SECRET WORTH A MILLION.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 69, 21 March 1919, Page 5

SECRET WORTH A MILLION.

END OF KAISER'S NEPHEW. DOCTOR'S GRIM STORY. When the Mayor of Caestre, a small town in the north-east of France, was asked to allow the remains of Prince Max of Hesse to be removed from where they were buried to Gennaiy, hs demanded the payment of £1.000,000 as compensation for the damage the Germans had done to the district. Tho demand was not acceded to, and th— bones of the young nephew of the former Kaiser remain where the Mayor interred them secretly.

An interesting and grimly amusing story of the negotiations was told by Dr. Charles Littlejohn. who returned recently to Melbourne after having served for more than four years with the British Army. Dr. Littlejohn joined the Royal Army Medical Corps early in August, 1914. and immediately went to France with the Second Cavalry Field Ambulance. In October that year there was a little cavalry fight at Mont dcs Gates, near Hazebrouck, in the north of France. Tho cavalry stormed Mont dcs Cates, which, was defended by the German Second Dragoons under Prince Max. The Prince was shot through the abdomen. He was carried to a tranpist monastery on the top of the hill near by, and was found there when the British secured possession of the hill.

Dr.. Little John did all he could for the Prince, who was only 10 years of age. and a fine solaier, whose noble hearing greatly impressed the doctor. Prince Max died three hours after Dr. Littlejohn first saw him. The doctor carried the body down to Caestre, at the foot of tho hill, and handed it over to tho cure of tho village to be buried. Subsequently, the Queen of Grcpce, aunt of Prince Max, communicated with Dr. Littlejohn through the British War Office, and expressed great anxiety to know what had become of her nephew. The doctor wrote to the Queen, and gave her all the particulars. MAYOR REMOVES BODY. Some time after Dr. Littlejohn left the Caestre district permission was given for the remains of Prince Max to be taken back to Germany. A deputation went to Caestre and asked the cure where the body of the Prince had been buried. The cure told them, but added that the mayor of the town bad had the remains disinterred secretly and removed to a place known only to the mayor and those who assisted in the removal. When the deputation waited on the mayor ho told them that they could have tho Prince's bones if they paid 25.000.000 francs ( £1,000,000) as compensation for the damage the Germans had done to the village. The unexpected demand astonished the deputation, the members of which retired in confusion. When Dr. Littlejohn left France- at the end of the war he had not heard of the Prince's remains having been removpd. Caestre. was practically blotted out in later fighting, .and the probabilities were that the mayor's secret was still undisclosed.