The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-22 00:00:00

THE WAR IN DENMARK.

(From the 2imcs Special Correspondent with the Aned

Armies.)

BROACKER, April 16.

The Prussian batteries are lazy this sunny fore-
noon, Their monotonous thunder is heard at longer
intervals than has lately been the case. Yesterday,
too, was a comparatively quiet day. This is in dis-
cord with the recent report that the bombardment
was to be continued with redoubled vigour, in com-
pliance with the supreme injunction that the Danes
are to be as much as possible damaged and their
powers of defence impaired by the action of the
artillery, before the lives of Prussian soldiers are
risked in the assault of the entrenchments. It is
generally believed here that the assault would
already have taken place but for orders received
from Berlin to postpone it until it could be made
with the least possible loss to the besiegers,
Yesterday the fire seemed, relatively speaking, to be
more lively on the left than on the right, so I went
in the former direction. The 6-pounder batteries,
the first to the north of West Duppel, are distributed
in sections of twos, at short distances from each
other. They were firing at forts 7 to 9, and between
them, at places where they believed Danish troops
to be stationed. From these batteries I moved for-
ward to the advanced posts, and happened to find an
acquaintance iu the officer commanding those on
that part of the line, and he kindly accompanied me
to the beat points for seeing the forts, to which we
were able to got very near, there being a kind of
cartel between the line of pickets on either side not
to fire upon each other. So Prussians and Danes
stood or sat in their respective pits about 50 yards
apart, and officers visited them, and reliefs came and
went, without a shot being fired. It seems, how-
ever, that the tacit convention was not sufficiently
stringent to inspire full confidence. " If thoeo fel-
lows fire when we go forward," said the officer to
his second in command as he walked away with us
from his picket, " let them have it." But the fellows
did not fire, as we advanced, a party of four, to a
small trench dug in a field, the rearmost edge of
which was covered with straw and effi>rded an
excellent seat, while in front the earth of the ex-
cavation had been thrown up into a low parapet.
There we sat and chatted and basked in the sun,
and watched the blue-coated Danes standing
apathetically at their posts, and had an ex•
tremely near and good view of the forts, which
would have seemed deserted had not a human
figure now and then shown itself on their summit or
in the embrasures. The earthworks bore abundant
marks of shells, boles, and irregularities of surface,
but for defensive purpoaes they did not seem
to me one bit the worse than when their sides
were smooth and their surface level. They appear
to be all connected by covered ways, with what
looks like a regular wall with small embrasures.
In front of each fort is a line of posts, connected by
strong wires, to impede the advance of the assault-
ing party, which it will hardly do for a moment,
since the advancing troops will be provided with
the necessary implements to sever the wires. rhe
earthworks are certainly formidable to scale, but I
doubt whether a month's bombardment would render
them materially less to, judging from the little
effect as yet produced by the heavy fire directed
against them. If they do receive considerable
damage it is evident that such damage is easily re-
paired. The extremely accurate and destructive
fire of the Prussian artillery must destroy men and
guns in the forts, but there is reason to believe that
the former remain in their bomb-proofs and that
most of the latter have been removed. The Danes
do not fire from their forts in the day, and, when
they do so at night, it has been observed that it is
nearly all from one fort on one night and all from
another fort on the next—now all from No. 2, then
all from No. 8, and so on. The Prussians imagine,
therefore, that they have a few guns which they
move about from one fort to another, hoping so to
blind their opponents to the fact of their having
withdrawn the greater part of their heavy artillery.
It is probable, however, that they will have suffi-
cient pieces there, when the hour of the assault shall
strike, to welcome the storming party with grape,
and probably they will also unmask field artillery
behind the walls connecting the forts. In short,
though mortars and rifled 24's and heavy teege guns
do their worst during the whole time that can be
expected possible to elapse between this and the
assault, the line of bastions on Duppel heights will
still be an extremely difficult place to storm ; and it
the Danes stand their ground resolutely, the loss of
the Prussians must be heavy. I have heard officers
express a hope that the loss while going over the
glacis will not be heavy, for they apprehend that it
the soldiers see their friends and comrades falling
thickly by their sides they will become so exes-
perateci that little quarter will be given, and that
there will be no possibility of checking the work of
slaughter when once they get into the place.
We quitted our post of observation without a
shot having been fired at us, end, while returning,
the commander of the picket informed us that the
courtesy between the outposts was carried to such
an extent that Danes and Prussians mutually sa-
luted each other's officers when these went down to
visit the advanced sentries. Proceeding further
north, we came to a battery of four 24 pounders.
A general had just arrived oe a visit to it, and those
capital guns were firing briskly, and with wonder-
ful accuracy, at the D _knish redoubt, just to the north
of Sonderborg, of which town we obtained a capital
north-westerly view. A large white building in the
upper part of the town seems to have been gutted
by the recent fire, at least the windows were gone
and the inside looked blackened. The guns in the ree
doubt, plainly visible, remained mute as shell after
shell went plunging into the battery. A small house
or farm a little to the Danish right had been set on
fire by a shell, and was in flames. We had a good
view of Alsen Sand, and distinguished some of the
batteries on its opposite shore. Some distance further
north another 21 pounder battery was firing across
at a gunboat, I was told, lying in an inlet, but which
I could not distinri'h. Towards the right, at I re-

turned to West Duppel, I could see the Prussians
working at their new parallel, undisturbed by the
enemy, who apparently fears to fire by day, on ac-
count of the storm of shells which is immediately di-
rected, with an aim that rarely errs, at the embrasure
whence his shot issues. At 9 o'clock at night, as I
have been informed, the work, suspended at sunset,
recommenced, and was continued until 2 a.m., un-
molested, strange though it seems, by the Danes,
until just upon its close. The officers urged their
men to silence and spud, reminding them that
they were within easy grape range, and that their
lives hung upon a hair and depended on ther ex-
ertions. The soldiers worked with a will and filled
their gabions in doable quick time. At last the
Danes found it out—incomprehensible is it that
they did not sooner do so—and opened a rattling
fire of grape, bat the work was done and the
parallel in a state to brave it. Its nearest point is
estimated to be at only 260 paces from the forts, its
furthest at 340. This is getting pretty close. It
is now said that this p irallel, the fourth—reckoning
the half parallel as No. 2—will be armed with
short twelves smooth bores.

Under these circumstances it is impossible to be-
lieve that the assault will be much longer deferred.
I believe that if Prince Frederick Charles had his
own way it would take place within 24 hours. It
may be doubted whether recent delays will have been
altogether as advantageous in the way of diminish-
ing loss of life as was expected by those who ordered
them. It has given the Danes time to bring up their
ships. It is not very long, if I rightly remember,
since your Sonderborg correspondent mentioned
that the Rolf Krake was the only ironclad the Danes
had in these parts. Now we have got the Danne-
brog, which, although she was not in sight yester-
day, is not likely to have gone very far, and this
morning appeared the Skiold line-of-battleship, and
anchored at some distance off Schelde. Persons who
observed the Dannebrog through good glasses, when
she lay off Alsen, affirm that she is undoubtedly
iron-plated. A considerable movement of vessels
in the offing wcs just now reported to me, and it is
supposed that some of them are men-of-war. Iron
or no iron, it is presumable that when the supreme
moment arrives the Danish naval squadron will
have to play its part and run its risks. The latter
will not be small if it presents itself within range
of the batteries that now bristle on the shores and
at the entrance of the Yenning Bund.

APRIL 17.

The Prussian fire continued very slack all yester•
day. During the night it was heavier at intervals.
The Ddb Cs fired with some effect at Parallel 2, and
I hear that several men were wounded. About 11
p.m. there was some very sharp firing. This morn-
ing I have scarcely heard a gun ; but it is still early
—a sunny, quiet, Sabbath morn, a pleasant change
from yesterday, which was windy and bitterly cold
with clouds ofdust flying. It is impossible to divine
the tactics of the Prussian commanders, or why—
being now so very close to the forts—they do not
redouble their fire, if they hope thereby to render
them easier to capture, or else make the assault.
If they wait until- wet weather comes and the
ground gets soaked and slippery it will greatly in-
crease the difficulties to be overcome by the storm-
ing party. They can hardly contemplate opening
another parallel, or sapping their way up in the
the Wads. Something decisive must surely soon
occur; everybody is on the qui vine, and there are
plenty of persons who tell you most positively that
the final attack cannot be delayed beyond such or
such a day. lam slow to,hazard predictions which
Prussian patience and prudence might falsify.

In the latest number of the limes that has
reached me I see the announcement, sent from
Copenhagen by telegraph, of an" attempted assault
on the Dybbol entrenchments." Bastion 8 and
the Danish left wing are said to have both been
attacked, and both attacks cf course signally
failed. It is true that the Danish Commander-
in-Chief merely says that bo►h wings had
been "alarmed" by the enemy, and the tele-
graphic agency would have been nearer the mark
had it kept to the same statement, instead of sacri-
ficing truth to sensation headings. I can only again
assure you that hitherto there has been no attack
whatever upon the Duppel forts with a view to
storming them. I see that some papers still talk of
the affiir of the 28th ult, as if it had been then in-
tended to assault; but I need hardly point out to
you !hit, had such been the case, very different pre-
parations would have been made, and a powerful
force would have been brought up to the front, in-
stead of only one regiment being there as a reserve
to the two sent forward to conquer the ground re-
quired for the opening of a parallel. The Dance
seem to dream of assaults. They may rest assured
that, when one does come, it will be a very different
sort of business from anything they as yet have seen.
A curious adventure happened three nights ago
is a company of the 60th Begiment. In the course
of some skirmishing that took place it got too far
forward, and, when day broke, it found itself in a
slight hollow of the ground so near to Forts I and
2 that, had it attempted to return to its own lines,
it must have been annihilated by the Danish grape.
The shelter afforded it by the nature of the ground
was so trifling that the men were obliged to lie down
flat upon their bellies to avoid being shot by the
Danes. In this unpleasant position they remained
the whole day. It a man raised his head or arm, or
made any other movement from his completely re-
cumbent posture, the enemy opened fire, and six
were wounded in this way, and are now in hospital
here. It may seem strange that the Danes did not
sally out to make the company prisoners, but by
doing so they would have exposed themselves to
the fire of the parallels, and, moreover, might have
brought on a serious conflict, as the Prussians
could hardly allow their men to be captured before
their eyes without making an effort to prevent it.
It was not until 9 or 10 in the evening that the
company, with which were a captain and two lieu-
tenants, succeeded, under cover of the darkness, in
rejoining their friends. They had had :nothing to
eat the whole time, for, although they had provi-
sions in their pockets or haversacks, any movement
that they made to get at them exposed them to
the enemy's fire.