Foreign News: Travels of Edward

A man without a country is a sorry sight. An Emperor without an Empire is even sorrier, particularly if he renounced it for love, fun or other lesser considerations. Such a sight was pouch-eyed little Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, as he skipped from one asylum to another last week.

A minor problem for the British high command when war broke out was what to do about the self-exiled Edward VIII, who still retained a raft of honorary military titles. It was decided that he should be made a simple major general and attached to General Gort’s B. E. F. staff to do “liaison work.”

Major General, the Duke of Windsor made a few trips to the front during the winter, saw Lord Gort a few times, but his headquarters remained at his house in Paris. There he and the woman he loves continued the life they had led since they moved to France three years ago, building their days around the little problems of whom they might invite for tea and dinner. “The Duchess,” observed a Chicago Tribune fashion writer just as all hell broke loose in Flanders, “has compiled a spring wardrobe that is composed of about 20 major ensemble units which, when divided, would make four times that many single garments. . . . It’s easy to see that she has been a real help to the French fashion industries, cut off by war from a lot of their normal trade.”

When the fighting reached the Somme, the Duke took the Duchess to their house on Cap d’Antibes on the Riviera. Paris, explained the Duchess, was too expensive. Besides, her doctor had warned her that air-raid alarms were bad for her health. The Duke & Duchess were there when the Italians entered the war.

Last week they crossed the Spanish border in a dusty motorcade of servants and attendants, showed up at the Ritz in Barcelona. No, they were not going to America. All the Duke and his Duchess wanted was to get on to Madrid, then Lisbon, then England. The Spanish did not take Edward’s military career seriously enough to intern him as a belligerent.