Is she for real?
Sir: Further to my letter published in your columns on 3 May, I have been in corre- spondence with the Deutsches Adelsarchiv in Marburg on the subject of the so-called `Alice von Schlieffen'. Dr Moritz Graf Strachwitz has kindly given me permission to quote from his reply as follows:
On behalf of the descendants of the Prussian field marshal Graf Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913), I have the honour to assure you that he had only two daughters from his only wife Anna née Gratin von Schlieffen (his first cousin). The younger, Maria, died unmarried and the elder, Elisabeth, married Major- General Wilhelm von Hahnke. This couple had only one child, the daughter Anna Josepha, who married the General Friedrich von Boetticher. As this couple had no chil- dren, there are no living descendants of Field Marshal Graf von Schlieffen.
As I could not find a person called Alice von Schlieffen either in the branch of the Grafen (Counts) von Schlieffen or in the branch of the untitled Herrn von Schlieffen, I wonder who uses this name.
Perhaps therefore your correspondent will now disclose herself, or himself.
As to the comment by 'Alice von Schlief- fen' that no general knowingly bequeaths a doomed plan to his own army, I would draw attention to a book which reflects extraordi- narily well this proposition; and that is Ger- many and the Next War by General von Bern- hardi, published several years before the first world war. Bernhardi was politically narrow but had a good military mind. He forecast the events of the first world war accurately, including the alliances which would be formed, and the military and naval conse- quences. He came to the conclusion that the balance of forces against Germany would be too great and that she would almost certainly lose a war. But nevertheless, he argues, such a war must be undertaken since struggle is the law of life and the weak will go to the wall. It is perhaps the German philosophers of the 19th century who are to blame for all this.
David Damant
12 Agar Street, London WC2
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