Word: icelandic
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...seemingly heavy odds, she had blown to bits Britain's largest warship, the 42,100-ton Hood; fought off one of Britain's newest and mightiest, the Prince of Wales. The fight lasted only 300 seconds; took place last Saturday morning in Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland...
Last week the northwesternmost outpost of Europe moved a little closer to the U.S. By vote of its 1,011-year-old Althing ("Grandmother of Parliaments"), Iceland cut its last ties with Nazi-ruled Denmark, renounced the sovereignty of Danish Christian X, moved to establish a republic...
This was not unexpected. Since World War I a treaty of union has bound Iceland to Denmark only by loyalty to the same crown. The treaty promised Icelanders the chance to review the question of independence in 1940. When the Nazis seized Denmark last spring, the Icelanders temporarily took away Christian's Icelandic prerogatives and handed them over to the Cabinet. Last week's act only legitimized a state of separation caused by war, conquest, blockade...
...stolid statesmen of Reykjavik, measured and dignified in all things, erected their new order with utmost constitutional correctness. Until a republic should be established, able, revered Svein Bjornsson, Icelandic envoy to Copenhagen, was named regent. There was no need to create a new diplomatic service: Iceland had already planted a set of stalwart Vikings in world capitals after the Nazis captured Denmark last year. As for protocol, Premier Hermann Jonasson had always got along with a staff of a secretary and a doorkeeper, and still could...
...such Nordic deliberateness could not efface the main impression. By thus voting almost unanimously to give up their King, Iceland's 118,000 farmers and fishermen showed pretty clearly how little they liked the Nazis...