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Updated: June 14, 2025
Its sickening anticlimax to poor Queen Louise was so exactly in keeping with the smaller disappointments which assail her more humble sister women in every walk of life that it takes on the air of a heart tragedy. I tried to imagine the feelings of the Queen when she journeyed to Memel to hold her famous interview with Napoleon.
Memel, Tilsit, Insterburg, Königsberg, and Allenstein to name only a few of the more important cities of East Prussia were either threatened with occupation by the Russian forces or had actually been occupied by them. The entire Mazurian Lake district in the southeast of the Prusso-Russian border region was overrun with Russian troops.
As we drew near Memel things began to look lonely and foreign and queer, and its picturesque features were enhanced by recollection of Napoleon and Queen Louise. Memel is near Tilsit, and the river Niemen, or Memel, empties into the Baltic just below here. The conference on the raft appeals to me as one of the most thrilling and yet pitiably human events in all history.
The man looked at the note, then at his foot-rule and measure then verified his former measurement by a second. "They correspond," he said, "within a hair-breadth, to a foot-mark broader and shorter than the former." Hatteraick's genius here deserted him "Der deyvil!" he broke out, "how could there be a foot-mark on the ground, when it was a frost as hard as the heart of a Memel log?"
Concerning this raid the following official announcement was made by the Germans on March 18, 1915: "Russian militia troops have gained a cheap success in the northernmost corner of East Prussia in the direction of Memel. They have plundered and burned villages and farms. As a penalty, we have ordered the cities occupied by us in Russian territory to pay considerable sums in damages.
To this the following Russian official reply was made on March 21, 1915: "The official communiqué of the German Great Headquarters of the 18th of March concerning the movement of Russian troops against Memel contains a threat of reprisals to be exacted on Russian villages and cities held by the enemy on account of the losses which might be suffered by the population in the neighborhood of Memel.
For every village or farm burned down by these hordes on German soil three villages or farms of the territory occupied by us in Russia will be given over to the flames. Each act of damage in Memel will be answered by the burning of Russian Government buildings in Suwalki and other capitals of governments."
Kinsey, "are seen fine blocks of granite, already converted into form, having their edges cased with wood, ready to be shipped off for buildings in Brazil, where it appears that no good stone, or, at least, so durable as this, can be procured; pipe-staves from Memel, flax and iron, and occasionally coals from the north of England.
This long line, it appears, was under the supreme command of Von Hindenburg, while Von Mackensen had charge of the great drive to the south. The statement here quoted was issued as reassurance to Germans who had been made nervous by reports of a Russian invasion of East Prussia, and was connected with the Russian raid on Memel.
The worthy man who said that the four quarters of the globe were "Russia, Prussia, Memel, and Shields," was the type of the travelled collier captain. It is hardly possible to understand the complete ignorance of some of those fine sailors, or to conceive the methods on which they worked their ships. A man who could neither read nor write would take his vessel without a mistake from port to port.
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