The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-14 00:00:00

The War in Denmark.

(From the Times Special Correspondent lately at the Danish
Head-quarters.)
10.
General 'Mister left CCoOpPenEhNangAeGnENon, May 10.
It was said he was only going to Assens, in Funen ;
but I have reason to belivve that his further
destination is Frederickshaven, in the north of
Jutland, whither three regiments were to accom.
pany or to follow him. General Waster was, Ojit
you may remember, in command at Frederickstadt,
on the Eider, at the outbreak of the war in Schles-
wig, and when the abandonment of the Dannewerke
was resolved upon he withdrew his garrison from
the stronghold which was committed to his care,
and effected his retreat with a skiil and in an order
that was highly commended at the time. Subse.
quently Wilster was sent to Fredericia, in Jutland,
and had the supreme management of that fortress
till, on the first attack of the Austrians, he was
wounded, together with Major Hoffmann, the
chief, and two other officers of his staff, and had to
resign his command to Col. Lundig. Gen. Wilster
has now recovered from his wounds (his less fortu-
nate chief of the staff, HOffM9nn, died the other
day, after long suffering), and upon his effecting
the junction of his troops with the division of
Hegermann-Lindenkrone it is expected he may
achieve something worthy of his well-established
renown. A

General Wilster is a comparatively young man—
not, I should think, above 45 years old ; at any rate
in the fall enjoyment of all his faculties. It has been
the ill-luck of Denmark in this war to have her
troops commanded by men promoted to the highest
ranks by mere right of seniority, men who talked
in their proclamations of " unsheathing a sword
which had hung on their side for 50 years, forget-
ting that the innocent weapon had done little more
for half a century than rattle and clatter on the pa-
lace stairs at the King's levees, or lie in the corner
of a room at the War-office. But here, in Denmark,
we had worthy gentlemen who won, perhaps, their
epaulettes and girt on their swords at the Peace of
1814, who, in all probability did good duty in a
subordinate capacity at the head of a company or a
battalion during the wild desultory war of 1849,
and who, after rusting like old blades in their scab-
bards, have emerged at the head of their country's
forces, and have assumed the general direction of a
campaign merely on the strength of their having
outlived their comrades and superiors. The evil is in
the system, and the system is fair and honest in

heery, no doubt, though practically the effect is

deplorable. We have had here for the last three
months generalissimo:-, whom it would have delighted
poor Thackeray to describe—padded and painted
septuagenarians, but who seldom showed them-
, selves to their soldiers, and before whose counterfeit
' juvenility their soldiers could scarcsly keep their
countenance. Wilster and Lundig, Lessons, and Du
Plat, and others who have done good work, had also
seen war, and it was upon these and upon subaltern
officers on the Staff, such as Eijernholm, Rosen, Sec,,
that the real conduct of the campaign eventually
devolved. It is high time now, if the war is to pro-
ceed, that the true leaders should stand forth in the
foremost rank, and
the departure of Wilster for
Jutland is looked upon hero as a good move, espe-
cially as he will find in command of one of Linden-
krone's brigades that Col. Beck who at the head of
the 10th (Copenhagen)
Regimentth sat eaarde
thiso bger ground
soo manfully
if raised by thageainBta large
verso on the retreat from the D annewerke.
What good that small Lindenkrone
division, even
force of Austrians at
reinforcements .
with Wilster to forceandooo enecomba-
tants,rgy may effect(' upon coming into collision with
mallpoasnmgand morasses
souncehcmananssoetshoeflptvirroops as the Austro-Prussians can
bring against it,
onderinofm 8a
't°C) the r
pluck 1 0'
of this little Denmark, who,
I shall not undertake to discuss.
defence of those strongholds on which her chief reli-
ance rested, does not even in these extremities shrink
ttohlde, inline after being worsted in
from a prolonged conflict in the open field. There
seawirlea,those wilds of Northern Jutland,
of the winding Lumfjorden,
l fromt hnut
hgoehf it w
various corps moat propitious to the ma-
nsuvres of an exte •
nstve guerilla warfare. The
Danes, it is true, have no light troops of any kind ;
and although they contend that their foot soldiery
are all armed and trained to do duty as light infan-
try, still I question whether their mea are of the
proper bulk and build for bersaglieri work; and,
might be possible to pick out individuals
in some manner answering
the purpose, I doubt whether soldiers the vast ma-
jorityhom have hardly been three months
under arms can be fitted for such complicate service
as thatmoment.
of
fir
ailleurs and Zonaves on the spur of the
Events will solve all these questions if hostilities
are to be carried on. This very day the Conference
meet in London, and the result of their deliberation
ought to be either an armistice or a breaking up of
all further negotiation. As far as I can make out,
mmeaonret endeavoursthan half.
the Government here build no very solid hopes on
able. beydtvheerswareilele-
of the mediating Powers. For their own part, they
the results attain
seem anxious for a cessation of hostilities, and are
willing to meet their
assured way. I have been positively that the Copen-
hagen Cabinet is not only ready to give up the
blockade of the Baltic ports, but also to accede to the
restitution of the captured vessels. On the other
hand, they deem themselves entitled to demand the
Jutland, and the
complete evacuation of indemnifi-
cation of the communities and individuals who have
been either subjected to contributions, or who have
otherwise been despoiled and plundered by the Ger-
man invaders. Such an arrangement would leave
the Austro-Prussians in possession of the whole
Schleswig mainland, and fully satisfy the demands
put forward by Marshal Wrangel at the outbreak of
the war. His intimation to General de Meal was
that he, Wrangel, should be allowed to occupy and
to administer Schleswig in the namo of the allied
Sovereigns. What the Danes would rot give of
their own accord has been now taken from them by
force of arms, and the parties have it now in their
power to treat on the basis originally proposed by
the German Powers. I believe that, with a view to
remove all subjects of dispute, the Danish Govern-
ment would consent to the temporary abandonment
of Als, Arroe, and other minor isles belonging to the
duchy of Schleswig, into the enemy's hands.
All these matters are, I have no doubt, being de-
bated in London, in the bosom of the Conference,
at the moment I am writing ; but, whatever the
results of to day's Eittirg of the Plenipotentiaries
may be, I thought is might at some future
time, and in the event of the negotiation mis-
carrying, be of importaace that the world should
know what I firmly believe is the disposition of mind
of the Danish Ministers at this moment. There is
no hope in their hearts that tho conditions to which

As they are now at the end of all possible conces-
sion on their part, the Danes, in the expectation of
a total breakdow❑ of the Conference, are preparing
to carry on hostilities to desperation, both by land
and sea. Although they have been deplorably late
about it, they have now been brought, on hard-
bought experience, to acknowledge the immense ad-
vantage of the superior artillery of the Prussians,
and are confident that they would soon be able to
meet their foe with more equal weapons. That they
will have sufficient strength to hold the Little Belt
and its narrow sound at Middlefart seems a general
conviction here. Were even Wilster and Linden-
krone to be driven from the extreme point of North
Jutland, the Danes think Funen and Zealand could
never be involved in the fate of their Cimbrian
mainland.

A curious and affecting episode I have yet to re-
cord connected with the sad catastrophe of Dybbol.
Among the dead bodies which I saw stretched
out on the floor of Ulkebol Church during the
last days of my sojourn in Alsen was that of
one on the breast of whose coat was pinned a
label, with the words, "En unkicendt officeer." It
was the corpse of a short, thick-set man, about 40
years of age, with short thick hair, full dark beard,
with strong and somewhat harsh features, composed
to the sleeplike calmness of death, with his arms
stretched along his sides, and the fists tightly
closed. That corpse had been for a day in the
hands of the Prussians, lost in the crowd of the
dead and wounded; it had been rowed across, and
had lain for two days in Ulkebol Church, and it
still went by the name of the " unknown officer."
It was then conveyed to Augustenburg in an open
coffin; it has been left exposed in the vestry of the
church there, as if in a kind of Morgue, and has
been seen by nearly all the military and civilians

who are still tarrying on the spot, and the photo-
graph of the body and of its coffin is now published
in the Illustreite Zeitung, in the faint hope that the
perfect likeness may lead to its eventual identifica-
tion. There ought now to be little chance of it.
The man was probably a Swede or Bornholmer,
one of the several officers who used to drop in upon
us as volunteers at the various stages of the cam-
paign. Ho may have arrived either direct from
home, or from Fredericia oil the very eve of the
last attack upon Dybbol ; he may have ventured
out across the bridges on his first arrival, without
either reporting himself at headquarters or attach-
ing himself to any corps, and had thus none of his
superiors or subalterns, no comrade or friend, to re-
cognise
him. His rank itself could not be ascer-
tained, as the shoulder straps, the only distinction
in a Danish uniform, had been torn from his coat ;
but the fine cloth allowed no doubt as to his being
an officer. Hard was the fate of the un-
known dead. The most touching obsequies, the
most signal honours have been paid both in
Copenhagen and all over the kingdom to
the remains of officers and privates fallen in this
patriotic war. The body of each man has been
faithfully consigned to the pious cares of those who
had a right to claim it. Hardly one was lowered in
the grave without the tears of some one akin to it
by blood or loco. Only the poor " unknown" lies
still agave ground unclaimed, unhonoured, unwept ;
and, perhaps, far away in some distant home in
Dalecarlia, in Gothland, far away on the shores of
some Swedish bay or Norwegian fiord, some deso-
late home is plunged into all the pangs of expecta-
tion, and uncertainty, and may have long to wait
before it is reached by the undoubted tidings of its
irreparable bereavement.

I find that I had greatly under•estiniated the
amount of contribution exacted by the Austro.Prus-
sians in the province of Jutland. The towns alone
had been charged 650,000 Prussian thalers ; but
the country was made, besides, to pay 25 thalers per
the tonde hartkorn (a measure of land, the extent

of which 1 cannot at this moment ascertain),

There are in Jutland 170,942 of such measures, and

the contribution amounts thus to 4,274,390 Prus-
sian thalers.

The Austrians have compelled 2,000 inhabitant ,q
of Jutland to work at the demolition of the forts of

Fredericia.