The Curious Case of the Disappearing Diplomat

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nWhat became of Benjamin Bathurst?

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n                     It was a question often asked innthe early ninteenth century, and one to which there was not, and is not, anneasy answer. Benjamin Bathurst was the third son of Henry Bathurst, Bishop ofnNorwich, and was born on March 14^th 1784. At a young age, he enterednthe diplomatic service and became Secretary of the British Legation at Livornon(Leghorn), Italy. In 1809, his relative, Earl Henry Bathurst, Secretary ofnState for the Foreign Department, sent him to Vienna, with the intention ofnre-establishing the British/Austrian alliance against Napoleon Bonaparte andnthe French. He was largely successful, as the Austrian Emperor Francis IIndeclared war on the French soon afterwards, in the War of the Fifth Coalition,nbut the Austrians were defeated at the decisive Battle of Wagram in July 1809,n(the largest European battle up to that date), and were forced into retreat. 

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nBenjamin Bathurst was immediately recalled to London, and considered travellingnto the Adriatic to take a ship home via Trieste and Malta but instead decidednthe easier route was to go north, through the nominally neutral German statesnof the Confederation of the Rhine, to the port of Hamburg. 

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nHe disguised himselfnas a merchant under the name of Baron de Koch, and with his secretary, HerrnKrause, pretending to be a German courier, (calling himself Fischer), they tookna light coach, stopping to change horses at Perleberg, west of Berlin, at aboutnnoon on November 25^th 1809. The two men walked a short distance fromnthe post-house to a nearby inn, The White Swan, where they ordered an earlyndinner. Bathurst was dressed in grey trousers and a grey frogged short-coat,nover which he wore a sable-fur great-coat lined with violet velvet and matchingnsable hat, and in his scarf was a valuable diamond pin. He spent the afternoonnwriting letters and burning some papers, and went to a local Coffee House wherenhe contacted Captain Klitzing, commander of a squadron of Brandenburgncuirassiers stationed in Perleberg, saying he was a merchant fearful of hisnsafety and requesting soldiers to guard him. Klitzing noticed that the man wasnagitated and could not hold a cup to his lip without trembling, and assignedntwo cuirassiers to guard him. Bathurst went back to the inn and he sleptnfitfully on a table for a few hours, after counter-manding the orders for thenhorses until the evening, believing it would be safer to travel at night, whennNapoleon’s spies might be less watchful. At seven he dismissed the guards andnasked for the horses to be ready at nine, when he went outside to oversee thenre-loading of his portmanteau onto the coach, stepped round to the heads of thenhorses — and was never seen again. 

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nThe secretary Krause was not at first awarenthat Bathurst had gone – maybe he had returned to the inn, had gone back tonKlitzing to ask for guards again, or had other business, but it was over annhour before the alarm was raised. When Captain Klitzing heard, he rememberednBathurst’s earlier agitation and immediately sent soldiers to seize the coach,nplaced Krause under guard in another inn, and at first light ordered a searchnof the woods and marshes, and had the river dragged. It was Sunday, so Klitzingnwent to Kyritz to advise his commandant, Colonel Bismark, and returned onnMonday with full authority to investigate the disappearance. Krause, undernguard, was escorted to Hamburg and thence to England, when the news, althoughnseveral weeks old, aroused immediate concern. 

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nAt the end of December 1809,nBathurst’s wife Phillida, together with her brother Mr Call, as part of a partynincluding Heinrich Röntgen, left for Prussia, and on arrival at Perleberg shenwas shown the sable-fur coat and a pair of trousers which had been found in thenwoods, and which she identified as her husband’s. Bathurst’s expensivensable-fur coat had been found in the house of the Schmidt family on November 27^thn1809 – Auguste Schmidt had been an ostler at The White Swan, where his mothernalso worked, and years later a woman who had worked at the Coffee House wherenBathurst had first consulted Captain Klitzing reported that Auguste Schmidt hadncome to the establishment immediately after the Englishman had left and askednwhere he was going next, leaving quickly to follow him. Frau Schmidt claimed tonhave taken the coat from the inn, but we do not know if it was before, duringnor after the disappearance. Frau Schmidt and her son were sentenced to eightnweeks imprisonment for theft of the coat.

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nThe trousers were ‘found’ in thenwoods on December 16^th by two old women out collecting sticks fornfuel, – I say ‘found’ as the woods had already been searched by Klitzing’s mennwho had found nothing. It looks like they were subsequently planted, to addnfuel to the tales of a French abduction. The trousers were inside out, and hadntwo bullet holes in one leg, although there were no bloodstains. In the pocketnwas a sodden letter, half finished and scrawled in pencil, written by Bathurstnto his wife and expressing his suspicions that a certain D’Antraigues would benthe end of him, that he doubted he would ever see her again and begging her notnto re-marry should he never return home.

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nSubstantial rewards forninformation were posted, which was perhaps unwise, as Prussia was populatednwith all manner vagabonds, thieves, refugees, deserters and mercenaries of allnnationalities, and rumours and reports began to flood in. An exiled Frenchnnobleman and double-agent working for Napoleon, Comte D’Etraigues, claimed thatnFrench cavalrymen had abducted the British diplomat from the inn yard, andntransported him to the fortress of Magdeburg (then in French hands), in thenhope of capturing Austrian state papers he was rumoured to be carrying. WhennMrs Bathurst contacted the Governor of Magdeburg, she was told this was untruenand was the result of a chance remark that had been overheard andnmisinterpreted. Mrs Bathurst later travelled to Paris, where she had annaudience with Napoleon himself, who denied all knowledge of involvement by hisnagents and even offered her assistance.

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nIn 1852, the skeleton of anmurdered man was found in the cellar of a house that was being demolished innPerleberg and belonging to a stonemason called Kisewetter. The skull of thendead man had been fractured by heavy blow, which was undoubtedly the cause ofndeath, and had been deliberately stripped of all clothing before being buriednunder what had been the kitchen of the house. Kisewetter said he had bought thenhouse in 1834, from a man called Christian Mertens, who in turn had inheritednit from his father, who had bought the house in 1803. Mertens Senior had been anservant at The White Swan in 1809, and in spite of living on a servant’s wagesnhad been able to settle dowries of £150 and £120 respectively on his twondaughters. Locals said old Mertens was well known to be a saving, steady, God-fearingnman, and highly respected but £270 was an enormous amount for a servant to earnnin an inn in out-of-the-way Perleberg. And what was he doing with a body buriednin his kitchen? It so happened that Bathurst’s sister, the magnificently-namednTryphena Thistlethwayte, was in Perleberg at the time of the discovery and wentnto see the skull, which she dismissed as not being that of her brothern(although quite how she knew, after almost fifty years, we are not told). Innlater years, two other skeletons were found in or about Perleberg, which hadnalso met with violent ends and were inevitably claimed to be Bathurst.

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nSo, what became of BenjaminnBathurst?

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nMaybe Napoleon did order him tonbe kidnapped for the state papers in his possession, and maybe he did not ordernhis murder. There were undoubtedly French spies abroad in Prussia at the time,nand Bathurst would certainly have come to their notice. The Bathurst familynmaintained that this was the reason for the disappearance, and it must havengiven Earl Bathurst, who was by then the Secretary of State for War and the Colonial Department, both personal and professional satisfaction to sentence Napoleon to exilenon St Helena inn1815. 

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nMaybe D’Antraigues had a finger innmore than one pie – the Russians were also interested in what was happening innEurope. Espionage is, and was, a murky business. Maybe the Governor ofnMagdeburg was hiding something to save his own skin.

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nMaybe Auguste Schmidt murderednhim for his expensive coat. Or maybe the valet Mertens killed him for his moneynand jewels. Or maybe the pair of them acted together and split the proceeds.nCaptain Klitzing always maintained that Benjamin was murdered for hisnpossessions.

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nMaybe Bathurst was so agitatednthat he went mad and committed suicide – although his pistols were found and nonshot was heard.

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nOr maybe, as some have thought,nhe simply vanished into thin air. Or into another dimension.

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