Reading a bit about the second Schleswig-Holstein war...

[Kyriakos]

I read a couple of wiki articles, so i really would like to check if some info there is correct, and also pose a few questions

While the war seems to have started largely as a reaction to the new Danish parliamentary action bringing about the end of Holstein's regional autonomy as part of a general German nation, actual military campaigning did not lead to much until the middle of January of 1864. Originally the Danish forces and the assorted German forces were not involved in any decisive movement, but positioned in the different banks of the Eider river. This changed through Bismark's first plotting to secure a part in the war for Prussia and Austria which would pretty soon exceed the wishes of the German polities west of Prussia. War was accordingly declared by those two powers.

The Danish command was at first set (it seems also for historical reasons) to defend along the Dannevirke, an old Viking creation of a rising barrier, reaching up to 6 metres, and not falling considerably below 4 in any parts of it. The Dannevirke was expanding for around 30KM, and consisted of a small segment in the southern entrance to the land just below the river Shiel, and then a larger one reaching towards the Wadden Sea.



The Danish army command and the new King (who signed the parliamentary action), decided to leave Holstein and focus on defending that line, mostly because the front would therefore be considerably smaller, and also counting on the various water and river patches to the east of the front, which would on the one hand make it harded for the Prussian and Austrian armies to cross, on the other be further secured by the relatively better armed Danish navy.
But in the end the Dannevirke was also abandoned, since the Prussians led their army in the midst of a horrible winter (temperatures were routinely lower than -10 Celcius), which turned those bodies of water into an icy bridge for the critical first part of the war.

It is argued that the retreat and abandonment of Dannevirke (which never again returned to Denmark) without a battle, played a very crucial demoralising role to the Danish army.

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While the army of Denmark numbered around 40K soldiers, and 100 guns, along with a decent navy including the fully armored ironclad Rolf Krake, the Prussian army was in the onset of a war a little smaller, and along with the Austrian army numbered around 60K soldiers, with nearly 160 guns. During the war a number of heavy artillery pieces were captured (particularly due to the abandonment of Dannevirke where many were installed and could not be moved to the next line), and 20K more soldiers reached the ranks of the combined Prussian-Austrian army.

The Danish army was ordered to retreat to Dybbøl, and along with Als those were the final areas where it was sieged. The actual campaign after the voluntary retreat from Dannevirke seems to have been one decided as of its outcome in the moment that Bismark took advantage of this event so as to enable an incursion into actual Schleswig. It appears that the Danish side did not expect this development, and instead was hoping for either a negotiation about Holstein's status, or a prolonged stalemate, which could lead the main European powers to intervene (as they had done in the first Schleswig-Holstein war). However none of those happened, and ultimately the sieges were practically impossible to break by the Danish side. The peace signed in the end of october, almost 10 months after the war started, saw Denmark losing 40% of its territory, along with 35% of its population. Also it ceded most of its railway network, and important towns such as Kiel and Schleswig. The war in the long run secured Prussia's position, and 18 months later Prussia won against Austria, with the help of French and Italian threats against Tyrol and Dalmatia, paving the way ultimately for 1870...

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My questions:

Apart from asking if you find any wrong info in the post, i want to also inquire on the following specific issues:

1) What was the significance of Dannevirke in the Viking-Frankish and Danish-HRE comflicts and balances?

2) Was Dannevirke realistically defensible, even despite the harsh winter which frose the bodies of water to the east of its main lines?

3) How reasonable was an expectation by the Danish ruling command that a retreat to Schleswig would bring about different balances and not an immediate chase of the retreating army?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Prince of Essling]

See this excellent site on the Danish-Prussian wars http://www.fortress-scandinavia.dk/S.../ENG/index.htm

In particular on the Dannevirke see http://www.fortress-scandinavia.dk/S...nevirke_ny.htm which concludes that the position was indefensible - 40,000 men to hold a front of 85km (470 men per km); even the potential 20,000 reinforcement would have made no difference.

[Dromikaites]

I'll answer to the 3rd question:

Holstein was almost 100% German-inhabited and would have been hard to defend even if the Germans would not have revolted during the Prussian-Austrian attack.

In case of a very likely German insurrection it would have changed form hard-to-defend into impossible-to-defend and would have resulted in the guaranteed loss of the whole Danish army.

So the other option available was to defend in Schlesswig, where the Danish population was more numerous and therefore the risk of a German uprising was lower.

The Danish military had a different plan of defense than what the politicians had in mind. The Danish plan was to land troops behind the invaders, once they had advanced North into Schelsswig. It could have worked, because of the Danish naval superiority.

The decision to defend along the Danevirke was forced on the army by the politicians, in spite of the Danish strategists' very strong objections. So when the marshes and rivers which protected sections of the Danish positions froze, the commanders were forced to choose between risking the whole army in a single battle against a larger and better armed enemy or pulling back.

[Kyriakos]

Thank you both for the excellent info

[Visna]

1) What was the significance of Dannevirke in the Viking-Frankish and Danish-HRE comflicts and balances?

The Franks were the superpower of the day, and protecting against them was the primary motivation to expand and reinforce Dannevirke. There had been some fortifications there since the Iron Age some of them stretching back to the 3rd century, but the idea of a strongly defended fortified southern border really kicked off around 500. They were expanded, modifed, fortified etc over the next 700 years. But by the time of the HRE in the 13th century it had begun to lose it's military significance, and became increasingly symbolic. (But never underestimate the power of symbols )

2) Was Dannevirke realistically defensible, even despite the harsh winter which frose the bodies of water to the east of its main lines?

With the situation as it was in 1864, not a chance. In a, from a Danish perspective, ideal situation, unlikely but with a small maybe.

[Kyriakos]

Thanks

[Tiberios]

I read a couple of wiki articles, so i really would like to check if some info there is correct, and also pose a few questions

While the war seems to have started largely as a reaction to the new Danish parliamentary action bringing about the end of Holstein's regional autonomy as part of a general German nation, actual military campaigning did not lead to much until the middle of January of 1864.

No. The November Constitution of 1863 tied Denmark closer with Schleswig, not Holstein, by establishing a joint Parliament - the Rigsraad - for Denmark and Schleswig. Both would still retain separate Parliaments though.

Denmark had no intentions of trying to annex Holstein, which was predominantly German and never considered part of Denmark proper. Schleswig, however, was considered ancient Danish territory, symbolized by the Dannevirke, which has always been considered the border between Denmark and the German states/HRE and as a result, many Danes wanted the area either annexed or tied closer to Denmark. Schleswig also had a large Danish population, how many I do not know and I know of no sources that provide any reliable numbers.

My questions:

Apart from asking if you find any wrong info in the post, i want to also inquire on the following specific issues:

1) What was the significance of Dannevirke in the Viking-Frankish and Danish-HRE comflicts and balances?

I'm uncertain of how significant it actually was. It was expanded and upgraded several times, even with a brick wall in the 12th century, so it must have at least been considered significant by the Danish kings. Although, as Visna pointed out, the threat from the HRE declined in the 13th century and the Dannevirke might not have been that important afterwards. Besides the war of 1864, the Dannevirke does not seem to have played any important part in later wars, like the Thirty Year's War or the Torstenson's War, where HRE and Swedish armies ransacked Jutland.

2) Was Dannevirke realistically defensible, even despite the harsh winter which frose the bodies of water to the east of its main lines?

As it was in 1864 and with the Prussians having heavier and more modern artillery, no, I don't believe it was realistically defensible. General de Meza is creditet by almost every single historian as having done the right thing when he withdrew the Danish army safely north.

Had the Dannevirke been upgraded and expanded, had the Danish army been larger and more well equipped, especially with heavy, more modern artillery (the only heavy artillery that could match the Prussian artillery was fixed artillery on the Dannevirke), then one could argue that it might have been. Personally, I don't think Dannevirke was defensible, even with upgraded fortifications and more troops to defend it. The Prussian and Austrian armies were simply too numerous to effectively defend against.

3) How reasonable was an expectation by the Danish ruling command that a retreat to Schleswig would bring about different balances and not an immediate chase of the retreating army?

Thanks in advance for any help!

If you mean General de Meza's retreat from the Dannevirke, then I believe he did the only thing that he could and it was the only right thing. The Danish army would suffered a defeat on par, or even worse, with Dybbøl. The failure of the Danish army was, IMO, in large part, the reliance on fortifications like Schleswig and Fredericia. In essence the Danish army tried to replicate the successfull tactics from the first war. Problem was that no foreign support was comming and the Prussian army was very different from that Prussian and Schleswig-Holstein army that marched into Jutland 14 years prior.