THE WAR OF THE DUCHIES
Palmerston is reported to have said on one occasion, that there had been
only three men in Europe who really understood the Schleswig-Holstein
question. One of them was himself--and he had forgotten it; the second
man was dead; and the third was in a mad-house.
But the members of the Royal Houses of England, Prussia, and Denmark
considered that, without being either jurists or diplomatists by
profession, they understood the question quite well enough to take
different sides with ardent enthusiasm. The question came, in fact, like
a dividing sword, and not for the first time it brought war in its train
between Prussia and Denmark. The British Royal family was placed by its
intimate ties with both combatants--the Prince of Wales had married
Princess Alexandra of Denmark in March, 1863--in a position of peculiar
delicacy, which was not rendered easier by the fact that public opinion
in England warmly espoused the cause of Denmark.
If it was not easy for Queen Victoria and her advisers to steer a
prudent course, the position of the Crown Princess in Berlin was even
more difficult. She met the crisis with her customary courage, and she
applied to its solution the teachings of that constitutional liberalism
which she had imbibed from her father.
The Princess felt very strongly that the honour as well as the interest
of Prussia--or perhaps one should say her interest as well as her
honour--required the nation to play an unselfish part, and to seek
indemnity in the moral prestige to be derived from the settlement of
this ancient racial feud. As future Queen of Prussia, the Princess
wished to see the interests of the Crown identified with the
constitutional rights of the people; she desired to see the inhabitants
of the duchies once more contented, loyal subjects of Duke Frederick of
Schleswig-Holstein. It was not her fault, nor was it within her
knowledge, that the solution which Bismarck even then contemplated, and
which he was ultimately able to carry out, belonged to a wholly
different order of ideas.
It is necessary, in a brief retrospect, to show how this question of the
duchies had become like an open sore, poisoning the relations between
Denmark and Prussia. Perhaps the most fertile cause of trouble lay in
the fact that Schleswig and Holstein, though grouped together by
historical circumstances, were each very different in the character of
its population and their real or supposed rights.
We need not go back further than 1846, when King Christian of Denmark
declared the right of the Crown to Schleswig-Holstein. His son and
successor, Frederick VII, on his accession in January, 1848, proclaimed
a new constitution uniting the duchies more closely with Denmark. This
step caused an insurrection and the foundation of a provisional
government. Prussia thereupon came to the help of the duchies and
defeated the Danes near Dannawerke. After a fruitless attempt at
intervention by the Powers, hostilities were renewed, and in April,
1849, the Danes were victorious over the Holsteiners and Germans. There
was further fighting and further diplomacy, until in July, 1850, the
integrity of Denmark was guaranteed by England, France, Prussia, and
Sweden. This was quickly followed by the defeat of the
Schleswig-Holsteiners by the Danes at the battle of Idstedt. Early in
the following year the Stadholders of Schleswig-Holstein issued a
proclamation placing the rights of the country under the protection of
the Germanic Confederation.
This led to the Treaty of London of 1852, by which the possession of the
duchies was assured to Denmark conditionally on the preservation of
their independence and the rights of the German population in them. Now,
Holstein belonged to the Germanic Confederation, but the treaty
stipulated that Schleswig was not to be separated from Holstein, though
it was a point of honour with Denmark not to give up Schleswig.
The natural successor of King Frederick VII in the duchies was his
kinsman, Duke Christian of Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who, in May, 1852,
resigned his hereditary claim in return for a sum of two and a half
million thalers. This settlement might have been excellent but for two
facts--first that it had not received the assent of the Germanic
Confederation; and secondly, that Duke Christian's two sons violently
objected to it--indeed, the elder son, the Hereditary Prince Frederick,
made a formal declaration of his rights of succession. Moreover, it must
be admitted that Denmark showed a cynical disregard of the conditions in
the Treaty of London respecting the independence of the duchies and the
rights of their German population. The Schleswig Assembly complained and
protested, and even petitioned the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, who
actually promised aid to the duchies.
At last the crisis came in March, 1863, when the King of Denmark granted
to Holstein a new and independent constitution, but annexed Schleswig
which did not belong to the Germanic Confederation. Thereupon the
Confederation invited Denmark to withdraw this constitution. So far from
doing so, however, the Danish Parliament proceeded to ratify it only two
days before the death of King Frederick VII, whose successor, King
Christian IX, was forced on his accession, owing to a menacing uprising
of popular feeling in Denmark, to sign the new constitution annexing
Schleswig.
[Illustration: HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
PRINCESS FREDERICK WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA
MARRIED JANUARY 25, 1858]
The glove was thus thrown down for Germany to pick up; the Hereditary
Prince Frederick assumed by proclamation the government of the duchies,
and appealed to the Germanic Confederation for the support of his
rights. The majority of the German Governments sided with him,
especially the Grand Duke Frederick of Baden, brother-in-law of the
Crown Prince; while the Lower House in Prussia declared by a large
majority that the honour and interest of Germany demanded the
recognition and active support of the Hereditary Prince. It will be
evident from what has been said above that Prussia had plausible and
even sound reasons for her intervention, the chief of which was the
popular feeling prevailing in Schleswig.
Now, it so happened that the Crown Prince and Princess had a strong
personal as well as political interest in the question of duchies. The
Crown Prince and the Hereditary Prince Frederick were old friends. They
had first met as fellow-students at the University of Bonn. The
Hereditary Prince had afterwards served in the First Regiment of the
Prussian Guards, he had been often at the Prussian Court, and the Crown
Prince was the godfather of one of his children. Naturally, therefore,
the Crown Prince and Princess were favourable to his claims.
There is now no doubt that Bismarck had some time before resolved in
principle on the annexation of the duchies, but of course he did not
show his hand until it suited him, and above all he studiously concealed
his plans from the Crown Prince. Indeed, the Crown Prince's personal
relations with Bismarck were at this time practically suspended, if only
because he happened at the time to be in England, where, however, the
prevailing sympathy with Denmark did not influence him or the Crown
Princess. In a letter written to Duncker from Windsor in December the
Prince says that he has "daily defended the cause of my dear friend Duke
Frederick, well backed up by my wife, who exhibits warm and absolutely
German feelings in a most moving degree."
The Crown Prince and Princess would certainly have recoiled with horror
from Bismarck's secret design of annexing the duchies. How little they
understood the Minister's plans is curiously shown in the letter of the
Crown Prince just referred to. He took the view that Prussia ought at
once to occupy the duchies in order to establish the Hereditary Prince
there. Bismarck, he says, hated the Augustenburg family and considered
the national aspirations of Germany as revolutionary, desiring on the
contrary to maintain the Treaty of London and strengthen Denmark. The
Crown Prince in fact thought that Bismarck had been too late, and that
his policy was opposed to the proper assertion of Prussia's position.
Events now moved fast. The troops of the Germanic Confederation
expelled the Danish troops from Holstein, and the Hereditary Prince was
proclaimed throughout the duchy. The Augustenburg party, who were aware
of the hostility of Bismarck to their candidate, endeavoured to win over
the King of Prussia through the medium of the Crown Prince; but
ultimately, aided no doubt by certain imprudences on the part of the
Hereditary Prince, Bismarck had his way. Both Austria and Prussia
separated from the majority of the Diet, demanding that the King of
Denmark should annul the new constitution annexing Schleswig, already
mentioned, and announced that they would jointly manage the affairs of
the two duchies.
In January, 1864, Austria and Prussia issued an ultimatum to Denmark,
and in February began the war, which was somewhat euphemistically
described as "undertaken by Austria and Prussia to protect the ancient
rights of the German province of Schleswig-Holstein, in danger of
extinction from Denmark."
It was considered essential in Berlin that a Prussian officer should be
in command of the allied troops, and this could only be effected by
calling on the venerable Field-Marshal von Wrangel, as he alone was of
superior rank to the officer at the head of the Austrian forces.
Von Wrangel, therefore, although he was much too old and eccentric for
such responsibility, took the supreme command in right of his rank, but
the Crown Prince was attached to his staff, with the understanding that
he was to prevent the aged Field-Marshal from coming to any unfortunate
decisions. Events showed that this was extremely necessary--indeed,
nothing could have been more useful than the Crown Prince's tact in
dealing with the rivalries among the divisional commanders, and also in
altering the extraordinary, and sometimes positively insane, orders
given by von Wrangel himself. As a rule the Crown Prince was able to
persuade the old man to make the necessary alterations, but there were
occasions on which he was compelled, on his own responsibility, either
to suppress an order altogether or in some other way to prevent it from
being carried out.
The English Royal family were deeply divided in their sympathies in this
war, but the Crown Princess, as her husband had written to Duncker, was
wholly German in her feelings. She wrote to her uncle in Coburn: "For
the first time in my life I regret not being a young man and not to be
able to take the field against the Danes," and there is reason to
believe that it was her influence which decided Queen Victoria to
restrain the bellicose Palmerston, who would have liked England to
support Denmark by force of arms.
In these circumstances it seems all the more monstrous that Bismarck's
friends actually charged the Crown Princess with betraying the secrets
of the Prussian Government to the English Ministers. Her complaints to
the King only received as answer that the whole thing was nonsense, and
that she should not treat it seriously. But the fact that the slanderers
were never punished caused these calumnies to be long repeated, and even
in part believed.
By the side of the Crown Prince and Princess there stood, in Bismarck's
estimation, Queen Augusta, who had ever been the energetic champion of
the Coburg doctrine of a liberated and united Germany under the
leadership of Prussia. In his profound disbelief in Liberalism, Bismarck
played the obvious game of raising the cry of foreign dictation. By
means of his instruments in the Press and elsewhere, he set himself to
exhibit England as at all times seeking to influence Germany for her own
ends and often against German interests, for promoting her own security
and the extension of her power, "lately through women, daughters and
friends of Queen Victoria."
This campaign was only too successful, and it must soon have become
obvious, both to Queen Victoria and to her daughter, that the
unification of Germany by means of Prussian Liberalism was not in the
range of practical politics. At the same time Bismarck risked a great
deal. Nothing would have more completely upset his plans than a war with
England over the duchies, and, as we have said, he was saved from that
danger largely owing to the fact that Queen Victoria was influenced by
the Crown Princess to withstand the chauvinism of her Ministers.
Throughout the campaign of 1864, the Crown Prince won the deep affection
of the troops, not only by himself sharing their hardships, but also by
his constant kindness and care for their comfort. Though he showed
himself a true soldier and even a strategist of no small ability, the
Crown Prince had no illusions about the horrors of war, which he now saw
for the first time. He was deeply moved by the terrible sights he
witnessed on the field of battle and in the hospitals. After the victory
at Düppel in April, he would have been glad if an armistice had been
concluded, and he wrote to Duncker: "You will understand how heavily my
long absence weighs on me, for you know what a happy home I have waiting
for me."
He had not long to wait, however, for on May 18 the supreme command was
transferred from Field-Marshal von Wrangel to Prince Frederick Charles,
the "Red Prince," and so the Crown Prince's mission came to an end. He
joined the Crown Princess at Hamburg. She had originally meant to
proceed as far as Schleswig in order to do what she could for the
wounded in the hospitals, but, in obedience to urgent advice, she did
not go further than Hamburg. The Crown Prince's journey thither, covered
with all the laurels of successful warfare, was a triumphal progress.
As this campaign was the Crown Prince's baptism of fire, so to the Crown
Princess it was a revelation and a call to action. On the occasion of
the King of Prussia's birthday in March, the Crown Prince and Princess
had presented him with a sum of money as the nucleus of a fund for
helping the families of soldiers who had fallen or been disabled in war,
and on the eve of the battle of Düppel the Crown Prince drew up an
appeal on behalf of this institution, which afterwards bore his name.
But the war with Denmark revealed an even greater need than that of the
care of the soldiers' wives and families. The Crown Princess saw with
surprise and horror that the medical service of the troops in the field
was practically non-existent. She remembered the achievements of
Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, and, though she was at the time
herself more or less disabled, she undertook the heavy task of
organising some sort of an army nursing corps. For this work, so
appropriate for a soldier's wife, she was admirably fitted. Indeed, the
War of the Duchies gave the Princess for the first time real scope for
the exercise of her remarkable powers of organisation.
The Crown Princess, however, does not seem to have grown more prudent as
time went on. There is a curious revelation in Bernhardi's diary in May,
1864, of her unfortunate habit of praising England to the disadvantage
of Prussia. Says Bernhardi:
"After dinner conversation with the Crown Princess. She asked after
England; supposed that I had enjoyed England very much; once there, one
always longed to go back. I said: 'Yes, life is full in England.' She
said with a very peculiar expression: 'Yes, one misses that here.' I
thought to myself, however, that only the material interests are greater
and more far-reaching than with us; in many ways life is richer here
than there."
Fighting, with intervals of diplomatic action, went on after the Crown
Prince's return from the front, until peace was signed at Vienna on
October 30. By this instrument the King of Denmark surrendered the
duchies to the allies, and agreed to a rectification of the frontier and
the payment of a considerable war indemnity. It was understood that
Schleswig and Holstein were to be made independent, but differences of
opinion arose between Austria and Prussia on this point, which led
ultimately to the dissolution of the Germanic Confederation and the
Austro-Prussian war of 1866.
Delightful glimpses of the family life led in the summer of 1864 by the
Crown Prince and Princess, and of her musical, literary, and artistic
tastes, are given in letters written by Gustav Putlitz, the dramatist,
to his wife. Putlitz was at this time chamberlain to the Crown Princess.
His letters are too long and detailed to be quoted in full, but the
following extracts will give a good idea of how deeply impressed this
distinguished writer was with the vivid, eager personality of the
Princess:
"_June 26._--I passed a most delightful hour yesterday in this way. As I
was going through the drawing-room, I found the Crown Princess with
Countess Hedwig Brühl, the former looking for the words of a song of
Goethe's, which she remembered in part, while Hedwig played the air. I
found the song in Goethe for them. Thereupon we had a most interesting
conversation about books. The Crown Princess is wonderfully well read;
she has absolutely read everything, and knows it all more or less by
heart. She showed us a reproduction of a drawing she had done in aid of
the Crown Prince's Fund. It is a memorial of the victory at Düppel, and
represents four soldiers, each belonging to a different arm of the
service. The first is shown before the attack in the morning; the second
is waving the flag at noon; the third, wounded, is listening to a hymn
in the afternoon; while the fourth, victorious with a laurel wreath,
stands in the evening at an open grave. The last is extremely natural
and impressive, without any sentimentality. The conception shows real
genius, and it is carried out most artistically. This youthful princess
is more cultivated than any other woman I know of her age, and she has
such charming manners, which put people entirely at their ease in spite
of etiquette. She is not allowed to ride, and so she is accustomed to
drive out daily for several hours, and practises pistol-shooting. In
fact she possesses a wonderful mental and physical energy."
"_June 27_ (after dinner).--This morning the Crown Princess sent for me
in the garden. I do not know what she is not devoted to--art, music,
literature, the army, the navy, hunting, riding. On leaving she went
down the mountain on foot, and I went with her through woods soaked with
rain. She took out of her pocket the last issue of the _Grenzboten_, and
gave it to me. It is amazing that she remembers everything she reads,
and she debates history like a historian, with admirable judgment and
firmness. After dinner she sang English and Spanish songs with a
charming voice and correct expression."
"_June 29._--After breakfast we went for a four hours' drive. The Crown
Princess wanted every variety of wild flower we could find, and she knew
the Latin, English, and German names of each kind. Every time we stopped
she got out of the carriage and picked a flower which her sharp eye had
detected, and which was not in the bouquet."
The party moved to Stettin, and Putlitz describes how the Crown Princess
beguiled the journey with a constant stream of brilliant conversation on
politics, literature, and art, as well as on more frivolous subjects.
When they arrived at headquarters and found the Crown Prince, she saw
that everything was in disorder, and immediately, with characteristic
energy, she began directing the rearrangement of furniture and the
hanging of pictures. She herself was going on to Potsdam, but she was
determined that her husband should be as comfortable as possible at
Stettin. Says Putlitz:
"Furniture was put in its place, pictures were hung, wall-paper
selected--all the things having been brought from Berlin. Afterwards we
went all over the house with the architect, and the Crown Princess
issued her orders in the most practical and business-like way. Then we
drove out and bought more furniture, and the things required for the
Prince's washstand and writing-table. All the things were suitable, and
chosen with care. We had an interesting conversation about English
literature and drama. I am kept in perpetual astonishment by her natural
behaviour, so many-sided, and full of judgment and sense."
When they arrived at the New Palace, Putlitz happened to say that he had
never seen more of it than the room where people wrote their names in
the visitors' book. At once the Princess showed him all over it.
He draws a charming picture of a tea-party at the Palace. The young
mistress, wearing a simple black woollen dress, sat at a spinning-wheel,
and as she span she sang snatches of all kinds of songs, accompanied by
one of her ladies. Not far off, a chamberlain was reading poems by
Geibel, or prompting others by Goethe and Heine which were recited by
the Princess.
Putlitz cannot help recalling historical memories of the palace which
was built by Frederick the Great in ridicule of Austria and France;
which had seen the curious entertainments of his successor; had been
decorated by Frederick William III in the stiff fashion of his day; had
been opened by Frederick William IV to an intellectual and artistic
audience at representations of _Antigone_ and _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_; "and was now the home of modern cultivation freed from
formality."
The Princess, indeed, wanted a sort of history of the New Palace to be
written, and she consulted Putlitz about it. A few days later they
discussed Frederick William III and Queen Louise, how the latter was
always idealised, and how the former had become popular in spite of his
roughness.
In his delightful book, _My Reminiscences_, Lord Ronald Gower gives a
most interesting account of a visit which he paid in this summer of 1864
to the Crown Prince and Princess, "two of the kindest and most amiable
of Royalties," as he calls them. They met Lord Ronald and his mother at
the station, in defiance of Royal etiquette, and took them off to the
New Palace:
"We dined at two P. M. and we had to dress in our evening things for
this repast. It took place upstairs in a corner room, with the walls of
blue silk, fringed with gold lace. The Princess very smart, in a
magenta-coloured gown with pearls and lace. The Crown Prince in his
plain uniform, with only a star or two, which he always wears. 'It is a
custom,' he said, 'and looks so very officered.' After dinner we went to
the Crown Princess's sitting-room; the furniture there is covered with
Gobelins tapestry--a gift of the Empress Eugénie."
Here Lord Ronald found some of the Princess's own paintings, including
those lately finished, representing Prussian soldiers, his account of
which it may be interesting to compare with that of Putlitz:
"One of these paintings was of a warrior holding a flag, inscribed _Es
lebe der König_. The second a soldier looking upward. He has been
wounded, and he wears a bandage across his brow; a sunset sky for a
background. This is inscribed _Nun danket alle Gott_. The third is
another soldier looking down on a newly-made grave. Of these three I
thought the second by far the best. There was another painting, also by
the Princess, representing the Entombment."
The visitors were taken out driving: "We could judge of the popularity
of our hosts, for everyone that we passed stopped to bow to them, and
those who were in carriages stood up in them to salute as the Prince and
Princess passed by."
The arrangements about meals seem extraordinary to modern taste. Lord
Ronald says:
"Tea was served at ten in the evening in one of the rooms on the ground
floor of the Palace. They call it the Apollo Room, I believe. It was a
curious meal, beginning with tea and cake, followed by meat, veal, and
jellies, and two plates of sour cream. For this repast one was not
expected to don one's evening apparel a second time."
The visitors breakfasted upstairs with the Crown Prince and Princess and
their children, in a room lined with pale blue silk framed in
silver--not, perhaps, the best possible background for "the Princess in
her favourite pink-coloured dress." Then, "the Princess showed us her
private garden, and here she picked a clove, which she gave me with her
own little hand."
Lord Ronald mentions the children with approval, but Putlitz, whose
visit was much longer, got to know them really well:
"_July 2._--The Royal children are very charming and well trained. The
Crown Princess is strict with them, which is very praiseworthy in so
young a mother, who is relieved by her rank of the duty of taking an
active part in their education, for which she has not the time. People
will indeed be surprised at this talented and cultured nature, when once
her will has full scope."
The children on their side seem to have taken to Putlitz with
enthusiasm. He gave the boys rides on his head, and he records with
pride that "they came running from quite a long way off when they
caught sight of me." He also records an accident--little Prince William
being thrown from his pony--which must have reminded the mother of that
day at Windsor when she was so distressed at a similar though more
dangerous mishap to her brother, the Prince of Wales.
One morning after breakfast, says Putlitz, he met the Crown Prince and
Princess on the terrace, "both full of almost infantile gaiety." Soon
afterwards the children appeared. Prince William was riding his pony,
when his hat fell off and hit the pony between its ears; the animal
reared, and the Prince was thrown off on his back. Both parents remained
quite calm, and apparently took no notice; whereupon the Prince mounted
again and went on riding. It is not difficult to imagine the mother's
pang of terror beneath that outward calmness. Well may Putlitz praise
the sensible upbringing of the children, which made them perfectly
natural, well-behaved, and obedient.
But it is the remarkable personality of the Crown Princess which chiefly
interests this literary man turned courtier. One moment she is
instructing him to write to a poet and thank him for a copy of verses;
at another she is arranging a picnic party in her own little garden near
the Palace. Someone, generally Putlitz himself, reads aloud after tea,
and if the poem or story is pathetic the Crown Princess is moved to
tears. At other times they have music, generally glees, followed by good
talk on literature or on contemporary politics and personages, about
whom both the Crown Prince and the Princess speak with a candour which
astonishes Putlitz. He cannot praise enough this delightfully informal,
unaffected, and yet exquisitely cultivated and intellectual family life:
"Here one feels absolutely secure from intrigue, and only meets with
frankness and clear intelligence. All evil designs must necessarily fail
in the end before such qualities."
The dramatist felt also the great charm of the Crown Prince's
personality. He says that the two natures of husband and wife are each a
perfect complement of the other, and each exercises on the other an
unmistakably happy influence. It is at the same time significant that,
while emphasizing the perfect harmony of the marriage, he does not
hesitate to say that the Crown Prince, notwithstanding the more
brilliant qualities of the Princess, still preserves his simple and
natural attitude and his undeniable influence.
And when the time comes to say good-bye, Putlitz sums up his experiences
to his wife: "I have been entertained by a most highly dowered Princess
and a most marvellous woman, full of intellect, energy, culture,
kindness, and benevolence."
On September 11, 1864, a third son was born, Prince Sigismund. This
little Prince was destined to have but a brief life. He was born the
child of peace, the Emperor Francis Joseph becoming his godfather, but
he died almost on the very day that Prussia drew the sword against
Austria in the war of 1866.
That same autumn the Crown Princess paid her first visit to Darmstadt,
to stay with her best loved sister, Princess Alice. The latter wrote to
Queen Victoria a charming account of the visit, in which she said: "I
always admire Vicky's understanding and brightness each time I see her
again. She is so well, and in such good looks as I have not seen her for
long. The baby is a love and is very pretty."
In October the Crown Prince and Princess, with their four children,
started for La Farraz, in Switzerland. They left immediately after the
birthday of the Crown Prince, which day was also that of the baptism of
Prince Sigismund. The Prince wrote just before leaving Potsdam to an
intimate friend:
"The older I grow, the more I come to know of human beings, the more I
thank God for having given me a wife like mine. What happiness it is to
leave behind one all one's anxieties and all the troubles of this life,
to be alone with those we love! I trust that God will preserve our peace
and domestic happiness. I ask for nothing else."