VON ARNIM’S HISTORY

Grey River Argus, 1 June 1943, Page 2

VON ARNIM’S HISTORY

FURTHER FACTS DISCLOSED.

WELLINGTON, May 29. Interesting facts concerning the history of the Nazi military commander, General Von Arnim, weie given by Dr. Guy Scholefield, Parliamentary Librarian, in amplification of a recent Press Association message from Blenheim. • “The message from Blenheim about Count Von Arnim is I think, in the main correct,” said Dr. Scholefield. “The facts are that Mary Annette Beauchamp, daughter of Henry Herron Beauchamp, of Sydney, and niece of Sir Harold Beauchamp (of Wellington), married in the eighteen nineties Count Henning August Von Arnim, an East Prussian landownerThey lived on his estates, where a family of three girls and one boy were'brought up. “On the death of the Count in 1910 she took the first opportunity of removing to England in pursuance of his wish that the family should be eaucated there. The Countess meanwhile had achieved a literary reputation as the author of a number of books on country life which she published under the name of ‘Elizabeth.’ •Elizabeth and her German Garden, first published in 1898, was a favourite a generation later. “ft was her literary successes which inspired her cousin, Kathleen Beauchamp, of Wellington, to a like career, culminating in even higher literary fame for ‘Katherine Mansfield.’ The boy of the Von Arnim family was sent to Eton until the outbreak of the war in 1914 made his position unpleasant, and the Countess then took the whole family to the United States. One can readily understand that this experience was sufficient to lead the German disposition for hate into hatred for England. . . “Owing to her husband’s typical German attitude towards women, the Countess published all of her ten books on her German life as by ‘the author of Elizabeth and her German Garden.’ In 1916 she married John Russell, second Earl Russell, from whom she was separated three years later. She wrote many other books, including a satirical novel ‘Vera,’ on the strength of which Alice Meynell described her as ‘one of the three finest wits of her day.’ Her play ‘Priscilla Runs Away,’ was one of the great stage successes of its time•Elizabeth’ died two years ago.”