Broken-Hearted Prince Dies in Lonely Exile

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 352, 12 May 1928, Page 10

Broken-Hearted Prince Dies i n Lonely Exile

Lichnowsky —ir/j 0 - Tried to Stop H ar OSTRACISED BY U C ftLO Although apoplexy is g iTen I immediate cause or death it * said figuratively, lha , nowsky. German Anil, assa A | Ensland "hen "ar broke k i from a broken heart. , SI For some time past Priac , | nowsky had been living. ~r acl~ T in exile, in Castle Kuchelna. AT Silesia, and tt was there ; passed away at the age of _ owed his isolation from polity 2 social life to the premature pJ? tiou of his great work. ■ j(, YT? Mission.” brought about by cretion of an officer friend Prince Lichnowsky . am* don in 1912 with a vision of , iJT Anglo-German friendship. these shores a broker, Wan< 2* whom there was no more pathetic"fc. me even in those tragic dav s , perhaps ,t was the Prince*^ She was seen weeping in * James s Park a few hours before .V and her husband left tin they both loved, would never see it again. Born of a family of aacient u. aristocratic lineage. Prince Uchnn. sky began life as a soldier, and . time was a brother officer of the « Kaiser in the Life Guards Husser, ‘ This, however, was only a pl eas « phase, and entering the diplomat service. Prince Lichnowsky went London as an attache in the Gernur Embassy. He was then only 25. but the impressions of England and English ftf» that he then formed were so strocr and so appealing that when he returned as Ambassador, nearly pi years later, he told a friend that fafelt “like a man going home.” Made the Scapeyoat \\ ith his wife, before her marrUjf Countess von Arco-Zinneberg, Lichnowsky transformed the German Embassy in Carlton House Terraw into one of London’s most brilliur social and intellectual centres, for he himself brought with him wealth and personal prestige, and the pric cess was a poetess. With him Prince Lichnowaky brought, too, the determination to re move all possible causes of an AngloGerman conflict, and to establish between the two countries a friendship based on mutual confidence and com mon aim. His efforts w ere broken by what fa? himself called, in his memoirs, ti* “madness” of Germany’s pre-war foreign policy. Returning to Berlin, Prince Lich nowsky rightly foresaw that he wa* destined to be made the scapegoat for the catastrophe inevitably involved!;: England’s entry into the war. He was attacked from all quarter; He defended himself by recalling tfa* repeated warnings he had addressee from London to Berlin.

But he w'as told in reply that hr had been “fooled.”

The publication by the Allies, for propaganda purposes during the wif of his “London Mission” pamphlet •which he bad intended for the eye; of a few' intimate friends, brought hi* complete ostracism. Prince Lichnowsky s views about th* war were given in various published waitings, most of which were colter tions of official reports he made fro* London w'hile German Ambassador. “No one can doubt the sincerity of England's wish to maintain European peace, if only he saw' the col lapse of England's economic before the outbreak of war . . . declared in his remarkable work. "The Road to the Abyss,” which was lislied only last November. “On the afternoon of August 1. aft*our declaration of war on Russia. SiEdward Grey asked me whether * would not be possible for Germsc' and France to face each other in an** but without coming to blows. . • • “In the meantime, our troop* haralready marched ito Luxembourg