Schleswig-Holstein Question

The Schleswig-Holstein Question (German: Schleswig-Holsteinische Frage; Danish: Spørgsmålet om Sønderjylland og Holsten) was a complex set of diplomatic and other issues arising in the 19th century from the relations of two duchies, Schleswig (Danish: Sønderjylland/Slesvig) and Holstein (Danish: Holsten), to the Danish crown, to the German Confederation, and to each other. The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: "Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."[1][2]

The Jutland peninsula showing Holstein in yellow, southern Schleswig in brown, northern Schleswig in red, and the other Danish parts of Jutland in terracotta (dark red)

Schleswig and Holsten before the Second Schleswig War.

Schleswig was a part of Denmark during the Viking Age, and became a Danish duchy in the 12th century. Denmark repeatedly tried to reintegrate the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish kingdom. Holstein, just on the other side of the Danish border from Schleswig, was in medieval times a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1460 on, the two had been ruled together by a common Duke -- who was also the King of Denmark. The Treaty of Ribe, agreed to by the Danish King in order to gain control of the both states, seemed to indicate that Schleswig and Holstein were to remain united, though that interpretation was later challenged. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, but the German Confederation formed in 1815 also included Holstein. By the early 19th century, Holstein's population was almost entirely ethnically German, along with much of Schleswig's.

Both Schleswig and Holstein had been ruled through institutions separate from the rest of the Danish Kingdom. On March 27, 1848, Frederick VII of Denmark announced to the people of Schleswig the promulgation of a liberal constitution under which the duchy, while preserving its local autonomy, would become an integral part of Denmark. This led to an open uprising by Schleswig-Holstein's large German majority in support of independence from Denmark and of close association with the German Confederation. The military intervention of the Kingdom of Prussia supported the uprising: the Prussian army drove Denmark's troops from Schleswig and Holstein, beginning the First Schleswig War (1848–51), which ended in a Danish victory at Idstedt; with the London Protocol, the international community agreed on the Duchies' status.

A second crisis emerged due to a succession dispute. The Dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein were legally inherited under Salic law which ignored females; the Kingdom of Denmark had a different inheritance law which permitted male heirs to inherit through the female line. Under these varying succession laws, the childless King Frederick VII of Denmark would have different heirs in Denmark and in Schleswig-Holstein. But when Frederick died in 1863, his Danish heir Christian IX claimed to have inherited the Duchies as well, and attempted to reintegrate the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish kingdom by the signing the so-called November Constitution. This was seen as a violation of the London Protocol, and it led to the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and ultimately to the Duchies' absorption into Germany.[3]

Following the defeat of Germany in World War I, the Danish-majority area of Northern Schleswig was finally unified with Denmark after two plebiscites organised by the Allied powers. A small minority of ethnic Germans still lives in Northern Schleswig, while a Danish minority remains in South Schleswig.

Constitutional problem

Since 1849 disparate systems of government had co-existed within the Danish state. Denmark proper had become a constitutional democracy. However, absolutism was still the system of Schleswig and Holstein, with advisory assemblies based on the estates system which gave more power to the most affluent members of society. The three units were governed by one cabinet, consisting of liberal ministers of Denmark who urged economic and social reforms, and conservative ministers from the Holstein nobility who opposed political reform. After the uprising in Holstein and Schleswig the monarch had no interest in sharing rule with the people, many formerly rebellious. Estates of the realm, with their fear of being replaced by democratic institutions, were easier to be compromised.

This caused a deadlock for practical lawmaking, hardened by ethnic tensions, and a complete inability to govern was imminent. Moreover, Danish opponents of this so-called Unitary State (Helstaten) feared that Holstein's presence in the government and, at the same time, Holstein's membership of the German Confederation would lead to increased German interference with Holstein, or even into purely Danish affairs.

In Copenhagen, the palace and most of the administration supported a strict adherence to the status quo. The same applied to foreign powers such as the United Kingdom, France and Russia, who would not accept a weakened Denmark in favour of a German power, such as Austria or Prussia, acquiring Holstein with the important naval harbour of Kiel or controlling the entrance to the Baltic.

Language and nationality

Language shift in the 19th century in Southern Schleswig.

There was also the national question: both Germany and Denmark wished, characteristically of the nineteenth century, to create and consolidate nationalities from a background of fragmented cultural practices and dialects.

Lastly, there was the international question: the rival ambitions of the German powers involved, and beyond them the interests of other European states, notably that of the United Kingdom in preventing the rise of a German sea-power in the north.

German had been the language of government in Schleswig and Holstein while more-or-less independent Dukes ruled, and stayed so; and had been a language of government of the kingdom of Denmark in several eras. Since the Lutheran Reformation, German had been dominant in church and schools, and Danish was the dominant language among the peasantry in Schleswig.

Low German was the language of all of Holstein. During the centuries following the Middle Ages, Low German had come to dominate in Southern Schleswig, which had originally been predominantly Danish-speaking. The Danish language still dominated in Northern Schleswig. Around 1800, German and Danish were spoken in approximately equal proportions throughout what is now Central Schleswig.

The German language had been slowly spreading at the expense of Danish in previous centuries: for example, Danish was still spoken on the peninsula of Schwansen around 1780 (the last known use of Danish was in the villages near the Schlei), but then became extinct.

The language border in the nineteenth century conformed approximately to the current border between Denmark and Germany .

It was clear that Danish dominance in Schleswig was vulnerable and weakening. Through its vigorous economic activity, the ethnically German area to the south expanded its geographic domain. Linguistically Low German immigrants constantly arrived, and previously Danish-speaking families often came to find it convenient to change languages. The Low German language, rather than Danish, had become typical of Holstein and much of south Schleswig.

One solution, which afterwards had the support of Napoleon III, would have been to partition Schleswig on the lines of nationality, assigning the Danish part to Denmark, the German to Holstein. This idea, which afterwards had supporters among both Danes and Germans, proved impracticable at the time owing to the intractable disposition of the majority on both sides.[4] This solution was subsequently implemented by plebiscites in 1920 as a condition of the treaty of Versailles, and Northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark.

Schleswig / Slesvig Partition Plans 1864

Treaty of Ribe

German Schleswig-Holsteiners often cited a clause from the Treaty of Ribe of 1460, stating that Schleswig and Holstein should "always be together and never partitioned (or separated)". Although this treaty played a minor role at the more formal level of the conflict, its proclamation "Forever Inseparable" (Up ewig ungedeelt) obtained proverbial status during the German nationalist awakening, both among those wishing an independent Schleswig-Holstein, and in the German unification movement in general.

In Denmark it was granted less significance, and the citing widely regarded to be out of context, as it could either hint at the duchies not being separated from each other, or their not being partitioned into smaller shares of inheritance. This had happened many times anyway, leaving a confusing pattern of feudal units. Danes also brought forward rulings of a Danish clerical court and a German Emperor, of 1424 and 1421 respectively, stating that Schleswig rightfully belonged to Denmark, because it was a Danish fief and Holstein was a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, wanting Schleswig and Holstein to separate from each other.

The major powers appear to have given the Treaty of Ribe little notice in comparison to the ethnic conflict and worries about the European balance of power.

Resolution

The Province of Schleswig–Holstein (red), within the Kingdom of Prussia, within the German Empire, 1866–1920.

The Second Schleswig War resolved the Schleswig–Holstein Question violently, by forcing the king of Denmark to renounce (on 1 August 1864) all his rights in the duchies in favour of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and King William I of Prussia. By Article XIX of the definitive Treaty of Vienna signed on October 30, 1864, a period of six years was allowed during which the inhabitants of the duchies might opt for Danish nationality and transfer themselves and their goods to Denmark; and the rights pertaining to birth in the provinces were guaranteed to all, whether in the kingdom or the duchies, who had been entitled to those rights at the time of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty.

In the Austro–Prussian War of 1866, Prussia took Holstein from Austria and the two duchies subsequently merged into the Province of Schleswig-Holstein. From this point on, the Schleswig-Holstein Question was subsumed by the larger issue of Austro–Prussian relations, which the 1866 war deeply influenced. It survived, however, as between Danes and Germans, though narrowed to the question of the fate of the Danish population of Schleswig. This question is of great interest to students of international law and as illustrating the practical problems involved in asserting the modern principle of nationality.

For the effect on the Danes of Schleswig and events afterwards, see History of Schleswig-Holstein.

Today, Northern Schleswig, or South Jutland County, is in Denmark; the remainder, as Schleswig-Holstein, is a state of Germany.