Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I CONGRESS OF BERLIN, BISMARCK, ETC. I Was born on the 5th July, 1864, at the family property in central Silesia, but spent the greater part of my childhood at my father’s neighbouring estate in Ober-Lausitz. I was educated by a tutor, and during the winters which were spent by my parents in Berlin, I went to a day-school there, and afterwards to boarding schools at Liegnitz and Wernigerode. My early youth was passed in the heroic age of the renaissance of the German Empire. I was still too young to have any recollection of the war with Austria in 1866, but I have often heard how all Silesia was panic-stricken at the prospect of an Austrian invasion.
The Croats are coming
was on the lips of every Silesian mother, and my father had his famous wines walled up in the cellar. He was much upset when the well-known cavalry general, Count Alex Wartensleben, then quartered in the house, betted that he would find them in five minutes?and did so. Late one afternoon in July, 1870, I was sitting with my grandmother on the terrace of her country house near Konigsberg when suddenly the old Landrat von Kalkstein appeared before us unannounced, calling to my grandmother as he came up,
Countess, it’s war with France.
Good heavens, what will become of us ?
wailed my grandmother? I went through it all in the French times under Napoleon?I must go to Berlin at once for my deeds and securities before the French get there.
Don’t be alarmed, Countess, said the Landrat,
this time things are better than in 1806. Four days later France declared war and we left for Berlin, my grandmother asking in great excitement at every station whether the French were yet over the Rhine. I still remember how at one station a typical Berlin sergeant replied,
Never fear, ma'am, we sh…
