Kingdom of Denmark
Government: Constitutional Monarchy
Ruler: Christian the tenth
Area: 15,500 SQ
Population: 2.5 million
Military: 58,000 men, three battle-cruisers, three light cruisers, twenty torpedo boats,
two submarines, seven other smaller craft.
Denmark was first supposedly consolidated in the late 8th century under the First Danish
King Ongendus.
Their is some written records of a Danish king two centuries previous to this detailed
to some degree by the old English poem Beowulf, where it makes mention of a Danish king in
516.
From the first consolidation you had a series of raids explorations and settlement which
would later be known as the Viking age, Norse settlement of Iceland, The Fareo Islands by
the end of the century/start of the 9th century further expanded into the establishment of
vassals in Ireland, take-over of England, raids and settlements all over northern Europe
and many more that I don't have time go into detail about.
The earliest recognizable kingdom is that of Hemming in southern Denmark from 811; but
the king's successors fail to hold his territory.
Another century passes before the whole of Denmark is united in a single kingdom, under
the rule of Harald Bluetooth in 960.
Harald's son extends the Danish kingdom to England in 1013, and his grandson ruled an
empire which includes Denmark, England and even for a while the kingdom of Norway.
Norway has only a few years previously become a single kingdom.
Olaf II, ruled from 1015 to 1030, united the whole region under one crown.
Sweden achieves similar when Birger Jarl established his dynasty within the state in the early
13th century.
When the plague came to the Kalmar Union it as it did everywhere else, heavily changed
the political, economic, and social structure of the union.
Norway was hit so hard that almost its entire nobility class was whipped out, either by
the disease or the lack of people to work the land.
With Norway becoming little more then a vassal state after this, the more centralized control
that Denmark was gaining after un-morgaging its lands concerned much of the population
in all three kingdoms.
For almost another century there are attempts, sometimes briefly successful, to restore the
union of the three realms under a single king.
The last such king is Christian II, who ruled in Denmark and Norway from 1513.
He is crowned on November 4.
Four days later a massacre in Stockholm prompts the uprising which results in the Vasa dynasty
and an independent Sweden.
From their you had a series of wars between Denmark-Norway and Sweden until the end of
the Napoleonic Wars, which gave Norway to Sweden while Denmark kept all the colonial
lands.
Denmark sold off all non-European land besides the Virgin islands in the Caribbean in the
1860's which they sold to the United States in 1917, they had two wars against Prussia
called the Schelswig wars, the first in 1850 which they won then another in 1864 where
they had to give up the contested area of Schleswig-Holstien to Prussia.
The outbreak of World War 1 was met with widespread anxiety in Denmark.
Insecurity about the future immediately lead to a run on the gold deposit of the National
Bank and in August the government suspended the gold convertibility of the krone.
Due to negotiations regarding constitutional reforms, the Danish parliament was already
in session when war broke out.
In early August it passed emergency legislation supported by all political parties that empowered
the government to ban exports, regulate prices, and confiscate food among other things.
The stated goal of the legislation was to secure supplies for the population, but the
ban on exports could also be used as a crucial instrument in negotiations with the warring
countries.
Even though Denmark had a strong and highly efficient agricultural sector it was extremely
export-oriented.
This meant that Denmark relied on imports, not only for fuel and raw materials but also
for food and animal feed.
In 1913, about a third of the grain consumed in Denmark was imported.
Therefore it was of crucial importance for Denmark to secure access to foreign supplies
and to control both the use and prices of its limited resources.
The Minister of the Interior established a large variety of commissions for supply control.
By far the most important of these was The Extraordinary Commission which monitored supplies
and prices.
During the war the commission expanded to contain about forty specialized boards and
committees as well as local commissions.
The Danish government did its best to keep trade open between Britain, Germany and itself.
The Germans were far more cooperative as the exports to Germany was very important with
the overseas trade being limited, even more so once Italy joined the war.
The British were more skeptical, while the Danish food imports were rather heavy, they
were worried about the re-selling of British goods to Germany.
They finally agreed with the stipulation that no item is re-sold to the Central powers.
Even though trade stayed at a somewhat nominal stance until the U.S entered the war, the
pricing in Denmark and the economy itself was hit pretty hard.
Prices rose immensely and the government introduced subsidiary programs and social relief programs
to combat housing and food costs for the regular population.
This was met with a pretty large degree of success, especially within Copenhagen.
The government was able to finance these efforts by the expansion of pre-existing taxes, tariffs
as well as introducing more as the war progressed with the war profit
tax making up more then half of the governments income.
The new taxes were clearly progressive and served to counter, at least to some degree,
the very strong trend of growing gaps between the rich and poor in Denmark during the war
years.
Overall, budget deficits were held at reasonable levels and Denmark faced the post-war years
with a manageable public debt and a massive increase in social and labor union popularity.