LIII. 1848. CHAP. every part of the Confederacy; everywhere the Liberals preached a crusade against the audacious Danes, who had ventured to brave the German colours, and impede the resurrection of the Fatherland. The governments of the neighbouring states were swept away by the torrent; the Diet strongly supported the same views; the principle was openly asserted, that wherever the German language was spoken, there were the bounds of the great Teutonic Confederacy. The fact was totally overlooked that the German population was little more than a third of the whole inhabitants of the disputed territory, and that a vast majority of the entire population was warmly attached to the Danish connection.* Indeed, the greatest difficulty which the Danish troops experienced was in restraining the furious indignation of the inhabitants, which broke out in acts of savage hostility against the retiring Germans. They had signalised their entry by blood and rapine, and the women, in return, poured boiling water upon them from the roofs of the houses as they withdrew. Inflamed beyond measure by the recital of these mutual atrocities, the Prussian, Hanoverian, and Brunswick governments directed formidable armies against Holstein. Without any declaration of war, they invaded the duchy, 1 Ann. Hist. took possession of the fortress of Rendsburg, in which they placed a garrison of 5000 men; and an army of 40,000 men was collected to carry the terrors of German vengeance over the whole Cimbric peninsula.1 1848, 482, 483; Ann. Reg. 1848, 346, 347. 39. invasion of The forces of Denmark were unequal to the encounter Renewed of so large an armament, notwithstanding the gallant Schleswig, spirit with which they were animated. She could not and victo bring more than twelve thousand regular troops into the Prussians. field against forty thousand of the Confederation. They LIII. 1848. April 11. made, however, a noble defence. The King having refused CHAP. to obey a peremptory order of the Diet at Frankfort to withdraw his forces from Schleswig, the Prussian troops received orders to enter at all points the Danish territories; and the Danish Government, in reply, laid an embargo on all German vessels in their harbours, and issued orders to their cruisers to capture all vessels bear- April 19. ing the Prussian flag. Each party was successful on the element on which its forces preponderated. The Danes reasserted their ancient maritime superiority on the Northern Ocean; the Prussian flag was swept from the ocean, their harbours blockaded, and their foreign trade nearly destroyed. But at land the Danes experienced in the outset very considerable reverses. On Easter Sunday, 23d April, the Danish troops, ten thousand strong, under April 23. General Hedemann, were suddenly and unexpectedly attacked at Danewirke, near Schleswig, by General Von Wrangel, with thirty thousand Prussians, and, after a heroic resistance of eight hours, compelled to retire. They withdrew in the best order, however, without losing a single tumbril or piece of artillery; but the town of Schleswig fell into the hands of the enemy. Finding himself decidedly overmatched, the Danish general wisely withdrew from the mainland, and stationed his troops on the islands of Alsen and Funen, lying on the east coast of Schleswig, where they could not be followed by the invaders, and maintained a secure and yet menacing position on their flank. Von Wrangel, upon this, having no longer an enemy in his front, divided his army into two columns, one of which entered Jutland, and carried the war into Denmark proper, where they levied a contribution of two million crowns, while the other occupied 484, 485. Schleswig.1 The entrance of the German troops into Jutland, avowedly beyond the limits of the Confederation, brought new actors on the scene, and it was evident that, if persisted in, it would bring the whole of the north into the 1 Ann. Reg. 348; Ann. 1848, 347, Hist. 1848, LIII. 1848. 40. tervenes, vation. May 2. CHAP. contest. As soon as it was known at Stockholm, the Cabinet of that place addressed a warm remonstrance to that of Berlin, in which they announced that, if the invaSweden in- sion of Denmark was persisted in, they would be under and Russia the necessity of sending a corps d'armée into Funen, or is in obser- some of the other Danish islands, to resist the attack, and secure the safety of the Scandinavian kingdoms. The Prussian Government replied that they had no intention of permanently occupying any part of Jutland, but that the measure had been rendered necessary by the seizure of a number of Prussian ships by Danish cruisers, and as a means of compelling their restitution. The Prussian troops, however, continued to advance, and reached Kolding, upon which the Swedes landed a considerable body of troops in Funen to support the Danish forces there; while a Russian squadron set sail from Cronstadt under the Archduke Constantine, and began to cruise along the coast of Jutland to be ready for any emergency which might occur. Matters now began to look serious, and to threaten a general war in the north. To avert it, a conference was opened in London of the ambassadors of Russia, Prussia, England, Sweden, and Denmark, and a Russian diplomatic agent was stationed in Hamburg to communicate the result of their deliberations to the belligerent parties. By their intervention the advance of the Ann. Hist. Prussian troops was at length arrested in Jutland, and 485; Ann. they were withdrawn from that peninsula, though not before a bloody combat had taken place with the Danish troops, in which the invaders were worsted, and driven back to Gravenstein.1 May 28. 1848, 480 Reg. 1848, 350, 351; Cayley, ii. 53, 54. 41. Battle of Duppeln. June 5. To avenge this affront, the Prussian and Hanoverian troops, notwithstanding the pending negotiations, made a combined attack on the Danish forces, who had taken up a position at Duppeln. The superiority of numbers in the land forces was decidedly in favour of the Prussians ; but on the other hand, the Danes had the advantage of a strong position and of the support of a flotilla of gun LIII. 1848. boats in the strait between the mainland and the island CHAP. of Alsen, which lay on their flank, and the guns of which reached the field of battle. General Hedemann commanded the Danes, and in order to throw no obstacle in the way of the mediation of the allied powers, his orders were to act strictly on the defensive. The forces under his command were only fourteen thousand; the Germans brought twenty-four thousand sabres and bayonets into the field. The first line of the Danes was carried after an obstinate struggle and great slaughter on both sides; but they retired to a still stronger position in their rear, which was commanded both by heavy artillery on the opposite heights in the island of Alsen, and the gunboats in the straits. The fire from these was so heavy upon the advancing columns of the Prussians, when they came within range, that they were driven back, and the Danes reoccupied the positions which they had held in the earlier part of the day. The attack was resumed next morning; but though the Prussians gained some advantages, they made no material progress; and after a useless slaughter, both parties remained nearly in the same position as they had occupied in the commencement of the conflict. Another combat, equally to the Cali honour of the Danes as the weaker party, took place on Reg. 350; the 29th June, when the Danish rear-guard repulsed an 1848, 485. attack by the insurgents, headed by the Prince de Noor.1 1 53,54; Ann. Ann. Hist. tions for an which is Anxious to terminate a contest so unequal, though 42. waged with so much honour to himself and his forces by Negotiasea and land, the King of Denmark addressed, on the 15th armistice, June, a note to the ambassadors of Great Britain, Russia, concluded. and Sweden, at Copenhagen, requesting their mediation Aug. 26. between him and the German Confederacy. The result of this was an interposition of these powers, which led to an armistice for seven months, on the 26th August. The conditions of this convention were, that both duchies should be evacuated alike by the Danish and German forces; that prisoners on both sides should be restored; LIII. 1848. Oct. 23. CHAP. all vessels captured, or on which an embargo had been laid since the commencement of the war, be restored; a garrison of four hundred men be allowed to be kept by the Danes in the island of Alsen, and one of equal strength by the Confederacy in the town of Altona; and the administration of the duchies in the mean time to be intrusted to a mixed commission of five persons—two chosen by the King of Denmark, two by the King of Prussia, in name of the German Confederation, and a fifth by the whole four, who was to have the president's chair. Both contracting parties claimed the guarantee of Great Britain for the faithful execution of this treaty. Thus were hostilities for the time stopped, and on the 23d October, the King, in opening the Chambers, announced the approaching concession of a constitution, and congratulated his subjects in deserved terms on the noble stand they had made against the unjust invasion by the German democracy, with which they had been visited. The conditions of the armistice, though in appearance fair, were however in reality eminently favourable to the Confederacy, for by it the Danish troops were compelled to keep aloof from both duchies, which were in a manner sequestered and withdrawn from the Danish crown, to which they had so long belonged. It was as if an armistice were to be concluded between Great Britain and France, on condition of Scotland or Ireland being evacuated by the forces of both parties, and put under neutral government. The British Cabinet, enamoured of the Liberal cause throughout the world, looked on, a passive Denmark's spectator of this oppression of the weaker State by the Oct. 23, greater, and permitted an independent monarchy to be 1848; Con- bereaved of half its dominions without either drawing the sword or exerting any effective diplomatic interposiAnn. Reg. tion in its behalf. Lord Palmerston proposed that Cayley, ii. Schleswig should be neither Danish nor German, but Hist. 1848. independent, connected with Denmark by a "political tie," forgetting that, under the appearance of impartiality, 1 King of Speech, vention, Aug. 26, 1848, 351; 1848, 351; 53, 54; Ann. |