A mouse that roared (or how Denmark learned to stop worrying and love war)

[British guy]

In 1940 Germany managed to conquer Denmark in just 6 hours, but what if things had being different. This is a idea for a timeline I made where officers in the danish army after seeing Germany’s conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia come to the conclusion that they are next. They know that they cannot hold mainland Denmark against Germany. Not even with the help of Britain and France. So they come up with one desperate solution snitch is nothing short of treason. For Denmark to suvive the army must fight from Iceland

The point of this scenario if a free France style government in exile I am hoping people can come up with some ideas I may have missed so far my thoughts are

(I was hoping to hear your opinions about these important factors)

- Fate of Icelandic independence with several thousand angry and likely well armed danish soldiers stationed around
- Effects if German dumber is warfare
- Effects if this on occupied Denmark the parliament and king Christian X
- Fate of Denmark after the war, having the army keep fighting and Lilly being the ones to liberate remark will result in increased nationalism and a possible “Degaul” style government.
- How to pay soldiers without danish taxpayers
- How to feed the soldiers alongside the population of Iceland while under german siege
- likely debt that would result form the previous questions

Please give me your honest opinions it is my first timeline I am thinking of making and I could use come criticism.

 

[L4a1]

Off the cuff.
The British will be happy about not having to invade and occupy Iceland, and this will free up a Brigade from occupation duties, later replaced by a USMC Brigade, and then a US Army unit.
I imagine they will fund themselves much like other Governments in Exile did with a combination of overseas assets, and Loans and Grants from the Allied powers. Of course they will be eligible for lend lease when the USA get around to organizing it.
IOTL the great majority of the Danish Merchant Marine made for British ports and came under Allied control, against orders from the Danish Government, this will be a large asset to the government in exile.
I don't think Iceland could come under German siege unless the war goes very different to our time line, so supply should not be a problem. IOTL the USMC had 4100 personal occupying Iceland.

 

[Gudestein]

Ironically in a TL like this Denmark would be one of the major contributers to allied victory. They were IOTL as well, but against their governments orders. The merchant marine beeing the key contribution.
If you want to go beyond this, you could have an actually planned defense. Holding actions in Jutland, defense of the Ålborg airport and defense of copenhagen. This would collapse the german timetabel for Weserubung.
If you want to take it even further, there is not a Big german commitment to take Zealand. The first wave might fail and now it really screw up german plans.
Massive bombing of Copenhagen would be the end result without outside help, but still, quite an un-mouse like behavior.

 

[Neoteros]

Because why push for an Oder-Neisse line when you can push for an Elbe-Schaale line, annex the whole of historical Holstein, and march into Lubeck and Hamburg?

 

[Hammerbolt]

How many troops does Denmark have?
How many would be carried to Iceland?
What about support weapons and armour (if any)?
Did Denmark have the capability to carry that many troops by sea?
When would this happen? This is vital:
If after a german invasion, I doubt Denmark would have the time to do this. And any atempt would most likely be opposed by the german navy.
If before, what reason (in terms of international law) would Denmark give for this?

 

[L4a1]

The Army had Two Divisions with 4 Infantry Regiments, 1 Cavalry Regiment, 1 Field Artillery Regiment, 1 Engineering Battalion, and 1 Anti aircraft Battalion each.
Each Division had the following support weapons:
Machine guns 1,248 (1,024 light Madsen M24, 128 heavy Madsen M29, 96 horse-drawn heavy Madsen M29)
Mortars 96 (heavy)
Antitank guns 24 (horse-drawn 37mm Bofors AT)
Artillery 48 or 96 (75mm Krupp field guns, 105mm Schneider guns, 150mm Schneider howitzers)
But in peacetime the regiments and battalions were no more than a small administrative staff responsible for the training of the annual intake of 6,599 conscripts who were allocated as follows: 4,340 to the infantry, 465 to the Life Guards, 374 to the cavalry, 1,120 to the artillery, and 300 men to the engineers. On 8 April 1940 there were 6,600 conscripts with eleven month’s training service with the colours, as well as a further 2,050 non-combatants. During the German invasion part of this force was on leave, while a further seven per cent were unfit for duty.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Best-case scenario is an Allied Sweden and Norway helping Denmark out, which with British (and French?) help could stall the Germans in the Danish straits. Zealand and other free islands will be incessantly pounded by the Luftwaffe though. Without Allied Sweden it's even harder to mount a solid defense there and probably not worth it in the slightest, even if Norway is helping. They might still buy enough time to conduct an evacuation to Iceland with the help of the British (and French?).

All things considered, it means Norway never falls. There'd be too many Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine assets spent on Denmark plus no element of suprise to be able to take out Norway, who by now has mobilised for war and is assisting the Allies.

 

[Devvy]

This is one of my bugbears on here; after 1918, Iceland was *not* a Danish colony, nor did it form part of the Danish Kingdom/Realm. It was a sovereign nation, in personal union with Denmark (and therefore the King of Denmark was also the King of Iceland), where Iceland asked Denmark to represent Iceland in foreign affairs and take care of any defence matters - which would be a tiny undertaking due to Iceland's isolated position.

Any Danish troops retreating to Iceland would be largely welcomed and taken care of, but they are going to have at best have little effect on Iceland, and at worst cause resentment there - remember Iceland has a tiny population and large influxes of troops will alter the demographics. A Danish Government-in-Exile would be welcome to set up there, but will have no political effect on Iceland either. Also bear in mind; Iceland is *cold* during winter, even in Reykjavik. What is the point in the soldiers fleeing to Iceland? They can't do anything there - far easier to retreat to Britain, an equally friendly nation firmly on the Allied side (rather then technically neutral Iceland) where they can form a Danish unit to continue the fight against Nazi Germany (not to mention the UK is far closer than Iceland!). Going to Iceland gets you sitting round doing nothing whilst freezing your arse off (personal experience in this), whilst having to pay them as you note. Likewise, without any military installations or infrastructure, how do you maintain your weapons and train to keep fresh?

 

[British guy]

Off the cuff.
The British will be happy about not having to invade and occupy Iceland, and this will free up a Brigade from occupation duties, later replaced by a USMC Brigade, and then a US Army unit.
I imagine they will fund themselves much like other Governments in Exile did with a combination of overseas assets, and Loans and Grants from the Allied powers. Of course they will be eligible for lend lease when the USA get around to organizing it.
IOTL the great majority of the Danish Merchant Marine made for British ports and came under Allied control, against orders from the Danish Government, this will be a large asset to the government in exile.
I don't think Iceland could come under German siege unless the war goes very different to our time line, so supply should not be a problem. IOTL the USMC had 4100 personal occupying Iceland.

By under siege I meant u-boats. Britain would still be the main German priority.

 

[British guy]

This is one of my bugbears on here; after 1918, Iceland was *not* a Danish colony, nor did it form part of the Danish Kingdom/Realm. It was a sovereign nation, in personal union with Denmark (and therefore the King of Denmark was also the King of Iceland), where Iceland asked Denmark to represent Iceland in foreign affairs and take care of any defence matters - which would be a tiny undertaking due to Iceland's isolated position.

Any Danish troops retreating to Iceland would be largely welcomed and taken care of, but they are going to have at best have little effect on Iceland, and at worst cause resentment there - remember Iceland has a tiny population and large influxes of troops will alter the demographics. A Danish Government-in-Exile would be welcome to set up there, but will have no political effect on Iceland either. Also bear in mind; Iceland is *cold* during winter, even in Reykjavik. What is the point in the soldiers fleeing to Iceland? They can't do anything there - far easier to retreat to Britain, an equally friendly nation firmly on the Allied side (rather then technically neutral Iceland) where they can form a Danish unit to continue the fight against Nazi Germany (not to mention the UK is far closer than Iceland!). Going to Iceland gets you sitting round doing nothing whilst freezing your arse off (personal experience in this), whilst having to pay them as you note. Likewise, without any military installations or infrastructure, how do you maintain your weapons and train to keep fresh?

Remember Iceland may have being equal to Denmark of paper but in bractice they were little more then an overseas territory or colony. As well the idea for this scenario will be that these danish soldiers had being planning to go to Iceland for years. The plan would have being in monion since about 1938 as well as that they would not have being happy if Iceland had broke Their personal union

 

[catalfalque]

World War 2 caused a large influx of American troops into Iceland, and this could be dealt with because they were backed with US money. The numbers themselves, and the fact itself, is not QUITE a problem in and of itself, though it really shook up the conservative nature of the island.

These Danish soldiers have no legitimacy if the king and government has surrendered. They are going to have to go down the Free France route of being an external organisation in their own right, and for this to work is going to require Churchill to win a second battle getting recognition for such an organisation.

My main query is - how the Hell are they getting there? Are you proposing to have them board merchant ships etc and run the German blockade?

 

[Laxault2020]

Admittedly don't know much about this, but am excited to see a first-time TL!

 

[Devvy]

They may have had a very close relationship with Denmark, but Iceland was sovereign. Period. More so then Canada was in WW2 (Iceland's independence was legally written down in a treaty), and I think you'd struggle to describe Canada as a de facto colony of the UK in WWII. The Danish soldiers could land in Iceland; Iceland has no way of stopping them (see Catalfalque's comments), but there's so many other questions.

Again, why go to Iceland? The place is miles away from the action and the homeland, and the soldiers will be cut off from the European War. They have no real way to train in Iceland, nor anyway to maintain any weapons they take with them. Returning to the battle is difficult; Denmark will be fighting for it's existence under the Nazis and they will have absolutely zero ability to influence the battle. Icelanders are not going to be particularly bothered about overly helping them, bar being hospitable, Iceland is in no real danger as long as the Royal Navy holds the Nazis back.

Politically, going to the Faroes is easier - it's part of the Danish Realm.
Strategically, I don't see why any soldiers don't just fall back to somewhere Sweden or Norway, or the UK.

 

[British guy]

World War 2 caused a large influx of American troops into Iceland, and this could be dealt with because they were backed with US money. The numbers themselves, and the fact itself, is not QUITE a problem in and of itself, though it really shook up the conservative nature of the island.

These Danish soldiers have no legitimacy if the king and government has surrendered. They are going to have to go down the Free France route of being an external organisation in their own right, and for this to work is going to require Churchill to win a second battle getting recognition for such an organisation.

My main query is - how the Hell are they getting there? Are you proposing to have them board merchant ships etc and run the German blockade?

Thanks for reviewing this as mentioned above in this senareo a clique of danish officers after seeing what happened to Austria and Czechoslovakia will realize that Germany will come after Denmark next, don’t forget that after ww1 Denmark got some of their land back. As for why they would go to Iceland they would go because it was still under a personal union with Denmark and seen as many as part of Denmark. Troops would still go to garrison the farrows and Greenland but not as much. They would stay in Iceland for the same reason that the free France didn’t start of in England, which was that they would still own some of their own land. It would be a matter of pride to defend it

And yes the danish government and king would be forced to condem them and likely decoder them as traitors like vechy France. This is one of the topics I was thinking of when I started planning the scenario.

 

[British guy]

Just a note even though they would be officially based out of Iceland they would likely have many of the officers staying in England with allied high command.

Situation in occupied Demark
There’s many issues in Denmark that could come about as a result of a danish government in exile, the first being the king.

While in many country’s monarchs are beloved by the people king Christian the tenth of demark was different. In 1920 he had dismissed the liberal elected govement for a conservative one in hopes of gaining Schleswig-Holstein back. This is widely unpopular and almost resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy. He would back down and let elections continue. It was only his peaceful resistance to nazi occupation that restored the people’s trust in him. With a government in exile how legitimate would he appear to the danish people. The Norwegian king had left to help the British while he was living a life of luxery in Copenhagen