One of my best friends in Vienna was Ernst Karczag. Shortly after the
outbreak of the war I received a postal from him stating that he was
about to rejoin his regiment--he was a lieutenant in a crack hussar
regiment--and proceed to the Galician front. At Christmas I received a
long letter from him and a photograph of himself in his hussar uniform.
Then one morning in March I received a cablegram from a mutual friend
in London, stating that Ernst had died of cholera in Poland.
Ernst was in his twenty-fifth year and was tenderly attached to his
mother. Until the war broke out he had never been away from home except
on a brief holiday, and his long absence at the front last winter
brought his mother to the verge of a nervous collapse. It came to a
point where it was absolutely necessary for her to see her son. Mr.
Karczag, although a millionaire and a man of considerable influence,
was unable to get a pass for his wife to visit the line near Lodz in
Poland, where the son's regiment was stationed. She set out for Lodz
alone.
After nearly a week of the hardest kind of travelling, much of it in
troop trains, she reached Lodz, where she found every hotel occupied by
German and Austrian officers. In desperation she decided to appeal to
Gen. Mackensen, the famous German General, who was in supreme command.
"You shall see your son to-morrow morning," he told her when he learned
that her boy was a lieutenant of a certain hussar regiment. "I am
reviewing the Austrian troops at 6 o'clock to-morrow morning. If you
will come to my headquarters at that time I shall permit you to witness
the review."
The review of the Austrian troops lasted nearly five hours, and it was
witnessed by Gen. Mackensen, his staff and the mother of my friend.
Regiment after regiment passed by, but there was no sign of the young
hussar officer. The anxious mother was almost ready to break down, when
at the very end of the last regiment in the review she caught sight of
her son. Forgetting her peculiar position she called to her boy. But he
did not hear her, and a few moments later he galloped out of sight.
"I must have a few words with my boy," she pleaded with Gen. Mackensen;
"I must talk with him."
Evidently she struck a sympathetic chord in his nature, for he told
her he would send a motor car to the hotel to take her to her son's
regiment. For two days she waited for the car, but as it did not arrive
she again went to Gen. Mackensen's headquarters, only to learn that he
had been called away to another position on the front. Apparently he
had forgotten all about his promise. There was no one to help her, so
she started out alone to reach the little Polish village where her
son's regiment was stationed. No conveyance was obtainable for any sum,
so for three days and three nights the poor mother walked the frozen
roads to her son's side.
It was a wonderful meeting between mother and son, and when the Colonel
of the regiment heard what she had gone through he placed his own
quarters at her disposal. When the time came for her return he sent
her back to Lodz in a military wagon. Three days later she was back in
Vienna, rejoicing with her husband that their son was alive and well.
Imagine their great shock when two days after her return they received
a telegram from the Colonel of the regiment stating that Ernst had died
suddenly of cholera.
It is difficult to convey any idea of the grief of the parents of this
young officer. The father has lost all interest in life--money means
nothing to him. The mother is inconsolable and her mental condition is
becoming critical.