Prince's Henchmen

Linz on the Danube is large, modern, comparatively prosperous. There are large iron works and ship yards for building river boats. Perched dramatically on a pine-clad rock just outside of Linz is feudal Schloss Waxenberg, subject of Linz's most popular post cards, hereditary fief of proud Prince Ernst Ruediger von Starhemberg. Linz's industrial population is heartily Socialist. Prince Ernst, lord of Schloss Waxenberg, is loudly, violently Royalist. Unlike most Austrian princes he is still rich. Despite the cordial hatred of Linz factory workers, he is treated with the greatest deference and respect by Linz's old inhabitants, Linz's municipal authorities.

For months, like bad-tempered mice before a large and dignified cat, Linz Socialists have been watching Prince Ernst, eager to catch him in a definitely illegal action. Weeks ago they complained that Prince Ernst was not only commandant of the Upper Austrian Heimwehr, Austria's secret reactionary military organization, but had been equipping Heimwehr troops at his own expense, drilling them on the grounds of his castle, just as his ancestors drilled and equipped their henchmen. Complacent Linz police saw no reason to interfere. Prince Ernst might be drilling, they said, but he was breaking no law.

Last week Linz Socialists returned in triumph to the police authorities. On the deck of a Danube freight steamer they had found wooden cases, labeled GLASS WARE, addressed to Prince Ernst von Starhemberg. The cases contained 16,000 rounds of Mauser cartridges.

Faced with this definite fact, the Linz police admitted that in purchasing actual war munitions Prince Ernst did seem to have broken the law. They sent a polite note to Prince Ernst, telling him of the Socialists' accusations, warning him that it would be necessary to search Schloss Waxenberg for arms. Followed four days, in which, while the police waited patiently, Prince Ernst's Heimwehr worked like ants, carrying boxes and crates out of the castle, into the woods. Only then did the Linz police, urged on by excited Socialists, climb and sweat up the hill to the massy gate of Schloss Waxenberg.

Waiting for them at the gate was Prince Ernst Rueiger von Starhemberg, a Gemsbart (beard of a chamois) jutting proudly from the back of his green felt hat, his grey and green hunter's coat tightly bone-buttoned.

"What you expect to find, gentlemen," said Prince Ernst, "is not here."

In the guard room of the castle on the hooks where morions, pikes and breastplates had hung of old, the Linz police found 500 modern steel helmets, 500 knapsacks and leather cartridge boxes, but no actual guns, no ammunition.

Waiting for a possible attack from Linz Socialists, the Prince's 500 followers were hiding in the woods, the guns in their hands, the ammunition in their pockets. Satisfied that guns and ammunition were no longer on the premises, the Linz police refused to confiscate the helmets, knapsacks. There was no law, they told the disgrunted Socialists, to forbid a man from hanging helmets, ancient or modern, on his walls. Police and frustrated Socialists marched down the hill again. Prince Ernst summoned his private army from the bushes, rewarded them with ten barrels of good Linz beer, dismissed them to their homes. Bristling from his bloodless victory, he issued the following statement:

"I will not tolerate the confiscation of a single one of my Mauser cartridges by the authorities. I insist on training my Heimwehr at my private shooting range to make them good marksmen and I am only sorry that I did not personally fetch this shipment of ammunition as I am accustomed to do."