Jarh L. Rodriguez’s Reviews > A History of Denmark > Status Update

Denmark has maintained her position throughout her thousand-year-long history. Her inhabitants represent one of the few peoples in Europe that have never suffered from large-scale invasions or population transfers and so today can really claim, for the most part, to be the descendants of the “Danes” of the Stone Age

Denmark is a cat that always lands on its feet

Small countries must soberly face the fact that their production may become superfluous because despite everything it would hardly be noticed in the trade of the world if it should disappear.

The agreement into which Denmark's ambassador to the US had entered was that the US should take Greenland under her protection and in return be permitted to establish her military bases there for “the duration of the present situation”. But “present situations” have a habit of lasting more or less indefinitely

A resistance began in the form of small privately organized independent groups, which, though not capable of much to start with, soon developed into useful sabotage units. When the government started condemning acts of sabotage and all forms of resistance, and ordered the police and the law courts to intervene actively, both the government and its official organs began to lose their authority over the population

[about the no-aggression pact between Hitler’s Germany and Denmark] Help from abroad was something Denmark had on previous occasions waited for in vain. No nation helps another unless such help happens to suit its own book

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 lost outwardly is inwardly won”, work commenced on the consolidation of the country within the extremely limited framework available.

Napoleon III had a clause inserted in the Austro-Prussian peace treaty, paragraph 5, to the effect that the northern part of Slesvig was to be returned to Denmark "later", after a plebiscite. However the Prussian army defeated the French in 1871 and eight years later, with Austria's agreement, Bismarck deleted this paragraph 5; Slesvig was German.

Although it is correct from a political standpoint that democracy was introduced to Denmark in 1849, in reality it was based upon very ancient traditions that provided a foundation upon which it could rest for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

The ancient Danish rural settlements had always been independent. Throughout the land people were accustomed to discussing matters at meetings and making decisions.

the reason it fell late is because during that 190-year period none of Denmark's kings had been tyrants, and the administration of justice had never become arbitrary.

In fact, Molesworth, the scorner of Denmark's system of absolute monarchy, stated 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.