Between the devil and the deep blue sea - University of Canterbury

- 28-
the writing of Denmark's war history.97 Perhaps the cue for the lack of interest has come
from the international historical profession itself. It is undeniable that histories of wars tend
to cast the role of neutrals to the peripheries. Wars are, after all, about belligerents and not
about non-participants. When neutrals do feature in the general history of the war, they are
analysed almost exclusively in terms of their impact on the outcome of the conflict or on
the belligerents' ability to continue fighting. Since the Carnegie Studies of the 1920s and
1930s, the domestic history of neutrals or neutrality in the Great War has been largely
ignored. 98 There are, of course, a number of books available on the theory of neutrality, but
very few on its effects on the internal workings of a specific nation-state. 99 When mixed
with the language barrier - most of Europe's neutrals, save Switzerland and Spain, speak
languages unique almost entirely to their own territorial borders - the neglect becomes
almost explicable.
Yet it took more than military forces to fight the First World War. It was a conflict
of immense scale involving the economies, industries, material resources and work force of
all the belligerents and often those of neutrals as well. Now that the writing of the history of
how the belligerents fared has been written and rewritten numerous times, recovery of how
the neutrals experienced the war is required. Without the neutrals, Great War study would
be incomplete. It is imperative, therefore, to follow the examples set by Schmitt, Neutral
Europe between War and Revolution and a growing number of others, not only to salvage
97 Carsten Due-Nielsen, "Denmark and the First World War" Scandinavian Journal of HistOl)l. 10, no. 1, 1985, pp. 3
- 5.
98 Greven (ed.), The Netherlands and the World War Volumes II - IV; Eli Heckscher, Kurt Bergendal, Wilhelm
Keilhau, Einar Cohn, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson, Sweden, NOlway, Denmark and Iceland in the World War.
(Economic and Social History of the World War) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Humprey Milford
and Oxford University Press for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Economics and
History, 1930. See also: Moore, Economic Aspects of the Commerce and IndustlY; Flier, War Finances; Thomas A.
Bailey, The Policy of the United States Toward the Neutrals, 1917 - 1918. (The Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic
History, 1941. The Walter Hines Page School ofInternational Relations) Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith,
1966 (1942).
99 For useful studies on neutrality see: Nils Orvik, The Decline ofNeutrality 1914 -1941. With special reference to
the United States and the Northern Neutrals. Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum Forlag, 1953; Annette Baker Fox, The
Power of Small States. Diplomacy in World War II. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1959; Amry
Vandenbosch, "The small states in international politics and organization" The Journal of Politics. 26, May 1964, pp.
293 - 312; Roderick Ogley (ed.), The Theory and Practice of Neutrality in the Twentieth Century. (The World
Studies Series) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970; R. P. Barston (ed). The Other Powers. Studies in the
Foreign Policy of Small States. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973; Efraim Karsh, Neutrality and Small States.
London and New York: Routledge, 1988; Alan T. Leonhard, Nicholas Mercuro (eds.), Neutrality. Changing
Concepts and Practices. Lanham: University Press of America, 1988; Gregory A. Raymond, "Neutrality Norms and
the Balance of Power" Cooperation and Conflict. Nordic Journal of International Studies. vol. 32, no. 2, June 1997,
pp. 123 - 146.