27 JUNE 1998, Page 23

Austria, of course

Sir: I thought I had settled the question of the whereabouts of Ruritania (Letters, 20 June) in an article in the Times of 31 July 1976. Of course not the Balkans. What are the known facts? German-speaking; Roman Catholic (a cardinal archbishop conducts the coronation service); Britain represented by an ambassador not a minis- ter; Strelsau, the capital: 'you could not have a nicer place short of Paris'. These and many other details — topography, dress etc. — point ineluctably to Ruritania equalling Habsburg Austria of the 1890s when Anthony Hope wrote about it.

E.C. Hodgkin

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