within the rovince is the Eider, which rises in Holstein, and after a course 03120 m. falls into the North Sea, forming an estuary 3 to 12 m. in breadth. It is navigable from its mouth, as far as Rendsburg, which is on the Kaiser Wilhelm (Kiel-Elbe) canal, which intersects Holstein. There are numerous lakes in north-east Holstein, the largest of which are the Ploner See (12 sq. m.) and the Selenter See <9 SQ- m->-Of
the total area of the province 57 % is occupied b txlled land, 22% by meadows and pastures, and barely 7% by flbrests. The ordinary cereals are all cultivated with success and there is generally a considerable surplus for export. Rape is grown in the marsh lands and flax on the east coast, while large quantities of apples and other fruit are raised near Altona for the Hamburg and English markets. The marsh lands afford admirable pasture, and a greater proportion of cattle (65 per 100 inhabitants) is reared in Schleswig-Holstein, mainly by small owners, than in any other Prussian province. Great numbers of cattle are exported to England. The Holstein horses are also in request, but sheep-farming is comparatively neglected. Bee-keeping is a productive industry. The hills skirting the bays of the Baltic coast are generally pleasantly wooded, but the forests are nowhere of great extent except in Lauenburg. The fishing in the Baltic is productive; Eckernforde is the chief fishing station in Prussia. The oysters from thebeds on the west coast of Schleswig are widely known under the misnomer of “ Holstein natives." The mineral resources are almost confined to a few layers of rocksalt near Segeberg. The more important industrial establishments, such as iron foundries, machine works, tobacco and cloth factories, are mainly confined to the large towns, such as Altona, Kiel and Flensburg. The shipbuilding of Kiel and other seaports, however, is important; and lace is made by the peasants of north Schleswig. The commerce and shipping of Schleswig-Holstein, stimulated by its position between two seas, as well as by its excellent harbours and waterways, are much more prominent than its manufactures. Kiel is one of the chief seaports of Prussia, while oversea trade is also carried on by Altona and Flensburg. The main exports are grain, cattle, horses, fish and oysters, in return for which come timber, coal, salt, wine and colonial produce. The population of the province in 1905 was 1, S04,248, com# prising 1,454,526 Protestants, 41,227-iRO1'IlaI'1 Catholics and 3270 ]ews. The urban and rural communities are in the proportion of 4 to 6. The great bulk of the Holsteiners and a large proportion of the Schleswigers are of genuine German stock, but of the 148,000 inhabitants in the north part of Schleswig 139,000 are Danish-speaking. Among the Germans the prevalent tongue is Low German, but the North Frisians on the west coast of Schleswig and the North Sea islands (about 19, oo0 in all) still speak a Frisian dialect, which, however, is dying out. The peninsula of Angeln, between the Gulf of F lensburg and the Schlei, is supposed to have been the original seat of the English, and observers profess to see a striking resemblance between this district and the counties of Kent and Surrey. The peasants of Dithmarschen in the south-west also retain many of their ancient peculiarities. The boundary between the Danish and German languages is approximately a line running from Flensburg south-west to loldelund and thence north-West to Tondern and the North Sea coast; not more than 15% of the entire population of the province speak Danish as their mother-tongue, but the proportion is far larger for Schleswig alone, where there is also a considerable bilingual population. The chief educational institution in Schleswig-Holstein is the university of Kiel. Schleswig is the official capital of the province, but Altona and Kiel are the largest towns, the latter being the chief naval station of Germany. Kiel and Friedrichsort are fortified, but the old lines of Diippel have been dismantled. The province sends IO members to the Reichstag and IQ to the Prussian Abgeordnetenhaus (house of deputies). The provincial estates meet in Rendsburg. For the history of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein see Scuraswio-Hotsrsm QUEsr1oN below.
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION, the name given to the
whole complex of diplomatic and other issues arising in the 19th
century out of the relations of the two “ Elbe duchies, ” Schleswig
and Holstein, to the Danish crown on the one hand and the
German Confederation on the other, which came to a crisis with
the extinction of the male line of the reigning house of Denmark
by the death of King Frederick VII. on the 15th of November
1863. The central question was whether the two duchies did
or did not constitute an integral part of the dominions of the
Danish crown, with which they had been more or less intimately
associated for centuries. This involved the purely legal question,
raised by the death of the last common male heir to both Denmark
and the duchies, as to the proper succession in the latter, and
the constitutional questions arising out of the relations of the
duchies to the Danish crown, to each other, and of Holstein to
the German Confederation. There was also the national question:
the ancient racial antagonism between German and Dane, intensified
by the tendency, characteristic of the 19th century, to
the consolidation of nationalities. Lastly, there was the international
question: 'the rival ambitions of the German powers
involved, and beyond them the interests of other European
states, notably that of Great Britain in preventing the rise of a
German sea-power in the north.
To take the racial question first, from time immemorial the country north of the Elbe had been the battle-ground of Danes and Germans. Danish scholars point to the prevalence of Danish place-names* far southward into the German-speaking districts as evidence that at least the whole of Schleswig was at one time Danish; German scholars claim it, on the other hand, as 'essentially German. That the duchy of Schleswig, or South Jutland (Sonderjylland), had been from time immemorial a Danish fief was, indeed, not in dispute, nor was the fact that Holstein had been from the first a lief of the Germano-Roman Empire. The controversy in the 19th century raged round the ancient “ indissoluble ” union of the two duchies, and the inferences to be drawn from it; the “ Eider Danes "2 claimed Schleswig as an integral part of the Danish monarchy, which, on the principle of the union, involved the retention of Holstein also; the Germans claimed Holstein as a part of Germany and, therefore, on the same historic principle, Schleswig also. The history of the relations of Schleswig and Holstein thus became of importance in the practical political question.
Though the designation of Schleswig-Holstein, implying the fusion of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein in a single Prussian province, only dates from 1866, the history of the duchies Barb, , vs has since the 14th century been so closely interwoven to. sub that it is impossible to treat them separately. Some- dui" ° thing must, however, be said about their origins and "C es their separate history up to the time of their first union under the Holstein counts. ~, ,
When it first appears in history South lutland was inhabited by mingled Cimbri, Angles, lutes and Frisians, upon whom the Danes exercised an unceasing pressure from the north. To 1 the south of Schleswig what is now Holstein was in- $1';"° habited mainly by Saxons, pressed upon from the east gsm by the Wends and other Slavonic races. These Saxons were the last of their nation to submit to Charlemagne (804), who put their country under Frankish counts, the limits of the Empire being pushed in 810 as far as the Schlei in Schleswig. Then began the secular struggle between the'Danish kings and the German emperors, and in 934 the German king Henry I. established the Mark of Schleswig (I/Lmes Danafum) between the Eider and the Schlei as an outpost of Germany against the Danes. South of this raged th e contest between Germans and Slavs. The latter, conquered and Christiamzed, rose in revolt in 983, after the death of the emperor Otto Il., and for a while reverte to paganism and independence. The Saxon dukes, however, continued to rule central Holstein, and when Lothair of Siipplingenburg became duke of Saxony (1106), on the extinction of the Billung line, he invested 5?“"tshlP Adolf I. of Schauenburg with the count ship of Holstein. |1o1s¢, ;, , Adolf I.'s son, Adolf II. (1128-1164), succeeded in reconquer1n(g the Slavonic Wagri and founded the city and see of Lübeck to ho1 them in check. Adolf III. (d. 1225), his successor, received Dithmarschen in fee from the emperor Frederick I., but in 1203 the fortunes of war compelled him to surrender Holstein to Valdemar II. of Denmark, the cession being confirmed by the emperor Frederick II. in 1214 and the pope in 1217. Valdemar appointed Albert of Orlamiinde his lieutenant in Holstein, and the Schleswig-Holstein question might have been thus early settled but for Valdemar's ill fortune in being taken prisoner in 1223. During his captivity Albert of Orlamunde was beaten at Molln by Count Adolf III., to whom Valdemar restored his count ship as the price of his own release. A papal dispensation from oaths taken under duress excused a new war; but Valdemar himself was beaten at Bornhovede on the 22nd of July 1227, and Holstein was permanently secured to the house of Schauenburg. After the death of Adolf 'IV. 1I.e. place-names according to popular usage, not the official names given in German maps (e.g. Haderslev for Hadersleben). See La Question du Slesvig, p. 61 seq., " Noms de lieux." 2 I .e. the party at 'Copenhagen which aimed at making the Eider, the southern boundary of Schleswig, the frontier of the Danish kingdom proper.
