Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Page 257

FRONTIERS OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS 245
of life of the upper classes of society. The introduction of the
German language in the Church services which took place after
the Reformation throughout extensive areas whose national
language was Danish told in the same direction.
A long and eventful period was to elapse before the time
arrived — less than a century before the present date — when
the movement towards German unity began to make itself felt
in earnest. In Denmark there ensued a conflict between two lines
of policy: that of the “Unitary State”, which aimed at the pre-
servation of the whole of the Danish Kingdom, including Hol-
stein, and the Eider Policy, which aimed at making the Eider the
Southern boundary of the Danish State. The struggle between
these policies was brought to an end with the war of 1864, which
gave the victory to the Germans. A partition of the historical
area of Slesvig along national lines — a solution which would
no doubt have been possible — evoked little response among the
contending parties at the time. A well-known clause in the Treaty
of Prague held out a promise of this solution, but it was never
carried into effect. Till the end of the first World War the Kon-
geaa river, which was the boundary between Northern and South-
ern Jutland, and separated the former Duchy of Slesvig from
the rest of Denmark, remained the international frontier between
Denmark and Germany. The plebiscite of 1920 restored the
Northern part of Slesvig to its old mother Country, and in this
state of things the German occupation of Denmark in 1940 has
made no change.
The history of the Danish-Swedish frontier presents other
remarkable features. The final decision was here determined by
events which took place at an earlier date and which to a more
marked degree than was the case with Denmark’s Southern
frontier, were the outcome of a concentrated trial of military
strength between the two parties concerned.
The older Denmark was above all a maritime power, with
the Sound as its central and most important waterway. When
about the year 1000 the newly united Danish Kingdom emerges
into the light of history, Scania was one of its principal provinces,
the most valuable of them all, according to the chronicler Adam
of Bremen. There is reason to believe that this had been the case
long before that time. It was not by chance that Lund in Scania
before long became the principal see of the Danish Church. The
connection between Denmark and the province of Halland, which