Schleswig-Holstein Army

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Coat of arms of the Schleswig-Holstein Army

The Schleswig-Holstein Army was formed at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising against Denmark. Its foundation marks the democratic and national liberal awakening in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. With the allied Prussia and the German Confederation, the Schleswig-Holsteiners lost the Three Years War (1848–1851), as it is called in Denmark.

history

Rendsburg Fortress (1848)

After Christian VIII died in January 1848 , his successor Frederick VII proclaimed the draft of an overall constitution for Denmark and the duchies. When Metternich was overthrown in the Austrian Empire during the revolution of 1848/49 and there was also unrest in Berlin, the March Revolution broke out in Copenhagen on March 21, 1848 , as a result of which on March 22, 1848 the first bourgeois government (March Ministry) was formed. The German-influenced Schleswig-Holstein movement feared the complete incorporation of the Duchy of Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark and formed the Provisional Government (Schleswig-Holstein) in Kiel on March 24, 1848 . Both governments were characterized by a dualism of (national) liberal and conservative forces. While the German side demanded the merger of the duchies and the connection to the German Confederation (or a German nation-state to be created ), the Danish national liberals demanded the merger of Schleswig with Denmark (with the abandonment of Holstein). There were also conservative supporters of the entire Danish state on the Danish side. Until then, Holstein was a member state of the German Confederation and Schleswig was a Danish fiefdom in (one-time) personal union with the King of Denmark .

On the same day that the German-minded Provisional Government was proclaimed in Kiel, armed troops, including the voluntary militia, students and gymnasts, took the Danish fortress of Rendsburg by surprise . The Corps Holsatia played a leading role in this. As the only military expert, Friedrich Emil August von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg , the Prince of Noer, was ready to take over command of the newly formed troops. He had to create a people's army with non-national professional officers, which could remain operational even in the event of a defeat, out of converted parts of the Danish army and conscripts drafted into the military, out of free troops and revolutionaries . The shortage of officers was a problem until the end of the survey.

People's Army

Schleswig-Holstein tent camp (1848)

At the beginning of the war, the number of Danish troops that had converted was around 2,500 men. It was mainly the 14 to 17 lines - battalion , the 4th and 5th hunters -Corps, the 1st and 2nd Dragoon - Regiment and the 2nd Artillery Regiment and some technical troops ( pioneers and pontoniers ). After three weeks there were 8,900 men.

In order to strengthen the armed forces by volunteers , the Provisional Government called on March 27, 1848 for the formation of Freikorps . The leaders of the finally four volunteer corps were von Krogh, Count Kuno zu Rantzau-Breitenburg , von Wasmer and Major von der Tann . A thorn in the side of the regular army and the Prussian officers , the Freikorps were disbanded as early as July 1848 after a "prussian" reorganization; but in the campaign of 1849 there was again a volunteer sniper corps.

With the state constitution of September 1848 the general conscription was introduced. The only exceptions were students and members of the clergy. Following the Prussian model, there was an opportunity for trained recruits who wanted to become officer candidates to be employed as one-year volunteers .

At the end of the survey, the Schleswig-Holstein Army had a total strength of 860 officers and 43,288 men. It comprised 15 infantry battalions, 5 hunter corps, 2 dragoon regiments, an artillery brigade , engineers and other units .

The Schleswig-Holstein Navy was also reorganized; but it could not compete with the Danish. The gunboat no. 1 Von der Tann was one of the world's first ships with steam screw drive. Wilhelm Bauer's Kieler Brandtaucher was the first German submarine .

Development and end

Rendsburg troop stamp (1848)
Return of the Schleswig-Holstein troops (1849)

The day after its formation, on March 25, 1848, the seat of the Provisional Government was relocated from Kiel to Rendsburg. Six days later, she offered the Danes in Northern Schleswig a vote on their nationality. On April 9, 1848, the Schleswig-Holstein Army was defeated during construction . The defeat was followed by the Easter battle near Schleswig on April 23, 1848, which ended with the withdrawal of the Danes. After the Saxon and Bavarian federal troops had taken the Düppeler Schanzen , the Schleswig-Holstein Army crossed the border to Jutland on April 20, 1849 and took Kolding . Fredericia Fortress was occupied without a fight on May 3, 1848. In the following years there were numerous fights on the Sundewitt and around Düppel .

The Malmö armistice, which was limited to seven months, was used to strengthen the army and navy. The day after its end, on March 28, 1849, the Paulskirche constitution was passed in Frankfurt am Main . A week later it came to the victorious battle near Eckernförde .

On July 6, 1849, the Danes succeeded in falling out of Fredericia fortress; the Schleswig-Holstein Army was repulsed. While the German federal troops march back from Schleswig-Holstein, the Schleswig-Holstein Army stopped at the Eider line . At the beginning of September 1849 she moved into her accommodation in the Duchy of Holstein.

On April 8, 1850, the Prussian Lieutenant General a. D. Karl Wilhelm von Willisen Commander-in-Chief of the Schleswig-Holstein Army. After Prussia surrendered the Duchy of Schleswig and the Duchy of Holstein in the Peace of Berlin (1850) , the army mobilized on July 1, 1850 crossed the Eider border to Schleswig on July 13, 1850 . After the lost battle near Idstedt collapsed, she had to accept further misfortune: The explosion of her laboratory in Rendsburg claimed 122 deaths. The Danes took Friedrichstadt and Tönning . The battle near Missunde was unsuccessful, the siege, bombardment and storming of Friedrichstadt in vain. When gunboat No. 8 sank in the Elbe, 42 men drowned. The fire diver sank in the port of Kiel. And finally, in the Treaty of Olomouc , Prussia renounced its plans for the unification of Germany.

So Lieutenant General v. Willisen retired on December 7th, 1850 as Commander-in-Chief of the Schleswig-Holstein Army. His successor was Major General Ulrich von der Horst . After the unsuccessful battle for Rendsburg, the Schleswig-Holstein Army was disbanded on March 31, 1851, and the federal contingent of the Duchy of Holstein was incorporated into the Danish army. At the end of the survey, the Danes were given 527 fortress guns , 118 field guns , 54,810 rifles , carbines and pistols , 42,660 sabers and all the carts and warships that were partly used in the German-Danish War of 1864.

Uniforms

After initially dyed Danish uniforms had been worn, a uniform based on the Prussian pattern was introduced. However, the majority of the troops wore the old Danish uniforms until September 1848, whereby all soldiers had to wear a white band on their left arm to distinguish them from the Danish opponent. In order to avoid the typical Danish red uniform color, the line infantry wore the shorter-cut light blue work jackets. From autumn 1848 the following was valid: The skirts of the line infantry , artillery , pioneers , the train troops , directorate , military doctors , auditors and the general staff were dark blue, the hunters wore dark green, the dragoons light blue skirts. The trousers were light blue with red piping, except for the hunters who wore dark gray trousers with the same piping. Leather helmets ( spiked hats ) and peaked field caps were common as headgear . Dragoons wore a cuirassier helmet called a steel helmet with a point, the hunters a felt shako with a horse's tail. The rank badges ( epaulets for officers, collar and sleeve strips for NCOs) were based on the Prussian model. The decoration of all headgear was the double-headed eagle of the German Confederation with the coat of arms of Schleswig-Holstein on the chest.

As Kokarden the blue, white and red for Schleswig-Holstein were from 7 September 1848 left, right, the (decided only on March 8, 1848) Black-Red-Gold worn for the German Federation. All officers wore the insignia silver sashes , were acting in the Schleswig-Holstein colors. Only the Schleswig-Holstein and the Germans were carried as troop flags . The Schleswig-Holstein Army was considered exemplary in some respects, for example in the medical service and in the logistics team .

Armament

Cenotaph at the Nordfriedhof (Kiel)

The war from 1848 to 1851 took place against the background of general innovations in weapons technology. The artillery developed just as much as the handguns: From 1840, the general introduction of percussion ignition mechanisms instead of the flint locks and experiments with rifled barrels, new projectiles (Minié projectiles) and the so-called Thouven system. In the case of the latter, a pin attached to the barrel ensures that the bullet is compressed into the barrel rifling. The Schleswig-Holstein army used infantry rifles, hunter rifles and carbines from old Danish (muskets 1822 and 1828) and Prussian stocks (models 1809 U / M and 1839) and bought so-called thorn rifles (Thouvenin rifles) in Liège and Suhl. The majority of the edged weapons came from old Danish stocks or from the arms factories in Solingen. In terms of artillery, the Schleswig-Holstein army initially only had the material found in the Rendsburg fortress. Here, the 6, 12 and 24 pound ball and bomb cannons of the 1834 model from the Danish army formed the armament base throughout the war. At the turn of the year 1850/51 the artillery also experimented with the installation of a missile battery of the Congreve type .

Although there was an arsenal, an armory laboratory and, with the Carlshütte, also a modern iron foundry in Rendsburg , the Schleswig-Holsteiners themselves did not manufacture any weapons during the war, apart from a few hand mortars and gunboats (war sloops equipped with oars and sails). So all weapons had to be imported.

Exhibition 2012

On the history of the uprising, the war and the Schleswig-Holstein army, the Schleswig-Holstein State Library curated a double exhibition in 2012 in Kiel and Rendsburg with Jens Ahlers and Jan Schlürmann .

literature

Web links

Commons : Schleswig-Holstein Army  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Only after the Second World War were the two Schleswig lions "stepping out of the coat of arms" turned around to show the unity of the two parts of the country (Manfred Rüthlein: Where do the Schleswig-Holstein lions "walk" in the coat of arms of Schleswig-Holstein? In: Heimatkundliches Jahrbuch Rendsburg , 53, 2003, p. 170)
  2. ^ Rendsburg Fortress ( Memento from January 6, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Gerd Stolz, Heyo Wulf: Danish, German and Austrian war graves from 1848/51 and 1864 in Schleswig-Holstein . Husum 2004, ISBN 978-3-89876-167-3
  4. Jan Schlürmann, Jens Ahlers: AufBruch & BürgerKrieg. Schleswig-Holstein 1848–1851 . Exhibition catalog, Schleswig-Holstein State Library, Kiel 2012. ISBN 978-3-941713-10-9 .