The Prussian troops were afterward withdrawn by the
hesitating Frederic William, and there followed a succession of
protocols, constitutions, and compacts until the time of Bismarck, who,
in his "Reflections," Volume II., Page 10, in writing of the Duchies,
acknowledges:
"From the beginning I kept annexation steadily before my eyes."
The master of statecraft conquered. But did the people "stand up and
express their desire to remain with the German Federation," as Dr.
Dernburg asserts?
If his assertion be true, why were the Danish "optants" subjected to
domiciliary visits, perquisitions, arrest, and expulsion? And why--only
to mention one instance of espionage--did the Prussian police confiscate
the issue of a Danish newspaper published in Schleswig because it
contained a reference to that Duchy under its historic name of South
Jutland?
The truth stands that the whole Schleswig-Holstein question is one that
involves the modern principle of "nationality," and, as such, enters of
necessity into the present European crisis. It is broadly understood by
Dr. Eliot and willfully misapprehended by his critic.
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