AN AUSTRIAN FALSTAFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 161, 10 July 1930, Page 5

AN AUSTRIAN FALSTAFF.

COUNT ADALBERT STERNBERG A WILD PERSONALITY. By the death of Count Adalbert Sternberg last April, at the age of liearlv sixty-two, Austria lost one of her most original characters and a personality in some ways reminiscent of Falstaff. Although he was born in Bohemia, this aristocrat, who claimed to be descended from Charlemagne, never learned to speak the Czech language properly. The son of a General, he joined the Dragoons, but in his youth he picked up gome knowledge of literature, philosophy and the sciences, on which he formed fanatical opinions which were the cause of many and various quarrels*, His inccs-, eant wrangling, however, was always spiced with humour and ready wit, cOarso enough as often as not. He was a cynic, had countless affairs with women, wrote lyric poems and fought duels. On the outbreak of the Boer war lie joined the Boers against the English. In 1907 he was returned to Parliament as Deputy of a Bohemian rural district. He prided" himself on not joining any party, calling himself a "wild one." And wild he was, if not savage. 2s T o member of the notorious Austrian pre-war Parliament ever delivered such speeches, attacking his colleagues, journalists. Ministers, military authorities (he had been forced to resign his commission), Habsburg archdukes, the "Court Camarilla," and even the Emperor Franz Josef himself, whom he asked to resign, as "he was too old to rule." Tho actress, Ivatliarina Schratt, a. friend of the Emperor, once begged the aged monarch to receive the "wild one' in audience. The Emperor said to him: "Don't bo so coarse in Parliament, it is simply awful." The courageous Deputy replied: "Beg pardon, your Majesty, those members don't deserve anything else." "You may be right there," the Emperor answered. All parties and almost all members and leading personalities of the Old Monarchy were afraid of his shafts, and there were frequent and unprecedented "scenes" in Parliament. At the same time he was a keen champion of humanitarian ideas. When the war broke out, Count Sternberg joined the ranks as a volunteer officer. After tho collapse he became a Czeeh subject, but stayed in Vienna. He had several public "affairs" with the Jockey Club and tho aristocrats, and behaved so badly on several occasions that the police had to intervene.