Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1864-03-23
The Dannewerk.

ern part Of the duchy of Schleswlg, and
is now an enormous earthwork that street.
ches almost across the entire country.
The length of the peninsula of Schleswig-
Holstiue to the end of Jutland is said to
be three hundred miles, 50 that it ex-
tends almost os far as the base line of our
country, from the North Foreland to the
Lands end The breadth of the penin-
sula, however, is but one third of its
length, and the Dannewerk is a fortifes-
lion that reaches very nearly across the
land from the German Ocean to the Bal
tic. This border WALL Is said to have
been erected in the ninth century, and,
according to the accounts given of it in
Olaf Tryggveson's Saga, it was built Of
wood, stone, and earth. In the year 937
the wall, we are told, was strengthened
by Queen Thyra, whom the people, in
their thankfulness for the national de-
fence, christened Danabod, which, liter
ally translated, means the pride of the
Danes and, as a proof OF the extreme
antiquity of the structure, I have myself
seen at Fiensburg a splendid collection
Of flint arrow heads and axes, which have
been collected from the barTows or earth
mounds in tie immediate neighborhood.
There were spear points wrought out
Of splintors or flint no thicker than paper
knives, and worked sharper than the best
steel. Here we were shown the knuckle-
bone like stones which had been used to
separate the layers of the siliceous earth
from the solid mass, and which we're
found embedded in these same barroWs,
with the very flint chip beside them that
the people, thousands of years before,
had broken from the integral block. Here
moreover, We saw the slabs of stone that
the old CeIts had used to grind their
spearheads on to the sharpest possible
points, grooyed With the tolls of the
.5ostaan, and seeming as If they were
destined to tell the present age how this
wonderfully fine workmanship of the
hardest possible material was executed.
Indeed, in this collection of works long
precedent to history, saw arrow heads
made out of flint, hardly thicker than
mother Of pearl, and wrought as sharp as
needle
The fortress consists atthe present day
(without going into all the niceties of
historical detail) Of three enormous earth
works stretching across the entire breadth
Of the land; they are go arranged as to
form the neck, or funnel, with a long
out work to protect the narrow channel
through which the troops are ultimately
intended to be driven. Towards the Bal
tic CT East Sea, there runs the 'Oster-
Wolden, or east rampant; this lies to-
ward the 'Eckenforde, and IS sometimes
called the Camel Dannewerk 1t is
about two English miles long, the earth
works being from four to five feet high,
and sixteen yards broad, and beset with
a ditch the depth Of which varies from
six to ten feet. Beyond this is the great
bay formed by the river Schley, which
is so wide that no troops could possibly
attempt to pass it. Stretching immedia-
tely in front of this is the Kurgraben,
which is upwards of mile in length,
beginning at the end Of Shelter Lake /;
it is from ten to twelve feet broad, and
from four to six feet high Behind this
lies the great 'Dannewerk' itself, which
consists of earthworks not more than
fourteen miles long. In some parts it is
from thirty to thirty-six feet high, and
the ramparts are from sixteen to twenty
feet broad.
The whole Of these earthworks are
Immediately in connection from one side
of the peninsula to the other, with the
river Treene, which falls into the North
ern Ocean; so that the Danish forces
have it within their power to food not
less than sixty-four square miles of land
; in front of the great bulwark of Schles-
, wig at a moments notice. But, said
r the Saxon soldiers to the writer, what
are the uses of the sluiee- gates in thin
time of frost? On talking with the Da-
nish engineers, however, they told Us
they had flooded the country fortnight
before with the thinnest pellicle of ice
and let the water out Immediately after
? wards, so that any troops attempting tC
r cross the country would be moved doBr
e with the artillery ike corn.
= Indeed, from what heard during my
4 stay in Schleswig, there is not the leas
doubt that 10000 men could hold thu
5 DanneTerk against 100000 opposing
troops; and from what l saw myself 0
the Notifications, and heard from tn,
= engineers as to the means Of flooding th'
country, either with a thin. sheet Of ie'
or flow Of water, I am convinced that /