Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 20 [PAGE 4]

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The problem of North Sleswick is, therefore, not whether ; riton shall be rotorcd to Denmark, hut whether the inhab of self-d romised them more than hft\ Danish members in the Reichstag have with refusal as the invariable result. During \ opinion seems to have become more f to ibitants of North Sleswick, who for m< half a cen -— / •—••»•" {?,••• «•»' i.i.iiiii.i.n iin.il iitiuiriidiiiy, out tne policy of the government has been more repressive than ever before: it was a criminal act even to mention the Sleswick question in the public press. To discuss the matter at a public meeting was also forbidden. But early in October, 1918, the citizens of Xorth Sleswick were informed by their representative in Berlin that the Prussian regime was doomed and that the throne itself was tottering. A week later certain important steps were taken preparatory to another demand for a referendum. When the German government announced that it was willmg to accept President Wilson's peace program, the Sleswick Danes felt that their day had arrived, and on October 23 the question of their future status was brought up in the Reichstag. The secretary for foreign affairs Dr. Solf, denied vigorously that Denmark had any claim on any part of the old duchy, but privately he informed the SJeswick Danes that the government was disposed to grant their request. A few days after the armistice had become a fact and Germany was still m the throes of the revolution, the Sleswick Danes took action to th7nnif i n , - c e . The Electoral Union, the political organ of the Danish mt-ft n f . u i • an,sn ar \n A , U . „ /-v L , P °f the population, at a meeting in Aabenraa (November 16) aadonted -, o^; c i • • i• L ao ted referendum was demanded and P «,-,* \ J V » series of resolutions in which au referendum rertnin i •i , <• i • c e r t a m ™„ vs the follnwinc nr* ,-k • conditions laid down of which tne following are the most important: (1) The southern boundary of N™^k QI • i • , -•• beginning at a point a few miles north *7 u ? ^ " ^ " * " * % general westerly and slightly n o l l ^ t t u H ^ " * *?™ '" 7 d reCt,0n across the 1 1 sula. It is desired that t h / " ^ Z ? ^ . ' P" " " unit. (2) t r i c t 8 in M i d SleSWlck as may wish to vote on the q question of r r a n n • f e be permitted to do so. exation to Denmark shall (3) All men and women of the ace of t 7 T a b o v e w h o arC residents of the districts concerned (elc.Z Z*™ ° except Germans who have lived

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