Glared to be the complete separation of the duchies from Denmark. As the result of the short campaign that followed, the prelimi naries of a treaty of peace were signed on Aug. I, the king of Denmark renouncing all his rights in the duchies in favour of the emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia. The definitive treaty was signed at Vienna on Oct. 30, 1864. By Article XIX., a period of six years was allowed during which the inhabitants of the duchies might "opt" for Danish nationality and transfer themselves and their goods to Denmark; and the right of "in digenacy" was guaranteed to all, whether in the kingdom or the duchies, who enjoyed it at the time of the exchange of ratification of the treaty'.
The Schleswig-Holstein Question from this time onward be came merged in the larger question of the general relations of Austria and Prussia. So far as Europe was concerned it was settled by the decisive result of the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. (See SEVEN WEEKS' WAR.) It survived, however, as be tween Danes and Germans, though narrowed down to the question of the fate of the Danish population of the northern duchy.
By Article V. of the Treaty of Prague (Aug. 23, i866) Schles wig was ceded by Austria to Prussia with the reservation that "the populations of the North of Schleswig shall be again united with Denmark in the event of their expressing a desire so to be by a vote freely exercised." But the plebiscite never came. Its inclusion in the treaty had been no more than a diplomatic de vice to save the face of the emperor Napoleon III. ; Prussia had from the first no intention of surrendering an inch of the terri tory she had conquered; the outcome of the Franco-German War made it unnecessary for her even to pretend that she might do so; and by the Treaty of Vienna of Oct. z 1, 1878, the clause relating to the plebiscite was formally abrogated with the assent of Austria.
To incorporate Schleswig in the German empire, however, was one thing; to absorb its people into the German nation quite another. South Schleswig was already German ; but for 5o years
Germanism, backed by all the weight of the empire and imposed with the weapons of official persecution, had not held its own in North Schleswig; in spite of an enormous emigration, in 1905, of the 148,00o inhabitants of North Schleswig 139,000 spoke Danish, while of the German-speaking immigrants it was found that more than a third spoke Danish in the first generation; and this in spite of the fact that, from 1864 onward, German had gradually been substituted for Danish in the churches, the schools, and even in the playground. But the scattered outposts of Germanism could hardly be expected to acquiesce without a struggle in a situation that threatened them with social and economic extinc tion. Fifty years of dominance, secured by official favour, had filled them with a double measure of aggressive pride of race, and the question of the rival nationalities in Schleswig, like that in Poland, remained a source of trouble and weakness within the frontiers of the German empire.
During the years preceding the World War, the efforts to Ger manize the Danish inhabitants of Schleswig continued, but only succeeded in strengthening their Danish national consciousness. In Aug. 1914 the effects of this spirit were so feared in Germany that a number of prominent Danes were imprisoned, and during the War the aspirations for union with Denmark were silenced. On the one hand, there was the German censorship, and on the other hand, the Danes themselves in Schleswig did not wish to endanger Denmark's neutrality.
On Oct. 23, 1918, however, H. P. Hanssen, a Danish represen tative, raised the demand for reunion in the German Reichstag; on the same day the Danish Rigsdag passed a resolution in favour of a readjustment of the frontier on the principles of nationality. On Nov. 28 the Danish Government communicated its wishes to the Allies, and in Feb. 1919 a united Danish North Schleswig delegation was sent to the Peace Conference in Paris to present the Danish point of view : a plebiscite en bloc in North Schleswig (zone 1); a community ballot in Central Schleswig and Flens full text of the treaty is in La Question du Slesvig, p. 173 et seq.