PRINCE LICHNOWSKY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 161, 5 July 1918, Page 7

PRINCE LICHNOWSKY.

There are few -more lonely, more pathetic figures among the world war than Prince Liichnowsky, on whose head are now being outpoured the vials of wrath of a whole nation trained in hate, says a writer in the Illustrated Sunday Herald. We in England abhor a r: iiegrade,' and the fact that the Germans have placed on a pedestal Houston' Stewart Chamberlain is characteristic of a. people devoid of sportsman ship. Lichtiowsiky is no renegade and no Anglophobe. But he happens to be an honest man, and we admire him as an 'honourable enemy. "We can also examine him as a unique .specimen. When Baron Marchall von Bieberstein died in 1912. after a few months only as German Ambassador in London, the lesser lights of the Embassy confidently expected a successor of tutsame type. The Baron was an obest* Prussian Bismarcknan in his personal habits, a consumer of vast quantities of food and drink, tmlntelligently antiBritish, and as a diplomatist, bluntlv and brutally clumsy. The choice of a successor fell upoi. Prince Lichnowsky, and it caused some surprise. Von Ben thick and Von Fri? sen, who were Von xiieberstein'e chief lieutenants at 'oarlton iHouse terrace were perplexed. The Prince was of irreproachable birth, but he was not in. the Emperor's personal set. He was that rare bird, an unrm'litari'st j junker, and his relations with the j 'Crown Prince were known to be strain- ! ed. He had done well at Vienna, but j that was 13 years before, and since then he had held no diplomatic post. W hat was tho game? On' his arrival in this country the 'Prince found himself surrounded with ■ difficulties and spies. The demands 011 his purse were enormous.

"I am poorer than your English comedians, he said to a gathering- of literary men, "out, then, I ,have to bo so serious !" He was quite right. The man i.s intensely serious, and, like most Oeimans, entirely devoid of humour I cannot help feeling that, though he was being fooled, he knew, in somp subconscious way, that he was beiujr fooled and that it was this knowledge that him.

A more miserable-looking man in those two years when I used to come across him I never saw. Pale and sallow, with dark shadows beneath his eyes and deep lines about the corners of his mouth, he * a curious knack, of seeming to be out of place at any public or private function. At his own Conner parties lie .would eat and drink little, greeted,hip guests nervously, and sailed very occas loiially with the smile described as "wintry."

Public dinners I know, be dreaded. One I remember at' the Hotel Cecil in aid of the 'German Hospital at -Dalston. The Prince, in evening dress sparkling witl> decorations, sat beneath the British and German flags entwined, and he read his speech, first of all in English, and then m German. Bored and paler than ever, he said nice things about us, which 7 am sure he meant, and then went round the tables to shake hands with elderly Huns who wore Iron Crosses won ir "70. And two months later the two nations were at war.

Whenever possible he left Londc and he confessed once to me that hi<happiest times in England were week ends in famous country houses. In Germany, where he has (or had) a fine country place, he spent hours eac> day, when residing there, riding over his estate and inspecting his garden. He ha? a fair practical knowledge of agriculturp and twige visited the Agricultural Show at .Islington, and went from exhibit to exhibit marking his catalogue ihdus triously. I have said Prince lachnowsky is d» void of humour. He is not with on' cynicism. "Honestly as he worked at hi . difficult job and laboured for - peace", hiremark that "If an' ambassador's efforts are counteracted by those "who eihplo" him,' Ke 'becomes nothing more than a private individual who gives dinners for the glory of the Empire," prove? that his assessment of his" position was not far wrong. An aristocrat but not a snob, a scholar and a recluse but a man not without kindness and charxri ,a nervous man but a brave one, a German but_an honest man—such is that bundle of incongruities, Lichnowsky. Perhaps the explanation of it all is that the only gentleman in Germany is by origin a' Pole. '