A Day in July: An Early 20th Century Timeline
- Thread starter Zulfurium
- Start date
I have answered this before, so just linking the points where he has come up in the past and then ending it thereafter.
I still had him write the Hobbit, but I do want him to keep working more on the Silmarillion as I wrote here.
In the section that follows I am drawing directly from an actual update, so that is a cannon answer.
So to conclude, Tolkien continues his war-time experiences pretty much through to the end and returns home to start on his academic career while working on the Hobbit and associated works. I am not well enough versed in classical fantasy, particularly the lives and influences of the authors, to feel comfortable determining quite what has changed there without a lot more research though. I welcome people who have a better understanding of the topic to make suggestions though.
Feature: Scandinavia - Denmark
Feature: Scandinavia - Denmark
King Christian X of Denmark Riding Through The Streets of Copenhagen
Der Er Et Yndigt Land
King Christian X of Denmark Riding Through The Streets of Copenhagen
Der Er Et Yndigt Land
There were four major factors which served to define the Danish state in the first third of the 20th century: Parliamentarism, Industrialization, Cooperatives and the Welfare State. 1901 had marked the start of the parliamentary era, as the Danish King surrendered his authority to appoint the government and involvement in the formulation of governmental policy following the electoral defeat of the rightwing. This marked the ascendency of the left, under first the Left Reform Party (Venstrereformpartiet) and following the party's fracturing in 1905 over military policy, its successors the Danish Liberal Party (Venstre) and their more left-wing counterparts in the Danish Social Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre), who were to dominate politics in the decades that followed. Following a series of short-lived and unstable Venstre-led governments, Radikale Venstre found themselves in a position to take power for the first time in 1909. While interrupted by a three-year interlude under Venstre rule from 1910-1913, from here on out Radikale Venstre entered a period of political dominance in Denmark which would last for years to come (1).
Denmark had been a relative late-comer to the process of industrialization compared to its larger European counterparts, and it would only be with the start of the 20th century that industrialization and largescale infrastructure development reached a turning point. Long a major trading power, Denmark would rise to a position of significant economic performance with the establishment of Esbjerg Harbor, which massively eased trade with Great Britain, alongside the largescale construction of railways, bridges, dams and telegraph lines, allowing the country to build a sizable economic position within the European market. This period was marked by absolutely massive population growth and population transfers, much as with many other industrializing nations. While the 1800s had seen a series of major epidemics, particularly of tuberculosis, and a high child mortality rate, Denmark would prove surprisingly swift in adopting a large variety of hygiene, sanitation and eugenics efforts to counter this development, providing one of the key factors behind the rise of the Danish Welfare State (1).
One of the rather peculiar developments which were to characterize the Danish economic development was its massive proliferation of small and medium-sized enterprises - a sharp contrast with the large companies and centralized economic development which dominated most other countries under industrialization. Instead the driving force behind Denmark's soon-to-be economic empire would come in the form of truly massive cooperatives, starting within the dairy sector, but soon spreading to butchers, farmers and numerous other industries. Danish cooperatives would expand massively from the latter half of the 1800s, growing into a true economic, political and social power which ultimately played a leading role in the collapse of the royal right-wing government in 1901 and the establishment of parliamentary rule. At the heart of the cooperative movement lay the thought and beliefs of the Grundviganist movement developed around the ideas of the priest, psalm writer and author N.F.S. Grundtvig during the 19th century under the core concept of "Man first, then the Church." Centered on democratic, communal and cooperative principles, the movement was foundational to the development of Danish society and at the heart of not just the cooperative movement, but also the proliferation of Danish high schools, free schools, free congregations and elected congregations, the latter two proving key factors in the development of the Danish People's Church (2).
As for the roots of the Danish Welfare State, they lay, in contrast to the German welfare system championed by Otto von Bismarck, not in the labor market but in the establishment of eldercare in 1891. From this beginning, building on the cooperative principles so prominent in Danish society at the time, efforts towards state healthcare provisioning followed culminating, under pressure from the Left Reform Party (Venstrereformpartiet), in the passage of work accident insurance, establishing the principles that employers were economically responsible for accidents in the work place. This would combine with the crucial developments of the "September Agreement" of September 1899 when The Cooperating Labor Unions of Denmark (DsF), and the Danish Employers Association (DA) negotiated a settlement whereby it was agreed that employers had the right to lead and distribute work, while the unions were given the sole right to negotiate and set employment and work conditions, with the government in the role of mediator between the two parties - establishing the foundation of the Danish Labor Market Model which was to prove so popular in SPD-controlled Germany decades later (3).
Danish politics in the pre-Great War parliamentary era would be marked by several key conflicts, but was, notably, dominated by the struggle between Venstre and Radikale Venstre on issues of particularly militarism, expansion of the electorate and how significant of an investment the state should make in the development of the developing Danish welfare state. Venstre would lose its absolute majority in Folketinget already in 1906, and no party would succeed in amassing a majority of the electoral mandate in the years that followed, setting the framework for, and dominance of, coalition governments in Denmark. By the start of the 1910s, a key alliance had already begun to form between Radikale Venstre and Socialdemokraterne (Social Democratic Party of Denmark), who together would press for the rights of women and domestic workers to vote, with 1908 seeing this completed at the local electoral level, and in 1915 for national elections - making Denmark one of the earliest adopters of women's suffrage in the world (4).
The issue of military development had been a core point of contention already in 1905, and led to the fracture of the dominant Venstrereformparti, as Radikale pursued an anti-militarist stance in opposition to Venstre's push for a massive modernization of Copenhagen's military defenses and the expansion of Denmark's military forces, with an eye towards countering Germany's military buildup. During the period leading up to the great war, a policy of neutrality was widely supported and implemented in Denmark, as successive governments balanced between their close trade partners in the United Kingdom and their large German neighbor to the south. Denmark would successfully avoid getting drawn into the Great War, beyond the laying of a large mine belt across the Danish Sounds to keep the British Royal Navy out of the Baltic at German insistence. During the Great War, the Danish economy experienced a significant shock and change, though avoiding the crises experienced by many other countries at the time, with particularly the German markets becoming a premier customer of Danish agricultural produce, especially canned meats, with numerous Danish vendors making large fortunes off the trade - these traders becoming known as "Goulash Barons" (4).
Denmark's fortunes would ultimately turn upon the decision to place the negotiations to end the Great War in Copenhagen. During the long, complicated and often contentious negotiations, Denmark suddenly found itself placed in a position of surprising importance and influence. Under the lead of the clever Danish Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius, whose long-held Germanophile outlook had been strongly vindicated by the conclusion of the Great War, Denmark placed itself in the position of mediator and as a friend to all, in the process developing numerous contacts and cooperative parternships which were to serve as a central force in the nation's future diplomatic endeavors. At the same time, the negotiators were able to secure significant gains for the neutral parties of the war and placed itself as one of the key founders and early forces behind the League of Nations. While the lands of Slesvig, Holsten and Lauenburg remained in German hands, despite the hopes of some Danish nationalists, Denmark had emerged as one of the principal victors in the negotiations on economic, diplomatic and political grounds, its ideas on welfare, eugenics and labor market mediation an influence upon the thinking of politicians on an international scale (5).
The end of the Great War brought with it both tumult and opportunity. While the economic dislocation of demobilization was sending shocks through the international economy, the Danish cooperative movements were already beginning to ponder the economic potential of the expanding Zollverein, and the Radikale government under Carl Theodore Zahle was not slow to follow up on these movements. As the large fortunes made during the Great War were reinvested into the Danish economy and negotiations with the Germans for access to the Zollverein came under way, the Danish trade economy was already beginning to adapt to the post-Great War Era. While Great Britain had been Denmark's premier trade partner before the war, and would return to a significant status after it, Danish interests had very firmly shifted southward to the massive new markets of Central- and Eastern Europe where new opportunities lurked around every corner. As a consequence of this shift, which was itself urged on by them, the Germanophile section of Radikale Venstre rose to prominence under the leadership of Erik Scavenius, who was already beginning to contest for leadership of the party from Zahle by 1922 (6).
Erik Scavenius in 1940
However, not all would go smoothly for the smooth-talking diplomat-politician, for farther left on the political spectrum the political fortunes of Socialdemokraterne, Radikale's most trusted coalition partners, were entering a period of significant turmoil as a result of the shockwaves unleashed in Russia by the Communist Revolution. The starting point for this conflict had come already in 1916, when the social democratic youth movement broke with Socialdemokraterne over their leader Thorvald Stauning's decision to assume a ministerial post with the Radikale government during the Great War. This was followed in 1919 by the youth movement's decision to establish Denmark's Left-Socialist Party (Danmarks Venstresocialistiske Parti) which united with a number of other minor socialist parties, expanding the party membership to some 3000 members, while the youth movement changed their name to Denmark's Communist Youth in reflection of their changed identity (7).
The revolt of the social democratic movement's youth, and the subsequent spread of ideological constructs from the revolutionary east, would provoke considerable debate and crisis within Socialdemokraterne, but the overpowering personality of Thorvald Stauning, the formidable party leader, would play a crucial role in calming much of the party by 1923 and rallying it to a moderate and pragmatic programme behind the Radikale government. However, a notable development of this struggle was the weakening of Socialdemokraterne's control over the levers of labor politics, particularly their ability to call for general strikes, which had previously been one of the party's greatest strengths up till then, with the Left-Socialists now contesting for control of unions. In 1921 the Left-Socialists formally adopted Muscovite Communism and began actively agitating in opposition to the political establishment while building contacts to the anarchist movement in Denmark. Even so, lacking a crisis to rally around, the Danish Communist movement would find itself in a marginalized position for the majority of the decade that followed (7).
While Socialdemokraterne found themselves staving off a revolt from the left, Radikale Venstre found itself in the midst of a intra-party struggle between Zahle and Scavenius. While Zahle could claim his leadership had guided Denmark through the Great War crisis, Scavenius made common cause with several key members of Zahle's cabinet, most critically the all-important Minister of the Economy and Interior, Ove Rode, who had long championed putting into practice a greater part of the welfare programme both Radikale and Socialdemokraterne had been supporting until this point. By contrast, Zahle rallied his finance minister Edvard Brandes, a crucial founder of the original Venstrereformparti who had long been a bridge between Radikale and their rivals in Venstre, as well as a close friend of King Christian X, to stave off Scavenius' challenge. However, Zahle found himself outmaneuvered by the intrigues of Scavenius and was eventually forced to announce his resignation in Scavenius' favor. Much disgusted by the factional partisanship within the party, Brandes would announce his retirement soon after, marking a final break with the old Venstre ties (8).
Erik Scavenius was swift to take the reins as Prime Minister of Denmark, quickly setting in motion a series of welfare reforms, handled ably by his political ally Ove Rode and the latter's political protege Peter Munch, who followed Scavenius as Foreign Minister. Scavenius would strongly emphasize the development of economic and political ties with Germany and championed the massive expansion of the Danish Cooperatives into the new markets of Eastern Europe. Leading a booming economy and a rapidly expanding social safety net, Scavenius would call for elections in 1923, 1926, and 1928, each time enjoying considerable margins of victory for himself and his coalition, which included a declining Venstre from 1927-29. However, while Scavenius enjoyed considerable successes during this period, he found himself threatened from within his own governmental coalition, for as his years in government ran on, he grew increasingly hesitant to press for further social reforms, as his in Socialdemokraterne insisted. In fact, it had been due to this disagreement that Scavenius decided to reach out to Venstre to counterbalance the rise of his partners to the left (9).
However, Scavenius' decision to distance himself from his allies in Socialdemokraterne would prove a costly one. Already tired for the increasingly slow and reticent push for reform from the government, an attitude was itself meeting with opposition from some parts of Radikale Venstre, Thorvald Stauning finally broke with the Scavenius government and brought down the government in early 1929. Perhaps influenced and inspired by the SPD's rise to power in Germany, Stauning pressed for his party to finally enter the limelight, having long since proven themselves as a capable political partner in the nearly two decade partnership with Radikale. Promising to continue the German relationship, and hinting that his party might enjoy a warmer welcome with the new SPD government in Berlin, while campaigning on an even more expansive and ambitious reform program than that supported by the Prime Minister, Stauning was able to secure the support of a significant enough portion of Radikale's parliamentary members to push Scavenius from power. Stunned at what he viewed as a deep personal betrayal, Scavenius attempted to block Stauning's appointment by appealing directly to the King. However, Christian X proved unwilling to get involved, still displeased at Scavenius' treatment of his friend Brandes, and worried about what the left would do should he seek to halt their rise to power. Denmark would have its first Socialdemokratiske government (10).
Thorvald Stauning Speaking Before Folketinget
Thorvald Stauning's rise to power would be marked by several major developments. He appointed the first woman to a ministerial post in the form of Nina Bang as Minister of Education, put renewed fire into the government's welfare programes, and engaged in an active effort to counter the influence of both the far-left and far-right by developing a consensus-oriented approach to governance, where he worked as often in partnership with the opposition as not. Most critical in this was his wooing of Venstre with significant benefits for their base constituency, the smallholder farmers who played such a crucial role in the major cooperatives, with government support and loans to over-extended cooperatives in return for their lukewarm support of what would prove to be an extensive social reform program developed under the guidance of his party fellow, Karl Kristian Steincke. Including comprehensive unemployment benefits, elder pensions, handicap support and publicly funded healthcare, alongside extensive government housing construction, a lowering of property taxes and a heavy investment in eugenics-based social programs, it was the single largest expansion of the Danish state in history and soon proved something of a bureaucratic nightmare for its implementers - despite its successful improvement of Danish living standards on a broad basis. First set out in 1931, it would take until the middle of 1935 for the last pieces of the programme to be put into place, and even then the Social Reforms would continue to see tweaks, expansions and contractions in the decades to follow. Denmark's Welfare State was well and truly formed (11).
However, while Stauning proved a talented and immensely effective politician, his efforts served to severely marginalize the far-left and far-right, provoking their hatred. In late 1935 this would boil over when the unemployed Anarcho-Communist Charles Nielsen attended a meeting of Folketinget during one of Stauning's bombastic speeches and from the gallery, which overlooked the hall of Folketinget, opened fire on the Prime Minister with a pistol - firing a total of five bullets, of which three struck Stauning. By the time Stauning hit the floor, the Prime Minister lay dead in the heart of Folketinget, killed at the hands of a Communist. Caught by the guards of Folketinget immediately thereafter, Nielsen would be placed under arrest and eventually condemned to life in prison. Ironically part of Stauning's reform package included the removal of capital punishment from the law books, protecting Nielsen from that fate. He would spend the rest of his life behind bars, passing away from tuberculosis in 1941 (12).
Stauning's death sent shockwaves through Danish society and politics, provoking a massive wave of outrage and horror. Stauning had been at the height of his success and popularity at the time of his death, having just won reelection earlier that year, and his death was seen as a sudden and unexpected blow to a prosperous and rising nation. Public grief and rage were the order of the day, and there were plenty eager to exploit the new situation. While Socialdemokraterne struggled to figure out who would succeed their great leader and the Prime Minister's seat sat empty, Erik Scavenius emerged from the woodworks and presented the King with the need for a custodian government to settle the country, offering himself as the obvious candidate for the position of custodian. Despite his dislike of the slippery and charismatic Scavenius, King Christian gave his ascent to the proposal and called on Scavenius to take the lead in organizing new elections. Working swiftly, Scavenius would pass a series of emergency laws targeting the far-left, outlawing the Communist Party, its youth movement as well imposing a general ban on Communist and Anarchist movements, with more than 50 imprisoned in a hastily conducted and legally questionable crackdown on anyone related to Charles Nielsen. Following this, and riding a wave of renewed popularity as the Avenger of Stauning, Scavenius would secure a key electoral victory in early 1936 before setting out to form a new government. However, in a sharp break with all expectations and precedent, Scavenius did not partner with the wounded and leaderless Socialdemokratiske Parti, but instead turned to his party's old rivals in Venstre, and then, even more shockingly, to the long-sidelined Danish Conservative Party which had replaced Højre in 1915. Before the center-left could even register what had happened, they had been pushed out of power and a fundamental realignment of politics now came under way headed by the centre-right Fourth Scavenius Government (13).
Footnotes:
(1) I am starting out with establishing the baseline of the pre-POD period so that we can all be on the same page when it comes to the changes. One quick basic explainer on Danish politics is that Venstre means Left and Højre means Right. Now in modern Danish politics it gets a bit complicated because Venstre was until recently IOTL modern day the leading political party on the Danish right, leading governments with Conservative and Danish People's Party backing. However, the name has stuck, so ironically in the modern day the Danish party called Left is a right-wing party (Similarly in Denmark Liberals make up the right-wing, as compared to where they are on the left in the US). Since the 1930s the center of Danish politics has rested somewhere around Radikale Venstre, with Socialdemokraterne leading the left and Venstre the right, although at times this has shifted even further over with the Conservatives leading the right-wing bloc.
(2) It is honestly quite fascinating to examine how influential the two religious movements of Grundtviganism and its counterpart Inner Mission have had on Danish society and culture. It is the source of a lot of what I would consider the uniquely Danish elements of our society and culture. By the way, High Schools (Højskoler) in Denmark are very different from the American version - this isn't secondary schooling, which is called gymnasium in Denmark, but rather schools dedicated to teaching people of all ages various skills outside of regular schooling. In the past this might be teaching literacy to the illiterate, but in the modern day you have sports high schools, music high schools, gaming high schools and the like. A lot of people tend to take a year's break after 9th grade and go to a high school of some sort before they start on secondary schooling. Free Congregations are religious congregations separate from the Danish Church, which adopted the moniker of People's Church (Folkekirken) following the end of Danish absolutism in 1848.
(3) While the Danish approach to welfare was different from that of the Germans, from my understanding of things, it was Bismarck's reforms which initially inspired the development. Leave it to us Scandinavians to take a cynical Bismarckian idea and try to create a utopia from it. It is honestly a bit hilarious to compare Scandinavian and German reactions to ideas such as nationalism, eugenics, welfare and foreign aid, because they often have the same goals with the exact opposite approaches. There is a surprisingly utopian almost naive strain to Scandinavia which is quite easy to miss, both for native born and foreigners, whereas the Germans have this overly traumatized (either overly cynical or overly radical) reaction to how they go about things, which I am pretty sure comes out of having been Europe's battlefield for most of the last millennia.
(4) One thing that it is absolutely crucial to understand in the Danish context is that the starting point for parliamentary power in 1901 was a complete and total victory for the Danish Left. The conservative Højre was completely defeated, leaving the victorious left wing factions to feud and fight for power. It is only with the 1915 reconstitution of the right wing under the Conservatives that the right wing found any voice in Danish politics. At the same time the struggle between the factions of the mainstream liberal left allowed for the emergence of the social democratic movement as a partner in the coalitions formed by the ruling parties.
(5) Now we finally get to where the butterflies start to play in. I really cannot stress how important the Copenhagen Treaty ends up being for Denmark and how massively it changes the country's trajectory. One very, very important development here is that Denmark does not experience the OTL North German Plebiscites which ultimately returned southern Jutland to Denmark. This is an incredibly crucial butterfly for Danish politics, as it in turn means the political strife over whether Denmark should incorporate the city of Flensborg or not is prevented. IOTL this conflict led to the Easter Crisis of 1920 in which King Christian X of Denmark dismissed the Radikale Zahle government despite it holding a majority in Folketinget and his attempts at replacing them with the opposition, who were in favor of taking Flensborg despite the populace being predominantly German-speaking. This in turn led the Danish unions and Socialdemokratiet to threaten a general strike against the imposed emergency government, culminating in the opposition's surrender and new elections in April of 1920. the Easter Crisis fundamentally undermined Radikale Venstre's hold on power and pushed it from its dominant political position. It would take until 1968 for another Radikale Venstre politician to emerge as Prime Minister, and ended the party's hopes of remaining one of the leading parties in Denmark. Instead Radikale shifted to a policy of allying with whichever party was in power at the time, becoming a part of the governmental coalition and then taking over key ministries and securing their core issues were dealt with in a way favorable to them. They have been incredibly effective at getting their way politically, but their ever-shifting allegiances have made them rather disliked by the rest of the political spectrum.
(6) Erik Scavenius IOTL experienced a major loss of prestige with the end of the Great War, having long been connected with the Germanophile elements of Danish society. ITTL that has changed drastically - not only have the Germanophiles been proven right but Scavenius has proven himself as one of the foremost political and diplomatic leaders in Denmark. At the same time most of these developments have been mentioned obliquely at varying points in the timeline already.
(7) Here the developments of the Social Democratic and Communist movements are rather close to OTL, but just a bit more so. The more open and inclusive nature of the Muscovite brand of Communism appeals well to the Danish sensibilities and is slightly more persuasive than the OTL movement. However, a crucial difference here is that without the Easter Crisis the Communists never get an opportunity to discredit themselves by trying to urge the populace to violent revolution (they tried to get the workers to launch a Council Communist revolution, only to be met with confusion and hostility. Classic well educated young socialist revolutionaries). Instead they continue to knock around at the corners of Danish politics where they make friends with more radical players, like the anarchists. Stauning is one of the historical giants of Danish politics and it was very much part of his force of personality which helped to calm the waters after the Communist movement launched. He essentially dominated Danish politics throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
(8) So things get a lot more contentious in Radikale this time around. IOTL, Zahle retired as head of Radikale after the Easter Crisis and Scavenius emerged as leader of the party from 1922-24. However, with his prestige in tatters after the Great War and Easter Crisis, as well as the general electoral collapse of Radikale, he soon departed the post. Here we get a fierce factional struggle which Scavenius ultimately wins. Notably I have here allied him with the more left-wing elements of Radikale while further distancing them from Venstre, who they had had a rather mixed involvement with up till this point.
(9) Scavenius' time at the top is a period of massive economic boom for Denmark and a time of rapidly closing bonds with the Zollverein. As one of the key economic entryways to the Zollverein, Danish banks and companies see massive financial infusions which build on the already developing Great War economy with great success. A key result of this is that the OTL financial crisis of the 1922-1924 period is avoided, with many of those who had built their fortunes during the war leveraging their finances for greater investments in turn. This has crucial importance for the major Danish bank Landmandsbanken, which IOTL experienced major liquidity crisis in 1922 with massive political consequences. Instead it grows rapidly into one of the great banks of Europe, functioning as middleman between their pre-existing French, British and American clients, and the Zollverein.
(10) With that we bid Scavenius farewell for now and welcome in the inestimable Thorvald Stauning. Stauning is one of the most important Danish politicians in the country's history, to the point you still get people referring back to old stories about his time in power, hear some of his slogans "Stauning or Chaos" and the like. His government built the Danish Welfare State more than anyone else, and while I do have a soft spot for Scavenius, I could not allow a giant like Stauning to miss his time in the limelight. In comparison to OTL he comes to power a bit late (He had a short-lived first government 1924-26) but finds much of the ground work for his later major reforms already done under Scavenius. I also really wanted to show how events in Germany have started to really touch events in Denmark, and how they have grown quite interlinked at this point in time.
(11) Without the pressures of the Great Depression, the Danish social reforms and compensation packages for Venstre's farmer supporters plays out a bit differently, but by and large most of the OTL reforms do end up getting implemented. Notably this builds on reforms already passed previously under Scavenius and Zahle, so while there are some pretty radical developments in there, it isn't as sudden and massive of a shift in policy as IOTL, and doesn't quite make Stauning's reputation in the same way. No, it is something else entirely he will become famed for ITTL.
(12) Uhhh… So yeah…. By now you guys should know there was going to be some sort of twist of this sort. I will say this is actually not as far fetched as it might look at first glance. IOTL Charles Nielsen did try to assassinate someone during a meeting of Folketinget, I just changed the time (moving it five years back in time from December 1930), person targeted (IOTL it was Steincke who was shot at when he was presenting Stauning's Social Reform) and the degree of success (IOTL Nielsen was discovered by one of the guards and only had time to fire a single shot into the ceiling). Stauning's death is going to have major consequences in Denmark and is a massive butterfly thrown into the whirlpool of ADiJ. One thing to note here is that Charles Nielsen was an Anarcho-Syndicalist IOTL, and here, but he ends up perceived as being part of the Communist movement due to the Communists' efforts at wooing the Anarchists previously.
(13) Dun Dun Dun! And when you least expect it, a rogue Scavenius appears. Now while the way I frame it here is a bit overly harsh of Scavenius, I do think this is entirely in line with the political approach of Radikale Venstre through most of its history. Radikale have almost always sat smack-dab in the middle of the political spectrum and have been able to exploit that fact to their benefit repeatedly throughout Danish parliamentary history. There are very few governmental coalitions, either left or right-wing, where Radikale did not at least have some sort of say in the politics. They have always been very adept at getting what they want out of a political coalition, and I want that to shine through here. Scavenius might have been able to work fine with the left-wing during his first three terms of office, but now that he can see the political fortunes are rising on the right, he is exceptional swift to adapt and shift gears. Considering his German contacts, he also probably figures that a similar shift is about to occur there and makes a calculated decision to be first-mover.
End Note:
Surprise!
I am back!For a couple features anyway, then it is back to my book. I have decided on a trying to fill in the massive blank void which is Scandinavia in the timeline this time around, so I hope you enjoy.
I accidentally fucked my keyboard around new years, and have not been able to use the "t" button since, so I have been resorting to copy-pasting as I type. It is questionable if the keyboard can be fixed at the moment without major repairs (Apple keyboards are apparently built to make it next to impossible), but for the most part it hasn't been too massive of an issue. It took me a bit but I am getting a hang of it and have written both this feature and something like half a dozen chapters like this, but it is a pain in the ass to write online, since there are very few sites and forums with automatic capitalization at the start of sentences - meaning I have to go looking for a capital letter "T" whenever I need it. Could I do this in a better way? Certainly, but the hassle of doing without the computer in the repair period would be more than living with it. Anyway.
I will be honest, despite being a Dane my actual knowledge of Danish history after the 17th century is very, very spotty, and mostly reliant on what little we got in school and through daily osmosis as a Dane. I had heard a bunch of the various politicians names mentioned in this update, but I had never actually sat down and tried to get a more comprehensive understanding of what was going on in this period. I have come away rather intrigued by my little country and its peculiarities. For example, I had no clue the modern parliamentary system only came into play in 1901, that royal power lasted that long. I had always understood it as being a development of the ratification of the Danish Base Law (Grundloven) in the aftermath of 1848 - that was what we were taught in school basically. Funny how history is always so much more complicated than what they teach in school, ain't it?
Anyway, I finished out the first twenty chapters of my book Regents of Old, which constitutes the first arc, a full 300 pages of writing. Pretty proud of myself about it and as promised I am doing a couple features to tide you guys over before I go back to working on the book again. Have to get the first arc edited so I have something to show people, and then it will be back to working on the second and final arc of the book. Has been a really rewarding and challenging experience so far.
It is honestly ridiculous how easy timeline writing feels compared to writing on my book, I just need to know what I want to write about and it just flows out through the keyboard, whereas with my book each word needs careful consideration, which care given to pace, density, flow, wordiness, specificity and a ton else. It is more rewarding, but honestly feels great to just be able to write a bit on the timeline again without having to put quite as much word-by-word focus on things.
Alright, that is it. I really, really hope you enjoyed this feature and found the content interesting.
I also want to thank @Sardar , @Nerdman3000 and @felipe vieira777 for nominating the timeline for a Turtledove.
Oh, and by the way, the title of this section "Der Er Et Yndigt Land" is the title of the Danish national song and roughly translates as "There is a Beautiful Country".
Well... This part has certainly been interesting. As a Dane I can't help but feel that we are both better and worse off than OTL. We don't have Sønderjylland back TTL, but the financial difficulties of the 20s seem to be butterflied. There has been a smoother transitioning to a welfare state but good ol' Stauning has been murdered (fun fact: OTL Denmark has never had a prime minister being murdered) and now we have the Radikale Vipers Venstre large and in charge and the radical left and right has been galvanized... I have a feeling that the 30s could be a very turbulent period for Denmark
It has been rather intriguing to explore. Sønderjylland was pretty much impossible to swing with the way the timeline played out, but I think the economic prosperity should more than make up for it.
I honestly hadn't thought to kill off Stauning until I started reading Steincke's danish wiki page where the assassination attempts (there were two) are detailed and it just seemed to fit. While Denmark has luckily avoided having a Prime Minister murdered, it has happened in Sweden, so I thought it wouldn't be too far out of line given how I had things set up.
I know that a good portion of the Danish population hates Radikale, but I honestly find the way in which they have been able to at a minimum influence and at various points dominate Danish politics kinda hilarious. Also think the majority of the most talented Danish politicians have come out of the party, but that is as ever something up for debate. They are extremely realpolitique in their approach, which is honestly quite fun to watch play out. Helps that I am generally supportive of their policies, but it is easy to see why they might rub their partners/opponents the wrong way.
One thing I wanted to make a note of - Stauning's murder is the culmination of the radical left in Denmark. It is the trigger for a massive anti-Communist crackdown and has the effect of turning just about the entire population firmly against them. Of course there are going to be the rare outlier, but the Communist movement as even an underground force is very much under intense suppression. I have this set to function as pushing Denmark even more firmly into the German camp.
Agreed. It would be a bit ASB to get it back without Germany being forced to cede land
Indeed. And it's not like attempts before haven't been made. I know that at least Estrup was almost assassinated once and was only saved by his coatbuttons reflecting the bullets
I suppose that's what happens when most coalitions need you despite not wanting you
Hopefully it only gets rid of the radical leftwings. It wouldn't be ideal if Denmark turned McCarthyist after this
Hooray, it's back! Even if temporarily
I like learning new things, and getting a peek into how Danish politics and society works was a treat. Now how long until Denmark gets swallowed up by Sweden and falls into its rightful place under Swedish leadership? 😛
I like learning new things, and getting a peek into how Danish politics and society works was a treat. Now how long until Denmark gets swallowed up by Sweden and falls into its rightful place under Swedish leadership? 😛
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Do I need to move this thread to ASB if I have a random meteor hit Canada?
Eh, I can be inventive... I pulled off Communist Shoguns, screwing over Canada should be easy by comparison.
Oh, and just to correct one point. Denmark has never been under Swedish control or leadership. Sweden on the other hand...
Happy to hear from you. I have been a bit busy this week, but I finished up another chapter of my book between completing the Danish feature and today, so I was going to give Norway a go. It might take a bit, since I haven't written anything on it yet, but it should be available some time in the next week or two.
One of the things I love most about alternate history is the opportunity it gives to learn real history in a fun and interesting manner. Only when you know the real history can you appreciate the alterations properly, so I try to put an emphasis on sharing the fun stuff I come across in my research. I really had very little understanding of the inter-war period outside of the most basic elements before I started working on ADiJ, particularly once we got beyond the comfortable frame of US/Germany/USSR which I have the best grasp of in this period, and it has been a lot of fun to learn about all these different historical figures and developments.
Now now, you know being an Anglophile, I have to bug you a little bit for your atrocious treatment of the British Empire ittl 😂Do I need to move this thread to ASB if I have a random meteor hit Canada?
Eh, I can be inventive... I pulled off Communist Shoguns, screwing over Canada should be easy by comparison.
Oh, and just to correct one point. Denmark has never been under Swedish control or leadership. Sweden on the other hand...
Happy to hear from you. I have been a bit busy this week, but I finished up another chapter of my book between completing the Danish feature and today, so I was going to give Norway a go. It might take a bit, since I haven't written anything on it yet, but it should be available some time in the next week or two.
One of the things I love most about alternate history is the opportunity it gives to learn real history in a fun and interesting manner. Only when you know the real history can you appreciate the alterations properly, so I try to put an emphasis on sharing the fun stuff I come across in my research. I really had very little understanding of the inter-war period outside of the most basic elements before I started working on ADiJ, particularly once we got beyond the comfortable frame of US/Germany/USSR which I have the best grasp of in this period, and it has been a lot of fun to learn about all these different historical figures and developments.
And yes, I know Denmark was never under Swedish control (well there was Kalmar, but that was a very loose arrangement), but ever since Marshall Bernadotte became King of Sweden post-Napoleon (and stealing away Norway) they did become the Scandinavian Chads. 😛
Now I am definitely interested in seeing how the butterflies have affected Norway, if I recall correctly they became independent from Sweden in 1905 and traditionally had close ties to the UK, it will be interesting to see how the British defeat shook things up
I mean, Kalmar was founded and led by Danish monarchs, with Denmark very much at the heart. But... Sigh... I do find the Swedish monarchs more interesting than the Danish. However, for every Swedish Gustavus Adolphus or Bernadotte, you have an Erik XIV. Hell, they can't even figure out how to count their monarchs properly! At least Denmark will always have the superior Queen Regnants.
Margrethe I was a fucking badass.Heh, I have had some fun thinking about where I want to go with the Scandinavian countries and I am pretty satisfied with what I have come up with. One thing that you might find particularly interesting is that both Sweden and Norway were put under intense pressure to suspend trade with Germany and both eventually cracked. In Norway it was pretty widely accepted and they were very firmly pro-entente at the end of the day, but in Sweden the opposition basically pushed those who wanted to maintain relations with Germany from power to effect an end to trade with Germany. All of this played out in 1917 and early 1918. What happens politically within particularly Sweden when the Great War ends like it has in ADiJ? I am looking forward to exploring that series of developments, particularly in light of it coinciding with the Finnish War of Independence.
Eh, Swedes got off because the hicks in Jutland (i.e. the nobility, Frederik I and Christian III) went in and pushed Christian II off his roost. Damn Jutes. Zealand for Zealanders!
By the time they got back around to dealing with the damn Swedes it was too late. *grumble grumble grumble*Of course there is absolutely no connection at all between my knowledge of Danish history shrinking by leaps and bounds after the 1660s and the *cough* Swedish ascendency that century. Frederik II is an absolute badass though - one of the very first absolutist monarchs in Europe and he absolutely played the nobility like a fiddle.
I can at least hold some pride in the achievements of Charles XII of Sweden since one of my ancestors effectively ran all of Sweden for the duration of Charles' reign. Of course the damn Swedes chopped his head off the moment they got the chance. *grumble grumble grumble*
Denmark:Nothing kickstarts a thread like a discussion about Denmark vs Sweden
Most of my knowledge about Swedish History is just in the context of the 30 years war and the Great Northern War. Mostly outgrowths of my reading Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Series and listening to Sabaton (i.e. I got interested in the fiction and consumed topics on the real history) so I can't speak to much. 🤣Eh, Swedes got off because the hicks in Jutland (i.e. the nobility, Frederik I and Christian III) went in and pushed Christian II off his roost. Damn Jutes. Zealand for Zealanders!
Of course there is absolutely no connection at all between my knowledge of Danish history shrinking by leaps and bounds after the 1660s and the *cough* Swedish ascendency that century. Frederik II is an absolute badass though - one of the very first absolutist monarchs in Europe and he absolutely played the nobility like a fiddle.
I can at least hold some pride in the achievements of Charles XII of Sweden since one of my ancestors effectively ran all of Sweden for the duration of Charles' reign. Of course the damn Swedes chopped his head off the moment they got the chance. *grumble grumble grumble*
Canada? Don't you mean the northernmost line of US states?
(Okay, okay, that's probably only slightly less ASB than a random meteor strike. Plus that's happened in quite a few timelines already. Still, if you can justify it...)
Great to see this back, this has to be one of the most detailed timelines on here and am glad to see it coming back. (And the random debate over Denmark/Sweden is rather amusing. Some things only happen on AH.com!)
Well shit, that's what I get for trying to one up someone on a region's history I'm only loosely familiar with 😛
You make a good point about Sweden though, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with their post-war relations with Germany and Finland. IIRC there was a proposal IOTL after the Winter War for Sweden and Finland to politically unite... I wonder if that will come up
You make a good point about Sweden though, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with their post-war relations with Germany and Finland. IIRC there was a proposal IOTL after the Winter War for Sweden and Finland to politically unite... I wonder if that will come up
With the way Canada is going TTL it's entirely plausible *grumble grumble*Canada? Don't you mean the northernmost line of US states?
(Okay, okay, that's probably only slightly less ASB than a random meteor strike. Plus that's happened in quite a few timelines already. Still, if you can justify it...)
Great to see this back, this has to be one of the most detailed timelines on here and am glad to see it coming back. (And the random debate over Denmark/Sweden is rather amusing. Some things only happen on AH.com!)
Nothing kickstarts a thread like a discussion about Denmark vs Sweden
I don't know what it is, but Swedes just bring out the troll in me. Coming from an old military family with plenty of family myths and legends, they are almost all about some sort of shit with the Swedes. I usually end up casually mentioning my ancestor planning the Stockholm Bloodbath in conversations with them. Nothing to see here, good sir, all nice and normal nationalist ribbing. Well, I then usually follow that one up with the story of my other ancestor who fought for both the Swedes and the Danes, so when they were preparing to sign the Peace of Roskilde, one of the things both sides could agree upon to bring them closer to an agreement that they would behead him. A sign of peace and conciliation you might say. Honestly amazing what he did - creating peace both then and now.
God damn that was dark... Guys, I think I might have a tendency towards the macabre... Do I seek professional help?
My father's history teacher was adjutant for Ebbe Gørtz during WW2 (Danish Field Marshal - also my great grandfather's younger brother if I am getting the genealogy correct) and ended up passing on a ton of stories from our family history to my father when he was teaching him.
...
What do I even say?
Hey, I have had the exact same experience. I think most on the board have experienced it.
Canada? Don't you mean the northernmost line of US states?
(Okay, okay, that's probably only slightly less ASB than a random meteor strike. Plus that's happened in quite a few timelines already. Still, if you can justify it...)
Great to see this back, this has to be one of the most detailed timelines on here and am glad to see it coming back. (And the random debate over Denmark/Sweden is rather amusing. Some things only happen on AH.com!)
Careful now, you Americans are just Anglo enough that my antipathy might spill over.
I do have to say I have always found it a bit curious how much less impactful the American revolutionary movement was in Canada. Been listening to Mike Duncan's Man of Two Worlds about the Marquis de Lafayette and just got finished with him realizing the American dreams of dragging the northernmost provinces into the rebellion were pure wishful thinking.
Happy to be back, and to see people's response to being back. As mentioned I am not on anything like a fixed schedule and don't have any sort of backlog, so it will be sporadic updates for now.
As mentioned, I am all too familiar with doing so myself. Hell, this entire timeline is sort of an exercise in exactly that. I am writing about topics I only have the loosest, most recently researched, grasps of and trying to convince you guys I know shit about all of this stuff
Oh, those proposals were making the rounds far, far before the Winter War. From the first inkling of Finnish Independence, the Swedes were hankering to reclaim their former subject kingdom and it took some very, very firm NO!'s from the Finns for the Swedes to kindly fuck off.
As for Canada's ultimate fate...😈
Oh, by the way. I will be mentioning this when I get the Norway feature out. But I was wondering if anyone had stuff they wanted me to do features on. I won't promise to do all of them, but I would like to know what you guys would like to hear more about - bearing in mind that I am not writing proper Updates, which progress the story beyond 1939. So stuff you want more detail on, areas you feel were under explored, topics or subjects you might want to know more about, perhaps particular figures in history.