1864 - and whilst blood ran in rivers across the United States, a now largely forgotten war took place in north-west Europe. Pitching little Denmark against the then Great Powers of Prussia and Austria, and usually referred to as The Second Schleswig War, it is also sometimes known as The First War of German Unification. It is that which provides the basis for the claim made on the book's cover.
This is one of those war histories that tries to tell the story from the perspective of the ordinary soldier, through surviving letters and diaries, and it does a good job too, the testimony of the Danish troops being particularly harrowing. I notice that the Danish language edition is called "Slagtebænk Dybbøl", which I am guessing translates as something like "Battle of Dybbøl" or "Slaughter at Dybbøl"? The book does mainly concentrate on this one battle, which seems to have been the crucial clash of the war. There is however coverage of the lead up to the outbreak of war, the events up to the battle itself and the diplomatic aftermath. The main feature of all three stages seems to have been an almost unbelievable degree of recklessness and incompetence on the part of Denmark's ruling politicians, apparently egged on by ill-informed public opinion. Their bad judgments provoked an unnecessary war and engineered a heavy defeat, which they followed up with a diplomatic disaster.
The author argues, with some justification I think, that The Second Schleswig War restored Prussian military confidence after humiliations suffered in the Napoleonic era, and the frustrations of the First Schleswig War. Two years later the Prussians astonished Europe by trouncing mighty Austria, and four years after that Europe's collective jaw dropped again when a Prussian led German alliance crushed France, an event that led directly to the proclamation of a united Germany. For Denmark the impact was of course very different. The author argues that the country, which lost a third of its territory, was left with an acute sense of vulnerability in relation to its giant southern neighbour, which may well have contributed to the decision not to resist the Nazi invasion of 1940.
A well written history book for the general reader.