Challenge: Denmark to the Eider

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to keep Schleswig under Danish rule by the present day with a POD no earlier than 1850.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
That's a hard one, but the easiest one is if Frederik VII doesn't marry Lovisa Christina Rasmussen, and find some suitable wife and succed in producing a son, it would remove the German/Prussian pretext for the war, while it was clearly a landgrab from Prussian side, without the pretext UK and Russia couldn't just look the other way. Of course it would also mean that Holstein stayed in union with Denmark, which would likely result in a new war later on.
 

Redbeard

Banned
I wonder what would happen, if the Danish government stay put after the 1st S-H war in 1848-51, and try to muddle through with the rather awkward construction of a Kingdom of Denmark in combination with the Duchies. It would mean pressure and unrest from both Danish and German nationalists, but with a Government diplomatic level above the OTL imbecile I guess it would be possible to divert Prussia to testing her expansion practices somewhere else. It is basically about sticking to the London agreement from 1852 – i.e. keeping the Duchies formally separated from the Kingdom, but through subsidies, investments, policies etc. motivate Danes to move Slesvig and Germans to Holstein.

So, if it works until a WWI ends as in OTL, I guess the political window of opportunity would be present for a solution parting the duchies along/as close as possible to language/nationality borders – as in OTL. But without the OTL Prussian rule from 1864-1920 German immigration into Slesvig will be much smaller or absent, but there might be Danes going to Slesvig. That could very well mean the Ejder being a language/nationality barrier between Danes and Germans more clear cut than the OTL one a little to the north.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
More punitive Allies in WWI, giving the whole thing back to Denmark almost as an afterthought to the dismemberment of the Second Reich? When Germany loses WWII, Denmark holds onto it, and the Russia(?)/US cold war that follows sees Germany never getting around to taking it back?
 

Redbeard

Banned
More punitive Allies in WWI, giving the whole thing back to Denmark almost as an afterthought to the dismemberment of the Second Reich? When Germany loses WWII, Denmark holds onto it, and the Russia(?)/US cold war that follows sees Germany never getting around to taking it back?

In OTL the border of 1920 as close as possible followed the division of languages/nationalities. That is the case in this ATL too, but the distribution of language/nationality is different.

The big trouble would come if the Danish Government tried to fully annex the German speaking parts (Holstein and Lauenburg in both TLs), but that never was on the Danish agenda. In OTL the French after WWI offered all of Slesvig-Holstein to Denmark, but the Danish government wisely rejected.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
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