EX-KAISERIN'S DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17754, 13 April 1921, Page 7

EX-KAISERIN'S DEATH.

LONG ILLNESS IN EXILE.

DREAD OF ASSASSINATION.

TO BE BURIED AT POTSDAM. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. Beul * r - LONDON. April 11. With the death of the ex-Kaiserin disappears the most pathetic figure of the Hohenzollern regime. She had been in failing health ever since she joined her husband in exile. She was a prey to fears of poison, aerial attacks, and other perils, and the end had been long expected. Her only daughter, the Duchess of Brunswick, went to Germany in February to arrange for the funeral. The exKaiserin finally succumbed to heart failure. The ex-Kaiser and his third son, Prince .Adalbert, were present at the death-bed. When the ex-Kaiserin's end came at six in the morning, the ex-Kaiser retired weeping bitterly. The hells at Doom tolled throughout the morning. The funeral will take place at Potsdam.

The marriage of the Kaiser to Princess Augusta-Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-honderburg-Augustenburg took place on ™. uar v 27, 1881. the Kaiser, then Prince vviUiam being 22 years of age, and his bride three months his senior. The exivaisenn was a daughter of Frederick. lJuke of Augustenburg, who in 1864 had claimed the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. Arie marriage had therefore some political importance, for it sealed the reconciliation oi one of the dynasties that had suffered by the rise of Prussia. Apart from its political significance, the marriage was a popular one in Germanv. The young princess, whose early years "had been spent in the retirement of country life, her parents being in comparativefv straightened circumstances, had many virtues to endear her to the hearts of the German people, a deeply religious spirit, simplicity of manner, and above all a sincere attachment to home life. Although she had an English governess and learned to speak English in her childhood, she had no love of England; to England she is said to have ascribed all the misfortunes that so suddenly overwhelmed her family in the last few years of her life. She had six sons and one daughter, Princess Victoria Louise, whose marriage to Prince Ernest August, Duke of Brunswick, took place, the year before the war. lne suicide of her youngest son, Prince Joachim, in Berlin last July, was the most poignant of the many sorrows crowded into the closing years of the ex-Kaiserin's life. «