The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-18 00:00:00

THE WAR IN DENMARK,

CE:voni the
.limes Special Correspondent with the Allied

Armies.)

HAMBtRG, May 13.

I have passed the last week in wandering over the
old familiar ground, the scene of German successes
and Danish disasters, noting changes, looking in
upon a few old acquaintances, meeting many others
by the roadside. When I speak of old acquaintances
I am reminded that, with scanty exceptions, all
those I now know in Jutland and the Duchies have
been-made since I first crossed the Eider on the Ist
of February last. But acquaintanceship ripens fast
amid the shifts and vicissitudes of a campaign, just
as a short span of time fall of incident and variety
appears to one, at a retrospective glance, like a much
longer period. I can hardly realise to myself that it
is little more than three months since the passage of
the Eider, the attack on Missunde, the evacuation
of the Dannewerk, the stubborn rearguard fight at
Oversee, and my own first arrival at Flensburg,
which I left last night, after repeatedly revisiting
it, perhaps never to return hither. Notwithstand-
ing the asperity of its climate, the keenness of its
winds, the roughness of its pavements, and the bad-
ness of its inns, Flensburg, beautifully situated
among woods at the extremity of its fiord, is de-
cidedly the most endurable place I have seen in
Schleswig; and when one ran down to it from fur-
ther north, and especially from small overcrowded
villages like Gravenstein and Schleswig, where
everything has been eaten up as by a passage of lo-
custs, and soiled and degraded by the throng of sol-
diery, it seemed quite a luxurious city. Within six
hours' rail of Hamburg it ought to be able to draw
abundant supplies hence ; but, nevertheiess, it has
more than once been difficult to purchase the com-
monest necessaries of life in its exhausted shops.
In Sundewitt and Broackerland things are still
worse, and there seems a general wish among the
military to get away from a country which they
have so completely drained, and where there is so
little probability of further fighting. I have met
with many officers already going south on leave of
absence, and doubtless there will be many urgent
private affairs to settle during the armistice. Cer-
tainly nothing can be more wearisome than inaction
in such resourceless, uncomfortable lands as Schles-
wig and Jutland. The Crown Prince of Prussia,
who, although holding no command, has been con-
stantly at the headquarters of the army since the
commencement of the campaign, has taken advan-
tage of the suspension of hostilities to come down to
Hamburg and meet Princess Victoria, who arrived
here at half-past 5 this morning, and took up the
quarters previously prepared for her at the Hotel de
l'Europe,the Clarendon of Homburg, and one of the
very best of continental inns. Her Royal Highness
is attended by the Countess Portales, Count Furs•
tenstein, and Dr. Wegner. Prince Frederick
William came a few hours later, with th© young
Prince of Hohenzollern and two aides-de-camp. It
was thought the Crown Prince and Princess would
go on to Flensburg and visit the battle fields of
Schleswig, but I believe the idea has been nearly if
not quite abandoned. And, indeed, at the present
time the discomforts of such an excursion must out-
weigh the gratification, at least for a lady. Very little
remains to be seen there where the most notable
actions of the campaigns occurred. Not satisfied with
conquest and capture, the allies have been zealous in
the works of destruction. Of the fortifications and
defensive works they have taken from the Danes, the
site, of course, remains, but of the superstructure
little vestige in most instances. The Prussians seem
possessed by the very demon of levelling, with his
auxiliary imps, pick and powder. It was a good
many weeks since I had passed the Dannewerk by
daylight, until the other day, and, but for previous
knowledge, I should have had difficulty in discover-
ing where the great bulwark, the mountain which
proved so naeuseiike when the critical moment
arrived, had reared its much vaunted defences. As
for Duppel heights, so recently crowned by ten forte
and a formidable line of fortifications, they bid fair
soon to look as peaceful as Brighton Downs. I had
not thought to revisit them, but was induced to
drive over from Flensburg on Wednes3ay, partly
to ascertain what foundation there was for the ru-
mours which reached me at Haderaleben of fighting
on the shores of Alsen Sund. I soon ascertained
that there were scarcely any grounds for the reports
in question. 'There had been no heavy cannonade
at Sandberg or anywhere else; since the 18th of
April only a few occasional shots. The Prussians,
I was informed, had threatened to destroy Sonder-
borg if the Danes fired ; and it must be owned that,
under all the circumstances, such fire would have
been a most unprofitable waste of ammunition, if
not of human life. I walked through part of the
foremost parallel and down to the stump of Duppel
mill, across Fort 4, of which few vestiges remain.
There are some slight remains of the ditch, but the
extent to which the earthworks have been demo-
lished may be judged of by the fact that the
masoary of the magazine, which was deep down
in the redoubts, now rises above the level of the
ground, and is the most prominent object on the
patch of earth where Fort 4 stood. The other forts
had undergone the same fate, or were in process
of doing so. Nos. 9 and 1.9 were said to be still
tolerably entire, but the sound of mines exploding
in that direction indicated that they were un-
likely long to remain so. The armistice will have
put a stop to this destruction, and will have de-
prived the very considerable number of troops still
stationed in Sundewitt of the means of pass-
ing their time in wholesome, if not in very pro-
fitable labour. I saw several email clusters of
tents ; at Azbull, where the park of siege artillery
used to be, and where a large quantity of shot and
shell and other war material is still collected, are
come large wooden huts; but the quartering of
troops still weighs heavily on the inhabitants.
It would be far better for the army, and only
fair to the Sehleswigers, now that winter has
at last disappeared, to camp the men, instead of
cramming them into close houses and cottages,
Possibly it is intended to do so. At the present'
moment, as I found by inquiry of the inhabitants,
the pressure on the population is as great as it ever
has been during the war, and at Gravenstein the
poor people are almost turned out of their houses.
A little more, and they would have to bivouac in
the streets in order that their military lodgers might
be accommodated. On all sides and by all classes
in Schleswig I heard the hardship of the billeting
system bitterly complained of. To persons having
means, and who will not submit to the nuisance of
soldiers quartered in their houses, it is equivalent
to a very large tax in money, since they have to pay
lodgings for the men elsewhere. To the
heavily for lodgin
poorer classes it is a still greater hardship, for their
small dwellings are turned upside down, their beds
are appropriated, their wives are expected to cook
for the officers quartered on them, their houses, in
short, are converted into barracks, and they are
fortunate if a single room be left to their undivided
occupation. The requisitions for horses and car-
riages are likewise very severe, so mach so that not
a few private gentlemen have sold their horses to
escape them. It is not pleasant to receive a message
that your carriage, which you perhaps needed for
your own use the next day, or your horses, which
may only just have come off hard work, are to at-
tend at such a place at midnight or daybreak to
convey a party of officers, or a prince or a general,
to a town 20 miles distant. Cases of
this kind are
of daily occurrence, and if the demand is not com-
plied with the penalties are extremely heavy. The
military powers make their demands on the local
authorities, and as these latter are by this time all
German, and in many cases red-hot Schleswig-
Holsteiners, they of course find a pleasure in
throwing the chief burden of the requisitions on
persons krowu or supposed to be friendly to the
Danish Government. • No compensation whatever
is given to the proprietors of the vehicles
thus pressed into the service. Persons who have
carriages and horses by which they set store, hire
others when they can, but this is often impossible.
It would be difficult to compensate such persons for
the damage frequently done to their cattle and car-
riages. Al for the carts of various kinds which
have been pressed for the transport of stores and
rations, and which remain permanently away from
their homes, the system is to provide stabling and
earn for the horses and a soldier's rations for the
driver, bat the latter ges no ct!'er wage nor the

owner any compensation. Neither is there any
allowance to tha people of Schleswig for the sol-
diers quartered on them. I make no reference to
Jutland, because we know that there another sys-
tem is adopted, and it is treated as a conquered
country, while in Schleswig the population is sup-
posed to be in great measure German in sentiment
and aspirations—even many of its inhabitants who
speak only Danish—and the allies have come in
some sort to relieve the land from a foreign yoke.
From various persons who have had Prussian sol-
diers repeatedly quartered on them, I learn that
they were invariably required by the terms of the
billeting paper to supply them with food for the
first day, on the ground that immediately on coming
off the march it is difficult for the regular rations to
be served out and cooked. I have not been able to
ascertain that the Austrians act upon the same
system, and if they do it is certainly by a rare ex-
ception, not as a rule. Perhaps this differenee nay
have contributed to the popularity of the Austrians,
who, in some way or other, have certainly managed
to ingratiate themselves with the population they
have lately dwelt amongst.
I find a few memoranda from Fredericia which I
had not time to avail of in my letter from that
place. As already mentioned, the preparations for
defence were far more complete than those at
Duppel, but the intrenched camp was a weak point.
It had little protection for the troops, which would
have been hardly dealt with by such a fire as was
kept up on Duppel. There were many wooden
barracks, but hardly anything casemated. Great
labour had been expended upon it; the palisades in
the ditch were thickly and firmly planted ; there
were chevaux de frise of wood and iron, trous de
loup, and other contrivances to harass or impede
assailants. In short, the whole place was so well
and carefully prepared for defence as to prove that
the one really essential thing for holding a fortified
position is equality in respect of artillery. From
Danish sources I learn that the largest number of
men in Fredericia at any time during the war did
not exceed 14,000 men, and that on the 18th of
April, when Duppel was taken, there were not
more than 10,000.
At a short distance from Fredericia, outside the
Prince's-gate, stands the monument that was raised
to General Olaf Rye, who fell at the head of his
division in the famous sortie made from the fortress
on the 6th of Jnly, 1819, when the Germans were
utterly discomfited and driven away. It is an
imitation of the old tombs of the Scandinavian
Vikings, a large stone resting on several smaller
ones, upon a mound of regular form. The inscrip-
tion is brief, and confined to the facts above stated.
The Danes do not seem addicted to bombast in their
records of brave deeds and signal victories. Wit-
ness the mere date on the base of the statue:of the
Tappere Land Soldat.

General Gabler z was invited to be present at the
assault of Duppel forts, but he either declined, or
was prevented by circumstances with which I am
unacquainted, witnessing the crowning action of
the campaign.

The Hotel de l'Europe has to-day been a point
of no small attraction to the Hamburgers, very
few of whom have passed it without rais-
ing their eyes to the windows of the first
floor, in hopes of getting a glimpse of the
Royalists there lodged. From the roof of the house,
the largest in this city, were triple banners, the
arms of Hamburg, the Eagle, which is just now
winging so unusually daring a flight, and the
Black•Red-Gold of that united Germany of which
sanguine enthusiasts dream, and practical politicians
despair. Up to sunset this evening the Blue-White-
Red adopted by the partisans of an independent
Schleswig-Holstein had not made its appearance
beside the others, notwithstanding that Prince Fre-
derick of Auguitenburg arrived in Hamburg this
afternoon and took up his quarters in that hotel.

Presentation to Lord Houghton at

Pontefract,

Yesterday, Lord Houghton met a number of his
late constituents at the Town-hall, Pontefract, when
a superb silver salver was presented to him in re-
cognition of his former services as member for the
borough. The Mayor (Mr. John Moxon) presented
the gift, and read the inscription as follows :
" Presented to the Right Hon. Richard Monckton
Milnes, first Baron Houghton, by many of his
friends, to mark their appreciation of the manner
in which, for twenty-five successive years, he repre-
sented in Parliament the ancient borough of Ponte-
fract, after which, in recognition of long and emi-
nent services, he was elevated by her Most Gracious
Majesty to the Upper House, carrying with him
the good wishes of the whole constituency, to whom
he had endeared himself by urbanity, kindness,
and generosity, as well as by constant solicitude for
their privileges. Pontefract, May, A.D. 1864."
_ _

Lord HOUGHTON returned thanks, saying that
often it had been his lot to address his constituents,
and often his pleasure to receive from them marks
of approbation in the solid manner of being re-
turned as a representative in Parliament, but he
could not say that on any occasion he had received
any testimony of their confidence with greater plea-
sure than the present. At the same time he was
bound to say there were many feelings which beset
his mind in looking back to so large a period of his
life which tended to give to the present meeting a
certain solemnity which had been absent on former
occasions. Though he hoped he should often meet
them again, this event was, as it were, the official
close of a large portion of his official life. It closed
in the most kind and gracious manner, on the part
of the constituency, 1-period of his life spent in a
great degree in tht.! service. He did not know
what he could say upon such an occasion, except,
perhaps, that he might sketch out feebly some of
the circumstances which had marked his connection
with the borough. It was no rhetorical fiction to
say that the relation between himself and the
borough had formed the most important portion of
his life, and that but for the existence of those rela-
tions between bis family and the borough which at
one time events threatened very much to dissever—
that bat for the renewal of that connection, he did
not think it would have been possible for him to
pursue in public lire a career under such favourable
circumstances as that which they had given him.
(Applause.) Every man who had come to the time
of life at which he had arrived should know pretty
well what his own character was ; and he knew he
did not possess those gifts and talents which would,
in battling the course of public life, as connected
with large constituencies, greatly recommended him
to their favour. He knew he had not those natural
gifts at his command which enabled a man to sway
crowds and to hold dominion over the minds of
multitudes of men, and therefore, although, pro-
bably, if he had nothing to do with Pontefract he
might have come into Parliament for some large
constituency, he did not think he should have re-
mained their representative for anything like the
period for which he had retained the representation
of Pontefract. His main difficulty always
was in believing his own side to be entirely
in the right, and other people entirely in the
wrong. It had been said of some lawyers—such,
for instance, as Lord Denman and Lord Truro—that
for a fee of two or five guineas they really did bring
themselves to think their sides respectively were
absolutely in the right, and the other side absolutely
in the wrong. Now, he never had that faculty, and,
whatever might have been the disadvantage to him.
self or his friends, he never had been able to throw
himself into that full partisanship which in a coun-
try like this was, perhaps, almost essentialerteotrhee,
prominent success of any public man. Tl, fo
he was thankful that his connexion with Pontefract
had been such as had enabled him to preserve their
confidence, while at the same time it had enabled
him to act with so much personal independence.
That private independence, he was very thankful
to say, had carried with it some advantages. He
cuuld not forget that period in the political history
of his time when Sir It. Peel threw the whole of his
followers into a position in which they were com-
pelled to determine whether they would remain in
a condition of things which was then considered
rather going backward than forward in the world,
or would they ally themselves with men who up to
that time had been considered their political oppo-
nents. After die deliberation ho (Lord Houghton) I
ventured to take the latter course. He had never

regretted having done so, because he believed it was
politically the right course. (Applause.) Never-
theless, he was also conscious that there were cir-
cumstances connected with the conduct of Sir R.
Peel at that time which threw an aspect, he would
not say of bad faith, but at least of dubious conduct
over a large portion of his party. Of that states-
man he would never speak but with respect, for
he had always shown him signal private kind-
ness; but he himself would have been the last
man to acknowledge that the disunion of the Con-
servative party during his administration,
although he considered it necessary for the
good of his country, was unfortunately con-
nected with most painful and disadvantageous
circumstances to that party itself. With reference
to that demonstration made by a portion of the
country on the question of religious liberty—a ques-
tion which had now almest entirely died away—it
was one on which he was conscientiously obliged by
a large portion of his constituents. At the succeed-
ing election they showed that those circumstances
had operated on their minds, and a large portion of
them withdrew from him that confidence which
they had given him, and he was returned to Par-
liament by a very small majority. Looking back
upon those times, he could only say that he believed
in the conduct he pursued he was in the right; and
he believed many of his constituents were right in
the conduct which they pursued. He believed the
position, on the whole, was not one discreditable to
either party; and if he found new friends in the
political turn of things to which he then attached
himself, he, nevertheless, retained the private
friendship even of those whose political confidence
for a time he had lost. (Applause.) Therefore, he
thought he might say the independence the people
of Pontefract had enabled him to exercise had not
been injurious either to the borough or to his own
character. (Hear.) He thought it was an advantage
in the mixed system of society in which we lived
that there should be smaller constituencies, which
enabled a man of his temperament and habits to take
that part in public life which otherwise he might
not do. They would see by the contemplation of
foreign countries that it was the great object to get
as many persons of independent thought and inde-
pendent means as they could to interest themselves
in politics. It did not matter whether they were
country gentlemen, or manufacturers, or whatever
course of life or position in society they belonged
to; but it would be a very disadvantageous thing
if there were no means in the Constitution by
which such persons should take an interest in poli-
tical life. It was seen that among us there was
growing strongly this tendency. Country gentle-
men ware -not now so 'willing as they were 50 or
100 years ago to come forward and seek to become
members of Parliament. In the large towns come
mercial men, who were engaged in active business,
and making a good deal of money, thought twice,
and very often abandoned the thought altogether,
before they gave up their profitable occupations
and business for the honour of a seat in the House
of Commons, where at least they could make no
money, and very often lost any reputation they had
got. (Laughter.) Country gentlemen, who were
accustomed to be treated with some deference by
the people around them, shrank frum going into an
assembly in which when they got up to speak some
very rough member immediately called out " Oh,
oh ! ' and where if he attempted any kind of joke,
which would be all very well in his own house, he
would very probably be coughed at and even hooted
down. (Laughter.) Therefore it would be seen
that small constituencies had political uses, and
though he called himself in the strongest sense a
Liberal statesman, nevertheless he had always fell
that the existence of such boroughs was not only
not injurious to the working of the Constitution,
but most beneficial to it, and most useful to our
social welfare. (Hear, hear.) He looked back to
the time when he first addressed them in that hall,
and he could not but be conscious, as all would be
conscious, that in that more than a quarter of a
century many serious events had happened. We
had come to think that after the great Peace of
1815 Europe at last had got into a condition of
comparative repose, and that there were going to
be very few changes either in the arrangement of
States or in the condition of society. That hope or
expectation was very much dispersed by the French
Revolution of 1830, and by the subsequent agita-
tation in England which produced the Reform Bills
of 1831 end 1832. When he came into Parliament
in 1837 a young Queen had just ascended the
throne—a bright, lively, and intelligent girl, only
made serious by the sense of the duties and rospon-
sibiiies of her peculiar position. That lively girl
was now a desolate widow, who passed only on
Saturday on her way from the tumult of London to
the retirement of Scotland, and on whom the great
calamity she had suffered weighed so heavily that
she was utterly unable to throw it off sufficiently to
resume the position in which she formerly showed
herself so continually to the frequent delight of the
people. (Applause.) We could only hope that
those consolations which the high nature, the piety,
and the virtuous character of our Sovereign so fully
deserved might, in the course of time, be poured
upon her, so that she might remember the calamity
she had undergone was one of those solemn dispen-
sations of life to which all are subject—which are
common to the throne and to the cottage, and which
demand that resignation before the will of Almighty
God which is equally due from the highest and the
lowest of mankind. (Applause.) In looking back
to that distance it was impossible for him not to
remember the many forms of intelligence, youth,
power, and strength with which he was familiar in
his early days in Parliament, but which in the course
of that time, though that of his own contemporaries,
had passed away from among them, though not en-
tirely from their memory ; he could not forget that
the men whom he should have expected to meet in
the House of Lords, to which the favour of her Ma-
jesty had called him, would have been Lord Herbert,
Lord Canning, Lord Dalhousie, Lord Elgin—men
who had fallen in the service of their country as truly
as if they had been shot down by the enemy's cannon
in the battlefield. (Applause.) He also could not
forget the name of one who was suffering at that mo-
ment under what he feared must be a mortal malady,
the LordaLieutenant of the neighbouring county
of Nottingham, the Duke of Newcastle, a nobleman
to whose good sense and judgment this country had
looked forward as likely to produce a great states-
man in future times, when those old ones we now
had should have passed away. Of course there were
brighter sides to this picture. There was a bright
side to his old friend Lord Palmerston—who
when he entered public life was past the maturity
of ordinary years, and who in his bright and intel-
ligent old age governed this country with signal
prudence and good sense, holding the balance be-
tween contending parties, acting fairly and justly
by each, doing his duty to the past recollections of
our Constitution and the future hopes of the nation.
(Applause.) Now, so much for the past. A word
for the future, In those times to which ho had
alluded we had undergone important commercial
changes, and it was a peculiarity of this country
that, although changes of that kind might be un-
willingly received at first, yet, nevertheless, in a
short time even those persons who suffered from the
change felt that there was a certain necessity for
them, and would hardly wish to return to the former
position. Such had been the case with regard to
the great question of the repeal of the corn laws.
It was perfectly true that the anticipation of Sir R.
Peel, when be said he believed the average price of
wheat would be 563. per quarter, had come very
short, indeed, of the facts of the case. (A laugh.)
They all knew that as farmers, and still he did not
believe there was a man among them who would
have wished that the old system had been in
vogue last year when all the great commercial
classes of Lancashire were thrown out of work
by the American calamity, and were unable to
earn their bread by the ordinary means. He
did not suppose there 'was one of them who
would think it would have been safe for one
of those Lancashire artisans to be able to say,
" you put an artificial price on the bread we are con-
suming; there are class interests which prevent us
frommaking the most of the little pittance we have,
andragging on life under these sad circumstances
as well as we might do." He did not think there
was any one of the strongest supporters of the old
corn laws who could say society would have been
safe if those two thoughts could have come together