PRE-WAR MONARCHS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 10 (Supplement)

PRE-WAR MONARCHS.

IN THEIR HOURS OF EASE.

PICTURES OF COURT LIFE.

THE KAISER'S PRIVATE NEWSPAPER, When King Edward, then Prince of Wales, addressed a telegram to "The Wild West Show," Hampshire, it was duly delivered at Newlands to the Corn-wallis-West family, whom, lie had thus nicknamed. So from childhood Miss Daisy Cornwallis-West was reared in an atmosphere of friendshm with the highest in the laud. Later, as the wife of Prince Henry of Pless, she was received on terms of intimacy at all the courts of Central Europe. Not content to remain a mere spectator of the European drama., she determined to exploit these friendships in the cause of international understanding, "i have always been convinced," she writes in "Daisy, Princess of Plcss, by Herself," "that the more the great ones of the earth meet each other the better, and I have ever done all I could to make such meetings possible." As might have been expected, therefore, her memoirs provide an intriguing picture of the pre-war courts of Europe, an eloquent presentment of the futility and horror of war from the cosmopolitan aspect, and a damning indictment of Hohenzollernism. She is always candid, but never malicious. Her First Love.

Her childhood was free and happy. Gladstone, she tells us, was her "lirst love." Then, at the age of eighteen, this "young and inexperineced girl suddenly found herself the wife of the heir to one of the richest princes in Europe." She could now wear the famous Pless pearls, a rope seven yards long; she was chatelaine of four palaces; but these were but poor compensations for the sacrifice of her freedom to the rigid rules of German etiquette, so rigid that she was severely reprimanded for allowing the Kaiser's son to sit beside her on the sofa. The palaces were more like prisons; l'urstenstein, in Silesia, with nine thousand wage-earners on its pay-roll, and a household budget of £35,000 a year, had six hundred rooms but not one bathroom. Their Berlin home was not more comfortable: "On one occasion I sat between two distinguished old gentlemen, one of whom asked me why we were staying at an hotel instead of our own big ugly palace in the Wilhemstrase. I said because my husband preferred it, as in our house there were no bathrooms. 'Mein Gott!' said one of the old gt-ntlomen. 'Must he absolutely have a bath? , " At court the Princess soon found a friend in her countrywoman, the Empress Frederick, who, on her deathlied, exacted from the Kaiser a promise that he would protect the Princess —a promise that, to his credit, he kept during the dark days of the war.

•The Kaiser's Uniforms. Of the Kaiser himself, the Princess draws aji interesting picture. As a man, she had respect for him; as a sovereign, she had none. Hoiiad neither tact nor dignity, was ill-mannered, theatrical, aifd loud, and there was "quite a lot oi the woman in him—he never forgot a slight and could be feminine in his malice when anyone humiliated him." No one ever saw him in mufti; he appeared in many weird uniforms, causing general amusement by selecting that oi the Engineers as appropriate for the Berlin Motor Club dinner, and in the privacy of his palace wearing "breeches, with the Garter round his knee, a green coat the Golden Fleece, round his neck, and'his own Order, the St. Hubert, or whatever it is called, hanging somewhere about hhn. v His curious mental attitude towards European events was largely due to io-norance, for he was kept in the dark by the Ministers, whose motto was invariably 'Don't tell the Emperor!" when aiivthmjr unpleasant occurred. Io smii an extent was this i-arricj that the Kaiser never Raw an ordinary newspaper; a spcial paper wa* printed daily for him in gold, made up of excerpts from the Press of the world «s it was considered he might like to read.

King Edward's Bridge. The Empress was "a silly vvon.an. Clothes and children are really her chief considerations and the only things Bhe thoroughly understands. 1 have never met anyone so devoid of any individual thought or agility of brain or understanding. She is just like a «ood, quiet, soft cow, that has calves •and eats grass slowly and then lies down and ruminates." The Crown Prince and hie wife were treated like naughty children, and forbidden to go to St. Moritz, because of the "shocking things"' they had done there on a previous occasion—enjoyed themselves on bobsleighs! Of King Edward the Princess tells an amusing anecdote. During Cowes week, His Majesty went ashore witli one equerry from the Victoria and Albert to play bridge with the Duchess of Manchester, and hired a cab to take them to Kgypt House:— The driver did not know where it was and took them to the wrong place. It was quite dark and the equerry got out and rang. A window upstairs was opened and two outraged old ladies peered out, demanding what all the noise was about. The- King shouted up that he had come to play bridge with the Duchess of Manchester. The angry ladies' declared that they knew nothing about either bridge or the Duchess; that he was drunk, and if he did not go away quietly at once they would telephone for the police.

A Royal Pianist. Queen Mary, we are told, is an accomplished pianist, and, as Princess of Wales, used to play to her guests after dinner. King Alfoneo is also an entertaining and unaffected companion; at Madrid he amused the Princess by walking in the Holy Week procession wearing polo kit beneath his robes, in order to reach the sports field with the least delay after the ceremony. Society in the various countries is strikingly contrasted: —

England — free and easy, sporting, gambling, well-dressed, clean. i » • Austria/—select and religious... » , . France—iull of life and wit; the men and women over-scented, over-dressed, full of exaggeration, but refined. . Russia —silent, bearded, morose; an atmosphere of Grand Dukes, cocottes, and closed carriages. And then —Berlin! Good Godl it's worse than all—bands and beer. Society is small, bourgeois, and jealous. The Court is narrowminded, theatrical, and domineering.

For the Princess the war was a terrible period. England was the land of her birth and her heart; her husband was aide-de-camp to the Kaiser, her eldest sou approaching military age —

he did in fact join the German Army and win the Iron Cross before the war was over; she had friends in every European army, fighting against each, other. She, herself, in no mean degree endeavoured to influence the Kaiser along the paths of peace — and had failed. Sadly she resigned herself to the task of doing all things possible to help British prisoners of war in Germany.

.War Difficulties. This soon caused trouble. Her visit to the camp at Doberitz loosed the tongue of scandal. She was an English spy! It was even rumoured that she had been shot as such, by her own husband. Even the Kaiser could not shield her from the insulting behaviour of the military authorities; he, indeed, had become a mere puppet—even the Empress and her son were cut off on the telephone for speaking English. The :orrespondence of the Princess *vas opened, She herself was hounded first out of the hospital, then out of T.he hospital train, in which she was working as a nurse. Yet, despite these attentions, she contrived to correspond throughout the war with her friends in England and to receive English, newspapers regularly.

The letters written to her by the Prince of Picas from G.H.Q. throw an interesting light on the German outlook during the war. From the outset, Eng* land was regarded as "the" enemy. Thus, in September, 1914: "The English have been fighting very well, quite different to our other opponents." In 1915: "The French are practically only kept in order by the English, who are dotted all over the line, as a sort of police. They fire on the French if they want to retire or surrender." The following shows the sort of peace we should have received from a victorious Germany: : 'We have no intention of having another war for the next fifty years, therefore the peace must be so that there is no chance of recovery for our enemies." And a tribute to Mr. Lloyd George: "If our enemies would only shake off Lloyd George and Clemence'au, peace would eoon come."

The Princess was in ttavarla when the revolution broke out, and had members of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils billeted on her. She now lives in France.