The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-27 00:00:00

Standing on the door-sill of the court of Ron-
have, or on the skirts of the woods at Arn-
kielsore, I could distinctly sea over the water a
few Prussians moving about in the woods of
Sandbjerg and Storeskov. Those woods belong
to a fine landed estate, the property of one of
the many branches of the Reventlow family, and the
beautiful Slot or Palace of Sandbjerg rises close to
the water-side, on the opposite shore, about half a
mile from the spot where I stood. In the pleasure
grounds and the Chase of Sandbjerg, then, the
Austro-Prussians have lodged themselves, and alto-
gether I may have counted about 100 of them. They
were all Prussians, and all infantry men; and the
pickets on duty on our (the Danish) side and the
peasantry on the spot assured me no artillery, pon-
toon, or bridge equipage was anywhere to be seen.
The evidence of their eyes or of mine goes for no-
thing, however, for very extensive operations might
be carried on under cover of the bare, but dense
plantation. The width of the Sound, which, as I
said, is only 150 yards at the bridges of Sonderborg
is, to say the least, twice as great on the narrow est
point opposite to Storeskov. What means modern
engineering may have to bridge over a sheet of water
nearly a third of an English mile in width competent
persons can judge; bat what is very sure, at any
rate, is that all attempts at crossing would be gal-
lantly resisted by the Danes. Wherever I went, all
along the Sound, on tLe slope of the banks trenches
were being rapidly thrown up, and at the water
edge rifle pits were being dug for picket service.
The Danes had hitherto no proper forts on the
Sound, because they relied, as they still in a great
measure rely, on the aid of their gunboats ; but their
field batteries are drawn up in the very best order
at every farm house, and could be brought to bear on
any threatened spot in not many minutes.
Not only along the Sound, but all alongpe line of
Dybbol, on the mainland, the Danes are striving to
add artificial strength to what is already naturally
a very strong position. They keep no less than
6,000 men constantly at work. Every time I ride
to the outposts, and that is almost daily, I see new
bastions raised, new fields levelled, palisades reared,
and huts constructed for the accommodation of the
troops. Brave as the Danes are on the open field,
they,seem aware that their fate lies rather in de.
fence than attack, and in this present instance they
are but too much justified in seeking in stone walls
and earth bastions a vantage ground to counter-
balance the enormous numerical superiority of their
adversary. May be all them active and extensive
preparations will have been made in vain, and
armistice and peace may be concluded before new
"Danes' work" be quite ready for use; but the
Danes themselves, soldiers aid officers, will hear no
more about the cessation of hostilities. They long
to measure their strength with that of the Germans,
and are especially anxious for a brush with the
Prussians. Next in favour to their national air,
"Den tappre Landsoldat," is the other song, "Nu
skal vi da atter med Preusserne slaaes" (Now shall
we again with the Prussians fight), which they sing
with great spirit and exultttioo, loud enough to be
heard at the outposts on the other side.
The whole of the Third Division of the Danes
Army has left us, part of it embarking directly for
Fredericia, in Jutland, ani the remainder crossing
over the ferries into rano, to march across that
island through Middelfartto the same destination.
The Commander-in-Chief of the division, General
Wilster, was still here yesterday, but has in all pro-
bability followed his troops in the night. The
Danish army is thus virtually divided into two.
However active the compunications between the
head-quarters here and General Wilster'e Staff at
Fredericia, the movements of the latter officer must
to a great extent be left to his own discretion and
responsibility.
The Danish army
consists of three divisions, com-
mended by Generals Gerlich, Du Plat, and Wilster.
Every division has three infantry brigades, each
brigade composed of two regiments, with two bat-
talions to each regiment,. A Danish battalion
musters 800 men, a regiment, consequently, 1,600,
a brigade 3,200, and a division 9,600. Each divi-
sion is, besides, provided with two field-batteries,
about 400 men, and half a regiment of dragoons,
about 300. Altogether a division, in its perfect
state of efficiency, consists of no less than 10,300
men. The three divisions make a total of 30,900.
There is, besides, a fourth, or cavalry division, un-
der the orders of Gen.llegermann-Lindercrone, con-
sisting of three cavalry brigades, each brigade of
two cavalry regiments, each regiment of six squad-.
rens, with 120 men for each squadron. This would
make a force a 720 men for each regiment, 1,440
for each brigade, Rad 4,320 for the whole division.
The Danes, as I have stated,
have only infantry
of the line; nothing like riflemen% sharpshooters,
Zouaces, or Bersaglieri, All their foot soldiers are
capital shots. There are Peculiar evolutions for light
infantry, however, for which all infantry men are
not equally fit, and which require a great amount
of special training. In Italy, for instance, the Ber-
saglieri corps, which was once one battalion, and
now consists of 23 regiments (so useful has its action
been found found in late campaigns), is almost whollY
cruited among the mountaineers of Piedmont, Lom -
hardy, Liguria, Sec., es the inhabitants of the plain
are deficient in that hardihood,
agility
which are required for all the running, leaping,
crouching, and crawling indispensable in twaalleur
activit
service. Many of the very mountain lads that are
entered in the Bersaglieri corps have soon to be made
over to the infantry of the line, as they too often
break down under the severe exertions by which
their powers of endurance are tested. Possibly the
and supple for that kind of work.
Danes, however strong,
All this does not include four reserve regiments
of foot and the artillery reserve. On the whole,
are not sufficiently agile
taking into account the losses the army has suffered
in dead, wounded, and prisoners, during the week's
hostilities on the D an me w erke, the few stragglers on
the retreat, and the sick in hospital, it may be safe
to compute the number of actual combatants on the
line to something between 25,000 and 30,000. Some
of the reserve having lately come up from Copen-
hagen. I am inclined to think that the atter num-
ber is nearer to the truth; but ar l
mies, asy
one knows. never ere on the grclurla what they IT.

that the cadres of every battalion, regiment,
pear on paper; and I would not undertake to assert
brigade, or divieJien in she Danish army are quite
filled up. Some very fir", bOtalions of Grenadiers
of the King's Guard,
and a Nna2ron of 120 gigan-
tic cuirassiers of the Life Guards, whom I so greatly
admired at Copenhagen, never appear el. in the
Duchy of Schleswig, even when the King vh;.9 at
headquarters at Castle Gottorp, or here at Sonder-
borg. Now that his Majesty has gone back to the
capital it would be idle, I suppose, to look for the
arrival of those household troops, which ought never
to move except by way of escort and protection to
the Royal person.
By all accounts that reach us from the invaded
part,s of the Duchy of Sehleswig,lit would seem that
the Austro-Prussians are bent on discountenancing
all revolutionary movements and so-called patriotic
demonstrations so far as their occupation extends.
It was only on their first arrival at Eckernforde,
Schleswig, and other towns that, in the midst of the
enthusiasm got up among the German party for the
reception of the " brotherly" troops, and in their
anxiety to mind their own special business, which
was the attack on the Dannewerk, the commanders
of the two invading armies were compelled to allow
the demagogues chasmal swing. But now, it ''
would seem, thes commanders find them.
selves more fully at their leisure, and they
have very clearly intimated to the Schleswigers
that they will bear no hand in any political
innovation, and, limiting themselves to admi-
nister the country as much as possible accord-
ing to its old laws and institutions, they will leave
the future destinies of the Duchies in the hands of
those whom it may concern. For my own part,
there is no stronger conviction in my mind than
that the Schleswigers and even the Holeteiners,
are a people not to be moved to any revolutionary
act except by a very strong pressure on the
part of foreign agitators. Had Denmark been left
alone with her subjects, I feel sure, whatever the
feelings of nationality might be in the heart of some
of them that the Schleswig-Holsteiners would never
have given very alarming sigi;s of disaffection ; for
it is undeniable, on the one hand, that they could
under no German Government have; attained so
great an amount of wellbeing, culture, and real free-
dom as they enjoyed under their Danish rule.% and
on the other, that they were fully aware how weD
off they were, and their contentment was, to say
the least, commensurate with their native loyalty
and submissiveness, their love of order and respect
for constituted authority.
It is idle to say that they were kept quiet by
main force; it must not be forgotten that the two
Duchies constituted two-fifths of the Danish mo-
narchy, and a population of that strength supported
by all the national party in Germany would have
been fully equal to a contest with the crown of
Denmark, had that Crown exercised any tyrannical
sway over them, had the discontent been so rife
among them as the German newspapers describe it.
These are, however, political topics, and only to
be touched upon in the event of warlike operations
giving way before diplomatic negotiations.
FEB. 18.
Those of the readers of the Times who have had
patience to read through my foregoing letters will
have gained, I should hope, a sufficiently distinct
knowledge of the respective position of the bellige-
rent parties here to be able to follow the events
which have taken place this day to set a proper
value upon-their importance.
From Flensburg and Aabenraa (Apenrade), as I
before said, the Austro•Prussians, advancing through
the Sondeved, or Sundewitt, peninsula, between the
two fiords which take their names from these towns,
and facing this little isle of Als, or Alsen, had come
up by the south road from Flensburg, through
Ringences, Graasten, and Aldbol, as far as Nybol,
and by the northern road from Aaberiraa, through
unarm') to Obitissape ‘h.ir chainnxt.
as far as the woods of Sandbjerg, on the Allssund.
Besides these two avenues, both of which concen•
trate upon the Danish position at Dybbol, the Ger-
mans had left the main southern road at Alnor,
between Ringensei and Graasten; and from Allier
had taken possession of the Egernsund, throwing a
pontoon bridge across that narrow strait, and thus
advancing into the minor peninsula of Broagerland
by Skodsbol and Smol they came by a third road
upon the Dybbol position. We heard the day be-
fore yesterday that Marshal Wrang h
el ad moved
his head-quarters up to RingenE3, and that some
of the Prussian outposts had advanced into the
Broagerland peninsula as far as Smol. Yesterday
about 100 of them were seen in the woods of Sand-
bjerg and Scorskov, on the Alssund, whence, they
fired on the Danish pickets across the strait, bat
without any result, as apparently without object.
All these movements, however, evinced on the
part of the enemy some desire to break the mono-
tonous stillness to which they have condemned them-
selves since they first came in sight of the fortifica-
tions at Dybbol; and we all went to bed last night
with the expectation of being awakened by the
noise of an attack in the morning.
You may remember, perhaps, that at Ole time of
my first trying to lay before the reader the vosition
of the Danes at Dybbol, I expressed my survrise
that they should have allowed the enemy a free ant!
easy entrance into the Broager peninsula, as I
thought that by their command of the water they
might so strongly have occupied the Egernaund as
not only to hold that strait against any force, but
also to enable themselves to send their gunboats
into the Nybol Nor, and molest their enemy in
their advance along shore on the road from Adsbol
to Nybol. That precaution was not taken ; the
Austro-Prussians were freely let in across the
Egernsund and into the Broager peninsula; or, as
it now appears, they were lured in—they were
allowed to come up through Skodsbol and Smol
with a hope that they might be caught in a trap.
How many of them have actually ventured into
the Broager peninsula we have no means to ascer-
tain. That they had got as far as Smol, however,
was well known, and the Danes, thinking the net
was full, thought it high time to draw it up. This
morning at a very early hour the cannon was
heard. It was the Danish Monitor Rolf Krake,
which had steamed up to the Egernaund in the
eight, and at break of day opened fire on the
bridge thrown by the Germans across the strait.
The Monitor, it seems, could not, owing to the
shallowness of the water, advance near enough
fully to accomplish her purpose. We know nothing
very precise, at least as to the effects of her fire
upon the bridge. She fired 72 shots, and was
answered by the German batteries on shore at
Alnor and Holdnces (the latter place across the
Flensburg fiord) with 150 shots; One of the ene.
enemies' shots took effect, it is said, through her
funnel, but without materially disabling her; one
of her officers received a contusion, and two sailors
were slightly wounded.
It would seem in the meanwhile that the Austro-
Prussians, uncertain of the issue of that struggle,
which might in all probability have destroyed the
brOge across the Egernaund and completely cut off
their ;retreat over the road by which they had come,
felt it incumbent upon them to secure an open way
through tie isthmus of the Broager peninsula by
an open attack on the outposts of the Danish posi-
tion at Dybbol. A mere glance at the map, and the
knowledge that the outposts of the Danes are at
Dybbol and those of the Austro-Prussians at Nybol,
will satisfy the reader that the ground between
Dybbol and Nybol, which corresponds precisely to
the neck or isthmus of the Broager peninsula, is a
kind of debatable ground, occupied by the pickets
of either party, and in the permanent possession of
neither. By far the greater part of this ground is
covered by large woods, bearing to the north of the
road the name of Stenterup SkOw, and to the south
of the road that of Boffel Skov. This morning, to.
wards 11, the Austro-Prussians walked out of
Nybol in a large force, and after short skirmish-
lug they drove in the Danish pickets, P,-ad scut,

It was a fortnight last night since the main
strength of the Danish army marched out of Schles-
wig, beginning its toilsome and disastrous retreat
from the Dannewerk. It will be a fortnight to-
morrow evening since the Danes sought the safe
shelter of Alsen, and of the redoubted bastions at
Dybbol, the great outwork of this their sea-girt
fortress. The AustroTrussians were then in hot
pursuit, and they have ever since stood face to face
with the Danish pickets on every avenue concen-
trating from west, north, and south upon this
place. Yet the two hostile forces have been ever
since almost completely at rest, and the last san-
guinary affair was the brush between the rear of
the pursued party and the van of the pursuers at
Bilskorkrug or Oversee, on the evening of Sunday
before last. 0 C course, when I say this I take into no
account some occasional unavoidable and almost in-
voluntary exchanges of shots at the outposts, nor
even of the skirmish of last Thursday, of which I
5-•••-. an 5i,,,,-...t in my letter .of that date, and
which was altogether of the Danes' own seeking. It
wes the attempt of the Danish Monitor ltolf lirake
to burn the pontoon bridge at Egernsund, so as to
cut off the Prussians' retreat from the Broager Pen-
insula, which prompted the German forward move-
ment from Nybol and the occupation of the Stente-
rup and Boffel Woods. They hoped thereby to open
a way for their troops in Broagerland through the
isthmus of the little peninsula, in the event of the
egress across the Egernsund being intercepted. The
attempt of the Rolf Brake was unsuccessful because
a round cape at the entrance of the strait on the
eastern shore completely masked the bridge, and
the water on the western shore was too shallow for
her cannon to come within reach of its aim. The
safety of the bridge reassured the Austro-Prussians,
who had no further object in their advance into the
woods, and who therefore lost no time in retiring
I within their own lines at Nybol,declining all conflicts
Why they should keep so quietly within these
lines, why the invasion of the Duchy of Schleswig,
which began with so much ardour and vigour on
their part, should come to a standstill before the
bastions of Dybbol, is precisely the problem with
the solution of which men's minds are busy here.
That the position at Dybbol is formidable, and
that the Germans are aware of its strength, is
matter of certainty, for they turned all their en-
deavours against it in 1849, when it had hardly
more than its natural advantages to rely upon, and
were driven from it again and again. It is ex-
tremely natural for them to wish to put off their
attack until they have brought up all the heavy
material they can muster ; but a fortnight is a
long lapse of time for the accomplishment of such
a task with the present means of locomotion they
have at their command, those means which en-
abled the so soon to prepare for the storming
of the Dannewerk, Oa the other hand, they
must be aware that the Danes on their own side i
are not idle, but are adding bastion to bastion
and trench upon trench, so as to make assurance
doubly sure. All that the engineers here
asked was just a fortnight's breathing time, and
during this interval new works have risen as if by
magic, and whenever the assailants are ready they
will be quite sure to find the defenders fully as
ready for them.
As day follows day and no news is the news, we be-
gin to think that the expected attack will never take
place, and we have been all this time tossed about
between the hopes and fears of an armistice till the
declarations of diplomatists in various countries set
our minds at rest on that score. The Germans will
not cease from hostilities, yet they will not dash their
heads against the ramparts at Dybbol. Possibly
they wish to carry on the war on softer ground in a
different quarter. We have positive intelligence,
indeed, that two days ago they crossed the frontier
line which separates the Duchy of Schleswig from
Jutland, and our anticipations of hot work there are
so general that I have been more than once on the
point of taking my berth in one of the steamers
sailing regularly more than once a day to Frede-
ricia.
The invasion of the northern part of the penin.
sula—of that purely Danish province which is
neither, like Holstein, a member of the German
Confederacy, nor, like Schleswig, a territory ~ in-
dissolubly united with it," as the Germans would
have it, and which, indeed, was not even inciden-
tally mentioned in that Treaty of 1852, the turns
of which the Austro-Prussians have undertaken to
enforce—the invasion of Jutland, I said, seemed to
the people here too monstrous a breach of all laws
to be justified even by the exigencies of the most
internecine war. That the two German Powers
who have now the whole of Schleswig in their
hands except this little island, and the four
square miles of ground adjoining it on the main-
land, should not think they had accomplished
their great object until they held literally every
inch of Schleswig at their discretion, might be
possible, and the war might be expected to go
on to the utter annihilation of the army shel-
tering at Alsen. But what passes all belief is, that
i seeing thenlearec, with all their enormous suPe-

NE wspt Eit
---'1...
riority of numbers, unequal to the t
_:6 T ' ' atk- Vsla4,
--i s •
Alsen and Dybbol, they should, witkoktaii - "aapesja
eit. a. 4i4
much as trying one assault, seek eatencilii nati ptil,l?
'4;74 "el. 14,/
elsewhere, and. try to strike Denmark a a
vulnerable part, shrinki- from no ungenerouel s
measure to put the screw upon her, and bring her
to terms by all means in their power, and with all
possible speed.
It is certainly not in the power of Denmark to
guard all the frontier of Jutland, and the Austro-
Prussians will find it as easy to overrun it to the
very end of the peninsula as they found it to occupy
all Schleswig after the fall of the Dannewerk. But,
on the very frontier of that province, at Fredericia,
there is a position as likely to brave their efforts for
a length of time, as Alsen and Dybbol have evidently
stemmed the tide of their too ready victories in
Schleswig. The fortress of Fredericia, together wit It
the little Peninsula in which it rises, aided, like this
place, by inlets of the sea favouring the naval ope-
rations of the Panes, is, as it were, a third D ; tine-
werk, offering no greater temptation to an ueenter-
prising enemy chary of his blood teen the place
before which the Germans are now skulking with
far more discretion than valour.
The Danes are evidently anticipating great feats
of arms on the Jutland frontier, and they are strain-
inc, every nerve to throw the best of their forces
into Fredericia. You are aware that the best part of
their cavalry, in their retreat from the Dannewerk,
never came in here at all, but marched on from
Flensburr through Apenrade and Hadersley into
Jutland. Since then 4,000 men at first, and sub-
sequently the whole of the third division, were
shipped off from Sonderburg to Fridericia, and I
saw this morning a beautiful regiment of dragoons,
nearly the whole of the cavalry that we had here,
embarking for the same destination. Alsen and
Dybbol are at present all but disarmed and power-
less for offensive purposes, and although the 12,000
men, infantry and artillery, that we still have
here are more than sufficient to hold the place
senst all odds, still it is not a little to be regretted
that, in the event of an attack by the enemy and of
his defeat, no means should be at hand for efficient
pursuit. Probably the removal of all these troops
with such reckless haste to the North revea:s an in-
tention on the part of the Danes to carry on opera-
tions on the open field in Jutland. The disparis j ~f
numbers, and even the inferiority of weapons, par-
ticularly rifle and cannon, would seem to preclude
the hope on their side of any warfare on a large
scale. What they could not accomplish behind the
Dannewerk bulwarks and the deep waters of the
Schlei they can hardly expect to do on the wide
plains of Jutland. They may harass the Germans
with a few weeks' petite guerre, truly; but even for
that kind of work their somewhat unwieldy infan-
try and heavy cavalry do not seem well suited.
Sooner or later Fredericia and her peninsula will be
as closely invested as Alsen and Dybbol sow are,
and, that being the case, it remains matter of un-
certainty whether the Austro-Prussians will try
their strength against Fredericia any more than
against this place, or whether they will not rather
mask both places, and, by avoiding all conflict
themselves and putting all conflict on the part of
the Danes out of the question, lord it all over the
peninsula from Kiel to Aarhuus.
I do not think there can be any doubt as to the
posier the Germans have of driving the Danes
utterly from the field if they choose to put forth
sufficient forces for that purpose, although the
Danes themselves fondly believe that the subject
admits of dispute. The position at Dybbol and the
peninsula at Fridericia present but a narrow ap-
proach to the invader ; but that very narrowness of
approach, favourable as it is for defence, is no less
unfavourable for offensive purposes. The garrison.
shut up in its corner, and caught, as it were, in a
trap, can only attempt a sally in one direction, and
there the enemy awaits it on a strip of ground
almost as narrow as the approach of the fortress
itself. Posted on the neck of the Sundewitt penin-
sula, for instance, between Adsbol or Bsilegaard, or
even nearer us, between Nybol and Sandbjerg, the
Austro-Prussians have a line of only five, or, in the
latter case, three miles to guard against the Danes.
Supposing the Germans to be no more than 20,000
on this line, they would always be as two to one
against any force that could attempt a sortie from
Alsen and Dybbol; and the isthmus of the Frede-
hricia peninsula would be even a closer field for
ossifying garrison to try its strength on. Were
even 20,000 men insufficient to completely mask,
invest, and shut in the fortresses, the Germans
might easily sit down before each of them with
40,000 or 50,000, and they could still command
50,000 more for the easy subjugation of the unarmed
population. The Danes seem inclined to put their
trust in ships, and think that, while leaving in
their two strongholds a sufficient number of de-
fenders, they could land small forces here and there
so as to harass the enemy on many points and wear
him out by incessant desultory warfare. All this,
however, would not lead to a happy termination of
the struggle in their favour ; it would not pat an
end to the foreign occupation of all their main-
land. The siege of the two fortresses and a series
of guerilla exploits would be all that Europe
might look forward to for six or eight months or
a year to come. At the end of that period the
Danes would still be where they were a fort-
night ago; they would still have to repurehase
their own peninsula, or such part of it as the Ger-
mans might feel inclined to restore, by accepting
such conditions as a conqueror has it in his power
to dictate. Without achieving their victory by the
reduction of Alsen and Fredericia the Austro-Prus-
sians would reap all the benefits of complete suc-
cess. They are under no necessity, and it certainly
is not for their interest, to shed another drop of
blood by their own act, and such injury as the
Danes might still inflict upon them would have no
greater effect on the vast body of their troops than
the sting of a gnat on the huge bulk of an elephant.
Still, the Danes reckon, and very reasonably
too, on the chapter of accidents. The in-
vasion of Jutland, they think, has filled the
measure of their enemy's iniquities. The in-
dignation of Europe cannot long remain passive
in sight of so flagrant a violation of all legality.
Nothing can be stronger than the conviction in the
hearts of those poor Danes that help must turn up
for them from some quarter or other. It grieves
me more than I can tell to be addressed by officers
and soldiers, when they think they have made it out
that I am an Englishman, with such words as,
" Why should England suffer us to perish ? Why
do not the English come to the rescue?''
The Danes, however, have something to look for-
ward to more promising to their cause than the help
of foreign nations, and that is dissension among the
Germans themselves.
Jealousy between Austria
and Prussia, the attitude of the Blind, the ambition
of the minor Princes,
the revolutionary tendencies
of the German people, everything engenders a belief
that their enemy
cannot long act unanimously
against them, if they will only persevere to the end ;
and with such prospects
before them there is no
doubt that the Danes will fight on and endure.
Their position does not appear to them more hope-
less than
it was in 1849, when all was lost and all
was eventually regained.
There has been some trifling encounter of patrols
to-day as usual, in which one man was killed and
one wounded. The wounded yesterday were three;
none killed.
I am told that the Germans have been collecting
a large number of boats in the Gelting Bucht, across
the Flensburg Fjord, with the intention of attempt-
ing a landing on Alsen, whenever such an attempt
may be act as a diversion to s contemplated attack
on Dybbol. A Danish ship-of-war, however, has
sailed this day for the Bucht, and will, no doubt,
soon give a good account of the boats there as-
sembled, if the report turns out to be correct.

NEW LIFEBOATS.—Yesterday some interesting
trials were made with two new lifeboats belonging
to the National Lifeboat Institution, is the Regent
othe 's Canal
Dock, Limehouse. One was 36 feet long,
and the r
28 feet. The larger boat is to be sent to Palling, Norfolk;
and the smaller one to Greencastle, near Londonderry. The
of the boats were perfect, and the
self-righting qualities
water they wasgack with them in recovering their
centre of gravity self-ejected through patent valves in
about 30 seoonda. The Palling lifeboat is the gift to the
institution of Messrs. Cama and Co., Parsee merchants, of
Gresham House, and that fcr Greencastle, of J., D. Alleroft
Beg., of Wood-street.