The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-08 00:00:00

THE INVASION OF SCHLESWIG.

frost has gone for good, and we have now a steady
thaw (even without rain, which has ceased), opera-
tions must for some days be extremely fficult.
The ground on which yesterday's fightia occurred
was clayey, and it would be difficult t. take guns
over it when it should have become so at,r d with wet.
lam again on the move, and must clos his hurried
letter.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
FLECKERBYE, SCHLESWIG, Feb. 2.
Prince Frederick Charles and his Staff passed
through Eckernforde early to-day, and moved for-
ward on the road to Missunde. The troops that
had been quartered for the night in and around the
former place were also on their way to the front at
an early hour. Missunde, as the map will show
you, is at a narrow point of the Schlei. Not having
had an opportunity of visiting it beforehand, and
trustworthy information on such subjects being
d:ffieult to obtain, I must limit myself to stating the
fact, of which I believe there can be no doubt, that
the position is a strong one. There are intrench-
ment3 and a tae de pont, Something more exact
might have been ascertained but for the extremely
unfavourable nature of the weather. Fighting in
a fag i 3 an unsatisfactory business, even to those
engaged, and the mist is particularly annoying to
persons who attend merely as spectators, desirous
of seeing as much as possible of what passes on both
sides. As regards the main features of to-day's
aff,dr, I will aticnce tell you that the Prussians
came up in high spirits, and showing good stomach
for the fight ; that a large body of cavalry was on
the ground, and had, so far as I saw or heard,
nothing whatever to do ; that six or seven batteries
of artillery were engaged, and that there was a fair
amount of infantry skirmishing, but no heavy fire
of that arm. In fact, it was chiefly an artillery
fight, the object being to batter the Danish defences
and daunt the Danes themselves, with a view to
subsequent more decisive operations. This, at
least, I infer to have been the intention of the
assailants, on the strength of what I gather, at
the commencement of the fight, from officers there
present, and the proceedings of the day confirm
the inference. Throughout the whole affair, which
was of the nature of a reconnaissance, the Prus-
elan fire was inadequately replied to by the Danes,
and the loss of the former, which I do not
imagine to be large, was chiefly incurred in in-
fantry fights, especially towards the end, when the
Prussians approached very near to the intrench-
ments. The fog was so dense, increasing as the day
wore on, and at last mingled with a close drizzle,
that even from the immediate rear of the Prussian
batteries I could distinguish the Danish skirmishers
only as shadows moving through a mist. The state
of the atmosphere probably had its effect on the
artillery practice of the enemy, which was directed
at moving bodies, while the aim of this side was
chiefly at fixed objects, ankmoreover, the nature of
the ground afforded a good deal of cover to the
Prussian battalions and squadrons in the reserve or
not actually engaged. The whole country from
Eckernforde to the Schlei is undulating and divided
into small fields by banks and hedges. The com-
bat began beyond Kosel (a village about half-way
between Eckernforde and Missunde), the Danes
skirmishing back to their position on the Schlei.
About three o'clock the Prussians broke off the fight
and retired, unmolested by their opponents. The
whole affair presented no features of particular in-
teres t. As the columns began to march back to
their quarters the village included in the Danish
position, which had been for some time on fire,
brazed up through the fog and cast a red glare
along the horizon. An occasional cannon shot
during the next half hour concluded the day's pro-
ceedings. The Danish practice throughout the day
seems to have been good, considering the fog, and
that they fired a great deal less than the P russians.
One of their shots disabled three horses belonging
to one gun, and there were several damaged limbers
and carriages. Of the wounded Prussians a good
many of the hurts were but slight. There seemed
some deficiency in the ambulance department, for
several wounded men were carried past me not on
stretchers, bat borne on greatcoats or in their con -
rades' arms.
It was stated this morning in Eckernforde that
heavy firing had been heard during the night in
the direction of the Dannework, but at the place
from which I write, which is much nearer to the
great Danish bulwark, nothing is known of
any such cannonade. There was noise enough
cf another kind at Eckernforde the whole night
through, an immense deal of joviality and cheering,
and singing of the eternal Schleswig-Holstein air,
a harsh and meagre melody at best, and which cer-
tainly does not improve by repetition. The Eckern-
fa:diens seemed quite enchanted at their release
from the Danes, of whom they spoke in no approv-
ing terms, relating with much glee how the last re-
maining company hurried out yesterday on hearing
that the Prussians were coming down upon them.
Tip to the Schlei, as you know, Schles wig is quite
German in its ideas and sympathies, although at
Eckernforde most of the inhabitants seem conver-
sant with the Danish tongue, having been obliged,
they say, to learn it at school.
Fieekerbye, from which I to-night write to you, is
a pretty hamlet, about half way from Eckernforde to
Schleswig, and at rather a convenient point between
the Prussians on the right, the Austrians in the
centre, and the Danes in front. The Prussian light
cavalry are patrolling the road that runs through it,
and the Danish patrols come down to within a short
distance west of it. Not being quite certain as to
what visitors the fortune of war may bring them,
the inhabitants have not yet mounted the tricolour,
or followed the example of the various other villages
is Schleswig, where Duke Frederick VIII. has been
proclaimed as soon as the Danes left.
The Prussian troops bear themselves, so far as
I had opportunity of observing, very creditably in
the new capacity, long unknown to this army, of
fighting men. Oa the march they are joyous and
alert, they go cheerfully into action, and bear
wounds uncomplainingly. On the other hand, one
saes at once that they are young soldiers. A whale
b3.ttalioa stooped their heads today, almost as one
man, when a round shot passed at a small distance
over Coetn. The same men went eagerly into action
a short time afterwards, and did their duty with
spirit and goodwill. lam not sure that it is likely
to encourage young soldiers to be addressed upon
the field in the terms which an acquaintance of
Ilelne assured me he heard employed to-day by a
'nip g chaplain, who, in a short discourse, in-
t,=oded to arouse the religious feelings of a battalion,
irlfca•med them that it was highly probable very few
them might come out of the struggle upon which
svcre at that moment about to enter.
There seems no doubt that a regular plan had
bee:a laid to conceal the fact that the passage of the
frontier was fixed for the Ist of February. Yester-
dsy mornin, at it was positively believed by
persons who ought to have been the best and first
info:nid, that the Cr
own Prince was to arrive there
before night. This appears to have been a ruse de
It has been guerre.announced that the Prince and
Marshal Wrangel would 11°1d a review of troops
near Kiel on the 2d inst. rt
.-0.-Ety). Instead of that
they have never been near the place, and their
if,between head-
quarters to-night are ap ndor
Rends-
burg and Schleswig. At Hamburg on Sunday even
trig, there was no idea that a movement across the
Eider was imminent, and the first knowledge of it
obtained by the people at Kiel was only when the
troops began to turn cut very early on the Monday
morning.

KIEL, Feb. 4.
Starting yesterday morning from Fleckerbye, I
made a pretty extensive ramble, terminating at the
place whence I now date. The Schleswig roads
are extremely heavy, and the means of locomotion
obtainable are by no means good, besides which
stoppages, or at least delays, owing to the troops,
baggage, and commissariat stores one encounters,
are of continual recurrence. Before striking the
high road from Schleswig to Rendsburg, which I
did not do until very near the latter place, the open
vehicle (drawn by two meagre steeds whose powers
of endurance were fortunately quite out of propor-

tion to their appearance), which I had with difficulty
obtained, was stopped in a nook of a narrow country
road by the passage of at least 5,000 Austrians,
through which it was impossible to make way.
Notwithstanding that the morning was as nasty a
one as could be selected for a march, they seemed in
good feather. They had decorated their caps with
fir sprigs, and were chatting and singing in a variety
of languages and dialects sufficient to puzzle the
most accomplished philologist. It was strange to
see these Tyrolese, Hungarians, and Sclavonians—
for such the greater part of them were—pushing
their way thus far northwards to fight the battle
of German nationality against the Danes. One
might suspect that most of them had very little
knowledge of the business they were bound upon,
except as regarded the fighting part of it, and
that, had they been informed of it, the more intelli-
gent among them might have been struck by the
idea that they need not have come so far from
home to struggle in the cause of nationality.
Most of them Were very young men, especially
the Tyrolese sharpshooters, who were generally
small and slight, and did not strike me as of
the vigorous constitution desirable for hard ser-
vice. Their appearance, however, may have been
deceptive. It was not a sort of morning to make
men look their best. Many of the officers were
very fine looking young men. The column was
chiefly composed of infantry, and the Hungarians
seemed the strongest men among them. They ap-
peared to me to be leas heavily laden, in the way
of knapsacks and equipments, than my Prussian
friends, with whom I had passed the previous day.
The only deficiency I noticed about them regarded
their boots, which were decidedly too thin for such
a rough country as that they have come into, and
far better suited for a sunny day in Italy than a
winter march in Schleswig. They left scarcely a
straggler behind them, however, and there were no
signs of sore feet, but the deep, thin, mud seemed
oozing from their boots as they trod. Once past
their long column, and the pontoons, artillery, and
carts that follow it, we meet no further impediment
of the kind before reaching Rendsburg, where the
hotel was full of blue-coated Saxon officers, just sit-
ting down to their early table d'hote. There was
evidently nothing of interest going on in this
quarter, notwithstanding reports that had reached
us on the road. So we shortly were off again to
Eckernforde, passing through Damendorff, where
the head-quarters of Marshal Wrangel had been the
night before, and were again to be last night. We
passed the Crown Prince's quarters, in probably the
humblest tenement his Royal Highness had ever
occupied. Damendorff is a mere hamlet, without,
so far as we could learn, even a place to bait a horse
at. Thanks to the detestably heavy country cross-
roads, it was considerably past dark when we got
there. The Staff had just come in, having been
absent at the scene of a small affair which the Aus-
trians had had with the Danes at the eastern, or
Danish left, extremity of the Dannewerk, in
which a position known by the name of Wen-
delspange, slightly in rear of the line marked on
the maps ae the little Dannewerk, and within about
four miles of Schleswig, had been carried by the Aus-
trians, with the loss, as is reported, of about 100 men
killed and wounded. A gun was taken from the
Danes, and also 100 prisoners, many of whom are
said to have given themselves up, or, in other
words, deserted. The guns of the great Dannewerk
command the position now held by the Austrians,
and it was supposed they would not be allowed to
maintain it unmolested during to-day. About 5,000
men were engaged on the part of the Austrians.
We continued our route to Eckernforde in dark-
ness so profound as to put at fault the local expe-
rience of cur driver, which we had had occasion to
remark as very considerable, and to reduce him to
climb up the finger-posts in a vain attempt to de-
cipher the indications marked upon them. Late in
the night we drove into Eckernforde, and auda-
ciously hoped to find a night's lodging at the modest
hostelry which had sheltered us on the Ist inst. But
the hope was vain indeed. On the Monday we had
come in with the first arrivals, and the innkeepers
had not been reduced to putting more than three or
four persons into one room ; now a portion of a table
in the smoky taproom, whereon to sleep in one's
cloak after the drinkers had departed, was an indul-
gence demanded in vain. The place was thronged
with officers, soldiers, and all the usual retinue and
attendance of an army. Every private house had
its lodgers innumerable,either billeted or remunera-
tive, and the best disposed smiled at you hopelessly
when asked for accommodation at any price. The
only plan was to fall back upon our headquarters,
temporarily established at Kiel ; but how to get
there was the question. The pair of garcons that
had trailed us all day, and had certainly got us over
fully 40 miles of deep roads, looked piteously exte-
nuated, and even the sanguine young Schleswiger
who had vaunted their powers to us, and given us
proof of their being considerable by getting them
along at a very decent trot, declared that repose was
a necessity. Fresh horses at that hour of night, and
with the demand that has of late existed for them,
seemed oat of the question; but nevertheless, the
usual magio key finally unlocked the stable door of
a pair which were to convey us to Kiel in little
more than two hours. Possibly they might have
done so, but for the slight impediment presented
by some twelve or fifteen hundred vehicles of all
descriptions which we met upon the road, filling it
up nearly the whole way from Eckernforde to Get-
torf, about half way to Kiel. Most of them were
drawn up at the side of the road, apparently wait-
ing for daylight, and truly if all had been in motion
a general lock could hardly have been avoided,
except by the maintenance of a degree of order
which the darkness rendered almost impossible.
But, besides the stationary line, over which soldiers
were on guard, there were a certain number of
vehicles in motion, some scores of them being huge,
lumbering waggons, apparently of baggage, sol-
diers' knapsacks, and an infinite variety of matters,
which lumbered along the road, sometimes break-
ing into a trot at the instigation of the impatient
drivers, filling up its centre, and rendering it a
seeming miracle that my small conveyance was not
precipitated into the ditch or whatever else the
darkness concealed upon our off side. Finally
there came along a great square, dark looking van,
lit up at its top corners in front by two lanterns
like round gleaming eyes, the first light, except the
sparks of cigars, which we had come upon all the
way from Eckernforde. What that mysterious
vehicle contained I, perhaps, shall never know—
portable gas was suggested, or a field telegraph,
champagne for the mess of the Staff, fireworks for
the celebration of the first victory, or a new Consti-
tution for Schleswig-Holstein—but I shall ever re-
member it with regard, since it closed the tedious
string of impediments and allowed us to reach the
daysat a baonudt
nf
ioguhr t
so 'c
passedl oc k t huips
thKreieel
desired havAenfteorf
morning.
at the front, amid alternate frost and thaw, r,
and wind, tramping through heavy fields and
across suspicious ice, without encountering any-
thing that in Western Europe would pass muster
as a bed, and without other baggage than a cigar-
case, a bit of soap, and an inkstand, it is not un-
pleasant to reach, if only for a few hours, a tolerable
resting place. The campaign has taken place by
surprise ; and doubtless many have had as little
time as myself to make provision against the dis-
comforts of its commencement.
The loss of the Austrians in yesterday's affair is

RENDSBIIRG, Feb. 3.

It rained and blew a gale during the greater part
of the night at Fleckerbye, and the same weather
continued all the morning, the snow rapidly disap-
pearing and the ice gradually melting. The change
in the weather is likely to prove e serious impedi-
ment to the operations of the Austro-Prussians. I
started early to come over here, and met a consider-
able body of Austrians on the road—the Martini
infs.ntry regiment, a battalion of Tyrolese Chasseurs,
some battalions composed of German-Austrians and
Sclavonians; also a few guns, pontoons, &c.—the
whole struggling along roads deep with mud,
with a driving rain and raw wind from the west.
From the villages we heard many reports about
firing in the direction of the Dannewerk, but there
seems to have been no fighting., except on the right
at Missuede, unless it occurred on the extreme left,
at Friedrichstadt, of which we have no positive
accounts. Here, when the Austrians advanced
on the Ist, the Danes quietly Nvithdre w from
the Kronwerk, and at the same time from the
six villages which were evacuated, without any
conflict. This afternoon the weathor is better, but
'still overcast and somewhat menAcingi and if the

stated to have been trifling. As regards that of the '
previous day at Missunde, although the fog rendered
it impossible for me to discern its details so well as
I could have desired, the information I have since
received does not show anything of importance to
alter or add in the short account I wrote of it upon
the same evening. The c fficial statement of loss is,
as I heard 55 dead and about 200 wounded. Nobody
seems to know exactly why the fight took place.
The natural conjecture was that it was intended to
ascertain the strength of the Danes at Missunde,
with a view to a more serious attack on the follow-
ing day, or else as a diversion, to be followed early
the next morning by an attempt to force the pas-
sage of the Schlei nearer to its mouth. But this
was not done, and I have pretty good grounds for
believing that nothing of importance is going on
to-day either on the left or centre of the Austro-
Prussian line. So that really it is difficult to see

the utility of the Missunde affair, although we must
presume the Generals to know best. Prince Fre-
derick Charles is reported a dashing and eager
officer, and perhaps he thought he could not too
soon give his young soldiers the taste for blood, try
their mettle, and accustom them to the sound of
round shot. They seem to have behaved very well
in this their first:little trial, and doubtless you will
see prodigious eulogiums heaped upon them in the
German papers, as I already hear them uttered
around me. But the affair, as you will perceive, was
a trifling one, in which there was no opportunity
for the display of any wonderful temerity. The
Prussians did their duty, and he is said to be a good
soldier who always does that. A number of officers
were killed and wounded. A young aide de camp
of Prince Frederick Charles—Count Groeben I
think is the name—was killed by a cannon shot
while conveying an order.

Lord Carlisle on the Condition of Ireland,

Speaking at the Lord Mayor of Dublin's banquet
on Thursday night, Lord Carlisle thus referred to
the condition of Ireland :—lt would be a much more
agreeable subject of contemplation if we could wit-
ness the simultaneous boast of wealth and popula-
tion. I cannot, indeed, go along with the pathetic
complaint of the pleasing poet, with whose statue
we have lately adorned our highways, when he
says—
11l fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
I believe there would be much more truth in the con-
verse, and that worse would fare the land where
men accumulate and wealth decays. (Hear, hear,
and No, no.) The gentlemen below wish for more
mouths and less food to fill them. (Hear, hear, and
applause.) This state of things is not desirable;
and least of all do I wish, and much do I regret,
that Ireland should part with any of her hardy and
generous sons—(hear, hear)—merely to supply food
for the vultures which hover over the Lethean
plains of Virginia and Tennessee. But with respect
to the general course and current of emigration,
whilst any attempt forcibly to arrest it would be
impossible as it would be cruel, I for one am not pre-
pared to rapine at it until the general average rate
of wages in this country shall amount to at least
10s. a week. (Cheers and hisses.) This is very far
trom being universally the case at present. I cer-
tainly am not prepared to follow the Lord Mayor
into the details of the political questions, some of a
very delicate nature, of which he has laid the heads
before you. I think that one great want of Ireland
is what sounds of a very homely and prosaic cha-
racter ; but I believe one great lever of Irish im-
provement would be found not so much in any great
principle or doctrine, or in any adjustment of rival
creeds and races, so much as in the adoption, the
general adoption, of a better system of farming.
(Hear, hear.) Let her children attend to her fertile
soil ; let them consult the genius of her mild but
variable atmosphere; let them readily and with
alacrity seize upon such openings as the extension
of the linen trade, and the opportunity for flax cul-
ture now offering to them ; and without presuming
to guarantee any sudden or startling resu►ts, I think
there is every hope for sure and progressive ones.

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 8, 1864.