Heimasíða Baldurs A. Sigurvinssonar

Icelandic Soldiers,
in chronological order:
1600-1700
1700-1800
1800-1900
1900-2000

My research is going to be those Icelandic individuals who have chosen to serve in foreign armies. Since Iceland does not have an army of any sort, those individuals who want to become soldiers must go abroad to serve in those few military establishments who take in foreign individuals. Through the centuries most served in the Danish and Norwegian armies. In World War I and II large numbers of Icelanders served with the Canadian (all services), and to a lesser degree, United States armed forces (Marines, Army, Navy), either as draftees or volunteers. The German armed forces (Bundeswehr, Wehrmacht, Waffen SS), as well as La Légion Étrangére (The Foreign Legion) of the French Army and the British Military (RAF, Army) have also seen Icelandic members among their ranks. Besides focusing on the individualistic life of those Icelanders, the response their families, friends and relatives showed to their decision to become a military man, I will also focus on how the Icelandic society in which they were raised has responded to their experience once these individuals have returned home after withdrawing from the military life. It will then be of great interest to see, firstly how these former soldiers view their cosmos around them and how it has changed from the time they were just civilians prior to their military service; and secondly how it has influenced their way of thinking concerning cultural and social decision making later in their life's. To draw out these aspects I will, among other things, look at what these men are doing today and whether it has been influenced to any degree by their former occupation as soldiers. Historical aspects concerning establishments of local military units in Iceland, such as the one that functioned in Vestmanneyjar for some 20 years at the turn of the century, will also be investigated.

The Icelandic decision to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but at the same time to be the only member nation with no army of their own will also be investigated. For that aspect I will focus on the social and political issues that was the basis for that decision. The controversial decision, which the majority of Icelanders seemed to support at the time, to allow an American Air Force NATO base in Keflavik in Iceland will also be researched. Since the time Iceland regained it's full independence in 1944 from Denmark, Icelanders have had an idea of themselves as a peace loving small nation that wished to do no harm to others. But to many outsiders, Iceland is contradicting itself by having no army based on the peace loving idea, but at the same time being a member nation of NATO and allowing an American Air Force base to function in the country. The Icelandic decision to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but at the same time to be the only member nation with no army of their own will also be investigated. For that aspect I will focus on the social and political issues that was the basis for that decision. The controversial decision, which the majority of Icelanders seemed to support at the time, to allow an American Air Force NATO base in Keflavik in Iceland will also be researched. Since the time Iceland regained it's full independence in 1944 from Denmark, Icelanders have had an idea of themselves as a peace loving small nation that wished to do no harm to others. But to many outsiders, Iceland is contradicting itself by having no army based on the peace loving idea, but at the same time being a member of NATO and allowing an American Air Force base to function in the country. The response that the large majority of Icelanders show to the question of establishment of any kind of Icelandic armed force, has been negative. Even though Icelanders can argue among themselves about most issues local and foreign, this issue has seldom been discussed of any seriousness. It simply has never got to that level of discourse. For that, most Icelanders seem to have a very affirm view on the matter.

But then comes the question that got me started on this research. Why do my fellow countrymen so strongly object to the idea of establishing a national armed force? What is the social and cultural framework that forms the basis of this view? Does it have historical deeper roots that no one has yet realized? And, could it be that an establishment of a social institution that has no precedent in Icelandic history is a threat to the political and social structure that Icelanders have grown accustomed to? When Iceland became a protestant country along with it's rulers in Denmark and when the last catholic bishop Jon Arason and his sons were executed by orders from the Danish king in the year 1550, the king at the same time executed an order that forbade any kind of Icelandic armament now and forever. The reasons lay in the fear of the Danish king that he or his descendents would in the future have to deal with an Icelandic uprising to his country's royal authority over Iceland. The king had in fact every reason to be afraid because the turmoil and anger that followed increased royal rule in Iceland and the power demise of the church, local landlords and the public alike, could easily end in an uprising. Removing the tools of trade to successfully oppose the king's rule would greatly diminish that threat. This ban is therefore perhaps the founding stone of Iceland's later idea of it's own excellence as a peace loving small nation that dwells in the northern hemisphere and wishes no harm to others. The great Icelandic social revolution from a rural farming society to an urban industrial consumption society in a very short time period, is based on local cultural ideas where the tradition of a social institution called an armed force was an alien phenomenon. Icelandic views that later formed the bases of it's military policy, thus may have it's roots in a ban that served a social end in a social reality quite different from the one today. Or, as Emile Durkheim said: "The function of a social fact ought always to be sought in it's relation to some social end”. The functional mind of Durkheim could then help in the way of explaining this peace loving myth that Icelanders hold of themselves.