Beyond the Trenches: Stealing the Kaiser's Ashtray

One night in January 1919, seven U.S. National Guard soldiers on holiday leave crossed snow-covered countryside, making their way to a 17th-century castle where Kaiser Wilhelm II was exiled in neutral Holland. They never met the Kaiser, but they left with a valuable souvenir: an engraved ashtray. The attempted kidnapping of the deposed German leader made international news, catapulted Colonel Luke Lea into national headlines and nearly derailed international deliberations around the Treaty of Versailles. Military historian Nikki Dean explores what a stolen ashtray can tell us about wartime vigilantism and its strategic outcomes.

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