His successor, Christian IX, promptly declared his intention to hold the duchies in spite of their supposed desire to separate from Denmark and to have their own Prince in the German Confederation.

The Federal Diet of the Confederation had early protested the purpose of Denmark and Russell had at first upheld the German arguments but had given no pledges of support to anyone[1169].

But Palmerston on various occasions had gone out of his way to express in Parliament his favour for the Danish cause and had used incautious language even to the point of virtually threatening British aid against German ambitions[1170].

A distinct crisis was thus gradually created, coming to a head when Prussia, under Bismarck's guiding hand, dragging Austria in with her, thrust the Federal Diet of the Confederation to one side, and assumed command of the movement to wrest Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark.
This occurred in February, 1864, and by this time Palmerston's utterances, made against the wish of the majority of his Cabinet colleagues (though this was not known), had so far aroused the British public as to have created a feeling, widely voiced, that Great Britain could not sit idly by while Prussia and Austria worked their will on Denmark.

There was excellent ground for a party attack to unseat the Ministry on the score of a humiliating "Danish policy," at one time threatening vigorous British action, then resorting to weak and unsuccessful diplomatic manoeuvres.