Schleswig-Holstein Question - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Schleswig-Holstein Question was a complex of diplomatic and other issues arising in the 19th century from the relations of two duchies, Schleswig

Schleswig

Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...

and Holstein

Holstein

Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....

, to the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

crown and to the German Confederation

German Confederation

The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...

.

Schleswig was a part of Denmark during the Viking Age

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...

, and became a Danish duchy

Duchy

A duchy is a territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess.Some duchies were sovereign in areas that would become unified realms only during the Modern era . In contrast, others were subordinate districts of those kingdoms that unified either partially or completely during the Medieval era...

in the 12th century. Denmark

Denmark

repeatedly tried to reintegrate the Duchy of Schleswig

Schleswig

into the Danish kingdom. On March 27, 1848 Frederick VII of Denmark

Frederick VII of Denmark

Frederick VII was a King of Denmark. He reigned from 1848 until his death. He was the last Danish monarch of the older Royal branch of the House of Oldenburg and also the last king of Denmark to rule as an absolute monarch...

announced to the people of Schleswig the promulgation

Promulgation

Promulgation is the act of formally proclaiming or declaring a new statutory or administrative law after its enactment. In some jurisdictions this additional step is necessary before the law can take effect....

of a liberal constitution under which the duchy, while preserving its local autonomy, would become an integral part of Denmark. This led to an open uprising by Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

's large German majority in support of independence from Denmark and of close association with the German Confederation

German Confederation

. The military intervention of the Kingdom of Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

supported the uprising: the Prussian army

Prussian Army

The Royal Prussian Army was the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.The Prussian Army had its roots in the meager mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War...

drove Denmark's troops from Schleswig and Holstein in the First Schleswig War of 1848–1851. The second attempt to integrate the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish kingdom due to the signing of the November Constitution by King Christian IX

Christian IX of Denmark

Christian IX was King of Denmark from 16 November 1863 to 29 January 1906.Growing up as a prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a junior branch of the House of Oldenburg which had ruled Denmark since 1448, Christian was originally not in the immediate line of succession to the Danish...

of Denmark

Denmark

was seen as a violation of the London Protocol, leading to the Second Schleswig War of 1864.

Though Schleswig, Holstein and Denmark all had had the same hereditary ruler for some centuries, the inheritance rules were not quite the same. The Dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein were inherited under the Salic law

Salic law

Salic law was a body of traditional law codified for governing the Salian Franks in the early Middle Ages during the reign of King Clovis I in the 6th century...

which ignored females: the Kingdom of Denmark had a slightly different inheritance law which included male heirs inheriting through the female line. In the 19th century this slight difference in inheritance law meant that when the childless King Frederick VII of Denmark

Frederick VII of Denmark

died the Kingdom of Denmark would be separated from the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein because two different people would inherit the Kingship and Dukedoms. This finally happened on the death of Frederick in 1863.

The central question was whether the duchy of Schleswig was or was not an integral part of the dominions of the Danish crown, with which it had been associated in the Danish monarchy for centuries or whether Schleswig should, together with Holstein, become an independent part of the German Confederation

German Confederation

. Schleswig itself was a fiefdom of Denmark, as the duchy of Holstein was a German fief and therefore part of the German Confederation with the Danish king as duke. This involved the question, raised by the death of the last common male heir to both Denmark and the two duchies, as to the proper succession in the duchies, and the constitutional questions arising out of the relations of the duchies to the Danish crown, to each other, and of Holstein to the German Confederation.

Much of the history of Schleswig-Holstein has a bearing on this question: see history of Schleswig-Holstein

History of Schleswig-Holstein

The Jutland Peninsula is a long peninsula in Northern Europe, and the current Schleswig-Holstein is its southern part. Schleswig is also called Southern Jutland...

for details. Following the defeat of Germany in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the Danish majority area of Northern Schleswig was finally unified with Denmark after two plebiscites

Schleswig Plebiscites

The Schleswig Plebiscites were two plebiscites, organized according to section XII, articles 109 to 114 of the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, in order to determine the future border between Denmark and Germany through the former duchy of Schleswig...

organised by the Allied powers. A small minority of ethnic German

Ethnic German

Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...

s still lives in Northern Schleswig.

Constitutional problem

Since 1849 disparate systems of government had co-existed within the Danish state. Denmark proper had become a constitutional democracy. However, absolutism

Absolute monarchy

Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...

was still the system of Schleswig and Holstein, with advisory assemblies based on the estates system which gave more power to the most affluent members of society. The three units were governed by one cabinet, consisting of liberal ministers of Denmark who urged economic and social reforms, and conservative ministers from the Holstein nobility who opposed political reform. This caused a deadlock for practical lawmaking, hardened by ethnic tensions, and a complete inability to govern was imminent. Moreover, Danish opponents of this so-called Unitary State (Helstaten) feared that Holstein's presence in the government and, at the same time, Holstein's membership of the German Confederation would lead to increased German interference with Holstein, or even into purely Danish affairs.

In Copenhagen, the palace and most of the administration supported a strict adherence to the status quo. The same applied to foreign powers such as Great Britain, France and Russia, who would not accept a weakened Denmark in favour of Germany or Prussia acquiring Holstein with the important naval harbour of Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

or controlling the entrance to the Baltic.

Language and nationality

There was also the national question: the ancient antagonism between German and Dane, intensified by the tendency, characteristic of the nineteenth century, to consolidate nationalities.

Lastly, there was the international question: the rival ambitions of the German powers involved, and beyond them the interests of other European states, notably that of Great Britain in preventing the rise of a German sea-power in the north.

German had been the language of government in Schleswig

Schleswig

and Holstein

Holstein

Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....

while more-or-less independent Dukes ruled, and stayed so; and had been a language of government of the kingdom of Denmark in several eras. Since the Reformation, German had been dominant in church and schools, and Danish was the dominant language among the peasantry in Schleswig.

Over centuries of development
Germanic languages

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

merged to form a Low German

Low German

Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...

dialect, which became the language of all of Holstein. During the centuries following the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, Low German had come to dominate in southern Schleswig, which had originally been predominantly Danish-speaking. The Danish language still dominated in Northern Schleswig. Around 1800, German and Danish were spoken in approximately equal proportions throughout what is now Central Schleswig.

The German language had been slowly spreading at the expense of Danish in previous centuries: for example, Danish was still spoken on the peninsula of Schwansen

Schwansen

Schwansen is a peninsula in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, protruding into the Baltic Sea. It is located between the Eckernförde Bay in the south and the Schlei inlet in the north....

around 1780 (the last known use of Danish was in the villages near the Schlei), but then became extinct.

The language border in the nineteenth century conformed approximately to the current border between Denmark and Germany.

It was clear that Danish dominance in Schleswig was vulnerable and weakening. Through its vigorous economic activity, the ethnically German area to the south expanded its geographic domain. Linguistically Low German

Low German

Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...

immigrants constantly arrived, and previously Danish-speaking families often came to find it convenient to change languages. The Low German language, rather than Danish, had become typical of Holstein and much of south Schleswig.

One solution, which afterwards had the support of Napoleon III, would have been to partition Schleswig on the lines of nationality, assigning the Danish part to Denmark, the German to Holstein. This idea, which afterwards had supporters among both Danes and Germans, proved impracticable at the time owing to the intractable temper of the majority on both sides. (this solution was subsequently implemented by plebiscites in 1920 as a condition of the treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

, and as a result Northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark).

Treaty of Ribe

German Schleswig-Holsteiners often cited a clause from the Treaty of Ribe

Treaty of Ribe

The Treaty of Ribe was a proclamation at Ribe made by King Christian I of Denmark to a number of German nobles enabling himself to become Count of Holstein and regain control of Denmark's lost Duchy of Schleswig...

of 1460, stating that Schleswig and Holstein should "always be together and never partitioned (or separated)". Although this treaty played a minor role at the more formal level of the conflict, its proclamation "Forever Inseparable" (Up ewig ungedeelt) became proverbial status during the German nationalist awakening, both among those wishing an independent Schleswig-Holstein, and in the German unification movement in general.

In Denmark it was granted less significance, and the citing widely regarded to be out of context, as it could either hint at the duchies not being separated from each other, or their not being partitioned into smaller shares of inheritance. This had happened many times anyway, leaving a confusing pattern of feudal units. Danes also brought forward rulings of a Danish clerical court and a German Emperor, of 1424 and 1421 respectively, stating that Schleswig rightfully belonged to Denmark, because it was a Danish fief and Holstein was a German fief, wanting Schleswig and Holstein to separate from each other.

The major powers appear to have given the Treaty of Ribe little notice in comparison to the ethnic conflict and worries about the European balance of power.

Resolution

The Second Schleswig War resolved the Schleswig-Holstein Question violently, by forcing the king of Denmark to renounce (on 1 August 1864) all his rights in the duchies in favour of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

and King William I of Prussia

William I, German Emperor

William I, also known as Wilhelm I , of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia and the first German Emperor .Under the leadership of William and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the...

. By Article XIX of the definitive Treaty of Vienna

Treaty of Vienna (1864)

The Treaty of Vienna was a peace treaty signed on October 30, 1864 in Vienna between the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Kingdom of Denmark. The treaty ended the Second War of Schleswig. Based on the terms of the treaty, Prussia would administer Schleswig and Austria would...

signed on October 30, 1864, 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 rights pertaining to birth in the provinces were guaranteed to all, whether in the kingdom or the duchies, who had been entitled to those rights at the time of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty.

In the Austro-Prussian War

Austro-Prussian War

The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...

of 1866 Prussia took Holstein from Austria and the duchies subsequently became the Province of Schleswig-Holstein

Province of Schleswig-Holstein

The Province of Schleswig-Holstein was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1868 to 1946. It was created from the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which had been conquered by Prussia and the Austrian Empire from Denmark in the Second War of Schleswig in 1864...

.

The Schleswig-Holstein Question from this time onward became merged with the larger question of the general relations between Austria and Prussia; its later developments are a result of the war of 1866. It survived, however, as between Danes and Germans, though narrowed to the question of the fate of the Danish population of Schleswig. This question is of great interest to students of international law and as illustrating the practical problems involved in asserting the modern principle of nationality

Nationality

Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....

.

For the effect on the Danes of Schleswig and events afterwards, see History of Schleswig-Holstein#Danes under German rule.

Schleswig-Holstein Question in literature

Elements of the Schleswig-Holstein Question were fictionalised in Royal Flash
Royal Flash
Royal Flash is a 1970 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the second of the Flashman novels. It was made into the film Royal Flash in 1975.-Plot summary:...

, the second of George MacDonald Fraser

George MacDonald Fraser

George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...

's Flashman novels.

Its potential solution (or lack thereof) also forms part of the solution to the mystery at the centre of Kim Newman

Kim Newman

Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...

's short story 'Tomorrow Town'.

Danish author Herman Bang

Herman Bang

Herman Joachim Bang was a Danish author, one of the men of the Modern Breakthrough.-Biography:Bang was born into a noble family of Asserballe, on the small Danish island of Als, the son of a South Jutlandic vicar...

wrote of life on the island of Als in the aftermath of the Battle of Dybbøl

Battle of Dybbøl

The Battle of Dybbøl was the key battle of the Second War of Schleswig and occurred on the morning of 18 April 1864 following a siege lasting from 7 April. Denmark suffered a severe defeat against the German Confederation which decided the war...

in the Second War of Schleswig

Second War of Schleswig

The Second Schleswig War was the second military conflict as a result of the Schleswig-Holstein Question. It began on 1 February 1864, when Prussian forces crossed the border into Schleswig.Denmark fought Prussia and Austria...

in his novel Tine, published in 1889.

The British statesman Lord Palmerston

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC , known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century...

is reported to have said: “Only three people...have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."

Dostoevsky refers to this as "The farce in Schleswig-Holstein" in Notes from Underground
Notes from Underground
Notes from Underground is an 1864 short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel...

.

The question appears in the first volume of the Reminiscences of Carl Schurz

Carl Schurz

Carl Christian Schurz was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.His wife,...

as an issue of concern in the Revolutions of 1848

Revolutions of 1848

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...

and also as the farcical recollections of his friend Adolf Strodtmann

Adolf Strodtmann

Adolf Heinrich Strodtmann was a German poet, journalist, translator and literary historian. He wrote an early biography of Heinrich Heine and emigrated to the United States for a time.-Biography:...

regarding his (Strodtmann's) participation in the conflict (see Chapter 5, pp. 130–132, and Chapter 6, pp. 141–143).

Constitutional problem

Language and nationality

Treaty of Ribe

Resolution

Schleswig-Holstein Question in literature

Further reading