The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-26 00:00:00

SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN,

A letter from Kiel, dated Jan. 21, says :—The
Saxons left us here this morning between seven and
eight o'clock. There is only one railway line at
Kiel, the one going south ward to Altona-Hamburg.
'This line meets, at Neumanster junction, a short
hour from this, the line which leads from Altona
to Rendsburg. From Rendsburg the line proceeds
northward to Klosterkro, where it again splits into
two branches, of which one soon ends at Schleswig,
the other striking off to the westward, to Oersted,
Mauro, and Tonning. At Oersted another line goes
northward to Flensburg, the utmost limit reached
hitherto by the railway in this peninsula. All that
'we know hitherto is that the Saxons have gone to
lieumunster ; whether from there they will con-
tinue their journey to Altona, or whether they will
turn to wards Rendsburg, is yet matter for specula-
tion. It has been said that the King of Saxony had
offered to the Frankfort Diet the aid of his troops
to repel the Austo-Prussian invasion ; but the Coro-
ners at Altona have as yet no orders from the
std it is quite impossible to believe that that
would give its sanction to a proposal which
would lead to a civil collision between Germans on
the eve of a war with a foreign foe. The probabi-
lities are that the troops of the Confederacy will
keep out of the way of the advancing forces of the
two great Powers. Tho Prussian vanguard was to
reach Nentaunster to-day, and we may expect to
eee some of them here to-morrow. Before the end
of the month, it is expected, an imposing Austro-
Prussian army will be stationed on the frontier of
the Eider. The commander-in-chief of the Austro-
Prussians is old Field-Marshal you Wrangel, and
General Falkenstein is the head of his staff.
All is quiet enough here, but people look with no
little anxiety on the possible issue of a contest to
which the Austro-Prussian interference comes to
add such an unutterable complication. The move-
ment thus far had been, in the eyes of the Schles-
wigeHolsteiners, comparatively simple and natural.
They grounded their rights both on the principles
of freedom and nationality and on those of justice
and legality. For them, Prince Frederick of Au-
gustenharg was, by right of feudal succession, the
only legitimate heir of the two Duchies. The at-
tempt of Denmark to denationalise the Schleswigers
heel filled the measure of the people's against
that Power, and they deemed themselves justified
in proclaiming their absolute separation from the
D tuish Crown, and the accession of their lawful
Sovereign. Mind you, Ido not by any means assert
that they could be borne out in all these assump-
tions. I am not called upon to give an opinion as to
the legality of the Prince's claims, nor as to the pure
German nationality of all Schleswig, nor on the right
people may have, under all circumstances, to set up
notional rights against long established dynastic
pretensions. All I mean to say is that such were
their views, and that in these views they believed
they would be supported by Germany in so far as
G :meetly may be said to be represented by the
Frankfort Diet. They were in daily expectation of
a recognition of their Prince on the part of that
, when, by establishing a Ducal Government
icing an army, they thought they could pre.
ves to make good their Duke's rights
wig no lees than in Holstein.
whatwas contemplated was merely a na-
nal war between the Duchies and Denmark,
should deci:le upon whom the sovereignty of
es.vig-pilstein should devolve. Whatever
ds Denmark might be able to enlist in her
e, the Duchies felt sure of the support of all
r.any in a quarrel which involved, as they
ght, universal German inteeests. Bat now
two great Powers of Prussia and Austria,
ag up between them much more than two-

IU 'SS

Wet.

a then

S 3 far,

i 13 of the might of Germany, take the affair
:to their own hands, and occupy the Duchies with
iews riot. altogether friendly to Denmark, but no
?S3 at variance with those of the Frankfort Diet
od of the generality of the Gzlrrcan people. With
iustria and Prussia there is no question either of
,ationality or of disputed euccession. They are
,ot unprepared to recognise the integrity of the
Monarchy ; nay, they are in a certain man-
pledged to support it; only they think them-
,E.tv:s entitled, and even obliged, to meddle with
tle internal affairs of the Danish Government, and
;:,mand the repeat of a Constitution which the
Eiling, perhaps. deemed necessary to the safety and

g of his State.

1, I do not wish to sit in judgment upon the
of the King of Denmark. I have no pre-.
ion to decide how fir he was bound to abide
atv of London, how far the November
violated that treaty, or how far he was
pressing necessity to depart from the
;meats then and there entered into. My only
is to lay the whole question open before the
r, not from my own point of view, bat from
;f these good Schleswig-Holsteiners, who con-
they have a right to be heard, and are, they
determined to make themselves heard at any

:ed

e sympathy, they thick, might be shown to
hleswig-Hols.teiners, who, after all, only

Limed that right to dispose of themselves whivh
gins to be acknowledged es common to ail the
milks of mankind, Some regard might be due
the sentimental, though perhaps not wholly un-
ahitions, aspirations of the Germans, who availed
.emaclves of the opportunity offered by a case of
hat they deemed indisputable right to take the
'at stops towar;:a a strenuous assertion of their
,tionality ; but it is utterly impossible to under-
ind the ground and aim of the present Austro-
7ussian movement, equally indefensible, as it
here thought, on the score of old diplomatic
a:lims and of modern liberal principles.
Austria and Prussia invade the Duchies with an
tent to recall the King of Denmark to the terms
' the London Treaty. But other Powers were

-parties to that Treaty, and it is not said that these
have commissioned the Austro-Prussians to act in
their name and with their consent. Austria and
Prussia, moreover, acted in 1851-2 as representa-
tives of the German Confederacy, and they are now
-pursuing a course not only not imposed upon them
by the Confederacy, but in a bold and wanton
opposition to its wishes. Those two Powers
have, in point of fact, the whole world against
them----Denmark the Dachies, the German Diet
and people, and the framers of the London Treaty.
It is not in a matter of international policy that they
move at all ; they interfere in the internal manage-
ment of an independent State. The world would
oat come to a pretty pass if one or two Govern-
ments, on the mere strength of their superior armies,
were to take upon themselves to decide questions of
I.he home affairs of another Government. It is not
from Berlin, and not from Vienna, that men can
give sentence upon the difficulties which beset the
and drove them from one con-
rulers at Copenhagen,
stit ution al
experiment to another in the hope of re-
conciling the irreconcilable. To give a Prince the
and to prescribe the limits
sovereignty over a people,
of the power to be exercised over them, is to attempt
impossibilities. The dissensions between a Sove-
reign and his subjects are matter of private concern,
and interference with them is as unwise as media-
tion in conjugal quarrels. Constitutions in behalf
of a people have often been made the theme for
diplomatic stipulations. The Constitution of Sicily,
that of Hungary, of Poland, &c., rested on the faith
of treaties, but the violation of such compacts was
-1- all cases feected with impunity, unless the peo-
!, who alone ware the interested parties, had
war to demand their due, It well becomes Prussia,
lead, to stand up for the people's rights, and it
;II becomes Austria to be a stickler for national
rstitut ions and the non-
incorporation of rovinces,
is only a
pity Danmark or some other stronger
e does not turn the tables upon them and take
the cause of the oppressed nationalities groaning
ter their yoke. The Very Schleswig Holstei
ners,
;se who are bitterest in their enmity to Denmark,
.r that she is unfairly dealt with, and that Prussia
I Austria have absolutely no other ground of
er than the is preponderance

n arr.,

r

However superior the forces brought against her
may- he, most people her© still espeet that Den-
mark will make a stout resistance, and, if the
present thaw centinues, by no means an ineffec-
tual resistance. Neither are people, at all sure
tnat Denmark will be left sing!-hancled in the

struggle, nor have they abandoned all hope that
Austria and Prussia may soon find out that there is
a limit even to German patience, and that the dig-
nity of the Diet and of the nation is not to be out-
raged with impunity. The people here, in short,
rely not a little on the chances of foreign interven-
tion and domestic revolution. Already the move.
went in the South of Germany has found powerful
and daring leaders, and some of the minor Govern-
ments there are said to be contemplating the con-
vocation of a national German Parliament. Unable
to cope with the might of Prussia and Austria, and
to unite their votes for the choice of a powerful,
able, and popular leader, the minor German Powers
look up to the French Emperor as their protector,
and there is no doubt that a cannon will not be fired
on the Eider if that great monarch raises a little
finger to forbid it.

In the midst of all these doubts and perplexities
the position of the proclaimed Duke of Schleswig-
Holstein and that of his Government will not be
materially altered. The Austro-Prussians, at least,
have engaged to interfere with none of the present
arrangements of this Duchy. I have already stated
my opinion that Prince Frederick of Augustenburg,
after giving a proof of excessive daring in coming
to this place at first, condemned himself and his
people to inaction from no perceptible reason at all,
unless it was a natural lack of energy and enterprise,
or a somewhat inopportune regard for legality, or,
again, deference to the King of Prussia, by whose
favour the Prince is said to set great store. It is
questionable whether the advance of the Austro-
Prussians will inspire with good courage and resolu-
tion people who have as yet shown but little of it.
They still hope that the Frankfort Diet may now be
induced to recognise the Duke, in which case the
organisation of the army will be immediately pro-
ceeded with. They complain of the great difficulty,
not to say utter impossibility, of finding arms at
any price. Some of their best friends,lhowever, are
sure that they could have had not only arms,
but officers and materiel, and even whole corps and
armies, from some of the minor German Princes,
who were ready to go to all extremities for the
Duke if he would only bestir himself, and act with
readiness and decision. Baden, Coburg, Brunswick,
and others, I know, were among the most earnest
and pressing in offers of that nature.
The expected advance of the Austro-Prussians is
looked upon as a national calamity by the people of
Kiel, who have taken down all their flags in sign of
mourning. A very cold reception awaits the troops
to-morrow. Upon the abandonment of the line of
the Eider Canal by the Saxons and Hanoverians,
the frontier will be guarded to-night by youthful
volunteers from this city, who have been mustering
up into battalions of national guards for the pur-
pose. The Eider Canal, as I before told you, runs
at the distance of only three or four miles from
Kiel, and the Danes, who are on the north bank of
the canal, could carry the town by a coup de main
were it left altogether unprotected.
P.S.—The Saxons and Hanoverians are concen-
trating at Hohenwestedt, between Rendsburg and
Itzahoe.