Bathurst, Benjamin

Benjamin Bathurst began his diplomatic service early and was appointed Secretary of the British Diplomatic Mission in Livorno . In 1805, he married Filyda Call, the daughter of John Coll, a Cornish landowner and baronet . ^[one]

In 1809, he was sent to Vienna as a diplomatic representative by his relative, Henry Bathurst , who at the time was acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain . His task was to help recreate the alliance of Britain and Austria and try to inspire Emperor Franz II to declare war on France , which happened in April.

However, the Austrians were forced to surrender Vienna to the French troops and eventually asked for peace after being defeated by the French in the Battle of Wagram in July 1809. Bathurst was urgently recalled to London and decided that it was best to move north and board the ship in Hamburg .

On November 25, 1809, Bathurst and Krause the German, traveling under the pseudonyms Baron de Koch and Fisher, stopped at Perleberg , west of Berlin .

Having ordered fresh horses, Bathurst and his companion went to the White Swan inn. After lunch, Bathurst took up the letter in a small room allocated for him in a hotel, where he stayed until nine in the evening. When it was reported that the horses were ready, Bathurst immediately left his room, and soon Krause followed him, who was surprised not to find Bathurst either in the carriage or anywhere else.

The disappearance did not cause much resonance, as there were many bandits in the country, fallen soldiers of the French army, and German revolutionaries. In addition, murder and robbery were so common that the loss of one salesman (Bathurst seemed to be a salesman) hardly anyone noticed, especially since at that time there was almost no legal authority in Prussia.

At home, they did not know about the disappearance of Bathurst for several weeks, while Krause failed to reach Hamburg and take a ship to England. In December, Bathurst’s father, Bishop of Norwich, received a note from Minister Richard Wellesley requesting him to visit him at Apsley House , where Wellesley told the bishop about his son’s disappearance. ^[2]

The wife of Bathurst Filida immediately left for Germany to look for her husband, accompanied by Heinrich Roentgen. They arrived in Perleberg, where the search for the missing began, and the captain von Klitzing was appointed in charge of the investigation. Captain Klitzing, having learned of the disappearance of Bathurst, took urgent measures, mobilizing troops and conducting a vigorous search, although, apparently, he believed that the missing man disappeared of his own will. On November 27, 1809, an expensive Bathurst fur coat costing between 200 and 300 Prussian thalers was found in a house belonging to a family by the name of Schmidt. Then, on December 16, two elderly women found Bathurst pantaloons in the forest three miles north of Perleberg.

It turned out that Auguste Schmidt worked as a groom in the White Swan on the night of the disappearance of Bathurst, and that his mother, who also worked at the hotel, took an Englishman's coat. Frau Kestern, a woman who worked in a coffee shop, told many years later that immediately after Bathurst visited the establishment, Auguste Schmidt came, asked her where the visitor was, and hurried after him, she assumed that Schmidt might be involved in the disappearance. ^[3]

For information about Bathurst, a reward of 500 thalers was appointed, but this led to a lot of false information from people who wanted to make money.

In March, costly searches were conducted using specially trained dogs, but nothing could be detected. Bathurst's wife went to Berlin and then to Paris, hoping to meet with Napoleon and get information from him about her husband. The meeting took place, but Napoleon was not aware of what happened.

Press

By January 1810, information about the disappearance of an English diplomat appeared in the English and French press. The Times published an article in January 1810, which subsequently appeared in other English newspapers: ^[2]

The French government, charged with abducting or murdering Bathurst, responded in its official journal Le Moniteur Universel :

England, the only one of all civilized nations, resumed the practice of paying for murderers and encouraging crime. Judging by the information from Berlin, Mr. Bathurst has become insane. It is the custom of the British cabinet to trust its diplomatic missions to the most stupid and senseless people born of the nation. The English diplomatic corps is the only one in which madness is universal.

The Find of 1852

On April 15, 1852, during the demolition of the house on the Hamburg road in Perlberg, three hundred steps from the White Swan, a skeleton was found under the threshold of a stable. The back of the skull was crushed, as if hit by a heavy tool. All the upper teeth were intact, but one of the lower molars was apparently removed by a dentist. The owner of the house, Kizevetter, bought it in 1834 from Christian Mertens, who worked for the White Swan during the period when Bathurst disappeared.

Bathurst's sister came to Perlberg, but could not confidently say whether the skull belonged to her brother.

Recent Investigations

In a detailed investigation of Mike Dasha , ^[3] first published in the Fortean Times ^[4] concludes that the supposedly mysterious details of the disappearance of Bathurst were greatly exaggerated over the years, and that Bathurst was almost certainly killed.

The Disappearance of Bathurst is mentioned by Charles Fort in the book Lo! .

In science fiction

• In the 1948 Piper science story, He Walked Around the Horses , Bathurst falls into a parallel universe , where the American Revolution and the French Revolution were suppressed and there were no Napoleonic wars. In this alternate world, Bathurst from our universe is declared insane or spy and imprisoned. He tries to escape, but he is mortally wounded. His latest wishes are read by a high-ranking British officer who recognizes them as the work of a madman. He was particularly puzzled by the mention of " Wellington ." It turns out that the officer was Sir Arthur Wellington . Piper describes Bathurst as “a rather fat middle-aged gentleman,” although the real Bathurst was 25 years old at the time of his disappearance.
• The story Toy for Juliet Robert Bloch mentions Bathurst, transferred to a distant future, where he is forced to participate in the cruel pleasures of the main character of the story, Juliet.
• Time Echo's short novel Lionel Roberts ( pseudonym of Lionel Fanthorpe). Bathurst is accidentally transferred to the future, where his hatred of Napoleon forces him to join conspirators seeking to overthrow the cruel conqueror and tyrant of the future.
• Ava Davidson Tale Masters of the Maze : Bathurst is one of a select group of people (and other sentient beings) who entered the center of the mysterious “Labyrinth” bypassing space and time. There he dwells in eternal peace, in company with the Biblical Enoch , the Chinese Wen-wang and Lao Zi , the Greek Apollonius of Tyana and other wise men of the past and future, some of whom are Martians .
• In Chandler ’s work “Into the Alternative Universe,” the spaceship of the heroes accidentally falls into the “gap between the universes”, emptiness without any matter, except people (and other creatures) who got there earlier, and who (except those in the ship) suffocated instantly. Among others, they see the floating body of a man in the clothing of the upper class of the 19th century, which is, apparently, the Bathurst.
• The disappearance of Bathurst is mentioned in Heinlein's 1941 story “Someday Else,” Leinster’s short novel Another World , Paul Anderson’s novel Operation Chaos ”, Joel Rosenberg’s “ Keepers of the Flame ”series, Simon Hawke’s series The Wars of Time , in the novel by Jane Jensen , Dante's equation ^[5] and in the “November 7th” chapter of Anthony Boucher’s 1942 detective novel en: Rocket to the Morgue
• In Kim Newman ’s story “Gypsies in the Forest”, he wrote that members of the Diogenes Club investigated the disappearance of Bathurst.

In music

Bathurst is one of the possible prototypes of Benjamin Brig from the song of the British group Iron Maiden “ Benjamin Brig 's Reincarnation ".

• Napoleonic wars

• The Disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst
• He Walked Around the Horses in the Gutenberg Project .
• "He Walked Around the Horses" in the H. Beam Piper Encyclopedia
• He Walked Around The Horses; in librivox.com free audio books, short sciencefiction section # 026