BARON’S DOOM

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2088, 24 May 1907, Page 3

BARON’S DOOM

ROMANCE OF THE AVAR IN JAPAN.

Tho news that the steamer Ceeilje is to be used as a junll at Hakodate, Japan, recalls the exploits of Baron von Krieglstein in tho Russo-Japan-ese war.

He was supposed to have been sent out by a German paper as a correspondent with plenty of money, but like most of the war correspondents he found that the strict censorship exercised by the Japanese rendered him practically a prisoner. He managed to eludo the attention of the Japanese military, and chartered a steamer at Shanghai, which lie named the Cecilie, and'manned with a motley crew,

Then he set out, it is presumed, to meet tho Baltic fleet, under Admiral Rozhdestvenski, who was in tho IndoChinese seas, Iu a short time the Japanese authorities wore put 411 a furore by the rumor of the baron’s movements on the China coast.

Now at Hongkong, then at Aiuoy, next at AVoosung—the Japanese jumped to the conclusion that the baron was an accredited agent tl*o Russian Government, and that the Cecilie, which had been painted grey like a warship, was a despatch bqutSuddonly, lyfigii J>panqge Pi'ujser.3 had been told off to lopk put for fieri, the Cecilie disappeared- ,T]iis was ill the summer of 1S04(. The b/a title of the Sea of Japan was fought, and the Baltic fleet destroyed; but it was a month later before the Cecilie was heard of again.

With the baron aboard slie had gone on-tlie rocks off Khorsakoff, on the west coast of the Inland of 'Sakhalin. A Japanese cruiser was despatched to tlie spot, and found the captain and crew waiting relief. The baron, however, liacL left, in a fr.q-il boat, to try to cross the narrow straits at the mouth of tlie Amur. River, and work jii? way up the stream 1000 miles or so to Cleuer.jj Linievitch’s arrqy. The captain of the Qecilie tqltj the Japanese authorities that when tlie Cecilie left Shanghai for the last time Voil Krieglstein waited for Rozhdestvenski on the west side of Formost instead of in the eastern channel between that island and the Philippines. Tbe Russian fleet consequently slipped by him. About two months after this news readied tlie Japanese papers in ’lokio that Baron von Krieglstein had shot himself with a rifle while lie was cleaning it in a ramp which he had made oil tlie Amur Rived. His,' body was buried by the native guides.