Evening star., 1923-07-19
Senior Branch of Noble Arenberg
House Proclaimed Belgian Traitors

dominant figure of the great world
of Brussels. she was. so passionately
fond OF Belgium that she could not
forgive her eldest son for having
sided with the kaiser, and placed
on record the fact that Emperor VIII
liam had warned her son three months
before the outbreak of the war, that
Is to say as far back as in April,
1914, that he intended to traverse
Belgian territory, by force if neces-
sary, in order TO reach the northeast
ern provinces of France. That he an
ticipated Belgian resistance is shown
py the fact that he recommended his
friend, Duke Engelbert, to transfer
the bulk of his art treasures and
most highly priced portable posses
sions into Germany
The old duchess, who was a very
masterful character, was very unfor-
son, Prince and Duke Prosper Aren-
berg, before the war rendered him
self guilty of such shocking murders
and atrocities in German West Africa
10 which he had been transferred
because of the disgraceful scrapes in
which he had become involved in
Germany, that he was. in spite of his
birth and rank, condemned by one
court-martial to death. by another to
nfteen years of penal servitude nv
third to twenty years impris0nmenf
while fourth pronounced him ir-
responsible and caused his committal
as homicidal maniac to a German
asylum Tor the insane. There he was
.Iealed with so much honor and dis
tlnction by the officials as to excite
a storm of public protest in the
relchstag and in the columns of the
press After two or three years de-
tention he was discharged as cured
ne was forced to leave Germany for
argentina, where a ranch was pur-
chased for him. But he soon tired Of
IRE there. and returend to Europe,
where, finding Germany barred to
hlm' ne took up his residence at Brus-
sels, where, to the relief of his reIa
tives, he died on the eve of the war,
1t may be put forward. not as an
excuse but as an explanation of Duke
Engelbert of Arenberg's conduct in
siding with the Germans the fact
that the estates of the family i'm
Germany and in what was formerly
tn the no dual al empire embrace nn an area
only portion of which is situated
In Westphalia. where he has a mag
nihcent country seat known as the
Nordkirchen. In addition to this
he possesses what is to all fntents
mining rights for the whole of the
Prussian province of Westphalia, per
maps the greatest mining district in
germany. These mineral rights were
! A. ID. 500 in the original house of
Arenberg, which became extinct in
the male line in 1880 when the hon
ors and estates and prerogatives were
continued by the Holy Roman EN-
pire to Count Engelbert de La Narck
| husband of the only child and heir,
ess of the last of her family They
were confirmed in 1857 to the head
! of the thus continued house of Aren
berg by the so-calfed golden bull of
n q rn mr. n artA ~
no one has been allowed to open up
any mining operations in WestphaIia
without the sanction of the chief of
the house of Arenberg for the time
being. permission being only granted
IN IN return ret 1,,f for a ROYALTY of L per cent
uct, no matter to whom the surface
Of the land above the mine belonged
These royalties have thus been paid
Tor the last nine centuries or more
bringing an enormous revenue. That
they should have existed during nine
centuries or more through all sorts
of revolutions and changes of SOW
ereignty and government is almost
incredible and constitutes perhaps
the most notable instance of that
ment. Prince Duke Engelbert of
Arenberg. fifteenth of his line, stood
to lose this monopoly. as well as all
the entailed estates of the family in
burg monarchies, IL he had declined
to throw In his lot with the kaiser,
and had remained true to King Albert
and to Belgium. Thus far neither
his Westphalian coal monopoly nor
his estates in Germany have been
interfered with by the governments in
power. But should really sociaIistic,
or, worse still, communistic regimes
succeed in supplanting the present
governments at Berlin, at. Vienna.
Budapest. and in the southern German
states, 1T is pretty certain that he
would not be allowed to remain in
possession of these advantages of a
territorial and sub-territorial char
acter. They would be torn from him.
and in that case he would find that
he had made a sorry bargain in be-
trayinS King Albert and the Belgian
nation insthe- .great 'Nars si...1sssssgs $