The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1878-03-15

HeeAA - OOAO WIG OIOuk III Lllo UALtl0.
After the peace of Tilsit, in 1907. he
was transferred to the Army of the
North. and took part in the last battle
OF Finnish independence. Still un-
Wearled of active service, he exchanged
into the Army of the Danube. and
served on Kutuzoff' g staff during the
memorable siege of Rustchuk in 1911,
when 18, 200 Turks, left unsheltered on
swampy island, almost without food,
and cannonaded necessarily from both
banks of the river, held out stubbornly
till more than half their number had
persisted.
The great crisis OF 1912 recalled the
Danube army to nobler work aud
Prince Gortschak0R reached the Bere-
sina just In time to witness all the hor-
fors OF that memorable passage, which
compressed the whole years of human
agony into one fatal night. At the
close OF the war he obtained O high an
Pointment in the Caucasus, where his
services in the suppression of the
Abkhaslan revolt of 1920 were reward
ed by dtamond-hilted sword from the
hand of the Gear himself. The Turk.
Ism war OF 1869 displayed on a wider
Held his rare administrative faculty..
which, q few years later, earned him
the Governor Generalshfp of Western
siberia. His fifteen years. tenure of
TINS post was undoubtedly the noblest,
II not the most brilliant, of his life.
The reform of the oppressive recruiting
system, the facilities afforded to trade
ana communication, the encourage
ment Of colonization, the judicious
transfer Of the seat of government from
remote Tobolsk to the more central
point OF Omsk, are all due to him and
ne was neditating further improve
ments 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 tho gray-haired
veteran of sixty-five into the field
again and his services in Turkey and
the Crimea are too we'll known to need
repetition. In 1866 he was made a
member of the Imperial Council, and
spent the last years of his long and
eventful life at Moscow, where he died
on the 4th of April, 1865.
The younger Prince (Alexander
Mikhailovitch Gortschakoff) born ten
years later than his famous kinsman,
devoted himself as zealously to the
profession OF diplomacy as the latter to
that arms but, unlike his predecessor,
he rose by slow degrees to the com.
manding position which his talents
merited. The earlier merits of his
career-hfs education at tho Academy
OF Tsarskoe-SelO, near st. Petersburg,
his entrance into the diplomatic service
at the age of %, his first mission to
England in 1924, as Secretary to the
Russian Embassy in London-are fa.
niliar to many. At this time he
acquired knowledge of English life
and habits which was destined to serve
him we'll in after years but his subse-
quent transfer to such second rate polit-
ical centers as Florence and Stuttgart
shows how inadequately his talents
We're then appreciated by his superiors
1t was not till thirty years after his
first entrance into public life that the
scene of his great namesake's triumphs,
became the foundation of his own.
Count Ncsselrode, whose keen eye had
long since discerned the talents of the
future Chancellor, sent him to Vienna
IN 1904, with orders to t'leep Austria
neutral, Mt whatever cost" Tho diff
cult mission was admirably discharged.
Again and again did the pressure of
Western Europe from without, and ex-
cited Hungary from within, almost
force the vacillating Cabinet into war !:
outSortschakoH' IS skill triumpheCl over
all obstacles, and Russia was saved
from her greatest peril.
From that time forth the preat
statesman's career was one continued
triumph. In 1856 he succeeded Count
Nesselrode as Minister of Foreign AZ
fairs; in 1862 he became Chancellor Of
the Empire in the following wear his
firm attitude toward the Western pow.
ers on the question of the Polish instr
rection earned the thanks of the Car.
In 1870 he succeeded, by happy mix.
ture of audacity and inesse, in regain.
ing all that had been lost bv the
Crimean war; and he is still, at the AGE
of 70, the master-spirit of Russian
diplomacy. In person, the Prince is o.
middle size and we'll proportionet
figure, with quiet, courteous manner
and remarkably smooth, well.pre
served face, whose only sign of age lie
In the spectacles that hide his large
expressive eyes. Old as he is, his in
dustry is still as unflagging as ever
and Notwithstanding the periodica
ruuaors of his retirement from publ
life, he bids fair to outlast many of hi
younger colleagues.