Perhaps it was his intention at once to press forward the struggle with Austria for supremacy in Germany.  If so, he was to be disappointed.  A new difficulty was now appearing in the diplomatic world:  the Schleswig-Holstein question, which had been so long slumbering, broke out into open fire, and nearly three years were to pass before Bismarck was able to resume the policy on which he had determined.  Men often speak as though he were responsible for the outbreak of this difficulty and the war which followed; that was far from being the case; it interrupted his plans as much as did the Polish question.  We shall have to see with what ingenuity he gained for his country an advantage from what appeared at first to be a most inconvenient situation.

We must shortly explain the origin of this question, the most complicated that has ever occupied European diplomacy.

The Duchy of Holstein had been part of the German Empire; for many hundreds of years the Duke of Holstein had also been King of Denmark; the connection at first had been a purely personal union; it was, however, complicated by the existence of the Duchy of Schleswig.  Schleswig was outside the Confederation, as it had been outside the German Empire, and had in old days been a fief of the Kingdom of Denmark.  The nobles of Holstein had, however, gradually succeeded in extending German influence and the German language into Schleswig, so that this Duchy had become more than half German.  Schleswig and Holstein were also joined together by very old customs, which were, it is said, founded on charters given by the Kings of Denmark; it was claimed that the two Duchies were always to be ruled by the same man, and also that they were to be kept quite distinct from the Kingdom of Denmark.  These charters are not undisputed, but in this case, as so often happens in politics, the popular belief in the existence of a right was to be more important than the legal question whether the right really existed.

The trouble began about 1830.  There was a double question, the question of constitution and the question of inheritance.  The Danes, desirous to consolidate the Monarchy, had neglected the rights of the old local Estates in the Duchies; this led to an agitation and a conflict.  It was a struggle for the maintenance of local privileges against the Monarchy in Copenhagen.  Moreover, a vigorous democratic party had arisen in Denmark; their object was to incorporate the whole of Schleswig in the Danish Monarchy; they did not care what happened to Holstein.  This party were called the Eider Danes, for they wished Denmark to be extended to the Eider.  Against this proposed separation of the two Duchies violent protests were raised, and in 1848 a rebellion broke out.  This was the rebellion which had been supported in that year by Prussia, and it had the universal sympathy of everyone in Germany, Princes and people alike.