LITERARY NOTES.

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 59, 25 May 1865, Page 8

LITERARY NOTES.

(From our London Correspondent. )■ Mr T. E. H. Skinner,. recently the correspondent \of the ; ; ' Daily News -in Denmark during"; the war,; has just brought out his 'Tale of Danish Heroism.' .i Mr Skinner, it appears, had the honor 1 of being decorated by- the s Danish Government;, it is, therefor ej hardly necessary to say that he is the most enthusiastic of PhiloDanes. -To blame him on this account would be; unreasonable! The balance of i'ig'ht in the lo'ng^s'tandihg^ quarrel between the' Scandinavian and Teutonic parties was, as -is perhaps generally the : case, on the sk'e of -the weaker >party~ but the whole account was not one way;, and there were many; considerations which ought fairly to> be credited to the : favor of the Germans. Tliat there could be two sides to the question is^a consideration which appears never to have struck Mr Skinner's mind; As far as we gather from his book, his previous acquaintance with Germany was extremely slight; he went full oi enthuiasm from England to Denmark," without passing through the Duchies, of having- had any means of judging for himself as to the state of feeling amongst the Continental population of the Danish monarchy; he was received in Denmark, as every other English visitor at that period was, with extreme kindness and hospitality, and, seeingeverything en bea/u, he painted it accordingly. He is a : partisan, not a critic \, a narrator, rather than an observer. Still, this very defect, which depreciates Mr Skinner's value as an authority on the Dano-German question, adds perhaps to his merit as a stor} r teller. Throughuto ; the- '-Tale 1 of Danish Heroism •• there runs a >sort of unity which cannot be found in narratives where the pros-and cons of the tsubject are weighed with greater impartiality. ; : : ; . The merits or demerits of the SchleswgiHolstein dispute have long since passed into the limbo of oblivion. Whether the Novemberco'nstrtution was or was riot an infraction of the agreements entered into between King Frederick VII. and the German princes, and all the nest of similar obscure inqunes which perplexed the diplomatic world for years r are matters which have ceased to possess any practical interest. The Duchies are lost to Denmark for ever j. and- even Mr Skinner is not sanguine enough . to ■.: suppose that Schleswigwill ever' be ruled over again from Copenhagen. Nor does the English public need any further argument to convince it that the actual invasion which terminated the Dano-German feud was an unjust and un<* necessary act; The only point on which any new work on the subject can throw any great amount: of fresh light is with regard to the actual efforts made by the Danes to uphold the integrity of their country. ,. There .was so much talk in England, last spring* about the heroic resistance made by the Danish nation, and the gallantry. with which- it. had resolved to -fjglit to the. last drop of its blood and the last coin in its Treasury, that when the war collapsed, as it: did, a reaction set in, and the popular enthusiasm for. Denmark died away as rapidly as it had arisen. It is .worth while, .'therefore, taking Mr Skinner as. our; exponent of the ultra-Danish view of the,questionjto see what was actually done by. the .Scandinavian kingdom throughout ; the memorable struggle. J^ Sweden, then> did absolntely nothing*. Two :or three hundred volunteers came over to< aid the sister kingdom, the majority of whom got no further than the casinos of Coperihagany whilethose who came on to the seat of war g-ot attached ta the staff arid added to the list ; of non-combatants who en cumbered ■■ • the little Danish army. Throughout; the whole war there was not a single ids tance of pri vate resistance to the invasion, even in the, purely Danish parts of Jutland. .No^doubt any attempt at guerilla warfare by individuals would have proved xinaiv ailing", and have entailed cruel reprisals. iAitthet time when the Copenhagen papers were dilating" most 'bit f ei'ly on the alleged cruelties exercised by the Prussians- in Jutland^ a German soldier could gio across the whole of that desolate thinly ; populated country without fear of : a ttack .pr inj ury. from ; ; the peasantry. No ; doubt; ithisifacl iwasdue ; in the main part to the extreme kindness and placidity of thej Danish »' -"character j, '-but ; it could : not ;liave'existedJdf' thei German ; invasion had roused up anything- of tlni-t-national erithu-

siasm in the mindf> of the Danes which similar occasionshave roused in other people. If the dislike of the Danes to their, enemy had been half as strong as that/" \\jt the Dutch to the Spaniards, or of the Spaniardsto the French, or of the Italians to the Austrians, 6r of the Poles to the Russians,, the occupation of the whole of the Cimbrian peninsula could not possibly have been carried out with such an utter absence Ol opposition. -^ With regard: to> the exertions made by the Danish Government, Mr. Skinner's accuunt is correct enough. The Danish army had been, placed on a war footing- at the commencement of 1864,. and- nearly trebled in number. It contained twenty-two regiments of infantry, six of cavalry, and thirteen field batteries,, of eight guns to a battery. There were; besides fortress (Fsestning). artillery companies^, a body of engineers,, and the Royal Guards.: This force must have counted at ; the utmost 40,000 bayonets,. 4000 sabres, ' and 3000 artillerists-.. The burgher trainbands and volunteers- in Copenhagen, could no more fairly be reckoned as part of King- Christian's army than --could theNational Guard of Paris be ranked among the legions of the second Empire. It may therefore be said that the Danes had 42,000 soldiers- witb which to oppose an. alliance that could bring 1 half a million, men into- the field. From my estimate? of Danish force deductions must moreover be made for battalions not completely filled up> and squadrons of less than theirnominal strength. It is quite true the Germans could,, theoretically, have brought half a million soldiers into the field ;, but their actual forcein the Duchies probably never exceeded 80,000; Wow the population of Denmark,, .excluding, Hplstein and Sonderberg, cannot be reckoned at less than a million and a: half r which, according- to the ordinary average of life, would give at least 250,000' men over twenty. It is impossible,, therefore,, to say that there was anything- like a: levee en masse of the population. Volunteering*, too, all candid- obsei-vers must- ad- , mit, went on very languidly, even at themost exciting period of the campaign. The peasants who were drawn in the conscription- served readily enough, and did their- ; duty, gallantly, but that was all: in fact,., the people, the Government, and the army of Denmark did fully as much as was; necessary to save their honor, but they : did I nothing more y and to compare the resistance made by the Dunes to that which,, in. a far worse cause,, the slave states have opposed to the Federals, is an idle exaggeration. The somewhat indiscriminate enthusiasms evinced by Mr Skinner for everybody and-, everything in Denmark hinders him from. 'doing full justice by comparison to- the' onegrand feature of the war- No one who waspresent at Sonderberg during thpn^t daysof the siege of Duppel can fail tdMg&ognisethj dauntless courage and endurtease with which the Danish soldiers stood to their posts. Or dash or vigor they showed very little proof j. find we know that their own officers doubted greatly how far they could have been, relied upon in a sortie against the Prussian batteries - yi but they actual danger of death, they confronted Hvith a noble patience and fearless daringv A. grander spectacle than that of the Danish* regiments marching through, the towa of Sonderberg .over the open- bridges ' and up the steep bare hill of Dybbol, under a ceaseless storm of shells, can seldom be: witnessed. Night after night the samfr dread journey had J to be- macfe-, wkh everincreasing peril, and. yet to. the end the- , troops obeyed the order to advance with, scarcely a complaint or murmur. Therewas the stuff of heroes about these brutish* looking peasant soldiers ; but it was theheroism rather of the martyr* th-aa the-'-warrior. There wsis constant firing against Dybbbl Hill, from the guns in its front and from Broageland, Waggon loads of wounded men brought over bridges and taken to Augustenberg: It was touching 1 to J see the grave determination of all ranksthat come whaf might they would obey their country's conmiancl and die if need, be under the Danebrog. No hope of pa) r , which here was trifling : no love of war-— for the troop's of General Geriach would individually far father have been at home — bnt a sense of dutyj kept these soldiers tog-ether, ' Day rafter ithey saw their comrades torn to pieces by German shells, the hill- was' swept by a fearful ;eross-fire ; and yet its defenders; were stubbornly cheerful.

Never were brave trottps worse officered' or good officers worse generalled. Of course/ there were brilliant exceptions ; but, a/ jrnle, the Danish officers knew very little of the business of their profession) and df the various generals who filled the office of cdmmander^in-chief it is hard to say who was the most incompetent. King Christian is an eminently respectable man, but he is not suited for the post of a sovereign whose country is fighting a life and death battfte lor existence. In fact the whole war was a blunder. If the Danes were not prepared to make greater efforts and sacrifices than they did, they had far better have made terms at once with their invaders. Mr. Skinner has the merit of writing in a singularly pleasant and unaffected style. His description of the Danish houses and scenes he visited are bright and life-like sketches. We quote the picture of the house he occupied at Sonderberg : We live a good way up-s'treet, which proved very beneficial to Herr Sorensen on April 2nd, and our house is large enough to receive a company at least of Danish soldiers^ who occupy the loft every evening. They have piles of straw to sleep on, and go clattering down very early to attend their parade. Passing through the loft just named, you would be conducted to the regular bedrooms ; and here repose the officers of that company in the straw. Three apartments fcrt? filled with Danes, and a fourth is shared between an accomplished young- army surgeon and the present writer, who has to thank him for many little comforts and. attentions. The very atmosphere is military ; soldiers block the narrow staircase, bring messages at all hours, clean our boots, and wait upon everybody with the most r^ady obedience. Nothing is locked and nothing is stolen. ' They give no trouble,' says our host's eldest daughter, ' and are really veryuseful.' The front parlor serves as a reception room for all comers, Here tea is laid out at seven o'clock, anti the table can scarcely give space enough for so large a party as gathers round it. Then in the kitchen are servants and soldiers cooking all day long, with an amount of energy wholly out of proportion to the actual work done. The passage is full of knapsacks and rifles, with half a dozen men smoking on the door-steps. They are glad to get rest for three days in Sonderberg after their cold watching at Dybbol Hill. One division is billeted at Als, another is billeted in the town, and the third does duty across Alstind, so that a constant change of faces may be seen at Our crowded tea-table. Grey-headed majors who had served against Wrangel sixteen years before ; tall bearded captains, fit to command a battalion at least, and young lieutenants, Vh.o keeptas alive with their fun and laughter, cotne in for a short time, appear once ,oVjtwicfe at the board, an dr pass away like a a|eam^mak*ing room for similarly fleetiVvJ guests. My only difficulty in un^ derstanding the economy of this family is as to where they live themselves. All are clean and Beat in the moi'ning, but most painful packing must take place during the hours of darkness. Ancient customs receive due honor in this truly Danish abo&e. If we drink, it is probably some friendly skaal, and on rising from meals a general hand-shaking takes place^ with the old world salutation 'Velbekomme,' or * May you have a good digestion.' Indeed there is no necessity for holding that the Danes were altogether in the right, and that the Germans were utterly in the Wrong, to sympathise with Mr. Skinner in his vivid recollections of that brave and kindly Scandinavian nation whom to know is to respect and love.