1864 und die Folgen, Teil 2 |’This here Schleswig-Holstein rumpus’. British public opinion, 1863–1866
A guest contribution by David G. Kirby.
‘This here Schleswig-Holstein rumpus/han’t bin brought about by much/
all, for aught I can compass/speakin Danish for High Dutch’.
This piece of doggerel, published in Punch in the spring of 1864, may be seen as a typical reaction of the British ‘man in the street’ to the crisis in the duchies in 1863–64. What even the Times referred to as the ‘miserable’ question of the duchies puzzled readers of the British press, in spite of lengthy articles seeking to explain the intricacies of the various claims. There was also a great deal happening elsewhere in the world – the Risorgimento in Italy, the Polish revolt, and the civil war in the United States, to name but three major events which claimed the attention of newspaper readers. Nevertheless, the Schleswig-Holstein question was rather more than a troublesome minor issue that might afford what one provincial newspaper dismissed as ‘materials for amusement’ for English readers. For a start, British foreign policy and its concern for the European balance of power was involved. The statements and actions of the Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell came in for heavy criticism, particularly after he appeared in autumn 1862 to propose that Denmark and the three duchies should each have separate governments. ‘Such restless and impotent meddling’, in the view of the Times had proved disastrous in the past for British foreign policy.
Britain was also a signatory of the 1852 London Protocol, about which there was much confusion. On the whole, the provincial press tended towards a sceptical view of the agreement, ‘a dangerously dirty piece of business’ in the opinion of the Dundee Courier and Argus. In radical circles, the hand of autocratic Russia was clearly behind the London Protocol. It was nothing more than the transcript of a protocol concluded by the Danish minister and two Russian emissaries a year earlier in Warsaw, the wealthy industrialist and prominent radical George Crawshay told a packed meeting in Gateshead in February 1864, and the whole purpose of a highly complicated series of appended reservations to the protocol was to bolster the Russian claim to the throne of Denmark in the event of the failure of the Glücksburg line. The major Scottish newspapers were markedly more hostile than their English counterparts towards the Glücksburg claim. In the opinion of the Dundee Courier, it was based solely on the 1852 agreement, forced on all parties as a ‘European necessity’. Prince Christian, the Glasgow Herald informed its readers, was despised by the Danes as a foreign intruder and hated in the duchies for deserting their cause in 1848. The fact that Christian’s daughter Alexandra had only recently married the Prince of Wales seems nowhere to have prompted sympathy for the house of Glücksburg. This may reflect the gross inability of the Danes to pursue their argument in the British press, where German propagandists such as Karl Blind were very successful in having their views published, but it might also be an indication of the rather low esteem in which the British royal family was held at the time.
If the British press was lukewarm at best to the claims of Prince Christian, it did not evince much enthusiasm for the Augustenburg claimant either. The Times believed that the revolutionary implications of duke Friedrich’s claims were feared in Berlin and Vienna and would thus dispose the Prussian and Austrian governments to adopt a moderating position. As late as the end of November 1863 the Times could confidently assert that ‘there is no reason to complain of the conduct of Prussia and Austria on the question of the Danish succession’, and it continued to believe that Prussia and Austria ‘are more sincere than Denmark believes’ (20 Jan 1864). The renowned ‘Thunderer’1 was palpably shocked when the two powers decided a week later not to suspend operations against Schleswig in spite of concessions made and promised by Denmark. Within a fortnight of the invasion of Denmark, the Times could only counsel the Danes to concede defeat whilst lamenting the fact that Prussia and Austria had openly repudiated the 1852 agreement.

The Fortifications at Dybbøl.
After the storming by Prussian troups on April 18th, 1864.
Sconce no. 5
Wikimedia Commons, German Federal Archive Collection