Neue Freie Presse
- The Resignation of Siegmund Bosel
- The Significance of the Garibaldi Affair
- The Kaiser's New Book
The Vienna Neue Freie Presse of 10 November 1926 led with an editorial on the resignation of the financier Siegmund Bosel. It totted up what he had paid for the Unionbank, the Veitsch Magnesite Company and the Laura-Hütte: eight hundred billion, more than two hundred billion and three hundred billion, or one and three-tenths trillion in all. The paper called this proof of both huge available capital and a regrettable lack of restraint. A Paris report described the French Foreign Ministry's denial that Briand had agreed with the Italian ambassador to treat the Garibaldi affair as a mere police matter. Instead, Briand had warned of the dangers of such police machinations. A feuilleton by Emil Ludwig on the Kaiser's new book recounted the young prince's merciless riding lessons at the hands of his tutor.
Translation
The Resignation of Siegmund Bosel
Anyone who wants an idea of what Bosel spent on these three business concerns will find in the following figures a vivid proof, both of the gigantic growth of the capital at his disposal and of the regrettable lack of inner restraint. The Unionbank cost eight hundred billion, the Veitsch Magnesite Company more than two hundred billion, the Laura-Hütte three hundred billion, making altogether one and three-tenths trillion!
The Significance of the Garibaldi Affair
In an official statement this evening, the Quai d'Orsay takes issue with a report by a semi-official Italian telegraph agency, which says that Briand and the Italian ambassador in Paris, Avezzano, agreed in their meeting yesterday to regard the Garibaldi affair as a simple police matter. The Quai d'Orsay stresses, on the contrary, that in yesterday's meeting Briand drew the Italian ambassador's attention to the dangers that could arise from police machinations of this kind.
The Kaiser's New Book
The tutor lifted the weeping prince onto his horse without stirrups and forced him to practise the various gaits, deaf to all pleading and weeping, mercilessly lifting the rider, who kept falling off, back into the saddle, until at last, after weeks of torment, the necessary balance had been attained.
Context
Siegmund Bosel's Fortune and His 1924 Currency Losses
The editorial measures Bosel's resignation by what he had spent on three concerns. By its count he paid 800 billion for the Unionbank, more than 200 billion for Veitscher Magnesit and 300 billion for the Laura-Hütte. The paper reads these sums as evidence both of swollen capital and of a want of restraint. The figures are the paper's own, and the excerpt does not name the currency. Two years earlier Bosel had already been a famous and contested figure. In January 1924 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency called him the richest man in Austria and a Jewish philanthropist, and reported that he had lost over $20 million on the rise of the franc. The same report said that a general meeting of the Vienna Bourse had discussed a charge that the house of Rothschild and other entrenched financial firms were conspiring against him. Bosel, it was claimed, was being forced to sell large parts of his foreign-exchange holdings every day. That episode shows how exposed his fortune was to currency speculation well before the 1926 resignation the paper discusses.
The Catalan Plot Behind the Garibaldi Affair
The Garibaldi affair grew out of a failed Catalan invasion in early November 1926. Francesc Macià and the exiled leadership of the Estat Català party planned an armed operation, to be launched from France, that would win Catalonia its independence. The plan was discovered and aborted in 1926. Italian exiles were recruited for their military experience. Among them was Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr, grandson of the hero of Italian unification, who was not a genuine anti-fascist fighter but a double agent. The French police had little difficulty arresting most of the participants near the Spanish border, 111 people in all, and Macià himself was arrested on 4 November at the country house where he was staying. The trial of the ringleaders opened in Paris on 21 January 1927. The front-page report of 10 November therefore came less than a week after the arrests, while the exposure of Garibaldi's double role was still fresh.
Paris and Rome Dispute How to Describe the Affair
The front-page report turns on how the affair should be labelled. A semi-official Italian agency claimed that Briand and Ambassador Avezzano had agreed to treat it as a simple police matter. The Quai d'Orsay replied that Briand had in fact warned the ambassador of the dangers of such police machinations. The French wording matched what investigators said they had found. On 15 November 1926 Time reported that the French police had discovered documents that appeared to brand Colonel Garibaldi as an agent provocateur employed by the Italian Secret Service. According to Time, semi-official Parisian journals accused Mussolini of deliberately having his agents egg on the plot. Time also reported that in the same week Fascist mobs attacked the French consulates at Tripoli and Benghazi in Italian Tripolitania. For the French government, the affair therefore concerned Italian state agents operating on French soil, which explains why the Quai d'Orsay rejected the Italian account in public.
Georg Ernst Hinzpeter and the Prince's Harsh Schooling
The passage from Emil Ludwig's piece shows a tutor forcing the weeping prince to ride without stirrups until he found his balance. The excerpt does not name the tutor. The pedagogue Georg Ernst Hinzpeter was appointed in 1866 as tutor to Prince Wilhelm and his brothers. Crown Princess Victoria saw Hinzpeter's strict methods as a way of compensating for her son's physical handicap, which she regarded as a major deficit. Hinzpeter's approach rested on Calvinism, mortification of the flesh and the denial of pleasure. The scene of repeated falls and relentless remounting, as Ludwig's article presents it, illustrates that regime: a boy whose disability his mother saw as a defect was drilled into the posture expected of a future monarch.
Original
Der Rücktritt Siegmund Bosels.
Wer sich eine Vorstellung davon machen will, was Bosel für diese drei Wirtschaftskörper verwendete, dem werden folgende Zahlen einen anschaulichen Beweis geben, sowohl für den Riesenwuchs der zur Verfügung stehenden Kapitalien wie auch für den bedauerlichen Mangel an innerer Bescheidung. Die Unionbank kostete achthundert Milliarden, die Veitscher Magnesitgesellschaft mehr als zweihundert Milliarden, die Laura-Hütte dreihundert Milliarden, macht zusammen eindreizehntel Billionen!
Die Bedeutung der Garibaldi-Affäre.
Der Quai d'Orsay wendet sich in einer amtlichen Auslassung heute abend gegen die Meldung einer offiziösen italienischen Telegraphenagentur, in der es heißt, daß Briand und der italienische Botschafter in Paris, Avezzano, in ihrer gestrigen Besprechung übereingekommen seien, die Affäre Garibaldi als eine einfache Polizeiangelegenheit anzusehen. Der Quai d'Orsay betont demgegenüber, daß in der gestrigen Besprechung Briand die Aufmerksamkeit des italienischen Botschafters auf die Gefahren gelenkt habe, die aus derartigen polizeilichen Machenschaften hervorgehen könnten.
Das neue Buch des Kaisers.
Der Erzieher hob den weinenden Prinzen auf sein Pferd ohne Bügel und erzwang die Uebung der verschiedenen Gangarten, taub gegen alles Bitten und Weinen, erbarmungslos den unaufhörlich hinunterstürzenden Reiter wieder hinaufhebend, bis endlich nach wochenlanger Quälerei das nötige Gleichgewicht erlangt war. "