The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-02-03

OF skObeleff, Katkof, ChanZy, Gambetta, En-
adversaries of Prince Bismarck, who seems to
have destiny at his service.
Taken in connection with the above, the
following dispatch from Washington to
the Tribune is of peculiar significance and
interest,"
Seldom has more startling coincidence
been witnessed" said an experienced diplo-
mate to-day, than the almost simultaneous
announcement of the death of the Austrian
heir apparent and the publication in the
London Contemporary Review of the re-
markable and manifestly inspired lndict-
ment of the Bismarck dynasty. Crown
Prince RudOlph's sudden demise in
manly yigor appears to be shrouded
In mystery. The most conflicting accounts
are given of the manner in which he met
his death. and it is probable that the world
at large will never be allowed to know the
true story of the tragedy. The latter is but
another of those dark episodes that have
occurred during the past two decades and
which have invariably resulted in the
death of great personages who had incurred
and whom the Iron Chancellor chose TO re-
gard as menace to his country and to his
own family. No one-not even the most in
timate habitues of the little house at Vile
mystery which surrounded the death of
Gambetta. the only man in France, besides
General Chanzy, who has ever caused the
Chancellor any uneasy moments since 1871.
Chanzy's sudden decease at Chalons, with
in a few weeks of that of the
popular tribune, was equally in
explicable, and attended by many
suspicious circumstances. Poison and Bis
marck were freely mentioned by Chauyln-
The famous Russian General Skobeleff, who,
as friend of Gambetta and Chanzy. had
become the bette nOre of the German Chan
cellor, met with an equally unexpected and
mysterious end, which not even his insep-
arabic companion, Nj. Hitrove, who was
with him until within a couple of hours of
his death, has been able to explain. Who
TO this day has succeeded III tearing aside
the veil which enshrOuds the last moments
corpse and that of his attendant physician
showed traces OF tine fact that terrible
hand-tO-hand struggle for life had taken
place on the shore of theStaremberg lake,
but who were the assailauts.
And now, last of all. we have the death
of Archduke Rudolph, one of the brightest,
most intellectual aud liberal of those who
have figured as heirs-apparent to great inn
perial crowns. The theory of suicide will
obtain but little credence among those who
enjoyed the personal acquaintance of the
gay and pleasure-loving young Archduke.
Ii may be remembered that, in the case of
Gambetta the latter was officially declared
TO have inflicted on himself the wounds
been inflicted by some other hand; while
every true Bavarian. to this very day, scouts
the idea that the late King Ludwig's death
was due to felO-de-se. Suicide is so con-
yenieRt theory. The Crown Prince.
partly, no doubt, in consequence of his de-
vOtion to the late Emperor Frederick, was
very far from being persona grata at Ber-
lin. His hish-bred instincts, together with
the chivalrOus bearing which he had in
herited from his father. were not of a nature
TO malgamate with the coarse unmannerly
ways of William III, and his intimacy with
NJ. Clemenceau and undisguised admiration
of General BOulanger, both of which were
well known in the Wilhelmstrasse caused
him to be regarded by the Bismarck clique
as a man eminently untitled to succeed TO
the throne of trO-Hungary. 1t is no Sc
cret that the Archduke was thoroughly op
posed to the suborlinatiOn of Vienna to
Berlin, which constitutes one of the most
distastefnl features of the triple alliance,
and had it not been for the atfectiOnate re-
lati0ns which subSisted between Francis
Joseph and his son, there is no doubt but
the latter would have assumed publicly the
leadership of the SchwarZ und Gelb tblack
and Yellow party, as those opposed to Ber-
lin dictation are called.
Rudolph spent many years of his life at
Prague, and although a thorough Hapsburg,
had become impregnated there with many
of the nationalist ideas and anti-German
prejudices which prevail in Bohemia. He
was regarded as the hope of the Slav ele-
IL
of Count Taafe's policy of federation and
local-relief government His accession to
the throne would have involved the GER
tainty of his being crowned with the dia-
dem of ST. Wenceslaus at Prague and the
constitution of an autonomous and inde-
pendent kingdom of Bohemia on the same
lines as that of Hungary. Had this come to
pass, Bohemia. with its traditional hostility
to everything German, would have become
an almost impenetrable barrier be-
tween Berlin and Vienna, and would,
moreover. have rendered the continuation
of the military as well as of the commercial
alliance between the two countries matter
of impossibility. All this will tend to show
how much the Chancellor of the German
empire had to gain by the death of Crown
Prince Rudolph. Of course, no one would
ever dream of accusing Prince Bismarck of
being in any respect accessory to the TRACE
worked to his advantage through a most
extraordinary series of tragic condolences.
Prince Bismarck has, however, numer-
GUS and unscrupulous agents of every rank
men as those who. few days after the
demise of the Emperor Frederick, were
shouting under the palace windows, Here
you are; one mark for the true history of
Count s. "a filthy pamphlet containing
the most outrageous statements concerning
the stricken Empress and her chamberlain.
To what extent Prince Bismarck be-
when either his own personal interests or
what he chooses to regard as the national
policy are at stake, will be realized when
it is stated that's at Paris, in 1867, he was
notified, eight hours before it took place,
of the attempt to shoot the Car on his way
back from Longchamps with Napoleon
Ill. Bysaying one word he might have had
BerezOwski arrested and have avoided the
shedding of innocent blood. But he re-
manned silent, fully aware that if the
attemDt took place it would nut an end TO
and Alexander, an alliance that would have
rendered the Franco German war of 1870
an impOssibility. His conduct in this mat
ter was but in accordance with the cold
bloOded calculation and cynicism with
which he watched the dying moments of
Emperor Frederick, and in keeping with
the brutal persecution to which he has
subjected both the widow and all the near
est and dearest friends of his dead master"
BISMARCKS FOES.