CONTENTS

CHAPTER

  1. [Under the War Lord's Thumb]
  2. [Weaving the Toils Round Bertha Krupp]
  3. [A Mother's Reflections]
  4. [Bertha Krupp, War Lady, Asserts Herself]
  5. [How the War Lady was Cajoled]
  6. [Fraulein Krupp Invited to Court]
  7. [In the Crown Prince's Private Room]
  8. [Stories of Court Life]
  9. [What the Maid Saw and Heard]
  10. [The Entangling of Archduke Franz Ferdinand]
  11. [The Crown Prince on a Lark]
  12. [The Fortune Teller sees Bertha in a Haze of Blood]
  13. ["We will Divide the World Between Us"]
  14. [Getting Even with the War Lord]
  15. ["Auntie Majesty" and Bertha]
  16. [How Franz Ferdinand was Fooled]
  17. [Diamond Cut Diamond]
  18. [A Secret Service Episode]
  19. [Bertha and Franz]
  20. ["Auntie Majesty" and her Frocks]
  21. [Throttling Bavaria]
  22. [Paying the Price]
  23. [How Von Bohlen was Chosen]
  24. [The War Lord's Day in Essen]
  25. [A Royal Liar]
  26. [Explaining "The Day"]
  27. [Bertha's Wedding Day]
  28. [A Foreshadowing of "Lusitaniaism"]
  29. [Some More Secret History]
  30. [Browbeating the War Lady]
  31. [A Great State Secret]

THE SECRET MEMOIRS OF
BERTHA KRUPP

Si Krupp nobiscum, quis contra nos?

CHAPTER I

UNDER THE WAR LORD'S THUMB

The Real War Lord—Putting on the Screw—The Kaiser's Plot Revealed—Disinheriting the Baroness—A Startler for the War Lord—Bertha to be Sole Heiress—Frederick Makes His Will—The War Lord Loses his Temper—A Base Suggestion

On a bright August day of 1902 the neighbourhood of Villa Huegel, overlooking the forest of smoke-stacks, cranes, masts and other erections that silhouette the town of Essen, was like an armed camp. Its master, Frederick Krupp, cannon king and war promoter, while not entitled to household troops, has an army of firemen as large as the contingent of the mighty potentate of Reuss-Greiz-Schleiz-Lobenstein, and this was pre-eminently the season and hour of military display.

The Krupp warriors resemble Prussian infantry in dress. In discipline and aggressiveness they are second to none serving under the eye of the "All Highest," as the Kaiser fondly calls himself. Give their master a dark look as he passes, and one or more of them will pounce upon you and pound you to jelly before you can say Jack Robinson; reach for your handkerchief or pencil in your back trouser-pocket, where a revolver might be, and they will spit you on their fire-axe.