The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1878-05-09
The two GOrtsehakom.

Russians and thirty thousand French
lay strewn over the great waste ofsnow
between Preussisch -Eylau and Serpal-
ten. A few months later, lie was
present at the sangulnary repulse of
Nopoleon's attack on the i%ntrenched
camp Of Hellberg, where his uncle and
name-sake, commanding the Russian
right, bore the brunt Of the battle.
After the peace of Tilsit IN 1907 he was
transferred TO the army of the north,
aud took part in the last battle OF
Finnish independence. Still unwearied
of active service, he exchanged into the
Danube, and served on Kutuzoff's staff
during the memorable siege Of Rustchuk
in 1911, when eighteen thousand Turks,
left unsheltered on a swampy islard,
almost without food, and cannonaded
necessarily from both banks Of the river,
held out s~tubbornly till more than half
their number had persisted.
The great crisis Of 1912 recalled the
Danube army to nObler work; and
Prince Gortschakoff reached Beresina
just In time TO witness all the horrors
Of hat memorable passage, which com
pressed whole years of human agony
into one fatal night. At the close of the
war, he obtained a high appOintmentin
the Caucasus, where his services in the
suppression of the Abkhasian revolt of
1920 were rewarded by a diamOnd-hilted
sword ION the hand Of the car him.
self. The Turkish war of lS26-29 dis
played on a wider field his rare admin
strative faculty, which, a few years
later, earned him the governor general
ship of Western Siberia.
His fifteen years. tenure of this post
was undoubtedly the noblest, If not the
most brilliant of his life. The reform
of the oppressive recruiting system, the
facilities afforded to trade and com
munication, the encouragement OF
colonization, the judicious transfer Of
the seat of government from remote
TobOlsk TO the more central point of
Omsk, are all due 10 him; and he was
medltating further improvements when
the giving way of his health sent him
back to Moscow, to enjoy, as he hoped,
"A peaceful old age among his friends.
But there was no peace for him. The
outbreak of the Crimean war brought
The gray-haired veteran of rs into the
field again and his services in Turkey
and Crimea are too well known TO need
repetition. In 1856 he was made a
member of the imperial council, and
spent the last years of his long and
eventful lie at Moscow, where he died
ON the 4th of April, 1868.
The younger prince alexander Mi
khailovitch GortschakOt), born ten
years later than his famous kinsman,
devoted himself as zealously to the pro-
fession of diplomacy as the latter to
that of arms; but, unlike his prede"
cessor, he rose by slow degrees to the
commanding position which his talents
merited. The earlier events of his ca
reer-his education at the Academy of
Tsarskoe Selo, near st. Petersburg, his
entrance into the diplomatic service at
age of 20, his first mission to England,
in 1924, as secretary of the Russian en-
bassy in London-are familiar to all.
At this time he acquired a knowledge
of English life and habits which was
destined to serve him well in after
years; but his subsequent transfer to
such s%econd-rate political centres as
Florence and Stuttgart, shows how in
adequately his talents were then appre'
ciated by his superiors. It was not till
thirty years after his entrance into pub
lie life, that the Crimean war, which
was the closing scene ofhis great name.
sake's triumphs, became the foundation
of his own. Count Nesselrode, whose
keen eye had long since discerned the
talents of the future chancellor, SEM
him to Vienna in 1854, with orders to
keep Austria neutral, at whatever
COST The difficult mission vas admir-.
ably dis charged. Again and again did
the pressure of Western Europe from
without, and excited Hungary from
within, almost force the vacillating
cabinet into war; but GO%rtschakofs
skill triumphed over all obstacles, and
Russia was saved from her greatest
peril.
From that time forth the great states
mans career was one continued triumph
In 1856 he succeeded Count Nesselrode
as minister of foreign affairs; in 1862
he became chancellor of the empire; in
the following year his firm attitude
toward the western powers on the ques'
ton of the Polish Instruction earned
the thanks of the Car himself. In 1871
he succeeded, by a happy mixture o.
audacity and ~inesse, in regaining al
that had been lost by the Crimean war
and he Is still, at the age of 70, the mas
ter spirit of Russian diplomacy. Ii
person, the prince is of middle size an(
well-proportioned figure, with a quiet
courteous manner, and a remarkably
smooth, well-preserved face, whose only
sign of age lies in the spectacles tina
hide his large, expressive eyes. Old al
he is, his industry is still as untlaggins
as ever, and, Notwithstanding the peri
odIcal rumors of his retirement frCn
public life, he bids fair to outlast many
of his younger colleagues.
A Ouppr Story of Mesmerlsm,
The indianapolis Jo0y@a! prints tn
following story in its correspondence
from the Town of Rensselaer,, Ind