Speech of Count Rechberg.
In the session of the Chamber of Deputies to-day his excellency Count Rechberg, minister for foreign affairs, answered the interpellation of deputy Dr. Rechbauer and his colleagues as follows:
Count Rechberg. It is known to the high assembly that the execution of the Bund in Holstein was already on the point of taking place, when, by the death of King Frederick VII, the German-Danish dispute assumed the proportions of a serious European complication. A succession question, touching the territorial condition of Europe, arose unexpectedly at the same moment, in which the German Bund was about, by a military occupation of Holstein and [Page 138] Lauenburg, to obtain for itself the exercise of those rights which for ten years have been persistently infringed by the royal Danish government. The two great German powers stand in exactly the same position with regard to this complication, and the imperial government holds that, before all things, it is desirable and important, as a member of the Bund, and as an independent power, not to act without the fullest understanding with Prussia. To my satisfaction I can announce that the views of the royal Prussian government agree with our own, and I can assert that it is the joint resolution of Austria and Prussia to hold to the following points: The treaty which was concluded in London, on the 8th of May, 1852, between Austria, France,. Great Britain, Prussia, Russia and Sweden, on the one side, and Denmark on the other, and which was ratified by his Majesty the Emperor on the 24th of the same month, and which was later joined by many other governments, including several German ones, by formal acts of accession, founded for all those who took part in its positive obligations under international law. Austria and Prussia cannot, therefore, at once, and certainly not in their quality of European powers, be freed from these obligations by the mere fact that the German Bund was not asked to adhere to the London treaty.
In their voting in Frankfort they cannot put themselves in opposition to those obligations towards Denmark into which they entered in accord with nearly the whole of Europe. The real state of the treaty obligations between the German powers and Denmark was, however, not to be looked for in the London treaty alone. A long series of negotiations as to the constitutional position of the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg in the United Danish monarchy had preceded the treaty.
Austria had declared most positively in these negotiations, that it was not disposed to interest itself in a European sanction of the principle of the integrity of the Danish monarchy, and in the establishment of this principle by means of a settled succession, until the German powers had obtained the assurances which they considered just and right for the maintenance of the rights of Germany and of the duchies, and for the protection of German nationality. It was not until Denmark had decided, in December, 1851, to bind itself to fulfil these demands, that Austria and Prussia offered their hands to join those negotiations in London which resulted in the treaty of the 8th of May, 1852. It is true that the Article III of this treaty contains only a general provision that the mutual rights and obligations in regard to the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg, proceeding from the action of the Bund in 1815 and from the existing rights of the Bund, should not be altered by this treaty. There is no mention here of the stipulations of 1851. They are not taken up as a particular condition in the London treaty, which bears the signatures of so many other powers who have no share in the question of the constitution of the Danish monarchy, but, notwithstanding, they contain demonstrably the assumption upon which the German powers agreed to the London treaty. In the relations between Germany and Denmark they, therefore, form a whole with that treaty, and the imperial government is therefore of opinion that if Denmark appeals to the London treaty in regard to Prussia and Austria, Prussia and Austria will be justified in answering that Denmark must fulfil the stipulation upon which the treaty obligations now called in question undoubtedly rest. This case is before us at the present moment. Already, during the reign of the predecessor of King Christian IX, the courts of Copenhagen had, as I have already said, exhausted the patience of Germany; and unfortunately the new sovereign, in spite of the most earnest remonstrances, and in spite of many warning voices, which were not even wanting in the Danish Reichsrath, has signalized the beginning of his reign by a formal breach of the agreements of 1851. Under these circumstances, Austria and Prussia have declared at Frankfort for the suspension of the Holstein vote, and they are of opinion that in the face of such open provocation [Page 139] the Bund owes it to itself to proceed, without any further delay, to carry out the execution which has already been decided on. Nor does the pretext that this measure contains within itself a recognition of the legitimacy of the government of King Christian IX in Holstein and Lauenburg seem to them by any means tenable, as an especial reserve of the right to try the question of succession can be connected with a resolution to carry out the execution without delay. They have repeatedly and earnestly announced such a resolution. Moreover, the imperial government having persuaded itself that, in order to insure the carrying out of the execution, it was necessary that Austrian and Prussian troops should share in the formation of the first reserve, had given to the imperial military plenipotentiary, Major General Baron Rzikowski, the necessary orders for the purpose, and empowered him to declare that, at the first notice from Frankfort, Austria would be ready to send the number of troops asked for to the lower Elbe. Such being the condition of things, therefore, the imperial government cannot doubt that the German Bund will now have a powerful and decisive reckoning with the system which has too long prevailed with Copenhagen, and which infringes the rights and the self-respect of Germany, and it will do its part in the faithful and self-sacrificing performance of its duties to the Bund, that in future there may be no further question of a disregard of the constitutional rights of the duchies, which are under the protection of the Bund. It acts, moreover, in the conviction that the non-German great powers will not refuse their recognition of the justice of the demand, which the Bund is entitled to enforce by the arrangement of 1851, and that, therefore, peace will not be disturbed by the execution in Holstein. But as the imperial government declines all responsibility for any further delay in the carrying out of the execution, it cannot, on the other hand, make itself responsible for a premature and forcible interference in the succession question. For in this last question the right does not present itself as clearly and openly as in the consitutional question. On the contrary, the right is here a matter of dispute on all sides; and however the London treaty may be judged, this much is certain, that this treaty would never have been concluded if the Duke of Augustenburg had possessed a clear and undoubted right to the succession of all Schleswig and all Holstein. From the point of view of the Bund which did not adhere to the London treaty, the question of succession must be thoroughly and legally proved. Inasmuch as it is here, 1st, the question of a formal judicial tribunal, the competency of which, moreover, cannot extend itself beyond the limits of the Bund, it is not fitting to forestall opposition by an ex parte proceeding against the possessor de facto; inasmuch as, 2d, it is here the question of the political position which the Bund is to take in a European question in its quality of a united power, it must convince itself of the justice of the cause which it desires to sustain, for it is certainly not allowable to confound simple wishes, even when they spring from the purest patriotism, with positive rights. The more decidedly, however, the imperial government recognizes such an examination as the right duty of the Bund, the more carefully I think it necessary, in this high assembly, to withhold myself from any expression which might be considered as an opinion as to the worth of the different claims which would be all put forward in case the London treaty should not be carried out. Only in regard to the Duchy of Lauenburg, I will observe that its connexion with the Danish crown can in no case admit of a doubt. For the rest, I confine myself to calling attention to the wide ramification and the great political extent of the question which would then arise. Should it appear that the solution of these questions, exclusively from the point of view of the law, would bring the controversy into the same condition in which it would find itself according to decisive state and international documents, even without the London treaty, at least there is thus far no sufficient proof that in this case Germany’s political interest would not suffer in the end.
Finally, I think that there are two points which I must not leave untouched [Page 140] before I conclude. It is often said, that the succession of King Christian IX is beyond all doubt legitimate in the kingdom of Denmark itself, even if not in the duchies. But it is a matter of fact, that the different remunerations which preceded the London treaty of 1852, and the Danish succession law of 1853 as well as the acquiescence of the Danish Diet, were only given for the purpose and on the assumption that the different component parts of the Danish monarchy should remain united under the sceptre of King Christian IX. If this combination should go to pieces, the question of the Danish throne succession revives in its whole extent. A second circumstance, not to be overlooked, is, that the demand now heard in Germany for a separation of the duchies from the kingdom of Denmark does not agree at all with the legal position which the Duke of Augustenburg claims for himself. In the protest of the hereditary Prince of Augustenburg, in the year 1859, against the Danish law of succession, as well as in the deed of renunciation which his father hastened to issue at the news of the death of King Frederick VII, there are not only claims upon Schleswig and Holstein, but eventual rights of inheritance on other lands now governed by the house of Oldenburg. Here, therefore, the possibility was not even excluded that Germany might throw itself into a general war, only in order that the Danish monarchy might be ruled by a Duke of Augustenburg, instead of a Duke of Glukeburg. (Cry of bravo !—sensation.) I repeat, that I express no opinion about any point of the succession question, but I only wish to warn against a too one-sided judgment. Shall I now resume in a few words the leading principles by which the imperial government intends to be guided in this important affair? I have no hesitation in declaring that it lays the greatest weight on the joint action of Austria and Prussia—that it is firmly determined in this question, as in all others, to prove unhesitatingly its regard for law and for treaties, and that it is not less firmly determined within the boundaries of law to enforce with all its power the interests of Germany and of our German countrymen in the north. (Bravo! in the centre.)