{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Why did Denmark win a war alone against Prussia, Schlesweg-Holstein, and many other Germans with only a few norwegian/swedish...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/151450236523/", "html": "<div class=\"question\"><strong>Anonymous</strong> asked: Why did Denmark win a war alone against Prussia, Schlesweg-Holstein, and many other Germans with only a few norwegian/swedish volunteers to assist them in the first Schlesweg war?</div>\n<p>This *really* isn\u2019t something I know enough for confident proclamations, but I can toss out some factors:</p><p>- Prussia was doing a lot of the heavy lifting of suppressing the revolutions of 1848, and could see what would eventually be the Austro-Prussian war looming on the horizon<br/></p><p>- The German Confederation wasn\u2019t very good at marshaling forces under unitary command, not least because there was competition for leadership between Prussia and Austria</p><p>- Denmark in contrast coopted its liberal revolution pretty smoothly and entered the fight unified and undistracted</p><p>- the Prussian leadership didn\u2019t particularly want the war - German nationalists gave it to them as a fait accompli. With the ultimate goal of building a Prussian-led Germany, they needed to do <i>something</i> to retain public confidence as a vehicle for German national aspirations, but upsetting the balance of power risked drawing major powers into an alliance against them. It\u2019s not obvious that they <i>wanted</i> to win, or that they\u2019d be better off if they had.</p>"}