DENMARK’S FORCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1940, Page 9

DENMARK’S FORCES

EQUIPMENT AND TRAINING. LIVELIHOOD OF PEOPLE. Denmark has a population of 3.706,000 ai’d an area ot 16.576 square miles. Her only colonial possessions are the Faroe (Sheep) Islands with a population of 2500, and Greenland, with a population of 15,000 and an area of 736,578 square miles, of which 31.000 are ice-free. The population of the capital. Copenhagen, is 666.269. Denmark’s army comprises about 14,000 trained men, and her navy includes two coastal defence vessels of 3500 and 3800 tons. 1.7 torpedo boat:), three minesweepers, three minelayers, eight submarines, and five fishery patrol vessels. The naval air force comprises 35 machines, and the main air force 65 machines. According to the latest statistics, 6800 men are being called up each year for military training, and exemptions are few, even the clergy being liable for service. One-third of the population lives exclusively by agriculture and about one half by manufactures and trade. The chief products are butter, wheat, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, cattle, horses, pigs and sheep. There is a large export trade of butter to Britain. The principal imports are coal, mineral oils, timber, manufactured goods (woollens, silks, and cottons), iron, hardware, wine, fruit, coffee, tea. cereals feeding stulls, oil seeds, and colonial produce. The throne is hereditary, the present king being King Christian the Tenth. There is a Diet of two chambers, the senate of 76 members elected for eight years, and the “Folketing” of 149 members elected for four years. A treaty was signed in London in 1852 by the terms of which the succession to the crown was made over to Prince Christian and direct male descendants, a law on the succession, in accordance with this treaty, being adopted by the Diet in 1853. .

In 1864 Denmark was attacked by Prussia and Austria and deprived of Schleswig-Holstein (Prussia taking the whole territory after a further war with Austria in 1866). At the conclusion of peace between the Central Powers and the Allies in 1919 the question ot Schleswig-Holstein was subjected to a plebiscite of the inhabitants, and North Schleswig is now part of Denmark. The established religion. Lutheran, was introduced in 1536.