The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-18 00:00:00

THE WAR IN DENMARK.

(From the ?i,ne3 Special Correspondent with the Allied

_dnnies.)

BROACKER, April 12.

Yesterday's fire from the Prussian batteries was
at times brisk, but, upon the whole, not nearly so
sustained and heavy as on the previous day. There
has been a good deal of firing during the night,
doubtless with the object of preventing the Danes
from repairing their forts. The same was the case
the night before. I need not tell you that when a
number of batteries are firing at once, some of them
at objects not within one view, it is impossible to
reckon the shot and shel's directed at each particu-
lar target. By remaining in one battery you may
count the projectiles sent thence and ascertain at
what they are aimed, but then you are less acquainted
with the general proceedings of the whole line than
if you moved about or occupied a more generally
commanding position. There may have been mis-
takes made on both sides with respect to the num-
ber of shells thrown into Sonderborg, but I do not
see that it matters much whetter 1,500 or 250 were
thrown, those being the highest and lowest esti-
mates I have heard of as made by the I:,anes and
Prussians respectively. According to the view which
has been taken of it in England, and which proba-
bly will be taken in Europe generally, the real ques-
tine to be answered, the only one affecting the
character of the Prussian commanders for humanity
and for observance of the rules of civilised warfare,
is whether a sufficient warning was given to the in-
habitants of Sonderborg to enable them to depart
from the doomed town before the bombardment
commenced. I perceive that the attention of our
Government has been called to the reported loss of
life, and that inquiries were being made at Berlin,
where probably a more explicit declaration will he
procured than I have been able to obtain here. All
that I have been able to obtain in the way of answer
to inquiries addressed to the most authorised quar-
ter is the statement that the few sells thrown
into Sonderborg two or three weeks ago consti-
tuted a sufficient warning to the inhabitants,
and should have led to their departure;
also, that particular reasons prevented another kind
of warning from being given before proceeding to the
bombardment of the 2d inst. Had the bombardment
been suspended on Sunday morning, when the pro-
ject of a landing at Hardeshoi had broken down, I
should have felt pretty sure that it had been in-
tended to distract the attention of the Danes and
favour the intended crossing of Alsen Sund ; but as
we are informed from the other side that it was kept
up for 48 hours, and was resumed on the afternoon
of the 6th inst., I confess my utter inability to ac-
count for the proceeding, and must leave its expla-
nation to those to whom it is more important that
one should be given clearing them from the charges
of inhumanity and breach of civilised usages now
brought against them in the English press and
Parliament.

The troops in the trenches are now relieved every
24 hours instead of every 48. With respect to what
passed in the night of the 10th to the 11th, there
was, in the first place, as already mentioned, a good
deal of firing from the besiegers' batteries. It is
believed is this camp that the Danes, expecting an
assault to follow the bombardment of the 10th,
brought up strong bodies of infantry to the forts.
If this was the case, they are likely to have suffered
from the cannonade. Early in the morning a small
infantry fight took place, in which, however, as I
am informed, only two companies of Prussians were
engaged. The Danes showed a battalion in support
of the smaller body actually fighting. The Prussians
had 2 killed and 10 or 12 wounded—one of these,
an officer, having received two shots, one through
his hand and the other through the upper part of the
same arm. The Prussians made 12 prisoners. The
affair lasted but a short time. The Prussians have
advanced their outposts a little at one part of the
line. The third parallel was traced and partly cut
the night before last, and was to be dug out last
night. There seems no doubt that the Danes have
dismantled the forts of the most valuable portion of
their artillery, which we must suppose they destine
for the defence of Alson. Some persons believe
they have taken all their good guns away, and have
left only a few old ones for show. If this be the
case, and they yet intend to stand an assault, it
seems not improbable they will bring up field-pieces
to the open ground betweer the forts, and thence,
and from the few big guns they may have kept, fire
grape upcn the attacking party. It seems hardly
credible that after all this great show of defence, in
the way of strengthening and repairing their works,
they will stealthily evacuate them without a fight.
If they did so, the inference would be that their
army is very dispirited, and indeed, whatever may
be said to the contrary, there are strong reasons for
supposing this to be the case. You will have ob-
served that Prussians and Dines never meet, even
in small encounters, without the former bringing
back prisoners, and officers assure me that by far
the greater part of these are men who willingly
allow themselves to be taken—not Schleswigers
only, but also Jutlauders.

It is reported that during the heavy fire on Sun-
day, and favoured by the fog and smoke, two Prus-
sian soldiers made their way up to Fort No. 1,
which lies close to the shore, and after watching it
a little, and perceiving no sign of life, actually got
into it and found it deserted.

The Prussians are preparing themselves in all
ways for the assault. At Schmollehn, a small
hamlet just eft the road from Broacker to Nubel,

they have got up sham works in imitation of those
they have to attack, and here the battalions des-
tined for the assault are practised in getting over
palisades, in using scaling ladders, and in surmount-
ing chevauux de frise and other impediments usual
in the defence of forts.

The Rolf Krake yesterday was again prowling
about in the direction of the Gammelsmark batte•
ries, keeping, however, at a respectful distance from
the muzzles of the rifled guns. She seems studying
the land and water, perhaps against the day, now
not far off, when she may be ordered, at all risks,
to come in near enough to bring her fire to bear on
the Prussians advancing to the assault.

Conservative Leader of the House of
Commons,

(From the Sunday Times.)
A report has been diligently circulated during the last
week or two to the effect that the leadership of the Con-
servative party in the House of Commons had been resigned
by Mr. Disraeli, and that General Peel had been appointed
to the important office thus rendered vacant. This rumour
first gained public attention through the columns of a
Scotch journal. We gave it our most unqualified contra-
diction. It has been revived in more influential, though
not more scrupulous circles. The Globe has alluded to the
"new or temporary" leader of the opposition; and the
Times, in a loading article, has adopted phraseology more
definite and positive still. The only actual reason for this
method of expression, so far as our imagination can guide
us, is to be found in the simple circumstance that the gal-
lant general, on Friday night last week, made a short
speech in which he casually indicated his belief that the
foreign policy of the Government would be brought under
solemn discussion at an early period. An inference so
momentous was never drawn from a circumstance so insig-
nificant. General Peel had a perfect right, on his own re-
sponsibility as a highly influential member of the House,
to throw down the challenge he did; but that organs like
the Globe and Times should be so childish as to build, on a
sentence delivered in the course of a short speech on a
question of the highest public interest, an assumption that
a vital change had been made in the organisation and ad-
ministration of the Conservative party, is altogether beyond
credulity. The mistake must have had an inspiration less
imbecile, if snore malignant.
Mr. Disraeli is the natural—he is the inevitable chief of
the Conservative party in the House of Commons. The
party is his own creation. He has brought it into existence.
He has formed and fashioned it. He became its centre and
its head, not by subtle contrivance or desperate aggression,
but the most legitimate and the moat irresistible of all laws
—the law of gravitation. Its elements were drawn to him
by the force of the attraction of cohesion. The party has
accomplished and honourable men in its ranks—men to
whom the highest offices of state might be safely entrusted.
But, so far as the Lower House is concerned, Mr. Disraeli's
name stands for the Conservative party in the instinctive
judgment of the nation. Its brain, its discipline, its dignity,
its robust and healthful patience, and above all its restless
and weariless activity have been his. To depose him would
be an insanity as well as a gigantic crime of ingratitude.
Nobody thinks of deposing him. The idea is to absurd. To
displace Mr. Disraeli would be to throw back the chances
of party success for years and years. It would be disruption.
A chaos of demoralisation would ensue. There are not ten
members of the party who do not know and feel this, and
who do not acquiesce in the conviction with the most cor-
dial loyalty and pride. The notion promulgated by the
Globe and the Times is as destitute of the sanction of reason
as it is of the sanction of fact.
The political effect of the absurd rumour under notice is
not likely to be very mischievous. Its moral import, how-
ever, is, to our mind, somewhat distressing. It seems to
be a part of that inveterate prejudice with which the right
hon. gentleman has been pursued from the very commence-
ment of his extraordinary career. For that prejudice we
cannot account on any of the principles which ordinarily
influence the the habits of mankind. What has Mr. Dis-
raeli done, or what is he, that he should be thus systemati-
cally and unreservedly abused ? Is he a dolt who owes his
position to the mere accident of his birth or his fortune ?
Is he a blockhead whose only credit is his title, or whose
only power is in his gold ? Is he a lazy dullard who has
managed to lounge his stay into a position to which his
lethargy indissolubly binds him ? Is he an empty. pated
quack, who has succeeded by spells of personal beauty, or
airs of audacious snobbery ? Is this man not, rather one of
the wonders of his generation ? Has he not sprung from
the people ? Has he not won his way by unceasing indus-
tries, by pre-eminent talent, by unconquerable resolution,
without any aid whatever from court favour, family in-
fluence, or popular fanaticism ? Frosi being a celebrated
author, Mr. Disraeli has become an illustrious statesman.
Iu all his successes we can find no trace of the accidental, the
adventitious, or the corruptly artful. He has had no paid
organs. He has paid no hack trumpeters. He has been the
sycophant Qf no self-contained and egotistic it imperialisms.
These may be the reasons why he stands not well in the esti-
mation of the Globe; and the Times is a paper which never
recognises a success on which it has any chance of imposing
a limit. Sa it is possible that in recounting Mr Disraeli's
claims to the confidence and respect of hs country, we
have explained the reasons why our contemporaries are so
impatient for his overthrow.

Indeed, we are disposed to regard the rumour in question
as the highest compliment which:could be paid to the cha-
racter of Mr Disraeli, and to the authority which he has
acquired in the counsels of the nation. When the political
enemies of his party are in such haste to announce his de-
position, it is quite fair to imagine that they wish and hopo
for what they predict; and that they know beforehand that
the step they proclaim so hurredly would be the most fatal
which that party could possibly take, The postponement
of a great political triumph they are, above all things, desir-
ous of achieving ; to depose Disraeli would getter secure that
result than anything else in the worli. So they grasp at
the notion with an impetuosity which is really amusing.
Sad as we are to disappoint them, we again declare that they
nourish their hopes on a delusion. Disraeli is stronger to-
day than over he was. Ho is more essential to the unity
and the force of the Conservative party than ever he was.
He never stood higher in the trust and gratitude of that
party than now, And the greatest tribute which its enemies
can pay to his genius and his authority is the nervous and
feveridt desire that something might happen to dethrone
him.

(From the Standard.)
Not for his own sake, nor even for the sake of those great
principles of which he is the most distinguished defender,
should we think it necessary to undertake the vindication
of Mr. Disraeli. If it be true that no man was ever written
down but by himself, so it is also true that the best and only
efficient reply to imputations against the character of a
public man must be furnished by his public life. It is not
as Conservatives, but as journalists jealous of the honour of
our profession, and loth to see the press of England self-
degraded to the American level, that we feel it our duty to
enter an indignant protest against the conduct of our Liberal
contemporaries towards the great spokesman of the Oppo-
sition. It may be needful now and then to fix upon a single
statesman that responsibility which, however divided in
theory, practically belongs to him alone. It is often a duty
to recall the past errors and inconsistencies of a Minister to
whom great powers of mischief have been unwisely en-
trusted. But it can never be right, it can never be a legi-
timate method of political warfare, to substitute imputation
for argument; to make the character of an individual poli-
tician the mark for persevering, incessant, unscrupulous
attacks ; to speak of him on every occasion in terms of re-
proach and insult; to fix upon him accusation so vague and
general that they can neither be substantiated nor answered;
continually to reflect on his honour, sincerity, and good
faith, without ever attempting to prove against him a single
act of disloyalty or a single untruthful word.
This has been the course adopted, not by one or two, but
by all the Liberal organs, without exception, towards Mr
Disraeli. They never try to prove that he has acted dishon-
ourably; but they always speak of him as if they had
proved it. They have never alleged any reason for sup-
posing that ho is not at heart a true Churchman and a
sound Conservative ; but they always assume that his Con-
servatism is hollow and his Churchumnship a pretence.
When he brings forward a budget they do not trouble them-
selves to analyse his proposals and object to their principlos
or their details; but they bear in mind the remark that no
one can refute a sneer, and make an affectation of contempt
serve the purpose and save the labour of argument. When
he introduced a Reform Bill which embodied some of the
soundest proposals of the most moderate and enlightened
Liberal writers, they raised a howl of derision at those very
proposals, and to this day they always speak of that Reform
Bill as if it had been a dishonest manoeuvre, a transparent
strategem, merely because it was introduced by a Govern-
ment of which Mr. Disraeli was the leader in the Lower
House. Their contempt, their sneers, their derision, are all
directed against the individual statesman, not against the
party chief. When it suits their purpose they can be civil
to his colleagues, But it he is severe he is accused of
scurrility; if he speak in conciliatory tones ho is plotting
some unnatural coalition. Now he saves the Govern-
ment from a defeat on a chance motion, and is told
that he darn not take office ; now he censures in strong
terms a leading Minister, whose conduct has aroused the
indignation of the country, and is reviled for attacking
an absent man. Random verses and good novels are
equally cast in his teeth. A scribe noted for his scurrility
alone is employed to write a thick octavo libel, entitled
" The Lite of the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli ;" and if it
were possible to prove that ho had got into a scrape at
school, or made an escapade; at college, wo doubt not that
every Liberal journal would make capital of the discovery.
But a day or two ago ho took occasion, contrary to the
wishes of a large number of his supporters, to vindicate the
necessity of a tax most unpopular among the country gen-
tlemen, and assert the paramount claims of public policy
over class interests and party prejudice. This surely was
an act of statesmanlike honesty, and of generosity towards
the political and personal enemy at present responsible for
our finances. Yet even his defence of the malt tax was
made the ground for coarse and insolent vituperation. Whit
is perhaps the worst of all, not a session passes in which
our contemporaries do not set on foot some wholly untrue

and unfounded report that the Conservative leader has been
deposed, and that Mr. Walpole, or Mr. Whiteside, or
General Peel, is the chief of the Opposition, vice Disraeli,
superseded. More malignant animosity, more unscrupulous
personal spite, is not displayed even in America towards
political adversaries. Those practices are congenial to our
Transatlantic cousins, but they are wholly unworthy of a
profession whose members claim the rank of gentleiten.
These attacks on an individual—this persevering attempt
to hunt from the confidence of his 'arty, from power,
. •
and from public life,i the leader of the gentlemen
of England, are altogether contrary to the laws of honour
and fair play—are not merely ungenerous, but ungentle-
manly. To write down an individual adversary is not poli-
tical warfare, but political assassination.

A foreigner who should read the attacks of the Liberal
press on Mr. Disraeli would form an extraordinary miscon-
ception of the present condition of parties and the character
of public men. He would first imagine 'that party spirit
must be at least as fierce as in the time of Walpole ; but a
short experience in English society would disabuse him of
that error. He would then conceive that the Opposition,
headed by a chief so singled out for scorn and insult, must
consist of political adventurers and low-minded men, con-
tent to be led by a congenial mind ; he would find that they
were the very flower of the English gentry, with a sense of
honour almost chivalrous, and peculiarly free from all sel-
fish or dishonest ambition, and would understand that per-
sonal hatred, and not truth or public spirit, animated the
attacks made on the chosen leader of such a party. He
would finally settle down in the conviction that Mr.
Disraeli must be one of those men who lack some conciliat-
ing quality, and make enemies of all who approach them,
simply by that deficiency ; that he was, like Sir James
Graham, prone to dubious arts, or like Mr. Gladstone,
gifted with a temper extravagantly aggressive, and a
tongue indiscriminately and indiscreetly bitter. No idea
of Mr. Disraeli's character could be more unjust than
this. He never committed an act of treason against
an individual or against his party; he never opened
letters, he never garbled dispatches; he never belied in Par-
liament the vote he had given abroad ; he never selected an
obscure victim for the display of his gladiatorial talents;
never amused himself by gibbeting the auditor of an un-
lucky insurance office, or vented his spleen for Parliamen-
tary defeats on a hapless inspector. His antagonists have
always been men of position equal to his own, and the
quarrel has always been of their seeking, not of his. To
the press he certainly never gave any personal offence. To
what are we to ascribe the virulent hostility with which he
has been slandered, maligned, persecuted ? Is it to the
fact that he is not merely the leader and the champion,but
in a peculiar sense the reconstructor of the Constitutional
party ? Is it because he took the guidance of that party
in the depth of discouragement and dismay, deserted by its
leaders, disorganised, almost destroyed, and because he has
now brought it to the verge of triumph—that he is so bit-
terly hated ? Is it because but for him there might have
been no Conservative opposition, and because through him
we are likely ere long to have a strong and lastiug Conser-
vative Government ? Is it because the Conservative gen-
tlemen refused to dismiss their tried and trusted chief in
order to place themselves once more under the guidance of
those who deserted them in 1816? Is it to the disappointed
ambition of the Peelites we are to ascribe the bitter and
venomoes animosity of Saturday Review) Or is it to that
servile and snobbish feeling, to that meanest and vilest form
of envy which hates the man who rises by merit because his
merit seems to reproach those who have failed to rise—is
it to jealousy of a too successful brother that we must attri-
bute the unsparing persecution by the press of the only
man of letters who by talent alone, without favour or for-
tune, has in this generation raised himself to greatness ?
To whatever cause it be ascribable, the malice of the Libe-
ral journals towards Mr. Disraeli—their covert insinuations
of unfounded charges ; their unscrupulous imputations,
their incessant whirlers of Conservative disaffection and
impending revolt—is a disgrace to the English press. It
cannot injure its intended victim; he is strong to fear and
too wise to feel it; but it reflects infinite dishonour on his
assailants, and through them on the profession to which
they belong,