Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Page 256

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LE NORD
of the ancient boundary by both parties is a long and complicated
chapter, on which there is not yet complete agreement among
historians, and which we must leave aside here. So much is, how-
ever, certain, that as far back as our knowledge goes the historical
area of Danish South Jutland, which later on came to be known
as Slesvig, reached all the way down to the Eider, even though
the German Imperial power at times asserted certain claims to
suzerainty, based on the right of ephemeral conquest or on other
grounds. The theory has even been put forward that the very
name of “Denmark” is derived in this way: a “march” or border
districts of the Empire, inhabited by the Danes.
However all this may be, it has at any rate left no lasting
trace on the future history of the area in question. This was
decided by a set of quite different factors: nowhere else in the
North did the feudal principle play such a predominant part as
in the border areas between Denmark and Germany. Nowhere
else have the dynastic and other implications of this state of
things been fraught with more fateful consequences in the trial
of strength between two nations. Before long the Duchy of Sles-
vig becomes the scene of political developments which are charac-
teristic in several respects. It is attracted towards different camps
at different times, and during this process, its connection with its
Southern neighbour, the German Holstein, comes to play a pre-
dominant part. Among the feudal magnates the idea begins to
gain ground that Slesvig and Holstein belong inseparably together
and ought not to be divided in the future, and this idea is form-
ulated as an established principle in 1460, in connection with the
agreements which gave both the Duchies to the new Danish
dynasty, the House of Oldenburg, and thus attached them to
Denmark by a personal union. New complications were to follow
— the name of Holstein-Gottorp is enough to suggest them to
Swedish readers — but the decisive political factor was not, after
all, this political entity, though for a time it appeared to come
near to establishing a new Southern Scandinavian realm in com-
petition with the Danish Kingdom, but the deeply-rooted con-
ception of the indivisibility and common destiny of Slesvig-Hol-
stein. At a very early date, the strength of Danish nationality
in Slesvig began to be undermined by the acquisition of large
estates there on the part of the Holstein nobles, by the growth
of a German element in the towns, by the way in which the
country was administered, and by the general outlook and mode