'Would our Government agree to take less than the three Islands?'
It was plain that the Opposition, not always fair, was tiring him and Brandès out; I could understand their position, and sympathise with their discouragement, but not feel it.
'To admit a new proposition on our part would be to interfere in the interior politics of Denmark,' I said. 'The plebiscite was arranged on the question of the treaty; it meant the cession of all the Danish Islands or nothing.' The Rigstag should not prepare such a change without making a new appeal to the country. I knew it was in the power of the Rigstag to refuse to ratify the vote of the people. It would simply mean a delay of the decision if it did so. I would make no proposition to my Government for a change in the treaty; if such a proposition was seriously made, I must step down and out at once.
De Scavenius approved of what I said. I believed that we would win, in spite of dire prophecies. On Wednesday, December 20th, 1916, the vote in the Folkstag was taken; it stood,—90 for the sale; 19 against it. On December 21st, it stood, in the Landstag, 40 votes for the sale, and 19 against it.
Ambassador Gerard who had come to Copenhagen again, was among the first to offer his congratulations. He was most cordial. The sale was a fact. 'Just in time,' de Scavenius said. Just in time! The War Cloud was about to burst, and the Legation must prepare for it. The Islands had hitherto cut off my view; I now saw a New World.
CHAPTER XII
THE BEGINNING OF 1917 AND THE END
At the end of 1916, the affair of the Islands was practically settled. Every now and then a newspaper put forth a rumour that brought up the question again. Copenhagen, a journal which was very well written, announced as a secret just discovered, that the United States, even after Congress had appropriated the $25,000,000 for the sale of the Islands, would not agree to accept them at once. This excited much discussion which, however, was soon stopped. It was remarkable how the fury and fire of the controversy disappeared. People seemed to forget all the hard names they had called one another. I forgave the National News, and later even attempted to get printing material for the paper from the United States. The need of printing material had become so great, that an attempt was made to print one edition in coal tar! The embargo was drastic. If the National News had had a good case against me and interfered with the sale, perhaps I might not have been so forgiving; one's motives are always mixed.
New difficulties were coming upon us, and I think that most of our diplomatic representatives knew that we were unprepared for them. Since the opening of the war, we had been adjured to be neutral. That was sometimes hard enough. But, as it seemed inevitable that our country must be drawn into the war (though we were told that the popular air at home was 'I Did not Raise My Boy to be a Soldier') it seemed necessary to be prepared. Captain Totten—now Colonel—our military attaché, urged 'preparedness' in season and out of season. The position of a Minister who wants to be prepared for a coming conflict, but is obliged to act as if no contest were possible, is not an easy one. Besides, through the departure of Mr. Francis Hagerup, the Norwegian Minister, to Stockholm, I had become Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. I represented, when I went to Court officially, the Central Powers as well as their enemies. 'You are Atlas,' the king said, when I presented myself as Dean for the first time; 'you bear all the Powers of the world on your shoulders!'