1864--Danish-Prussian (and Austrian) war-themed tv series, this October :)

Angst said:
This series has raised some spirits here in Denmark. The 1864 war is very central to our self-understanding as a humble, minor nation and some right-wingers have claimed the series is antinationalist and ahistorical.

I'm sure the second is true, but I'm not sure how the first matter. Denmark has such a ridiculous victim complex over the 1864 war; the public understanding denies the arrogance Denmark displayed prior to the war (nationalistically thinking oneself immortal due to the First Schleswig War's victory, which is ridiculous against something like Prussia) and the dark portrayals of idiocy or cruelty within the series is unwelcome to some people in our right.
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Haven't seen any episode yet, but from the trailer and some stills it already was pretty obvious they are depicting Monrad as a degenerate. Not sure how that plays with actual historical facts, although i suppose he was used at least as a scapegoat in 1864 (left Denmark, and his family iirc continued in New Zealand).
 
Most of the Danish 1864 decisions were pretty terrible. I was told in history class that the German artillery outranged the Danish tremendously, rendering us worthless in a defensive position, which we was in throughout the war. I'm not sure how fantastic an idea it'd been to hunker down at Dannevirke. I think it was mainly because of the same blind nationalism that lead us to do all these arrogant decisions. :p
 
Kyriakos said:
Haven't seen any episode yet, but from the trailer and some stills it already was pretty obvious they are depicting Monrad as a degenerate. Not sure how that plays with actual historical facts, although i suppose he was used at least as a scapegoat in 1864 (left Denmark, and his family iirc continued in New Zealand).
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As a political figure he should get credit for shaping the first constitution of Denmark, that would eventually lead to electoral democracy.

He was somewhat intelligent, but also a fool. It is generally agreed that he made numerous horrible decisions during the war and the in the period immediately after it. There is disagreement over his psycho-medical condition, but he was probably bipolar.

He did move to New Zealand after the war, but came back and became a politician again in 1869.

edit: As for the series: They do take some artistic liberties with him, but frankly his behavior doesn't seem unlikely to me. It's more that we don't know for sure how he was. But what else should they do? They have to depict him somehow.
 
Domen said:
Those were mostly Danes from territories annexed by Prussia.
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Well yes I thought I said that unless you mean Danish as in the country whereas I meant the people.
 
There was a general spirit in the time period, a spirit of assumed invulnerability simply because of the power of the Danish nation or whatever, because little Denmark managed to beat up Prussia during the First Schleswig War. That foreign powers helped and that Prussia didn't *really* use proper resources during that war was overlooked. Denmark shouldn't have made the illegal pseudoannexation of Schleswig-Holstein with the Prussian Eagle being aggressive just next door. The stupid spirit of assumed Danish awesomeness definitely played a part in the way things were handled.

EDIT: Also I forget the details, but there were some exceptions made when making the Danish law in order to handle the German question, something that didn't grant Germans proper citizenship or something. Which was partly the reason for the first war iirc
 
Spoiler :
Not in the first two episodes, no. But as I wrote, I didn't see the third.
 
Afaik there are 3 episodes left (one of which airs tonight), and all the Danish people commenting on this in other forums (eg Paradox) are quite angry and consider it as a horribly bad series.

Btw, the Prussians have hussars (since Austria was not needed to be in the war in this series :) ) and they are also orcish Hessian mercenaries :)

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There is some hypnosis and zombie germans as well.
 
Those subtitles read "Damn Danish. Down on your knees." for those curious.
 
What is the back-story of that mounted Prussian with the burned/disfigured face?

(Did he offer to serve in the Danish army but was told off by some officers there? :mischief: 1864/300 X 90000/1864= 300 )
 
I don't think it's horrible at all. The first episodes were just boring. The acting is really good.
 
Well, all the (iirc 5) Danes in the thread about this in the Paradox forum are cursing and asking for their tax money back. I only watched something like 3 min from a preview/something site one of them posted there, and it looked ok, but not really worth so much money spent (i saw the 6 hussars/horsemen who were hunting down some danish soldiers, which by itself looks a bit dumb - 6 horsemen are going to follow through to hunt down what, 5 soldiers? and? ) :D

But it gets better, since (i think) one of the Prussians is hypnotised and controlled like a drone by a spiritualist lover of one of the soldiers, so he attacks his fellow soldiers and saves some of the Danes.
 
Well, the show has more than a million viewers in a country with five million people, so it can't be all bad.
 
Domen said:
Kyriakos are you a fan of Danish history?
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Not really. Only read some articles on 1864 due to the series' trailer which looked very cool ;)

Other than that i only know bits about their invasions of England, the tribute known as 'danegeld', the huscarles, and how they collapsed in the 30-years war.
 
We learn that Poland used to be a medieval power, and that's pretty much it.
 
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