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Updated: June 14, 2025
The possessor of this fine place, the old Countess Danneskjold, mother of the Duchess of Augustenburg, was an agreeable and excellent lady, I was there not as a poor child of the people, but as a cordially-received guest. The beeches now overshadow her grave in the midst of that pleasant scenery to which her heart was allied.
Hanover for the King strongly disliked Augustenburg at once acquiesced; Saxony refused. Bismarck began to make military preparations; the Saxons began to arm; the Crown treasures were taken from Dresden to Königstein. Would Austria support Saxony or Prussia? For some days the question was in debate; at last Austria determined to support a motion at the Diet declaring the execution ended.
Some suppose that the King insisted on his taking this step; that is, however, very improbable; others that he proposed it in order that it might be rejected by Austria, so that Austria might lose the great influence which by her support of Augustenburg she was gaining in Germany.
If so he deceived himself grievously. Petersburg, Paris, and London, explaining that he was not inclined to support Augustenburg any longer, and instructing the Ambassadors to act accordingly. Not content with this he at once brought forward an alternative candidate.
Affairs in the Duchies gave Bismarck the opportunity for adopting with good grounds a hostile attitude towards Austria; Gablenz, the new Governor of Holstein, continued to favour the Augustenburg agitation.
The Prussian Envoy rose and explained that they might expect it, but that Prussia would not fulfil their expectations; he moved that the claims of all candidates should be considered by the Diet, not only those of Augustenburg and of the Duke of Oldenburg, but also of Brandenburg. The claims of Brandenburg were a new weapon of which Bismarck was glad to avail himself.
This is probably quite sufficient reason to explain Bismarck's personal dislike of Augustenburg, though it is probable that he laid more stress on this aspect of the matter than he otherwise would have done, for he hoped thereby to prejudice the King against the Prince; as long as the King recognised Augustenburg's claims, his own hands would be tied in the attempt to win the Duchies for Prussia.
Austria and Prussia then declared that they could no longer acknowledge the King of Denmark as Sovereign of the Duchies; that the whole of the two Duchies ought to be separated from Denmark and placed under the sovereignty of the Prince of Augustenburg; that he should be declared the rightful possessor of the throne of these Duchies, and that that was a declaration which would be hailed throughout Germany and would meet the wishes of the German people.
To Bernstorff, his envoy at the Congress, he writes: "Austria is endeavouring to establish irrevocably the candidacy of Augustenburg in order by this means to render it difficult for Prussia to impose special conditions. We cannot consent to this.
So slight indeed were the determining causes that changed my autumn holiday into an undertaking the most momentous I have ever approached. Two days more preceded the change. On the first, the southwesterly wind still holding, we sallied forth into Augustenburg Fiord, 'to practise smartness in a heavy thresh, as Davies put it.
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