After leaving the
Channel Islands, where the family had taken the lease of
Herm, the smallest of the habitable islands, she spent the War years with the Prince in Germany, where he commanded a hospital train for the Silesian
Order of Malta. Here she kept a diary, describing life in
Berlin and at the family estate of Krieblowitz (now
Krobielowice) in
Silesia,
Poland), from the point of view of an English exile among the deeply conservative
Prussian nobility. This became the basis for her account of the war published as
Princess Blucher, English Wife in Berlin: a private memoir of events, politics and daily life in Germany throughout the War and the social revolution of 1918 (Constable, 1920). The journal remains a source of information on life in Germany during World War I. During the cold winter of 1916/1917 she noted the shortages of fuel and food in Berlin which caused public morale, especially of the poorest, to plummet. Also described are the last weeks of the
German Empire, with the decline of the old order, the fall of the monarchy, and the appalling social conditions that led to
Spartacist uprisings and the
German Revolution as the country became a failed state: There is intense cold here, such as has not been known for more than half a century. There are shivering throngs of hungry care-worn people picking their way through snowy streets... We are all gaunt and bony now, and have dark shadows around our eyes. Our thoughts are chiefly taken up with wondering what our next meal will be, and dreaming of the good things that once existed. Her memoirs were translated into French and German and reprinted many times, becoming a minor classic. • Princesse Blücher,
Une anglaise à Berlin: notes intimes de la Princesse Blücher sur les évènements, la politique et la vie quotidienne en Allemagne au cours de la guerre et de la révolution sociale en 1918 (Paris: Payot 1922) • Evelyn Fürstin Blücher von Wahlstatt,
Tagebuch mit einem Vorwort v. Gebhart Fürst Blücher von Wahlstatt (München: Verlag für Kulturpolitik 1924) With Major
Desmond Chapman-Huston, she edited her husband's
Memoirs of Prince Blücher, describing his life and family, with an account of his great ancestor, Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. In later life, Princess Blücher returned to England, where she lived near the
Brompton Oratory in
Kensington. She died in
Worthing in 1960 and is buried, next to her husband, in the cemetery of
St Bartholomew's Church, Rainhill, Lancashire. ==See also==