Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-08-13

letter from Kaiser Karl to Prince
| Sextus.
And then" the Kaiser went on,
] when their great offensive was
within a week of being launched, We
broke through their lines on a slope
5000 feet high, covered with snow,
where they couldn't bring up :heir
reserves or new guns, and we sur
rounded them!
We took practically everything
they possessed-food enough to feed
| our entire army without calling upon
our own supplies at all. Never be-
| fore had our armies seen such an
accumulation of ammunition. l
must certainly go down to see it
I'VE cut off their northern retreat,
and as they swung their army to the
| south, we captured $4,000 of them
up to their knees in the rice fields.
! One of the great mistakes they made
was in carrying their civilian refu-
| gees with tkem-ologging their mar
row roads and impeding the retreat
| of their soldiers. We had taken pos
| session of their most productive re-
gions and their retreat was through
! territory which yielded them moth
ing. Just think of that retreating
army thrown upon the already i'm
poverished inhabitants of that Sec
llOll- " n.y. lJlCy oldi VIC " oCelI'
Everywhere we went we found
| their big guns abandoned. In one
small village we came upon a gun
decorated with flowers and sur
mounted with a portrait of Emperor
Franz josef 1t had been put there
by the Italian Inhabitants of the
village to show their happiness at
| being released at last from the yoke
, of the intolerable Italian lawyer
1 L L.. y. AL
ians must have treated them! Italy
was real help from God! Now, we've
got the Allies!" and he struck his
left hand with his right with great
force to emphasize his apparent con-
viction that the turning point in the
war had been reached with Italy's
collapse.
Then he picked up a newspaper
from the table, couldn't see which
one it was. but it looked like the
Nord Deutsche All Gemeine Zeitung
and remarked: well, Davis, I
must go into breakfast. My wife is
waiting for mel" and he shook hands
with me again and walked out of
the room to the rear.
I How optimistic, enthusiastic and
supremely confident the Kaiser was
at this conJuncture can be imagined
only by those who are familiar with
! the depression in Germany just be-
| fore this Italian offensive was
launched. Everyone seemed to real
ize that Austrias abandonment of
the cause of the Central Powers was
imminent; her support then hung
only by the flimsiest kind of thread.
Had the German-Austro offensive
against Italy fallen down or the
twelfth Italian Isonzo offensive been
successfully launched, separate
peace would almost certainly have
followed, and no one realized that
better than the Kaiser and his gem
erals. His bubbling enthusiasm in
success only emphasized in my mind
the outward calm he had unceasing-
ly displayed even when the outcome
had looked so unpromising.
That the Kaiser now regarded
himself and his armies as invincible
felt, and I feared that the success
in Italy would be followed at the
first favorable opportunity by gil
gantic offensive on the western
front.
Indeed, on a subsequent occasion,
when he called at my office for fur
ther treatment, and again referred
to the Italian triumph, he remarked:
If our armies could capture 800. 900
|
just as well be dead as far as Italy
is concerned-we can do the same
thing against our enemies in the
west!'
| This was one of the interviews I
was so anxious to report to the rep
resentatives of the American InteIli-
| gence Department at our Legation
in Copenhagen. and, later on, when
l finally arrived in that city, I re-
lated it In great detail to them. 1
remained in Copenhagen eleven
days, and during the greater part of
! that time was being interviewed by
one or another of the Representatives
of our Intelligence Department Ex-
actly two months later, on March
21st. the western offensive broke out
as I had feared.
! called at Potsdam a day or two
later to attend the Kaiser again, and
found him still in the same trium-
phant mood, and so anxious was he
to get down to Italy that he called
at my office three times that week
to enable me to complete my work
on his affected tooth.
UP to this time 1 had been unable
to complete my negotiations with DR..
Haselden- At last, through influence,
| I secured permission for him to visit
me in Berlin and he arrived early in
! November. He stayed with me three
days and the matter was disposed of.
After one of two trips back and
forth. he arrived with his belongings
on November 25th and installed him
self in my house
The following day the Kaiser
called at my Office for what proved
to be his last sitting. I had received
word on the goth that my pass for