[ROYALTY AT THE FRONT.]
The following letter, written by Prince Joachim of Prussia, the youngest son of the German Emperor, was addressed to a wounded comrade in arms by the Prince, himself at that time recovering from a wound suffered in battle. Prince Joachim, who is 24 years old, is a Lieutenant in the First Prussian Infantry Guards. In a tone of easy-going comradeship, not usually associated with the stern and imperious Hohenzollerns, the young Prince wrote to his friend and fellow-guardsman, Sergt. Karl Kummer, who had been sent, badly wounded, to the home of his sister at Teplitz:
My dear Kummer: How sincerely I rejoiced to receive your very solicitous letter! I was sure of Kummer for that; that no one could hold him back when the time came to do some thrashing! God grant that you may speedily recover, so that you can enter Potsdam, crowned with glory, admired, and envied. Who is nursing you?
The old proud First Guard Regiment has proved that it was ready to conquer and to die. Kummer, if I can in any way help you, I shall gladly do so, by providing anything that will make you comfortable. You know how happy I have always been for your devotion to the service, and how we two always were for action (Schwung). I, too, am proud to have been wounded for our beloved Fatherland, and I regret only that I am not permitted to be with the regiment. Well, may God take care of you! Your devoted
Joachim of Prussia.
Interesting, too, is a letter written on Sept. 5 by Ernest II., Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, who, besides being a Lieutenant of the Prussian Guard and Chief of the Eighth Infantry Regiment of Thuringia, is Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (since 1908), of Juliers, Cleves and Berg, Engern, and Westphalia; Landgrave in Thuringia, Margrave of Misnia, Count of Henneberg, Marche, Ravensberg, and Seigneur of Ravenstein and Tonna. In 1898 the Duke married Princess Adelaide of Schaumburg-Lippe, thus uniting two great German houses. His own house was started in 1655 by Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen. His letter follows:
We have lived through a great deal and done a great deal, marching, marching, continually, without rest or respite. On Aug. 10 we reached Willdorf, near Jülich, by train, and from the 12th of August we marched without a single day of rest except Aug. 16, which we spent in a Belgian village near Liége, until to-day, when we reached ——. These have been army marches such as history has never known.
The weather was fine, except that a broiling heat blazed down upon us. The regiment can point back to several days' marches of fifty kilometers ——. Everywhere our arrival created great amazement, in Louvain as well as in Brussels, into which the entire —— marched at one time. At first we were taken for Englishmen in almost every village, and we still are, because the inhabitants cannot realize that we have arrived so early. The Belgians, moreover, in the last few days almost invariably set fire to their own villages.
On Aug. 24 we first entered battle; I led a combined brigade consisting of ——. The regiment fought splendidly, and in spite of the gigantic strain put upon it, it is still in the best of spirits and full of the joy of battle. On that day I was for a long time in the sharpest rifle and artillery fire. Since that time there have been almost daily skirmishes and continual long marches; the enemy stalks ahead of us in seven-league boots.