The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-14 00:00:00

THE WAR IN DENMARK.

(From the lines' Second Edition.)
ULKEBOL, April 9.

The siege of Dybbol has become a very earnest
game, and ought to be drawing to an end, whatever
the issue may be. The cannonade for nearly the
whole of yesterday and part of this morning can
only be described by one word—it was " terrific."
The shots and shells thrown by the Prussians ave-
raged 10 in the minute, and of these no less than
1,500 were aimed at 13astion No. 4. For their own
part the Danes were by no means idle, and towards
evening they had well nigh exhausted their stores of
ammunitier. The Dybbol bastions are encompassed
all round by a fiery line of no less than 14 German
batteries, and all of these were plied yesterday with
untiring activity. The night passed off quietly
nevertheless; and this morning, after 10 or 11, the
cannonade began to abate, and we have now perfect
silence, a fact for which the darkness of the day
may account; possibly, also, the lack of powder and
shell in the Prussian camp. It must never be for-
gotten that the Danish position is close and com-
pact ; fresh supplies are always at hand to replenish
the empty magazines, and the open communication
by sea secures both Alsen and Dybbol egainst any
Rant. It may be that even the rail way from Ham-
burg to Flensburg, and the road from the latter
place to Nybol Broager cannot display the same
activity in behalf of the Germans. Possibly, also,
the too frequent and rapid discharge of breach-
loading cannon has a tendency to render the
German artillerymen less chary of their ammuni-
tion ; so that if their fire is lively, it is at the
some time comparatively inefficient. This is
the case also with their infantry, who it is notorious
are not so particular in their aim as they would be
were they armed with less handy and convenient
weapons than their touch-and-go aundriculelgeweltr.
E7pprience would .:rxix to establish that the sol-
dier is apt to be too lavish of a shot taut ea..ta him
too little trouble. The Tyrolese sharp-shooter, in
the late Italian wars, who had to toil for minutes
with mallet and ramrod to load his piece, was
aware that he had an enemy's life at the bottom of
his barrel, and never gave fire tilt he felt sure that
his game was as good as bagged.

Notwithstanding this kind of nervous and spas-
modic fidgettinees of the Prussian fire, it would be
idle to assert that all this vast amount of gunpowder
is burnt in vain, or that the mere noise has not
a stunning and bewildering effect. Artillery
officers who have been for the whole of one day and
night in the Danish trenches come back to us in the
morning black, as well as pale, in the faces, jaded,
done up. Their own strength, and that of their
men, is tasked to the utmost, and the Danish army
begins to suffer from over exhaustion nearly as much
as it did when it was deemed expedient to remove it
from the Danne work. The weather, though milder,
is hardly more favourable to their health, and since
the bombardment of Sonderborg, the exposure of
some of their detachments to the inclernencies of
the weather at night is attended with no cheering
results: Fever has broken out with some virulence
in the Augustenburg hospitals, and men are often
sent there labouring under no other ailment than
excessive fatigue. On the other hand, the losses
of the Danes from the mere casualties of battle are
by no means considerable. The Prussian shell is
anything but murderous, and seems to spend is
fury against mere trenches and breastworks. No
less than four cannon were dismounted in on 3 of
them yesterday, between sunrise and sunset, and
the whole battery, breastwork, traverse, blockhouse,
&c., presented a rather jammed and mashed appear-
ance. The mischief is no sooner done than it is
repaired truly, but the energies of the men inces-
santly busy at that kind of Sisyphmen work must
be strained almost beyond endurance.
No man in the Danish camp can be induced to
despond for all that. The dismantling of a part
of a bastion does not, in their opinion, interfere
with the free working of the other part; nor, were
even a whole fort to be altogether blotted out of
the row of 10, would the fire frcm the remaining
nine be insufficient for the defence of the whole
position ; nay, were even three or four, or all and
each of the batteries to be silent, the natural ad-
vantages of the lino would still offer a very
strenuous resistance to the onset of the foe. Behind
the heavy batteries of the bastions the Dines have
numerous field-pieces, and, besides these they have
a goodly lot of those espingardes, which did such
excellent work both here and at Fredericia in 1849.
So long as the war resolves itself into a mere play
at cannon-balls, no doubt the Prussians have it all
their own way, because they have a more numeroes
and more powerful artillery, and almost any
amount of men to handle it. But when the cannon
has done its utmost, when the signal is given for an
assault, the besiegers must come face to face with
their foe, and then it must indeed go bard with
the Danes if the smaller artillery of their second
line is not more than a match for mere masses of
unprotected infantry. There is an evil quarter of
an hour for storming columns in which hundreds of
eannons in their rear can afford no support—in
which the whole fire of the beeieged is to be en-
dured without the chance of returning a single
shot. Desperate resolution, great rapidity of
motion, and overwhelming numbers may overcome
this and other obstacles, when that meeting of
Danes with Prussians takes place which is to be the
real tug of war. In a close engagement with small
arms and the bayonet the Prussians have the benefit
of the bigger battalions
; but the Danish line is but
one mile and a quarter long. The Danes are on their
own ground, and they have bulk and weight, and the
instinct to mass together, on their side. What the
end of it all is to be, if war is suffered to proceed to
the last extremities, time will show. The only thing
that is quite sure is that the storming of Dybbol
must needs cost a sea of blood, and that even the fall
of Dybbol would not decide the fate of Atsen or bring
about the close of the war. All th..s, however, sup-
poses on the part of the
Danes a power of endur-
ance hardly to be expected of mere men. I mix
with the soldiers at every
hour of the day and night,
and can bear witness to their firm and patient
bearing. I see no sign of discontent or discout age-
ment. Out they march to outposts in the morning,
quarters in the evening;
they toil in the trenches, hammer at their barracks,
shirk no duty, shrink from
back they come to night
no danger. The mere
march through ruined Sonderborg, the crossing of
the bridges, the ascent to Dybbol hill, the muster
at the barracks, all they
have to do, must be done
under the shower of the enemy's shell. The cross
fire from the 14 batteries from Broagerland to Rage-
bol is so harassing, that staff officers and orderlies
alight from their horses and walk to avoid unneces•
nary exposure. Diogenes placed himself right before
the target at which a clumsy archer aimed his ar-
rows,only spot where he ran no
chance
of
f beingb e being ghit he. In the same manner the Danish
soldier is hardly anywhere so safe as within the very
forts at which the Prussians are so furiously blazing
away all day long; not eo much because the Prus-
sian practice is bad as because everything in the
t
fort is calculated to afford shelter to its defenders,
while outside there is the danger of a projectile
straying ever so little from its aim, or even of the
fragments of one bursting ever so near its aim, and
of the earth and stones and splinters flying about
in the air, whether the shot is a hit or a miss.

That the Danes have borne and will bear a great
deal those who have read my foregoing corres-
pondence will readily believe. Yet it is too often
a mere featherweight that breaks the camel's back,
and the courage that cannot be daunted may in the
long run bo worn oat. I see no symptoms of
drooping spirits among the men, as I said, but some
of the wisest as well es bravest officers look grave,
and evince some degree of uneasiness. As I know
them to be the very raen who wilt do their duty to
the last, I have no hesitation in making myself the
interpreter of their apprehensions, because I believe
them to be grounded on a correct knowledge of the
situation. The position of Dybbol, they always
said, is strong, but by no means impregnable, and
a fortress the garrison of which has ceased to ven-
ture on a sortie can, indeed, ward off for a long
time, but hardly avert, its fate. I do not believe
that by a candid statement of the difficulties with
which the Danish army ha 3 to contend I make my-
self guilty of indiecretion, or compromise the safety
of my Danish friends. Were the worst to come to
the worst it will be well for the Danes that