About Schleswig-Holstein from 1864-1920

My special comments today will briefly try to describe what happened around the region Schleswig-Holstein after Denmark in 1864 had to hand them over to Germany (Prussia). The change was a loss of land to Denmark of 10 % of its land. About 200 years earlier Denmark has lost Skåne, Halland and Blekinge to Sweden, and 50 years earlier ( in 1814 ) Denmark had lost Norway.  So it was really a country "growing smaller".  This had as a consequence that many efforts were now concentrated to regaining new land internally from the many heath areas, reclaiming land from fiords, etc. A sort of a new wakening of the country - which happened at the same time as the new Danish democracy from 1849 was gaining ground.

In Schleswig-Holstein the new German administration was quickly in place.  Also in the military field. A new Schleswig Regiment with soldiers from the region was started, and it already took active part in the war with France in 1870-71.  Another initiative was a 45 meter high tower of granite was built in 1901 at Knivsbjerg South of Haderslev. It had a 7 meter tall statue of Bismarck - and its inscription was:  We Germans are afraid of nothing but God.   The statue was moved to Hüttener Berge north of Rendsburg before 1920 - and is still there.

When World War I started in 1914 soldiers from the Danish speaking minority, of course, also had to be soldiers in the German army.  About 30.000 of them took part in the war - on the Eastern as well as on the Western front, including in Belgium.  6.000 of them were killed.

Denmark itself was neutral during the war. And it tried to work for a return of the Danish-speaking part of Schleswig to Denmark.  It happened so that the US came to play an active role in those efforts.
In 1916 the US was moving towards joining the war on the side of the allies. It had opened the 80 km Panama Canal between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean in 1914.  It was afraid that Germany would try to conquer the Canal. More precisely, the Americans were suspicious that Germany and Denmark would make a deal, so that Germany would take over the small Danish Westindian Islands ( not far from the Canal) and give part of Schleswig back to Denmark.  So the US said to the Danes: we want to buy your islands - and if you do not want to sell them, we will take them! It was soon agreed that the US would take over the islands and pay 25 mill. dollars for them.  The transfer took place on March 31, 1917.  The islands were from now on called the US Virgin Islands.  The US joined WWI a week later, on April 6, 1917.  So no swap deal between the Danes and the Germans.
The next move from the Americans was president Wilson's 14 points, presented in January 2018.  They said that the coming peace deal after the war should give all people the right to self-determination.  This signal was, of course, quickly seen as a very important  new opening for the return of the Danish-speaking part of Schleswig to Denmark.

A new era was about to start. It is also very interesting from a European point of view.  I will return to that later.

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