Benjamin Bathurst was a 19th-century diplomat for Britain, relatively young and extremely proficient in his job, a man with seemingly limitless potential. In 1809, after conducting a diplomatic mission to Austria, he headed home, forced to take a more perilous route to avoid the French. (He had been trying to convince the Austrians to attack Napoleon’s forces.) Armed to the teeth, including two pistols he always kept on his person, Bathurst decided to travel through Germany, under the assumed name of Koch.[5]On November 25, Bathurst and his German aide, Herr Krause, stopped at the small town of Perleberg, resting a while before continuing their journey. When the time had come to leave the inn at which they had stopped, Bathurst walked out the door, with Krause allegedly following afterward, only seconds behind. However, when Krause got outside, Bathurst was gone, never to be seen again. Krause himself eventually made it to England, weeks later, and told British officials of Bathurst’s disappearance.A rather large investigation was undertaken, with Bathurst’s wife herself spending a lot of money to have dogs scour the area surrounding Perleberg, but Bathurst was never found. Various articles of his clothing were discovered in the nearby area, but his body remained lost. The prevailing opinion is that he was either arrested by the French and later killed in prison or was simply another victim of the bandits who made traveling through Europe during the 19th century a risky proposition.
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