GERMAN GIRL’S LETTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1949, 8 March 1919, Page 1

GERMAN GIRL’S LETTER.

REMARKABLE PROPHECY OF WAR’S ENDING. Throughout the tragic course of the great world war prophecies, not only hearing upon the immediate and ulterior result of hostilities, but also purporting to give the actual date of termination, had their vogue from time to time. These egregious prognostications, as varied as they were numerous, found no credence in the mind of the sober-minded citizen, and were unhesitatingly relegated by him to their appropriate sphere in his considered outlook upon events and affairs. Some of them, it may be recalled, were in all seriousness and good faith stated to be founded upon Biblical authority; others had their origin amongst disciples of the occult ; others again were the outcome of fantastic manipulation of 'dales and names; and yet others, and perhaps the most absurd of them all, were discovered in Nature’s handiwork upon such familiar objects as the corn and the bracken of the count reside. There arc, however, to be found in every land both men and women of simple faith, who, when confronted with the prospect'of personal or national misfortune, seek consolation for their stricken hearts in what to stronger minds is but the grotesque and inconceivable. “MY DEAF (1001) ALOYH.” Thus a German frauloin, in (he absence of her soldier lover lighting his country’s battles, built her hopes of his early return upon a prediction that had apparently gained currency in the district where she lived. Her feelings are touchingly portrayed in the letter, which reads as follows; — “IWv dear, good A lord, —At hml ! set myself to write you the promised letter. According to what 1 have read, 1 cannot rejoice l over your leave. It is horrible that you cannot gel even a few days’ leave. How , gladly would I have seen you after so long a separation, but unfortunately that is not granted to us. “I sometimes think you should not come, as departure,-would be all the harder. . The main thing is that very soon you should come back for always. The longest part of the war must he over by now. “ft has been calculated that peace will come on (he eleventh day of the eleventh month; that is to say, in November. If that shall be the case remains to lie seen. In (he long interval many a brave soldier must give up his life.” The letter apepars to have been written on July 11th, 11)15, from a village in South-AVestcrn Germany, and within a week of its date was found by a Seaforth Highlander in (he pocket of a dead German upon (he held of battle on the Western front.

Alas for the realisation of human holies! That ingenuous epistle, and the eircninstiuices of its discovery, point to a tragic serpicl, but the writer’s reference to the day presaged for (be end of the war, to put no higher value upon it, is surely evidence of a remarkable example of coincidence.