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

THE INVASION OF SCHLESWIG

(From the Times Special Correspondent.)
ScilLEswiG, 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 2d 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 ha7e 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 weak. 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 saw, bivouacking in the Dannewerk day 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 wero 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. lt appears they sent off their
train of stores, ammunition, Sze., 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 D Knish 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 gun 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 considering 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 them much general interest, but