SLES'WICK, a duchy known till the 14th c as South Jutland, formed part of the Danish dominions till 1864, when it fell into the hands of the Austrian and Prussian sovereigns. In terms of tire treaty of 1867 it was incorporated with Prussia. The pop. in 1S64 was 400,480. Within its old recognized limits it was bounded on the n. by Jutland, on the e. by the Little Belt and the Baltic, on the w. by the German ocean, and on the s. by llolstein,from which it was divided by the Eyder and the Kiel canal. Tho area was 3,492 sq. miles. The country consists in its eastern and central parts of a gently undulating plain, deeply indented with fiords and streams; and on its western boundary of flat marshy tracts of ground, which require to be protected from the encroachments of the sea by numerous dams.
The numerous islands which skirt the w. coast of Sleswick have probably, at some not very remote period, formed part of the mainland, for navigation is so seriously impedcd by the sand-hanks that this coast is now accessible for ships by only three pas sages. The _r of small islands known as the Halligers, which lie, unprotected by darns, in the midst of these submerged sand tracts. are so -zxposed to the action of waves and storms, that the inhabibutts are compelled to raise their houses on piles. On the eastern coast of Sleswiek lie the islands of Alsen, Aroe. and Femern, where the principal bays and inlets are the Hadersley and Aabenrade fiords, opening Into the Little Belt; the Flensborg fiord, the Slie, the Eckeruforde fiord, and dip Nieler fiord, which formed the ancient boundary between Sleswick and Holstein on the s.e., while the Eyder completed it on the s.w. The principal branches of industry are agriculture, the rearing of cattle, fishing, and ship-building. The She is the chief seat of the herring and salmon fisheries, which, although still of some importance, are inferior to those of the middle ages, when, according to the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, herrings were so plentiful in the Belts and Catteeat, that they could be caught with the bare hands. The chief towns of Sleswick are Flensborg (q.v.), Sleswick, now capital of a Prussian province, a very ancient city, and formerly the key of Den nark (pop. in '75, 14,571); Haderslev, Husum, and Tender. In the s., and partly in Holstein, Rendsborg (pop. 11,406). Sleswick has. 800 Schools. With regard to the language spoken by the mixed population of the duchy, it may he asserted that rather more than the half speak Danish; and of the remainder, about 30,000 persons who belong to the islands on the western coast, which once formed part of the old province of North Friesland, still use the Frisic language, the rest of the inhabitants using either low or high German. The original Danish element of Sleswick has remained purest in the northern half of the duchy; while in the southern parts, where the inhabitants are naturally brought much in contact with Holstein, they have of late years adopted the views, tastes, and language of their German neighbors. The Lutheran is the established religion of Sleswick.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated in the treaty of Vienna, Aug., 1864, by which the duchies of Holstein and Sleswick were ceded to Austria and Prussia, the island of Aroe and other districts of Sleswick, measuring about 115 sq.m., were to be reunited to Denmark; while the latter power was to give in exchange a territory of about 130 sq.m., which, although situated within the boundary of Sleswick, had hitherto been under the jurisdiction of Jutland.
Sleswick, which forms part of the ancient Cimbrian peninsula, has from the earliest period been a debatable land between Danes and Germans; and according to the authori ties of the latter, it was anciently included in the marches of the empire, having been incorporated by Henry the fowler in 930, and reorganized by Otho I., when in 948 the latter erected bishops' sees in Aarhuus, Ribe, and Sleswick. In 1027 the Danish king Knud (our Cauute) obtained from Conrad II. the recognition of the independence of Sleswick, which was declared to belong unconditionally to Denmark, and thenceforth given as a,Danish fief of the crown to the younger sons of the regal house. In 1232, king Valdemar Seir, whose father, prince Knud Laward, had ruled ably over the duchy, gave Sleswick—which was then, and for some time later, known as South Jutlaud—to his younger son Abel. The exact terms of the donation became a subject of dispute, during the successive reigns of Valdemar's sons, Eric, Abel, and Christopher, and began the long course of civil wars and family feuds which are associated with this much contested territory. Abel, and his sons after him, backed by their kinsmen, the counts of Holstein, maintained that Valdemar had given the duchy as an hereditary, inalien able, and indivisible fief; while, on the part of the Danish crown, it was contested that South Jutland was merely a precarious fief, which might be recalled at the pleasure of the sovereign. Its vicinity to Holstein tended to keep up the fends, to which the vexed question of its.mode of tenure had given occasion, and which, in fact, only ceased when the resources of the conflicting parties were exhausted, although the bitterness and ill will with which they were fed seemed to know no intermission. The following brief summary gives the skeleton of the leading events of the history of Sleswick from the dawn of its troubles till the final outbreak in 1848, when, by the influence of the neigh boring Holstein nobles, the Germanized great lauded proprietors of Sleswick entered upon the course of armed opposition to the mother-country, Which has culminated at the present moment in the forcible 'separation from the Danish crown of the duchy of Sleswick, and its imminent incorporation in the Prussian monarchy. In 1386, queen Margaret (q.v.) gave Sleswick in fief to Gerhard, duke of Holstein; and on the extinc tion of his male heirs in 1459. it virtually lapsed to the crown, with which it was united in 1460 under the rule of Christian I. (the founder of the Oldenburg line), by a mode dis astrous to the integrity of the Danish monarchy. See DENMARK. After frequent division among the younger rtimbers of the royal house, which gave rise to a great num ber of collateral lines of the Oldenburg family (of which the Ghickslairg-Sonderborg and the Augustenburg are, with the exception of the imperial house of Russia and the ducal house of Oldenburg, the chief representatives), the ducal portions 'of Sleswick were inalienably incorporated with the crown of Denmark under king Frederick IV. in 1721. This act. which had the guaranty of the great powers. had resulted directly from the treasonable attitude maintained in the previous wars with Sweden by the Holstein-Got tort) princes of Sleswick, and was ratified by Russia and Sweden, no less than by Eng land and France. The different orders of the duchy took the oaths of allegiance for
themselves and their heirs, the Sleswick arms were quartered with those of Denmark proper. and the duchy was included with the latter in one common mode of administra tion. In ;848. the revolutionary movement of continental Europe fanned the flame of digeontenNn the duchies into ablaze, and the upper classes of Sleswick, who had in the course of time become strongly imbued with the German tendencies of the Holstein nobles, with whom they fraternized, joined the latter in open armed rebellion under the thief leadership of the princes of Augustenburg. The Germanized Slbstvick nobles, influenced by the principles of hatred to Denmark, which had long been gathering strength in the university of Kiel, refused to admit the difference between their relations to the crown and those of the Hulsteiners, with whom they demanded to be indissolubly associated in separate legislative and, executive chambers. The king refused to separate Sleswick from the monarchy; the irritation increased on both sides; the royal troops appeared in the duchies to restore order; the Sleswick-Holstein army, whose ranks were principally filled by German volunteers, took the field, aided by the confederate forces sent by the diet to co-operate with the Holsteiners. The troubles by which the German states were threatened at home led, after a few indecisive engagements had been fought, to the withdrawal of the confederate armies, and Prussia having made a special treaty of peace (after a preliminary truce with Denmark), the duchies were left to themselves, and the royal authority re-established, on the understanding that the king should submit a new form of constitution for Holstein and Sleswick to the diet, on account of the former being a member of the confederation; Sleswick being hi the meanwhile put und& a provisional government of Danish, Prussian, and English commissioners. By the peace with Prussia, it was solertmly guaranteed that all old treaties, including that of 1721, should be maintained in regard to Denmark; and in 1851, Austria Threw an army into the duchies to aid Denmark in supporting her authority, and in dissolving the joint Sleswick and Holstein assembly. On the death of Frederick VII. in 1863, prince Christian of Glucksburg (see DExmaux), having ascended the throne as Christian IX., king of Denmark, prince Frederick of Augustenburg called upon the Sleswick-Ilolstein authorities to refuse the oath of allegiance to the new king, and to acknowledge himself as the rightful duke of Sleswick-Holstein, basing his claims on his descent from the legit imate and elder male line of the house of Oldenburg. This appeal was responded to by 25 members of the Holstein diet, who, on behalf of their own duchy and of Sleswick, petitioned the German diet to recognize the validity of the claims of the Augustenburg line, audio pronounce the London protocol of the act of succession devoid of force. 'fhe prince, by this step, set at nought the family compact by which his father, uncle, and himself, for themselves and their heirs,- had, at the close of the war of 1848, accepted a sum of money as full indemnity for all claims on the Danish 'territories, and been allowed on that condition to evade all further consequences of the open rebellion in which they had stood against the throne. In the meanwhile, the fundamental law of Nov., 1863, for the kingdom of Denmark and the duchy of Sleswiek, which had passed the rigsrad, and received the late king's signature shortly before his death, was published, together with a manifesto of Christian 1X., stating his intention in regard to Holstein and Lauenburg. The diet, without committing itself to uphold the Augustenburg claims, put a confederate execution into Holstein; the Danish troops were withdrawn into Sleswick; and on Jan. 6, 1864, the Holstein towns did homage to the duke; while a federal commission suppressed the provisional Holstein government, which bad exer cised its powers since 1862, and established a ducal government at Kiel. The Austrians and Prussians, professing to act for the diet, summoned the Danish king to withdraw the constitution of November within 48 hours; in reply to which the Danish government demanded a term of six weeks to convoke the rigsracl, without whose sanction no con stitutional change could be adopted. The demand was rejected, and the Austro-Prussian army entered Holstein, and hostilities commenced. For ten weeks the Dimes made a gallant stand against their enemy. whose enormous superiority in strength of numbers, and in the efficiency of their artillery and ,snall-arrns, made their final victory the inevitable rather than the glorious result of the campaign The Danes were compelled to suspend hostilities, and to submit to the terms dictated by their conquerors. A con ference was held at Vienna. and, after protracted negotiations, Denmark was constrained to accept peace (Aug , 1864), on the hard terms of ceding to Austria and Prussia, Bois stein, Sleswick, and Lauenburg, on the ground that the indivisibility of the two duchies must be firmly established for the German fatherland by these two great powers. Fol lowing upon this, duke Frederick of Augustenburg was in turn the favored and the rejected candidate for the throne of the new state of gleswick-Holstein. The upper classes in small numbers in Sleswick, in Holstein almost unanimously, were in favor of his claims, while the burgher and lower classes of Sleswick appeared equally unanimous in regretting their severance from Denmark; and the decidedly expressed wishes of the Holsteit party, backed by the lesser German states, to have the duke as their the protests and counter-protests of the diet 'and of foreign pavers, all resulted in an announcement by Austria and Prussia that according to the evidence of the cummissioni appointed to examine the merits of the various claims of Denmark, Augustenburg, and Oldenburg to the duchies, Christian IX. was by right of succession the undoubted pos sessor, and that from him the duchies had passed by right ,of victory to Austria and Prussia. Prussia sought to annex these duchies to her dominions, and offered Austria pecuninary compensation for her assistance in the war. On the other hand, Austria advocated the independence of the duchies. Neither country would yield, and the 'dispute ultimately resulted In the war of 1866. According to a treaty concluded in 1867, Austria abandoned her claims in favor of Prussia, but stipulated that a part of Sleswiek should be restored to Denmark. This stipulation, however, has never been riven effect . • to. See GERMANY. The Prussian province of Sleswick-Holstein, formed out of the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein, has an area of 7;190 sq. m. and a pop. of (1875) 1,074,812.