Author Topic: Schleswig-Holstein wars  (Read 24179 times)

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Eric_Lowe

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2006, 07:08:23 AM »
Yes...I know there is a bio on Infanta Isabel (in Spanish) now published. If there is in any way it can be translated to English...Also Minnie's diary is only available in Danish and Russian only... :(

kmerov

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2006, 07:37:29 AM »
The entire family were deeply affected by the war. Christian had just ascended the throne, and was very unpopular among many circles. The family was accused of being German, and sometimes feared for their safety.
Dagmar as the rest of the family was in deep dispair of the whole situation, and wrote to Alexander II for help, without much luck.

A rumor during the war was, that when Christian was near a battle the Germans would stop shooting.

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #17 on: March 02, 2010, 09:08:40 PM »
It is a very hard an complex issue to discuss but I will try anyway!
I tend to think that the Danish government and people were wrong in assuming that the Duchies belonged to them.They had a common sovereign, the king of Denmark also being Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. This happend because King Christian I way back in the 15th century was elected King of Denmark an separetelly elected Duke of Shleswig-Holstein after his uncle. He promised that the Duchies forever would be united for all times, and that Schleswig never became a part of Denmark...so far so good!

As you know, kmerov, I love this issue. Thus, I object to it being so far so good :-)
1. It can't be denied that the Duchy of Slesvig was a Danish fief. Since Charlemagne's time the river Ejder had been recognized as the border between Denmark/Slesvig and the Holy Roman Empire. This was also King Frederik IV's legal pretext for seizing the Gottorp parts of Slesvig after the Great Northern War.

2. The 1460 Treaty of Ribe, binding Slesvig forever to Holstein so dat se bliwen ewich tosamende ungedelt, that they remain forever united undidived, greatly complicates things. Would it be possible to argue, that although the divisions of the Duchies in royal and ducal parts were engineered to bypass this treaty by giving each part (king and duke) parts in both duchy and letting the manorial districts along the Baltic be jointly ruled, this actual division made the treaty rather hollow and then quite void when King Frederik IV seized the Gottorp territory in Slesvig, leaving Holstein-Gottorp (and its enemy Dukes, among them Tsar Peter III of Russia) a virtually foreign power? So that when the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo came about, the Treaty of Ribe was already null and void?

Here are a few maps for those interested in the issue:

The Duchies in the 16th and 17th centuries:

Light red - Kingdom of Denmark
Pink - Royal part
Yellow - Ducal part (S-H-Gottorp)
Deep red - non-sovereign cadet lines of the royal line, e.g. the Sønderborgs, Augustenborgs, Glücksborgs etc.
Grey - Manorial Districts ruled in common
Brown - Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck (always held by junior Holstein-Gottorps)
Blue - County of Rantzau


The Duchies in 1721 after the Great Northern War:

Deep blue - Kingdom of Denmark
Light blue - Duchy of Slesvig (all royal) and royal parts of Holstein
Deep Green - Remaining Gottorp parts of Holstein
Hatched green and blue - Jointly ruled manorial districts in Holstein
Light green - S-H-Sønderborg-Plön
Red - The Free Hanseatic Cities of Hamburg and Lübeck.
Purple - Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck
Ochre - the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Brown - Prince-Bishopric of Ratzeburg (belonging to the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz)
Light orange - Electorate of Hanover (with Duchy of Lauenburg)

The Duchies after the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo and the Napoleonic Wars:

Holstein-Gottorp has ceased to exist, along with the County of Rantzau and the non-sovereign duchies. Everything is Danish, including the Duchy of Lauenburg. The two plae blue exclaves to the north of the Free Hanseatic City of Lübeck (purple) are the Principality of Lübeck/Eutin, which belongs to the heirs of the Gottorps, the Grand Dukes of Oldenburg. The red line marks not only the border between Slesvig and Holsten, but also the northern boundary of the German Confederation (of which Holstein and Lauenburg are members.)

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #18 on: March 02, 2010, 09:38:27 PM »
Even though the Duchies in reality were quite divided, up ewig ungedelt makes for a catchy slogan:



And some more cool posters from the 1920 plebiscite thrown in for good measure:

Prophetic (with regard to German post-WW1 depression, Nazism and WW2):

= Mother - vote Danish - think of me!

Boring:

= What the German has sowed, the Dane wants to reap.

Hilarious:

= God will protect us, so that we don't become Jutes.

This one gets my vote - the Old Norse god Heimdall blowing his horn, announcing the final battle, not on Bifrost the bridge between the worlds of the gods and the humans, but on the bridge over the just as mythical border rivers Kongeåen / Königsau or the Ejder / Eider:

= Wake up and vote for Denmark!

And the result:
Most of Slesvig was lost for Denmark, but the most Danish-speaking (and a little German-speaking) areas in the North Slesvig / South Jutland "came home". And just as a psychic maid, Jomfru Fanny, from Åbenrå in Slesvig (who quite unsubstantially but oh so romantically was reported to be an illegitimate daughter of Christian VIII (Hans Christian Andersen being another alleged illegitimate son of his)) had prophesied, the King, Christian X, did come riding into the liberated land on a white horse (evil tongues claim it was whitened with chalk in the last minute to fulfill the prophecy!) when he rode across the border in 1920:



And on the Reunification Festival on Dybbøl, where 54 years earlier Denmark had been so brutally crushed by Prussia, the Prime Minister promised the Danish-speakers who remained in the areas that remained German, e.g. in Flensborg town: De skal ikke blive glemt. = They shall not be forgotten.
And at least in Queen Margrethe's annual New Year speeches they still aren't.

BTW the ca. 50.000 Danes (and 10.000 Frisians) in S-H have their own Danish schools and their own political party, SSW, which represents them in the State Diet in Kiel (housed in the former Imperial German Naval Academy.) Because the SSW is a small party which would fit in a Nordic coalition government system AND enjoys special minority benefits, it sometimes wreaks a little havoc in the more bi-partisan German political system. The last time in the state elections in 2005, when its crucial role in the difficult government formation led to minor outbreaks of Danophobia!
« Last Edit: March 02, 2010, 09:52:55 PM by Rœrik »

kmerov

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #19 on: March 03, 2010, 05:35:16 PM »
Thank you Rærik for posting the posters about the reunification. In Danish eyes the battle of Schleswig-Holstein was far from over in 1864!
In 1920 Christian X fired the Prime Minister and the government over the issue causing one ot the biggest political crisis in Denmark. Christian X and the royal family, aswell as Conservative people, wanted the city of Flensburg to be joined with Denmark eventhough the voting showed a clear favor for Germany. The government wanted to respect the outcome of the voting. The country was for a few short days on the verge of revolution until the matter was resolved.

Eric_Lowe

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #20 on: March 03, 2010, 09:00:22 PM »
Indeed. Another chance would have been after WWII when Germany was defeated and Denmark was liberated.

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #21 on: March 03, 2010, 09:25:48 PM »
Indeed. Another chance would have been after WWII when Germany was defeated and Denmark was liberated.

Yes, the Danes in South Schleswig were disappointed when the Danish government declared that the border was permanent. Besides, quite a few Germans in S-H, the so-called Speckdänen or Bacon Danes, were sympathetic to the Danish cause because they hoped good-will towards or incorporation into Denmark would mean better economic conditions.

Another factor in S-H right after the war was the fact that the state was flooded by Germans from Mecklenburg and the eastern Prussian provinces fleeing from the advancing Red Army, e.g. the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Many of these German refugees stayed after the war and made the Danish minority even smaller, percentage-wise.

BTW after WW2 I think the US offered Denmark, as a neutral power, all of Schleswig and control over the Kaiser Wilhelm / Kieler /North Sea-Baltic Canal (roughly corresponding to the border river the Eider) but Denmark refused the offer, not only because it would mean incorporating a lot of Germans but also because it would bring Denmark in direct contact with the Soviet Union already occupying Mecklenburg, which then probably would have added Holstein to its zone of influence.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2010, 09:45:04 PM by Fyodor Petrovich »

Eric_Lowe

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #22 on: March 03, 2010, 09:30:08 PM »
I am glad that Queen Alexandra did not live to see the end of WWII. She would have called Christian X on the telephone and told him "What do you mean you don't want the duchies back ! They belong to Denmark !" She was one of those who felt keenly on its loss.

kmerov

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #23 on: March 07, 2010, 06:41:33 PM »
Yes, you are propaply right. Most of the royals supported getting Flensburg back, and sacking the government. Christian X's brother, Prince Harald would in secret discuss these matters, because of his pro German wife Princess Helena of Glücksburg.

Eric_Lowe

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #24 on: March 07, 2010, 06:49:51 PM »
Yes. I heard that Helena was exiled from Denmark for a while because of her pro-German stance.

kmerov

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #25 on: March 07, 2010, 06:51:55 PM »
As you know, kmerov, I love this issue. Thus, I object to it being so far so good :-)
2. The 1460 Treaty of Ribe, binding Slesvig forever to Holstein so dat se bliwen ewich tosamende ungedelt, that they remain forever united undidived, greatly complicates things. Would it be possible to argue, that although the divisions of the Duchies in royal and ducal parts were engineered to bypass this treaty by giving each part (king and duke) parts in both duchy and letting the manorial districts along the Baltic be jointly ruled, this actual division made the treaty rather hollow and then quite void when King Frederik IV seized the Gottorp territory in Slesvig, leaving Holstein-Gottorp (and its enemy Dukes, among them Tsar Peter III of Russia) a virtually foreign power? So that when the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo came about, the Treaty of Ribe was already null and void?


I think that, since the family division of Schleswig and Holstein did not mean that the Duchies were split up into different small states legally, they were still undivided, but ruled together by several Dukes.

kmerov

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #26 on: March 24, 2010, 12:05:42 PM »


A more poetic mockering of the Duke of Augustenburg and his attempts to win Schleswig-Holstein in 1848. The caption includes his fake "motto". "I'm going to reach it said the boy, he jumped in the water after the moon".

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #27 on: April 17, 2010, 07:09:08 PM »
The euphoria of the reunification of 1920 was summed up in wonderful, corny pathos by the poet Henrik Pontoppidan:

Det lyder som et eventyr,
et sagn fra gamle dage:
en røvet datter, dybt begrædt
er kommen frelst tilbage!

=
It is the stuff of fairytales,
of legends from the past:
a kidnapped daughter, deeply mourned
has safe and sound returned!
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 07:34:30 PM by Fyodor Petrovich »

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #28 on: August 21, 2010, 06:35:48 PM »
A historian who has gotten privileged access to Christian IX's private archive has uncovered that after the defeat in 1864 the King quite unconstitutionally, bypassing his cabinet, made an inquiry through the Belgian King to the Prussian King concerning the possibility of Denmark, as an intact monarchy including Slesvig and Holstein, could become a member of the German Federation!
See Politiken: Hemmeligt arkiv: Kongen tilbød Danmark til tyskerne efter 1864
Danish newspapers report this sensationally as "The King offered Denmark to the Germans", which of course is only half the truth: Christian IX probably thought: Better subjected and intact, than nominally independent and life-threatening maimed. (As such it's an interesting parallell to any EU debate!) And at the peace negociations in Vienna, his cabinet did support Danish requests to become a member of the German Federation. But Bismarck said no. He wanted no Danes, only Schleswig-Holstein.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2010, 06:48:24 PM by Fyodor Petrovich »

kmerov

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Re: Schleswig-Holstein wars
« Reply #29 on: August 22, 2010, 09:25:32 AM »
Yes, it has been reported in sensation style, but of course the situation was not so clear-cut, and the German states were not the united Germany of 1870 and beyond. But interesting none the less.
The loss of the Duchies also made some people question Christian IX being King, not because of the defeat but in the legal sence, since he was made heir in 1853 so the monarchy could remain intact.