THE GERMANIZATION OF SLESVIG.*
On August 28tb, 1864, Lord Palmerston wrote to the King of the Belgians a letter which has been recorded by his private secretary and biographer, Mr. Evelyn Ashley, and in which the ,following passage occurs : " It was an unworthy abuse of power by Austria and Prussia to take advantage of their superior enlightenment and strength to crush an antagonist utterly incapable of successful resistance ; the events of this Danish War do not form a page in German history which any honourable or generous German hereafter will look back upon without a blush." It is probable that the honourable or generous German who Will blush at the episode to which Lord Palmerston alluded • Le ,S7carig du Nord, 1906-1914. Copeabigen: PubUt par Lee Association Blenicolm Munk., du lyanemark.
has yet to be born. It is certain that Prince Bismarek, who may be regarded not merely as the principal but even as the sole author of the Danish War, never felt the least contrition in reflecting on his own handiwork. Dr. Moritz Busch states that when talking of the result of the war with France Prince Bismarck said : " When I was made Prince, the King wished to put Alsace and Lorraine into my armorial bearings. I should have preferred Schleswig-Holstein, as that is the diplomatic campaign of which I am most proud." It must, indeed, be confessed that if all considerations based on justice and public morality are set aside, it is impossible not to admire the astuteness, determina- tion, and dogged perseverance which Bismarck displayed in the execution of his Danish policy. He had every one against him.
He had quarrelled bitterly with the Chamber and with the whole of the Liberal Party, who were at that time a rent power in the land. When at a meeting of the Council of Ministers,
under the Presidency of the King, Bismarck proposed that the Duchy of Slesvig should be annexed to Prussia, and reminded his Majesty that all extension of Prussian dominions in former years had resulted from the use of force, the Crown Prince, M. Matter has informed us in his work entitled Bismarck et 8071 Temps, lifted up his hands in horror, and thought the great Chancellor was a megalomaniac. The King himself was under the impression that he had lunched to, copiously. Nevertheless, Bismarck adhered steadfastly to the policy which he had intended to adopt from the first; that is to say, annexation pure and simple. His friend and abettor, Roon, declared openly that the question was " not one of right but of force." In the end Bismarck, in spite of opposition from within and without, carried the day.
The details of the Schleswig-Holstein question were very complicated. Lord Palmerston is said to have declared that there were only two people in England—the Prince Consort and himself—who understood them. But the main issue at stake was simple enough. On March 30th, 1863, Frederick VII., King of Denmark, issued a Decree under which Holstein and Lauenburg were endowed with a certain amount of local inde- pendence. Slesvig, on the other hand, became an integral part of the Danish monarchy. This act raised a storm of opposition in Germany. The Diet of Frankfurt decreed a Federal execution. But before any active steps could be taken Frederick VII. died. The crown passed to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, who became Christian LX. The new King did not agree to the action of Xs predecessor, and wished to repudiate it. His Prime Minister, Hall, told him that if he did so he would lose his crown and not improbably his life. The King yielded, and on November 18th, 1863, promulgated a Constitution similar to that of Frederick VII. This act rendered war inevitable. German public opinion strongly favoured the claim of the Prince of Augustenburg to the Duchies. The Prussian Chamber urged the King to withdraw from the Convention signed in London in 1852 by which the integrity of the Danish monarchy was guaranteed by all the Powers, and to recognize the claims of the Augustenburg Prince. The King really agreed with the Chamber, but, under pressure from his Chancellor, rejected their address. Before the end of the year, the Federal execution had so far become an accomplished fact that Holstein was occupied by Saxon and Hanoverian troops. There remained, however, the question of Slesvig. Austria, ignorant of the fact that she would be the next victim of Prussian ambition, was the first to put forward the proposal that Slesvig should be occupied as a pledge until such time as the Government of Denmark bad fulfilled its engagements taken in 1852, which it was alleged had been violated. Prince Bismarck jumped at the idea, Slesvig was invaded, and the Danes, after a gallant resistance, were, of course, obliged to yield.
It is never a profitable task to speculate upon what might have been in politics. From an historical point of view, how- ever, it is interesting to remember that if the Treaty Powers had held to their engagements and had supported Denmark by force of arms, the history of Europe might not improbably have been completely changed. It would be ascribing too great a degree of foresight to Prince Bismarck to assume that he had a very clear idea of the sequence of events which resulted from the Danish War. But he certainly, even at that time, had sketched out in his own mind the broad outlines of a programme which he eventually carriel out, although he without doubt realized that de particular methods by which it would be executed would have to depend on circumstances. " A states- man," he was wont to say, " is like a traveller through a forest. He knows the general direction which he has to take, but be cannot foresee the exact point where he will issue from the woods." It is certain, however, that ho regarded the annexation of the Duchies as a first step towards establishing the hegemony of Prussia in Germany, about which he cared more than for German unity, and that ho already thought that his object could not be accomplished without a war leading to the humilia- tion of Austria. The Powers of Europe, who were onlookers of the Danish political tragedy, recognized that it was an episode of importance, but failed to see that which to the present generation, armed with the wisdom and experience which come from a knowledge of after-events, is now clear—namely, that it really constituted the commencement of a new epoch in the history of the world. It would be hazardous to conjecture w at would have happened if they had intervened. It may be that they would have been vanquished, for at that time the Prussian infantry alone was armed with breech-loading rifles. It is a curious fact that, to the best of my belief and recollection, none of the military experts of the day discovered during the Danish War that the introduction of this arm had caused a revolution in the art of war even greater t' an that which ensued by the substitution of the iron for the wooden ramrod in the days of Frederick the Great. The importance of the change was not fully realized until after the complete defeat of the Austrian Army in 1866. I well remember an Austrian friend of mine telling me that in the first engagement at which he was present during that war, the Prussians were located in a wood which hid them from sight. From the hot and sustained fire which they kept up against the Austrians, it was thought that there must be at least three thousand Prussian infantry in action. It was subse- quently discovered that their total force only amounted to one company of two hundred and fifty men. From that moment, my friend told me, he saw that the victory of the Prussians was inevitable. If, however, the Allied Powers had emerged vic- toriously from the contest, it is possible that the war of 1866 would have been avoided, and it is almost certain that those of 1870 and 1914 would never have taken place. That they did not intervene was mainly the fault of Napoleon III., who was at the time annoyed with the British Government because they had refused to accede to his proposal that a European Congress should be assembled, and who was destined throughout all the latter part of his reign to be the dupe of the German Chancellor. It was not without some reason that Thiers called the Emperor " une grande incapacite meconnue." It was, of course, out of the question that England should act alone, and thus, in spite of the warm sympathy which was felt by all classes for the Danes, and which was enhanced by the arrival in England but a short time before of the gracious Danish Princess who was eventually to be Queen of England, the English Government and public were obliged to remain inactive spectators of a gross violation of treaty rights and of an outrage committed on a brave and almost defenceless nation. The Germans, on the other hand, were elated at the success which had crowned Bismarck's efforts, and began that course of extreme devotion to the " might is right " principle which was to lead to the present gigantic s
In the execution of an Imperial policy only two alternatives are possible. One is to treat the national feelings and aspira- tions of the subject race with tenderness, and to endeavour, by mild and just government, gradually to attach them to their rulers. This is the method adopted by various processes and with varying success by British Imperialism. The other course is to crush out all national sentiments by sheer force, and to endeavour to assimilate the conquered race in every respect to their conquerors. There could not from the first be a shadow of doubt as to which course would be pursued by Prussia. Germany has been singularly barren of political ideas. With a single exception, wherever the German or Austrian flag has been planted, a process of ruthless Germanization has been -adopted. The exception is the Austrian treatment of the Ruthenes. With a view to creating a sympathy between these people and the neighbouring twenty-three millions of Little _Russians who reside in Russian territory, and thus inaugurating .a gigantic Irredentist movement against the Empire of the Tsar, the Austrian Government, under the auspices of Count Badeni, afforded some encouragement to the growth of Ruthenian autonomy. No such political necessity existed in the case of Slesvig. Immediately after the annexation, the province was rebaptized and became German Schleswig. Napoleon III., when the Treaty of Prague was under consideration in 1866, was able to secure the insertion of an article under which
the population of the northern districts of Schleswig should be ceded to Denmark should they express their desire for union by means of a free vote. This article has been allowed to remain a dead letter, and was, in fact, formally cancelled in 1878. The first Danish representatives sent to Berlin—Messrs. Kruger and Ahlmann—said : " We are Danes, and we wish to remain Danes." The Prussian Government was, however, determined that they should become Germans. The process of Germaniza- tion, which commenced immediately after the annexation, received a great impulse on the accession of the present Kaiser in 1888. The Danish language, which had already been excluded from the Tribunals, was practically banished from the schools. Children were only allowed to use their native tongue during four hours a week which were devoted to religious instruction. Even the German clergy protested, but protested in vain, against this provision. Attenslance at the public secondary schools was made compulsory. The school-books abounded in the most contemptuous references to Denmark and to everything Danish. " If the children do not understand German, they must be treated and taught like deaf mutes." Such, Mr. W. R. Prior says in a recent pamphlet, was the rule prescribed by a Prussian educational authority. Large numbers of Danes were expelled from the province, a measure which elicited even from Professor Delbriick the statement that these expulsions were " most revolting." He added : " But worse than the brutality which makes us the abomination of the civilized world is the infatuation which believes that lasting results can be secured through such measures as these." German societies were instituted with a view to the extermination of the Danish language and to the suppression of all Danish sympathies. Editors of Danish news- papers were prosecuted. Since the present war began a number of prominent Danes, both men and women, in Northern Schleswig have been arrested. In all districts where both German and Danish are spoken the use of the latter language is strictly prohibited at public meetings. This prohibition is, in 1928, to be extended even to those districts where Danish is the universal language. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature in the policy which has been adopted is that, according to a patriotic Dane who has published an interesting pamphlet entitled The War through Danish Eyes, the Germans appear to be honestly con- vinced that this extreme process of Germanization will prove a real and lasting benefit to the populations concerned. Modern Germany is blind. German public opinion is so convinced of the superiority of Kultur that it is incapable of recognizing that there can be two sides to the question. What measure of success has, however, so far been achieved ? Mr. Prior supplies the answer in the following words : " The whole population holds its own in the face of opponents who have steadily become more powerful, and of a calculated policy of oppression which is now far more severe than it was fifty years ago. Prussia vanquished Denmark after a campaign of some four months. But the battle against Danish nationalism in Schleswig has been proceeding from that time to the present ; and in this battle the aggressors are further off from victory than they ever were." It may be that, in course of time, the Germans will learn that in some matters force is no remedy, but they
have not learnt that lesson yet. CROSIER.
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