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

LiCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN,

dated Sam 21, says :—The

us here this morning between seven and
eight o'clock. There is only one rail%ay line at
Kiel, the one going southward to A itana-.Elamhurg.
This liaameets, at- Neu nester junction, a short
from this, the line which loads from Altona

sharg. From Th.ndsbu:g the line proceeds

and to lii_osterkro, where it again splits into
two branches, of which one soon ends at Schleswig,
the other striking off to tho westward, to Oersted,
Husain, and Tanning. 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 Salons have gone to

north

.N.mmuastez ; whether from there they will con-
tinue their journey to Altona, or whether they will
turn towards Rendsburg, is yet matter for specula-
tion. It has been said that the King of Saxony had
offlcd to the Frankfurt Diet the aid of his troops
to repel the Aasto-Prussian invasion ; but the Com-
missioners at Altona have as yet no orders from the
Diet, and it is quite impossible to believe that that
body 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 groat Powers. The Prussian vanguard was to
reach Neumunster to-day, and we mtsy expect to
see 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-
Prussia.ns is old Field-Marshal von 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 Scales-
wig.Holsteiners, 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-
gustenburg was, by right of feudal succession, the
only legitimate heir of the two Duchies. The at-
tempt of Denmark to denationalise the Schleswigers
had filled the measure of the people's ill- will against
that Power, and they deemed themselves justified
in proclaiming their absolute separation from the
Danish 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 celled 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 circumstanees, to set up
national 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
Germany 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
Diet, when, by establishing a Ducal Government
and raising an army, they thought they could pre-
pare themselves to make good their Duke's rights
in Schleswig no less than in Holstein.
So far, what was contemplated was merely a na-
tional war between the Duchies and Denmark,
which should decide upon whom the sovereignty of
Schleswig-Holstein should devolve. Whatever
friends Denmark might be able to enlist in her
cause, the Duchies felt sure of the support of all
Germany in a quarrel which involved, as they
thought, universal German interests. But now
the two great Powers of Prussia and Austria,
making up between them much more than two-
thirds of the might of Germany, take the affair
into their own hands, and occupy the Duchies with
views not altogether friendly to Denmark, but no
leas at variance with those of the Frankfort Diet
and of the generality of the German people. With
Austria and Prussia there is no question either of
nationality or of disputed succession. They are
not unprepared to recognise the integrity of the
Danish Moaarchy ; nay, they are in a certain man-
lielrEdged. to support it ; only they think them-
selves entitled, and even obliged, to meddle with
the internal affairs of the DAnish Government, and
demand the repeal of a Constitution which the
King, perhaps. deemed necessary to the safety and
well-being of his State.
Again, I do not wish to sit in judgment upon the
conduct of the King of Denmark. I have no pre-
suraptien to decide how far he was bound to abide
by the Treaty of London, how far the November
Constitution violated that treaty, or how far he was
induced by pressing necessity to depart from the
engagements then and there entered into. My only
s to lay the whole question open before the
reader, not from my own point of view, but from
that of these good Schleswig-Holsteiners, who con-
ceive they have a right to be heard, and are, they
say, determined to make themselves heard at any
rate.

desin

Some sympathy, they think, might be shown to
the Szhieswig-Holsteiners, who, after all, only
claimed that right to dispose of themselves which
begins to be acknowledged as common to ail the
s of mankind. Some regard might be due

to the sentimental, though perhaps not wholly un-
ambitious, aspirations of the Germane, who availed
themselves of the opportunity offered by a case of
what they deemed indisputable right to take the
first step towards a strenuous assertion of their
nationality ; but it is utterly impossible to under-
stand the ground and aim of the present Austro-
Prussian movement, equally indefensible, as it
is hers thought, on the score of old diplomatic
maxims and of modern liberal principles.

Austria and Prussia invade the Duchies with an
intent to recall the King of Denmark to the terms
of 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 o 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
theme—Denmark the DachiLs, 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
500 n Coale to a pretty pass if one or two Govern-
ments, on the mare strength of their superior armies,
were to take upon themselves to decide questions of
the 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
rulers at Copenhagen, and drove them from one con-
stitutional experiment to another in the hope of re-
conciling the irreconcilable. To give a Prince the
severeigaty over a people, and to prescribe the limits
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 ef Hungary, of Poland, kc,, rester' on the faith
rf treaties, but the violation of such compacts was
in all cases effected with impunity, unless the peo-
ple, who alone were the interested parties, had
power to demand their due, It well becomes Prussia,
indeed, to stand up for the psople's rights, and it
well becomes Austria to be a stickler for national
Constitutions and the noraincorporation of provinces.
It is only a pity Denmark or some other stronger
State does not turn the tables upon them and take
up the cause of the oppressed nationalities groaning
under their yoke. The very Schleswig .
Holsteiners,
those who are bitterest in their enmity to Denmark,
aver that she is unfairly dealt with, and that Prussia
and Austria have absolutely no other ground of
action against her than the immense preponderance
of their forces.

However superior the forces brought against her
may be, most people here still expect that Den-
mark will make Ft stout resistance, and, if the
present thaw centinues, by no means an ineffec-
tual resistance. Neither are people at all sure
that Denmark will be left single-he ,ncled in the