IS THE KAISER MAD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20073, 9 October 1920, Page 3 (Supplement)

IS THE KAISER MAD.

SOME NEW’FACn.

Mr G. W', Price writes in the “ Daily Mail ”:—

That the ex-Kaiser is mad, and has been so for years, is the sincere belief of the good people of Spa, whose unwelcome townsman ho was for many months before the day ho signed bis abdication on the very table—so they say—in the Hotel Britannique at which the. hea/Js of the British Peace Delegation are now taking their meals. Thera is a butcher in the main street of Spa who was walking thrqpgh the 'roods one Sunday afternoon in the cummer of 1918, and came suddenly upon a fleshy, elderly man in his shirt sleeves, with bar e arms, and a pick ifl his hand, who, in company with ethers similarly dressed and equipped, was occupied in turning a little stream from its course with all the eagerness os a child making sand castles on the bench.

The butcher stared in surprise at these elderly mud larks, for it never occurred to him that one of them was the German Emperor, and two of the others were a famous general and i’riuco Metternich. Suddenly he was addressed with an imbecile affectation of dignity by one of the grubby diggers. " Bonjour, monsieur. Take off your hnt. You nro in the presence of the Bmpcrcr or the World. And now.” added the Kaiser, as the startled butcher sheepishly complied, “ go, and forget for ever what you nave seen.” As’another hobby of his stay at Spa, when the German communiques were iconstantly assuring the troops that their Supreme War Lord was personally present at their battles, the Kaiser i sed to stuff his pockets with leaves or with pebbles, which he would throw into the air as he walked. He. sent for a German woman friend to join him in Spa. Quarters were provided for her in the Villa Pompeia. She was tall, handsome, and between thirty and thirty-five years of age. " The Emperor’s Spy,” was the nickname the. townspeople gave her. She would disappear whenever the Empress came to visit her husband at b‘pa, but at other times the Kaiser would go out riding with her in the woods that surround the town. One of hie orders was that all the branches overhanging the paths through the woods should be lopped off so that ho* should not need to bow his head as ho cantered along. And far and wide every day the forests round Spa were searched by secret service men to ensure his safety. Though Allied aeroplanes never bombed German General Headquarters here, the. great dread of the Kaiser’s nfb was air raids. He had three villas reserved for himself at Spa, and was continually changing from one to the other. At the Villa Neubois, whore Marshal Pooh and M. Millerand have been staying, tho Kaiser’s dug-out, with its steel strong room door, made to open in two parts in case a fall of earth jammed it, is the principal sight of the house. When the imperial nerves were very bad the Kaiser lived in his train, which had an engine attached at each end, with steam always no.

Baron Joseph de Crawhoz, the present Mayor of Spa, held the same position all through the war, though imprisoned aad threatened with execution. He was 1 one of tho leaders of a Belgian secret service organisation which often succeeded in getting early knowledge of the plans of tho Gorman general staff. Baron de Crawhea has all sorts of souvenirs of the German occupation of his town. One of them is a map with which tho Gorman soldiers quartered on him were provided, representing how tho German Government would remake the map of Europe when victory was won. Ho. gave tho British Premier a copy of it tho other day. It shows a Gross Deutschland stretching frojn Petrqgrad to tho Pyrenees, with Great Britain marked as-a Goman colony, and Ireland as an Austro-Hungarian colony.

The Mayor tells, too, the story of the Emperor’s pitiable abdication, - The Kaiser was playing in tho grounds of his villa, where the Peace Conference is now sitting, damming up little streams as usual, when the end came. Hmdonburg sent for him to come down to tho general staff headquarters at the Hotel Britannique- The Kaiser sent a petulant message that he would not como. His generals humoured him. “You must come.” they said. “ The Grown Prince Is here.”

So the Emperor’s valets scraped the mud off him, girthed his increasingly corpulent figure into its tunic hung with imperial decorations, henceforth meaningless and seat him down to the hotel, where Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson has been planning the reduction of the once-proud German army to a police force.

At the door two motor-cars were waiting. Iu one waa a Dutch general.' In the other wore German revolutionaries, representatives of tha Republic that had just been proclaimed in Berlin.

The Kaiser strutted into the diningroom of the hotel, where his generals were waiting. . “ You must abdicate,” said Hindenburg.

The Kaiser turned a, startled mid terrifled face towards him. “ Abdicate 1” ho exclaimed. “Why? It can’t be as bod as that. Surely, I can rely on mv generals. You, Hindonbnrg 1 Think of the heights to which 1 have raised you. I count on you at least.” Tho burly marshal made n» reply and the Kaiser made bis appeal to Ludenciqrff—“You then, LudondorffP” he said. But Ludeudorff turned away hia face.

“ -Tt our Majesty has the choice,” added Hinde.nburg. “ You can (jo to Holland in the motor-car that is waiting lor you, or you can return to Germany in char go of the Republicans.” “Na!"-said the Kaiser with a German sigh, and wentpfif leaving tho act of abdication that lay on the table.