, industry began to get seriously under way, towns began to expand explosively, commercial methods and trade organizations were modernized, factory-workers began to form a new social class – here as everywhere in Europe – and the country’s agricultural adaptability was exploited to good advantage.

Until now Denmark had mainly produced cattle and corn, but from the new countries, particularly from the vast American prairies, enormous quantities of cheap corn now began to flood the markets of the world, and against this competition Denmark was helpless. So, within a short space of time, the country’s agricultural effort was diverted into other channels. With determination and efficiency, Denmark now began to specialize in “quality farm produce”, in other words butter, eggs and bacon. In fact production was organized so successfully that soon Denmark was able to offer products that were first-class and at the same time uniform in quality.

Behind this abrupt switch and production drive stood not only the Folk High Schools, but also the “co-operative movement”. The Danish “village community” system had been abolished towards the close of the 18th century, but so ingrained in people’s minds was the ancient Danish tradition of communal endeavour, that when the “co-operative idea” was first put forward, it was regarded neither as unfamiliar nor unacceptable, and therefore spread rapidly. “Co-operative dairies” were built all over the country, in other words every district had its own big dairy where all the local farmers delivered their milk. They moreover owned the dairy between them, and thus were their own wholesalers, had all the profits

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for themselves, were able to control marketing and sales, and each had a personal interest. At the same time the country acquired “co-operative bacon factories”, and the co-operative movement was extended to include poultry and eggs, and even the farmer’s own domestic purchases at “co-operative stores”. By means of all this, Denmark climbed into position around the turn of the century as one of the leading agricultural nations of the world. During this period the fishing industry was modernized too. Motorized fishing-cutters took the place of the old open boats, and throughout the country, in all spheres of activity, the work of renovation and modernization proceeded apace. The many small shipping companies in the provincial port towns naturally lagged behind somewhat in their efforts to compete on the oceans of the world, and whereas in former times Danish merchants in Copenhagen and the provincial towns had personally owned one or more ships, from now on, here as in other countries, the big, financially powerful shipping companies began to assume control. The Danish shipbuilding industry began to assert itself. In 1911 Holland and England succeeded in launching a couple of small ships fitted with Diesel engines, and the following year a big Danish shipping firm, the East Asiatic Company, sent the world’s first large ocean-going motor-ship, the “Selandia”, out on a voyage to the Far East.

It was at the close of the 19th century that Danish literature reached one of its peaks. At the same time Danish contributions to the sciences were considerable. Thus progress was being made throughout this small, well-organized country, and the defeat that had been suffered was no longer outwardly noticeable, although it still remained a factor lodged in the minds of the people.

The Danish Royal Family led a remarkable career during these years.

Old King Christian IX’s elder daughter, Alexandra, became Queen of England by marrying Edward VII; his second daughter, Dagmar, became Empress of Russia by marrying Alexander III; and one of his sons became King George of Greece, later assassinated at Salonica (in 1913). During the first years of the 20th century the union between Norway and Sweden was dissolved. The rupture caused considerable tension between the two countries, and in some circles in Sweden there was even a mood for war brewing, but finally the dissolution was effected peaceably. As their new

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King, the Norwegians elected Christian IX’s grandson, duly crowned in 1906 as Haakon VII.

Thus for a number of years, Fredensborg Palace, the Danish Royal Family’s idyllic country seat in North Zealand, became the centre of European court life. The King of England, the Czar of Russia, and the various children and connections of the Danish Royal Family were all guests at the palace at one time or another.