LUNCHEON WITH THE KAISERIN.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16154, 7 March 1918, Page 8

LUNCHEON WITH THE KAISERIN.

DOCTOR AND WOUNDED GERMAN

PRINCE

A correspondent in France writes to 'The Times" :—

"There is a certain Trappisfc monastery not far from hero that is known by reason of its having witnessed the death of Prince Max of Hesse in October, 1014. He was in tho :2ml Dragoons of the Guards and had an outpost on the bill which had laid out a. ca\ airy patrol of ours, killing two officers and two troopors, some of the lGth Lancers. They are buried in the monastery grounds. Later on, retribution came from one of our horso butteries —"k," I think —and a reinforceinont of the Cavalry Brigade. The windmill by the monastery was shelled —tho mark is on the walls now—and the cavalry, advancing, shot this Princo Max (the favourite nephew of the Kaiser and of the Queen of Greece) through the stomach. 'Jhey also laid out four German troopers, who are buried alongside the British troopers inside the monastery walls.

"Tho Germans took their young commander and left him with the monks on their retreat. Hero our cavalry hold ambulance found him, and the two medical officers, L and J— , sta;> - ed with tho prince until ho died. A vory nice fellow ho was, L tells mo, and, if he had lived like a Hohenzollem, ho certainly died as a prince should. For he asked them if there was any hope, and they, having none of tho requisites for a surgical operation on tlio abdomen —he was wounded through the spleen and bleeding internally—told him the frank and brutal truth. At this tho princo professed himself satisfied, and, a little dater, died. His body was then taken by our field ambulance to C—— and handed over to the cure of the village for burial. But tho ambulance having departed, the mayor of tho commune, a wily fellow, appeared and claimed tho body and buried it in a secret place. "Later, the Queon of Greece wrote many enquiries to L , and appeared very grateful for the little they wero able to do for the young hope of the House of Hesse —he 'was only 19, a lino upstanding fellow well over Gffc, and spoke English very well. She then sent a neutral deputation to find the body; but, when tin's deputation (who no doubt did a bit of spying on their way) arrived, they found that they had struck a snare in tho foxy mayor. For he would only surrender the body on payment of tho damage which the Germans had done to his commune —whereas they had really done no harm, being only too busy trying to get nway—and tho modest estimate at which ho priced the moral and material damage was 20 million francs. Now Tino and Sophia did not have 20 .million fratics lying idle at the moment, and the deputation departed shdly—no doubt, after a fin© bit of work behind our lines, so that their errand sliould not be wholly unsuccessful.

"J was taken prisoner shortly afterwards, and he, one day, while seeing a sick British prisoner, was waited on by the General and the Commandant, and taken to a big car with the Imperial arms emblazoned on it. and driven out of the camp to a neighbouring town. There he lunched with the Kaiserin and the parents of Max of Hesse. They were very kind to him, and obliged for what he told them and for what he had done. Each month afterwards lie received a special hamper of cigarettes, cigars, and nice tilings from a mysterious source, and very shortlv came lis release."