EX-KAISER’S EXILE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 150, 21 March 1921, Page 6

EX-KAISER’S EXILE

ENGLISH TEA HIS FIRST REQUEST.

How the ex-Kaiser came to Amerongen Castle, the Dutch home of Count Godard Bentinck. after his flight from Germany in November, 1918, is described by Ladv Norah Bentinck in the “Weekly Dispatch.” The Count had never spoken to his guest, and it. was only after insistent requests that he agreed to take him in "for three days only.” During the drive from the station, where he had been brought by a special train, the ex-Kaiser, says Lady Norah, spoke very little. At last, in the failing light, the car drew up at the castle, vnd as he crossed the bridge over the inner moat to the main door relief, obvious and deep, found expression in a way that would have sounded very unlikely to British ears. “Now,” he said to Count Godard, rubbing his hands together, "give me a cup of real good English tea. Ihe “real good tea,” but Scottish rather than English, came quickly. There is r.ari”l.njthe treasures at Amerongen a Scottish housekeeper, an adept in the preparation of the substantial and appetising scones, pancakes, shortbread, and so on that everyone who crosses the Border enjoys at “high tea" at some time or other. Since that introduction to them the ex-Kaiser has delighted in dinner later the ex-Kaiser himself did his best to keep things going, and talked a £ood deal and with much am* mation.. No word' of bitterness or reproach was heard from him, and this fact particularly struck Count Godard. ,r Never/’ he told me, “from that day to this has a bitter word of anyone, German or English, fallen from his lips, with the sole exception of Prince Max of Baden, of whom he remarked, Max of Baden has tricked mo behind my This wns an allusion to the fact that Prince Max, who was Imperial Chancellor at the time, issued a decree on November 9 that the Kaiser had abdicated —though, as a matter of fact he did not do so till November 28. It was this with British propaganda, that he believed helped to make his position in Germany impossible.