Second war of Schleswig
From Freepedia
The Second war of Schleswig (also known as the Danish war or the Danish-Prussian war) was fought in 1864 between Denmark and Prussia. Prussia was supported by Austria, and both were acting on behalf of the German Confederation. Like the First war of Schleswig, the second was fought for control of the duchy of Schleswig, which was finally resolved by partition after World War I, with Northern Schleswig voting to be reunited with Denmark.
Proponents of German unification wished to include in Greater Germany both German-majority Holstein and Danish-majority Schleswig, two sovereign duchies ruled by the King of Denmark. However, Frederick VII had no sons, and the succession rules of the duchies differed from those of Denmark in the event of a lack of a male heir. Furthermore, the Treaty of Ribe (1460) proclaimed that the two duchies must not be separated from each other. As Frederick grew older, the Danish government became anxious to preserve their control of the duchies, especially Schleswig. In 1863 the government in Copenhagen proclaimed Schleswig an integral part of the Danish state, outraging German nationalists.
King Wilhelm I of Prussia proposed to the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I that Prussia and Austria, the two leading powers of the German Confederation, should occupy the duchies. Afraid to let the Prussians act on their own, the emperor agreed, and the brief war against Denmark that followed demonstrated the strength of the reorganized army of the Hohenzollerns. Danish hopes for Swedish assistance proved illusory, and by the Peace of Vienna on October 30 the duchies became a joint possession of Prussia and Austria. Quarrels over the joint administration, however, soon provoked the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, resulting in the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein into the finally unified German Empire.
The Treaty of Ribe had proclaimed that Schleswig and Holstein were indivisible, but the Danish annexation in 1863 of Schleswig alone politically divided it from Holstein, a territory of the German Confederation. This gave Prussia a good pretext to engage in war with Denmark in order to seize Schleswig-Holstein for itself, both by pleasing nationalists in "liberating" Germans from Danish rule, and by implementing the law of the German Confederation.
In the early 1860s the "Schleswig-Holstein question" was once more the subject of lively international debate, but support for the Danish position had declined. The Crimean War had crippled the power of Russia, and Nicholas I was dead. France was prepared to renounce support for Danish interests in the duchies in exchange for compensations to herself elsewhere. Queen Victoria and the prince consort naturally sympathized with the German position, but British ministers saw in the growth of German sea-power in the Baltic a danger to British naval supremacy, and so Great Britain sided with the Danes. In response to the renewed Danish claim to Schleswig as integral Danish territory, on July 29 the German diet (instructed by Bismarck) threatened federal intervention. On November 6, Frederick VII issued a proclamation abolishing the Danish constitution so far as it affected Holstein and Lauenburg, while retaining it for Denmark and Schleswig.
King Christian IX ascended the Danish throne nine days later, and was immediately placed in a position of extraordinary difficulty. The first sovereign act he was called upon to perform was to sign the new constitution. To sign was to violate the of terms of the very protocol which was his title to reign; to refuse to sign was to place himself in antagonism to the united sentiment of his Danish subjects. He chose what seemed the remoter evil, and on November 18 signed the constitution. The news was received in Germany with violent manifestations of excitement and anger. The Duke of Augustenberg, whose father had in 1852 renounced a claim to the duchies better than that of the new Danish king, now claimed his right to succeed Frederick VII (arguing that he had had no share in his father's renunciation). Agitation began in his favour in Holstein, extending to Schleswig when the terms of the new Danish constitution became more widely known. The duke's claim was enthusiastically supported by the German princes and people and, in spite of a negative attitude from Austria and Prussia, the federal diet decided to occupy Holstein pending the settlement of the decree of succession.
On December 24, Saxon and Hanoverian troops marched into the duchy in the name of the German Confederation, and supported by their presence and by the loyalty of the Holsteiners the duke assumed government as "Duke Frederick VIII". Neither Austria nor Prussia would risk a European war for this folly, as Bismarck roundly termed it, despite violent public opinion. It was clear to Bismarck that Austria and Prussia, as parties to the protocol of 1852, must and uphold the succession as fixed by it, and that any action they might take in consequence of the violation of that compact by Denmark must be so correct as to deprive the rest of Europe of all excuse for interference. The publication of the new constitution by Christian IX was in itself sufficient to justify a declaration of war by the two powers as parties to the signature of the protocol.
The protests of Great Britain and Russia against the action of the German diet, together with the proposal of Count Beust, on behalf of Saxony, that Bavaria should bring forward in that assembly a formal motion for the recognition of Duke Frederick's claims, helped Bismarck to persuade Austria that immediate action must be taken. On December 28 a motion was introduced in the diet by Austria and Prussia, calling on the Confederation to occupy Schleswig as a pledge for the observance by Denmark of the compacts of 1852. This implied the recognition of the rights of Christian IX, and was indignantly rejected; whereupon the diet was informed that the Austrian and Prussian. governments would act in the matter as independent European powers. The agreement between them was signed on the 16th of January 1864. An article drafted by Austria, intended to safeguard the settlement of 1852, was replaced at Bismarck's instance by another which stated that the two powers would decide only in concert on the relations of the duchies, and that they would in no case determine the question of the succession save by mutual consent.
At this stage, had the Danes yielded to the necessities of the situation and withdrawn from Schleswig under protest, the Austria European powers would probably have intervened, a and congress would have restored Schleswig to the Danish crown, and Austria and Prussia, as European powers, they would have had no choice but to prevent any attempt upon it by the duke of Holstein. To prevent this possibility Bismarck made the Copenhagen government believe that Great Britain had threatened Prussia with intervention should hostilities be opened, though, as a matter of fact, England did nothing of the kind. The cynical stratagem succeeded; Denmark remained defiant; and on the 1st of February 1864 the Austrian and Prussian forces crossed the Eider.
An invasion of Denmark itself had not been part of the original programme of the allies; but on February 18 some Prussian hussars, in the excitement of a cavalry skirmish, crossed the frontier and occupied the town of Kolding. Bismarck determined to use this circumstance to revise the whole situation. He urged upon during the Austria the necessity for a strong policy, so as to settle once for all not only the question of the duchies but the wider question of the German Confederation; and Austria reluctantly consented to press the war. On March 11 a fresh agreement was signed between the powers, under which the compacts of 1852 were declared to be no longer valid, and the position of the duchies within the Danish monarchy as a whole was to be made the subject of a friendly understanding. Meanwhile, however, Lord John Russell on behalf of Great Britain, supported by Russia, France and Sweden, had intervened with a proposal that the whole question should once more be submitted to a European conference. The German powers agreed on condition that the compacts of 1852 should not be taken as a basis, and that the duchies should be bound to Denmark by a personal tie only. But the proceedings of the conference, which opened at London on the 25th of April, only revealed the inextricable tangle of the issues involved. Beust, on behalf of the Confederation, demanded the recognition of the Augustenborg claimant; Austria leaned to a settlement on. the lines of that of 1852; Prussia, it was increasingly clear, aimed at the acquisition of the duchies. The first step towards the realization of this latter ambition was to secure the recognition of the absolute independence of the duchies, and this Austria could only oppose at the risk of forfeiting her whole influence in Germany. The two powers, then, agreed to demand the complete political independence of the duchies bound together by common institutions. The next move was uncertain. As to the question of annexation Prussia would leave that open, but made it clear that any settlement must involve the complete military subordination of Schleswig-Holstein to herself. This alarmed Austria, which had no wish to see a further extension of Prussia's already overgrown power, and she began to champion the claims of the duke of Augustenburg. This contingency, however, Bismarck had foreseen and himself offered to support the claims of the duke at the conference if he would undertake to subordinate himself in all naval and military matters to Prussia, surrender Kiel for the purposes of a Prussian war-harbour, give Prussia the control of the projected North Sea Canal, and enter the Prussian Customs Union. On this basis, with Austria's support, the whole matter might have been arranged without--as Beust pointed out (Mem. 1. 272)
Austria, the other leading state of the German Confederation was reluctant to engage in a "war of liberation" because of its own problems with various nationalities. After Christian IX of Denmark merged Schleswig and Holstein into Denmark in 1863 after his ascension to the Danish throne that year, Bismarck's diplomatic abilities finally convinced Austria to participate in the war, with the assent of the other European large powers and under the auspices of the German Confederation. This Second War of Schleswig of 1864 was presented by invaders to be an implementation of the law of the Confideration (Bundesexekution) in Germany.
After the defeat in the Battle of Dybbøl, the Danes were unable to defend the borders of Schleswig, then had to retreat to Denmark proper, and finally were pushed out of the entire Jutland peninsula. Denmark capitulated and Prussia and Austria took over the administration of Schleswig and Holstein respectively under the Gastein Convention of August 14, 1865.
However, soon after, disagreements between Prussia and Austria over the future of the duchies broke out again. Following the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and Austria's defeat at the Battle of Königgrätz, the German Confederation was dissolved and Austria, among other things, had to retreat from Holstein, which, along with Schleswig, was annexed by Prussia
In any case, because of the mix of Danes and Germans who lived there and the various feudal obligations of the players, the Schleswig-Holstein Question problem was considered intractable by many. Lord Palmerston said of the issue that only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein question: one was dead, the other had gone insane, and the third was himself, but he had forgotten it.
On June 25 the London conference broke up without having arrived at any conclusion. On the 24th, in view of the end of the truce, Austria and Prussia had arrived at a new agreement, the object of the war being now declared to be the complete separation of the duchies from Denmark. As the result of the short campaign that followed, the preliminaries of a treaty of peace were signed on the 1st of August, the king of Denmark renouncing all his rights in the duchies in favour of the emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia. The definitive treaty was signed at Vienna on October 30 1864. By Article XIX, a period of six years was allowed during which the inhabitants of the duchies might opt for Danish nationality and transfer themselves and their goods to Denmark; and the right of indigenacy was guaranteed to all, whether in the kingdom or the duchies, who enjoyed it at the time of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty.
The Schleswig-Holstein Question from this time onward became merged in the larger question of the general relations of Austria and Prussia, and its later developments are a result of the war of 1866. It survived, however, as between Danes and Germans, though narrowed down to the question of the fate of the Danish population of the northern duchy. This question is of great interest to students of international law and as illustrating the practical problems involved in the assertion of the modern principle of nationality.
The position of the Danes in Schleswig after the cession was determined, so far as treaty rights are concerned, by two instruments the Treaty of Vienna (October 30, 1864) and the Treaty of Prague (August 23, 1866). By Article XIX. of the former treaty The Danish subjects domiciled in the ceded territories had the right, within six years of the exchange of ratifications, of opting for the Danish nationality and transferring themselves, their families and their personal property to Denmark, while keeping their landed property in the duchies. The last paragraph of the Article ran: "Le droit d'indignat, tant dans le royaume de Danemark que dans les Duchés, est conserve a touts les individus qui le possdent a l'époque de lchange des ratifications du present Traité". By Article V of the Treaty of Prague Schleswig was ceded by Austria to Prussia with the reservation that the populations of the North of Schleswig shall be again united with Denmark in the event of their expressing a desire so to be by a vote freely exercised. Taking advantage of the terms of these treaties, about 50,000 Danes from North Schleswig (out of a total population of some 150,000) opted for Denmark and were expelled across the frontier, pending the plebiscite which was to restore their country to them. But the plebiscite never came. Its inclusion in the treaty had been no more than a diplomatic device to save the face of the emperor Napoleon III; Prussia had from the first no intention of surrendering an inch of the territory she had conquered; the outcome of the Franco-German War made it unnecessary for her even to pretend that she might do so; and by the Treaty of Vienna of October II, 1878, the clause relating to the plebiscite was formally abrogated with the assent of Austria.
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