PARADISE LOST.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1578, 5 March 1919, Page 6

PARADISE LOST.

KAISER'S LAST HOURS. WANTED TO STAY AT SPA. "FIND ME ONE FAITHFUL BATTALION." A personage in the entourage of William 11. has communicated the following particulars of what took place at Spa immediately before the flight to Holland. On November 3 the Kaiser was still saying: "I do not think of abdicating; I ask every officer to resist to the end, and as the Highest War Lord I must hold out also. The crassest Bolshevism will break over Germany if I go, and there must be a strong hand to save her from chaos. Moreover, lam gladly working with the new Government, and several gentlemen with whom I have spoken are very sympathetic in their co-operation." On November 5), in the forenoon, long discussions took place. One of the first to appear in the Imperial Villa Fraineuse was Hindenburg. After his first audience with the Kaiser he had a lengthy discussion with 50 Staff officers of the several armies, each of which had been ordered to send five or six representatives to Headquarters. Each officer stated in writing his views of the loyalty of his troops. At his second audience at 1 o'clock at the Villa Fraineuse Hindenburg laid before the Kaiser the verdict of the officers, which was almost unani'mous, that the troops were to be depended on against the enemy, but would not fight against their comrades. Meantime, urgent telephone messages were arriving from Berlin that the Kaiser must abdicate, and jothers asking whether he had already abdicated.

Too Late.

More discussion followed, and as the result the answer to Berlin was formulated. The Kaiser abdicated as German Emperor, but not as King of Prussia. At 2 in the afternoon, when this reply was communicated to Berlin, there came an answer back: "It is too late; we have already published the news of the abdication. The Crown Prince arrived about 12 noon at Spa, and returned about 3 to his army. The Kaiser said to him as he took leave: "Tell the troops that it is not true that I have abdicated as King of Prussia." Later Hindenburg came with Groener and Hintze, and shortly after Admiral Scheer, and representations were made to the Kaiser in favour of renouncing also the Prussian Throne. When he left the audience chamber he said to Graf Dohna Schlodien, who was waiting in the ante-room, "You have no longer a Highest War Lord," and went at once to his workroom. . „

In the evening one of the members of his nearest circle came to persuade him to go to Holland. The Kaiser refused. During the evening he remarked, "They want me to fly. But I will not go." And later he said to his adjutant, "I am so fearfully ashamed. I cannot do it. 1 cannot go away. If there be but one faithful battalion here I will remain at Spa." In the court train where he dined came one Job's comforter after another. One brought the news that the Bolsheviks were in Herbesthal, another that returning troops were threatening Spa. The Kaiser would still not consent to go, but he agreed to preparations being made. He remarked to those about him, "I have always known what to do, but now I cannot help myself." One of his adjutants was asked by the Kaiser to give his view, and replied, "If I personally had to decide I would remain, for if the troops will not defend your Majesty, then we can form a bodyguard of officers, and we can occupy all the posts." "For the Sake of My People."

At ten in the evening Hintze, representing the Foreign Office, urged the Kaiser's departure once more. "Your Majesty," he said, "in a few hours it may be too late," and referred to the disquieting reports from the various towns. At last the Kaiser took the momentous decision. At first Castle Bruehl, near Cologne, had been thought of as a place of sojourn, and there was also the question of the Kaiser joining the Crown Prince with his army; but the roads were no longer open to Bruehl, and reports brought that those to the Crown Prince's army were no longer safe. The narrator says the Kaiser had considered the probability that the Entente would never conclude peace with him, and he declared finally: "I will go to Holland to make it easy for my people to obtain peace. If I went to Germany it might be assumed that I wished to form a new party to make a rising in my favour." He also expressed the view that from the moment he laid down the position of the highest War Lord he was without powers of command. He was a purely private person, and as the troops would not fight against their advancing comrades he felt that the army had abandoned him, and thus the possible reproach that he had abandoned the army fell to the ground. Moreover, he felt released from the duty of making political decisions for the Empire since the Government, of its own powers, had published his abdication.