Icelandic Independence
Iceland declared itself a republic on 17 June 1944 while Denmark, the country it was leaving, was under German occupation. The connection ran back to 1262, when the Icelandic commonwealth accepted the Norwegian crown, and passed to Denmark with Norway. Home rule came in 1904, and the Act of Union in 1918 made Iceland a sovereign kingdom in personal union with Denmark, sharing a monarch and leaving foreign affairs and coastal defence to Copenhagen, with either side able to demand revision after twenty-five years. That clause came due in 1943. By then the situation had been settled by other means. Germany occupied Denmark in April 1940, the Icelandic parliament assumed the king's powers the next day, and Britain invaded Iceland a month later with a battalion of marines because the island commanded the Atlantic convoy routes and neutrality was not going to be allowed. The United States took over the garrison in 1941, before it was formally at war. The referendum on ending the union and adopting a republican constitution returned about 97 per cent in favour on a turnout above 98 per cent. The declaration was made at Thingvellir, the plain where the assembly had met since 930, in heavy rain. Christian X sent a telegram of congratulation, which Danes had not expected and which mattered a good deal. Iceland joined NATO in 1949 despite having no army, and the American base at Keflavík stayed until 2006. The war years transformed the economy as much as the constitution. Occupation spending and wartime fish prices ended a century of poverty and emigration, and Iceland went from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the richest inside two generations.
- Year: 1944 CE
- Category: Political
