66 only three dissenting votes,1 proceeded to vote a formal decree of union with the kingdom of Greece. Regarding the conditions laid down by the Commissioner, the Assembly reserved to itself the right to declare its decisions, as soon as it should have been informed concerning the matters vaguely referred to by the Commissioner as " arrangements for the welfare of the States and the interests of Europe." As for the guarantee of an annual payment of £10,000 to the King's civil list, the Assembly made no answer whatever. The temper of the deputies was opposed to considering it as a compulsory measure. No action having been taken, the Commissioner, on the 13th, again called their attention to the subject, to which the Assembly answered with a request to modify the conditions. The Assembly was finally forbidden to discuss the matter further and on October 21 it was prorogued, never to reassemble.* The "arrangements for the welfare of the States and the interests of Europe" proved to be as displeasing to the islanders as was the guarantee of the civil list. The Powers had come to a secret understanding, on the demand of Great Britain, Austria and Turkey, that the cession should be accompanied by the razing of the fortifications of Corfu and the neutralization of the islands. These conditions had not been mentioned by the Commissioner and when they were published in the British press they raised a fury of protest in the Islands, but, as in the case of the civil list, they were insisted on by the Powers. The wish of the Ionian Assembly having been duly expressed on the question of union, and the British government having made the vote known to the guaranteeing Powers, the plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia met at London to take the next step. On November 14 they signed a treaty to the effect that, the condition of the vote laid down in the Convention of August 1 having been fulfilled, the Powers signatory to the treaty of 1815 now formally accorded their assent to the renunciation of the Protectorate by Britain, and to the union of the Islands with the Hellenic kingdom. The obnoxious clauses of neutrality and the razing of 1 Kirkwall, vol. 1, p. 284. On p. 262 of vol. 2, Kirkwall says that the vote was unanimous. 2 Documents, post, p. 853. 3 There were three dissenting from this vote on the ground that all the conditions of union might be confided to the generosity of Great Britain. Possibly this accounts for the inconsistency in Kirkwall noted above. The treaty of March 29, 1864, recites in Article 5 that the Assembly on October 7/19, 1863, voted that the annual payment be made.- Kirkwall characterizes the demand as indefensible, as there was no reason to assign the King a special revenue from the Islands. It was later abandoned. Kirkwall says 5 France, Affaires étrangères: Documents diplomatiques, 1864, p. 75. that the condition was insisted on by Austria against the wish of Great Britain. the fortress were included in the treaty. On March 29, 1864, a final treaty between Great Britain, France, Russia, and Greece, again referring to the vote of the Assembly as the condition which had been stipulated and fulfilled, legalized the cession and the termination of the British Protectorate was finally proclaimed by the Lord High Commissioner on May 28, 1864. THE SCHLESWIG QUESTION, 1848 The most widely known instance of a treaty clause providing for a plebiscite concerning a question of sovereignty is that of Article 5 of the treaty signed at Prague in 1866, whereby Austria and Prussia agreed as to the disposition of the Danish duchies. However, the suggestion of a plebiscite in Northern Schleswig does not begin with the Treaty of Prague, but dates from the struggle in the duchies between the German and Danish nationalist movements of 1848. The fortunes of the two feudal duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had for many years been identified with those of the Kingdom of Denmark, although their union with the kingdom was purely a personal one under the Danish King, who had inherited the titles of Duke of Holstein and Duke of Schleswig. In spite of this ancient union, and of the fact that the two duchies had been for centuries closely allied or dynastically united with each other, they were of different racial texture. Holstein was wholly German in population and had been made a member of the Germanic Confederation in 1815. Except for the west coast and the North Sea islands, Frisian from time immemorial, Schleswig was originally Danish down to the river Eider, which was the historical frontier of Denmark. In the Middle Ages, however, it had received a large influx of settlers from Holstein, as may still be seen from the German place names along the Eider and through the south of Schleswig. During the close union of the two duchies this northward movement of German settlers continued and South Schleswig proper (bounded by the Schley-Dannevirke-Husum line to the north), eventually became solidly German in language and sympathies. This line of Schley-Husum at the end of the 18th century formed the frontier for race and language. During the 19th century, however, the German language, aided by Government pressure, by the influence of the Church, and later by a popular movement, penetrated further north, and by 1848 the linguistic frontier corresponded roughly to the line of Flensburg-Tondern.1 This was only a very rough approximation, however, for throughout central Schleswig there were regions where sometimes the one race and sometimes the other were settled in solid blocks, and, 1 Emil Elberling, "Partage du Slesvig" in Manuel historique de la question du Slesvig. Edited by Franz de Jessen, p. 139. in some places, where the two groups were mingled in the same parish. These so-called "mixed districts" of Schleswig contained the city of Tondern and forty-nine country parishes of the departments of Flensburg, Tondern, Husum and Gottorp. In eighteen of these parishes, in the centre of the region, Danish was used exclusively in ordinary speech, and there were eight parishes where German was the common medium.1 The region properly referred to as mixed contained 23 parishes, chiefly in Anglia, and 29,879 inhabitants.2 The total population of the duchy, according to the census of 1855, was 395,860. That of Holstein was about 500,000. Their combined. area was approximately 700 square miles. Linked to the fate of the two duchies was that of the former Prussian Duchy of Lauenburg, lying along the Elbe to the southeast of Holstein, and given to the Danish King in 1815. Although both Schleswig and Holstein had for many years been ruled by kings of Denmark, the law of succession in the kingdom and in the duchies was different, the kingdom being heritable in the female line, and the Salic law still being in force in the duchies. The imminent danger of the failure of the male line, which was the only common heir, had given rise in Denmark to an agitation to induce the king to change the law of succession in the two duchies, and to make them an integral part of the kingdom of Denmark. Christian VIII had accordingly, by a rescript of July 8, 1846, arbitrarily decreed the continuance of the union of the duchies with Denmark in spite of the different laws of inheritance in the two states. These efforts had called forth such violent protests 3 from the Estates of the duchies, that the matter had been left in abeyance. Christian soon died. His successor, Frederick VII, was forced by a revolutionary movement in Copenhagen to issue a rescript on January 28, 1848, announcing that there would be a single constitution for the three units, Holstein, Schleswig, and Denmark, leaving to the duchies autonomy in local matters, but providing for common estates. This supreme effort of the Danish party of expansion occurred at the very moment when the new German nationalist spirit was eager to unite under the Germanic Confederation all territories inhabited by the German race. And as the Danish nationalist party had not been content to incorporate only 1 The German contention was that the Danes in North Schleswig were peasants, whereas the men of property were for the most part German. However true this may have been in 1848, it is obvious from the map on opposite page that the situation had changed radically by 1906. 2 This account is taken from P. K. Lauridsen: "La situation des langues en Slesvig," in Manuel historique, pp. 114-18 and 122. See map on opposite page. 3 See State Papers, vol. 40, p. 1253, for protest of the Estates of Holstein against the vote of the Roeskild Assembly in Denmark for uniting the two duchies to Denmark. The union was strongly opposed by Duke Frederick of Augustenburg who had strong claims to the duchies, but none to Denmark. |