"...the most forgotten theater of the Central European War remains, perhaps unsurprisingly, the brief moment of the conflict that included Denmark, which in the long run became much more of a diplomatic problem for Germany than a military one. It is notable that in Denmark, the war is referred to not by the moniker it enjoys in the rest of the world but rather is referred to as Ti Dages Krig - the Ten Days War.
That Denmark even found itself involved in the war is something of a quirk of history. In 1915, the Danish Cabinet had secretly elected to renew the Iron Triangle compact with France and Austria despite the loud protestations of the Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius, a lifelong civil servant from a noble family that in the tradition of certain elite families throughout Europe saw it as their duty to serve in the diplomatic corps. [1] Scavenius opposed the Iron Triangle and argued for Danish neutrality; considering his firmly Germanophilic line in the postwar years in which he became Denmark's powerful, long-serving Prime Minister, it has frequently been argued that his opposition was in part due to his preference for a Denmark aligned more with Germany than with France. While he was technically a nonpartisan figure, he associated with the governing Social Liberal Party, known in Danish as Radikale Venstre, more directly translated as the Radical Left; they were of the traditional liberal-progressive opposition to Danish conservatism (at one point in the 19th century among the continent's most rigidly absolutist) that had broken from the old Venstre liberal party that had shifted to the classically liberal soft-right position and pursued an ambitious, progressive platform in Denmark that had included labor reforms, the expansion of the franchise to include all women older than 22 regardless of property or marriage status, and had begun a process of "rationalization" of the Danish armed forces.
The core tension of Danish decision-making, even within Radikale Venstre, was that of elite nationalism which sought the return of the Danish-majority territories of Schleswig which had been lost in 1864 versus the soft anti-militarism of much of the party faithful. It was ironic that Scavenius, one of the leading figures of the progressive learned elite, was also one of the most fierce proponents of Danish neutrality, arguing that liberal, free-trading and Protestant Denmark had little in common with conservative, protectionist and Catholic France and Austria-Hungary. But the skew went to Carl Theodor Zahle, the long-serving Prime Minister who had effectively successfully implemented parliamentarianism in Denmark where fellow progressives had failed elsewhere in Scandinavia, who viewed the best guarantee of Danish neutrality to be its insurance by Paris and Vienna. This was a naive view, as ten days in March 1919 would quickly reveal.
The Danish government, upon learning of French mobilization on March 7th, was thus split against itself. Zahle was a pacifist through and through but it was he who had lobbied for the renewal of the Triangle four years prior and driven Scavenius out of Cabinet and back to the civil service, where the influential ex-Foreign Minister now served as Denmark's ambassador to Sweden and Norway. Now, at the moment of truth, he blinked. It had always been the assumption in Danish elite circles that they would be joining a coalition to check some German outrage, but unlike in Belgium and France, the behavior of Stephane Clement that had triggered the chain reaction culminating in the mobilization of Europe's armies and a declaration of war hanging over the continent seemed so clearly beyond the pale that a great many found themselves sympathizing with Germany and being highly reluctant to follow France into the abyss "for the honor of a rapist and murderer." The Cabinet spent two days in debate over the matter, deep into the night on March 8th, and Zahle was fairly convinced he had persuaded his colleagues to pursue an "armed neutrality" and was prepared to communicate as much to Germany.
On the morning of the 9th, however, came a critical intervention - that of King Christian X, who still jealously guarded his royal prerogatives as sovereign and was, as King, the exclusive voice in the choice to mobilize or not mobilize. While parliament was superior by custom, it was only custom because Christian X, despite his autocratic instincts, had never actually forced a constitutional crisis. [2] The King looked to North Schleswig, the so-called "lost province," and also did the math on Germany facing a two-front war against two powerful, industrialized enemies, and drew the conclusion that Germany was going to be defeated within nine months of war and that Denmark needed to be "at the table" to make sure it could absorb the lost territories when the time came. He suspected that Germany would be heavily distracted and that Denmark could make small, probing maneuvers on the frontier to tie down German forces and, hopefully, invite the intervention of third powers, ideally Britain or Russia with their half-Danish monarchs, to mediate or join an anti-German coalition to defend Denmark's honor.
Zahle was at an impasse. Several Danish papers had, on the 9th, already begun calling for war and a "march on Flensburg." The revelation of the King's desire to order mobilization in Denmark caught the Prime Minister by surprise, and he went to Amalienborg Palace to tell Christian that the "sense of Cabinet" was against a declaration of war. Christian suggested that Zahle "reassess the sentiments" with the information that "the King and Danish people support this conflict." Zahle understood that Christian, who had never particularly cared for his progressive government, would not hesitate to dismiss him and install a caretaker Cabinet that did as he wished, but also understood that Germany was in every way militarily superior to Denmark and would likely overrun the country quickly. What unfollowed is now known in Denmark as the Mobilization Crisis; Zahle was caught between his principles of pragmatic governance as the Danish establishment and a good portion of the Danish bourgeoisie cried out for war, but also his personal pacifism and his reluctance to bend the knee to the King and allow him to override the will of the Cabinet.
He was not forced to make a choice; upon learning of the King's opinion, several crucial Cabinet ministers flipped and voted to mobilize that evening. King Christian countersigned the mobilization order on March 10th, and a massive demonstration occurred in Copenhagen's Nytorv to celebrate what was assumed to be an imminent declaration of war. One hundred thousand Danish soldiers were mobilized with an additional twenty thousand reservists alerted, and the Danish Navy's war plan was activated with immediate effect. Denmark was, for the first time in fifty-five years, going to war.
The only problem for them, of course, was that Germany was well-aware what the Nytorv demonstrations meant, and their war plans included Denmark, too..." [3]
- 1919: How Europe Went to War
[1] The Wallenberg and Hammarskjold families are good and more famous examples of this in neighboring Sweden; essentially, there were major Scandinavian aristocratic families where you went into diplomacy or the civil service as the family trade.
[2] Nothing equivalent to the Easter Crisis of 1920 has occurred ITTL. Worth reading about if you're unfamiliar
[3] I was only going to expend one post on Denmark but decided to split the Danish political situation off into its own before covering the Ten Days War separately
