The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-11 00:00:00

THE INVASION OF SCHLESWIG

(From the Times Special Correspondent.)
SCHLESWIG, Feb. 7.

King Christian was in Schleswig this day week,
and also on the Ist inst., and the people here say
that he was very dejected. Bishop Monrad was
with him. At 12 o'clock on the 31st came the Prus-
sian officers sent by Marshal Wrangel with a sum-
mons to the Danes to evacuate the Duchy. Gen.
Meza was here on that day, and received them.
They came out of his house laughing—it is sup-
posed at his appearance, for Meza, reputed a good
General, and who distinguished himself in the
former Schleswig-Holstein campaign, is said to be
very eccentric in his manners and style of dress. It
is reported that the King asked if the position were
tenable under present circumstances and against the
force expected soon to assail it. Meza replied that
it was not, and thereupon received orders to retire
from it, the King being decidedly averse to blood-
shed which could lead to no good result. His
Majesty returned to Copenhagen on the 2cl inst., on
which day the first combat of the campaign took
place. It is said here, but I know not whether on
good grounds, that the Danes would have evacuated
continental Schleswig but that Wrangel's demand
included the island of Alsen, and that this they
would not give up. Ido not discover any traces of
vindictive feeling towards the Danish army
(although there may be a good:deal towards the Go-
vernment) among the persons here with whom I
have as yet conversed, and therefore I am the more
disposed to accept as correct the details they give
me of the events of the past week. They accuse the
Danish soldiers of no excesses ; but speak of them
as discouraged, and as having had very severe hard-
ships to endure. They attribute their depression,
in great part, to the large number of soldiers of the
reserve, lately called in, to be found in their ranks.
These old soldiers, many of whom are married men,
and have long since been released from under the
colours, to which they doubtless little ex-
pected a summons to return, obeyed it
most unwillingly when it came, and the
word " home" was ever on their lips, especially in
the case of the Jutlanders. Moreover, they have
had rough work of it, in weather as inclement as
ever I yaw, 13,.nn.tvarlr Any and
night. We are told of some of them bivouacking also
in the public square in this town without even straw
to lie upon. It is said here that the Danes had
nearly 40,000 men in Schleswig, including Angelo
and Alsen, and that their whole army is 60,000, but
that a great many were sick, some it was not safe
to bring forward, and others were in the Islands.
Fourteen thousand men were quartered in and near
the town of Schleswig. That every available man
had been called out, and even more than there was
time properly to equip, is argued from the alleged
fact that two regiments which came up a couple of
days before the retreat, were attired in uniforms of
various colours, as if the last resources of old stores
had been put in requisition. To facilitate their re-
treat, Schleswigers tell me, the Danes, on Friday,
asked for three hours' suspension of hostilities, in
order to bury their dead, and took advantage of this
short breathing time quietly to move off. They
began this movement at 7 p.m., but it was 11 o'clock
before the last troops got away. The Schleswigers
immediately sent to the headquarters of Gen. Gab-
lenz, the Austrian commander, to give him notice of
the retreat, which he seems at first to have had diffi-
culty in believing. His quarters were an hour and a
half from this place, and the Danes got about five
hours' start. At three this morning the alarm was
sounded in Schleswig town. This was caused by the
arrival of a large number of wounded men belong-
ing to the pursuing force. They had come up with
the Danes at Bilschow, less than five miles from
Flensburg, and had suffered severely. Exact par-
ticulars of the affair are unobtainable, but it is said
that the Austrian advance fell into an ambuscade
prepared for it by the retreating foe. Since the Aus-
trian column, however, had come up with the Danes
before reaching Flensburg, the Schleswigers evi-
dently cherish a hope that the latter will have been
considerably cut up. It appears they sent off their
train of stores, ammunition, &c., before they started
themselves, and only a short time before, and this
measure may seriously impede the progress of
the retiring troops, the roads being in a bad state
for vehicles. A great deal of snow has fallen since
the day before yesterday, and still continues to fall.
The action that took place on the 3d, chiefly
between the villages of Upper and Lower Selk, and
which ended by the capture of the fortified position
of Wedelsparge, was seen very well from Schleswig.
From various particulars that were related to me
last night on my way from Kiel to Rendsburg, the
Austrians seem to have fought with great dash and
gallantry, the Martini Regiment especially, which
charged repeatedly with the bayonet, and sustained
a heavy loss. The Danes, I learn here, also lost con-
siderably, and the Schleswigers think that a reso-
lute attack upon the Dannewerk would certainly
have been successful, so great was the discourage-
ment that prevailed. They estimate the Danish leas
at Missunde at five officers and 200 men, which is
less than that of the Prussians, and, as the latter
retired without effecting anything beyond setting
some barns and cottages on fire with their shells,
the Danes may claim the advantage on that day.
At Klosterkrug, on the 4th, the 21st Danish Regi-
ment and two other battalions were engaged, and
a number of men went over to the Austrians. On
Thursday and Friday there was canonnading between
the Austrians at Lopstedt, a village on the east
shore of an inlet of the Schlei, and exactly opposite
the eastern extremity of the great Dannewerk, and
a Danish battery on the little island of Morenberg,
very near Schleswig. It lasted the greater part of
Friday, and when it ceased the Danes, at six
o'clock, sent a flag of truce to ask a short interval
for the burial of their dead, but which respite, when
obtained, they employed in another manner. They
abandoned one guff upon the island. The occupa-
tion by the Austrians of the advantageous position
of Lopstedt, which naturally fell to them after the
action at Selk, is said to have been one of Meza's
reasons for con sidering the Dannewerk position
untenable, or at least to have confirmed him in
that conviction. The various small engagements
above referred to were hardly on a scale
to give therm much general interest, but

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doubtless the German papers are full of them, and
will find much more to say concerning them.
As I write, a report reaches me that, besides the
fighting at Bilchau, which is said to have been
severe, there has been a short encounter at Dupel,
the Danish fortified position on the mainland, cover-
ing the passage to the island of Alsen.
Soon after noon yesterday Duke Frederick of
Augustenburg was proclaimed Duke of Schleswig-
Holstein in the town of Schlesw;g, a Dr. Sawer
taking the lead upon the occasion and making a
speech. I see by the papers that a Berlin Minis-
terial journal lately denied that the Duke of
Augustenburg had been proclaimed anywhere in
Schleswig. The denial is worthless. I was at
Eckernforde myself when he was there proclaimed,
in numerous smaller places I heard of the same cere-
mony having been gone through, and my belief is
that it has been so in every town and village in
Schleswig which the Danes have left. Nor can it
be called altogether a mere ceremony, for there is
not a doubt that the Duke is extremely popular in
both duchies, and that the people inseparably asso-
ciate in their minds and hearts his accession to the
throne with their permanent emancipation from
Danish rule and with the union of Schleswig and
Holstein. The tricoloured banner of his cause is
at this moment waving in profusion from the
windows of this town, side by side with the red,
black, and yellow flag of Germany.
The snow continues to fall heavily, with a driving
wind and raw cold. Schleswig town, a poor sort
of place for the capital even of this duchy, but with
scenery around it which, I dare say, is pretty at a
more favourable season, looks bleak and dreary on
this first Sunday in February and seventh day of
the war. It is full of visitors from Holstein, some
of whom, in their patriotic eagerness to see the
emancipated town, have walked up from Rends-
burg, a distance of nearly 20 miles. To-day the
railway from Rendsburg hither is open more or less
and as circumstances permit. The war has of
course thrown everything out of gear as regards
the regular means of locomotion. The constant pas-
sage of military trains, conveying stores, soldiers,
&c;, has deranged all the usual trains. Travellers
from Kiel to Rensburg, who left the former place
before 6 p.m. yesterday, arrived at the latter at past
midnight, having had to wait three and a-half hours
at Neumunster. They were prodigiously numerous,
for everybody who can spare the time and money
is bent upon going over the ground from which the
Danes have recently been driven. Of the state of
the coach roads, and of the extent to which they
are crowded with long strings of carts conveying
stores to the front, you may form an idea from the
fact that it took a pair of stout post-horses from
half-past 1 until past 7 this morning to get over
the distance between Rendsburg and this place.
The railway to Flensburg is not yet open, but it
is to be expected that it soon will be so, now that
the Danes have been driven beyond that town.