Why did Denmark gain land after WW1 despite being neutral?

So, right after World War I, Denmark ended up getting a chunk of land from Germany. Which is kinda funny, because Denmark didn’t actually do anything during the war — they stayed completely neutral the whole time and didn’t fire a single shot.

Usually, when countries win land after a war, it’s because they fought in it. So, like… what gives? Why did Denmark get rewarded when they just sat on the sidelines?

To figure that out, we’ve gotta rewind to the mid-1800s. Back then, King Frederick VII of Denmark was also the Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg — and the further south you went in those duchies, the more German everything got.

Now here’s the kicker: Frederick didn’t have any kids, and he did the one thing childless kings are really not supposed to do — he died. Cue the succession crisis.

His successor, Christian IX, decided to pass a new constitution that slowly tried to merge those duchies more closely with Denmark. Prussia and Austria weren’t having it — Holstein and Lauenburg were part of the German Confederation, and they weren’t about to let some of their crew get absorbed into Denmark.

So the two powers basically had a little pow-wow, agreed Denmark had to be smacked down, and went to war. Spoiler: Denmark lost.

Prussia and Austria took over the duchies, and Austria had said they’d hold a referendum so the Danish-majority areas could maybe join Denmark. That never happened though, because — surprise — Prussia turned around and fought Austria next, snatched those territories, and eventually formed Germany a few years later. Fast forward to World War I — Germany loses.

So, back to Denmark: how did they get those lands? Well, during the war, they kept their neutrality, and tried to stay on Germany’s good side because — let’s be real — they didn’t want to get steamrolled. The Allies were okay with that. A neutral Denmark was better than opening another front.

Still, after the war, countries like France were like, “Hey, Denmark, wanna grab some land?” The official excuse was self-determination, but the real reason was