Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning. Maurice Francis Egan
of Christian VII., had in 1770 become the guide, the philosopher, and—it was said—the more than friend of his Queen, Caroline Matilda, tried to be the Bismarck of Denmark; but he was of too soft a mould—the disciple of Rousseau and Voltaire rather than of Machiavelli and Cæsar Borgia. He was drawn and quartered, after having confessed, in the most ungentlemanly way, his relations with the queen, sister of King George III. of England.
It is probable that part of the Emperor's dislike to Bismarck was due to that 'mot' of the Iron Chancellor about the royal marriage he had helped to make. It was the kind of 'mot' that William would not be likely to forget. It is an axiom of courts that the child of a Queen cannot be illegitimate. Even the Duke de Morny, son of Queen Hortense of Holland, bore proudly 'Hortensias' in the panels of his carriage during the Third Empire in France. Nevertheless, though Queen Caroline Matilda had died, in her exile at Celle, protesting her innocence, it was understood that Struense was the father of the supposed daughter of Christian VII., the daughter who married into the House of Slesvig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Her descendant, the Princess Augusta Victoria Frederika-Louisa-Feodora-Jenny married the Emperor William II., on February 27th, 1881, at Berlin. It was a love match—at least on the side of the empress. One of the ladies in waiting at the German court once told my wife that the famous Augusta Victoria rose—the magnolia rose of our youth—was always cherished by her imperial majesty because of its association with her courtship—'the emperor knew how to make love!' the empress said.
The appearance of Struense among the ancestors of the empress, to which Bismarck is said to have so brutally alluded, was not agreeable to the proudest monarch in Europe. Queen Caroline Matilda, sister of the second George of England, was only fifteen years of age when she came to Denmark to become the wife of Christian VII. in 1766. And, if anything could have excused her later relations with Struense (her son, Frederick VII., was undoubtedly legitimate)—it was the attitude of her degenerate husband and her mother-in-law, Julianna Maria. Having been dragged one bitter cold morning to the castle of Elsinore, she confessed her guilt; but under such circumstances of cruel oppression that the confession goes for little; circumstances, however, were against her, and the courts of Europe only remember that she was the daughter of a king, of blood sufficiently royal, to make up for her declension.
In Copenhagen, in 1908, the echoes of public opinion in London, among the higher classes at least, showed that the momentary insecurity caused by the reverses in the Boer war had passed. People had forgotten the emperor's telegram to Oom Paul. Nobody wanted war; therefore, there would be no war. 'If we have no property,' St. Francis of Assisi, pleading for his Order to the Pope, said, 'we shall need no soldiers to protect it.' It was forgotten that, reversely, if we have property, we must always have armies and fleets to protect it. It was not war that anybody wanted; but there was property to be had, which could only be had by the use of armies and fleets.
In Paris (for reasons which secret history will one day disclose, and for other reasons only too plain), the German designs were apparently not understood by high officials who directed the course of France. France made the mistake, as we are always likely to do, of reading its own psychology into the minds of its opponents. Paris believed, to use Voltaire's opinion of the prophet Habakkuk, that Germany was capable of everything, except the very thing that Germany was preparing without rest, without haste, and without shame to do—to bleed her white!
From echoes in Copenhagen, we learned, too, that in Petrograd, Germany was better understood because the Russian spies were real spies; they knew what they were about, and, being half oriental, they understood how to use the scimitar of Saladin. There were other spies who knew only the use of the battle-axe of Coeur-de-Lion; but they were often deceived though very well paid; in fact, the ordinary paid spy is a bad investment. In Belgium the Internationals talked universal peace; indeed, among others than the Internationals, the army was disliked. As in Holland, German commercial aggression was feared. The most amazing thing is that Internationalism did not weaken the morale of the heroic Belgians when the test came.
In Copenhagen, the idea of a permanent peace seemed untenable, and war meant ruin to Denmark. This was not a pleasant state of mind; but it did not induce subserviency. In the vaults of Hamlet's castle of Elsinore on the delectable Sound, Holger Dansker sits, waiting to save Denmark from the ruthless invader. There are brave Danes to-day who would follow Holger, the Dane, to the death, who believe that their country never can be enslaved; but, though the conquering Germans spared Denmark, they did not need the knowledge of the fate of Belgium to convince them of what they might expect as soon as it pleased the Kaiser to act against them. The fate of Belgium had confirmed the fears they had inherited. There is no doubt where their hearts were, but a movement—a slight movement—against Germany would have meant for the King of Denmark the fate of the King of Belgium or the King of Serbia. That he is married to a princess half German by blood would not shield him. Belgium was not spared because its queen was of German birth.
Copenhagen, as I have said, was not only a city of rumours, but a city of news. The pulse of Europe could be felt there because Europeans of distinction were passing and repassing continually, and the Danes, like the Athenians of St. Paul's time, love to hear new things. But there was and is one old query which all Denmark never forgets to ask: Will Danish Slesvig come back to its motherland? Slesvig-Holstein is the Alsace-Lorraine question in Denmark. For Slesvig Denmark would dare much. She could not court certain destruction but, in her heart, 'Slesvig' is written as indelibly as 'Calais' was written in the heart of the dying queen, Mary Tudor.
She had forgiven and forgotten the loss of her fleet and the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English in 1807 and 1814. She then stood for France and new ideas, and Tory England made her suffer for it. She lost Norway in 1814; she was reduced almost to bankruptcy; and, until 1880, she could only devote her attention to the revival of her economic life. Holstein was German; Slesvig, Danish. They could not be united unless the language of one was made dominant over the language of the other. The imperial law of Germany governed Holstein; all Slesvig legislation had since 1241 been based upon the laws of the Danish King Valdemar. To force the German law and language on Slesvig was to wipe out all Danish ideas and ideals in the most Danish of the provinces of Denmark. The attempt to Germanise Slesvig took concrete form in 1830. Desiring to bring it under German domination, Uve Lornsen, a Frisian lawyer, proposed to make the Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein self-governing states, separated from Denmark, and entirely under German influence. As, according to him, only royal persons of the male lineage could govern the united Duchies, the King of Denmark might have the title of Duke until the male line should become extinct. Uve Lornsen met remonstrances based on the laws and traditions of the Danes with the arrogant assertion, uttered in German:
'Ancient history is not to be considered; we will have it our own way now.'
Kristian Poulsen, a Dane, who knew both the German and the Danish views, opposed the beginning of a process which meant the imposition of autocratic methods on a people who were resolved to develop their own national spirit in freedom.
In Slesvig there are 3613 square miles. In the greater part of this territory, consisting of 2190 square miles, Danish was the vernacular, while 1423 square miles were populated by speakers of German. German power had secured German teaching for 220,000 people in churches and schools. The injustice of this will be seen when it is understood that only 110,000 were given opportunities, religious and educational, of hearing Danish. Danish could not be used in the courts of law. It was required that the clergy should be educated at the University of Kiel, and other officials of the state could have no chance of advancement unless they used German constantly and fluently. The teachers in the communal schools were all trained in Germany. The Danish speech was not used in a single college. In a word, the German influence, under the eyes of a Danish king and government, was driving out all the safeguards of Danish national life in Slesvig.
King Christian VIII., partly awakened to the wrongs of the Slesvigers, issued in 1840 a rescript insisting on the introduction of Danish into the law courts. The German partisans were outraged by this insult to German Kultur; no tongue but the German should be used even in Danish Slesvig. The king, the Danish court, for over two hundred years had been Germanised; the king did not dare to announce himself as a nationalist; but, against the German partisans, he decided that the Danish kings had always possessed the right of succession