The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-02 00:00:00

THE WAS IN DENMARK.

(From Me limes Special Correspondent with Me Danish
Army.)
DANISH HEADQUARTERS, SONDERBORG,
March 27.
If the modern art of war consists in inflicting the
greatest possible injury upon an enemy with the
least possible waste of time, blood, and money,
then one may be permitted to doubt whether the
Prussians have attained any very high degree of
proficiency in 'the craft ; and if war is still to be, as
it was among savages, merely the art of killing men,
even then the Prussians may be looked upon as
mere bunglers in its pursuit. It is now no less than
a fortnight (from the 14th inst.) since they opened
fire from their batteries on the cliffs of the Broager-
land. The cannonade has never entirely ceased
throughout the whole of a day or night. No less
than 500 or 600 shots and shells have been fired on
an average daily; 7,500 of such missiles, on the
very lowest computation, have been thrown upon
the Dybbol bastions, yet it may be doubted whether
as many as 75 Danish mea or officers have been
disabled by the cannon since all the noise and earth-
quake began. The Prussians are thus purchasing
their enemies' lives at the expense of about 500 shots
per head, and I have already had occasion to state
in a previous letter the fact that 1,000 balls and
shells on Wednesday last had not produced a single
scratch or bruise to reward the artilleryman for his
trouble. The average of casualties in the Danish
forts hardly exceeds three or four men hors de
combat daily,
As to any other results attained by the Prussians
with all the thunder of their artillery, we may fairly
set them down at nil. They kick up a prodigious
deal of dust, doubtless; they have almost levelled
with the ground one or two of the flimsily con-
structed blockhouses, and the traverses and parapets
are considerably scarred and furrowed in some of
the forts. But what of it ? We go out in the
evening, and find a good deal of havoc and confu •
sion in No. 2 or No. 6. The wooden gear of ono
or two of the guns is being removed in splinters.
What of it ? We revisit the same spot in the
morning, and all the rubbish is cleared away, new
gabions line the parapets, the battery is as good as
new, the Danes rub their hands and shake the dust
from their long overcoats, waiting for the daily
shower of shot and shell, which they have learnt to
dodge with consummate skill, and at which they
can afford to laugh. At this present rate there is
no reason why the siege of Dybbol should not last
as many years as the siege of Troy.
Symptoms of a far greater activity began, how-
ever, to develops themselves yesterday on the Ger-
man side. The fire between 11 and 1 was exceed-
ingly brisk ; the aim, no one can deny, is excellent,
and if the cannonade were kept up for the whole of
the 24 hours, or at least from sunrise to sunset, if
it extended to the whole line, and if the attack were
brought nearer to the bastions, we might probably
have a different tale to tell. A new battery, of 16
pieces, was yesterday unmasked by the Prussians
on a vantage ground between the village ot Dybbol
and Ragebol, opposite to battery No. 8. Possibly
we shall have some thunder to-day on that quarter.
But it must not be forgotten that all the Danish
bastions, with the exception of Nos. 2 and 6, are
altogether intact. Those two, as 1 have said, have
received no injury that is not repaired almost as
soon as inflicted. Up to this time the Danes have
been marvellously chary of their ammunition. They
hardly ever answer more than one to three of the
enemy's shots. Perhaps they wait till a greater
proximity neutralises the advantage of the Prussian
rifled artillery,—perhaps they disdain to waste
powder and shot against mere inert matter, and will
not bestir themselves till they can point their can-
non at the bre.sts of their assailants. Were the Prus-
sians as familiar with the sort of men they will have
to meet is the breach as nearly two months' con-
tact with them has made me, they might well be
excused if they shrank from coming to close quar-
ters with them. There are not in the world more
robust frames or more resolute ;countenances than
those of these gentle, inoffensive, and, on the whole,
untrained and uncouth Danish soldiers. Such
thick-set limbs, such round high chests, such square
shoulders, such high cheek-hotr's, such massive
nether jaws, s!:ch firm flesh, such fresh blood, I
scarcely ever thought could be the common charac-
teristic of a whole host. I pass them in review daily
as they go in and out from outposts to night quar-
ters, and from night qaarters to outposts. I view
them in the mass and scan them one by one with
all the love of a professed physioghomist,and I assure
you I look in vain for one individual whom I couli
feel disposed to describe as a weakling or a craven.
The movements of these heavy bodies are generally
stow and deliberate, the gait is clumsy and awk-
ward, the expression of the faces dull and sedate;
but in the mass their array is wall-like, the mere
weight of their tread appalling. On an open ground
and breast to breast, I am really at a loss to say how
many Prussians it may take to make them budge an
inch. We have new arrivals daily. The Danish Go-
vernment strain every nerve to send in their reserves.
5,000 recruits are being drilled at Copenhagen.
I have so often croaked and grumbled about the
dull wretchedness of our existence at this place that
I think it right to notice the great improvement
that these later days have brought about in our posi-
tion. In the first place, the weather has been de-
lightful,—bright, dry, and by no means colder than
we should have it in England at this time of the
year. Then we have daily additions to our num-
bers, and it is clearly a case of " the more the mer-
rier." Besides seven or eight quill-drivers, repre-
Betnia g the Press of most European nations, we have
curious travellers in flocks, chiefly English officers,
whose first instinct prompts them to seek intercourse
and communion with us civilians. Some half-score
of us are always clubbing together, and our after-
dinner talk enlivened by quips and cranks disguised
under the motley garb of a polyglot jargon, racy
and spicy with the peculiarities of national character
helps us to while away the dreary hours which had
hitherto hung so heavily upon us. Attic salt from
the Boulevards mixes not unaptly with Cornhill
chaff. Friendship springs up at the shortest notice,
and the good humour and csrdiality inseparable from
camp life readily extend to the wretched inns where
we fare comme a lot guerre. The soldiers are used
to our visits at all hours; they greet us with " God
dag" or " God nat," or only whisper with great un-
concern among themselves that "Englanderne," or
"Engelskeamadene" are coming. All that is odd,
rash, impudent, or importunate is set down as pure
English idiosyncrasy. No amount of impatience on
our part has power to ruffle their unconquerable
Northern temper. Tae officers are all invariably
courteous and obliging, withhold no information,
shun no conversation into which we may choose to
enter. I never saw an epauleted Dane who war not
every inch a gentleman, and, as I said before, never
fell in with a cross, a rough, or crusty, or ill-be-
haved soldier. One drunken fellow I certainly
chanced to meet on the very main street of Soader-
borg on Sunday. He was the first man I saw in that
plight- But it was an exception, only proving the
rule; and
the manner in which his comrades pushed
and shovels
him along, Helot like, with scorn and
wrath in their countenances, showed that intoxica-
tion is as unpopular among them as among the
Spartans of old. These Danes are certainly pleased
to see us share their •
toils and, to some extent, their
dangers. They look at us, as we trudge along with
them in the mudoeng a
wondering gaze,as if plainly
askieg how we like it, and if wo are at times caught
inside their forts when a shell comes rattling in the
hold of us, laughing, air, they lay bidding us duck
and crouch in the most approved fashion, end drag
us into the holes and corners, where experience has
taught them the projectile may be awaited with
almost perfect impunity. At no hour of the day or
might can one feel quite sure of visiting the bastions
without coming in for a share of the stupid fire of
the Prussians. The morning up to 10 or 11 o'clock,
and the night from about 4 or 5 p.m. till daybreak,
are the periods of comp native repose, and we time
our excursions accordingly ; but still the Broager-
land batteries may be said never to be absolutely at
rest at any hour of the day or night. An occasional
shot comes through the air almost as regularly as
the toll of a church clock bell striking the hour.
Whenever this happens in the still night the effect
is sublime. The loud deep boom of the heavy piece
reproduced through the air by the echoes of the

hilly land and craggy seacoast, the whizzing and
fizzing, or, more properly, whining and fluttering
of the shell as it rattles on its path, snake-like,
meteor-like—all this makes up a treat for the eye
and ear which the most consummate pyrotechnic
art can scarcely rival, and well worth the trouble
and the very little risk it may cost us to enjoy it.
Such are the pains and pleasures, the joys and
sorrows, the advantages and drawbacks of our ex-
istence. Weigh the pro and con, and then let me
ask, "Who would not be a correspondent ?"
MARCH 27, Evening.

This being Easter-day, the Prussians thought they
would treat us to a cannonade of unprecedented
briskness. The fire opened after 12 o'clock at noon,
but for more than half an hour it was so heavy that
we could count no less than six, and even as many
as ten, discharges in a minute. The batteries on
the Broagerland are more numerous, or rather they
have been run into one another till nearly the whole
coast presents but one continuous line of fire. By
two o'clock the fire slackened, and soon ceased alto-
gether. Really it would seem as if the Prussians
had a certain number, say 500 or 600 shots and
shells, apportioned to them for daily consumption,
and it mattered little whether they burnt all their
powder in a few minutes, or whether they spirted
it out by driblets, so as to keep up the noise for the
whole day. One may feel tempted to ask for the
twentieth time, " Is this fighting in earnest
A few of our party ventured out this afternoon,
as soon as the Prussian fire gave signs of being about
to cease. They visited Battery No. 2, into which
about 327 shots and shells had fallen between 12
and 3 o'clock. The parapet had been knocked about
a good deal, and the mere ruin of a blockhouse had
nearly disappeared. But the bastion was still, on
the main, intact, and the cannon answered the
enemy's fire to the last. The casualties were only
two men wounded. Yesterday the wounded were
three.
From Battery No. 8 one could very distinctly see
, the Prussian battery constructed between the vii.
lages of Dybbol and Nagebol, at about 2,000 yards
from the Danish line. Only six embrasures are
visible. The guns are not yet mounted.
A Frenchman, who came in from Jutland yester-
day, tell us that the siege of Fredericia was raised
because the Hungarian and Venetian troops under
Gablenz were in open mutiny. That disaffection
should be ripe among part of the Austrian soldiery
would be natural enough.