Holstein

“ Then the short ride to Bremen itself, through a wedge-shaped stretch of rolling fields with plump Holstein cattle that looked ridiculously small and ridiculously tame to Tom's range sense, and through a sweep of box-like suburban houses, each framed by a bit of lawn that was almost English in its moist, pristine greenness. ”

“ These morning excursions allowed me to explore a great deal of the neighbourhood, which I should otherwise have been unable to see. All this district of Holstein is rather flat, but beautifully wooded, with many lakes which add a wistful calm beauty to the sleepy landscape. There is something reminiscent of England in the farm-houses and the hedgerows, which are never seen in Brandenburg, where the fields are unfenced.
At one o’clock I was at the Schloss for luncheon, where I had to talk English with the Prince and his cadets—charming boys, some of whom I had met in Potsdam, where they lived. ”

“ Barring few interruptions its union with the Danish crown has been continuous to the time of the Prussian conquest. In 1848 both Schleswig and Holstein were disturbed by a wave of political agitation which expressed itself in demands for the joint incorporation [95] of both states in the German Confederation. To what extent the mass of Danish inhabitants of the duchies took part in this movement is a matter of controversy. Holstein was an ancient fief of the old Germano-Roman Empire. Its population has always been largely German. But the duchy of Schleswig is peopled mainly by Danes. ”

“ Prince von Holstein [nephew of the Holstein Beck, or "Holstein SILVER-PLATE," whom we lost long ago] , from beyond the River, encamped at the White Hart yonder, is to play upon the Neustadt simultaneously.
MONDAY 14th, "At 6 A.M., cannonade began; diligent on Holstein's part and ours; but of inconsiderable effect. Maguire has been summoned: 'Will [with such a garrison, in spite of such trepidations from the Court and others] defend himself to the last man.' Free-Corps people [not Quintus's, who is on the other side of the River] , [Tempelhof, v. 67.] ”

“ Schleswig-Holstein was taken possession of jointly in the name of the German Diet by Austria and Prussia; but here the formal right ended and despotic expediency commenced. What any man, acquainted with the traditional policy of Prussia, and the maxims of politicians generally, might have predicted, took place. Holstein was not given to its rightful duke, in whose interest the war was ostensibly carried on; but Austria and Prussia, finding their interests in that quarter irreconcilable, quarrelled about the plunder, divided the whole of Germany into two parties, and went to war. ”

“ In January, 1773, Holstein also was ceded to the royal house of Denmark; the whole ranked now as a Danish province.
That changes the affair, the Danes are in the right.
Yet not entirely so. The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, declares Holstein to be a part of the German Bund. This, however, vexes the Danes. They invent the cry: “Denmark up to the Eider,” and struggle for the complete possession of Schleswig—called by them “South Jutland,” against which the “hereditary right of Augustenburg” was employed as a watchword and used in German national proclamations. ”

“ The leading points are enough;—that the German Powers want to interfere in Denmark on account of the German character of the Holstein people; that they endeavour to assume that the province of Schleswig is under the same conditions as Holstein, whereas Schleswig is a Danish province altogether, though a small proportion of the inhabitants speak German, and are German in their ways;—that Prussia and Austria have made one war of late years, for the annexation of Holstein to Germany ”

“ The Duchy of Holstein is the northernmost State of Germany, lying upon the Baltic, on which it possesses one or two good seaports. The sovereign is the King of Denmark—not, however, as such, but as Duke of Holstein. The present King of Denmark is without male heirs, and upon his demise the crown will pass to the female line. But it is contended that the principle of the Salic law, excluding females from the right of succession applies to Holstein, in which case the heir of the Duchy is the Grand-duke of Oldenburg, a German prince. ”

“ The problem of Schleswig-Holstein presents far less difficulty, if treated on a basis of nationality. Much has been written about the enormity of Prussia's treatment of Denmark in 1848 and 1863; but the plain truth is that the great majority of the population of the two duchies was as enthusiastic in favour of union with their German kinsmen farther south, as the population of Alsace-Lorraine was reluctant to be torn from France. The whole of Holstein and much the greater part of Schleswig always was, and is, pure German by race. ”

“ She lost Norway in 1814; she was reduced almost to bankruptcy; and, until 1880, she could only devote her attention to the revival of her economic life. Holstein was German; Slesvig, Danish. They could not be united unless the language of one was made dominant over the language of the other. The imperial law of Germany governed Holstein; all Slesvig legislation had since 1241 been based upon the laws of the Danish King Valdemar. To force the German law and language on Slesvig was to wipe out all Danish ideas and ideals in the most Danish of the provinces of Denmark. ”

“ It was odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the summer in Holstein while in Italy, from people I never knew. The letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. Jacobsen talked to me of the 'wild roses growing in the Holstein summer.' Why then did the Cimbri and Teutones emigrate?
"What a strange thing is life and man! ”

“ For age after age this people had shown the same bold spirit and made many a gallant stand against the princes who sought to subdue them. Geert the Great and other princes of Sleswick and Holstein had suffered defeat at their hands, and the warlike Valdemar III. of Denmark had been sadly beaten by them. At a much later date the Emperor Frederick had formally given the lands of the Ditmarshers to Christian I. of Denmark, to be joined to Holstein, but the marshmen declared that they were not subjects of Denmark and would not be given and taken at its king's will. ”

“ ICH. "'That is not much. Please your Majesty to ask the Herr General von Gortz [who has not spoken a syllable all day] ; he knows this is not reckoned much in Holstein:'— (the General Graf von Gortz I first had the honor to make acquaintance with in Holstein) .
"They now talked, for a while, of the rye, in the carriage together. Presently his Majesty called to me from the carriage, 'Na, stand by the Holstein STAUDEN-rye, then ”

“ To be sure, our sentence can also be interpreted as saying that Schleswig-Holstein was once separated from Denmark. We then have a case which is to be considered later. In order to understand the difference more clearly, let us project ourselves into the mind of a Chinese who, having little knowledge of European history, believes it false that Schleswig-Holstein was ever separated from Denmark. He will take our sentence, in the first version, to be neither true nor false but will deny it to have any meaning, on the ground that its subordinate clause lacks a meaning. ”

“ This was the first of the various important questions of international policy in which Bismarck became concerned. The united provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, lying on the northern border of Denmark had long been notable as a source of continual strife between Germany and Denmark. The majority of the inhabitants of Schleswig were Danes, but those of Holstein were very largely Germans, and the question of their true national affiliation lay open from the time of their original union in 1386. It became insistent after the middle of the nineteenth century. ”

“ The British traveller in the Denmark and Holstein of to-day will scarcely fail to be struck with the great general resemblance of the racial type still prevalent in those countries to the type characteristic of eastern and southern England. Nay, he will even find other things to remind him of his native land. In few parts of the world save England and Schleswig-Holstein are hedges an ordinary feature of the rural landscape ”

“ The plain of Europe which slopes to the north and the Baltic Sea, the flood-plains of the rivers excepted, is feebly productive of grain. It is a fine grazing region, however, and the dairy products are of the best quality. Among European states Russia alone surpasses Germany in the number of cattle grown. The province of Schleswig-Holstein is famous the world over for its fine cattle. Cavalry horses are a special feature of the lowland plain, and the government is the chief buyer. ”

“ Fishing employs some of the inhabitants, and the markets for cattle and horses are important. A considerable trade is carried on in agricultural products and wood, chiefly with Hamburg and Altona.
Itzehoe is the oldest town in Holstein. Its nucleus was a castle, built in 809 by Egbert, one of Charlemagne’s counts, against the Danes. The community which sprang up around it was diversely called Esseveldoburg, Eselsfleth and Ezeho. In 1201 the town was destroyed, but it was restored in 1224. To the new town the Lübeck rights were granted by Adolphus IV. in 1238, and to the old town in 1303. ”

“ Sleswick-Holstein (1,217) , a province of North Prussia, stretching up to Denmark, between the North Sea and the Baltic; various canals cross the country, bearing to the coast the export produce—corn and cattle; the land is highly cultivated, and fishing is an important industry on the Baltic coast; Flensburg, the chief seaport, and Sleswick (15) , the capital, are both situated on inlets of the Baltic ”

“ If a man wants to buy several purebred Holstein cows, he generally goes to a locality where a large number of farmers keep that kind of stock. Often there is a man in his own community who has for sale Holsteins that are just as highly bred as those in other districts, but he either has no market for them or must sell them at a greatly reduced price. ”

“ As the wind blew hard, and veered almost a-head, we carried Austrian colours to deceive the garrison while tacking frequently across that narrow fiörd; but the breeze changed twice, and, about sunset, we found ourselves abreast of the capital of Holstein, above the close steep roofs of which rose the square brick tower of its church, and the ramparts of that grim castle where the dukes of old resided, and on which, as well as on the university, we saw the white flag with the Imperial eagle unfurled ”

“ What the German people desired in 1864 was that Schleswig-Holstein should be attached, under a ruler of its own, to the German Federation as it then existed; what Bismarck intended was that Schleswig-Holstein, itself incorporated more or less directly with Prussia, should be made the means of the destruction of the existing Federal system and of the expulsion of Austria from Germany.... The German people desired one course of action ”

“ During the reign of Frederick VII. the Danish government endeavoured to cement the alliance between the duchies and the kingdom, and specially to separate the interests of Schleswig, which was largely Danish in its sympathies, from those of Holstein, which was almost exclusively German. With this object, in the last year of his life, Frederick VII. granted Holstein autonomous institutions, and bound Schleswig more closely to the Danish monarchy. ”

“ Would, however, Schleswig go with Holstein or with Denmark? Every Schleswig-Holsteiner and every German declared that the two Duchies must remain for ever "unvertheilt"; the majority of the Danes determined, whatever the law might be, that they would keep Schleswig, which had once been Danish. The King took a different line; he wished to maintain all the possessions in his House, and that the same man should succeed both in the Kingdom and the Duchies. There was no authority qualified to decide the legal question; and therefore the question of right was sure to become one of power. ”

“ I therefore proposed that the colonial produce then in Holstein, and which had been imported before the date of the King's edict for its prohibition, should be allowed to enter Hamburg on the payment of 30, and on some articles 40, per cent. This duty was to be collected at the custom-house, and was to be confined entirely to articles consumed in Germany. The colonial produce in Altona, Glnckstadt, Husum, and other towns of Holstein, lead been estimated, at about 30,000,000 francs, and the duty would amount to 10,000,000 or 12,000,000. ”

“ In Schleswig, which the Convention of Gastein had handed over to Prussia, General Manteuffel, a son of the Minister of 1850, had summarily put a stop to every expression of public opinion, and had threatened to imprison the Prince if he came within his reach; in Holstein the Austrian Government had permitted, if it had not encouraged, the inhabitants to agitate in favour of the Pretender, and had allowed a mass-meeting to be held at Altona on the 23rd of January, where cheers were raised for Augustenburg, and the summoning of the Estates of Schleswig-Holstein was demanded. ”

“ This division of national sentiment within the monarchy, complicated by the approaching extinction of the Oldenburg line of the house of Denmark, by which, in the normal course under the Salic law, the succession to Holstein would have passed away from the Danish crown, opened up the whole complicated Schleswig-Holstein Question with all its momentous consequences. (See Schleswig-Holstein Question.) Within the monarchy itself, during the following years, “Schleswig-Holsteinism” and “Eiderdanism” faced each other as rival, mutually exacerbating forces ”

“ The device of forwarding letters under cover to Altona had, as Mr. Nicholas showed, proved successful; but the time was at hand when this channel was to be blocked. Holstein was already threatened by the French. Writing on the 29th July, an old correspondent of the British Post-Office warned the Secretary that in another fortnight Holstein would be beset. The crisis was more serious than the writer of the friendly warning knew. The treaty of Tilsit had been signed. The movement on Holstein was preparatory to a seizure of the Danish fleet, to be used against this country. ”