"JOFFRE. BERLIN."

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1915, Page 10 (Supplement)

"JOFFRE. BERLIN."

LETTER TO THE MOST POPULAR MAN IN GERMANY. (By Edwin Cleary.) A letter bearing the inscription "To the most popular man in Germany" was posted, "c.o. Poste Restante, Berlin." Berlin's Post Office redirected it to "General von Kluck, Paris." Von Kluck, instead of arriving there as he was supposed to do, was making .!>. headlong retreat. Hence the. letter was reposted to Berlin marked "Unknown at this address." , Said the German Post Office; "Von Kluck is no longer popular, but von Hindenburg is the hero." So the letter was redirected to him. By the time the. letter should have reached him he was snowed up in the Carpathians. Von Hindenburg had 'been cut off l;y the Russians, and dropped below zero in the Kaiser's esteem.

So the Post Office, seeking to curry favor with the Kaiser, redirected the letter to Count Zeppelin. It was. however, intercepted by an employee in'.the Antwerp Post Office, who sent it back again to Paris. It arrived -there the day the Lusitania was sunk, and the French Po«t Office returned it to Berlin marked '•Von Tirpitz. Wanted badly. Try Potsdam." Tint a postmaster slipped the letter inlo tiie .Kaiser's imperial packet crossing out von Tirpitz's name. The Kaiser, highly indignant at being the fifth most popular man in Germany, sent it on to the Crown Prince, but a Frenchman still employed in the Stenay Post Office redirected' it to Ceneral JoiTre, The Berlin Post Office marked it "Hold until called for."