EGERNSUND.
The 18th of February.—The Rolf-Krake at Egernsund.— Fighting in the Woods. -~ Invasion of Jutland.—Prospects of the War.—The Germans in Schleswig.
February 19-21.
Those of my readers who have had patience to read through my foregoing letters will have gained, I should hope, a sufficiently distinct knowledge of the respective positions of the belligerent parties here to be able to follow the events which took place yesterday, the 18th, and to set a proper value upon their importance.
From Flensburg and Aabenraa, as I before said, the Prussians, advancing through the Sondeved Peninsula, between the two fiords which take their names from those towns, had come up by the south road from Flensburg, through Ringences, Graasten, and Adsböl, as far as Nyböl; and by the northern road from Aabenraa, through Ullerup and Sattrup, they had pushed their outposts as far as the woods of Sandbjerg on the Alssund. Besides these two advances, both of which concentrate upon the Danish position at Dybböl, the Germans had left the main southern road at Alnor, between Ringences and Graasten; and from Alnor had taken possession of the Egernsund, throwing a pontoon bridge across that narrow strait, and thus advancing into the minor Peninsula of Broagerland by Skodsböl and Smöl, they came by a third road upon the Danish position. We heard a few days ago that Marshal 'Wrangel had moved his headquarters up to Ringences, and that some of the Prussian outposts had advanced into the Broager Peninsula as far as Smol. The day before yesterday about 100 of them were seen in the woods of Sandbjerg and Storeskove on the Alssund, whence they fired on the Danish pickets across the strait, but without any result, as, apparently, without object.
All these movements, however, evinced on the part of the enemy some desire to break through the monotony to which they have condemned themselves since they first came in sight of the fortifications at Dybböl, and we all went to bed on the night of the 17th with the expectation of being awakened by the noise of an attack in the morning.
You may remember, perhaps, that on my first trying to lay before you the position of the Danes at Dybböl, I expressed my surprise that they should have allowed the enemy a free and easy entrance into the Broager Peninsula, as I thought that the Danes, by their command of the water, might so strongly have occupied the Egernsund as not only to hold that strait against any force, but also to send flat-bottomed gunboats, if they had any, into the Nyböl Nor, and molest their enemy in his advance along shore, on the road from Adsböl to Dybböl.
These precautions were not taken; the Prussians were freely let in across the Egernsund and into the Broager Peninsula. The question now was how they could be driven out of it again, or how they could be caught there as in a trap.
How many of their troops have actually ventured into the Broager Peninsula we have no means to ascertain. That they had got so far as Smöl, however, was well known; and the Danes, thinking the net was full, thought it high time to draw it up. Yesterday morning, at an early hour, the cannon was heard. It was the Danish ironclad, or Monitor, "Rolf-Krake," which had steamed up to the Egernsund in the night, and at the break of day opened fire on the bridge thrown by the Germans across the Strait. The "Monitor," it appears, could not, owing to the shallowness of the water on the Alnor side, and to some formidable batteries on the headland opposite, advance near enough fully to accomplish her purpose. She could not even get in sight of the bridge, which was completely masked by the round cape at the entrance on the strait. She fired 72 shots, and was answered by the German batteries with more than 150; several of the enemy's shells took effect, it is said, though without materially disabling her; one of her officers received a contusion, and two sailors were slightly wounded.
It would seem, in the meanwhile, that the Prussians, uncertain of the issue of that struggle which might have cut off their retreat across the Egernsund, felt it incumbent upon them to secure an open way through the isthmus of the Broager Peninsula, by an open attack on the outposts of the Danish position at Dybböl.
A glance at the map, and the knowledge that the outposts of the Danes are at Dybböl, and those of the Prussians at Nyböl, will satisfy the reader that the ground between Dybböl and Nyböl, which correspond exactly to the neck or isthmus of the Broager Peninsula, is a kind of debatable ground, occupied by the pickets of either party, and in the permanent possession of neither. By far the greatest part of this ground is covered by large woods, bearing, to the north of the road, the name of Stenterup Skov, and to the south of the road that of Boffel Kobbel. Yesterday morning, towards eleven o'clock, the Prussians marched out of Nyböl in a large force, and, after a short skirmishing, they drove in the Danish pickets, and established themselves in the Stenterup and Boffel woods. By this movement they gained full command over the isthmus of the Broager Peninsula, and secured an easy escape for their troops at Smöl, had these been "caught in the trap" laid for them by the Danes, in the event of their retreat being cut off at the Egernsund by the destruction of the bridge.
The possession of the Stenterup and Boffel woods were not given up by the Danes without a spirited struggle. About twelve o'clock at noon the alarm sounded through the streets of Sönderborg. It is one of the peculiarities of the Danish army that it boasts not a single drum, with the exception of the Royal Foot Guards at Copenhagen, not a man of whom has as yet reached the camp. The alarm was, therefore, given by the trumpets, and, in a few minutes, three regiments of infantry were pressing to the bridge towards the scene of action. On approaching the woods, however, they found the enemy disposed to give way before them without striking a blow, and before three o'clock the Danish pickets had recovered the position from which they had been driven in the morning.' The morning skirmish cost the Danes five or six dead and thirty wounded; among the slightly wounded an officer.
Such was the conclusion of an action of no great moment as to its immediate results, but full of serious meaning if we either consider the designs which brought it about, or the remote consequences it had or might have had. Had the "Rolf-Krake" obtained its intent, and had the Danes at the same moment held their position on the isthmus, the Prussians in the Peninsula would have been without any means of egress, and would actually have been "caught in the trap" into which they had rashly ventured. The Danes would, at the same time, have repaired the blunder committed by them on their first retreat, of abandoning without resistance that little Peninsula which is of so much importance for their whole position.
I have been to-day on board the "Rolf-Krake." She is a powerful ironclad, with two turrets or cupolas, armed each of them with two 64-pounders. Her length is 120 feet, and she is at least 34 feet broad. Her engine is nominally of 250-horse power, but can bear a far greater pressure of steam. She can run nine knots an hour in smooth water, but her officers have no high opinion of her as a sea-boat. Indeed, they think that the attempt to combine sailing powers with the efficiency of a Monitor has been crowned with but indifferent success. In heavy weather in the Baltic, or the German Ocean, she would have no great chance. On the other hand, she is too deep in the water to be of great use in shallow inland seas. She could go safely through the Egernsund, but could not venture any distance into the Nyböl Nor. She lies now in the Sound, near the opening of the Vemmingbund, whence she can wander at her pleasure to any part of that small but deep bay. She has her steam always up, and is ready for a start at twenty minutes' notice. It is not likely, I should think, that she will soon renew her experiment at the Egernsund. Her mission for the future will rather be to watch the movements of the Prussians in that Broager Peninsula from which they will probably never be dislodged, and to act on their right flank in the event of their attack on the Dybböl position. She suffered more damage in her late spirited attack than the first reports had led us to believe. She is now being very rapidly and thoroughly repaired, however, and we witnessed the evolutions of her turrets and guns, which were performed with great speed and precision. All the officers and most of the men are familiar with the English language, and we were entertained on board with as great a cordiality as if we had been countrymen.
It was a fortnight last night since the main strength of the Danish army marched out of Schleswig, beginning its toilsome and disastrous retreat from the Dannewerk. It will be a fortnight tomorrow evening since the Danes sought the safe shelter of Alsen, and of the redoubted position of Dybböl, the great outwork of their seagirt fortress. The Austro-Prussians were then in hot pursuit, and they have ever since stood face to face with the Danish pickets on every avenue concentrating from west, north, and south, upon this place. Yet the two hostile forces have been ever since almost completely at rest, and the last sanguinary affair was the brush between the rear of the pursued party and the van of the pursuers, at Bilkskov Kro or Oversö, on the evening of Sunday before last. Of course, when I say this, I take into no account some occasional unavoidable and almost involuntary exchange of shots at the outposts, nor even of the skirmish of last Thursday, the 18th, of which I have just given an account, and which was altogether of the Danes' own seeking.
Why the Prussians should keep so quietly within their lines, why the invasion of the Duchy of Schleswig, which began with so much ardour and vigour on their part, should come to a standstill before the bastions of Dybböl, is precisely the problem with the solution of which men's minds are busy here.
That the position at Dybböl is formidable, and that the Germans are aware of its strength, is matter of certainty, for they turned all their endeavours against it in 1849, when it had hardly more than its natural advantages to rely upon, and were driven from it again and again. It is extremely natural for them to wish to put off their attack until they have brought up all the heavy material they can muster; but a fortnight is a long lapse of time for the accomplishment of such a task, with the present means of locomotion they have at their command, those means which enabled them so soon to prepare for the storming of the Dannewerk. On the other hand, they must be aware that the Danes on their own side are not idle, but are adding bastion to bastion and trench upon trench, so as to make assurance doubly sure. All that the engineers here asked was just a fortnight's breathing time, and during this interval new works have risen as if by magic, and whenever the assailants are ready they will be quite sure to find the defenders fully as ready for them.
As day follows day and no news is the news, we begin to think that the expected attack will never take place, and we have been all this time tossed about between the hopes and fears of an armistice till the declarations of diplomatists in various countries set our minds at rest on that score. The Germans will not cease from hostilities, yet they will not dash their heads against the ramparts at Dybböl. Possibly they wish to carry on the war on softer ground in a different quarter. We have positive intelligence, indeed, that two days ago they crossed the frontier line which separates the Duchy of Schleswig from Jutland, and our anticipations of hot work there are so general, that I have been more than once on the point of taking my berth in one of the steamers sailing regularly more than once a day to Fredericia.
The invasion of the northern part of the Peninsula—of that purely Danish province which is neither, like Holstein, a member of the German Confederacy, nor, like Schleswig, a territory "indissolubly united with it," as the Germans would have it, and which, indeed, was not even incidentally mentioned in that Treaty of 1852, the terms of which the Austro-Prussians have undertaken to enforce,—the invasion of Jutland, I said, seemed to the people here too monstrous a breach of all laws to be justified even by the exigencies of the most internecine war. That the two German Powers who have now the whole of Schleswig in their hands except this little island, and the four square miles of ground adjoining it on the mainland, should not think they had accomplished their great object until they held literally every inch of Schleswig at their discretion, might be possible, and the war might be expected to go on to the utter annihilation of the army sheltering at Alsen. But what passes all belief is, that seeing themselves, with all their enormous superiority of numbers, unequal to the task of reducing Alsen and Dybböl, they should, without even as much as venturing upon one assault, seek easier conquests elsewhere, and try to strike Denmark in a more vulnerable part, shrinking from no ungenerous measure to put the screw upon her, and bring her to terms by all means in their power, and with all possible speed.
It is certainly not in the power of Denmark to guard all the frontier of Jutland, and the Austro-Prussians will find it as easy to overrun it to the very end of the Peninsula as they found it to occupy all Schleswig after the fall of the Dannewerk. But, on the very frontier of that province, at Fredericia, there is a position as likely to brave their efforts for a length of time, as Alsen and Dybböl have evidently stemmed the tide of their too ready victories in Schleswig. The fortress of Fredericia, together with the little peninsula in which it rises, aided, like this place, by inlets of the sea favouring the naval operations of the Danes, is, as it were, a third Dannewerk, offering no greater temptation to an unenterprising enemy chary of his blood than the place before which the Germans are now skulking with far more discretion than valour.
The Danes are evidently anticipating great feats of arms on the Jutland frontier, and they are straining every nerve to throw the best of their forces into Fredericia. You are aware that the best part of their cavalry, in their retreat from the Dannewerk, never came in here at all, but marched on from Flensburg through Aabenraa, and Haderslev into Jutland. Since then 4,000 men at first, and subsequently the whole of the third division, were shipped off from Sönderborg to Fredericia, and I saw this morning a beautiful regiment of dragoons, nearly the whole of the cavalry that we had here, embarking for the same destination. Alsen and Dybbøl are at present all but disarmed and powerless for offensive purposes, and, although the 12,000 men, infantry, and artillery, that we still have here are more than sufficient to hold the place against all odds, still it is not a little to be regretted that, in the event of an attack by the enemy and of his defeat, no means should be at hand for efficient pursuit. Probably the removal of all these troops with such reckless haste to the North reveals an intention on the part of the Danes to carry on operations on the open field in Jutland. The disparity of numbers, and even the inferiority of weapons, particularly rifle and cannon, would seem to preclude the hope on their side of any warfare on a large scale. What they could not accomplish behind the Dannewerk bulwarks and the deep waters of the Schlei they can hardly expect to do on the wide plains of Jutland. They may harass the Germans with a few weeks' petite guerre, truly; but even for that kind of work their somewhat unwieldly infantry and heavy cavalry do not seem well suited. Sooner or later Fredericia and her peninsula will be as closely invested as Alsen and Dybböl now are, and, that being the case, it remains matter of uncertainty whether the Austro-Prussians will try their strength against Fredericia any more than against this place, or whether they will not rather mask both places, and, by avoiding all conflict themselves, and putting all conflict on the part of the Danes out of the question, lord it all over the Peninsula from Kiel to Aalborg.
I do not think there can be any doubt as to the power the Germans have of driving the Danes utterly from the field if they choose to put forth sufficient forces for that purpose, although the Danes themselves fondly believe that the subject admits of dispute. The position at Dybböl and the peninsula at Fredericia present but a narrow approach to the invader; but that very narrowness of approach, favourable as it is for defence, is no less unfavourable for offensive purposes. The garrison, shut up in its corner, and caught, as it were, in a trap, can only attempt a sally in one direction, and there the enemy awaits it on a strip of ground almost as narrow as the approach to the fortress itself. Posted on the neck of the Sundewitt peninsula, for instance, between Adsböl or Ballegaard, or even nearer us, between Nyböl and Sandbjerg, the Austro-Prussians have a line of only four, or, in the latter case, three miles to guard against the Danes. Supposing the Germans to be no more than 20,000 on this line, they would always be as two to one against any force that could attempt a sortie from Alsen and Dybböl; and the isthmus of the Fredericia peninsula would be even a closer field for a sallying garrison to try its strength on. Were even 20,000 men insufficient to completely mask, invest, and shut in the fortresses, the Germans might easily sit down before each of them with 40,000 or 50,000, and they could still command 50,000 more for the easy subjugation of the unarmed population. The Danes seem inclined to put their trust in ships, and think that, while leaving in their two strongholds a sufficient number of defenders, they could land small forces here and there so as to harass the enemy on many points and wear him out by incessant desultory warfare. All this, however, would not lead to a happy termination of the struggle in their favour; it would not put an end to the foreign occupation of all their mainland. The siege of the two fortresses and a series of guerilla exploits would be all that Europe might look forward to for six or eight months or a year to come. At the end of that period the Danes would still be where they were a fortnight ago; they would still have to repurchase their own peninsula, or such part of it as the Germans might feel inclined to restore, by accepting such conditions as a conqueror has it in his power to dictate. Without achieving their victory by the reduction of Alsen and Fredericia, the Austrc-Prussians would reap all the benefits of complete success. They are under no necessity, and it certainly is not for their interest, to shed another drop of blood by their own act, and such injury as the Danes might still inflict upon them would have no greater effect upon the vast body of their troops than the sting of a gnat on the huge bulk of an elephant. Still, the Danes reckon, and very reasonably too, on the chapter of accidents. The invasion of Jutland, they think, has filled the measure of their enemy's iniquities. The indignation of Europe cannot long remain passive in sight of so flagrant a violation of all legality. Nothing can be stronger than the conviction in the hearts of these poor Danes that help must turn up for them from some quarter or other. It grieves me more than I can tell to be addressed by officers and soldiers, when they think they have made it out that I am an Englishman, with such words as, 'Why should England suffer us to perish? Why do not the English come to the rescue?'
The Danes, however, have something to look forward to more promising to their cause than the help of foreign nations, and that is, dissension among the Germans themselves. Jealousy between Austria and Prussia, the attitude of the Bund, the ambition of the minor Princes, the revolutionary tendencies of the German people, everything engenders a belief that their enemy cannot long act unanimously against them, if they will only persevere to the end; and with such prospects before them there is no doubt that the Danes will fight on and endure. Their position does not appear to them more hopeless than it was in 1849, when all was lost and all was eventually regained.
Although we know next to nothing of military matters beyond our foremost lines at Dybböl we hear not a little of what concerns the political condition of the Duchy of Schleswig since the best part of it has been given up to the triumphant invader. There are many people, it seems, to issue orders and to dictate the law from Rendsburg to Hadersleben, but it is very questionable whether there is any man able to make out what is wanted of him, or willing to submit to the ruler's will, even when it is very clearly conveyed to him. There are three nominally acknowledged Powers in Schleswig, and there are a variety of secret agencies striving to bring them all into collision, to counteract one by the other, and to undermine their authority. Here, the Prussians countenance a proclamation of Frederick of Augustenburg; there, the Austrians forbid it. To-day, the Schleswig-Holstein flag is pulled down; to-morrow, it is the German black, red, and gold tricolour that becomes particularly obnoxious. Marshal Wrangel snubs a deputation from a National Verein; and Prince Frederick Charles, his Royal master's cousin, hobnobs with them. A Prussian General declares that not one of the Danish officials shall be removed from his post. An Austrian commander winks at the mob breaking into the unfortunate Amtsmann's house, and spiriting him away in the dead of night on the snowy high road, with helpless wife and family tramping at his heels. The Schleswig-Holsteiners were anxious to be united to Germany, but they are not a little astounded at having drawn three Germanies on their neck. It was always an arduous task to serve two masters; but here is a case of three patrons to be obeyed, the behests of each of them in flat and flagrant contradiction with the good pleasure of the others.
Holstein, as I told you, was governed by the Danes entirely through the instrumentality of native officers. Left to itself by the withdrawal of the Danish army, that Duchy continued to be the compact and well-organized State that it always was, fully equal to the task of self-government. In Schleswig the placemen were not exclusively Danes, but mostly attached to Danish interests, and, as I expected, the advance of the German 'liberators "could not fail to drive them from their places, striking thus at the foundations of social order, and plunging the country into hopeless anarchy. General Gablenz, applied to at Schleswig, at Flensburg, and other places, by the citizens who were only anxious "to hear and to obey," answered that "he was a soldier and no statesman." Since that time statesmen have followed in the wake of soldiers. Commissioners of the great Powers have taken upon themselves the administration of the province, but these Commissioners know nothing of the mind of their Royal and Imperial masters, for the good reason that the said masters know nothing about their own mind themselves. Hence everything is provisional, arbitrary, and contradictory; what was done yesterday is sure to be undone to-day, and to-day's measure will not fail to be defeated by some new disposition to-morrow. A swarm of adventurers, the socalled patriots, either of the Duchies themselves or from some of the adjoining States of sympathizing Germany, are besetting the Commissioners' doors, all eager for the good things that may lie in their gift. For one of these hungry hounds into whose mouth a bone may be thrown a hundred are sent empty away; and these do not easily go back to their kennel, but keep whining and snarling, appealing to the Bund, to the great and little Fatherland, to Heaven and earth, against the Austro-Prussian dog in the manger, who hesitates about devouring Schleswig, and will not suffer it to be devoured by others.
However natural and even reasonable may have been the yearnings of the Schleswig-Holsteiners after union with what they call their country, it is not likely that they will at any time fall under any German Government onetenth as good, as provident and liberal, as that of their late Danish masters. The Danes, as I have had frequent occasion to show, carried their leniency to their disaffected subjects to a fault. There was hardly a country in the world where freedom of speech and action was carried to a greater extent. Not only privy conspiracy and rebellion but even arrant treason were winked at. Flensburg patriots, as I saw with my own eyes, -went over to Kiel to swear allegiance to the Prince of Augustenburg, both in their own name and in that of their townspeople, and they came back to their homes unmolested and unchallenged. The Danish soldiers billeted upon the countrypeople were as inoffensive, as respectful, as indifferent to the sour looks of their hosts, as tolerant of ill-disguised insult and ill-treatment as so many angels. After all the convulsions of 1848-9 there was hardly an instance of a political prosecution in Denmark. Some of the selfbanished patriots shunned their country, as they had left it for their country's good; but Denmark had no Spielberg nor Nisida. Amnesty was extended to nearly all who would accept it.
It is not so with the men, justly or unjustly, accused of Danish sympathies who are now tarrying in the Duchies. The so-called patriotic leaders hunt them down without mercy, they set up a mad-dog cry after them, and the Austro-Prussian rulers, who ought to see justice done to all parties, are too ready to back these curs in their full cry. A newspaper is forcibly suppressed in Hadersleben because "it was published in the Danish language;" and the "Flensburger Zeitung" is bidden to publish Copenhagen news as "foreign intelligence," under the heading "Ausland." The number of citizens, officeholders, schoolmasters, and clergymen who are compelled to seek shelter from popular fury, either here, or in Jutland, or even in the enemy's country, at Hamburg or Lubeck, becomes daily more alarming. The Schleswig-Holsteiners were tired of their Danish King Log, but have little reason as yet to be satisfied with their Austro-Prussian King Stork. They are disappointed, wrathful, and fretful, and they vent upon those who can make no resistance a displeasure which they dare not exhibit before the new taskmasters they were in so great a hurry to have among them. The national German party are anxious, above all things, that the Duchies should be thoroughly and radically revolutionized. It suits their purpose to exaggerate the ill-feeling of the people against the Danes, to rouse them-to all sorts of riot and mischief. Nor are the Commissioners of the two great Powers, especially the Prussians, at all earnest in their endeavours to allay popular fury. There is no man in Schleswig-Holstein, no man in Prussia, Austria, or the minor German States, who clearly knows what he is driving at, or what would answer his purpose best. A vague instinct prompts almost all parties to give mischief full swing, that time may show what is to come out of it all,—what chances each may have to fish in the waters all have contributed to trouble.
Talk of personal union, of- new Constitutions aiming at an equitable acknowledgment of the claims of rival nationalities! Why, if Schleswig-Holstein ever come back to Denmark, its present occupiers will take care that it shall be so fully disorganized and subverted that Denmark herself will find it hardly worth having.
(Antonio Gallenga: The invasion of Denmark in 1864, Bind 1)
