SOUTH-JUTLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 130, 26 February 1919, Page 5

SOUTH-JUTLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN

LIGHT ON A BISMARCKIAN STEAL GERMANISING SCHEME THAI FAILED (By Lieutenant K. N. Colville.) The liberation, of Alsace-Lorraine from the Prussian yoke has naturally given hope to tho Schleswigers of a. similar restoration of their-natural Rights, and a good deal is now being written on the Biibject. But it would not be fair to suppose that because the (i uestion Lμ not been kept prominent during the war it has not been ft very burning one m the countries immediately concerned, Schleswig itself and Denmark, though Denmark has lain too much at Germany's mercy to say much, and in Schleswig the hand of the Prussian has been more repressive than is usual , even, with that iron-gauntleted race. The historic justice of Denmark 6 ciaim to Schleswig, or to put it more in accordance with the spirit of the times, of Schleswig to union: with Denmark, is pretty generally known-and admitted. The famous Article 5 of the Treaty of Prague -which promised a plebiscite, to North Schleswig, admitted it as plainly as any German utterance could. The subsequent "revision" of that treaty in 1878, which, by agreement between Germany and Austria, 'without any reference to the other interested .parties,.declared Article 5 null and void, was protested against oven in Germany. Only one thing had given,.Germany., any .better claim to tho province than Prussia had had in ISGG.- But that one thing was in German eyes, all sufficing. Germany had defeated Franco, chained Austria, and blinded England. In other words, her niHit on the Continent was eupreme. What Bismarck hesitated to do in 18C8 lie did in 1878. ■ Buthe would not have appeared ready to forego his prey at the earliest had ho not. trusted to being ablo to secure it by more fox-like methods. The same system of Prussincation which had already been tried, without much success, in Poland, and was being tried only yesterday in the , Baltic provinces, filched from Russia at Brest-, liitovek, was ruthlessly applied. By it Bismarck hoped to drive the Danish population out, and so in due course otw tain a German, or, .at-any ..rate, a Ger-man-voting maority, 'by. wlibm the plebiscite might safely be exercised. Twelve years, however, found Schleswig as Danish as ever, and Bismarck could wait no Had' Germany waited till this day she would' not have found the position any more favourable. Schleswig lias never , ceased to maintain her Danish quality and to protest, with the support of all I Bcatidinnvia, against the Prussian "tyranny. One of the clearest and pithiesf utterances of. ScUeswiff's complaint is to be found in a pamphlet originally published in 1914 and republished with additions in 1917, entitled "South Jutland Under Prussian Ru10, , " by J. Andersen.; Schleswig. Sir. Andersen, with perfect justice, points out, was never German, nor even claimed by Germany, till the annexation, b'y Prussia; for domestic disputes between , Denmark and Schleswig,' between Gliickbiirgs and Augustenburgs, have nothing to- do with the matter. Previous to 18M, he writes, "the country ■was thoroughly Danish! .there was not one per cent. Germans, and if 'there were an occasional immigrant his descendants would soon be Danish. . . . There was some tendency to use German in the towns, there being families who found, that genteel, but the mass of the population stuck to their Danish language/ and almost the whole population in the country as " far south as Flensborg is Danish to this day, with tho exception, of, course, of those who have immigrated since ISM." Since that date the Germans, in spite of solemn proclamations.to the.contrary, have prescribed the Daaish/istfg'pge in Schleswig, and have largely stamped it out in tfie southern districts, south, as Mr. Andersen says, of Flensborg, but the language, he 'claims, is no just tion of sympathies. For not to 'GeNJ manise" is to be a marked man. German is the official language; it. alone » used in the courts and in the schools, i Even the churches are coerced into using German. Children inay.not.be sent to school in Denmark, and no one, oven a parent, is allowed "to teacli the young who is not certified as "morally competent," which no one who dares not recognise the beauty of German kultur is. Fifty thousand young men left Schleswig after the annexation, meaning to return when the promised plebiscite 6hould have rid their native land of the Prussian intruder. They were, for the most part,' never allowed, to return, and anyone who was euspected of being, still .Danish at heart and a person of any influence, however law abiding, was expelled from tho country. Besides this public money, pro-; vided by good Danish Schleswigers, , was used to found colonies of Germans in , the outraged province. For many years, i records Mr. Andersen, meetings were pro-, hibited by the simple expedient of forbidding inn-keepers to allow.rooms to be used for tho purpose. Meeting-houses were then built, and other methods had to be used, 6uch as this: '"youthful persons,' a description that -purposely is kept very vague, and for which they will; not substitute any definite limit of age,' may thus not partake in the meetings, _ not even in gymnastic exercises; oven religious meetings, which'according to tne law are allowed wilitihit having to be reported, are forbidden as being pohticiil." And all intercourse, even social, between the two fides of the Danish border is made as diflicult us possible. As for tho I're.«, Mr. Andersen records that "there is scarcely any Danish editor in South-Jutland who has not been sentenced either to simple prison or to imprisonment in a fortress." ■ But all these attempts at forcible conversion have hnd but one effeoh They prove how sincere and passionately strong is the Danish quality in the.Schles-' wiger; ■ .■ ■• ■■-■ ■