I was at Vienna when war was declared, and until actual hostilities commenced I could hardly believe such a thing was possible. The idea that the Emperor Francis Joseph, already with one foot in the grave, contemplated appearing as a combatant, after invariably suffering defeat, seemed sheer madness to me. It is true that a camarilla, acting under orders from Berlin, used the weakly old man as a tool. But that Berlin really wished to embark on a war which could not fail to cause a universal conflagration was incredible. It was worse than madness—it was a crime.

But the desire to kill carried away those in power at Berlin. I had a presentiment of a mysterious fatality which had laid its spell on Berlin and Vienna.

I wondered what would become of me. And each possible solution became more and more difficult. If, according to the views of my Belgian countrymen, I am unfortunate enough not to have regained my nationality in spite of the good sense and approval of the King my father, and once more denied the rights of justice and humanity, an action against which I protest most strongly, I was regarded from the first day of the war as an "enemy subject" by the Court of Vienna, which was doubtless pleased to be able to hurt me in some new way.

I was asked to leave the Dual Monarchy as soon as possible. The Chief of the Police came in person to notify me of this decision. This distinguished functionary was in many respects courteous, but the order was extremely precise and formal.

I left for Belgium. But certain events detained me at Munich. The German Army barred the road, and my devoted country was soon to know the horrors of which the first responsibility rests with Prussia.

Until August 25, 1916, I was able to live in the capital of Bavaria, as a Belgian princess, without having to experience many of the inconveniences to which my position exposed me. The Bavarian Government was certainly indulgent. I was even allowed to retain a French maid who had been long in my service. The count—that devoted knight, whose proximity in my sad life had brought me consolation and unfailing support—was also allowed to be a member of my entourage.

But the German victories convinced my pitiless enemies that I should soon be at their mercy. They at once arranged their new plan of campaign!

I am proud to write this—proud to admit that the sufferings of Belgium were my own. She was oppressed. I was also the victim of oppression. She had lost all. I had also lost everything.

From day to day my resources became straitened, and the atmosphere, at first compassionate, became hostile. I tried to efface myself as much as possible, and to submit myself patiently to the exigencies of my delicate situation. It was well known with whom my heart was in sympathy! Worries and harshness soon assailed me.

My son-in-law, Duke Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, did not ignore—and with good reason—the difficulties I had to overcome. He lost no time in letting it be known that he considered I ought to agree to be placed under his guardianship, and forced to receive my last morsel of bread at his hands.

I do not wish to enlarge on the actions of this gentleman. If I were to publish the documents and the legal papers which I have kept, I should only add to the remorse and confusion which I should like to think have overcome my unhappy daughter. But, in duty to myself, I must relate a little of what transpired. Nothing else will suffice to show the drama which has enveloped me since the day when I represented the possible loss of a fortune to my family.

Duke Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, from the very moment when Germany thought herself mistress of Belgium, occupied himself in ascertaining what might accrue to me from the inheritance of my father. Rather more than four and a half millions had been deposited in the bank, assigned for the benefit of my creditors, by arbitration of the tribunal which had been formed on the eve of hostilities.

This sum of money was the object of the touching solicitude of my son-in-law. I leave it to others to relate his efforts to obtain possession of it and divert it into a different channel from the one for which it was intended.

Nevertheless, these four and a half millions were only a drop in the ocean compared with the promise of the past. My dear country can therefore rejoice, and I rejoice with her, that, by the victory of the Entente, she has escaped a revision of the lawsuit touching the Royal inheritance, one which would have been in direct opposition to the Divine and human right, at least as soon as the decree had been issued.

What crime would not then have been committed in my name in favour of the final triumph of German arms if, threatened with the pangs of starvation, I had signed certain renunciations which were extorted from me at Munich, and had thereby lost my personality and abandoned my rights to my children in consideration of a miserable pittance?

They now saw themselves likely to be compensated in some measure for all that had previously prevented them from acquiring the King's inheritance. They had also the certainty of possessing the thirty millions which represent my share of the fortune of Her Majesty the Empress Charlotte, when my unfortunate aunt succumbs beneath the burden of her advanced age.

My children—from the hour when they became aware of the frightful state of destitution to which I was reduced during the war—have only pursued one end: without troubling to see me or to approach me directly, they have endeavoured by the mediation of paid agents to force me to sign a renunciation of my expectations.

In direct defiance of the law I was ordered to sign my name to a document by which I relinquished my future inheritance from the Empress to my children. At last, worn out with sufferings, I was on the point of consenting for a consideration of an annual payment of a sum of six thousand marks, in exchange for which I was to be reduced to isolation and slavery, and to be further plundered of all that might belong to me.

I will say nothing here to the Duke of Holstein, this soldier financier; but to my daughter Dora, the fruit of my body, whom I have fed at my breast, and whom I have brought up, I say this:

"You may possess all the outward appearances of respectability. You may enjoy the benefits of a fortune of which I know the source, you may experience neither shame nor remorse, you may even dare to pray. But God can never be deceived. No wickedness, no guilty complicity, no action contrary to Nature will escape His justice. Sooner or later He will judge all men according to their works."

Before I conclude my account of the machinations of these human vultures who attempted to assail my liberty and my rights, when once I had been unfortunate enough to ask help from my children, I must not forget to mention that later, when I regained the captaincy of my soul, I appealed to Justice at Munich. The courts there declared the renunciations extracted from me in my misery and frenzy when I was starving and homeless to be invalid.

During the war I have often actually not known where I should sleep, or of what my next meal would consist.

I write this frankly, without a particle of false shame—firm in the approval of my own conscience.

I have never willingly injured anyone. I have suffered in silence. I am speaking to-day in my own defence, bringing as evidence a family drama which touches contemporary history. I speak with candour, but I am not actuated by feelings of hatred. Wickedness has diminished. But my personal sufferings have in nowise lessened. I was born a king's daughter, I shall die a king's daughter. I have certainly pleaded for assistance, but more on behalf of my attendants than for myself. I could not bear to see these devoted creatures, my comfort and support in my misery, weep and grow pale during these dark days.

The count had been obliged to leave Munich. On the morning of August 25, 1916, his room was suddenly invaded by the police. He was put in prison, then taken to Hungary, and afterwards interned near Budapest. He was by birth a Croatian and therefore regarded as a subject of the Entente, even before the defeat which united Croatia and Servia. Human justice is really only a word!

On the same day Olga, my principal attendant, an Austrian who had always shown me an invaluable and long-standing devotion, was also arrested. She was afterwards released. But I understood the significance of this—the order had come from the highest authority to alienate everyone who cared for me. I will describe what followed.

My French maid, whose care of me was so disinterested, was interned. If my faithful Olga had not come out of prison, and if I had not had the means to keep her, I should have been completely isolated.

But, shortly after this, I really did not know how to supply my daily needs. My last jewels had been sold. I was now as poor as the poor souls who implored my charity.

What should I decide to do, what should I attempt? If I appealed to my daughter I knew that I should be up against the Duke of Holstein. He was absolutely pitiless. All this happened in July, 1917.

Providence now threw in my way an honourable man, a Swiss professor, who was terribly distressed at my fate.

He generously offered to help me to reach Silesia, where my daughter was in residence at one of her castles. This castle is not far from Breslau. I therefore left Munich, with Olga, in the hope of seeing my child and obtaining from her some temporary shelter.

But when I reached my journey's end I tried in vain to be received, listened to, and assisted by Dora.

I was therefore stranded in a little village in the Silesian mountains, where my last few marks soon disappeared.

The count had tried to send me the wherewithal to exist. Without any warning, the German postal authorities retained the money and returned his letters.

The little inn where I had taken refuge was kept by kindly folk who were, however, unable to let me stop unless I could pay. I saw myself faced with the most extreme misery. The innkeeper seemed frightened of me. He told me that he had been ordered to render an account of my doings to the police, and that I was kept well under observation, although I might not be aware that this was the case.

He was mistaken. I and Olga had both noticed that our slightest movements were watched. Even in our walks in the open country we continually met some peasant or some pedestrian who appeared not to notice us, but who actually spied on us more or less unsuccessfully.

I felt the influence of an implacable force that wished to immure me in some new gaol, madhouse or prison, or which would perhaps even make me contemplate self-destruction.

In this extremity Heaven once again came to my rescue.

On the very day which I thought would be the last I should be allowed to stay at the inn, I sat down, miserably, on a bench in front of the house. I asked myself in despair what was to become of me. Suddenly a carriage appeared—a rare sight in that unfrequented region. The coachman signalled to me, and I saw, sitting in the carriage, a large, important-looking person who seemed looking for something or somebody.

He was looking for me! I was soon acquainted with the fact that this gentleman had come from Budapest on behalf of the count, and wished to speak to me.

At these words I felt myself lifted out of the abyss of despair. But my trials were not over.

The count's confidential agent had been charged with the mission of helping me to leave Germany. In order to do this, it would be necessary to cross Austria into Hungary, where I could rely upon active sympathy being shown me.

Things and people had already changed in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy!

But, what possibilities such a journey presented! First, I had no official papers. The revelation of my name and title would alone suffice to impede my progress; I should be instantly detained.

But although, thanks to the count's messenger, my bill at the inn was settled, I had only very limited means at my disposal. Austria, it is true, was not far away. We could go there across the mountains by way of Bohemia, but the envoy declared that, owing to his shortness of breath and his troublesome legs, he could not possibly follow me over the goat tracks which we should most assuredly have to pass. He decided that our best plan was to make for Dresden, and from there to choose the easiest route.

When evening fell our host metaphorically closed his eyes to my departure. He waited until the next day to notify my disappearance to the authorities. By the time he did so I was in Saxony. But here again it was too dangerous to go near Lindenhof in a kingdom where my misfortunes had been the subject of so much publicity. At last we remembered a little village close to the frontier, on the side nearest Munich, where the regime was less rigorous than in the vicinity of Dresden, and we arrived there without anything untoward happening.

The present difficulty was not so much in crossing Germany. It chiefly consisted in solving the question of the possibility of my being able to stay in some retired spot without my identity being discovered and notified, and afterwards to cross the frontier without a passport and gain safety at Budapest.

This Odyssey alone would make a volume. It terminated in a Bavarian village where I breathed freely once more. A good woman extended the kindest hospitality towards me and my faithful Olga.

The count's messenger still continued to watch over my welfare, and found accommodation for himself in the vicinity.

From my window I could see the church steeple of the Austrian village through which I must pass in order to reach Salzburg, Vienna and Hungary. I was now on the borders of the Promised Land. A little wood separated me from it, at the extremity of which flowed a brook well known to the contrabandists, since it separated Bavaria from Austria, and served them by night as a means of transit. I dared not risk it! It would be necessary for me to cross a bridge constantly guarded by a sentry. But once over the bridge I should have left Germany behind me!

When I happened to be near Munich, I had regained possession of two favourite dogs. My love of dogs is well known. I did not wish to be separated from these, and I had an intuition that they would be of use to me in my flight. I thought tenderly of the clever Kiki, now a prisoner at Bad-Elster. His successors, like himself, would surely bring me luck! One was a big sheep-dog, the other a little griffon.

At first I hesitated to go near the bridge for fear lest I should be recognized. Then I reflected that it would seem suspicious to a sentry on duty if I always remained some distance away. My best method would be not to hide from the sentries, but to walk constantly with my dogs in their proximity. The soldiers (the same ones were always on duty) would soon get accustomed to seeing me, and in their eyes I should only represent an inoffensive inhabitant of the village.

The count's envoy begged me to hasten my departure. I refused. He advised a nocturnal flight. I did not agree with him. I said: "I shall go when I see fit, at my own time, when I feel that the propitious moment has arrived."

It is curious, but it is nevertheless true, that I always experience a weird kind of intuition under difficulties. It is exactly as if some inner voice advised me what course to pursue. And whenever I have obeyed this intuition I have always been right. One morning I awakened under the domination of my unseen guide.

"You must leave at noon to-day."

I sent at once to the count's messenger. Thanks to his official papers he was able to cross the frontier with Olga without any difficulty. They therefore went on in advance. I arranged to meet them at the foot of the belfry in the Austrian village—so near and yet so far.

If the sentry stopped me and questioned me, I should be a prisoner!...

Towards noon I strolled along by the side of the brook, my big dog jumping round me, the tiny griffon in my arms. The autumnal sun was quite fierce, and the sentry was standing in the shade a little distance from the bridge. I sauntered across the bridge, as if it were a matter of course. The soldier took no notice. I walked away unconcernedly, but my heart was beating furiously! I was in Austria at last! Upon reaching the village I rejoined my "suite." A carriage was waiting. I drove to Salzburg, and put up at a small hotel where I knew I should be in temporary security.

I waited three days for the arrival of my Viennese counsel, M. Stimmer, who had been secretly advised of my return to Austria, and of my wish to proceed to Budapest under his protection.

M. Stimmer responded to my appeal. He waived all the legal difficulties which might arise from the situation. The voice of humanity spoke more strongly than the voice of obedience to the order which had banished me from Austria, and given me over to the power of Germany, where I should inevitably have succumbed to misery and persecution.

But in Hungary I should stand a chance of knowing happier days. M. Stimmer decided to accompany me thither.

I had reached the limit of my endurance when my wanderings came to an end at Budapest, and I found myself in a comfortable first-class hotel. The authorities saw nothing compromising in my presence. At my urgent request the count was allowed to leave the small town where he was interned, and remain near me for several days in order to discuss my affairs.

Unfortunately the war was hopelessly prolonged. Life gradually became more and more difficult. Austria and Hungary were no longer the victims of illusion. Enlightened by the knowledge of defeat, they cursed Berlin as the author of their misfortunes. Budapest was in a state of ferment.

All at once everything collapsed. The wind of Bolshevism swept furiously over the Dual Monarchy. I now became familiar with the commissaries and soldiers of the Revolution. I experienced visits of inspection, perquisitions, interrogations. But suddenly my misfortunes disarmed even the savage leaders of Hungarian Communism. I have already mentioned how one of these men remarked when he saw to what poverty I was reduced: "Here is a king's daughter who is poorer than I am."

If I were to live for centuries, I should still experience in thought those poignant emotions which I underwent during the time of torment which overthrew thrones and threw crowns to the four winds of heaven. Past ages have never witnessed such an upheaval.

On the banks of the Danube, between the east and the west, the downfall of Prussian power and the prestige of Monarchy was felt perhaps more keenly than elsewhere.

I often wondered whether I was actually alive in the world I had formerly known, or if I was not the victim of a long-drawn-out nightmare.

Our troubles, our worries, our own individuality are as naught in the whirlpool of human passions. I felt myself carried away with everything which surrounded me into the unknown country of a New Era.