A Practical Joke

On a day in 1910, the HMS Dreadnought crew organized a royal visit. The ship, the flagship of the British Royal Navy, and its pride lay in Weymouth Bay, off the coast of Dorset, as part of the home and the Atlantic fleet. The visitors, so that the officers of the ship were informed, four princes of Abyssinia, who would be welcome, would be shown politely and treated in reality as kings. A telegram signed by the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was very clear.

As soon as the telegram was received, the head of London's Waterloo Station became a man with an elegant suit and hat who said he was Herbert Cholmondesly, the Foreign Office, and had to be obeyed as a VIP specialist who will be added to the next train to Weymouth so that four princes of Abyssinia can be transported during a visit to the Royal Navy. Obviously, they should be well received on the other side of the line.

And that's exactly what happened. The coach was made available, the princes entered and a few hours later they arrived in Weymouth to receive a full VIP treatment with an honor guard.

They were taken to the HMS Dreadnought, where they were taken on board the ship, which was properly decorated with flags and flags. One problem was that the ship had no Abyssinian flag that could fly, and the band did not have the music for the national anthem of Abyssinia. According to him, they made the best move: they set fire to the flag of Zanzibar and played the national anthem of Zanzibar. They might have feared that the princes would be offended, but in the end, their concerns were groundless: these principles were no longer wise because they did not come from Abyssinia or from anywhere near.

The Royal Navy and the Waterloo Stationmaster were victims of a well-organized joke, courtesy of William de Vere Cole considered one of the best pranksters Britain has ever produced. It was he who sent the telegram to HMS Dreadnought, and it was the man who claimed to be Herbert Cholmondesly from the Foreign Office.

The four principles were nothing like that. One of these was the writer Virginia Woolf! The four friends of Vere Cole were completely disguised and disguised as a professional make-up artist, another friend of the madman. They were personally accompanied on the journey by Woolf's brother, Adrián (as interpreter) and Vere Cole.

Once aboard the Dreadnought HMS, the princes fulfilled their duties in a way that aroused the suspicion of someone who knew about life in Abyssinia, but fortunately, none of them involved them.

The Jokers distributed business cards printed in Swahili and spoke in Latin, disguised as what they considered a hint that could be passed from East Africa. The only non-Latin expression pronounced was the Bunga Bunga, which was their estimate when they were shown something interesting.

When they have conducted around, they conceded the Abyssinian military honors to the senior officers. At sunset, they asked for prayer rugs. However, they refused all offers of refreshment, this was done in case some of their false lips fell while they ate or drank.

There were two occasions when the deception could go wrong. The first was when half of one of the prince's fake mustaches flew when he sneezed, he was able to retrieve it and reset it before anyone noticed it.

The second was when the band was introduced to an officer who was not only tied to Virginia Woolf but also knew William de Vere Cole, who was not disguised. Or the officer did not really recognize them, or he realized that the archer had returned to his towers and that the scattered beans would have caused too much embarrassment everywhere.

After taking the pictures, the visitors returned to the ground and from there to London, probably laughing.

There must have been red faces in the Admiralty when history revealed that all that was necessary for the pride of the Royal Navy - full of top-secret innovations in preparation for the First World War - had to be faced by perfect strangers. Telegram is a brilliant game. Fortunately, military security has improved over the course of the century since this trick has been successfully completed.