THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 15, 1940.
EX-EMPRESS FINDS PEACE IN U.S.
CHANGING THE GUARD before the house that shelters Zita, last empress of the old Austro-Hungar- ian empire, is simple.
I
A sturdy Massachusetts state trooper drives up, says "How's it, Frank?" to another trooper, who asks how the Red Sox came out, and drives away.
It has been so since mid-July when Zita, one- time mistress of 50,000,000 subjects, came to the peaceful New England village of Royalston, Mass., as a refugee.
The two blue-uniformed troop- The girls. Archduchess Adelaide, ers are the only tangible symbols 26, and Charlotte, 19, and Eliza- of the life of guarded royalty that beth, 17, play the piano. The was Zita's--crowned empress
Archdukes.. at younger
Charles 24, banished at 27, mother of eight. Louis. 22, and Rudolph, 21. take] children, widowed at 30,
their brothers on for some golf. To-day, at 48, somberly dress- Later, there may be dinner with ed, she "holds court" in a square, mother in the pleasant dining vonden white house of the better, room that looks out on Royalston's type.
neat little elmshaded common, Two courtiers of the old days white-steepled church and coun- are with her-a countess and a try store. Only Archduke Robert count-besides seven of her eight is absent, working in the admir- children. To all of them, the alty in London. brown-eyed, greying lady still is "Majesty." Through one of them, she makes the rare comments that can be published.
Reunion was not always 60 simple.
in
After their attempted, coup *2r. Zita and Karl were banished
As. for instance, when she said to Madiera, while the children in her gentle voice:
"It is peaceful bere, These hills and mountains remind me of the Austrian landscape. It is won- derful to hear the aeroplanes no langer, to light the rooms at night without prohibition, to walk in the field with nothing to fear."
To walk in the field..
Singing Of Bobolinks
remained in Switzerland." When Robert, then 6, was stricken with appendicitis. Zita had to obtainl permission to go to his bedside.
Later, when she was allowed to bring the children to Madiera, the joy of reunion was dinned by Karl's fatal illness. Zita had to do her own cooking, scrub floors, pinch pennies for food.
The Sequel
JUGOSLAVS FACE FAMINE
The Jugoslavian wheat yield is expect ed to be dangerously small. Until recently it was hoped that the country's winter needs. would be provided for by the harvest, but it is now obvious that this will be impossible without reducing bread consumption.
The normal home requirements аге 240,000 truckloads. At the best the har- vest may produce 200,000 loads, and the yield may be os low as 180,000. If Germany insists on the full execution of Jugoslavia's commit- ments under their trade agreement, which is likely, the position will be dis- astrous.
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- She docs that often. Behind the home of Calvin Bullock, New The sequel to that story must York broker, where Zita is living, 'come to Zita's mind as she stretches a golf course and mea- watches the young Archduchess dows where only the singing ofį Elizabeth stride gaily off in white bobolinks breaks the stillness. and red-trimmed sports frock for to which Zita never has despaired
"It is like the Wienerwald, the an afternoon of tennis or boating. of returning. forests near Vienna," says Count, Degenfeld, her gentleman-in- waiting.
Elizabeth never saw her father.
He died at Madiera in April, 1922, and Elizabeth was born just But to Zita, the trim, farmed a month later in Spain. The fields that skirt the meadows family stayed in Spain until 1929 could mean something deeper. when they went to Belgium to It was in a wheat field in live for ten years in a castle since Hungary that she and her late destroyed by gunfire. From it husband, disguised as Russians, they fled before the advancing -made-a forced landing "during | Germans-to-America.
Once In 1935, she neared her objective when the Austrian government returned to the Hapsburgs most of their con- fiscated property. But Hitler, who now rules Austria, charges Zita. with treason for having. opposed the anschluss with the Reich.
In-a-way, it is ironic that Zita, an adventure more daring than All the children speak German, a refugee, sought haven in Royal- one from a Graustarkian novel. French, Spanish, Italian, Hun- ston, because the town was named Exiles in Switzerland in 1921, garian, Czech and Croatian-for Isaac Royal. a Tory who fled they had heard from royal Mon-schooled at Zita's orders in the to England during the American archists still in Hungary that the many tongues of the old empire, Revolution. time was ripe for a restoration. They got a 'plane, flew over Aus- tria, and after the forced landing pushed on for a rendezvous with Joyal Hungarians who had a troop train ready for a coup d'etat.
But Czechs and Yugoslavs mo- bilised against them and bullets pinged against the locomotive in which stood the Emperor Karl and Zita. Eventually, after a battle, Karl gave up his attempted coup to prevent further bloodshed.
Knelt On Cinders
Before that battle, Catholic Zita and the emperor knelt on the cinders of a railroad track to hear mass in the open air.
To-day, she attends services at Immaculate Conception Church in nearby Athol. She and her faml- ly occupy a front pew, and at communion time fle to the altar rail. It is on such days, when Archduke Otto, 28, the pretender to the Hapsburg throne, and Archduke Felix, 24. come up from New York, that the family is jolliest,
LONDON CANAL TO BE FILLED IN
Part of the Grand Union Canal where it runs through London is to be abandoned. The Minister of Transport, Sir John Reith, has made an order releasing the com- pany from the liability of main- taining as a canal that portion in St. Pancras known as the Cum-. berland arm and basin. This is behind the old cavalry barracks in Albany Street and extends from the canal cut to the main Regent's Parks section,
An official of the company stated that the surrounding land now belongs to the Crown Com- missioners. It is understood to be the ultimate intention to all in and build over the arm and basin.
"(THINKS)