But there is more to come. Perhaps the “historical claim” for which the sons of our country have to bleed to-day may not have been established till later.
Christian IV. mixed himself up in the Thirty Years’ War, and the Imperialists and Swedes invaded the duchies. Now was made (at Copenhagen, 1658) another treaty, by which the lordship over the Schleswig portion was secured to the house of Holstein Gottorp, and so at last we have got done with the Danish feudal lordship. Done with it for ever. Thank God. Now I find myself again all right.
But what happened by the Patent of 22nd August, 1721? Simply this: the Gottorps’ dominion of Schleswig was incorporated into the kingdom of Denmark. In January, 1773, Holstein also was ceded to the royal house of Denmark; the whole ranked now as a Danish province.
That changes the affair, the Danes are in the right.
Yet not entirely so. The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, declares Holstein to be a part of the German Bund. This, however, vexes the Danes. They invent the cry: “Denmark up to the Eider,” and struggle for the complete possession of Schleswig—called by them “South Jutland,” against which the “hereditary right of Augustenburg” was employed as a watchword and used in German national proclamations. In the year 1846 King Christian writes a public letter in which he proposes the integrity of the entire state as his object, and against this “the German countries” protest. Two years later the complete union is announced from the Throne, no longer as an object, but as a fait accompli, and then the uprising occurs in the “German countries”. And now the fighting begins. At first the Danes gain the victory in one fight, next the Schleswig-Holsteiners in a second. Then the German Bund intervenes. The Prussians “occupy” the heights of Düppel, but that does not terminate the strife. Prussia and Denmark make peace. Schleswig-Holstein has now to fight the Danes single-handed, and is struck down at Idstedt.
The Bund now calls on the “revolters” to discontinue the war, which they proceed to do. Austrian troops take possession of Holstein, and the two duchies are separated. So what has become of the paper-stipulation “to be for ever united”?
Still the situation is not made completely secure. Now I find a Protocol of London, 8th May, 1852 (it is a good thing that we always know so exactly the date when these fragile treaties are made), which secures the succession of Schleswig to Prince Christian of Glücksburg (“secures” is good). And now I know at any rate the origin of the name “Protocol-Prince”.
In the year 1854, after each duchy had received a constitution of its own, both were “Danised”. But in 1858 the Danisation of Holstein had to be revoked again. And now this historical sketch is coming quite close to the present time; and yet it is not so clear to me to whom the two countries “rightly belong,” or what was the precise cause of the outbreak of the present war.
On 18th November, 1858, the famous “Fundamental law for the mutual relations between Denmark and Schleswig” was passed by the Reichsrath. Two days afterwards the king died. With him again was extinguished a family—that of Holstein-Glückstadt—and when the successor of the monarch presented himself on the scene, in reliance on the two-days-old law, Frederick of Augustenburg (a family I had nearly forgotten) raised his claim, and together with his nobility turned for support to the German Bund.
The latter at once occupied Holstein with Saxon and Hanoverian troops, and proclaimed Augustenburg duke. Why? But Prussia and Austria were not of accord in this proceeding. Why? That I do not to this day understand.