Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Page 379
REVUE LITTÉRAIRE
369
Admiralty, to the then commander-
m-chief of the Russian army,
Grand-duke Nikolaj Nikolajevitch
{Winston Churchill: The World
Crisis, vol. II, chap. 2). We have
here a document, based on the judg-
ment of the strategical position as
lt: was at the outbreak of the war
and written only a fortnight after
^he Danish mine-blocking.
The principal problems for Den-
mark on August 5th, 1914, were first-
h the estimation of the military and
strategical situation, which formed
the background of the German in-
quiry to Denmark, secondly the ef-
fects of an eventual Danish mine-
hlocking in England. As to the first
question the position really was
quite clear. As to the second there
ls no doubt, that the king, whose
Personal attitude had a deciding in-
fluence on the Danish policy on
August 5th, 1914, from his visit to
^he Court of St. James in May 1914
had received certain impressions,
^hich enabled him to judge the ef-
fects of the Danish decision in Lon-
d°n. This appears quite clear from
^he king’s statement to the cabinet-
eouncil protocol. From another
Suarter we learn, that the Danish
foreign secretary, who accompanied
*he king on his visit to England,
through a conversation with Sir
Edward Grey and the permanent
under-secretary of the Foreign Of-
fiee, Sir Arthur Nicolson, was made
t0 think, that England was on
the point of withdrawing from the
Ealtic, and that it had given up
sending greater naval forces into
these waters in case of an English-
German war. If this estimation was
correct — which it no doubt was
and which later events also proved
— it necessarily had to turn the
balance further in favour of the
Danish mine-blocking, as the risk
for eventual steps from England
might be considered very much
smaller than formerly. What might
have happened had Denmark re-
fused to lay out mines seems quite
certain. Germany herself had
established the blocking and
probably in support of such
measure occupied part of Danish
territory, by which Denmark would
have been drawn into the war —
against Germany had she resisted,
on Germany’s side if there had been
no resistance to a flagrant and in-
tentional violation of her territory
by a belligerent power.
Mr. Joesten maintains that “it
was quite simply an exceptional
stroke of good luck that the English
did keep away.” No — the English
kept away, because they themselves
considered it a necessary conse-
quence of the shifting of the mi-
litary naval power in the Baltic and
of the whole strategical situation.
From leading Danish military and
political sides the situation was no
doubt adequately estimated, and
Mr. Joesten cannot explain away
this fact with never so many con-
temptuous utterances.
At a later period of the Great
War there were plans of an English