Border demarcation after 1864

After the defeat in 1864, the border at Kongeå was changed. The demarcation of the border by Kalvslund is a good example that demonstrates how the new border was laid.

The border demarcation commission

On March 14 1864, four days before the Battle of Dybbøl, Prussia announced that Denmark was a foreign land from a customs point of view. This meant that you had to have cleared your goods when you passed the river Kongeå, which formed the border between the Kingdom of Denmark and the German duchies.

When peace had to be negotiated, a border demarcation commission was set up to investigate local conditions along the Kongeå. On April 10 1865, the border demarcation commission announced that it had completed forming the border at Villebøl in Kalvslund parish, but still had to determine a part in Kalvslund and one in Brænøre.

 A letter to the king

The reason for the delay was that the border between the kingdom and the duchies went from the bridge over Hjortvad Å and straight through Kalvslund town to the inn, from where it followed the parish boundary west of Villebøl. If the new boundary was to follow the kingdom's border, then properties would end up having land on both sides of the border. This would be hard to manage, and the properties would therefore fall in value.

So the residents wrote to Christian IX and made the king aware of the problem. In the letter, they requested to come to a hearing in Denmark.

The king was responsive, and the whole of Kalvslund came to the hearing under the Kingdom. One of the major reasons for the success was that road from Ribe to Kolding went through German territory. Both towns were Danish and the border demarcation commission could see it was illogical that a trip between two Danish towns should have to go through the duchies. This could be prevented if Kalvslund and Villebøl were included in the kingdom. Then from Ribe you could drive over the Kongeå by Villebøl and further on the north side to Foldingbro.

The border was moved to Villebøl’s eastern border at midnight between 20 and 21 September 1865.

Author: Johannes Garder, Kalvslund Parish archives

Sources and literature:

Kalvslund Parish archives, see http://www.esbjergkommune.dk/borger/kultur-og-fritid/arkiver/arkiver.aspx