3-016-748 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Illustrations of the War in Schleswig by our special artist: battery on the summit of the Dannewerk, 1864. View of '...the summit with a battery of guns, and a view of the surrounding country...The Danes were obliged...to abandon it and retire northward, on the evening of Feb. 5...the fate of the Dannewerk was to be ingloriously lost...The Austrian and Prussian commanders have taken counsel together for the final demolition of this huge double line of fortified earthworks, which extends from near the town of Schleswig, on the eastern side of the duchy, to the river Treen, some miles above its confluence with the Eider, on the western coast...when the western districts of South Schleswig are flooded the only road from that country to Middle Schleswig is that passing under the batteries of the Dannewerk. Denmark, by her own strength, has not been able to hold fast this door against the German invaders...The Dannewerk batteries are being disarmed, and seventy or eighty pieces of heavy artillery divided between the Austrians and Prussians...a hundred of the Austrian Sappers, with the assistance of four hundred labourers, commenced the demolition of the ramparts on Monday last (Feb. 22)'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.