The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-15 00:00:00

THE WAR IN DENMARK.

(From the 2imes Special Correspondent with the Danis,
Amy.)

DANISH HEADQUARTERS, SONDERBORG,
March 7.

Diplomatic negotiations seem to proceed as slowly
as military operations, and the Schleswig-Holstein
question is as difficult to be settled by protocols as
it is to be decided by bayonets. We know nothing,
or next to nothing, of what may be going on be-
yond the few square miles which constitute our
little world, and are at a loss to make out from the
newspapers the various phases through which the
Conference is said to pass. The conviction here,
meanwhile, is that the war is not at an end; cannot
come to an end without at least some great whole-
sale slaughter round about the bastions of Dybbol.
No power of arguments, nor threats or promises, no
amount of distress or exhaustion, will (we are told)
ever bring Denmark to fresh concessions. The advice
of well-meaning but lukewarm allies has already
cost her too much. It was owing to their remora•
strances that she fell back before Federal Execution
in Holstein, that she gave up Rendsburg and Fre-
derickstadt, and finally abandoned even the Denne-
werk almost without striking the blow. She will
no longer be coaxed or bullied out of Dybbol, Fre-
dericia, or Fehmarn. The most heroic valour may
not enable her to save more than her honour; but
she is determined that, in the worst events, her fall
shall be as glorious as her career has been from its
earliest rise to the present day.
On the other hand, the Danes say their enemies
also have ventured too far to be able to withdraw
without disgrace. The Prussians have to look to their
deputation as a martial nation. They cannot go back
with such laurels as they have up to this time reaped
in this campaign. The magniloquent proclamation
of Prince Frederick Charles, his bombastic assurance
to his soldiers that " to have belonged to the artil-
lery before Missunde would have been equivalent
to a badge of bravery for any man during his life-
time," would long be used against him and his as a
byword, unless some deed of arms worthy of the
old traditions of the Seven Years' War were to make
amends for the slackness and slowness with which
Prussians have behaved hitherto. It is not with an
army which has consented to play second fiddle to
the Austrian that Prussia can make good her pre-
tensions to German Ilegemonie, or hold her own on
the Rhine as a first-rate Power, ready on any emere
gency to withstand the onset of France. She has
come sur le terrain, and fight she must. She can-
not welcome back her troops in Berlin with their
brand of impotence against such a puny enemy as
Denmark numerically is. She must have at least
this poor nook of Dybbol and Alsen to boast of as
a conquest, to set off against a wanton expenditure
of men and money, against the intolerable brag and
bluster with which she has been for the last two
months blowing her own trumpet.
Hence is it that none of us interested in the issue
of this Dano-German difficulty venture to quit the
spot. Days may be wasted in idleness and ennui—
weeks may follow weeks without any incident worth
noting ; but the conflict is sure to come in the end,
and it will be a conflict worth witnessing and tell.
ing of—a conflict rising to a pitch of tremendous
sublimity commensurate with the length of time
employed by the belligerents in making ready for it.
It is not in our power to make out to our satisfac-
tion how, the Prussians are employing their time.
It is, however, natural to suppose that, after a whole
month's hesitation, they have come to the conclusion
that the Dybbol position is not to be taken by storm.
Marshal Wrangel has 'tried his hand at that kind of
work years ago, when the Dybbol line relied for its
strength almost entirely on its natural advantages,
and he must be aware that an assault would cost at

the present time ten times as much blood as was
shed in 1848-50, without result. Dybbol must,
therefore, be attacked not with the bayonet but
with the cannon, and the ground will, perhaps,
only eventually be gained by the slow process of
parallels. The amount of artillery with which the
Prussians are preparing to open fire on the Dybbol
batteries must be something enormous. All our
accounts, at least, concur in appalling us with the
numbers of heavy pieces which have been for the
whole month going through Hamburg, ltecdsburg,
Schleswig, and Flensburg. There is no doubt also
but the Prussians as well as the Austrians have
been sedulously following every step made by the
art of gunnery in our own times, that they havu
profited by French, English, and American inven-
tiveness, and contributed their own share to the
common stock of modern destructive contrivances.
Their advantage over the Danes in mere weapons
is as manifest as their superiority in numbers. Nor
are they deficient in their means of conveyance of
all this heavy material. The railway was in ope-
ration as far as Flensburg almost immediately after
the fall of the Dannewerk ; and from Flensburg to
their outposts at Nybol the distance does not ex-
ceed a score of English miles. For the last tea or
twelve days the weather has been rather sloppy,
and the thaw which has been softening the ground
by imperceptible degrees has now been aided by
heavy rains, which have turned the whole country,
roads and fields, into a vast quagmire. The batta-
lions marching to outposts or returning hence
morning and evening have to paddle in the mud
up to their knees, and are drenched to the very

bones day and night. Spring has its horrors in this
climate no less than winter, and the transitio❑
season is apt to combine the evils of the two
extremes and aggravate them. I must say that the
Danes manage to thrive equally well under the in-
fluence of ,all atmospheric inclemency, and they

suffer even less from thorough wet than they did
from intense cold. Their climate is something be-
tween Russian frost and English moisture, but they
are used not only to either, but, what is far more try.
ing, to the frequent alternation and rapid transition
from the ono to the other.
Whether the Prussians will fare as well under such
circumstances you will probably learn from other
sources. But what is important to our present sub-
ject is that the softening of the ground in this
thorough thaw enables the engineers on either side
to complete and extend their earthworks with the
utmost speed. Hitherto the Danes had been doing
%s enders, though they had to contend with a soil
hardened by the frost to the strength of granite.
Trenches and bastions will now rise, and rifle-pits
are dug with far greater ease and speed, and when
we hear that the Prussians will be ready to open
fire on the 11th, and that they have appointed the
23d (their king's birthday) for the trial and deci-
sive onset, we may well believe that there will arise
at least no material obstacle to prevent their being
as good as their word. With all the advantage of
weapons and superiority of numbers, however, the
Prussians will find, if they really attack Dybbol,
that they will have a hard nut to crack.

MARCH 8,

We have by no means cheering news to-day from
Tolland. The Austrians have advanc.d very large
forces against Frederieia and pushed their conquests

as far as Erritso, and another village, both of them
at about two English miles from the main strong-

hold of Fredericia ; the former place lies on the
Sound, and ought to enable the Austrians not only
to bombard the fortress, but also to command the

passage of the Sound to Middlefort, in Funen. The
intelligence has reached headquarters here about
noon, and the telegram was so laconic and oracular
th't it "al import onnet he ratisfdaorily Marie