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SOHLBSWIG-HOLSTEIN.
(From The Times Special Correspondent)
FLENSBURG, Jan. 19th.
I have ventured on a short excursion into the
Duchy of Schleswig, in the hope that I might be
enabled to see something of what was 15 years
ago, and may soon once more become, the
theatre of war between the Danes and the
Germans. 1 left Kiel early in the morning of
Saturday, and travelled across the Danish
Washed, over Gettorf, to Eohenförde, and thence
across the district of Sehwansen to Maasleben,
Arm's, and Oappeln, on the narrow gut or creek
of the Schier. From Oappeln on Sunday I drove
about the territory of the Angels, first to
Getting, and thence all round by the sea coast
came back to the mouth of the Sender and Cap-
pain. Yesterday, again, I traversed the Angels
district from west to north-east, and by
Avvil; Brennsholtn, Hardesbye, and Husbye,
came in a somewhat roundabout way to this
place.
Desire to see the country. induced me to set out
in an open carriage. But the winter had set in
with unprecedented severity. Such frightful
cold, the people say, has not been experienced
in these parts for 25 years. The thermometer,
even in the sun, falls down to 10 deg.
Reaumur below the freezing point; and just as
we left Kiel we met a keen, cruel, cutting north
east wind, which tried our powers of endurance
to the utmost-a cruel, killing wind, searching
you through and through with its very first
blast, running through your cloaks, wrappings,
and furs, piercing through skin, flesh, ribs, and
lungs, till it reaches your poor heart, where it
lies shrinking and quivering in its warm inner
chamber, and squeezes it up crumple it up
like Mr. Cobden's famous sheet of paper.
After a first day's hard-bought experience
we were fain to give up our open phaeton and
creep into one of the country's close con-
veyances, where in less than two minutes a
thick icy crust shut out the world from us.
There was not much to regret in the look of
the country we were compelled to give up. No
sooner had we turned our back upon the somewhat
hilly and well-timbered little bay of Kiel
than the land spread flat and bare before us,
not, indeed, a dead level, but a slightly
undulated surface, cut up into broad holds,
encompassed with bristling hazel hedges,
bleak, lonely, monotonous. There was no
snow on the ground, but only a sprinkling of
accumulated frost, giving the landscape a chill,
hoary aspect. Now and then, but at large intervals,
we came to a farm-house, a square
house with square outbuildings, enclosing a
square court, house, and premises covered with
tall slanting roofs, one-third house, two-thirds
roof, the roofs mostly thatch overgrown with
moss, the only green objects that broke through
the sameness of that dreary white waste. Now
and then, again, a patch of woodland announced
the approach of a gentleman's seat, and as we
drove in sight of the mansion the loftiness of
the beech trees, unmatched in the world,
made me regret the niggardly husbandry which
has so mercilessly stripped the broad acres far
and wide. As we drew near the Schier, at Arms,
Oappeln, and all along the west coast, the
country exhibited greater beauty and variety,
the swelling of the land was more considerable,
there were more frequent signs of habitation, a
better culture, and more apparent comfort and
well being.
A short hour's journey out of Kiel brought us
to the boundary of Schleswig, on the Eider
Canal, where the outposts of the Danes and
their custom-houses are now established. The
tall and stout dragoon doing duty on the
bridge, with his crested helmet and flowing
mantle, could hardly fail, as he stood out in the
cold haze in the gray of the morning, to remind
us of the Majesty of buried Denmark. as it stalks
on the English stage in the play. The good
ghostly warrior, however, had nothing to say to
us, and we met with no hindrance on the part of
the custom or police officers, either on the
frontier or anywhere else hitherto. Travelling is
as free from annoyance hero in this war-beset
country as it is in the quietest districts in England.
From the sight of that first dragoon on the
Eider Canal our eyes have hardly ever met anything
on the roads, at the inn at the stations,
cxeeptDaniBh soldiers. We found them from their
advanced posts on the canal and at Eckenförde,
all along the line of the school, up to Schleswig,
and their central position at theDanuewerk.Tlie
people here are quite sure that Denmark, with
all its reserves, can bring, and is bringing,
about 60,000 men into the field,and they believe
that little less than 40,000 are already at their
posts in the Duchy. Great efforts were made
to keep open the water communication along
the Schier, between its mouth and Schleswig.
More than 2,000 Danish thalers have been spent
in cutting open the ice, and a steamer is constantly
at work cruising to and fro to prevent
the water from freezing. As we came to the
ferry at Oappeln on Saturday night it was with
the greatest difficulty, and not without some
danger, that the small boat to which we trusted
ourselves could force its way through the
masses of ice everywhere encumbering the
narrow channel whiclnvasstill upon for its traffic,
and the steamer, which we could see at a little
distance, had been for more than two hours
frozen in. The water in our wake curdled and
thickened visibly as soon as it was allowed to
be still, and our impression and that of all
about us was that men would have to give up
the struggle with the strength of the wintry
elements.
I had a pal licular curiosity to see the dish out
of the Angela, extending from the long line
of the Sohlei to the Bay of Flensburg, to become
acquainted with a people whose ancestors
claim kindred with those Angles of Great
Britain whom good Pope Gregory converted
into Angels so many centuries ago. My companion,
a Holateiner, had long lived in this
part of Schleswig, and was well-known to high
and low. "Wherever we showed ourselves at
the baron's hall or at the old nobleman's court,
at the farm or the mill-the hearty welcome of
German hospitality awaited us. I never in so
short a trip made so many friends, the only
drawback to our mutual satisfaction being on
their part that I would not drink and smoke
enough to qualify for their company-on my
part that I was made to drink and smoke so
in nor more than was good for me. Much have
I heard, and much have I learnt, from these
good people in our somewhat hurried inter-
course much that may interest those who
wish to know the right and wrong of the
Schleswig-Holstein question. It may not be
easy for me to give the subject full development
in the narrow limits of one letter, but I may be
able to return to it in my ensuing correspondence.
It is true, also, that my travelling friend,
a German patriot, only brought me into contact
with persons of his own way of thinking so
that the afterpart may yet have to be heard.
But I have questioned and cross-questioned the
people to the best of my abilities, and they
seem to me SO outspoken and ingenuous that,
due allowance being made for the exaggeration
of passion, it is not difficult to bring their own
testimony against as well as for themselves.
The people of Schleswig, they say, do not
look upon themselves as pure Germanrace.Nay,
they admit that in remote epochs the Scandinavian
element might be said to be in the as-
pendant, and that the time may have been in
which Danish was the prevailing language. In
the constant contact and friction between the
two races, Scandinavian and German, however,
they say, the larger, stronger, more highly
civilized and expansive nationality has so trodden
down the other that fully two-thirds of the
Duchy are now purely German, and only in the
northern districts, along a line which may be
drawn from Tenders to a mile or so south of
Flensburg, a few Danish families or small
tribes are to be found, not mixed with. but
simply dovetailed into, the German communities.
These Danish dusters are sprinkled here
and there even in the Angels territory, and
spots were pointed out to me where the two
nations lived side by side, separate, yet side
by side; the Danes, for instance, occupying
the upper and the Germans the lower part of
the same village. The Schleswigers, as I said,
put forward no pretensions to purity of blood.
Looking at their outward appearance, it would
be difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion.
In one house, especially among the higher
classes, you are met with the blue eye, the long
face, the light eye-brows, the tall and slim
forms of the Northmen. In another, more
usually among the peasantry, you have the
round face, the high cheek-bones, the thick-set
in me of the sturdy Teuton. But the Germans
set great store by their language, and contend
that up to 1848 their language and culture were
peacefully but irresistibly driving the Danes to
the frontier of Jutland. Up to 1843, however,
the two nations lived peaceably togother hardly
dreaming that difference of descent or idiom
could constitute incompatibility of temper or
interfere with good neighborhood. The struggle
of that and the ensuing year, however, arrayed
the nationalities against one another, and after
the peace of 1851-2 the Germans accuse not only
IhoJ Danish) Government, but even the
people, of a deliberate design to force
back the tide of civilization by denation-
seizing the superior, and thereby morally
prevailing race. Ever since 1852, they say,
the Danes, who anticipated the time in which
Holstein might be lost to them altogether,
fastened upon Schleswig with all their tenacity,
and a party arose among the Danish liberals
who went by the Dame of the Eider party,
because they wished to fix the boundary of the
Danish nation if not of the Danish monarchy,
upon the north bank of that river. Under
pretext that the races were mixed, or that the
Danish element prevailed, they painted Danish
schoolmasters Mid clergymen totally ignorant
of German upon communities where
the Danish language was utterly unknown.
These teachers and divines, aware
that they were sent on an unholy and un-
popular grand same into the country harboring
strong prejudices against the people; say, SO
aware were the Danes themselves of the
seriousness of these appointments, that
honorable men would scarcely accept them,
and some of the ministers sent into Schleswig
are said to be no better than scamps, scandal
living by their dissolute conduct this unquestionably
most moral people, whom it ought to
be their duty to edify. But whatever may be
thought of the disreputable character of these
priests, it is certain that the mere fact
of the want of a common means of
communication renders their office as religious
instructors utterly nugatory. At Getting, for
instance, the parson on Sunday last preached
in German (the service being held alternately
in the two languages), but such German as he
had at his command was Greek to his congregation
and there are not in the whole district,
I was assured, three persons who can understand
a word of his Danish, whenever the
turn comes for this latter language. It is by
these means, they say, that the Government
has succeeded among a most devout people in
emptying the churches. As to the schools, not
only has Danish been made the ruling and
often the exclusive language in the public ones,
but even private instruction is interfered with
to such an extent that more than two families
cannot avail themselves of the services of the
same teacher, even at each other's houses.
I have been assured of these facts in so many
quarters that it is not easy for me to entertain
any doubt as to their correctness. Possibly
the evil is not so great as it seems to these
good Schleswigers ; possibly it would not be
difficult to find the English in Wales or
Ireland, or the French in Corsica, guilty of the
same enormities. But the matter here had
been looked upon with the jealousy and
punctilio of conflicting national feelings. The
Germans thought that the Danes aggravated
their odious measures by an intolerable amount
of arrogance and scorn, and they quoted to me
the instance of a public functionary in Oappeln,
a Dane, " who could speak excellent German,
but who never went about without an interpreter,
as he disdained the use of the language
of a despised race."
The ill-feeling arising from these circumstances
did not, however, by the confession of
the Germans themselves, lead to any open
outbreak, or even to any very intense animosity
between the two peoples. The Germans not
only resisted absorption, but by the mere
strength of numbers and of their irresistible
development and vitality, passively absorbed
their rulers, all efforts to the contrary notwithstanding;
but the death of King Frederick,
the revival of the old quarrel, the occupation of
Holstein by the Federal troops, and the anticipation
of further changes have given a new
impulse to the national aspirations, aggravating
the old grievances, and giving rise to new complaints.
The Danes have come down upon Schleswig
in great strength. They have made large
requisitions, especially in hay, straw, hird, etc,
and have billeted their soldiers upon the people
most unmercifully. I have found houses at
Gebtorf, Eokeribrde, &e., crowded with more
than 200 men each. The exigencies of the
war might account for all this ; but the Germans
ascribe their masters' conduct to a
deliberate design to strip them of all they
have, to a wish that nothing should be left to
the advancing enemy in the event of the
Duchy falling into German bands. That there
is anything like unnecessary harshness or
insolence in the enforcement of these requisi-
tions I have never heard; but I have, on the
contrary, been everywhere assured that the
Danes, both officers and soldiers, give evidence
of the strictest discipline, and that the people
are nowhere subjected to ill-usage. The
Germans are very eloquent about their long
endured indignities, about their implacable
hostility, and the certainty that no contrivance
of diplomacy, no scheme of a personal union,
or of a separate Constitution and an autonomous
Government would over reconcile them
to their masters; they think that no promise
of the Danes could be held binding, no
engagement would be sacred to them; they
accuse them of innate falsehood and cunning,
charge them with all the capital says,
hardly allowing them the boast of bravery,
or even of physical strength. To what
extent these strongly-chensod antipathies
descend among the people,' I, of course,
could hardly as yet be able to decide. They
seemed to be pretty general, deep, and intense
among the people with whom I conversed, both
high and low. The freedom of speech and even
audacity of these Germans is something trans-
cending all bodies. I have heard them heartily
cursing the Danes in the very hearing of
Danish soldiers fact which does, perhaps, no
less honor to the forbearing nature of the
oppressors than to the desperate spirit of the
oppressed. Strange to say, although the German
journals enter freely into every part of
Schleswig, those of Holstein, miserably inoffensive
as they are by their dulness and insipidity,
have been forbidden ; but for the rest, not only
journals, but all correspondence, would seem to
be allowed to go freely through the post on
either side, and I suspect the alleged violation
of the secrecy of letters at the Danish post-offices
r rests on no satisfactory evidence. Public meetings
of more than 20 persons have been dis-
countenanced, but a " secret" assemblage of no
less than 60 members of a Schleswig-Holstein
Union was held here last evening without any
interference of the well-informed police. Depu-
ties who have publicly done homage to the
Prince in Kiel live unmolested in Flensburg.
Whatever the Germans may say, therefore, and
whatever may be thought of the above enumerated
grievances, it is difficult to resist the
conviction that the Danes have neither the
tastes nor the ni Is of a petty searching tyranny,
and that, relying upon the strength of their
arms, they never imposed upon their Scblebwig
subjects a heavier yoke than they were willing
to bear themselves. They may have been wrong
in their wish to make the Schleswigers a part
of themselves, and it is difficult to say to how
many now errors one unlucky original blunder
may have led them; but had the Germans given
in to that only point on which it was unluckily
so impossible for them to yield, there would
scarcely, perhaps, have arisen another subject
of difference or complaint between the two
races. There is here an affair of nationality,
and nothing more.
A most important point, however, I have been
able to ascertain which gives a very clear idea
of the incompatibility of temper of those two
nationalities, which were in so evil a moment
joined together. While about two-fifths of the
Danish army were recruited among the German
population by conscription, not more than 15
or 20 officers belonging to the Duchies are now
in the King's service-a proof either that promotion
was not easily open to the Schleswig
Holsteiners in the Danish army, or that the
gentleman of these Duchies shrank from contact
with their rulers in the regiments, and such of
them as chose the arms for their profession
preferred to seek their fortunes in other States
of Germany, and even in Austria. The complaint
that Danes were almost exclusively
employed in the Duchies, and that no reciprocity
was held out to them in the other provinces
of the monarchy, has been too often alleged to
need repetition here. There was, no doubt,
just reason for that complaint.
On the fact that so many thousand Schleswig
Holsteincrs are now mixed with the Danes in
the Royal army the Germans build great hopes
for the dissolution of the army itself and the
downfall of the monarchy. There are endless
tales in circulation about deserters among the
Schleswig-Holstein, about their mutinies and
murder of their officers, and even about a
general dissatisfaction among the D miali
soldiers themselves - their refusal to work in
the trenches, etc. All I can say is, on the one
hand, that the Danish Government has certainly
marched off regiment, chiefly consisting
of Holsteiners into Zealand, probably by
way of precaution and on the other hand, that
wherever I have been, I have seen well-behaved
soldiers, both Danes and Germans, and have
everywhere heard high praises of their good
conduct and discipline. I,
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