Chapter 5 "The Reform"
Chapter 5
Reformen
The 29 of June: Army HQ in Korsbæk Reformen
Erik With and William Wain Prior is discussing on how to reform the army.
W. Prior: "Andersen and Stauning did not give us that much to work with, we are not allowed to create new divisions or build fortifikations, the only thing we can do is plan a defense and when the Germans come, we will not be able to fight back"
E. With: "Prior, there is one thing we can do, we were allow to change the composition of our divisions"
W. Prior: "What is that going to help, our hands are tied With we can't build a larger army"
E. With: "That is not true, Andersen did not say anything about a limit on the size of the army's divisions. So if we increased the Size of the Division, we can bolster a larger army and recruit and train more men. We are only legally obligated to report the number of divisions in the Army. We have also ben granted funds to buy a lot of equipment
I have a plan Prior, we create a home defense force, which we should be allowed to train, they will be volunteers and not be paid by the army for their service, instead we will get the military industry to pay their wages, in return the army will order a bunch of weapons in one big bulk, which officially will be stored so we can use it later, but in practice they will also be used by this "Home Guard""
W. Prior: With, that is the most absurd thing, i have heard. So absurd it might work. We can get a bigger army, if we break the law, then there maybe time to Build some fortifications afterwards, it the politicians get to sense."
Prior takes a piece of paper and draw a plan on what a much larger division could look like.
This Division should be able to defend against anything the Germans have.
"This is what i have planned, an army that can dig in, suppress enemy with artillery, shoot down enemy planes and destroy tanks. We should be able to Train and arm at least 4 of these divisions. But we will get fired, if someone discovers such thing"
E. With: "I will take full responsibilities if, that happens and make sure you won't get the boot, i hate this as much as you do Prior. But Denmark's freedom is at stake and we can not let politics delay such an important rearmament, when the parlement decide it's time to mobilise it would be too little too late. We will only recruit volunteers for now, until the actions of the army will be approved by the Parliament."
W. Prior: " This is risky, but if we want to have a chance against Hitler, we must have a strong enough army.
The Generals agree, the plan is set in motion and the Army will slowly be build up, this "Home Guard" have been given the internal name "Hjemmeværnet", which on paper is a group of men that have volunteered to mobilize in the event of war, but in practice is training with the regular army and being paid like professional soldiers in secret, by the growing arm industry on the danish islands, in return the Army buys a large order of Riffles artillery and other military equipment.
This secret agreement between the army and the danish war industry is organised by Erik With and would be a national scandal if it was discovered and would destroy any plans of beefing up the army.
