HARD LINES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11595, 13 January 1916, Page 1

HARD LINES.

i GERMAN OFFICER'S ADVENj TURES. An interesting story concerning the csciMK- of a captured German officer and his efforts'to. get back to his own country may now be told. After many adventures, he had succeeded m gettinr right round the world, only to be captured in the North Sea when-prac-tically in sight of Germany. In* man, whosw name is En gen "Wahler was an officer in the 152 nd Prussian Regiment of Honour. He was taken prisoner by the Russians at Tannenberg in the earlier days of the war, and was put into a concentration camp. At the third attempt he succeeded in escaping. After a long walk,*he met an old Jew, to whom "he gave 3000 roubles for a railway tieksttliroivir Siberia to Mukden. From Mukden he>.*nt to Fekin, where he remained for several months. \\ ahler next proceeded to Yokohama, and subsequently travelled 'as a first-dass passenger from that port to San Francisco. Crossing North America by rail, he finally landed at New York,, where he- was befriended by German-Ameri-cans, who fitted hiui out as an A.B, and he signed on with false papers on a Norwegian sailing vessel hound for Europe. When the ship reached % North Sea she was stopped by a- British vessel, -and "VVahler was detected by a vigilant official, who ordered the ship into port. The officer kept a diary, in. which the following extract occurs 1 :—. •July 2— To-day the steward is ill, and I am waiting. I wonder—Do the Indy passengers know they are being served by a German aristocrat? Wahlef was the possessor of the Iron Cross.