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134-575: At the outbreak of war: Later reinforcements: The Second Schleswig War ( Danish : Den anden slesvigske krig ; German : Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg or German Danish War ), also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War , was the second military conflict over the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the nineteenth century. The war began on 1 February 1864, when Prussian and Austrian forces crossed

268-429: A "difficult language to learn, acquire and understand", and some evidence shows that children are slower to acquire the phonological distinctions of Danish compared with other languages. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong (irregular) and weak (regular) conjugations and inflections. Nouns, adjectives, and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of

402-634: A bluff. Napoleon III , the emperor of the French, was widely considered to be a reckless and dangerous adventurer, a man who was widely mistrusted by all the other powers. In 1861, Napoleon had France invade Mexico to install the Archduke Maximillian as the puppet emperor of Mexico. Britain was opposed to the French project in Mexico, causing much Anglo-French tension, making it unlikely that France and Britain would work together with regard to

536-597: A constitutional crisis in 1862, and he was hoping to gain public support among Prussian liberals by achieving the "liberation" of Schleswig. The decision to not settle for the occupation of the German Duchy of Holstein, but to invade Schleswig, was taken by the Prussian and Austrian governments alone. The other members of the German Confederation did not agree, and it was even discussed to declare war on

670-527: A constitutional monarchy in Denmark, and absolutism in Schleswig and Holstein. The three units were governed by one cabinet, comprising liberal Danish ministers, who urged economic and social reforms, and conservative ministers, who opposed political reform. This caused a deadlock for practical lawmaking. Moreover, Danish opponents of this so-called Unitary State ( Helstaten ) feared that Holstein's presence in

804-577: A former case system , particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its word order is V2 , with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch . Other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of

938-585: A government recognized by the Diet. On 24 December 1863, Saxon and Hanoverian troops marched into Holstein on behalf of the Confederation (as part as the federal execution , Bundesexekution , against Holstein). Supported by the German soldiers and by loyal Holsteiners, Frederick VIII , a claimant to both duchies, took control of the government of Holstein. In January the situation remained tense but there

1072-483: A guarantor of the London Protocol. There were so-called "flank positions" near Ebeltoft (North), the fortified city of Fredericia (center), and Dybbøl in the south designed to support the strategy of defending the peninsula of Jutland along the north–south axis using naval supremacy to move the army north–south and hence trap an invading army in futile marches between these flank positions. This would deny

1206-567: A hard winter letting the Germans bypass the Danevirke. The first attempt to bypass the position failed near Missunde , but eventually the Germans appeared in force in the Danevirke's rear, compelling the Danish high command to order the line abandoned. As this decision was taken in violation of direct orders from the Danish government and in opposition to public opinion in Denmark, General de Meza

1340-620: A leader out to restore the French-dominated Europe of his namesake, and made it extremely unlikely that the other European powers would co-operate with France. Napoleon took a pro-Prussian line with regard to the Schleswig-Holstein question, seeing Prussian ambitions as helpful to his own plans. Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys , the French ambassador in Berlin, told Bismarck in 1863 that France would support Prussia annexing

1474-473: A literary language. Also in this period, Danish began to take on the linguistic traits that differentiate it from Swedish and Norwegian, such as the stød , the voicing of many stop consonants, and the weakening of many final vowels to /e/. The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495, the Rimkrøniken ( Rhyming Chronicle ), a history book told in rhymed verses. The first complete translation of

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1608-654: A number of Danes remained as a minority within German territories . After the occupation of Denmark by Germany in World War II, the 1948 orthography reform dropped the German-influenced rule of capitalizing nouns, and introduced the letter ⟨å⟩ . Three 20th-century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature : Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes V. Jensen (awarded 1944). With

1742-687: A part of Germany, while the Danes wanted Schleswig to be more firmly integrated into Denmark proper. Furthermore, there was a grievance about tolls charged by Denmark on ships passing through the Danish straits between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea . To avoid that expense, Prussia and Austria planned to construct the Kiel Canal , which could not be built as long as Denmark ruled Holstein. Much of

1876-565: A part of the castle in 1920. The next year the Danish state bought the castle from the Duke. In 1810, a younger scion of the family, Prince Christian August , was chosen as the Crown Prince of Sweden, and adopted by king Charles XIII of Sweden . An Augustenburg dynasty on a royal throne was however not to be, as Prince Christian August died a couple of months after his arrival in Sweden. In

2010-546: A pro-Prussian line provided that Bismarck gave assurances that Prussia would not annex Denmark proper, and limit its ambitions to the two duchies. Britain was the power most committed to supporting Denmark, but while Britain had the world's most powerful navy, the relatively small size of the all-volunteer British Army led London to need a continental ally to provide the necessary military force on land. The Crimean War had so poisoned Anglo-Russian relations that it proved impossible for London and St. Petersburg to work together during

2144-548: A room for maneuver for Prussia that did not exist in 1848–1850. Tsar Alexander II saw the possibility of a stronger Prussia as a way of weakening France. During the Polish Uprising of 1863–1864 , Napoleon III had taken a strongly pro-Polish line, which increased the already considerable mistrust and dislike of France in St. Petersburg ( Kissinger lists this as a prime example of " strategic frivolity "). Alexander tended to favor

2278-482: A similarity in pronunciation, combined with the long tradition of having Danish as a written language, which has led to similarities in vocabulary. Among younger Danes, Copenhageners are worse at understanding Swedish than Danes from the provinces. In general, younger Danes are not as good at understanding the neighboring languages as the young in Norway and Sweden. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided

2412-586: A so-called multiethnolect in the urban areas, an immigrant Danish variety (also known as Perkerdansk ), combining elements of different immigrant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Kurdish, as well as English and Danish. Within the Danish Realm , Danish is the national language of Denmark and one of two official languages of the Faroe Islands (alongside Faroese ). There is a Faroese variant of Danish known as Gøtudanskt . Until 2009, Danish

2546-625: A variant of Standard Danish, Southern Schleswig Danish , is spoken in the area. Since 2015, Schleswig-Holstein has officially recognized Danish as a regional language , just as German is north of the border. Furthermore, Danish is one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , Danish-speaking citizens of

2680-407: A very large vowel inventory consisting of 27 phonemically distinctive vowels , and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød , a kind of laryngeal phonation type . Due to the many pronunciation differences that set Danish apart from its neighboring languages, particularly the vowels, difficult prosody and "weakly" pronounced consonants, it is sometimes considered to be

2814-595: A war would demonstrate the value of a stronger Prussian Army and thus justify the illegal taxes. In the First Schleswig War, the possibility of Russian intervention on the side of Denmark had proved decisive in deciding the outcome of the war. The Crimean War had changed the entire posture of Russian foreign policy. Before the Crimean War, Russia had been the most reactionary of the European states and

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2948-609: A weakened Denmark in favour of Germany, nor a Prussia that had acquired Holstein with the important naval harbour of Kiel that controlled the entrance to the Baltic. After Prussia had therefore been forced to withdraw its support from the insurgents in Schleswig and Holstein in 1851, the Danes were able to defeat the rebels in the First Schleswig War . However, in 1852, they had to commit themselves to treat Schleswig constitutionally no different from Holstein. This contradicted

3082-700: Is a West Germanic language descended from Old English. Old Norse exerted a strong influence on Old English in the early medieval period. The shared Germanic heritage of Danish and English is demonstrated with many common words that are very similar in the two languages. For example, when written, commonly used Danish verbs, nouns, and prepositions such as have , over , under , for , give , flag , salt , and arm are easily recognizable to English speakers. Similarly, some other words are almost identical to their Scots equivalents, e.g. kirke (Scots kirk , i.e., 'church') or barn (Scots and northern English bairn , i.e. 'child'). In addition,

3216-430: Is its closest relative. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Approximately 2,000 uncompounded Danish words are derived from Old Norse and ultimately from Proto Indo-European . Of these 2,000, 1,200 are nouns, 500 are verbs and 180 are adjectives. Danish has also absorbed many loanwords , most of which were borrowed from Low German of

3350-436: The skarre-R , the uvular R sound ( [ʁ] ), began spreading through Denmark, likely through influence from Parisian French and German. It affected all of the areas where Danish had been influential, including all of Denmark, Southern Sweden, and coastal southern Norway. In the 18th century, Danish philology was advanced by Rasmus Rask , who pioneered the disciplines of comparative and historical linguistics, and wrote

3484-568: The Bible in Danish, the Bible of Christian II translated by Christiern Pedersen , was published in 1550. Pedersen's orthographic choices set the de facto standard for subsequent writing in Danish. From around 1500, several printing presses were in operation in Denmark publishing in Danish and other languages. In the period after 1550, presses in Copenhagen dominated the publication of material in

3618-546: The Danevirke , near the city of Schleswig in the south. Hence resources had been put into the Danevirke line and not into the flank positions, which stayed akin to battlefield fortifications rather than modern fortifications capable of withstanding a modern bombardment. The problem with the Danevirke line was that perhaps it was relatively strong against a frontal assault but leaned on bodies of water or marshes at both ends. In early 1864, these waters and marshes froze solid in

3752-405: The Danevirke . This order to retreat without combat caused adverse comments among some Danish private soldiers, but the military circumstances made it wise to shorten the frontier that needed to be defended. Also, as the administrations of Holstein and Lauenburg were members of the German Confederation, not pulling back might have caused a severe political crisis and perhaps war with Great Britain,

3886-597: The Landtag to vote for the taxes that the war minister, General von Roon, had insisted were absolutely necessary to pay for a program of military modernization had caused a profound political crisis. In effect, the liberal-dominated Landtag were making a bold bid to be co-equals along with the king in governing Prussia by asserting their "power of the purse" over the military. The kings of the House of Hohenzollern always jealously guarded their prerogatives to have sole control of

4020-460: The Landtag was manifestly illegal and unconstitutional, and made him unpopular. The liberals in Prussia also tended to be German nationalists who supported including the two duchies of Schleswig-Holstein into a projected unified German state, and Bismarck saw launching a war in the name of German nationalism as a way to bring around the liberals into supporting the Prussian state, all the more so as

4154-570: The Late Middle Ages . Out of the 500 most frequently used Danish words, 100 are loans from Middle Low German; this is because Low German was the second official language of Denmark–Norway. In the 17th and 18th centuries, standard German and French superseded Low German influence, and in the 20th century, English became the main supplier of loanwords, especially after World War II . Although many old Nordic words remain, some were replaced with borrowed synonyms, for example æde (to eat)

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4288-523: The Old Norse language ; Danish and Swedish are also classified as East Scandinavian or East Nordic languages. Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum , where no sharp dividing lines are seen between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, and has been influenced by English since

4422-563: The Prussian minister-president , Otto von Bismarck, a justification for war. This action caused outrage among the duchies' German population and a resolution was passed by the German Confederation at the initiative of Bismarck, calling for the occupation of Holstein by Confederate forces. The Danish government abandoned Holstein and pulled the Danish Army back to the border between Schleswig and Holstein. Most of it fortified itself behind

4556-662: The Russian Empire wanted the Danish straits , linking the North Sea to the Baltic Sea, to be controlled by a relatively weak power such as Denmark in order to allow their respective navies to either enter the Baltic, in the case of Britain, or exit the Baltic, in the case of Russia. During the First Schleswig war in 1848–49, Russia had threatened twice to enter the war on the side of Denmark, which proved to be

4690-688: The Viking Era . Danish, together with Swedish, derives from the East Norse dialect group , while the Middle Norwegian language (before the influence of Danish) and Norwegian Bokmål are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic . A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish, Norwegian , and Swedish as "mainland (or continental ) Scandinavian", while Icelandic and Faroese are classified as "insular Scandinavian". Although

4824-544: The Zealand dialect Introductio ad lingvam Danicam puta selandicam ; and in 1685 the first Danish grammar written in Danish, Den Danske Sprog-Kunst ("The Art of the Danish Language") by Peder Syv . Major authors from this period are Thomas Kingo , poet and psalmist, and Leonora Christina Ulfeldt , whose novel Jammersminde ( Remembered Woes ) is considered a literary masterpiece by scholars. Orthography

4958-608: The age of migration . Before the Danes took possession of the area, around 500 AD, Schleswig was the home of the Angles , of which many migrated to Britain, where they later formed the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms; the remaining Angles are believed to have assimilated with the Danes, indeed the Angles and the Danes seem to have had a very close relationship as attested by the shared sagas of the early English and Danes. Thus, to suggest that

5092-402: The introduction of the printing press , a standard language was developed which was based on the educated dialect of Copenhagen and Malmö . It spread through use in the education system and administration, though German and Latin continued to be the most important written languages well into the 17th century. Following the loss of territory to Germany and Sweden, a nationalist movement adopted

5226-414: The (assumed superior) invader the chance of forcing the defenders into a decisive battle, and give the defenders the opportunity to swiftly mass and counter-attack weak enemy positions, besieging forces, or divided forces by shifting weight by sea transport. The political dimension of this strategy was to draw out the war and hence give time and opportunity for the "great powers" to intervene diplomatically—it

5360-602: The 9th and 20th regiments of the 8th Brigade lost 600 men dead, injured and captured. On that day ten Danish soldiers died of hypothermia . The Prussians crossed the frozen Schlei at Arnis on 6 February 1864, defeating the Danes there. In the Battle of Sankelmark (about eight kilometers south of Flensburg) pursuing Austrians caught up with the Danish rear party, which consisted of the 1st and 11th regiments. The Danes were commanded by Colonel Max Müller . A hard fight, where large parts of 1st Regiment were taken prisoner, stopped

5494-579: The 9th century with the younger futhark . Possibly as far back as the seventh century, the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, resulting in the appearance of two dialect areas, Old West Norse ( Norway and Iceland ) and Old East Norse ( Denmark and Sweden ). Most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway. A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse

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5628-637: The Austrians, and the retreat could continue. However, the Danes lost more than 500 men there. After a short rest and some food and drink in Flensburg, the 8th Brigade had to march to Sønderborg , where they were taken by ship to Fredericia . Soldiers packed the ship and could not lie down to rest. Furthermore, some had to stay outside on the deck and were nearly frozen. Other units stayed in Dybbøl ; some reportedly were so exhausted on arrival that they laid on

5762-706: The British army was garrisoning India and Canada led to a shortage of British troops being free for operations in Europe. In July 1863, British prime minister, Lord Palmerston , had given a speech saying: "I am satisfied with all reasonable men in Europe, including those in France and Russia, in desiring that the independence, the integrity and rights of Denmark may be maintained. We are convinced-I am convinced at least-that if any violent attempt were made to overthrow those rights and interfere with that independence, those who made

5896-713: The Confederacy. The continual mistrust between Washington and London posed constraints on British foreign policy and limited London's options during the Second Schleswig War with much of the British Army being stationed in what is now Canada to guard against a possible American invasion. Finally, after the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58 , the British army in India was vastly increased. The fact that much of

6030-471: The Danes back to the Dannevirke . The Danish 6th Brigade had an important part. The battle was fought in a snowstorm at −10 °C (14 °F). Danish fighting against Austrians at Selk and Kongshøj and Saksarmen on 3 February 1864 is described as follows: The enemy sharpshooters immediately got reinforcement of a whole battalion, which advanced in a column with a music band which blew a storm-march,

6164-440: The Danevirke to Flensburg, which took about 14–18 hours. ( Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein is at the east end of the Danevirke and is 20 mi from Flensburg as the crow flies . The march was actually longer than 20 mi because soldiers had to walk from their positions to Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein first.) They also had to fight rearguard against pursuing Prussians and Austrians. Some men in sight of Flensburg and thankful for

6298-520: The Danish and German liberals were therefore incompatible, which in 1848 ultimately led to war. In Germany, many people viewed the conflict of Schleswig as a war of liberation, while most Danes considered it German aggression. In Copenhagen, the Palace and most of the administration (unlike most liberal politicians) supported a strict adherence to the status quo. The same applied to foreign powers, such as Great Britain, France and Russia, who would not accept

6432-480: The Danish commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Christian Julius De Meza , abandoned the Dannevirke that night to avoid being surrounded and withdrew his army to Flensburg. The retreat caused the deaths and capture of 600 men. Ten soldiers froze to death and were counted as a part of the casualties that night. The hasty retreat also forced the Danes to abandon their important heavy artillery . The railway from

6566-464: The Danish fortifications at Mysunde (on the Schlei coast of Schwansen east of Schleswig town), trying to bypass the Danevirke by crossing the frozen Schlei inlet, but in six hours could not take the Danish positions, and retreated. In the Battle for Königshügel (Danish Kongshøj , translated 'King's Hill') near Selk on 3 February 1864, Austrian forces commanded by General Gondrecourt pushed

6700-594: The Danish language, and also started a period of homogenization, whereby the Copenhagen standard language gradually displaced the regional vernacular languages. Throughout the 19th century, Danes emigrated, establishing small expatriate communities in the Americas, particularly in the United States, Canada, and Argentina, where memory and some use of Danish remains today. After the Schleswig referendum in 1920 ,

6834-517: The Danish language. Herrer og Narre have frit Sprog . "Lords and jesters have free speech." Peder Syv , proverbs Following the first Bible translation, the development of Danish as a written language , as a language of religion, administration, and public discourse accelerated. In the second half of the 17th century, grammarians elaborated grammars of Danish, first among them Rasmus Bartholin 's 1657 Latin grammar De studio lingvæ danicæ ; then Laurids Olufsen Kock 's 1660 grammar of

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6968-407: The Danish tongue." Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson By the eighth century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse . This language was generally called the "Danish tongue" ( Dǫnsk tunga ), or "Norse language" ( Norrœnt mál ). Norse was written in the runic alphabet , first with the elder futhark and from

7102-465: The Dannevirke, a job which it was said would have needed 50,000 men to do properly. The 1st Regiment had been changed from a battalion to a regiment on 1 December 1863. [2] The Prussian army had 37 battalions, 29 squadrons and 110 guns, approximately 38,400 men. The Austrian army had 20 battalions, 10 squadrons and 48 guns, approximately 23,000 men. During the war the Prussian army was strengthened with 64 guns and 20,000 men. The supreme commander for

7236-615: The Dybbøl position "to the last man", and consequently the siege of Dybbøl began. The only railways in 1864 in Denmark north of the Kongeå were a line in Sjælland from Copenhagen to Korsør , and one in northern Jutland from Århus to the northwest. Any reinforcements for the Danevirke from Copenhagen would have gone by rail to Korsør and thence by ship to Flensburg , taking two or three days, if not hindered by storm or sea-ice. There

7370-405: The Dybbøl position, and assumed that the political level would let the army be evacuated by sea and then fight the war on the principles of the north–south axis strategy. But the political level did not appreciate the gravity of the situation, insisting on maintaining military presence in Schleswig and at the same time refused more modest German demands of peace. Hence the army was ordered to defend

7504-647: The Faroe Islands , and the northern German region of Southern Schleswig , where it has minority language status. Minor Danish-speaking communities are also found in Norway , Sweden , the United States , Canada , Brazil , and Argentina . Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples who lived in Scandinavia during

7638-612: The King's demise. The King died in 1863 at a particularly critical time; work on the November Constitution for the joint affairs of Denmark and Schleswig had just been completed, with the draft awaiting his signature. The new monarch, King Christian IX , felt compelled to sign the draft constitution on 18 November 1863, expressing grave concern. In doing so, the new king violated the London Protocol of 1852 and gave

7772-409: The Nordic countries have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Duke of Augustenborg The branch originated from Ernest Günther , a member of the ducal house of Schleswig-Holstein (its branch of Sønderborg ) and a cadet of the royal house of Denmark. He

7906-479: The Old Norse word for "island". This monophthongization started in Jutland and spread eastward, having spread throughout Denmark and most of Sweden by 1100. Through Danish conquest, Old East Norse was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England . Many words derived from Norse, such as "gate" ( gade ) for street, still survive in Yorkshire , the East Midlands and East Anglia, and parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings . The city of York

8040-447: The Oldenburg Kings of Denmark. Later, a Danish king made the head of that line specifically Duke of Augustenburg. In the late 18th century, since 1764, the branch of Schleswig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Augustenburg was genealogically the next senior branch immediately after the main line of Danish kings. King Frederick VI of Denmark (or, rather, his chief adviser Andreas Peter Bernstorff ), made his only sister Louise Auguste of Denmark marry

8174-399: The Prussian state to collect the taxes without the consent of the Landtag by claiming there was "a hole in the constitution" by saying if the Landtag and the king were deadlocked then the state had the right to collect taxes without the permission of the Landtag , a claim that he privately admitted to being nonsensical. Bismarck's actions in having collecting taxes without the permission of

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8308-425: The Prussian-Austrian army was Field Marshal Friedrich Graf von Wrangel . The Austrian troops were led by General Ludwig von Gablenz . Prussian and Austrian troops crossed into Schleswig on 1 February 1864 against the resistance of the Federal Assembly of the German Confederation , and war became inevitable. The Austrians attacked towards the refortified Dannevirke frontally while the Prussian forces struck

8442-414: The Prussians advanced east on Sønderborg. On 18 February 1864, some Prussian hussars , in the excitement of a cavalry skirmish, crossed the north frontier of Schleswig into Denmark proper and occupied the town of Kolding . An invasion of Denmark itself had not been part of the original programme of the allies. Bismarck determined to use this circumstance to revise the whole situation. He urged upon Austria

8576-455: The Regiment's 1st Battalion occupied the Brigade's forward post line while its 2 Battalion stood as a reserve in Bustrup . The company commanders Daue and Steinmann under Major Schack's command increased its main position near Vedelspang while the Stockfleth Company stood between Niederselk and Alten Mühle as well as the Riise Company behind the dam near Haddeby . The 9th Regiment found its place about 1:30 p.m. and attacked an enemy unit which

8710-439: The Schleswig-Holstein question. On 15 November 1863, Napoleon had given a speech in Paris stating: "The compacts of 1815 have ceased to be in force". Accordingly, Napoleon invited 20 European leaders to a congress in Paris to discuss revisions in the European power structure. Although the projected congress of Paris never occurred, Napoleon's gambit in openly rejecting the decisions of the Congress of Vienna led him to be perceived as

8844-600: The area, eventually outnumbering the Danish speakers. The political loss of territory sparked a period of intense nationalism in Denmark, coinciding with the so-called " Golden Age " of Danish culture. Authors such as N.F.S. Grundtvig emphasized the role of language in creating national belonging. Some of the most cherished Danish-language authors of this period are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen . The influence of popular literary role models, together with increased requirements of education did much to strengthen

8978-550: The attempt, would in the result, that it would not be Denmark alone with they would have to contend with. Palmerston's speech led to exaggerated hopes in Denmark of British intervention should the Schleswig-Holstein question come to war. However, the small size of the British Army limited the United Kingdom's ability to intervene in Schleswig-Holstein together with the continual tensions with the United States required that Britain act in conjunction with another major European power such as Russia or France. Palmerston's speech was, in short,

9112-588: The battalion's commander followed on a horse, and after that the battalion's standard. Captain Stockfleth ordered his men to fire on the band and the battalion's commander and the standard-bearer. After that the storm-march sounded not so beautiful now that that lacked quite a few voices. The battalion commander's horse was shot under him. He grasped the standard when the standard-bearer fell, and now it went forward again with great strength. A Danish military report dated 11 February 1864 describes incidents near Königshügel/Kongshøj and Vedelspang as follows: On 3 February

9246-441: The border into the Danish fief Schleswig. Denmark fought troops of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire representing the German Confederation . Like the First Schleswig War (1848–1852), it was fought for control of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. Succession disputes concerning the duchies arose when the Danish king died without an heir acceptable to the German Confederation . The war started after

9380-404: The chief seat of their line, the family eventually used the name of Augustenborg as its branch name. As they were agnates of the ducal house, the title of duke belonged to every one of them (as is the Germanic custom). The Dukes of Augustenburg were not sovereign rulers—they held their lands in fief to their dynastically-senior kinsmen, the sovereign Dukes of Schleswig and Holstein —who were

9514-407: The coming rest were ordered to stop or go back to man checkpoints . Many men were missing at the roll call, and the army thought that many Schleswigian soldiers had deserted during the march and went home. However, most of them came in that morning or the next morning. Near Stolk-Helligbek , about 10 kilometers north of Schleswig, pursuing Austrians reached them, and in heavy fighting near Oversø ,

9648-740: The crisis. Additionally, in the American Civil War , the United States Navy blockaded the South, causing the so-called "cotton famine" that gravely damaged the British economy. Though Britain had found an alternative source of cotton in the form of Egypt, the "cotton famine" and the efforts of blockade runners to smuggle cotton out of the Confederate States of America to Britain had led to acute Anglo-American tensions with many Americans perceiving Britain to be supporting

9782-458: The deciding factor in the outcome of the war. The peace treaty that had ended the war in 1851 stipulated that the duchy of Schleswig should be treated the same as the duchy of Holstein regarding its relations with the Kingdom of Denmark. However, during the revisions of the 1848 constitution in the late 1850s and early 1860s, Holstein refused to acknowledge the revision, creating a crisis in which

9916-495: The dispute focused on the heir of King Frederik VII of Denmark . The Germans of Holstein and Schleswig supported the House of Augustenburg , a cadet branch of the Danish royal family, but the average Dane considered them too German and preferred the rival Glücksburg branch with Prince Christian of Glücksburg as the new sovereign. Prince Christian had served on the Danish side in the First Schleswig War (1848–1851). Both Britain and

10050-532: The early 19th century, the Danish royal line started to go extinct. The Duke of Augustenburg was the next male-line heir to the royal house, though not descended in male line from Frederick III of Denmark and Norway . This made the duke a player in the convoluted Schleswig-Holstein Question , as well as a candidate in the Danish succession . Frederik August of Augustenburg attempted to proclaim himself reigning Duke Frederick VIII of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, upon

10184-508: The exclusive use of rigsdansk , the High Copenhagen Standard, in national broadcasting, the traditional dialects came under increased pressure. In the 20th century, they have all but disappeared, and the standard language has extended throughout the country. Minor regional pronunciation variation of the standard language, sometimes called regionssprog ("regional languages") remain, and are in some cases vital. Today,

10318-488: The final extinction of the senior branch of the Danish kings. His daughter, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein , became German Empress as consort of Wilhelm II . The ducal line died out in 1931. In November 1920, its penultimate head had adopted Prince Johann Georg of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and his sister Princess Marie Luise, children of Prince Albrecht of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. After Augustenborg's extinction in 1931, seniority fell to

10452-451: The first English-language grammar of Danish. Literary Danish continued to develop with the works of Ludvig Holberg , whose plays and historical and scientific works laid the foundation for the Danish literary canon. With the Danish colonization of Greenland by Hans Egede , Danish became the administrative and religious language there, while Iceland and the Faroe Islands had the status of Danish colonies with Danish as an official language until

10586-413: The government and simultaneous membership of the German Confederation would lead to increased German interference with Schleswig, and even in purely Danish affairs. At the same time, liberal German politicians came to power in Schleswig and Holstein; their goal was to unify the two duchies, to gain independence from the Danish king and to join the German Confederation as a sovereign state. The objectives of

10720-450: The ground in heaps three or four deep to sleep. The loss of the Dannevirke without a fight, which in the 19th century played a big role in Danish national mythology due to its long history, caused a substantial psychological shock in Denmark and, as a result, de Meza had to resign from supreme command. Denmark never again ruled the Dannevirke. The Austrians, under general Ludwig Karl Wilhelm von Gablenz , marched north from Flensburg, while

10854-426: The history of Danish into a period from 800 AD to 1525 to be "Old Danish", which he subdivided into "Runic Danish" (800–1100), Early Middle Danish (1100–1350) and Late Middle Danish (1350–1525). Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu . " Dyggvi 's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg 's son, who was the first to be called king in

10988-424: The language as a token of Danish identity, and the language experienced a strong surge in use and popularity, with major works of literature produced in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though regional variants of the standard language exist. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative. Danish has

11122-547: The language of the courts. Since 1997, public authorities have been obliged to follow the official spelling system laid out in the Orthography Law. In the 21st century, discussions have been held with a view to create a law that would make Danish the official language of Denmark. In addition, a noticeable community of Danish speakers is in Southern Schleswig , the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, and

11256-626: The line of the Dukes of Glücksburg , heads of the second line of Holstein, known in German as Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and in Danish as Slesvig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Lyksborg . Like the kings of the earlier Oldenburg line, of which the House of Glücksburg is a cadet branch , monarchs of the Glücksburg dynasty in Denmark also bore the titles of Dukes of Schleswig and Holstein. Margrethe II of Denmark abandoned this tradition upon ascending

11390-581: The main defence line. Danish language Nordic Council Danish ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɪ ʃ / , DAY -nish ; endonym : dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark . Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland ,

11524-407: The major varieties of Standard Danish are High Copenhagen Standard, associated with elderly, well to-do, and well educated people of the capital, and low Copenhagen speech traditionally associated with the working class, but today adopted as the prestige variety of the younger generations. Also, in the 21st century, the influence of immigration has had linguistic consequences, such as the emergence of

11658-422: The mid-20th century. Moders navn er vort Hjertesprog, kun løs er al fremmed Tale. Det alene i mund og bog, kan vække et folk af dvale. "Mother's name is our hearts' tongue, only idle is all foreign speech It alone, in mouth or in book, can rouse a people from sleep." N.F.S. Grundtvig , "Modersmaalet" Following the loss of Schleswig to Germany, a sharp influx of German speakers moved into

11792-467: The military, and King Wilhelm I was completely against making any concessions to the Landtag in exchange for the Landtag voting for the taxes to pay for military modernization. The diplomat Bismarck had been appointed minister-president largely because the king believed that he was a man capable of having the Landtag vote for the Army Law taxes without making any concessions over the king's control of

11926-441: The military. Bismarck had a reputation of a someone who was a gruff bully who liked to push other people around, but also a man of considerable charm and grace when he wanted to be. Finally, Bismarck was perceived as a man who was very clever in resolving apparently intractable problems while being very committed to upholding the existing system, and it was for this reason the king had appointed him minister-president, believing that he

12060-618: The movement continued throughout the 1850s and 1860s as Denmark attempted to integrate the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish kingdom, while liberal proponents of German unification expressed the wish to include the Danish-ruled duchies of Holstein and Schleswig in a Greater Germany . Holstein was completely ethnically German , had been a German fief before 1806 and was a part of the German Confederation from 1815. Schleswig

12194-418: The necessity for a strong policy, to settle, comprehensively, the question of the duchies and the wider question of the German Confederation; Austria reluctantly consented to press the war. The Austrian army decided to stop at the north frontier of Schleswig. Some Prussians moved against Kolding and Vejle . On 22 February 1864, Prussian troops attacked the Danish forward line at Dybbøl , pushing them back to

12328-466: The new liberal constitution to apply to all Danes, including those in Schleswig. The constitutions of Holstein and Schleswig were dominated by the Estates system , giving more power to the most affluent members of society, with the result that both Schleswig and Holstein were politically dominated by a predominantly German class of landowners. Thus two systems of government co-existed within the same state:

12462-552: The objective of the Danish liberals to fully reintegrate Schleswig into Denmark. In 1858, the German Confederation deposed the "union constitution" of the Danish monarchy concerning Holstein and Lauenburg, which were members of the Confederation. The two duchies were henceforth without any constitution, while the union constitution still applied to Schleswig and Denmark proper. As the heirless King Frederik VII grew older, Denmark's successive National-Liberal cabinets became increasingly focused on maintaining control of Schleswig following

12596-517: The one most committed to more or less upholding the status quo established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. After the Crimean War, Russia was now a revisionist power out to challenge the European status quo, and any developments likely to change the European power structure were now welcome in St. Petersburg. Furthermore, the Crimean War and its aftermath made it extremely unlikely that Russia would work together with Britain or France, which established

12730-429: The parliament in Copenhagen ratified the revision but Holstein did not. In 1863, Frederik VII died, and the new Danish monarch, King Christian IX , ordered that the new constitution should apply to Schleswig and Denmark, but not to Holstein. This was a clear breach of the 1851 peace treaty and the London Protocol of 1852 and gave Prussia and the German Confederation a casus belli against Denmark. The German position

12864-607: The passing of the November Constitution of 1863 , which tied the Duchy of Schleswig more closely to the Danish kingdom , which was viewed by the German side as a violation of the London Protocol . The war ended on 30 October 1864, with the Treaty of Vienna and Denmark's cession of the Duchies of Schleswig (except for the island of Ærø , which remained Danish ), Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg to Prussia and Austria . In 1848, Denmark received its first liberal constitution. At

12998-481: The region did no longer fully belong to Denmark was seen as a great provocation to the Danes' ancestral claim to Schleswig. The Germans, on the other hand, referred to medieval history: Already in 1326 and 1448, the Danish kings had accepted the almost complete independence of Schleswig from the Danish Crown. The Germans argued that the duchy had therefore not been part of Denmark proper for 400 years, but instead

13132-473: The same time, and partly as a consequence, the secessionist movement of the large German majority in Holstein and southern Schleswig was suppressed in the First Schleswig War (1848–51), when the Germans in both territories failed in their attempt to become a united, sovereign and independent state: at the time, King Frederik VII of Denmark was also duke of the duchies of Holstein and Schleswig . However,

13266-472: The shared written standard language remained). With the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the Danish state was further integrated, and the language of the Danish chancellery, a Zealandic variety with German and French influence, became the de facto official standard language , especially in writing—this was the original so-called rigsdansk ("Danish of the Realm"). Also, beginning in the mid-18th century,

13400-468: The so-called " November constitution " establishing a shared law of succession and a common parliament for both Schleswig and Denmark. This was seen by the German Confederation as a violation of the 1852 London Protocol . On 28 November, the German Diet removed the Danish delegate for the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg pending resolution of the succession issue and the naming of a new delegate from

13534-585: The south to Flensburg was never properly used during this evacuation and the Danish army only evacuated what men and horses could carry or pull by road, leaving behind much artillery , most importantly heavy artillery. Some hours later, the Prussians and Austrians discovered the retreat and started to pursue. This withdrawal to Als and Dybbøl has gone down in Danish history as one of the worst experiences that Danish soldiers have been exposed to. Some of them compared it to Napoleon 's retreat from Moscow. It

13668-456: The then Hereditary Prince Christian of Augustenburg . In 1764, Sønderborg castle , the seat of that elder Schleswig-Holstein branch, passed upon its owners' extinction into the hands of the Duke of Augustenburg, but against expectations it did not become a residence (they remained at Augustenborg). Instead it was rented out as a warehouse. The penultimate Duke of Augustenburg, also named Ernst Günther, allowed Sønderborg County Museum to move into

13802-486: The three languages can often understand the others fairly well, though studies have shown that the mutual intelligibility is asymmetric: Norwegian speakers generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Concomitantly, Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages. Norwegian occupies the middle position in terms of intelligibility because of its shared border with Sweden, resulting in

13936-445: The turn of the 20th century. Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas: Jutlandic (West Danish), Insular Danish (including the standard variety), and East Danish (including Bornholmian and Scanian ). According to the view that Scandinavian is a dialect continuum, East Danish can be considered intermediary between Danish and Swedish, while Scanian can be considered a Swedified East Danish dialect, and Bornholmian

14070-466: The two Duchies differently, the only solution was, in their eyes, to get rid of Danish rule altogether. Both sides thus saw the other as the aggressor. The Prussian minister-president, Otto von Bismarck , had been appointed to that position in 1862 with orders from the king to resolve a crisis caused by the unwillingness of the liberal lower house of the Landtag of Prussia to vote for increased taxes to pay for increased military spending. The refusal of

14204-600: The two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein provided that France received compensation by being allowed to annex parts of the Rhineland. Palmerston's rejection of having Britain attending the projected Congress of Paris was taken as a slight by Napoleon III, who notably refused British appeals during the war to co-operate against Prussia. After years of growing tension, the adoption of the Constitution of Denmark in 1848 had complicated matters further, as many Danes wished for

14338-483: The two great powers. However, due to the military superiority of the Prussians and Austrians, this did not happen. On 14 January 1864, Austria and Prussia declared that they would take action against Denmark without regard to decisions of the German Confederation. On 16 January 1864, Bismarck issued an ultimatum to Denmark demanding that the November Constitution should be abolished within 48 hours. This

14472-411: The vernacular language to be accessible also to those who were not Latinate. The Jutlandic Law and Scanian Law were written in vernacular Danish in the early 13th century. Beginning in 1350, Danish began to be used as a language of administration, and new types of literature began to be written in the language, such as royal letters and testaments. The orthography in this period was not standardized nor

14606-469: The vernacular, such as the plural form of verbs, should be conserved in writing (i.e. han er "he is" vs. de ere "they are"). The East Danish provinces were lost to Sweden after the Second Treaty of Brömsebro (1645) after which they were gradually Swedified; just as Norway was politically severed from Denmark, beginning also a gradual end of Danish influence on Norwegian (influence through

14740-516: The whore-bed with another man's wife and he comes away alive..." Jutlandic Law, 1241 In the medieval period, Danish emerged as a separate language from Swedish. The main written language was Latin, and the few Danish-language texts preserved from this period are written in the Latin alphabet, although the runic alphabet seems to have lingered in popular usage in some areas. The main text types written in this period are laws, which were formulated in

14874-492: The word by , meaning ‘village’ or ‘town’, occurs in many English place-names, such as Whitby and Selby , as remnants of the Viking occupation . During that period English adopted ‘are’, the third person plural form of the verb ‘to be’, as well as the personal pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ from contemporary Old Norse. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish . A proficient speaker of any of

15008-489: The written languages are compatible, spoken Danish is distinctly different from Norwegian and Swedish and thus the degree of mutual intelligibility with either is variable between regions and speakers . Until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Southern Jutland and Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and

15142-410: Was "forever inseparable" ( up ewich ungedeelt ) from the German duchy of Holstein, something the Danish king had promised as early as 1460. In short, the Danes considered Schleswig to be an integral part of Denmark and wished to make this clear by enacting a new constitution that excluded Holstein, while the Germans thought that Schleswig was inseparable from Holstein: If the Danish crown wished to treat

15276-481: Was a Danish fief and was linguistically mixed between German and Danish and North Frisian . Before the Middle Ages , the people of Schleswig spoke Danish and Frisian, and as late as the 18th century many rural areas of southern Schleswig still spoke Danish. In the early 19th century, the northern and middle parts of Schleswig spoke Danish, but the language in the southern half had shifted to German. German culture

15410-448: Was a good railway system in the duchies, but not further north than Flensburg and Husum . Schleswig city, Flensburg, Sønderborg , and Dybbøl were all connected by a road paved with crushed rock, this being the route the army took. The same road continued from Flensburg to Fredericia and Århus and this was the route later taken by the Prussian army when it invaded Jutland. On 18 November 1863, King Christian IX of Denmark signed

15544-492: Was a territory ruled by Denmark–Norway , one of whose official languages was Danish. Though Danish ceased to be an official language in Iceland in 1944, it is still widely used and is a mandatory subject in school, taught as a second foreign language after English. No law stipulates an official language for Denmark, making Danish the de facto official language only. The Code of Civil Procedure does, however, lay down Danish as

15678-457: Was also one of two official languages of Greenland (alongside Greenlandic ). Danish now acts as a lingua franca in Greenland, with a large percentage of native Greenlanders able to speak Danish as a second language (it was introduced into the education system as a compulsory language in 1928). About 10% of the population speaks Danish as their first language , due to immigration. Iceland

15812-449: Was assumed that such an intervention would be to the advantage of Denmark. This strategy had been successful in the First Schleswig War. However, unrealistic expectations of the potency of the Danish army and incompetence at the political level had overruled the army command's wishes to defend Jutland according to the above plan, and instead favoured a frontal defense of Jutland on or near the historical defense (and legendary border) line at

15946-406: Was coming from Geltorf and Brekendorf . The Stockfleth Company's main position, coming from Vedelspang, had advanced to Kongshøi, and Kastede the same distance behind the Danevirke rampart in front of Bustrup. In Bustrup the shooting was heard about 2:00 p.m. 2nd Battalion occupied the rampart and covered the withdrawing squads. The enemy pressed intensely in the east towards Haddebyer Noor , but

16080-476: Was considerably more favorable than it had been thirteen years before, when Prussia had to give in due to the risk of military intervention by Britain, France and Russia on behalf of Denmark: France had colonial problems, not least with Britain. Otto von Bismarck had succeeded in obtaining cooperation from the Austrian Empire , which underlined its great power status within the German union, while Britain

16214-405: Was dominant among the clergy and nobility; Danish had a lower social status and was spoken mainly by the rural population. For centuries, while the rule of the king was absolute, these conditions had created few tensions. When liberal and egalitarian ideas spread and nationalist currents emerged about 1820, identification was mixed between Danish and German: the German elites in Schleswig wished to be

16348-488: Was mostly supplanted by the Low German spise . As well as loanwords, new words can be freely formed by compounding existing words. In standard texts of contemporary Danish, Middle Low German loans account for about 16–17% of the vocabulary, Graeco-Latin loans 4–8%, French 2–4% and English about 1%. Danish and English are both Germanic languages. Danish is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse, and English

16482-535: Was no fighting; Danish forces controlled the north bank of the Eider River and German forces the south bank. All the inland waters ( Eider River , Treene , Schlei , and the marshes east of Husum and around the Rheider Au ) that the Danes were relying on as defence to guard the flanks of the Dannevirke, were frozen hard and could be crossed easily. Domestically, Bismarck had been under great pressure since

16616-518: Was northwards in a north gale with driven snow, and most of the soldiers had had no rest for the last four days and nights. The march was burdened with artillery guns and supply carts and had to be as slow as its slowest component. Men and horses had trouble standing. Horses could not carry or pull their loads properly because of the snow and ice; riders had to dismount and lead their horses. Artillery guns and carts overturned. The column of men and horses and vehicles seemed endless. The army had to march from

16750-627: Was once the Viking settlement of Jorvik. Several other English words derive from Old East Norse, for example "knife" ( kniv ), "husband" ( husbond ), and "egg" ( æg ). The suffix "-by" for 'town' is common in place names in Yorkshire and the east Midlands, for example Selby, Whitby, Derby, and Grimsby. The word "dale" meaning valley is common in Yorkshire and Derbyshire placenames. Fangær man saar i hor seng mæth annæns mansz kunæ. oc kumær han burt liuænd... . "If one catches someone in

16884-409: Was politically impossible, particularly given the short deadline, and the demand was consequently rejected by the Danish government. At the start of the war, the Danish army consisted of about 38,000 men in four divisions. The 8th Brigade consisted of the 9th and 20th regiments (approximately 1,600 soldiers each), mainly soldiers from the middle and west and north of Jutland . About 36,000 men defended

17018-428: Was relieved of his command and replaced by the more loyal General Gerlach . The Danish army then occupied another fortified line called "the old Dybbøl". This position did not bar the entrance to Jutland but only the tip of a peninsula jutting into the Baltic Sea. There is little doubt that the command of the army did not believe that they could successfully repulse a well-prepared German siege and consequent assault on

17152-463: Was still not standardized and the principles for doing so were vigorously discussed among Danish philologists. The grammar of Jens Pedersen Høysgaard was the first to give a detailed analysis of Danish phonology and prosody, including a description of the stød . In this period, scholars were also discussing whether it was best to "write as one speaks" or to "speak as one writes", including whether archaic grammatical forms that had fallen out of use in

17286-401: Was stopped here and remained fighting in one place until it turned dark. They sent a company to drive away the enemy from Vedelspang, but could not press further on than to towards the north part of the exercise ground. The regiment's losses in this fighting: Dead, 1 corporal 1 undercorporal 7 privates; wounded, 2 corporals 3 undercorporals 18 privates; missing 11 privates. On 5 February 1864,

17420-402: Was the best man to resolve the crisis. Bismarck's "blood and iron" speech in which he stated that the problems of Germany would be solved by "blood and iron" instead of talks was an effort to win over the support of the liberals for his policy of increased taxes to pay for higher military spending. The Landtag refused to vote for the requested taxes. Bismarck solved the crisis simply by ordering

17554-469: Was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei ) to the monophthong e , as in stæin to sten . This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . Also, a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr occurred. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey ) diphthong changed into ø , as well, as in

17688-474: Was the spoken language, and the regional laws demonstrate the dialectal differences between the regions in which they were written. Throughout this period, Danish was in contact with Low German , and many Low German loan words were introduced in this period. With the Protestant Reformation in 1536, Danish also became the language of religion, which sparked a new interest in using Danish as

17822-573: Was the third son of Alexander , 2nd Duke of Sonderborg (1573–1627), and thus a grandson of John the Younger (1545–1622), the first duke, who was a son of King Christian III of Denmark . Ernest Günther had a castle built in the years after 1651, which received the name of Augustenburg in honor of his wife, Auguste . She was also from a branch of the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein as a daughter of Philip (1584–1663), Duke of Glücksburg. As that castle became

17956-435: Was upset that Denmark had violated the London Protocol. To understand the Danish resolve in this question one must understand that the Danes regarded Schleswig as an ancient core region of Denmark. The southern part of Schleswig contains the ruins of the old Danish Viking "capital" Hedeby and the Danevirke fortification; its first sections were built around 400–500 AD, possibly to protect Denmark from migrating tribes during

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