Strange Romance of War

Levin Daily Chronicle, 2 May 1918, Page 1

Strange Romance of War

AUSTRIAN BARON'S HEIR IS CHILD TO ENGLISH GIRL.

A romantic story is told of the lovo of the son of an ifustrian millionaire baron for an English girl, his death on the battlefield, aud tlie result of the search of the baron in London for the mother of his son's child.

In 1913 there was living in London the only son of a well-known Austrian baron. His father is a millionaire with extensive ostates is his own country, and the boy, whose age was under twen-ty-one, had been sent to England to finish his education.

The boy (whom we will call Franz) made the acquaintance of a young girl of respectable family who was employed as "toucher" in a photographer's shop. The acquaintance ripened, and the young couple desired to be married. This, unfortunately, was out of the question, for the boy's status as an Austrian subject required that he should obtain the consent of his father, ho being under age. In these circumatancee, the inevitable happened, and in July, 1914, Franz and his sweethoart, pseudonymously here called Cicely, had anticipated wedlock and were living together with a small son. A fortnight before the outbreak of war Franz received his recall to join the army of his country, and when war broke out he was sent with his regiment to the Russian front, where it is understood that he fought bravely in Galic.ia.

In one of the fights on that front he was mortally wounded, and entrusted to a comrade a letter to his father, narrating the story of his love, stating that he regarded Cicely as his wife, which she would have been but for the Austrian laws, and asking his father to take caTe of her and their infant son.

The baron ultimately received his son's letter, took it as a communication from the dead, and found his grief assuaged by the discovery that he had a grandson. Franz had been his only son, and it seemed that with his death there would be no heir to inherit the title and the enormous wealth of the family. He determined to seek out Cicely, to accept her, as he was able to do under Austrian law, as his daugh-ter-in-law, and thereby legitimatize the child.

With much difficutly a Dutch agent dispatched to England succeeded in tracing the girl, who was living in a northern suburb of London and maintaining herself and her child by working at a photographer's shop. She was found to be a pretty, modest girl of 20 or 21, quite happy in her independcnco and unconcerned as to the greatness of her lover's family. She received the baron 7 s mcsr.ago, promising her an allowance and expressing his desire to accept the child as his legitimate heir, but she intimated that she desired no financial help and was in no concern about recognition. So the case now stands, and no steps con be taken about the legal status of the boy until after the war.