A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF RECENT MILITARY EVENTS IN DENMARK.

IN the beginning of March it was commonly thought that the fall of Dybbiil was on the point of taking place. The Prus- sians had dallied nearly a month before the Danish lines, but for the sake of their good name as soldiers, they were bound to carry the position, and in the face of negotiations it was hardly imagined that they would run what seemed to be the danger of anticipation by an armistice. Their guns were still labouring in the mud between Flensborg and Broager, their ammunition was still passing through Hamburg, and it was supposed that an attempt at a coup de main would soon throw some light upon their military qualities. A crisis in the war seemed to be at hand, and the moment was therefore chosen by a friend of mine and myself for a visit to the Danish camp long as the time of which we were masters would cover. We fixed upon the Danish side, partly because our feelings inclined us thitherwards, but partly, too, because our sympathies and our reasonable judgment upon the merits of the quarrel were clouded by the doubts, not then uncommon in England, as to whether the Danish army had shown such tenacity as might be looked for from men whose words had been so deter- mined, and by those doubts which still prevail as to whether such injustice had been committed in Schleswig as to give plausible excuse for German aggression. We knew what accusations were brought against the Danes, we felt how hard it would be under actual circumstances to gather truthful information on the spot, and it appeared to us that while our doubts upon one subject would certainly be cleared by personal intercourse, in that way also could we best learn how far those accusations of injustice were deserved. Where passionate dislike exists so-called facts are per- verted or invented, but the unwitting evidence of character is not liable to falsification ; and as, all Danish tongues being silent in Slesvig, one could but choose whether to hear the utterances of hate in Sundeved or in Ala, it was better to reject as valueless all assertions whatever, and mixing with the people to judge of whose conduct we wished to trust to observation alone. This we did, and in doing so received impressions which to our minds were not insignificant, and which perhaps, as at least genuine, it may be worth while to record.

It was early in March that we left England, but from one cause and another so many delays took place that it was only on the 20th, three days after the bombardment had begun, that we steamed into Htirup Hay. Till the range of the Prussian guns was discovered by the evil experience of the 17th, it had been assumed that the port of Sonderborg was beyond their reach, and the transports and provision ships of the army had sailed in before the very face of the enemy's batteries ; but the first shell which dropped in the streets of the town was eloquent of necessity for a new anchorage, and the steep-banked shore of Ilikup had to be cut down in haste, jetties had to be run out, and the country had to be seamed with fresh lines of communication. For a time the stress was grievous, and the moment of our coming was that of its extremest point. The vessels imprisoned by a gale iu Sonderborg till that morning had just come round, and in the disorder of their first arrival huddled near the jetties in clusters almost too thick to be pierced. Far up upon the shore itself piles of goods were mingled in utter confusion with a mass of straining horses and swearing men, and carts stuck hopelessly in deep slimy mud.

Through a wide belt the scene was like that which Balae.lava must little scope for a divergence of habits which would lead to newly formed alleys, and when the roads began to part, a sparser afar, without opportunity for overmuch striving after wealth, traffic occupied each, and the eye could wander to the essentia1 it has been able to rest in what we might call poverty without be- features of the country. A little way further and they hardly seemed coming pretentious, and to be comfortable without coarsening into to be blurred by the presence of war ; &few more ruts in the road vulgarity. It is not unimportant to realize this. Much has been attested a more frequent passage of carts, and that was all. The said about the force which the mob of Copenhagen is supposed to elements of the scenery are simple in Als, but they can please even put at once upon the King and upon the inhabitants of the under the disadvantage of chilly winter skies ; and in the time of provinces. And if the opinion which finds expression in the policy grass and corn an undulating landscape scored with busby hedges of the Government be in tzuthinerely that howled forth by a rabid and closed by woods of tall-grown beech, may well be even mob, itself unaffected by the war, pricked on by a clique who find beautiful, especially on the coast, where the trees dip their their profit in the loss of their country, then indeed it would be branches in the water and narrow seas wind among the possible to look upon the action of Germany with patience. If the islands. In March, when nothing breaks the large expanse of mass of _the Danes have been from the commencement unwilling to brown and grey, and snow is still lying in the shade of every fight for existence they must be ripe for absorption, and their furrow, there may be a certain inhospitality of general aspect ; but national feeling must be as weak as their invaders love to affirm. even then, however bleak the fields, there is an air of cheeriness But if the so-called town mob is really the mouthpiece of by far about all the thickly sprinkled houses. The farm steadings, huge the larger number of its compatriots its opinion has the weight with their great cow-stables built round three sides of a yard which belongs to the thought of a nation, and if the nation vast according to our ideas, and clean to a degree which our farm-. enjoys an average of material comfort and leisure so great as that yards never imitate, have a certain air of wealth, and near at hand of which I have spoken, its thought has a weight greater than that a neatness, which impress the notion of comfort. And in the cot- which comes of numbers—it has the weight which comes of pro- tages the ample garden, the patch of orchard, the windows full of bability that reason and not ignorant impulse gave it birth. To flower-pots, the solid brick walls and well kept thatch, seem as call, however, even the rioters who gathered before the palace of inconsistent with the existence of poverty as are the burly warmly_ Christiansborg a mob would certainly lead to misapprehension.

clothed figures who meet one in the lanes. Had the scenery They were a crowd formed chiefly of small tradesmen and of in Ale no other merit than that of suggesting that the people respectable middle-class people. It was a crowd which, I believe, are in easy circumstances it could not be otherwise than agree. fully represented the general feelings of Copenhagen, and though able, for the face of a country, like that of a man, derives in the city alone did the foolish distrust of the King prevail, and beauty from expression ; and I suspect that though some in so far as this was uttered the voice of the crowd spoke other parts of Denmark may not have like natural advantages with thoughts than those of the nation-, yet in so far as it demanded that the little island of Slesvig, they at least always in this way the war should be continued to the last there is little room to doubt give pleasure. A hurried passage through the other islands that it.only spoke the will of the country at large. No signs of dissent gave no signs of poverty, —Copenhagen has less outward marks from the interpretation of that will by the 'capital have made them- of pauperism than any city that I know, and the evidence selves manifest ; those districts of Schleswig where the German of my Danish friends would encourage the belief that there is in troops were not in actual occupation have returned members to the truth but little. Of course there are a certain number of paupers Rigsraad ; Jutland, far beyond the reach of intimidation, is as in Denmark ; but it may be doubtful whether, except among those obstinate as the capital ; and among the Danish ranks no murmurs few, there is any poverty in the right sense of the word through_ have swelled from the lips of men said to have been torn in out the kingdom. In Als there certainly are none among the mature age from their families to fight the battles of a blind and people who have not enough food and stout clothing to be healthy selfish democracy. That the slander which attributed persistence in spite of the hard winter climate, there are none who have not in the war to Copenhagen alone, and denied to its people the room enough to be neat in their houses and self-respect enough spirit to fight in person, should have obtained even moderate credit to be clean in their persons ; none who have not lightness enough is unfortunate for the Danes ; but charity will hope that the of heart to care to decorate their homes with little pictures and Germans esteem it still more unfortunate for themselves that it with flowers. There is no 'grim struggle for livelihood, and though has been their part to propagate such a slander assiduously. In I cannot speak of the other parts of the country from personal 1851 the enthusiasm and devotion of the whole Germanic race observation, I believe that the conditions of life are everywhere could only send 500 men to replace 3,000 conscribed Holsteiners much the same, except perhaps that in Fyen they are a little and Slesvigers destroyed in the cardinal rout of Idstedt; in 1864, more favourable. A verylarge number of the agricultural labourers one day at Overall lost to the selfish and cowardly democracy of are themselves proprietors, owning only ground enough to occupy Copenhagen 600 out of the one regiment which the population their time in part, and able to give their services to the neigh- of the capital is adequate to supply.

bouring farmers at the critical season of the year. If they It was morning when we drove into Sonderborg. The kindness are not proprietors they live commonly in the farmhouse itself, of the staff provided us with a billet at once, no long time was treated as servants, and kept as such rather than as mere labourers, necessary to arrange the scanty contents of our knapsacks, and the Those who, without possessing land of their own, yet live in larger part of the day was before us in which to gain a knowledge separate cottages, enjoy a like comfort. In the spot of garden of the Dybbol position, visible already in nearly its whole length. ground which they have equally with the peasant owners, in the The last vapours of the bad weather which had so long tried the pigstye, in the few well-thumbed books, in the carving of the endurance of the troops were clearing away that day, and as we rafters and the doors, there is evidence of a margin of time and crossed the outgoing bridge over the Sand the sun burst out finally resource, and it is no exaggeration to say that the average village of over town and land and sea. Very beautiful was Sonderborg then, Als at least is as prosperous-looking as that which in England clings curling with even bend round the narrow water, its red-roofed along the outskirts of a park. As may be expected, the houses of the houses mingled with their orchards upon the hill side, and its wealthier folk prove an ampler leisure and a corresponding ease. No ancient Slot, long degraded to a barrack, emphasing by its huge farm-house lacks its brightly furnished drawing.room, no drawing- square mass the point where the town reaches out to meet the open room wants its piano, no parsonage so meanly provided with glebe sea. Very beautiful no longer, for German sympathisers have but that an acre or so can be spared for ornamental plantation, no demonstrated their love for Slesvig by levelling a Slesvig town, clergyman without the library which indicates that from whatever and years must pass before a place without trade, without any rank he sprang he is no stranger to a taste for letters. On the particular reason for its being, can recover from the fall of half its other hand, there is no rich class. The nobles are in small num- houses. Yet if Europe has failed to appreciate the loving kindness her in proportion to the population, they are scattered through of Father Wrangel, it has only succeeded in convicting itself of the country, there are few large proprietors, and even in Copen- harsh injustice. He but tried to conciliate the goodwill of new hagen there are so few large incomes that the style of living is subjects for his master by means the promise of which he once modest to a degree of which we in England can hardly conceive. But used so successfully to charm disaffection from the breasts of the modesty is distinct from meanness, and the absence of display is not people of Berlin, and an emulation which spurred him to imitate more marked than the presence of refinement. The Danes, taking ()verso at Dybbol might well urge him on the banks of the Sund them in bulk, may in fact be described as a people of rural but to a nobler imitation of the greater deeds of his allies at Prague and educated middle class. The simple manners of the country impose at Venice. Wandering on by the hill side, we passed by a small ,.,_ themselves upon Copenhagen, and in the comparatively small group of tents, for the reserves of each night were not all housed ; - difference of means between the richest and the poorest there is then by a farm-house burnt by German shells, where a pig, the

Through a wide belt the scene was like that which Balae.lava must little scope for a divergence of habits which would lead to have shown in the early days of the Crimean campaign, but pre- divergence of feeling. The all-pervading middle class remains sently, when the infantry and artillery had been disgorged upon homogeneous, and without a great aristocracy to imitate from newly formed alleys, and when the roads began to part, a sparser afar, without opportunity for overmuch striving after wealth, traffic occupied each, and the eye could wander to the essentia1 it has been able to rest in what we might call poverty without be- features of the country. A little way further and they hardly seemed coming pretentious, and to be comfortable without coarsening into to be blurred by the presence of war ; &few more ruts in the road vulgarity. It is not unimportant to realize this. Much has been attested a more frequent passage of carts, and that was all. The said about the force which the mob of Copenhagen is supposed to elements of the scenery are simple in Als, but they can please even put at once upon the King and upon the inhabitants of the under the disadvantage of chilly winter skies ; and in the time of provinces. And if the opinion which finds expression in the policy grass and corn an undulating landscape scored with busby hedges of the Government be in tzuthinerely that howled forth by a rabid and closed by woods of tall-grown beech, may well be even mob, itself unaffected by the war, pricked on by a clique who find beautiful, especially on the coast, where the trees dip their their profit in the loss of their country, then indeed it would be branches in the water and narrow seas wind among the possible to look upon the action of Germany with patience. If the islands. In March, when nothing breaks the large expanse of mass of _the Danes have been from the commencement unwilling to brown and grey, and snow is still lying in the shade of every fight for existence they must be ripe for absorption, and their furrow, there may be a certain inhospitality of general aspect ; but national feeling must be as weak as their invaders love to affirm. even then, however bleak the fields, there is an air of cheeriness But if the so-called town mob is really the mouthpiece of by far about all the thickly sprinkled houses. The farm steadings, huge the larger number of its compatriots its opinion has the weight with their great cow-stables built round three sides of a yard which belongs to the thought of a nation, and if the nation vast according to our ideas, and clean to a degree which our farm-. enjoys an average of material comfort and leisure so great as that yards never imitate, have a certain air of wealth, and near at hand of which I have spoken, its thought has a weight greater than that a neatness, which impress the notion of comfort. And in the cot- which comes of numbers—it has the weight which comes of pro- tages the ample garden, the patch of orchard, the windows full of bability that reason and not ignorant impulse gave it birth. To flower-pots, the solid brick walls and well kept thatch, seem as call, however, even the rioters who gathered before the palace of inconsistent with the existence of poverty as are the burly warmly_ Christiansborg a mob would certainly lead to misapprehension.

clothed figures who meet one in the lanes. Had the scenery They were a crowd formed chiefly of small tradesmen and of in Ale no other merit than that of suggesting that the people respectable middle-class people. It was a crowd which, I believe, are in easy circumstances it could not be otherwise than agree. fully represented the general feelings of Copenhagen, and though able, for the face of a country, like that of a man, derives in the city alone did the foolish distrust of the King prevail, and beauty from expression ; and I suspect that though some in so far as this was uttered the voice of the crowd spoke other parts of Denmark may not have like natural advantages with thoughts than those of the nation-, yet in so far as it demanded that the little island of Slesvig, they at least always in this way the war should be continued to the last there is little room to doubt give pleasure. A hurried passage through the other islands that it.only spoke the will of the country at large. No signs of dissent gave no signs of poverty, —Copenhagen has less outward marks from the interpretation of that will by the 'capital have made them- of pauperism than any city that I know, and the evidence selves manifest ; those districts of Schleswig where the German of my Danish friends would encourage the belief that there is in troops were not in actual occupation have returned members to the truth but little. Of course there are a certain number of paupers Rigsraad ; Jutland, far beyond the reach of intimidation, is as in Denmark ; but it may be doubtful whether, except among those obstinate as the capital ; and among the Danish ranks no murmurs few, there is any poverty in the right sense of the word through_ have swelled from the lips of men said to have been torn in out the kingdom. In Als there certainly are none among the mature age from their families to fight the battles of a blind and people who have not enough food and stout clothing to be healthy selfish democracy. That the slander which attributed persistence in spite of the hard winter climate, there are none who have not in the war to Copenhagen alone, and denied to its people the room enough to be neat in their houses and self-respect enough spirit to fight in person, should have obtained even moderate credit to be clean in their persons ; none who have not lightness enough is unfortunate for the Danes ; but charity will hope that the of heart to care to decorate their homes with little pictures and Germans esteem it still more unfortunate for themselves that it with flowers. There is no 'grim struggle for livelihood, and though has been their part to propagate such a slander assiduously. In I cannot speak of the other parts of the country from personal 1851 the enthusiasm and devotion of the whole Germanic race observation, I believe that the conditions of life are everywhere could only send 500 men to replace 3,000 conscribed Holsteiners much the same, except perhaps that in Fyen they are a little and Slesvigers destroyed in the cardinal rout of Idstedt; in 1864, more favourable. A verylarge number of the agricultural labourers one day at Overall lost to the selfish and cowardly democracy of are themselves proprietors, owning only ground enough to occupy Copenhagen 600 out of the one regiment which the population their time in part, and able to give their services to the neigh- of the capital is adequate to supply. only living thing, picked his way among-the still smoking ruins and grunted gluttony round a corn-rick ; then by hedges, in the ditches behind which soldiers were lying for shelter, and where couched in straw they had passed so many nights of snow and rain. The officer in command, rising out of his lair, came like a thorough Dane across the field to meet us, not to warn or to order back, but with a pleasant smile to say that we must, he thought, have missed our road, and that the fun was going on farther downwards. His courtesy extended to coming as far as his duty would allow him to put us upon the track for No. 2. Presently came a bared space of some 200 yards, through which the Danes had strangely enough neglected Co make cover for their men in entering the fort, and where in fact no cover was provided for a week liter, although No. 2 was the object of more constant attention than any other fort in the whole line. In No. 2 itself was Lieutenant Anker, whose name is so united with its history, who day and night remained there firing, working, directing from the first moment of the siege to the end, save only for the short time when a happily trifling wound compelled his absence, and who at the last after defending his charge far longer than any other fort was held, was seized when with all his men dead or wounded around him he was about to pour one last charge into a column of the enemy. In his pleasant society we first learnt how true is the fire of the Prussian guns, and made out the batteries on the shore of Broagerland. The many shell-holes of that day, centred almost entirely in a space some twenty feet long on the face of the fort, the dismounted guns, and the crushed blockhouse, were evidence of the odds which the Danes rather suffered than contended against. No essential harm certainly had been done. The symmetry of the face was spoiled each day and restored each night. The blockhouse, a fragile structure roofed with a single layer of beams with four feet of earth upon them, had been smashed by one unlucky shell, and was of importance now only as an unfailing magazine of splinters for the torment of its makers ; but practi- cally the fort was as good as ever. Only when one saw what a single shell lazily thrown each minute and a half could do, and multiplied the effects into those of a sustained bombardment from front and flank at once, when one 'knew that out of some twenty men, kept more to call the reserves in case of attempted surprise than as an effective garrison, three or four were lost each day, it was wretched to think how inevitable must be the destruc- tion of the works, how terrible the slaughter of the defenders, when batteries upon the Avnbjerg and at Dybbol came to open. The fight is over now, and it is needless to disguise that the forts were in- herently weak. The friable earth of which they were made, if it had the excellence of admitting repair as readily as destruction, had also the disadvantage of holding together only at such a gentle inclination that even when intact their faces could have been taken at a run; a ditch some twelve feet deep, without revetments and without palisades, is hardly a serious obstacle ; and the cover, apart from the blockhouses into which men hardly dared to go, was absolutely useless against a converging fire. Traverses were the only protection, and these in one case at least, that of No. 6, bad an inclination not greater than thirty degrees, hardly if at all more in the other forts, so that shells shaving their crests could drop at their very foot on the floor of the fort. Nor is the position in itself so formidable as the long-drawn caution of the Germans and the wise boasting of the Danes persuaded the world to imagine. The ground in front is almost as smooth and as gently inclined as the glacis of a fortress, troops could have been masked by wood and houses within eight hundred yards of the key fort of the line, in the darkest night the even fall on either side of the highroad would have guided their steps, and close as the Danish outposts were to the forts, the Prussians might have so entered at their heels as to have suffered little from artillery fire ; capture might have been made a mere question of weight of column and dogged bayonet work. It was a position capable of being rendered with outworks, and solid forts, and long-range guns immensely strong; but as it was, with flimsy works and a ditchless breastwork four feet high between them, and puny guns of antique make, it stood open to a coup de main from the first moment of the siege. But the descend- ante of Frederic thought that the glory for which they have pined so long would flutter down more surely after slower suit ; they doubted the bayonet thrust till the hands of their foes should be so weakened with fatigue that the thrust would be of certainty on one part only, and they preferred to aim quietly for weeks at passive earth and unanswering guns till guns and earth alike should be powerless to arrest them. Their calculations were just. They could throw their fifty-six pound shells where they chose, perfect- ing their skill now at this human target and now at .that. They

could afford to stop for dinner and pipe at mid-day, for in all the Danish lines there were but nine guns, and these old brazen things dated in the middle of last century, rifled since, which could answer them. Even of these nine three only Could be directed against the batteries in Broagerland. Of the other cannon in the forts a few landed from the ships were heavy, but the vast majority were of about the same calibre as our twenty-four pounders. At one time, and for one narrow purpose, which I shall mention by and bye, these guns would have been useful ; but from the moment that the Prussian batteries were established they were reduced to utter im- potence. From a distance altogether beyond their effective range guns in larger number threw shells which, though of equal diameter, had more than twice the weight of the Danish missiles, and the artillery of the forts was limited to the alternative of com- plete silence or of fire innocent even to annoy.

Such were some of the difficulties of the Danish situation ; grave they would have been in any case, but pitiable in that of a nation

which had no highly trained army to compensate by activity for disparity of numbers and of matiriel, and no reserve of multitude to turn into prudence what to others would be the suggestion of despair. How unequal is the population of Denmark to the work which it has to do England has recognized, but perhaps it scarcely understandsto the f ull how crudeisthe organization of the diminutive army which that population can afford. At thedeath of thelate King, Frederic VII., 10,000 men in all were under arms, formed soldiers so far as the artillery, the cavalry, and the one regiment of guards were concerned, but in the line regiments little better than militia, and except that the twelve months' training which the Danish system provides was to them a thing of the present no better than the conscripts of bygone years, to whom recourse was had in the first place for supplement. Yet these few, lessened wofully in numbers by the retreat from the Daunevirke, were the only

nucleus which could harden the loose consistence of 30,000, whose memories of drill dated back perhaps six or perhaps ten years into the past, of 10,000 more whose position upon the reserve list proves at once their age, the rustiness of their knowledge, and the tension which has been put upon the strength of Denmark, and lastly, of yet 5,000 more, in years at the other end of the scale, newly re- cruited and hurried to the front after six weeks' drill. Added gradually at different times up to the 1st of April last these num- bers do not, of course, represent the effective force at any one

moment, but the total indicates a terrible strain on a population meagre for such results, burdened doubtless since by fresh de- mands, and yet unconaoled by the reflection that its sacrifices have given it a sound weapon of defence. The mere enumeration of the component parts of the army reveals a necessary inefficiency, and it must be remembered that successive calls would naturally recede in time, so that the men of most recent knowledge would be those who, with the already embodied force, filled the long catalogue of killed and wounded and prisoners in the evil days of February, and bore the cold marches and snowybivouacs in which still more quickly than in action the numbers of an army shrink and disappear. Even on the 1st April no less than 5,000 sick were in hospital, notwith- standing that the end of the month before must have been in. the main the healthiest time which the Danes have spent as yet, the excessive cold having passed away, and the fever which was heard of as-prevailing just before the assault took place not having then set in. It is obvious therefore that the brunt of the fight must

have fallen in the end to a great degree upon the worst drilled

portion of the Danish troops, and however naturally good raw material may be it is not easy to fashion it in the intervals of leisure which can be snatched from the building of huts, the casting- up of batteries, the driving of trenches, the dull routine of waiting to be blown in pieces, and the duller routine of lying in reserve upon the sodden straw of Dybbol Hill. Had there been leisure there was another and a capital deficiency. There were not officers enough to teach the soldiers, nor to manoeuvre them properly if they were taught. A company of 180 men was fain to content itself with three, sometimes with four officers, of whom one was sometimes, and two were often, called out from the reserve ; that is, they were quasi-civilians who after passing a year in service to qualify for a lieutenancy had withdrawn to other pursuits till war summoned them to use a knowledge which they could never have thoroughly acquired. That her army was so inadequate to the necessities of a war was no doubt in a sense the

fault of Denmark, that she should have dwarfed her military ex- penditure for reasons of economy, that she should have refrained from withdrawing members of any class for long from civil industry, that she should have adopted an army system which, while it certainly prevents any one from resting ignorant altogether of the

use of arms, as certainly bats the possession of a well-organized force—all this may convict her of guilt past praying for in the eyes of men whose fetish is success. But to most it will, I think, seem rather to be a merit that being poor she has not pauperized herself, that needing the hands of her children for labour she has left them free to labour, that the Government, trusting perhaps somewhat to the good faith of others, has chosen rather to con- sult for the happiness of her people than by guarding against a situation contingent on deliberate wrong to induce a gradual atrophy of national strength. For the right policy in a state is marked by its internal condition as much as by its foreign rela- tions, and the lack of preparation which might disgrace England would be an honour to German kinglets.

Right, however, as the Danes have been in holding to their system, it has been one weight more against them in a balance already borne down by preponderance of numbers and materiel. It has produced a clumsiness in handling the men which has resulted in the loss of many more prisoners than would otherwise have been taken, and so has given a pretext for the sneering untruth of the Germans that the Danish soldiers, sick of the war, were anxious to be taken. It has increased a tendency to slow- ness of action, which whether, as I am afraid it may be, an inherent defect in the Danish military character, or solely the offirpring of their imperfect professional education, was painfully evident at Dybbol. Everything they did was too late, or would have been too late if the Germans had pressed on with more vigour. Forced out of Dybbol village sooner than was expected, they attempted with very partial success to burn it in retiring, and• left plentiful cover in the hands of the besiegers before the face of a large part of the works. There, although the whole village was within easy range of the Danish guns, the Germans were suffered to remain unshelled from the 17th March to the 4th April, by which time it had be- come convenient to them to open fire from the front. It was only after the bombardment had lasted for a week that the Danes set about digging trenches in earnest for the protection of the reserves upon an open hill side, every inch of which might, for aught they knew, be searched with hardly the warning of an hour or two. It was not till the beginning of April, some days after the attack of the 28th March, that batteries were made in Sonderborg to com- mand the bridges, and on a bend in Als Sund to the north to sweep the inner slope of Dybbiil Hill, and even then a cluster of houses were left untouched within two hundred yards of the tete- du-pont. Invariably the Danes acted with a procrastination, which, had the Germans pushed on with decision, might have lost them Dybbol earlier, and with that discredit which attaches to men who have not done the most which has been possible to them. This slowness, however, was the only defect which could not be altogether accounted for by want of organization, and if I have mentioned this one with emphasis, it is in no spirit of impertinent criticism, but because in it only did I see a spot among the mellow colours of Danish character. And as in merest justice I shall have to speak of the courtesy and tenderness of that character, of its high gallantry and thorough worth, in terms which might seem of too unmixed eulogy were I not to prove my willingness to take in impressions of faults where faults exist, I have not been sorry for an opportunity of noticing how far was justified at Dybbol the belief which has been commonly held as to the unreadiness of the Danes throughout the war.

On landing at Copenhagen, the quality in Danish character which must, I think, force itself soonest upon the attention of a foreigner is the good breeding common to all classes. They seem to have a dignity grounded on knowledge of their own worth, mixed with a simplicity which shows that this knowledge is not the importunate companion of their thoughts, and they certainly have a considerateness and kindliness which operate in things far more important than manner. In capitals society is always fashioned much in the same model, and in Copenhagen these traits, though evident enough, are not so strikingly conspicuous; but in the country, where the few large farmers and the village clergymen, themselves mostly sons and their wives the daughters of farmers, compose the only society, one is surprised by a polish greater I think than could be found at anything near the same level in England. There are no angles, no awkwardnesses, none of those solecisms which arise from good breeding being only of the nature of a varnish. The manners may be countrified, but the air of the fields has only served to give them a fresher sweetness, a more thorough truthfulness. So with the officers newly come from their bourgeois life at home ; not such finished gentlemen as their comrades from the upper class, or as those upon the staff perhaps, 'kilt gentlemen to the backbone notwithstanding. And so too with the soldiers themselves ; a greater simplicity, but a like in- stinctive polish. It is hardly too much to say that a Dane cannot but be a gentleman, and this in the conventional no has than in the essential meaning of the word. But one is apt to lose the sense of manner in personal liking for a friend, and as the Danes soon compelled me into a liking such as I feel for no other people, the soft charm of their kindliness became to me only as a token of their great goodness of heart. Impressions of qualities such as this cannot be justified, they depend upon many observations of incidents the significance of which cannot be con,veyed by words, and they must, after all, be taken upon trust. Yet there is one illustration of the kindliness of the Danes which I should be sorry to leave unmentioned. In the cottage gardens I used to be puzzled by the sight of little wooden houses like miniature dog-kennels, carefully finished and painted, and fixed sometimes to the number of half a dozen round a single cottage in the most sheltered nooks of different trees. Presently I discovered that they were for the wild birds to live and build their nests in, and I ceased to wonder at the somewhat notable tameness of the whole live creation in Ala. The good Danes cannot be contented with a multiplicity of dogs, —who, by the way, get very excited in battle,—with horses between whom and their masters there is a reciprocal love, and which have a feeling of more than tolerance for all mankind, with pigs and sheep which express their confidence in only too affectionate a manner—they draw in to them every animal which consents to be drawn. The particular kind of good nature which is tender to animals may be taken as a symptom that the Danes are rich in home virtues, and this, judging from the behaviour of the soldiers in camp, I take to be most emphatically the case. The officers were unanimous upon their tractability, punishments were ex- cessively rare, and on the only occasion on which I heard of a theft being committed, itself the slight one of a bit of firewood, the officer in command was the more irritated that up to that time from the beginning of the war no irregularity had occurred among his men. From a farmer on whom two hundred were billeted, from another who had more than a hundred, from a third who lodged nearly fifty, and who had once accommodated a hundred, I could hear nothing but praise of the orderliness and good conduct of the troops ; not only had there been no case of theft during the whole time that the army had been on the island, but there was no drunkenness nor riotnor even noisiness. For Myself, save a cargo of artillery recruits who came to Ala in the same boat with us. I saw but one drunken man during all my stay, and I heard only of one or two more; never at any time did I witness the slightest disorder, and never did we experience an approach to personal rudeness. There are few armies, moreover, where two civilians, dressed in a way very strange to the eyes of the soldiers, could wander at all hours of day and night without ever meeting with impertinent curiosity or with insolence. There are few armies where after a day or two they would invariably be met with a friendly nod, and by many who recognized them with a salute. Of course a large number of these men were middle-aged, staid, of respectable class ; but many were also of course young, and came out of what in another country would be the wild classes, yet in all alike there was the same quietness of general conduct and the same pleasantness of manners. Nor are they stolid. They have an air of good sense, and they certainly are handy adaptable fellows. The savoury smell of their messes sufficiently proved their powers as cooks, they worked quickly and well in knocking up huts, and what each man did in the fortifications was done neatly and with precision. I believe that education is universal, and certainly the larger number speak German, not a few some English. In truth there is a considerable average of natural intelligence in all ranks ; the refinement of which I have spoken cannot co-exist with stupidity, and in the upper classes the mind is sharpened by cultivation. Knowing the Danes as I do now, not with long acquaintance, but under circumstances which give me a right to an opinion, I feel that I owe them an apology for confessing that I learnt these things almost with astonishment. We had come expecting somewhat an unkempt good nature, we had come with our ears filled with loose German talk about the low type of civilization to be found in Denmark, and it surprised us therefore to find that good nature invariably toned by suavity, and the civilization only to be distinguished from that of Germany by the absence of pedantry and by the presence of freedom.

But that which chiefly won our love for the Danes was their behaviour as soldiers. Going among them day by day we saw their merry good humour, their cheeriness through the long wearing duty of lying to be shot at for twenty-four hours at a time, we saw how they longed for their only chance, a chance with the bayonet, we saw their tenderness for their wounded comrades,

their anxiety for their officers, and we experienced how in their thoughtfulness for every one but themselves they would throw their own bodies as a protection before a mere stranger. Reason- able sober-minded men they were too, not fire-eaters wishing to fight for pure fighting's sake, but men who knew what they were fighting for, who had something to lose, and who knew what they Jost in getting killed; men who had sense enough to understand under what conditions they fought, and how sure they were of ruinous defeat in the end, yet none the less steadfastly resolved to fight until that end came, as indeed I am convinced that they did to the full of their opportunities. There was not much done by them in Dybb51 at the last ; but if I am right in what I believe, and if I have made myself intelligible, it wilf be felt that it was impossible towards the latter time of the bombardment to have kept men enough in the forts themselves to withstand the sudden rush in force, and the forts once taken the nature of the ground was such that nothing but a massacre could follow. It is pleasant with my high esteem of these men to have been witness to a suc- cess, a little one, it is true, and of necessity without results, but large enough to remain a bright spot among memories of a time darkened by the shadow of coming failure.

About half-past three on the morning of the 28th March two columns of Prussians surprised the outposts near the high road and in front of the long breastwork between forts Nos. 8 and 9, and advanced on both points to within a hundred yards of the breastwork itself. There they seem to have remained, not much exposed to artillery fire, and themselves pouring through the dark- ness into the Danish position a heavy but irregular shower of rifle bullets, which pelted without doing much harm over the inverse slope of Dybbol Hill. They were in this state when at about a quarter-past four we reached the breastwork at the point where it crosses the road. As we looked out into the gloom, vibrating with the music of the rifle balls just then thick as midges in the sum- mer air, but fortunately aimed much too high to- be effective, we dimly saw the head of the Prussian column made visible by its fire, and we heard its fitful cheers, and now and then the incisive " Vorwirts I" of the officers, answered by no movement. Presently there was silence, and it seemed that the enemy were preparing at last to charge. But grape from the one small field-piece which armed the breastwork between Nos. 4 and 5 renewed the dropping fire and the vague hurrahs, and the German mass never came on against the thin line which waited only two deep for their coming. Dodging round by hedges and by such cover as we could find, we reached the line between Nos. 8 and 9, where the defenders chiefly consisted of Schleswigers, bearing themselves as staunchly and as earnestly as the Danes of Jutland or the Isles. Already in the dawning light it could be seen that the Prussian column on this side had dissolved, and the Danish shells bursting over each row of hedge between Oster Dybbol and Dybbiil alone told us where its scattered parts were hid. Presently the hedges grew dark with life, and men swarmed out from behind, straggling backwards and further backwards across the fields among cheers from around us. Just then the sun rose hotly yellow out of a bank of sickly cloud behind, while before at the same moment in curious paral- lelism a great flame leapt suddenly up from among the houses of the village, and a huge trail of smoke began to crawl along the ground, driven by the southern wind. Under this protection the Prussians fell back, and there was a cessation of all but shell firing from the Danish batteries. Not for long, however. As soon as the men had rallied they were seen advancing out of the smoke, and, firing as they came, they pressed on to Oster Dyb- bill as if to screen the' formation of new columns. The fresh advance was short. From further to the left came ringing hurrahs, taken up along the whole length of the line, as running quickly across the slope from the high road towards the houses appeared the remnants of a Prussian battalion, part of the column which had attacked by the high road. Finding itself isolated, seeing that its friends were falling back elsewhere, it had dissolved in abject flight, and whether it was that its rout dispirited the men, or whether it was that the advance of the skirmishers had been merely a feint, the enemy certainly made no fresh attempt, and receded without serious opposition to behind. his old outposts before the Danes issuing now from the breastwork. But he had made an attack and had failed, failed partly by the plucky resistance of the Danes, partly by the strange impossibility which there seemed to be of bringing his men on. I have no doubt that the Prussians can fight well ; simply on that particular morning for some reason or other they did not fight well, and anything more certain than that when we first reached the front the officers were vainly urging the troops to charge, anything more certain than that the flight we later saw was abject I cannot for my own part conceive.

But they have had their victory now ; and though on the 18th April they had little opportunity for displaying their courage they doubtless would rather be condoled with than congratulated. It was not the fault of the Germans that their opponent were so small. Has not his very smallness been his crime? " Vous etes

je suis Prussien ; votre droit n'existe plus.'' It was not the fault of the Germans that their numbers are so much larger, that their weapons are so much better. Have they not shown themselves brave the more in that they have refrained from demanding honour from the world on the ground of big cannon and big battalions, and have spoken of their personal merit alone ?

I have tried fairly, but with all frankness, to write down the impressions which I received in Denmark, and if in doing so I have shown a strong leaning to one side, it is because I believe that leaning to be right. My impressions, as I have already said, did not seem to me to be quite insignificant. Through knowing the Danes I believe I have learnt of what kind their actions are likely to be. Gentle, they are not of the stuff from which tyrants are made. Courteous, it is scarcely possible that they would be uncon- ciliatory. Warmhearted, they could not treat a kindred people with habitual harshness. Honest, they would not use a dominant position, if they had it, for their own profit. Truthful, they can surely not have lived and spoken a continuous lie for twelve years past Ur Slesvig. Gentlemen, they cannot be mean. Enjoying the largest freedom, they have offered an equal freedom to their dependencies. Knowing what has been done by Germans, I inquire whether the like can be said for them. Gentle are they ? Let Poland and Italy say. Courteous are they ? Every traveller can answer enough. No need to ask of the women who have been insulted in Venice and flogged in Hungary. Warmhearted are they? They plunder the friends whom they have come to help.

Truthful are they ? The deliberate untruths done and spoken from January until now shall be their condemnation. Gentlemen are they? In spite of the prayers of the people of Flensborg they overturned a monument raised above the bodies of fellow-soldiers fallen in battle. Free are they ? It was only the other day that immunity from bastinado at the command of nobles, rashly granted a year or two ago to peasants in Mecklenburg, was revoked by the Chambers of the Duchy. Let the tree be judged by its fruit.

W. E. H.