HC Deb 27 July 1871 vol 208 cc308-9
CAPTAIN TALBOT

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Prussian military authorities have offered any apology or expression of regret, and if so, in what terms, in reply to a remonstrance made in writing by Major General Walker, C.B., Her Majesty's Military Commissioner to the Emperor of Germany, with regard to the arrest and imprisonment at Etampes, in France, in December last, of certain British subjects, including Captain Hozier, Second Military Commissioner with the German Armies, travelling under the protection of Foreign Office passports and Prussian safe-conducts; and, whether he will lay upon the Table all the Correspondence with the Prussian authorities on this matter?

VISCOUNT ENFIELD

Sir, Captain Keith Fraser, of the 1st Life Guards, and two English gentlemen, newspaper correspondents, were arrested at Etampes by the Prussian commandant on the evening of the 14th of December, were detained in their rooms at the hotel till about 5 o'clock on the morning of the 16th, when they were sent in their own carriage, under escort, to Versailles, where, on the application of Major General Walker, they were at once released. Captain Hozier happened to be passing through Etampes on the day the affair occurred on his way to the headquarters of Prince Frederick Charles, and was in company with these gentlemen at the time of their arrest. He also was detained in the hotel, but was released in the evening. General Walker, on the 19th of December, requested a full inquiry into the affair, and on the 3rd of January the Quartermaster-in-Chief at Versailles informed him that the arrest of Captain Fraser and his companions had been owing to the fact that the commandant at Etampes had received an urgent communication from Orleans denouncing them as spies, and that the detention of Captain Hozier had arisen from a mistake of orders by a sentry, for which all the soldiers concerned in it had been reprimanded. The Quartermaster expressed his regret at the whole occurrence, adding a caution to Englishmen not to travel within the lines of the Army unless they should be accompanied by some one belonging to the Prussian forces. Captain Hozier had, before the receipt of this communication, expressed his readiness to let the matter drop. I am not prepared to lay the Papers connected with this case upon the Table.