Mutiny

Denmark's tiny army, a link in NATO's northern anchor chain, was shaken last week by ugly spasms of mutiny. On strategic Bornholm Island, 200 draftees went on a disobedience strike, called on "all watches to leave their posts." At Holbaek on Zealand Island, 300 men refused to eat their rations, and bought hot dogs instead. Worst of all, a batch of 100 conscripts from the 9th Regiment of the King's Own Foot Guards set off for Copenhagen on a protest march. Other malcontents were prepared to join them on the way to the capital.

But the marchers did not get far. Eight miles from their barracks, they met a motorized infantry patrol drawn up across the highway. The ringleaders found themselves staring into the hard blue eyes of strapping (6 ft. 2 in.) Major General Richard Allerup, a rugged professional who likes to say that he is tough enough to be a platoon sergeant in the U.S. Marines. General Allerup neither blustered nor threatened. "I'm not talking to you as a general," he said, "but as an older, more experienced man." His order: "Get on to those trucks and get home right away." When one of the rebels demurred, the general grabbed him and tossed him bodily into a patrol car. The rest meekly obeyed orders.

Illegal but "Understandable." Sparked by Allerup's example, Denmark's 1,500-man officer corps quickly and easily brought the other outbreaks under control, clapped 24 ringleaders into jail. But at the investigation that followed, they unearthed symptoms as disquieting as the disobedience itself.

The immediate cause of the trouble was an unpopular government order extending Denmark's draft period from 12 to 18 months. Many young Danes resent and resist their tiny nation's undertaking to provide three divisions for NATO forces. Another cause was the widespread Danish belief that soldiering itself is an uncouth and unnecessary profession, ill-suited to a nation that has not waged war since 1864.* Item: last year a veteran sergeant major who offended his rookies by using "rude and indecent language" was beaten badly by ten of his men. From a court martial he got 30 days, the attackers got only reprimands. Last week's rebels confidently expected to get off as lightly, for in Danish eyes their actions, though illegal, were "understandable."

More worrisome to Denmark's leaders than complacency and pacifism was strong evidence of Communist infiltration of the army's rank & file. In the pocket of one mutineer, investigators found a letter from a Communist youth organizer: "Comrade . . . great things are happening. I want to meet you to discuss these things." Palle Voigt, editor of two Communist magazines that had urged the troops to resist an extension of the draft, was arrested on charges of inciting rebellion. The trouble, believed Danish Defense Minister Harald Petersen, "was obviously directed from abroad."

*When Austrians and Prussians invaded Jutland, grabbed Schleswig-Holstein.

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